That Kraken, real quick with the comeback. I bet he was the terror of the schoolyard.
Al Milgrom inks on this cover, which is pretty good looking. I like these weird perspective covers.
Published 1976
Kid Colt Outlaw #106 [1962] – Cover
Interestingly, this came out the same month as HULK #3, which also featured a “Circus of Crime”. It would be curious to find out exactly what order these were done in. I assume some, but not all, of Kirby’s cover-only jobs in this early era were done before any interior work on the issue (thus providing springboards for the stories and character designs). And of course another version of the Ringmaster was a golden age villain for Captain America.
Dick Ayers inks on this cover.
Published 1962
Justice Traps the Guilty #21 [1950] – Cover
More crime work from the Prize days by Simon&Kirby. I especially like the contrast these covers always have from the clean-cut and powerful cops with the grimy criminals, with a very different texture.
Published 1950
X-men – The Early Years #11 [1995]
A reprint of “The Triumph of Magneto” from the 1965 published X-MEN #11, this story has the X-Men responding to Professor Xavier’s detection of a potentially powerful new mutant, who turns out to be the alien Stranger.
![X-men - The Early Years #11 [1995]](http://kirbymuseum.org/blogs/kirby/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2005/08/X-men-The-Early-Years-11-1995.jpg)
Of course Magneto also has an interest in powerful mutants, and he gets to the Stranger first. After various battles, we end up with Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch renouncing their allegiance to Magneto (setting up their membership in the Avengers) and the Stranger takes off with Magneto and Toad as samples of mutants to study, never to return (well, never or six months).
Bit of an anti-climactic conclusion to Kirby’s last full-pencil issue of X-MEN, but a lot of nice scenes in here. Chic Stone inks the 20-page story and the interior reprint of the original cover.
Published 1995
Mister Miracle #15 [1973]
In “The Secret Gun”, Kirby took the last step on making MISTER MIRACLE more of a super-hero book following the cancellation of its companion books by introducing a kid side-kick for Scott this issue, Shilo Norman. Shilo, a witness to the gangland killing of his brother, is given to Scott to protect, but he escapes (as Scott knew he would) to take revenge on his own, and Scott and Barda follow.
![Mister Miracle #15 [1973]](http://kirbymuseum.org/blogs/kirby/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2005/08/Mister-Miracle-15-1973.jpg)
While this last year of MM lacks the cosmic punch of the earlier stuff, it’s still a lot of fun, and has some great visuals (Big Barda crushing a canister supposedly containing Scott in a giant nutcracker? Ouch). On the other hand, there were a few more pronounced weaknesses in the script, like the villain Mister Fez (who wears a fez…) with his “Super-cats, eh? I’m too hip to buy that kind of jive”.
Mike Royer inks the 20-page story and cover, and in the letter column Steve Sherman answers a few questions on the end of the other books.
Published 1973
Weird Wonder Tales #6 [1974]
A 7-page Kirby/Ayers reprint from STRANGE TALES #100 (1962) in this story, featuring a failing amusement park owner who designs an impossible to solve maze in order to prop up his business. There are some neat little visual bits in the designs inside the maze, although really, they’d have been pretty expensive to build for a failing amusement park. Trap doors, upsidedown rooms, optical illusions. The door giving off an electrical shock would also seem to be a health code violation.
![Weird Wonder Tales #6 [1974]](http://kirbymuseum.org/blogs/kirby/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2005/08/Weird-Wonder-Tales-6-1974.jpg)
Eventually he kills a reporter who threatens to expose him, and then confronts the owner of a rival maze (were mazes really all the rage back in the 1960s?), who turns out to be…
Well, the story (in both the original and reprint) say the rival is “Fate”, but some of the lettering and art on the last page looks to be changed, so I think it was originally supposed to be something more demonic, maybe “Satan”, and changed at the last minute.
Visually a very fun story, especially the weird maze on the first page and all the weird perspective bits inside the maze.
Published 1974
Star Spangled Comics #37 [1944] – Cover
I really like this example of the wartime S&K covers. As with many of the Newsboy Legion covers, the focus was on the effort of people on the home front in aiding the war effort (while the Boy Commandos covers featured that team on the various front lines), and it comes across nicely on this one, without being overbearing, and some nice rendering on the machinery.
Published 1944
Marvel Two-In-One #27 [1977] – Cover
The one TWO-IN-ONE cover by Kirby that won’t be in the upcoming collection (so if there’s a second volume it’ll be one of the most trivial entries on a Kirby checklist). Joe Sinnott inks, and it’s a nice action cover, and always good to see the whole FF in action, although Deathlok isn’t a character I know much about.
Published 1977
Kid Colt Outlaw #117 [1964] – Cover
Another late-period western cover by Kirby, inked by Sol Brodsky according to the GCD.
A nice cover, but do you ever wonder if those western stars at both DC and Marvel get together and talk about how in their early days it was so simple, they’d fight outlaws and indians, and then in later years started encountering aliens and dinosaurs and magic boomerangs.
Published 1964
Upcoming Kirby – Marvel in November 2005
Posted in Upcoming Kirby.
Four Kirby books in the latest solicitations, including some stuff never reprinted.
GIANT-SIZE INVADERS #2 – The story from ALL-WINNERS #2 has never been reprinted, so that makes this a must-have. The other stuff looks like fun, too, and that’s a great price for it.
FANTASTIC FOUR: THE WEDDING SPECIAL – Yet another reprint of FF Annual #3. I’m going to hope in vain that we’ll get a decent reprint of it this time around (as decent as you can get given the inking, at least). The new story in this issue sounds good, too.
