Monster Menace #4 [1994]

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Two Kirby/Ayers reprints in the final issue of this mini-series, both 7-pagers, both from 1961.

From STRANGE TALES #90 is “Orrgo, the Unconquerable”. Orrgo is a creature from one of those warlike alien races who decide that Earth is only worth conquering if just one of their number can conquer humanity. He lands in the middle of a circus and makes short work of all of Earth’s defences with his mental powers, melting tanks, turning airplanes into birds and bombs into eggs, freezing Washington and causing New York to float in the air. He then hypnotizes humanity so he can rest before summoning his peaple. Fortunately for humanity, Jo-jo, a gorilla from the circus, angry at not being fed due to all the fuss Orrgo caused, kills he sleeping alien. As a reward for saving the planet, Jo-jo gets extra bananas. Some gratitude. Some very nice images, like the planes turning to birds and Orrgo’s general goofiness.

And courtesy JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY #64 comes “I Dared to Battle Rorgg, King of the Spider Men”.

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Down in New Mexico, young Tim’s parents are critical of his fascination with sci-fi comics. Normally I’d take Tim’s side in this, but he’s also ignoring the extremely attractive Ann to finish his comics. Anyway, Tim and Ann are at the site where the first webs of a vast alien spider invasion touches down, led by Rorgg. Fortunately, Tim’s expanded imagination manages to reason that a powerful dose of DDT will kill Rorgg and drive off his army. After that everyone was much more accepting of Tim’s comic reading. Unfortunately, the DDT killed them all off soon after… No, just kidding. Another light but fun story, not one of the great ones, but with some spiffy aliens.

Published 1994

Our Fighting Forces #161 [1975] – The Major’s Dream

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Posted in Genre, War.

Despite a generic Joe Kubert cover showing the Losers wandering into a German trap, this is another Kirby issue of OFF and set in Burma, where the Losers team with a British officer, Major Soames, to set up an observation post in an area where the Major previously lost his whole regiment.

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Ever since, the Major is plagued by vivid dreams involving demons, bottomless pits and multi-armed creatures. The Losers manage to fulfil their mission among the ruins of a temple, but the Major finds his dream coming to life.

Not the greatest main story, but there’s a lot to like about this issue, like the depiction of the dream, which Kirby always does well. I especially like this bit of narration:

Soon there is silence, the “Half-Sleep” of tired men… whose senses listen while their bodies regenerate for renewed action.

A nice description no doubt based on Kirby’s own experiences in WWII.

D. Bruce Berry inks the 18-page story.

Published 1975

Fantastic Four #73 [1968] – The Flames of Battle

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I kind of wish I could be more enthusiastic about this issue, which features the FF in battle against Daredevil, Thor and Spider-Man, following up on a story that had just appeared in DAREDEVIL where Doctor Doom briefly switched bodies with Daredevil. DD is back in his own body and goes to warn the FF, but they think it’s still Doom. DD recruits Spider-Man and Thor to help hiim, but of course the FF think they’re imposters as well.

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It’s pretty much just a lot of fighting, very well drawn fighting, but pretty empty from then on until Sue shows up and clears everything up. This might have made a better middle of an epic story if it had some sort of set-up and resolutioin in the FF book itself, instead of batting clean-up to an issue of DD.

Joe Sinnott inks the cover and 20-page story, with some of the Spidey bits having John Romita’s hand in as well.

Published 1968

–Link– Eternals history by Greenberger

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Posted in Links.

Robert Greenberger writes a decent brief overview of Kirby’s original ETERNALS series as part of the hype machine for a new series that is apparently coming soon.

http://www.newsarama.com/forums/showthread.php?t=68747

–Link– Free Stuff

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Posted in Links.

Just a note that the Free Magazine Day at the TwoMorrows website has been extended to (appropriately enough) tomorrow thanks to enough demand that slowed down their servers. Go over and pick out one available issue of ALTER EGO, BACK ISSUE, DRAW or WRITE NOW that you need and they’ll send it to you free of charge (in the United States. $2 to cover shipping to Canada, $3 International). I highly recommend almost any issue of ALTER EGO, but a few notables:

#9 – John Romita
#15 – John Buscema
#17 – Lou Fine
#24 – Mort Meskin
#28 – Joe Maneely
#36 – Joe Simon

Kirby shows up frequently in ALTER EGO, especially any issue with a focus on the Golden Age or 1960s Marvel. BACK ISSUE has also had some Kirby in their “Rough Stuff” section of pencilled artwork, including in #1 and #3.

