T.M.A.C. Two Man Army Corps

For those who may not know OMAC, he's basically a futuristic version of Captain America created by Jack Kirby and gets his powers from a sentient satellite called Brother Eye. You should also know that I have only read the first issue of Jack Kirby's OMAC, and I've only read the first issue of the Dan Didio & Keith Giffen's new 52 OMAC. With the excitement for the book and the DCnU, I am doing an issue by issue comparison of both series.

It Came From The Long Box! -- Weird Mystery #2

Rummaging through some old back issues this afternoon, I came across a copy of DC’s Weird Mystery #2. It looks just like a back issue should—at least one suited for reading. There are cracks on the spine, some minor staple separation on the saddle stitching, a little tear on the bottom, multiple creases on the cover,  yellowed pages, and it smells of old paper. Absolutely perfect.

Weird Mystery, for those who may not remember the book, ran as two stories per issue (like a lot of comics at the time) and had stories that were in the vein of what DC was producing with The Witching Hour, House of Secrets, House of Mystery, Weird War, Sinster House, et al. Each story is short horror, sci-fi, or suspense vignette that often had an O’Henry type ending, or one similar to The Lady and The Tiger, and is usually more than satisfying for the reader. In Weird Mystery the stories are hosted by the character Destiny and savvy fans will recognize this format not just from the DC/National books listed above, but from the Warren Magazines, EC Comics, Charlton Publications, Atlas, and on and on. It was a pretty standard format that we, as modern fans, don’t see that often any more (or at all).

50 Years of The Fantastic Four!

Fantastic Four #10

Welcome to A Little Nonsense! What better way to kick off this new comics blog than by celebrating the birth of the Fantastic Four!

Fantastic Four #46

According to Mark Evanier, it was 50 years ago today that the first issue of the Fantastic Four hit newsstands and it’s hard to imagine comics being the same without it. It was also an issue that kicked off a historic 102-issue run from Jack Kirby and Stan Lee…a tenure that that no Marvel creative team would top until Brian Bendis and Mark Bagley did it on Ultimate Spider-Man. 

Fantastic Four #48

There’s something intangible about this book, like many other Kirby works, that make it something more and set it apart from any other superhero title coming out at the time. Sure, Jack definitely brought over a lot of elements from his incredible (and often underappreciated) Challengers of The Unknown work at DC, but the FF has a certain raw energy and excitement to it that few other titles had at the time. And it remained that way consistently for 102 issues. The concepts and characters were exciting and inventive and  the way that Kirby’s pencils brought them to life is seldom topped—when it is it’s usually by Kirby, himself. Like Ditko’s horror work and Wally Wood’s science fiction stories, Jack Kirby’s FF issues are something that every art and comics fan should experience and nothing that comics could live without.

Thanks, Jack.