A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the relative dearth of DC Comics-related posts on this blog over the last twelve months or so, compared to how many I’d been turning out just a couple of years earlier. Today, we’ll be talking about something that’s been even more scarce in these parts in recent times: posts about comics written and drawn by Jack Kirby. Sure, I might have only managed to bang out eight posts concerning DC books in 2024 (out of sixty-four overall), but that’s still better than my record for Kirby posts over that same year, which is: zero. Considering that I wrote about ten Kirby-kreated books as recently as 2022 (and twenty in the year before that), that’s a pretty dramatic change.
Of course, the respective declines in attention given both to DC Comics and to Jack Kirby comics in this space over the past few years are hardly unrelated to one another, given that the always-prolific Kirby was working exclusively for DC during this period. As I wrote in my earlier post, 1972 began with the King’s “Fourth World” of four individual titles telling a single overarching story still very much a going concern; it ended with two of those titles (Forever People and New Gods) cancelled, another (Jimmy Olsen) transferred into other creative and editorial hands, and the last (Mister Miracle) left a mere shadow of its former self. Replacing the former three titles on Kirby’s schedule were the horror-inflected The Demon, which I liked well enough (especially in the early going), but which didn’t resonate in my imagination in the way that the mythic war between the space-gods of Apokolips and 
New Genesis had; and the post-apocalyptic science fiction of Kamandi, the Last Boy on Earth, which didn’t grab me at all (probably at least in part because I somewhat unfairly dismissed it as nothing but a Planet of the Apes knockoff). But The Demon didn’t even last as long as the lobotomized shell of Mister Miracle did, meeting its end in October, 1973., while Scott Free held out until November. That left Jack Kirby closing out the year 1973 with nothing but Kamandi on his plate.
This state of affairs changed (albeit only briefly) as early as January, 1974, as that month brought DC readers the first issue of The Sandman. Dawn by Kirby, but written by his former longtime partner Joe Simon, this was a re-imagining of the classic Golden Age hero (whose adventures Simon and Kirby had of course previously collaborated on in the 1940s). Evidently produced as a one-shot 
(although the indicia claimed it to be a quarterly publication), the book sold well enough to be put on DC’s schedule as a regular ongoing title… though not until January of the following year, by which time both Kirby and Simon had moved on to other things. In the meantime, Kirby would have to wait until June to see the premiere issue of his own next solo project — another, but very different futuristic SF concept, this one called OMAC — show up in the nation’s spinner racks. One month later, Kirby had an already-existing title — Our Fighting Forces, featuring the Losers — added to his workload; it, along with Kamandi and OMAC, would keep him busy for the rest of the year.
For the record, my younger self bought Sandman #1, and I thought it was OK (though I didn’t pick up any subsequent issues). I didn’t buy any issues of OMAC at all, however; possibly because I was turned off by what looked to me to be a depressing dystopian vibe, but more likely because I was just really weirded out by the first issue’s cover, with that small figure of what I (correctly) assumed to be the book’s titular hero all but dwarfed by the bizarre-looking entity I’d later learn was called a “Pseudo-Person”. (Whatever it was called, it gave sixteen-year-old me the heebie-jeebies). As for Our Fighting Forces, I never even considered giving that one a shot, simply because I never bought war comics back in the day.
So it was that I reached the end of 1974 having read virtually no new Jack Kirby comics at all. And then came the new year, 1975 — and with it came Atlas.
Throughout his 1970-1975 tenure at DC Comics, Kirby regularly pitched new series ideas to the publisher. While some of these, like Soul Love and True-Life Divorce, never saw the light of day during the creator’s lifetime, others received at least a limited tryout, even if they were never approved for regular, ongoing publication; “Atlas” fell into this latter category. Evidently, DC publisher Carmine Infantino was intrigued enough by what he’d seen of Kirby’s latest mythologically-inspired character concept via the two presentation sketches shown here to at least approve the production of a single, full-length episode. But where could such a strip be published? In 1974, DC’s main competitor, Marvel Comics, had multiple “umbrella” titles (Marvel Premiere, Marvel Spotlight, Strange Tales, etc.) where the commercial viability of new features could be tested without a major commitment of resources; but DC had no such venue, and hadn’t since the 1970 cancellation of Showcase — the classic title whose original fourteen-year run had launched the Silver Age versions of the Flash, Green Lantern, and the Atom, as well as many others.
But that was about to change. In the second issue (Sept.-Oct., 1974) of DC’s in-house fanzine, Amazing World of DC Comics, it was reported that the unexpected success of January’s Sandman one-shot had led to “a revived interest around the office for a Showcase-style magazine”. A couple of months later, AWoDC #3 (Nov.-Dec., 1974) offered further details of this new initiative:
The news item went on to name several of the features expected to appear in “first issues” as part of this project — and heading up the list was Jack Kirby’s Atlas.
