Couple of upcoming Kirby reprints announced recently. The issues of MARVEL MYSTERY in the Masterworks edition has the first four Vision stories, a few never reprinted before. Looks like the current plan is for the softcover Masterworks to follow the release order of the hardcover series, running monthly, so expect two volumes each of FF, X-Men and Avengers and one of the Hulk in 2009. Not sure what’s in that Fantagraphics SUPERMEN book, a few things could qualify under the premise. And that reprint of Atlas in the back of a book of recent Superman stories is out of left field.

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SUPERMAN: THE COMING OF ATLAS HC
Written by James Robinson and Jack Kirby
Art by Renado Guedes, Jack Kirby, Jose Wilson Magalhaes and D. Bruce Berry
Cover by Alex Ross

Titans clash in this first hardcover collection of SUPERMAN tales from fan-favorite writer James Robinson (STARMAN)! Featuring SUPERMAN #677-680, this is the battle to end all others as Superman faces off with Atlas, lost god of myth. And when Atlas stakes a claim on Metropolis, it’s up to Superman and Krypto to take Atlas down.

As a bonus, this collection also includes FIRST ISSUE SPECIAL #1, the 1975 tale by Jack “King” Kirby that introduced Atlas!

on sale April 8 - 128 pg, FC, $19.99 US

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MARVEL MASTERWORKS: THE FANTASTIC FOUR VOL. 1 TPB
Written by STAN LEE
Penciled by JACK KIRBY
Covers by JACK KIRBY & DEAN WHITE

In 1961 Stan Lee and Jack Kirby lit the fuse on the greatest revolution in comic book history, the Marvel Age of Comics, and right here in the pages of The Fantastic Four, you can experience it from page one. With the space race, on Reed Richards, Ben Grimm, Sue Storm and Johnny Storm shoot for the stars, but after their craft is bombarded by cosmic rays, they return to Earth with the startling powers of the Fantastic Four! These weren’t just any super heroes, though, they were a realistic, relatable, bickering and loveable family that couldn’t float their rent and didn’t always enjoy their superpowers. So come join the Marvel Masterworks and witness the first appearance of such Marvel U. cornerstones as the Skrulls and Dr. Doom, the Sub-Mariner’s return, the debut of the Mole Man and his many monsters, Miracle Man, the Puppet Master and more! Collecting THE FANTASTIC FOUR #1-10.

272 PGS/All Ages …$24.99

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MARVEL MASTERWORKS: GOLDEN AGE MARVEL COMICS VOL. 4 HC
Written by JOE SIMON, RAY GILL, ANDREW MCWHINEY & VARIOUS
Penciled by CARL BURGOS, BILL EVERETT, JACK KIRBY, PAUL GUSTAVSON, STEVE DAHLMAN, BOB OKSNER & BEN THOMPSON
Cover by ALEX SCHOMBURG

And now the flagship title of Marvel’s Golden Age REALLY heats up! From day one Marvel Comics brought you CarlBurgos’ blazing Human Torch and Bill Everett’s undersea powerhouse Sub-Mariner, but two of the Golden Age’s most thrilling characters just wasn’t enough for MARVEL MYSTERY COMICS–Enter, the Vision! Created by Timely’s titanic team of Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, the Vision, burst into the Earthly world via Professor Enoch Mason’s dimension smasher and brought to MARVEL MYSTERY COMICS an eerie crime-noir serial that sealed the comic’s place at the very top of the Golden Age’s greatest! Joined by the crime-fighting Angel, boy-adventurer Terry Vance, the caterwauling science fiction tales of Electro, and Ka-Zar’s jungle action, there’s no comparison for variety and excitement, so celebrate Marvel’s 70th anniversary and reserve your copy today! Collecting MARVEL MYSTERY COMICS #13-16.
280 PGS/All Ages …$59.99

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SUPERMEN! THE FIRST WAVE OF COMIC-BOOK HEROES (1939-41)
Edited by Greg Sadowski; Introduction by Jonathan Lethem

Of the 22 stories appearing in SUPERMEN! the vast majority haven’t seen print since first publication, including the notorious 1939 Wonder Man debut by Will Eisner. Wonder Man lasted one issue after a successful DC Comics lawsuit cited the similarity to its son of Krypton.

This lawsuit inspired more individual and offbeat approaches, and it’s on these mavericks and oddballs we focus this collection. The roster features such notables as Basil Wolverton, Jack Kirby, Jack Cole, Fletcher Hanks, Ogden Whitney, Lou Fine, Charles Biro, Fred Guardineer, and Dick Briefer. Fighting villainy is hard work and in SUPERMEN! it’s downright ruthless.

