GHOST RIDER #22 – February 1977, inked by Al Milgrom. Another one of those odd choices of cover assignments for Kirby, he did three covers for GHOST RIDER in around this time. Looking at the series as a whole it looks like the intent was to give the book more of a super-hero flavour, playing down the super-natural stuff from earlier, so I guess having Kirby on the covers was a part of that.
This issue of reprints the contents of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #8 (1964), including the 6-page Kirby/Ditko backup story. Oddly, Spidey knows that Doris Evans is the Torch’s girlfriend in this issue, but doesn’t recognize her when he meets her a year later in ASM #21. Anyway, a great example of an early Marvel crossover story, with Spidey deciding to tease the Torch, quickly finding himself in way over his head before the rest of the FF intervene, finally being pacified by Sue. Nice artwork, too, except the reprint loses some of the finer linework, which especially makes the webbing and the Thing look splotchy.
Published 1982
This is probably the silliest of Kirby’s dozen Losers stories. In this European based story we begin with Hitler, Himmler and Rommel examining the new German super-weapon, a hundred-foot long gun with a 38-mile range called “Unser Max” (Our Max). An allied agent is detected among the German soldiers and killed, but mentions the allied weapon “The Devastator” before he dies.
![Our Fighting Forces #153 [1975]](http://kirbymuseum.org/blogs/kirby/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2006/02/Our-Fighting-Forces-153-1975.jpg)
The Devastator turns out to be the idea of Private Rodney Rumpkin, aka Rocketship Rumpkin, a fan of sci-fi pulps and comics and the fanciful weapons in those stories. The allies build a hollow model of such a super-weapon in order to make the Germans use Big Max in daylight, revealing its location for a waiting airstrike.
As I said, a bit silly, but with a lot of charm, and some great art, from the scenes of the Max-induced destruction to the fanciful pulp covers.
Mike Royer inks the 18-page story, as well as the 2-page feature on WWII uniforms and insignias. D. Bruce Berry inks the cover, and Kirby also writes a text page, “Before the letters begin…” talking about how the stories will reflect his own experiences and welcoming feedback.
Published 1975
MARVEL PREMIERE #35 – April 1977, inked by John Verpoorten (with background panels from the interior art by Jim Craig and Dave Hunt). Not a bad character to go with Kirby’s style, though a bit bland, and the back-story and premise presented in this issue is truly mind-numbing stuff. And I’m not sure why you’d do a 3-D Man comic that, y’know, isn’t in 3-D.
FANTASTIC FOUR #200 – November 1978, inked by Joe Sinnott. The last time Kirby would draw the FF for Marvel (although he would draw story-boards for a cartoon after this, and some of those boards would be taken and turned into a comic a few years later). A simple enough cover, but effective. Shame it only has one of the four team members, though. Nice that we got one final Doom cover by Kirby, though.
“The Big Boom” concludes the big battle with the Four-Armed Terror, unleashed on The Project by the Evil Factory. The Terror is a great villainous monster, which is probably why Kirby did a bunch of sketches with various characters (including the Hulk) battling him.
![Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen #138 [1971]](http://kirbymuseum.org/blogs/kirby/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2006/01/Supermans-Pal-Jimmy-Olsen-138-1971.jpg)
This story has a 15-minute countdown to the blow-up at the Project’s atomic power plant as the Terror closes in, and Superman has to race through to stop it, while the Guardian and adult version of the Newsboy Legion are in pursuit. The funniest part of the issue is probably the scene with Morgan Edge, being told to flee the city by his Intergang contacts, not caring at all about anyone on his staff.
It’s exciting stuff, but a bit off. Kirby originally had some other plans for this storyline, which apparently didn’t match what DC had planned in their other books. Mark Evanier eventually used some of those plans as the basis for his LEGENDS OF THE DC UNIVERSE #14 story with Steve Rude a few years back.
Vince Colletta inks the 23-page story, with the Superman characters adjusted by Murphy Anderson. Neal Adams inks the cover, which features one of Kirby’s collages, looking much better on cover stock than they usually did on newsprint (including the two-page spread with a collage in this issue).
Published 1971
This story is available in JIMMY OLSEN ADVENTURES BY JACK KIRBY v1.
TWO-GUN KID #56, October 1960, inked by Dick Ayers – This is the original Two-Gun Kid, who’d be revamped in just a few issues. Ayers inking on Kirby western art is always a treat. Always a lot of nice detail on the outfits and the backgrounds.
BOMBAST #1, April 1993 – The characters for the Topps Kirbyverse comics were taken from unused character designs that Kirby had done some time prior, so the covers taken from those designs are are a bit bland, with just the figures on a crackly background rather than any story-related content. But they still work, with a nice kinetic pose on this Bombast figure (okay, so it kind of looks like a bowling pose) and some nice bold solid linework. The character always looked to me me like something halfway between the Eternals and the New Gods. Don’t know who inked this piece, but it’s very well done (some places credit Kirby with the inks, but I don’t see it).
INCREDIBLE HULK ANNUAL #5 cover, 1976, inked by Jack Abel (with some re-drawing of some of the monsters apparently by John Romita) – Neat to see Kirby drawing a bunch of the old monsters again, even for just some small figures on a cover. Groot and “Titan” (originally of course called the Hulk) are in especially fine form, if not quite coloured as they were originally.
AIRBOY v4#4, 1947, Simon&Kirby, published by Hillman – Bit of an oddity, S&K draw the title character and no interiors on this issue, while none of the actual stories they drew in subsequent issues featured Airboy, but were “Link Thorne, Flying Fool” stories. Nice cover, I especially like those alligators, and the shading effect on the water.
