Category Archives: Genre

Fantasy Masterpieces #3 [1966]

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A new Captain America image by Kirby/Giacoia is on the cover of this book, which contains three Kirby reprints.

Two stories from CAPTAIN AMERICA #3 (1941) begin and end the book. First is “The Hunchback of Hollywood and the Movie Murder” (17-pages), which has a movie producer making an historical epic with clear anti-Nazi overtones. He gets himself killed, but the film production goes on, with Steve Rogers and Bucky being hired as extras. They take advantage of the movie stage setting for a lot of fun scenes, including a horseback duel, a swordfighting scene and the storming of a castle…

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…before finally revealing the true villain behind the hunchback.

Ending the book is the awkwardly titled “The Queer Case Of The Murdering Butterfly And The Ancient Mummies”, retitled for this reprint as the no less awkward “The Weird Case Of The Plundering Butterfly And The Ancient Mummies” (11-pages). This time there’s a criminal gang operating out of a museum, which Bucky discovers on a class trip (Cap wanted to him to go to West Point some day. Poor Bucky…). Again, the setting allows for a lot of nice background touches which make the story much more interesting than its simple plotline.

Various hands were inking Cap in those days. The Kirby Checklist has the first as Joe Simon, the second as Reed Crandall, and Al Avison and Crandall doing general assists on the issue. Lots of minor art alterations in both those stories, making the hunchback less scary, changing a scene where Cap stabs a guy, as well as generally mediocre art reconstruction. Fortunately later reprints are more faithful to the originals.

Among the monster/suspense stories between the Cap reprints is the 13-page Kirby/Ayers “Beware of Bruttu” from TALES OF SUSPENSE #22 (1961). An interesting twist on the standard monster story of the era, as this time the story is about a scientist who is accidentally transformed into a monster (based on one in a comic book, too), so the story is actually narrated by the monster, as he’s hunted and unable to communicate, and finds out a few things about life on the way. Definitely one of the better of these stories, and much more of a pre-cursor to Marvel hero concepts like the Hulk than those stories that just happen to use the name “Hulk” that are often passed off as “prototypes”.

Published 1966

Boy Commandos #12 [1945] – Cover

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The Coast Guard gets the nod on this wartime cover by Simon & Kirby, as part of an attack on Japan. Nice cover, especially the ship in the background there.

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This issue also has a three-page story “Coast Guard Reconnaissance” signed by S&K and reprinted as a Kirby classic in NEW GODS #4, but the Kirby Checklist says it was Simon solo, which looks right.

Published 1945

The Invaders #12 [1977] – Cover

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A Kirby/Sinnott cover to this comic, introducing a new character to the team to give it a British flavour and some female presence. I like the inking on the German soldiers, makes me wonder what a Kirby/Sinnott war comic would have looked like. I’ll have to see if I can find some of the issues of BATTLE they had stories in back in 1960.

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Published 1977

Marvel’s Greatest Comics #62 [1976] – Where Treads the Living Totem

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In this reprint from FANTASTIC FOUR #80 (1968), “Where Treads the Living Totem”, the FF get a note from Wyatt Wingfoot, gone back to visit his tribe, about some mysterious goings-on involving an old legend. Having nothing else to do while waiting for Sue to have her baby, the menfolk go off, and lucky for Wyatt that they do.

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The oil-rich land of his people is being attacked by a giant robot in the form of their mythic protector Tomazooma, in hopes of scaring them off the land. Great looking design for the robot, and a lot of fun action with the FF and Wyatt’s tribe against the robot, and a lot of good character interaction among the boys.

One page is edited for this reprint, a splash of Ben dancing with Johnny about the prospect of going on vacation. Joe Sinnott inks the now 19-page story and cover.

