Throwback Thursday - Kamandi: The Last Boy On Earth #1

Welcome to another Throwback Thursday edition of Longbox Junk. . .where I take a closer look at an older and more "valuable" comic in my collection instead of my usual "Still worth cover price after 15 years" fare.

On my last "retro review" edition, (Captain America #193) I found Jack Kirby's writing. . .lacking.  So I asked around the internet a bit, looking for those a little more in the know about older comics in order to be pointed toward something a little less disappointing.  In the end there were a lot of choices given to me (and thank you to anyone I might have spoken to who is reading this) but there seemed to be one title that kept popping up. . .Kamandi.  

To be honest, I don't have most of the other books that were suggested, but I DO happen to have a very nice copy of Kamandi #1 framed and hanging on the wall of my man-cave as one of the few permanent parts of my rotating cover gallery.  I had bought it for that awesome cover, but except for a quick flip through before I put it on the wall, I never got around to reading it. . .Until now. 

Throwback Thursday and Jack Kirby wearing all the hats. Let's do this!

KAMANDI: LAST BOY ON EARTH #1

DC (1972)

SCRIPT: Jack Kirby

PENCILS: Jack Kirby

COVER: Jack Kirby

EDITOR: Jack Kirby

Okay. . .first off, no matter WHAT I may think about the rest of this comic, that cover is SO damn good!  Like I said, it's one of the few covers that don't rotate on and off my man-cave wall.  Just LOOK at it! The colors, the composition, the water, the look of determination on Kamandi's face, the splashes of red to set everything off. . .everything about it is awesome.  As far as I'm concerned, it's one of the greatest comic covers out there. 

But what's under that awesome cover, and is it any good?

The story goes like this:

Untold Years ago, a catastrophic radioactive event called "The Great Disaster" wiped out nearly all mankind.  Kamandi and his grandfather are the last of a group of survivors who occupied a military bunker called "Command - D", for which Kamandi is named.  Kamandi has been educated through his childhood on the old world by a microfilm library.  

 Kamandi ventures out into the world to see if it remains habitable and if there are any other humans left.  As he rafts through the streets of what had been New York City, he finds it to be a strange world, nothing like the one Kamandi had seen in books and microfilm that survived the disaster.  He discovers that humans still do exist, but they are more like wild animals. . .unable to talk and scared of him.

Shortly afterward, he hears explosions from the bunker and races home to find out that armed, talking wolves have attacked and killed his grandfather.  He manages to escape and kill the attackers, then decides there's nothing left for him and set out into the world driving the wolves' vehicle.

Later, Kamandi comes upon a squad of armored Tiger-Men mounted on horses engaged in combat against a group of Leopard-Men. After killing a hidden Leopard sniper and saving the leader of the Tigers He finds himself caught in the middle of the conflict and is captured by the Tigers.  The leader of the Tiger-Men, Great Ceasar, orders Kamandi to be taken to the Royal City as a prisoner.

Kamandi escapes the kennels of the Royal City, where he was being kept with the more animal-like humans, but is recaptured and dressed in a ridiculous outfit in order to be presented to Great Ceasar as a pet.  He watches a ceremony where he learns that the Tiger-Men of the Royal City worship a nuclear missile and once again escapes captivity, determined to explode the warhead and destroy himself and everything else rather than live as an enslaved pet.

He is prevented from detonating the warhead by Doctor Canus, a Dog-Man scientist, who convinces Great Ceasar to give Kamandi to him for research.  Inside Canus' private laboratory, Kamandi is introduced to Ben Boxer, another intelligent human, but one with strange nuclear powers.  The issue ends with Kamandi being overwhelmed with emotion at realizing that he's not the last intelligent human on earth.

Okay. . .

I do have to say that Kamandi #1 is definitely better-written than Captain America #193. . .but that's not a very high bar to hurdle.  I think I'm going to just go ahead and say that Jack Kirby is a comics legend for a good reason, and that reason is mostly his concepts and ideas. . .not his writing.  So without trying to take away from Kirby's well-earned status, let's take an objective look at what's wrong with the story here. 

First off, Kamandi is. . .and I'll put it kindly. . .derivative of Planet of The Apes in a very big and very obvious way.  The cover alone broadcasts the influence before you even go inside to see a post-apocalyptic world with intelligent animals ruling over mute, animalistic humans.  

