Old Gods & New (Jack Kirby Collector #80) Preview

JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR EIGHTY PRESENTS:

OLD

& NEW A Companion to

JACK KIRBY’S

by John Morrow with Jon B. Cooke

ForeWorld

Leave No God Unturned.....................................................................4

The Color-Text Equation....................................................................6

CONTENTS

Introduction

Concept Drawings*

“Orion”...................................................................................7 “Mister Miracle”..................................................................8 “Lightray”..............................................................................9 “Enchantra”........................................................................10 “Space Guardian”.............................................................11 “Green Mantis”.................................................................12 “Black of New Genesis”..................................................13 “Captain Victory/Glory”..................................................14 “Bombast”..........................................................................15

“Black Pharaoh”................................................................16 “Robot Defender”.............................................................17 “Thor/Sigurd”....................................................................18 “Balduur”...........................................................................19 “Heimdall”.........................................................................20 “Honir”................................................................................21 “Metron”.............................................................................22 “Darkseid”..........................................................................23 “Faces of Evil”...................................................................24 Peter Max-inspired concepts.........................................24

* These names were in flux or non-existent at the time the drawings were created, but are listed here to help the identification process in this book.

Pre-Genesis

From “Old” To “New” Gods (1940–1970)..............................................................................................................................25

To And From The Source

The Four Corners Of The Fourth World...................................................................................................................................49 365 Days Of Jack Kirby’s Fourth World, By Jon B. Cooke....................................................................................................75

Buzzing In The Boom Tube

First World (Spring 1970–January 1971)...............................................................................................................................88 Interlude One: Biblical Inspirations..........................................................................................................................................93

Second World (February 1971–July 1971)............................................................................................................................98 Interlude Two: The Gods Are No Laughing Matter............................................................................................................104

Third World (August 1971–February 1972).......................................................................................................................106 Interlude Three: The New Gods Were Our Gods................................................................................................................112

Fourth World (March 1972–July 1973)...............................................................................................................................114 Interlude Four: Soldier On The Battlefield..........................................................................................................................125

Fifth World (1974–1981 A.C.)...............................................................................................................................................128 Over In Conway’s Corner..........................................................................................................................................................135

Sixth World (1981–1986).......................................... 136 Post-Apokolips.............................................................. 152

AfterWorld TAARU!............................................................................ 155 Dedication To Mark Evanier and Steve Sherman, for tirelessly documenting Jack Kirby’s life and legacy and to Paul Levitz and Jenette Kahn, for finally making things right Collage used in Jimmy Olsen #138.

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DUCTION

INTRO

“ The Moving Finger writes; and having writ, moves on…”

Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, by Omar Khayyam

T

hat quote couldn’t be more apropos to Jack Kirby’s situation in 1970—and indeed, a visual interpretation of it appears in his own New Gods comic, as a flaming hand that writes on the Source Wall [above]. Khayyam was a Persian mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher who lived in the 11th Century, and his poem espoused the idea of how time only moved forward, and that once something has occurred, it stayed in the past.

Kirby, who’d spent the previous decade developing the Marvel Comics Universe, was ready to roll on a new “Epic for our times” that he didn’t feel he could produce at Marvel. His denouement in New Gods #1 that “An ancient era was passing in fiery holocaust!” meant more than he was leaving Thor and Odin (and Marvel Comics) behind. A seismic shift in his use of gods was taking place, and the behind-the-scenes events that got him there were seismic indeed.

While this book will dig deep into that backstory, it goes much earlier than that—and much later. Jack Kirby was never content to just present the status quo in his comics. In his earliest work, he hit upon the idea of incorporating ancient mythology into stories, but with an updated twist.

It reached its first apex at Marvel Comics in the 1960s, where Thor explored “old” gods living in today’s world, while sticking to their old god ways.

Then came Galactus in Fantastic Four, who was an evolutionary step toward a different type of godly depiction. But despite even Jack’s multi-issue continued story arcs like the “Galactus Trilogy” or

Thor’s “Ragnarok” (which was threatened so often it became almost meaningless), you always knew those stories would end with the heroes surviving to fight another day, and the villains soon being up to their old mischief again.

The long, sordid tale of Kirby’s discontent with Stan Lee and Marvel Comics during those 1960s years is the stuff of comic book legend (you can learn it in detail in my book Kirby & Lee: Stuf’ Said), but suffice it to say, Jack wasn’t happy there by 1969. When DC Comics’ Carmine Infantino came a’knockin’ to lure the top creator in the industry away, Kirby opened that door a crack— and eventually made the move, taking two young guys named Mark Evanier and Steve Sherman away from the Marvelmania Fan Club to be his assistants. Jack was at that time working from the West Coast and mailing in stories to his employer’s New York offices—and what he had planned for DC would require all the help Evanier and Sherman (and eventually, inker Mike Royer) could provide, to pull it off with minimal East Coast interference.

As you’ll see herein, I couldn’t have pulled off this book without Mark and Steve’s own lifetimes of quotes and research, for which I and other Fourth World fans are eternally grateful. In 2014, the esteemed Mr. Evanier unknowingly sent me on a fascinating voyage into Kirby’s mind, by pointing out his tendency to put unrelated things together to make unique associations: “...the ‘Stone Men from Saturn’ are in the first Thor story... Jack was very intrigued by the Stone Men of Easter Island, and one of the places he read about them was in the book Kon-Tiki by Thor Heyerdahl.”

Mark Evanier at the Jack Kirby Tribute Panel, held on Sunday, July 27, 2014 at Comic-Con International: San Diego

As you’ll discover from my research, since then I’ve found many other instances of those same kinds of connections happening. Jack worked fast and thought even faster, so it’s difficult to keep up at times. But with some occasional speculation on my part, I’m hopefully going to take you on a journey of discovery to ellucidate the sources of Kirby’s gods in this tome.

Kirby in his home studio and back yard, circa September 1971, with his 1960s Gods concept drawings.

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LEAVE NO GOD UNTURNED

by John Morrow As cryptic house ads in DC’s 1970 comics heralded “The Great One Is Coming,” Kirby launched his new “Fourth World” (New Gods, Forever People, Mister Miracle, and Jimmy Olsen), where mysteries galore slowly unfolded to create the next step in guest-starring and shared universes. This was a true epic, taking place not just across a trio of issues of one comic, but throughout every issue of four interwoven titles, all inextricably linked. If you missed one, you missed a lot.

Its eventual climax was poised to end with the death of either the main hero (Orion) or the overarching villain (Darkseid). As each new installment Kirby Kirby at at his his hit the newsstands, the puzzle started to drawing drawing board, board, with with take shape, and an army of characters and Steve Steve Sherman Sherman new ideas was introduced. [left], [left], Mark Mark Evanier Evanier (“Army” is not an overstatement. A few [right], [right], and and Mike Mike Royer Royer [below], [below], circa circa years ago, my pal Jon B. Cooke curated a blog 1969, 1969, and and more more titled 365 Days of the Fourth World, which recently. recently. spotlighted a different Kirby character or concept each day for a year. Jon had no problem filling all the slots, with plenty left over. That list is included here, and Jon’s own extensive research into Kirby’s history has been invaluable in my quest to document the events in this book—as has the work of Jack Kirby Checklist curator Richard Kolkman, and Rand Hoppe and Tom Kraft of the Jack Kirby Museum.)

Instead of directly riffing on the old gods as he’d done in Thor, Kirby took it upon himself to create an entire new pantheon of gods, who were in-keeping with the times in which he was documenting it. Rather than just have Apollo or Ra walk among mankind, Photo by Kendall Whitehouse. he gave us a new kind of sun god in Lightray.

Zeus and Odin gave way to Highfather, with a complicated backstory behind his peaceful demeanor. And whereas Ares was a plain old God of War, Orion was a Dog of War, calling on Shakespeare, European customs, and daddy issues to shape him into a whole new type of battler.

Something else unprecedented was Kirby’s visual sense. Seeing the evolution of his style from his first “Mercury” strip in 1940, to his final Hunger Dogs graphic novel, should be a revelation for Kirby neophytes. Technology became one of his “new” gods as well, and no one created complex machines like Jack. Also, no one else incorporated collage into their comics art the way Kirby did, and for about a decade in the 1960s and ’70s, it became as much a part of his style as squiggles, Kirby Krackle, and his unique use of color.

Despite the printing limitations of the time requiring them to be rendered in black-&-white, those collages gave a distinctive look to many a Kirby story, and you’ll see numerous examples of Jack’s collage work here, finally shown in full-color.

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Ultimately, all that inventiveness was to no avail. DC cancelled the Fourth World series mid-stream, and their rationale will be discussed later in this book. All Kirby knew was that his pride and joy, which he’d poured his full visionary energy into, was being taken away. In many ways, he never recovered creatively from it, and never again put quite the effort into his work as he had from 19701972—although as you’ll see, his mid-1970s work on Eternals and other projects still had a lot of inventiveness put into them.

Looking over his entire career, you’ll see he covered a broad range of historical traditions in his comics: African (Black Panther), Aztec/Mayan/ Incan (Eternals), Buddhist (Captain America’s Bicentennial Battles), Chinese (The Horde), Egyptian (Rama-Tut), Greco-Roman (Hercules and Zeus), Hindu (Lord of Light), Japanese (Sonny Sumo), Native American (Wyatt Wingfoot), and of course, Norse/ Germanic (Thor).

Somewhere in his output, he probably even snuck in some reference to Celtic, Slavic, or Sumerian faiths.

Myths, legends, and ancient religions were ripe trees to snag fruit from, and he picked them clean.

Jack himself was Jewish, and while his faith may have informed his storytelling, he didn’t let it cloud his stories’ outcomes. I’ve got strongly held Christian beliefs of my own, and I’m the same way with this book; my own faith isn’t relevant here—we’re talking about entertainment, not religion.

I’m not here to preach to anyone, just to have fun exploring the mind and talent of the guy who gave so many people, so much enjoyment through his comics, despite his hardships.

This book presents a tale of how commercial considerations and editorial interference can destroy the most personal of creative endeavors—and how even corrupted artistic visions can have lasting value and impact. Jack envisioned his Fourth World series ultimately being collected into deluxe volumes, a permanent presentation that elevated the lowly comic book into the realm of literature. His prescience is a vitally important point in all this, because as he predicted, his New Gods saga (as well as Thor, Eternals, and most other Kirby work) has been collected and published just that way, multiple times since he left comics in 1985.

If you haven’t already read Kirby’s gods work, especially the Fourth World, this book may not be for you. I’m assuming if you picked it up, you already have a familiarity with (and likely love for) those epic Kirby series, and want to delve deeper into them.

So, consider this book a mythological shovel—let’s dig in!

John Morrow, February 2021

THE COLOR-TEXT EQUATION

FORE

WORLD

T

here are a few things to note in fully understanding my methodology for this book. As with my previous book Kirby & Lee: Stuf’ Said, I felt its “oral history” approach would be better served if there was an obvious indicator of who was saying what among the principal players, without overwhelming it with “Jack Kirby said...” designations. So throughout, Kirby, Mark Evanier, Steve Sherman, Mike Royer, and Carmine Infantino (the five main commentators) receive their own unique font and text color, for easy identification: Kirby in MAGENTA, Evanier in BLUE, Sherman in PURPLE, Royer in GREEN, and Infantino in ORANGE. All other quoted WORD commentators are BALLOONS: announced with one of these.

Rather than use traditional styling, I’ve listed footnotes immediately after each quote, so readers know if the comments were made at the time of the chronological narrative, or later.

At right is a rough timeline of when Kirby was likely working on each issue of the Fourth World series, with color breaks showing the first four of the six different “worlds” of its evolution, as designated throughout this book.

