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MISTER MIRACLE #2 / Jun’71 – “X-PIT!”


A lot of comics covers show a hero in danger. This book may be one of the only series that tends to show the hero in a danger of his own making! Another thing that makes this stand out is the text. There’s SO MUCH OF IT! Seems like Jack Kirby may have been deliberately trying to out-do both Stan Lee and Roy Thomas in the “excessively wordy” department.


The first 3 pages of this story are bizarre, to say the least. We see Scott & Oberon putting together a robot version of Mister Miracle, called a “Follower” for its ability to imitate precisely his movements. It’s a tool to help Scott fine-tune a new escape trap, this one involving a straight-jacket, a very difficult balancing act, and high explosives. But SOMETHING is watching them from afar, and judging from the hi-tech on display, it’s something not human. Sure enough, when we turn to page 4, abruptly we get a FULL-PAGE close-up of a robotic entity called “Overlord”, who sets off the explosive before Scott’s ready. And when it comes to “tech” design, NOBODY does it like Kirby!


Scott & Oberon survive, partly with the aid of Scott’s Mother Box, which he explains, is alive—in a way—though weakened after absorbing so much of the blast. As they recover, Scott plans for the next escape—which doesn’t make Oberon happy.


Meanwhile, somewhere nearby, apparently in an old mansion, we meet the ones responsible for the explosion. Surrounded by hi-tech equipment and “soldier boys” wearing futuristic outfits (that would be right at home in STAR WARS), is an old lady with “big” white hair—“Granny Goodness”. Under her flowing robe we find she’s wearing a suit of armor, and uses a metal pipe to take out on her “boys” her frustration for not killing Scott yet. She’s like a sci-fi variation on Shelly Winters’ Ma Barker from the film BLOODY MAMA. It’s obvious she knows Scott, and refers to him as having “run away from her institution”. If she’s the one who was in charge of the “orphanage” Scott says he grew up in, she definitely out-does “Sister Mary Stigmata” (alias “The Penguin”) from the movie THE BLUES BROTHERS.


As Scott prepares his next trap—being shackled to a wooden wall with his arms going thru holes in it, and a trio of large spears set to be fired at him automatically-—Oberon comments that if Thaddeus Brown ever saw the things Scott was attempting, he’d have gotten into another line of work. Incredibly, Scott escapes again, once more with help from Mother Box. Oberon feels sure Scott isn’t from anywhere on Earth, and sure enough, Scott mentions he arrived by Boom Tube, another device used by the teenagers in THE FOREVER PEOPLE.


As Oberon is cleaning up outside, the “Follower” robot seems to come back to life, and by dumb luck, is mistaken for the genuine article by 3 of “Granny’s Raiders”, as Scott calls them (removing all doubt that he KNOWS who’s out to get him). The trio subdue & kidnap Oberon and “Scott”, but the real Scott follows them, using a pair of “Aero Discs” attached to his feet, something apparently used by Granny’s “Flight Troops” (and which much later turned up verbatim in the movie HIGHLANDER 2). On their return to base, we learn that—sure enough—Granny works in the service of DARKSEID. “Love HIM! Serve Great DARKSEID! Wear your pointed helmets proudly where he leads! DIE for him—and REWARD Granny!”


Of course, then she finds out they’ve snatched a robot, but before she can vent her wrath a second time, the real Scott intrudes, knocking her “boys” down and snatching his friend in high-speed flight. But before they can vamoose, a trap door opens and both are sucked thru the floor into “THE X-PIT”, a hi-tech creation of Overlord, which has a transparent box at the bottom containing multiple dangers, including flames, electric charges, a river of hardening mud...


High above, Granny relaxes and laments, “POOR Scott Free! How he must be suffering! It’s too bad he COULDN’T learn to see things—Granny’s way.” One of her soldier boys brings her a small box which she says was a gift from Darkseid, and is capable of creating anything she wishes (hmm, sounds like a variation on “The Cosmic Cube”). But just then, the box is FRIED, and Scott & Oberon stand before her, having somehow escaped from the X-PIT. Granny seems genuinely distressed at what’s happened to her box, but it soon turns to murderous rage. Scott explained how he realized that the atoms of the X-Pit, which kept reforming, proved it was linked directly to Overlord—so he used Mother Box to strike back directly at the trap’s creator. It’s then we learn that the very impressive-looking Overlord was really quite tiny (about the size of a Cupie Doll) and fit neatly into the small box Granny was so upset about. It seems one form of miniaturized artificial life took out another one.


Granny threatens, “You—you’ll pay DEARLY for this!” Scott replies, “And that brings me to my parting words!!! DRY UP AND BLOW AWAY, GRANNY GOODNESS!” Scott & Oberon fly off, Oberon urging him, “Fly faster, Scott! I’ve got an EERIE feeling that she’s warming up for the SECOND round!”


And so, with the second installment, we’ve learned that Scott is definitely involved with Apokalips—but can he really be a product of that planet, from all the others we’ve seen so far? Perhaps the clue is on page 11, when Scott said, “I had to SURVIVE as an individual—as MYSELF!” Shades of Number Six on THE PRISONER!


I must say, this is one UGLY-looking comic-book! The art is AWFUL, despite Jack Kirby knocking himself out as usual. I’ll tell you what—despite what it says in the credits on page 5, I don’t believe Vince Colletta touched a single page of this comic. I’m not sure if the pages in the previous issue were done by the same inker or not—they’re similar, but a bit different, somehow. But if I had to guess (AND I AM), I’d say the inks this time look like the work of FRANK McLAUGHLIN! They’re dark, they’re HARSH, they’re OVER-POWERING. And I know Dick Giordano was at DC at this time, and Frank often worked with him. Why not with Colletta as well? I’m surprised that, in ALL I’ve read over the years about these books, including in THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR, that I have never once run across any reference to anyone other than Colletta inking all these books. Am I the only one who’se really noticed this?

JIMMY OLSEN #139 / Jul’71 – “THE GUARDIAN FIGHTS AGAIN!!!”


Not many comics ask the questions that matter in today’s world. Like... “Are you ready for defoliants in your succotash? Are you ready for landmines in your lunchbox?” Yes, there’s no doubt, there’s only ONE comic in the history of the medium that posed THESE questions, and I’ve arrived at it: JIMMY OLSEN #139. As madcap and INSANE as the cover is, who’d believe the story inside has such a “normal, regular” title as, “The Guardian Fights Again!!!” ???


You gotta understand... JIMMY OLSEN was like “king of the dorks” when it came to superhero comics. Jack Kirby was single-handedly trying to raise his book out of the mire or maddening mediocrity. But let’s face it, it was still “JIMMY OLSEN”. So readers should have expected at least the occasional bout of literary looniness. Also, it might help to remember, DC Comics used to publish BOB HOPE comics. And, JERRY LEWIS comics! Both were clearly very popular in their time, as evidenced by how long they lasted. So, in 1971, someone may have asked... why NOT a DON RICKLES comic? And if Arnold Drake was no longer at DC to do one, then hey, it might as well be Jack Kirby.


At The D.N.A. Project, Tommy is testing The Guardian, concerned that, like all products of their genetic research, he appears to have something “elusive” in his brain waves. Nevertheless, he becomes the first clone given clearance to go into the outside world. Next thing, Supes, Jimmy & The Guardian, the latter two in The Whiz Wagon, are zooming along The Zoomway headed for Metropolis. The young Newsboys are left behind—as one of them has caught what appears to be a cold. But in a place involved with so much scientific research, everyone feels it’s best to be sure.


The shot of the Whiz Wagon coming out of a tunnel entrance reminds me of The Batmobile leaving The Batcave. I’m still a bit confused here, as after passing the now-deserted “Habitat”, they go thru ANOTHER underground tunnel. So—is Habitat actually in a huge underground cavern, or does the road just go thru a tunnel in between it and Metropolis? Supes flies on ahead, so he can switch to being Clark Kent, then act concerned that he hasn’t heard from Jimmy in so long. When the two get together, confronting Morgan Edge is much on their mind, for all the obvious shenanigans they suspect he MUST be involved with that happened over the prevous 6 issues.


Back in The Project, a miniature Scrapper Trooper turns up, and helps the boys “escape”. They make it to an abandoned tunnel containing an underground river, and use the motorboat conveniently left there to continue on.


But meanwhile, on page 10, things go COMPLETELY nuts. Oh, you thought the last 6 issues were crazy? HAH! Think again! Morgan Edge returns to his office, where he casually tells his secretary, Miss Conway, that he left earlier because the city was in danger of an atomic explosion. As she doesn’t respond, we have to guess she figures he’s joking (he wasn’t). On hearing Kent & Olsen want to see him, he gives orders to say he’s STILL not in. And then—what kind of a segue is this??—he askes about the contracts for Don Rickles. Okay, he’s an entertainment mogul. It makes sense he’d be concerned with known celebrities. But then Miss Conway reminds him of Don’s “look-alike”—“Goody Rickels”—who’s on their research staff. And Edge looks about to have a heart attack. “DEMONS OF DARKSEID! If the REAL Don Rickles and this yo-yo ever bump into each other—it’ll be UTTER CHAOS!!”


At that moment, Goody appears in his office, dressed in a super-hero suit, saying some producer told him to wear it in connection with a “pilot film”. Edge’s hidden reaction is anything but normal. “The solution is obvious! This man must be KILLED!” SAY WHAT??? There’s what’s known as “slipping into The Twilight Zone”—and then there’s THIS. As nutso as it may seem, the entire plot of the rest of the comic stems from this utterly screwball motivation.


Next thing, Miss Conway hands Kent & Olsen a note about a UFO in Cronin Park. Once there, they find one—and stepping out of it, Goody, still in the union suit. Kent goes inside, Goody pushes a button—“FZOMP” The entire UFO vanishes, taking Kent with it. And before anyone can bat an eye, a group of what The Guardian calls “Assault Troops”, armed with wooden clubs, attack. Surprisingly, things go well for our side, until the leader of the baddies—an UGLY thug named—whatta ya know—“Ugly Mannheim”, grabs Jimmy at gunpoint and forces Goody & The Guardian to surrender. “Ugly” reminds me somewhat of “Roman Troy Moronie” (Richard Dimitri) from JOHNNY DANGEROUSLY.


Shortly, the group is sitting around a table eating—AT GUNPOINT. “You either eat—or you DIE!” “Finish it, Guardian, or else Olsen gets it!” Not your typical dining table conversation. But then comes the HORROR. Yes—HORROR. Ugly tells them they’ve all just eaten food laced with “pyro-granulate”—“fine, deadly grains just waiting for the right time to ignite”. As he tells them, “You’re DEAD men! ALL of you! In twenty-four hours—you’ll FLARE UP like torches!” Jimmy’s shocked—he can’t believe it!! (Considering this is an issue of JIMMY OLSEN, it does seem completely against the grain—and even more so considering what a goofy story it’s been up to this moment.) The Guardian wants to know WHY he wants them dead. But Ugly AIN’T SPILLING IT! “I DON’T have to explain that! I DON’T even have to keep you any longer! You’re LEAVING! NOW!” And with that, he DUMPS them out of the back of his MOBILE HOME right onto a street “in the worst part of town”. And he doesn’t even SLOW DOWN when he does it! That’s not nice!


HOLY COW! What a CLIFF-HANGER!!! It says here... “SPINE-CHILLING! BLOOD-FREEZING! HEART-STOPPING! Only those adjectives can describe the INCREDIBLE roaring climax in the NEXT ISSUE! For MANY lives hang in the balance—when a strange question is answered!! WILL THE REAL DON RICKLES PANIC??” Now let me explain this—sort of. As I said, DC used to publish a very-popular JERRY LEWIS comic. Back when, there was a Saturday morning TV cartoon named—I’m not kidding—“WILL THE REAL JERRY LEWIS PLEASE SIT DOWN?” (It ran from 1970-72—you can look it up! Honest!!) So I figure—and I have never run across even a single reference to this before I put two and two together myself—that Jack’s title for the next episode was a take-off on that. Makes PERFECT sense to me!


What DIDN’T make sense was the way—according to Mark Evanier—Jack’s 7-parter somehow got truncated to 6, and ended last issue instead of in this one. Because—see—NEXT issue is a REPRINT ANNUAL. So, instead of a break between stories, Jack started the 2nd story... then, readers had to wait TWO issues before they could read Part 2! That’s NOT FAIR!


A few comments about the art. Unlike MISTER MIRACLE #2, this issue CLEARLY was inked by Vince Colletta. Mostly. And he did a NICE job, mostly. That’s if you don’t count the usual Clark, Jimmy & Superman faces re-pencilled & inked by Murphy Anderson, who did such a NICE job, you almost wish he’d done THE WHOLE ISSUE. And then of course, some pages look BEWTTER than the rest, making me wonder if somebody (like, I dunno, Jack Abel maybe?) inked here and there. Goody also looks better-inked than the rest of the book. Murphy Anderson, or someone else? But then there’s page 14—panel 4, to be specific. Unless my eyes are deceiving me, in that ONE panel, whoever inked Clark Kent DID NOT redraw him. So in that ONE panel, it’s Jack Kirby’s Clark Kent we see. Looks good to me...

FOREVER PEOPLE #3 / Jul’71 – “LIFE VS. ANTI-LIFE!”


Now THIS is a disturbing comic-book. This comes across right on the cover, which, although it once again has TOO MUCH text on it, has a limited color scheme—the heroes entirely in shades of magenta, the background another B&W photo, this one appears to be a shaft of light cutting thru couldy darkness. Hovering over the scene, a figure wearing a metal helmet, who declares, “Live by MY rules—or DIE!”


The splash page shows a crowd of people, all with totally blank expressions (I mean really blank—none of their eyeballs are visible!). The page opens with a quote from ADOLPH HITLER, where he commented on how his followers all had the “same expression”. Pages 2-3 are a reverse shot showing what the crowd is so entranced by—bright-faced, red-haired, robe-wearing Glorious Godfrey, a fantasy version of an evangelical preacher, combining Medieval fashion with futuristic organ-pipes, spouting out a message about “ANTI-LIFE”, and how he can give his followers “the power to wield DEATH!”


Godfrey openly proclaims that Darkseid and a “Holocaust” is coming to Earth, and he begins passing out armor helmets to those who will be “UNIFIED! GLORIFIED! JUSTIFIED!” The scene quickly switches to the slum where one of the “Justifiers” is assaulting young crippled Donnie, demanding to know where his friends are. Rescuing the boy, the teens from New Genesis barely escape when the entire building is blown up, taking with it the one who set off the charge. We never see Donnie’s uncle, nor is he mentioned, so we have to assume he wasn’t home when this happened. Mark Moonrider deduces that “All from NEW GENESIS, who have come to EARTH—are being sought out—for DEATH!” After using Mother Box to surround the area with a protective shield against other Justifiers, the group departs in search of their attackers.


Page 11 is where the book REALLY takes a frightful turn, as a rectangular flying transport lands on a rooftop, depositing a squad of Justifiers. “This is the part of town we want! The people we’ve chosen as TARGETS live here! “Move in SWIFTLY! Before the swine REALIZE what’s happening! SIEZE as many as you can! DON’T bother to discriminate! The women and children are as hated as the men! Break in the doors! Waste NO time on mercy! DRAG them out! Treat them ROUGH! LISTEN to their cries! I’ve been WAITING to do this for years! Get going! We’ll SHOW what we do with your kind!” It’s a scene right out of Nazi Germany—but it’s happening HERE—NOW! “SHUT UP! You’re nothing but animals! ANTI-LIFE WORKS! We’re JUSTIFIED in ridding the city of this human trash! The city should thank us!” Following this mass-kidnapping of innocent people, the next 2 panels show a public library being burnt out. “The NONSENSE stored in this place shall NEVER pollute another mind! You need know no more that the PROPER things!”


I’m guessing since all the victims in these scenes were white, that it was probably a Jewish neighborhood that was attacked. The real horror of this is not only that it COULD happen here, but that this kind of thing has CONTINUED to happen in various countries over the years since this comic came out. Time and again, despots turning people against people to further their own aims, often murdering the most learned and intelligent people and making sure the rest remain as ignorant as possible, the better to control them with.


Godfrey (who somewhat resembles TV evangelist Billy Graham), becomes aware that one of his followers failed, as the Forever People are approaching. Sure enough, they arrive where he’s set up a tent for people to hear his “revelations”. Using the ritual, they switch places with The Infinity Man, who uses control over atoms to slip in thru the ground itself, before attacking and taking out the “Demon’s Organ”. But just as he confronts Godfrey, DARKSEID shows up in person. In seconds, by force, he sends Infinity Man back where he came from, to be replaced by the teenagers. “It would PAIN me to deal HARHSLY with you! That is why I keep such as DESAAD at my side!” “I DON’T mind playing games in the slightest! HERE! Try this toy! FUN, isn’t it?” Using a bizarre hand-weapon (which reminds me of the guns used on SPACE: 1999), Desaad knocks the group unconscious, before having them loaded into an Aero-Van.


“We’re taking them where we took the OTHERS! To the CAMP OF THE DAMNED! It is NOT the first of its kind seen on Earth! But DESAAD is the master of THIS one! Even as Justifiers make a MOCKERY of life—DESAAD plays with DEATH as if it were a FINE ART! I wonder what sort of MAETERPIECES he’ll make of THESE brats!” Amidst all this enthusiastic SICKNESS and DEPRAVITY, Darkseid reminds Desaad that the main purpose of the camp MUST remain uncovering the secret of the Anti-Life Equation. Godfrey doesn’t seem to believe in its existence. As he says, in a magnificent full-page close-up shot, “If one could MASTER such an equation—he could CONTROL the minds of ALL living things in the universe—with a MERE word! I-I BELIEVE in ANTI-LIFE, great DARKSEID—but it can only be induced in others by the means of INVENTIVE SELLING!” Darkseid, of course, dismisses this.