Even beyond the broader strokes, Kamandi is captured and put into a cage with animal-like humans, is groomed as a pet, and is rescued when a doctor engaged in animal research realizes that there is something different about this particular human.  It pretty much hits all the beats of Taylor's experience after being captured and sent to Ape City. I don't have other issues of Kamandi, so I can't speak to the derivative nature of anything after this one, but as far as THIS issue goes, it's a pretty obvious Planet of The Apes pastiche.

Secondly, Kirby has an annoying tendency (in this issue anyway) to shout at the reader, using exclamation points at the end of every goddamn sentence in the issue for some reason.  Here's an excerpt to show what I mean:

     "The next moment, all signs of their presence fades into silence! Kamandi has seen similar behavior in old wild life films. . .animal herds, fleeing a waterhole at the appearance of a predator!"

Here's another example. . .

     "The new pup doesn't look very happy, does he! Well, he'll soon perk up! Great Ceasar'll treat him better'n he treats us!"

And those are just two examples! Every sentence in the issue is the same! They all end with exclamation points! No exceptions!  None! It seems Jack Kirby REALLY liked exclamation points!

The third main issue I have with the story is that, even though Kirby tried to somewhat disguise the obvious influence of Planet of The Apes by using other animals, the animals he DID use make the required suspension of belief almost impossible.  Tigers and Leopards in North America? A tiger city in a cold northern climate?  And why are the Tigers riding horses?   

It really seems like something a 14 year old would come up with for a Dungeons & Dragons campaign.  I can hear Napoleon Dynamite's voice in my head when I think of it. . ."It's a tiger riding a horse!"  

There are a few other issues as well, but really they all boil down to the same exact problem that I pointed out in Captain America #193, and that is the writer also wearing the editor's hat.  Sometimes it works, but it seems in Kirby's case it doesn't.  It looks to me like Kirby needed the strong hand of an editor when it came to his writing.  

 As far as the art goes, I have no complaints there.  I've already gone on about the excellent cover being one of my favorite comic covers of all, and the interior art is equally impressive.  I have to give credit to Kirby.  His writing may be pretty weak, but he can take even the most ridiculous idea, like. . .say. . .a tiger wearing Roman armor riding a horse into battle in North America. . .and make it look GOOD. 

 The double page spread of Kamandi rafting through the ruins of New York City in the first few pages of the comic are especially impressive, with a sense of massive scale, loneliness and impending adventure that is awe-inspiring in a way that is rarely seen in modern comics.  There are plenty of other great moments through the issue as well.

CONCLUSION

Kamandi #1 is a comic that has some problems. . .a highly derivative setting, ridiculous ideas, and a definite lack of editorial oversight. . .but I still found it enjoyable.  It had great art from cover to cover, it had a likable main character, it wasn't boring at any point, and the ending held a lot of storytelling potential.  

Like I said above, I don't have any other issues of Kamandi besides this one, but hopefully, Kirby moved beyond the derivative nature of the first issue to expand on the potential to be found in the basic post apocalyptic concept of Kamandi.  

For me, as far as Kirby's work goes, I think I'll take the advice of someone's comment made when I was looking for good examples of Kirby's writing that pointed me in Kamandi's direction. . .I think from now on I'll just appreciate what there is instead of looking for things that aren't and leave it at that.

Up Next. . .

Back to Longbox Junk business as usual with Captain America punching a giant Space God in Dynamite/Marvel's 5 issue Invaders Now! series.

Be there or be square!

Wayback Wednesday - Tarzan Of The Apes #186

TARZAN OF THE APES #186

(Gold Key - August, 1969)

SCRIPTS: Gaylord Dubois

PENCILS: Nat Edson -  Doug Wildley

COVER: George Wilson

Welcome back to another Wayback Wednesday edition of Longbox Junk, where I take a look at some of the older single issue comics in my collection and give the internet a review that NOBODY ever asked for!  Why? Because that's what I do, son! Let's get to it. . .

So what we have here before us is the first part of a two issue adaptation of Edgar Rice Burrough's "Tarzan and The City of Gold", brought to us by Gold Key comics in the wonderfully politically incorrect year of 1969, in that long gone era of comics where a series could actually get up to triple digit issues before getting a reboot for that sweet, sweet #1 collectors issue (with 18 variant covers, of course).  But enough about TODAY'S comic book comedy.  Let's dig on into the Longbox Junk at hand.

