Captain Victory - Victory Is Sacrifice!

What would you do if you woke one day and your world had been invaded by a savage alien race which was bent on enslaving and killing mankind for the sole purpose of working to harvest the resources of the planet. Who are you gonna' call?

Well in this instance it's the Galactic Rangers, an outer space police force of varied interstellar races and species working together to bring some sort of order to the wild and woolly regions of the galaxy. "Captain Victory" (a code name we are told -- we never learn his real birth name) is the leader, and due to his status he is awarded fifty clone bodies of which he's used four. And in the very first issue he dies again, but that demise just the beginning.

Jack Kirby's last great opus for the fledgling Pacific Comics was developed for a line which bore his own name but the finances fell through. So it languished in his files.

When the folks at Pacific called with an offer of creator-owned participation, he dusted off the story and expanded it with the help of Mike Royer and Mike Thibodeaux and gave us one and all the first mainstream comic book of the direct sales era. Kirby was not at the height of his powers, but still like any great talent  he still was considerably impressive.

The story begins on a dead world where the Insectons led by their Regent and their Lightning Lady utterly consumed it. The Rangers try to stop them then and there, but fail to capture the leadership which heads into the hinterlands of space and find the green world of Earth.

Later Captain Victory and his comrades Major Klavus,  the lion-faced Tarin, the aquatic Orca, navigator Egghead, scientist Chusang (among many others) arrive in the enormous spacecraft called "Dreadnaught: Tiger".

They assist the local authorities of Spartanville, Pennsylvania who are confronted with the earliest stages of the Insecton threat which is insinuating itself in the community even as they strategize.

The battle against the Insectons starts small but steadily grows with casualties on both sides. The Insectons are of an all-controlling group mind and have no regard for themselves as individuals -- a mindset they seek force upon their captives.

The forces of Earth, specially the United States Army fight alongside the members of the Galactic Rangers as the Insectons spread beyond the small town of Spartanville and head to the large population of Philadelphia.

The Galactic Ranges work furiously to find a way to stem the tide of the battle which threaten to broaden across the United States and then across the world. They unleash their Micro-Troops who fight furiously in the tunnels of the Insectons. They find human beings who have been turned into slaves used as canon fodder by the deadly Beehive-like society of the Insectons.

Ultimately Captain Victory  uses the advanced technology to destroy the threat of the Insecton scourge but it comes at great cost to himself -- his life is lost again. It's a good thing he has a bevvy of clones at his command or the series would have ended right here. But it didn't. More next time as the Galactic Rangers fight a menace from the deeps of  space - The Wonder Warrors and the enigmatic "Voice".

Captain Victory and the Galactic Rangers was a real milestone, for comics and for Kirby. The "King" had retired from comic books after his Bronze Age stint at Marvel and had gotten into animation work which paid much better. He was at long last getting comfortable and didn't need to kick out comic book pages at a furious rate to pay the mortgage and put food on the table.

The series was a response to the popular films of the era -- Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind -- and Kirby in his mind was just returning the favor to those directors whom he was certain had lifted some key concepts from his own seminal work. Captain Victory had life as a series, a graphic novel and even in an offbeat form as a screenplay. What it became was fascinating comic book series which reinvented to some extent the very industry.

Alongside the stalwart Victory are Major Klavus a man who can invoke the spirits to empower himself with spectacular abilities, the aquatic Orca who gets to do some very dangerous grunt work because he can, and Tarin the lion-faced member who appears to have the greatest heart of the team and who seems always concerned with the bystanders who get drawn into the battles.

The comic's first story arc has a remarkable quality, a slow and unsteady unfolding of an ever-increasing threat. As you read it and watch the Rangers attempt to help mankind stem the tide, you get the feeling throughout that despite their minor wins, the overall effort is a losing one. When Captain Victory makes his ultimate choice, it seems that choice was indeed the necessary one.

There is more to come as the Rangers prepare to leave Earth and confront the "Wonder Warriors". They arrive next week, but tomorrow we meet the elusive Goozlebobber.

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