The Guardian and the Newsboy Legion take some time to help out the troops from all branches of the service in this patriotic wartime cover by Simon&Kirby.
Stay tuned, one more cover, featuring a patriotic-garbed Captain, coming up later tonight.
Published 1944
What’s the Fourth without a look at Kirby’s tribute to the fighting men of WWII, the Howling Commandos? Great Kirby/Ayers cover of one of their forays into the Pacific on this issue (and I like the characters addressing the change of venue in the dialogue), with those huge guns and action in every corner, circling around to the classic splayed hand that leaps off the page.
Published 1964
John Romita stepped in to draw the Cap story in this issue, so the only Kirby art is the cover, also inked by Romita.
Yes, Cap at the mercy of the evil frenchman Batroc zee Leaper. I always liked Batroc, such an absurd character, and charmingly over-written with random french expressions and accents.
Published 1966
This Kirby/Everett credited cover always looked a little odd to me for some reason. The Captain America figure almost looks like it’s pasted on from some other source, and the inks seem oddly heavy in places, maybe not over Kirby at all. Still not bad looking.
I do wonder how this cover came about, over a year after Kirby had last drawn the book. [See the comments for some additional speculation on the origin and composition]
Published 1970
For a Fourth of July special, I’m going to be posting a number of Kirby covers with star-spangled, patriotic or US armed forces themes (couldn’t find anything for Canada Day…). Quite a bit of Captain America, as you can imagine. Stay tuned later in the day for more.
Let’s start with an INVADERS cover, inked by Frank Giacoia, which features the sentinel of Liberty up against the nazi vampire.
Published 1976
Big issue this time, even the cover says it’s a “King-Size Kirby Blockbuster” (although not one they wanted to put a Kirby cover on…). The whole cloning thing kicks off into high-gear this issue, with a look at villains Mokkari and Simyan and their theft of genetic technology from the Project, twisting it to their own ends. Of course, you have to wonder about the Project in general and their cloning of Jimmy Olsen, without informing him, into an army of Olsen clones.
In the Project we meet the original Newsboy Legion, as well as the Olsen clones, finding out some of them have been stolen. Mokkari and Simyan report to Darkseid, with one of those great brief Darkseid moments. “Death can eclipse life! A great lie can smash truth!”
![Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen #135 [1971]](http://kirbymuseum.org/blogs/kirby/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2005/07/Supermans-Pal-Jimmy-Olsen-135-1971.jpg)
Their most powerful clone, laced with kryptonite, breaks out and attacks the Project, where Superman finds out that it’s a giant Jimmy Olsen clone. The elder Newsboys unleash their own secret weapon in response, a clone of the recently deceased in the line of duty Jim Harper, their old Guardian.
Kirby throws a bunch of ideas out in this issue, some of which were probably considered even stranger 35 years ago. It’s nice stuff, very bold and in-your-face, although I thought some of his expository dialogue fell flat (the elder Newsboys introducing themselves (“I, Scrapper, became a social worker — but I’m needed here, too”).
Inking on this 22-page story is officially Vince Colletta, but as usual that’s only part of the story. Mark Evanier’s introduction to the tradepaperback reprint of these stories says that this issue was a bit different from the others, as the Superman and Jimmy Olsen figures were adjusted in the pencils by Al Plastino, Murphy Anderson and others, then inked by Colletta (and with Colletta’s frequent background assistant Art Cappello doing more than usual on this story). It does look a little more cohesive than some of the others (which involved paste-ups over the finished art or Anderson penciling and inking the adjusted art), although of course far less than it should have been with a single decent inker following Kirby’s pencils.
Kirby also wrote one of his odd essays in this issue, “The Hairies – Super-Race or Man’s Second Chance”, about his odd little DNAlien biker/hippie community. That’s one of those things I just assume he had bigger plans for that he never got around to.
Published 1971
Another KID COLT cover, this one inked by Dick Ayers. I especially like on this one how blatantly the real killer is in fact getting away in the background, right outside the door. Missed that at first.
On the other hand, those attempts to write western accents get old kind of fast.
Published 1960
Been a pretty big year for Kirby work being published, especially from Marvel (you’d almost think Marvel didn’t have to pay for it. Oh, wait…). Time for a quick half-way through the year overview. As usual, links over on the sidebar for the announcement page and links for buying them on-line.
DC’s falling behind on the Kirby train, but they do have a KAMANDI ARCHIVES later this year. Pure Imagination should have another volume of THE COMPLETE JACK KIRBY later this year, too.
