Escape To Mizar 5 is a new independent comic book about two career criminals who arrive in chains on a prison planet and take over the crime syndicate from the ground up. It’s a fun romp full of hustles, aliens, tough street talk, and laser blasters. The energetic artwork by Waranghira, especially the inking style and zip-a-tone, brings to mind the early days of Lawson & Lavigne on Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. We had a lot of fun reading it!
The story of Escape to Mizar 5 ties into a full-length space-rap concept album by authors Apeface & Crumplezone. The comic book tells of Apeface & Crumplezone’s interplanetary criminal adventures, and the 16 songs on the album follow that story, too. We were impressed with the smooth groove and high production values of the first single, One Night.
Apeface and Crumplezone have put together a great package: a radio-ready rap/R&B single and a hip indie comic to promote the full album. While gearing up for release this summer, they’ve given us permission to give you advance access to their tasty jams and their comic book. Enjoy Escape to Mizar 5!
Catch up with Apeface and Crumplezone on Facebook.
Last summer, we ran the complete splash and double-splash pages from Jack Kirby’s Black Panther series at Marvel. If you missed out on all the fun, click Black Panther Gallery to be magically transported to Wakanda!
Now we share with you the first issue of Kirby’s reality-warping run on Black Panther. Kirby introduces King Solomon’s Frog, the Creature from Hatch 22, and more. If you think this is over-the-top, it just gets crazier!
Jack Kirby’s first stab at adapting Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey won’t even fit on our scanner. It’s the Marvel Treasury Edition of 2001 and stays pretty faithful to the movie. After its success, Marvel gave Jack Kirby free reign to continue the story in his own cosmic way.
For the first 7 issues, Kirby takes human beings and transforms them into “New Seeds,” the interstellar babies that Dave becomes at the end of the movie. At the Jack Kirby Museum, they theorize this was Kirby’s coming to grips with death as yet another stage of human transformation, rather than the pointless tragedy he witnessed first hand on the battlefields of World War II.
That may be the case. We don’t know for sure. But we do know that these 2001 stories rock! Where do we sign up for the monolith transformation?! And dig all these awesome prehistoric mammals Kirby threw into the mix in issue one! Enjoy “Beast Killer!”
Marv Wolfman and George Perez took a lackluster DC property called Teen Titans and gave it a shot in the arm back in 1980. The Titans have done well since then, although never attaining the cult status of their contemporaries, the X-Men.
Wolfman and Perez created some new characters to spice up the dull routine Titans had become: Raven, Cyborg, and Starfire. The series kicked into high gear from the first panel, never slowing down for the usual hum-drum origin stories. Fans waited two whole years before Wolfman and Perez fully revealed the pasts of their new creations — and it was worth the wait!
Here is the complete origin of Koriand’r for you, the star-powered alien Princess who was sold into slavery, tortured, and ultimately empowered. It has been one of our favorite single issues ever since we first read it. If you like, check out our scans from New Teen Titans#1 later. The Titans’ first adventure centered around rescuing Koriand’r during her escape from the evil Gordanian Slavers. It’s a lot of fun!
By the 23rd Century, most animals had been destroyed, and Man survived on synthetic foods alone. But he still craved for real meat… With the discovery of time travel, he was able to go in search of it, back 65 million years to — the Age of the Great Dinosaurs!
Mars Will Send No More celebrates the original epic Flesh from 2000 AD magazine, created by Pat Mills and starring Old One Eye, the mother of Satanus! Fire up your electric whip and get ready for major dinosaur mayhem!
Collector’s Guide: Collected in Flesh: The Dino Files TPB; Rebellion, 2011. Originally printed in 2000 AD#1-19; Fleetway, 1977.
The slumbering leviathan known as Godzilla awakes and rises from the sea off the shores of Alaska. This reptilian titan left Japan devastated and now makes his way to America. Godzilla swings a tail that can smash mountains to dust. He breathes fires born of the Atomic Age. Is there anything that can stop the monster’s rampage?
In an age when giants walked the world, he was the mightiest of them all: Devil Dinosaur!
