Dingbats of Danger Street is a mostly forgotten Jack Kirby title that saw him returning to the kid gang format, and it could have turned into a fun and completely bonkers series if DC had supported it.
What Is It?
The opening text from the first issue tells it all:
Look out for these lovable Dum Dums!! Their parents don’t want them! Their friends don’t want them! Society doesn’t want them! But it’s a mistake to pass them by… They have a terrific talent for trouble! They’re hassled by the strangest, most exciting characters to pop up in comics! Watch what happens next to the… Dingbats of Danger Street!!
This comic series takes place in the troubled inner-city area known as Danger Street. A kid gang of outcasts that comprises the characters Good Looks (the leader), Krunch (the strongman), Bananas (the crazy one), and Non-Fat (the feisty one) find themselves constantly in danger and fighting against bad guys known as Jumping Jack, The Gasser, Snake-Meat, and more. All they want is to be left alone, but they always find themselves in the wrong place and in the middle of the action because Danger Street rests for no one!
Originally Published:
1st Issue Special #6 (September 1975)
Dingbat Love (December 2019)
Legacy
This comic book gave Jack Kirby one last stab at telling the story of a kid gang, and while it did not last long or develop much of a following, it is a fun little strip produced at a time when Kirby was at the height of his creativity.
A Closer Look
Jack Kirby, along with frequent collaborator Joe Simon, first created the comic book kid gang The Young Allies for Marvel in 1941. This was inspired by movie serials like The Bowery Boys and The Little Rascals as much as Kirby’s own time growing up as a poor kid on the streets of New York City. He and Simon would also go on to create The Boy Commandos and The Newsboy Legion for DC, and later they would add The Boy Explorers (Harvey, 1946) and Boy’s Ranch (Harvey, 1950). Kirby would then resurrect the Newsboy Legion in Jimmy Olsen as a group comprised of the sons of the original team when he returned to DC in the 1970s. And his final kid gang would be the Dingbats of Danger Street, which he produced shortly before returning to Marvel in the mid-’70s.
Joe Simon was also working at DC at the time, and it was suggested that the two get together and produce another kid gang series, though Kirby ended up creating the Dingbats on his own. This was at a time when DC was trying to get more books on the stands to compete with Marvel, and the company was pushing its creators to come up with new ideas. Kirby’s The Demon had just been cancelled, and he was required to produce a certain number of pages each month per his contract, so the Dingbats helped him fill that obligation.
It is uncertain how much the comic came from inspiration as opposed to editorial pressure, but Kirby had so many ideas rolling around in his head that he could turn on a dime and create a new title with little effort. And from the three issues he did produce, it sure seems to me like it was a labor of love. Kirby was certainly frustrated at that time because his Fourth World books had been cancelled, followed by the axing of The Demon. Those had involved a fair amount of mythology and intricate storytelling, whereas the Dingbats seemed to give Kirby an opportunity to kick back and just have fun with his comic book work, similar to what he previously did with Jimmy Olsen (you can read more about that one at this link.)
The Dingbats series begins with a bat-shit-crazy tale in which the kid gang gets tangled with some wild villains named Jumping Jack and The Gasser, but then it starts to take a more serious turn in subsequent issues as it looks at the backstories of the gang members. We find out what drives Good Looks and Krunch, and apparently the stories for Bananas and Non-Fat would have followed if the book had carried on. And we learn that while these characters seem like rascals, they each have a dark past.
You could argue that Dingbats of Danger Street is not really a sci fi/fantasy book because the three issues produced have little in the way of genre elements. But with Kirby driving the story, you know those would have shown up at some point. And if the book had stuck around, perhaps the Dingbats could have had crossovers with The Demon, The Newsboy Legion, The Forever People, or more.
Dingbats of Danger Street is basically a love-it-or-hate-it affair, and if you tell me you can’t stand the book, I can’t put up much of an argument. It requires a notable suspension of disbelief, even more than the typical Kirby strip. But like his ’70s work on Jimmy Olsen, it is pure imagination unleashed, and in my opinion it represents comics in their most quintessential form. It is mostly just a footnote at this point, but Kirby fans should certainly give it a look, and anybody who enjoys comics (especially from the Bronze Age and before) might find it to be a fun read.
Cancelled Too Soon?
Not only was this comic cancelled too soon, it was essentially cancelled before it began. As mentioned above, Kirby came up with this one under editorial pressure for new titles and he produced three issues. But the DC bosses were not too thrilled with the series (they were regularly at odds with the artist during his stint there in the early ’70s) and did not release it. The first issue eventually got a slot in the tryout series 1st Issue Special, but that did not deliver enough sales to justify continuing the book. The other two issues went unpublished and were thought lost for many years, but were eventually recovered with the help of Kirby historian John Morrow. Those finally received official publication in the collection Dingbat Love, which also included unpublished romance stories that Kirby worked on for DC. There were rumors that he had completed a fourth and fifth issue, but nothing has ever confirmed those, and John Morrow is pretty certain they were never produced.
The Story Continues:
Even though only one issue of the Dingbats was published before 2019, it did have an influence on other creators, and the characters have turned up again in the DC Universe from time to time. They made appearances in The Adventures of Superman, Batman: The Brave and the Bold, and even in the reboot of Kirby’s Challengers of the Unknown (though only Krunch showed up for that outing). Then in 2022, the 12-issue maxi-series Danger Street was released, with Tom King writing and Jorge Fornés providing the art. This collected together all of the characters from 1st Issue Special into a dark and rather apocalyptic story, and it provided an interesting continuation, but not quite in the spirit of Kirby’s Dingbats of Danger Street.
Should It Be Rebooted?
I would love it if the Dingbats of Danger Street was rebooted/revived because I have a soft spot for the series. If they did bring it back, I think it would be best to pick up right where it left off and continue the series very much in the Kirby spirit. They could bring in other characters he created from that era and turn this into a fun little comic. But seeing as this is a rather obscure title and it already had a reboot of sorts in 2022, I don’t expect to see new adventures of the Dingbats anytime soon.
Interesting Facts:
When DC started asking for new titles in the early ’70s, Joe Kubert was the one who suggested Simon and Kirby team up again and launch a new “kid gang” series. But apparently the two were not interested in working together, and they both created their own books focused on young heroes. Kirby did the Dingbats while Simon did The Green Team, which also appeared in 1st Issue Special and also had two unpublished issues. Simon and Kirby would eventually get together and work on the short-lived fantasy take on The Sandman, starting in 1974.
Kirby started working on a martial arts series around this time titled Death Fingers, which was inspired by movies like Enter the Dragon. DC wanted a book that had more humor in it because their satire series Plop! was selling well, so Kirby came up with the Dingbats, though he brought over some of the concepts and characters (mostly the villains) from the martial arts book.
1st Issue Special had three other Kirby-created titles in its thirteen-issue run. The mythological Atlas character kicked off the series with Issue #1, and Kirby’s reboot of the Manhunter character was featured in Issue #5. A revival of the New Gods capped off the tryout series with its thirteenth issue, but Kirby had left the company at that point and a different creative team handled the title (along with the subsequent short-lived series that followed).
Where Can You Read It?
Unfortunately, all three issues of Dingbats of Danger Street have never been collected together. The first issue is in the 1st Issue Special collection and in the DC Universe Bronze Age Omnibus by Jack Kirby (the latter is out of print and fetching high prices from third-party sellers). The second and third issues of Dingbats of Danger Street are only available in the Dingbat Love hardcover collection.
