Dojo Classics - Massive Manhunters!

Paul Kirk The Manhunter, a Joe Simon and Jack Kirby creation, debuted in Adventure Comics and ran for several issues. Some decades later this largely forgotten hero was first reprinted in a few issues of Kirby's Forever People and then revived and utterly revised completely under the auspices of Archie Goodwin and Walt Simonson, who turned this particular hunter of men into one of the most memorable comic book characters of all time. 

This cover art for this 2009 AC reprint comic Men of Mystery by Mike Machlan is a fun homage (or swipe if you will) of a Simon and Kirby classic. The irony of  course is that pictured above is "Manhunter", a guy named Dan Richards who fought crime in the Golden Age under the Quality Comics badge in a substantial run in Police Comics. The character, along with his other Quality mates was snatched up by DC in the 50's and eventually he was blended into the larger DC Universe. He would become just one more of DC's many Manhunters.

I stumbled across this scan of the original artwork here and wanted to share it alongside the full-color color. Gorgeous! There's a bunch of competition, but this one is on my short list as the best the S&K team ever did.

And here is fun re-do by Joe Simon himself of an earlier Manhunter cover he and Kirby did, along of course with the original. Sadly there has never been to my knowledge any comprehensive reprinting of all of the Golden Age Manhunter stories under a single cover. It's a significant gap in the Simon and Kirby legacy for the modern audience. 

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