A Colossal Collection Of Kirby Classics!

Jack Kirby's career is a storied one for certain. But a constant is that he often leaves projects which have a vibrant life after him, some potency in the concepts he gave life to finding a lasting audience. Certainly that was the case with the Challengers of the Unknown. Kirby worked on the comic for only three years or thereabouts, but his stories have been made available to generations of new readers thanks to many reprints in many different venues. For me it was that incredible one-shot installment of Super DC Giant sporting a new Kirby-Colletta cover which introduced me to the team. But that was far from the only time. Here are the reprints I'm aware of which have landed on the shelves over the intervening years. Please let me know of others I have overlooked.

We get a mere glimpse of the Challs in the epic debut Secret Origins giant issue. 

Toward the end of the original Challengers run, the final three issues were reprints of some of those Kirby classics. Some of the Kirby's original art is reworked on a few issues, one with the assistance of George Tuska and Joe Kubert steps in for a single cover. 

A few years later in 1973 a reprint run was added on to perhaps test the waters for a revival. These issues were treated with some creamy Nick Cardy covers. 

Many years later the trade reprint becomes more and more viable and collections are offered which include the Challengers among other vintage DC stars. Joe Kubert's cover for the 1950's collection is especially sweet. The Challs alas are hidden in the background of this one. They do better on the Showcase reprint volume. 

DC then offers up quality archives for the vintage tales of the team. Handsome in the trade dress that DC used for the archive program. 

For the price conscious, there's the first volume of the Showcase Presents tome featuring the Kirby stories yet again. The second volume is sadly bereft of Kirby work but does feature some dandy Bob Brown art. 

A handsome reprint, and possibly my favorite is hardcover done in the omnibus style which all of Kirby's DC work received some years ago. 

It's easy to overlook the Challs in the Showcase Presents Showcase volume as well, though they are not cover featured. 

Most recent is the paperback version of the Kirby tales, a rock solid collection which features some of the brightest color of any of the collections. In whatever format you find them, the expensive originals or any of the reprints, they always deliver. 

NOTE: This is a Dojo Revised Classic Post. 

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The Fantastical Dreams Of A Normal Bean!

I am always a bit astonished when I reflect on the impact of the career of Edgar Rice Burroughs. When he finally came to be a writer after trying nearly everything else, he found out he was quite good, at least good enough to draw in countless thousands if not millions of readers over the decades since his first work landed on the shelves in 1912. That work was Under the Moons of Mars and its author was one "Normal Bean". The story goes that Burroughs had signed the work "Normal Being", but his editor changed it for reasons unclear. A Princess of Mars (the title of the novel) was a blockbuster hit as the strange story of Virginian John Carter's first trip to Mars spilled out serially in the pages All-Story Magazine. ERB was inspired by the success to offer up another hero to the marketplace and this time he created an icon -- Tarzan of the Apes. The tide had come in for "Normal Bean" and he actually never looked back. He wrote book after book with stories set in places he created such as Barsoom, Caspak, Pellucidar, Amtor, Opar, and a myriad of others. 

I have been storing up ERB material for decades and I've read most of the canon at least once, though it's been more than a few decades since the last time. I'm sort of eager to tear into it all again and add to what I've read works that have become available since. So this year of 2022 will see the Dojo paying great heed to the work of ERB and to the countless adaptations of his work. Tarzan in particular has been a focus here at the Dojo before and we'll get around to him in due course, primarily though the great comic strips and comic books which were illustrated by great artists such Hal Foster, Burne Hogarth, Russ Manning among others such as Joe Kubert and Tom Yeates. But I want to begin my look at ERB with his first work and one of his most potent -- the John Carter books which inspired a movie over a decade ago now. 

And what else might well be coming for new year. Take a glimpse below for fifty plus probabilities. 

That's a ton of stuff and I hope to get around in some shape form or fashion to all of it eventually this year. But who knows what else will pop into my noggin between now and this time next year. Let all of us unite here at the Dojo to celebrate "the Master of Adventure" ERB, and a whole passel of other stuff as well. 

More on what's up this inaugural month of 2022 tomorrow.  Happy New Year my fellow "Normal Beans"! Next stop Mars!

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