Finally, a key component to understanding Kirby’s Gods, is seeing his original concept drawings, done in the 1960s while he was still working at Marvel Comics. Those are shown on the next 18 pages.

Jack at home with his photocopier, acquired during the second “world” era above.

He used it to copy his pencil art (as shown throughout this book) before inking.

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TITLE: Kirby quits Marvel Forever People Jimmy Olsen Jimmy Olsen Jimmy Olsen New Gods Jimmy Olsen Mister Miracle Jimmy Olsen Forever People New Gods Mister Miracle Jimmy Olsen Forever People New Gods Jimmy Olsen Mister Miracle Forever People New Gods Jimmy Olsen Mister Miracle Jimmy Olsen Forever People New Gods Jimmy Olsen Mister Miracle Jimmy Olsen Forever People New Gods Jimmy Olsen Mister Miracle Jimmy Olsen Jimmy Olsen Forever People New Gods Mister Miracle Jimmy Olsen Forever People New Gods Demon Mister Miracle Forever People New Gods Kamandi Demon Mister Miracle Forever People New Gods Mister Miracle Kamandi Demon Forever People New Gods Mister Miracle Mister Miracle Mister Miracle Mister Miracle Mister Miracle Mister Miracle Mister Miracle Mister Miracle

ISSUE #:

ON-SALE:

1 133 134 135 1 136 1 137 2 2 2 138 3 3 139 3 4 (1st 25¢ issue) 4 (1st 25¢ issue) 141 (1st 25¢ issue) 4 (1st 25¢ issue) 142 5 5 143 5 144 6 6 (Glory Boat) 145 6 (Funky Flashman) 146 147 7 7 (The Pact) 7 148 (final issue) 8 (Billion $ Bates) 8 (Terrible Turpin) 1 8 9 (Deadman) 9 (Bug) 1 2 9 (Himon) 10 10 10 (MM To Be) 2 3 11 (final issue) 11 (final issue) 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 (final issue)

12/1970 08/1970 10/1970 11/1970 12/1970 01/1971 01/1971 02/1971 02/1971 02/1971 03/1971 04/1971 04/1971 04/1971 05/1971 05/1971 06/1971 06/1971 07/1971 07/1971 08/1971 08/1971 08/1971 09/1971 09/1971 10/1971 10/1971 10/1971 11/1971 11/1971 12/1971 01/1972 12/1971 12/1971 01/1972 02/1972 02/1972 02/1972 06/1972 03/1972 04/1972 04/1972 08/1972 08/1972 05/1972 06/1972 06/1972 07/1972 10/1972 09/1972 08/1972 08/1972 09/1972 11/1972 01/1973 03/1973 05/1973 07/1973 09/1973 11/1973

JACK DREW IT: March 1970 April-May 1970?

June 1970?

July 1970?

July 1970?

August 1970 August 1970 September 1970 September 1970 October 1970 October 1970 November 1970 November 1970 December 1970 December 1970 January 1971 January 1971 February 1971 February 1971 March 1971 March 1971 March 1971 April 1971 April 1971 April 1971 May 1971 May 1971 June 1971 June 1971 July 1971 July 1971 August 1971 August 1971 August 1971 September 1971 September 1971 September 1971 October 1971 October 1971 November 1971?

November 1971 December 1971 December 1971 December 1971?

January 1972?

January 1972 February 1972 February 1972 March 1972 March 1972?

March 1972?

April 1972 April 1972 May 1972 July 1972 September 1972 November 1972 January 1973 March 1973 May 1973 July 1973

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GENESIS

FROM “OLD” TO “NEW” GODS Earliest Myth Adventures

PRE-

L

(1940–1970)

“I believed in legends and I loved mythological tales. The character of Thor has his origins in these fairy tales.

But I wanted to tell them my own way, as adventure comics. The writers of these tales wrote them their way. The tales had a medieval style, a medieval language. My characters capture this language, with understandable English.

“I knew many and read lots of these books. My parents believed in demons, like every European migrant who believed in popular tales! The English, the people from Central Europe, they all sat by a fire and repeated these stories. They were telling how Count Draha abducted peasants and their daughters, driving them to his castle which they never escaped from. Perhaps the Count had only had them wash his stables or clean the parquet floor, but the people around the fire kept telling he forced them to do very strange things. That may be the origin of the Dracula myth.

Characters, more or less historical, are turned into legends, even if they probably were people like you and I! “I tried to incorporate what I know. My father came from an aristocratic Austrian family and my mother was a peasant. And they told me popular tales, stories very real for these people.

At that time, penicillin didn’t exist and people were dying from diseases easily cured by today’s treatments. There were some religious ceremonies where people danced and sang. I could see them with my own eyes.

“The Nordic legends about Asgard will live forever, as will our own legends, transmitted by comics, at least the best ones. We are building our own legends right now. What is modern today will become archaic for people in the future, and, for them, our writers will describe the ‘primitive life’ we are currently experiencing.”

ong before the Fourth World was a gleam in Kirby’s eye, he got the first big hit of his comic book career in 1940, at what today is known as Marvel Comics. Martin Goodman was the founder and owner of the company, dating back to the late 1930s when it began as Timely Comics.

Goodman built his business on copying whatever trends were popular, and exploiting them with as many copycat comics as he could produce. But when he found himself with an innovator like Jack Kirby on the payroll, he suddenly saw his ragtag company reach new heights of financial success, largely from the popularity of Kirby and partner Joe Simon’s creation Captain America, which took the wartime world by storm.

Jack first dipped his toes into the concept of gods in comics at Timely. His earliest use of deities was depicting the Roman god Mercury in Timely’s Red Raven Comics #1 (August 1940), in a story that presented other Roman gods, Jack Kirby interviewed by Nikola Atchine in 1992, in Kirby’s booth at Comic-Con International: San Diego including Jupiter (Mercury’s father), Minerva, Vulcan, and Diana, and even mixed in Greek gods Aeolus, Apollo, and Pluto. Red Raven was immediately cancelled, so Kirby’s unused second story was recycled for a back-up feature in Captain America Comics #1 (March 1941), renaming the main character Hurricane,

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The Lead-Up To Leaving Marvel

and now christening him as the son of Thor. (In a holdover from the “Mercury” name, his human alter ego was initially dubbed “Mike Cury” before being christened “Harry Kane” after Kirby left the strip.)

Captain America’s mask even featured Mercury’s wings above the ears, and that breakout character kept Kirby too busy to produce further back-up stories for Timely. But Simon and Kirby soon discovered that Goodman was cheating them out of promised profits from its success, and secretly cut a deal with DC Comics at the end of 1941—leaving Martin Goodman and his creative accounting practices behind, and Jack working for DC off-and-on for the next two decades. In 1942’s Adventure Comics #75 [above], Kirby depicted an early version of the Norse god Thor for DC Comics, albeit as a villain for his hero The Sandman. Much later at DC, Kirby introduced another Thor in 1957’s Tales of the Unexpected #16 [below]. But as the 1950s came to a close, Kirby’s relationship with a key editor at DC Comics soured. Jack Schiff had helped Kirby land a potentially lucrative syndicated newspaper strip about the space race, but had demanded more of a finder’s fee than Kirby felt was warranted, and the two ended up in court together, with Schiff winning the suit. Thus, Kirby was forced to return to Martin Goodman’s company as his only viable option for supporting his family. Becoming firmly rooted at Marvel Comics throughout the 1960s, he poured his heart and soul into building a Marvel Universe of characters there, assuming that if the company succeeded, he’d be commensurately rewarded.

One Marvel project that was tailor-made for Kirby was (yet another) Thor, which premiered in 1962’s Journey Into Mystery #83.

With Jack’s past love for, and knowledge of, mythology, it was natural for what started as a typical super-hero comic, to evolve into a full-on incorporation of gods into the medium.

“Well, my father was always very interested, he loved mythology, he loved studying religion and history, just knew all about it. His bookshelves were just loaded with that kind of stuff; as a kid I was always more into history than I was science, but we would have long discussions about it. I kind of got into it on a more practical basis, and I remember standing by his drawing board as he was doing the Thor character, and either Thor or one of the other characters had big horns coming out of the helmet. I said a real Viking wouldn’t have big horns coming out of his helmet, and we were laughing... my father kind of laughed and made some statement that, ‘Well, this isn’t Viking reality, it is a visual impact,’ so he gave me a little art lesson there.”

NEAL KIRBY:

From Neal Kirby’s deposition, Marvel Worldwide, Inc. et al v. Kirby et al, June 30, 2010

[above] Circa 1966, as Joe Simon was making moves to claim the expiring copyright on Captain America, publisher Martin Goodman stiff-armed Kirby into siding with Marvel, and Jack created this alternate design for Captain America in case Simon was successful. As you can see, it didn’t reach the level of detail and care Kirby put into his Gods concept drawings of the same era. [left] Kirby gives us a little “Viking reality” with this circa 1969 illustration.

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can tell, the rest of the presentation drawings Jack did were all of new characters.”

himself from the Marvel offices, it gave Jack some breathing room to spread his creative wings on ideas that wouldn’t be bound by the restrictions of the Marvel Universe and editor (and now official figurehead) Stan Lee. Having created or co-created (with Lee) most of the major Marvel moneymakers from the Fantastic Four to Thor—and been at least tangentially involved in the genesis of SpiderMan and other characters in books he didn’t work directly on—Kirby felt he deserved more than a flat page rate, and craved to be able to write his own dialogue, so that Stan Lee’s words wouldn’t change the direction he set in his pencil art and margin notes. A last ditch effort at a Galactus origin in Thor which was truncated by Lee in mid-1969 was the last straw.

Still, with nowhere to go beyond Marvel at the time, Jack kept

Mark Evanier, Jack F.A.Q.s column, Jack Kirby Collector #47, Fall 2006

No offers from other publishers panned out, and anyway, Jack was hesitant to rock the boat too much at Marvel, fearing for his livelihood. He had been blacklisted at DC due to his dispute with editor Jack Schiff, [left] and there was no other major publisher at the time to offer his talents to. When Perfect Film and Chemical Corporation purchased Marvel Comics in July 1968, making Lee’s continued employment there a stipulation of the deal, it seemed a certainty that Kirby wouldn’t get that offer there. So for the time being, Kirby was stuck at Marvel, and his “new” gods languished as a series of concept drawings that few would see.

Slip Out The Back, Jack In January 1969, Jack Kirby moved his family from New York to California, ostensibly to provide a warmer climate for his daughter Lisa, who suffered from asthma. Besides physically distancing

[top right] On the back of a stat from 1965’s Strange Tales #138, Jack scribbled the names of Norse gods he researched, and used them in Thor Annual #2 (1966). [above] Likely due to a west coast trip to find the Kirby family a new house, Thor #158 ran late and had to use a reprint of Thor’s 1962 origin from Journey into Mystery #83, framed by new filler pages like this. [right] 1960s comic books couldn’t reproduce Jack’s Thor collages in color, so he combined collage and watercolor with stats from comics for his own satisfaction.

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his new concept pieces on his studio walls in his new California home, where only invited guests would see them. He knew building fan connections was important for his future, and any new projects were going to live or die by fan response. Shortly after his relocation out west, he attended (as an inconspicuous paying member of the public, not a guest) Westercon XXII, a science-fiction convention held in Santa Monica the weekend of July 4, 1969, to get the lay of the land in terms of local fandom. That soon led to encounters with the planning committee for the first San Diego Comic-Con (now Comic-Con International), and a long association as an honored guest of that event. Comic-Con International co-founder Shel Dorf brought a group of young fans to meet Kirby at his home in 1969, [right] and the discussion that day led to questions about the concept drawings he was stockpiling.

[FAN:] “The artwork that you showed us today… do you think you’ll ever use [those characters] in any of the Marvel books?”

completion. Perhaps it’ll come to some conclusion. It might be good, it might be bad. It might be accepted, it might be rejected. But it will be concluded in some way.”

