Kirby did four pieces for this issue of WHO’S WHO, all inked by Greg Theakston.

Beautiful Dreamer of the Forever People is up first, and is the best looking one this issue, with some nice images of her, including one of her conjuring up one of her illusions.

Ben Boxer from Kamandi is up next, showing how he transforms with his cyclo-heart.

Big Barda from Mister Miracle is here, too, although I would have expected a stronger image given some of the great Barda art from the 1970s. This one is just okay.

Another Forever Person, Big Bear, is the last Kirby entry in this issue, with some nice images of him and the super-cycle, one of those great Kirby vehicles.

Kirby drew this 100 page graphic novel on his return to Marvel in the 1970s, re-uniting with his long-time FANTASTIC FOUR collaborative team. It’s an interesting book, and well worth hunting down a copy for the Kirby/Sinnott art alone. There’s something just so elegant and powerful about the way Kirby draws the Surfer, and Sinnott brings it out as good as anyone.

The final panel of this page, of a Surfer monument made by a tribe he passed by one his travels, is one of my favourite images from that entire era of Kirby’s career.

The story re-tells the coming of Galactus story, without the Fantastic Four. In this version, the Surfer finds Earth, decides to defy Galactus, who exiles him to Earth. The Surfer explores humanity, and then Galactus attempts to win him back, using a golden female creation of his, Ardina, who both seduces him and tries to convince him of the worthlessness of humanity. Also in the mix is an interesting character, Galactus’ Master of Guile (called the “Devil’s Advocate” in Kirby’s character design printed in THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR #22), who represents the dark side of Galactus.

The biggest problem in this book is probably that the structure of the story seems to require Kirby’s original concept of the Surfer, as a creation of Galactus, while the whole Zenn-La, Shalla Bal nonsense is shoe-horned in (in a two page flashback sequence that doesn’t make much sense and constantly in the dialogue). It just doesn’t work. Taking that out and mentally adjusting, and taking out some of the more flowery excesses of the script, and it works a lot better.

This book also has a non-Kirby cover painting, which isn’t too good, based on a far better Kirby image, printed in THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR #9. Also in here are bios of the creators, with a great photo of Kirby, oddly with a pipe rather than the cigar he’s usually associated with.

The book was reprinted by Marvel in the late 1990s, I think with a different cover based on one of the interior images, but I don’t have a copy to verify that.

One of the sillier concepts of all time, this features Kirby and others from Marvel in the 1960s transformed into the Fantastic Four, with the on-the-nose title of “What If… The Fantastic Four Were the Original Marvel Bullpen?”. Kirby is cast as The Thing, of course.

It’s all delightfully goofy, with a few gentle shots taken at the man playing Mr. Fantastic. And it was good to see Kirby getting one last pseudo-shot at writing and drawing a Fantastic Four story.

Joe Sinnott inked the cover, while Mike Royer and Bill Wray inked the 34 interior pages.