FF #236 was the the 20th anniversary of the book (it was bi-monthly for the first few issues). To have some Kirby in the issue they took some storyboards he did for the FF cartoon series a few years earlier (though apparently not with Kirby’s “consent and cooperation” as they claim) and adapted it to a 14-page comic book story. For the inks they rounded up most of the available inkers who had worked with Kirby on the 1960s series (Joe Sinnott, Chic Stone, Dick Ayers, George Roussos, Sol Brodsky, Frank Giacoia, Vince Colletta) plus a few later artists (Al Milgrom, Pablo Marcos and John Byrne) and split the pages among them. This page was one of Chic Stone’s.

As you can see, the story was “The Challenge of Dr. Doom”, adapted from FF #5, most notably changed to substitute the Human Torch with the robotic Herbie. Other than that it pretty much follows the original, with Doom attacking the Baxter Building, sending the boys back to get “Blackbeard’s treasure chest” and getting tricked by his exact wording, as well as a rescue effort from Sue. Still a lot of goofy fun even in this form.

Despite various misgivings on the genesis and quality of this story, it was an interesting glimpse into what Kirby was up after his comic book years, and it was nice to see some of the classic inker combinations one more time. Of course, these days we’ve had a much better chance to see Kirby’s storyboard work in its pure form, including his notes (the recent KIRBY COLLECTOR #47 printed the boards for a full episode).

Published 1981

Fifteen years ago AVENGERS made it to #350. These days there isn’t even a single AVENGERS book within reach of #100. Funny how that works.

For this particular milestone they celebrated with some reprints in this flipbook with gatefold covers on both sides. Of note for this weblog are the cover galleries that adorned the covers. A full page was given to the Kirby/Ayers cover of AVENGERS #1, a great start to the series and probably one of the five or six most swiped/homaged Kirby images.

Two more Kirby covers get quarter page reprints. AVENGERS #11, the Kirby/Stone cover featuring Spider-Man, and #25, the Kirby/Ayers cover with Doctor Doom. Good choices, but kind of odd not to include #4 and #16 in a roundup of milestone issues of the series.

Published 1992

Presumably because Marvel had just recovered from their nadir of 17-page comics a few months before, this issue of FF had a 17-page lead story and room for a few more pages. They responded to that with some interesting Kirby content, including the first ever printing of the originally planned cover to FF #3, which is a pretty cool little piece of history. A nice little action shot from the interior story and a demonstration of the powers of the members of the team in the little inset vignettes, while the actual published cover shows off the new costumes better. It was probably a good switch to make, especially at this early issues, setting the book apart from the monster comics which Marvel was publishing.

But they had more pages to fill than that, so we also get the “Feature Page” on Mister Fantastic and what his powers are capable of from FF #16, a pin-up of the Invisible Girl in her section of the Fantasi-Car from FF #10 and two feature pages explaining the Torch’s powers from FF #8 and #9 (including his study of weather patterns to avoid rain). But oddly none of the available pin-up pages of the Thing were used. Poor Benjy…

The pin-up/feature pages are inked by Dick Ayers. The unused cover is also credited to Ayers here, but to Sol Brodsky in the Kirby Checklist. I think Brodsky seems more likely, though the printing here makes it hard to say with any confidence.

Published 1980

Cute little Kirby/Ayers cover showing how little the villains of the Marvel universe believe in fair play. Although, you have to admit, it’s nice of them to make sure that the only three guys actually shooting their weapons are those facing the guy with the indestructible shield.

Published 1966

An edited reprint of FANTASTIC FOUR #98 [1970] in this issue, wherein Reed intercepts a message from the Kree that indicates they have another Sentry on Earth, determined to foil the Apollo moon landing and humanity’s outreach into space. Nice of Reed not to rub it in that he beat them by almost half a decade. As the moon shot launches, Reed tracks the Sentry to a simulated moonscape island in the Pacific, where it’s started some mysterious device which links to something under the Sea of Tranquillity. The boys have to race against time to defeat the Sentry and disable the device before the lunar module lands. Fortunately they make it, and Neil Armstrong becomes the fifth first man on the Moon.

A nice simple done-in-one story with some spectacular visuals. I especially like that panel of Ben carrying Reed and Johnny away from the exploding Kree device.

Two pages are edited out, one showing the Torch coming back from sulking over Crystal, and explaining why he’s brushing his teeth when we first see him here, and another showing the reactions around the world to the Apollo launch. Joe Sinnott inks the now 18-page story and cover, with the cover being flipped from the original.