Category Archives: Genre

Jack Kirby’s Heroes And Villains [1987]

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Posted in Genre, Other.

This book, published by Greg Theakston’s Pure Imagination in 1987, is a reproduction of a sketchbook that Jack Kirby did as a gift for his wife Roz in the 1970s. It features 129 full page images reproduced from Kirby’s pencils of characters he’d drawn (mostly created as well, although a few like Conan and the Yellow Claw are in there too) in his decades in the comic biz, from as early as Blue Bolt and going as late as his last few Marvel books like Devil Dinosaur and Machine Man. A few odd omissions (at least one of which, Odin, was included in the inked version, mentioned below, so maybe there were a few pages missing for some reason), but then Kirby could have filled two or three more such books given all his characters.

The drawings range from simple head-shots to full body portraits to complete scenes with detailed backgrounds.

loki

The reproduction is really good (and apparently there’s a deluxe signed edition that looks even better, but I’ve never even seen that one). It captures the look of penciled originals nicely, to the point that it almost looks at a quick glance like a sketchbook.

(Note I darkened up the scans to make them look a bit better on a low resolution scan on a computer monitor, and they aren’t anywhere near as good as the printed images)

The Loki is one of my favourites in the book, just a great brooding but supremely confident villain piece. The Yellow Claw has one of those great out-stretched Kirby hands, and that DeSaad is nicely sinister. The heroes in the book looked good, too,but the villains had many of the best pieces.

claw

A few of the other highlights are:

Ben Grimm, shown fishing with a stogie
Fandral of the Warriors Three ready to attack
The Guardian on the streets of Suicide Slum
Angel of Boys’ Ranch going for his guns on an old west street
Modok, just, y’know, being Modok
Barda, just, y’know, being Big

Also in this book, a two page introduction by Jim Steranko about his early experiences with the Kirbys, plus a 1984 photo of Kirby and endpapers of a Kirby-tech drawing that appeared in the 1970 Marvelmania portfolio.

desaad

Theakston would later publish the “Black Magic” edition of the book, which had various artists take a swing at inking the drawings, with mixed results.

If you don’t have it already, I doubt it’ll be easy to find any edition of this other than the Black Magic one, but if you do it’s worth it.

Published 1987

Marvel Tales #123 [1981] – The Reason Why

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Posted in Genre, Superhero.

For reasons that elude me, the Inhumans were given a back-up feature in a handful of issues of THOR in 1967-68, and a few of them were reprinted behind Spider-Man reprints in 1981.

“The Reason Why” was reprinted from THOR #147, featuring part of the origin of the Inhumans. THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR #21 featured copies of all the pencils for this story, with Kirby’s margin notes, to demonstrate one of the prime examples where the final product ended up completely divergent from Kirby’s original intent, and explaining a few odd points of the artwork.

mt123

As published, the story features a Kree Sentry detecting some activity, finding the city of Attilan, where their leader has just become the first to get powers from the Terrigan Mist. The Sentry explains to the Inhumans the role of the Kree in their creation, and declares the experiment a success.

As Kirby wrote it, the Sentry and Attilan had been in contact all along, and the Sentry was warning them not to experiment with those powers, in defiance of the Kree, and declares the experiment a failure.

So the story we got isn’t the story we should have, and the original does make more sense in the larger context of the Inhumans story. Fortunately, the art wasn’t modified, and was wonderfully inked by Joe Sinnott, so that’s okay. I love that half-page panel of the Sentry among the animals, and the various views of Attilan.

Published 1981

Brave and the Bold Annual, No 1, 1969 Issue [2001] – The Invasion of America

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Posted in Genre, Kid Gang, Superhero, War.

One of DC’s best reprint lines in recent years have been their 80 and 100-page Giant books, mixing in “replica” editions of actual giants from the 1960s and 1970s with “lost” editions, books designed to look like they could have been published back then. This book is designed to look like it could have been a 1969 BRAVE AND THE BOLD annual (although it contains a Captain Atom story from Charlton, which wouldn’t have been in there).

Among the contents is a 1943 Boy Commandos story by Simon&Kirby, reprinted from DETECTIVE COMICS #76. The logic of it being in a team-up title is that there are brief cameos by the other S&K stars of the time, Sandman and the Newsboy Legion (oddly, the cover of this issue bills it as a Newsboy Legion / Sandman crossover, not even mentioning the actual stars of the story) (also oddly, the credits have Kirby as writer and inker, with Simon as penciler, which doesn’t seem likely).

