Thursday, July 02, 2015

Where is Simon & Kirby's Manhunter?


I just happened to be looking up 1942's Adventure Comics #78 on The Grand Comics Database. That issue featured not just one but TWO stories by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby!

The GCD entry indicates that the Sandman story entitled "The Miracle Maker" was reprinted in 2009's Sandman hardcover edition, and that the Manhunter story entitled "The Lady and the Tiger" was reprinted in 1972's The New Gods #9 (and I remember what a wonderful experience it was reading so many S & K stories for the first time as back-ups in the 52-page Fourth World comics!).

But wait just one pretty little minute. The above-mentioned Manhunter story hasn't been reprinted since 1972? (Now picture me slapping my forehead like the guy in the "I could've had a V-8" television commercials.) I proudly own all the Kirby reprint hardcovers and it never occurred to me before that there has not been a Manhunter volume! Why hasn't there been one?

Well, maybe it's because there were only eight of those S & K Manhunter stories, and that would make for a fairly thin book. (I know I would definitely purchase it, though.) DC reprinted seven of those eight stories in the 1970s and you can read the one that got away, the eighth and last in the series, right over here.

Maybe DC is planning to reprint the Manhunter stories in an as-yet-unnanounced Jack Kirby Omnibus Volume 3? Or (gulp) maybe DC has forgotten about these beautiful stories?


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