[KIRBY:] “Well, I’ll suggest them and maybe hope that it comes to fruition. And it depends on the outlook at the time… fulfillment,

Jack Kirby interviewed on November 9, 1969

Back in 1967, Kinney National Services, Inc. had purchased National Periodical Publications, becoming the new owner of DC Comics. Around that time, Carmine Infantino had been appointed DC’s art director, and editor Jack Schiff had retired, removing a big impediment keeping Kirby from ever returning to DC. Others, most notably influential editor Mort Weisinger [right] still held a grudge, fueled even more by the fact that Kirby’s Marvel comics of the era were beginning to outsell DC’s own. Infantino, who had worked for Kirby and Joe Simon’s own studio years before, held no such resentment, instead seeing the potential of hiring away Marvel’s top creator, as a feather in his cap that could only help his standing at

[above] As Kirby looked beyond his “old” gods of Thor, in the early 1970s, with the help of assistants Mark Evanier and Steve Sherman, he self-published a set of posters featuring his new renditions of classic Norse mythology characters. Note that his new Thor is renamed “Sigurd” (a dragon-slaying Germanic hero, immortalized as Siegfried in Richard Wagner operas), to avoid any legal hassles with Marvel Comics. [right] The envelope for the GODS poster set sported art that originated as this rejected page from Galactus’ origin in Thor #169, which Mike Royer modified during inking.

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[above] Kirby watercolored this presentation piece, and used it to sell the New Gods idea to prospective publishers. [below] Numerous full-page illustrations like this Thor page were held back from Marvel during the 1960s, and remained unused at the request of Jack’s wife Roz Kirby, who felt they were too good to offer the company, in light of their shabby treatment of her husband. [next page] Another example of Kirby incorporating comics, watercolor, and collage, for his personal enjoyment. Note that this Thor has red hair, as he did in mythology.

the company. In 1969, when Infantino was promoted to Editorial Director and Weisinger announced he’d be retiring (which he finally did in June 1970), the only thing stopping Kirby from working for DC was the prospect of his securing a better situation at Marvel— and Infantino was intent on signing Kirby for DC. One account had Infantino visiting the Kirby’s home for Passover, which would’ve been in April 1969. Another had Jack meeting with Carmine at a Los Angeles hotel to discuss the possibility of moving over to DC. Whether those were separate visits or the same, the purpose was clear.

Kirby put together [above], which was recently discovered by the Jack Kirby Museum. Made from copying some of the individual concept drawings, it included specific verbiage, hand-lettered by Jack, to pitch the idea and build interest.

Three of Jack’s other concept drawings (Darkseid, Metron, and Faces of Evil) would seem to have been done around the time Kirby was meeting with Infantino, with Faces of Evil having a 1969 date.

All three contain elements of collage, unlike the earlier ones, which eschewed backgrounds. So it’s assumed they were all done after

“I was living here in California, in Irvine. I get a message that Carmine Infantino is out in California and wants me to come up to his hotel. To make it short, they wanted me to save Superman. I said, well, I wasn’t too happy with what was happening at Marvel. I thought, maybe this is the time to change.”

Jack Kirby interview conducted by Howard Zimmerman in March 1982 for Comics Scene #2

Infantino recalled the event many years later. “[Kirby] then trotted out these three pieces, the New Gods, Mister Miracle and Forever People. He said, ‘These I want to do but I won’t do them for Marvel.’”

Carmine Infantino interview, Comic Book Artist #1, February 28, 1999

The pieces Infantino speaks of, may not’ve been Jack’s actual concept drawings, but a different, hand-colored xerox presentation 34

“I’ll clarify it by saying I’m basically a man. I’m basically a guy from the East Side. I’m basically a guy who likes to be a man, and if you try to deprive me of it, I can’t live with it. That’s what the industry was doing to me, and I had a gut-fall of that. I couldn’t do anything less. I had to get myself as far away... “[Carmine] gave me the opportunity to do The New Gods, and The New Gods was actually a blessing to me because I got off on another course, and The New Gods made sales for DC... Nobody bothered me out here, and I did The New Gods as I saw ’em. I did The New Gods as I felt they should be done.

“DC was actually like a haven because I was an individual there.

I was able to do something under my own name. In other words, if I wrote, ‘Jack Kirby’ wrote it. If I drew, ‘Jack Kirby’ drew it. And the truth was there, and I began to write and draw, and I felt at last a sense of freedom, and with the sales rising from those books, my freedom became more apparent to me, and I felt a hell of a lot better.”

Kirby’s move to California, and Faces of Evil may’ve been the springboard for Kirby’s conceptualization of the villains for his upcoming series. Likewise, while its date is unknown, the cover image of the book you’re now reading, titled The Gods, may’ve been done as Kirby was formulating his Fourth World ideas.

Curiously, in Thor #167 (on-sale in June 1969), a reader posits in the letter column that the “old” gods had already been supplanted by “new” gods, and that’s why Kirby’s Thor bears no resemblance to the red-bearded Thor of mythology. Whether Kirby regularly read the letter columns in his comics is unknown. What is known, is that in December of 1969, Kirby went back to New York to negotiate a better deal with Marvel’s new owner, Perfect Film. All he got was an unappreciative “take it or leave it” deal, and he returned home from New York with only an agreement to produce two full-length Inhumans stories, and to draw the first issue of a new Ka-Zar comic.

“Jack did not leave Marvel in 1970 because he thought DC could make his dreams come true. He left Marvel because the contract he would have had to sign if he stayed was so onerous, he could not stay.

He went to DC because it seemed like the only place he could go... and if he wasn’t going to get into a whole ’nother line of work, it probably was.”

Jack Kirby interviewed by Gary Groth, conducted Summer 1989, published in The Comics Journal #134, February 1990

As you can see, a big issue for Kirby at that point was the ability to dialogue and edit his own strips, without outside interference— exactly what DC was promising him. Stan Lee at Marvel seemed to finally budge on allowing that, letting Jack script a couple of short mystery stories for Chamber of Darkness, and the new Inhumans series that was part of his final Marvel negotiations. But in what may have been part of that concession, Kirby was forced to draw Silver Surfer #18 for Marvel, taking over from John Buscema (who in turn drew a Thor issue) in a last-ditch attempt to save Stan Lee’s pet project from cancellation, with a new direction. But as humiliating at that high-profile switch was for Jack, Lee made major editorial changes to Kirby’s low-profile Chamber of Darkness #4 short story, requiring extensive redrawing by Jack. Lee also outright rejected Kirby’s penultimate story intended for Fantastic Four #102 (though it would eventually be published, heavily altered, in Fantastic Four #108, after Kirby had left Marvel).

Mark Evanier, Jack F.A.Q.s column, Jack Kirby Collector #62, Winter 2013

That left him at a crossroads which cleared his path to DC Comics, and his magnum opus: The New Gods. It was just a six-block walk from Marvel to DC’s offices, where he entered into final negotiations to switch companies, albeit secretly.

“There comes a time when you’ve had a gut-full of everything. I had a gut-full of Marvel, a gut-full of New York... Carmine Infantino also had kind of a gut-full. He came out here, and he was very kind to me...

Infantino was an artist, and he was always a very good artist, and then he became the editor and publisher of DC.

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[this spread] The eventual cover of New Gods #1 went through quite an evolution. From left to right: 1) Kirby’s original layout, with a stat of his Orion concept drawing, and the lettering he found for the logo. 2) DC’s Showcase #94 version, before that comic was cancelled. 3) DC’s initial stab at matching Kirby’s design. 4) The published cover.

what resulted. Various folks fiddled with it under Infantino’s supervision and it was finally decided to alter it as they did and to throw in that textured space background. I’m pretty sure Jack was told at the time that it was the handiwork of Neal Adams, but Neal later informed me he had nothing to do with it. So if you’re ever making up an index and you have to specify who inked the cover of New Gods #1, the correct answer is: ‘Don Heck, sort of.’ I suspect that when they shot Jack’s presentation drawing and dropped out the color, it was necessary for some artist to go in and do some touching-up on the Orion drawing.”

week—a nearly impossible task for any other artist. Kirby’s original vision was for his overall series to be considered “The New Gods,” with three individual monthly titles: Orion, Forever People, and Mister Miracle. (A fourth title tying it together called The New Gods was proposed, but somehow the Orion title got renamed that instead.)

The May 1970 edition of the fanzine Newfangles (#35) revealed that DC’s tryout comic Showcase was being cancelled with #93; #94 was going to have featured “The New Gods,” but instead it was changed to debut as a standalone title after Kirby raised objections.

A photostat of the original Showcase version of the cover exists [above], and that image had a convoluted birth.

Mark Evanier, Jack F.A.Q.s column, Jack Kirby Collector #47, Fall 2006

Since DC insisted his books be bi-monthly, to fulfill the weekly quota under his new contract, Kirby was required to handle one existing DC comic. And Superman was high on DC’s list for being revamped.

“When it came time to design a cover for New Gods #1, either Jack or Carmine decided to use the presentation drawing of Orion in a larger composition. Jack sent it back to New York along with a penciled space background. The idea was that DC’s production department would make a stat of the presentation drawing using filters to bleach out the color.

Then they’d paste it in the space indicated on his background after Vince Colletta inked it. Jack also sent back a mock-up of a title logo. In some magazine, he’d seen display lettering that he liked. All the letters necessary to spell out NEW GODS were in the block of copy on the page so he cut them out and repasted them to spell out the name of his new book. Someone at DC—perhaps ace letterer Gaspar Saladino— took that mock-up and lettered the New Gods logo in much the same style. (Before someone asks: Saladino did do the logos for Forever People and Mister Miracle, and Jack had no input into them.) Back at DC, they tried assembling the cover as per Jack’s design and didn’t like

“They wanted me to work with Superman, but I didn’t want to interfere with the work that was being done by the other men. I felt I could create my own novel.”

Jack Kirby interviewed by Leonard Pitts, Jr. circa 1986 for Conversations with the Comic Book Creators

Instead, Kirby asked for a title that didn’t have a regular creative team assigned to it, as to not kick someone off and hurt their livelihood. It was agreed he’d take on, of all things, Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen.

“I took Jimmy Olsen because it was a dog. It didn’t have the sales 40

THE FOUR CORNERS

SOURCE

Of The Fourth World

L

“Darkseid is total power. How do we handle

et’s delve briefly that? Orion is total destruction. He’s on our doorinto sources for the step, now. Lightray is purest virtue. How would you characters and stick it to him if you had to? Who would deny that concepts in his “New Gods” series. Kirby Metron is alive? The capacity for obtaining total did find inspiration knowledge is growing rapidly all around us. Yet for many of his new all of us will know the frustration of dying before characters in real every universal secret is revealed. Even as Metron people. But those lives without all the answers, we shall pass away sources had only tenuous initial ties, at before a mighty, empty blackboard. best—and sometimes “Yes, the gods are there. But we’re still not equipped to get in on were a convoluted their action. So they play their game wherever they see fit. By creative mish-mash of whoevprojection, I merely sought to draw some interest in their direction. er was rattling around Scott Free... he’s the best in man, in contention with the machinery of in his brain at a given power. It’s oily and noisy and deadly. Man’s problem is to juggle it so he moment, or someone he’d recently had doesn’t get too dirty, too loud or too sick. Mother Box is as inexplicable an encounter with. as the Source. She’s a quality in man which gives him an edge when he While he elaborated needs it.” in a 1971 interview Jack Kirby interviewed by Jonathan Bacon in Fall of 1973, published in Fantasy Crossroads #1, 1974 [Train Of Thought #5] that “Nobody is any definable person that rience I think comes out in the drawing. And sometimes I’m acquainted with,” it was actually not quite as cutit’s even shocking to me to find people I like from my and-dried as that. own family suddenly coming out as characters that are “It’s a very strange thing; in many of my characters I’ll see reflections of my own family. Sometimes it just comes out that way. And it can be a villain, a hero, or a guy in the crowd, and he’ll suddenly look like my father or my uncle, and I’ve had a couple look like my brotherin-law—he never looked so good. An artist draws from his own environment; whatever he sees in his own expe-

very unwholesome. But the resemblance is there, and it’s one aspect of the strip that becomes very entertaining to me.”