Anyway, the 12-page adventure has Rip Carter and the boys making a trip to New York for a goodwill tour, and finding themselves kidnapped by German spies. Along the way, the encounter their fan club, the Kid Commandos, led by Sally from Flatbush, who get around on a variety of go-carts, and in the end meet FDR. It’s a fast-moving adventure, a great example of the kid-gang genre and patriotic wartime comics. I did think the accents of the foreign characters (especially the Germans and the British Boy Commando Alfie) were a bit overdone and distracting, but other than that it was all fun.

Published 2001

Our Love Story #12 [1971] – He Was Perfect – But I Lost Him

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Posted in Genre, Romance.

This issue has a reprint of the 1960 Kirby story from MY OWN ROMANCE #74, a quick 5 pager. The story starts off nicely, with a good splash page featuring the female lead and the usual teaser lead-off, and the first page shown here works nicely to quickly get the story started. After that it’s a bit bland, with only three more pages the story is a bit straight-forward and a bit preachy, compared to the more complex, often byzantine plotting of the longer S&K romance stories.

ourlove

Worth taking a look at, as one of the handful of romance stories that Kirby did at Marvel to be reprinted.

Inks are by Colletta.

Published 1971

World’s Finest Comics #187 [1969] – The Green Arrow’s First Case

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Posted in Genre, Superhero.

This issue reprints the revamped origin of Green Arrow that Kirby did in ADVENTURE COMICS #256 (1959), during his brief 11-story run on the character. It’s a good functional origin about a man who gets washed up on an island, learns archery to survive, finds his rescue ship being hijacked and using his arrows to fight the hijackers. All of this in a framing sequence where he has to return to the island to protect his secret identity.

wf187

I have to say, GA did become delightfully compulsive when it came to arrows on his stay on the island. “I quickly realized ingenious arrows could be used for almost any purpose”, he thinks, as he decides that would be the best way to get coconuts off a tree would be to use an arrow. Goes a long way to explaining why he’d eventually put a boxing glove on the end of an arrow. I was disappointed he didn’t come up with some sort of arrow-centric way to chisel his journal into the cave wall.

Kirby’s GA stories are pretty fun, although they leave you wondering what he would have done if he had a freer hand with them than DC was willing to allow.

This story was apparently inked by Kirby, with the help of his wife Roz, one of the last times he would do a substantial amount of inking of his own work.

Published 1969

Journey Into Mystery #19 [1975] – When the Mummy Walks

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Posted in Genre, Horror/Fantasy.

This issue reprints the story from TALES TO ASTONISH #31 (1962), another Kirby/Ayers story. Surprisingly bland splash page, where the giant mummy looks nice, but the background is just blank. The rest of the story fares better, with some backgrounds of the museum curator’s office with various artifacts, and the inside of the tomb.

Journey Into Mystery #19 [1975]

The story is about a curator who theorizes that the pyramids are all copies of an original one, built as a prison rather than a tomb. He manages to find it (after a great looking dust storm), and in a scene I’m sure archaeologists would hate he actually blasts and opening in the pyramid with dynamite. Of course they find a giant mummy, who turns out to be an alien invader with a secret.

The particular twist ending for this one isn’t as satisfying as some, but there’s some good art along the way.

Published 1975

Satan’s Six #1 [1993]

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Posted in Genre, Superhero.

I’m back.  Now on to SATAN’S SIX #1.

This is the only one of the Topps “Kirbyverse” books to actually feature more than just a cover by Jack Kirby (not counting the cards they were inevitably packaged with. I’ll have to dig those out and do an entry on the cards). There’s an 8 page Kirby story not-quite-seamlessly mixed in among the other pages. Single pages were inked by Steve Ditko, Joe Sinnott, Terry Austin and Frank Miller, while Mike Royer inked the remainder. There’s also a centerfold by Kirby of the main characters.

Kirby created the characters in the late 1970s for the unrealized “Jack Kirby Comics” line. The few pages he did set up the premise, a group of lovable losers from throughout history looking to get out of Purgatory and being sent to Earth. It would have been interesting to see exactly where Kirby would have gone with that. The actual series that was published had some fun stuff written by Tony Isabella, but the art was distractingly un-Kirby and just not very good.