The specifics of the concept were still in flux, however and by the time the fourth issue of Amazing World of DC Comics came out (given that the fanzine was cover dated Jan.-Feb., 1975, its release may have been concurrent with the release of 1st Issue Special #1 itself), there had been some modifications — as was reported in the issue’s “Direct Currents” news column:
According to a tale told on various occasions by Gerry Conway* (and perhaps by others), the development of what ultimately became 1st Issue Special had been driven in part by Carmine Infantino’s wish to capitalize on the generally agreed-on market wisdom that, due to speculative buying by collectors, first issues sold better than later issues of the same title — which suggested that a series comprised of nothing but first issues should be a best-seller. In the original vision of the project, where the books would have been released as standalone specials, with a new “#1” appearing every month, that strategy might well have worked. Clearly, however, the logic behind the notion fell apart as soon as you released a 1st Issue Special #2, #3, #4, etc…. which, of course, is what ultimately happened. Presumably, the “complicated” reasons for the change in the project’s nature involved the costs and other logistical challenges that would have been involved in releasing a brand-new title into the newsstand distribution system every single month; factors which likely would have cancelled out any sales bump afforded by first issue status, or at least made it a lot less appealing.
Of course, none of the above issues meant that DC still didn’t need a new Showcase-type tryout title of some sort. And, in any event, I doubt that my seventeen-year-old self of January, 1975, who was at that point just beginning to get into the “collectibility” aspect of comics fandom, paid any attention at all either to the official title or to the numbering of 1st Issue Special #1; rather, I suspect that I was entirely focused on the “Atlas” feature heralded by Jack Kirby’s cover for the book. That feature’s title logo and accompanying imagery would have indicated to me that, for the first time since the cancellation of New Gods, Kirby was returning to mythological themes — and was doing so in the sort of high-fantasy context he hadn’t visited on a regular basis since the end of the old “Tales of Asgard” backup feature in Marvel’s Thor. Given my tastes and interests at the time, there was no way I wasn’t going to pick this up… although, of course, I wouldn’t know how right (or wrong) I was about the actual content of the comic until after I got it home and turned to the first page…
Since I hadn’t paid much attention to Kirby’s output over the past year, the name of his inker/letterer for this story was a new one to me. Douglas Bruce Berry had been contributing artwork to science fiction fanzines since the late 1940s (and to comic book fanzines since the early 1960s) but had made his living in the advertising industry, never working professionally in comics prior to his association with Jack Kirby. He’d begun that professional relationship by handling backgrounds for regular Kirby inker Mike Royer, then graduated to full inks (and letters) after Royer told Kirby the workload had become too much for him. Interviewed for the 17th issue of The Jack Kirby Collector in 1997 (just a year prior to his death in 1998), Berry explained how his approach was based on that of his predecessor:
Before I took over Jack’s work, Mike said to me, “You won’t have any problems. Just follow the lines.” Keep in mind that I came out of the advertising business. When an advertising art director tells you the way a thing should be done, it’s the rule of the game. Mike said ‘follow the lines’, and that is exactly what I did.
Throughout my association with Jack Kirby, I inked every damn line that he drew! Nobody ever bothered to tell me that I could ink the books any way I wanted to. I ended my cartooning career completely exhausted!
While there’s certainly something to be said for an inker who brings a little something extra to the job — in a Kirby context, we might mention Joe Sinnott, or Wally Wood — “just follow the lines” isn’t a bad rule to follow, all in all (it certainly beats erasing some of the lines, as Royer’s own predecessor in inking Kirby at DC, Vince Colletta, is known to have done); and in my opinion, Berry does very well by the King’s pencils, even if his work seems a little “softer” than Royer’s (at least to my eye). Certainly, the power and dynamism of Kirby’s art comes through loud and clear in the opening splash above, as well as the double-page spread that immediately follows:
In Greek mythology, Atlas was of course one of the Titans, the elder gods who warred unsuccessfully against the younger Olympians for dominion over Creation; following the Titans’ defeat, Atlas was condemned to forever hold up the sky (sometimes misunderstood as holding up the Earth), which accounts for his enduring reputation as being one incredibly strong dude. Kirby’s introductory text for Chapter Two nods to our awareness of the myth, and implies that his mighty, but mortal, hero — “Atlas the Untamed” — was the reality behind “this legend“. That said, there’s nothing in the backstory of Atlas that unfolds over the remainder of this issue that syncs up in any meaningful way with the “facts” about his divine namesake, beyond their both being, well, incredibly strong dudes. In the end, I think it makes more sense to see Kirby’s Atlas as having the same relation to the Atlas of classical tradition as his Orion of the New Gods does to the identically named hunter of Greek myth, rather than as paralleling his treatment of Thor at Marvel.**
On another note, before we continue — Chapter Two? Already? Yes, Kirby regularly broke up his stories into chapters during his 1970s tenure at DC; still, this seems awfully quick, given that Chapter One was only four pages, and all but the last of those consisted of no more than a single panel (or in the case of pages 2 and 3, half a panel). Oh, well, moving on…
Not everyone is happy about Atlas’ speedy trouncing of Kargin; someone calls out that there must have been treachery involved somehow, and others quickly join in, shouting for Atlas and his companion to leave their city…
Up to this point in our story — and, indeed, throughout the rest of it — we seem to be dealing with a typical high-fantasy setting such as Robert E. Howard’s Hyborian Age or J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-Earth, with a level of technological development that doesn’t seem to extend past that of Europe’s High Middle Ages in the real world. Here, however, we have soldiers armed with what appear to be guns of some sort — weapons which would normally be seen as anachronistic in this context. Having said that, we must note that Jack Kirby never seemed to be all that interested in respecting the supposed boundaries between the fantasy and science fiction genres; and so, what we see here is probably his following the same sort of creative impulse that had previously led him to draw the occasional energy cannon in amongst all the swords and horses and rainbow bridges in his depictions of Asgard for Marvel’s Thor. (UPDATE, 1/25/25, 2:15 pm: On the other hand, these weapons may very well be axes or clubs, rather than firearms — an interpretation strengthened by the fact that in the very next panel below, we see the soldiers swinging, rather than firing them. My thanks to astute reader mikebreen1960 for pointing this out in his comment, further below.)
