First Issue Special - Dingbats Of Danger Street!

As his disappointing contract with DC Comics ran its course, Jack Kirby was obliged to knock out fifteen pages a week or thereabouts. With the "Fourth World" cancelled, it meant a lot of random projects got the green light. Among those was Dingbats of Danger Street which ran in the sixth issue of 1st Issue Special. It's the third and final entry by Kirby in the series and in many ways his weirdest. The titular "Dingbats" are four young men ("Good Looks", "Krunch", "Non-Fat" and "Bananas") who live as a small gang of sorts on Danger Street, a part of an unnamed city which seems especially loaded with wild characters and zany criminals. They are not affiliated in any way but a cop named Lieutenant Mullins crosses their path and attempts to help them out from time to time. In the debut story two villains named "Jumping Jack" and "The Gasser" are running amok after stealing some tiny film canister. The film itself doesn't matter, only that the Dingbats come into possession of it and the villains are more than willing to kill to get it back. 

This story was produced when DC suggested that Kirby partner with is old colleague Joe Simon to fashion a new kid gang for the modern world of the 70's as they had done with great success in the 40's and 50's with Newsboy Legion, Boy Commandos, and Boys Ranch. But the two men didn't really want to work together anymore and so each created his own version of a modern kid gang. Simon knocked out three issues of The Green Team with artist Jerry Grandenetti and Kirby did three issues of Dingbats. Eventually Simon's work was published in a manner of speaking Cancelled Comic Cavalcade, but the two remaining Kirby Dingbat stories were not because frankly the artwork was apparently stolen and today is believed to exist in private collections in Europe. 

But the folks at Twomorrows Publishing had access to Kirby's copies and from those finally at long last published the two long-lost Dingbats of Danger Street tales just a few years ago in 2019. Those two tales focus on the background of two of the Dingbats. We learn that "Good Looks" lost his parents when they were murdered before his eyes by the villain "Snake-Meat". The second  Dingbats tale shows how he gets a measure of justice at long last. The third and final Dingbats tale concerns "Krunch", the strong man of the team and we learn that he is related to a devious man named "Birdly Mudd" who wants to imprison the youngster so that Mudd can have full access to rich estate. Krunch is able to escape his Dickensian trap and return to his friends on Danger Street. More stories featuring "Non-Fat" and "Bananas" were conceived but best evidence is they were not produced.

But we are lucky to have these Kirby classics. The Dingbats of Danger Street isn't the best comic Kirby ever produced by a longshot, but the three stories are fun and full of vim, vigor and excitement. Next time it's another superhero revival and the artist is none other than Steve Ditko. 

Rip Off