Jack Kirby at the 1972 Comic Art Convention Luncheon (originally published in the 1973 Comic Art Convention program book)

A more concrete rationale for that was offered by Kirby’s former assistant Mark Evanier:

TO AND FROM THE

“Jack based everybody that he ever drew in comics on somebody. I think he always had to have some sort of emotional handle on a character before he could draw that character into a story... and that meant referencing a real person, however tenuously. In some cases the references were so far removed that it’s impossible to see the final connection. Everything he plotted was based on somebody in his mind.”

Mark Evanier interviewed in 1995 by John Morrow for Jack Kirby Collector #6

So how exactly does one convey a broad range of emotional ties, in a series that’s about a pantheon of deities who were supposed to be above us mere mortals? For Kirby, he started by bringing it all down to Earth. [left] Kirby holding court with fans including Barry Alfonso [left] circa 1973 at his home.

Note the plethora of books on his studio shelves—evidence of how well read Jack was.

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“I don’t like [using existing characters like Jimmy Olsen and Superman in my stories] because people in charge of those comics have their own image of the character, and I’m up against that conditioning.

If I draw Superman, for instance, of course he’ll look a little different.

The character is bound to have certain characteristics that I alone could put in him, just as much as the man who has always drawn him has put into him. My version is going to be different from somebody else’s, and the hazards are small, minor conflicts—like with the eyes—and they might disturb people who’ve been used to imagining Superman or having live with a certain image of Superman for a number of years.

Therefore, it’s always a hazard to take another character and do him your way, because you’re always up against opposition of some kind from people who’ll say that’s not their image of Superman, or any other character you’ll handle. Therefore, I’m a little leery about doing that sort of thing, but I’ve taken [some established characters] on at DC and I feel that I’m doing good with them.”

May 14, 1971: Jack Kirby interview on Northwestern University’s WNUR-FM, conducted by Tim Skelly, published much later in The Nostalgia Journal #27, August 1976

But despite Kirby’s reticence to use other people’s characters, he threw everything he had into the Jimmy Olsen assignment, and his New Gods saga received some much-needed grounding in humanity—starting, ironically enough, with a super-human iconic character possessing godlike abilities.

SUPERMAN FAMILY: The Humanity The first Fourth World issue to appear in print was Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen #133, and while it was clear that Kirby was up to something previously unseen in comics (Jimmy Olsen’s or otherwise), it wasn’t yet apparent from that initial story just how sweeping of an epic readers were about to experience.

SUPERMAN & JIMMY OLSEN Having been hired initially with the goal of revamping Superman for the 1970s, Kirby humanized the Man of Steel in the first story he actually drew him in, for Forever People #1. In it, the Kryptonian bemoaned the fact that he was alone on Earth, a planet of non-super beings who could never truly relate to what it was like to be so evolutionarily above them, and how he longed to find others of his own kind.

“In the first story we thought that it would be important to use [Superman] and see how relative he would be to that kind of thing.

And Superman is relative. Superman has, despite the fact that he is a super-being, emotions just like everyone else. He’s not a robot. If I were a super-being, I’d just be a human being with super-powers, which is the way I see Superman. He’s a human being with super-powers and he can be lonely; he has emotions, he can be in love, he can hate people.

He hates evil.

“But Superman is invincible, and Superman is the first super-being to come into literary life. There he is alone. That’s the way I see him. If I were a Superman among two billion people, despite the fact that I was a super-being, I’d feel pretty insecure. For instance, say I was a white hunter in Africa and I were to walk into a cannibal village. Despite the fact that I had a gun and they didn’t, despite the fact that I had ammunition and they didn’t, I’d feel pretty insecure, despite the fact that I could probably shoot my way out. Superman is alone in our world.

“If suddenly two, three billion people developed a psychosis—say they felt you were a danger. What if Superman didn’t want to be good? What if Superman wanted to be evil? What if Superman wanted to impose his power on us? That’s the

[above] Rejected cover for Jack’s first Jimmy Olsen issue, and [right] a heavyweight champ’s inadequacy shows in Forever People #1. [top] Kirby drew this image for the corner logo on Jimmy Olsen covers, but DC opted for an image by DC’s usual staff Superman artists instead [above right].

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its cover, the flashy hero The Guardian got second billing to a ragtag gang of kids from Suicide Slum. Inside, his alter ego Jim Harper (a rookie beat cop) was beaten himself by a pack of thugs, then donned a blue and yellow costume, crash helmet, and police badge-shaped shield to exact revenge—becoming the “guardian of society” he couldn’t be while working within the law. His moniker attained double-meaning when a gang of young newspaper peddlers (all orphans of deceased parents) turned to robbing a hardware store to put food on the table. Officer Harper was assigned to be their legal guardian, but the kids resisted his Big Brother treatment, and started stealing hubcaps. When their Fence set them up as a diversion for a fatal hold-up, the boys began to appreciate Jim’s law and order stance, and got imperiled trying to even the score with the crook. The Guardian saved the boys, who later returned the favor as their first episode ended with them suspecting Harper and the Guardian might be one and the same—a subplot that would run through most of their Golden Age adventures (and which Kirby finally resolved late in his 1970s run on the Jimmy Olsen book).

When Kirby brought them back in Olsen, he gave the team a high-tech flying Whiz Wagon [shown above in a full-color collage used in #134], to get them beyond slum adventures and into the great unknown of his imagination. African-American character Flippa Dippa was a new addition to the Newsboy Legion, meant to add some racial diversity to the book. His origins appear to stem from actor Cleavon Little’s portrayal of the title character in Bruce Jay Friedman’s play Scuba Duba, which Kirby would’ve seen documented in the November 17, 1967 issue of LIFE magazine. In spite of the comic-relief intent of a character who perpetually wears scuba gear, at the first sign of danger in Jimmy Olsen #133, Jack had Flippa charge right in and save the entire group, showing he was more than a token member of the team. By the end of the series, Flippa-Dippa was routinely just called the more respectful “Flip.”

[left] The entire Newsboy Legion, plus an unaltered Jimmy Olsen face, from issue #137. [Clockwise from top: Gabby, Jimmy, Big Words, Scrapper, Tommy, and Flip.] [below] Cleavon Little as Scuba Duba, the reallife inspiration for Flippa Dippa.

While Gabby looked much like he did in the 1940s—just augmented through Jack’s art style that’d evolved over 30 years—there has been speculation that Kirby (consciously or not) interspersed elements of then US President Richard Nixon’s likeness into his facial features in the 1970s. (Kirby was an outspoken critic of Nixon.) Scrapper, much as in his 1940s incarnation, can be seen as a young Kirby himself—a tough, streetwise New York teenager.

Tommy and Big Words, also much like their 1940s renditions, tended to have the least interesting and defined personalities, while Jimmy Olsen—as star of the comic—took the lead.

In Jack’s 1970s series, a new Guardian, cloned from cells from the deceased 1940s character after he was murdered by gangsters,

[above] A young, street-smart Jack at the 1939 World’s Fair in New York, age 22. [right] Kirby knew gangsters, and while launching the Fourth World, he successfully pitched In The Days Of The Mob to DC, using this presentation mock-up.

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get a job as a ditch digger. I’d like to do that for about six months just to harden up. Maybe get down there and begin using the muscles. I’ll rotate with a guy.’ You find a ditch digger who’s just about had it. Some intelligent guy, and maybe he can handle your job. And you say, ‘How about trading, just for awhile?’ You never know what the hell strikes you. You never know what you might like to do.”

Jack Kirby interviewed for Train Of Thought #6, 1971

The New Gods comics gave us our most vivid look at daily life on New Genesis, other than Superman’s short visit there in Jimmy Olsen #147.

APOKOLIPS Apokolips, by contrast, was dotted with raging fire pits, and it contained separate slum areas named Grayborders, Night-Time, Longshadow, and Armagetto— the latter of which was where it was prophesied that a “Last Battle” between Father and Son would decide the war with New Genesis. It was protected by flying Para-demons, which pushed back any invaders.

The Mister Miracle series gave us a well-defined, up-close look at the bleak way of life on Apokolips. Orion visited the planet briefly in New Gods #1 for a necessary introductory passage to set up the series, and the only other depiction was when we got the slightest glimpse of it from a distance in Jimmy Olsen #141.

NEW GODS: The Deities “To put it short, the gods are giant reflections of ourselves. They are ourselves as we think we should be or we think we might be. They are idealistic and dramatic versions. They make a lot more noise than we do and therefore attract a lot more attention than we do. We feel that we’ve been fulfilled in some way if our own images act out the fantasies that we entertain.”

Jack Kirby interviewed by Peter Kuper in 1972, published in G.A.S.Lite, The Official Magazine of the Cleveland Graphic Arts Society Vol. 2, #10, 1973

HIGHFATHER “There are people like Highfather who are playing everybody else’s game and suddenly realize that they haven’t been playing theirs. He solved his problem by saying, ‘This is what I am. I’m always going to be this way.’”

After almost a decade of storytelling on Asgard with Thor, Kirby finally took readers two steps ahead, to the aftermath of Ragnarok—the twilight of the gods he couldn’t produce at Marvel Comics. In New Gods #7, it was made clear that New Genesis was formed by the living atoms of the Norse god Balder (Balduur), and Apokolips evolved from those of a cunning, evil sorceress (obviously Karnilla, who was in love with Balduur in mythology).

Jack Kirby interviewed by Ken Viola, for the Masters of Comic Book Art video (1987)

Alternately spelled both with and without a hyphen, Highfather was the moral authority of the Fourth World, and the leader of New Genesis (I hesitate to use the word “ruler,” as he was more an advisor and mentor to the planet’s citizens than any kind of enforcer). As depicted in New Gods #7, he was once a fierce warrior during the “Great Clash” between New Genesis and Apokolips, but saw the long-term effects of his violent ways and turned his back on them, instead embracing peace, and receiving a direct connection to The Source in return. That mimicked Kirby’s own turnabout following his rough and tumble upbringing and service in World War II, and his 1945 return stateside to a family life of relative tranquility [right].

Highfather served as a rabbi in the series, mentored the young, and even offered advice to Superman when he finally visited Supertown.

NEW GENESIS While both good and evil characters in the series were technically “new gods,” the default setting for most readers was that “the” New Gods were the ones that lived in peace and harmony on New Genesis. It was a serene planet with a giant floating city hovering above it, nicknamed Supertown by its youngest inhabitants. It was patrolled by flying Monitors who screened all new arrivals on the planet to keep the peace.

“I feel that New Genesis is no more an idealistic place than it is a place where a guy can say, ‘Well, I think I’ll grow a mustache’ or ‘I think I’ll wear yellow pants today’ or ‘Gee, I’m going to put on a cowboy hat.

How about that?’ And everybody’ll say, ‘Well, okay.’ That’s all. And you should have the opportunity to say, ‘You know what I think I’m doing?

I going to take eight months off to write a play.’ You should be able to do that. That’s New Genesis to me. And you could be an executive making $50,000 a year and you could say, ‘You know what I’m going to do?

I’ve been sitting behind the desk getting flabby. I’m going to go out and

DARKSEID “In the New Gods, the core of that story was that a father would never hurt his own son. Now here I have Darkseid, the most evil character ever created… he was the epitome of all evil. All [he] wanted to 56

To a lesser extent, sibling rivalry came into play for Orion.