Atlas drags the spluttering noble from the wreckage of his conveyance, ignoring the pleadings of his companion for them to “flee this wretched land!”
Here we have yet another chapter break, and with it, yet another full-page splash panel. Which isn’t to say that the splash doesn’t have plenty of dramatic impact; plus, as we’ll see by the end of the story, Kirby has a good reason for wanting us to get a good look at the chief slaver’s ugly puss…
Ignoring his would-be benefactor, the boy scrambles off to search the ruins of his home, leaving the former to muse: “He is a strange child. His strength is that of a full-grown man!! Can it be…?”
And that’s the fourth, and last, of our full-page splashes… which means that, counting the double-page spread on pages 2 and 3, a whole six pages of what will ultimately be a twenty-page story are comprised of fewer than two panels. Was this an indulgent practice on Kirby’s part? Maybe, but half a century after the fact, I’m really not all that inclined to complain about it.
Could the “high concept” pitch for “Atlas” be summed up as “Superman in the Hyborian Age”? Those weird gun-things on page 7 notwithstanding, I’d say that comes pretty close.
And on that cliffhanger, the first chapter in the “great saga” of Atlas comes to a close. I have little doubt that if Kirby had been able to give us a second installment, I’d have shown up for it — whether that had been one month later, one year later, or even a decade or more. But, alas, that day would never come, at all.
Jack Kirby would in fact return to the pages of 1st Issue Special — but, in keeping with the title’s guiding concept, it would be to present two brand-new properties, rather than to continue an existing one… although the first of those, 1IS #5’s “Manhunter”, would more properly be called a revival, since it represented yet another new take on a Golden Age hero who’d already been recently revamped in Detective Comics. In any event, my younger self opted to pass on it in May, 1975, as I also did with the following issue’s “Dingbats of Danger Street”, a new entry in the “kid gang” genre Kirby and Joe Simon had pioneered in the 1940s.
1st Issue Special itself ran for just thirteen issues, managing to launch just one brand-new series along the way: Mike Grell’s Warlord (which had in fact already been approved for ongoing publication before its appearance in 1IS #8). Ironically, the very last issue, published one full year after Atlas’ debut in #1, featured Return of the New Gods — a revival of Kirby’s Fourth World characters, but one that was written, drawn, and edited by other hands than those of their creator, who had by this time left DC to return once more to Marvel Comics… though that’s a long story we’ll need to postpone until another post, later this year.
Jack Kirby may have never had the opportunity (or, after 1975, even the desire) to continue the saga of Atlas — but, comics being comics, that hasn’t stopped others from trying their own hands at such, over half a century’s time.
Cover to Superman #679 (Oct., 2008). Art by Alex Ross.
The first follow-up to Kirby’s single Atlas adventure — and, so far, the most substantial — came in 2008, in DC’s “Superman family” of titles. Beginning in Superman #677, writer James Robinson’s multi-part storyline told how Atlas was brought through time by the anti-alien Project 7734 to fight Superman; a flashback in #678 revealed how, in his own era, Atlas had indeed taken his vengeance on Hyssa, and had then gone on to conquer the Lizard Kingdom, ultimately becoming a tyrant himself. This villainous take on the character, whose last appearance showed him lying prone on the floor in ignominious defeat (see Superman: War of the Supermen #4 [Jul., 2010]), was presumably excised from existence in 2011’s “Flashpoint” event — though it’s always possible that one of the several full or partial reboots that the DC Universe has gone through since then has restored him to life.
Cover to Bug! The Adventures of Forager #3 (Sep., 2017). Art by Mike Allred.
