There’s probably the unrealized germ of a good idea in the 1970s revival of Sandman, which re-united Joe Simon and Jack Kirby for a one-shot issue, with Mike Royer along inking. Unfortunately, not a lot of it comes out in the final story, which is a hodge-podge of ideas thrown out without any real logic. Or maybe with a kind of dream logic, which might fit the character but doesn’t always make for good reading. Anyway, it has something to do with a group of left-over Axis soldiers from WWII, one of them a Japanese general named “General Electric” who has had his brain replaced by a computer, planning to blow up Washington with some robot dolls called Werblinks, and then being foiled by a red-and-yellow dressed master of dreams who has a whistle which summons Brute and Glob… Well, you get the idea.

I don’t know if the story originated with Simon, who’s credited with the script, or Kirby, whose credit reads “edited and drawn by”. I’m tending to think it was more Simon, since it seems more like his DC work of the era than Kirby’s other books.

The art did work a lot better than the story. The Sandman design is kind of plain, but workable. The other odd creatures are great, even “General Electric”.

I’m still quite amazed that this one-shot did well enough to spawn an on-going book (with Kirby just on covers for the first few issues, then on pencils for a few after that).

Published Winter 1974

“The Kingdom of the Damned” features the Forever People trapped by Desaad in an amusement park that he runs, where people are tortured behind the scenes, while their suffering is disguised as amusement park features by Desaad’s machines, so they get to see other people apparently observe their suffering while doing nothing. An interesting middle part to a story.

Darkseid has some interesting scenes in FOREVER PEOPLE. The highlight of this issue is his interaction with Desaad and the scene that begins in the scan below, where he walks out among the crowd, scaring children.

This issue was the first where DC increased the price and page count of their books, adding in reprints. The Kirby books all had golden age S&K reprints, with FOREVER PEOPLE getting Sandman reprints from ADVENTURE, starting with the cover and story for ADVENTURE #85 (1943), “The Unholy Dreams of Gentleman Jack”. It’s an amusing story about a felon who re-creates his jail after being released, with guards under his employ and rubber bars, and attempts to imprison the Sandman.

Also in here, three Forever People related pin-ups and a Kirby self-portrait introducing the reprints, which appeared in all the Fourth World books, all inked by Colletta.

Published September 1971

The Kirby Checklist credits this to Kirby/M. Severin/Giacoia, so I’m guessing Marie Severin did some touch-ups to bring it closer to model for the book. Might explain why Skull’s head doesn’t seem to quite fit right on his body. No, I’m not sure why, when given Kirby available to do comic covers, somebody decided that him drawing Skull would be a good idea….

Published 1976

Inked by Joe Sinnott. “Even if thou canst reach me, Thunder God — Thou darest not strike Odin!” I love that. “Canst”. That makes it poetry…

Published 1976

Inked by Al Milgrom. Solid enough job, and some nice stuff in the background space scene, but I have to say, this may be the most boring Kirby cover of all time. There are only a handful of Kirby covers I can think of where the character isn’t doing anything, and this may be the most dull of them. I think it’s the almost symmetrical pose that really does it.

On the other hand, you see covers like this almost every week on books published now.

Published 1975