1st Issue Special #5
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join free1st Issue Special #5 marks the debut of Mark Shaw as Manhunter — a frustrated public defender who inherits an ancient vigilante mantle — along with the first appearance of the Cult of the Manhunters (the 'Shan') and their Grandmaster, characters that Steve Englehart would later transform into the robotic android race underpinning Green Lantern lore. The issue is one of Jack Kirby's three contributions to the 1st Issue Special anthology and stands as a key Bronze Age one-shot whose world-building rippled outward: Englehart folded Shaw and the Shan directly into Justice League of America #140–141, retroactively embedding Kirby's human-scale crime story into the cosmic prehistory of the Green Lantern Corps. Shaw himself went on to become a recurring, morally complicated figure through the landmark 1988 Millennium crossover event and John Ostrander's subsequent Manhunter series, making this single issue the tap-root of an entire lineage of DC continuity.
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The issue was produced during the final stretch of Jack Kirby's 1970–1975 DC tenure, appearing as one of three 1st Issue Special installments he wrote, penciled, and edited — the others being Atlas (#1) and Dingbats of Danger Street (#6). The 1st Issue Special series itself was conceived by DC publisher Carmine Infantino, who observed that debut issues sold better than subsequent ones, leading him to create a monthly anthology of perpetual first issues; writer Gerry Conway later confirmed the series was not a conventional tryout book in the Showcase mold, since DC could not have collected meaningful sales data from a single printing before committing to an ongoing series. Kirby brought personal history to the Manhunter name — he and Joe Simon had dramatically revamped the Golden Age Manhunter (Paul Kirk) beginning in Adventure Comics #73 (1942), and reprints of those Simon-Kirby stories had appeared as backup features in some of Kirby's early-1970s DC books, likely informing his decision to revisit the concept. D. Bruce Berry inked the 18-page story, and the cover art is a modified, flipped version of the interior splash page.
Trivia · 8 facts
- First appearance of Mark Shaw as Manhunter (the fifth human character to use that name in DC history), a public defender who inherits the costumed identity from an unnamed aging predecessor.
- First appearance of Bradford Shaw (Mark's uncle and recruiter), the Manhunter Grandmaster, and the Manhunter Sect — the secretive human cult known as 'the Shan.'
- Written, penciled, and edited by Jack Kirby; inked by D. Bruce Berry; published with cover date August 1975 (on-sale May 22, 1975).
- One of three issues of 1st Issue Special produced entirely by Kirby, alongside #1 (Atlas) and #6 (Dingbats of Danger Street).
- The issue never received a direct follow-up series; Mark Shaw's second appearance came in Justice League of America #140 (March 1977), where Steve Englehart recontextualized the Shan as an Earth-based front for an ancient race of android robots created by the Guardians of the Universe — connecting Kirby's one-shot to Green Lantern mythology.
- Shaw's Manhunter costume — red and blue in design — closely resembled Kirby and Simon's 1942 Golden Age Manhunter suit; DC's own continuity (Secret Origins Vol. 2 #22) later suggested Kirby likely intended the unnamed elder Manhunter in this issue to be Paul Kirk, unaware that Archie Goodwin and Walt Simonson had already relaunched Kirk in Detective Comics #437 (1973).
- The Manhunter's signature weapon, the Power Baton, is established here as capable of firing chemical paralysis projectiles and emitting a kinetic force blast.
- The issue has been reprinted in The Jack Kirby Omnibus Vol. 2 (July 2013), DC Universe: The Bronze Age Omnibus by Jack Kirby (September 2019), DC's 1st Issue Specials hardcover (May 2020), and a Brazilian Panini Brasil edition (April 2021). Characters from the issue also appear in the 2022–2023 DC Black Label series Danger Street by Tom King and Jorge Fornés.
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Reprints
Reprinted in The Jack Kirby Omnibus #2 (2013), DC Universe: The Bronze Age Omnibus by Jack Kirby #[nn] (2019), DC's 1st Issue Specials #[nn] (2020), Sandman e Outras Histórias: Lendas do Universo DC #[nn] (2021), 1st Issue Special #5
Key issues in 1st Issue Special
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