From the middle of the great run of THOR inked by Bill Everett. It’s a beautiful thing to see the texture that Everett brings to these pencils both in the 20-page story and the cover.

In “The Wrath of the Wrecker”, the basic story this time around has Thor returning to Earth and his Don Blake identity, just in time to operate on a a civil rights leader who was shot (somewhere along the line Don Blake seems to have gone from a decent surgeon to the greatest surgeon in the world). In the middle of the operation, the Wrecker manages to escape custody and Blake has to leave the operation for a knock-down fight, returning just in time to finish the operation.

A bit of an oddly written issue, as Thor spends most of the fight lecturing the Wrecker on morality and responsibility, in between the punches and hammer blows.

But the art is a masterpiece of destructive action. There’s one really good scene where the Wrecker sends his crowbar right through a truck, sending the engine flying out the front. Then when he and Thor get to fighting in the city, it’s as powerful as Kirby’s art ever looked. It’s a shame most of this run of THOR has never been reprinted, and probably won’t be for a few more years at least.

Published 1969

X-MEN – THE EARLY YEARS was a monthly reprint series that ran 17 issues in 1994/1995, reprinting the first 18 issues of X-MEN (the last issue being double-sized). It had new covers of variable quality, but most issues reprinted the original Kirby covers inside as well. A nice inexpensive way to get the early X-MEN issues before the ESSENTIAL UNCANNY X-MEN book came out in 1999, although some of the colours printed a bit dark here (I think its the same colouring as the glossy paper Masterworks version), obscuring some of the linework.

“Unus the Untouchable” is from X-MEN #8 (1964), inked by Chic Stone. X-MEN is my favourite of the Kirby/Stone collaborations of the period. Very bold, solid work. Anyway, as we open, the X-Men are practicing under acting leader Cyclops’ command, giving the usual opportunity to show off their powers (and change Iceman from the snowman look he had up to this point to his more refined icy look) and for Scott and Jean to mentally whine about how much they love each other but dare not talk about it. Later, Bobby and Hank go out in the world and face the anti-mutant hysteria that abounded in those days after the Beast rescues a boy. That leads Hank to quit the team and become a wrestler, where he encounters another mutant, Unus the Untouchable, who is being scouted by Mastermind for the Brotherhood.

After various plot complications, Hank creates a device which increases Unus’ untouchability, leading everyone to think he’s betrayed the team.

Of course he hasn’t as Unus soon finds out when his powers are now so powerful that he can’t even touch food to eat. He’s restored with a promise to stay in line. Like that’s going to work.

A slight story with a clever twist (okay, it seems a bit hokey now, but only because similar things have been done so much since). The art is a lot of fun, with the practice sequence at the beginning and the wrestling match in the middle standing out, as well as goofy things like Unus with food floating all around him.

This reprints the full 20-page story from the original, as well as the cover, also inked by Stone. It doesn’t have the pin-up of the Beast which appeared in the original.

Published 1994

One of the flaws in Kirby’s last few years at Marvel was probably the over-use of splash pages, especially given the shrinking page count. This issue of THE ETERNALS is a case in point, with no less than five full-page and one double-page splash in just 17 story pages. Makes for a bit of a slight read, although I’ll happily concede that Kirby put a lot of work into those splashes, and to be fair big concepts deserve big art. It’s more in the context of 17-page stories that it become a problem.

Anyway, this issue continues introducing the major concepts of the series, as members of the three major races of Earth (humans, Deviants and Eternals) witness the coming of a great space-ship of the Celestials. As the defiant Deviant leader Kro flees with his men, Ikaris of the Eternals gives some more background of how the Deviants tried to conquer the planet once before, and were toppled by the Celestials who caused a great flood. Then, Ikaris finds out how to operate the mechanism to bring back his lost friend Ajax and his men, who are the “landing crew” for the Celestials.

At this point the series was still about laying down the groundwork of big ideas and a new mythology, so character unfortunately takes a backseat, even among the handful of Eternals we’d met so far. Later on Kirby would take care of that, once the basics were done.

Royer inks the cover, while Verpoorten inks the interior story, and Kirby also writes a text page while they were waiting for letters complaining about the lack of ties to the Marvel Universe to flood in.

Published 1976

This short-lived reprint series of the mid-1970s featured both the solo adventures of the FF’s Torch from STRANGE TALES and golden age adventures of the original android Torch. The first issue had the Torch’s solo debut from STRANGE TALES #101 (1962). Unfortunately, it’s slightly edited, taking out a full page and one panel, most of which recap the origin of the FF, replacing it with a single later panel of the team.

Early on we see Johnny’s room, which is amusingly almost completely coated in asbestos, thanks to Reed. I’m not sure, but I suspect he has the basis for a lawsuit there (as if the poorly shielded space-ship wasn’t enough).

This is also back when they had this misguided attempt to give the Torch a secret identity for the first few issues (and I love the explanation from a few issues later that everyone was just humouring Johnny about the secret identity thing). So a lot of these early stories is filled with Johnny distracting people so he could flame on in secret.

It’s an okay story otherwise, with the Torch foiling a villain who is trying to shut down an amusement park. Johnny eventually figures out that the high rides in the park offered a vantage point which would have exposed the landing point of a hidden communist sub. That Long Island is a nest of spy activity. There’s some nice art along the way, especially of the amusement park rides done in Kirby style, and Ben Grimm makes a brief cameo.

Dick Ayers inks the now 12-page story.

Published 1974

An excellent Kirby adventure in this issue, with a great villain. In this story, Cap and the as-yet-unnamed blonde SHIELD agent are captured by the bee-keeping minions of AIM, who are now under the command of their mysterious creation, Modok. They decide that their best bet is to pit Cap and Modok against each other, so they can easily take them both out after they wear each other out. That’s when we get our first good look at the glory that is Modok.

Cap battles Modok until a squad of AIM agents attack, wounding Modok. Cap and the SHIELD agent are able to defeat the AIM agents aboard an escape sub easily, while the dying Modok destroys the main ship.

Fun enough story, but the real charm is in the crazy big-head design of Modok. I’m surprised that such a great villain was just a throwaway.

Joe Sinnott inks the 10-page story and the cover (which rather oddly has Modok stuck in a corner almost as an afterthought, when you’d think he’d either be the focus of the cover or not there at all (if he’s meant to be the big reveal).

Published 1967