In this reprint from FANTASTIC FOUR #80 (1968), “Where Treads the Living Totem”, the FF get a note from Wyatt Wingfoot, gone back to visit his tribe, about some mysterious goings-on involving an old legend. Having nothing else to do while waiting for Sue to have her baby, the menfolk go off, and lucky for Wyatt that they do.

The oil-rich land of his people is being attacked by a giant robot in the form of their mythic protector Tomazooma, in hopes of scaring them off the land. Great looking design for the robot, and a lot of fun action with the FF and Wyatt’s tribe against the robot, and a lot of good character interaction among the boys.

One page is edited for this reprint, a splash of Ben dancing with Johnny about the prospect of going on vacation. Joe Sinnott inks the now 19-page story and cover.

Published 1976

Following the Madbomb crisis during the Bicentennial, Cap and the Falcon plan some much needed rest (which includes a comfortable bubble bath for Cap). Unfortunately, over in New York there’s been a plague of attacks from “The Night People”, mysterious underground vagrants who are stealing odd things, everything except money. They overhear Falcon on the phone with his girlfriend Leila, and needing a super-hero for their purposes they kidnap her as bait for the Falcon, who quickly flies in to the rescue.

The Falcon is captured, and back in Washington Cap gets reports that he was seen vanishing in mid-air.

Kirby didn’t stop for a minute on the wild ride that was his last run on Cap, and there are a lot of things to like about this issue. The odd layout on one early page, showing the various thefts the Night People were up to, was really nice, and throwing in a dramatic mid-air rescue was a good way to keep the action flowing.

Frank Giacoia inks the cover and 17-page story.

Published 1976

This whole story, and much more, was recently reprinted in Captain America: Bicentennial Battles.

Thor and the Recorder are off to confront the Ego, the Living Planet this issue, one of Kirby’s most audacious villains of the era, in a reprint of “Behold, The Living Planet” from THOR #133 (1966). Edited reprint, of course, cutting out the second page of a two-page spread, moving a word balloon over. Still looks good, but the original is spectacular, one of the best of Kirby’s two-pagers.

It’s really a mile-a-minute in this era of Thor, if a Thunder God and an alien archivist fighting against the humanoid anti-bodies of a living planet in the Black Galaxy in order to save Earth from the colonizers of Rigel isn’t enough, there’s also a stop along the way to set up the next story, which has Jane Foster going to interview for a job with someone who turns out to be the High Evolutionary.

The cover is also from #133, but another, clearer face of Ego is in place of the original. Looks like it might have been pasted up and retouched from an interior panel in this or another story.

Also this issue, “Gather, Warriors”, a Tales of Asgard story from JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY #119 (1965), as the many heroes of Asgard join the quest that Thor and Loki are leading. This story introduces the trio who would become known as the Warriors Three, Hogun the Grim, Frandal the Dashing and of course…

Volstagg the Enormous. Of course he would be the source of comedy gold in future issues of the book, and starts off great in his debut.

Published 1973

A dramatic Kirby/Brodsky cover for the Ant-Man series. I love the occasional panel-breakdown cover like this, with some great poses drawing you into the story. And the matches to give a sense of scale are a nice touch.

Published 1963

Always a big fan of Ulik, he was a fun character in the 1960s stories, really cool looking, so it was nice to see him on a few Kirby covers in the 1970s.

Verpoorten inks, with a bit of touch-up work credited to Romita in the Kirby checklist, but pretty minor compared to some.

Published 1976

Tomorrow

This Archie comic reprints most of the S&K content from DOUBLE LIFE OF PRIVATE STRONG #1 (1959), except for the Fly intro teaser. There’s also a new cover by Kirby and Rich Buckler (I’ve seen the pencils to this somewhere, does anyone remember off-hand where they were printed).

One intro page and four stories inside, a total of 25 pages from S&K, setting up the Lancelot Strong character, a revamp of the old Shield character. The character is an odd mix of things, a little bit of Captain America, mixed in with a bit of Superman’s origin, as we open with a scientist conducting experiments of questionable ethics on his own infant son to tap his full brainpower. When it looks like his experiments will be stopped, the scientist flees and crashes, leaving his son to be found by an old farm couple, who raise him as their own. He develops powers as a teen, just in time to stop an invasion from an alien monster very similar to the type that would soon be terrorizing Marvel in Kirby stories, and also finds a costume. Then he gets drafted, and his adventures as Private Strong begins.

More harkening back to earlier stories, “The Menace of the Micro-Men” has a lot in common with one of the YELLOW CLAW stories of a few years earlier.

So while this feature was far from the most original Kirby worked on, the artwork is a lot of fun, so this reprint of it is well worth picking up for some vintage Kirby at an affordable price.

Published 1984

Tomorrow

That Kraken, real quick with the comeback. I bet he was the terror of the schoolyard.

Al Milgrom inks on this cover, which is pretty good looking. I like these weird perspective covers.

Published 1976

A reprint of “The Triumph of Magneto” from the 1965 published X-MEN #11, this story has the X-Men responding to Professor Xavier’s detection of a potentially powerful new mutant, who turns out to be the alien Stranger.

Of course Magneto also has an interest in powerful mutants, and he gets to the Stranger first. After various battles, we end up with Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch renouncing their allegiance to Magneto (setting up their membership in the Avengers) and the Stranger takes off with Magneto and Toad as samples of mutants to study, never to return (well, never or six months).

Bit of an anti-climactic conclusion to Kirby’s last full-pencil issue of X-MEN, but a lot of nice scenes in here. Chic Stone inks the 20-page story and the interior reprint of the original cover.

Published 1995

In “The Secret Gun”, Kirby took the last step on making MISTER MIRACLE more of a super-hero book following the cancellation of its companion books by introducing a kid side-kick for Scott this issue, Shilo Norman. Shilo, a witness to the gangland killing of his brother, is given to Scott to protect, but he escapes (as Scott knew he would) to take revenge on his own, and Scott and Barda follow.

While this last year of MM lacks the cosmic punch of the earlier stuff, it’s still a lot of fun, and has some great visuals (Big Barda crushing a canister supposedly containing Scott in a giant nutcracker? Ouch). On the other hand, there were a few more pronounced weaknesses in the script, like the villain Mister Fez (who wears a fez…) with his “Super-cats, eh? I’m too hip to buy that kind of jive”.

Mike Royer inks the 20-page story and cover, and in the letter column Steve Sherman answers a few questions on the end of the other books.

Published 1973