Super Powers Comics from the 80s

[samurainoir]

Anybody? Bueller?

Who's Web Fu is best? Say it! SAY IT!



I'll throw in Cyclotron as well.

[Earth 2 Chris]

Yeah, even though I wasn't totally into Kirby at that age (I know, I know), I could appreciate the energy he brought to the first two series. He plotted the first one, drew all the covers, and drew the last issue. Then he drew all of the 2nd series. I really like that one. That is what started to put me over that maybe this Kirby guy wasn't so bad after all. It took me a while to warm up to Ditko too.

But Infantino's art by this point wasn't my cup of tea. Maybe it was the lack of a strong inker, but Carmine seemed to be just out for the check at this point. He's pretty much admitted so in any interview I've ever read. After DC fired him as publisher, it was all about the Benjamins.

Chris

[megowgsh]

Thanks!!!

[samurainoir]

Yeah, even though I wasn't totally into Kirby at that age (I know, I know), I could appreciate the energy he brought to the first two series. That is what started to put me over that maybe this Kirby guy wasn't so bad after all. It took me a while to warm up to Ditko too.

Super Powers was my Gateway Drug into the contemporary Kirby stuff as well. Always loved his classic sixties stuff as a kid in those pocket books, Fireside compilations and reprint titles of FF, Avengers, X-Men and Hulk, but that seventies stuff was a bit too "weird" looking once he started that harder line (was he inking himself at that point?).

But once that door, opened... Machine Man, Mister Miracle, the psychedelic Black Panther series, Sandman, his return to Captain America, Devil Dinosaur. Mind blowing stuff, if not always very sensical.

[Earth 2 Chris]

My first exposure to classic Kirby was the Marvel Super Heroes toons. I recognize the art as being the same guy, but I felt his later stuff was hard to follow as a young kid. All the spotted blacks and dark squiggles made me misinterpret the art. I remember having a DC Digest that reprinted Demon #1, and I couldn't follow it to save my life! Of course, I was only 5...

Now I think that stuff is stunning, although I think Kirby did maybe go a bit overboard with it in his later years. His later FF, Cap and Thor stuff from the late 60s is his best work, artwise I think.

Chris

[samurainoir]

My first exposure to classic Kirby was the Marvel Super Heroes toons. I recognize the art as being the same guy, but I felt his later stuff was hard to follow as a young kid. All the spotted blacks and dark squiggles made me misinterpret the art. I remember having a DC Digest that reprinted Demon #1, and I couldn't follow it to save my life! Of course, I was only 5...

Now I think that stuff is stunning, although I think Kirby did maybe go a bit overboard with it in his later years. His later FF, Cap and Thor stuff from the late 60s is his best work, artwise I think.

Chris

I felt the same way at that age when I first saw a beat up copy of his seventies Captain America. It was wild and insane, and I really, really couldn't tell what was going on compared to say, Spider Super Stories or Curt Swan Superman.

He really was once again ahead of the curve when it came to that seventies material.

I have to admit, I have a fanciful experiment that I would absolutely love Marvel, DC and/or the Kirby Estate to undertake. I think it would be really fun for them to take wordless, captionless Kirby comics and hand them to Stan lee without any explanation at all other than perhaps the characters' names and let him add the captions and dialogue. It can be ANY of his seventies/eighties stuff... Captain Victory, New Gods, The Eternals, whatever.

I just really want to see what happens if you add in that "Stan Lee" element. Of course it is probably very likely we are forty years too late for that kind of "Magic" chemistry to take hold, and it's not like we didn't get that "Lost" Fantastic Four comic.

[Captain]

I dont think any member of the Kirby family would let Stan Lee within a 100 yards of Kirby's work....not if they have anything to say about it.

[samurainoir]

I dont think any member of the Kirby family would let Stan Lee within a 100 yards of Kirby's work....not if they have anything to say about it.

I'm sure you're right given the recent Kirby/Marvel legal action. Although Marvel and Stan are no longer necessarily synonymous given his own legal action against Marvel a few years back. It's mostly just a flight of fancy anyways.

Looks like Lisa Kirby was a bit more amicable when Stan dialogued the Lost FF a few years ago.
Lisa Kirby - Comic Book Resources

[The Toyroom]

I remember back in 5th grade (around '77) we all HATED Jack Kirby's art! What did this guy think he was doing with these anatomically incorrect big blocky figures that were heavily inked? Black Panther, Eternals, Devil Dinosaur? What the heck was that stuff? Ah......youth

[johnnystorm]

Sounds like we all had that junior high "reaction" to Kirby's "art". I remember buying Kamandi and really being "turned off" by the art. How things change- now I think Kirby art is "spectacular", I really "get it" now! Still don't "dig" Jack's writing "style" though, but it "grows" on you man!
Don't question it- JUST BUY IT!

[The Toyroom]

Sounds like we all had that junior high "reaction" to Kirby's "art". I remember buying Kamandi and really being "turned off" by the art. How things change- now I think Kirby art is "spectacular", I really "get it" now! Still don't "dig" Jack's writing "style" though, but it "grows" on you man!
Don't question it- JUST BUY IT!

I thought Marv Wolfman aped Kirby's writing style pretty well during Darkseid's brief appearance in "Crisis"