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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Showcase Corner - Metal Men Volume One!

I've always loved the Metal Men. Six sentient robots created by the genius Doc Will Magnus, these artificial heroes sacrificed themselves time and time again to save their allies, their creator, or the very world itself. They battled mostly other mechanical threats, and stymied many an alien invasion. The robots are of course named for the elements from which they are primarily created, and each individual Metal Man has powers which derive from the aspects of that element. 

Gold is the leader of the team, handsome and shinty, he says little but seems the most level-headed using his highly ductile body to solve problems. Lead is the one they depend on for protection from the varied radioactive menaces they confront, and he often uses his body to create a protective wall. Not the smartest Metal Man, Lead is nonetheless utterly reliable. Iron is the strongest, making formidable hammers and other weapons from his body to attack the sundry threats. Iron seems to be Gold's solid right hand in their adventures. Mercury is as his name suggests quite mercurial, changeable both in body and in mood. He often loses his temper but in the end is there for the fight. Tin is the weakest of the team, and he knows it. His stuttering reveals his lack of confidence in himself, despite often being the only Metal Man able to save the day. Tin will eventually get a girlfriend made from the same stuff and who quite literally will remain Nameless. And finally, there is Platinum, the gorgeous original female member who due to presumably faulty programming is hopelessly in love with her creator Doc Magnus. 

The Metal Men debut in the pages of Showcase and their first mission is to defend the Earth from "The Flaming Doom", a strange giant creature from the planet's distant past. The team is all but destroyed their debut, but their singular characteristic is that from the smallest of remnants the originals can be recreated. 

It's unfair when reading these large collections to judge some aspects of a story. One thing which these Metal Men stories are is repetitive, the conversations and internal conflicts are exceedingly similar from issue to issue. Reading these on a monthly basis that wouldn't have been as noticeable, but in a collection such details are glaring. 

Perhaps the Metal Men's most infamous enemy is Chemo and he debuted in the third issue of their Showcase run, but he's not on the cover. Chemo has always been an awesome and deadly enemy. 

The Metal Men begin their run and with the talents of writer Robert Kanigher and artists Ross Andru and Mike Esposito still in place and that trio gives these early issues an incredibly sophisticated look for the time, and especially when compared to other DC books which were still suffering with old-fashioned graphics 

The Metal Men could also feature continued stories. The saga had continuity, a memory from issue to issue generally but they'd go so far in some instances as to have cliffhangers such as the two stories featuring the Metal Men encouraging a blind boy on a planet full of robot carnival rides gone mad. 

Ramona Fradon takes the artistic reins in the Metal Men's appearance in The Brave and the Bold when they team with The Atom. 

Tina's endless and possessive affection for Doc Magnus was a regular feature. Many stories begin with Doc rebuffing her advances and proclaiming he will fix her so she won't be a problem. He never does and we all draw the correct conclusion, that despite his protests he's at a minimum flattered by her attentions. 

The Metal Men covers are fantastic fun to look at. The ability of the characters to transform gives Andru and Esposito a wide range of options in how to portray them. They use their imaginations to great effect. More on the Metal Men when the Dojo features volume two next week. 

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Flash Versus The Monsterpuss!

This dramatic but wacky cover for the fourth issue of Spacemen from Warren Magazines is clearly meant to evoke this clash between Flash and a Ming Soldier from Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars.


Actually that's Buster Crabbe of course as Flash facing off against another stalwart serial hero Kane Richmond.


But what happened that Basil Gogos, the artist of the Spacemen cover didn't gives us a magnificent illustration of Richmond as well as Crabbe. I learned the truth at BookSteve's Library.

This blurb from the Warren editors explains the downright weird situation.