Although gentle Lightray was more of a true brother to him, Orion proclaimed to his (at that point unbeknown to Orion) half-brother Kalibak in New Gods #8 that, “We fought when young… there’s something we share that’s always driven us to each other.” In that same issue, the two engaged in the most massive battle scene Kirby ever depicted, and the family feud reached a final climax in #11, Kirby’s final issue.

“To a certain extent, Orion represented the fact that Jack had to deal with these people to feed his family. You can’t avoid the Darkseids of this world, they’re there and you have to deal with them. And sometimes to deal with them, you have to play their game, you have to be as ruthless as they are. Jack was not proud of everything he’d ever done in his life from an ethical standpoint, but he did what he had to to make a living and to feed his family. Sometimes when you’re dealing with evils, you have to pick the lesser of the evils and live with it.”

Mark Evanier interviewed in 1995 by John Morrow for Jack Kirby Collector #6

Kirby’s decision to name his character Orion may’ve stemmed from a US government project for a planned long range starship, which would’ve been propelled by setting off atomic bombs behind it in orbit. In a reaction to Russia’s successful launch of the Sputnik 1 satellite on October 4, 1957, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act on July 29, 1958, forming NASA. Project Orion was in development at NASA until 1964, before being cancelled due to concerns over radioactive fallout from its propulsion system. Kirby’s own fascination with science-fiction, as well as his involvement with his 1958-1961 space race newspaper strip Sky Masters of the Space Force, would seem to be a logical connection, and Kirby was involved in extensive research about the US space program for Sky Masters, and apparently as late as 1967.

LIGHTRAY With dour Orion being the antagonist of The New Gods, it made sense for Kirby to pair him with a light-hearted counterpart.

As Kirby stated in 1973, Lightray was pure virtue, contrasting Orion’s pure destruction. It made for sort of a cosmic version of the Buddy Film trope, using their different personalities to spark reader interest.

A curious visual tie exists between Lightray and Mark Moonrider of the Forever People. Uncharacteristically for Jack— he was known for his unique costuming—both sport the same headgear, making me wonder if they were intended to be related.

“The FBI checked me out, and I was supposed to train with Alan Shepard at Wright Field.”

Jack Kirby interviewed by Greg Theakston circa 1980 for the Jack Kirby Treasury Vol. 2

“NASA phoned me and asked me to draw the astronauts when they were training for the moonshot… I was going to train with Neil Armstrong.”

Jack Kirby interviewed by Paul Duncan in 1990 for Ark #33

Jack also used the name “Orion” prior to the Fourth World, in Marvel’s Tales to Astonish #81 in 1966—a story Kirby both plotted and laid out. It featured the debut of the villain Boomerang (a character documented as being designed by Kirby), who was trying to steal an Orion Missile.

ANTI-LIFE To demonstrate how expansively Kirby thought, consider the Anti-Life Equation. Not content with simple world domination by military force, Darkseid’s ultimate goal was to obtain the Equation, and gain control over the minds of every creature in the universe.

The New Gods’ objective was to stop him. These clear, simple battle lines were what kept the Fourth World’s narrative focused, despite Kirby veering off toward so many wild concepts and unique characters along the way.

“The idea of the Anti-Life Equation is that all Darkseid has to do is say a word and you become a slave… Earth becomes a testing ground.

This is where we have thinking animals, and there’s the principle of Anti-Life. If someone took control of your mind and you were not able to think as yourself any longer, you would no longer be yourself. You’d be something in his command. You as an individual would be dead.

[top] An artist’s rendering of what NASA’s proposed Orion missile would’ve looked like. Kirby had studied the US space program to prepare for his late 1950s newspaper strip Sky Masters of the Space Force, as the space race against Russia captured the imagination of the American public. Above is an example of Kirby’s detailed work for the January 16, 1959 strip, inked by Wally Wood. [top right] Lightray sketch, circa 1973.

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Metron’s Mobius Chair also had a precursor in the 1957 Kirby story “Donnegan’s Daffy Chair” from Harvey Comics’ Alarming Tales #1 [above]. Its name came from the Mobius Strip (co-created

by German mathematician August Ferdinand Möbius in 1858), an infinite loop that alluded to the concept of time travel.

FOREVER PEOPLE: The Angels

“To know Metron or Judas, I believe, is to know the measure of their desires. Judas, a simple guy, wanted only silver. Metron, a god with the potential of acquiring all the answers, was ego-stricken by the denial of any. Metron, like Darkseid and Orion, is a monumental image with monumental frustrations. He might pour the universe down a manhole for the correct solution to some mystery.”

“The Forever People were the wonderful people of the ’60s, who I loved. If you’ll watch the actions of the Forever People, you’ll see the reflection of the ’60s in their attitudes, in the backgrounds, in their clothes. You’ll see the ’60s. I felt I would leave a record of the ’60s in their adventures.”

Jack Kirby interviewed by Jonathan Bacon in Fall of 1973, published in Fantasy Crossroads #1, 1974

Jack Kirby interviewed by Leonard Pitts, Jr. circa 1986 for Conversations with the Comic Book Creators

Metron’s last major appearance in the Fourth World series was in the introduction to New Gods #5, where he was examining the Final Barrier that led to the Source. He appeared in flashbacks after that (most pivotally in Mister Miracle #9’s story “Himon”), then vanished until he cameoed at Mister Miracle #18’s wedding in 1973. He only reappeared again on the literal final page of Jack’s 1985 Hunger Dogs graphic novel.

Upon moving to Southern California in 1969, Kirby saw the Youth Culture up close. So it makes sense he would choose to draw Forever People #1 first, over New Gods or Mister Miracle. And what better showcase for the differences in generations, than a book about cosmic-powered teenage god-hippies confronting an ageless villain and his evil establishment?

THE FOREVER PEOPLE “The Forever People, as I said before, is a reflection of our times like the New Gods. We live in a time where we have the bomb and the apocalypse all around us. Somebody is always talking about holocaust and about the whole thing blowing. Then we live in the kind of time where everybody says, ‘Well, that doesn’t have to happen. We’re gonna do great. We’re gonna take all of these things that we make for destruction and we’re going to do good things and build up some kind of universal brotherhood.’ Now that may happen too. I think that’s a good thought. I have these two worlds, Apokolips and New Genesis.

There could be a New Genesis for all I know. That’s the way I see it.

It’s heavy stuff of course, but I think it’s going to have to unravel to become the kind of thing it is. I’m going to have to unravel all the characters so that you really get to know them and know what their powers are. For instance this kid in a cowboy hat, Serifan, isn’t just a kid in a cowboy hat because it isn’t a cowboy hat. The others have other gimmicks. What I’ve done is come in with the whole ball of wax, plopped it down, and I’m going to ask everyone’s patience to allow me to unravel it.”

“Metron, to my mind, is an advance in mythology. We’ve never had a character like that before. He’s our will to know, our will to find out. If you look at high tech anywhere, you’ll see the reflection of Metron, and you know it’ll never stop, that curiosity will never stop. They’re working with computer chips and organic cells at this very moment. And where that will stop—I don’t know, but it’s an interesting question. What will the product be? Metron would like to know!”

Jack Kirby interviewed by Ken Viola, for the Masters of Comic Book Art video (1987)

Esak was the only named child we encountered on New Genesis, and he seemed like a bit player in the original run of New Gods, just along for the ride on Metron’s Mobius Chair. But the Black Racer hinted at bigger plans for him in the larger picture of the Fourth World, when in the Fastbak back-up in Forever People #8, he proclaimed, “[Esak] was ever curious! As curious as Metron!”

That would play out in 1985’s Hunger Dogs in a very unexpected way.

Jack Kirby interviewed for Train Of Thought #6, 1971

Kirby originally wanted the New Gods book to be titled Orion, and along that line of thinking, Forever People would’ve been called Darkseid. While the villain stayed mainly hidden on the sidelines in other books, he was front and center here, with his best character development and interactions of the entire oeuvre. That may’ve been on purpose, so that readers wouldn’t see Darkseid directly battle

[left] Highfather and Esak from Forever People #7.

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considered a wizard by the Saxons, in a clever connection to Merlin—which may’ve in turn gotten the gears in his brain grinding for Merlin’s role in his future series The Demon.

Vykin the Black was likely so-named as much for his skin color, as for a twist on Erik the Red, a Norwegian Viking explorer of much acclaim. Kirby was well versed in Norse mythology from his work on Marvel’s Thor comics (Erik the Red’s father, Thorvald Asvaldson, was named after the Thunder God), so the tie would’ve been there in Kirby’s mind. Jack was at the forefront of incorporating characters of color into comics during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, starting with Gabe Jones and Black Panther at Marvel. Vykin assumed a similar role as a prominent character, leading the charge into action and often saving his comrades. “The Black” was eventually removed from Vykin’s name, in a sign of more sensitivity, and less emphasis on his race.

A Southern California vacation spot was the namesake for one Forever Person: Big Bear Lake is a popular scenic resort area that first became famous during California’s Gold Rush of 1849.

Another’s name hit even closer to home.

consistency from assistants Evanier and Sherman), and the magic word they used to summon the Infinity Man ran the gamut from Taaruu! to Tarru!.

(These gaffes paled in comparison to the most notorious editing error in the Fourth World—when Orion’s leg was trapped by a giant clam in New Gods #5 [above], sometimes his right leg was held fast by the mollusk, and other times his left, changing from panel to panel.)

Whatever small mistakes crept in can be largely dismissed, when you look at the unbridled imagination Kirby put into Forever People. Consider his depiction of Happyland in issue #4. As you’d expect, Kirby, a newly transplanted resident of Southern California, visited Disneyland with his kids after moving there [below].

While the rest of his family was walking around enjoying the rides and attractions, Kirby was soaking up ideas for his comics.

The germ of the idea for an evil “Kingdom of the Damned” theme park built by Desaad surely originated during one of those visits through the Magic Kingdom’s gates. The subsequent encounter between Mark Moonrider and Abraham Lincoln in issue #7 may’ve also sprung from Jack viewing the Disneyland attraction “Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln” [right] which was running at the theme park during the entire time Jack was producing DC’s Fourth World.

That same issue of Forever People had Big Bear’s encounter during the era of Caesar’s reign, with the future King Arthur (here named Arta), as well as his eventual Knights of the Round Table, Lancelot (Lanslac) and Gawain (Gwane).

Big Bear assisted Arta in assuming leadership by helping him pull a sword from a tree, in an effort that could’ve been inspired

by Disney’s 1963 film The Sword in the Stone (but was more likely just Jack riffing on the Arthurian legends he no doubt knew well). Big Bear was

“In the case of Mark Moonrider, some people say Jack more or less based the character on me. He was going to just call the character Moonrider and I think he called him Mark by accident once, and the name stuck.”

Mark Evanier interviewed in 1995 by John Morrow for Jack Kirby Collector #6

Forever People was filled with remarkably exciting (and at times, extremely violent) battles for a magazine about a group of young, idealistic pacifists—and most of the action didn’t involve the five main characters. Walking that tightrope had to be no easy task for Kirby, known for his slam-bang, unbridled action yarns.

“The Forever People are nonviolent. The Forever People are a challenge to comics, I feel, because although they’re engaged in violent activities, they never fight. The nearest they come to fighting is this fella, Big Bear, who is just so strong that he could lean against a pole and that’s it.

The Forever People are a challenge to see how nonviolence can work in comics. I feel that nonviolence coupled with some kind of sustaining influence can work in comics. I don’t feel that you have to show blood and gore and guts. I think it’s repellent. I’ve seen enough of it in its reality, and it’s just as repellent when it’s drawn as in reality. I see nothing of any value in anything that has what you call shock value. I see nothing in that except using that sort of thing to prove a point. In other words, if you’re making an anti-war documentary or if you’re trying to tell the truth about a certain subject, and the blood and gore was a part of that subject, I wouldn’t omit it.

