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Jack Kirby at DC & 4th World Omnibus Vol. 5?

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deejayway	Jack Kirby at DC & 4th World Omnibus Vol. 5?	Lead	[-]
Posts: 2891 Jun 8 11 9:37 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Tags : jack kirby, russ heath, new gods, kamandi, fourth world, steve englehart, marshall rogers, steve gerber, mike golden, don newton, gerry conway, demon, mister miracle alexarkadin wrote: I felt The Hunger Dogs was one of Kirby's strongest works. It was right up there with The 70's Fourth World books, Silver Star, Captain Victory, the Captain America Treasury edition, and the Captain America "Mad Bomb" serial. There have even been several long thoughtful reviews of the book posted online. http://circumstantial.wor...d-most-significant-time/ I particularly enjoyed Jeff Lester's review at The Savage Critics. http://www.savagecritic.c...rth-world-omnibus-vol-4/ Lester begins his review of the Fourth World Omnibus Volume 4 this way: "reading the first 250 pages of the fourth volume is like watching the weakening death throes of a formerly-powerful animal: it’s awesome in a truly depressing way." He's talking about the later issues of Mister Miracle which were sort of cast out in the wilderness, but then Lester gets to The Hunger Dogs, never having read it, and expecting to be disappointed: " But, of course, that wasn’t the end for the Fourth World Saga. In 1984 and ’85, Kirby was given the chance to come back and create an ending in the form of The Hunger Dogs, an original graphic novel, along a forty-seven page prelude titled “Even Gods Must Die!” that bridged the original stories and the graphic novels. We get apologies for the material both in the front with Paul Levitz’s intro (“[F]or if the Hunger Dogs is neither the ending Jack originally hoped to do nor crafted with the same sure hand as had a decade earlier, it is still noble to try[.]“) and Mark Evanier’s afterword (“Jack gave it his all. Jack gave everything he did his all but he really put his heart and soul into this one, and ordinarily it would have been more than enough…but with all the problems, especially the short page count, it wasn’t enough,” as well as “Finally, The Hunger Dogs was published. I wish I could tell you that it was everything Kirby fans had been expecting by way of a Fourth World conclusion, but it really wasn’t that. For one thing, the Fourth World wasn’t concluding. For another, Jack still didn’t have the thousand or so more pages it might have taken for him to build his story to the kind of climax he’d imagined.”) It’s safe to say the current take on this final work is not favorable. And that’s a shame. Because I found those final hundred-plus pages to be absolutely brilliant, some of the most stunning stuff Kirby’s ever done. I’ve had The Fourth World Omnibus Vol. 4 for maybe three weeks now, and every night for the first two I’d read those last 100-plus pages again and again." That is just the start of Lester's long and insightful review. Lester honed in on the theme of the book, technology pushing aside the old ways. "Like “Even Gods Must Die!”, The Hunger Dogs is a victory stolen from the jaws of defeat and loss, and the irony is this victory is accomplished by open acknowledging defeat and loss. In The Hunger Dogs, Darkseid sees his coming obsolescence in the face of The Micro-Mark, the digitized destroyer that is the brutal male successor to the kindly Mother Box. In a staggering page, Darkseid listens to the Micro-Mark’s inventor crow about the passing of Himon and wordlessly realizes that his own time has also passed. “His day is over, great Darkseid!” the collaborator boasts. “Regard him as a pitiful, harmless object! This is Micro-Mark’s hour! There’s no need for intrigue or great strivings–the cosmos lies open to button-pushing babes!” Not surprisingly, I disagree entirely with Alex and the guy he quoted. However, I'm basing my opinion solely on the artwork, which I thought was so weak and ugly, that there was no possible incentive for me to tackle Kirby's usually off-putting writing. And I agree with the assessment of the last half dozen or so issues of Mr. Miracle. They were really, really bad. Bad, bad, baaaad but not in a good way like some of Kirby's more zany stuff. I have conjectured on various occasions that the failure the 4th World Saga - for whatever reasons (let's not start that discussion again - crushed Kirby's (creative) spirit and it shows in those final issues of Mr. Miracle, which were just plain silly, missing any of the grandeur or invention of the 4th World. Post 4th World, Kirby was going through the ropes with diminishing returns. Most of his subsequent concepts were highly derivative and unoriginal. Let's discuss. Specifically, the relative merits and/or demerits of the Hunger Dogs, who agrees with me that Jack's heart went out of his work with the demise of the 4th World and who doesn't and why? I'm particularly curious about people's views on the Hunger Dogs because it seems to be one of Kirby's most controversial works and that's saying a lot for Kirby. Maybe I'll try and read it again. I'm also curous about how people feel the last post 4th World issues of Mr. Miracle stack up against the first 10 issues, which I feel had some legitimate klassik Kirbys. I think though, that the last 10 issues were particularly bad, especially compared with the first few issues of Demon and Kamandi I don't expect to read anything new but that's never stopped us having a Kirby discussion around here before. No legalese please, no Kirby vs Lee comparisions. Read between the lines or you'll fall through the cracks. Comic reviews galore at Comicidal Maniac and: Do you dare enter where Angels fear to Thread? Last Edited By: deejayway Jun 20 11 12:24 PM. Edited 4 times.