Jack Kirby‘s Devil Dinosaur and his pal Moon Boy inhabit “Dinosaur World.” Devil Dinosaur, as a result of a mutation, is bright red, smart as a human, and super-strong. It’s a fun ride, so hold tight to your Tyrannosaur and get ready to rock!
The first issue of Kull from 1971 packs so much action that we’d almost rather you just skip this exposition and get right into it. Roy Thomas gives the reader a novel’s worth of story in less than 25 pages. Hard to believe that fans got all that for 15 cents in 1971, when Marvel usually gives us 1/6 of a story for $3.99 now!
If you’re thinking Kull was just another Conan rip off, skip ahead to the last page in our gallery and get hip. Kull came first!
We love everything about this issue: Kull’s explanation that only the weak live in fear of words. Kull’s fatal solution for a girl sentenced to be burned alive. Kull’s entire mercenary career rendered in a splash page by Ross Andru and Wally Wood.
But most of all, Kull has one major cool factor that Conan lacked: He has magical powers from the Tiger Goddess. Yes! It sends us into a geek frenzy when Kull goes tiger-power! Dig page nine where Kull explains the moral superiority of the tiger, then gets apotheosized with the moon and a ghostly tiger form. Whoa! As much as we love the monsters, mayhem, and manning-out of this series, the Tiger Goddess really rocks our world.
Collector’s Guide: From Kull the Conqueror#1; Marvel, 1971. (Later, Kull the Destroyer.) As they’ve done with Conan, Dark Horse reprinted the Kull series in high quality collections: The Chronicles of Kull TPB.
1987 was an awesome year to be alive. The world wasn’t full of sensitive assholes talking about their “issues” and “managing their anger.” No! When we wanted to work out some aggression, we dressed up in barbed wire and leather and went out to kill superheroes! That’s right!
Why? Why?Because superheroes are scum! The lowest form of life! Superheroes are bacteria!
And to prove it, here’s the first issue of Marshal Law for you. Raging from the twisted minds of Pat Mills and Kevin O’Neill, Marshal Law will nuke you slowly, shatter your dreams, and disturb you for a long, long time. You’ll love it!
Miracleman#1. Here’s where the most celebrated comic book story of all time got its start. Witness the humble beginning where Miracleman tells his wife about his “secret origin”. She asks how she’s supposed to believe such a “bloody stupid story!” HA! Lady, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
This first issue should keep you busy while Marvel decides whether or not they can reprint the issues of ‘Marvelman’ anyone actually gives a damn about. (Update: They finally started reprinting the series in 2014, even though completing the Neil Gaiman issues of the Silver Age story is still ongoing in 2023.) “Behold! I teach you the superman! He is this lightning! He is this madness!” KIMOTA!
Collector’s Guide: -From MiracleMan#1; Eclipse, 1985. Story by Alan Moore, Art by Gary Leach. – Originally printed in Warrior Magazine#1-3 (black and white); Quality, 1982. – Reprinted in MiracleMan TPB#1; Eclipse, 1988. – Reprinted in Miracleman #1; Marvel 2015.
Kirby fans, have we got a treat for you today! You could have purchased the Jack Kirby Portfolio forty-one years ago for only four bucks. Hard to imagine, isn’t it, when that’s the cover price of a regular comic book today?
But we didn’t drag you here to discuss inflation — unless it’s the inflation of your cosmic being to universal proportions! So what say we just get out of your way so you can rock these amazing Jack Kirby images and historical drawings?
Collector’s Guide: From King Kirby Portfolio; 1971, Kirby Unleashed. Reprinted in 2004 as Kirby Unleashed. This edition is more often in stock than the original printing!
If you read our Top Ten Favorite Single Comics Issues, then you know we’re huge fans of Jim Lawson’s pure dinosaur comic series “Paleo: Tales of the Late Cretaceous.” This summer, Jim crafted a masterful new story called Loner for the Paleo series, and published it online — one page per day. Now, put down those copies of the DC re-launch and get hip to the REAL comic book event of the year: Loner!
Loner chronicles the life and times of a Tyrannosaurus Rex in the most savage, brutal, eloquent, poetic, and thoroughly riveting way. Jim tells his story with perfect pacing, every page and panel composed to convey exactly the right mood. Loner is also horrifying in a way that reminds us of Stephen King’s The Stand or Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian. Jim Lawson may have just produced the greatest pure dinosaur comic of all time — unless he’s got another one in the works!
