Category Archives: Genre

Journey Into Mystery #18 [1975]

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Posted in Genre, Horror/Fantasy, Science Fiction.

This mid-1970s reprint book has two Kirby/Ayers classics from the early 1960s. From TALES OF SUSPENSE #31 is “The Monster in the Iron Mask”, a 7-page story. In this one, an invading alien race sends an advance scout to soften up Earth before their full force attacks. The alien is first seen by the son of a struggling stage magician, and (seemingly foolishly) announces to the boy that his one weakness is gas, which he’s protected from by his mask.

Journey Into Mystery #18 [1975]

The military keeps trying and failing to defeat him, hoping to get him to remove his mask, including an attack with an A-Bomb (they were pretty cavalier about A-Bombs in these stories). They fail until the magician from the beginning realizes that the alien’s announcement was a bit of mis-direction, and he was fully vulnerable to gas and the “mask” was his real face. Those aliens are tricksy.

Cool monster, although coloured a bit silly in this reprint. I also liked the boy’s dog who appears throughout this story, even if he didn’t have a story purpose.

From TALES TO ASTONISH #30 is “The Thing From the Hidden Swamp”, a 6 page story. A plain-looking woman unhappy with the lack of romance in her life goes on a cruise and then goes rowing alone in a swamp, where she finds a space-ship and an alien monster. Nice scene where we have both her and the alien’s thoughts for a few panels, as the alien is as afraid of her. She ends up helping the alien, and later finds that he’s made her attractive. Not a very satisfying story, but the art has several nice scenes, including the moody opening page.

New non-Kirby cover for this issue, allegedly illustrating “Hidden Swamp”, but amusingly completely missing the point of the story on several levels.

Published 1975

The Amazing Spider-Man #35 [1966] – Cover

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Posted in Genre, Superhero.

Here’s one that always fascinated me. The Spidey figure on the cover of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #35 is a Kirby figure (usually attributed to Ditko inks, but I never quite saw that). Don’t think it’s ever been reprinted in any other version in English (unlike some other covers with paste-ups which reverted in reprints), but someone dug up this foreign reprint. Click for a closer look at both covers.

AmazingSpiderMan35_190a.jpg

(see comments for more, including a reprinting of the original in an English edition that I didn’t know about)

I will say that the modified version is the more attractive cover, with a great Spidey figure. I’m not sure exactly why the original was seen as needing altering, though. Too unflattering a pose for the hero? Did it make Spidey’s butt look too big?

AmazingSpiderMan35_190.jpg

Marvel’s Greatest Comics #43 [1973]

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Posted in Genre, Superhero.

MARVEL’S GREATEST COMICS #43 offers an almost complete reprint of “Klaw – The Murderous Master of Sound” from FF #56 in 1966, including the cover. Joe Sinnott inks, of course. In the main story, Klaw, from the recent Black Panther storyline, returns to attack the FF with new powers and a new costume, hoping to lure in the Panther. He seals off Reed and Ben in the lab while attacking Sue. There’s some great Reed/Ben interplay in their scenes this issue, like Ben asking “How come ya never cook up any gizmos that work better on guys who can stretch?”.

Marvel's Greatest Comics #43 [1973]

The FF prevail in the end, thanks to a remote assist from T’Challa with a delivery of vibranium.

As all this occurs, the Inhumans remain imprisoned, with Black Bolt becoming injured trying to escape, while Johnny and Wyatt Wingfoot continue their search for the Inhumans with Lockjaw, the teleporting dog. God, I love all these characters introduced in just the previous year of the book.

Unfortunately, this issue removes the last tier of panels from the final page, which set-up the Surfer/Doom storyline, since they were skipping it in this book, having reprinted it in MARVEL TRIPLE ACTION the previous year (which, looking at the dates now, is odd. They were reprinting the second major Surfer story in one book while reprinting the first one in another).

Published 1973

Super Powers #1 [1984]

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Posted in Genre, Superhero.

The first SUPER POWERS mini-series was five issues, with Kirby doing all the covers, plotting the first four and writing and penciling the last issue. In a bit of an coincidence, when this series came out, Kenner released a line of action figures that had the same eight heroes and four villains that are featured in this book. What are the odds.

In addition to the cover of this issue, Kirby also drew an ad for the series that, kind of redundantly  appears in the first issue. Both cover and ad are inked by Mike Royer.

