The return of Captain Victory

Captain Victory and the Galactic Rangers (Dynamite)

Joe Casey (w) Various (a)

Hot on the heels of a "Kirbyesque" character (see post below), Dynamite Comics have revived one of Jack Kirby's creations from 1981, Captain Victory. The original title was published by the short lived Pacific Comics and lasted just 13 issues (plus a Special if I recall correctly).



Whilst being a little shall we say "unsophisticated", even for the time it was published, it was quite fun and full of Jack Kirby's somewhat creative imagination. With all due respect to the "King", it would have been better had it been scripted by someone else. The overuse of the "exclamation mark" (a common fault of Kirby's writing) grated at times.

Nevertheless it is a series worth getting hold of just for Kirby's artwork. The stories are great fun regardless of any criticism I might have. Perhaps now that Dynamite have the license they might produce an over sized collected hardback for the hardcore Kirby fans, who remain legion.

This isn't the first time Dynamite have published a revival. A couple of years back they produced a six issue mini-series that was actually quite good. Since it had a very small print run, tracking down back issues will be difficult, but they have produced a collected edition which is recommended and still available.




As for the new series (which is apparently to be "on-going") its a reasonable start but in my opinion suffered from having too many different artists, three in all. Maybe it'll read better in a collected edition, but I prefer one artist to do a book.

Since this adventure begins with the "death" of Captain Victory and a couple of "rebirths", including one on Earth, there's much to hope for in this "weird" but interesting story. Joe Casey is a good writer and I'm sure the captain is in good hands.

Meanwhile a reminder of the original by Jack "King" Kirby himself.