The beginning of the story has the end of the big fight against the cosmic powered Hulk robot of the last two issues. That whole thing kind of fizzles out, I think it’s safe to say that Kirby’s heart wasn’t in this plotline as much as most.

The battle does bring the Eternals into a long hidden underground lair, where an ancient enemy has been awakened. Ikaris is pulled under first, and Makarri follows. After Zuras stops a fire with his powers he follows.

He recognizes the enemy as Dromedan the Brain-Snatcher, who is forcing Ikaris and Makarri to fight each other. Zuras frees them of Dromedan’s control and faces off against his old foe.

As I said, the Hulk robot thing ended weak, but the rest of the issue is stronger, especially the bits of Zuras’ character. While obviously sharing some characteristics with previous Kirby god/rulers (Highfather/Odin/Zeus), he’s a very different character in some fundamental ways.

Mike Royer inks the 17-page story and Frank Giacoia inks the cover (where “Ikaris” is spelled wrong).

Published 1977

A nice Kirby/Ayers cover, the Avengers facing off against Doctor Doom. I especially like the posing of this cover, with the Avengers getting ready for action and Doom just standing up to them in the foreground, supremely confident.

Published 1966

Another of Marvel’s facsimile reprints of the early 1990s. You know the story, scientist Bruce Banner gets caught in a gamma bomb explosion trying to rescue trespassing teen Rick Jones. In the aftermath Banner finds he turns into a large grey monster at nights and is pursued by the army. Later he’s taken prisoner by the Russian scientist the Gargoyle and manages, as Banner, to defeat him.

While there would be much meddling in the exact direction of the Hulk over the years, a surprisingly large amount of the most essential stuff is laid out in this story, “The Coming of the Hulk”.

The sequence below has been repeated, referenced, traced and referred to countless times in the comics since, but never gets old for me. The transition from panel 1 to 2 is great, with Banner racing towards Jones and then dragging him behind. Panel 4 with Banner just at the edge of the trench when the bomb goes off, a true classic. The hours long scream from panel 6 to 7. That’s some storytelling going on here.

This issue also has an ad for FANTASTIC FOUR with an original early image of the team in their uniforms by Kirby.

Paul Reinman inked the 24 page story. There seems to be some disagreement on the cover, as various sources list Reinman, Roussos and Ayers. Hard for me to tell at the best of times, moreso with just a reprint, but I’m leaning to Reinman.

Published 1991

An excellent Fourth World story, “The Death Wish of Terrible Turpin”, as Kalibak runs wild in the streets, attacking the home of Dave Lincoln in his search for Orion. The police respond, led by Dan “Terrible” Turpin, who’s got no time for those “Super Weirdos” taking their war to his streets. I love Turpin in this issue, taking on Kalibak one-on-one.

Eventually Orion and Lightray arrive, having seen the battle on TV, and Orion takes on Kalibak, showing his true face and giving some allusions to their relationship.

The Lightray/Orion interaction is great in this issue, too.

“You saw my face!!”
“I saw scars — both old and new — taken in the cause of New Genesis!”
“You’re a good friend, Lightray.”

Don’t tell me Kirby can’t write.

A 3-page Young Gods story has Fastbak racing the Black Racer trying to rescue Esak from the Para-Demons. Esak has always fascinated me since he has a few odd bits like this in the original comics, and then Kirby brought him in a key role in THE HUNGER DOGS, so I’m sure he had a lot more planned for him if he’d been able to explore it originally.

Reprint backup is “The Stone of Vengeance”, a 9-page S&K Manhunter story from ADVENTURE #77 (1942). Great splash page, with that dark S&K signature inking. The story follows a reportedly cursed stone as it moves from owner to owner, with each new one killing the previous owners, with a great sequence showing that. When it gets to the States, it ends up with a shoeshine boy who is taken prisoner by the Rajah just as Paul Kirk pursues the Rajah’s men from another jewel theft. Of coure it all works out in the end as the bad guys are undone by their own greed.

Mike Royer inks the cover and lead story, Colletta inks the Young Gods story, but it looks pretty good anyway. This issue also has one of the full page ads for KIRBY UNLEASHED.

Published 1972

This is an edited reprint of FF #92 (1969), continuing the Ben Grimm enslaved story. In space, Ben continues to be trained in combat by the faux-gangsters who have captured him. Some of the other slaves are pretty lame (Magno-Man, with a horseshoe magnet for a head, alien species like Rhinogons, Primoids and Cat-Men, which I think you can figure out) so this is clearly at the point where Kirby was saving his better designs for a better outlet. Still a lot of good action with Ben and the aliens, and some of the aliens in the background are kind of cool.

Eventually the training ends, and the games begin, and Ben finds out that the reason the other slaves don’t rebel is that their home planets are threatened if they do.

Meanwhile on Earth, Reed figures out what has happened and sets up the old captured Skrull ship from FF #2, and takes Johnny and Crystal to the rescue (Sue of course being left behind, being a new mother and all).

Two pages edited out, so it’s now an 18-page story. The cover is a modified version of the original, flipped left-to-right and with a few other small changes. Inks by Joe Sinnott.

Published 1977

This reprints the two-part Green Arrow story from ADVENTURE COMICS #252 / #253 (1958), editing out the splash page of the second story.

High goofball fun in this one, as the city is attacked by mysteriously appearing giant arrows. Of course, Green Arrow and Speedy investigate, since someone is taking their gimmick, eventually finding themselves drawn into an alien dimension.

That bit with GA worrying about never seeing his adoring crowds of kids when he goes to flog the Green Arrow Arrow Kit cracks me up. Also, that’s a great alien world.

Anyway, very neat stuff, although of course more readily available in the collection DC did a few years ago.

Published 1975

The lead story “Thunder in the Netherworld” is reprinted from THOR #130 (1966) and is a big action issue, with Thor facing off against the hordes of the underworld to save Hercules.

It’s a great ever-escalating battle, which finally threatens to bring down all that Pluto had built, bringing him to return to stop the destruction. There’s a fun bit of contrast between Hercules love of battle and Thor’s dedication to justice in the end.

Meanwhile, in Midgard, the story of Tana Nile starts to develop with more clues about her secret, as she sends Jane Foster away in order to lure Thor into a search for her.

The back-up is a Tales of Asgard story from JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY #118 (1965), “The Crimson Hand”, continuing the major quest storyline. In this story we see Thor preparing for the voyage, being given the Crimson Hand, which can be used to force anyone clasping it to tell the truth. This comes in useful when Loki brings by a volunteer for the quest, who turns out to be an assassin planning to kill Thor. Loki manages to avoid detection of his own role in that, of course. They sure did give him a lot of leeway back then.

Colletta inks throughout, of course.

Published 1973