r/comicbookcollecting

Been looking for this book forever and found it in person at a local con over the weekend! Ended up trading a couple books and cash for it but psyched to have it in my hands!

I just got the SS4 and I wanted to show all my reddit buddies the haul. Ive had these other issues in storage but I took them out cause im slowly moving my stuff out.

... and I finally got it. Thor, Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, and Mangog - what more reason does a comics fan need to be in absolute ecstasy?

Recently purchased. Just curious what the community thought. Was $3900 too much?

So I built a 270+ piece Kirby archive organized around a single thesis. Every item is here because it proves something (for the most part , some issues are just me being a fan of the art)

Full holdings list below.

this archive exists because it proves something specific about Jack Kirby’s authorship, range, or significance across his full 55-year career. 1939 to 1994. Thirteen publishers. No original art — only published comics and printed artifacts and ephemera . The publication record is the score, not the performance. But the score is what establishes authorship, chronology, and influence.

The thesis: Kirby was a sovereign creative intelligence whose imagination didn’t change when his collaborators changed. Simon took credit in the 40s. Lee took credit in the 60s. DC gave proper credit in the 70s. The work on the page stayed the same. The variable was never the collaborator. The variable was always Kirby.

Instead of chasing Marvel keys printed in massive quantities (which I love the most) , I started with stuff that’s scarcer, cheaper, and more forensically useful — the pre-Marvel material where credit was never contested. You establish the control case before you prosecute the contested territory. Genre inventions rank above genre contributions. Formation-period documents rank above peak-fame artifacts.

I crack slabs. Grade preservation is subordinate to forensic access. I need to see the pages, not protect a number. I’m not interested in spine tics.

The archive is organized in tiers. Not a quality hierarchy — an acquisition-priority structure based on scarcity economics and forensic sequencing.

TIER 1 — Primary Cosmology / Genre Origin / Autobiographical Anchor

Full authored myth systems, genre inventions, structural pivots, and the singular biographical document.

Golden Age / Formation Period (1939–1954):

∙ Famous Funnies #61 (August 1939) — Oldest document in the archive. Contains an original house ad for “Lightnin’ and the Lone Rider” credited to “Lance Kirby.” Earliest known original work published under the Kirby name in a comic book.

∙ Famous Funnies #63 (1939) — First “Lance Kirby”-credited Lone Rider strip. Birth certificate of the feature.

∙ Famous Funnies #66 (1940) — Copy A

∙ Famous Funnies #66 (1940) — Copy B

∙ Famous Funnies #73 (1940)

∙ Blue Bolt v1 #5 (1940) — First documented Kirby Krackle (page 4, last panel). Confirmed by the Kirby Museum as the earliest known instance. Coverless, 10 pages. 9x scarcer than Cap #1 by graded census.

∙ Blue Bolt v1 #6 (November 1940) — Pre-Cap formation artifact. Simon & Kirby credited on interior splash. Published four months before Captain America #1. Coverless copies of Cap from the same window go for $3,000–$6,000. I paid a fraction of that.

∙ Blue Bolt v1 #8 (January 1941) — CGC census: 13 total graded copies. Coverless, 0.3.

∙ Boy Commandos #5 (1943) — Wartime Simon & Kirby. Scale-production in the peak mass-market era.

∙ Boy Commandos #2 (Spring 1943) — The sole documented S&K double-page splash from the entire DC 1940s period. Mendryk describes it as “all-over composition as if Jackson Pollock had become comic book artist.”

∙ Young Romance #6 (1948) — Romance genre invention. S&K created a market category, not just competed inside one.

∙ Black Magic #1 (1950) — Genre origin. Pre-Code horror invention. S&K created the horror comic template before the EC era.

∙ Headline Comics #23 (March 1947) — Genre origin. S&K crime invention at Prize. All art penciled and inked by Kirby, unsigned — they deliberately omitted credits because they were simultaneously producing crime stories for Hillman.

