Themeless Cover Gallery (BoyC, Fury, Defenders)

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Posted in Gallery.

BOY COMMANDOS #7, 1944. After six issues doing interiors, Kirby is off to the army, with just covers for the next two years. A great vintage S&K cover, lots of movement, nice details on the motorcycles.

SGT. FURY #15, 1965. Dick Ayers inks. Fury and the Howlers taking care of business in Holland, in a nice dramatic cover. I don’t usually mention anything about the non-Kirby interiors of these things, but this one has a gorgeous unusual combination of Dick Ayers pencils with Steve Ditko inks.

DEFENDERS #42, 1976. Klaus Janson inks. Hulk versus the Rhino. That’s okay. I also always like the way that Kirby draws Doc Strange for some reason.

Super Powers #2 [1984]

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Posted in Genre, Superhero.

The series continued with Kirby doing just plotting for the interior story. He did draw the cover, as inked by Mike Royer. Pretty decent looking, although of course Kirby’s never at his best drawing other people’s designs.

Super Powers #2 [1984]

The story pretty much has three of the villains sent out with enhanced powers the previous issues failing, thanks to some teamwork on behalf of the heroes, and being taken away at their moment of defeat by those mysterious tubes with the “boom” sound effect. That leaves Brainiac and his attack on Wonder Woman at Paradise Island set up on the final page for next issue. Gonzales/Marcos are still trying a bit too hard to add surface elements of Kirby’s style to their art. The writing wasn’t bad, but it had some odd references to the then-current continuity (Flash’s murder trial, Batman leaving the JLA).

Published 1984

Black Panther #8 [1978] – Panthers or Pussycats?

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Posted in Genre, Superhero.

This story opens up with a flashback to a combat ritual some years ago in Wakanda, where the ruling Panther took on various challengers in hand-to-hand combat. A brilliant two-page spread highlights that battle.

Black Panther #8 [1978]

Following the flashback, we get two storylines. T’Challa is flying back to Wakanda when he rescues two men who turn out to be gangsters. They cause his helicopter to crash and T’Challa finds himself stranded in North Africa with the surviving gangster, Scarpa. Meanwhile, in Wakanda, the regent N’Gassi gathers together some other members of the royal family to battle Jakarra, now mutating to monstrous form by exposure to Vibranium. They’re all uncertain of their ability to help, but rise to the challenge when Jakarra attacks, and resolve to defeat him.

An entertaining start to the “Black Musketeers” storyline in the title. I especially like the background scenes given for T’Challa’s history.

Published 1978

New Kirby – Marvel Weddings

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Posted in New Kirby.

Just a quick note that MARVEL WEDDINGS came out recently. It has a reprint of FF Annual with the wedding of Reed and Sue. It’s not really a very sharp reprint (and bad print quality with Colletta inks is just a double killer) unfortunately, and most people would probably prefer to get the story in the recent MARVEL VISIONARIES STAN LEE or one of the other reprints (none of which are any better, but have better other material).

Also, more when I confirm, but I’ve heard that the recently announced MAXIMUM FANTASTIC FOUR has been pushed back to the fall.

Marvel’s Greatest Comics #72 [1977] – The Skrull Takes a Slave

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Posted in Genre, Superhero.

This issue reprints FANTASTIC FOUR #90 (1969), inked by Joe Sinnott. The story opens with the wrap-up to the previous issue, where the FF have captured the Moleman in the house they’d planned to move into. Reed lets the Moleman escape, explaining that “It’s a strange paradoxical world we live in. A man can be arrested for illegal parking, but there’s actually no law against trying to conquer the planet”. Ben then goes back to town. Meanwhile, a skrull lands in the country, intent on capturing the Thing.

In town, Ben deals with some of his many fans when the skrull finds him.

Marvel's Greatest Comics #72 [1977]

Disguising himself as Reed, the skrull fools Ben into going out to his ship in the country, knocks him out and takes him as a slave for the “great games”.

A nice transition issue between major storylines. The Moleman story finishing up wasn’t that good, although it had its moments, including a few scenes this issue. The “Thing Enslaved” story that begins in here has a slow start, but would turn out to be the highlight of Kirby’s final year on the book.

The reprint is only 18 pages, knocking two out of the original. Those pages mostly dealt with the FF calling and checking in with Alicia and the as-yet-unnamed Franklin. Nice character bits, it’s a shame the reprint didn’t have room for them.

Published 1977

2001 – A Space Odyssey #8 [1977]

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Posted in Genre, Science Fiction.

