For some odd reason Marvel published a one-shot reprinting most of the main story from FANTASTIC FOUR ANNUAL #1 [1963]. Not really one of my favourite of the early Kirby FF stories, but it does have its moments, starting with the first few pages showing Namor in Atlantis, in all its grandeur. That looks really good. Then we switch to the FF, with Johnny and Ben and one of their fights, which leads to Reed deciding to take the team on a vacation cruise. Of course that puts them in the sights of Namor, who captures them, sends them back to New York and then leads an invasion of the surface world. Reed is able to come up with a device to repel the invasion by evaporating the water in the invaders’ helmets, and then Namor takes Sue prisoner.

The rest of the team pursue, and the battle continues until Sue is almost drowning, so Namor rushes her to a hospital in New York. His decision leads to his people abandoning him and their city.

As I said, not really a favourite, especially as it’s one of the stories where Sue is pretty much just a designated hostage (I don’t think she uses her powers once in the story). Some of the visuals are good though, especially with the longer page count allowing for a few longer scenes than you usually got at the time.

One page from the original story, recapping Namor’s origin, is edited out, replaced by a longer origin by another artist, so this story now has 36 pages of Kirby/Ayers art, plus the main image from the original cover is reprinted as a credits page inside the front cover.

Published 1984

This issue has an edited reprint of CAPTAIN AMERICA #105 [1968], with some very nice inking by Dan Adkins. Unfortunately, despite the fine look that Adkins brings to the art, this isn’t one of my favourite of Kirby’s Cap stories. The art is fine, but the story isn’t too memorable, mostly by the numbers. Following a prelude where Cap watches some old footage of himself and Bucky during WWII, Cap is given a mission to find a hidden seismo-bomb, just as three second-string villains, Batroc, the Swordsman and the Living Laser, are also on the search.

Cap is able to defeat the villains, as the seismo-bombs perliminary quakes go off around them, finally disabling the bomb (including a very odd line about “another who gave his life for the masses, many centuries ago”. There are a few Marvel comics from that era with odd religious asides, I’m not sure what’s up with that).

The two pages edited out (bringing this down to 18 pages) are from a very striking but pretty superflous two-page spread of Cap and Bucky in WWII.

Published 1978

Kirby continues his series-opening adventure of T’Challa, now fighting against a strange being from millions of years in the future. After he subdues the creature he realizes that he must find the tomb of King Solomon and the second brass frog that completes the time-travel device that will allow them to send the creature from “Hatch 22” back to his time (which they get a glimpse of thanks to his powerful mental powers).

Good goofy fun, as are most issues of the series. The look at the far future is the usual bit of bold Kirby creation, and Abner Little is a pretty funny sidekick to the Panther in this storyline.

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

Published 1977

Kirby’s second issue of JIMMY OLSEN is mostly one wild ride, with Jimmy and the Newsboy Legion being taken in their Whiz Wagon to “Habitat”, the tree city that houses the drop-out motorcycle gang the “Outsiders”, and then leading them on the “Zoomway” to find the “Mountain of Judgment” of the mysterious “Hairies”. Yeah, really. Not your dad’s Jimmy Olsen…

The Mountain turns out to be a converted missile-carrier used to scare away intruders, and it turns out that hidden on the Whiz Wagon is a bomb designed to blow up the Hairies and their ultra-advanced scientific society.

The end of the issue has Morgan Edge on a video phone with his mysterious master, Darkseid, marking the villain’s first published appearance (although job codes and comments in interviews with people there make it clear that Kirby had actually already drawn a few full stories with Darkseid before this, though they were released later).

Kirby also includes three collages in one two-page segment. As usual the reproduction doesn’t do them justice, you can see better copies of a part of two of these on the cover of THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR #31. They also look a bit clearer in the recent collection of these issues.

Colletta inks the 22-page story, with Al Plastino doing some of the “corrections”. This issue also includes a text page by Kirby, “The Whiz Wagons are Coming”, about the futuristic car he created, and also includes a small self-portrait by Kirby, and a full page ad for the upcoming Kirby first issues, with slightly different versions of the NEW GODS #1 and FOREVER PEOPLE #1 covers.

Published 1970

Cap battles aliens out in the country in this issue, called by a farmer who, in an odd throw-away set-up line, called Cap after seeing him on a talk-show debating the topic of super-heroes, fantasies and UFOs. So that’s what Cap does between battling super-villains. Anyway, the first alien, called only the Captive, is being pursued by others, and manages to convince Cap and the farmer that he was an innocent being held in a black hole for a million years. Seems to me Cap is being unusually trusting, until the farmer is killed, as the Captive reveals himself to be the last of an evil race of life-energy sucking parasites.

Cap doesn’t take well to being duped, and is able to disable the Captive, allowing the aliens to take him and shoot him out into a nova. Later Cap makes a report to the government, who decide to hush up the incident. There’s even a reference to Cap fighting the Kree and the Skrulls, which I’m guessing was added by someone in New York.

A pretty decent story, overall, although depending a bit on Cap being overly trusting. A lot of very neat bits of art, from the various alien designs and spaceships, and an interesting precursor to some of the themes in Captain Victory in the 1980s.

Inking on the 35-page story is by Frank Giacoia and John Verpoorten, the cover is inked by Giacoia.

Published 1976

This issue has a reprint from X-MEN #9 [1965], wherein the X-Men are summoned to Europe by Professor X, who is hunting down the villain Lucifer, the man who cost him the use of his legs in some hinted-at story that wouldn’t be told until after Kirby stopped drawing the book. The Avengers also wind up in the same region, apparently thanks to Thor’s hammer detecting evil rays or something. Yeah, I don’t know what that’s all about, but it was the Mighty Marvel Age of crossovers.

