King Kobra!

Jack "King" Kirby's tenure at DC Comics in the early 70's was one of splendor as he was at long last able to realize some of his notions of how comics could be told, but also disappointment as he was eventually unable to follow through on his projects in the way he ideally desired. By the end of his tenure, he was just working to on random projects to play out the contract.

One of those random projects was "King Kobra" about a villainous mastermind who had a twin brother who was not an enemy of mankind and in fact who ended up working against him.

Kirby produced exactly one issue, but that one issue never really saw the light of day.

As Kirby was leaving, the project was snatched up and given over to up and coming Marty Pasko to rework along with Pablo Marcos who altered the art which needed altering. "King Kobra" was gone and in hits place was a short-lived comic book titled merely Kobra.

Kobra was part of the burgeoning "Conway's Corner" which was spearheaded by disaffected Marvel talent Gerry Conway. He came to DC at just about the moment Kirby left and co-created a number of titles.

Kobra he inherited, but with the help of Pasko and a cavalcade of artists attempted to make his own.  In issue two Chic Stone, a venerable inker of Kirby at Marvel took the art chores over with assistance from Marcos on inks.

The third issue showcased a newcomer named Keith Giffen helped by inkers Terry Austin and Dick Giordano. The covers for the first three issues had been done by Ernie Chua, an artist who was at the time doing a host of work for DC.

The fourth issue featured a dramatic cover by Joe Kubert. The artist inside was Pat Gabriele.

Issue five was the only issue to that point in which the cover and the interiors were done by the same artist, the always reliable Rich Buckler. By the time, the haphazard nature of Kobra was part of its charm.

With the seventh issue Michael Nasser / Netzer took the helm on art and Kobra seemed to have found its first regular artist after a half dozen issues on the stands. But it was not for long.

Nasser and Pasko wrapped up the series with the final issue and like that Kobra faded from the stands.

A final issue of Kobra was produced but was not published as such, but instead became a Batman story of sorts and was jammed into the debut issue of DC Special Series.

Kobra has gone one to become of DC's reliable mastermind villains, but it's amazing really given the ramshackle nature of the characters initial presentation to the public. It's speaks perhaps to the absolute power of Kirby's original concepts, a mutated by Conway and others as they had become.

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All-Star Comics - Omega And Alpha!

And then it came to an end. With the Crisis On Infinite Earths (much more on that later) the woeful decision had been made that the Justice Society of America was redundant and so could properly be disposed of so that comics could march forward stalwartly into a new age. Dopes!

Roy Thomas seeking to control the demise since he could not prevent it concocted a wild story which served as something of an oddball bookend to 1979's DC Presents special which had related the previously unrevealed origin of the JSofA. In this wild tale drawn by the talented David Ross and inked by Mike Gustovich the Justice Society finds itself again confronting head on the might of the Third Reich and the devious Adolph Hitler.

To forestall defeat, they allow themselves to be transformed into avatars for the Norse Gods who then enter into an eternal conflict with the great demons of Nordic myth. Thus they are locked away in this version of Valhalla, neither really dead nor really alive, apart from the larger DCU but forever  (in the imagination at least) fighting the good fight.

It was a noble effort, but alas an unsatisfying one, at least for this reader.

Years passed.

Eventually though DC decided to bring them back. It takes place as part of one of the more woeful crossovers called Armageddon. In one of the off-shoots of that story line called Armageddon: Inferno sundry heroes are assembled to battle an other-dimensional threat called Abraxis across four time periods. The battle goes poorly and the Spectre decides to call out some heroes who already exist outside time, the Justice Society of America. They are brought in and battle the villain on his home turf and defeat him. They are then rewarded by being brought back into the DC Universe with the henchmen of Abraxis himself taking their places battling the Nordic gods.

Though the artwork on this storyline is spotty in places, the  JSofA chapter is drawn nicely by Dick Giordano though the story is terribly wonky.

So knocking off the Justice Society was proven a bad idea. That didn't mean DC wasn't done trying to do it though. More later. 

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Sundown For A Superhero!

Jeff Aclin and Bob McLeod

Frank Miller and Terry Austin

Al Milgrom
When Captain Marvel was cancelled for the third time in 1979 the stories already written and drawn for the series showed up a few months later in the pages of a revived Marvel Spotlight. The first three issues of the new title were produced by Doug Moench and Pat Broderick and closed out the good Captain's struggles against sundry cosmic menaces.

Steve Ditko
The fourth issue produced drawn by the enigmatic Steve Ditko and scripted by the late great Archie Goodwin is a real charmer, but it was clearly a file story which had been set aside to forestall the "Dreaded Deadline Doom" which afflicted so many Marvel series during the era. It's neat to think that Ditko put his creative hand to the character who was in point of fact inspired to no small degree by his own creation, Charlton's Captain Atom. Read "Shadow Doom" here.

Frank Miller and Terry Austin
Marvel Spotlight then went on to feature other characters such as Star-Lord, Dragon Lord, and Captain Universe. In the midst of that though Captain Marvel continued to appear, such as the eighth issue which featured some early impressive work by Frank Miller.

Michael Nasser
As it turns out Captain Marvel had one more Bronze Age story in him, which was scheduled for Marvel Spotlight #12. Alas the series ended with issue eleven and the story went unpublished and largely unknown for many years. The cover by Michael Nasser was produced for the never-to-be-published-on-its-own 1980 final epic.

Keiron Dwyer
The story "Last Night the Sun Came Down...and Sang to Me" written by Peter B. Gillis and drawn by Jerry Bingham and Bruce Patterson was at last published a decade later in 1990 in the third issue of the revived Marvel Super-Heroes, a series specifically developed it seems to clear out the files in Marvel's offices.

The story dealt with Appala the Queen of the Sun and how Captain Marvel was accidentally harming her. For more check out this link.

In the case of Captain Marvel, a hero cancelled and revived repeatedly, the sun came down exceedingly slowly. But it did eventually come down. 

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