Who knew that George had two brothers who preceded him into the “sci-fix epic” field?

This reprints the story “Cap Goes Wild” from CAPTAIN AMERICA #106 (1968), where some agents of a foreign nation manage to steal the plans for the new and improved Life Model Decoys (LMDs) from SHIELD. Cap fails to stop them, and a SHIELD agent also informs him that the Lucus brothers in Hollywood are making a film with footage showing him shooting an unarmed prisoner during WWII. Cap winds up fighting an LMD version of himself on the set of the Lucus film.

Lots of good random craziness in this issue, as well as some great fights. I like all the little details on the set of the film, weird costumes and creatures, and the full page splash of the LMD creating machine is one of those magnificent Kirby techno-nightmare creations.

Frank Giacoia inks the edited-to-18-page story, and the cover, which is flipped left-to-right and slightly touched up for the reprint. Looked pretty interesting, as some of the inking seemed to evoke 1950s Kirby more than his usual late-1960s work.

Published 1978

The penultimate chapter of the “Visual Novel” first sees Morgan have Elmo Frye use his powers to erase any film recording of their battle as giants from the previous issue, and then Morgan enters the world of Darius Drumm for their big confrontation. In Drumm’s world, Norma is still being held captive, and there’s an army of pseudo-Drumms who practice his philosophy of “self-denial”. Morgan and Norma are able to take them easily, earning some sarcastic clapping from Drumm:

Drumm then reveals his ultimate goal is to scour the Earth that spawned his hated father, setting up the big “Angel of Death” finale.

Like all of this series, this issue is kind of uneven. Several clever ideas, a few weird bits of humour that work and a few nice visuals, but other bits fall flat, or don’t quite seem to convey what Kirby was hoping they would.

D. Bruce Berry inks the cover and 20-page story

Remember, TwoMorrows releases the Silver Star Graphite Edition later this year.

Published 1983

Oddly, despite the title of the story, “The Dilemma of Dr. Blake”, Thor is Thor throughout the tale, never changing to Blake once. Anyway, he continues his battle with the Destroyer, not realizing that Sif’s life-force is powering the creature. Fortunately, Balder’s able to get Norn Queen to release Sif in exchange for battling Ulik, and then Thor is brought in for the rest of the battle, winning in the end but losing his hammer to Loki. As for the Destroyer, Odin goes down to Earth and picks him up from the police station. No real reason given for why he’d do that personally, but it does give the amusing spectacle of Odin in a suit for a few panels.

Ulik is a great villain, very much in the “pure savagery” style that Kirby would perfect with Kalibak a few years later. Great to see him and Thor in a knock-down fight.

In the back-up is the final 5-page Inhumans story, “While the City Shrieks”, Triton arrives in New York, only to see the city respond with fear and violence. He returns home and convinces Black Bolt that they’ll have to move from their island home or risk eventual discovery, hence the mountain location of the “Great Refuge” in then-modern stories.

Colletta inks the 16-page lead story and cover, Sinnott inks the back-up.

Published 1968

After just providing covers and plots for the first four issues, Kirby writes and draws the finale of this series that promoted the line of action figures. In his Kirby-like way, though, the story that promises “final combat with Darkseid” on the cover never actually has the heroes face Darkseid. Instead, as Darkseid prepares to unleash his four armies on Earth, out heroes and villains are whisked through various worlds by Metron, including one interesting one in a two-page spread where the skeletal remains of some giants lie, in order to evade Darkseid’s detection. Finally he places them all (including Robin, who was yanked in from the JLA satellite at the last minute to make sure everyone with an action figure was present) in a brain booster powered by the mysterious Worlogog…

…which enables him to use the remains of the extra powers Darkseid gave the villains to divert and destroy Darkseid’s armies. I wonder if the Brain Booster™ playset comes with a Worlogog™ or you have to buy it separately?

So not the big battle climax you’d expect, which is nice, although in all this series is just a bit of a diversion, a little bit better than you have a right to expect from a toy tie-in, but still a trifle.

Greg Theakston inks the cover and 25-page story.

Published 1984