This issue opens with the arrival of Celestial Arishem of the Fourth Host among the Incan ruins, sent to judge Earth in fifty years. Doctor Damian chooses to stay with Ajax and learn what he can, while Ikaris takes Margo out to the plane before the area is sealed off. Meanwhile, Kro is being punished for his failure to prevent the Celestial’s arrival by the Deviant leader Tode. He plans to use his devilish appearance to get the humans to do their work for them. He also attempts to attack Ikaris and Margo’s plane, until Ikaris uses his powers to quickly take them to New York, where he drops in on a fellow Eternal.

The beautiful Sersy (later changed to Sersi), who we find out is the inspiration for the Circe of Greek myth. He asks her to protect Margo while he deals with the impending Deviant attack. The issue closes with Kro, in full Devil mode, attacking, spreading fear, but we see some humans are also defiant as Ikaris flies in.

There’s some great stuff in this issue. In particular I like the page introducing Sersi and the two page spread of Arishem’s arrival. I also liked the bit at the end with the defiant human responding to Kro’s threats, as it reminds me of the classic Terrible Turpin sequence in NEW GODS, humanity defiant in the face of a war among gods brought into the city streets. ETERNALS definitely kicked into high-gear with this issue after a lot of set-up in the previous issues, still introducing lots of new concepts but starting to play with them.

John Verpoorten inks the cover and 17-page story, and I just want to say, though Verpoorten’s name doesn’t often come up among discussions of best Kirby inkers, he definitely deserves some consideration for stories like this. Very slick, very powerful, seems very faithful to the pencils.

Published 1976

This issue reprints the second Challengers try-out story from SHOWCASE #7 (1957). The recent hardcover reprint of the story credits the story to Dave Wood and the inks to Roz Kirby and Marvin Stein.

Following an origin recap, we see the Challs settling down to check their mail for new adventures. In walks Hesse, a former Nazi who comes in with a story about an out of control robot he created. Suddenly…

A great looking panel of Ultivac’s hand bursting in through the window. Very nice detail, you can definitely see the same kind of visual themes from the many other giant robot hands that Kirby would use. Anyway, Hesse is taken, and the Challs contact a robot expert, leading to their first meeting with later honorary fifth Challenger June Robbins (oddly with dark hair here. Later she’d be blonde and named June Walker, before finally settling in as blonde June Robbins. Of course, Prof’s name changes at least three times in Kirby’s run, so obviously continuity wasn’t a bit thing back then). Her computer predicts that Ultivac can only be defeated after a Challenger dies. That doesn’t slow down the Challs of course, and they leap into danger for the rest of the story. A lot of twists in the story, with a King Kong riff in the middle, the giant robot taking June and being attacked by planes, and then the Ultivac trying to live in peace with humanity only to be destroyed by his creator. And while Rocky does die in the climactic battle, but is saved by revolutionary life-saving techniques.

A very strange story, but with some gorgeous artwork. The Ultivac panels are particular highlights, as are the detailed underwater scenes in one segment in the middle. Very nice, and wonderful inking. The later Wallace Wood stuff tends to get more attention, but the inking on the early issues is just as good, I think.

The entire 24 page story is reprinted, with some minor modifications for page layout and such things (like substituting the then-current COTU logo, but oddly not fixing at least one spelling mistake I noticed), plus one page of the then-current Challs was added as an introduction in the beginning. The cover is a slightly modified version of the splash page with a figure of Ace in the then current costume introducing.

Published 1970

This issue reprints FANTASTIC FOUR #91 (1969), although thanks to the editing out of two pages it’s effectively a Fantastic One story, with only Ben appearing.

The story opens with an unexpected scene of several gangster types of the prohibition era discussing their upcoming purchase of Ben from the Skrulls, when they’re interrupted by another gangster who owns the slave they want Ben to fight against. We then see Ben still restrained by his captor in a ship bound for that planet. Arriving there, he’s greeted by a boisterous kid gang, naturally enough.

Following that brief interruption and a demonstration of the nerve collar holding him captive, Ben is taken in a truck and told about how escaped con Machine-Gun Martin was taken to this world from Earth years ago, and inspired its current look. Along the way they’re attacked by a man in a bi-plane, of all things. Finally at the training center, Ben has a brief battle with one alien creature and is then put in a cell with his planned foe, Torgo.

A lot of fun this time, especially how Kirby mixes in the excellently drawn 1930s era scenes and people with the sci-fi elements. He pretty obviously had a lot of fun with that (fortunately he did have quite a few chances to draw that stuff in context with actual crime comics before and after this era), and the several action scenes.

Joe Sinnott inked the now 18-page story, as well as the original cover (slightly modified for this reprinting to allow for the different cover layout).

Published 1977

Morgan (Silver Star) Miller starts this issue with a big attempted rescue of a woman from a plunging car.

They both emerge from the crash unscathed, and he finds out the woman, apparently another of the super-powered Homo Geneticus, one of “Others”, is stuntwoman Norma Richmond on a movie shoot. He then quickly transports her and the movie crew to safety to avoid an attack by Darius Drumm. He then takes Norma to try to protect another of the Others, a baseball player, who falls victim to an exploding baseball. Morgan really isn’t cut out for this rescue gig, is he? Drumm takes off with Norma in the confusion, while Morgan returns home. We next see Drumm with Norma as captive at a circus where the strongman is one of the Others, Albie Reinhart. Drumm gives an interesting monologue in this scene, about his goals and the “self-denial” aspects of the cult he was raised in. Some of the scripting in this issue is a bit clunky, but that scene worked well. Anyway, Albie is attempting a stunt with a carousel on his chest, and Drumm causes it to go out of control. Morgan senses this and vanishes from his home.

