Dojo Classics - Silver Star!

Toward the end of Jack "King" Kirby's vibrant career before he went off to the animation field to at long last make some real money, he put together some memorable comic books for the fledgling direct-sales outfit Pacific Comics. In fact it was his Captain Victory and his Galactic Rangers which initiated Pacific's presence on the comic book racks. Kirby's other Pacific book was Silver Star. That concept as well as Captain Victory and a host of others are currently being revived over at Dynamite Comics.

I just read the Image Comics reprint of Silver Star. This came out several years ago, and it offers a slightly larger version of Kirby's tale of the rise of Homo-Geneticus. The original was printed with various papers making for an uneven reading experience.


Here's the premise. A Doctor Bradford Miller experiments with the human genetic code using many volunteers. He wants to create a human able to withstand an atomic war. His results are a wave of children possessing vast superhuman powers, who are able to varying degrees to manipulate the very molecules around them. Our protagonist, a young man named Morgan Miller, has his powers erupt on him during a stint in Vietnam, when he throws a full-sized tank against the enemy. He shuts down immediately and the military begin to assess the problem, robing their new superman in a silver alloy.


Years pass and other of Miller's children make their presences known, especially an evil character named Darius Drumm, the son of a bogus preacher. Other members of this new species, "Homo-Geneticus", are encountered as the six-issue storyline unfolds. We meet Norman Richmond, a beautiful blonde actress who has the gift. We also encounter Elmo Frye, a young black man who can become the giant defender of the inner city, Big Masai. As Silver Star narrows his search for the arch-fiend Darius Drumm, there are casualties. Eventually a great battle is had involving the life-erasing Angel of Death.


This tale was originally a screenplay and the Image reprint offers up Kirby's play to compare to the comic which eventually developed from it. There are some differences.


Silver Star wasn't one of Kirby's greatest concepts, but it is a weird and wacky ride full of Kirby's bluster and distinctive storytelling. The early chapters seem to have been done long before the finale was concocted, they have a different feel to them, and frankly seem to be made by a Kirby more in commmand of his skills.


Also of note is the inking. Mike Royer inked the early installments and Bruce D. Berry the last few. Mike Thibodeaux inks some of the covers. Royer does the best work on Kirby, while Berry stays true to the King's lines with great fidelity, if not special energy.

There's a version from Twomorrows with just the pencils. I might have to get this sometime and compare.

UPDATE: I was all set to write a review of the Silver Star series after reading it recently when I remembered I'd done that already. Here it is above. Since that time so many years ago, I've gotten hold of the Graphite Edition and will be offering a look at it in  a few days. Also my appreciation of this story has, if anything, increased. While it's a gonzo effort on Kirby's part for certain, the singular direction and relatively small cast of this series really gives it a nifty cohesion. Not one of Kirby's best, but far from his least.

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Captain Victory - All For One!

Let me close out my look at Jack Kirby's Captain Victory and The Galactic Rangers from Pacific Comics with a look at the exceedingly peculiar Captain Victory and the Galactic Rangers Special one and only. It's a odd story by any stretch and fitted within the broad cosmic confines of what had preceded in the comic, even more so.

The story begins aboard the Dreadnought: Tiger still waiting for a new engine (after losing its original to the Voice and his Wonder Warriors). To pass the time Egghead (sometimes called Mister Mind) has arranged elaborate trips into the past of the planet Earth using information he recorded while on the planet fighting the Insectons. Captain Victory, Major Klavus and Tarin the Tri-Command of the Tiger are suddenly swept up in this scheme and shunted into Paris of the historical past blended with the ficitonal works of both Alexander Dumas (The Three Musketeers) and Victor Hugo (The Hunchback of Notre Dame).

The find Egghead playing the role of Quasimodo, sort of, and quickly find themselves clothed and cast as the Three Musketeers. Plenty of action ensues as they seek to rescue a female Ranger who is being burned as a witch and stop a "Q-Bomb" which has been triggered inadverdantly. The of course save her and the misadventure comes to an abrupt halt when they shunted back to the Tiger with Egghead trying his best to rectify things.

Meanwhile the Q-Bomb having been transported into space explodes in a massive and colorful Kirby collage.

The Special also offers up some tasty Kirby pin-ups with insights into other aspects of the Ranger forces. Sadly these are glimpses of concepts we will never get a chance to see developed.  And with that Kirby says a fond farewell to his last great creation. He's not quite done with comics, but his later work will be almost exclusively with scripts written by others.

