This issue of GIANT-SIZE SPIDER-MAN has what is still the only semi-decent reprint of the 18-page lead story from STRANGE TALES ANNUAL #2 (1963), an early team-up of the Human Torch and Spider-Man pencilled by Kirby and inked by Steve Ditko (there is a reprint of it in the recent ESSENTIAL HUMAN TORCH, but it’s a pretty splotchy reprint, unlike most of that book. The text page of this issue, which explains how the promised SUPER-GIANT 100 page line became the GIANT-SIZE 68 page line, mentions that they’d “only recently located the blamed artwork” for this story, so I guess they lost it again in the interim).

In this story an art thief, The Fox, decides to frame Spider-Man for the theft of a newly discovered da Vinci piece. Spidey goes to the Torch for help in clearing his name, just as the police call the Torch to ask if he can help capture Spidey. So of course they fight. Then, in the plot twist heard around the world, they team-up. Their meeting on top of the Statue of Liberty:

is one of the classic moments of the Marvel Universe. Ditko’s inks as usual complement Kirby’s pencils nicely, and keep Spidey looking on model perfectly as well. That last panel on the page above is excellent.

It’s a fun story, one that hopefully will see a decent modern reprint at some point (it would be a natural for the upcoming MARVEL MILESTONES series, especially with the upcoming Spidey/Torch team-up mini-series).

Published 1974

This is one of those big cosmic issues of the Fourth World books, with a bunch of splash pages establishing New Genesis and Apokolips, their history and relationship. The double page spread of young gods playing on some sort of techno-cosmic device on the surface of New Genesis is gorgeous. There are also full pages plugging storylines that were appearing in FOREVER PEOPLE and JIMMY OLSEN.

In “O’ Deadly Darkseid”, the main storyline focuses on Orion’s first adventure on Earth, bringing back the humans he rescued from Apokolips the previous issue, briefly confronting Darkseid and then foiling one of his schemes.

We also meet DeSaad this issue, one of several great villains among the minions of Darkseid. We get a nice Kirby extreme close-up of him here:

I kind of like the clues about Orion’s true identity in this issue. By the time I first read them I already knew the secret, so I always wonder how quickly people reading it off the shelf picked up on the clues. I’m also amused by how one of the humans suggests that Orion use “O’Ryan” as a human identity. How exactly did he know that it wasn’t “O’Ryan” having just heard the name?

Inks by Colletta. Yeah, I know…

Published May 1971

Here’s a neat rarity. In 1973 one of the earliest and longest running fanzines, THE COMIC READER, at that point edited by Paul Levitz (though not for much longer), reached #100, and ran front and back colour covers by Jack Kirby to celebrate (at the time they usually had black and white covers, art on the front only). The front had Superman and Captain Marvel, while the backcover had, well, these guys:

This issue of BLACK PANTHER brings to a close T’Challa’s adventures with Abner Little and his society of “Collectors”, putting him on the road back to Wakanda. Little was a pretty funny character, bringing a lot of charm to the first half of this series. It’s also nice how Kirby has T’Challa acting very much as a king in this story.

This issue also gives some background of the history of Wakanda and the Vibranium Mound which forms the basis of the Panther Cult and the Wakandan royal family, also introducing some more of the family and setting up the next story.

Mike Royer inks the story while Ernie Chan (or is the proper name Ernie Chua? I never could remember) inks the cover.

Published January 1978

This is Kirby’s second last issue of THOR (with a fill-in before the last one), featuring the story “To End in Flames”, ending an epic where Loki had managed to get rid of Odin and unleashed Surtur upon Asgard. In this issue, Loki flees to Earth, while Balder and Sif go to rescue Odin while Thor and the other warriors of Asgard attempt to defeat Surtur.

A very exciting action based issue, with lots of great scenes of Thor and his army fighting against impossible odds. The ending is a bit of an almost literal deus ex machina, but when you’ve got a character like Odin that’s going to happen from time to time.

The story is a page short, as this is from that period when Marvel was running two pages with half page ads. Annoying. Colletta inks the story, but it mostly looks good for Colletta.  John Verpoorten inks the cover, which is nicer.

Published 1970

This issue reprints DAREDEVIL #12 and #13, from 1966, two early appearances of Ka-Zar which establish his background and introduce his brother. Kirby did layouts for those issues, which John Romita, just recently returned to Marvel, finished. The most recent issue of THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR had some unused layout pages from #13, if you want to get an idea of what Kirby did. Interestingly, those pages are very different from the story as it was actually published, so I’m not sure if Kirby did two completely different sets of layouts or if what could be used from his for the original story were salvaged and adapted to the new story. There do seem to be varying amounts of Kirby in the finished product, for whatever reason, although I think we can safely credit much that’s on this page to Kirby:

The story involved Matt Murdock taking a break from his law practice to go on a cruise, which is attacked by modern day pirates led by the Plunderer. As Daredevil, he allows himself to be taken by the pirates, and they go down to Ka-Zar’s Savage Land, where we eventually, after battles with man-apes and killer plants, find out that the Plunderer is really the Lord Plunder (clever secret identity  that), Ka-Zar is his long-lost brother Kevin, and they head off to England with Ka-Zar as a captive, ending on a cliff-hanger which leads into non-Kirby issues. It’s all very confusing, and I have to say that I’m more interested by the story in those unused layouts, which seems to involve Plunder attempting to civilize Ka-Zar, and Foggy and Karen, thinking Matt is dead, flying to England having been hired by Plunder.

The cover is a heavily modified version of the Kirby/Romita* cover to DD #12, with some of the characters flipped, re-arranged and partly redrawn (most notably Ka-Zar’s hair), and a big figure of Zabu added.

Published 1970

*see comments, apparently the cover is Kirby/Esposito, with maybe some work by Romita.**

**or maybe not.

This six page Kirby/Ditko story is reprinted from FANTASTIC FOUR ANNUAL #1 (1963) (not AMAZING SPIDER-MAN ANNUAL #1, as it’s mistakenly cited on the first page of this reprint). A bit of an oddity, as it retells a scene done in two pages in the first issue of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN earlier that year, with full Ditko art, where Spidey breaks into the Baxter Building, thinking he could get a job with them. He was a bit unclear on the concept early on, I guess. The Avengers might have been a better bet if they’d formed by then.

It does feel a bit stretched, with the attack from each FF member (taken straight from the original) being followed by another attack newly revealed for this telling. It’s still interesting, especially the way Kirby draws the Spider-Man / Mr. Fantastic battle.

Published 1986