Osgood Peabody		#1	[-]
Posts: 3828 Jun 8 11 9:58 AM DC Forum Moderator Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I haven't read the Hunger Dogs in a long time - I probably need to give that another read one of these days. However, in terms of evaluating Mister Miracle, there is a tendency to dismiss the last block of issues, and that's unfair to issue #18's "Wild, Wild Wedding". I agree that the air went out of the balloon when DC cancelled the other 4th World titles, and issues # 11 to #17 were rather humdrum. But people seem to forget that with Mister Miracle, they gave Kirby the chance to give the series closure, a courtesy that they did not extend to New Gods, and he took full advantage of it by closing the story with one of the most powerful sequences of the entire series: It's a brilliant scene. And for anyone who thinks Kirby can't write dialogue - I mean, it doesn't get much better IMO than "I am the storm!" . "As for contentment, that is a myth. Give a man everything he wishes and he will be unhappy, because he didn't wish for more; give him more, and he will die of his worries. Only a turtle, asleep on a sunny log, knows contentment!" -Merlin to Prince Valiant Hal Foster 3-7-43 Last Edited By: Osgood Peabody Jun 8 11 8:47 PM. Edited 2 times.
DavidTai		#2	[-]
Posts: 16562 Jun 8 11 10:19 AM Forum Moderator Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Didn't particularly enjoy the last 10 issues of Mister Miracle, but that's because I thought it got away from the epic feel of the Fourth world mythology being built up. Also, if we're going by the Fourth World Omnibus cut of the Hunger Dogs, I thought it was a reasonably okay conclusion to what Kirby had envisioned, but at the same time, it felt like a great deal was missing. (Are you evaluating based on the Omnibus, or the cut-up graphic novel, deejayway?) I have to admit, I thought "The Great Darkness Saga" had a better 'ending' for Darkseid than this - it felt more like Darkseid went out with a bang, not a whimper. Keeping in mind that my first exposure to the Fourth World was the Super Powers, and some old scrunched up issues of "Darkseid Rising" from JLA, the Fourth World was quite a bit more impressive than I'd realized, despite some relatively 'what the heck?' dialogue. I don't think the whole saga ever reached the potential that it displayed most during 'The Pact' and 'Himon', and I think everything since has been basically all about trying to grasp that elusive peak those two stories displayed. -------------- Brother Eye is watching. --------------
deejayway		#3	[-]
Posts: 2891 Jun 8 11 10:25 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Ermm, sadly Osgood, I have to respectfully disagree. While #18 may be moderately better than the 7 preceding issues, it was still pretty lame IMHO. "That dude's got eyes that could stop a clock." Hmmmmm. I think Shilo's dialogue in MM underlines what became apparent when Kirby tried scripting the Falcon later on, that while his dialogue for white people was stilted and awkward, his attempts at writing what he considered hip dialogue for blacks, was just plain out there. Flipper Dipper also comes immediately to mind. It was kind of bearable as long as he played his black characters as straight as his white ones but once he tried to give them any kind of hip vernacular, it just became downright embarrassing. I know people will hasten to point out how cliched the hip, black radical 'Holy Christmas' slang of a lot of 70s black characters was but personally I don't find any of that rap as excoriating as Kirby's attempts at such. I'm surprised DC allowed Kirby to extend MM. I would've thought New Gods was more popular and more successful. Probably wrong but why then did DC opt to reprint the New Gods on baxter paper in the 80s rather than MM, which apparently had been (moderately) more successful than NGs back in the day. Had NG come to be considered a bit of a classic by the 80s or what. I certainly prefer NG to MM. And I think I actually prefer Jimmy Olson to Forever People. Olson had some pretty wild concepts and I have to admit I liked seeing Kirby do the Guardian, as it was so reminiscent of his best Captain America work. David, I'm basing my views on the 4th World Omnibus vol. 4 version, which I repeat I never manage to read because of the terribel IMHO artwork. Read between the lines or you'll fall through the cracks. Comic reviews galore at Comicidal Maniac and: Do you dare enter where Angels fear to Thread?