For the Kirby pages, Royer and Sinnott are of course just about beyond reproach as Kirby inkers. Austin does a decent job, while Miller’s style was a bit too heavy, which is fine for a single page, I guess, just not something you’d like to see for any more than that. Ditko’s page is my favourite, as I always did like the Kirby/Ditko art of the early 1960s, and that devil character’s poses have some great classic Kirby elements.

ss1

The cover is Kirby inked by Todd McFarlane, although there’s a nicer version inked by Royer in one of the fanzines somewhere.

Published 1993

Challengers of the Unknown #79 [1973]

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Posted in Genre, Science Fiction.

This issue of CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN reprints one of the stories from #2 and one from #1, from back in 1958. They look good, except for the fact that they insisted on re-colouring the Challs outfits from the plain purple to a red and yellow combination, and more distracting they colour them with gloves, which looks odd when you have the drawings clearly being of bare hands.

“The Monster Maker” is from #2, and features the Challs going up against a criminal who has gained mental powers to turn thoughts into reality. This is a good excuse for Kirby to draw a giant gorilla, a dragon, a giant horse-riding knight and more.

“The Human Pets” is from #1, and is a goofy story about the Challs being taken captive by a giant alien child. Silly but fun, with a neat looking alien, and some nice Kirby designs on the alien child’s toys.

Marvin Stein inked both these stories, and does a great job. Very clean and crisp line.

Joe Kubert draws a new cover, based on the gorilla scene in the first story.

Published 1973

Classics Illustrated #35 [HRN-161] [1961] – Last Days of Pompeii

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Posted in Genre, Other.

A lesser known sidetrack to Kirby’s career is the short period that he did work for Gilberton, publishers of CLASSICS ILLUSTRATED and WORLD AROUND US, in the early 1960s, just before the Marvel super-heroes took off. One of the major books he did there was a new edition of CI #35, a 45 page adaptation of “Last Days of Pompeii” by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, replacing the previous edition. Inked by Dick Ayers, who was also doing some fine inking on much of Kirby’s work at Marvel, as well as having inked the Sky Masters comic strip.

Classics Illustrated #35 [HRN-161] [1961]

The story is, I’m assuming, pretty faithful to the novel. Lots of intrigue, back-stabbing and romance among the residents of the doomed city, with the noble Athenian Glacius as the hero and evil Egyptian Arbaces as the villain (and a great looking Kirby villain he is, with a long face, a longer goatee and a snake-headband, I could see him fitting in as a minion of Darkseid).

While far from Kirby’s best, the art in here does look very good most of the time, when the Kirby elements are allowed to shine through. You can see a lot of that in the faces of some of the characters, the great clothing designs and some of the backgrounds, and when he got to cut loose with an action sequence, like the fleeing from the volcano at the end, it really shines.

Kirby’s said one of the reasons he didn’t like working at Gilberton was their insistence that certain details be what they considered accurate, and requiring a lot of editorial control and re-drawing. Some of the original art that’s surfaced for the book shows some major changes done in paste-ups which have fallen off.

Despite all that, it’s a book well worth picking up, and usually available fairly inexpensively given that it’s a 45 page Kirby story from 1961 that’s unlikely to ever see a decent reprinting (I believe that the current rights holders of the CI books are doing extensively re-drawn reprints, and concentrating on the CI JUNIOR and religious line).

Published 1961

Fantastic Four #78 [1968] – The Thing No More

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Posted in Genre, Superhero.

This is a fun issue from the heart of the long Kirby/Sinnott collaboration on FF. In this issue, the boys of the FF return from their sub-atomic adventure of the previous few issues, while Sue is about to deliver her baby. Reed takes this opportunity to try out his latest cure for Ben, which works, but just in time for the Wizard to attack (which they should have seen coming, since the Daily Bugle headline reads “Wizard Released From Prison – Vows Vengeance on Fantastic 4” in huge letters usually reserved for Presidential assassinations, moon-landings and anti-Spider-Man articles).

This leads to a great long battle, which Ben leaps into despite his lack of powers, and which has some great images.

Fantastic Four #78 [1968]

Of course they win in the end, and Ben’s in a position of wanting his powers back, but this variation of Reed’s cure is a one-way street, so he’d have to become the Thing forever. Boy, I wonder which it’ll be?

Very fun, fast moving, issues, with a good mix of the action and quiet moments and humour that made the FF so effective.

Published 1968