Kamandi Archives, Vol. 2 [Hardcover]

Jack Kirby (Author), Mike Royer (Photographer), D. Bruce Berry (Photographer)

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

All the series comics legend Kirby created after he jumped ship from Marvel to DC in the early 1970s were kooky. Without longtime collaborator Stan Lee to restrain him, Kirby indulged his tendency toward the grandiosely goofy. None of Kirby's DC titles was more oddball than Kamandi, whose young hero dwelt in a postapocalyptic world in which an unspecified "Great Disaster" had caused tigers, dogs, and other animals to evolve into intelligent bipeds who hunt down and enslave humans. If the premise seems a shameless rip-off of Planet of the Apes, the characterizations minimal, and the dialogue wildly overwrought, the results are still undiluted Kirby: a chain of action-packed clashes in which seafaring leopard-slavers capture Kamandi, he fights gorillas guarding the lost Watergate tapes, and he meets robot gangsters in the ruins of Chicago. Everything is rendered in Kirby's unmistakable, hyperintense visual style. Kamandi may strike contemporary comics fans as puerile and unsubtle, but it was Kirby's longest-running DC title, and many older readers fondly remember "The Last Boy on Earth." Gordon Flagg
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product Details

• Hardcover: 228 pages
• Publisher: DC Comics (February 28, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1401212085
• ISBN-13: 978-1401212087
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 0.8 x 10.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #160,138 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Kamandi Archive a must have, March 5, 2007

By 

Christopher Fama (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Kamandi Archives, Vol. 2 (Hardcover)

One of the best of the DC Archives series, Kamandi is the crowing achievement of Jack Kirby during his 70s tenure at DC. As expected from Mr. Kirby, the stories are jam packed with action - but unlike Kirby's other DC work, there is plenty of time out for touching moments and character development. Volume 2 features stories which depart further from the Planet of the Apes like premise featured in Volume 1, though occasionaly borrowing from other period films.

13 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars CLASSIC KIRBY IMAGINATION!, April 28, 2007

By 

Tim Janson (Michigan) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Kamandi Archives, Vol. 2 (Hardcover)

It's funny how the mind works...I can't remember where I put my keys half the time but I still remember, over thirty years later, the first time I saw and issue of Kamandi. We were in my best friend Barry's loft, which we built in the rafters of his parent's garage. We were probably 11 or 12 years old and we generally spent our Saturday nights during the summer camping out in that loft and reading the comics we had just bought that week. Barry was mainly a DC guy while I was a Marvel fan. It worked great since we rarely spent our hard-earned quarters buying the same comic and would share each other's books. When I saw Kamandi, my first thought was that it looked like Thor with out the helmet. I wasn't a big fan then but with age comes maturity.

As I began collecting Silver Age Comics my appreciation for Jack Kirby's art grew. Today, I consider Kamandi to be Kirby's last GREAT work in comics. Jack worked for many years after leaving Kamandi but even the most ardent Kirby fan would have to admit that by the 80's, the "King" had lost a step or two. But Kamandi was Jack's baby...he wrote, penciled, and even edited the title, with Mike Royer and D. Bruce Berry handling the inking chores. Kamandi was a post apocalyptic title, heavily influenced by films such as Planet of the Apes. In this future, animals have become intelligent and humans are considered the wild beasts. Tribes of talking tigers, apes, lions, dogs, and more, all vie for supremacy while humans are not unlike cattle.

Kamandi is an oddity, intelligent, and able to use technology, he is feared and hunted by the intelligent animals. Kamandi Archives Volume 2 collects issues # 11 - 20 of the original series, all in glorious re-mastered color and looking better than ever. Kamandi's initial adventure has him found adrift in the sea by a band of leopard pirates and sold to the Sacker Corporation. Sacker run an arena that combines racing beasts with gladiatorial combat. Kamandi frees a giant insect known as "the devil' and looking like a mutated grasshopper. The devil will be his mount in the contest in a winner take all battle.

In issues #15 - 18, Kamandi and his tiger companions are captured by the Ape tribe who, in a twist of irony, perform scientific experiments on their human test subjects. Kamandi will have to somehow rally the humans to overthrow their captors and free themselves.

Crazy characters? You bet! Jack was letting his imagination run free. There's a lot of inside jokes in the book, such as references to Watergate that might be lost on younger readers but will evoke some chuckles from older fans. Jack was at his best with his dynamic action scenes and there's action aplenty in this book. Kamandi is a great piece of 1970's nostalgia and a book that is truly different than anything else produced during the era.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fun blast from the past, May 6, 2007

By 

Benson C. Look (San Jose, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Kamandi Archives, Vol. 2 (Hardcover)

It is a great treat to see re-read this stories from my boyhood and incredible to see the concepts and ideas from Jack Kirby's mind. Some stories a little dated, but keeping in mind when they were written still a great ride.