Ninety percent of the time, Jack Kirby definitely had game. When you look at the mass of work this comic book master put out over the years, you have got to agree that the majority of it is classic and pioneering work. But even the best of us produce a turkey now and again. The Dingbats of Danger Street was one of the King's rare misfires.

In the seventies, Jack Kirby left Marvel Comics, where he and Steve Ditko had virtually revolutionized the comic book as a narrative medium. His first work for DC was his "Fourth World" series, featuring New Gods, Forever People and Mister Miracle, as well as a related stint on Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen. It was here that Kirby created Darkseid, who is still pretty high up on anyone's list of the top villains of the DC Universe. Kirby's work was also featured in many of the early issues of DC's then-new try-out title, First Issue Special. Kirby revived his version of Manhunter, and handled several other new projects in this title, one of which was The Dingbats of Danger Street. I believe this was one of his final DC projects before he returned to Marvel Comics for another brief stint in the spotlight there (handling Captain America and Devil Dinosaur among others).

The Dingbats of Danger Street were basically just a colorful street gang, much in the same vein as many other Kirby (and Kirby/Joe Simon) creations like the Kid Cowboys of Boys' Ranch, The Newsboy Legion, and the Boy Commandos. There were four young lads who made up the Dingbats:

"Good Looks", the handsome 'brains' of the gang. A fairly non-descript leader.

"Krunch", the group's muscle and hair.

"Non-Fat", the skinny shrimp with a chip on his shoulder. Apparently he eats a lot and stays incredibly skinny. From the way he was drawn (knowing Kirby's style) and the way he was scripted, I have the distinct impression that he was meant to be an African-American, but either the colorist got it wrong or something else behind the scenes changed the situation.

"Bananas", the kid who looks like a geek but tries to act like a spaz. He basically comes off as a complete jerk (thin Guy Gardner without the fine graces).

The Dingbats first adventure begins with the quartet hanging out on a street corner. Good Looks is reading, Non-Fat is contemplating a hot dog, Krunch is exercising, and Bananas is spazzing out, when sudden a man in a costume leaps the fence, being chased at gunpoint by Police Lt. Terry Mullins. The man, a criminal known as Jumpin' Jack, gets himself and Non-Fat entangled in Krunch's rubber exerciser, which allows Mullins to capture the wily criminal, giving thanks to the Dingbats for their help.

Soon after the villain is taken to jail, Non-Fat chokes on his hot dog (much to Bananas' delight) and coughs up a small cylinder containing a strip of microfilm. They are immediately accosted by Jumpin' Jack's partner in crime, a helmeted goon known as the Gasser. After a brief struggle, The Gasser flees without the film cylinder, but with Non-Fat clinging to the roof of his escape vehicle ... a camper. Apparently he spent too much of his loot on his costume and gas devices to buy a proper getaway car. The Gasser also has a second man in the camper, a person they had kidnapped for ransom earlier.

Meanwhile, Mullins is interrogating Jumpin' Jack at police headquarters when the boys barge in with the film cylinder and needing help to track down Non-Fat. Jumpin' Jack takes the opportunity to escape from custody, though he is unknowningly being followed by Mullins and a police detail (who surprisingly seem to be able to follow the nimble villain from rooftop to rooftop with ease).

Jumpin' Jack meets up with the Gasser at a deserted waterfront pier (talk about stereotypical situations), and they decide that the kidnap deal is off and that the Dingbats have to pay for interfering with their plans. As they were about to kill their hostages, Mullins and the police arrive. The Gasser uses a new weapon which amounts to a flamethrower, which he uses to burn Mullins. The police lieutenant's wounds aren't enough to prevent him from dropping the Gasser with a kick, and Jumpin' Jack is also captured fairly quickly. Non-Fat and the victim are thawed out and everything is back to normal, with Mullins telling the Dingbats they can call on him for help whenever they need it (and also finds out that the Dingbats stay together because they each had a bad experience with grown-ups at one time or another).

And that was basically it for the story of the Dingbats of Danger Street. The gang appeared one more time, twenty-seven years later, in the pages of The Adventures of Superman. As a fairly incidental part to this story (Superman, in his blue electric form, was trying to keep Intergang from getting involved in Suicide Slum's street gangs), The Dingbats and the Newsboy Legion were squabbling over squatters' rights to the abandoned Goldberg Theater. At the end of the tale, the theater was purchased by fellow First Issue Special alumni, The Green Team, for conversion into a youth center that both gangs could use. So pretty much besides for establishing the Green Team and the Dingbats into regular DC Continuity (and putting the Dingbats in Metropolis' Suicide Slum), there wasn't much to this story either.

I've never been sure of what Kirby was trying to accomplish with this feature. The boy gang concept, which he and Joe Simon were the acknowledged masters of, was a dated concept even in the fifties really, so to bring it back in the seventies just didn't make a lot of sense. Jack Kirby had an eye for making comics for younger readers though, so this feature might have been another extension of that (as was Devil Dinosaur). The problem with The Dingbats of Danger Street is that none of the characters are remotely appealling; they are either completely bland or completely annoying. There is no real humor and also the element of a strong adult lead is missing from the story. Mullins was a good character, but didn't have the opportunity to duplicate the role The Guardian played with the Newsboy Legion or Rip Carter with the Boy Commandos, a role that is really essential to this particular sub-genre of comics.

There are plenty of really bad comics out there (as any one who's read Joe Kelly's JLA, any issue of Teen Titans in the nineties, or Marvel's Marville will readily attest), so The Dingbats of Danger Street don't even really measure on the charts. And personally, I think its good that Jack Kirby put out at least a couple of clunkers during his career. It makes the Master a little more down-to-earth if he can make mistakes like the rest of us.