You gotta love 60s-70s DC. Love or hate Kirby's art, why bother to hire him if you're going to put inkers on him that strip away everything unique about his work that was so popular at Marvel?
That was certainly Kirby's frustration. They ASKED him to do a Superman title, and then they blunted his approach on the character, first with "corrections" on Superman and Jimmy Olsen by Al Plastino (JO 133 and 134) and then by Murphy Anderson on most of the remaining issues. To DC's credit, they did stop the corrections when Royer started inking the series (although the Anderson heads came back when Colletta inked issue 148).
Kirby's portrayal of Superman was particularly good storywise in FOREVER PEOPLE 1. But the art re-drawn Superman figures by Al Plastino in that same issue belong in the "horribly wrong" category. The remainder inked competently by Colletta.
One of my favorite Kirby covers is FOREVER PEOPLE 1 (Feb-Mar 1971). After all this time, I was surprised to see this indexed as Kirby/Giacoia art. Giacoia is not one of my favorite inkers, but this cover is absolute perfection.
