Thor reprints continue this issue with “The Maddening Menace of the Man-Beast” from THOR #135 [1966]. The battle against the hyper-evolved wolf in Wundagore, the home of the High Evolutionary, continues, with a lot of weird creatures and big battles until Thor finally prevails.

At the end of the story, the High Evolutionary explains his background and leaves the world with his creations. This was one of those characters that I have to assume Kirby had deeper plans for that he never got around to. He’s a nice character design and there’s a lot of unrealized potential in the concept.

One page, a look at what Odin is up to in Asgard, is edited out of the story, bringing it down to 15 pages.

JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY #121 [1965] is the source for the 5-page “Maelstrom”, continuing the “Tales of Asgard” quest storyline as the ship of Asgardians approaches the Pillars of Utgard. The second page splash is a classic image, the original art was featured in a recent KIRBY COLLECTOR. These back-ups are great showcase pieces for Kirby’s art, with a lot of powerful images coming fast in the five pages he had each month.

Colletta inks both stories and the cover.

Kirby does layouts for the 12-page SHIELD story in this issue, with Howard Purcell providing finished pencils and Mike Esposito inking. Esposito also inks Kirby on the cover.

The story introduces a new menace, the Druid, who uses magical trappings to disguise his high-tech science weapons. One of those weapons is a giant flying egg full of various weapons, which pursues Nick and Dum-Dum. Couple of good scenes during the chase, including the trademark flying SHIELD car with the flipped wheels (which is also on the cover). It also predicts the use of airbags in cars (were those ever used in practice before 1966?).

The end of the story takes us back to the SHIELD barbershop, and introduces new recruit Jasper Sitwell, who would become a major player in future issues.

Published 1966