The next significant treatment of Kirby’s Atlas appeared in the pages of Lee and Michael Allred’s 2017-18 six-issue miniseries Bug! The Adventures of Forager, published by DC under its Young Animal imprint. This somewhat irreverent (but highly entertaining) love letter to Kirby. which focused on the New Gods character Forager but incorporated elements from across the King’s body of work at DC, spotlighted Atlas in its third issue; in it, we learned how Atlas’ vengeance was thwarted when “Hyssa” turned out to be a swarm of sentient snakes that had killed the evil slaver and clothed themselves in his skin. At least Atlas didn’t turn evil in this project, which also featured Chagra in a villainous role throughout the storyline.
Other glimpses of Atlas the Great in recent years include a villainous robot version, A.T.L.A.S. (Automated Titanium Lethal Attack Sentry), who first appears in Cyborg (2023 series) #3 (Nov., 2023); based on a character that originated on a 2004 episode of the Teen Titans animated television series, he bears a distinct visual resemblance to Kirby’s creation, but that’s the only real connection Elsewhere, beginning with The Infected: King Shazam #1 (Jan., 2020), DC’s artists have started drawing the Titan Atlas who lends his power to the Superhero Formerly Known as Captain Marvel as a dead ringer for the Kirby version.
Cover to the trade collection Danger Street, Vol. 2 (2024). Art by Jorge Fornés.
This perhaps inevitable conflation of the divine Atlas of myth with Kirby’s conception of a mortal, legend-inspiring hero is also on view in the recent twelve-issue series for DC’s Black Label imprint, Danger Street. In this project by writer Tom King and artist Jorge Fornés, all of the disparate characters who ever received a tryout during 1st Issue Special‘s original run — who, in addition to those already mentioned in this post, include the Green Team, Metamorpho, Lady Cop, the Creeper, Doctor Fate, the OG Outsiders, Code Name: Assassin, and Starman (the blue alien version) — come together for a single multi-part adventure. As a basis for a story, this isn’t much more than an elaborate stunt, if one that the creators mostly manage to pull off — albeit only by taking such shortcuts as ignoring any inconvenient prior continuity (including that which had been established in the characters’ 1st Issue Special appearances themselves), and keeping certain characters’ roles to a bare minimum.
Variant cover to Danger Street #1 (Feb., 2023). Art by Steve Rude.
Atlas falls into both of these categories– he shows up on panel in issue #1 barely long enough to be run through with the Warlord’s sword and killed stone dead (a status he retains through the remaining eleven issues, by the way), but remains significant, as his untimely demise puts all of reality in jeopardy (he’s been holding up the sky, you see). Atlas’ death also occasions the unprecedented spectacle of Darkseid giving Highfather a big ol’ sloppy hug — a sight your humble blogger is frankly still finding hard to process. But, hey, at least Atlas got a great, Kirby-homaging variant cover by Steve Rude out of the deal, so there’s that.
Naturally, comics being comics, none of these latter-day re-imaginings of Jack Kirby’s creation are likely to be the final word on the subject. But while we’re all waiting for the next one, here’s a thought: if you personally don’t happen to care for how either James Robinson or Lee Allred resolved the closing cliffhanger of 1st Issue Special #1, you are of course at liberty to imagine your own next chapter of Atlas’ saga. Somehow, I think the King of Comics would approve.
All artwork pencilled by Jack Kirby and inked by D. Bruce Berry, save as noted. Cover inks for Forever People #11, New Gods #11, Demon #1, Kamandi #1, OMAC #1, and 1st Issue Special #6 by Mike Royer; cover inks for Sandman #1 by Frank Giacoia.
*See, for example, Conway’s introduction to the trade collection DC’s 1st Issue Specials (2020).
Cover to Action #353 (Aug., 1967). Art by Wayne Boring.
Panel from Shazam! #1 (Feb., 1973). Text by Denny O’Neil; art by C.C. Beck.
**For the record, DC already had at least a couple of takes on the traditional Atlas of myth knocking around its universe circa 1975. For example, Superman had briefly encountered the mighty Titan back in Action Comics #353 (Aug., 1967). And more recently, the iteration of Atlas who served as one of the six entities who granted the original, Fawcett Comics-published Captain Marvel his powers — or, to put it another way, the first “a” in the magic word “Shazam” — had become part of the DC universe with the publication of Shazam! #1 (Feb., 1973).
Not surprised you say Danger Street ignored any inconvenient continuity to tell its story. King is famed for that.
Well, we have to keep in mind that all those Tom’s limited series are non-canon (just like Mr. Miracle, Strange Adventures, Rorschach, The Human Target…) so he can take a few liberties with the characters involved.
Just speaking for myself, Jay, I don’t really have a problem with Tom King’s non-canon stories for DC’s Black Label, most of which I’ve read and enjoyed a great deal. It’s just that with “Danger Street”, where he’s dealing with characters who, in several cases (such as that of Atlas) essentially *have* no continuity besides what was established in their 1st Issue Special appearance, it seems a bit of a dodge to ignore the few meager “facts” set down in those stories. The whole project is a stunt, after all, so I think it’s fair to expect the creator to go all in on the premise once they’ve committed to it.
