Monthly Archives: August 2005

This Archie comic reprints most of the S&K content from DOUBLE LIFE OF PRIVATE STRONG #1 (1959), except for the Fly intro teaser. There’s also a new cover by Kirby and Rich Buckler (I’ve seen the pencils to this somewhere, does anyone remember off-hand where they were printed).

One intro page and four stories inside, a total of 25 pages from S&K, setting up the Lancelot Strong character, a revamp of the old Shield character. The character is an odd mix of things, a little bit of Captain America, mixed in with a bit of Superman’s origin, as we open with a scientist conducting experiments of questionable ethics on his own infant son to tap his full brainpower. When it looks like his experiments will be stopped, the scientist flees and crashes, leaving his son to be found by an old farm couple, who raise him as their own. He develops powers as a teen, just in time to stop an invasion from an alien monster very similar to the type that would soon be terrorizing Marvel in Kirby stories, and also finds a costume. Then he gets drafted, and his adventures as Private Strong begins.

More harkening back to earlier stories, “The Menace of the Micro-Men” has a lot in common with one of the YELLOW CLAW stories of a few years earlier.

So while this feature was far from the most original Kirby worked on, the artwork is a lot of fun, so this reprint of it is well worth picking up for some vintage Kirby at an affordable price.

Published 1984

Tomorrow

That Kraken, real quick with the comeback. I bet he was the terror of the schoolyard.

Al Milgrom inks on this cover, which is pretty good looking. I like these weird perspective covers.

Published 1976