Monthly Archives: February 2006

Challengers Of The Unknown #80 [1973]

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This issue concludes the brief 3-issue run CHALLENGERS had as a reprint book in 1973 with the story from SHOWCASE #11 (1957), though re-coloured to feature the groups later red and yellow jumpsuits instead of the classic purple. The aliens were also changed from orange to green.

In this story the Challs are sent down to find some missing scientists in Antarctica. While there they find the scientists in the clutches of an alien invasion force, the Tyrans, who plan some major explosions to reduce the gravity of the planet more to their liking, as well as destroy human civilization making us ripe for conquest. Some great artwork in the underground alien lair, and later on there’s a great huge alien machine which comes out of the ocean.

Challengers Of The Unknown #80 [1973]

Bruno Premiani, best known as the co-creator of the Doom Patrol and his long stint on Tomahawk, inks the 24-page story. This might be his only time inking Kirby, unless he did some while working for S&K at Crestwood (the Kirby Checklist lists him on SHOWCASE #12 as well, but it looks quite different and I think DC’s recent George Klein credit seems more likely). I really like his work on this, reminding me a lot of the texture that Wallace Wood brought to later stories but not nearly as overwhelming. This might be my favourite inking in a Challengers story, which had a lot of good inking. It’s also interesting that this seems to be Premiani’s only DC credit in a several year period when he apparently wasn’t even living in the United States. Was this done well before it was published? Or was it just a job Premiani picked up while visiting from Argentina?

Published 1973

This story is available in CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN ARCHIVES v1.

Admin – Welcome to newcomers

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Gotten a lot of new hits today (already four times my previous high) thanks to a link on Boingboing, by way of Irregular Orbit, via Video Watchblog, who found the place from Bubblegumfink‘s sidebar (it was pretty funny tracing that back, was wondering how many steps it would take). Welcome all, hope you enjoy looking around, check the links on the sidebar for previous posts, Kirby work in print (in particular check out the Jack Kirby Collector) and be sure to visit the Jack Kirby Museum and Research Center.

In Love #5 [1955] – Cover

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IN LOVE #5, 1955, published by Charlton. One of the titles taken over from Mainline and featuring left-over work from the ill-fated Simon&Kirby publishing venture, with just a cover with S&K art on this one. It’s kind of interesting that this is promising 10 complete (presumably very short) stories, since the tagline for the Mainline IN LOVE was “Book Length Love Novel”, with the covers made out to look like prose romance novels. I wonder if there was a long story meant for this cover (whether by S&K or not) that was unused or appeared in another Charlton book.

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Amazing Adventures #1 [1970] – The Inhumans

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Hm, the Inhumans and the Black Widow “In one mag together – Because You Demanded It”? I wonder how many letters they got actually demanding a split-book with those characters?

Anyway, after years of saying it was coming, the Inhumans finally got their own feature, written and drawn by Kirby, just before he left the company. In this issue, after a brief intro with the FF reviewing some film of the Inhumans, we see the royal family repel an attempt by some soldiers trying to find the Great Refuge, and then seeing their home attacked by a pair of missiles, sent by the exiled Maximus but designed to look like it came from the FF, sending those oh-so-paranoid Inhumans on the attack.

Not a bad start, although this brief run did get a bit weaker through the run, as I’m sure Kirby was ready to work on the next thing by this time.

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Chic Stone inks the 10-page story, which is a bit better than his work on the later two issues of this four issue run, but still not close to his early 1960s run inking Kirby. The cover is split for the two features, with Kirby just doing the Inhumans half, inked by Frank Giacoia.

Published 1970

Daredevil #43 [1968] – Cover

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DAREDEVIL #43, 1968, inked by Joe Sinnott. I guess the Captain America guest appearance was the impetus for bringing Kirby back on DD covers for one issue several years in. Whatever the reason, that’s a great action pose for the two characters. You can see why Kirby was so often employed to do covers for books he didn’t draw interiors for.

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Regular DD artist of the time Gene Colan did an unused cover to this issue, with DD more prominent than Cap (and giving Cap a whupping). You can see a version of it here. So presumably the Kirby version was commissioned either to give Cap a larger place or not having him as the underdog.

Spidey Super Stories #20 [1976] – Cover

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SPIDEY SUPER STORIES #20, 1976, inked by John Romita. Kirby got tapped for two issues of this surprisingly long running book that spun off from the Electric Company TV show’s Spidey segments. Both featured FF related characters (the other had the Surfer and Doom). Romita’s inks, as usual, pull the work a bit heavier towards his own style, as does the likely Bullpen-generated layout, but still a pretty attractive cover.

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New Kirby – Marvel Romance TPB

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Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.usThe MARVEL ROMANCE collection is out now. As mentioned before, featuring these Kirby stories:

“The Summer Must End!”
From Teen-Age Romance #84 (November 1961)

“By Love Betrayed!”
“Give Back My Heart!”
From Love Romances #102 (November 1962)

“The Dream World of Doris Wilson!”
“If Your Heart I Break—”
From Love Romances #103 (January 1963)

And other promising non-Kirby stuff.

Where Monsters Dwell #3 [1970]

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Three Kirby reprints in this issue. “Grottu, King Of The Insects” leads off the book, 6-pager by Kirby/Everett reprinted from STRANGE TALES #73 (1960), part of the giant-insect series. This time the beast is an African army ant, exposed to atomic radiation from a Russian test and quickly growing and gaining intelligence.

Where Monsters Dwell #3 [1970]

Rumours of the creature spread to America, where one of those generic Kirby adventurers hears about it and goes to check it out, just in time for Grottu to make his move on a port city where he’ll lead his ant army on a cruise of world conquest. He ends up getting one of the most embarrassing deaths of his species, as he’s buried in sugar and crushed by his own army.

I think this is the only giant monster story Everett inked over Kirby, although he also did a few westerns and later worked over some Kirby layouts for the Hulk and had a very impressive run as inker on Thor. Looks really good on this short story.

STRANGE TALES #72 (1959) is the source for the 5-page “I Fought The Colossus” by Kirby/Ditko. Posted about it from another reprint here, I’ll just add that I really like the futuristic architecture.

Finally from STRANGE TALES #78 (1960) is “A Martian Walks Among Us”, a Kirby/Ayers 7-page story. Great splash page (and remember you can always find out more about these stories, including the splash pages, over at the MonsterBlog), one of the creepiest of Kirby’s splash pages for the monster stories. The story is about a man who is attacked by a Martian invader who steals his form, and then pursues the alien for the rest of the story, somehow knowing how to make an infra-red detector to see through the disguise abilities. He’s able to stop the impending invasion, and it turns out the “human” was actually a Venusian, sworn to protect the Earth from invasion.

The cover can just barely be called a reprint of the ST #73 cover, with the original Kirby/Everett Grottu figure preserved but the entire background redrawn by Marie Severin and Bill Everett.

Published 1970

Ghost Rider #22 [1977] – Cover

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GHOST RIDER #22 – February 1977, inked by Al Milgrom. Another one of those odd choices of cover assignments for Kirby, he did three covers for GHOST RIDER in around this time. Looking at the series as a whole it looks like the intent was to give the book more of a super-hero flavour, playing down the super-natural stuff from earlier, so I guess having Kirby on the covers was a part of that.

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