I guess since the Inhumans backups originally appeared in the unusual place of the back pages of THOR #146 – #152, it makes sense that reprints of them have also popped up in unusual places, like behind Spider-Man reprints in MARVEL TALES, or three of them in this special designed to promote a now long-forgotten crossover. The first two and the final episode of the 5-page Kirby/Sinnott back-ups are included in this issue.

“The Origin of the Incomparable Inhumans” is the first, starting with a splash page of the current royal family before going back to a pre-historic time to show us a far more advanced civilization that existed alongside savage early humans, and had to flee to the island refuge of Attilan.

There they discovered the Terrogen Mists, and their monarch Randac decided that the logical thing to do would be to expose himself to them first, becoming the first Inhuman.

“The Reason Why” explains a bit more as a Kree Sentry arrives in Attilan and reveals that their advanced evolution was the result of Kree experiments, and meets Randac as he emerges from the Terrigan Mists (they apparently changed the spelling while he was in there) with his new powers. Of course, as shown when the margin notes for the story were printed in THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR #21, this is quite a different story from what Kirby actually wrote.

They skip to the end for the final 5-page Inhumans story, “While the City Shrieks”. After causing some mischief at sea, reported in the papers a “sea monster”, Triton arrives in New York, where humanity responds with fear and violence. To be fair, they have a point regarding some of his behaviour. He returns home and convinces Black Bolt that they’ll have to move from their island home or risk eventual discovery, hence the mountain location of the “Great Refuge” in then-modern stories.

All these stories look gorgeous, of course, with the Kirby/Sinnott combo at its prime with their slick high-energy style. The stories don’t work quite as well, whether because of those changes from the original notes or just the nature of filling in background instead of going forward, but they do have their moments. Unfortunately, it looks like that run of backups has been an orphan in Marvel’s current reprints, unless I missed them somewhere, as they didn’t show up when those issues were reprinted in ESSENTIAL THOR (despite the table of contents listing Sinnott as inker on those issues), so presumably won’t when the MASTERWORKS volumes of Thor get that far.

Most of the rest of the contents of this issue are related to then-current goings on in the FF related books, but there is a 4-page article on “Marvel’s Top 10 Monsters” with some nice images and story recaps of some old favourites like Monstrollo, Pildorr and Googam (son of Goom).

Published 1995

FF #236 was the the 20th anniversary of the book (it was bi-monthly for the first few issues). To have some Kirby in the issue they took some storyboards he did for the FF cartoon series a few years earlier (though apparently not with Kirby’s “consent and cooperation” as they claim) and adapted it to a 14-page comic book story. For the inks they rounded up most of the available inkers who had worked with Kirby on the 1960s series (Joe Sinnott, Chic Stone, Dick Ayers, George Roussos, Sol Brodsky, Frank Giacoia, Vince Colletta) plus a few later artists (Al Milgrom, Pablo Marcos and John Byrne) and split the pages among them. This page was one of Chic Stone’s.

As you can see, the story was “The Challenge of Dr. Doom”, adapted from FF #5, most notably changed to substitute the Human Torch with the robotic Herbie. Other than that it pretty much follows the original, with Doom attacking the Baxter Building, sending the boys back to get “Blackbeard’s treasure chest” and getting tricked by his exact wording, as well as a rescue effort from Sue. Still a lot of goofy fun even in this form.

Despite various misgivings on the genesis and quality of this story, it was an interesting glimpse into what Kirby was up after his comic book years, and it was nice to see some of the classic inker combinations one more time. Of course, these days we’ve had a much better chance to see Kirby’s storyboard work in its pure form, including his notes (the recent KIRBY COLLECTOR #47 printed the boards for a full episode).

Published 1981

Fifteen years ago AVENGERS made it to #350. These days there isn’t even a single AVENGERS book within reach of #100. Funny how that works.

For this particular milestone they celebrated with some reprints in this flipbook with gatefold covers on both sides. Of note for this weblog are the cover galleries that adorned the covers. A full page was given to the Kirby/Ayers cover of AVENGERS #1, a great start to the series and probably one of the five or six most swiped/homaged Kirby images.

Two more Kirby covers get quarter page reprints. AVENGERS #11, the Kirby/Stone cover featuring Spider-Man, and #25, the Kirby/Ayers cover with Doctor Doom. Good choices, but kind of odd not to include #4 and #16 in a roundup of milestone issues of the series.

Published 1992

Presumably because Marvel had just recovered from their nadir of 17-page comics a few months before, this issue of FF had a 17-page lead story and room for a few more pages. They responded to that with some interesting Kirby content, including the first ever printing of the originally planned cover to FF #3, which is a pretty cool little piece of history. A nice little action shot from the interior story and a demonstration of the powers of the members of the team in the little inset vignettes, while the actual published cover shows off the new costumes better. It was probably a good switch to make, especially at this early issues, setting the book apart from the monster comics which Marvel was publishing.