∙ Fighting American #1 (1954) — Superhero reinvention/critique. S&K retooling their own earlier grammar.

∙ Police Trap #1 (1954) — S&K as publishers (Mainline). Vertical-integration attempt.

∙ Police Trap #2 (November 1954) — Studio Style apex. “Desk Sergeant” demonstrates peak heavy brush rendering before the Austere transition.

∙ Bullseye #2 (October 1954) — Mainline self-publishing. Contains “Grand Prize,” penciled and inked by Kirby — humor as dominant register, self-inking channeled into comedy where Police Trap #2 channels it into gritty realism. Same production month.

∙ Warfront #28 (January 1956 cover date / 1954 actual production) — Mainline inventory burn-off. Mendryk proves the cover art is an unused piece originally drawn for Foxhole #2.

Genre Pivot / Proto-Marvel (1957–1959):

∙ Challengers of the Unknown #6 (1958)

∙ Challengers of the Unknown #8 (1959)

∙ The Double Life of Private Strong #1 (1959) — Archie experiment.

∙ The Double Life of Private Strong #2 (1959) — Archie publisher representation.

∙ Adventures of the Fly #1 (1959)

∙ Adventures of the Fly #2 (1959)

Triple-Derivation Timestamp / Proto-Fourth World Seed Vault:

∙ Alarming Tales #1–2 (1957) — Three proto-concepts that became major DC properties, all timestamped September 1957. Proto-Kamandi. Proto-Project Cadmus. Proto-Mobius Chair. Each deployed 14–15 years later.

Pre-Marvel Derivation Timestamps:

∙ Black Cat Mystic #59 (September 1957) — Two major derivation timestamps. First story: five mutants born with innate powers, confined by the government, band together and escape — the X-Men premise six years early. Second story: African tribe worshipping a giant stone head, shaman dressed as an astronaut — proto-Eternals eleven years before von Däniken.

∙ Yellow Claw #2 (1956) — Triple-function forensic document. Iron Man origin story seven years early (every structural beat of TOS #39). Born-mutant evolutionary team — X-Men concept with zero Lee involvement. And Mendryk calls it among Kirby’s finest self-inking. Brevoort confirmed the mutant connection.

Full Myth Systems — Complete Kirby Authorship:

∙ New Gods #1–19 (complete)

∙ Forever People #1–11 (complete)

∙ Mister Miracle #1–18 (complete)

∙ The Demon #1–16 (complete Kirby run)

∙ OMAC #1–8 (complete)

∙ Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #133–148 (complete Kirby run)

Primary Autobiographical Document:

∙ Argosy Vol 3 #2 (1990) — “Street Code.” The only Kirby-authored life narrative in comics form. His Lower East Side childhood. Without it, the archive documents output. With it, it documents biography.

TIER 2 — Major Evolutionary Documents

Strong individual artifacts marking career transitions, genre experiments, cross-domain provenance, inking evolution, or biographical pivot points.

∙ Famous Funnies #78 (1941) — Extends the pre-war Famous Funnies cluster.

∙ Star Spangled Comics #40 (1945) — Newsboy Legion with the Guardian. Kid-gang lineage anchor.

∙ Terry and the Pirates #4 (1947) — Boy Explorers backup. Inventory-dump artifact from a cancelled Harvey title.

∙ Boy Explorers #1 (May–June 1946) — Post-war editorial independence. First title S&K produced after returning from military service. Contains a Joe Simon–penciled Wide Angle Scream — one of Simon’s rare penciling contributions and the only WAS he ever drew.

∙ Stuntman #1 (April–May 1946) — Post-war editorial independence + superhero reinvention + Wide Angle Scream specimen. The superhero half of the Harvey paired production.

∙ Stuntman #2 (June–July 1946) — Second and final newsstand issue. At time of acquisition, the only copy available on eBay. CGC 2.0.