GHastly55		#4	[-]
Posts: 4344 Jun 8 11 11:09 AM Registered Member Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I'm surprised DC allowed Kirby to extend MM. I would've thought New Gods was more popular and more successful. My suspicion is that DC believed that Mister Miracle was more adaptable to the DC Universe, and a candidate for conversion to a fairly standard superhero strip. Also, the last year's worth of Mister Miracle was published roughly concurrently with Kamandi and The Demon, and I guess they thought that Mister Miracle was closer in spirit to those two strips. New Gods was popular with the people who were reading it, but I think that DC believed there would be more people reading it than actually ended up doing so. They expected a huge influx of Marvelites to defect from Marvel, and they expected to be able to retain at least a few DC fans as Kirby readers. But not enough Marvel fans migrated, for whatever reason; whether because they found that Romita and Buscema on Fantastic Four and Thor were acceptable replacements and they couldn't afford to add another book to their budget, or because they felt betrayed by Jack's departure, or because they couldn't bring themselves to buy something with the DC bullet on it again; who knows, but the fact is the mass defection didn't happen. That, by the way is IMFAO one of the big advantages which Marvel has historically shown over DC. Marvel has mostly figured out a way to keep their lines going and the readership happy, whereas DC has too often left troubled strips to founder and die without any support. Probably wrong but why then did DC opt to reprint the New Gods on baxter paper in the 80s rather than MM, which apparently had been (moderately) more successful than NGs back in the day. The intervening decade had been kinder to the reputation of the New Gods strip. New Gods was more of a "cosmic" strip, and cosmic was coming back into vogue in the early eighties again, with the revival of the Silver Surfer title and the Warlock Baxter series. Whereas Mister Miracle, rightly or wrongly, was seen as more of a fun and lightweight series. Timing, and the relative position of the companiees in the early 80s, explains a lot. Marvel began publishing Baxter reprints of some of their more classic storylines first: the Warlock reprints were cover-dated December 1982-May 1983, and The Life Of Captain Marvel came out in the summer of 1985. Marvel was throwing a lot of stuff out there to absorb the disposable dollars of comic shop buyers, and DC frankly didn't have a lot of stuff that would catch their fancy. DC had Swamp Thing, Green Lantern-Green Arrow, Neal Adams and Marshall Rogers on Batman ... and that was just about it. Legion and Teen Titans, the two hot DC titles in the comic shops at the time, were such radically different strips from their Silver Age predecessors that to publish the Shooter/Swan or Binder/Forte Legion stories, or the Haney/Cardy Titans, would likely fail miserably. So, in a field of candidates that was decidedly sparse, DC chose to present the New Gods strip as its high-profile classic Baxter reprint series in the summer of 1984. And quite possibly due to the lackluster, hastily-drawn conclusion in the last issue, sales weren't good enough to prompt DC to go back to the well for the other Fourth World titles. Had NG come to be considered a bit of a classic by the 80s or what. More so than the other three titles. Forever People suffered from the perception that it was too hippy-dippy flower-power-y, a reputation justly earned. Mister Miracle suffered from the 1977-78 post-Kirby run. Jimmy Olsen suffered from being named Jimmy Olsen. And New Gods, having a more self-contained epic feel to it together with more frequent appearances from Darkseid, became the more legendary of the titles.
