New Kirby – DC’s KIRBY OMNIBUS v2

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DC’s THE JACK KIRBY OMNIBUS v2 is out todayjkomni, collecting most of the published Kirby material from DC from the 1970s and 1980s not already covered by other recent or upcoming collections. The biggest part of that would be the two 1980s SUPER POWERS toy tie-in books, as featured on the cover. The best bits are probably the three FIRST ISSUE SPECIALS included, featuring an update on Manhunter (one of my first exposures to Kirby) and original concepts Atlas and the Dingbats of Danger Street. It’ll be a few weeks before I get a copy, so feel free to outline the contents in the comments if you get one before that. I’m especially curious if they include any of the unpublished Dingbats stuff, the story intended for SANDMAN #7 or a restored version of KOBRA #1, and if they went ahead and included all the non-Kirby 1950s reprint material from BLACK MAGIC as the solicitations indicated they planned to.

7 thoughts on “New Kirby – DC’s KIRBY OMNIBUS v2

  1. Harry Mendryk

    Somehow I think it appropriate that my previous comment got lost in the Kirby Museum software upgrade. The Kobra story is the one with credits of the two individuals you mentioned.

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  2. Bob

    This was Harry’s comment lost in the update:
    “No unpublished Dingbats, just issue #1. Sandman #7 is included (it was published in the Best of DC #22). The Sandman #1 is a fully restored version that matches the rest of the book and not the version published in the Sandman volume. I do not have time to pull out my copy of Kobra #1 but the version in the Omnibus looks good. And only the Kirby stories from DC Black Magic reprint were included. To be clear, DC’s Black Magic reprints were not taken from either original art or the original Prize comics, but instead were effectively re-created.

    “Giving the varied nature of the material included, the restoration job is nice with clean line art and nice colors.”

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  3. patrick ford

    If a comic book drawn by Kirby isn’t written by Kirby I’ve got no interest. As great as his art is, it’s his writing that I’m most interested in.
    So loads of pages here wasted on that Super Powers concept. And a bunch of other stuff not written by Kirby.
    DC has put so little effort into the Kirby reprints I feel certain the KOBRA story has not been restored, and I’d wager even the unpublished issue of Dingbats which was fully inked won’t be in the book. Those two stories alone would be enough to get me on board, but we’ll see.

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  4. Harry Mendryk

    While I have very different views about what I look for in a Kirby reprint, sadly this volume is weak for me as well. While not written by Kirby, the stories in this book on a whole rather poor with the exception of the Black Magic material which was spoiled by the art re-creation. I picked it up because I prefer reprint volumes over original comic books for casual reading.

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  5. patrick ford

    There is a customer review up at Amazon now which seems to confirm no unpublished material is included.

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  6. Jack Wilde

    Text of my review of ‘The Jack Kirby Omnibus Volume 2’ :

    A Warning to The Curious.

    At first sight, volume two of ‘The Jack Kirby Omnibus’ appears to be good value. It is quite a hefty tome, and at over 600 pages in length you are certainly buying a lot of comics for your money. But a closer inspection might well incline you to keep that money in your pocket.

    I will leave it to others to provide a comprehensive list of what this volume contains, and concentrate instead upon what matters to me – the quality of the reprint. The material from Simon and Kirby’s ‘Black Magic’ (complete with 1970s hairstyles drawn onto 1950s characters) has simply been reprinted from whatever copies DC had on file from the last, 1970s, reprint. And the quality of the reproduction is as poor now as it was back then. Neverthless, beneath the re-drawn hairstyles, the disappearing lines and the blotchy reproduction, it is just about possible to see glimpses of Kirby’s greatness peeking through.

    The jewels in this particular volume should have been the ‘First Issue Specials’ and ‘The Sandman’, from the 1970s. But even here the quality of the reprint is variable, with the original comics often winning hands down. Issue six of ‘The Sandman’ is especially poor, even with what looks like some fairly clumsy art restoration. Whilst ‘Fangs of The Kobra’ reintroduces us to our old friend and companion of Kirby’s tenure at DC Comics – The Clumsily Redrawn Face. Personally, I think it’s time that he received a book of his own, with perhaps a supporting role for The Disappearing Line – of which there are too many in this volume.

    As if this were not bad enough (and covers aside), a sizeable chunk of the ‘Superpowers’ stuff has been neither written nor drawn by Kirby, just ‘plotted’ by him, which renders it fairly useless for the purposes of a ‘Jack Kirby Omnibus’. In any case, ‘Superpowers’ was very far from being Kirby’s best work, although he still does manage to produce a memorable image or two.

    Volume two of ‘The Jack Kirby Omnibus’ really is the fag end of this series. If you need a reading copy or something to be used for art reference (on those occasions when you can actually see the art) then it might be worth having. But it is certainly not something that you need worry about keeping in pristine condition, either for yourself or for posterity

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