SC, 8 1/2 x 11, 176 pages, FC, $24.99

Available now, JACK KIRBY’S THE DEMON OMNIBUS collects the entire 16 issue series by Kirby from the early 1970s in one volume. Great stuff, and with the exception of one digest-sized reprinting of the first issue the first time any of that stuff was been reprinted.

Bunches of recently announced upcoming Kirby. TwoMorrows brings the COLLECTED KIRBY COLLECTOR up to the end of the standard magazine format issues. All the tabloid issues are still available, so no idea if they’ll ever collect those in some format. And of course they continue with #52 (#51 should be out in a few weeks). DC collects Kirby’s dozen issues of OUR FIGHTING FORCES featuring The Losers, some great stuff in there. Marvel starts a softcover version of their Masterworks line. A few pages of Kirby inked by Ditko in that first release, obviously expect much more Kirby in other probable releases. The old Masterworks hardcover line is still catching some strays, like one Kirby story and a bunch of covers in the second Human Torch volume. And the original X-Men get a thick OMNIBUS volume collecting all of the issues with Kirby pencils and layouts and beyond, including almost all the covers he had a hand in.

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COLLECTED JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR - Volume 7
288 page Trade Paperback - Edited by John Morrow

This seventh trade paperback completes the compilations of the first thirty regular-size issues of The Jack Kirby Collector, the critically acclaimed magazine about Kirby’s life and career. This volume reprints Jack Kirby Collector #27-30, with in-depth looks at Jack’s 1970s Marvel Comics work, and his ’80s work in comics and animation, plus a special two-part focus on how widespread Kirby’s influence is! It features rare interviews with Kirby himself, plus new interviews with Watchmen’s ALAN MOORE and DAVE GIBBONS, NEIL GAIMAN, Bone’s JEFF SMITH, MARK “Luke Skywalker” HAMILL, and others! See page after page of rare Kirby art, including a NEW special section with over 30 pieces of Kirby art never before published, and more! Edited by John Morrow.
ISBN-13: 978-1-605490-12-0
ISBN-10: 1-605490-12-1
$29.95 US

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THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR #52
Winter 2009 - 84 pages - Tabloid Format

This issue spotlights Kirby Obscura, uncovering some of Jack’s most obscure work! Learn about such little-known projects as an unused Thor story, his unseen Bruce Lee comic, his animation work, his stage play, and see original unaltered versions of pages from Kamandi, Demon, Destroyer Duck, and more! It also includes a feature examining the last page of his final issue of various series before editorial tampering (complete with lots of surprises)! There’s also Mark Evanier’s regular column about his former boss, two huge Kirby pencil art galleries, a complete Golden Age Kirby story, a color Kirby front cover inked by DON HECK, and a color back cover inked by PAUL SMITH! Edited by John Morrow.
$10 US

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THE LOSERS BY JACK KIRBY HC
Written by Jack Kirby
Art by Jack Kirby, D. Bruce Berry & Mike Royer
Cover by Jack Kirby & Mike Royer

For the first time, Jack Kirby’s tales of World War II are collected! In 1974, while Jack Kirby was hard at work on such mind-bending epics as MISTER MIRACLE and KAMANDI, he also created a series of stories that drew on his own experiences in World War II. Starring DC war heroes Johnny Cloud, Captain Storm, Gunner and Sarge, this volume features stories in which The Losers stop a German attack using a tactic found in a comic book, German and American athletes who faced each other at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin meet again on the field of combat, and much more! Don’t miss this amazing collection of tales from OUR FIGHTING FORCES #151-162, and featuring a foreword by best-selling author Neil Gaiman (THE SANDMAN).

on sale March 11
240 pg, FC, $39.99 US

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THE X-MEN OMNIBUS VOL. 1 HC
Written by STAN LEE & ROY THOMAS
Penciled by JACK KIRBY, JAY GAVIN,
WERNER ROTH & JACK SPARLING
Covers by JACK KIRBY & ALEX ROSS

In 1963 the slow boil of the Marvel super-hero revolution exploded in a full eruption with a slate of new heroic adventurers that redefined comic-book adventure forever. Joining the Fantastic Four, the Amazing Spider-Man, Ant-Man, Hulk, Thor, Iron Man and Dr. Strange came the Avengers and an odd sister book featuring a weird assortment of brand new characters: Cyclops, the Beast, Iceman, the Angel, Marvel Girl, and the mysteriously-named Professor X. They were the X-Men, and little did anyone know that they would come to take the comic book business by storm. Stan Lee and Jack Kirby billed their new creations “The Strangest Super-Heroes of All!” and while their mutant powers were certainly weird, the binding concept of this band of heroes, a group feared, hunted and hated because the of prejudice of their fellow man was pure Marvel relevance, striking at the heart of Civil Rights battles of the time. So join us as we collect in this massive, painstakingly restored, archival volume as we recount the earliest adventures of the world’s most-famous super-hero team as they encounter for the very first time their nemesis Magneto, the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, the Juggernaut, Ka-Zar and the Savage Land, Master Mold and the Sentinels, and many more of Marvel’s greatest heroes and villains. Supplemented with a bevy of behind-the-scenes bonus material, critical and historical essays, and original artwork, this volume is a bona fide must-have for each and every X-addict! Collecting THE X-MEN #1-31.
768 PGS./All Ages …$99.99
ISBN: 978-0-7851-2958-5

