Every Sunday morning we showcase a classic comic cover, complete with compelling pop culture commentary, for your cordial contemplation. It’s the Classic Comic Cover Corner!
Fantastic Four #46 – January, 1966
Cover art by Jack Kirby and Joe Sinnott
National Dog Day was this past Wednesday and the late Jack ‘King’ Kirby’s birthday was this past Friday; and if you throw both those items into the Nerdvana Mash-up-o-lator there is really only one outcome you can expect, the Inhumans’ giant, dimensional-teleporting bulldog (and Jack Kirby creation), Lockjaw.
For my money, Lockjaw is right up there with iconic Kirby comic characters like Galactus and the Silver Surfer. I mean what kind of imagination do you have to possess in order to come up with a humongous dog-like creature, with a tuning-fork sticking out of his head, that can teleport between the moon and the Earth, or any other crazy place he chooses to go? An imagination like Kirby’s I suppose.
Lockjaw made his first appearance in Fantastic Four #45 (Dec. 1965), together with the rest of his classic Inhuman brethren; but the pooch didn’t have his first cover appearance until the next issue (FF #46 – Jan. 1966) and even then it was just his face in the lower right-corner, with the Attilan leader, Black Bolt, being the featured player in his first full-fledged appearance (he was glimpsed briefly at the end of the previous issue – smashing through a wall in the very last panel.)
Like many of us, Black Bolt and the Inhumans would be lost without their ever-lovin’ and loyal mutt. In fact, they’d be going nowhere fast if it wasn’t for Lockjaw teleporting them wherever they need to go.
I can’t help but think that if my own pooch was ever exposed to Terrigen Mists I’d often be finding myself transported to the treat-aisle of our local Pet Smart.
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