Something you haven’t addressed the couple of times we’ve seen it, Alan, which probably means there’s no story to it at all and I’ll probably feel foolish for asking, but what was the deal with the “Another DC Quality Comic” banner? This was new to DC in 75, I believe, and given that there’s almost always some esoteric sales-related or competition-with-Marvel-related reason for it, I wonder if anyone knows? No big deal, but I’m curious.
One thing I wasn’t curious about in 75 was Atlas #1. I have no memory of this comic and am almost certain I’ve never laid eyes on it before now. Did I miss anything? Certainly, I missed the chance to see new Kirby artwork, which was great, but I was a regular reader of Demon (while it lasted) and Mister Miracle (all the way to the bitter end), as well as Omac and Kamandi (I loved Kamandi, and started reading it BECAUSE it looked like a PoA rip-off and the Apes movies were then among my faves), so I already had a lot of Kirby on my plate, so to speak, and nothing else about Atlas #1 appealed. Looking back in 50-years worth of hindsight, I have no problem with Berry’s inks and think he did a fine job. I’m sure the increase in full-page splashes in Kirby’s later work had more to do with age and trying to meet his deadlines as much as anything else, but it makes Atlas feel like we were shorted somehow; as though the larger panels prevented more of the story from winding up on the page. Would I have been interested in that story if it had been there? Probably not, but the art would have been pretty. All in all, Atlas appears to be a throw-away piece from a comics creator who was still at the top of his game, but whose ultimate decline was waiting just around the corner.
In reference to the over all 1st Issue Specials, as a series, I’m sure I read the Manhunter book and the Warlord one and I distinctly remember The Creeper. Recently read King’s Danger Street, however, and as enjoyable as it was, I recognized almost none of the characters, so I’m assuming I didn’t read their “first issues” fifty years ago when they were new.
Thanks for a look at a comic I completely missed when it was new, Alan. Just think, however, back in 75, instead of reading this thing, you could have been reading at truly great comic, like Kamandi!!
Don, my guess is that the “DC Quality Magazine” slug was just a new bit of branding/marketing introduced as the company headed into a new year; if it had any more significance than that, I’m unaware of it (which doesn’t mean it didn’t exist, of course!).
I still have this comic, like many, I followed Kirby to DC, with the usual erratic UK distribution . Hell, he even had me buying Jimmy Olsen! Otherwise never in a million years.
Kirby was indeed a high concepts/spectacle storyteller, when he (commendably) tried to develop other characters, which maybe required more dialogue , I’m not sure it always worked for my younger self. When the Old Gods…. stopped selling, there arose the one off showcase issue,
On short chapters, Kirby has been there before, so I am reminded of a question: Why were the early Marvel Age stories broken up in chapters, eg early FF? Was this simply to mimic chapters of a book implying higher culture, or some sort of editorial device for spacing advertising pages or to be able to cut and paste for potential reprinting later at set points?
There used to be quite a lot of comics using chapter breaks in longer stories — though by 1975, I’m not sure there was anyone still doing it but Kirby (with the notable exception of the extra-length stories in giant-sized issues and in b&w magazines). Your idea that it might have been intended to make it easier to break up long stories for later reprinting (or for foreign licensing) sounds quite plausible to me.
It’s also possible that the convention developed simply because most comics in the Golden Age were filled with short features and when longer stories began to appear, the publishers used chapters to simulate the familiar reading experience of having a break (with a new splash page, etc.) every ten pages or so. Just a thought.
I think in the earliest Marvels, each chapter was about 5 or 6 pages, but they stopped doing that in 1963 IIRC. The first two issues of Amazing Spider-Man were each broken up into two entirely separate stories, but unless my memory is malfunctioning, issue 3, with Dr. Octopus’ debut, wasn’t broken into chapters at all. Although at that point, with the cancellation of the Hulk’s first series, the FF & ASM were the only Marvel full-length super-hero mags, although within another year, the Avengers, X-Men and Daredevil joined the ranks. I wonder if DC superhero mags at the time were broken up into chapters; unrelated short stories in each mag or did they have any full-length unbroken stories or some combination.
Speaking in very broad terms, fred, individual DC issues in the 1960s could have either book-length stories or multiple stories; and through most of the decade, the book-lengthers were regularly divided into chapters. My sense is that that ceases to be the routine practice around ’68 or ’69, though I’d have to do more research to be sure.
Don’t know for sure, Fred. But I do remember a lot of the old JLA books being divided into chapters to reflect the different missions the various members would go on during each issue.