Just to get this out at the start. . .I've read a few of the original Tarzan books, but I've never read Tarzan and the City of Gold, so I'm coming into this one cold.  This is also the only issue of this series I have, so I don't know what came immediately before, or how the story ends.  It's this and just this.

Let's start at the front of things with the cover.  Of all the older comics in my collection, I have to say that (in my extremely humble opinion) Gold Key really has consistently the BEST covers.  Now, I don't have a LOT of Gold Key comics, but I have about 30 or 40 of them and they pretty much beat Marvel and DC covers of the past hands down.  The cover to this issue is no exception.  It's dynamic, colorful, and very nicely done. The rich blue of the soldier's cape is a real eye-catcher. So a great cover. . .moving on!

The story goes like this:  Tarzan rescues a stranger from bandits, as Tarzan does.  The stranger's name is Valthor and not only is he wearing some pretty inappropriate jungle garb (a shiny white suit of ivory scale mail) but he's also hopelessly lost.  Tarzan offers to guide him back home, because Tarzan is a solid guy. After a couple of days travel, they come in sight of "The Fire Mountain Xarator",  a giant, smoking, active volcano. . .which one would think would be visible from quite a distance, making Valthor seem even more of an idiot when he could have just told Tarzan two days before, "I live by that giant volcano that you can see the plume of smoke from over there in that direction.  See it?" instead of making Tarzan track his way through the jungle. . .BUT I DIGRESS!

At the base of the volcano is a huge walled city named Cathne (the titular City of Gold).  And excuse me for digressing AGAIN, but one would think that Tarzan would be well aware of a big city at the base of a smoking volcano two days hike from his home.  ANYWAY. . .Valthor tells Tarzan that his home is another day's hike past Cathne in the city of Athne, and that Cathne and Athne are enemies.  So Tarzan decides to hike another day, because Tarzan doesn't mind hiking through the jungle.  It's sort of his thang. 

As they attempt to cross a river under the cover of darkness, Tarzan and Valthor become separated when the river (which has become flooded because it's been raining all day) gets crazy.  Tarzan washes up by the Cathne city wall and Valthor is nowhere to be found, so Tarzan says "Screw it. . .I'm gonna check out the City of Gold while I'm here." and jumps the wall, only to immediately be captured.  And when I say immediately, I mean Tarzan was only about 6 feet from the wall when he gets busted.  He literally only took about 4 steps.  The City of Gold has some pretty stout security, but one would THINK the Lord of The Jungle would be just a bit sneakier. . .just saying.

Tarzan gets tossed into a cell with a bruiser named Phobeg. . .a former Imperial Guard who accidentally stepped on a lion's tail. . .who let's Tarzan know that they will probably be killing each other in an arena fight pretty soon.

In the morning, they are brought before the Queen. . .Nemone. . .a sultry beauty with a hilariously 60's giant bright red beehive hairdo.  She proves Phobeg right by condemning the two prisoners to a fight to the death for her amusement in the arena.  And so after a merry day of chariot racing, Tarzan and Phobeg are brought out for the main event, and Tarzan easily kicks Phobeg's ass, because Tarzan is the kind of man whose ass will NOT be kicked.  But then he refuses to kill Phobeg despite Nemone's demands. . .which makes her hot for Tarzan, because that's the effect Tarzan has on women when he tells them they can take their demands and stuff 'em because he's no slave. . .he's friggin' TARZAN!

And so Tarzan is brought to the palace to. . .er. . .amuse. . .Nemone.  He's escorted by a chubby palace guard named Erot who keeps telling Tarzan how scared he should be, and Tarzan is like, "Why?"  It culminates hilariously when Erot tells Tarzan that stronger men then him have trembled before the queen and Tarzan is like, "Tremble?  What's that?".  Erot gets thrown out of the royal chambers as soon as he brings in Tarzan and Tarzan can tell he's made an enemy, but Tarzan doesn't really care because Erot's just gonna have to wait in a long line for a piece of him because Tarzan collects enemies like I collect comic books. . .

