Kobra #1

History

The series traces back to Jack Kirby's final creative push at DC in the mid-1970s, where he and co-writer Steve Sherman developed the concept — originally titled 'King Kobra' and inspired in part by the Dr. Phibes films and Thuggee mythology — as a potential one-shot that Kirby then plotted, penciled, and had inked by D. Bruce Berry before leaving DC to return to Marvel. The completed first issue sat in DC's inventory for over a year before editor Gerry Conway handed it to writer Martin Pasko, who completely rewrote Kirby's dialogue, had Pablo Marcos redraw portions of the art (most visibly altering the look of Jason Burr, who in Kirby's original version was an older Interpol agent named Philip Snow), and retitled the series simply Kobra. Pasko later described the assignment with characteristic bluntness, acknowledging he approached it with skepticism but found ways to inject his own storytelling philosophy — centered on the idea of an ordinary person trapped in extraordinary danger — into a concept he had inherited rather than conceived.

Trivia · 8 facts

• First appearance of Jeffrey Franklin Burr (Kobra), Jason Burr, the Cobra Cult, NYPD Lt. Ricardo Perez, and the alien robot the Servitor, all debuting in the lead story 'Fangs of the Kobra!'
• Concept originated with Jack Kirby and Steve Sherman as a proposed one-shot called 'King Kobra'; Kirby plotted, scripted, and penciled the original version before departing DC for Marvel.
• Martin Pasko was assigned to retool the inventory issue into an ongoing series; he replaced all of Kirby's dialogue and had Pablo Marcos redraw and re-ink portions of the artwork, particularly the character of Jason Burr.
• Kirby's twin-sibling dynamic was directly inspired by Alexandre Dumas's novella 'The Corsican Brothers,' in which separated twins share each other's physical sensations including pain.
• The series ran from February 1976 to April 1977 — seven published issues — and was one of DC's few ongoing titles of the era headlined by a supervillain rather than a hero, alongside The Joker Vol. 1.
• The unpublished eighth issue's contents were later printed in DC Special Series #1 (September 1977), preserving the complete run in print.
• The cover of issue #1 was penciled by Ernie Chan (then credited as Ernie Chua), who provided covers across the entire series run.
• The story from Kobra #1 has been reprinted multiple times, including in Kobra: Resurrection (2010), The Jack Kirby Omnibus Vol. 2 (2013), and DC Universe: The Bronze Age Omnibus by Jack Kirby (2019).

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