Monthly Archives: May 2017

“The Savage In Me” (k011)

by
Posted in K100.

“The Savage In Me” is a 14-page story by Jack Kirby and Joe Simon, published in Prize’s YOUNG ROMANCE #22 [1950].  S&K of course pioneered the romance comics field starting in 1947, and Kirby did over 2000 pages of them in his career (as well as editing many more by other artists in the S&K days), unfortunately only a fraction of them have been reprinted.

This story features a young woman named Augusta Hatcher who works as a missionary with her father, teaching young kids in a small Chinese village. She finds her passions stirred by the arrival of an aggressive you man named Gary Donovan, who brings news of an oncoming threat that will force them to leave the village.

The S&K romance stories, especially the longer stories (they very rarely went above 14 pages), are always interesting, with a lot of varied settings and personalities and complicated plots that aren’t all about the romance elements.

https://www.comics.org/issue/8321/#77438
THE BEST OF SIMON AND KIRBY [2009]

“The Challenge Of Space” (k010)

by
Posted in K100.

“The Challenge Of Space” is a 2-page feature by Jack Kirby from Gilberton’s THE WORLD AROUND US #36 [1961], inked by Dick Ayers.  Kirby had a considerable volume of work published by Gilberton in 1961, most well known being his adaptation of The Last Days Of Pompeii for their main CLASSICS ILLUSTRATED and several chapters in a Civil War history for a special issue of CLASSICS ILLUSTRATED.  He also did several short bits for several issues of this non-fiction book (including a few not included in the US series but included in a British version titled WORLD ILLUSTRATED).

The main theme for this issue is “Fight For Life”, with many short stories about the history of medicine. Kirby does five of the stories, 13 pages in all, finishing with “The Challenge Of Space” looking at some of the equipment used to train astronauts for space flight (this was dated October 1961, so with lead times it’s possible it was done before the first manned flights in the spring). This was a field that Kirby had more than a little experience in, having drawn the SKY MASTERS comic strip for over two years, ending in early 1961. The comic strip of course had a much more exciting an imaginative look at space travel.

https://www.comics.org/issue/224737/#1213584

“Vira, The She-Demon” (k009)

by
Posted in K100.

“Vira, The She-Demon” is a 17-page story by Jack Kirby from 2001 – A SPACE ODYSSEY #2 [1977], inked and lettered by Mike Royer and coloured by Janice Cohen. Kirby did a long tabloid sized adaptation of the 1968 film, followed by a ten issue series. As of now, this is the only major Kirby work from Marvel in the 1970s never to be reprinted (most of the other work has been reprinted at least twice).

Kirby spent the first six issues of the series doing variations on the movie’s storyline of the creation of the “New Seed” through evolutionary pushes from the Monolith. In this one, a woman named Vira gets the inspiration to clad herself in bones and use fear to rule her tribe, which pushes the whole tribe forward. That leads to the future, and astronaut Vera Gentry on the Jovian moon Ganymede escaping from an alien attack to her own encounter with the Monolith and the transformation to the next step.

https://www.comics.org/issue/30655/#193639

“The Outlaw” (k008)

by
Posted in K100.

“The Outlaw” is a 5-page story by Jack Kirby, inked by Dick Ayers, published by Marvel in TWO-GUN KID #55 [1960].  Kirby did western comics as far back as 1939, and memorably did Boys’ Ranch and Bullseye with Joe Simon in the 1950s. He continued to do westerns for Marvel on a fairly regular basis from 1957 to 1964, a lot of Rawhide Kid and Two-Gun Kid stories, but also a few dozen non-series shorts like this one.

“The Outlaw” is a nicely drawn story, about a bank robber who manages to escape from the local sheriff, but the sheriff remains confident. Over the course of the story, the outlaw finds that he can’t do anything with his money for fear of being caught, and is under constant suspicion, being a suspect for rustling cattle and slowly getting to the point that he’s spooked by any movement.

https://www.comics.org/issue/1121457/#125954

“I Was A Slave Of The Living Hulk” (k007)

by
Posted in K100.

“I Was A Slave Of The Living Hulk” is a 13-page science fiction story by Jack Kirby first published in Marvel’s JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY #62 [1960]. Inks are by Dick Ayers.

The “Living Hulk” of the title is a metallic alien giant named Xemnu who crashes in a remote swamp and is found be electrician Joe Harper. Harper manages to revive Xemnu with some high voltage electricity, but is shocked to discover Xemnu is an escaped criminal from a prison planet.  And I just love some of the throwaway aliens that Kirby puts in Xemnu’s fellow inmates. Xemnu plans to use his hypnosis powers to enslave the Earth and build a ship powerful enough to return him to his home planet, even though it would destroy the Earth in the process. As you’d expect, Harper is able to foil him at the last minute.

Xemnu would be one of the few of monsters from these stories to get a sequel, just a few months later in JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY #66 [1961], and makes many subsequent appearances in later Marvel comics.

https://www.comics.org/issue/15938/#126829
MONSTERS ON THE PROWL #11 [1971]
MARVEL MONSTERS – DEVIL DINOSAUR #1 [2005]
MARVEL MONSTERS [HARDCOVER] [2006]

“The Microscopic Army” (k006)

by
Posted in K100.

“The Microscopic Army” is a 5-page story by Jack Kirby published by Marvel in YELLOW CLAW #3 [1957].  Following the first issue of the series, by creators Al Feldstein and Joe Maneely, the next three were done by Kirby. Each issue has four stories, a total of 19 pages each issue, making up more than half of the published Kirby work in this brief 1956/1957 period of working at Marvel (the bulk of the other pages were western stories, plus a war story and a couple of  science fiction tales).

