(from CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN #7, inks by Wallace Wood)
Kirby Day continued
Posted in Open Thread.
Author Archives: Bob
Kirby Day continued
Posted in Open Thread.
(from BLACK PANTHER #2, inked by Royer)
Kirby Day continued
Posted in Open Thread.
(From FF #57, inks by Joe Sinnott)
Happy Kirby Day
Posted in Open Thread.
(from NEW GODS #6, inks by Mike Royer)
August 28, 1917, 89 years ago today, Jack Kirby was born. I think for this day I’m going to keep the words to a minimum and post some of my favourite Kirby splash pages. Stay tuned for more throughout the day.
If you’ve got your own site and put up anything about Kirby today feel free to throw a link in the comments.
Also Happy Birthday to the Jack Kirby Museum, officially launched this day last year. Lots of great stuff already available on-line thanks to the Museum, the least of which being hosting for this weblog. Take a look around.
Captain America #211 [1977] – Nazi “X”
Cap continues his confronation with Arnim Zola, evil Nazi scientist, who takes it up a notch this time by revealing that he saved Hitler’s brain!
And put it in a giant yellow and purple robot without sight or hearing. When you consider what Zola did with his own body that doesn’t seem quite so absurd, I guess. And for some reason Kirby doesn’t mention Hitler as the identity of the brain in this issue, although he will in the next.
There are a lot of interesting visuals as Cap and Donna Maria try to escape from the living house that Zola controls with his mind, before they’re captured again and Zola reveals his plan to put Hitler’s brain in Cap’s body. Meanwhile, Sharon Carter has unmasked the Red Skull, the mastermind behind Zola’s plans, and delivers a favourite line of mine:
Why should I believe you — a known Nazi war criminal — with a record of unparalleled evil! You could be lying!
Anyway, a lot of moving the story forward with some great villains in this issue. The Red Skull and Arnim Zola sort of represent the definitive examples of two types of Kirby villain design, the Skull being the very simple but striking concept and Zola being the boldly surreal and endlessly complicated.
Mike Royer inks the 17-page story and Frank Giacoia inks the cover.
Published 1977
Upcoming Kirby – Marvel in November
Posted in Upcoming Kirby.
Bunches of Kirby in the latest sets of solicitations. Good to see another THOR Masterworks so soon, given the gap between earlier volumes. That’s the last major 1960s series with a lot of Kirby to go. A bit pricey, but that third CAPTAIN AMERICA book finishes Kirby’s 1970s run on the character, and has some Arnim Zola action, so that ain’t bad. GALACTIC BOUNTY HUNTERS #3 has Kirby on the cover again (I think I recognize that main pose from something that ran in TJKC a while back, so probably one of those “modified in the inks” pieces). The MARVEL WESTERNS book presumably has all the reprint backups from the recent one-shots. Not sure if the Kirby cover on ESSENTIAL CAP #3 is accurate, as Kirby didn’t do any of the original covers in that run. There is a Kirby cover of questionable origin on the issue right before that run. But hey, pick it up for the Gene Colan art and the Nazi robots.
Quick reminder that I try to keep the newly released stuff updated on this page and buying from the Amazon links below and on that page send some of your purchase price to the Kirby Museum.
MARVEL MASTERWORKS: THE MIGHTY THOR VOL. 5
Written by STAN LEE
Penciled by JACK KIRBY
Cover by JACK KIRBY
We’ve been ordered from on high, True Believers, and Marvel doesn’t say “Nay” to our ol’ buddy Odin! That’s right, it’s time for another captivating Masterworks collection of the one and only Mighty Thor!
A masterpiece of immortal action, cosmic scope, and boundless drama, Stan and Jack’s Thor collaborations mark a cornerstone of the Marvel Universe, and that’s no small accomplishment coming from the imaginations of the most celebrated creators in comics! And boy, oh boy, bunky, do they knock it up a notch, a cosmic notch, with the tales we’ll be bringing you here! It all begins when the Thunder God is captured by Rigellian colonizers and taken on a trip to the Black Galaxy to confront the one and only Ego, the Living Planet! It’s non-stop action, action, action from there as he journeys to Wundagore Mountain to meet the matchless High Evolutionary and his menagerie of man-beasts! It all wraps up with a trio of titanic tussles between Odin’s Son and Ulik the Troll, the Growing Man, and the Destroyer! There’s a soft spot to these tales too, so don’t forget your hanky as Thor struggles to reconcile his love for the mortal Jane Foster, and then there’s the return of a certain Lady Sif…The cup runneth over with drama and delight!
