This issue reprints DAREDEVIL #12 and #13, from 1966, two early appearances of Ka-Zar which establish his background and introduce his brother. Kirby did layouts for those issues, which John Romita, just recently returned to Marvel, finished. The most recent issue of THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR had some unused layout pages from #13, if you want to get an idea of what Kirby did. Interestingly, those pages are very different from the story as it was actually published, so I’m not sure if Kirby did two completely different sets of layouts or if what could be used from his for the original story were salvaged and adapted to the new story. There do seem to be varying amounts of Kirby in the finished product, for whatever reason, although I think we can safely credit much that’s on this page to Kirby:

The story involved Matt Murdock taking a break from his law practice to go on a cruise, which is attacked by modern day pirates led by the Plunderer. As Daredevil, he allows himself to be taken by the pirates, and they go down to Ka-Zar’s Savage Land, where we eventually, after battles with man-apes and killer plants, find out that the Plunderer is really the Lord Plunder (clever secret identity  that), Ka-Zar is his long-lost brother Kevin, and they head off to England with Ka-Zar as a captive, ending on a cliff-hanger which leads into non-Kirby issues. It’s all very confusing, and I have to say that I’m more interested by the story in those unused layouts, which seems to involve Plunder attempting to civilize Ka-Zar, and Foggy and Karen, thinking Matt is dead, flying to England having been hired by Plunder.

The cover is a heavily modified version of the Kirby/Romita* cover to DD #12, with some of the characters flipped, re-arranged and partly redrawn (most notably Ka-Zar’s hair), and a big figure of Zabu added.

Published 1970

*see comments, apparently the cover is Kirby/Esposito, with maybe some work by Romita.**

**or maybe not.

This six page Kirby/Ditko story is reprinted from FANTASTIC FOUR ANNUAL #1 (1963) (not AMAZING SPIDER-MAN ANNUAL #1, as it’s mistakenly cited on the first page of this reprint). A bit of an oddity, as it retells a scene done in two pages in the first issue of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN earlier that year, with full Ditko art, where Spidey breaks into the Baxter Building, thinking he could get a job with them. He was a bit unclear on the concept early on, I guess. The Avengers might have been a better bet if they’d formed by then.

It does feel a bit stretched, with the attack from each FF member (taken straight from the original) being followed by another attack newly revealed for this telling. It’s still interesting, especially the way Kirby draws the Spider-Man / Mr. Fantastic battle.

Published 1986

For about a year in the mid-1970s, Marvel added a bunch of “Giant Size” specials to their schedule, with a mix of new and reprint contents. As the editorial in this one explains, the plans for the line were often in flux in terms of price and page counts, which is how this early one wound up with four reprints, three of them tied together with a new framing story.

Two Kirby stories made it in here. The first is “Banished to Outer Space”, the first half of INCREDIBLE HULK #3 from 1962, inked by Dick Ayers. It’s a fun story if you don’t think about it too much, since that early Marvel stuff is clearly very seat-of-the-pants type plotting, and especially with the Hulk, where they didn’t seem to know where they wanted to go during that short original run. I kind of like how charmingly stupid Rick Jones is as he’s tricked into luring the Hulk into a rocket, and the blank look on the Hulk’s face when he inexplicably falls under the mental control of Rick.

Later in the book, outside the framing story, is “The Peerless Power of the Silver Surfer”, from FF ANNUAL #5 (1967), inked by Frank Giacoia.

In this one, during his wandering days on Earth between major FF stories he comes across the Mad Thinker’s leftover construct from an earlier FF story, Quasimodo (Quasi-Motivational Destruct Organ). The Surfer uses his powers to give Quasimodo a body, not realizing that whole Destruct Organ thing, and eventually has to turn the rampaging Quasimodo into a statue.

A bit of an iffy story, I guess, but great art, with the Surfer looking as elegant as always, and Quasimodo being a great Kirby monster type, with his body or without.

Published 1974

WANTED. THE WORLD’S MOST DANGEROUS VILLAINS was a short-lived reprint anthology from DC with a focus on super-villains. This was the final issue, and featured a reprint of the S&K Sandman story from WORLD’S FINEST #6 (1942).

The villain in this case is the Nightshade, a demonic looking green criminal who has used a variety of technological and biological terrors to take control of his “magic forest” where, for a price, he’ll offer other criminals a place to hide until the heat dies down. Sandman and Sandy get involved when the parents of a boy whose party Sandy is attending go missing in the forest, and battle Nightshade’s deadly plants.

Fun story, but the bit that cracks me up is the last page, when Sandy and Wes Dodds return to the party, where birthday boy Toby says “Hi’ya Sandy! Did ya hear what happened? The Sandman and Sandy saved my mom and dad!”. Yeah, you know Sandy, right Sandy? That crimefighter sidekick, about your height, curly blonde hair, kind of like yours…

Published 1973

This 13 page Simon&Kirby story is reprinted from the 1941 debut issue of ALL-WINNERS COMICS, the only time the story has been reprinted (there’s also an S&K Cap story in #2 that has never been reprinted. It would be great to see a volume of all the Kirby golden age Marvel art not from CAPTAIN AMERICA. It would only be a bit over 200 pages).

In this story, the Lord of Death, on orders from Hitler, changes Bowery bums to Zombies (“Zombies Bucky! They’re Zombies!”) and sets them loose to sabotage ships bound for England on the Lease-Lend programs.

Cap and Bucky go undercover to take care of it, and the story has Bucky giving Hitler a raspberry. No wonder Zemo was so determined to get the kid.

A fun sample of the early S&K work, with really sharp restored art. Great zombies on the rampage on several pages. As Greg Theakston mentions in his introduction, there are various hands involved on various pages, but several of the action oriented pages are pure S&K.

The other interesting piece of Kirby art in here is a re-design of Cap that, according to Theakston’s caption was found in Kirby’s home, with Kirby having no memory of when or why it was done.

Most of this book promotes various then-contemporary Cap related books, but also noteworthy in this issue are the features on Joe Simon, featuring several photos and samples of his paintings (some of which seem to be using Bill Clinton as a model for Cap), as well as the new cover by Simon, and a page by Fred Hembeck.

Published 1995