Kanigher routinely divided books into chapters — Metal Men, Wonder Woman
Haney routinely used chapters in B&B and World’s Fi through tte mid-1970s . . . . h
As we have seen, a new chapter can have a new splash page (or two) and so overall another full page filled and maybe more speed in making that deadline. So a kind of filler . I think my memory of one explanation for the chapters as aspiring to high culture – ie novels, comes from something Stan Lee said or wrote- but even if I recalled correctly , with ol Stan , and his usual spin, may have retrospectively invented an artistic reason for what in actuality was more of a commercial editorial decision . The 1950s Lee/Kirby monster comics had chapters or short stories as we know. But what another reason was if they assumed the 1950s kids at a younger age reading were slower readers who needed a break every few pages? It wasn’t until things really get going with the mid 60s older teen/adult readership boom that maybe they realised they audience was now older and didn’t need so many pauses in a 20 page comic unless the story or format required it by the individual writer/artist. Just my speculation.
And so it ends… Jack Kirby’s time at DC Comics in the 1970s, that is.
It’s been said by those much more knowledgeable people that DC’s primary motivation for poaching Kirby was to get him away from Marvel… but once they had him, they really had no idea what to do with him. I tend to agree with that assessment.
It’s really unfortunate. Kirby was such a fount of creativity, a wellspring of ideas. Even in a one-off story like Atlas, he showed so much potential, so many possibilities.
As I’ve opined in the past, it’s regrettable that something like Image Comics didn’t exist in the early 1970s, a place where Kirby could have taken the New Gods and the Demon and OMAC and Atlas and all his other ideas and had full creative control & ownership. So, I’m glad that creators in the 21st century *do* have Image other choices outside of the Big Two.
Completely agree re treatment….but would Kirby have gone to an Image? From what I have read, what drove Kirby was the need to provide for his family. He had been burnt by the comics slump of the 50s and needed security/ stable contracted income. He really should have got into animation earlier!
I can see Ditko, or the Studio creators at a 70s Image. That would have been such a great place to be!
Well, if Kirby had been able to make the sort of crazy money that the Image founders were making in the early 1990s, I’m sure he would have been up for it. Plus, when the opportunity arose to do creator-owned books in the early 1980s, he did dip his toes in the water with Captain Victory and Silver Star.
He did later, selling some older material from the 1970s to them that was among his last published works.
As someone pointed out, he (and Ditko, Grell and Adams ) dipped toes into early “creator owned” comics with Pacific Comics in the early 1980s (Kirby doing it on the side from his work in animation.
A counter-argument I’ve read is that Infantino and Kirby were friends, Infantino admired Kirby and while it was a plum to snatch him from Marvel, was hoping he could work wonders at DC. It didn’t work out as the Fourth World was so different from anything else, and competing with the flood of Silver Age Kirby reprints from Marvel.
I saw this at the newsagent, was intrigued, but as a dyed in the wool Marvelite, did not pick it up. What a pity!
The cover is average. The intended cover proposed by Kirby was far more imposing ( in fact it is SPECTACULR), and the letters page of the issue (which I now have) gives a small reproduction of that piece. It has also turned up in the Kirby Masterworks Tabloid and was the cover for Jack Kirby Collector # 57, for those interested to look it up.
The insides are not prime Kirby, quite simplistic, off trend for the time ( is no cross-hatching, zip a tone etc) but STILL GORGEOUS! The storyline is also quite basic, and does not ask questions of the readers as an Englehart, Gerber or McGregor comic of the time would. But it holds together, reads nicely, and Atlas should have been continued in some way. I wonder what Kirby’s long term plan for the feature was? Steve Sherman might have known, but is unfortunately no longer with us. Even then Kirby famously would tell Evanier and Sherman his story plans for the next issue of whatever he was working on, only produce something completely different! Kirby was a goldmine that both DC and Marvel completely misused unfortunately.
I am surprised to hear that Bruce Berry had work published in the 40s, and that he was the background helper for Royer. He had a nice clean line, similar to Dave Hunt, and I recall that he inked over Trimpe and Robbins, as well as Kirby, later at Marvel, before disappearing then resurfacing briefly at Pacific in the early 80s.
Thanks Alan for another great post. I notice that this year will be the 10th anniversary of you doing this blog. Long may it continue!
You’re welcome, Spirit! Just between you and me (and everyone else reading), I do hope to keep on doing this for quite a while longer yet. 😉
I don’t think those soldiers are holding guns – I think they were a typically out-there Kirby design of some sort of axe or club. The first panel of page 7 that you print (“the soldiers strike!!!” – yay, Kirby exclamation marks!), shows speed lines as though both soldiers are swinging them like axes, not firing them. I can’t see Kirby designing droopy guns that don’t point straight at a target.
I’m very much Team Kirby when it comes to assigning credit for most things, and back in the day I bought Marvel and the only DC comics I bought were done by Kirby*. This is the one concept that I would have loved to see him continue – Jack Kirby doing his own version of a Conan-style character? What’s not to love?
Also, how similar is this storyline to Arnie’s filmed Conan, where he’s hunting the serpent-decorated killer of his parents (and the rest of his village)? Check out Conan the musical, which you can apparently still find on YouTube: “Where are the two snakes eating each other, where is the b*st*rd who killed my mother?” Also (but not comics-related), I would highly recommend the Predator musical if anyone wants to Google that.
