Captain Victory and the Galactic Rangers Special #1 - The Space Musketeers

"Victory is Sacrifice". Truer words were never spoke. It can be quite a sacrifice to read Captain Victory sometimes. While obviously I'm a big fan of Jack Kirby (for those of you who haven't picked up on that yet), no one can do 25,000+ pages of comics and hit everytime, and I'd say this special is one of those rare mis-steps (I do like some other CV stuff, of course).

Normally I'd recount the plot of this issue here, but I'm not sure that's possible. Something about PFC Egghead inventing a time-travel device that takes some of the crew back to an Dumas-inspired France where there's a bomb of some sort. There's also something about Egghead playing the Hunchback of Notre Dame. I dunno, look at the art.



That is a pretty cool gargoyle, and some of the other art in here is nice. It's just all very strange. Plus it's the first issue printed on upscale paper stock, and there were still some bugs in the system, so that looks weird.

25-page lead story plus three pin-up/profile pages on different Ranger sections and how they might have inspired Earth myths. All that and the cover inked by Mike Thibodeaux. The text page by the publisher mentions the unpublished MIDNIGHT MEN book that Kirby was working on with Roger McKenzie (Kirby was supposed to do the 48 page first issue before another artist took over the series).

Published 1983