As part of their celebration of the 100th anniversary of the birth of Jack "King" Kirby, DC has been publishing a bunch of specials featuring characters he worked on or created for the company. My favorite so far has been the Sandman Overdrive Special. It has two new Sandman stories and some short reprints in the back. The creative teams really did a nice job on this entertaining issue.
What made it even more special, and of interest to this group, is the two-page spread showing the many monitors in the Dream Dome featuring Kirby Karacters, some even from his Marvel days.
If you didn't see it the first time, here's a close-up cut.
Goody Rickels has survived into the 21st Century! Thanks to writer Dan Jurgens and artist Jon Bogdanove for remembering.
--your pal, Hoy
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I saw that, and was filled with delight!
I haven't looked at any of these yet, just been letting them pile up to take in later. But the more i hear little things like this, the better they seem like they're going to be.
Manhunter and the Golden Age Sandman both appeared in Adventure Comics, of course. S&K apparently intended to call Manhunter Rick Nelson; the Paul Kirk name was from the series it replaced, "Paul Kirk, Manhunter". This was a feature about a private detective drawn by Ed Moore.
It's been pointed out that Kirby likely intended old Manhunter from 1st Issue Special #5 to be Kirk. I never figured that out for myself. I think Kirby may have taken the secret society element from the Hillman's "Gunmaster" series, which he drew a few instalments of.
If anyone's forgotten, Simonson wrote and drew the ongoing Orion in 2000-2002. The net tells me DC released an omnibus a couple of years ago.
The Bronze Age Sandman was at least as much Joe Simon's creation. A rough of the first cover exists drawn by Jerry Grandenetti, who Simon regularly worked with in the period. I like the concepts introduced in the first issue - the Dream Dome, the Sandman's dream monitoring - but otherwise I like the Fleisher/Kirby issues more. The joke at the heart of the series was Sandman was the Sandman of legend playing superhero, like Thor at Marvel, but I think it was possible to miss it.
My favorite of the Kirby specials so far has been Manhunter, with Sandman a close second. Today will see the release of two: Black Racer/Shilo Norman and Darkseid.
It would have been nice if the Bronze Age Manhunter could have been Paul Kirk, but the Goodwin/Simonson series precluded that. Still, if one ignores that series (or imagines it’s set in another universe or something), there’s nothing that really contradicts the Golden Age continuity. (It also would have been nice if Challengers of the Unknown had lasted until Kirby’s return so that “Fourth World” elements could have been folded into it rather than Jimmy Olsen.)
In his essay in the Manhunter special, Mark Evanier confirms what Luke posted about the editor carrying over the name “Paul Kirk” from the previous feature. He also says that Kirby was not particularly interested in working with Joe Simon (or any other writer, for that matter) again, but he reluctantly agreed to illustrate Simon’s script for Sandman and make any editorial changes he saw fit (which, Evanier asserts, weren’t many).
I've gotta think that Goody Rickels has gotten more from his brief appearances in two issues of SPJO than any other character in comics. I can't think of another character who has done less and yet remains beloved and fondly remembered to this very day. I think DC missed a real opportunity here by not devoting an entire special just to Goody. I would've made a special trip to the ol' LCS for that. I wouldn't have even asked... I would've just bought it!
...Did Goody have a brother who made a career of the U.S. Navy? Cmdr.?
Yeah, I think he was a Chief Petty Officer.
He had a lot of brothers. One brother was a potato, and another was a hockey puck.