Among the ranks of Jack Kirby devotees and casual fans alike, you likely won’t be able to find many willing to make the claim thatSuper Powers#5 (cover-dated November, 1984 and featuring the story title “Spaceship Earth! We’re All On It!”) ranks among The King’s greatest works — and I’m not here to make that case, either. What Iamhere to do is to advance a (hopefully) convincing argument that this is still a terrific comic well worthy of critical re-appraisal, and that the flaws itdoeshave aren’t Jack’s fault. In fact, he tried his best to save this mess of a series and pretty much pulled it off.

Some quick background info is probably in order at this point :Super Powerswas a mini-series launched by DC to capitalize on a then-popular line of toy “action figures” bearing the same name, which featured all of…