This reprints the two-part Green Arrow story from ADVENTURE COMICS #252 / #253 (1958), editing out the splash page of the second story.

High goofball fun in this one, as the city is attacked by mysteriously appearing giant arrows. Of course, Green Arrow and Speedy investigate, since someone is taking their gimmick, eventually finding themselves drawn into an alien dimension.

That bit with GA worrying about never seeing his adoring crowds of kids when he goes to flog the Green Arrow Arrow Kit cracks me up. Also, that’s a great alien world.

Anyway, very neat stuff, although of course more readily available in the collection DC did a few years ago.

Published 1975

The lead story “Thunder in the Netherworld” is reprinted from THOR #130 (1966) and is a big action issue, with Thor facing off against the hordes of the underworld to save Hercules.

It’s a great ever-escalating battle, which finally threatens to bring down all that Pluto had built, bringing him to return to stop the destruction. There’s a fun bit of contrast between Hercules love of battle and Thor’s dedication to justice in the end.

Meanwhile, in Midgard, the story of Tana Nile starts to develop with more clues about her secret, as she sends Jane Foster away in order to lure Thor into a search for her.

The back-up is a Tales of Asgard story from JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY #118 (1965), “The Crimson Hand”, continuing the major quest storyline. In this story we see Thor preparing for the voyage, being given the Crimson Hand, which can be used to force anyone clasping it to tell the truth. This comes in useful when Loki brings by a volunteer for the quest, who turns out to be an assassin planning to kill Thor. Loki manages to avoid detection of his own role in that, of course. They sure did give him a lot of leeway back then.

Colletta inks throughout, of course.

Published 1973

This issue reprints X-MEN #2 (1963), more early adventures of the strangest super-team of all when they learn “No One Can Stop the Vanisher”. This issue seems to spend a lot of time setting up the powers of each character, with an opening scene of them making their way to the mansion to answer a call from Professor X, where he tells them about a new threat, a super-thief named the Vanisher with teleportation powers. He then takes the team to the Danger Room to work on their powers.

Eventually the X-Men face the Vanisher in Washington DC (this is back when they had a good working relationship with the government), but despite all their powers are unable to prevent him from making off with some military secrets.

Prof X steps in for the next confrontation, and is able to use his mental powers to make the Vanisher forget everything, including his powers, while the X-Men make short work of his recruited criminal henchmen. Still mostly setting up the series, but I really liked a lot of the scenes showing the powers, as well as some of the characterization worked into the dialogue.

Paul Reinman inks Kirby on the 22-page story and the cover (reprinted as an interior pin-up). Not a huge fan of Reinman’s inks in general, but there are several nice pages. Very nice Mike Parobeck cover up front.

The Bullpen page for this issue contains a tribute to Jack Kirby, who passed away a few months earlier, with a Ben Grimm illustration by Joe Sinnott and words by Sinnott, John Buscema, Marie Severin, Curt Swan, Sal Buscema, Gene Colan, Don Heck and Tom DeFalco.

Published 1994

Interestingly, Kirby decides to open “Life vs Anti-Life” this issue with a quote from Hitler, about how the members of his movement are uniform in both ideas and facial expression. This is an ideal sought by another minion of Darkseid, Glorious Godfrey, who Mark Evanier explains was somewhat based on evangelist Billy Graham. Some great Kirby writing Godfrey’s extolling the virtues of “anti-life” in the service Darkseid and being a faceless “Justifier”. “The right to point the finger or the gun”.

One of those “Justifiers” attempts to kill the Forever People, who then use Mother Box to trace them back to their “revelation tent” lair. Meanwhile the “Justifiers” are on the loose, rounding up undesirables and burning libraries, painting offending stores with an “S” for scapegoat. The Forever People transform to the Infinity Man to destroy Godfrey’s equipment. Unfortunately, he runs into a more powerful force.