Might take a while to get through to the site (try during the night or early tomorrow), but it’s worth it.

Free Magazine Day

Marvel Double Feature #10 [1975] – The Secret

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Edited reprint of the Cap story from TALES TO ASTONISH #86 [1967] in this issue. Pretty straight forward story, Cap has to enter a secret base of an unnamed foreign government to make contact with an undercover SHIELD agent, who is unfortunately cracking under the strain, although he manages to die a heroic death saving Cap.

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Along the way, Cap has to fight a giant robot, a mechanical bloodhound, high-tech flame-throwers, experimental air-cars and crawl through some high-tech duct-work. All lovingly rendered by Kirby.

The cover is also from ToS #86, Frank Giacoia inks both that and the edited to 9-pages of the story.

Strange Tales #115 [1963] – Cover

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Ditko inks over Kirby on the cover of this issue (which also features a rather important Doctor Strange story not mentioned on the cover at all). A bit heavy on the inks, but I guess that’s fair enough considering he’s lending one of his villains from Spider-Man to the cause as well (returning the favour from Spidey facing Doctor Doom a few months earlier). I like the way the Torch began to look around this time, with the more clearly defined face when he’s flaming.

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Challengers of the Unknown #76 [1970]

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Two reprints from 1958 in this issue, both Kirby inked by Marvin Stein, although the newly added credits list Wallace Wood as the inker.

CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN #2 is the source for the 10-page “The Traitorous Challenger”. The Challs are investigating a strange creature spotting in Australia when “honorary member” June Walker arrives and tries to get them to abandon the mission. When they refuse, she attempts to sabotage their equipment, but Prof sees through her “accidents” and she reveals that a super-computer told her that a Challenger would die on this mission, based on all known information.

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They continue to battle the creature, which is a very weird cubic beast with a dinosaur-like texture, two legs and a stalk with one “eye” that pulses with energy. Prof realizes that it must be getting energy from the sun in the day and a volcanic source during the night, so if they can draw it away from the volcanic source when night falls it’ll be defeated. Seems logical. It works, and they also decide that June’s actions prevented them from following their original plans, which would have resulted in a Challenger dying, making her a heroine. Seems a bit condescending, but she seems quite proud of that in the final panel.

Next up is the 12-page “The Secret of the Sorcerer’s Mirror” from CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN #3. Master thief Hillary Mycroft steals an ancient mirror which holds the secret locations of three objects which promise great power. The Challengers split up to pursue his men on the search, Prof on the undersea piece, Red on the mountaintop and the others to an island. Along the way each team is saved by a mysterious being, but manages to lose the piece, which explodes when Mycroft tries to put it together because Red removed part of his piece. Yeah, seemed like an odd ending to me, too. A lot of the half-issue CotU stories tend to be unsatisfying, with quick endings, though with a lot of interesting visuals along the way. The full-issue stories work better, but unfortunately full-issue stories were very much the exception at DC at the time (except for the CotU stories that were full issue, did DC do any other full-issue stories in the 1957-1959 era? The major “exciting three-part novel” era of Superman came a bit later, right?).

The last page of each story has a “Kirby is Coming” banner across the bottom, and the letter page in this issue goes into the source of these stories a bit, and plugs Kirby’s return to DC (in JIMMY OLSEN and other then-unnamed books). However, it also incorrectly credits Wood with the inks.

New Kirby – Collected Kirby Collector v5

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vol5.jpgShipping to comic shops this week, THE COLLECTED JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR v5, collecting #20-#22 of the magazine, plus the usual selection of new pieces.

–Link– Marvel webcomics

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Via Mike in a comment to a previous post, Marvel has some of their comics in a web format, including three by Kirby (ETERNALS #1, BLACK PANTHER #1, FANTASTIC FOUR #1). The interface seems more than a bit clunky, and you have to register (for free) to see more than a few pages of each issue, and there are other oddities (check out the date they claim ETERNALS #1 was published!), but check it out if you want.

http://www.marvel.com/digitalcomics/