Collecting THOR (Vol. 1) #131-140 & ANNUAL #2.
256 PGS. $49.99
ISBN: 0-7851-2076-9
CAPTAIN AMERICA AND THE FALCON: THE SWINE TPB
Written by JACK KIRBY
Pencils & Cover by JACK KIRBY
The King keeps Cap’s quests coming with menaces from deep in space and deeper in the human soul! Even the evil of the Red Skull might pale before the fearsome Bio-Fanatic! Plus: Magneto and a rarely seen batch of evil mutants! Featuring the Falcon and Nick Fury of S.H.I.E.L.D.! Collects CAPTAIN AMERICA #206-214 and ANNUAL #3-4.
240 PGS. $29.99
ISBN: 0-7851-2078-5
JACK KIRBY’S GALACTIC BOUNTY HUNTERS #4
Written by LISA KIRBY & STEVE ROBERTSON
Penciled by MIKE THIBODEAUX & KARL KESEL
Cover by JACK KIRBY
In pursuit of Slugg and Garrett, the Galactic Bounty Hunters must covertly invade Dangerland (a swell place to take the whole family-if they’re wanted by the law!) But while they’re sneaking in, Garrett makes his bid for freedom!
32 PGS. $2.99
MARVEL WESTERNS HC
Written by DAN SLOTT, JEFF PARKER, KARL KESEL, FRED VAN LENTE, JUSTIN GRAY, JIMMY PALMIOTTI, JIM MCCANN, STEVE ENGLEHART & JOE LANSDALE
Penciled by EDUARDO BARRETO, TOMM COKER, CARMINE DI GIANDOMENICO, HOMS, FEDERICA MANFREDI, JIMMY PALMIOTTI, DAVE WILLIAMS, MARSHALL ROGERS & RAFFA GARRES
Cover by MARSHALL ROGERS & ERIC POWELL
Marvel’s masked men ride again in all-new tales by a posse of today’s most talented creators! It’s the raucous return of Two-Gun Kid, Hurricane, Red Wolf, the Man From Fort Rango, Kid Colt, Arizona Annie, the Black Rider, Gunhawk and more! And introducing the Philadelphia Filly and Spender! Plus: re-presenting the origin of Rawhide Kid by Jack “King” Kirby and other classic Marvel Western tales! Collects MARVEL WESTERNS: THE TWO-GUN KID, MARVEL WESTERNS: WESTERN LEGENDS, MARVEL WESTERNS: KID COLT AND THE ARIZONA GIRL, MARVEL WESTERNS: STRANGE WESTERNS STARRING THE BLACK RIDER, and the MARVEL WESTERNS: OUTLAW FILES handbook.
208 PGS. $20.99
ISBN: 0-7851-2280-X
ESSENTIAL CAPTAIN AMERICA VOL. 3 TPB
Written by STAN LEE, GARY FRIEDRICH, GERRY CONWAY & STEVE ENGLEHART
Penciled by GENE COLAN, JOHN ROMITA, GIL KANE & SAL BUSCEMA
Cover by JACK KIRBY
Cap goes up against the usual villainy of AIM, Hydra and the Red Skull – but could the most familiar enemy face be…Bucky’s!? The Falcon becomes Cap’s full-time crime-fighting partner in the wake of this shocker! Gangsters and gorillas! A mysterious Stranger! Nazis, robots and Nazi robots! Featuring the friends and foes of Spider-Man, and the web-slinger himself! Guest-starring Daredevil and the Avengers! Plus: the secret of the 1950s Captain America and Bucky, foreshadowing the first appearance of the man called Nomad! Collects CAPTAIN AMERICA #127-156.
608 PGS. $16.99
ISBN: 0-7851-2166-8
Thor #133 [1966] – Behold… the Living Planet
Thor completes his mission for the Colonizers of Rigel this issue, finding that the being hidden in the Black Galaxy is Ego, the Living Planet.
Lots of wildly imaginative background and such throughout this story, although it’s one that I’d love to see the full margin notes on the pencils for sometime, since a few bits of art don’t seem to match the script, and I could easily see this as just the beginning of a longer adventure, so maybe a few things were changed at the last minute. Still a lot of fun, as are the scenes back on Earth, setting up the High Evolutionary story.
