Cracked #14 [1960] – Old Ideas For New Panel Shows

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Posted in Genre, Humour.

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Kirby only did a single story for the long running humour magazine CRACKED, this 5-page story which he apparently both pencilled and inked (with doutone shading). This is a TV parody based on the premise of using classic children’s games as the basis for the celebrity panel shows popular at the time, so it has some of the famous people of the era playing games like Hide and Seek, Tug of War, Spin the Bottle and Hopscotch. There aren’t a lot of actual working jokes in the script beyond the premise, but Kirby does a surprisingly good job on the celebrity faces, of those I recognize, and throws in a few funny bits with the body language. Humour comics were only a small fraction of the comics that Kirby did in his career, but he did have an interesting touch with them.

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Published 1960

X-Men – The Early Years #9 [1995] – Enter, The Avengers

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Posted in Genre, Superhero.

This issue has a reprint from X-MEN #9 [1965], wherein the X-Men are summoned to Europe by Professor X, who is hunting down the villain Lucifer, the man who cost him the use of his legs in some hinted-at story that wouldn’t be told until after Kirby stopped drawing the book. The Avengers also wind up in the same region, apparently thanks to Thor’s hammer detecting evil rays or something. Yeah, I don’t know what that’s all about, but it was the Mighty Marvel Age of crossovers.

The Professor finds Lucifer, but finds out that he’s rigged a bomb to explode if his heartbeat stops, so he mentally orders the X-Men to stop the Avengers from interfering. So of course, they fight…

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There’s a classic Marvel panel of the era, ten heroes, each with some dialogue or thought balloons.

Eventually Professor X communicates with Thor and convinces him that they should let the X-Men handle this, and the team re-joines the Professor to defuse the bomb. And for some reason the Professor then lets Lucifer go now that he knows he can be defeated. So much for Xavier’s vow earlier to make sure he never menace humanity again.

The fight with the Avengers is a bit formulaic, and the end a bit abrupt, but otherwise a solid story with a few funny scenes (like the American tourist who runs in the Avengers and the X-Men).

Chic Stone inks the 20-page story, and the original Kirby/Stone cover is also reprinted as a pin-up in the back of the book.

Published 1995

Upcoming Kirby – Kamandi Archives v2

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Posted in Upcoming Kirby.

Hey, this was kind of unexpected. Maybe they’ll actually get around to doing the full Kirby run on the book in this format.

Some Kirby stuff I should mention further in the future, DC recently announced that they’ll do a multi-volume colour hardcover series of Kirby’s Fourth World stuff, including all of the Kirby NEW GODS, FOREVER PEOPLE and MISTER MIRACLE issues from the 1970s, only some of the JIMMY OLSEN issues and the 1980s “Even Gods Must Die” and “Hunger Dogs” stories. Exact plans are still up in the air, they may be in original published order instead of split by series. Hopefully they’ll manage to make this go-round definitive (a few previous reprints have had a few odd modifications, like some sound effects obviously changed for a previous foreign reprint). More details when the first volume is actually on the schedule.

kamandiv2.jpgTHE KAMANDI ARCHIVES VOL. 2 HC
Written by Jack Kirby
Art by Kirby, Mike Royer and D. Bruce Berry
Cover by Kirby

The incredible adventures of the Last Boy on Earth continue in this 228-page volume collecting KAMANDI #11-20! This volume features such classic doses of dystopian future-shock by Kirby as “Hell at Hialeah!”, “The Human Gophers of Ohio!” and “The Last Gang in Chicago” plus an introduction by KAMANDI inker Mike Royer.

on sale February 28 – 228 pg, Full Colour, $49.99 US

–Link– NYT on Kirby

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Posted in Links.

In conjunction with the Masters of American Comics exhibit now moving to Manhatten’s Jewish Museum and The Newark Museum in New Jersey (with the Kirby content at the Jewish Museum), the New York Times has a brief look at a few images from a classic FANTASTIC FOUR issue (Flash plugin required).

http://www.nytimes.com/packages/khtml/2006…

The Demon #8 [1973] – The Phantom of the Sewers

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Posted in Genre, Horror/Fantasy.

Kirby opens up up the issue with a nice look at Jason Blood’s collection of ancient artifacts, which is doubly impressive when you consider that he keeps them in an apartment. Rent there must be killer.

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Gotta say, Etrigan’s face in that third panel seems off. Anyway, finding some weapons missing, they find a tunnel where he confronts the thief, the Phantom of the Sewers, presumably inspired by one of the movies with a similar theme. Etrigan recovers Merlin’s sword, but loses the Phantom, who we see has a hidden lair where he worships a statue that looks a lot like Glenda. Back home, Jason Blood decides to use the Philosopher’s Stone to freeze out Etrigan, which appears to work. Bad timing, though, as the Phantom kidnaps Glenda at a party, convinced she’s the one who betrayed him, and plans revenge. Being able to turn into a demon is useful under those circumstances.