Darkseid is able to easily bring back the Forever People easily enough, and DeSaad knocks them out to take to his prison camp. There’s some interesting interplay between Darkseid and two of his chief minions at the end, with one of Darkseid’s classic lines, “when you cry out in your dreams — it is Darkseid that you see!”

The villains definitely have the best scenes in this issue, and it’s interesting to see how Kirby modified and interpreted things he saw around him to use in his fantasy setting.

Vince Colletta inks the cover and 22-page story.

Published 1971

Following the “Kill-Derby” battle of the previous issue, this story has Cap and the Falcon battling in the underground lair of the New Society in their search for the “Big Daddy” Madbomb.

While they fight inside, General Argyle Fist leads the US Army squad looking for the enemy in the desert above. This is a bit of a placeholder issue, though it reads well as part of the overall eight issue story, with a lot of action and one of those great big Kirby devices in the form of a sonic gun. I also like the General, who has some funny overblown dialogue in these issues.

Frank Giacoia inks the story and cover, a great job as usual.

Published 1976

One of the more obscure of his characters Kirby was called upon to illustrate for DC’s first WHO’S WHO series was Crazy Quilt, a villain who first appeared in a few post-war BOY COMMANDOS issues with some different costumes.

From the write-up, he appears to have returned as a semi-regular Batman villain at some point, which I didn’t know, hence Batman and Robin appearing in the drawing rather than the Boy Commandos. It’s a pretty good drawing, although the main image is a bit plain, but the background drawings are nice.

Greg Theakston inked this piece.

Published 1985

One of Kirby’s few full-scripting jobs at Marvel during his longest stay there was the Inhumans half of AMAZING ADVENTURES for the first four issues. In this one, the Inhumans are observed by the Iron Man villain the Mandarin as they attack a digging site too close to the Great Refuge. The Mandarin attacks them and is defeated by Black Bolt, but the attack raises his curiosity about the site, as the Mandarin (who actually sent in a robot version of himself) planned.

The Inhumans finish the excavation, finding an ancient statue containing the Eye of Yin, which the Mandarin wants to use to rule the world, and the Eye comes to life.

This is pretty good, although as people would learn soon enough Kirby had much more imaginative ideas that he was waiting for the right venue to explore at the time.
When I first read this I wondered if maybe Kirby intended the villain to be Doctor Doom originally (did the Mandarin ever use robot doubles before this?) and wasn’t allowed to use the character, who was just given a solo series in the other half-book ASTONISHING TALES.

Chic Stone inks the 10-page story, and does a good job, although I didn’t like it quite as much as some of the work he did when he was briefly inking almost all of Kirby’s output for a few months back in the mid-1960s.

Published 1970

In the middle of the big Inhumans introductory story in this issue, starting with Ben going head-to-head with Black Bolt, being slightly unnerved by Black Bolt’s silence. In the middle of the fight Triton is forced to retreat to the water, where he’s taken prisoner by the Seeker, who also breaks into the Baxter Building to capture the sedated Dragon Man, who he mistakenly thinks might be an Inhuman.

After Black Bolt depletes his energy with one big shot at Ben, Karnak calls up Lockjaw to hold Ben back while they retreat, and of course any scene with both Ben and Lockjaw is worth seeing.

The Inhumans escape, and returning to the Baxter Building the FF see that the Dragon Man was taken and follow the trail to the Seeker’s lair. He gives them a quick and not entirely reliable history of the Inhumans, then the Dragon Man wakes up, enraged, and escapes, with Triton’s water-filled cage collapsing leaving him dying without water.

Some quick mile-a-minute plotting going on here, and lots of new characters being introduced. It’s interesting seeing how minor changes would be made in the Inhumans from one story to the next, really streamlining and improving their looks. Joe Sinnott inks story, on his third issue as regular inker, definitely settling in quickly. The Kirby Checklist lists the cover as Kirby/Giacoia/Sinnott (it’s Black Bolt surrounded by floating heads of the FF and other Inhumans), not sure what the division there is, but Ben’s almost definitely inked by Sinnott, and I’m pretty sure about the rest of the FF too.

Published 1966