Kamandi, The Last Boy On Earth #4 [1973]

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In “The Devil’s Arena” Kamandi and company stock up on supplies in the ruins of Las Vegas this issue, where among other things Kamandi finds a copy of THE DEMON #1. Before they can leave they find themselves in the middle of a war between the gorillas and the tigers, and Kamandi is taken prisoner by the gorillas. Thrown in with some of those less intelligent humans, Kamandi leads them in an escape and then finds his way to the cell of a tiger prisoner, Prince Tuftan.

Kamandi, The Last Boy On Earth #4 [1973]

Kamandi finds out that Tuftan allowed himself to be taken prisoner so he could be on the inside during a full tiger attack and steal an ancient human warplane that would make the tigers dominant his father Caesar’s quest for world domination. Kamandi realizes that such an act would doom what’s left of humanity and destroys the plane in order to ensure mankind gets a second chance.

A nice action-packed look at some of the battles going on in Kirby’s post-disaster Earth, I especially liked Kamandi leading the escape from the gorillas. Tuftan is also a lot of fun, it’s a shame he was never more than a semi-regular in the series, vanishing for long stretches.

Mike Royer inks the cover and 22-page story.

Published 1973

This issue is available in the recent KAMANDI ARCHIVES v1

2 thoughts on “Kamandi, The Last Boy On Earth #4 [1973]

  1. RAB

    I remember the complaint in a subsequent letters page that Kamandi finding an intact copy of THE DEMON #1 in this issue suggested that the Great Disaster was imminent as of 1973. But now, with the benefit of our advanced future perspective, we realize Kamandi must have found it in the ruins of a comics shop and simply discarded the bag and backing board…

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  2. Andrew

    Well, it was a pretty low grade copy (apparently without a back cover). I also noticed that Kamandi mentions that he had two comics and we don’t see what the other one is. I always wondered if a stat of maybe a Mister Miracle cover fell off the art for the two-page splash.

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