Phantom Force #1

Dec 1993 · Image · 2.50 USD; 3.40 CAD

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“And Now-- Phantom Force”

About this Issue

Phantom Force #1 stands as one of the final works that Jack Kirby — the co-creator of Captain America, the Fantastic Four, and the New Gods — penciled and scripted before his death in February 1994, making it a genuine endpoint artifact in the career of the medium's most influential artist. The issue is equally notable as an institutional love letter: the founding artists of Image Comics, a studio built on creator-ownership principles that Kirby had championed a generation earlier, collectively inked his pages as a tribute, producing a unique convergence of the industry's past and its then-present avant-garde. The back-matter letters section, in which every major Image founder wrote personally about Kirby's influence on their work, transforms the comic into a primary-source document of how the 1990s generation understood their own creative debt to him.

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writer, artist Jack Kirby · writer Michael Thibodeaux · writer Richard French · inker Scott Williams · inker Jerry Ordway · inker Danny Miki · inker Erik Larsen · inker Marc Silvestri · colorist Steve Oliff · colorist Olyoptics · letterer Kurt Hathaway · cover Jack Kirby, Rob Liefeld

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History

The series was created by Jack Kirby and Michael Thibodeaux and was originally intended for publication through their small independent imprint Genesis West, where the Phantom Force characters had already appeared in Last of the Viking Heroes #4. The pivot to Image came after Thibodeaux showed Rob Liefeld unpublished Kirby pencils and the two agreed that the first two issues would be published through Image, with each page inked by a different Image founder as a collective homage. The story itself is a composite: the first half introduces the Phantom Force team and appears to derive from 1980s Kirby material, while the second half was adapted from a 1970s Kirby pitch originally conceived as a Bruce Lee vehicle — the martial-arts lead was renamed Gin Seng when the Bruce Lee estate rejected the original proposal. All Image profits from the issue were reportedly donated to Kirby himself.

Trivia · 8 facts

Published December 1993 by Image Comics (co-imprinted with Genesis West); 36 full-color pages; polybagged with a randomly inserted trading card.
Written by Jack Kirby, Michael Thibodeaux, and Richard French; pencils by Jack Kirby; inked by Rob Liefeld, Todd McFarlane, Jim Lee, Marc Silvestri, Erik Larsen, Jerry Ordway, Danny Miki, and Scott Williams — nine inkers total as listed on the inside back cover.
Represents one of the last completely penciled story sequences by Jack Kirby, who died in February 1994 before the series could develop further.
The issue's story is divided into three chapters: 'And Now— Phantom Force,' 'The Scheme!,' and 'Gin Seng: Master of the Martial Arts!' — the third chapter repurposes Kirby pages originally drawn for a 1970s Bruce Lee comic pitch that was rejected by the Lee estate.
First issue appearance (in their own solo title) of the Phantom Force team: Apocalypse (the cosmic swordsman, later renamed Ragnarok), Probe, Gin Seng, Sensei, Bobby, and Tatsuki — characters who had previously debuted in Last of the Viking Heroes #4 under the Genesis West imprint.
The back pages include a letters/tribute section in which Rob Liefeld, Todd McFarlane, Jim Lee, Jim Valentino, Erik Larsen, Jerry Ordway, and others write about Kirby's influence on their careers, plus a review of The Art of Jack Kirby by Ray Wyman.
Issues #1 and #2 were published by Image; all subsequent issues (#0, #3–#8) were published directly by Genesis West, making #1 one of only two issues with Image's imprint on the series.
An in-issue advertisement previews the then-unpublished Genesis West title Rush, featuring a cosmic snowboarder character also drawn by Kirby and inked by Marty Lasick.