This Archie comic reprints most of the S&K content from DOUBLE LIFE OF PRIVATE STRONG #1 (1959), except for the Fly intro teaser. There’s also a new cover by Kirby and Rich Buckler (I’ve seen the pencils to this somewhere, does anyone remember off-hand where they were printed).

One intro page and four stories inside, a total of 25 pages from S&K, setting up the Lancelot Strong character, a revamp of the old Shield character. The character is an odd mix of things, a little bit of Captain America, mixed in with a bit of Superman’s origin, as we open with a scientist conducting experiments of questionable ethics on his own infant son to tap his full brainpower. When it looks like his experiments will be stopped, the scientist flees and crashes, leaving his son to be found by an old farm couple, who raise him as their own. He develops powers as a teen, just in time to stop an invasion from an alien monster very similar to the type that would soon be terrorizing Marvel in Kirby stories, and also finds a costume. Then he gets drafted, and his adventures as Private Strong begins.

More harkening back to earlier stories, “The Menace of the Micro-Men” has a lot in common with one of the YELLOW CLAW stories of a few years earlier.

So while this feature was far from the most original Kirby worked on, the artwork is a lot of fun, so this reprint of it is well worth picking up for some vintage Kirby at an affordable price.

Published 1984

Tomorrow

That Kraken, real quick with the comeback. I bet he was the terror of the schoolyard.

Al Milgrom inks on this cover, which is pretty good looking. I like these weird perspective covers.

Published 1976

A reprint of “The Triumph of Magneto” from the 1965 published X-MEN #11, this story has the X-Men responding to Professor Xavier’s detection of a potentially powerful new mutant, who turns out to be the alien Stranger.

Of course Magneto also has an interest in powerful mutants, and he gets to the Stranger first. After various battles, we end up with Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch renouncing their allegiance to Magneto (setting up their membership in the Avengers) and the Stranger takes off with Magneto and Toad as samples of mutants to study, never to return (well, never or six months).

Bit of an anti-climactic conclusion to Kirby’s last full-pencil issue of X-MEN, but a lot of nice scenes in here. Chic Stone inks the 20-page story and the interior reprint of the original cover.

Published 1995

In “The Secret Gun”, Kirby took the last step on making MISTER MIRACLE more of a super-hero book following the cancellation of its companion books by introducing a kid side-kick for Scott this issue, Shilo Norman. Shilo, a witness to the gangland killing of his brother, is given to Scott to protect, but he escapes (as Scott knew he would) to take revenge on his own, and Scott and Barda follow.

While this last year of MM lacks the cosmic punch of the earlier stuff, it’s still a lot of fun, and has some great visuals (Big Barda crushing a canister supposedly containing Scott in a giant nutcracker? Ouch). On the other hand, there were a few more pronounced weaknesses in the script, like the villain Mister Fez (who wears a fez…) with his “Super-cats, eh? I’m too hip to buy that kind of jive”.

Mike Royer inks the 20-page story and cover, and in the letter column Steve Sherman answers a few questions on the end of the other books.

Published 1973