Black Panther by Jack Kirby, v. 2

Collects: Black Panther #8-13 (1978-9)

Released: July 2006 (Marvel)

Format: 112 pages / color / $19.99 / ISBN: 9780785120698

What is this?: Black Panther (and his royal cousins) subdue a mutated Wakandan before he destroys the world and fight Kiber the Cruel.

The culprits: Jack Kirby, with a one-issue wrap up by Jim Shooter, Ed Hannigan, and Jerry Bingham

I have a confession to make: I don’t like Jack Kirby’s art. I’ve probably said it elsewhere, but it’s worth repeating for this review: I just don’t like his style. People are ugly, even the pretty ones. He has wacky perspectives I just don’t get, and often the way he draws eyes makes his characters look somewhere between manic and insane. In some of his action scenes, his figures look posed in the most uncomfortable positions. The “Kirby Krackle” and his intricate machines have never really done anything for me.

Now, I admit his art was innovative — or at least I’ve been told that so many times that I have to accept it. His art in 1961 is quite different than what you see from artists in the ‘50s, but so is Steve Ditko’s and others’; I just have to take on faith that the innovation flows from and through him. I do admire Kirby’s imagination, though, both in his art and his writing — especially his writing. Kirby, along with Steve Gerber, were underappreciated writers in the ‘70s, and their ideas are strange and wonderful even today.

But that imagination is not much in evidence in Black Panther by Jack Kirby, v. 2. The volume collects two Kirby storylines: one with a standard monster story, albeit one set in Wakanda and featuring Black Panther’s royal cousins, and a story with a villain who converts captives to energy for fuel. These don’t rival the flights of fancy from v. 1, where Kirby presented King Solomon’s Frogs, time travel, Abner Little, and a hidden city of samurai who guard the water of eternal life.

The most imaginative parts of Panther, v. 2, is the Wakandan royal family — a financier, a doctor, a race-car driver, and a “female grown too fat,” all successful in their fields — trying to capture the mutated Jakarra, who got too close to the outer-space metal vibranium. Such things will happen when you dabble in outer-space metal. I don’t buy the royal cousins’ heroics, but they are all well drawn individuals, and they are often fun to watch. It’s too bad Black Panther doesn’t really need relatives; in fact, they’re a hindrance to later and earlier stories told about royal intrigue, since they almost never pop up again. The only other interesting part of the book is the revelation of Kiber the Cruel’s true form, but that’s written in the final issue by Jim Shooter and Ed Hannigan, with art by Jerry Bingham, and there’s no telling how much input Kirby had on that issue. That Kiber can invade Wakanda’s self-imposed isolation is interesting, but not much is done with that; Black Panther’s newly gained psychic abilities in the final storyline are something different but wildly out of keeping with the character’s strengths. In any event, the new powers are gone fairly quickly after the story.

Really, Panther is standard ‘70s stuff, and standard ‘70s stuff at Marvel is usually a mediocre attempt to recreate the ‘60s at Marvel without all the interesting risks and weirdness.

Panther features art by Kirby. If you like it — and you know if you do or not — then here it is. It’s some of his later art, so it isn’t as exciting as his early work; frankly, Jerry Bingham, whom I had never heard of before, is a welcome relief on the last issue, and it’s one of his images (a villain warped and fused to the floor) and not Kirby’s that sticks with me. Despite his characters being occasionally overposed and stiff, Bingham is a solid artist, representing a generation influenced by (and overtaking) Kirby.

Panther sells for almost $20, which is a little expensive for six issues in paperback. I realize Kirby’s name has cachet for those who collect and read these old issues, but it’s just not worth the money for unspectacular Kirby. And it doesn’t even end v. 1 of Black Panther; two more non-Kirby issues remain uncollected.

Rating: (1.5 of 5)

Essential Defenders, v. 4

Collects: Defenders #61-91 (1978-81)

Released: July 2008 (Marvel)

Format: 584 pages / black and white / $16.99 / ISBN: 9780785130611

It’s probably safe to say that the Essential Defenders, v. 4 is not the Defenders you remember.

There’s none of the inspired Steve Gerber madness, the stuff that made Gerber and the comics he worked on intensely interesting and occasionally baffling in the ‘70s. It never has the Big 4 — Silver Surfer, Namor, Dr. Strange, and the Hulk — together at once, although it does have the latter three a few times. But Namor shows up only reluctantly, it seems, and Dr. Strange appears in less than half the book. Heck, his apprentice / lover Clea seems to be around as much. And it’s not quite what it would become, with a full cast of B-level heroes (Son of Satan, Gargoyle, Demon Slayer, Beast, etc.).

So for the most part, you have Nighthawk, Valkyrie, Hellcat, and the Hulk. These are great characters,although the modern Marvel Universe seems to do just fine without them. (The Hulk in this era of The Defenders — simple, touchy, and bean-loving — is not the current incarnation of the Jade Giant.) But they are all seemingly supporting characters, none of whom can support a title. I mean, the Hulk had his own comic, so he could obviously drive a plot, but when he goes, he goes alone. There’s no one stable on this non-team, perhaps by desire, and there’s no one for the team to rally around or be the leader in tough times. (Nighthawk pointedly shoves that obligation away repeatedly.) There’s a reason the X-Men have almost always had either Cyclops or Colossus, despite both of them being as dull as Point Barrow in January.