But they had more pages to fill than that, so we also get the “Feature Page” on Mister Fantastic and what his powers are capable of from FF #16, a pin-up of the Invisible Girl in her section of the Fantasi-Car from FF #10 and two feature pages explaining the Torch’s powers from FF #8 and #9 (including his study of weather patterns to avoid rain). But oddly none of the available pin-up pages of the Thing were used. Poor Benjy…

The pin-up/feature pages are inked by Dick Ayers. The unused cover is also credited to Ayers here, but to Sol Brodsky in the Kirby Checklist. I think Brodsky seems more likely, though the printing here makes it hard to say with any confidence.

Published 1980

Cute little Kirby/Ayers cover showing how little the villains of the Marvel universe believe in fair play. Although, you have to admit, it’s nice of them to make sure that the only three guys actually shooting their weapons are those facing the guy with the indestructible shield.

Published 1966

An edited reprint of FANTASTIC FOUR #98 [1970] in this issue, wherein Reed intercepts a message from the Kree that indicates they have another Sentry on Earth, determined to foil the Apollo moon landing and humanity’s outreach into space. Nice of Reed not to rub it in that he beat them by almost half a decade. As the moon shot launches, Reed tracks the Sentry to a simulated moonscape island in the Pacific, where it’s started some mysterious device which links to something under the Sea of Tranquillity. The boys have to race against time to defeat the Sentry and disable the device before the lunar module lands. Fortunately they make it, and Neil Armstrong becomes the fifth first man on the Moon.

A nice simple done-in-one story with some spectacular visuals. I especially like that panel of Ben carrying Reed and Johnny away from the exploding Kree device.

Two pages are edited out, one showing the Torch coming back from sulking over Crystal, and explaining why he’s brushing his teeth when we first see him here, and another showing the reactions around the world to the Apollo launch. Joe Sinnott inks the now 18-page story and cover, with the cover being flipped from the original.

As Galactus readies the Earth for his latest meal, the boys of the FF head into Sub-Atomica, home of the Psycho-Man, to convince the Silver Surfer to return. Not knowing their reasons, the Surfer is reluctant since he’s grooving to the cosmic waves of the microscopic universe, and then the FF get attacked by a minion of the Psycho-Man. Eventually the Surfer realizes what’s going on up on Earth and returns to meet his destiny, while the FF stay behind to deal with the Psycho-Man.

There’s some great stuff in this issue, especially the weird molecular model backdrops that make up Sub-Atomica. And of course Galactus is always cool. I was bugged by the token scene of Sue, pregnant and being kept in the dark by Crystal about the whole Galactus attack and mission. It’s always kind of frustrating in the whole run of the series how Sue goes back and forth from being an equal member of the team to being an outdated stereotype.

Joe Sinnott inks the cover and 20-page story.

Published 1968

This book was the first Kirby wrote and drew on his 1970 return to DC, although it wasn’t published until after a few JIMMY OLSEN issues. The four boys of the Forever People arrive on Earth through a Boom Tube in their Super-Cycle in search of the kidnapped Beautiful Dreamer, almost running some of Jimmy Olsen’s friends off the road in the process. Serifan makes contact with Dreamer as Intergang keeps an eye on the group under the directions of Darkseid.

Superman finds out about the kids and their point of origin, Supertown, just as he’s feeling introspective about Superman’s place in the world and how humanity relates to him. Finding them, he gets involved in a battle with Darkseid’s Gravi-Guards, which prompts the boys to summon the Infinity Man. After the battle Darkseid shows up in person, releasing Dreamer since she’s proves not to hold the key to the Anti-Life Equation, but leaving a bomb as a parting gift. Superman then asks the kids about Supertown, though they urge him to stay and help in the battle against Darkseid. Superman starts to go down the Boom Tube to find out about Supertown to see if that’s a place where he’d fit in, but turns back at the last minute, feeling he’s turning his back on the threat to Earth.

Lots of interesting things in here, but kind of an odd launch to the line. You don’t find out too much about the main characters (Beautiful Dreamer doesn’t even have any dialogue), but there are a lot of intriguing hints. The Superman stuff is also odd, kind of putting focus on the differences between Marvel and DC ways of doing things in that era (magnified by what was done to the art).

Vince Colletta inks the 24-page story, with Al Plastino paste-ups on the Superman and Jimmy Olsen figures, and Frank Giacoia inks the cover. This issue also includes the “Visit With Jack Kirby” page by Marv Wolfman that ran across the Fourth World debut issues, mentioning how Wolfman and Len Wein had seen versions of some of the concepts just now showing up four years earlier.

Published 1971