CANCELLED COMIC CAVALCADE #2: KAMANDI #61

Continuing on with our look at CANCELLED COMIC CAVALCADE #2, a xeroxed collection of material that had been spiked due to the DC Implosion and intended to secure copyright to these stories for the company. Only 35 copies of this hand-bound edition were initially made, though over the years others have generated their own copies by disassembling and duplicating one of the originals.

KAMANDI #61 was the second issue whose unpublished material was included in this edition. And it had been intended to repurpose some even earlier material that had previously bee written off. Editor Al Milgrom had discovered that DC held an unpublished Jack Kirby-illustrated SANDMAN story in its inventory, intended for that title’s 7th issue. Being a huge Kirby fan, he prevailed upon his KAMANDI creative team of Jack C. Harris and Dick Ayers to find a place where it might be plugged into their continuity. That would have been issue #61, in which the time-traveling Kamandi would have run into the Sandman and his associated Brute and Glob, and borne witness to the events of that earlier adventure. But the DC Implosion caused the story to be written off a second time.

A few years later, this unpublished SANDMAN story would be included in BEST OF DC Digest #22 and see print. It would wind up being collected a number of times thereafter, at least once with the new Kamandi framing sequence left intact.

9 thoughts on “CANCELLED COMIC CAVALCADE #2: KAMANDI #61

  1. I take it no one did this for cancelled Marvel series, cause on the last page of the last issue of Ms. Marvel#23 ( April 1979 ) she was suppose to battle Sabretooth in the next issue that never came to be ( Plus I know she had 2 villains seen only in the Ms. Marvel ad at the back of Fantastic Four Annual#13 ( October 1978 ) that Chris Claremont is the only one still alive who knows their names, since Dave Cockrum is dead ). Don’t know or can’t remember if there were other Marvel series that advertised a next issue that never happened.

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    1. Those unpublished Ms Marvel issues were eventually published in Marvel Super Heroes 10 & 11 in 1992.

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    2. That Ms. Marvel did see print in the early 90’s, as well as the next intended issue. I’ve never been totally clear on if those issues were inked in the 70s or 90s – maybe someone around here has the full scoop.

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      1. Those issues, plus a new sequence that bridged the gap from the end of those to what happened next were in MARVEL SUPER-HEROES 10 and 11 (in 1992) and were collected in the MS. MARVEL Epic Collection THE WOMAN WHO FELL TO EARTH.

        I’m pretty sure issues 24-25 were either done or close to done, since Chris had scripted them, and it’s unlikely he’d have scripted them in 1992 but not scripted the bridging bit Simon Furman and Mike Gustovich did.

        Similarly, if Mike Vosburg had finished the art in 1992, you’d think he’d have drawn the bridging sequence. It’s possible to have gone otherwise, it just seems unlikely.

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    3. Not a cancelled yet Marvel series but a cancelled Marvel story: A story featuring Metoxo the Lava Man was advertised in X-Men#48 ( September1968 — I remembered it being mentioned in the X-Men Indexes ), but that story remained untold ( Until Kurt Busiek & James Fry in Marvel Holiday Special 1994 ( November 1994 ) marvel.fandom.com ) — my question was there a finished 1968 story that at the last minute got pulled? Did the 1968 story get misplaced? Seems odd they would advertise a story not already written and drawn.

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      1. It was begun, and a few pages of it survived — no Metoxo on them as far as I know — but the decision to change the book back to full-team stories stopped progress on it, and they rush-did the one that got published.

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  2. I still have trouble wrapping my mind around a Jack Kirby/Michael Fleisher collaboration, maybe especially in 1975, when Fleisher was most known for his Specter series in Adventure comics. known for The Specter’s creative disposal of his enemies . . . .

    Fleisher want on to get a doctorate in Anthropology and did notable work in preventing industrial cattle rustling in Africa . . . .

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