∙ Headline Comics #27 (November 1947) — S&K crime at Prize. Kirby cover, 24 pages of Kirby interiors.

∙ Headline Comics #29 (May 1948) — S&K crime depth. Kirby cover and lead. Jerry Robinson and Mort Meskin stories.

∙ Headline Comics #33 (December 1948) — Studio expansion document. Ten artists identified with eight stories unattributed.

∙ Real Clue Crime Stories Vol. 2 #6 (August 1947) — The other side of the Headline #23 narrative. The archive now holds both sides of the dual-publisher crime operation.

∙ Western Fighters #1 (April 1948) — Terminal Hillman document. Last work S&K produced for Hillman. Cover pencils by Kirby, inks by Simon.

∙ Justice Traps the Guilty #4 (March 1948) — S&K crime at Prize. Companion crime title.

∙ Young Romance #26 (October 1950) — Pop Art provenance document. This cover appears on the wall in Richard Hamilton’s “Just What Is It That Makes Today’s Homes So Different, So Appealing?” (1956), the collage widely cited as the founding work of Pop Art. Hamilton selected a Kirby romance cover as his visual token of American popular culture.

∙ Boys’ Ranch #3 (1950) — Mendryk calls the double-page pinup “Kirby’s comic book equivalent of Jackson Pollock.” All-over composition with no single focal point.

∙ Real West Romances #1 (1949) — S&K romance genre extension.

∙ House of Mystery #65 (1957) — Pre-hero DC.

∙ House of Secrets #12 (1958) — Pre-hero DC Kirby. Mickey Mantle/Joe Louis back cover.

∙ House of Mystery #84 (1959) — “The Negative Man.” Kirby Krackle evolution node. Strongest pre-Marvel Krackle prototypes.

∙ Black Cat Mystic #58 (September 1956) — Earliest confirmed self-inked Harvey. Sole-authorship anchor.

∙ Black Cat Mystic #60 (November 1957) — Spider-Man derivation timestamp. Stan Taylor identifies “The Ant Extract”: a meek scientist discovers a serum giving him the proportional strength of an ant. Five years before Amazing Fantasy #15, zero Lee involvement. Also last Kirby BCM issue. Austere inking specimen.

∙ Tales of the Unexpected #18 (October 1957) — Cleanest self-inked Kirby Krackle prototype. No inker ambiguity.

∙ Sky Masters of the Space Force (1991 Special Edition / 1958 source) — Syndication document. Kirby/Wally Wood art pairing.

∙ Strange Worlds #4 (1959) — Pre-Marvel sci-fi.

∙ Young Romance #80 (December 1955) — Austere transition: earliest detectable tremor. First published signal that the Studio Style is breaking down.

∙ Classics Illustrated #35: The Last Days of Pompeii (March 1961, HRN 161) — 45 continuous pages of Kirby pencils and Dick Ayers inks, produced months before FF #1.

∙ World Around Us #30: Undersea Adventures (February 1961) — Pre-Marvel Gilberton document. GCD notes the character on page 51 strongly resembles Mastermind as he first appeared in X-Men #1.

∙ Amazing Adventures #1 (Atlas, June 1961) — “Dr. Droom”: westerner travels to Tibet, gains mystical powers. The mystic-hero origin template reused for Doctor Strange. Derivation timestamp.

∙ Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos #16 (1965) — Marvel war anchor.

∙ Thor #161 (1969) — Galactus/Ego. Kirby cosmic phase.

∙ Chamber of Darkness #4 (April 1970) — Terminal Marvel forensic specimen. The single most documented case of editorial destruction of a Kirby story. Four layers of intervention documented by Jon B. Cooke using Marie Severin’s xeroxes of the original pencils.

∙ Chamber of Darkness #5 (June 1970) — Terminal Marvel companion.

∙ Amazing Adventures #1 (Marvel, August 1970) — Kirby-dialogued Inhumans. Kirby wrote his own dialogue under contract — the direct control experiment against the “Kirby needed Lee” argument, inside Marvel’s own system.