If I were going to make an exposé on anything, I would show anything connected with it. For instance, in a gangster movie I would show the results of being a gangster—the life activities as well as the end and death. I would show exactly how it is they ended. I would show the bullet holes because it’s part of the picture, but I wouldn’t exploit it for its value alone. I see no entertainment in that sort of thing.”

Jack Kirby interviewed for Train Of Thought #6, 1971

A pin-up in Forever People #3 hinted that Beautiful Dreamer was initially intended to play a more pivotal role than she did: 67

INFINITY MAN Other than his obvious similarities to the 1940s Captain Marvel (both were summoned by youngsters saying a magic word), we never learned much about this character. His orange pallor matched the skin of Asian character Sunny Sumo, implying Kirby may have viewed him as a sort of super-Samurai. According to www.britannica.com: “The ideal samurai was supposed to be a stoic warrior who followed an unwritten code of conduct, later formalized as Bushido, which held bravery, honor, and personal loyalty above life itself; ritual suicide by disembowelment (seppuku) was institutionalized as a respected alternative to dishonor or defeat.”

Kirby was familiar with the code of Japanese soldiers from his World War II experiences, as evidenced by his use of the title “Bushido” for 1975’s Our Fighting Forces #154. Infinity Man’s armor and helmet also evoked that correlation to a Japanese warrior, but Jack never clearly defined an association between them. We got very few specifics when Kirby described him thus in a pin-up in Forever People #4 [top]:

But despite having been kidnapped in Forever People #1 by Darkseid because her mind could interpret the Anti-Life Equation, she developed into not much more than eye candy, mostly stepping aside to let the males in the group handle what little action there was that didn’t involve the Infinity Man. Kirby finally gave other members of the group more defined powers (Mark Moonrider acquired a Megaton Touch, Vykin a Sonic Hammer/ Magna Power), and Beautiful Dreamer received a more definite costume, in an apparent attempt to juice up the strip, to no avail—it was, by many accounts, the least popular of the Fourth World titles, and the characters were reused the least in any post-Kirby appearances to date.

THE BOOM TUBE This inter-dimensional mode of transportation was nicknamed by the youth of New Genesis, but I couldn’t find a direct association to the similar-sounding slang phrase “boob tube” (a nickname for television, which had been used since the 1950s). Invented by Metron at Darkseid’s direction, it was given to all in an uncharacteristic act of kindness (or perhaps self-preservation) by Metron. It debuted on Forever People #1’s opening page [bottom right]—the first sequence Jack drew—and it played a subtle, but key role, throughout the entire saga. A direct antecedent can be found in Thor #138’s “Dimension Tunnel” from 1967 [bottom left].

“From the far reaches beyond space and time, where real and unreal have no meaning, emerges a champion whose powers are not governed by the laws of our universe!”

He was an enigma when he first appeared, and he was an enigma when he reached his hurried end against Devilance in the final issue (in a scene which could be seen as two samurai battling, and his dying on a sword with honor).

“I saw [Mother Box and the Infinity Man] as gaining simple strength from the mystic. I feel that man has the capacity to gain strength from the mystic, something outside himself, something beyond his body. I feel that if man can generate fear, if he can generate cruelty, he can generate who knows what.”

Jack Kirby interviewed for Train Of Thought #6, 1971

It’s a pity Jack didn’t have more time to explore this character in print, but he did have something in mind from the outset.

“There was a whole storyline involving Infinity Man that never got into the books…”

Mark Evanier interviewed in 1995 by John Morrow for Jack Kirby Collector #6

I’d argue that, surveying it from its first issue to its last, Forever People was the Fourth World title that saw the least progression of story and characterization. Because of that, it also held the most untapped potential for future expansion and backstory.

[above center] Detail from an unused Forever People #9 page, showing Vykin’s new sonic powers. This page was inked by John Pound—likely as a tryout to assist Mike Royer with the grueling demands of keeping up with Jack’s output—but Pound never went farther than helping Mike with the lettering on 1973’s Mister Miracle #17.

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thing to snap it open. That’s the difference.”

Jack Kirby interviewed by Ray Wyman in August 1989, October 1989, and June 1992

Curiously, his costume was colored predominately purple in Mister Miracle #1 [right], rather than red. Asked about the different coloring of the lead character between Mister Miracle #1 and #2, Kirby responded: “What you’re talking about involves an occupational hazard. I happen to be in California and by the time my color sketch had gotten to DC, the deadline had passed and they had to color it fast, so they had to do it on their own, and then made it deeper red. They put more blues in the red and it had sort of a purplish hue, but we corrected that in the second issue.”

May 14, 1971 Jack Kirby interview on Northwestern University’s WNUR-FM, conducted by Tim Skelly (published much later in The Nostalgia Journal #27, August 1976)

MISTER MIRACLE: The Mysticism

His assistants recalled the incident in greater detail.

[MARK EVANIER:] “Remember how we redid Mister Miracle’s coloring? We had to fight to get that in. Steve and I did the coloring for Mister Miracle because he hated what they had done for the first issue.

He was the editor of the book, and they sent it for approval, and he said, ‘I don’t approve,’ and they said, ‘Well, we’re printing it anyway.’ He had a big fight with them over that. He didn’t like any of the colors on the books at all.”

[STEVE SHERMAN:] “Because that was the time they were experimenting, I think.

Isn’t that when Neal Adams showed them how to do more colors, and they could gray out everything, and so they started graying everything down instead of popping it up?

“Mister Miracle is a superbly professional craftsman. He’s a superb escape artist. He’s a cool character. He’ll play it cool to the very end. I have a scene where it looks like he’s going to get killed, and it’s going to happen in seconds, but he just lays there deliberately trying to see how fast he can get out of there. He wants to see if he can beat those few seconds because he’s a professional. That’s what makes him a super escape artist. He’ll put his life on the line to see how well he can do his craft. That’s the kind of guy he is. He’ll bet you $10,000 that he can get out of any trap you devise. If you lose you pay him ten thousand bucks.

He puts his life on the line, but that’s his trade.

“Mister Miracle, strangely enough, comes from Apokolips. He’s a defector from Apokolips. Mister Miracle is a nice guy. He just doesn’t think evil. He feels that he should have a good time. He’d like to live life cooly with tongue-in-cheek, and just playing it for the experience.

They don’t like that on Apokolips. Of course, they come after him.”

Jack Kirby interviewed for Train Of Thought #5, 1971

As his cheeky name implies, Scott Free (Mister Miracle’s alter ego) was constantly trying to escape his Apokolips legacy, but it always found him. It’s tempting to see that as semi-autobiographical, as Kirby’s wife Roz has recounted how Jack had recurring nightmares about his own service in World War II, and the terrors he experienced never left him.

“Mister Miracle represented the side that gets away from the Darkseids, that escapes. But ultimately you have to go back and confront them.”

Mark Evanier interviewed in 1995 by John Morrow for Jack Kirby Collector #6

Jack himself grew up in New York’s Lower East Side in the 1920s and ’30s (a slightly less violent ghetto than he depicted on Apokolips), but despite punching his way out of scraps as a kid, he learned early on that escaping the slums would rely more on his imagination than his fists.

“Mister Miracle was more of a thinker than a fighter. He would get into more subtle situations and find the joints to this [right] This unused, unfinished image was probably meant as the splash page for Mister Miracle #4—and when Kirby realized he’d left the hero locked in a trunk at the end of #3, he had to jettison it for the published image you see above. The trunk escape was a regular part of Harry Houdini’s act [inset].

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I know Jack was always saying, ‘The three best colors are blue, red, yellow!’”

[MARK EVANIER:] “Yeah. He said, ‘Every DC comic is colored like it’s a war comic.’ And I think that was right. When he told them that he thought Marie Severin was the best colorist in the business, they thought he was crazy. He kept fighting with them a lot.”

question: When did Scott learn Highfather was his parent, who traded him as a “foundling” for Orion? Or had Kirby simply not planned out the eventual “Himon” storyline at that early stage in #1? Knowing how Jack worked, it was more likely the latter.

OBERON Oberon was the name of a king of the fairies in Shakespeare’s play A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Besides sharing a strong-willed personality (and perhaps a role as matchmaker in getting the main characters together), there’s little similarity I can find in Jack choosing that name for Mister Miracle’s diminutive assistant. His main purpose seemed to be in heightening tension by worrying about Scott failing in every escape attempt, and as a little comic-relief.

Mark Evanier interviews Steve Sherman on the “NEWS FROM me” blog (www.newsfromme. com) on August 6, 2020

SCOTT FREE Scott was a mystery when we first met him in Mister Miracle #1, but it’s no secret that Kirby based his backstory partially on his own real-life escape from the ghetto of New York’s Lower East Side in the 1920s. This was also a notable example of Kirby developing a character around a person he knew, as Mister Miracle’s concept was inspired by comic book artist Jim Steranko’s early career as a magician and “self-liberationist,” as Houdini referred to himself.

BIG BARDA “I happen to like big girls and Big Barda was a natural type of girl for me to draw. If you’ll dig into this a little deeper, in a psychological way, you’ll find that short men like large women. If you’ll notice my wife, she’s maybe an inch or two taller than I am.”

“…Some of Jim Steranko is in Mister Miracle, but not all because Mister Miracle has a mystic tie-up which has nothing to do with real people. Jim Steranko was a good escape artist before he became an artist. He is certainly a fine entertainer and what he says is true. I did discuss that I had an idea that was similar to what he had done and certainly Jim Steranko being part of my experience was a part of the idea.”

Jack Kirby interviewed by J. Michael Straczynski and Larry DiTillio on the April 13, 1990 episode of Mike Hodel’s Hour 25 radio show

After Scott Free himself, the most compelling (and fan-favorite) character in Mister Miracle was Big Barda, who Kirby may’ve envisioned as a descendant of Lady Sif from Thor. Named after either actress Brigitte Bardot [left] or “Big Bertha” (a howitzer used during World War I)—or both—and physically based on singer Lainie Kazan [right], she took the comics world by storm from her first appearance.

Jack Kirby interviewed by Peter Kuper in 1972, published in G.A.S.Lite, The Official Magazine of the Cleveland Graphic Arts Society Vol. 2, #10, 1973

So it was a case of “plussing” what Steranko had done in real life: “With Mister Miracle, what I did was take some of Steranko’s abilities and ‘superized’ them. In other words, I gave him tricks that no man could do unless he was a super-hero. I gave him stories which forced him into situations where he could do miraculous things.”

“Big Barda represents a woman to me... all women. And, of course, I was raised among women like Big Barda, large women, warm women. And despite the bigness of their size, they’re very feminine, and a man can regard them with respect, which I do.”

Jack Kirby interviewed by Ray Wyman in August 1989, October 1989, and June 1992

When Scott arrived on the scene in Mister Miracle #1 [below], he appeared carrying a literal “bag of tricks” which was his inheritance “left with a foundling by parties unknown.” We can rule out his mentor Himon being the one who left it for him—Scott would’ve made that obvious connection, and Himon wouldn’t have been an “unknown party” at that point. Instead, Jack was insinuating that Highfather took a detached parental role by leaving it (perhaps via Metron) following the swapping of children in “The Pact.” So Scott apparently didn’t know of his New Genesis heritage in issue #1, but by the end of #18, it was clear he did, welcoming the gods of New Genesis at his wedding, and having Highfather officiate. That begs an important

Jack Kirby interviewed by Peter Kuper in 1972, published in G.A.S.Lite, The Official Magazine of the Cleveland Graphic Arts Society Vol. 2, #10, 1973

Kirby, always an innovator, capitalized on the Women’s Liberation movement of the 1970s. During an era where Wonder Woman was depowered and relied on Judo to defeat an opponent, Kirby introduced a truly super-powerful female character, who— unlike Wonder Woman—looked the part. Barda wielded power and her massive strength as well as any male warrior.

