Category Archives: Genre

Weird Mystery Tales #3 [1972]

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Posted in Genre, Horror/Fantasy.

More leftovers from the unpublished SPIRIT WORLD #2, this time featuring “The Burners”, Kirby and Mike Royer taking on spontaneous human combustion in a 10-page story.

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Apparently Dr. Maas has come across all sorts of case history on the phenomenon, all lovingly rendered by Kirby. He dismisses those who would link the burnings to UFO activity (although that does give Kirby a chance to use one of his collage pages), as even Maas has limits on what he can believe.

Maas does some readings on one subject, a depressed man who is generating huge amounts of electricity. He notices smoke coming from the man just as he leaves, and pursues him in his car (I’m not sure how the man got such a lead on Maas). Unfortunately, he arrives too late and the man has flamed out in his car. Apparently Maas’s theory is that there is an “ability to fulfill a death wish by a self-activating thermo-chemical process”. Y’know, not something silly like UFOs.

This is a gorgeous looking story. It’s amazing how much detail he was putting in some of the pages at this time, and how perfectly Royer was able to capture it all. The actual plot is a bit weak, maybe with some more pages he could have fleshed it out and gotten something more satisfying, but it serves the art nicely.

Published 1972

Fantasy Masterpieces #5 [1966]

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Posted in Genre, Horror/Fantasy, Science Fiction, Superhero.

Heavy on the Kirby in this issue, with five stories reprinted, totaling 50 pages, plus a new Captain America figure on the cover by Kirby/Giacoia.

Three of the stories from CAPTAIN AMERICA #5 (1941) are included. Unfortunately, the reproduction is really splotchy, and they’re frequently edited for page-layout (usually involving chopping the sides of some panels) and content (like making the killer clowns in the first story less scary). According the Kirby Checklist, Al Avison was the inker on these stories.

“The Ringmaster of Death” is up first, a 12-page story involving Cap and Bucky coming across a circus run by a Nazi ringmaster, who plans to kill several key figures. With the help of reporter Betty Ross they manage to foil his scheme, with the usual circus motifs (lions, elephants, a strong man and a trapeze rescue) along the way.

“The Gruesome Secret of the Dragon of Doom” (retitled from “…Dragon of Death”) has Steve Rogers re-assigned to the Pacific as General Haywood’s orderly, with Bucky going along “since [they’re] so inseparable”. Before they arrive, a patrol boat on the island vanishes, with reports it was swallowed by a sea dragon. Turns out the Japanese have the captain prisoner, and are trying to get a password from him for a sabotage plan. They kidnap the captain’s daughter when he won’t talk, while Cap follows and sees their boat go into a sea dragon’s mouth. He and Bucky follow, and find it’s part of a giant Japanese sub.

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Cap is able to rescue the captain and his daughter, and seemingly gets caught in an explosion, leading Bucky to briefly think he’s dead, shooting several Japanese soldiers in his rage. Fortunately, Cap shows up shaken but alive.

“Killers of the Bund” begins with the father of one of Bucky’s friends, a German-American (“Yes, Bucky. I’ve found German-American people to be very nice”), being beaten up by nazi agents trying to recruit him for their bund. Steve and Bucky go to see him, and find out about the nazis. In costume, they go to the bund camp (Camp Reichland, with a big Nazi flag. Worst spies ever) and deliver a lesson in the American way with their fists. The next day, Bucky recruits his Sentinels of Liberty to keep their eyes open for clues on more nazi camps and plans. They find out about a plan to blow up a dam, but Bucky finds Cap has been taken prisoner. Cap is able to escape and commandeer a plane to foil their bombing plan, meanwhile Bucky has led his Sentinels and their fathers to take caret of the camp.

Man, you’d think there was some sort of war on the way when these were published. Anyway, despite the spotty printing these look pretty good. Kirby would get a lot better soon after with the DC work, and the plotting and scripting would get a lot tighter, but there’s a lot of raw energy in these earlier efforts.

Three fantasy stories round out the issue, two of them by Kirby. “Mr. Gregory and the Ghost” from JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY #75 (1961) is a 7-page story inked by Christopher Rule. Gregory is an unpleasant rich man who makes inferior homes for people by cutting corners. For his own home he spares no expense, but finds the house in haunted before he moves in. He tries to photograph the ghost and fails, and tries to exorcise it and fails. Finally he decides to spend all his money moving the house to another town, because he read ghosts can’t move from town to town. We’re finally told that will be in vain, because his house was made from haunted trees, so the house itself is the ghost.

Bit of an odd ending. I would have thought the ending should have more to do with his crooked business dealings mentioned in the front. Would have made it a better story. Anyway, the art is nice, with some interesting storytelling sequences, detailed backgrounds and some very nice work on Gregory’s face.