Cross-Domain Evidence:

The archive documents two verified connections to the fine art world:

1. Young Romance #26 cover → Richard Hamilton’s founding Pop Art collage (1956). Held.
2. X-Men #1 panel → Lichtenstein’s “Image Duplicator” (1963, Seattle Art Museum). Documented by citation.

TIER 3 — DC Magazine Collapse / Inventory Burn-Off

∙ Spirit World #1 (1971)

∙ In the Days of the Mob #1 (1971)

∙ Weird Mystery Tales #1–3

∙ Forbidden Tales of Dark Mansion #6

∙ 1st Issue Special #1, #5, #6

TIER 4 — Complete Late-Career Runs

Original Kirby Creations — Marvel Return:

∙ 2001: A Space Odyssey #1–10 + treasury edition (11 items)

∙ Machine Man #1–9 (complete Kirby run)

∙ Devil Dinosaur #1–9 (complete)

Kirby on Existing IP — Marvel Return:

∙ Black Panther #1–13 (complete Kirby run)

∙ Captain America #193–214 + Annual #3–4 (24 issues, complete 1970s Kirby run)

Independence (1980s):

∙ Destroyer Duck #1 (1982) — Creator-rights document. Kirby pencils, Gerber script. Created to fund Gerber’s lawsuit against Marvel over Howard the Duck ownership.

∙ Silver Star #1–6 (complete) — Pacific Comics. Creator-owned.

∙ Battle for a Three Dimensional World (1982)

Fourth World Revision (1984):

∙ New Gods #1–5 (1984 DC reprint series) — Kirby returned to his own cosmology thirteen years later, contributing new covers and bridging material leading into The Hunger Dogs.

Terminal Career (1993–1994):

∙ Phantom Force #1 (December 1993) — First Phantom Force issue. Image Comics. Kirby pencils inked by eight different artists including Liefeld, McFarlane, Jim Lee, Silvestri, Larsen, Ordway.

∙ Phantom Force #2 (April 1994) — Last Kirby-drawn comic published during his lifetime. Kirby died February 6, 1994.

∙ Phantom Force #0 (March 1994) — Last art Kirby drew for comic-book publication. Published posthumously. Genesis West. Famous Funnies #61 is the origin point. This is the endpoint.

TIER 5 — Represented but Incomplete

The Marvel material lives here not because it’s secondary, but because it was printed in massive quantities and can wait. The earlier stuff is disappearing from the market.

∙ Strange Tales #95 (April 1962)

∙ Strange Tales #99 (August 1962)

∙ Battleground #14 (November 1956) — First Atlas freelance. Austere inking forensic document. Anomalous Studio-style inking at a late date proves the modes were a deliberate toolkit.

∙ Battle #64 (June 1959) — Atlas war. Caputo argues Kirby scripted based on stylistic markers.

∙ Battle #67 (December 1959) — Atlas war. FN- 5.5 — highest-grade Atlas book in the archive.

∙ First Love #69 (October 1956) — Kirby ghosting specimen. One page of Kirby pencils imitating Bill Draut’s style.

∙ Warfront #34 (September 1958) — Harvey cover document. Kirby attribution confirmed by inclusion in the Skirball Cultural Center’s 2025 Kirby retrospective.

∙ Blast-Off #1 (October 1965) — Harvey sci-fi inventory. Two Kirby stories inked by Al Williamson, drawn circa 1958 and published seven years later.

∙ Western Tales #31 (October 1955) — Post-Mainline Harvey. Full Studio Style inking. Davy Crockett stories. Kirby included Davy Crockett on the back cover of The Jack Kirby Treasury Volume 2 — when curating his own cross-publisher authorship statement, this character made the cut.

∙ Strange Tales #106 (March 1963) — Human Torch solo feature.