"Actually the cover on our July issue was a collectors item--the first collaboration between Basil Gogos and...Jim Warren! Upon completion of the left hand portion of the painting, Gogos was suddenly stricken with Venusian Virus and ordered to bed by his physician with a 103 degree temperature. Originally Emperor Ming was to be fighting with Flash but suddenly the choice was either a half-blank cover or___? So borrowing a popping eye from Peter Lorre, a bolt from the Frankenstein monster, a swelled head from the Metaluna mutant, a horn from a triceratops and the robotic arms of a robot, your resourceful publisher himself rushed out and got a Draw It Yourself Kit and, with the printer panting down his neck, painted the "immortal kitchen sink creature" which so many of you hailed as a Monsterpuss!"

So it's the handiwork of Jim Warren himself we see and it never to be Kane Richmond on the other side. Hmm. It's a shame the great Gogos couldn't finish this image, but perhaps it wouldn't have been so memorable as what resulted. What a hodgepodge of sources. Here they are.

Peter Lorre
Frankenstein Monster
Metaluna Mutant
Triceratops of Sorts & Obie
NOTE: This is a Dojo Revised Classic Post. 

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The Summer Of The Garuda!

The Year of the Garuda is the original title for John Keel's The Mothman Prophecies. It's more obscure at first glance, but more accurate when describing the contents of the work, which rests somewhere between reportage and fiction. I'm dubbing it "The Summer of the Garuda" here at the Dojo for the simple reason that paranormal mysteries such as the Mothman and the broader sphere of UFO sightings which add context to that story are of keen interest to me at the moment. 

I've been gathering up vintage books on UFOlogy for the sheer pleasure of reading this material for what it is, both an attempt to address a significant cultural event of the modern era and supply entertaining prose for a mind keen to absorb it. Books by the likes of the aforementioned Keen, as well as stuff by Gray Barker and Albert Bender is on my reading table. Given time I might even dust off those Von Daniken books which entertained me so much way back in the 70's. Flying saucers, like Bigfoot, is a fun subject to dabble around in. I'm an utter skeptic, but it doesn't mean I'm not enthralled by the likes of The Mothman Museum, which I visited earlier this year.

Also on the platter is the infamous "Shaver Mystery". Just after WWII, a man named Richard Shaver wrote some outlandish science fiction stories published in Amazing Stories and elsewhere by editor Ray Palmer (Yep! That's where that name came from.) about an elaborate underground society which dated from before mankind's time and which had enormous and terrifying machines which impacted out society in strange ways through mysterious rays. What makes the Shaver Mystery so curious is that Shaver claimed it was all true, and Palmer seemed to support that notion. The fact the stories sold like hot cakes probably had something to do with that. 

And I've added to my library all six volumes of Jack Katz's The First Kingdom from Titan Books. These yarns were first published independently in the 70's by Katz, who was seeking to take the comic book format and tell an elaborate saga spanning countless years and copious pages. The series ran for fifteen years, a new volume or two each year. I gathered these once before in their original format, but long ago traded them away. It's a pleasure to luxuriate in this complex and often confusing drama once again, which is more like myth than anything else. 

The Metal Men were one of DC's more delightful Silver Age creations. The whimsy and pure fun which attended to all their stories is charming. I've been trying to get around to reading these yarns for years and I've finally managed to do it. Fantastic stuff by Robert Kanigher, Ross Andru and Mike Esposito among others. 

On the TV front look for postings on the classic series The Invaders starring Roy Thinnes as a man desperate to prove that flying saucers are real. Also up is The Outer Limits, arguably the smartest science fiction show of its era (or any). These are truly upsetting shows which ask serious questions, and yet still entertain. 

And along the way expect copious reviews (both classic and new) of vintage sci-fi movies, especially those focusing on alien invasion. There has been an absolute cavalcade of these, both serious and silly over the decades. Looking forward to revisiting some of my favorites and perhaps giving others a fair reevaluation. 

All this (which is plenty) and more over the next few months. Summer is not officially here yet according to the calendar, but that's not gonna' stop me from enjoying these summer delights. "The Summer of the Garuda" indeed. 

Special Note: I have changed my plans for this month and next, so I have altered this post. You're not mistaken if you remember it differently. My focus has increasingly shifted to UFO books for this summer leaving less time to read comics, but in a way making it even more a summer devoted to the Garuda. 

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