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MARVEL MASTERWORKS: THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN VOL. 1 TPB
Written by STAN LEE
Penciled by STEVE DITKO with JACK KIRBY
Cover by JACK KIRBY & STEVE DITKO

Celebrate Marvel’s 70th anniversary by experiencing the tales of the world’s most-famous super heroes from the very beginning! The Marvel Masterworks have brought readers deluxe hardcover collections of Marvel’s classics from the Golden Age, Atlas Era, and the mighty Marvel Age, and now you can join in the Masterworks excitement with our new, monthly Marvel Masterworks trade paperbacks. And where better to start than where comics’ most robust line of archival comic collections began-the Amazing Spider-Man! In 1962 in the pages of a comic book slated for cancellation, Stan Lee and Steve Ditko gave birth to one of the most-enduring icons in American popular culture-the one and only Amazing Spider-Man! Turning the concept of a super hero on its head, they imbued the young, guilt-ridden Peter Parker with the fantastic powers of an arachnid and the fantastic pressures of an everyday teenager. The combination was pure magic. So join us in the following pages as we present stories of spectacular web-slinging adventure from Spidey’s very beginning including, the tragic origin that started it all, the first appearances of the Daily Bugle, J. Jonah Jameson, Doctor Octopus, the Sandman, the Vulture, Electro, and guest-star nods by the Fantastic Four and Human Torch. And to top it off, we’ve packed this volume full of bonuses galore, including the complete original artwork to Spider-Man’s Amazing Fantasy #15 origin from the Library of Congress archives! Collecting AMAZING FANTASY #15 & THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #1-10.
272 PGS/All Ages …$24.99
ISBN: 978-0-7851-3692-7
MARVEL MASTERWORKS: THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN VOL. 1 TPB - DM ONLY
272 PGS/All Ages …$24.99
ISBN: 978-0-7851-3693-4

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MARVEL MASTERWORKS: THE HUMAN TORCH VOL. 2 HC
Written by STAN LEE & LARRY IVIE
Penciled by DICK AYERS, BOB POWELL, CARL BURGOS & JACK KIRBY
Cover by JACK KIRBY

Hot dog! It’s a treat, the swingin’ ’60s solo adventures of the Human Torch come to cacophonous conclusion in this much-demanded Masterworks milestone! Written by the one-and-only sultan of the Silver Age, Stan Lee, and illustrated by the Bullen’s professor of penciling, Darlin’ Dick Ayers, these tales of the Torch (and his odd-couple partner, the ever-lovin’ blue-eyed Thing) are bona fide and certified cover-to-cover fun! Join in as the Torch tests his mettle against the Wizard, the riotous Rabble Rouser and Plantman. Then, place your bets in the battle of fire and ice between Johnny Storm and the X-Men’s Iceman, illustrated by Jack Kirby! After that we waste no time because it’s team-up time. The Thing joins the show and wastes no time getting down to clobberin’ time vs. Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch, Paste-Pot Pete, the Beetle (not those Beatles, they come later), the Mad Thinker and the Puppet Master. And before we close it all down comes…the Watcher! Guest-staring the Amazing Spider-Man, the X-Men, four guys named John, Paul, George and Ringo, and if that doesn’t sell you on it, then I’ve got five words that will: “Thing in a Beatle wig.” That’s it! We stuck a fork in ya. So reserve that copy today, True Believer! Collecting STRANGE TALES #118-134
256 PGS./All Ages …$54.99
ISBN: 978-0-7851-3505-0
MARVEL MASTERWORKS: THE HUMAN TORCH VOL. 2 HC - VARIANT EDITION VOL. 113
256 PGS./All Ages …$54.99
ISBN: 978-0-7851-3506-7

Congratulations to Joe Simon, born 95 years ago today.

As usual for all your Joe Simon needs I refer you to Harry Mendryk’s S&K Blog, and look out for several books by Simon in the next year.

Daniel Best has an excerpt from an interview with Mike Esposito where he talks about Jack Kirby’s artwork and the points where their careers intersected. Give it a read.