∙ Strange Tales #125 (1964)

∙ Fantastic Four #23 (February 1964) — Doctor Doom return.

∙ Fantastic Four #34 (1965)

∙ Fantastic Four #37 (1965) — Skrull homeworld.

∙ Fantastic Four #56 (1967) — Klaw. Black Panther arc.

∙ Fantastic Four #60 (1967) — Doom/Surfer cosmic-power arc.

∙ Fantastic Four #61 (1967)

∙ Fantastic Four #62 (1967) — Blastaar introduction.

∙ Fantastic Four #63 (1967)

∙ Fantastic Four #72 (1968) — Silver Surfer/Watcher.

∙ Fantastic Four #75 (1968) — Galactus/Silver Surfer.

∙ Fantastic Four #82 (1969) — Black Panther/Inhumans.

∙ Fantastic Four #86 (1969) — “The Victims!” Doctor Doom.

∙ Fantastic Four #200 (1978) — Anniversary issue. Kirby cover.

∙ Fantastic Four King-Size Special #6 — First Annihilus.

∙ X-Men #19 (April 1966) — Kirby cover-only. First Mimic.

∙ One pre-Marvel monster Tales to Astonish

∙ Tales to Astonish #83 (1966) — Hulk layouts, Sub-Mariner pencils.

∙ Tales of Suspense #92 (August 1967) — Margin-notes Rosetta Stone. Page 9 of the original art contains both Lee and Kirby margin notes identifiable by handwriting analysis — the only known page where both creators’ hands are visible.

∙ Captain 3-D #1 (December 1953) — Kirby Krackle chain. Mendryk determines inking by five hands including Simon and Ditko but not Kirby — the technique emerged from a collaborative environment before Kirby claimed it as his sole visual device.

∙ Marvel Treasury Edition #10 (1976) — Oversized Thor reprint.

∙ Thor #148 (January 1968) — First Wrecker. One of the strongest single-figure Kirby covers of the Marvel run.

∙ Thor #151 (February 1968) — Destroyer appearance.

∙ Justice Inc. #2–3 (1975) — DC twilight.

∙ Monster Menace #2 (January 1994) — Kirby’s first-person essay tracing his creative process through Atlas monsters to the invention of the X-Men, FF, Hulk, and Thor. While Kirby’s text repeatedly states “I created,” the companion editorial states “All the enclosed tales were written by Stan.” The institution published his testimony and overrode it on the same page.

NON-COMIC ARCHIVAL ARTIFACTS

∙ Kirby Unleashed Portfolio (1971) — \~5,000 printed.

∙ Jack Kirby’s “Gods” Art Portfolio (1972) — \~1,000 printed.

∙ Planetary Control Room (Interior) — Argo Film Concept Art print. 1978 CIA/Argo production design.

∙ Fantastic Films #16 (May 1980) — “Science Fiction Land” feature. Documents the project before the CIA narrative consumed it.

∙ Walt Disney’s The Black Hole — Jack Kirby Newspaper Comic Strip (Sunday, December 1979) — Original newspaper page.

∙ Le Trou Noir (EDI-Monde, July 1980) — French bande dessinée softcover collecting Kirby’s complete 26-week Black Hole newspaper strip. No English collected edition was ever published. Acquired from a seller in southern France via international wire transfer.

∙ The Jack Kirby Treasury Volume 2 (1982) — Signed and numbered 92/450 by Kirby and Greg Theakston. Front and back covers are original 1981 Kirby commissions selecting characters from across his entire pre-Marvel career. No Marvel characters appear. Four years after leaving Marvel while they refused to return his art, Kirby defined his own retrospective and edited Marvel out. First Kirby-signed object in the archive.

