Category Archives: Genre

Destroyer Duck #4 [1983] – Spineless Wonders

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Following an introduction where Vanilla Cupcake™ meets the Reagans, the battle with the Cogburns continues in this issue, and we get the origin of Booster Cogburn as our heroes flee to the airport. Inspired if extremely mean stuff when you know what it’s a parody of. “The machismo posturing, the overblown ego, and the company man mentality are all artificially encoded in the genes”. “…would lead them to a disturbing truth: that human exist who possess the capacity to create something new, something beyond a flawed replication of what’s gone before”. I love this stuff, that scene is probably the highlight of the DD series.

Beyond the Cogburn scenes, this issue features the set-up for the final battle in Hoqoom, as GodCorp’s plans there continue apace and Duke and his friends are on the way, with Duke suspecting that the Little Guy may be alive.

Steve Gerber writes of course, and Alfredo Alcala inks the 20-page story and cover. Very attractive work in this issue, I thought the previous two issues were a bit loose but the Kirby/Alcala combination seemed to click better this time around.

Published 1983

Astonishing Tales #2 [1970] – Frenzy on the Fortieth Floor

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Ka-Zar arrives in New York on his search for Zabu, held by Kraven. For some reason Kraven decided to keep the sabre-tooth tiger in his hotel room. Kraven attacks Ka-Zar in the lobby, where Ka-Zar uses his battle cry to inform Zabu that he’s there.

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Zabu with the sheathed feet cracks me up. Zubu in general is always fun. We need a team-up of Zabu and Lockjaw. There’s some fun as Kraven and Ka-Zar battle above the city, but it ends kind of abruptly as Kraven is wounded and lives up to his name, and Ka-Zar encounters the Petrified Man and has to return to the Savage Land for a story Kirby wasn’t involved in.

Sam Grainger inks the 10-page story.

Published 1970

Marvel Spotlight #29 [1976] – Cover

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Another in the string of odd cover assignments Kirby was given in the late 1970s, this one featuring I believe the first solo outing of Moon Knight. He always was the Batman of the Marvel universe, so I guess a giant chess board makes sense.

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Al Milgrom inks on this one. I especially like his linework on the chess pieces in the foreground.

Published 1976

Tales of Suspense #38 [1963] – Cover

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Sorry, hitting the covers a bit much lately. I’ll get back to some story stuff soon. And you can’t really complain too much about stuff like this. Kirby Checklist has this as Sol Brodsky inks on the final pre-Iron Man ToS (but with the fantasy stories continuing as back-ups for a little while). That’s one tough looking genie.

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Published 1963

Kid Colt Outlaw #101 [1961] – Cover

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Jack Kirby and Dick Ayers supply the cover to this Marvel western. Fortunately for Kid Colt the Daltons and Ringo and the rest are notoriously bad shots, hitting walls and lights when aiming for him. Of course, you have to question KC’s logic of shooting the gavel out of Jesse James’ hand when there are people there with guns. It’s a symbolic victory, true, but hardly the best use of your first shot.

(possibly George Klein on inks, see comments)

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Published 1961

Love Romances #84 [1959] – Cover

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Quite a dog, that Tony. Continuing on from his successful work at Prize over the previous decade, Kirby did a lot of covers and stories for the Marvel romance books, including this early one inked by Vince Colletta.

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This is also part of an informal set of artist themed Kirby romance covers, going back to Prize’s YOUNG ROMANCE #1 and Mainline’s IN LOVE #3. Any others?

[later edit, see this post at the S&K Blog for more on the artist/model theme]
Published 1959

Marvel’s Greatest Comics #28 [1970] – The Frightful Four

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Kirby provides a new cover for this issue’s reprint of FF #36 (1965), inked by John Verpoorten according to the Kirby Checklist, Joe Sinnott according to the GCD. Verpoorten looks more likely as Sinnott had a few distinctive touches in his work from this era that are missing. Also of note, Medusa is wearing something closer to her later mask on the cover rather than what she wore in this issue.

This issue opens as Reed and Sue publicly announce their engagement, getting a lot of press attention. Unfortunately, Sue also took this as a time to unveil one of her least flattering hair-cuts. Meanwhile, the Wizard (who makes a brief misguided name change to the Wingless Wizard this issue. Ooooh, “Wingless”! Scary) has gathered a few of the other super-criminals, Paste-Pot-Pete and Sandman, along with new recruit Madame Medusa, to form the Frightful Four.

Following a party with the Avengers and X-Men (where the scripting has to go through a few hoops to explain Professor Xavier’s presence, since he wasn’t openly associated with the X-Men at the time) the villains attack and are able to defeat the three members present.

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Fortunately Johnny is off admiring cars, and Alicia is able to send a signal off to him and he manages to rescue his team-mates and Alicia from floating off into space and defeat the villains.

Of course the Frightful Four would return several times in the next year, but the real lasting legacy of this issue is the introduction of Medusa, leading to the Inhumans and some of Kirby’s best supporting characters.

Chic Stone inks the story. This reprint is edited down to 19 pages from the original 21, with a Yancy Street gag from the beginning and a scene with the Torch a few pages later missing.

Published 1970

The Avengers #151 [1976] – Cover

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Dan Adkins inks on this 1970s cover, as Cap explains to the junior Avengers which way they’re supposed to look on a cover for maximum effect. Hey, this is Captain America, he was doing this before they were born, he knows how to pose for a cover, and the first rule is “Face Front”.

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Published 1976

1st Issue Special #1 [1975] – Atlas the Great

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Late in Kirby’s five year 1970s stint at DC they launched 1st ISSUE SPECIAL as a sort of SHOWCASE concept. One of Kirby’s concepts ran in the first issue.

Set in an ancient world of legends and wonders when man rose from barbarism, this issue opens as Atlas is exhibiting his strength while his companion Chagra looks for a challenger.

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Atlas easily wins the combat set up for him, and is soon enbroiled in another mess which brings the attention of a familiar voice. Atlas has a flashback to his village being destroyed by a slaver when he was a boy, and his adventures growing up while seeking the slaver. His quest is at an end as the voice he just heard is the King of Hyssa, the slaver who killed his family.

All set-up in this issue, which is a shame, as there’s some promise in here and in the concept pages that have been published in TJKC #23 and #26 (plus an unused cover on TJKC #4).

D. Bruce Berry does the inks on the cover and 20-page story. The text page isn’t written by Kirby, but does feature a small version of what appears to be an alternate cover illustration for this issue, fully inked and coloured.

Published 1975

Strange World of Your Dreams #4 [1953] – Cover

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Just a Kirby cover on this final issue of the short-lived S&K companion book to BLACK MAGIC, featuring true stories. It says so right on the cover.

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You’d think the fact that the killer is green would be enough information for an identification.

I love those trademark Kirby eyes on the killer, with that weird half-squint that he used so often (I can remember some especially memorable ones from Darkseid).

Published 1953