But we like to let comic books speak for themselves. So, with Jim’s permission, dig this five-page opening sequence. Then surf on over to the offical Loner site. To read the pages in order, start with Page One and work your way through the whole story using the Archive section in Jim’s sidebar.
Today, we share with you the very first issue of Hero For Hire featuring the origin of Power Man. We always liked that Power Man mostly went by his real name of Luke Cage. If we were invincible and could smash walls with our fists, we’re pretty sure we’d just use our real name, too.
Luke has been alternately lauded as a positive step in multi-racial integration of super-heroes and lambasted as just an example of crass blaxploitation. In reality, he was probably a little of both. But, his character was solid, and he just gets better with age. We have some more recent Luke Cage goodies to share with you, including a slightly modified origin story where Cage ponders his incarceration in a stark contrast to his personal hero, the Black Panther, King of Wakanda.
Reptilicus! We almost put this in the Godzilla Gallery, because Reptilicus is basically Godzilla except he (she?) flies like Rodan. And instead of an atomic origin, Reptilicus is born of lightning — kind of like The Flash.
So, let’s rock this complete first issue of Reptilicus! If you’re like us, you’ll skip the sub-plots and human interest angle and just get right to the part where the monster freaks out! Also, we dig the three-page back-up story at the end.
Collector’s Guide: From Reptilicus#1; Charlton Comics, 1961.
2001 A Space Odyssey Treasury adapted by Jack Kirby
With a brain-stunning 82 giant size pages by King Kirby, Marvel’s Treasury Edition format brings the most cerebrally cosmic epic of all time to the world of sequential illustration. It’s bigger than big and huger than huge. This book won’t fit on our scanner, but you won’t regret buying it sight unseen. You might also enjoy the first issue of the ongoing Space Odyssey series Jack launched after this. READ MORE.
Paleo: Tales of the Late Cretaceous #6 by Jim Lawson
We have the collected TPB but that bad boy won’t fit on the scanner either — not without trashing the binding. We like #6 the best because it features an amazingly rendered dragonfly, and we like dragonflies a lot. It also has an interesting theme about the dragonfly’s masterful adaptation as a top predator in the insect world, versus his relative insignificance on the macro level of the dinosaurs. His struggle in the sap of a tree is epic in scale, though tiny in comparison — which may say something about our own lives. Brilliant! Here’s a dragonfly drawing Jim Lawson made for his wife. Special thanks to Colin and Jim for help completing our Paleo collection in single issue form! [2022 Update: Sometime after this posting, Jim made the complete original series available as a webcomic for free, but that site has since become unreachable.]
An empathic alien soldier psychically bonds with a giant alien whale in a desperate bid to bring his crew home alive. He feels the creature’s pain and fear, and also the immensity of his millenia-long existence. We love the theme of connecting to the indescribably entertwined joy and sadness of nature and her creatures. The poetry is both verbal and visual, and we rarely make it through a reading without getting a little misty-eyed. Truly an apex of science-fiction comics as art. READ IT.
You know Age of Reptiles is one of our favorite series of all time, and this issue stands out in particular. Just as Lawson’s epic dragonfly in Paleo shows nature on different scales, Delgado’s mighty dinosaurs become small and fragile in the face of incredible natural forces. Here, in splash page after wordless splash page, a giant flood brings total disaster to a valley of dinosaurs caught in the deluge. But even then, to some predators, it is less a tragedy than an opportunity. A brilliant visual poem about dinosaurs, life, and nature.
Saga of the Swamp Thing #34 by Moore, Bissette, and Totleben
By now you’re thinking we’re nature-loving hippies, and this pick won’t convince you otherwise. If only Ralph Waldo Emerson had lived to see this comic. Taking a break from the horror theme of the series, Moore scripts a passionate poem about life, love, and the unity of all beings and all forces. As Swamp Thing and his human companion declare their love for each other, they consummate through a psychedelic trip where they see the boundaries between them and the world dissolve like the illusions they are. They renew their spirits with a unified vision of the biosphere gorgeously rendered by the artists. READ IT.
