Dated July 1940 CHAMPION COMICS #9 from Harvey features Duke O’Dowd as the Human Meteor. More importantly, it has the distinction of being the first Jack Kirby penciled cover (when it was reprinted in THE COMPLETE JACK KIRBY v1 Greg Theakston described it as “mostly penciled by Kirby”) and tied with BLUE BOLT #2 from Novelty Press as his first collaboration with Joe Simon, who inked this cover.

It’s a nice dynamic piece, very open and clear, you can already see hints of the later trademark S&K style of clothing folds and muscles.

Published 1940

Another Thor cover from before Kirby took over the interiors for the series full-time. I always like the way Kirby poses Loki, always very confident and sinister.

The Kirby Checklist credits this one to George Roussos, but I’m not sure about that one. I’m going to have to compare it to some other Roussos from the period.

(Ayers with some retouching by another hand seems to be the consensus from the comments)

Published 1963

Another of Kirby’s many covers for various Marvel books in the mid-1970s, this one inked by John Verpoorten with some Romita credited as well. Ulik is a pretty cool villain from the 1960s, so it’s good to see him again, especially with those crazy eyes. And the good old “ominous shadow” layout is nice, especially with that texture on the rocky surface.

Published 1976

In “Murder Lodge”, Scott, Barda and Shilo stop by an out-of-the-way lodge while their car is being repaired, and it turns out to be filled with death-traps, trick-beds that flip you into trap doors and the like. Fortunately, while Scott and Barda are caught unawares, Shilo manages to escape the traps and use some of the training he’s gotten from Scott and Barda to rescue them.

Then it gets weird as we find out the intended targets of the trap were “The Tricky Trio”, mobsters who look a lot like our heroes, so Scott&Co. have to take out both the innkeeper (who makes a business of offering sanctuary to criminals on the run and then double-crossing them) and their doppelgangers before calling in the police.

A nice diversion, the series was mostly treading water for a few issues right before the end, and I thought having Scott and Barda getting taken so easily was a kind of transparent excuse to give Shilo the spotlight, but otherwise it has some good bits, in particular the weird twist with the doppelgangers.

Mike Royer inks the cover and 20-page story.

Published 1974

MARVEL TWO-IN-ONE #25, 1977. Inked by Joe Sinnott. Great to see a few more Kirby Thing drawings on these TWO-IN-ONE covers. That was always one of his defining characters, and is fun to see him with all those other mostly non-Kirby characters he was teamed with.

I have to say, though, that’s some awkward positioning on the rope bridge, with Fist and Ben having their legs crossing. I do like the Kirby flames, with the obligatory crackling energy bits.

Even on vacation, the FF can’t avoid challenging the unknown, this time Reed is asked by the navy to investigate some ship sinkings and sea monster sightings. The boys finally end up in an underground tunnel with an amphibious creature, who it turns out is a crashed alien, unable to communicate with them and trying to save his mate. So we learn a lesson about the importance of communication. I have to say, though, Reed is a little unfair to Ben, saying he attacked the alien without provocation, when in fact the alien had sunk ships, almost crushed Reed’s arm and almost drowned the three of them. Anyway, the alien leaves, never to be seen again.

Still a nice tale with a lot of good character bits (Johnny pining for Crystal and playing with Franklin, Ben saving the others) among a string of single issue stories.

Frank Giacoia inks the 20-page story and the cover.

Published 1970

Inked by Joe Sinnott. Hm, Master Man. There’s a Roy Thomas villain for you. I like the Kirby rocks and castle in the background there.

THOR #255, 1977. Inked by John Verpoorten, with some re-drawing from the Bullpen. Because what, Kirby’s Thor doesn’t look like Thor? Weird. Nice to see the Warriors Three. And of course the original Thor foes, the Stone Men from Saturn.

DAREDEVIL #5, 1964. Wallace Wood took over (and slightly redesigned, before the big redesign) DD with this issue, and inked Jack Kirby’s cover. The Matador looks cool, although like a lot of DD villains he seems to be a result of trying too hard to create a memorable villain like Spidey and the FF had.

TALES TO ASTONISH #64, 1965. Dick Ayers inks on this one. I’m not a big fan of the split-cover design in general, so I’m not surprised that it only lasted for a year on ASTONISH and SUSPENSE before going to alternating leads. This is one of the more effective ones, the Giant-Man half in particular is a nice bit of Kirby foreshortening and taking advantage of the tall narrow space, and I always like Attuma.

Published 1965