“Barda was a character that Jack put in because he thought it was a great idea, one that was not being done in super-hero comics at that time. There had never been a really strong woman character who looked strong, except maybe for Little Lotta. Jack noted that female bodybuilders were starting to catch on in the mass media. He saw [top left] Steranko’s World of Escapes from 1964, documented the escape techniques he used prior to becoming a comic book artist. [next page, top] Proposed cover for a solo Big Barda comic, done before Kirby incorporated her into Mister Miracle. Jack’s original idea included The Lump (a character that would eventually appear in Mister Miracle as well), and a set-up with Barda and the Furies running a secret government military/spy base called Beauty-Rock.

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JON B. COOKE’S

365 DAYS OF JACK KIRBY’S

FOURTH WORLD

Back in 2010, convinced that the sheer volume of inventiveness in Jack Kirby’s Fourth World work would prove me right, I came up with the notion to do a daily blog and, one entry per day, list characters, concepts, and items of his creation to discuss over an entire year.

Before I got too busy to finish the project, my effort, titled the same

as this piece, lasted for 100+ entries of my blog hosted by the Kirby Museum website. I did, however, create a spreadsheet that validates my theory as true. Now and again, I thought about finishing up the 365-entry project and I’m appreciative to John Morrow who requested I do just that for this special edition of TJKC. — Jon B. Cooke

001 Acid-Pods

Angry Charlie

[New Gods #9] Weaponry used by marauding “Bugs” to burn enemies BUG SPRAY when raiding the hives of other colonies on New Genesis.

[Jimmy Olsen #145] Bug-eyed monster created by the Evil Factory who becomes an adored pet of Newsboy Legionnaire Gabby.

002 014 Animates

Adon

[Forever People #11] Idyllic, Eden-like planet—“the great, green, havenlike world”—where Infinity Man finds respite and, FOREVER WORLD at the end of the series, where the Forever People are subsequently marooned.

003

MIND-FORCE

[New Gods #1] Home planet of ruler Darkseid, a world encompassed by DARK LAND one giant city, and planetary opposite of New Genesis. Its surface pocked with giant energy pits belching poison into the air and is populated by slaves, slave-drivers, and an elite ruling them all. A place that worships death.

[Mister Miracle #2] Flat round devices—like vinyl records—Scott Free DISC JOCKEYS and Barda stand upon to obtain the ability of flight.

Fastbak of Supertown affixes these devices to his boots, enabling high-speed flight in air and space.

017

Created by his “father,” Prof. Packard, and born of The Project, this artificial human—entrusted with a contain- STARMAN er carrying Superman’s DNA and tissue sample—propels through the cosmos.

FLEET OF FOOT

018 Armagetto

[Forever People #3] Flying vehicle used to transport victims to HappyFORCED BUSING land, Earth’s Darkseid-controlled amusement park.

The first D.N.Alien—fast-growing, hostile, capable of wide-scale destruction—which self-destructs.

Arin, the Armored Man [J. Olsen #146]

006

007 Aero-Van

The Alien Thing [Jimmy Olsen #143]

015

004 016 Apokolips

Levitating motorcycle-like vehicle used by Kanto’s henchmen to drag Scott Free through Grayborders. OUTLAW BIKERS

Aero-Pads [New Gods #5]

[Mister Miracle #3] Humanoid servants controlled by ethereal Dr. Bedlam, whose persona can inhabit an Animate’s physical being.

Anti-Life Equation

Vehicle used by Harassers to transport “worms,” AIR BUS new arrivals to Granny Goodness’ “Finishing School.”

005 Aero-Discs

FACTORY WORK

[Forever People #1] The nebulous object of Darkseid’s intense desire: the power that will give him control over every living being MACGUFFIN in the universe. The secret of the Equation is locked inside of the minds of unknown humans, and his quest is to ultimately possess this almighty power.

Aero-Carrier [Mister Miracle #7]

Aero-Cycle [Mister Miracle #7]

013

SLUM SUICIDE

008 DIABOLICAL DEBUT

[Mister Miracle #9] The slums of Apokolips where Granny Goodness’ Orphanage is located. It is also haven to the rebellious Himon.

Arta, the Sentry [Forever People #7]

Guardian of the road during the days of the Roman occupation of Briton, observed by time-traveling Big Bear.

019 GREAT BRITON

009 All-Nations Agency 020 Astro-Force The All-Widow 010 Astro-Glider 021 011 Alpha-Bomb 022 Attu Alpha-Bullets 012 Auralie 023 HEAD INVESTIGATORS

[New Gods #1] Aside from his rage, Orion’s Astro-Force—powerful GOD POWER concussion blasts—is his most destructive weapon.

[Mister Miracle #10] United Nations-type organization whose agent McCracken is the World Protective League’s prisoner.

[New Gods #9] Colony queen and Mantis ally who, in a ritual execution, QUEEN BUG kills Prime One with her “sacrificial ‘Electro-Stabber.’”

[New Gods #1] Also known as Orion’s Astro-Harness, it is a sort-of cosmic glider with which he travels dimensional byways. GOD SPEED

[Jimmy Olsen #134] Explosive device planted on the Whiz Wagon by Morgan Edge BOMBER to blow up Mountain of Judgment—a plan foiled by Superman.

[Mister Miracle #16] Mutated ant changed into a humanoid by Prof. Egg “ANT” MAN (though likely a figment of Shilo’s imagination).

[Forever People #7] Generated by Highfather, energy blasts traversing space and time to bring Forever People to today’s Earth. SALVATION

[Mister Miracle #9] “Poor, brave” Himon recruit whose mind “creates beauty” but is tortured to death by Wonderful Willik. TINY DANCER

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BOOM TUBE

BUZZING IN THE

FIRST WORLD Kirby’s initial tenure on the Fourth World can be broken up into distinct eras, of only a few months each. A lot took place in each short span of time, and the effects reverberated for years afterward, finally culminating in a seismic event more than a decade after it began. Here, Mark Evanier, Steve Sherman, and others (including Jack himself) offer behind-the-scenes recollections of the evolution of the Fourth World series.

THE INITIAL VINCE COLLETTA-INKED ISSUES Jimmy Olsen #133-139 New Gods #1-3 Forever People #1-3 Mister Miracle #1-3

T

The Great One Is Here!

his new series was going to go far beyond anything Jack, or anyone else, had produced in comics up to that point. He was realistic when asked whether he felt the Fourth World would appeal to younger readers, who were as likely to pick up a copy of Little Lulu or Archie as a super-hero comic at their local newsstand: “Of course, it’s a problem. I know I might fail at it, but I’m trying to make it a universal thing if I can.

That’s a challenge in itself. It’s a heavy subject—the god stuff always was. I’m trying to put something into it to give it an affinity to the times themselves.

I feel these are times when that kind of thing is felt.

These are times when we’re all operating on the edge of holocaust, apocalypse, and everybody is living with the bomb. It’s a Strangelove kind of time, so I felt that the characters might reflect that sort of thing. There’s the problem of making all your characters different. There’s the problem of making them reflect everything that is good or bad inside of us— our weaknesses and our strengths, and our potential for good and evil. It’s enormous. I’m trying to get all that across in an entertaining sort of way. Of course I can’t do it all in three or four issues. At Marvel it took five years, and my problem was that I couldn’t do a simple story—I had to create an instant world in each magazine; an instant world with everything in it to get the ball rolling. Say, if I had done a foreign intrigue story—just a story, say, of a stolen diamond 88

Collage used in Jimmy Olsen #134.

or a stolen national secret of some kind—the hero would have to go after it and there would be a lot of gimmickry and a lot of shooting. Yet to have an individual story, you’d establish a single character.

You wouldn’t know where he came from, or what he was really like. You might have to wait out an entire series of books until you really knew anything about him. I could’ve gone that route, but I was forced to go the other way. I’m coming in from the other end. I’m coming in with the whole ball of wax, which I have to unravel. I could’ve come in with just one character and developed his friends, but from what I’ve done here, you know everybody. You know where they came from. You don’t know exactly what kind of world it is, but you know it isn’t like Earth.

You don’t know what kind of powers they have, but you know they have powers. You know there’s a war going on between good and evil. You’ve got that all in one issue. What I have to do is separate the individual action from the mass action. In other words, there might be an adventure with just Darkseid or one of the Forever People, but you’ll know them.

You’ll know what kind of people they are from the first issue.”

Jack Kirby interviewed for Train Of Thought #5, 1971

SPRING 1970–JANUARY 1971 (August 1970–May 1971 On-Sale Dates)

By October “Darkseid is a man you will never see; 1970, house Darkseid runs our world. Highfather runs our ads champiworld. These two men run our world; you’ll oning “The never see who they are. I put them together in Magic of two individuals. A part of our society runs this Kirby” were appearing world and they run it for good or evil. The evil across the side will harm us, the good side of it will help DC Comics us. So far, we’ve been skirting in the middle and line, heraldmaking out. ing the first “The New Gods went into my feelings about issues of The Forever the world around me. There’s an element of truth in that.”

People, The Jack Kirby interviewed by Leonard Pitts, Jr. circa 1986 for Conversations with the Comic Book Creators New Gods, and Mister Miracle. Superman’s Pal, Jimmy of his past association with Stan Lee. Everything was riding on the Olsen #134 (Jack’s second issue) went on sale that month, featuring Fourth World becoming a hit. the first appearance of the Fourth World’s main villain Darkseid.

Unfortunately, things hit a speed bump right out of the gate. In In December, Forever People an attempt to keep the title’s mainstay characters “on-model,” artist #1 and New Gods #1 were pubAl Plastino was utilized to alter Kirby’s depictions of Superman and lished. January 1971 set the Jimmy Olsen throughout Jack’s first stories. Face alterations marred final Fourth World pillar in Kirby’s work throughout his run on the Olsen title (and also within place, when Mister Miracle #1 Forever People #1, which guest-starred the Man of Steel), though it was published the same month was artist Murphy Anderson who later performed the majority of Marvel not so coincidentally head changes. released Fantastic Four #108, 1970’s Newfangles #35 stated, “Al Plastino redrew Superman’s using Kirby’s original rejected face throughout Kirby’s Jimmy Olsen story to make Supie look like Fantastic Four #102 story [left]. the accepted version.” That didn’t go unnoticed throughout fandom.

DC, at that early stage, did little to foster Kirby’s original “Jack handed in his first Jimmy Olsen issue and a few others, and I vision for Superman put forth believe [Vince] Colletta inked two Olsens and the first Forever People in Forever People #1. In an unrebefore DC looked at it and said, ‘My God, Superman looks all wrong.’ lated move, the character was So on the first two issues I think, and Forever People #1, Al Plastino depowered by Dennis O’Neil was brought in to repaste things. Thereafter, Colletta inked the book in the Superman book, and we without inking the Olsen or Superman heads, and Murphy Anderson saw no sign of Darkseid and finished them up. Part of the problem company there, or in Action was that Colletta’s style was so different Comics, other than Morgan Edge cameos. Instead, Jack’s Fourth from Anderson’s. If Anderson had inked World ties were relegated to the second-tier Superman titles. In May the whole comic, I don’t think anyone 1971, Superman’s Girl Friend, Lois Lane #111 was published, with a would have noticed. Or if Wally Wood, non-Kirby story that included his Jimmy Olsen concepts, showing a who wanted to ink all of Jack’s DC work, little openness to incorporating Kirby’s scheme into the larger DC had inked them, I think it would have universe. Much of the credit for that went to E. Nelson Bridwell. worked. Mike Royer inked a couple of issues and he made some slight adjust“…Nelson Bridwell… was an absolute fount of information. He ments to Jack’s Superman, and DC didn’t was a guy who could remember what was in every issue—that’s why deem it necessary to bring in Anderson. he was the guy who picked the reprints—but he also knew everything Examples of a Plastino Superman face [right] and about everything else... he was one of Jack’s big champions up there….

