Fourth World, Part 13

(Continued from Part 12)

Sales of the SANDMAN one-shot were surprisingly good (at a point where almost everything was selling badly), so someone at DC decided to continue it.  I wonder what editor Joe Orlando was smoking when he put this series together.  Joe Simon & Jack Kirby were replaced by Michael Fleischer (Jonah Hex, The Spectre) & Ernie Chua (CONAN THE BARBARIAN), with Mike Royer apparently retained to try and maintain "the Kirby look".  This must be one of the most patently ABSURD ideas I've ever seen espoused on an editorial page-- considering Kirby & Chua's styles have NOTHING whatsoever in common, and Royer's strongest skill was to reproduce with absolute accuracy the work of whoever's pencils he was inking!!. Jack did come back for the covers. Try as I might, this version of THE SANDMAN remains one of the worst and most unreadable things I've ever seen from the mid-70's... and that's really saying something!  Nevertheless, I'm still doing my best to present the covers with the best-possible "restorations" I can generate, all scanned from my own copies.

Meanwhile, KAMANDI, OMAC and OUR FIGHTING FORCES keep cranking on.

THE SANDMAN 2  /
art by Jack Kirby & Mike Royer   (May 1975)

KAMANDI, THE LAST BOY ON EARTH 30  /
art by Jack Kirby & Mike Royer   (June 1975)

OMAC 5  /
art by Jack Kirby & D. Bruce Berry   (June 1975)

OUR FIGHTING FORCES 156  /
art by Jack Kirby & Mike Royer   (June 1975)

KAMANDI, THE LAST BOY ON EARTH 31  /
art by Jack Kirby & D. Bruce Berry   (July 1975)

Following B&B #109 with The Demon and B&B #112 with Mister Miracle, a 3rd Batman crossover finally cropped up in B&B #120, the first of 2 with Kamandi (as unlikely as such a thing might seem-- you'd think a crossover with Superman would have been a more "obvious" way to go).

This would prove to be the last B&B appearance by a 70's Jack Kirby character while Jack was still at DC.

THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD 120  /
art by JIM APARO   (July 1975)

THE SANDMAN 3  /
art by Jack Kirby & Mike Royer   (July 1975)

OUR FIGHTING FORCES 157  /
art by Jack Kirby & Mike Royer   (July 1975)

KAMANDI, THE LAST BOY ON EARTH 32  /
art by Jack Kirby & D. Bruce Berry   (August 1975)

OMAC 6  /
art by Jack Kirby & D. Bruce Berry   (August 1975)

(Continued in Part 14)

For in-depth reviews and a fascinating discussion of these issues,
go to the CAPTAIN COMICS message board...

See THE LOSERS page at Wikipedia
See THE SANDMAN page at Wikipedia
See Erik Larsen's KAMANDI article at Comic Book Resources

Artwork (C) DC Comics Inc.
Raw scan of KAMANDI #30 from Midnight Fiction
Raw scans of KAMANDI #31-32 and
     OUR FIGHTING FORCES #156-157 from Heritage Auctions
Restorations by Henry R. Kujawa