∙ Jack Kirby 70th Birthday Surprise Party Tribute Booklet (August 8, 1987) — 24-page commemorative. Original art by Moebius, Will Eisner, Joe Sinnott, Mike Royer, John Romita, Dave Stevens, Sergio Aragonés. Written tributes from Steve Gerber, Frank Miller, Roy Thomas, Mark Evanier, Julius Schwartz, and Stan Lee (a rhyming poem naming no specific works — the contrast with every other contributor’s substantive assessment performs the credit dispute without editorial comment). Distributed free at Kirby’s surprise birthday party during San Diego Comicon. Hakes sold a signed copy for $885 in 2012.

∙ The Comics Journal #134 (February 1990) — The most unfiltered, extended statement Kirby ever gave about Stan Lee, Marvel, and authorship. Over twenty pages. The interview is an act of self-archiving: Kirby creating the counter-record because he knew the official record was wrong and he was running out of time to correct it.

BY THE NUMBERS

~271 physical objects. ~262 comics, 9 non-comic artifacts. 13 publishers represented. Career span covered: August 1939 (Famous Funnies #61) to April 1994 (Phantom Force #0). Complete runs: New Gods, Forever People, Mister Miracle, Demon, OMAC, Jimmy Olsen, 2001, Machine Man, Devil Dinosaur, Black Panther, Captain America 70s, Silver Star. Genre-origin documents held for romance, horror, and crime. Mutant-concept-origin argument closed with two independent sole-authorship documents from 1956–57. Pop Art provenance closed. Kirby Krackle chain spans three anchors from origin to evolution. Inking thermodynamic sequence complete. Terminal Marvel forensic case anchored. Margin-notes forensic method grounded. Full career bookend physically held.

Biggest gaps: Kamandi #1–59 and Eternals #1–19 + Annual. Captain America is the most conspicuous absence.

Total spent on everything: less than most people pay for one high-grade Marvel key.

Curious if anyone else collects around a thesis or if I’m just organizing my obsession with unusual rigor.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

**

UPDATE — May 2026

The archive crossed 430 objects. 15 publishers. Both gaps I flagged in the original post are closed.

Kamandi #1–59 (complete run). The longest-running sole-authored DC title. Kirby wrote and drew #1–40. Derives from "The Last Enemy" in Alarming Tales #1 (1957) — a 15-year derivation chain under sole authorship.

Eternals #1–19 + Annual #1 (complete Kirby run). Sole-authored celestial cosmology. Complete cosmological system by one person. The cleanest demonstration of Kirby's authorial range at Marvel.

Sandman #1–6 (complete run). Simon & Kirby reunion on #1 — their final collaboration after 35 years (Young Romance 1947 through Sandman 1974). #6 inked by Wally Wood. First mainstream American comic to treat the space of dreams as a coherent mythological territory. The substrate Gaiman's 1989 run treats as canonical source material. Plus Best of DC #22 containing the unpublished Sandman #7 — the final Kirby Sandman story, originally slated for the cancelled seventh issue, then the cancelled Kamandi #61, then Cancelled Comic Cavalcade #2 (35 copies printed). First widely available printing. The Sandman run is now complete beyond what DC ever published as a run.

The Galactus Trilogy is complete. FF #48, #49, #50. All raw. The cleanest authorship proof in the Marvel catalog — the Surfer entered on the pencils with no script input, Lee saw the finished pages and immediately claimed the character's "soul," then gave the solo book to Buscema while Kirby was still at Marvel. That reassignment is the load-bearing evidence piece.

The FF cosmological spine (#45–52) is now held at seven of eight structural targets. First Inhumans (#45), first full Black Bolt (#46), Attilan mythology expansion (#47), Galactus Trilogy (#48–50), first Black Panther (#52). The only gap is #51 ("This Man, This Monster" — the craft peak, but structurally optional). Two complete sovereign civilizations introduced seven months apart — Attilan and Wakanda — both Kirby-designed, both technologically superior, both ruled by dignified monarchs. The Lockjaw derivation chain now closes end-to-end: Punch and Judy Vol. 2 #11 (Hillman, 1947) contains the name and bulldog concept; FF #45 (1965) contains the payoff. 18-year chain documented at both endpoints.

