Jack Kirby and Dick Ayers provide the cover for this issue while Joe Sinnott was doing the interiors on the Thor stories. A good sinister Loki face, even floating out in nothing, is always a highlight of these JiM covers, and of course Sandu has one of those trademark outstretched hands.

One of the more oddball series to see a Kirby cover in the 1970s is this comic tied in to Spider-Man’s role on the ELECTRIC COMPANY tv show. Not a lot of Kirby left after the Romita inks on the Spider-Man figure, but that’s a great looking Doctor Doom (I’m not completely sold on the Romita credit for the Doom figure, which is much more faithful to Kirby’s linework than most of his inking over Kirby). The Surfer is pretty good, too, but more of an afterthought in this layout.

Not sure how the story is, but based on these panels with Doom and the Surfer from a later issue probably not good, but certainly bizarre.

Published 1976

That stairway going up into the background is just an accident waiting to happen, isn’t it? Some hand-rails would be nice, Mandarin. My favourite part of this cover is the noodling on the throne, though.

George Roussos inks this cover.

Published 1964

Rather odd effect from the webbing on this cover. I’m not sure it quite works, making it look more like a long tunnel than a web. Other than that very effective, with a good but slightly-wrong Kirby version of Spider-Man (with the mask a little off). I also really like Chic Stone’s inking on this one. Sometimes that excessively chunky outline style doesn’t quite work, but on this one it does make Spider-Man kind of pop out.

Published 1964

Another of Kirby’s many covers for INVADERS here. A couple of new retro-characters take centerstage on this cover, but Union Jack is a pretty good character for Kirby to be drawing. As usual for the era a bit heavy on copy on the cover (do we need both the villain and a blurb telling us that we hold a landmark book with the end of an Invader? Boy, I wonder if it’ll be Captain America?).

Inking is credited to Frank Giacoia in the Kirby Checklist, but I’m not sure about that one. Parts of Captain Britain Union Jack look like that might be right, but the background characters definitely don’t.

Published 1976

OMAC comes to a rather abrupt and unsatisfying ending in this issue, as Kirby went on to Marvel and DC decided not to continue the book. It does have its moments, though.

The story opens with OMAC having been reverted to Buddy Blank, with no memory of his activities since turning into OMAC, stranded on a rock in the middle of the ocean that Brother Eye has determined is the headquarters of the water-stealing Doctor Skuba. Before Brother Eye can transmit an OMAC “structure print” to convert him, Buddy sinks into the rock and emerges in Skuba’s lair. Buddy is shown around by Skuba’s daughter Seaweed and a young man named Apollo (with various hints given about their origins and how they relate to the monstrous creatures created by Skuba’s “atomic manipulation”. Skuba meanwhile is able to detect Brother Eye’s monitoring of his lair, and decides he needs to kill Buddy before he can be transformed.

Fortunately Brother Eye is able to intervene and continues to attack Skuba until Skuba is able to track down the location of Brother Eye and causes meteors to bombard Brother Eye, and then uses a heat beam to create a molten prison.

The last panel has a quick explosion of Scuba’s lair caused by overloading from the attack on Brother Eye to pass as an “ending”. The original version of the page has been seen in the Kirby Collector #40 and reveals that the next issue would have been titled “The Walking Dead”, but not much more.

So not a great ending, although it would be interesting to find out what exactly was going on with Seaweed and Apollo, plus if we ever find out what Buddy Blank feels about all of this. There is some really good art, such as the 2-page spread of the interior of Brother Eye and the OMAC “structure print”, the only place we actually see OMAC in this issue.

Mike Royer inks the 18-page story.

Published 1975

More of the toyline tie-in story pencilled by Kirby. The group of heroes going after the pod of Darkseid that landed in New York consists of Hawkman, the Red Tornado and Green Arrow, and they find the pod in the subway, defended by Kalibak. The pod transports them all 75 million years into the past, where they battle dinosaurs, some of whom also go through the time portal to modern New York where Aquaman and J’onn J’onzz arrive from their mission in England in time to keep them in control.

Another scene setting up the next issue has the team of Green Lantern, Wonder Woman and Dr. Fate tracking down another pod to Easter Island, while on Darkseid’s moon base we find out that DeSaad has his own plans to betray Darkseid.

None of the main heroes this time really fit well with Kirby’s style (I do like his version of Dr. Fate in one brief scene, though). Still, there are some nice scenes with Darkseid and DeSaad, and Kirby dinosaurs are always some fun.

Greg Theakston inks the cover and 24-page story.

Published 1985

This issue has one of the few times that Doctor Strange got equal billing on a STRANGE TALES cover while he was sharing the book with the Human Torch. Of course, the Torch’s star was obviously fading a bit, as the Thing was his permanent co-star for the final year of the last year of the feature.

My favourite bit of this cover is the Loki figure, always one of my favourite Kirby villain designs, you can see the menace on his face even in that edge of it you get in this angle. The Doctor Strange figure is good, although I thought Kirby did better with Doc’s new outfit in a few later issues.

The Beetle, meanwhile, is a pretty goofy villain, can’t help but pale in comparison with Loki. Kind of funny how awkward and ill-fitting his outfit seems.

Frank Giacoia inks this cover (or possibly Sol Brodsky, see comments).

Published 1964

This was Kirby’s first cover for FF on his return after five years at DC, also re-uniting with definitive FF inker Joe Sinnott.

Not really a noteworthy cover otherwise, with a second-string character (the 1950s Marvel Boy, renamed the Crusader here) taking up most of the cover (though he is well drawn, although his powers could use some more crackly dots), but it is good to see Kirby’s version of Ben Grimm in particular.

Published 1975

The focus in this issue switches mostly to the Deviants side of the vast cosmology Kirby was creating in this book, as we open with their leader Tode confronting the issue of a freak among the Deviants, known as the Reject, whose deformity is that he could pass for an Eternal or a human. Meanwhile, back in New York, Kro invites Thena to the Deviant city (while making some more comments about their past), while the other Eternals deal with Doctor Samuel’s curiosity about what’s he’s learning about the real nature of humanity. Kirby provides a few great views of the old Deviant city destroyed in an earlier battle with the Second Host of Space Gods as Kro and Thena approach the new Lemuria.

Thena is horrified by a lot of what she sees about how Deviant’s live, in particular how they treat those of their people who show instability in their genetic make-up. As the issue ends, the Reject is brought before the Deviant royalty to face combat with the monstrous Karkas.

It really is amazing the variety of characters Kirby was creating for this series, with some new twists in almost every issue. It’s a shame he didn’t get nearly enough time to explore it all.

Mike Royer inks the 17-page story and the cover.

Published 1977