The visual-novel continues as he attempts to rescue his fellow Super-Normal from the out of control carousel. He fails miserably, and after a brief look at Darius Drumm in his realm, where he has Norma held, Silver Star goes out and finds Elmo Frye, another result of the Homo-Geneticus experiment, who manifests his powers as the giant Big Masai, who terrorizes various local gang lords.

A few interesting things in this issue, although the pacing of the whole series was a bit clunky. One page in this issue has 13 panels, which is an awful lot for Kirby.

Mike Royer inks the cover and 20-page story.

Published 1983

Having a few more pages to fill when comics reversed their shrinking page-count in 1980, Marvel split the Ant-Man story from TALES TO ASTONISH #40 (1963) in two issues of MGC behind post-Kirby FF reprints. This issue has the first six pages (with the last edited slightly, removing two panels to allow for the statement of ownership, which reveals that in 1980 an about-to-be-cancelled book reprinting 10-year-old FF stories could sell almost 100,000 copies a month).

This first part sets up the story of a series of mysterious truck hijackings, which Ant-Man hears about when he gets a signal transmitted from a series of ants. No really. And it gets better, to one of the most beautifully absurd scenes in a 1960s Marvel comic (and there are a lot to choose from). To get to his destination, Ant-Man shoots himself out of a gun, and has a group of ants converge to cushion his fall. Only he overshoots, almost hits a brick wall head-on, but for the quick thinking of his loyal ants.

Man, that’s just crazy. The rest of the story sets up Ant-Man’s plan to capture the hijacker, only to find himself suddenly taking ill (and riding an ant to a doctor), leaving the truck defenseless. These early Ant-Man stories aren’t the best, but they do have some great scenes, and give Kirby a chance to do some weird perspective shots and of course lots of ants.

Sol Brodsky inks this story, one of the few non-cover examples of him inking Kirby (the other more notable one being FF #3 and #4). It’s very nice, a shame he didn’t do more inking of Kirby back then. I’m only judging from reprints, so maybe I’m wrong, but he seems to be among the closest to how Kirby would have inked the work himself.

Published 1980

Just S&K covers on this part of the run of Sandman in ADVENTURE. Seems their adventures got a little more surreal as time went on, too. That’s a great looking monster, plus the little bits of business on those strange creatures are nice.

And don’t forget to back the 5th War Loan.

Published 1944

One of the most famous and oft-reprinted of the Kirby cover-only books, inked by Steve Ditko (obviously quite heavy on the Spider-Man figure, which looks like almost pure Ditko). I do love the layout, with the Torch’s flame circling around the rest of the FF and Spider-Man.

Published 1963

Another from the series of cover-to-cover reprints Marvel did in the 1990s, this one reprinting AVENGERS #4 from 1964. Very odd issue when you try to describe it, with lots of stuff going on. Namor finding Cap, the Avengers finding him later, the Avengers getting turned into statues, Cap finding the alien resonsible, who had been working for Namor and now gets the Avengers’ help, Namor attacking the Avengers. Fun, but kind of reads like they didn’t know where they were going from one page to the next.

Lots of great artwork in the story, though, scenes that are at the heart of Marvel mythology. The death of Bucky, scene, of course, the retrieval of Cap. I’ve always been fond of the cop who had seen Cap as a kid with his “Forgive me, Cap, willya? I- I seem to have something in my eye” line.

George Roussos inks the 23-page story and cover (and they use the cover they always have in the reprints, with the skewed wings on Cap’s mask instead of the even ones the original printed version had). Can’t say I cared for the look much, just like most of his FF, this one seemed especially rushed especially with the backgrounds, although some bits are nicely done.

Published 1995