As Hitler kept his various commanders at each others’ throats, to keep any one of them from becoming too powerful, so does Darkseid with his. “You favor HIM always, Great DARKSEID! Thing of what my JUSTIFIERS do in your cause!” “I beg to depart from this PETTY situation, sire!” Amazing how without batting an eye Desaad manages to so totally belittle Godfrey in front of both him and his master. In a SCARY clopse-up, Desaad continues, “You’re a loud, petulant BUMPKIN, Godfrey! Like all REVELATIONISTS, you’ve got imagination—but not finesse! But I, good Godfrey, have BOTH! I leave you now for my “camp”, which DARKSEID knows is TERROR, refined to PERFECTION!” Although I rather doubt Kirby had ever seen him, in that one panel Desaad reminds me an awful lot of English actor Milton Johns, who appeared in 2 Tom Baker DOCTOR WHO stories, “The Android Invasion”, and “The Invasion Of Time”. In the latter, he played “Kelner” the head of Time Lord security, who always seemed to be too sneaky for his own good, spying on EVERYONE, and slyly siding with whatever side would be most to his advantage at any given moment. In other words, someone you really couldn’t trust.


Jack ends with the following: “Their DESTINATION is the most BIZARRE and TERRIFYING structure ever seen by the eyes of man! It is DESAAD’s own little domain on Earth—a pilot project of Purgatory—where torment is computed—death is controlled—and escape impossible! DON’T MISS—KINGDOM OF THE DAMNED!” Wow. What a CLIFF-HANGER! While JIMMY OLSEN began with 3 2-parters that together formed a 6-parter, Jack was wise to begin each of his other 3 brand-new books with stand-alone episodes for the first 2 issues apiece. Now, having set the stage, he finally begins to expand into multi-parters in the other books. It’s gonna be rough waiting to plow thru the other books before getting to the next episode of this one.


Although it’s clear Vince Colletta inked much of this issue, once again I can’t shake the feeling someone else was involved, mostly in the second half—possibly Frank McLaughlin. Some of the linework just looks too “harsh” and heavy for Vince’s lighter, cleaner style, and Frank did a TON of work at DC over the years.


http://i436.photobucket.com/albums/qq85/cornershop15/British%20Actors/MiltonJohns1.jpg?t=1282418065

NEW GODS #3 / Jul’71 – “DEATH IS THE BLACK RACER!”


And now, I’ve reached possibly one of the most controversial comic-books Jack Kirby ever did in his entire career. No kidding!


For the 2nd issue in a row, the logo reads “ORION OF THE NEW GODS”, and it’s shrunk even smaller than last time. It’s been suggested that different issues or stoylines in this book might spotlight different characters, and have their names on the covers, not unlike what happened for a few issues when the X-MEN split up. After several of the most excessively copy-heavy covers in the history of comics, this one’s kind of sedate. “Is he after ORION—or YOU? RUN! RUN! DEATH is the BLACK RACER!” In front of another photo background, this one more effective than most, perhaps because this time we can see what we’re looking at, and, the subtle use of color, we see a man driving a vehicle, looking behind him as he points a gun at someone who’s chasing him. It’s... no, I’m NOT making this up... a black man in a Medeival suit of armor and cape—FLYING—on SKIS! Wow. As someone online recently said, Jack Kirby absolutely did NOT do drugs. Ralph Bakshi & Gray Morrow have nothing on this. Talk about imagination run riot!


In case anyone’s forgotten about him, the first 3 pages spotlight Lightray—who’s flying in space, chased by The Black Racer. WHY? It seems the Racer is the living personlification of DEATH (as most of the NEW GODS seem to be the living personlification of one concept or another). I would think out of all the characters in these books, Lightray would be the LAST one Death should be pursuing. But what the hey.


On Earth, in Lincoln’s apartment, Orion changes into Earth-clothes, “another masquerade” as he puts it. And we learn something very interesting about him. His face—described by the redhead as “positively beautiful—like a living statue modelled by the ancient Greeks”—is NOT really his. It’s a construct created by Mother Box “in her mercy” by rearranging the atoms of his face. Briefly, he restores his true face—and it’s FIERCE!—before returning to his kinder guise.


Something else else that occured to me as I read this scene, is that the 4 Earth-people Orion rescued, who become his allies, and who next issue take on the nickname “The O’Ryan Gang”, seem uncannily like counterparts of The Fantastic Four. Lincoln, the sort-of leader, smokes a pipe, as Reed Richards did early-on, and it’s his apartment they meet at. Then there’s the girl, with the “Mrs. Peel” hairstyle so favored by Sue after she got married. There’s also the younger guy wearing a sweater—and, Lanza, who’s shorter, stockier and more expressive than the others. He looks a bit Jewish to me—I could easily picture him as someone from Jack’s neighborhood, or even an older, more laid-back version of Ben. Suggests some interesting ideas and possibilities, as far as, WHAT IF Jack had stayed at Marvel, and used FANTASTIC FOUR to tell part of his “Fourth World” story?


I did notice that Jack neglected to even once mention the girl or the young guy by name ANYWHERE in this issue. I know at least one editor who got very upset about this sort of thing, and INSISTED that EVERY character be identified BY NAME in EVERY issue of EVERY comic-book... but there’s subtle ways to work this sort of thing in. THIS is where Jack could have used some editorial “help”. Just a bit of fine-tuning here and there, aiding without getting in the way.


Out in space, Lightray is about to bite the big one, when unexpectedly, a Boom Tube appears, sending the Racer elsewhere. It’s Metron’s doing, and he chastises his younger associate. “You could have done the same thing, Lightray! You must learn to think more COOLLY.” As for where—and why—perhaps the Racer says it best. “So, Destiny has changed my course and takes me here—to EARTH!” Yep, now a guy in red, yellow & blue Medieval armor ON SKIS is flying over Harlem. Gotcha.


It’s a bit jarring, but we suddenly find ourselves thrust into what looks like a scene from some “Blaxploitation” film. On a rooftop, a colorful killer in shades named “Sugar-Man” guns down an apparent stoolie named “Screamer”. But there’s a witness—former Police Officer & crippled Viet Nam War vet Willie Walker. The name is ironic, as Willie is confined to his bed, unable to walk, talk or even feed himself. Sugar-Man decided to take no chances, and eagerly prepares to silence this witness, too... when suddenly, the armored hand of the Racer blocks his shot, causing Sugar-Man’s gun ot explode in his face! In pain, he runs from the scene.


And then it gets even more bizarre. The Racer walks right THRU the wall into Willie’s apartment, and understands why Destiny has brought him here. Perhaps Lightray wasn’t meant to die after all, but merely to draw Metron into acting as he did. (My own thughts.) The Racer takes Willie’s hand—and Willie finds he’s no longer crippled! Just as suddenly, the Racer is gone—nothiong left inside his armor but ashes. And Willie—BECOMES—The Black Racer.


Not far away, Orion (now using the Earth-name “O’Ryan”—how can anyone tell the difference?) and, as he reminds us, “Special Investigator” Lincoln, track down the members of Inter-Gang who earlier kidnapped Lincoln and his 3 new friends. A thug named Badger—short, heavyset, balding—has a very strange-looking bomb he wants planted at a Communcations Building. Its purpose, to melt “every bit of communication metal witrhin a radius of thousands of miles—no telephones—no television—not even radios or telegraph!” It would mean “total chaos”.


Orion susprised the gang by smashing right thru the wall, but Sugar-Man escapes with the bomb and drives off at high speed. Orion uses Mother Box to somehow send the bomb—truck, driver and all—into SPACE!!—where it explodes. The strange thing is, as far as the readers—and Sugar-Man—could see—this was accomplished by The Black Racer, who was chasing the truck, used one of his ski-poles to penetrate the truck and activate “anti-gravity circuits” built into the bomb (SAY WHAT?). And yet, Orion gives the credit to Mother Box. What REALLY went on here?? His mission completed, the Racer returns to Willie’s apartment, and is transformed back into Willie. And so, more irony, as we have a man who is alternately crippled, yet at times now has “the freedom of the farthest dimension”.


I have to admit, parts of this book feel like they might have been taken from two completely unrelated stories, then jumbled together at the last minute. The scenes of The Racer—the embodiment of Death-- walking thru walls reminds me a lot of the earlier Kirby story, “AND FEAR SHALL FOLLOW!” from CHAMBER OF DARKNESS #5 (Jun’70).


Once again, I believe I see no less than 3 different inkers’ hands at work here. The cover, pages 1-3 & 22-23 are clearly Vince Colletta’s work (a very nicely-rendered splash, too). Pages 4-8 and 16-21 all look like Frank McLaughlin to me—dark, “harsh”, and exhibiting his habit of excessively THICK outlines in places. Page 13 looks much slicker, cleaner. Art Cappello, perhaps? The rest, it’s hard to be sure. I’m beginning to suspect that a lot of the hatred tossed at Vince Colletta over his work on these books may actually be aimed at work he DIDN’T EVEN DO, but got others to do FOR him. Tsk!


Most of the criticism of this issue over the years, as you might expect, focused entirely on The Black Racer. The most typical comments being, that he was “a rip-off of The Silver Surfer!” Hey, what artist DOESN’T rip off HIS OWN ideas from time to time? The simple idea of a flying man—ON SKIS!!!—has been the center of ridicule. That he wears a totally incongruous Medieval suit of armor has also come under fire. I dunno... the concept is SO bizarre, SO totally “out there”... in a way, it kinda works. I do think it might have gone over a lot better if, instead of looking like one more late-60’s/early-70’s technicolor fever dream, if he’d been done in some monotone shades... black, gray, dark blue, dark red... something. In Roger Corman’s MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH, the many forms of Death all had brightly colored robes... but EACH one had only ONE color per outfit.


I guess the real question may be a toss-up. Who was the most bizarre character Jack introduced in the Jul’71 issues? The Black Racer—or Goody Rickels?

Prof, I just want to say you are doing a great job with this.

Here’s one I bet you weren’t expecting...


LOIS LANE #111 / Jul’71 – “THE DARK SIDE OF THE JUSTICE LEAGUE!”


At the same time that Jack Kirby was doing his thing in JIMMY OLSEN, the rest of the SUPERMAN books were also undergoing their own little Rennaisance, each one under a different editor, apparently. According to the indicia, E. Nelson Bridwell has SUPERMAN’S GIRL FRIEND, LOIS LANE. Right off the bat, Lois has a better logo than Jimmy. Also, from what I know about Lois in the 60’s, it seems they tried to upgrade her hairstyle, her wardrobe, and her personality. If you look around online, you’ll find a ton of LL stories where she is—to be it lightly—a SHREW. The be-all and end-all of her entire existence seemed to revolve around trying to PROVE that Clark Kent was Superman, so she could proclaim it on the front page of The Daily Planet. Never mind how this would destroy his effectiveness as a crime-fighter, allowing super-criminals world-wide to attack Clark, the Planet, all his friends... gee, even HER!


Well, the 70’s Lois seemed to get a hefty dose of brains, and sensitivity. Like a number of TV shows I remember from the same period, she became a “kindler, gentler” Lois. She was in love with Superman—and acted like it! He was also in love with her—but could not marry her, for fear it would put her life in danger. I’m not sure this makes any more sense, since it seems everyone in the world KNOWS they love each other. Of course, it never seemed to occur to Clark back then to TELL her his secret, then have THEM marry, leaving Superman, to thre eyes of the public, a confirmed bachelor.


Anyway... I have the strongest feeling the cover of LL #111 was another one of those where someone came up with a cover idea, then wrote a story based on it. The cover shows Lois, in a red-and-black tiger-skin bikini, laying on her back, sleeping on the beach... while miniature versions of the Justice League of America stake her down to the sand! Yep, it’s a scene right out of GULLIVER’S TRAVELS. How did this happen? Wouldn’t you like to know? Well, then—buy the comic! That’s what the cover was created for. The thing is, the cover scene takes up so little of the story, it feels like a rip-off... like the vast majority of Superman-related comics from the 50’s & 60’s no doubt did.


The story opens with Lois, on her way to beach, ignoring wolf-whistles, and eager to relax and “dream about SUPERMAN... in private.” (What, she couldn’t have done this at home?) No sooner is she asleep, then the min-JLA appears, ties her down, and while she’s helpless, the mini-Black Canary uses an eye-droper to coat Lois’s lips with some chemical that will prove deadly to Superman. Then, they free her, and leave. She’s back at the office by page 4, with NO knowledge of what happened. You SEE why I think the cover is a CON—and was done FIRST?


While this is going on, the writer explains—in narration, and in some very awkward dialogue, that the mini-JLA are the result of DNA samples donated to The Project by the JLA when Superman took them there for a visit, and which were then stolen by Mokarri & Simyan, and used to create mini-clones. This is a LOT of explanation for not a lot of payoff. In effect, this is the kind of writing that made Marvel fans look down their noses at DC at the time. It’s... it’s... it’s like the comic was done in a BANK, or something.


And who is responsible for this exercise in tedium? Why, none other than that DC legend himself, Robert Kanigher. I’ve read a lot about this guy. Some say he was extremely talented, some say he was a monster to work with. All I know from this is, his writing is BORING.


Back at the office, Lois leaves for a story, and Clark finds she’s left a sheet of paper in her typewriter, which reads “I love Superman!” over and over and over and over. Shades of THE SHINING! Touched, he takes it and thinks, “I’ll keep it next to my heart.” Won’t she wonder who stole it?


While interviewing a group of mothers in need of a day-care center so they can get jobs, an armored car driven by crooks almost runs down the group. After saving them, Superman flies off, leaving love-sick Lois in tears. Two of the women she’s intrerviewed encourage her that he’ll be back. Later, when mysterious statues of wild animals go wild (and prove to be robots), Lois manages to plant one on Supes... who immediately goes crazy and starts wrecking things. “The touch of my LIPS... seems to have DRIVEN SUPERMAN MAD!” (It is Lois, it was bound to happen... hee hee.)


Now it seems Lois was ALSO taken by Superman for a visit to The Project, and she calls them on the phone for help. I ask you... HOW likely is this? Supers went to such lengths to keep Jimmy out of the loop, but he takes the world’s number one busybody to visit a top-top-top secret government-military research complex? The Commander tells her to go to her office and wait for a package to arrive. It does—but before she can open it, the mini-JLA attacks her! And then, we find that The Project hase sent a squad of mini-LOISes, to do battle with the mini-JLA, each one with special skills or weapons designed to take out a specific member. If you think it’s awkward trying to describe this, you should try reading it. When it’s over, Superman is cured by another chemical-enhanced kiss, and remembers nothing. Now Lois has to start on her campaign to get him to marry her ALL OVER AGAIN. Oy.


The art on this book is “nice”... but nothing to brag about. Dick Giordano does the cover, while the story is illustrated by TWO of the guys who were doing X-MEN before Neal Adams ran it into the ground... I mean, took it over. Yep, it’s Werner Roth and Vince Colletta! The one word that best describes Roth’s work tends to be “NICE”. His Lois is very pretty, and Colletta, who spent most of his time doing romance comics before being forced into the superhero genre, seems a perfect fit. Still, I’m not too sure about that. Without Don Heck’s dynamic layouts (which helped to “crank up” Roth’s work during the latter part of his X-MEN run), the layouts and storytelling are... there’s only one word for it... DULL. And Colletta’s inks do NOTHING to “jazz it up”. I don’t think they’re doing any harm, but they’re not helping much either.


The feeling I have is, these guys might be much better if they were actually doing a ROMANCE comic, instead of a SUPERMAN comic trying to pass itself off as one.


The back-up is a ROSE AND THORN story, once again written by Robert Kanigher, with art by GRAY MORROW! Wow. I’d completely forgotten about this. Morrow has a “realistic” style that is gorgeous to look at, and quite on the “moody” side. Unfortunately, the story and writing on this is a DULL as the lead story is! Just a lot less complicated and awkward. Looking at these pages, I’m reminded again that Morrow supplied the storyboards for the 2nd & 3rd seasons of the SPIDER-MAN cartoons (1968-70), but years later, was TURNED DOWN by Marvel art director John Romita when he tried to get on the SPIDER-MAN comic-book, because Romita felt his style “wasn’t dynamic enough”. Just think... if it wasn’t for Romita’s narrow-mindedness, we could have had Gray Morrow on AMAZING SPIDER-MAN... instead, we got Ross Andru. (WRETCH! GAG!) Many years later, Morrow did a 2-issue LOIS LANE mini-series. I can’t remember much about it, but it HAD to be better than anything in this issue.

MISTER MIRACLE #3 / Jul’71 – “THE PARANOID PILL!”


“It’s a simple trap!! A fifty-story building—with doors, windows, exits—and people!! Can he leave it—ALIVE?? DR. BEDMAN tests MISTER MIRACLE Super Escape Artist Between him and escape are—FIVE THOUSAND SCREAMING MANIACS!” Wow. What a cover.


A Boom Tube deposits several featureless humanoid beings called “Animates” in a room somewhere, and a “Mind-Force”—a “living, thinking being that exists as pure energy”—is transmitted to one of them, which takes the form and features of Doctor Bedlam. This refugee from Apokalips is after our hero. “NOTHING can be hidden from one such as I, SCOTT FREE! Your telephone number is known to me.” There’s just something kinda funny about going from this fantastic situation to having the baddie pick up the phone.


At home, Scott is trying out yet another impossible escape trap. How he gets out of those heavy-duty metal restraints and escapes being crushed by a huge granite block—“by a FULL SECOND”-- is anybody’s guess.


Naturally, the phone rings while Scott is trying to esape his own death trap. After, he takes the call—“that voice—I’d know it ANYWHERE—it’s like the sound of RATS digging beneath the floor!” He accepts a challenge to meet Bedlam, then reluctantly tells Oberon what he’s up against. Based on what Scott tells him, Oberon concludes that Bedlam is “some sort of SUPER-HYPNOTIST” who attacks the mind, and that without a Mother Box, anyone would be helpless. Scott demonstrates what Bedlam can do, and the mental images conjured up are terrifying—and, according to Scott, “real”. He leaves to face Bedlam alone.


On the top floor of The Chandler Towers, Scott confronts Bedlam, who advises he surrender himself for punishment, for having “dared to reject the powers that rule his world”. Bedlam reveals that the entire building is the trap—and to defeat him, he must merely “descend to the lobby level and exit to the street”. But then Bedlam drops a “paranoid pill” into the building’s ventilation system, “vapor that will turn every human between you and freedom below—into a HOSTILE, DANGEROUS, RAVING MANIAC!” Scott clobbers Bedlam—only to find his force has gone, leaving only the “animate” behind.