Writers Ed Hannigan and David Anthony Kraft hatch some good ideas here — excellent ideas, actually. The Mandrill storyline is the best, stretching throughout the volume. Mandrill, the mutant man-ape who can control any female who breathes his pheromones, is a creepy villain who is underplayed (and underused); I can’t tell whether this is because going all out with his powers would be too unsettling for kids (or adults, really) or would have violated the Comics Code. In any event, it’s fascinating to watch Valkyrie’s struggle against a villain simple biology has made an easy target for male heroes but near impossible for her to defeat. Her rage and frustration are nicely played.

A confrontation between Black Panther and Namor is interesting, for no other reason than I don’t think the two rulers had ever clashed before, but the near war between their two nations gets overlooked in the Marvel Universe proper because it happened in Defenders. The “Defenders for a Day” story, in which hanger-on Dollar Bill throws open Defenders membership to anyone, starts off with the chaos of a dozen or two unaffiliated superheroes showing up at Defenders HQ but disappointingly ends with an ineffectual fight against supervillains and petulant heroes.

Unfortunately, there’s a lot of ideas that fall flat. I don’t care about the Defenders battling the Unnameable, although I am interested in what Hannigan has against — or for — Houghton-Mifflin. (He uses the company’s name, written backwards, as a foreign language.) When Lunatik went from some weird vigilante to fragments of an interstellar pirate prince, I stopped caring. Foolkiller just doesn’t quite work in the Defenders framework — should a guy with a ray gun really be such a challenge? — and although I’m sure Omega the Unknown’s story deserved to be finished, I wish it hadn’t been dragged into Defenders, even if Ruby Thursday was used to help finish it up. Nighthawk’s millionaire playboy identity is investigated by federal agents, but that story has already been done in Defenders. I don’t care about Valkyrie’s duties in Valhalla; although her interactions with our world are interesting, I don’t care about the war among the Asgardians, especially since it seems to be between Hela (the good guy!) and some upstart. A war in Asgard without Thor or Odin or Loki is pointless.

And there’s only so much of Hellcat’s “golly-whillikers-gee-whiz-shucks” dialogue I can take before I just pray someone beats the cornball right out of her.

The art comes mainly from Herb Trimpe and Don Perlin. Trimpe’s art is good, and as one of the definitive Hulk artists, he’s a good fit for the title. However, his run is marred by multiple inkers and is a good study in the effect different inkers can have on the same penciller. Perlin is a solid ‘70s / ‘80s artist, although perhaps not quite the equal of Trimpe. There’s also a few issues by Sal Buscema, and any chance to see him draw the Hulk is always a bonus.

I want to recommend this book, but I feel it’s missing something. It feels ragged, sometimes; the transitions between status quos aren’t quite as smooth as they should be. It also feels like it’s still having a bit of a hangover from Gerber’s days. It has big ideas that it can’t quite deliver on. To be fair, however, this book was quite forward thinking for its day, featuring strong, independent female leads in the ‘70s. (Not quite as strong as Chris Claremont women — there is such a thing as going too far, after all.)

Still, it falls short of being excellent.

Rating: (2 of 5)

Essential Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man, v. 3

Collects: Spectacular Spider-Man #54-74 and Spectacular Spider-Man Annual #3 (1981-4)

Released: February 2007 (Marvel)

Format: 536 pages / black and white / $16.99 / ISBN: 9780785125013

There’s not much to say about the Essential Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man, v. 3. Well, I suppose there is, but it’s mostly repeating how much I like the Essential Spectacular Spider-Man.

In v. 3, Spider-Man swings into his ‘80s heyday, with stories by two of the best Spider-writers from that time: Roger Stern (#54-61) and Bill Mantlo (#62-74). Stern has received a great deal of praise for his Spider-work, and although this isn’t the equal of his long run on Amazing Spider-Man, it has a lot of fun stuff with B-villains like the Jack o’ Lantern, Nitro, Will o’ the Wisp, the Ringer, and the Gibbon. He also throws in stories with three future Thunderbolts: the Beetle, Moonstone, and the Smuggler (Atlas / Goliath).

Mantlo’s run is more distinguished, creating Cloak and Dagger and introducing the Owl / Octopus War. Mantlo concentrated on “classic” villains — Electro, the Molten Man, Doc Ock — and brought back older villains with strong connections to Spider-Man: the aforementioned Molten Man, Robot Master, Silvermane. He treated the Kingpin as he had been treated in Daredevil: a force within the city who could be reluctantly used but had his own agenda. He also gave Kraven his mania for “honor” that would lead to his destruction.

Words can’t express how much fun these stories are. Few — Cloak and Dagger being the exception — are groundbreaking, but they’re solid superhero stories. There are some disappointments — the weak resolution to the Deb Whitman story stands out there — but overall, it’s a lot of fun.

The art isn’t going to make anyone forget Steve Ditko or John Romita, Sr., but there are echoes of both throughout. Pencillers and inkers come and go with regularity — editor-in-chief Jim Shooter did the layouts for three issues — but it’s all high-quality work that surprisingly works despite the number of different contributors. Jim Mooney and Ed Hannigan did the lion’s share of the work, with Luke McDonnell, Bob Hall, and Al Milgrom making significant contributions. Many others, like John Byrne and Rick Leonardi, pitch in an issue or two.

These issues represent a high level of quality and nostalgia for many collectors. They stand up well to time, and they don’t disappoint, a quarter century later.

Rating: (4 of 5)