richard63		#5	[-]
Posts: 12675 Jun 8 11 1:30 PM Registered Member Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	However, I'm basing my opinion solely on the artwork, which I thought was so weak and ugly, that there was no possible incentive for me to tackle Kirby's usually off-putting writing. I agree, though I actually read it. It was painful to look at, since the decline in Kirby's skills were so evident, in particular, his tendency at that point in time to skew things over to one side, giving a distorted look to the artwork. I've not read the updated version in the Omnibus (I skipped the Fourth World Omnis because I already had the stuff I was interested in). However, I must saw that I was struck by the sample pages that I've seen that they did look significantly better than the graphic novel version. Wasn't there some significant art restoration (specifically, pages reinked) besides the restoration of pages to the story? "You know the very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common. They don't alter their views to fit the facts. They alter the facts to fit the views. Which can be uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that needs altering." --Doctor Who
richard63		#6	[-]
Posts: 12675 Jun 8 11 2:11 PM Registered Member Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Given Kirby's tendency to run out of gas as his series continued on in the '70's, I wonder how much better he would have fared creatively if he had been operating under more modern circumstances, that is, having the ability to do limited, self-contained series meant to be collected in a stand alone graphic novel. "You know the very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common. They don't alter their views to fit the facts. They alter the facts to fit the views. Which can be uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that needs altering." --Doctor Who
deejayway		#7	[-]
Posts: 2891 Jun 8 11 2:34 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Possibly but you've got to wonder if he ever had the discipline to structure his stories enough to conclude satisfactorily within an allocated number of issues. By most accounts he was pretty chaotic in his approach to plotting and basically did thing on the wing. I think almost everyone agrees the what Kirby really needed was a tough editor. Read between the lines or you'll fall through the cracks. Comic reviews galore at Comicidal Maniac and: Do you dare enter where Angels fear to Thread?
richard63		#8	[-]
Posts: 12675 Jun 8 11 2:51 PM Registered Member Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	what Kirby really needed was a tough editor. Quit stealing my lines! I said that on the "Marvel Method" thread. Of course then the question became whether or not someone like a Julius Schwartz would have been compatible, since the DC editorial approach up until that point was always more heavy handed than Stan's, particularly when it came to plots. "You know the very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common. They don't alter their views to fit the facts. They alter the facts to fit the views. Which can be uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that needs altering." --Doctor Who
deejayway		#9	[-]
Posts: 2891 Jun 8 11 3:00 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	You may have said that but for some strange reason I didn't read that entire thread. At the risk of getting into the old who-did-what discussion, I liked what Kirby did fine under Lee's editorship so Stan was tough enough for me. Nobody apparently knows what he did but he sure must've been doing something right because Kirby's talents as and artist, plotter and innovator came to their greatest fruition while working with Stan. I've always said Kirby needed a tough editor, a competent dialoguer and increasingly a very good inker to smooth out his roughest edges. He had none of them after leaving Marvel in the early 70s. Royer was competent enough as inker as long as Kirby kept up his part but once the art started to slide, well..... Read between the lines or you'll fall through the cracks. Comic reviews galore at Comicidal Maniac and: Do you dare enter where Angels fear to Thread?
richard63		#10	[-]
Posts: 12675 Jun 8 11 3:06 PM Registered Member Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Part of the issue with Royer is that he was being held back by Kirby, who had gotten fussy with how much the inking deviated from the pencils. For quite awhile, I didn't particularly like Royer's inks, but then I saw him on other people, such as Steve Rude and Russ Manning. It's too bad Kirby didn't give him more leeway. "You know the very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common. They don't alter their views to fit the facts. They alter the facts to fit the views. Which can be uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that needs altering." --Doctor Who
deejayway		#11	[-]
Posts: 2891 Jun 8 11 3:12 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Rude and Manning probably turned in much tighter pencils than Kirby was doing from the mid 70s onwards. Read between the lines or you'll fall through the cracks. Comic reviews galore at Comicidal Maniac and: Do you dare enter where Angels fear to Thread?
Osgood Peabody		#12	[-]
Posts: 3828 Jun 8 11 8:57 PM DC Forum Moderator Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I edited my earlier post to include a better image of that scene from Mr. Miracle #18. deejay - I agree about Kirby's tendency to insert hip dialogue, but I disagree that particular line of dialogue is off-key, or detracts from that scene. I think it encapsulated Darkseid's contempt, grandeur and wit all in a few lines. When Kirby was working on that story, he believed that would be his final word on the 4th World Saga, and he raised his game accordingly. And IMO he was still on top of his game in '73, so this would have been a satisfactory (albeit inconclusive) finale had the Hunger Dogs never come to fruition. "As for contentment, that is a myth. Give a man everything he wishes and he will be unhappy, because he didn't wish for more; give him more, and he will die of his worries. Only a turtle, asleep on a sunny log, knows contentment!" -Merlin to Prince Valiant Hal Foster 3-7-43 Last Edited By: Osgood Peabody Jun 8 11 8:59 PM. Edited 2 times.