*Apart from obviously any Adams/Aparo Batman, and JLA as it had Batman in it, and Cockrum’s Legion of Superheroes, and….
Very good point about the “guns”, mike! I’m adding a note to the original post.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunstock_war_club
https://www.1stdibs.com/furniture/folk-art/native-american-objects/fine-native-american-indian-eastern-woodlands-ball-headed-war-club-ex-christies/id-f_18691132/
Such a weapon was also used in the 1992 film The Last of the Mohicans by Chingachgook. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRRG_PNOQmA
Especially given the fact that Kirby was raised and educated in NYS, I think this is the kind of weapon implied.
I definitely understand not being a fan of war comics, but I was one so I happily devoured Kirby’s run on Our Fighting Forces and think it was his best non-Fourth World work for DC in the 70s. Apparently Kirby wasn’t enthusiastic about the assignment and grumbled about working on a team called the Losers, but for the year or so that he was on the title he poured himself into it and produced a handful of outstanding stories. With the exception of one two-parter, every issue was a done-in-one story, resulting in Kirby’s most efficient storytelling of the era, with each issue taking place in a different setting from the one before, ranging from Yugoslavia to Burma to Panama to NYC, where the Losers faced off against memorable antagonists that Kirby was able to define with quick, broad strokes. And the grounded setting reigned in one of Kirby’s most criticized elements, his dialogue – these were all mere humans facing off against each other, so he kept his dialogue grounded and realistic. Adding to that realism was the immense care Kirby took in depicting the gear and uniforms used in World War 2. I consider it to be Kirby’s second-to-last great run in comics (with the Eternals being his last). I don’t think someone would need to be a fan of war comics to enjoy Kirby’s Our Fighting Forces.
Your comment about Kirby complaining about working for a team called the Losers reminds me of Alan’s blog post a few years back about Kirby complaining about having to stick Deadman into the Forever People for a couple of issues because he considered the character a loser based on his origin. Maybe that’s why Kirby didn’t complain about not getting to do Spider Man? I mean Peter Parker was always written as a loser for years (and Stan had Steve Ditko redo Kirby’s cover because Kirby drew Spidey too heroic).
I never saw this Atlas issue before, and until your post, I never knew that Kirby penciled “The Losers” series. I have a number of issues of that title and now I can’t wait until I come back from being out-of-town to see if I have some Kirby issues that I overlooked way back when.
It was great work.
Kirby saw a significant amount of combat in the Ardennes Campaign as an Infantry Scout and, was Medevacked for Frostbite (almost losing his legs). That experience influenced later work, obviously Foxhole, SGT Fury and The Losers but also (less obviously) things like The Pact in New Gods #7 and Glory Boat in # 6.
Izaya the Inheritor’s breakdown at the end of The Pact may be the most effective artistic depiction of severe PTSD (“WHERE IS IZAYA!!”).
Technically everyone awarded the Combat Infantryman’s Badge in WWII was supposed to be awarded the Bronze Star, but I have never been able to verify that Kirby was ever awarded the Bronze Star in addition to the CIB,
I’d at least heard of this mag before but didn’t know much about it until reading this, Alan. I can see some promise in the basic premise and set up. Seems this is the sort of story that might have been best served by a mini-series, although that wouldn’t become a thing until the early ’80s. Also, I wonder if it was pure coincidence that Atlas was a former name of the firm he once worked for as well as of the new company his old corporate boss was about to launch later in 1975. Certainly, unlike with Thor or Hercules, there weren’t a lot old myths featuring Atlas as a prominent protagonist, the only ones I’m aware of being his punishment for being on the losing side of the war of the Titans against the Olympians being to hold up the sky and then a story of how he conned Hercules into taking up the job and Hercules managed to con him into taking it back. Left unexplained is who or what was holding up the sky before Atlas got that thankless task?
Reading through your excerpts of this mag, I couldn’t help but feel that Kirby was expressing quite a bit of anger and frustration, which would be very understandable given how he was seeing all the ambitions he had when he had switched over to DC coming to ruin. Particularly, I get that from the scenes wherein people keep referring to Atlas even after he thoroughly defeated his first opponent.
Certainly, Kirby was a trooper and had dealt with professional pitfalls several times during his career, but I’d expect the hurt may have been more intense this time around. And soon he’d wind up back at Marvel for a 3rd go-round, which I suspect he likely regarded as galling but necessary given the aggressively negative opinions on Stan Lee he expressed in later years. But maybe I’m reading too much into this. But it’s not like Kirby had never previously used his stories to express his opinions or feelings.
Hmmm. you see a lot more than I saw in the story Fred, but in some way all Kirby’s stories have some personal context. I recall reading that all characters brought in by Jack was based on someone Jack knew/ had known. |The Funky Flashman pice in Mister Miracle was very personal, eben though it started out not to be on Stan Lee…but it turned out that way. Loot of pent up frustration there!