Jack Kirby scores on our Top Ten a second time with The Bug! Although he has a human face under his mask, The Bug is filled with love for his fellow beings — even if they would cast him out for being different. Although an outsider, he believes that everyone can get along if they just try to understand each other as equals. Kirby crafts in a few short pages an appeal to seeing humanity as one, rather than dividing along lines of race, religion, and all the other ways we convince ourselves that other people are different from us. Pretty heady stuff for an adventure cartoon! READ MORE.
Tales of the New Teen Titans Mini Series #4 by Wolfman and Perez
This origin of Starfire narrowly edges out the intense story of Cyborg from issue one of this mini-series. Cyborg is one of our favorites, but Koriand’r is an alien princess who flies, shoots star bolts, and takes to battle as passionately as she takes to love. Here we get the painful story of her childhood and how she was sold into slavery and torture and eventually gained her power. Her ascent from the lowest depths of suffering to a transformed near-goddess always inspires us. READ IT.
Bissette makes our Top Ten list twice, scoring this time with a marvelously drawn and researched development of a fetal Tyrannosaurus Rex. At once entertaining, poetic, and biologically educational, this issue takes you from a single cell to a fully developed dinosaur ready to hatch and conquer the earth. Mom once asked us why we love comic books, and this is the first thing that came to mind. It isn’t all about dorks in tights punching each other. Comics can convey very sophisticated information about our world in a way that is worth a stack of college text books on the subject. READ MORE.
Secret Wars Vol. 1 #10 by Shooter, Zeck, and Beatty
Speaking of dorks in tights, this remains our favorite superhero mega-event to this day. Why? Dr. Doom takes on God — and wins! Through sheer will power, technological prowess, and force of character, he achieves what would be inconceivable to anyone else. “What is pain to one such as I? Pain is for lesser men! I am Doom!” There’s a million reasons to not make a role model out of Dr. Doom, but he’s been our hero ever since this monumental issue. We also like the graphic novel “Triumph and Torment” by Stern and Mignola, where he and Dr. Strange take on Satan — and win! Doom rules! Where’s our one-way ticket to Latveria?! READ MORE.
It’s hard to pick just one issue of Dreadstar or the Metamorphosis Odyssey as our favorite, but issue #4 has two pages that chalk up a victory here. Perhaps you need to read Dreadstar #1 to really understand the background of Oedi the Catman and “get” this scene. Dreadstar and his crew, including Oedi, are trying to end a galactic war that kills millions of people each year. Here, they must defend the life of a king — a king whose dynasty killed every last one of Oedi’s race. When Oedi saves the day by sending the assassin to his death, the king asks how the monarchy can possibly repay him. Oedi’s response always sends a chill right down our spine, no matter how many times we read it.
Nexus didn’t make this list because, well, we’d have to include all of the first 50 issues of Nexus, and that wouldn’t make much of a Top Ten! But we are going to get around that by mentioning our Secret Origin page, where you’ll find out how much we love Nexus #44 — and why this overly enthusiastic fan blog takes its name from that awesome issue.
Anyway, this entire site is about our favorite comics of all time — just keep coming back for more, Martians! We’d love to hear YOUR all-time favorites, so drop us a line sometime.
We present to you the first adventure of the 1980s revamp of the silver age team, Teen Titans. Okay — technically, it’s their second adventure. Their very first appearance was DC Comics Presents #26. That book might put a little ding in your wallet, but you can easily pick up the reprint in Tales of the New Teen Titans #59 for $1.
We also have a Teen Titans paperback book by Tor Press that reprints the first few issues in black and white. It’s how we discovered the Titans way back in 1982 or so. But enough nostalgia! Let’s rock the totally hot alien warrior princess escaping from her slave masters!
Earlier today, I posted the one Jack Kirby issue from Silver Surfer Volume 1. It’s packed with ethos, pathos, and every other -thos you can imagine. But Stan Lee & Jack Kirby weren’t always such serious guys! They liked a good laugh as much as a cosmic drama. Silver Surfer, Dr. Doom, and the Fantastic Four lighten up a bit in this demented story from the first issue of Not Brand Echh: The Silver Burper!