Mike Royer inks the cover and 20-page story (with “an assist from Mike Jr.”, presumably his son).

Published 1983

This issue reprints the original X-MEN #14 (1965), “Among Us Stalk the Sentinels”. Kirby continues the hand-off of art duties to Werner Roth, doing layouts for Roth (working under the Jay Gavin pen-name) to finish. Colletta inks this time around.

Recovering from their battle with the Juggernaut, Professor X gives the X-Men some vacation time. It would prove to be short lived respite, as anthropologist Bolivar Trask starts whipping up the anti-mutant hysteria. My favourite bit of the issue is the newspaper article with artist renditions of Trask’s predictions of the mutant overlords.

The Professor arranges a TV debate with Trask, where Trask unveils his Sentinel robots meant to protect humanity. The robots quickly turn on him, so Professor X sends out a mental alert.

Hank and Bobby at the Coffee A-Go-Go (complete with beatnik poet) are the first to respond, just after most of the Sentinels depart with Trask to create more Sentinels  leaving one guard. They battle him until Cyclops (who ran into an example of the anti-mutant sentiment Trask riled up) arrives, and then the Sentinel mysteriously collapses. Jean and Warren arrive shortly after (with Warren having a brief encounter with the other Sentinels on the way), as Professor X examines the fallen Sentinel and gets an impression of their headquarters, as well as mentioning that the Sentinel said something about “Master Mold” as it collapsed (oddly we’re not actually shown that). The X-Men drive up to the location the Professor saw, and find an empty field which suddenly rises to reveal a fortified structure that fires at them.

This is a surprisingly attractive issue. Roth seems to maintain a lot of the Kirby elements from the layouts, and Colletta’s inks seem more compatible with his pencils than most. The Sentinels don’t look quite as menacing as they should, but are a nice design. More importantly, this run of the book would solidify the themes that would carry the book for decades to come.

By the way, this is one of those annoying instances where Marvel reprinted the story without noting that “Jay Gavin” was a pen-name, so Roth’s name doesn’t appear at all, despite the fact that newly typeset credits were pasted on the originals.

The original cover is printed as a pin-up in the back, as drawn by Kirby and Wallace Wood. I never noticed before, but it seems to be flipped left-to-right (or at least the Sentinel has a backwards “1” on its chest).

Published 1995

Time to pull out a particular favourite. “Himon” is the companion piece to “The Pact” (NEW GODS #7) and is probably what I’d most often cite as my favourite single Kirby comic. Certainly always in the top five. Thankfully at this point DC briefly gave Kirby a full 26 pages an issue and Mike Royer was the inker, so the story had room to breathe and looks as close to how Kirby imagined it as it could.

The background to the story was laid out in the previous issues, in particular three short “Young Scott Free” stories in MM #5 – #7. It opens with three big pages showing the heart of Apokolips, Armagetto, by the fire-pits. There the local “protector”, Wonderful Willik hopes to trap the rebel Himon, killing the other “lowlies” to flush him out. Himon is able to use his devices to escape, and meets up with Scott Free. We find out that Scott has been meeting Himon in secret, along with other students, working on making their own versions of Mother Box. Among them are Kreetin, who can’t get his to work, and Auralie, another charge of Granny Goodness’ “orphanage”.

Barda and her Furies break in and take Auralie, and we witness the first meeting of Scott and Barda. After she leaves, the crowd of “lowlies” break in, and most of the students escape, except for Kreetin, who still can’t use his Mother Box. Himon offers himself for Kreetin’s freedom, an offer Kreetin leaps at, after which Metron appears to try to understand him, and realizes what it is about his nature that prevents his Mother Box from ever working.

Meanwhile, Himon manages to repeatedly escape from a variety of traps and tortures. And we see one of his meetings with Metron as they discuss how and why they conspire to Willik finally captures and kills most of his students. He brings in Scott and Barda to witness what he’s done, but they’re led away by Himon as he delivers a finishing bomb to Willik. We then find out about Himon pioneering the research into the Boom-Tube, which is why he feels guilty for enabling Darkseid’s rise, plus his work in developing the Mother Box and its link to the Source. Finally Scott mentions his memory of his mother in a reference to “The Pact”

Finally, the great escape, Scott Free pursued by Para-Demons on his Aero-Discs, rescued by Barda and her Furies and in the end one of the best scenes Kirby ever wrote.

Himon and Metron present a Boom-Tube to Earth on one side, while Darkseid finally makes his presence felt on the other. Promises of power versus freedom. Risk and reward. And above all identity. “Let me be Scott Free — and find myself” and a final leap into the future, followed by a prophecy of the end, Darkseid’s final confrontation with Orion in Armagetto. Man, I love this comic more every time I read it.

(interestingly, the photocopies of the pencilled pages have slightly different dialogue for the last page. You can see a copy of the original in JACK KIRBY QUARTERLY #9, but it’s much more powerful in the published version)

Published 1972