deejayway		#13	[-]
Posts: 2891 Jun 9 11 3:34 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I loved the relaunches of the New Gods and Mr. Miracle in the late 70s. And what wasn't to love? I think Prof (see Marvel Method thread) is too dismissive of Gerry Conway's scripting on the New Gods. True, it could've been more focused and less padded - kind of anticipating today's decompressed storytelling - and less emotive (hey, it was Conway) but I found his writing a relief after Kirby's bombastic, quirky writing. Of course, the PTB made a cardinal mistake in redesigning Orion's suit - definitely one of Kirby's most distinctive - BUT the series was graced - and I do mean graced - by wonderful artwork by the classic team of Don Newton and Dan Adkins. I love the elegance and power of Newton's work here and the cosmic and mythic themes gave Newton a broad canvas to work his magic on and he subsequently produced the best work of his career IMHO. At least they didn't bring in a weak Kirby klone like Keith Giffen in an idle attempt to emulate Kirby. They tried it on the covers and the results were just painful. However, I can image fans clamouring for new Kirby work felt short-changed. I'll post some scans once my photobucket account gets sorted out. Read between the lines or you'll fall through the cracks. Comic reviews galore at Comicidal Maniac and: Do you dare enter where Angels fear to Thread?
deejayway		#14	[-]
Posts: 2891 Jun 9 11 3:48 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I've been urging for a 5th volume of Kirby's 4th World, cherry-picking the best of the relaunches. I could just link to the previous thread here, but then that might split the discussion so I'll just cut and paste some of my earlier comments (scans to follow). Btw there are plenty of great scans in the original thread for those interested. Read between the lines or you'll fall through the cracks. Comic reviews galore at Comicidal Maniac and: Do you dare enter where Angels fear to Thread?
deejayway		#15	[-]
Posts: 2891 Jun 9 11 3:51 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Mr. Miracle had the best writing but the quality of the artwork fluctuated because of rotating inkers but it is a little jem of a run, kicking off in fine form with the classic team of Steve Englehart and Marshall Rogers, who were creating their legendary Detective Comics run at the same time. Englehart and Rogers hit the ground running, starting a storyline in which Scott Free returns to Apokalips posing as a messiah to get the Lowlies to rise up against Darkseid. A great idea, which they pull off with panache. As you would imagine, Englehart's scripts are much more sophisticated and provocative than Kirby's 50s schlock. His dialogue is crisp and contemporary, Scott and (Big) Barda seem to have an adult relationship (within the confines of the then-prevailing comics-code) and Englehart explores the New Gods nature as "gods", as well as the conflict between Scott and his adoptive father, Darkseid. Englehart's characterisation of Darkseid is Machiavellian, chilling and calculating. This is a cosmic character who genuinely seems to have a different, non-human perspective on life, a truly amoral force (as opposed to immoral). Englehart also had a much better handle on Mr. Miracle's "super escape artist" identity, coming up with some doozies of traps and presenting believable escapes, instead of the hackneyed, silly traps Kirby came up, which were more like throw-backs to the "Perils of Pauline" than real threats. Unfortunately most of Rogers artwork was marred by poor inking. Vince Colletta was the worst perpetrator of course. However, the artwork came together nicely in #21, which was unfortunately Rogers' last issue. At least he went out on a high note. Rogers' Mr. Miracle is sleek and sinewy, a real performer, instead of Kirby's hulkish heavy-weight wrestler. You can also see a lot of Simonson influences in his work, which added that much needed Kirby vibe. If you compare the Englehart & Rogers' Mr. Miracle with Kirby's run, which was only a mere 3 year earlier, it underlines for me once again how hopelessly out of step with the times Kirby was. Naturally I understand that many will disagree, claiming that Kirby is timeless. Okay. But to mine eyes, the Englehart/Rogers Mr. Miracle has aged very well and still bears up to rereading (unlike Conway). Read between the lines or you'll fall through the cracks. Comic reviews galore at Comicidal Maniac and: Do you dare enter where Angels fear to Thread?
deejayway		#16	[-]
Posts: 2891 Jun 9 11 4:01 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Marshall Rogers exited Mr. Miracle and was replaced by a newcomer called...Mike Golden. Never hoird uv da bum. His first issue (#23) was inked by Joe Giella (monster) and it was pretty bland, although the layouts and storytelling showed promise. The next issue, however, was magic with Russ Heath's lush brushstrokes bringing Golden's latent talent to full bloom. Steve Gerber took over the scripting from Englehart and the mag became even weirder but no less interesting. Gerber made Barda a truly compelling character, more than the equal of her superhero hubby but without compromising her femininity. And like Prof said elsewhere, Golden and Heath made her look stunning, tall, striking, sinewy and very, very sexy. Even Obrion became an fully-fleshed part of the supporting cast, instead of just comic relief and Mr. Miracle's chief cheerleader. I also really liked how Gerber brought in the madness and superficial bonhommie of Hollywood, the mecca of glitz and glamour. Where else would a would-be new messiah present himself? Read between the lines or you'll fall through the cracks. Comic reviews galore at Comicidal Maniac and: Do you dare enter where Angels fear to Thread?