Not one of my favourite issues of the series, as a few bits of the art seem a bit clumsy, and a few bits of the story are abrupt (Jason’s decision to try to kill Etrigan at that particular point, the party they decide to throw). A lot of the visuals are nice, in particular all the stuff around Jason’s apartment.

Mike Royer inks the 23-page story and cover.

Published 1973

Nick Fury and His Agents of SHIELD #4 [1973]

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Posted in Genre, Superhero.

Two STRANGE TALES reprints from 1966 in this issue, the SHIELD stories from #152 and #153, both drawn by Jim Steranko over Kirby layouts, both edited down to 11 pages from the original 12. Steranko would of course take over the full art in the next issue.

“The Power of SHIELD” starts with Fury trapped on a runaway plane with the Overkill Horn, about to be shot out of the sky by SHIELD. Meanwhile, back below the ruins of Karnopolis, the Supreme Hydra switches identities for the next phase of his plans.

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He leaves just in time, as Fury is able to escape from the plane before SHIELD’s attack hits and redirects the plane to Karnopolis, which is destroyed when SHIELD’s Strato-Mine homes in on the Overkill Horn. Fury then leads a rescue of the daughter of the previous Supreme Hydra, who had helped him escape earlier. The story finishes with a pretty funny scene of Jasper Sitwell, temporarily in charge of SHIELD, trying to smoke one of Fury’s cigars.

Next up is “The Hiding Place”, which opens with Fury getting a shave at the SHIELD barber shop, so I guess it’s more than a front for the entrance to the SHIELD base. Anyway, as he cleans up, the car that Gabe and Jasper are taking the rescued daughter to safety in is attacked, and Fury and Dum Dum Dugan are off to the rescue. As they are, though, the new Supreme Hydra changes faces yet again, this time to that of a SHIELD agent they captured, and infiltrates SHIELD HQ, leading the forces that go to help fight off the Hydra attack and capturing his own men to win Fury’s confidence.

Just Kirby layouts, of course, and Steranko at the time was quickly developing his own style, but at this point a lot of the Kirby comes out both from the layouts and Steranko’s own work being influenced by Kirby. The SHIELD stories are really plot heavy at this point, with a lot of twists in the half-issues they got.

Published 1973

Where Monsters Dwell #26 [1974] – The Thing Called Metallo

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Posted in Genre, Science Fiction.

This issue features a 13-page Kirby/Ayers reprint TALES OF SUSPENSE #16 (1961). Mike Fallon escapes from jail and decides the best place to hide-out would be to volunteer to test a radiation suit. Apparently there’s no background check for that, so he’s in, and gets to try out the giant robot frame, which can’t be damaged or even opened except from the inside. The tests end up involving one of the greatest scenes of all time: Giant Robot vs. Giant Octopus!

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The suit passes all it’s other tests, and then Fallon decides that he should use it for his own gain, and procedes to rob a bank. After that he decides to free the prisoners in Alcatraz and enlist them as part of a criminal army. Makes sense to me. Fortunately for the world, as he gets to the prison he begins to feel ill, and the prison doctor informs him that he has a disease that can only be treated with radiation therapy, which would require he leave the suit. Struck by the sheer irony of the situation, he wanders off, leaving all thoughts of a criminal army behind.

Pretty good twist for this kind of story, and a lot of great art throughout. I especially like one panel where Metallo does the typical Kirby “thoughtful hand-across-the-chin” gesture, which looks pretty funny with those big robot fingers.

The cover is also from ToS #16.

Published 1974

2001 – A Space Odyssey #6 [1977] – Inter-Galactica

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Posted in Genre, Science Fiction.

Norton, our super-hero loving character from the previous issue, finds himself a long way from New York, on a spaceship under attack from a massive alien ship.

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Realizing that the aliens are after the alien Princess in the small capsule they found earlier, Norton takes off in that capsule to save his crewmates. That leads to one of those wild cosmic trips that the Monolith often causes, including some nice odd splash pages. They wind up under attack at a matter transmitter, where the Princess escapes but Norton falls, leading to a return of the Monolith and Norton’s final conversion to a New Seed.

One of the interesting things about these short little 2001 stories by Kirby is that there is always a long of unexplored stuff below the surface that you get the feeling Kirby had a whole backstory worked out on who the Princess and the aliens were and where they went.

Mike Royer inks the 17-page story and Frank Giacoia inks the cover.

Published 1977