Paranoia ran for six issues in 1991-1992. Published by Adventure, a sub-label of Malibu Comics, Paranoia was based on a role playing game of the same name. It must have been one confusing game! Paranoia features a mind-warping drug-addled dystopia of cloned losers being controlled by the man — or something! We love the far-out story and the Sienkiewicz-style artwork. The game’s ironic tagline The Computer is Your Friend, which you can see on the cover of the comic books, has now earned a page on TVtropes.
Collector’s Guide: From Paranoia; Adventure, 1991. Story by Paul O’Connor; Art by Kipper
Would you like to dig an excerpt from the second issue of Paranoia? Then click it and remember to be happy …or else!
Stripped of his awesome armor, Victor Von Doom is stranded across the solar system on the world he once saved: Planet Doom! What does he do? Dr. Doom takes apart a lion with his bare hands, destroys a slaver’s mining compound and everyone in it, takes over the brain of a sea monster, and wipes out everyone in his path to conquest. THAT’S WHAT!
It’s over-the-top action from Chuck Dixon and Leonardo Manco that perfectly captures the character of Dr. Doom. Let’s look at the lion fight from the opening pages of Doom#1.
Collector’s Guide: From Doom#1. Reprinted in Doom TPB #1, 2002.
Here is the first issue of Kamandi, The Last Boy on Earth by Jack Kirby in all its magnificence! Kirby’s futuristic creation first hit the shelves in 1972. The action, adventure, epic double-splash pages, and fantastic talking animal-men continue to deliver an entertaining read, even forty years later. Awesome never goes out of style!
Collector’s Guide: In 2011, the Kamandi, The Last Boy On Earth Omnibus collected Jack Kirby’s first twenty issues on this series. DC also printed these issues in 2005-2007 in an affordable, two-volume Kamandi Archive Edition. If you don’t mind the price tags, you can still find many of the original issues of Kamandi in great shape. We’ll stick with the Omnibus, thank you!
What a great series! We’re partial to the first issue because it includes our favorite topics: The early universe, the beginning of life on earth, and of course Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Mammals!
Collector’s Guide: With Larry Gonick’s permission, we give you this sample of Cartoon History. Larry has collected editions of his complete Cartoon History at The OverEducated Cartoonist. From The Cartoon History of The Universe#1: The Evolution of Everything by Larry Gonick; 1978, Rip Off Press.
No spandex. No referring to yourself in the third person. Just a shambling muck-encrusted mockery of the man that once was Alec Holland… Swamp Thing! Here are his origin and very first issue for you to enjoy. And it only gets better from there!
Blood Lust of the Tupinamba (c) 1975 by Jim Hines appeared in Forbidden Knowledge #1, published by Last Gasp, 1978.
This is not fiction, and it is not for the easily disturbed. We don’t know exactly how Jim Hines did his research, but a German Soldier named Hans Staden was almost a victim of this cannibalistic ritual. He published a book about it in 1557 after returning to Europe. You can find out more about the Tupinamba, or Tupis, of Brazil on Wikipedia.
Collector’s Guide: Copies of Forbidden Knowledge #1 & #2 are sometimes available from Last Gasp.
In the first issue of Captain America, Nick Fury dresses up as Cap to save Bucky from a druidic faction of the KKK who lives in sewers. Will he free Bucky from the evil bomb in time?
Hey — Wait a minute… That’s not Captain America! Ha! Good catch, Martian. That’s Captain Battle#1, published in the summer of 1941. Captain America first appeared in March of 1941. Looks to us like another publisher was trying to cash in on the Cap craze! It’s a lengthy issue with plenty of Hitler-bashing you can find at the Digital Comic Museum.
You’ll find, below, the back-up tale featuring Blackout. A generation later, Marvel introduced a character named Blackout — a Nova villain by Marv Wolfman and Carmine Infantino. Marvel’s version was not a friend of the oppressed like his Golden-Age predecessor. He was a psychotic murderer who stole costume ideas from Electro. Blackout also gave the Avengers trouble in the awe-inspiring run by Roger Stern and John Buscema.