Sure enough, everyone in the building starts acting crazy, paranoid and attacking whatever they fear—including him, mostly because of the strange costume he’s wearing. He flies over a crowd of them, makes it to an elevator, but is cornered by a gun-toting maniac before he can get more than 5 floors down. As he escape the elevator, he’s grabbed by another mob, and locked inside a trunk. He hopes to rest until they calm down, but it’s not to be—as the trunk is encircled by heavy chains, punctured by a sword, rolled end-over-end, and then—HURLED down into an open staircase!


“DIE, DEMON, DIE! Send him back to Hades! TOSS HIM DOWN! This is the LAST of you, demon! You’ll NEVER trouble the world again! LOOK OUT BELOW! Satan is waiting to RECEIVE his own! GOOD RIDDANCE! We’re SAFE!” While, inside the trunk... “I waited TOO LONG! The chances of my escaping from THIS—are ten past ZERO!”


Talk about a cliff-hanger!! As with FOREVER PEOPLE, after 2 stand-alone introductory episodes, Jack Kirby now expands MISTER MIRACLE to his first 2-parter. And this one is like something straight out of a 1930’s action movie serial. My favorite part of the book may be the blurb on the letters page. “Next issue, Scott Free and Oberon encounter the one-and-onlyh Big Barda! Even Jack Kirby had to read this one twice... He didn’t believe it the first time and he wrote it! Don’t say we didn’t warn you!”


Once again, I see at least 3 different inkers at work here. The cover, pages 1-3, 7 & 18 scream Frank McLaughlin to me. Intense, and a lot of fat holding lines. Page 4-5, 9-16 & 19-22 all look like Vince Colletta to me. Very nice work from him too. Now, pages 6 & 17 each look like someone else, and not necessarily the same someone else. Some of the detail on page 6, especially Scott’s sideburns, look too “fine” to be any of the other guys’ work, while page 17 almost seems a patchwork of 3 different inkers on the same page. Page 8, however, looks like Klaus Janson again, especially if you look at Scott’s face in panel 1. There’s a very Giordano/McLaughlin-like intensity to the linework on this page, but somehow darker, rougher.


As for Jack, he did some of his most expressive people in this issue. Check out Oberon on pages 5-6, Scott as he confronts Bedlam on page 11, or how about Scott at gunpoint in panel 4 of page 17! What a fun book! I’m dying to read the next one.

JIMMY OLSEN #141 / Sep’71 – “WILL THE REAL DON RICKLES PANIC?!?”


“RUSHING toward the GREATEST climax ever seen in comics”, it says here, as we see Superman and The Guardian (with Jimmy and Goody behind them) running straight at the readers holding a big round something with Don Rickles’ smiling face on it. WTF, you say? KIRBY SAYS: “Don’t Ask! JUST BUY IT!” I think that says it all. The NERVE of some guys!


The story opens with 3 consecutive pages of photo-collage depicting the tiny vessel Clark Kent is trapped in journeying thru “a strange galaxy never before seen by man!” “Unable to CONTROL his capsule-prison, CLARK KENT gazes HELPLESSLY as he drifts past awesome wonders that STAGGER all imagination!” Hey! I just got it—this whole sequence is a tribute to the “Star Gate” sequence from 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY ! Mind you, Gary Friedrich already did that in CAPTAIN MARVEL—twice!! (Issues #11 AND #15. Some nerve!)


Back on Earth, Jimmy, The Guardian and Goody have been dumped on a street by Ugly Manheim, after being fed a lunch laced with a deadly chemical that will IGNITE in 24 hours, killing the trio in horrible fashion. Suggesting Jimmy & Goody get back to the Network office, The Guardian races across rooftops trying to catch up with Manheim’s mobile home HQ. This scene may be the closest Jack got during his 3rd DC run to drawing CAPTAIN AMERICA in action.


Meanwhile, the eagerly-awaited Don Rickles arrives at the Network, and is assualted by a mob of fans. “Oh, INSULT ME, DON! Say ANYTHING! A sentence—a word!” “Okay! HERNIA! Get off me, you RUNAWAY LOCOMOTIVE! Go out and sit on the CHICAGO BEARS!” Morgan Edge breaks it up, then invites Don into his office. “SAVAGES! I’ll send you thirty pounds of RAW MEAT tomorrow morning!” Don meets the ever-smiling Miss Conway... “Who’s THIS broad? What is she playing?—“NURSEY-NURSEY?” “You’re GREAT, honey! You’re WASTED here! You deserve something BETTER than a typewriter and this sneaky crumb! Get yourself a bikini and start a chain of HEART ATTACKS at a garden party!” Then Don turns his attention to Edge... “I heard about’cha! Mister Smoothie on the outside—“MAC THE KNIFE” on the inside! Be YOURSELF, lad! Say something FILTHY!” “MONEY! LOTS of it!” That’s gotta be my favorite exchange in the whole book. You know, I can’t remember the last time anyone used the term “broad” in a comic-book.


Out in space (is it another star system, another galaxy, or another dimension?), Clark meets Lightray, who tells him he’s about to land on Apokalips! “WOW! That HARDLY looks like a desirable vacation spot!” He realizes he’s heard of this place before, from “some STRANGE KIDS” who also mentioned “DARKSEID!” (see FOREVER PEOPLE #1) As a group of “para-demons” approach (last seen in NEW GODS #1), Lightray says it’s time he got Kent back to Earth!


Back on Earth, Jimmy & Goody ride the subway, annoying most of the passengers, one of whom Goody calls a “HOCKEY-PUCK!” (I guess he doesn’t just LOOK like Don, he talks like him, too.)


In a 2-page sequence, The Guardian crashes in on Mannheim’s mobile-HQ, smashes up the place, and gets into a battle with a group of his thugs.


Back in Edge’s office, he & Don are working out contract details. “”Just one moment, Don! Let me try to SIMPLIFY my proposition!” “Yeah! DO that, o DEVIOUS one! You can hide a platoon of ASSASSINS in a complex deal!” Just then, Goody arrives, causing much confusion between him and Don, and giving Edge a headache. ALL the trouble Edge went thru just to have Goody, Jimmy & The Guardian bumped off, JUST to prevent this moment, and it happens ANYWAY. As Jimmy & Goody suddenly begin to flare up, Don wonders if he’ll get out of the office alive. Edge thnks, “UGLY MANNHEIM has made a SHAMBLES of my scheme to rid myself of these dolts! And this is a result of his DISOBEYING my orders to kill them QUICKLY!” Isn’t that always the way? A baddie just can’t shoot someone, NO, they have to get all FANCY-SCHMANZY about it! And sure enough, it backfires. Mind you, for a chemical that’s suppose to ignite in 24 hours, this feels more like many an HOUR, TOPS, has gone by.


Just then, The Guardian arrives—apparently having successfully beaten Mannheim’s thugs and gotten ahold of the antidote—and saves Jimmy & Goody’s lives. Next thing, Clark arrives via a Boom Tube, and he & Jimmy are about to finally confront Edge about everything they’re sure he’s done over the last 8 issues that involved attempts to KILL them, as well as destroy The Project (Jack doesn’t mention this in dialogue, but it’s pretty implied). Edge has the nerve to brush it off with a mere, “Fine, Kent! We’ll discuss it—LATER!” And just THAT moment, the bomb disposal squad arrives, too late to help—but Don races at them, insisting HE’s about to blow up, and gets them to remove him from the whole crazy scene. Figuring he’s gone nuts, one of the squad comments, “POOR GUY! With your routine—this HAD to happen!”


Well, THAT was fun. Amidst all this lunacy, I’m wondering, had Jimmy heard the phrase “Boom Tube” before? Also, it was a bit of a surprise NOT to see Ugly Mannheim and his men taken out. One more page with that would have been welcome. Also, I’m dumbfounded that after 8 issues of this, and despite Clark & Jimmy giving Edge the evil eye, he had the NERVE to just dismiss them so casually.


This was the month, presumably, that both Marvel & DC expanded from 15c to 25c. Although for DC it was their “SEP” issue and Marvel it was their “NOV” issues, presumably this is just Marvel having their comics advanced-dated 2 months more than DC.


Marvel went all-new, but DC padded out the bigger size with reprints—from the Golden Age. I can’t help but feel this was a serious mis-step. Here they are, presumably trying so hard to upgrade and modernize their image, and what do they do? Step BACK 30 YEARS. In this issue, we have a reprint of the very first appearance of THE NEWSBOY LEGION and THE GUARDIAN from STAR SPANGLED COMICS #7 (Apr’42), by Joe Simon & Jack Kirby. But it’s such a drastically, shockingly-DIFFERENT Jack Kirby doing the art, it’s jarring, no matter how you look at it. Plus the line-reproduction is AWFUL (not to mention the art is shrunk slightly from its original print-size, NEVER a good thing).


I have to admit... I did NOT enjoy these reprints the first time around. Many years later, when I was still early in my chronological Jack Kirby re-reading project, I actually dug out all these Fourth World books JUST to re-read the Golden Age stories, all together in publication sequence. And I enjoyed them MUCH more than when I read them as back-ups in 1970’s Kirby books. I never like mixing new and reprint material. I’ve always felt, and still do, that you should have all-new, or all-reprints. A collection entirely made up of 1940’s Simon & Kirby stories, that I would have gone for a lot more than this. (Plus, every time they put a blurb on the cover advertising the Golden Age reprints, it just ruins the designs.)


On the letters page, Randy Hiteshew discusses the ramifications of The D.N.A. Project and their cloning people, without their knowledge or consent, and usually for questionable purposes. This was discussed at some length not that long ago at the Kirby-L yahoo group (now gone), and the main point seemed to be, it’s something that Jack Kirby should have been delving into deeper when he wrote the stories. Then again, considering it’s DC, and it’s JIMMY OLSEN, maybe what he did was already more and better than anyone had a right to expect?


Unlike several other Kirby books of late, this one seems to only feature the work of 2 inkers—Vince Colletta on every page (doing a very nice job as usual on this series), and Murphy Anderson (on Clark & Jimmy). Although Vince may be doing his best work from this time on JO, at times I kinda wish Anderson had done the whole book.


Before I go, something I forgot to mention last time... JIMMY OLSEN #139 was the first Kirby comic to feature the phrase “Kirby’s Fourth World” on the cover. As it happens, that issue also features a mention of “The Fourth Estate” in the story, a reference to the news media. Connection, or coincidence? You can try what I did, and look up both terms at Wikipedia. Each phrase has several meanings or interpretations.

FOREVER PEOPLE #4 / Sep’71 – “THE KINGDOM OF THE DAMNED”


The last time we saw the Forever People, they were rendered unconscious and hauled away to Desaad’s concentration camp. The cover of FP #4 marks the 2nd time the phrase “Kirby’s Fourth World” appears on a cover. It’s folowed by, “Meet DESAAD! He KNOWS what he is—and LOVES it!!” It makes it sound like it’s his first appearance, but he’s already appeared in FP #2, NEW GODS #2 and FP #3 (which leads directly into this). The cover shows the teenagers being dumped into some sort of prison, by a pair of armored guards (who are, for visual interest, done with a “color hold” effect), as Desaad watches.


For once, the story title appears right at the top of page 1, though it may not be immediately obvious, as it’s part of a block of narration. We witness a group of innocent people who’ve been kidnapped from their homes in the previous issue, crowded together in a cell, while they pound their fists against a glass window and yell for help. In a jarring 2-page spread, we find the reason no one notices them is that their image is being distorted by the glass—and the window is part of a garish, cheerful display at an amusement park, named “HAPPYLAND”, filled with innocent paying customes, all unaware that the attraction hides a sinister secret. All the while, the entire scene in turn is watched over on a huge screen (which frames the 2-page panel) by Desaad’s technical crew.


Darkseid arrives via one of the rectangular hovercraft used to transport victims last time, and his craft landing and his stepping out as Desaad’s troops bow before him is very similar to the scene in RETURN OF THE JEDI when Darth Vader arrived at the 2nd Death Star to supervise its completion.


Page 5, as usual for Jack by this time, is where the story rerally starts, this time with a close-up of his 5 young heroes, and a lot of narrative text. The large blank BLACK area at the bottom suggests to me that someone in the lettering or production departments FORGOT to include the STORY TITLE!! Oddly enough, the “Forever People” logo at the top of the page is rather similar to the 4th “FANTASTIC FOUR” logo, the one used when George Perez was on the book.


Jack spends the next 2 pages filling us in on what happened last time, before the guards enter and use “vertigo grenades” to once again subdue their captives. The next several pages are among the most impressive of the issue, as Darkseid watches Desaad attempt to “murder” a Mother Box. The result is, it vanishes! Desaad insists it disintegrated, in effect, comitted suicide. But Darkseid points out that they hae no way to be sure! He decides to leave then, as, “When one campaigns for control of all living creatures, he DOESN’T stop to toy with a FEW!” He then brazenly walks thru Happyland, in full view of the paying customers, and proudly tells a father whose young grand-daughter is frightened by him that, despite the man’s doubts, “NO, Grandpa! I’m the REAL thing! All young humans RECOGNIZE the real thing when they see it. But you elders hide me with “COCK AND BULL” stories to keep the premises smelling sweet!” After the man and child have run off, he continues. “And still, the cosmic joke ELUDES him!! For how can he cope with me—by shunning me—HIS OTHER FACE.” And he laughs. Deep stuff, no doubt open to much interpretation.


The rest of the book is taken up with Desaad putting each of the young heroes thru their paces, as he presents various mental tortures designed to break down their defenses and possibly reveal the Anti-Life Equation, if it exists within them. This goes on until page 22, where we switch to somewhere else. The vanished Mother Box materializes out of thin air, and is found by a stocky, bald, Asian character, who senses the box somehow radiates awareness—and life—and is calling out for help! As Jack tells us, “You won’t forget his name, friends! He is what happens next to the FOREVER PEOPLE! Meet SONNY SUMO, The Banzai Express!” Yep. We’ve just run into the first 3-parter in the epic, and we’ll have to wait ‘til next time to see how this awful situation turns out.


This is the month DC expanded to 25 pages, and in addition to a Sandman And Sandy The Golden Boy reprint from ADVENTURES COMICS #85 (Apr’43), Jack has included 3 pin-ups: The Forever People, Beautiful Dreamer and Darkseid, and The Infinity Man! Spiffy.


As for the art... fine-looking issue, although as usual, I’m convinced there’s at least 2 different inkers on this, the other one possibly being Frank McLaughlin, who appears to have done the cover, pages 1, 6, 9-12, 15, and 17-18, with Colletta doing the rest. The difference in quality (and in some cases, STYLE) is just too noticeable. And if it WAS all the work of one guy, well, he wasn’t being very consistent, quality-wise.

NEW GODS #4 / Sep’71 – “O’RYAN GANG AND THE DEEP SIX”


Not long before this issue came out, DC published a pair of B&W magazines put together by Jack Kirby—IN THE DAYS OF THE MOB, and SPIRIT WORLD. This was (more or less) around the same time that Marvel also took a brief, tentative stab at the B&W magazine market with SAVAGE TALES. Both companies backed off after only one issue apiece, due to spotty distribution. However, Jack may have really enjoyed returning to “CRIME” comics, a genre he excelled in back in the late 40’s while working at Hillman and Crestwood, in such series as REAL CLUE CRIME STORIES, PRIZE COMICS, HEADLINE COMICS, and JUSTICE TRAPS THE GUILTY. The cover of NG #4 seems a cross between the crime and superhero genres, and spotlights “The O’Ryan’s Mob and the Deep Six!”


But the story opens, surprisingly, with a 4-page sequence in which Metron, the cold, detached scientist with the flying time-and-space machine “Mobius Chair”, is taking a young boy from New Genesis, Esak, on a visit to a prehistoric planet inhabited by both dinosaurs and warring ape-like humanoids. It’s like a scene out of Kirby’s later 2001 series. The pair return home just in time for High-Father to inform them that “The war to keep Apokalips from Earth goes badly! ONE OF US HAS FALLEN!”


Sure enough, on Earth, police are pulling the body of “Seagrin”, an apparently-aquatic denizen of New Genesis, out of the river. They’re interrupted by the arrival of P.I. Dave Linoln—and Orion, who gives an improptu eulogy from his fallen comrade, then steps back as the entire pier erupts in an explosion and fireball, as Seagrin’s Mother Box “takes him to—THE SOURCE!” As they depart, the cops see what they fail to—“leaping from the heart of the flames”—The Black Racer. Death has called again. He returns to Willie Lincoln’s apartment and sick-bed, where his sister is confused by the smoke and fumes his return has caused.


Unseen by all at the pier is its “EVIL ARCHITECT”—Darkseid. “Oh, how heroes LOVE to flaunt their nobility in the face of DEATH! Yet THEY know better than most that war is but the COLD game of the BUTCHER!”


Back at Lincoln’s apartment, Orion tells his new friends that Mother Box has computed that an “instrument” is shielding from her the movements of all those from Apokalips—and Inter-Gang is guarding it. He proposes they pose as a rival gang to infiltrate and find it, and suits up, in a scene not very unlike when Stallone prepared for battle as RAMBO. I’m afraid some of the dialogue of the Earth-people in this scene strikes me as VERY awkward and unnatural. It’s one thing to have alien gods from a planet in some other dimension speaking in a highly-stylized fashion—that fits. But normal people from New York City is a different matter. “But I’m Victor Lanza! An insurance executive!” He says this as if the other people in the room haven’t already known him for some time. “I’m CLAUDIA SHANE, simple but worried secretary! What am I involved in this time?—“ “And me, young but cool, HARVEY LOCKMAN!” Say what?? Critics of Kirby have complained about his writing for decades now. I really enjoy most of it, but there are rare instances—like these—where just the smallest amount of fine-tuning might have really helped.