czeskleba		#17	[-]
Posts: 355 Jun 9 11 2:36 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I'm a big fan of the late-70's Mr. Miracle book also. Englehart says he set out to fix what he perceived as the two biggest flaws in the original series: the dialogue, and the constant use of the Mother Box as a deus ex machina. The Englehart/Rogers issues are easily the equal of their Batman run (except as you noted for the inking), and the Gerber issues make me wish he'd done more for DC after being fired by Marvel. It's interesting that neither Englehart nor Gerber was given the book as a permanent assignment... they were both seat warmers. Len Wein was slated to become the permanent writer with issue #26, but the book then became a casualty of the DC Implosion.
deejayway		#18	[-]
Posts: 2891 Jun 9 11 2:41 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Wow, Englehart and Gerber seat warmers for Len Wein!?! I mean, Wein was a fairly competent writer for the times but he was pretty mundane compared with the two other gents. Who was slated to pencil? IIRC the MM relaunch lasted until #24 or #25 and the next issue was well underway. Did Gerber and Golden leave a complete unpublished issue is there just the cover? I can't remember. Hopefully all of Newtons New Gods found its way into print in the pages of Adventure Comics. Read between the lines or you'll fall through the cracks. Comic reviews galore at Comicidal Maniac and: Do you dare enter where Angels fear to Thread?
czeskleba		#19	[-]
Posts: 355 Jun 9 11 4:09 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Englehart didn't want the permanent job writing Mr. Miracle, since he was planning to leave comics, go to Europe and write the Great American Novel. He and Rogers were hot at the time though so DC asked him to write three issues just to launch the series, and he agreed. Then a fourth issue was added at the last minute; Englehart says he wrote it literally overnight, hence the use of his "John Harkness" nom de plume, because he thought it was not up to his normal standards. I'm not sure why they didn't offer the permanent job to Gerber. Looking at the chronology, I think now that his issues were probably written shortly before he was fired by Marvel rather than after, so probably he didn't want the job either because he still was planning to be primarily a Marvel writer. I remember being disappointed that Gerber wasn't going to continue. He was (and is) my all-time favorite comics writer. I think it was mentioned on the letters page of issue #25 that Wein would be taking over the following issue. I run hot and cold on Wein... his Justice League and Swamp Thing were great, but a lot of his other work is indeed best described as "competent but mundane." My recollection is that Michael Golden was slated to continue as the artist. I'm pretty sure there isn't an unpublished Wein/Golden story, since all that appeared in Cancelled Comic Cavalcade was the cover for issue #26. Last Edited By: czeskleba Jun 9 11 4:12 PM. Edited 2 times.
HeroesAndVillians	THINKING ABOUT INKING	#20	[-]
Posts: 6167 Jun 9 11 4:17 PM Registered Member Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	richard63 wrote: However, I'm basing my opinion solely on the artwork, which I thought was so weak and ugly, that there was no possible incentive for me to tackle Kirby's usually off-putting writing. I agree, though I actually read it. It was painful to look at, since the decline in Kirby's skills were so evident, in particular, his tendency at that point in time to skew things over to one side, giving a distorted look to the artwork. I've not read the updated version in the Omnibus (I skipped the Fourth World Omnis because I already had the stuff I was interested in). However, I must saw that I was struck by the sample pages that I've seen that they did look significantly better than the graphic novel version. Wasn't there some significant art restoration (specifically, pages re-inked) besides the restoration of pages to the story? The pages inked by Mike Royer were presented in the Omnibus as he originally inked them, whereas in the graphic novel colorist Greg Theakston took it upon himself to re-ink those pages(with less than satisfying results). Last Edited By: HeroesAndVillians Jun 16 11 1:30 PM. Edited 1 times.

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Jack Kirby at DC & 4th World Omnibus Vol. 5?

Jack Kirby at DC & 4th World Omnibus Vol. 5?