So Nemone gets Tarzan on the bed and starts getting frisky with him, telling him that she'll let him live, but only if he stays in Cathne with her forever. . .because that's how Tarzan makes women feel.  They are interrupted before Tarzan can give Nemone an answer by the news that they've captured an intruder and they're going to feed him to a lion if Nemone and Tarzan want to come watch.  Nemone just LOVES a good lion execution, so she decides bedtime fun with Tarzan can wait a bit. 

At the execution, Tarzan sees it's Valthor who's getting fed to the lion.  Tarzan jumps in to save him, because of course he does.  He kills the lion with a little knife and gives Nemone his best Tarzan victory yell.  Valthor tells Tarzan he came back to see what happened after they got separated in the river and got captured by Cathne's outstanding security team.  Tarzan tells Valthar to shut the hell up before someone figures out they know each other, then demands that Nemone frees Valthor. . .because queen or no queen, once Tarzan gets into a woman's head, TARZAN makes the demands.

Nemone frees Valthor, then tells Tarzan it's time to come back into her chambers.  To be continued.

Okay. . .not too bad of a story.  It's not perfect.  It's not even close to perfect.  But not TOO bad.

There's a pretty big suspension of disbelief necessary for the enjoyment of this story.  It starts out with the fact that Valthor can't find his way home despite there being a giant smoking beacon to lead the way.  Then Tarzan has no knowledge of the huge walled city and smoking volcano TWO DAYS away from his home.  And then there's the way that there's not a single black person IN THE AFRICAN JUNGLE! Athne is a Roman-style city in the middle of Africa and the population is whiter than Salt Lake City in 1850.  Okay, I get it. . .1969.  But still. . .IT'S FRIGGIN' AFRICA!

Other than the extreme suspension of disbelief needed to get through this story, it's not bad.  It moves at a pretty brisk pace and it's well-written.  I wish I had the second part of it, so the fact that it left me wanting to read more says something right there.  

Let's talk about the art for a moment.  I found the art to be a bit uneven.  It starts off great. . .dark and thickly-inked, but not murky.  A great sense of depth and shadow.  And then about page 10 it looks like they swapped out inkers and the lines become a lot thinner, giving the back half of the story a weaker look than the front.  The pencils are still really good, but the change in inker drags them down quite a bit.  The colors are surprisingly good in this book as well.  I've found in a lot of these older comics that the coloring is pretty sloppy, but on this one at least, I have no complaints about the color art.  Generally speaking, the art in this issue was pretty good from end to end. . .

BUT. . .

Like I said above, I get it. . .this comic was created in 1969.  But did they REALLY have to give Tarzan an Elvis pompadour and sideburns?  And I've got to ask the same question about Tarzan that I had to ask about Tor in a previous Wayback Wednesday.  Just how the hell does he get that clean shave?  Tarzan has a shave that would put a Marine to shame.  And I ain't just talking about his face.  The Lord of The Jungle is "dolphin smooth" as the Walking Dead's Abraham (R.I.P.) put it so well.

CONCLUSION

Overall, I liked this issue.  It has a great cover, good art for the most part, and a nice brisk story.  Sure there are some issues here and there, but in this case the good outweighs the bad.  Is it the best comic I've ever read?  No.  Is it the worst? Not even close.  It's pretty good. . .and what more can you ask from Longbox Junk?

Up Next. . .

Back to Longbox Junk as usual with the back half of Dynamite's Green Hornet.

Be there or be square!

Wayback Wednesday - Tor (Vol. 2) #1

TOR 

(Vol. 2) #1

I knew nothing about the character of Tor when I stumbled across this comic at an antique store (Junk store would be more accurate) a while back.  All I knew is that it had a great Joe Kubert cover, was in surprisingly good condition for being unbagged and in a stack of battered Richie Rich and Archie comics, and was only going to cost me two lousy bucks. . .

But what I like about these Wayback Wednesday editions of Longbox Junk is that, beside reading and reviewing comics that have probably never been reviewed, I take the opportunity to try and learn a little about the background of the issue at hand and share a bit of what I come to know.

What I found out about this particular comic is that even though it is from 1975, it was actually written and drawn in 1959 as part of a failed pitch to publish Tor as a newspaper comic strip after the character had appeared in a short-lived (5 issue) series in 1953-54 .  This issue is an expanded and colored version of the 12 sample newspaper strips.

