At some point, discouraged with the way the situation at DC Comics had deteriorated, Jack Kirby accepted an invitation from Stan Lee to come back to Marvel. As he finished out his DC contract, more and more covers to his books were being done by Joe Kubert. Worse, Gerry Conway began re-writing Kirby's dialogue on KAMANDI, replicating the very thing Kirby had originally come to DC to get away from.
Nevertheless, the quality of the work Kirby gave DC remained high. With his departure, OMAC, THE SANDMAN and JUSTICE, INC. were all abruptly cancelled. The latter two contained stand-alone stories, and so were not a problem (although there was one SANDMAN story left unpublished which eventually saw the light of day in a "Christmas"-themed digest). However, one of the most frustrating things for me, looking back on this period, is that, in a repeat of what happened when Kirby left FANTASTIC FOUR and THOR, his final issue of OMAC ended on a cliffhanger. Although Jim Starlin (of all people) attempted a continuation of the series several years later, it would take until 2002-- and a pair of fans in England-- before anyone attempted a genuine FINALE of the 3-parter that Kirby had left in mid-story.
On the other hand, Carmine Infantino's pet project, KAMANDI, continued on and on under various hands, only falling to cancellation as part of the infamous company-wide "DC Implosion" at the end of 1978.
OUR FIGHTING FORCES 160 /
art by JOE KUBERT (October 1975)
art by Jack Kirby & Al Milgrom (October 1975)
art by JOE KUBERT (November 1975)
art by JOE KUBERT (November 1975)
art by Jack Kirby & Mike Royer (November 1975)
art by JOE KUBERT (December 1975)
art by JOE KUBERT (December 1975)
art by ERNIE CHAN (December 1975)
art by JOE KUBERT (December 1975)
art by JOE KUBERT (January 1976)
(Continued in Part 16)
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 AVENGER page at Wikipedia
Read JUSTICE INC. #3 at the Crime & Punishment blog
See Erik Larsen's KAMANDI article at Comic Book Resources
See THE SANDMAN page at Wikipedia
Read JUSTICE INC. #4 at the Dr Monkey Retro blog
Artwork (C) DC Comics Inc.
Raw scan of OUR FIGHTING FORCES #160 from Comic Vine site
Raw scans of JUSTICE, INC. #3-4, KAMANDI #35
and OUR FIGHTING FORCES #161-162
from Heritage Auctions site
Raw scans of KAMANDI #36-37 from Comic Book Swap site
Restorations by Henry R. Kujawa
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