All four founding Kirby Marvel hero titles are now represented: Fantastic Four, Thor, X-Men, and Avengers.

• Avengers #8 — First Kang the Conqueror. The temporal-identity recursion (Rama-Tut → Kang → Scarlet Centurion → Immortus) is pure Kirby architecture with no precedent in Lee's independent work. CGC 2.5, slab to be cracked.
• Avengers #2 — First Space Phantom. Hulk quits the team in the second issue — Kirby building instability into the architecture from day two. CGC 2.0.
• X-Men #8 — First Unus the Untouchable. Full Kirby interior pencils from the early phase before Werner Roth took over. CGC 4.0.

The JIM-era Thor run densified across nine issues spanning October 1964 to November 1965. JIM #106–109, #115–116, #119, #121–122. These are the earliest primary documents in the archive from the JIM-era run, pushing coverage back two full years before the existing Thor #131. #109 is the inter-title villain migration document — first Magneto outside X-Men, the original Brotherhood crossing into Thor's book. Characters move between Kirby's titles because Kirby is drawing all four founding hero titles simultaneously, not because editorial committee later coordinated a "shared universe." #119 is the first Destroyer — one of the strongest single-design statements of the JIM era, the armor itself as character, no internal occupant.

The complete Galactus narrative Kirby produced at Marvel is now held — first appearance through cosmogonic origin.

• Thor #160–162: Galactus/Ego arc. #161 is the only issue where Kirby stages two of his own cosmic creations in direct confrontation. #162 begins the Galactus Origin — not a character backstory but a creation myth, the birth of a god out of the death of a universe.
• Thor #168–169: Galactus Origin conclusion. The World of Taa. Galan's transformation at the instant of cosmic renewal. #168 contains a documented Lee/Kirby authorial-intent divergence — Kirby's pencils establish the pre-Watcher as an inquisitive scientist; Lee's script rewrites it as a plague.
• Thor #133: First Ego the Living Planet. A planet that is a character — no precedent in any prior comics or SF literature.
• Thor #134: First High Evolutionary + First Man-Beast. Genetic engineering as cosmic-scale ambition, three decades before the discourse caught up.
• Thor #146–147 close the structural link the archive was missing. The Inhumans backup feature reveals the Inhumans as a Kree genetic experiment. Without these issues, the Kree and Inhumans are parallel Kirby inventions; with them, they are a single interconnected cosmic system. The Kree's interest in Earth predates every Marvel hero by thousands of years. Kirby was building deep-time infrastructure underneath the hero titles.

Silver Surfer #18 — Terminal Kirby Surfer. The Lee-Buscema solo run is Lee's strongest authorship claim anywhere in the catalog. SS #18 is Kirby returning to rebut that claim visually. The Kirby Surfer does not brood. He fights, rages, is driven by confusion and raw reaction. Consecutive-month Inhumans A/B test: Amazing Adventures #1 (August 1970) is Kirby writing and drawing Inhumans with full writer-artist credit; SS #18 (September 1970) is Kirby drawing the same characters under Lee dialogue. Same creator, same characters, two production modes, consecutive cover dates.

What If? #11 — The only Fantastic Four story where Kirby received a writing credit. After 100+ issues of uncredited plotting. He cast Lee as Mr. Fantastic, himself as the Thing, Flo Steinberg as Invisible Girl, and replaced Roy Thomas with Sol Brodsky — real bullpen over received history. Thomas had to change every "Stanley" in the script to "Stan." Lee was irked whenever Kirby used his birth name.

Tales of Suspense #94 — First MODOK. Body-horror-through-engineering in undiluted form. Giant cranium, atrophied limbs, mechanical suspension chair as life-support exoskeleton. No part of MODOK as a visual entity exists without Kirby's hand.