“O’Ryan’s Gang” accosts a lowly Inter-Gang member, “Snaky Doyle”, telling him they’re moving in on his territory—then, follow him back to an old mansion perched on a cliff above the ocean. With the help of some paralyzing gas to get rid of the lookouts, Lanza goes in, posing as O’Ryan’s money-man. Unimpressed, the leader of the local branch, “Country Boy”, foolishly decides to show off the “Jammer”—a large computer-like device hidden behind a wall. At that moment, Orion reveals himself, flies in and TAKES OUT the Jammer. With it destroyed, Mother Box can now track the invaders from Apokalips—and he quickly follows a hidden tunnel down into the ocean, where he confronts “SLIG! Dog of Apokalips!” –the leader of The Deep Six (another clever name with a double-meaning). But before Orion can do anything, he’s ensnared by huge tentacles, while Slig reminds him they have the power to “MUTATE organic sea life so it does our BIDDING!” Orion’s Astro-Force barely allows him ot escape, however... “what he SEES when he wheels to attack is the SHOCKING, MIND-SHATTERING threat which The Deep Six have kept secret! WHAT DOES ORION FACE? IT HAS DESTROYED A GOD—AND THREATENS THE ENTIRE EARTH! DON’T MISS SPAWN”


Wow! And so, we begin on the Fourth World’s 1st 3-parter. This first expanded issue also features pin-ups of Lightray and Kalibak, plus reprints of the Manhunter story from ADVENTURE COMICS #73 (Apr’42), and “Coast Guard Reconnaissance” from BOY COMMANDOS #12 (Fall 1945).

JIMMY OLSEN #142 / Oct’71 – “THE MAN FROM TRANSILVANE!”


“It’s the VAMPIRE bit! But like you’ve never seen it before!” --it says here. No kidding. On the cover, Supes faces the GOOFIEST-looking “vampire” ever seen, while a really, REALLY shaggy-looking “werewolf” is pawing poor Jimmy. It’s a JIMMY OLSEN comic, after all, not HOUSE OF SECRETS—or CREEPY. Hey—SUPER FRIENDS should have been THIS good.


A bit of background... the Comics Code DEMASCULATED comics in the mid-50’s, and between it and the “witch-hunt” that spawned it, nearly destroyed an entire once-thriving industry. Well, 15 years had come and gone, and it was decided to make some changes in the Code. One of those changes was to allow vampires, werewolves, mummies, and the like, all figures of “horror” which, originally, the Code had been apparently designed to stamp out! (They still refused to allow zombies—you had to draw the line somewhere, you see.) And so, there was a mad race by both Marvel & DC to be the FIRST to feature a vampire. Marvel had planned a DRACULA comic, and Gene Colan wanted it real bad. With the Code prohibiting vampires, it was planned as a B&W magazine. But when the Code was revised, and with the initial failure of SAVAGE TALES, they changed their plans, and decided to make it a regular color comic instead. However, the art needed to be re-formatted, and somehow, it must have seemed easier to put together a vampire story somewhere else.


Thus it was that while Stan Lee took a vacation from writing for a few months, Roy Thomas stepped in with “A Monster Called... Morbius!” in AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #101 (Oct’71). He just barely beat Jack Kirby (And DC) to the punch by a month or two (as I’ve realized, Marvel’s cover dates were 1 or 2 months ahead of DCs). Marvel’s TOMB OF DRACULA #1 finally debuted 6 months later, with an Apr’72 cover date. The writing was AWFUL—at first. The art was INCREDIBLE. Eventually, the writing would catch up. But that’s another story.


If Morbius was a “superhero” version of a vampire, Count Dragorin was more like a Saturday morning cartoon version-- like something you might see on SCOOBY-DOO, WHERE ARE YOU? This comparison is quite valid, because you see, Jack Kirby, as possibly the single most creative person the comics biz has ever seen, had this amazing ability to take any idea, no matter how mundane, no matter how derivitive, and do something innovative and unexpected with it. And so it was here. As Jack puts it right on page 1, “But WAIT!!!!—Your writer advises you to expect something MORE than the same old routine”. See?


“The night is the SAME on any world, eh, Lupek?!! Ahead lies the city—and the ONE we seek!!” This is one strange-looking vampire—and strange, period, as beams shoot out from his eyes and strike the sleeping Laura Conway—leaving twin punctures in her neck. That’s not how Bela Lugosi used to operate!


The next day, Clark & Jimmy are once more being put off by Laura when they try to see Morgan Edge (who still has a lot to answer for, namely, trying to kill BOTH of them). But they sense something is wrong—her face has changed, her make-up has gotten weird, he teeth have become POINTED—and after she collapses, Clark, holding her in his arms, notices she’s not casting a reflection in a mirror! So when a BAT flies in thru the window, they’re not exactly surprised when someone calling himself “Count Dragorin of Transilvane” materializes in front of them. After using his power to knock Clark & Jimmy senseless, the Count awakens Laura, and begins asking of her the whereabouts of one Dabney Donovan, who Laura used to work for. All she knows is the NASA Science Research Center, which Dragorin suspects must have “records, files—a trail!!” “Donovan is an evil, clever one! But I’LL hunt him down!” Laura says she never met her previous boss, and only knew him by a voice on an answering machine. Just then Clark lunges, but Dragorin vanishes in a puff of smoke, leaving Laura her completely her old self again.


What follows must have surprised EVERYONE who read this comic originally. Clark & Jimmy go to the Research Center, long closed-down since its heydey in the 50’s (back when they made science-fiction horror movies more than old-fashioned horror movies). Their specialty was “simulating conditions that might be found to exist on other planets”, or, “reproduce the atmosphere of Mars—right HERE ON EARTH!” I never picked up on what Jack was doing until I read this the 2nd time. Following a battle with Lupek, in which Supes appears and save Jimmy’s life, the pair sift thru the leftover ruins of a lab and file room. Supes explains “Anything that involves the SAFETY of man—involves ME!!” He goes on to say, “Dabney Donovan is the closest thing to a MAD scientist that we have!” Supes knows Donovan had a rep for hiding things in plain sight, and on a photograph of an alien planet, “Transilvane”, finds, like a micro-dot, a note about “Bloodmoor” being destroyed on a certain date. As it happens, Bloodmoor is a cemetery, and racing there, they brifly spot Dragorin. In a hidden room underneath a mausoleum, they also find—incredibly—“A SMALL PLANET! WELCOME TO TRANSILVANE, JIMMY!” And there, before them, is a miniature planet, about 20 feet in diameter, with what looks like film cameras—or projectors—aimed at it. The planet itself must be EVIL, too—‘cause it’s got HORNS!


Now allow me to explain what, to me, is the obvious inspiration for all this. A few years back, I was watching episodes of THE OUTER LIMITS on late-night cable, and ran across one I’m not sure I ever saw before—“WOLF 359”. From the IMDB: “A scientist creates a tiny model of another solar system's planet, seeding it with life, to study planetary development. The miniaturization allows the simulation's evolution to advance much faster. A ghostly bat-like creature hovers on the in-closed model watching the humans, while emitting waves of fear terrifying them.” By the wildest coincidence, I was also reading my copy of JIMMY OLSEN ADVENTURES, and the very next day, I got to THIS story!! I couldn’t believe it. A lot of Kirby fans are well aware of how, late in his run of FANTASTIC FOUR, he did stories inspired by THE PRISONER, and STAR TREK episodes “A Piece Of The Action” and “The Gamesters of Triskellion”. And here, so blatent, so obvious I can’t believe nobody has ever mentioned it before, was a tribute to a 2nd-season OUTER LIMITS episode. In many ways, this almost feels like it could be a SEQUEL to it!!


I mean look at this. You’ve got the research center, the miniature planet, the cameras pointed at it, the “bat-like creature”. And if that wasn’t enough, are you ready for this? One of the actors who appeared in it was DABNEY Coleman!!!


I bet nobody reading this comic expected it to start with Bram Stoker and wind up with Seeleg Lester (he wrote WOLF 359).


Meanwhile, in a completely unrelated sub-plot, The Newboy Legion reach the end of the underground river, find an opening with the help of Flippa-Dippa, discover a cylindrical elevator, and come up in the still-underground hideout of some gangland type, who, while talking on the phone (talk about INCREDIBLE timing), reveals that HE’s the one who shot and killed Jim Harper (the original Guardian). WHAT ARE THE ODDS??? Honest, the way the Newsboys sub-plots are plotted, Kirby’s entire run of JIMMY OLSEN feels like one SINGLE storyline, rather than several smaller ones. Which kinda makes it tough to fit it in with any of the other Superman books.


You know, this issue actually LOOKS to me like the whole thing was inked by Vince Colletta... except for the Clark, Supes & Jimmy faces by Murphy Anderson, and the Superman figure on the cover by Neal Adams. Oh, and the rest of the cover was clearly inked by Mike Royer—who, shortly, was to REPLACE Colletta on the bulk of the Fourth World books.


There’s a 2-page back-up, “Strange Stories Of The D.N.A. PROJECT!!”, this one, ““HAIRIE SECRETS REVEALED!!!” isn’t so much a story as a feature detailing The Hairies, The Mountain Of Judgement, and The Wild Area. This issue’s reprint back-up stars The Newsboy Legion and The Guardian in “LAST MILE ALLEY”, from STAR SPANGLED COMICS # 8 (May’42).

MISTER MIRACLE #4 / Oct’71 – “THE CLOSING JAWS OF DEATH”


“SEE IT!! In the heart of a great city—a medieval DEATH TRAP!!!” On the cover, we see Scott, in what looks like an ancient dungeon, bound by ropes and chains, and standing inside an iron maiden, whose spikes-laden lid is about to be slammed shut on him—and INTO him! Yikes!! But oddly enough, this hardly prepares you for what’s inside...


At the house, Oberon worries about Scott. Suddenly, an amazon-like armored warrior woman appears, claiming to be a friend. “I’m not so bad! –a little ROUGH, maybe—but once you get to KNOW me—I can be a real PUSSYCAT!” “The kind that stalks you in a JUNGLE, I’ll bet!” She reveals she’s “Barda!! Of DARKSEID’s female task force!” “Maybe a sandwich and some milk will make you purr! How come you’re all so MEAN?” When Oberon mentions Doctor Bedlam, Barda becomes very concerned, and uses her Mega-Rod to teleport herself to the office building where Scott is trapped inside a trunk that’s plunging 50 floors down an open stairway.


Incredibly, Barda catches the trunk, then tears it open with her bare hands—but is surprised to find Scott is no longer inside! Still tied up, he greets her from one of the balconies above, but is quickly grabbed by more of the crazed tenants of the building, intent on his death. Before long, he runs across a movie studio shooting a historical film, and is shoved into an iron maiden, complete with spikes. Barda uses her Mega-Rod to jet upward to the studio floor, and tries to rescue Scott, only to find he’s escaped another trap by himself.


Despite her amazing strength and tough demeanor, it’s clear Barda cares a lot for Scott, and was involved in his escape from Granny Goodness’ orphanage. “There’s lots to talk about, Barda—that is—IF we walk out of this building in ONE PIECE!” Instead of more raving maniacs, the pair find themselves confronting Bedlam himself, in pure energy form. And then, abruptly, they show up back at Oberon’s house, alive and intact. Scott explains how Barda helped him escape “Granny’s institution”, to which Oberon replies, “If you ask me, it would have done the girl a world of IMPROVEMENT if she’d left with you, Scott!” Barda seems ready to clobber Oberon, but Scott tells her, “This is a house of FRIENDS, BARDA! The strong DON’T rule here!”


Later, as the pair prepare dinner, Scott lays out a few hints about how he may have escaped the various death traps. Meanwhile, Oberon’s concerned about their new guest. “That female “ATTILA THE HUN” has really taken over here, Scott! If she decides to stay-—t may seem very IMPROPER—“ “Oh, Barda’s all right! She’s just a CHILD, you know! A POWERFUL, DEADLY child—playing soldier!” Scott doesn’t see her enter, wearing a revealing bikini whose style would not be out of place in a SINBAD movie. “What’s for CHOW, boys? Mmmff! Smells GOOD! In fact, it looks GREAT! Let’s EAT! I’m hungry as a BEAR!” “I take it all BACK, OBERON! That’s a big, BEAUTIFUL WOMAN playing soldier!” “Whoever made that gal wear a UNIFORM should be HORSE-WHIPPED!”


No question—this is my favorite issue of MISTER MIRACLE so far. Jack may have started this series out slow—setting the foundation for what was to come—but in the last 3 issues, he’s revealed details about Scott’s background, showed us the fiend that doubled as his warden and teacher—and now, very surprisingly, shown us a close friend who may prove much more. I have to admit, the first time I read these issues, I raced thru them too fast, and the impact they might have had was blunted further by comparisons with the late-70’s revival series by Englehart and Rogers, then Gerber and Golden. So it’s nice, especially after having read ABOUT these stories for decades now, to finally go back and re-read them, in sequence, from the beginning, and see everything from a much fresher perspective.


One big thing I wasn’t aware of in the old days was that Jack based Barda on a real person—singer & actress Lainie Kazan. It seems she appeared NUDE in the October 1970 issue of PLAYBOY, and that inspired Jack to create a character based on her. As it happens, just about a week before writing this review, I watched the movie LADY IN CEMENT again, where she appeared as a go-go dancer. While not that tall, she had a VERY voluptuous figure, and almost made Raquel Welch (who appeared in the same film) look like a BOY by comparison! With her mixed Russian Jewish and Turkish Jewish background, she had a very unusual look, and Jack became very concerned that whoever was inking the book NOT change her face to make her look “generic pretty”, but to keep the face Jack drew her with intact. I don’t blame him! Althought I’d seen the 1968 film way back, I first became aware of Kazan when she played the recurring role of “Aunt Frieda” on THE NANNY. If I hadn’t read about her, I might never have made the connection, as she changed a LOT over the years, including her voice. Anyway, it figures that Jack would cast a Jewish gal as his own version of a “Wonder Woman”!


This time around, the first 15 pages look like Vince Colletta’s inks to me. But after that, it’s either Giordano, McLaughlin, or Janson—or someone whose style looks a lot like that. Of especially bizarre note is page 16, where the figures are covered in so many shadows, facial features are completely blanked out. I mention this because Keith Giffen, that chameleonic goofball who includes Kirby in his repertoire of artists whose styles he’s done takes on, spent a couple of years doing a style that seems to have been based on this ONE dark, murky, UGLY page! (Somebody STOP that loony before he pencils again!!!)


On the letters page, Richard Morrissey complains about Jack giving Granny Goodness such an “imbecilic” name, while Mark Gruenwald, later to become an editor known for his outspoken attitudes and belief that he and only he knew the one and only “right” way to do comics, urges that DC make sure it keeps Jack’s universe “incorporated into the rest of the DC world”. Decades later, it’s all too easy to realize how this narrow attitude has done untold damage to countless series.


This issue’s reprints are “PIRATE OR PATRIOT?” from REAL FACT COMICS #1 (Mar’46) and the Boy Comandos story, “THE ROMANCE OF RIP CARTER” from DETECTIVE COMICS #82 (Dec’43). The latter is the one that features the bomber plane named “Rosalind K.”

LOIS LANE #115 / Oct’71 – “MY DEATH ...BY LOIS LANE”


Kirby trivia question: who was the 2nd artist to draw The Black Racer? TIME’S UP! It was Werner Roth. No, really!


Lois visits Ray & Verna Johnson, in Metropolis’ “Little Africa”, saying she’s proud to help care for Verna’s brother Willie Walker, who was paralyzed while serving his country. As soon as they leave... Willie transforms into The Black Racer—“the one who is... DEATH!” – as he has another mission to carry out.


Meanwhile, Morgan Edge secretly gives Lois a new typewriter, which comes with a gift card that reads, “From a secret admirer—guaranteed to type scoops only”. To her astonishment, somehow, she’s compelled to type on it, and the result predicts someone’s death—which then comes to be! First a man plunged off a bridge, then a woman is found exphixiated in her apartment. Each time we see The Black Racer on the scene. Before long, Lois is drawn to the typewriter again—and seems to see tiny skulls where each of the keys are. This time, she types out her own obituary! She feels only Superman can save her, but he’s in the Arctic on a mission. Since her death is supposed to take place in her apartment, she goes to a movie theatre, intent on staying there until the time of her predicted death has passed. But a fire breaks out at the theatre, Lois is knocked out—and when she comes to, someone has brought her back to her apartment!


It’s at this point we learn the typewriter is part of an Inter-Gang plot, was created by scientists on Apokalips, and is part of a scheme to destroy Superman! (Well there had to be SOME logical reason for all this... however complex and convoluted.)


Fortunately, though groggy from the smoke, Lois is able to let Superman know about the typewriter. Sure enough, HE’s drawn to it, and it types his own obituary—from an explosion in Lois’ apartment. He suddenly realizes the obituaries typed so far had used every letter on the keyboard except “J”—and he was supposed to type a story about the fire at the Jewel Theatre. He quickly flies up and hurls the typewriter into the upper atmosphere, where it explodes harlmessly. Comforting Lois back at her apartment, Superman swears he’ll find the killer responsible. Meanwhile the Racer returns home, and to being Willie again.


It seems like other writers tried to incorporate some of Jack Kirby’s characters and concepts into their stories, but so far, at least in LOIS LANE, Robert Kanigher just isn’t cutting it.


Kanigher does it twice in this same issue. The Rose And The Thorn story, “THE COMPUTER CROOKS, PART I” involves a plot by Morgan Edge to “use” both Lois Lane and The Thorn to wreck “The 100” so he can secretly take over the city’s rackets. I’d say more, but having just read the story, the thing is so convoluted and confusing, it hardly seems worth it. Suffice to say it involves, among other things, a robot named “K.A.R.L.1” built of the same “living” technology used in Mother Boxes, and Poison Ivy. Dick Giordano’s art is nice, but as usual, Kanigher’s writing just does NOTHING for me.


Two reprints this time: Lady Danger in “THE SHAKESPEARE CLUE” from SENSATION COMICS #84 (Dec’48), art by Bob Oksner, and Lois Lane, Girl Reporter, in a story where she tries to save a heart-broken man from jumping off a building, from SUPERMAN #28 (May’44). It really says something about DC in general when stories from the 1940’s have more life, pep and general interest in them than “modern” stories from the early 70’s. I can’t help but note that Bob Oksner’s art reminds me a lot of several other artists’ work from the same period, including Carmine Infantino, Alex Toth and Frank Robbins, which tells me it must have been considered DC’s “house style” of the late 40’s.