While Kubert is famous for other characters such as Hawkman and Sgt. Rock, Tor was one of his own creations. . .thought up while Kubert was on a troop ship during the Korean Conflict in the  early 1950's when the legendary artist was still pretty much unknown.  From what I could find out, Tor held a special place in Kubert's heart for being one of the first characters that he created, even though Tor never really caught on with readers as much as his other work.

So let's take a closer look at this early work of the great Joe Kubert, shall we?

TOR #1 (DC)

First off, what a fantastic cover! The bright, primary red background, the title rising up high behind the main character, who stands fighting off a horde of ape-like creatures.  It's bold, dynamic, and classic Joe Kubert.  It REALLY catches the eye.  

Unfortunately, the cover is the best of the art on this issue.  Joe Kubert was a legend, but he wasn't ALWAYS a legend.  You can plainly see that this comic is some of his early work.  The art inside isn't BAD by any means.  Rough Kubert work is still better than a lot of other artists best work, but this is certainly not his best work by a long shot.  That said, even though the art is somewhat rough, there are still some pretty excellent panels that I assume are part of the later expansion from newspaper strip to comic book.

As for the story. . .

It's bookended by an introduction and epilogue featuring Joe Kubert himself describing the genesis of the character, and is narrated as if it is a story being told by Kubert to the reader.  I really liked this method of narration.  I felt it added a very personal touch to the story and the character.

The story itself involves Tor during a hunt thinking back to his younger days when he was badly beaten by a warrior from a rival tribe for trespassing.  He asks his father to help him learn to fight and is sent into the wilderness to find a handle for an axe.  While searching, Tor is attacked by a river dinosaur and is saved by the same tribesman who beat him earlier.  In turn, Tor saves the rival tribesman from drowning and their debt to each other is declared even.  In the end, Tor learns that it is possible to win a battle in other ways than fighting.

Overall, I liked the story a lot.  It reminded me of some of his stories featuring the greatest anti-war war hero ever written, Sgt. Rock, in that sometimes what you might THINK is the solution to a problem might not be the best way to solve it after all.  It's a story that's been done over and over, but it still rings true.  It's an extremely simple story when you get right down to it, but in this issue, Kubert tells it well.

So while the story itself was straightforward, timeless, and enjoyable, I couldn't help but be a bit put off by the overall feel of the setting.  Maybe it's because Tor is a product of the 1950's, but there's a part of me that had a really hard time accepting humans and dinosaurs living together, clean-shaven (and as The Walking Dead's Abraham put it, "Dolphin Smooth") Neanderthal tribesmen, and a completely utter disregard for biological accuracy of the dinosaurs.

Okay. . .I get it.  It's an action story set in prehistoric times.  There's some artistic wiggle room.  But there's a difference between wiggle room and just throwing all scientific knowledge out the door.  If Kubert had just set this tale in some sort of a "Lost World' scenario (Like Turok or Ka-Zar) this would have not even lifted my eyebrow, but it's not.  So my comic suspension of disbelief was severely put to the test by this whole setup.

In addition to the main story, there is also a 1 page text feature about the dinosaur monster movies that inspired Kubert to create Tor.  It was actually pretty interesting, for a proto-Wikipedia page.

There was also a 2 page text piece by Allan Asherman on the character of Tor and his previous appearances, along with a montage of a few pieces of the art from the earlier Tor series from 1953.  I found it to be somewhat interesting (in the same proto-Wikipedia way as the dinosaur movie page described above) but a bit unnecessary.

CONCLUSION

All in all, I really liked this comic.  It has a fantastic cover, decent art, and a good story.  The setting is ridiculous and the extra text information features feel like unnecessary page padding, but the good here outweighs the bad.  It's a bit of a shame that Tor never really caught on.  I can tell just from this issue alone that Tor held a special place for Joe Kubert.  Perhaps with a different setting that didn't throw scientific knowledge completely out the window, this series would have gained the legs it needed to stand alongside the legendary artist's more popular work.

Up next. . .

Longbox Junk business as usual until next Wayback Wednesday.

I have no idea what this series is about.  I got it in a cheap batch of comics I picked up last month at a store that was closing down.  All I know is that it features "Red Robin" and takes place when everybody thought Batman was dead.  That and it isn't worth a damn, as far as money value goes. . .so Longbox Junk!

DC's World's Finest (2009) 4 issue mini.  

Be there or be square!