For the final three issues of 2001, Kirby introduced X-51, starting with “The Capture of X-51”. Seems the government has been experimenting with machines in the form of men, but found that the X-Series of robots tended to become unstable and violent. Doctor Broadhurst activates the built-in self-destruct for the robots, and they all explode. All except X-51, the robot that Doctor Abel Stack took home and raised as his son, Aaron.

2001 - A Space Odyssey #8 [1977]

Stack has given X-51 a human face, and removed the self-destruct mechanism and sends him off before the bomb can explode, staying to face it himself. The army pursues Aaron, finally capturing him, and he’s held by Colonel Kragg, who’s bitter because a previous rebel X-series robot caused him to lose and eye. Kragg removes X-51’s human face, leaving him in his cell. Having an identity conflict, X-51 is suddenly confronted by the mysterious monolith and approaches it.

Fun start to what would be a rich concept for Kirby to explore for a dozen issues. It’s also a nicely dense story compared to many of the era, with only a single splash page, which led to a story with a lot of twists and details despite the short 17-pages he was given.

Mike Royer inks the cover and story.

Published 1977

Giant-Size Fantastic Four #2 [1974] – The Red Ghost and his Indescribable Super-Apes

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Posted in Genre, Superhero.

The new story in this issue featured the Watcher, so the reprint in the back went back to the introduction of the Watcher in FANTASTIC FOUR #13 (1963), a 22-page story inked by Steve Ditko.

In this story, Reed re-news his determination to beat the reds to the moon (and Roy Thomas helpfully points out this was before the mid-1970s detente), and discovers a new energy source from a meteorite sample. Planning to go alone, Ben convinces him otherwise.

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I love these kinds of scenes, Ben stuffing Reed in a giant tube until he agrees to take them all on the mission.

Leaving exactly when the FF do is Ivan Kragoff, Russian scientist, who is going to the moon with a trio of trained apes. He’s also going with no shielding on this ship, hoping to replicate the FF’s cosmic ray experience from back in #1 and get powers. That actually works, and he and the apes get a variety of powers. The FF reach the moon first (with a glorious 1/2 page shot of the long dead city in the Blue Area), and face off against Kragoff, now known as the Red Ghost, and encounter the Watcher, who would of course become an important part of the FF mythos in later years. It’s almost surprising what a throw-away concept he is in this first story.

As usual at this point in FF history, the story is pretty creative, gradually getting better and more complex. The art is wonderful, with lots of innovative ideas and clever bits of storytelling thrown in. Ditko inks over Kirby are always interesting to see (this in one of just a handful of examples on the super-hero books). He brings a lot of his own texture to it, but seems to be very faithful to the pencils as well.

Published 1974

Weird Mystery Tales #3 [1972]

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Posted in Genre, Horror/Fantasy.

More leftovers from the unpublished SPIRIT WORLD #2, this time featuring “The Burners”, Kirby and Mike Royer taking on spontaneous human combustion in a 10-page story.

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Apparently Dr. Maas has come across all sorts of case history on the phenomenon, all lovingly rendered by Kirby. He dismisses those who would link the burnings to UFO activity (although that does give Kirby a chance to use one of his collage pages), as even Maas has limits on what he can believe.

Maas does some readings on one subject, a depressed man who is generating huge amounts of electricity. He notices smoke coming from the man just as he leaves, and pursues him in his car (I’m not sure how the man got such a lead on Maas). Unfortunately, he arrives too late and the man has flamed out in his car. Apparently Maas’s theory is that there is an “ability to fulfill a death wish by a self-activating thermo-chemical process”. Y’know, not something silly like UFOs.

This is a gorgeous looking story. It’s amazing how much detail he was putting in some of the pages at this time, and how perfectly Royer was able to capture it all. The actual plot is a bit weak, maybe with some more pages he could have fleshed it out and gotten something more satisfying, but it serves the art nicely.

Published 1972

Fantasy Masterpieces #5 [1966]

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Posted in Genre, Horror/Fantasy, Science Fiction, Superhero.

Heavy on the Kirby in this issue, with five stories reprinted, totaling 50 pages, plus a new Captain America figure on the cover by Kirby/Giacoia.

Three of the stories from CAPTAIN AMERICA #5 (1941) are included. Unfortunately, the reproduction is really splotchy, and they’re frequently edited for page-layout (usually involving chopping the sides of some panels) and content (like making the killer clowns in the first story less scary). According the Kirby Checklist, Al Avison was the inker on these stories.

“The Ringmaster of Death” is up first, a 12-page story involving Cap and Bucky coming across a circus run by a Nazi ringmaster, who plans to kill several key figures. With the help of reporter Betty Ross they manage to foil his scheme, with the usual circus motifs (lions, elephants, a strong man and a trapeze rescue) along the way.