JIMMY OLSEN #143 / Nov’71 – “GENOCIDE SPRAY!”


Filling in for “Control Voice” Vic Perrin, Kirby says it better than I could... “Of all the early involvement in aero-space technology, the one most OVER-LOOKED was “E.T.A.S.” (EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL ATMOSPHERIC SIMULATION!) In charge of it was one DABNEY DONOVAN!! A NEVER-SEEN, brilliant, WILD, WILD scientist! Forgetting him was a mistake!! FOR WHAT DABNEY HATH WROUGHT MUST NOT BE RENT ASUNDER!! OR MILLIONS WILL DIE FROM “GENOCIDE SPRAY!”


In a hidden chamber below a crypt in Bloodmoor Cemetery, Supes & Jimmy confront an unexpected sight. As Jimmy says, “Even LOOKING at it is a sensation with NO known frame of reference”. Kirby continues, “Well, now, dear reader! In this NEW era of REMOTE experimentation and ENLARGED bureaucracy, turn the page and see what the taxpayer’s money can pay for—in the day of the TRILLION DOLLAR NATIONAL PRODUCT!” “And HERE IT IS, FRIENDS!! Why bother experimenting with duplicating the ATMOSPHERE of another world—when you can get the money to duplicate ANOTHER WORLD?” As Superman observes, “TRANSILVANE! A REAL world—upon which REAL people have evolved! Only Dabney Donovan’s people look like the cast in a VAMPIRE movie!!” “Maybe those ORBITING CAMERAS have something to do with that!” Kirby replies, “You can BET your Aunt Mamie’s double-dyed doiles they have!! And that’s because scientists are HUMAN BEINGS!! And it’s when they play “GOD”—that human beings make their WORST mistake!!”


Talk about “high concept”. Even working on a book with a long tradition of being among DC’s lamest, JIMMY OLSEN, Jack Kirby threw in everything but the kitchen sink when it came to wild, unrestrained imaginative ideas. Really makes Robert Kanigher’s efforts in LOIS LANE seem EVEN LAMER than they already were, doesn’t it?


Who but Kirby would do a story combining elements of an overlooked 2nd-season episode of THE OUTER LIMITS with a tribute to 1930’s and 40’s Universal horror monsters? Jimmy & Supes confront creatures resembling Dracula, the Frankenstein monster, the Wolf Man, Kharis the Mummy, Luna Mora (from MARK OF THE VAMPIRE) and the Executioner (from TOWER OF LONDON). And as usual with Kirby, he does it with an original twist.


The “monsters”, it turns out, are desperate to save their world and the lives of everyone on it. A truly “mad” scientist, Dabney Donovan created the miniature world of Transilvane, as well as those living on it—and by use of movie projectors casting images from old horror movies onto its atmosphere, caused them to evolve into the likeness of characters from the films. But he now desires to wipe the slate clean for a new experiment... except, the test-subjects he gave life to don’t want to DIE just because he’s bored and ready to move on. After being mistaken for an ally of Donovan, Supes manages to convince them of his sincerity in time to save the day from a flying, robotic “Demon Dog” armed with enough acid to wipe out all life on the miniaturized planet. Afterwards, the grateful denizens return home, via flying, shrinking coffins, and Supes replaces the horror movies in the projectors with something he hopes will bring a new tone to the planet... the musical OKLAHOMA.


This is the 3rd time I’ve read these JO stories, and only now is it occuring to me that in the “Transilvane” story, Jack managed to combine the themes of genetic experimentation he’d already explored in his Captain America stories in TALES OF SUSPENSE and his first 6 issues of JIMMY OLSEN with the longer-standing concept of the “Bottle City of Kandor” which became such an integral part of Mort Weisinger’s expanded SUPERMAN mythos of the 1960’s. In those stories, the miniaturized residents of an equally-tiny alien city, more and more as time went by, would grow to full size and have adventures in our world, before shrinking back to to return home. Combining this with the Universal monsters and the relatively-obscure “WOLF 359” episode of OUTER LIMITS made for one wild, roller-coaster ride of a story. The biggest surprise, for me, was the NON-appearance of Dabney Donovan, who was referred to throughout. He made frequent, increasingly-annoying appearances in Karl Kesel & Tom Grummett’s much-later 2nd run of SUPERBOY, much of which was inspired by and designed as a tribute to Kirby.


By comparison, the Newsboy Legion sub-plot, where they confront the killer of Jim Harper (who comes to a fitting end, blown to bits by an Inter-Gang bomb), seems superfluous and intrusive. Maybe the Newsboys should have been given their own spin-off back-up feature, so the two plots would not feel like they’re getting in the way of each other.


Back-ups this time include another installment of Strange Stories Of The D.N.A. Project, “THE ALIEN THING!!!”, about the very first result of their genetic experiments; and another Newsboy Legion reprint, “THE ROOKIE TAKES THE RAP”, from STAR SPANGLED COMICS #9 (Jun’42).


On the letters page, Gerald Triano says, “I went into near-convulsive hysteria. Don Rickles is my favorite master of insult, and I can’t wait till he appears next issue. Everything about Goody was appealing, from his references to John Wayne to that ridiculous costume.” However, future Marvel hotshot editor Mark Gruenwald said, “I am not amused. To say that JIMMY OLSEN #139 was a letdown is an understatement. To say I can’t believe Kirby would foist such an atrocious tale on his literate reading public is putting it mildly. To say that Kirby has betrayed my confidence in the fertility of his imagination is sad but true. The story in JO #139 was self-parodying, which is one of the worst possible sins for a serious fantasy comic. In the seventh Kirby-produced issue, Jack seems to be saying, “I don’t take my comic magazines seriously. They’re just a joke to me.” If the creator doesn’t take his work seriously, how can we be expected to?” It’s pretty obvious to me that this over-opinionated person doesn’t “get” that Jack was writing a COMEDY. Sheesh. He probably never read an issue of JERRY LEWIS in his life, either.


The inks this time looks to be Vince Colletta throughout, apart from the usual Murphy Anderson Superman & Jimmy heads, and possibly page 10, which looks like either a different hand (McLaughlin?), or, a REALLY bad stat. The cover was inked by Mike Royer, who was announced as taking over the 3 main Fourth World books this month, but not this one.

FOREVER PEOPLE #5 / Nov’71 – “SONNY SUMO”


“To oppose the power of evil gods—Mother Box finds the most incredible man on Earth!! SONNY SUMO!! For the first time!!! See THE ANTI-LIFE EQUATION in ACTION!” Whoa. With a teaser like that, how could I not be all worked up to read this?


Somewhere, muscle-bound “Sonny Sumo” prepares to do battle with “Sugatai”—a ten-foot-tall ROBOT. Al Fisher, a fight promoter, wonders, “It’s a good gimmick! But is there a SHOW in it?” It seems one-sided—in fact it seems downright SUICIDAL. And yet, after an absolutely incredible, astounding fight, Sonny Sumo emerges triumphant. Thru the sheer power of concentration and will, he causes serious injuries to vanish... at least, until it’s all over, then he has his manager call for a doctor. But before he arrives, the Mother Box that appeared in Sonny’s dressing room activates again, and permanently heals his wounds via atomic restructuring. It communicates with him, informs him of who (or what) it is, and that he’s needed. And then... the two VANISH from sight!


Back at Happyland Amusement Park, Desaad has all 5 Forever People completely in his power, and is taking great pleasure in dishing out his own brand of mental torture. He doesn’t even seem interested in finding what his lord desires anymore, he just seems to be doing it for its own sake. Until Sonny & Mother Box arrive, and one by one, rescue the teenagers from their predicaments. His equipment failing, Desaad quickly fathoms a Mother Box is at the root of it, and angered that he failed to destroy it earlier, decides to MURDER his prisoners, so it will self-destruct.


Things look really bleak, as our heroes are corned by an entire squad of Desaad’s armed, armored soldiers. Until, suddenly, still holding Mother Box, which begins smoldering, Sonny tells them, “LOWER YOUR WEAPONS!!” Then, with a crackling of energy, “SLEEP!” With that one word, the entire squad DROPS to the floor—UNCONSCIOUS! Seriafin & Vykin quickly note, “The OUTSIDE CONTROL of the mind!” “And we’ve just seen it HAPPEN! HE HAS THE POWER!” Big Bear continues, “Yes! Mother Box sought out and FOUND the man with the power! This man knows the ANTI-LIFE EQUATION! This man can control ALL living beings!” But Sonny is confused, and has no idea what they’re talking about. Beautiful Dreamer & Mark Moonrider explain, “Why, the very OPPOSITE of living! If someone possesses ABSOLUTE control over you—you’re not really alive!” “Without independant will—you may just as well be a ROBOT!”


Mark suggests the Equation is hidden deep in Sonny’s mind, and Mother Box helped bring it to the surface. Big Bear realizes that Sonny will now be at the top of Desaad’s “capture” list, and Vykin suggests they all get to know each other. As Big Bear explains their only objective is to live the way they choose, and stop the forces who won’t let them. Mark suggests they begin by freeing the rest of Desaad’s prisoners.


Not far away, Desaad and Darkseid watch & listen. “You know, Desaad, I must admit they have a point! We MUST be what we ARE! And of course—that’s the pity of it. It’s the very core of our conflict! To FULFILL ourselves—we must KILL THEM! KILL THEM! KILL THEM! AND TAKE SUMO! I want the Anti-Life Equation!”


According to Jack, “What happens next will astound you! I’ve seen it—and I’m STILL shaking! In the Next Issue!! The OMEGA EFFECT!” Wow.


Re-reading all these stories, one at a time, carefully, in sequence, the development seen in this issue feels like it’s come at a perfectly natural stage of the game. I’ve seen too many “epics” where nothing ever seems to get anywhere—“problem-based” series where the writers are forever dancing in circles, held back by the knowledge that, if you ever “solve the problem”, the series will be over. I think that’s what sets Kirby’s Fourth World epic apart from most. He fully intended to work toward an ENDING, so the longer it went on, the more things developed. This was quite common in Japanese TV shows, and Patrick McGoohan managed it (almost by accident) in THE PRISONER. Even THE FUGITIVE reached a finale, despite its premise being dragged on at least a year or two longer than it should have (and the ending coming only when someone realized that nobody wanted to do yet another season). Glen Larson’s BATTLESTAR GALACTICA was another series that, to my shock on first seeing it, actually did evolve and develop as it went. That show has in common with Kirby’s story that, in both cases, they were cancelled before their creators were able to finish the story.


The characters and situations in Kirby’s epic have been revived—repeatedly—since its initial cancellation, but unfortunately, NOBODY seems to realize the initial story was meant to have a definite ENDING, and so they keep spinning more pointless episodes out, to no end, to no purpose, except to sell more books that usually aren’t even worth reading.


This issue contains the back-up, The Young Gods Of Supertown—“INTRODUCING LONAR”. “In all of New Genesis, HE alone shuns the satellite city and WANDERS continuously among the natural wonders of the mother world!!” Quite surprisingly, this includes the ruins of a city apparently left behind by the Old Gods, destroyed in the wake of the Great conflict. As Jack puts it, “the unbelievable survival of a small place of the Elder Gods!!” No kidding. My impression from NEW GODS #1 was that the entire planet was turned into a smoldering fireball, and SPLIT in two, to cool and form two NEW planets. For anything to be left intact, even in rubble, from that, is kind of mind-boggling. And among the ruins, Lonar finds the broken half of a sword—and, most curiously, a WINGED HELMET. Gee—where have we seen THAT before??? Lonar’s Mother Box locates something in the ruins, and generates small shock waves to free it. Abruptly, there’s an explosion of energy, and from it, a “Battle horse” emerges—alive—and Lonar mounts it and escape from a firey blaze the explosion started.


An all-too-brief episode (4 pages), with wonderous images and ideas. Where will this go? One can only wonder, as Kirby seems to have so many inter-related concepts to bring out, and slowly develop as time goes by.


I have to say it looksd like at LEAST 3 different inkers worked on this issue’s lead story (again). Some of it looks like “typical” Colletta, some of MUCH sharper, but then there’s the splash page, which looks like a much “softer” hand—it appears the entire page was done with a brush, not a pen. I’d almost guess page 1 was the work of Joe Rubinstein, exscept this was 6 years before I ever saw his work. Still, you never know. The back-up story, truth to tell, looks like a 4th inker’s hand was involved, a bit rougher, cruder than anything else in the book. And then of course, the cover was inked by Mike Royer. No mistaking that!


The Sandman And Sandy The Golden Boy reprint this time is “CRIME CARNIVAL”, from ADVENTURE COMICS #84 (Mar’43).

NEW GODS #5 / Nov’71 – “SPAWN”


“2 super-beings locked in battle! 1 must die!” You know, if this was the cover of a Marvel Comic, that would turn out to be nothing but meaningless hype in the long run. NOT HERE.


For the 2nd issue in a row, the story opens with Metron out in deep space somewhere exploring. This time, he’s headed to “The Final Barrier”—“The Promethean Galaxy—the place of the giants!!” He finds two huge beings who, like himself, driven by insatiable hunger for knowledge, tried to pierce the “barrier” and reach The Source directly. As our narrator puts it, “There were others with Metron’s boldness and hunger!! THIS one tried to engult the barrier by enlarging his own atomic structure! What happened is NOT known! He FAILED! He drifts endlessly—LARGER than a star cluster—FUSED! LIVING! Taking a BILLION Earth years to feel one heartbeat!! And somewhere BEYOND—lies The Source! THE GREATEST OF MYSTERIES!!” If this is accurate, then in the impressive 2-page spread, Metron’s Mobius Chair is really in the foreground, not the background as it seems, and the giant is an infinite distance away from us, while it takes up our entire view. Metron ponders that The Source, while “serene—omnipotent—all-wise”—does “make contact with us—in New Genesis”—thru High-Father’s Staff (to which he returns at that moment). Wild stuff.


Back in New York, Dave Lincoln is watching a film of Orion in battle in the company of Police Detective Sergrant Turpin— who prefers the nbickname “Terrible Turpin”. Stocky, middle-aged, cigar-smoking, dressed in a pin-stripe suit and derby hat, he give new definition to the term “hardb-boiled”. Between the film, the evidence found at the waterfront house seen last issue, and the statement made by one of his men, seriously injured in the hospital from an encounter with “a BIG fish—with a face like BLUE GRANITE”—Turpin believes a GANG WAR has come to his city—one between “super-spooks”. As he tells two of his men, “Those old times are BACK! They just look a little WEIRDER, that’s all!!”


In Lincoln’s apartment, the foursome, relieved to have come out of their encounter intact, still wondering what they can really contribute to the cause, go their separate ways until they hear from Orion again.


Meanwhile, “far beneath the Inter-Gang hide-out, in a cavern leading to the sea”, we find Orion a prisoner of Slig, leader of The Deep Six. Held prisoner in the grip of a giant mutated clam-shell, Orion listens while Slig shows off their prowess with mutating sea creatures. But as soon as Slig walks off, Orion uses the Astro-Force to ESCAPE—and begins wreaking violent, brutal havoc among his enemies. First the mutant clam is destroyed—then a half-man/half-shark is taken out. He then finds a gigantic harness—empty—which housed the monstrous juggernaut created by The Deep Six.


While this is going on, Kalibak, huge, muscle-bound, ugly-as-sin, brutal, arrives in the city via Boom Tube. I guess he got tired of being left being on Apokalips by Darkseid.


In the cavern, Slig returns to find the bodies of his soldiers strewn all over the place. What follows is some of the BEST dialogue I’ve read from Kirby yet! “Only ORION could have caused this carnage! But HOW did that savage free himself!!” “COME IN, SLIG! I was just RECLAIMING my equipment! One of your mutates FINALLY volunteered to show me where it was stored!!!” (“Volunteered”—oh, I love that.) “Allowing you to LIVE was a MISTAKE, Orion!!!” “How RIGHT you are, Slig!!! I HAVEN’T enjoyed being your guest!! This blast of ASTRO-FORCE is just a HINT of my displeasure!!” “AAAAAAA” “ZOM!” “That- didn’t-- --finish me—off—Orion!! I’m still going to get my hands on you! – and, then!!-- Then---!!” “HAHAHAHAHAH!!! THAT’s the kind of talk I LIKE to hear, Slig!! Tell me!! Tell me how I will DIE at your hands!” “BLAMM!” “Your reply is SLOW in coming!! Perhaps you need a bit of URGING!! Talk, slig, TALK!! You seemed so FOND of it when I seemed to be at YOUR mercy!!! You dogs of Apokalips are ELOQUENT when destiny FAVORS you!” Great, great stuff! I was enjoying this so much, I wound up going back and reading the scene over OUT LOUD. I could just picture what Orion’s voice would sound like, going into berzerker mode.


Ripping off Slig’s helmet, he finds Slig’s Mother Box inside, which, under pressure, self-destructs. Slig, still barely alive, notes that Orion love of destruction has “forced” his true face from hiding—as the fierce visage we saw briefly in NEW GODS #3 has returned. “YOU’RE A MAD, TORMENTED ANIMAL, ORION!!” ‘I WOULD be, Slig!! I would be! –if it were not for the MOTHER BOX!! Mother Box PROTECTS me! She CALMS and RESTRUCTURES and keeps me PART of NEW GENESIS!!” “HAHAHA!! ORION IS HIS VERY OWN MONSTER!! HAHAHA!!!” Then, as Orion once more uses Mother Box to restore his “beautiful face”... “That revelation shall DIE with you, Slig! --for between beings of POWER like ourselves—there can only be ONE survivor!!!”


Slig tries to attack once more, but to no avail. “Once STIRRED in the fires of HATE and INNER FEAR, there’s no stopping the arrival of DEATH!!!” Orion lifts Slig above his head, then hurls him into the depths of the caves below. “It’s DONE! Slig has PAID the price he exacted from others! It’s time to see what the HANDS of his kin have MOLDED!!” In anyone else’s book, one might expect Slig to have survived this episode. NOT HERE. This is WAR, and Slig, who was responsible for the death of Seagrin before last issue began, now shares his fate.