The Professor finds Lucifer, but finds out that he’s rigged a bomb to explode if his heartbeat stops, so he mentally orders the X-Men to stop the Avengers from interfering. So of course, they fight…

There’s a classic Marvel panel of the era, ten heroes, each with some dialogue or thought balloons.

Eventually Professor X communicates with Thor and convinces him that they should let the X-Men handle this, and the team re-joines the Professor to defuse the bomb. And for some reason the Professor then lets Lucifer go now that he knows he can be defeated. So much for Xavier’s vow earlier to make sure he never menace humanity again.

The fight with the Avengers is a bit formulaic, and the end a bit abrupt, but otherwise a solid story with a few funny scenes (like the American tourist who runs in the Avengers and the X-Men).

Chic Stone inks the 20-page story, and the original Kirby/Stone cover is also reprinted as a pin-up in the back of the book.

Published 1995

Two STRANGE TALES reprints from 1966 in this issue, the SHIELD stories from #152 and #153, both drawn by Jim Steranko over Kirby layouts, both edited down to 11 pages from the original 12. Steranko would of course take over the full art in the next issue.

“The Power of SHIELD” starts with Fury trapped on a runaway plane with the Overkill Horn, about to be shot out of the sky by SHIELD. Meanwhile, back below the ruins of Karnopolis, the Supreme Hydra switches identities for the next phase of his plans.

He leaves just in time, as Fury is able to escape from the plane before SHIELD’s attack hits and redirects the plane to Karnopolis, which is destroyed when SHIELD’s Strato-Mine homes in on the Overkill Horn. Fury then leads a rescue of the daughter of the previous Supreme Hydra, who had helped him escape earlier. The story finishes with a pretty funny scene of Jasper Sitwell, temporarily in charge of SHIELD, trying to smoke one of Fury’s cigars.

Next up is “The Hiding Place”, which opens with Fury getting a shave at the SHIELD barber shop, so I guess it’s more than a front for the entrance to the SHIELD base. Anyway, as he cleans up, the car that Gabe and Jasper are taking the rescued daughter to safety in is attacked, and Fury and Dum Dum Dugan are off to the rescue. As they are, though, the new Supreme Hydra changes faces yet again, this time to that of a SHIELD agent they captured, and infiltrates SHIELD HQ, leading the forces that go to help fight off the Hydra attack and capturing his own men to win Fury’s confidence.

Just Kirby layouts, of course, and Steranko at the time was quickly developing his own style, but at this point a lot of the Kirby comes out both from the layouts and Steranko’s own work being influenced by Kirby. The SHIELD stories are really plot heavy at this point, with a lot of twists in the half-issues they got.

Published 1973

Cap continues his confronation with Arnim Zola, evil Nazi scientist, who takes it up a notch this time by revealing that he saved Hitler’s brain!

And put it in a giant yellow and purple robot without sight or hearing. When you consider what Zola did with his own body that doesn’t seem quite so absurd, I guess. And for some reason Kirby doesn’t mention Hitler as the identity of the brain in this issue, although he will in the next.

There are a lot of interesting visuals as Cap and Donna Maria try to escape from the living house that Zola controls with his mind, before they’re captured again and Zola reveals his plan to put Hitler’s brain in Cap’s body. Meanwhile, Sharon Carter has unmasked the Red Skull, the mastermind behind Zola’s plans, and delivers a favourite line of mine:

Why should I believe you — a known Nazi war criminal — with a record of unparalleled evil! You could be lying!

Anyway, a lot of moving the story forward with some great villains in this issue. The Red Skull and Arnim Zola sort of represent the definitive examples of two types of Kirby villain design, the Skull being the very simple but striking concept and Zola being the boldly surreal and endlessly complicated.

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

Published 1977

Thor completes his mission for the Colonizers of Rigel this issue, finding that the being hidden in the Black Galaxy is Ego, the Living Planet.

Lots of wildly imaginative background and such throughout this story, although it’s one that I’d love to see the full margin notes on the pencils for sometime, since a few bits of art don’t seem to match the script, and I could easily see this as just the beginning of a longer adventure, so maybe a few things were changed at the last minute. Still a lot of fun, as are the scenes back on Earth, setting up the High Evolutionary story.

Tales of Asgard this time is “Valhalla”, as the barbarian leader Harokin meets his final reward, thanks to fatal wounds from the previous issue, courtesy of Hela and the Valkyries. The splash page of Harokin in full battle armour is one of my favourite images from the Asgard stories, and there’s a nice mix of wonder mixed with some humour provided by Volstagg.

Colletta inks the 16-page lead story, 5-page backup and cover.

This issue opens with Reed and Sue finally announcing the name of their son, Franklin B. Richards. Ben’s reaction to what the B. stands for is probably one of the handful of greatest Ben Grimm scenes in the series.

The rest of the issue has the FF travel up-state to drop off Franklin with his new nanny, Agatha Harkness. At the same time, the Wizard reunites the Frightful Four to get revenge on the FF. Unfortunately, though he’s found a way to spy on the FF, he apparently didn’t keep up with recent events and included Medusa in the reformed team. So much for leaving nothing to chance.

Kirby really goes to town drawing Agatha’s home, a massive gothic mansion full of elaborate spooky furniture. The Frightful Four attack the home, and actual manage to incapacitate the FF and Medusa before facing down Agatha Harkness who shows why she’s a good nanny for young Franklin. Really good moody pages evoking the old BLACK MAGIC stuff.

Joe Sinnott inks the 20-page story, with some assistance from Herb Trimpe according to the Kirby Checklist, which also credits Trimpe with inking the cover (see comments for another opinion).

Published 1970