This oddball reprint package kicks off the Kamandi Challenge event from DC. I've decided to follow this one for two reasons, my lifelong adoration for all things Kirby and the zany format of the series which forces and ever-changing gang of creators to deal with the results of a previous issue's developments. It was fun (if not overly successful) when DC did it several decades ago and this one looks to be a hoot. Certainly some above average talent is on tap as the year progresses.
This Special though is a reprint of Kamandi #32 which itself offered up a new story (at the time) by Kirby and inker D. Bruce Berry.
Also in this fifty-cent giant was a reprint of the great Kamandi #1 by Kirby and inker Mike Royer. So we get a glimpse of the earliest Kamandi and some of the later Kirby material as well.
This package though gives us something else to go along with all that goodness. From the mythic pages of Cancelled Comics Cavalcade we get the final two issues of Kamandi. These issues hail from the time when the King had left the series and DC,and had returned to Marvel for a bit. The series was continued by Gerry Conway and artist Dick Ayers.
The biggest surprise here is that the final issue of Kamandi was in actuality a frame story which incorporated a vintage Jack Kirby Sandman story which featured Santa Claus. Stranger and stranger.
The beauty of a series like Kamandi Challenge is if you don't like an issue, the next one will be different. I'm kinda' looking forward to the first issue which drops today.
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Wow, I'm gonna have to go get this!
ReplyDeleteYep. It looks like a lot of just plain old fun.
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It's heartening to see DC create an exciting event for fans that doesn't involve a company-wide cataclysm. Looks like less exploitation and more fun here; I hope they're well rewarded for this approach.
ReplyDeleteI do too. Often fans bicker and claim to want a certain type of comic and then when it arrives all too often they turn a cold shoulder. For all their overwrought universe tinkering, DC does seem to try to do different things from time to time.
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I brought it home with me today, but I've yet to read it. Looks good 'though.
ReplyDeleteWe'll be reading it together and we'll have to steer clear of spoilers. The endings of these should be spectacular. I haven't read the first issue yet either but it's in hand.
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Oops, I inadvertently misled you. I got the Special a week ago, it was the first issue of the series that I got yesterday. Now read it, looking forward to the rest.
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