Kirby's Abandoned Astrals

Similar to the ignominious Galaxy Green 2-page preview that never saw a legit printing, Jack "The King" Kirby created a complete 4-page story titled The Astrals for a comic that failed to get published. Just after Star Wars IV came out, Glenn Kammen was a radio station promoter in Chicago who commissioned Kirby to do this short comic as a giveaway about an outer space rock band. Bill Wray provided the ink for this unproduced comic. Marc B. Ray wrote the quick script as he was also the writer for 70s movies like Scream Bloody Murder and The Severed Hand. It opens on the rock quartet finishing up their gig at Gorki's asteroid club. The Astrals' roadie was a half-baboon man named Kowalski who keeps arguing with the droid Micro-IV while packing up the band's instruments on their ship, The Bobsledder. Another space cruiser appears out of nowhere run by a space pirate named Kandor Jasperian who apparently was a big fan of Superman. Kandor kidnaps the band and sets Kowalski adrift back on the Bobsledder along with Micro-IV. The baboon and robot zip to Kandor's space city where The Astrals are being forced to perform a private concert for the rich space slob. The band gets rescued by their backup crew who homed in on the sound of their music, so they were in fact "saved by the power of rock and roll!" The Astral characters themselves are secondary characters in their own comic as we never learn any of their names or what makes them tick, despite their visually interesting designs. The sidekicks end up doing all the work and being the real heroes of this space saga, which is like the Wonder Twins saving the DC Universe. Jack Kirby's astronomical point of view stands out the most in this rock and roll comic that underlines the importance of blue-collar workers.