Rick Norwood’s COMICS REVUE has been reprinting comic strips for over 20 years now, including one run of Kirby’s long running comic strip, the ones after those included in the 1991 Pure Imagination SKY MASTERS magazine to the end of the strip (before Greg Theakston published THE COMPLETE SKY MASTERS). Daily strips ran in #124 – #142, #144 – #153 and CR SPECIAL #1. Sunday strips ran on the covers (usually front and back, with the front missing the “Scrap Book” footer and sometimes the cut panel) of the odd numbered issues from #145 – #191. The Sundays are still of interest even with the COMPLETE book since it’s still the only colour reprint of those pages, though the quality of the colour varies depending on the printed source. Some of them are excellent, but others are very dark, or have a lot of bleed-through from the other side, or out-of-register colours. And of course all of the issues have a lot of other great strip reprints you won’t find anywhere else.

#183 has the first two strips of the final Sunday storyline, from December 20 and 27, 1959. Astronaut Sky Masters is called in for his new mission. Apparently international playboy and yoga expert Roland Aly has shown he can use his skills to withstand pressures that no human should be able to, something that would be very useful to the space program. Sky is sent to Aly’s private island to learn these techniques.

Dick Ayers was the inker at this point, and doing an excellent job. This is some of favourite Kirby work of the era, lacking a bit of the goofy energy of the monster comics but making up for it with the dense, tight storytelling, detailed art and imaginative ideas.

Published 2001

This issue opens with Kamandi and Sultin taking a look inside a museum which includes, among other things, several statues of US Presidents (including the ruins of the Lincoln Memorial apparently just excavated). Oddly the museum also has a lot of large statues of the humanoid lions of Kamandi’s era, those presumably of much more recent vintage. The two-page spread of the museum is one of the Kirby classics from this series.

Unfortunately the sight of humans in captivity acting like animals is too much for Kamandi, so he rebels, and Sultin has to escape with him out to the wild.

There Kamandi runs into some bears, who despite their increased intelligence are still godless killing machines. Fortunately, Kamandi displays that knack for running into people he knows at random places in the big world and is found by radioactive mutants (but human) Ben Boxer and Renzi, much to his delight. They escape to the waiting balloon where the third member of their team, Steve, is waiting and Kamandi decides to stick around on their return to their point of origin, Tracking Site.

A lot of this issue is based on Kamandi’s reactions to the world he finds himself thrust in, his frustration at how far humans have fallen, how alone he is, his joy at re-discovering people at least somewhat like him. Kirby does a good job of portraying that in the dialogue and body language, and in showing how Kamandi’s friends like Sultin and Ben empathize with him.

Mike Royer inks the 20 page story and cover.

Published 1973

An intruder enters the Valley of Flame in this issue, a giant human-like being wearing the skull of a thunder-horn and rampaging through the forests.

Moon-Boy goes to find out what kind of creature this is, and gets captured by the object of the giant’s search, his son who had wandered into the valley. Of course, neither father or son, despite their giant frames, are any match for the cunning of Devil and Moon-Boy. Fortunately for them, Moon-Boy puts everything together in the end and convinces Devil to rescue the Giant and re-unite the pair to leave the Valley in peace.

This is my favourite issue of the short run of this series, a good solid complete adventure with a lot of action, some clever planning by Moon-Boy and a nice ending.

Mike Royer inks the 17-page story and cover.

Kirby also writes a one-page text piece, “The X Age… A Comic Book Bonanza”, about how filling in the blanks on pre-history is a fertile ground for comic book creators, or “Comic Bookeroos” as Kirby calls them. I’m surprised that name never caught on…

Published 1978