The Orange County Register has a nice article interviewing Neal Kirby, Jack and Roz’s son. Includes three photos, Neal with the Hunger Dogs cover, with a huge colour FF poster and other original artwork and a signed photo of Jack Kirby.
http://www.ocregister.com/ocr/2005/07/09/sections/news/news/article_591195.php
Kirby provides a new cover for this issue’s reprint of FF #36 (1965), inked by John Verpoorten according to the Kirby Checklist, Joe Sinnott according to the GCD. Verpoorten looks more likely as Sinnott had a few distinctive touches in his work from this era that are missing. Also of note, Medusa is wearing something closer to her later mask on the cover rather than what she wore in this issue.
This issue opens as Reed and Sue publicly announce their engagement, getting a lot of press attention. Unfortunately, Sue also took this as a time to unveil one of her least flattering hair-cuts. Meanwhile, the Wizard (who makes a brief misguided name change to the Wingless Wizard this issue. Ooooh, “Wingless”! Scary) has gathered a few of the other super-criminals, Paste-Pot-Pete and Sandman, along with new recruit Madame Medusa, to form the Frightful Four.
Following a party with the Avengers and X-Men (where the scripting has to go through a few hoops to explain Professor Xavier’s presence, since he wasn’t openly associated with the X-Men at the time) the villains attack and are able to defeat the three members present.
Fortunately Johnny is off admiring cars, and Alicia is able to send a signal off to him and he manages to rescue his team-mates and Alicia from floating off into space and defeat the villains.
Of course the Frightful Four would return several times in the next year, but the real lasting legacy of this issue is the introduction of Medusa, leading to the Inhumans and some of Kirby’s best supporting characters.
Chic Stone inks the story. This reprint is edited down to 19 pages from the original 21, with a Yancy Street gag from the beginning and a scene with the Torch a few pages later missing.
Published 1970
In October, Marvel is publishing four new one-shots featuring various Marvel monsters, and each will have a Jack Kirby reprint as the backup. To wit:
MARVEL MONSTERS: DEVIL DINOSAUR
“I Was a Slave of the Living Hulk!” from Journey Into Mystery #62, November 1960 by Kirby/Ayers.
MARVEL MONSTERS: FIN FANG FOUR
“Fin Fang Foom” from Strange Tales #89, October 1961 by Kirby/Ayers
MARVEL MONSTERS: WHERE MONSTERS DWELL
“I Was Trapped By Titano” from Tales to Astonish #10, July 1960 by Kirby/Sinnott
MARVEL MONSTERS: MONSTERS ON THE PROWL
“We Found the Ninth Wonder of the World” from Tales to Astonish #1, January 1959 by Kirby/Rule
More info here.
Dan Adkins inks on this 1970s cover, as Cap explains to the junior Avengers which way they’re supposed to look on a cover for maximum effect. Hey, this is Captain America, he was doing this before they were born, he knows how to pose for a cover, and the first rule is “Face Front”.
Published 1976
Late in Kirby’s five year 1970s stint at DC they launched 1st ISSUE SPECIAL as a sort of SHOWCASE concept. One of Kirby’s concepts ran in the first issue.
Set in an ancient world of legends and wonders when man rose from barbarism, this issue opens as Atlas is exhibiting his strength while his companion Chagra looks for a challenger.
Atlas easily wins the combat set up for him, and is soon enbroiled in another mess which brings the attention of a familiar voice. Atlas has a flashback to his village being destroyed by a slaver when he was a boy, and his adventures growing up while seeking the slaver. His quest is at an end as the voice he just heard is the King of Hyssa, the slaver who killed his family.
All set-up in this issue, which is a shame, as there’s some promise in here and in the concept pages that have been published in TJKC #23 and #26 (plus an unused cover on TJKC #4).
D. Bruce Berry does the inks on the cover and 20-page story. The text page isn’t written by Kirby, but does feature a small version of what appears to be an alternate cover illustration for this issue, fully inked and coloured.
Published 1975
Just a Kirby cover on this final issue of the short-lived S&K companion book to BLACK MAGIC, featuring true stories. It says so right on the cover.
You’d think the fact that the killer is green would be enough information for an identification.
I love those trademark Kirby eyes on the killer, with that weird half-squint that he used so often (I can remember some especially memorable ones from Darkseid).
Published 1953
Mark Evanier has the full press release about the Jack Kirby Museum and Research Center (JKMRC) project coming from the Kirby Estate, Randolph Hoppe and TwoMorrows, including an on-line version of the Kirby checklist. More details will be forthcoming at the San Diego Con next week, or keep an eye on this page.
http://www.newsfromme.com/archives/2005_07_06.html#010054
//kirbymuseum.org/
Marvel will be releasing its set of “Dollar Digests” this week, 64-page black and white, possibly edited reprints of various early material for $1. See here for details. Not sure if I’ll see them, so feel free to comment if you do.
FANTASTIC FOUR: FIRST FAMILY DOLLAR DIGEST
AVENGERS: ASSEMBLE DOLLAR DIGEST
HULK: HULK SMASH DOLLAR DIGEST
X-MEN: CHILDREN OF THE ATOM DOLLAR DIGEST
SPIDER-MAN: AMAZING FANTASY DOLLAR DIGEST (maybe)
This is the last of the four half-issues of AMAZING ADVENTURES that Jack Kirby wrote and drew featuring the Inhumans, and was also the last (in publishing order, he probably drew it earlier) original material by him from Marvel for five years (not counting the cobbled-together story published in FF #108). Of course they’d be hitting the reprints pretty hard for their Kirby fix in those years, with an average of over five books a month with Kirby reprints. I think Marvel actually printed more pages of Kirby while he was over at DC than DC did.
Anyway, back to the Inhumans. This is still a lot weaker than the writing he would be doing in just a few months, and Chic Stone’s inks seem especially rough compared to his usual work. A shame, as I’m sure he did have some good ideas for the oft-delayed Inhumans series that these four half-issues don’t really show.
Picking up from last time, the Inhumans uncover the Eye of Yin as the Mandarin had planned, and he’s able to take the eye from them and absorb its power into his rings. Of course one of the first things he does is turn on his loyal underling, which is a scene I like in a low-rent Doom/Darkseid kind of way.
After an all-too-brief battle Black Bolt is able to defeat the Mandarin kind of easily, and then, well, I guess the Inhumans return to the Great Refuge and lived happily ever after, never bothered by humanity again.
Published 1971
When I talk about Jack Kirby artwork on WWII flag-draped super-heroes of military rank, you know I’m talking about…
Captain Freedom?
Yep. Kirby did a bunch of covers in 1942 for this Harvey Comics character who appeared in SPEED COMICS. Don’t know too much about the character, he was apparently a newspaper publisher named Don Hudson who sometimes had a kid gang group the Young Defenders helping him. The handful of covers Kirby did were certainly good (though there’s some disagreement over which are S&K and which are Simon solo).
The original art for this cover was up for auction a while ago. Check out the scan here.
Published 1942