“The Gruesome Secret of the Dragon of Doom” (retitled from “…Dragon of Death”) has Steve Rogers re-assigned to the Pacific as General Haywood’s orderly, with Bucky going along “since [they’re] so inseparable”. Before they arrive, a patrol boat on the island vanishes, with reports it was swallowed by a sea dragon. Turns out the Japanese have the captain prisoner, and are trying to get a password from him for a sabotage plan. They kidnap the captain’s daughter when he won’t talk, while Cap follows and sees their boat go into a sea dragon’s mouth. He and Bucky follow, and find it’s part of a giant Japanese sub.

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Cap is able to rescue the captain and his daughter, and seemingly gets caught in an explosion, leading Bucky to briefly think he’s dead, shooting several Japanese soldiers in his rage. Fortunately, Cap shows up shaken but alive.

“Killers of the Bund” begins with the father of one of Bucky’s friends, a German-American (“Yes, Bucky. I’ve found German-American people to be very nice”), being beaten up by nazi agents trying to recruit him for their bund. Steve and Bucky go to see him, and find out about the nazis. In costume, they go to the bund camp (Camp Reichland, with a big Nazi flag. Worst spies ever) and deliver a lesson in the American way with their fists. The next day, Bucky recruits his Sentinels of Liberty to keep their eyes open for clues on more nazi camps and plans. They find out about a plan to blow up a dam, but Bucky finds Cap has been taken prisoner. Cap is able to escape and commandeer a plane to foil their bombing plan, meanwhile Bucky has led his Sentinels and their fathers to take caret of the camp.

Man, you’d think there was some sort of war on the way when these were published. Anyway, despite the spotty printing these look pretty good. Kirby would get a lot better soon after with the DC work, and the plotting and scripting would get a lot tighter, but there’s a lot of raw energy in these earlier efforts.

Three fantasy stories round out the issue, two of them by Kirby. “Mr. Gregory and the Ghost” from JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY #75 (1961) is a 7-page story inked by Christopher Rule. Gregory is an unpleasant rich man who makes inferior homes for people by cutting corners. For his own home he spares no expense, but finds the house in haunted before he moves in. He tries to photograph the ghost and fails, and tries to exorcise it and fails. Finally he decides to spend all his money moving the house to another town, because he read ghosts can’t move from town to town. We’re finally told that will be in vain, because his house was made from haunted trees, so the house itself is the ghost.

Bit of an odd ending. I would have thought the ending should have more to do with his crooked business dealings mentioned in the front. Would have made it a better story. Anyway, the art is nice, with some interesting storytelling sequences, detailed backgrounds and some very nice work on Gregory’s face.

“It Fell From the Flying Saucer” is a Kirby/Ayers 6-pager from TALES TO ASTONISH #31 (1962). An artist in the park is the only witness to a flying saucer, and sees a pencil drop from it. Recognizing a quality pencil, he tries it out and sees that everything he draws comes to life. After some tests (like putting himself on Mount Rushmore and bringing Cleopatra, Caesar and Davy Crockett to life) he decides to make himself the ruler of the world. It works, but when no one believes his story about the flying saucer, he draws it, and it returns, and a tentacle comes out and takes back the pencil, causing everything to vanish and go back to how it was, with no memory of what happened.

This is a fun story, with a lot of cliched elements, but really well told. I especially like the middle, where he’s experimenting with the pencil, giving Kirby a chance to draw some fanciful stuff. This is one I’d include in a collection of Kirby’s best pre-hero Marvel work.

Published 1966

Giant-Size Man-Thing #3 [1975] – Save Me From the Weed

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Posted in Genre, Science Fiction.

Reprinted from STRANGE TALES #94 (1962) is this 6-page Kirby/Ayers story. Some leakage from an atomic experiment winds up in the garden of millionaire Lucius Farnsworth, which is tended by George, a talented if somewhat tame gardener, who’s happy to stay as a gardener rather than open up his own landscaping business, as Fansworth urges. The radiation cause one plant to mutate into an intelligent weed.

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Now that’s a great transformation scene. Anyway, the Weed develops mental powers and a desire to rule the world, so it makes Farnsworth sleep while it rests to build its powers. Fortunately George comes by and chops down the Weed, not realizing that he’s saving the world. Farnsworth comes to the realization that everyone has their place in the grand scheme, or something like that. It closes with another one of those “world balloons” with a shot of the Earth with some dialogue coming out if it.

This is a really attractive story, with some nice background artwork, and a nice looking creative monster. One of my favourite of the monster stories of the era.

Published 1975