Published 1976

Captain America #201 [1976] – The Night People

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Following the Madbomb crisis during the Bicentennial, Cap and the Falcon plan some much needed rest (which includes a comfortable bubble bath for Cap). Unfortunately, over in New York there’s been a plague of attacks from “The Night People”, mysterious underground vagrants who are stealing odd things, everything except money. They overhear Falcon on the phone with his girlfriend Leila, and needing a super-hero for their purposes they kidnap her as bait for the Falcon, who quickly flies in to the rescue.

The Falcon is captured, and back in Washington Cap gets reports that he was seen vanishing in mid-air.

Kirby didn’t stop for a minute on the wild ride that was his last run on Cap, and there are a lot of things to like about this issue. The odd layout on one early page, showing the various thefts the Night People were up to, was really nice, and throwing in a dramatic mid-air rescue was a good way to keep the action flowing.

Frank Giacoia inks the cover and 17-page story.

Published 1976

This whole story, and much more, was recently reprinted in Captain America: Bicentennial Battles.

Our Fighting Forces #152 [1975]

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Kirby’s chronicles of the Losers brings them to France this issue, in a story reportedly very close to a few of the real war stories that Kirby would tell, “A Small Place in Hell”.

Our Fighting Forces #152 [1975]

The Losers have a rare three-day pass, and go to a town that they think should have been taken by the allies weeks ago. Unfortunately, they took a wrong turn somewhere, and the town is full of Germans, leading to a lot of firefights and general destruction before the American forces roll-in. That includes a cameo from General Patton, who thanks them for keeping the Germans occupied and declares the Losers “Fine boys, but ‘foul-ups'”.

Also in this issue, two pages of various machine guns used in WWII, and on the letter page Steve Sherman mentions that Kirby used an extensive picture file of WWII material for the book, and they’d recently gone out to get more reference material.

D. Bruce Berry inks the cover, 18-page story and 2-page backup.

Kid Colt Outlaw #88 [1960] – Cover

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A Kirby/Rule (*) cover for this western cover. I really like that foreground indian with the bow-and-arrow, and I like the way the block-out colouring works with this design, and how all those design elements (arrow, gun, hand) lead the eye to KC.

(*)possibly George Klein, see comments

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Published 1960

Marvel Spectacular #4 [1973]

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Thor and the Recorder are off to confront the Ego, the Living Planet this issue, one of Kirby’s most audacious villains of the era, in a reprint of “Behold, The Living Planet” from THOR #133 (1966). Edited reprint, of course, cutting out the second page of a two-page spread, moving a word balloon over. Still looks good, but the original is spectacular, one of the best of Kirby’s two-pagers.

It’s really a mile-a-minute in this era of Thor, if a Thunder God and an alien archivist fighting against the humanoid anti-bodies of a living planet in the Black Galaxy in order to save Earth from the colonizers of Rigel isn’t enough, there’s also a stop along the way to set up the next story, which has Jane Foster going to interview for a job with someone who turns out to be the High Evolutionary.

The cover is also from #133, but another, clearer face of Ego is in place of the original. Looks like it might have been pasted up and retouched from an interior panel in this or another story.

Also this issue, “Gather, Warriors”, a Tales of Asgard story from JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY #119 (1965), as the many heroes of Asgard join the quest that Thor and Loki are leading. This story introduces the trio who would become known as the Warriors Three, Hogun the Grim, Frandal the Dashing and of course…

Marvel Spectacular #4 [1973]

Volstagg the Enormous. Of course he would be the source of comedy gold in future issues of the book, and starts off great in his debut.

Published 1973

Tales to Astonish #43 [1963] – Cover

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A dramatic Kirby/Brodsky cover for the Ant-Man series. I love the occasional panel-breakdown cover like this, with some great poses drawing you into the story. And the matches to give a sense of scale are a nice touch.

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Published 1963

Thor #252 [1976] – Cover

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Always a big fan of Ulik, he was a fun character in the 1960s stories, really cool looking, so it was nice to see him on a few Kirby covers in the 1970s.

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Verpoorten inks, with a bit of touch-up work credited to Romita in the Kirby checklist, but pretty minor compared to some.

Published 1976

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