Super Powers #1 [1984]

I like how the play it coy about who the master villain is in the ad and in this first issue. It’s pretty subtle, that shadowing figure in blue and grey whose minions appear with a loud “Boom”.

I’d be curious to read what Kirby’s actual plot for this issue was. It’s not a bad first issue, given the extended ad nature of the book. Pretty much just Darkseid sending his minions to give extra powers to various Earth villains. The art by Adrian Gonzales and Pablo Marcos is nice, except that there’s too much of an attempt to make it look like Kirby on the surface elements. Lots of squiqqles and cosmic energy dots, while shades of their own style seem to bubble through at times.

Worth a look, but not too long a look.

Published 1984

Black Magic #7 [1975] – “The Cloak” and “Freak!”

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Posted in Genre, Horror/Fantasy.

More reprints from the S&K Prize horror series of the 1950s in this issue. Starting off with the cover, a reprint of the cover to the original #17 (v2#11), a moody piece with one of the classic horror set-pieces, a dark attic, with a chained freak. The 8-page story from that issue, “Freak!”, is reprinted in here, featuring art credited to Kirby/Meskin in the updated Kirby checklist. The Meskin part is heavy, which is probably why the story was missing from earlier Kirby checklists, but the Kirby parts are definitely there, especially in how some of the characters hands are posed. A decent short story, although the cover kind of gives away too much.

Also in this issue is “The Cloak”, a 7 pager from the original BM #2.
This is sort of a modern urban gothic horror story. An unemployed man in Budapest gets a chance at a job, but needs to look good for the occasion. He has one good suit left, and goes out to rent a cloak to wear for it (this is back when men wore cloaks. And hats). It gets delivered to him by a mysterious guy, it has a label “Asmodeus”, and still he doesn’t get the hint. He wears it, and it attempts to kill him several times before he ditches it, giving it to a derelict. Our man Paul then calls the tailor offering to pay for the cloak, and finds out it wasn’t from the tailor, the cloak he ordered is still waiting to be picked up. Now he looks up “Asmodeus”, realizes the guy he gave the cloak is in danger, and tries to save him. He fails, and the cloak vanishes. And that’s it. Dead vagrant, and no idea if Paul got a job.

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A good, if simple, story. And the art just has to be seen. The various accidents that Paul runs into with the cloak are great, like being dragged by a train. And the backgrounds are excellent. I don’t know if Budapest actually looked like this, but it should have.

Published 1975

Buried Treasure #2 [1986] – “Inky” – proposed comic strip

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Posted in Genre, Romance.

In the late 1940s, while they were working on the successful line of romance comics, Simon&Kirby put together a six week proposal for a comic strip, Inky, featuring cartoonist Inky Spotts and his struggles to establish himself. The strip didn’t sell, although a few years later they did make use of parts of it for the romance comic IN LOVE #3. In 1986, Greg Theakston published BURIED TREASURE v1#2 and included the 36 strips in nine pages.

The story is incomplete, unfortunately, just the first chapter in a longer story. As it begins, Inky is an assistant to a successful older cartoonist, who dies (killing his character in the process). After that he tries to pitch his own strip, but while he’s technically good the syndicate editor says his work lacks soul. Eventually he gets suckered into working with Donna Dreame, a society columnist who plans to use him to make a fortune (in comics?), but passes off a stolen concept as her own. As the six-week sample closes, Inky has a confrontation with the editor, who knows the strip was stolen and wants to find out who’s responsible.

I’m not sure I can disagree with the syndicates for not buying, since I have trouble seeing the set-up, at least based on what was done, holding up a strip for the years that would be required for a daily strip after the initial storyline was over. How many action-filled adventures could you credibly put a cartoonist into? Still, it would have made a good extended opening story, and the art is spectacular.

inky1 inky2

Also in this issue, a short essay with quotes from Joe Simon about the history of romance comics, plus a colour backcover with the cover of IN LOVE #3 reprinted. Non-Kirby work includes reprints of Alex Toth and Bill Ward comics.

Published 1986

Devil Dinosaur #1 [1978]

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Posted in Genre, Science Fiction.

Ah, one of Kirby’s final contributions to the Marvel Universe, Devil Dinosaur and Moon-Boy. The brief nine-issue run of the book, ending when Kirby left Marvel to devote his time to animation, is often maligned, mostly by those who haven’t read it. Certainly I didn’t really approach it with any expectations when I got around to getting the back issues. Turns out it’s a fun adventure comic, where Kirby was free to let his imagination roam, with some genuine heart. One of the charming things about Kirby comics is his almost complete lack of pretension and his obvious enthusiasm for the work, which manages to sell some of the wildest concepts that wouldn’t work with less.