“It Fell From the Flying Saucer” is a Kirby/Ayers 6-pager from TALES TO ASTONISH #31 (1962). An artist in the park is the only witness to a flying saucer, and sees a pencil drop from it. Recognizing a quality pencil, he tries it out and sees that everything he draws comes to life. After some tests (like putting himself on Mount Rushmore and bringing Cleopatra, Caesar and Davy Crockett to life) he decides to make himself the ruler of the world. It works, but when no one believes his story about the flying saucer, he draws it, and it returns, and a tentacle comes out and takes back the pencil, causing everything to vanish and go back to how it was, with no memory of what happened.

This is a fun story, with a lot of cliched elements, but really well told. I especially like the middle, where he’s experimenting with the pencil, giving Kirby a chance to draw some fanciful stuff. This is one I’d include in a collection of Kirby’s best pre-hero Marvel work.

Published 1966

Giant-Size Man-Thing #3 [1975] – Save Me From the Weed

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Posted in Genre, Science Fiction.

Reprinted from STRANGE TALES #94 (1962) is this 6-page Kirby/Ayers story. Some leakage from an atomic experiment winds up in the garden of millionaire Lucius Farnsworth, which is tended by George, a talented if somewhat tame gardener, who’s happy to stay as a gardener rather than open up his own landscaping business, as Fansworth urges. The radiation cause one plant to mutate into an intelligent weed.

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Now that’s a great transformation scene. Anyway, the Weed develops mental powers and a desire to rule the world, so it makes Farnsworth sleep while it rests to build its powers. Fortunately George comes by and chops down the Weed, not realizing that he’s saving the world. Farnsworth comes to the realization that everyone has their place in the grand scheme, or something like that. It closes with another one of those “world balloons” with a shot of the Earth with some dialogue coming out if it.

This is a really attractive story, with some nice background artwork, and a nice looking creative monster. One of my favourite of the monster stories of the era.

Published 1975

The Avengers #27 [2000]

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Posted in Genre, Superhero.

For a brief period a few years back, Marvel had a format they called the “100 Page Monster”, where they’d back up a regular monthly book with a whole lot of reprints. In this example, they included a reprint of AVENGERS #150, which in turn reprinted part of AVENGERS #16 from 1965 (I expect in 20 years we’ll get a reprint of AVENGERS v3#27 in AVENGERS v5#32, and so the cycle of life continues).

This story is of course “The Old Order Changeth”, the first major change in the team line-up, with all the founding members taking a break, leaving Captain America to lead the team with three reformed villains, Hawkeye, Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch. While the departing members do the recruiting (which involved going through the mail to select two of the members. I wonder who else wrote in and didn’t make the cut), Cap and Rick Jones make their way back from foiling Zemo’s plans in the Amazon.

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This scene always cracks me up, as they have Cap rush ahead as an excuse for a few action panels, and then it turns out he decided to wait for Rick anyway.

This reprints 12 of the original 20 pages, with the first few pages (wrapping up the battle with the Masters of Evil) cut, as well as some later pages/panels. This issue was Dick Ayers doing finishes over Kirby layouts.

Published 2000

Ms. Tree #50 [1989] – Captain Victory pinup

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Posted in Genre, Science Fiction.

Max Collins and Terry Beatty finished up the first run of their detective series in this issue, including several dozen illustrations of congratulations on their “fiftieth issue” from various artists. Kirby was among them, sending in a note featuring Captain Victory.

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I think Terry Beatty inked the drawing. At least it looks like his style, and I vaguely remember hearing that he did.

Published 1989

Monsters On The Prowl #28 [1974] – The Escape of Monsteroso

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Posted in Genre, Science Fiction.

A 13-page Kirby/Ayers reprint from AMAZING ADVENTURES #5 (1961) leads off this issue. In this one, the owner of a failing circus hears about a report of a space-ship crashing in Africa (with some rather racist comments from the news announcer mentioning it). He decides to go down and see if he can find a lead attraction for his circus out there, and finds a giant monster, apparently dead, which he ships to New York to sell to a museum, using all his showman talents to come up with the name “Monsteroso” (now we know why his circus was failing). In the museum, Monsteroso suddenly comes to life and goes through New York, including a trip through Central Park, digging from the lake to the zoo, where he examines (and puts down unharmed) several animals.

Monsters On The Prowl #28 [1974]

(I love those weird panels Kirby would throw in, where he had the word balloons coming out of a shot of the Earth, which in his world-view apparently had many other planets, including ringed giants, in close proximity)

As the police use try to use gas on him, he climbs the UN building and sits up there, until they manage to shoot him down with a drugged harpoon and he falls into the river. They’re quite proud of their ability to defeat the alien menace. Then, in an “ironic twist” (as the caption calls it), a giant space-ship comes down and out emerge mountain sized aliens, revealing Monsteroso to be a lost curious infant.

Decent story, the plot works a lot better here than it did when it was re-cycled for one of the weakest issues of FF a few years later.