As usual for the short Claw stories, the plot is sparse but the art is brilliant, including a great splash page. In this story, the Claw uses a kidnapped scientist to create a shrinking device, sending in some of his soldiers as spies. FBI Agent Jimmy Woo is called in to a mysterious break-in and notices little tiny footprints, and uses a prototype of the device to shrink himself. A quick battle that includes a giant type-writer and Jimmy using a pen as a lance follows, and the Yellow Claw is forced to flee before his base can be found.

Kirby would use the shrinking gimmick several more times in his career, such as the “Scrapper Troopers” of the DNA Project, a Private Strong story and several stories at Marvel, including the Ant-Man.

https://www.comics.org/issue/13368/#111063
GOLDEN AGE OF MARVEL #1 [1997]
MARVEL MASTERWORKS #123 [2009]

 

“The Big Boom” (k005)

by
Posted in K100.

“The Big Boom” is a 23-page Kirby story from SUPERMAN’S PAL, JIMMY OLSEN #138 [1971], inked by Vincent Colletta with additional art on some figures by Murphy Anderson.

This is the conclusion of Kirby”s story that began in #133, and kicked off what’s become known as the “Fourth World”. The ending is kind of abrupt, as Kirby’s original plans apparently conflicted with some stuff planned from the New York offices, so changed course with this issue (Mark Evanier later did a story based on notes from Kirby’s original plot in LEGENDS OF THE DC UNIVERSE #14 [1999]).  The story as published is still pretty exciting, with a 15-minute countdown to doomsday, as the Four-Armed Terror created by the Evil Factory beats a path of destruction towards the atomic power plant of the DNA Project, threatening an explosion which will take out Metropolis (with a very funny scene of Morgan Edge, pawn of Darkseid, making plans to escape, leaving his underlings behind).

https://www.comics.org/issue/24316/#167049
JIMMY OLSEN – ADVENTURES BY JACK KIRBY #1 [2003]
JACK KIRBY’S FOURTH WORLD OMNIBUS #1 [2007]

“Growing Up With The Lost Ranger” (k004)

by
Posted in K100.

“Growing Up With The Lost Ranger” is a 20-page Jack Kirby story that appeared in CAPTAIN VICTORY AND THE GALACTIC RANGERS #12 [1983] from Pacific, with inks by Michael Thibodeaux, colours by Tom Luth and letters by Palle Jensen.

This is the second chapter of the three part origin of Captain Victory, where we find out that his grandfather was a mythic evil “Ultimate” god named Blackmass, who by the time Victory was a young boy was holding on to a life as a shadowy presence on the world of Hellikost. Young Victory escapes the final destruction of the planet on a cosmic glider (based on design known to his father).

Victory finds himself on a primitive battle-torn planet where he meets Captain Argas Flane, an old member of the Galactic Ranger on his final life, playing out an odd mission which seems to involve pushing the natives of the planet to rapidly evolve their technology in order to kill him. Victory spends years training with Flane before being sent away to join the Rangers.

A lot of things to love in this issue, in the grand scheme of Kirby. It’s unfortunate that the series only lasted one more issue, as it was really delivering some exciting work in the last few issues.

https://www.comics.org/issue/37537/#218936

 

“The Meaning Of… Ragnarok” (k003)

by
Posted in K100.

“The Meaning Of… Ragnarok” is a 5-page Jack Kirby story that appeared as a back-up in THOR #127 [1966], part of a 49-part series of “Tales of Asgard” that were published in JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY and THOR from 1963 to 1967.  It was inked by Vincent Colletta.

In the previous year, Odin had sent Thor and his fellow Asgardians were sent on a mission to find the source of a threat to Asgard which could bring about Ragnarok, the end of days. In this issue they’re summoned back to Asgard to witness the first half of a prophecy by the priestess Volla of what will happen in Ragnarok, from the endless storm to in-fighting and invasion, the destruction of the Rainbow Bridge and the ultimate battle of Thor and Loki, all just prelude to the emergence of the Midgard Serpent.

This is some pretty spectacular stuff, and it’s remarkable to think it’s just a prelude to the even more imaginative stuff in the next chapter.

https://www.comics.org/issue/19990/#147583

“The Strange Aftermath Of The Kansas City Massacre” (k002)

by
Posted in K100.

“The Strange Aftermath Of The Kansas City Massacre” is an 8-page crime story by Jack Kirby and Joe Simon first published in Prize’s HEADLINE COMICS #26 [1947].

This story is based on the real life Kansas City Massacre, a botched attempt to free a prisoner being transported to Leavenworth which resulted in the death of four officers and the prisoner. The three perpetrators scatter, and we follow Verne Miller, who finds little support among the criminal brotherhood and has some close escapes from the cops until he meets his inevitable end (portrayed in a manner which doesn’t really match the historical record).

The S&K team did some great work on crime comics, which allowed them to explore the dark side of human nature, with the determined and unrepentant (but usually impeccable dressed, as you’d see in movies of the era) criminals dealing with sudden bursts of violence.

Kirby returned to the Kansas City Massacre story almost a quarter century later with a story for IN THE DAYS OF THE MOB #1 [1971].

https://www.comics.org/issue/127898/#486715
THE SIMON AND KIRBY LIBRARY – CRIME [2011]