As for Captain Victory, he will return yet again, but more on that next time.

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Captain Victory - Victory Is Sacrifice!

What would you do if you woke one day and your world had been invaded by a savage alien race which was bent on enslaving and killing mankind for the sole purpose of working to harvest the resources of the planet. Who are you gonna' call?

Well in this instance it's the Galactic Rangers, an outer space police force of varied interstellar races and species working together to bring some sort of order to the wild and woolly regions of the galaxy. "Captain Victory" (a code name we are told -- we never learn his real birth name) is the leader, and due to his status he is awarded fifty clone bodies of which he's used four. And in the very first issue he dies again, but that demise just the beginning.

Jack Kirby's last great opus for the fledgling Pacific Comics was developed for a line which bore his own name but the finances fell through. So it languished in his files.

When the folks at Pacific called with an offer of creator-owned participation, he dusted off the story and expanded it with the help of Mike Royer and Mike Thibodeaux and gave us one and all the first mainstream comic book of the direct sales era. Kirby was not at the height of his powers, but still like any great talent  he still was considerably impressive.

The story begins on a dead world where the Insectons led by their Regent and their Lightning Lady utterly consumed it. The Rangers try to stop them then and there, but fail to capture the leadership which heads into the hinterlands of space and find the green world of Earth.

Later Captain Victory and his comrades Major Klavus,  the lion-faced Tarin, the aquatic Orca, navigator Egghead, scientist Chusang (among many others) arrive in the enormous spacecraft called "Dreadnaught: Tiger".

They assist the local authorities of Spartanville, Pennsylvania who are confronted with the earliest stages of the Insecton threat which is insinuating itself in the community even as they strategize.

The battle against the Insectons starts small but steadily grows with casualties on both sides. The Insectons are of an all-controlling group mind and have no regard for themselves as individuals -- a mindset they seek force upon their captives.

The forces of Earth, specially the United States Army fight alongside the members of the Galactic Rangers as the Insectons spread beyond the small town of Spartanville and head to the large population of Philadelphia.

The Galactic Ranges work furiously to find a way to stem the tide of the battle which threaten to broaden across the United States and then across the world. They unleash their Micro-Troops who fight furiously in the tunnels of the Insectons. They find human beings who have been turned into slaves used as canon fodder by the deadly Beehive-like society of the Insectons.

Ultimately Captain Victory  uses the advanced technology to destroy the threat of the Insecton scourge but it comes at great cost to himself -- his life is lost again. It's a good thing he has a bevvy of clones at his command or the series would have ended right here. But it didn't. More next time as the Galactic Rangers fight a menace from the deeps of  space - The Wonder Warrors and the enigmatic "Voice".

Captain Victory and the Galactic Rangers was a real milestone, for comics and for Kirby. The "King" had retired from comic books after his Bronze Age stint at Marvel and had gotten into animation work which paid much better. He was at long last getting comfortable and didn't need to kick out comic book pages at a furious rate to pay the mortgage and put food on the table.

The series was a response to the popular films of the era -- Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind -- and Kirby in his mind was just returning the favor to those directors whom he was certain had lifted some key concepts from his own seminal work. Captain Victory had life as a series, a graphic novel and even in an offbeat form as a screenplay. What it became was fascinating comic book series which reinvented to some extent the very industry.

Alongside the stalwart Victory are Major Klavus a man who can invoke the spirits to empower himself with spectacular abilities, the aquatic Orca who gets to do some very dangerous grunt work because he can, and Tarin the lion-faced member who appears to have the greatest heart of the team and who seems always concerned with the bystanders who get drawn into the battles.

The comic's first story arc has a remarkable quality, a slow and unsteady unfolding of an ever-increasing threat. As you read it and watch the Rangers attempt to help mankind stem the tide, you get the feeling throughout that despite their minor wins, the overall effort is a losing one. When Captain Victory makes his ultimate choice, it seems that choice was indeed the necessary one.

There is more to come as the Rangers prepare to leave Earth and confront the "Wonder Warriors". They arrive next week, but tomorrow we meet the elusive Goozlebobber.

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Victory For All!

Here for your viewing pleasure are three outstanding Captain Victory and the Galactic Rangers cover by the great Jack "King" Kirby with inks by Mike Thibodeaux. The logo for Captain Victory was created by Mike Royer. Rip Off