! Nice thought on Atlas…..and this was when DC could not use Captain Marvel as a title for Shazam/Captain Marvel! But I wonder….did Atlas/Seaboard that was then currently publishing make any noise about the character?
I thought Atlas was okay, like most of Kirby’s Bronze Age output. I’d have bought it if it became a series. Didn’t love it. Not having read much Marvel in the Silver Age and having arrived at the Fourth World stuff only as it was winding down, I spent the seventies wondering why people kept screaming about JACK KIRBY GENIUS!!!! when nothing he did seemed to measure up.
Exception #1, contrary to Alan, Kamandi was Kirby’s best post-New Gods work (https://atomicjunkshop.com/hes-not-the-chosen-one-kamandi-the-last-boy-on-earth/)
Exception #2, despite its flaws, Eternals: https://atomicjunkshop.com/kirby-von-daniken-the-eternals/
I think both Kamandi and Atlas were both takes on Kirby and Simon’s Tuk Caveboy from CPT America #1 in 1940 (now mostly attributed to Kirby).
Ben Boxer, Kamandi’s Mutant mentor, was sort of analogous to Tanir, Tuk’s Cro-Magnon mentor. Dr. Canus was sort of analogous to Tuk’s foster father, Ak.
Here, Chagra is somewhat analogous to BOTH Tanir and Ak . . . .
In his DC work, Kirby revisited a lot of themes from his early Timely work: the New Gods seem based on the theme of the war of the Greek Gods with Pluto from the Hurrican (Mercury) feature in CPT America # 1 and the bad guy (Steelhand0 from Mister Miricle 31 was probably lifted from a bad guy in the Simon & Kirby Timely CPT America . . . .
Kirby was a great generator ideas, and also retained lots of ideas, and re-used ideas, both his and of others; for example the FF were a mixture of Sky Masters, Challengers of the Unknown, Plastic Man plus Timely Golden age (the last probably coming from Lee (Sub-Mariner) and Goodman ()the Human Torch).
I will need to go back and see if I have the reprint showing Kirby’s Tuk somewhere.
If I remember, about 25 years ago they did a reprint volume of the Kirby/Simon timely CA with the supporting material including tuk and Hurricane . . . .
I have been ‘inspired’ from some of the discussions about DC to go and re-read some of my DC collection from late 74/ early 75, and I have just re-read Brave & Bold #117 ( Feb-Mar 75), Batman & Sgt Rock, a dandy espionage tale with top art by Aparo, Then lo and behold on page 38 of said comic I found an advert for the Atlas feature….I have tried to provide a snip for the page but that technology is a bit beyond me unfortunately……it reads: DC BEGINS A NEW KIND OF EXCITEMENT — GET READY FOR 1ST ISSUE. Then it shows the original cover (the one later used by Tomorrows for their Jack Kirby Collector fanzine), and ends with ANOTHER KIRBY BLOCKBUSTER! From seeing this my assumption is that Atlas was supposed to be a ongoing title. Maybe another reason for Kirby to leave DC a few months later.
Interesting that Kamandi didn’t work for you as a kid. The moment I saw it I was hooked, and it really did more to encourage me to find everything I could to find more Kirby old and new from then on. I very much regard it as the King’s magnum opus at DC (Fourth World notwithstanding owing to early cancellations spoiling the story) and I believe it was his longest period on a single book over there. It went downhill something fierce after his departure, but until then it was solid gold to me.
Never even saw Atlas in my youth, but if it had become an ongoing series I’m sure it would have gotten my money every issue. I was always a fan of non-cape books that ran toward fantasy and scifi themes rather than superheroes, although much of Kirby’s best supers work helped pull those books far beyond the tropes of the genre.
I agree it went downhill. One of Kirby’s strengths on Kamandi was that the civilizations and societies he ran into felt real, as if they’d existed before he showed up and would go on after him. Subsequent writers couldn’t pull that off.
I thought this was one of D. Bruce Berry’s best outings.
Both he and Mike Royer were talented (Royer had been **both** an Anderson and Manning assistant).
I always thought Joe Sinnott (particularly) gave a lot of thought to how to best translate what Kirby could do in **pencil** into **inks** (Murphy Anderson did a bit of this inking the Superman, Kent and JO heads and one cover in Jimmy Olson).
I still think neither Royer nor Berry gave this enough thought. (Kirby particularly, made a point of how much effort Sinnott gave to inking a weapon one of Dr. Doom’s henchman was carrying in his last FF/Doom arc so it got across Kirby’s penciled concept. I don’t see that, as much, with Royer or Berrry. )
I have to say that I disagree about Anderson being successful in translating “what Kirby could do in **pencil** into **inks**”. As far as I can tell, he just completely redrew Kirby’s heads for the JO characters as Anderson heads.
Whenever I see Kirby’s Atlas and Manhunter, I get annoyed that I never got more. Atlas, in particular, just makes me imagine what incredible stories Kirby would have brought us. If only it had continued., or Kirby had taken over Thor when he made his return to Marvel . . .