In this debut issue, we meet Devil Dinosaur, a bright red dino, presumably a T. Rex (although Kirby wisely doesn’t use actual dino names for most of the series), and his young companion, Moon-Boy of the Small-Folk, residents of the dangerous Valley of Flame, a heavily volcanic area. After a battle with Thunder-Horn, Moon-Boy remembers how he first met Devil, when the Killer-Folk killed Devil’s family and seared his flesh, and they rescued each other. After that, Moon-Boy’s people fled in fear of Devil, while the Killer-Folk plot revenge.

This all works a lot better in comics form, of course, and later issues got even weirder, as Kirby threw in science-fiction concepts with wild abandon.

Devil Dinosaur #1 [1978]

Mike Royer inks the story, Frank Giacoia inks the cover and Kirby also writes a text page introducing the series.

Published 1978

A DC Universe Christmas [2000]

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Posted in Genre, Superhero.

DC did a collection of Christmas stories a few years ago, including this 10-page S&K reprint from ADVENTURE #82, “Santa Fronts For The Mob”

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Some mobsters get the questionably great idea to hire a wrestler to play Santa at a mall in order to rob the place. Fortunately, the wrestler finds the Christmas spirit and helps out Sandman and Sandy in the end. A light but decent holiday story.

Published 2000

The Best Of DC #22 [1982] – The Seal-Men’s War on Santa Claus

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Posted in Genre, Superhero.

This story was originally intended for SANDMAN #7 in 1975, before that series was cancelled. A few years later it was uncomfortably squeezed into an issue of KAMANDI, which was cancelled before that issue, and only “published” in the photocopied CANCELLED COMIC CAVALCADE #2 in 1978. Finally, in 1982, it was included in this digest of Christmas stories.

Santa is unusually sarcastic on the last panel of this page:

sandman

Like all 1970s Sandman stories by Michael Fleisher, it doesn’t make much sense except in a dream-logic kind of way. In this one, Sandman’s young friend Jed gets a rich man to promise to give a million dollars to charity if he can prove Santa Claus exists. Jed enlists Sandman’s help, and it turns out he’s a friend of Santa, so they head off to the North Pole, pursued by the rich man’s nephew, who isn’t about to see his inheritance given away. At the North Pole, they find Santa has been kidnapped by the usually friendly Seal-Men, and go to rescue him, finding out that the Seal-Men were upset at the Christmas gifts they were getting, such as gloves (useless with flippers). They accept an apology for the mix-up, then Santa and Sandman take care of the evil nephew and everyone has a Merry Christmas.

Mike Royer inks the 18 page story.

Published 1982

Giant-Size Spider-Man #1 [1974] – On The Trail Of The Amazing Spider-Man

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Posted in Genre, Superhero.

This issue of GIANT-SIZE SPIDER-MAN has what is still the only semi-decent reprint of the 18-page lead story from STRANGE TALES ANNUAL #2 (1963), an early team-up of the Human Torch and Spider-Man pencilled by Kirby and inked by Steve Ditko (there is a reprint of it in the recent ESSENTIAL HUMAN TORCH, but it’s a pretty splotchy reprint, unlike most of that book. The text page of this issue, which explains how the promised SUPER-GIANT 100 page line became the GIANT-SIZE 68 page line, mentions that they’d “only recently located the blamed artwork” for this story, so I guess they lost it again in the interim).

In this story an art thief, The Fox, decides to frame Spider-Man for the theft of a newly discovered da Vinci piece. Spidey goes to the Torch for help in clearing his name, just as the police call the Torch to ask if he can help capture Spidey. So of course they fight. Then, in the plot twist heard around the world, they team-up. Their meeting on top of the Statue of Liberty:

gssm1

is one of the classic moments of the Marvel Universe. Ditko’s inks as usual complement Kirby’s pencils nicely, and keep Spidey looking on model perfectly as well. That last panel on the page above is excellent.

It’s a fun story, one that hopefully will see a decent modern reprint at some point (it would be a natural for the upcoming MARVEL MILESTONES series, especially with the upcoming Spidey/Torch team-up mini-series).

Published 1974