The cover is also taken from AMAZING ADVENTURES #5, a modified version of the splash page, with the added art on the right side being done by Steve Ditko.

Published 1974

Superman #400 [1984] – Pin-up

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Posted in Genre, Superhero.

For their big 400th issue, SUPERMAN featured many artists doing short stories and pin-ups. Jack Kirby was among them, doing a pin-up of Superman outracing a space shuttle. Terry Austin inked the piece.

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It’s a very nice piece, a good mix of Kirby’s style with the classic Superman look, unlike what we got when Kirby was drawing an actual Superman book in the 1970s.

Published 1984

Richard Dragon, Kung Fu Fighter #3 [1975] – Claws of the Dragon

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Posted in Genre, Other.

Another of the books Kirby just penciled in the last days of his DC contract. At this point the comic Dennis O’Neil was still adapting the RICHARD DRAGON novel written by O’Neil and Jim Berry under the name “Jim Dennis”. The series apparently couldn’t hold an artist, with five pencilers in the first four issues (the last, Ric Estrada, did stick with the book).

As you’d expect in a martial arts book, this is pretty much just a series of fights. First Dragon fights a mob to rescue Carolyn from men of the Swiss, who wants some information from her. Carolyn manages to get captured again while Dragon is distracted fighting three guys who think they have martial arts training. We get a flashback to Dragon’s teacher, the O-Sensei, who gave him the Dragon’s Claw pendant for Finally the Swiss lures him into a trap, where he fights various hired weapon-masters.

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I suspect that a few pages were cut here, as there are a few hired hands show up in the initial scene that Dragon doesn’t actually fight. Anyway, Dragon is able to defeat them all, but the Swiss still manages to blow up the place and escape with Carolyn.

Obviously a bit of a trivial entry in the Kirby career, but he has a pretty funny way of drawing martial arts, very kinetic. D. Bruce Berry inks the 18-page story.

Published 1975

Weird Wonder Tales #4 [1974]

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Posted in Genre, Horror/Fantasy.

Reprint of TALES TO ASTONISH #1 (1959), inks attributed to Chris Rule.

A ship encounters a giant lobster, just one in a series of giant sea life they’ve encountered as Professor Briggs leads them on an expedition following the map of Doctor Parker. The ship is capsized by what seems to be a giant moving island, and Briggs and Captain Kane wind up on the shore of another island, where they find Parker. Turns out he’d been conducting experiments on hormone regulating systems, but hadn’t yet found a way to control it, leading to the giant turtle currently escaping from behind a huge gate. As they flee, Kane considers the potential wealth and problems of taking such a giant beast to civilization.

Weird Wonder Tales #4 [1974]

Ultimately he decides not to, and on the way out they encounter an even bigger turtle from an earlier experiment, the very “island” that had capsized the ship.

A hodge-podge of ideas already cliche as the time, borrowing heavily from KING KONG of course. The monsters in this are also a let-down, being just large versions of real animals. I did like the odd perspective shot of the stockades that the turtle was held in, though.

The cover is also from TALES TO ASTONISH #1, also Kirby/Rule, but heavily modified for the reprint. In the original the monster shown through the gates is clearly a large turtle, just walking out, as in the story, in the reprint it’s completely redrawn as some huge snarling clawed beast.

Published 1974

Fantastic Four #31 [1964] – The Mad Menace of the Macabre Mole Man

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Posted in Genre, Superhero.

The original FF villain, the Mole Man, returns for a third go-round, this time sinking whole city blocks out of New York to his subterranean domain. While the rest of the FF go to investigate, Sue sees a photo of an escaped convict and goes to the police station. The block she’s on is sunk by the Mole Man and she’s taken hostage, and the rest of the team have to rescue her, including a brief side-track of having to keep the Avengers from interfering (as the “Marvel Universe” concept became more common in this era).

Fantastic Four #31 [1964]

The FF escape, only Sue somehow gets injured in an explosion, and only one doctor can save her. It turns out to be the fugitive whose photo Sue was looking at earlier, who it turns out is Franklin Storm, father of Sue and Johnny, believed by most people to be dead. He’s able to save Sue, and we’re promised more on him next issue.

FF was a pretty good book at this point, just on the verge of a big leap in quality to the peak material. I especially like how Kirby was drawing the tech stuff at this time, like the scooters the Mole Man’s army uses, and Reed’s various devices.

Chic Stone inks the cover and story, a few issues into his run as FF inker. While I love Stone’s Thor and X-Men work of the period, his FF didn’t quite work for me (although he was better than the regular inkers right before and after him). For some reason his FF just doesn’t seem as bold as those other book. The big problem is how Ben Grimm looks in here. Seems a bit sparse, cartoony, without the texture that Sinnott would be bringing a year later. Actually, ignoring how he inks Ben, most of the rest looks pretty decent.

Published 1964