TwoMorrows has only had one issue of THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR so far, but it was a good one, with lots of 1970s DC artwork, a great article about the Newsboy Legion and a compete S&K crime story. Another should be on the way soon, circa the San Diego Con, and another in the fall. They’ve also been promising a big announcement at San Diego, which might mean more stuff coming out, or something else.
Fantagraphics has a 1950s Harvey short story, “The Fourth Dimension is a Many Splattered Thing”, reprinted from the original artwork, in Craig Yoe’s first anthology of modern art themes in comics, MODERN ARF.
AMERICA’S GREATEST COMICS #11 from AC Comics has two 1950s short stories, one inked by Steve Ditko, AC should have some more 1950s reprinted in some upcoming releases.
Marvel’s been quite a bit heavier than it has been in years, and in several different formats.
Two long-awaited books in the ESSENTIAL line of thick black&white books, FF v4 and THOR v2. Great reproduction throughout on the FF book, the THOR one is more hit and miss, sometimes very good, but every now and then it’s obvious that they’re using printed comics or stats prepared for prior reprints as the source. Still some great
material in each book.
1970s material written and drawn by Kirby shows up in two colour tradepaperbacks, one reprinting the early issues of his BLACK PANTHER run and a second volume of his CAPTAIN AMERICA work, this one including the original tabloid.
The MASTERWORKS hardcover line has already had four volumes this year with some Kirby artwork. One has just a few covers (IRON MAN v2) but the others have a lot of Kirby, with FF v8, Golden Age CAPTAIN AMERICA v1 and Silver Age CAPTAIN AMERICA v2.
In addition, in a new format they’ve printed FANTASTIC FOUR OMNIBUS v1, collecting the first 30 issues of FF in one book, with extra material.
Another new format is the MARVEL MILESTONES line of $4 largely random reprint comics. Kirby’s been in four of them:
DR. DOOM, SUB-MARINER AND THE RED SKULL
IRON MAN, ANT-MAN & CAPTAIN AMERICA
VENOM & HERCULES
WOLVERINE & TUK THE CAVE BOY
Obviously not drawing any of the Venom or Wolverine stories, or the Sub-Mariner one for that matter, but at least one of all the rest.
In a similar format, except including a new short story and more thematically coherent, GIANT-SIZE X-MEN #3 has a pair of Kirby stories as examples of early X-Men crossovers (oddly in the wrong order).
A few anthology types with some Kirby content. In order of quantity:
BEST OF THE FANTASTIC FOUR 2005
Five issues, including the otherwise not-in-print #100, about a third of the book
MARVEL VISIONARIES – STAN LEE 2005
Three stories, including the first ever reprint of THOR #179, Kirby’s last issue
MARVEL WEDDINGS 2005
One story, the oft-reprinted (and never well, including here) FF ANNUAL #3
AVENGERS – KANG – TIME AND TIME AGAIN 2005
One story, the otherwise not-in-print THOR #140
And trivially, the Kirby/Ditko cover of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #1 is
reprinted in these two books:
SPIDER-MAN – FANTASTIC FOUR CLASSIC 2005
MARVEL VISIONARIES – STEVE DITKO 2005
This issue of the western reprint anthology has the first story of the Kid from RAWHIDE KID #17 (1960), “Beware! The Rawhide Kid”. In this 7-page Kirby/Ayers story we learn that the Kid is really Johnny Bart, from the town of Rawhide, where the law hasn’t yet come.
![The Mighty Marvel Western #46 [1976]](http://kirbymuseum.org/blogs/kirby/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2005/07/The-Mighty-Marvel-Western-46-1976.jpg)
He was adopted and raised by ex-Ranger “Uncle” Ben Bart, and picked up all of Ben’s skills with the gun and his moral code. One day while Johnny was out getting supplies Ben was killed in a cowardly manner by two outlaws looking to make their reputation. Johnny finds and buries Ben and then goes out for revenge, showing his superior gun skills and then riding off determined to live up to Uncle Ben’s memory and fight cowardly outlaws like his killers.
Very fast and effective first story, though obviously only half the origin (still leaving in question how the kid became to be known as an outlaw).
I especially like those set-up panels of lawless Rawhide, with the one guy stealing another guys hat and splashing a passing woman.
Published 1976
This is the first issue of STAR SPANGLED to just have an S&K Newsboy Legion cover as the boys were off to the army, handing off the interiors to others in the interim. Great way to send off, with one of the many strongly patriotic wartime covers, with nice expressions on the faces of the boys. Very nice planes back there, too.
Published 1944