Orion mounts his harness, and, underwater, goes in search of the still-unseen monster. The next page reveals all. “And at that moment, the THING spawned by the powers of the Deep Six hurls itself into view, like an ARMORED MOUNTAIN given angry life!! --easier to revive the DREADED myths which have TERRIFIED sea-men since ages lost!!!” In one collosal full-page shot, we see it. And boy, is this thing UGLY! Like a huge magenta-colored sperm whale, only with HORNS—lots of them—and a stone-like battering ram somehow protruding forward from under its mouth. YEESH!


This issue’s reprint is a Manhunter story, “SCAVENGER HUNT”, from ADVENTURE COMICS #74 (May’42). And all the way in the back, where you might almost miss it, is another Young Gods Of Supertown spotlight, “INTRODUCING FASTBAK!" It seems the Forever People aren’t the only young residents of the satellite city, as we meet “Fastbak”, whose obsession is using flying shoes to zip around town thru the air at high speeds and cause a lot of consternation among others. As one puts it, “GROWING UP is more of a trial to the ELDERS than the young!” Pursued by uniformed “Monitors” (clearly the police force of New Genesis), he’s soon joined by others of his age, each using their own outlandish flying vehicle to race about town. Its like a “beach party” movie has crossed paths with a science-fiction/fantasy film. However, before any real harm is committed, Fastbak suddenly finds himself drawn against his will back down to the ground, where he’s quickly rushed into his duty as a lectern speaking on a podium. I guess even in New Genesis, they have Sunday services!


The big change this issue is the arrival of Mike Royer on both inks and lettering. A lot has been made about Vince Colletta’s work being rushed, making too many changes to Kirby’s art and sometimes leaving out details. Having re-read so many of these Kirby-Colletta books recently, what I see is more like some of Colletta’s best work ever—particularly on JIMMY OLSEN. But I’ve also noticed what few have ever mentioned—the glaringly obvious fact that Vince had SEVERAL different people helping him on these books, some of them with noticeably different styles to his. The quality has also varied greatly, sometimes from page to page. From here on, ONE person did the inks. And by all accounts, Royer’s main focus was to be as “faithful” to Kirby’s pencils as possible. After decades of inkers who took it for granted that their job included bringing their own style to inks, this must have been a SHOCK to many longtime Kirby fans. Apart from a coujple issues of CAPTAIN AMERICA inked by Dan Adkins, this may be the first time Kirby fans got to see what Kirby’s art REALLY looked like, without it being heavily filtered thru someone else’s style.


I’ll be honest... it’s a mixed batch. Some pages are STUNNING—but some are downright UGLY. In particular, the pages with “Terrible Turpin” look almost amateurish compared to just about anything I’ve seen over the course of this epic, so far. Some faces, and even moreso, hands, look so crude, it’s hard to believe any professional inker would have left them that way. And certain panels seem severely lacking in “depth”, everything, foreground, middleground, background, looking like it’s all on one level. But overall, most of the book looks very good, and I’m willing to give Royer the benefit of the doubt, considering this was his FIRST time inking a Kirby story. Still, some of the linework is so inconsistent, if I didn’t KNOW with some certainty it was all Royer’s work, I’d almost swear HE was using assistants, as Colletta had been. Incidentally Colletta did ink the back-up story, and he continued to do most JIMMY OLSEN issues, so he wasn’t gone entirely.

LOIS LANE #116 / Nov’71 – “HALL OF 1000 MIRRORS”


It looks like this time—apparently—they got Werner Roth & Vince Colletta to do their own cover for once. What a concept! The same artists doing the inside and outside. This one, showing Supes getting pulled apart by a fun-house mirror, looks like “typical DC” nonsense to me. The surprise, this issue, is that this is the first 70’s LOIS LANE I’ve read that wasn’t bad.


Following a terrific splash page (much better than the cover), the story starts with Morgan Edge staring at a mirror... until he turns away from it. Except, the reflection doesn’t move as he does. WHAT’s going on??? We never find out this issue. Lois arrives to drive him to her latest “People U.S.A.” TV broadcast. En route, he asks where her “boyfriend” is, and she laments that she never knows when Superman will be called away on some emergency. Lois’ guest on the show is Dave Stevens, “the Daily Planet’s new crusading columnist”, who uses his appearance to attack “The 100”, the crime gang that’s running the rackets in Metropolis. The broadcast is interrupted when a pair of “100” hit men appear to put a stop to Stevens’ crusading—and again when Superman arrives in time to SAVE him! However, in the skuffle, Dave disappears, and Lois, Supes & Dave’s “right-hand”, Tina Ames, fly to a “teenage clubhouse” set up by Stevens to help keep young people from falling prey to crime. Outside, Supes stops a drug pusher, but just then, a bike gang attacks and kidnaps Lois.


Following the scent of Lois’ perfume, Supes tracks them down to—get this—Happyland Amusement Park, recently seen in FOREVER PEOPLE #4 & 5. It seems the bikers were agents of Desaad, and he uses scientifically-tricked-up mirrors to distort and torture Superman. He manages to break free, and rescues both Lois and Dave, but the baddies escape, leaving Superman wondering (quite inexplicably) if the “mastermind” behind this might be Darkseid. Desaad reports to his master, sitting in a large chair, who ponders that, “Perhaps, in the end, I shall have to deal with Superman!”


Since I’ve begun this project, it’s come to my attention that writer Robert Kanigher had been stripped of his editorial position, and that his editor on LOIS LANE, E. Nelson Bridwell, MAY have been driving the plots, and even re-writing the dialogue. Which makes it a real question as to who’s really responsible for the quality (or lack thereof) in some of the stories I’ve read in these books recently. Anyway, this one was FAR less convoluted and awkward, and as a bonus, Werner Roth did the NICEST job I’ve seen from him so far. He used more large panels this time out, and this issue kinda looks more like his X-MEN work than anything I’ve seen from him at DC so far. Was this his idea—was it suggested by the editor (because of the Jack Kirby plot elements), or was it simply spelled out in the script? Either way, this was a VERY nice-looking issue, and his Lois is certainly very pretty. I just keep wishing the guy in the blue suit and red cape wasn’t involved. (Oh, and unless I’ve missed something, this issue made Roth the 2nd DC artist to draw Darkseid!)


Rose and the Thorn this time is “COMPUTED TO KILL”, the 2nd half of the story involving The 100, the robot-computer named “K.A.R.L.”, and Poison Ivy, who seems utterly superfluous, as she doesn’t get to show off her usual gimmicks even once anywhere in the episode. An eccentric artist is employed in the murder-plot, as he puts out an offer to pay The Thorn for posing for a statue. This sounds like something that stepped right off the ’66 BATMAN tv show. Further, she’s doused in a clear yellow solution which is supposed to harded to form a mold from which her likeness can be cast. When it harded almost instantly (seriously, didn’t David Wayne to this to Adam West once?), she’s suddenly concerned that there’s not much air trapped inside—but since she was told it was suppsoed to take “hours” to harden, WHY didn’t that occur to her then? For that matter, WHY would a mysterious vigilante be interested in posing for a statue ANYWAY? There’s such a complete breakdown of logic here, it drags down any hope of the story being worthwhile. When, at the end, “K.A.R.L.” decided it wants its payment to BE The Thorn—and leaps into the river to rescue her from death—well, you begin to wonder who’s smoking what when they wrote this.


The art by Dick Giordano is nice, but I have some serious problems with his storytelling in spots. Curiously, the credits read, “with a special thank you to Jeff Jones”—was this for story or art elements? More curious is page 4—especially the last panel—which I would SWEAR was drawn by GIL KANE! I’m not sure the concept of this series or the characters are all that hot, but between the stories, the writing and the visual storytelling, it’s going NOWHERE—fast.


This issue’s reprint is the 1st installment of DR. PAT, about a woman physician, from SENSATION COMICS #94 (Nov’49). According to the GCD (info taken “from index of original printing”), this was written by Robert Kanigher, and if so, is by a WIDE margin the BEST thing I’ve read by him lately. Sad to think a guy should do such good work early in his career, then let it slide so badly years later. Art is by Carmine Infantino and Frank Giacoia. Nothing flashy (heh) but nice, solid, low-key storytelling. The reproduction’s not so hot, but then NONE of DC’s Golden age reprints look that good. Apparently, nobody bothered to hold onto original stats or negatives back then, since, after all, for decades, comics were considered just “disposable junk”.

JIMMY OLSEN #144 / Dec’71 – “A BIG THING IN A DEEP SCOTTISH LAKE!”


I really like the cover of this issue of JO, with a sea monster knocking the raft containing Jimmy & The Newsboys all over the place, while Supes flies overhead. Too bad about the logo & text. DC really had “bad design” back then.


Following a brief prologue in which a speedboat is destroyed in Scotland’s Loch Trevor, we cut to Morgan Edge’s office, where the Newboys finally report back to him after their adventure at The D.N.A. Project. The problem is, since The Project is top-secret, they can’t report the story. But Edge says if they want to “earn” The Whiz Wagon, he has another assignment for them—and sure enough, it’s investigating the sea monster. As Flippa-Dippa says, “Wouldn’t THAT be somethin’ else!! My scuba cells are VIBRATIN’, Jimmy!!” (Jimmy’s silent response is to cover his face and think, “Oh, no—“)


No sooner do they agree, and depart, than Edge contacts Inter-Gang, still bent on having them killed! “Listen, CLOSELY! They’re on their way!!! –and this time, do the job RIGHT! It’s a SIMPLE task! There’s NO reason to slip up!! So DON’T fail! Do you hear me? DON’T FAIL!!” (Gee—would YOU want to work for a boss like this?) Jimmy plans to “do a little MORE checking on Morgan Edge, himself” when they return, but it’s almost unbelieveable that he and Clark haven’t done so already, after everything that’s happened in recent issues.


Meanwhile, Superman and The Guardian, responding to a newspaper ad inviting them to a discotheque, the “Cosmic Carousel”, find it run by Terry Dean, who contacted them on Jimmy’s suggestion. After being mobbed for autographs, the pair take a ringside table and see “The San Diego Five String Mob”, a rock band who play VERY strange-looking, other-worldy instuments. Among the other guests is Dubbilex, who reveals he arrived by a tunnel beneath the building that stretches all the way back to The Project. Just at that moment, the band proves they’re not what they seem, when they attack Superman, their musical instruments turning out to be high-tech weapons!


Over in Scotland, the boys meet Felix MacFinney. It’s a humorous moment when he comes face-to-face with Scrapper, dressed in a kilt, and comments that the boy’s clothes are totally at odds with his accent. After meeting MacFinney’s daughter Ginny, the groups settles down for a dinner, while Scrapper advises Jimmy that Ginny is giving him the eye. “I t’ink she goes for you!!! Why don’tcha try DATIN’ ‘er!!!” “Why don’t you try a little more tact!! WOW! I just CAN’T want for you to grow up!!”


The next day, the group goes out on the lake in a raft, while far below, Flippa runs into an unexpected intruder, who tries to yank off his breathing equipment. Above, MacFinney reveals his true colors—he’s working for Inter-Gang, and has orders to kill the lot of them! They’re only saved when the unobserved Scrapper Trooper activates MacFinney’s “sonar whistle”—causing the sea monster to surface, knocking everyone into the water! Only MacFinney is a victim of the attack, and onshore, they find Flippa waiting for them, along with his assailant—Ginny, who’s NOT really MacFinney’s daughter, but his parter-in-crime. Baffled as to why Inter-Gang has twice tried to kill them, Jimmy resolves to stick around until he can figure out what’s going on.


Strange Tales Of The D.N.A. Project this time features “THE TORN PHOTOGRAPH”, a 2-page account of the time, years before, when the cave The Project was eventually built in was first being explored. A survey team, “Probe Six”, encountered an underground swamp, as well as some sort of “missing link” creature right out of the movie TROG. In defense against a mass attack, dynamite was set off, but unfortunately the entire survey team was lost in the process. A strange, tragic incident, and one I can’t help but feel would have been better served if it had been expanded to 4 or even 8 pages.


As usual, Vince Colletta is aided by Murphy Anderson on all the Supes & Jimmy faces. The rest all looks like Colletta to me this time, even though the quality is very inconsistent. Morgan Edge & the “band” are all on the rough side, while the 2 girls—Terry & Ginny—are both VERY beautifully rendered, which should put to rest any rumors that Jack Kirby couldn’t draw attarctive women.


By the way, I know the band were based on real comic-book fans, and MacFinney on a known comic actor (long forgotten by the time Kirby wrote this story), but don’t expect me to look up the exact into.


This issue’s Newsboy Legion & Guardian reprint is “KINGS FOR A DAY” from STAR SPANGLED COMICS #10 (Jul’42). On the letters page, Gerard Triano points out that JO #141 was the first time Clark Kent did NOT appear as Superman since a story in SUPERMAN #203 (Jan’68).

MISTER MIRACLE #5 / Dec’71 – “MURDER MACHINE!”


“It’s like a diabolical CAR-WASH!! It traps you on the way in—and kills you on the way out! It’s mechanized murder!!” Holy cow! What a teaser.


Two guys deliver a Civil War-era cannon to Scott’s house, and are distracted by Barda exercising on the lawn. “What is it, fellas? Business, or GIRL WATCHING?” Annoyed at the “chatter”, Barda brushes them aside, grabs the cannon and single-handedly carries it to the house! “I could exercise until I’m MUSCLE-BOUND!! –and NEVER do THAT!!!” “This ‘woman’s lib’ thing is getting more SERIOUS than I thought!!”


Elsewhere, another foe from Apokalips has arrived to take down Scott—permanently. It’s Doctor Virman Vundabar, a short, stocky character with a monocle whose wardrome and manner seems to have stepped straight out of 19th Century-Prussia. Testing a “Centri-Spin” device designed to kill Scott, his sidekick, Hydrik, is “seriously impaired” when it explodes right next to him. “It’s just as well, Hydrik!! You know the PENALTY for IMPERFECTION!” Following an audible gunshot, Vundabar steps out of the lab and tells the two guards, “This section has FAILED! Order the laboratory CLEANED UP!!” “It will be SPOTLESS, excellency!”


While Scott & Oberon are practising a new escape routine with the cannon, Barda enjoys a momentary peace in a nearby pond. “Apokalips is TOTALLY devoid of spots like this!! I hope the people of Earth APPRECIATE these places! It’s a joy to be free of the grey and smelly air of a world filled with DESTRUCTIVE machines!! I’ve had ENOUGH of great Darkseid’s world! –they’ll have to FIGHT to get Big Barda to rerturn there!!” Sure enough, at that moment, a flying craft drops a squadron of soldiers, who approach with guns drawn. It’s at this point we learn Barda’s “side-clips” transform almost magically into her full armor and Mega-Rod! However, after a short battle, an “energy-dispenser” brings her down.


Scott explains to Oberon that the inmates of Granny’s orphanage all were given descriptive names not unlike those in the book OLIVER TWIST. On seeing the craft depart, Scott realizes that Barda has been captured, and further, that she was “allowed” to leave Apokalips, to serve as bait to draw him out. Using his aero-discs, Scott flies into a rugged canyon, where he finds Vundabar’s death-trap waiting. On a viewscreen, Vundabar invites Scott inside. “WHAT if I tell you to go blow your nose?” He finds a conveyor belt running down a long corridor, and the instant he steps on it, he’s encased in a titanium coffer, and held on the conveyor belt by foot clamps. “That little SWINE! He’s devised a trap that runs me through a murder-machine like an Earth-CAR WASH!!”


As the coffer goes down the corridor, it’s hit by multiple hammers, then has a pair of electrodes clamped on, which generate a “controlled atom blast”. As Vundabar and his sidekick Klepp watch, the captive Barda objects. “That’s why I deserted Apokalips! I can NO longer soldier in the company of TWISTED fiends like yourself—who worship their POWER—more than DARKSEID!” “SILENCE! I want no further BLASPHEMY!” At the end of the conveyor belt, the metal coffer sinks into a tank containing “the most POWERFUL of ACIDS”—and dissolves. HORRORS!!!


Klepp, Vindabar and one of the soldiers all laugh at the sight. As they do, they fail to notice the figure standing directly behind them, ALSO smiling—Scott! “How did you do it? How did you escape!?” Scott explains that he used powerful lasers built into his boots to burn a hole in the bottom of the coffer, and the conveyor belt beneath it, so that while all eyes were fixed on the front of the container, no one saw the gaping hole in the floor behind it. He then used the lasers to blast a tunnel underneath the conveyor, until he came up behind them. “There’s only ONE thing to do, excellency! GIVE US THE ORDER!!” “YES! YES! --at my command—SHOOT TO KILL!!—“ And at that instant, the floor beneath the villains collapses, taking them down with it. “As I said before, boys!! You SHOULD’VE been watching my FEET!! That tunnel is very DEEP!!!”


Scott lifts Barda in his arms. “SCOTT--!! Scott—forgive me!! I-I was AFRAID! –for US! I—A WARRIOR—“ “You’re BETTER than that, Barda!! You’re a WOMAN!!” Holding her in his arms, Scott flies the pair of them out and away.


But even greater horror may await... “-NEXT ISSUE- You know him!! I KNOW HIM!! EVERYBODY gets to know a “FUNKY FLASHMAN” The question is—“DO WE NEED HIM?” This can be a DESPERATE issue—if a “Funky Flashman” can decide your fate!!! WATCH MISTER MIRACLE GET TAKEN!!!--- by the con’s con-man!! – THE FUNKIEST AGENT OF THEM ALL!!!” This can’t be good...


Mike Royer takes over the inks this issue, and it looks to me like he did a better job overall than in NEW GODS #5. However, it seems Jack Kirby had a particular, severe problem with something Mike did. Jack based Barda on singer-actress Lainie Kazan, who has a very particular face—and it seems Royer CHANGED her face, in order to “pretty her up”. PISSED, Jack went back and RE-pencilled—and INKED her faces—himself! –pasting the results down over Mike’s work, and making sure Royer knew not to ever change the faces again. The results are a bit mixed, if only because the line quality on the faces tends to be thicker than on much of the detail in the rest of the book.