Tales of Asgard this time is “Valhalla”, as the barbarian leader Harokin meets his final reward, thanks to fatal wounds from the previous issue, courtesy of Hela and the Valkyries. The splash page of Harokin in full battle armour is one of my favourite images from the Asgard stories, and there’s a nice mix of wonder mixed with some humour provided by Volstagg.
Colletta inks the 16-page lead story, 5-page backup and cover.
Comics Revue #183 [2001]
Rick Norwood’s COMICS REVUE has been reprinting comic strips for over 20 years now, including one run of Kirby’s long running comic strip, the ones after those included in the 1991 Pure Imagination SKY MASTERS magazine to the end of the strip (before Greg Theakston published THE COMPLETE SKY MASTERS). Daily strips ran in #124 – #142, #144 – #153 and CR SPECIAL #1. Sunday strips ran on the covers (usually front and back, with the front missing the “Scrap Book” footer and sometimes the cut panel) of the odd numbered issues from #145 – #191. The Sundays are still of interest even with the COMPLETE book since it’s still the only colour reprint of those pages, though the quality of the colour varies depending on the printed source. Some of them are excellent, but others are very dark, or have a lot of bleed-through from the other side, or out-of-register colours. And of course all of the issues have a lot of other great strip reprints you won’t find anywhere else.
#183 has the first two strips of the final Sunday storyline, from December 20 and 27, 1959. Astronaut Sky Masters is called in for his new mission. Apparently international playboy and yoga expert Roland Aly has shown he can use his skills to withstand pressures that no human should be able to, something that would be very useful to the space program. Sky is sent to Aly’s private island to learn these techniques.
Dick Ayers was the inker at this point, and doing an excellent job. This is some of favourite Kirby work of the era, lacking a bit of the goofy energy of the monster comics but making up for it with the dense, tight storytelling, detailed art and imaginative ideas.
Published 2001
Kamandi, The Last Boy on Earth! #8 [1973] – Beyond Reason
This issue opens with Kamandi and Sultin taking a look inside a museum which includes, among other things, several statues of US Presidents (including the ruins of the Lincoln Memorial apparently just excavated). Oddly the museum also has a lot of large statues of the humanoid lions of Kamandi’s era, those presumably of much more recent vintage. The two-page spread of the museum is one of the Kirby classics from this series.
Unfortunately the sight of humans in captivity acting like animals is too much for Kamandi, so he rebels, and Sultin has to escape with him out to the wild.
There Kamandi runs into some bears, who despite their increased intelligence are still godless killing machines. Fortunately, Kamandi displays that knack for running into people he knows at random places in the big world and is found by radioactive mutants (but human) Ben Boxer and Renzi, much to his delight. They escape to the waiting balloon where the third member of their team, Steve, is waiting and Kamandi decides to stick around on their return to their point of origin, Tracking Site.
A lot of this issue is based on Kamandi’s reactions to the world he finds himself thrust in, his frustration at how far humans have fallen, how alone he is, his joy at re-discovering people at least somewhat like him. Kirby does a good job of portraying that in the dialogue and body language, and in showing how Kamandi’s friends like Sultin and Ben empathize with him.
Mike Royer inks the 20 page story and cover.
Published 1973
Fantastic Four #94 [1970] – The Return of the Frightful Four
This issue opens with Reed and Sue finally announcing the name of their son, Franklin B. Richards. Ben’s reaction to what the B. stands for is probably one of the handful of greatest Ben Grimm scenes in the series.
The rest of the issue has the FF travel up-state to drop off Franklin with his new nanny, Agatha Harkness. At the same time, the Wizard reunites the Frightful Four to get revenge on the FF. Unfortunately, though he’s found a way to spy on the FF, he apparently didn’t keep up with recent events and included Medusa in the reformed team. So much for leaving nothing to chance.
Kirby really goes to town drawing Agatha’s home, a massive gothic mansion full of elaborate spooky furniture. The Frightful Four attack the home, and actual manage to incapacitate the FF and Medusa before facing down Agatha Harkness who shows why she’s a good nanny for young Franklin. Really good moody pages evoking the old BLACK MAGIC stuff.
Joe Sinnott inks the 20-page story, with some assistance from Herb Trimpe according to the Kirby Checklist, which also credits Trimpe with inking the cover (see comments for another opinion).
Published 1970