Out this past week, the STAN LEE MEETS… hardcover collection of the five one-shots from last year, including reprints of FANTASTIC FOUR #79 and #87 by Kirby. Also available from Tales of Wonder.

Also out this week, MARVEL MASTERWORKS – DAREDEVIL v4, mostly containing a run of Gene Colan’s work on DD, but to fill out a crossover also including some Kirby in the form of FANTASTIC FOUR #73.

KAMANDI ARCHIVES VOL. 2, collecting #11 – #20 of the series, is out this week. All sorts of wonders in here, including Sacker’s Department Store, the secret of the Watergate tapes, robot gangsters and, in “The Hospital”, as much of an explanation as we get of the origin of Earth A.D. (After Disaster).

Also available from amazon.com.

Can anyone confirm what ESSENTIAL DEFENDERS v2 reprints from GIANT SIZE DEFENDERS #1? That issue originally had a new framing sequence around three reprints (one by Kirby, one by Ditko, one by Everett), plus a separate Kirby reprint of a Silver Surfer story. Does this new book have just the new pages (so no Kirby), just the reprints that tie-in to the framing sequence (so one Kirby reprint) or all the contents of the GIANT SIZE (so two Kirby reprints).

UPDATE: confirmation in the comments that it has the first reprint, the Hulk story, but not the Surfer reprint. Look for the 2006 Kirby release overview post soon.

A few things to add to the Kirby release list. Should just be a few mostly trivial entries left to come out this year, bringing the Kirby release count for the year to about 50 entries, a few just a page or two but some containing hundreds of pages never before reprinted and cover a wide cross-section of Kirby’s career and in many formats.

STAN LEE MEETS DR. DOOM #1 is the second of these one-shots to include a Kirby reprint, in this case FF #87. MARVEL MASTERWORKS: THE MIGHTY THOR VOL. 5 has some great mid-1960s Kirby, some of it never reprinted in colour before. And apparently MEN OF MYSTERY: CHAMPIONS COLLECTION VOLUME 1 TP came out from AC. Anyone have a description of the Kirby content?

A couple of minor Kirby releases recently. ESSENTIAL CAPTAIN AMERICA VOL. 3 TPB didn’t use Kirby art on the cover as the solicitation suggested but does include the cover to CAPTAIN AMERICA SPECIAL #2, which uses the art from TALES OF SUSPENSE #74. So there’s a trivial entry for a Kirby checklist, a reprint of a reprint cover as the end of a 500 page book.

Also out recently. MARVEL WESTERNS HC includes the same reprint backups as the various one-shots released earlier this year.

Just released, CAPTAIN AMERICA AND THE FALCON: THE SWINE TPB, the third and final volume collecting Kirby’s 1970s run of the book at Marvel, including the two Annuals.

Also out, THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR #47, with a look at Kirby’s team books, from kid-gangs to super-heroes, plus the usual selection of goodies.

Fell behind a bit and just updated the New Kirby page with some recent releases, a few of them pretty major. I’d also missed in the original solicitations that two of the STAN LEE MEETS… one-shots have Kirby FF reprints. Also, the MARVEL SPOTLIGHT on Lee and Kirby was pretty good, with a long interview with Lisa Kirby and her GALACTIC BOUNTY HUNTERS collaborators, a short Evanier interview, an article about the upcoming FF #108 re-construction and a short article about the S&K years.

And a reminder that buying these books through the Amazon.com links kicks back a few percentage points to the Kirby Museum.

October 25, 2006 – MARVEL MASTERWORKS: ATLAS ERA TALES OF SUSPENSE VOL. 1

October 25, 2006 – STAN LEE MEETS THE THING #1 (reprints FF #79)

October 18, 2006 – SHOWCASE PRESENTS: CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN VOL. 1 (Kirby’s dozen issues and beyond)

September 27, 2006 – ESSENTIAL THOR VOL. 3 TPB

September 20, 2006 – MARVEL SPOTLIGHT: STAN LEE/JACK KIRBY

September 20, 2006 – MARVEL MASTERWORKS: THE HUMAN TORCH VOL. 1

The first issue of GALACTIC BOUNTY HUNTERS, based on some 1980s concepts by Jack Kirby and written by Lisa Kirby, is out now. You can see a preview of several pages, including Kirby’s original designs, over here.

Missed one new Kirby reprint from last week’s stuff. MARVEL’S GREATEST COMICS: FANTASTIC FOUR #52, a reprint of the first Black Panther story shot directly from a copy of the original comic book, came out. No further books in that format have been scheduled for the next few months, so looks like this might just be a one-shot deal. I haven’t seen a copy yet, but Mike Sterling of Progressive Ruin suggests that it printed a bit dark.