Meanwhile, this issue’s back-up feature is the first installment of “YOUNG SCOTT FREE”, detailing his younger days in Granny’s orphanage, where he was trained to be a soldier, and visciously brutalized for proving to be too human. It’s a very unpleasant episode, and adding to the it are the inks, apparently done by Jack himself! At the end of this installment, Scott, his face horribly disfigured from a terrible beating, witnesses the arrival of Metron on his Mobius chair, who he mistakes for one of “Darkseid’s heirarchy”. I’m reminded of a scene in the BATTLESTAR GALACTICA episode “Greetings From Earth”, where a refugee from totalitarian-run “Luna Seven” mistakes the colonial warriors for members of the Nazi-like -Eastern Alliance—especially the civilian security team, who, like his real enemies, are dressed head to toe in black.

JIMMY OLSEN #145 / Jan’72 – “BRIGADOOM!”


All this time, I wondered how it would look if Murphy Anderson (who was inking all the Superman & Jimmy faces) inked the WHOLE thing. Now I know. People say Wally Wood and Joe Sinnott were “over-powering”. NAH. They’ve got NOTHING on Murphy Anderson! Unless I squint to see the layout, there’s NOTHING of Kirby here at all! It looks NICE... but, geez. I bet some guys at DC would have preferred if all Jack’s books had looked this way.


Still in Scotland, Jimmy & The Newsboys are shown by Scotland Yard Inspector Robert McQuarrie a variety of very strange animals found in the Loch Trevor area. They include a griffin, a chimera, a unicorn, an entire group of basilisks, and—most strange of all—something that defies description, which they’ve nicknamed “Angry Charlie”. No one knows where they come from, but their point of origin is referred to as “Brigadoom”, inspired by a Scottish fairy tale of a city that only appears once a year, then vanishes after a day. Figuring the sea serpent might point them in the right direction, they take the Whiz Wagon down underwater in Loch Trevor, and soon find themselves confronting the beastie again. Only, with the vehicle’s “mini-shock missiles”, they’re on more even terms this time.


As soon as I saw the Whiz Wagon dive, it hit me, they may be The New Newsboy Legion, but in spirit, they seem to be closer to Jack’s BOY EXPLORERS, a series cut short far too soon by bad market conditions in 1946.


Having split into two groups, one in water, the other on land, the latter consists of Jimmy & Scrapper, who’s brought the Scrapper Trooper with him. I dunno... there’s something CREEPY about the way Scrapper carries this minature “army”-style clone of himself around in a box, as if he were a pet frog or something. While napping, a strange “compressor ray” sweeps over the spot where the pair are sleeping... and when they wake up, find themselves SHRUNK to the size of Scrapper Trooper! As he puts it... “In short—you’ve been SHORTENED!!” But this may be a serious mis-step on the part of the baddies, for it’s only at this reduced size that they locate an equally-miniature scientific research complex, whose design mirrors that of The D.N.A. Project’s. Yep—after so many episodes, Jimmy & Scrapper have found THE EVIL FACTORY! But that’s when they’re knocked unconscious again by “paralysis beams”, fired by Mokkari, who, along with Simyan, are revealed to have been miniature in size all this time!


I’m reminded a bit of the 1969 SPIDER-MAN cartoon, “THE BIRTH OF MICRO MAN”, in which the villain, Professor Pretorius, had threatned to use his “Kingdom Come Machine” to blow New York City off the face of the map. It was revealed that both he and his machine had been miniatured to only a few inches in height, but, as Spidey explained, “When you’re dealing with atoms, size doesn’t matter!”


Meanwhile, in Metropolis, Superman & Terry Dean explore the tunnel underneath her now-wrecked club, and find Dubbilex, who has not only caught up with the culprits—but is exhibiting, for the first time, a strange “kinetic” power (not unlike that used by Marvel Girl of THE X-MEN). He holds the “band” aloft in mid-air, but on letting them free, the group suddenly cause a Boom-Tube to materialize, thru which they make their escape. Superman quickly figures they were connected with Apokalips, and Darkseid, while Dubbilex realizes from Supes’ expression that he must know more than he’s telling.


Back in Scotland, The Whiz Wagon and its occupants find themselves shrunk to the size of guppies, then make it inside a pipe which leads to the baddie’s shrunken lair. Scrapper & Scrapper Trooper find themself facing death by dinosaur attack, until the Trooper uses a mace dispenser hidden in his helmet to knock it out. But the worst is reserved for Jimmy. He’s strapped to a table, while a ray machine is used to perform a “gene nuclei” experiment on him, intent on regressing him backwards until he becomes a caveman! The scene mirrors at least 2 stories I’ve seen on TV—THE OUTER LIMITS episode “The Sixth Finger”, but moreso, the DOCTOR WHO story “Vengeance On Varos”, especially with the way Jimmy is subjected to it while strapped down against his will. (Maybe writer Philip Martin was a Jack Kirby fan?)


The inks appear to be all Colletta’s this time (barring the usual Anderson work). Once again, Terry Dean is a real BABE. One outstanding feature this time is, before they head for the Loch, the Newboys are actually wearing different clothes for once—INCLUDING Flippa-Dippa, who for the first time is not only seen wearing “regular” clothes (and very stylish at that), but is reffered to simply as “Flip” throughout the entire issue. Nice.


On the letters page, David Vereschagin had the following to say about Goody Rickels: “How the great Jack Kirby could produce something as lowly and insulting to his intelligence is beyond me! I felt like tearing up the whole issue there and then, burning all my Nationals and quitting comics for life.”


This issue’s Newboy Legion & Guardian reprint is “PARADISE PRISON”, from STAR SPANGLED COMICS #11 (Aug’42). The plot somewhat mirrors that of the 2nd Dead End Kids movie, CRIME SCHOOL, in that they get caught in the act of committing a crime and sent up the river... except, unlike those rotten scum in the movie (they really were, before they got better in later installments), here, it’s not what it seems, and The Guardian eventually figures it out.

FOREVER PEOPLE #6 / Jan’72 – “THE OMEGA EFFECT!!”


This episode’s opening 4-page sequence features a squad of Glorious Godfrey’s “Justifiers” trying to destroy The Super-Cycle. Trying. As Jack puts it, “Programmed to ward off death, the Super-Cycle DEFENDS itself!” The whole thing completely re-configures, and becomes one big weapon. I’m reminded of TRANSFORMERS, but more than a decade early. I feel sure something like this probably showed up in some Japanese comics or cartoons, but someone else would have to nail down the details for me. Godfrey, making only his 2nd appearance so far (it was somewehat surprising after his intro that he disappeared from the narrative the way he did), sends some newly-recruited “Justifiers” to “Destroy that abomination!” One of his followers notes how really eager these Earthmen are to follow whatever orders they receive.


Back at Happyland, Sonny Sumo continues to use The Anti-Life Formula to order Desaad’s goons to free all remaining prisoners, while Mark Moonrider uses one of their weapons to take out the control center, which sets off a chain-reaction that winds up destroying the entire amusement park! As more prisoners are surprised to find themselves suddenly free, police are drawn by the explosions, and are shocked to hear stories of people having been held prisoner in the place.


As shuttles race to escape, one is stopped by Big Bear, who really gets to show off his special “powers” for the first time. “POWER is my game! I store an EXCESS of free atoms and send them where they’re NEEDED!!” The shot of one of the guards being propelled upward out of the shuttle is somewhat reminiscent of an old Warner Brothers cartoon!


Well, things turn NASTY when Darkseid, who, along with Desaad, is still hanging around Happyland, decides to strike back at the youths who are frustratng his plans. He uses... “THE OMEGA EFFECT”—which manifests in the form of twin eye-beams that seek out their prey and cause them to VANISH. One by one, The Forever People (and Sonny Sumo) fall victim to its power, and they and Desaad seem convinced they’ve been killed. However, Darkseid assures otherwise. “What you said about the others ISN’T true!! They DO exist!! --but NOT HERE!! NOT NOW!!”


Only Serifan remains, no longer considered a threat by Darkseid, who says, “I do no more than what HAS to be done!!” Serifan escapes just as the police are breaking in, and uses the Aero-Van to return to The Super-Cycle, which doesn’t recognize him without Mother Box. Finally convincing it by using one of his Cosmic Cartridges, he takes refuge in it, saddened and demoralized by the loss of his friends. Unseen, a group of Justifiers still hanging around prepare to strike.


Overall, the simplest episode so far, as it was mostly an action-filled interlude in the middle of what is proving to be one long, multi-part sequence.


“The Young Gods Of Supertown” back-up this time is “RAID FROM APOKALIPS”, a flashback showing a group of Darkseid’s troops using a Boom-Tube to invade New Genesis in an attempt to destroy the floating city, but stopped by the pair of Serifan and Big Bear.


I must commend Mike Royer for his inks this issue, in general he continues to do very sharp, slick work, with the notable exception of page 7, which is so BRUTAL in spots, I wanna scream at the guy, “DON’T JUST TRACE, DAMMIT!!!” In the midst of knocking out SO MANY pages of brilliant storytelling, action and visuals, I seriously doubt Jack Kirby ever meant for every single line to be treated as (you’ll forgive the expression) “Gospel”. Meanwhile, both the back-up story, and, surprisingly, the cover, were inked by Vince Colletta. (Somebody should tell the GCD, they have it listed wrong.)


This issue’s Sandman story is “THE VILLAIN FROM VALHALLA!”, from ADVENTURE COMICS #75 (Jun’42).

NEW GODS #6 / Jan’72 – “THE GLORY BOAT!!”


“When the STORM OF BATTLE is over—who will be left on the GLORY BOAT?” Beneath a green sky filled with crackling energy, a rough-hewn wooden boat is being boarded by 2 green, scary alien warriors—while a figure, resembling a mummy, is tied to the mast. A pair of insets spotlight Orion and Lightray. (I’m really glad I’m doing a comprehensive restoration project on all of these covers; the GCD has some of the worst I’ve ever seen of NEW GODS.)


““BRING APOKALIPS TO EARTH!!” This terrible command by Darkseid has been done!! The DEEP SIX—MYSTIC MUTATORS OF THE DEEP have ressurected “Leviathan”, symbol of ancient disasters!! Which can only be stopped by THE GLORY BOAT!!” The splash shows a reverse shot of the last panel of the previous episode, as the gigantic PINK monster heads for a ship at ramming speed. (In the 1984 reprint, both full-page shots were side-by-side.) The 2-page spread shows devastation!! “This is a sea beast which dwarfs ANYTHING seen in the oceans since the dawn of time!! Beneath its throat is a GIANT ram!—which CRUELLY pierces the ship, as its gargantuan tusks follow to RIP aprt the remaining tonnage of steel!!” The following page reveals the monster destroying several other ships, including an atomic submarine, and a “private yacht of the rich”.


The 3 survivors of said yacht, business tycoon Farley Sheridan, his son Richard and his daughter Lynn, adrift on a rubber raft, witness Orion and his Astro-Harness rocketing straight up out of the water, the sight resembling a Polaris missile being fired. (It also bears an uncanny resemblance to the devices used by Sean Connery & Bernie Casey in the film NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN, 11 years later. Once again Jack Kirby is many years ahead of the curve.)


Mother Box has led Orion to this area, and, with the family in tow, finds the “UGLY misshapen craft made of aged wood”, and discovers the figure imprisoned there is Lightray. “Well- well well--!! So the SMILING LAMB decided to try his hand among the WOLVES, after all!!” Lightray admits he broke his word to High-Father not to come to Earth, then ran afoul of “light absorbing kelp” created by The Deep Six. While investigating the craft, we discover that Farley (whose face and manner somewhat remind me of Ed Begley Sr.) is a World War 2 veteran who was on Normandy beach during the D-Day invasion, while his son is a conscientious objector. It seems the entire Viet Nam War era generational and idiological conflict is being played out between just this father and son.


Inside the craft, Orion & Lightray discover a horrible mutation being used to guide the Leviathan. Lightray stops Orion from simply killing it, choosing instead to use his own powers to mutate it further—first, into a cube-shaped “living basic life form”, then, as it continues to grow, into something else. “What did you guys DO??” “We’ve arranged a BATTLE—fit for the NEW GODS!!” I found this rather jarring. As far as I know, this was the first time any character in Kirby’s epic used the name of the book to refer to themselves.


Elsewhere, moments before it takes out another victim, the Leviathan, accmpanied by The Deep Six (well, five of them anyway), hear the “sonic call” now being sent by their mutate, and the monster is forced to return, followed by its masters. Inside the craft, Farley & Richard find the mutate “is shooting strange, MACHINE-LIKE forms through the walls and decking of the ship!! THIS must be what Lightray meant by the cube being—TECHNO-ACTIVE!!” Outside, Jaffar arrives, and gung-ho Farley finds himself scared out of his wits!!! He’s only saved from sudden death by his son Richard, who rushes in without hesitation—and pays for it with HIS life! Jaffar horribly mutates Richard in the process, leaving him with NO face, just as Orion returns to give battle. “COMPLETE DESTRUCTION Jaffar has PAID for his viscious acts!!! Anbd poor, young Richard—what did HE pay for?”


Orion uses his Astro-Harness to whisk Lynn to safety, while her father, whose mind seems shattered, refuses to leave. The remaining members of The Deep Six attack, but are brutally driven off. For his own safety, Lightray has tied Farley to the same mast he was lashed to earlier, and after revealing that Richard has been changed back to his previous appearance, they prepare for the final confrontation. As the Leviathan and its masters race toward them at high speed, Orion, Lightray, the dead Richard and the now fully-mutated creature, which has turned itself into a living missile, meet them in a massive collision and explosion!!!


“The trumpets blast on IMPACT with the enemy! THUNDEROUS notes!- WHITE-HOT, ELEMENTAL and ALL CONSUMING!! A Wagnerian offering to the SOURCE!!” But our hereos escape unscathed... “You DID it, Lightray! Only YOU could time ESCAPE at LIGHT SPEED!”


Behind, still alive, Farley comes to his senses. “When daylight comes, what is left in the wake of grand tragedy is MERE drifting wreckage!! A young man of conscience has chosen a warrior’s death!! The old warrioir has found NEW feelings in his suffereing!!! WHAT is MAN in the last analysis—his PHILOSOPHY- or HIMSELF!?” Wow.


This episode barely made a dent when I first read it around 30 years ago. Apart from racing thru the entire 4W saga in mere days, there’s also the fact that I was missing NEW GODS #5 at the time (and only picked it up a couple years later), and so, without the 2 issues that led into this, was probably left wondering what the HELL was going on. Since then I’ve read a great deal about the 4W, and about this episode in particular, a rather HUGE section of a JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR issue being devoted exclusively to 3 of the most long-winded reviews I have ever read of a single comic-book. (And considering how long-winded I can be, that’s really saying something.) This is still not a favorite of mine by any means, but at least now I have a greatly-improved appreciation for it.


Mike Royer does another GREAT job on the inks. Only page 16 rubs me the wrong way, and the figures of Farley & Richard cold be taken as simply jack letting his drawing be more “expressive” than usual, the wild, out-of-control linework matching the moment. Maybe. On just the previous page, the close-up of Lynn shows one of the prettiest women I’ve seen Jack draw, and that makes me wonder if it’s what Jack intended, or did Mike “clean her up” (something he caught hell for when he did it with Big Barda in MISTER MIRACLE). Meanwhile, Vince Colletta inked the cover. Nice job, too.


2 reprints this time: Manhunter in “BEWARE OF MR. MEEK” from ADVENTURE COMICS #75 (Jun’42), fun storytelling with some really HORRIBLE inks (as usual), and a “Just Imagine” feature, “THE ROCKET LANES OF TOMORROW”, from REAL FACT COMICS #1 (Mar’46). You know, from some of the stories I’ve seen in Greg Theakston’s THE COMPLETE JACK KIRBY books, this actually reminds me of some of Jack’s work from before he and Joe Simon were at Marvel. Very “FLASH GORDON”-inspired.

LOIS LANE #118 / Jan’72 – “EDGE OF DARKNESS!”


On Dick Giordano’s cover, Superman flies away from a smiling Lois, warning her, “Careful, Lois! That madman’s loose somewhere in this area!” She replies, “Don’t worry, SUPERMAN! I can take care of myself!” (Decades of her being rescued by him have proven this. Heh.) She clasps a copy of the the Daily Planet in her hand, whose headline reads, “MADMAN AT LARGE!” And a few feet away, in an alley, we see a menacing shadow and a pair of shaking hands apparently waiting to grab her. Wave bye-bye, Lois! Heh heh heh.


Page 1 shows us Morgan Edge escaping from his own apartment. As the narrator says, “What gives?”


The next day, in a scene that could only happen in a SUPERMAN book (or one if its spin-offs, anyway), Lois is kidnapped in broad daylight by—no, I’m NOT mkaing this up!!—a gymnastic team building a human pyramid, and a helicopter. Doesn’t this woman ever have any “normal” days? They’re working for “The 100”, and Morgan Edge, secretly a boss of “Inter-Gang”, is happy when Superman stops his “rivals”.


And then, he thinks back, giving us an excuse to witness a strange flashback, to events we never saw before. That is, when Morgan Edge was KIDNAPPED, taken to The Evil Factory, and an EVIL CLONE was created by Mokkari & Simyan. An EVIL CLONE who would be loyal to DARKSEID!! What a shocker. Jack Kirby creates a character who’s a crook, and SOME EDITOR decides to completely re-think the concept, so, NO, Morgan Edge, the new owner of The Daily Planet, isn’t REALLY a crook—it’s his EVIL TWIN!!! Oy. Does this mean Werner Roth is DC’s “answer” to John Buscema?


The EVIL Edge’s 1st assignment was to KILL the original... but, somehow, he COULDN’T bring himself to do it. So, instead, he had a secret room in his penthouse built, and has kept the real Edge a prisoner, for months. (Wouldn’t a better use for such a room be to keep a “Penthouse Pet” as a houseguest?) But now, he finds out the real Edge has escaped! After some quick thinking, he recruits a bogus psychiatrist and some fake orderlies, and sets about having them convince Superman and Lois that Edge is under their care, mentally unstable, and dangerous. So Superman tracks down the REAL Edge, who doesn’t realize everything he says will be taken as the ravings of a demented mind. It works... until later, when the EVIL Edge gets a phone call from the bogus shrink, telling him the REAL Edge has escaped, by causing the ambulance they were in to run off a bridge into a river, where the guy swam to safety. Gee, just like Michael Myers in HALLOWEEN 4, except without all the bloody gory violence.


