Journey Into Mystery #112, with an epic battle between Thor and the Hulk has some of my favorite Kirby Kinetic moments. The slug fest is a carry over from Avengers #3, and is a elaboration by Thor as he tells a group of youths the story when they ask which of the two combatants is stronger.

The second panel of the page below has long been a favorite of mine because of the unusual angle. Its primary function is to draw the reader’s eye to the third panel, but it excels alone as a brilliant and unusual composition.

Most artists would probably employ a more conventional approach, that being to have the base of the panel as the floor in the picture. In other words, Giant Man would be reaching straight up at Namor. Kirby gives us a skewed but less static picture frame, and it works beautifully for the overall page composition. Thus, he has Giant Man reaching diagonally up at Namor, who is also positioned on the diagonal of the wall. These planes are offset by the diagonal of the elaborate piece of machinery in the lower right corner.

Giant Man’s pose brings the eye down to his much beleaguered figure in the panoramic third panel. The angle of his body and the legs of Iron Man bring the reader’s eye to the right hand of the panel, wherein Thor and the Hulk are engaged in combat

This story was drawn during a period when Kirby was doing art chores on more than half a dozen titles, and although it is drawn lovingly, it is a bit skimpy on backgrounds. Page seven is a beautiful sequence, but is not as well planned as Many of Kirby’s best.

There is too much dead space in panels three and four, but panel five is a stand-out. Kirby uses the huge foot and foreshortened right leg of the Hulk to offset his sweeping right cross, and the artist also employs the circular shape of the tunnel and Thor’s flung rag doll figure to accentuate the power of the blow. Also, clearly the diagonal force lines emanating from the blow are very effectively augmented by the diagonal lines that suggest the shape of the tunnel

The final page is one of Kirby’s most awesome studies in sheer ferocity. In the first panel, Thor is near collapse, stunned by an explosion, as the Hulk crouches, gloating and preparing to spring.