Amazing Adventures #3 - Pawns of the Mandarin

One of Kirby's few full-scripting jobs at Marvel during his longest stay there was the Inhumans half of AMAZING ADVENTURES for the first four issues. In this one, the Inhumans are observed by the Iron Man villain the Mandarin as they attack a digging site too close to the Great Refuge. The Mandarin attacks them and is defeated by Black Bolt, but the attack raises his curiousity about the site, as the Mandarin (who actually sent in a robot version of himself) planned.



The Inhumans finish the excavation, finding an ancient statue containing the Eye of Yin, which the Mandarin wants to use to rule the world, and the Eye comes to life.

This is pretty good, although as people would learn soon enough Kirby had much more imaginative ideas that he was waiting for the right venue to explore at the time.
When I first read this I wondered if maybe Kirby intended the villain to be Doctor Doom originally (did the Mandarin ever use robot doubles before this?) and wasn't allowed to use the character, who was just given a solo series in the other half-book ASTONISHING TALES.

Chic Stone inks the 10-page story, and does a good job, although I didn't like it quite as much as some of the work he did when he was briefly inking almost all of Kirby's output for a few months back in the mid-1960s.

Published 1970