So now the EVIL Edge is in deep trouble. “I’ve got to find him before DARKSEID discovers I’ve disobeyed orders!” Like that would really make us feel bad.


My problem with all this is that neither version of “Morgan Edge” in this comic—the good one OR the bad one—feels like the “Morgan Edge” Jack Kirby has been portraying in JIMMY OLSEN all this time. Shades of “Norrin Radd”...


The Rose And The Thorn story this time is “HAND OF DEATH!” This one involves scuba-diving, sharks, a “ghost ship”, and stolen loot dumped at sea to be picked up by “Inter-Gang frogmen”. Oh yeah, and a Halloween party, at which Rose’s friend Danny Stone shows up dressed as The Thorne, while Rose comes dressed as Black Canary. As usual, Robert Kanigher doesn’t deliver much of a plot, but at least this time, the art, by Rich Buckler and Dick Giordano, is more impressive than usual. Giordano really is better as an inker than a penciller, and he & Buckler prove a better team than many I’ve seen.


The reprint this time is Dr. Pat In “DR. PAT’S FIRST LOVE!” from SENSATION COMICS #95 (Jan’50), art by Carmine Infantino & Frank Giacoia. There’s also an ad for a brand-new feature debuting in ALL STAR WESTERN-- Jonah Hex!

JIMMY OLSEN #146 / Feb’72 – “HOMO-DISASTROUS!”


“Stay back, SUPERMAN!! Jimmy has turned into a CAVEMAN! AND, he’s STRONGER than a wild bull! He’ll DESTROY YOU!!” Did someone let Mort Weisinger in here again?


I’ll blow this for you now. Jack Kirby was VERY sneaky this issue. Because, see, once again, that cover is NOT, strictly speaking, accurate. (NO!!!) Because—believe it or not—Supes only appears in 3 PAGES in the entire story, and it’s a completely separate sub-plot! But then, this is the 3rd issue in a row like this.


Personally, I think it’s cool how Kirby managed to turn JIMMY OLSEN and the New Lewsboy Legion into an early-70’s reincarnation of BOY EXPLORERS. For the 3rd issue in a row, Jimmy & the boys are in Scotland, and the action builds to a head here. In The Evil Factory, Simyan & Mokkari have captured Jimmy, and mutated him into a super-strong caveman. But he’s gotten loose, and attacks, stopped by Simyan’s stun gun only after Mokkari was in deadly danger. A not-so-friendly rivalry seems to be building between these two.


Back in Metropolis, Dubbilex’s mental powers are continuing to develop, and he practices lifting Terry Dean into the air and twirling her around upside-down. I just love the way Jack draws her, she’s currently my favorite female in the Fourth World books. (It’s kinda like comparing Cathy Gale to Venus Smith on THE AVENGERS. Cathy, like Barda, I’m very impressed with. But Venus, like Terry, I’d want to ask out to dinner!) Meanwhile, Superman is concerned by The Guardian’s report that the mysterious underground tunnel beneath the city seems to extend for miles, and Supes feels it’s connected to the war between New Genesis and Apokalips. Flying off to explore, he’s suddenly confronted by a bright light...


Back in Scotland, The Newsboys, in their Whiz Wagon, have been captured by the baddies, and attached to a moving chain dragging it down a tunnel into a FURNACE!! I think these guys must have gone to the same school of interior design as Vermin Vundabar from MISTER MIRACLE #5. In this case, it actually IS a car being dragged to its doom. However, Scrapper & Scrapper Trooper have found Jimmy, who, on awakening, picks up a small vehicle and smashes it against a cage containing monsters created by mutation. The first one to get free is a sabre-tooth tiger—and as it confronts Jimmy, one can’t help but think of Ka-Zar and Zabu! But there’s no love between this pair, and caveman Jimmy clobbers the colossal kitty.


Back in the death-trap, Flip wakes up just in time to take control of the car, free them with a concussion bomb, and get the HELL out of there! Seeing a crowd of people (technicians? prisoners? we never find out) running the other way, they soon confront a scene like something right out of a nightmare version of a Johnny Weismuller TARZAN film. Caveman Jimmy is riding herd over an army of unleashed monsters, bent on destroying the Evil Factory. Amid the chaos, Jimmy jumps down and tackles Mokkari & Simyan single-handedly, causing more and more damage as he goes. Next thing, a series of explosions start, and Jimmy vanishes thru an “ray screen”. The Whiz Wagon follows, and, as Jack puts it, “The EVIL FACTORY is torn asunder by one HUGE destructive blast!!” In the aftermath, we see Jimmy lying unconscious, and the front of the Whiz Wagon embedded into the side of a hill, both having returned to their full size.


“As for The Evil Factory—its atoms had LITTLE time to expand!! The crater where it once stood is SMALL!! And with PROPER magnification one could easily discern the SCATTERED remains of a complex structure, destroyed by its OWN evil!!!” I would say the baddies bought the farm—just like in NEW GODS #5 & 6. Except I know they came back many years later... but then, that was Post-CRISIS, so, in a way, it doesn’t really count here.


Meanwhile, Jack lets us know what’s in store next issue... “SUPERMAN GETS THE CHANCE TO REALLY LIVE IT UP!!! AND WHAT DOES HE DO—WITH THIS DREAM COME TRUE??? It’s all in the next issue!! Read--- A SUPERMAN IN SUPERTOWN!!” Oooh.


Tales Of The DNA Project brings us “ARIN THE ARMORED MAN!!!” In a mere 2 pages, we meet Arin, a being created to live in a completely airless envirnoment—space—and Professor Packard, the scientist who not only “engineered” Arin, but also trained him, in effect, brought him up as thugh he were his own son. Moments before Arin leaves on the mission he was created for, they have a sad, painful parting, and then, Arin is sent by rocket into deep space. According to Jack, his mission is to carry a container with Superman’s “cell tissue and genetic code”, “Where no enemy of Earth can find it”. Apart from yet another set of characters, concepts and circumstances that barely get the kind of development they deserve, what really strikes me about this is the two characters involved. Their relationship reminds me a lot of Aaron Stack and HIS scientist-creator-“father”, from Jack’s later MACHINE MAN series.


Something else else quite unexpected this issue was Mike Royer filling in for Vince Colletta. Vince would be back next time. When I re-read these in the JIMMY OLSEN ADVENTURES book (2003), it struck me that Royer’s inks looked VERY out-of-place in the collection. Not only were they jarring, surrounded on both sided by Colletta, but there seemed a definite lack of “visual depth”. They seemed FLAT. Oddly enough, I don’t get that looking at the original comics now. I guess the line quality in the reprints wasn’t as good as I thought they were.


This issue’s Newsboy Legion reprint is “PREVUE OF PERIL” from STAR SPANGLED COMICS #12 (Sep’42). In the back, there’s a full-page ad for “KIRBY UNLEASHED!” a portfolio “assembled from Jack Kirby’s personal collection”. WOW.

Here we go...


MISTER MIRACLE #6 / Feb’72 – “FUNKY FLASHMAN!”


Scott’s involved in another death-deying “Super Escape Artist” stunt on the cover, one where he’s manacled to a high-speed high-powered rocket-sled chair, which appears to have jumped its tracks. Oberon, cluthing the edge of a high cliff in the background, watches. How will Scott escape? But this is nothing compare to what awaits within...


“In the shadow world between success and failure, there lives the DRIVEN little man who dreams of HAVING IT ALL!!! --the opportunistic SPOILER without character or values who preys on all things like a cannibal!!!” In a rundown southern mansion, a skinny, bald guy in a robe, accompanied by a short, skinny, somewhat-long-haired bespectacled butler, wait for a statue’s mouth to open and spew out the first man’s “weekly allowance”. It seems the previous, deceased owner of the mansion liked lording it over others, and there seems to be mutual hate going round among all involved. And hypocrisy.


“By the POWER and the GLORY and the PATHOS that’s Funky Flashman, it’s TRUE, Houseroy!! It’s when you LITTLE people reach out to me that my spirits SOAR!!” “To KNOW you is to LOVE you sir!! When you go on to bigger things, as you so richly deserve, --and SIGN this place over to ME, I shall carry on here, with the standards you hold so DEAR!”


It turns out “Funky Flashman” is a talent agent—one who uses others’ skills for his own benefit and without any care. “So he breaks a leg or DIES!! I’ll just sip my martini by the ocean—and wait for the NEXT fish to jump!” He puts on a toupee and false beard and admires himself in a mirror. “IMAGE is the thing, Houseroy! Why—I look almost –HOLY! I’m ready for you AGAIN—world!!” “The world will take you to its HEART, sir--- that’s if you DON’T make too many slip-ups!! I must tell you that there are times whrn the REAL Master Funky comes through with SHOCKING results!!” At which point Funky grabs his butler by the THROAT! “And DON’T you forget it, SWEETIE! Just keep your place and don’t bug Master Funky with advice!!” “A-a-a-s-s-s- you wish, sir!” You’d think the guy would be angry that someone suggested he wasn’t sincere. NO! He KNOWS he’s insincere—he’s just annoyed that someone working for him should rise above their place.


This seems a good point to interject. The first time I read this, apart from some very bizarre character studies and commentary about sleazy Hollywood-type agents, I had no idea what the heck Jack Kirby was doing here. I mean, “weird” is par for the course in a Kirby comic, and sometimes I just shrug and go along for the ride. But in the decades since I read this, I have run across a multitude of articles and interviews referring to this one specific story, which I had very little memory of, and the more I read, the more I looked forward to eventually plowing thru this again. Well, here it is. And man, is this thing DISTURBING. It may looks like some kind of a dark comedy, but there’s more to it than that. In truth, it’s a viscious character attack, a shockingly all-too-accurate portrayal of a SPECIFIC person, who Jack got to know far too well for his own liking. The face, the personality, the mannerisms, the deviousness, the self-serving behavior, and the excessively-flowery language, it’s all a very finely-rendered (if fictionalized) portrayal of Jack’s ex-boss—Marvel Comics editor Stan Lee.


Not only that, but Funky’s flunky—er, butler—“Houseroy” (what a great name!!) is apparently based on Stan’s right-hand man, Roy Thomas. Except, while SHIELD recruit Jasper Sitwell was at times a dead ringer for Roy (in both appearance and diction), in this story, he looks like Woody Allen.


Funky’s former boss, the late “Colonel Mockingbird” is clearly a reference to Martin Goodman. There’s some more strange things, here. On page 1, we see Funky and what appears to be a crude, ancient statue of a bust. This rather brings to mind the UNUSED splash page of the intended (unpublished) FANTASTIC FOUR #102, the story Stan REJECTED as being (supposedly) “un-dialogue-able”. The method of Funky getting money could almost be seen as a visual play on the idea of “taking food out of someone else’s mouth”. The reference to Funky hoping to move onto “bigger things” reflects Lee’s long-stated attitude that, from the beginning, he always saw comics as just a temporary thing, to be discarded as soon as he wrote “the great American novel”, or was able to go to Hollywood and get involved in the movie business. And of course, the way he keeps insulting asnd even physically threatening his closest companion (and employee) shows just how thin the veneer of smiles and charm really are with someone this artificial. It’s sad. I used to LIKE Stan...


Elsewhere, Scott is trying out another suicidal death trap (previously seen on the cover). It kinda makes me think of the “rocket sled” seen in Jim Steranko’s NICK FURY AGENT OF SHIELD #1, except this one’s designed to kill, not rescue. Of course, Scott escapes, and Oberon says he’s just lost another twenty years off his allotted life span.


At home, Barda, in her fabulous bikini outfit, toys with a revolver while waiting with Funky for Scott’s return. “EARTH WEAPONS!—primitive on Apokalips!!-- but EFFECTIVE here!!! --EASY to handle, too!” “Make LOVE! --NOT war, chicky!! You’re packing MORE ammo than you can put in that gun!!” Barda begins twirling the gun. “If you’ve come to see Scott Free, Mister—just keep your THOUGHTS on Scott Free!!!” “Oh, that’s GOOD, chicky! That’s GOOD! “Women’s lib” dialogue an’ Bonnie Parker talent!! Great, chicky! Great ACT!!” Does it seem like this fool is just asking for trouble, talking to her that way? “But I CAN’T use you!! Perhaps you can audition for me again, sometime! –when you acquire more—CLASS!!” “Anything hanging on a meat-hook would meet YOUR standards, MISTER WONDERFUL!” I’m suddenly reminded of how, in Stan’s comics, most women are portrayed (at least in the dialogue) as being weak, helpless, frivolous, and overly-emotional. Even initially-tough-and-independant Sharon Carter, once Stan got through with her. One suspects Stan would write Princess Diana / Wonder Woman as a helpless wimp.


Barda suddenly wonders if Funky might be another spy from her home planet, but his blank expression at the mention of a Boom Tube clears that worry. In quick succession, Funky goes from making smarmy, sleazy comments, to showing surprise and worry at how she broke a gun in her bare hand, to being excessively friendly, to blurting out angry insults when he doesn’t get his way. “AAAA!! Why don’t you go and report to your DRILL SERGEANT?!” GEEZ. Who the hell would ever wanna work for someone like that? “You’re a CLASSIC, Funky!! Ego—ignorance—and hostility!! --A REAL powerhouse!! If you’ll excuse me, I’ll go and take a BATH!!” Presumably, to wash off the stench of his company. (It bothers me that her description exactly matches someone I once knew in the engineering field—who spent three whole years trying to have me fired, because he was afraid for HIS job.)


The next 2 pages are incredible. While talking with Scott about setting up a tour around the country, Funky never shuts up, never stops spewing absurdist flowery lingo, and keeps switching posture and demeanor between overly-friendly, philosophical, and angrily threatening physical violence toward Oberon (does he just not like short people, or is it that he just likes pushing around those he has a physical advantage over? --WHY am I even asking??).


In a page apparently suggested by Mark Evanier, Barda takes a bath, THIS time wearing a LOT LESS than she did in the previous issue. I also get the strong feeling someone other than Mike Royer inked that page. The lines are much more delicate than usual. It actually reminds me a LOT of some of the Kirby-inspired work I’ve seen mnore than 15 years later from Keith Giffen & Al Gordon (the “good” stuff, not the wretchedly-awful stuff), but someone suggested it may have been the work of Dave Stevens, who lived in the same area as Kirby and liked to stop in from time to time. Oh yeah, page 15 also looks like it may have been done by someone else (maybe the same someone else, maybe not). It just has a very different “feel” to it than the rest of the story.


Well, things never stay quiet for long, and next thing you know, Barda’s own “Battle Unit” shows up, assigned to kill her and Scott. They include such wild-and-scary characters as “Mad Harriet”, with a nightmarishly-painted face, wild green hair and brass knuckles with 3-inch pointed spikes; “Stompa”, a heavy-duty figure whose boots can smash Barda into the floor; “Lashina”, a “bondage”-inspired terror whose belt can rip thru steel girders; and “Burnadeth”, who uses a dart-like “fahren-knife” which can “penetrate dimensionally” and barbecue someone “from the inside”!!


After driving off the first two, the following day, Scott, in costume again, shows off 2 new death-traps for Funky, who’s turned up in a “safari” outfit. When Scott foolishly shows Funky his Mother Box, Funky acts like he knows what the heck it is. “So THIS is a “Mother-Box”, eh? Heh-heh! I KNOW that they are!! It’s just that I’ve NEVER seen one this close before!” Scott clearly knows is a “transparent second-rater”, and doesn’t even react to this obvious lie. After a third attack, Scott & Barda realize they’ve been tracked via the Mother-Box—and Oberon finds it very amusing that Funky’s got it on him just now.


Funky has returned home, taking the Mother-Box with him. “If it ISN’T a musical SARDINE-CAN –what the hell is it?” Bored quickly, and totally full of his own overblown ego, Funky actually tosses it aside... moments before ALL FOUR of the hit-squad materialize, and determine that, “The death order COULD include ANY who befriend him!!” Showing the kind of loyalty to staff that has run America completely into the ground in my lifetime, Funky TOSSES Houseroy at the killers, then leaps thru a window to escape, seconds before the entire old mansion explodes in a colossal fireball!


“THERE IT GOES! –everything—up in flames! The Mockingbird Estate—and its HAPPY memories! Mint JULIPS! COTILLIONS! HAPPY slaves singing for the FAMILY!!! Looks kinda PRETTY, though—PASSION-RED flame against UNDULATING CYCLOPEAN BLACK smoke! A MARVEL of CONTRAST!” As the narrator tells us... “Whistling, with rising spirits, like all his endless kind, Funky Flashman strides with new hopes—new schemes—inthe the night!” “Oh, well! Got to cut AWAY from Scott Free!! LOVE the lad—but HATE his friends!! On t NEW conquests, Funky Flashman!! You WINNER, you!!!”


Scott, Barda and Oberon have arrived just in time to save the butler’s life, having seen how the man’s boss tossed him to his fate. Despite plans to travel around, Scott decides to change his tactics. “Our battle is with the forces of APOKALIPS! --and with OURSELVES!! We had the courage to break free of them! --Do we DARE to return—and FACE THEM DOWN!!” “If we dare—we DIE!! “Well, I’m a soldier, Scott!! I’m trained to die!! But, you—you’re beautiful inside!! They never got to you!! And now they’ll do things to you—“ “ENOUGH, Barda! There is NO freedom is running! I’m going BACK and win it THEIR way!! --in TRIAL BY COMBAT!!” Holy cow.


Another Young Scott Free installment shows Metron, unseen by all but Scott, advising him not to eat food saturated with “Brain Drain Chemical”. In the back, there’s a Boy Commandos reprint of “SATAN WEARS A SWASTIKA” from BOY COMMANDOS #1 (Winter 1942-43). This is a real stand-out, as it features cameos by Jim Harper, The Newsboy Legion, The Sandman, and, at their office, Joe Simon and Jack Kirby!!