MARVEL MASTERWORKS: THE FANTASTIC FOUR VOL. 9 – Wow, two volumes in one year? That’s unexpected. Wonder if that means they’ll finish up the Kirby run early next year, or this is just the “have something new when the movie comes out on video” thing. Anyway, each issue has a few pages that haven’t been included in previous reprints.
ESSENTIAL MARVEL TWO-IN-ONE VOL. 1 TPB – Not mentioned in the solicitation, but Kirby did five of the covers for books reprinted in there, all but one of his TWO-IN-ONE covers.
GIANT-SIZE INVADERS #2
Written by ROY THOMAS, BILL EVERETT, CARL BURGOS, JOE SIMON & JACK KIRBY
Penciled by JAY ANACLETO, FRANK ROBBINS, BILL EVERETT,
CARL BURGOS, JOE SIMON & JACK KIRBY
Cover by JAY ANACLETO
Captain America, the Sub-Mariner and the Human Torch – together again, in a brand-new story Written by the legendary Roy Thomas! Plus: The greatest super heroes of World War II unite to battle the Axis powers in INVADERS #1-2 (August-October 1975); the Sub-Mariner takes on the Torpedo Boat Terror, from ALL-WINNERS COMICS #1 (Summer 1941); the Human Torch gets caught in the Carnival of Death, from ALL-WINNERS COMICS #2 (Fall 1941); and Captain America cracks the Strange Case of the Malay Idol, also from ALL-WINNERS #2.
96 PGS. $4.99
FANTASTIC FOUR: THE WEDDING SPECIAL
Written by KARL KESEL
Penciled by DREW JOHNSON
Cover by GENE HA
A true Collector’s Item celebrating one of the greatest events in comics history – the marriage of Reed Richards and Sue Storm! Hard to believe they tied the knot 40 years ago… and it certainly doesn’t seem that much time has passed to Reed and Sue themselves when a special evening out gives them a chance to look over their entire life together – past, present and future – in an all-new 30-page story by Karl Kesel and Drew Johnson. Also included as an added bonus: Reed and Sue’s original 1965 wedding extravaganza, guest-starring the Avengers, X-Men, Spider-Man and a cast of thousands – an epic that could only be told by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby! So, like all great weddings, this Special mixes something old (The original Lee/Kirby FF Wedding Spectacular) with something new (“The Life Fantastic” by Kesel/Johnson) – even though there’s nothing borrowed, and the only thing blue will be any fan who misses this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!
64 PGS. $4.99
MARVEL MASTERWORKS: THE FANTASTIC FOUR VOL. 9
Written by STAN LEE
Penciled by JACK KIRBY
Cover by JACK KIRBY
FIELD TRIP!
That’s “Field Trip” as defined in the Lee/Kirby Dictionary, which means you’d better pack that bag lunch in unstable molecules and strap yourself in for a trip around the universe beyond your wildest imagination!
First stop: A little visit to the neighbor’s place, and hanging with the incomparable Inhumans and titanic team-up against Maximus the Mad!
Second stop: Europe. Paris is beautiful in the springtime, but that’s nothing. According to the brochure, Latveria’s lovely year round. You might want to take that visitor’s guide with a grain of salt, though. The savvy traveler never trusts a Chamber of Commerce run by Doombots.
Third stop: Down under. Way down under for a big-time battle with the Mole Man!
Last stop: Now here’s a trip that’s far out. The ever lovin’ blue-eyed Thing gets whisked away on a galactic tour as a gladiator in the scurrilous Skrulls’ slave arena! If that’s not enough outer-space exotica for ya, then welcome yourself to a world wrapped in the Roarin’ Twenties!
With tour guides like Stan and Jack, you’d best make those travel plans today, True Believer. Tickets for this trip are guaranteed to sell out! Collecting FANTASTIC FOUR (Vol. 1) #82-93
272 PGS./ $49.99
ISBN: 0-7851-1846-2
ESSENTIAL MARVEL TWO-IN-ONE VOL. 1 TPB
Written by LEN WEIN, MIKE FRIEDRICH, STEVE GERBER, CHRIS CLAREMONT, ROY THOMAS, BILL MANTLO, ROGER SLIFER, MARV WOLFMAN,
SCOTT EDELMAN, TONY ISABELLA & JIM SHOOTER
Penciled by JIM STARLIN, GIL KANE, SAL BUSCEMA, GEORGE TUSKA, HERB TRIMPE, BOB BROWN, RON WILSON, ARVELL JONES,
DICK GIORDANO, MIKE ESPOSITO, DAVE HUNT, SAM GRAINGER, MARIE SEVERIN & JOHN BUSCEMA
Cover by JIM STARLIN
The Thing can’t stay out of trouble, but at least he makes friends wherever he goes! The Ever-Lovin’ Idol o’ Millions teams up with heroes both frontline and forgotten against menaces spanning time and space! Gods! Aliens! Spies! Demons! Dinosaurs! Time travellers! Martial artists! The Living Eraser and the Mountain That Walked Like a Man! A veritable who’s who of history’s horror heroes! Fans of NEW INVADERS take notice of Ben’s team-ups with the Invaders AND the Liberty Legion! Collects MARVEL FEATURE #11-12; MARVEL TWO-IN-ONE #1-20, 22-25 and ANNUAL #1; MARVEL TEAM-UP #47; and FANTASTIC FOUR ANNUAL #11.
576 PGS. $16.99
ISBN: 0-7851-1729-6