Marvel Treasury Special: Captain America's Bicentennial Battles — 81 pages, sole-authored, treasury format. Time-travel through American history — Ellis Island, Revolutionary War, Civil War, Depression, near-future nuclear war. The prestige answer to the complaint that Kirby's 1970s dialogue was "stilted."

FF #65 — First Ronan the Accuser. Not just another first appearance — Ronan is the visible judicial/military arm of the Kree Empire, the character through whom Kirby introduces the Kree as an imperial power operating on civilizational scale. The Universal Weapon is the same Kirby design logic as the Ultimate Nullifier and the Anti-Life Equation: cosmic power condensed to a single mechanism.

New complete runs: Captain Victory #1–13 + Special #1 (first creator-owned Kirby series, Pacific Comics, 1981–84). Secret City Saga #0–4 (Kirby's final original comics project, Topps 1993, designed at age 75–76). The Hunger Dogs (DC Graphic Novel #4, 1985 — Fourth World endcap).

New publishers: J.C. Penney (48 Famous Americans, 1947, S&K studio corporate giveaway) and Esquire Inc. (Esquire #402, May 1967 — Kirby drawing the JFK assassination aftermath for a mainstream prestige magazine, completely outside the comics industry). 15 publishers total.

Other new formation-period and Harvey acquisitions: Challengers of the Unknown #3 (the complete FF operating system three years early — four-person team, experimental rocket flight, flight failure, transformation on return, distributed powers — the most expensive single issue in the archive). Race for the Moon #1 and #3 (Harvey sci-fi cluster, #3 is Kirby/Williamson craft peak). Boys' Ranch #1 (S&K western kid-gang origin). Punch and Judy Vol. 2 #9 and #11 (S&K's first funny-animal work; #11 contains the Lockjaw name 18 years before FF #45). Airboy Comics Vol. 4 #9 (completes the four-genre Hillman cross-section). Adventure Comics #256 (Green Arrow origin). Cracked #14 (Kirby's only humor-magazine contribution — 14th publishing relationship).

New non-comic artifacts: The Silver Surfer: The Ultimate Cosmic Experience (1978 Fireside graphic novel, Lee/Kirby, among the earliest American graphic novels). Jack Kirby: The Unpublished Archives complete trading card set (Ruby-Spears production archive, 90 cards). Three first-generation Thundarr the Barbarian staff model cel copies from the Alex Toth archival collection. The Art of the Simon and Kirby Studio (Abrams, 2011).

By the numbers now: ~430 objects. 15 publishers. Both original gaps closed. The FF cosmological spine held at 7/8 targets. The Galactus Trilogy complete. All four founding Kirby Marvel hero titles represented. Complete Galactus narrative from first appearance through cosmogonic origin. The Kree-Inhumans structural link closed. The Surfer authorship chain held end-to-end from FF #48 through Silver Surfer #18. 17 complete runs.

Won this yesterday in a local auction and I am beyond happy with it! Not only does it complete my SS run but to have it in such nice condition is a bonus!

What am I lookin at here?

I put the brakes on collecting at the start of the year except for LCS run fillers for ASM SpecSM and DD. Told myself I would hold out for ASM9 but couldn’t hold it in any longer. Wasn’t even drinking! Anybody else impulse buy like that? I blame this sub for showing me comics every day.

Two more books for my run, but way higher grades than I need for those issues.

I'm sad they never did the sixth book, as I learned about this series. I love this novel series.

Here are some of my favourite books. And they are my favourite, for so many different reasons.

Mostly I loved reading them. But there's more to it than that. I've realized though that, when I try to organize my collection, I look crazy.

There is no way that anyone, other than myself, looking at how I organize these books, would ever make sense to them.

Yes, I do have some reads collected together, but then I collect by artist? Or, I have other books of the same story, over there somewhere, in a different box... I've organized some by year, as a whole, like it's a museum, there's raw signed books mixed with non-signed.

I am a mess!