Anderson’s Jimmy and Clark changes [below]. he saved a lot of Jack’s stuff from being ruined. He’d call Jack, or he’d call me, and say, ‘They want to do this to Jack’s book,’ and I’d alert Jack.

Nelson was our spy on the inside. He was the only guy really sympathetic to what Jack was doing up there, who had an integral position at that time.”

Mark Evanier at the Jack Kirby Tribute Panel, held Sunday, July 27, 2014 at Comic-Con International: San Diego

Saving Face At that point, Kirby’s professional reputation was resting on proving that his success at Marvel Comics wasn’t a fluke, or because 89

“We all have a kind of feeling that I think we’ve had for thousands of years, that there are higher beings somewhere. I think all our spiritual feelings stem from that. The truth is that the Greeks had Hercules, even as the Norsemen had Thor, and through the ages we’ve had heroes similar to them.

In ages past, we had Samson, who’s no more than a super-hero. And today we have our super-heroes. We believe in them because we believe in ourselves.”

INTERLUDE ONE:

Biblical Inspirations

Jack Kirby interviewed in 1992 for the TV program Prisoners of Gravity

“M

y gods... try to survive in awesome situations. They’re awesome people, but they also survive in awesome situations. They live in galaxies far, far away, and maybe they feel that they’re ultimates in their own way, but they’re not. Like anybody in an average situation, I don’t know if there’s an ultimate, or where the ultimate lies. I feel that possibly I’m not equipped to ever answer that question. But the question intrigues me. I feel that it intrigues everybody. Like with everybody it’s a question of faith. So, with me it’s a question of storytelling and faith. That whatever the ultimate is, I have to have faith that it exists. And, of course, the hero does too; otherwise he would never lay his life on the line. Or the villain not only has free reign, but he would also live in fear; after all he’s only human, or even super-human. He lives in fear; he’s in fear of someone. And so he has to resolve that fear. And that’s why he creates a problem and becomes a villain.”

Jack Kirby interviewed by Juanie Lane and Britt Wisenbaker, conducted on September 15, 1984 for the Pepperdine University student publications magazine Oasis

“Something I find rather intriguing—and indicative of the odd-but-brilliant way Jack’s mind worked—was that he had only vaguely figured out who the characters were when he drew them. And every time he pitched them to someone else, they were liable to change... As he showed the drawings to friends and potential business partners, he’d describe who they were, how they functioned, etc. And it was constantly changing. Just as Jack often sat down to draw with one story in his mind and it morphed into another, his descriptions of his new characters were freeform improvisations.

“Little by little, he firmed up the plans for them. Little by little, he settled on names, including Orion, Lightray, Darkseid, and Metron. But all of those were subject to change until he finally put them down in a story intended for publication.

He had the ‘New Gods’ concept, the germ cells of which had occurred to him in the final ‘Tales of Asgard’ stories he’d done for the rear of the Thor comic. He decided Darkseid—always intended as a villain—would be the master villain of that series.

He eventually decided Orion, Lightray and Metron would be the main heroes... but at the time he did the presentation drawings of them, he wasn’t certain if they’d be from New Genesis or Apokolips or even in some other, unrelated comic. It was

The biblical Adam and Eve [above from 1985], and the Norse version from the 1964 “Tales of Asgard” story in Journey Into Mystery #103 [left].

like he had all these actors at his disposal and he had to ‘cast’ them in his movie…”

Mark Evanier, Jack F.A.Q.s column, Jack Kirby Collector #47, Fall 2006

A

ny series with the word “god” in it, was bound to find some of its inspiration in the Christian Bible and the Torah. Jack was Jewish, and a big part of the biblical record involves the Jews’ exodus from Egypt.

Kirby, an avid movie-goer, had likely seen such big-budget films as Cecil B. DeMille’s 1934 Cleopatra [right] and 1956’s The Ten Commandments, both revolving around ancient Egypt.

93

BUZZING IN THE

BOOM TUBE

SECOND WORLD HITTING ITS STRIDE AS ROYER COMES ON BOARD, AND COVER PRICES GO TO 25¢ Jimmy Olsen #141-145 New Gods #4-6 Forever People #4-6 Mister Miracle #4-6

Mrs. Royer’s Boy Mike

M

ike Royer [right], who broke into comics by assisting Russ Manning at Gold Key Comics, was recommended to Kirby by Alex Toth. He already had experience inking Jack’s illustrations for the Marvelmania fan club, when he started working on the Fourth World books with New Gods #5, Mister Miracle #5, and Forever People #6.

Getting that DC job wasn’t easy, or lucrative; Mike started at $15 a page for inking (which was $3-4 less than Vince Colletta received), plus $3 per page for his lettering.

“I walked into Carmine Infantino’s office and I said, ‘Hey, I can do it for the same money as Vinnie, and I can make it look better.’ ...They finally gave me the work, but for less money than Colletta... So I had to letter the whole book in two days, and I had to ink three pages a day, to make two-thirds of the money I had made at the low, low rates at Gold Key.” Mike Royer at the Kirby Tribute Panel, held August 4, 2002 at ComicCon International: San Diego

Collage used in New Gods #5.

Royer eventually became widely regarded as one of Kirby’s finest delineators, if not the King’s very best. But it wasn’t always that way.

“Roz and I [laughed] about the time when I took over the inking on Jack’s books, how many people wrote “ in and complained because I had replaced Colletta. But then again, they’d never seen ‘Kirby’ before. I did what Jack wanted me to do. 90% of the time I completely submerged my personality and any desires to embellish. If you were to ask Jack privately, he’d say I was the truest inker to his pencils. When he finally retired from comics, he said that I was his favorite inker.”

Mike Royer interviewed on February 6, 1995 by John Morrow

Part of the confusion for readers was seeing Colletta’s light, airy penwork on Jimmy Olsen, while at the same time seeing Royer’s bold, dynamic brush strokes on the other three titles. But Royer did finally get to try his hand on Jimmy Olsen in issues #146 and #147, due to an increase in that title’s publication frequency.

“The reason Mike finished those two was because Jack’s Jimmy Olsen sold real well, and they upped the book from eight times a year to monthly, but somehow nobody had told Jack to do more issues.

All of a sudden, he had to do a bunch of issues in [left] Royer tweaked Kirby’s Superman heads in Jimmy Olsen #146 just enough to pass muster with DC. But when he changed Big Barda in Mister Miracle #5 [next page, center], Jack had Mike cut the faces off his pencil photocopies to restore them.

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FEBRUARY 1971–JULY 1971 (June–November 1971 On-Sale Dates) advance, and there was no way to keep Mike busy.

When Mike took over the Fourth World books, DC insisted on keeping Colletta on Olsen so they could maintain some control and keep changing the heads and such. Mike was fine with that because he had other work he had to finish up or withdraw from before he could ink Jack full-time. But then Jack suddenly realized one day, ‘I’m doing three Jimmy Olsens in a row, and if I keep sending them back there, Royer will have no work.’ So he called DC and said, ‘Royer’s inking the next Jimmy Olsen whether you like it or not. I’m responsible for Mike’s income.’ Which was another [instance], again, [of] Jack Kirby the Man looking out for his people. Mike did those two issues and soon, Jack was ahead enough so there would be no lull on Mike’s drawing table.”

And it’s the only time that I remember Jack ever saying anything critical. He said, ‘Don’t ever change the faces!’ So I never did after that.”

Mark Evanier, from a San Diego Comic Fest Panel, held Sunday, February 19, 2017

Mike Royer at the The Kirby Tribute Panel, held on July 28, 1995 at the San Diego Comic-Con

Indeed, the change to monthly frequency was noted in the indicia of Jimmy Olsen #142 (published in August 1971). So if Kirby didn’t get the memo till the time of its release (just after he’d finished drawing #145 in July), he’d have needed to hurriedly draw #146–147 in succession in August to get on the new monthly schedule, and have work for Royer while he set the other books aside to get Jimmy Olsen caught up.

Since Mike was inking Olsen, he took it upon himself to remedy the situation of the altered faces.

For the remainder of the Fourth World’s initial run, Mike Royer would faithfully ink and letter every issue—a feat that helped make it visually cohesive, and all the more powerful.

“I believe that every man reaches a stage where he’d like to sum up what he’s seen, heard, and read. I believe he does this to find some value in the scars he’s collected on the road to this plateau. Although, packaged in idealism and adventure, the New Genesis/ Apokolips tale, to me, is quite real and a product of my own sincerity.”

Jack Kirby interviewed by Jonathan Bacon in Fall of 1973, published in Fantasy Crossroads #1, 1974

“…It really was amazing that [Royer] could do it as long as he did. Both Joe Sinnott and Frank Giacoia told me they could never have inked Jack’s work on that kind of schedule... and that was without also doing the lettering.”

Mark Evanier on Facebook, Aug 27, 2020

“Well, I called DC and I said, ‘If you want to change Jack’s Jimmy Olsens and Supes, send me the model sheets and let me refine them so that they’ll please you, but it’s all inked by the same hand.’ And so, on those couple of issues, I did the ‘fixes.’”

Mike Royer, from a San Diego Comic Fest Panel, held Sunday, February 19, 2017

Other than that, Mike refrained from embellishing Jack’s pencil work most of the time.

But on one rare occasion when he strayed from what Kirby put down in graphite, he quickly learned he could only go so far without getting reprimanded.

“The second book that I inked was a Mister Miracle [#5]. And because at that time I was heavily influenced

by Leonard Starr, I just had this bug that I was going to try to make Big Barda prettier. Of course, in doing so, it wasn’t Jack’s Barda anymore.

Kirby appeared at the April 1971 Disneyland Comic Convention, bringing his Gods concept drawings with him to help promote his four new DC titles. Assistants Mark Evanier [standing] and Steve Sherman [seated] are behind him. For the event, they produced a limited edition black-&-white portfolio of ten of Jack’s concept drawings, dubbed the “Disneyland Portfolio.”

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Rivalries

y Summer 1971, uncertainty was in the air for Kirby. His gusto to leave Marvel had him locked in at DC, and he was beginning to fully realize how much of what he’d been promised wouldn’t be delivered. Despite the unsettling environment that was starting to form, Kirby managed to create several issues in this era that, to me, stood out as the finest in the Fourth World’s run—and all were produced at roughly the same time.

JIMMY OLSEN #147: “A SUPERMAN IN SUPERTOWN” (Drawn August 1971)

The promise of Superman’s longing to be among his own kind, as Kirby first foreshadowed back in Forever People #1, finally paid off.

NEW GODS #7: “THE PACT” (Drawn September 1971)

A major revelation about the main characters showed that, as much as Kirby created off-the-cuff, he had precisely planned out that twist well in advance, to further the mythos.

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Collage used in Jimmy Olsen #141.

MISTER MIRACLE #7–8 (Drawn September–November 1971)

Scott Free returned to Apokolips to finally escape his upbringing, and gave us the most fleshed-out view of the dark planet we’d ever see.

FOREVER PEOPLE #8: “THE POWER” (Drawn October 1971)

Kirby finally depicted just what the Anti-Life Equation could do, and who had been unknowingly wielding it.

At the culmination of this creative zenith, in November 1971, Mister Miracle #6 appeared on the stands, with its unflattering caricatures of Stan Lee and Roy Thomas, and its potential to burn bridges at Marvel. Newfangles #52 (October 1971) clearly stated, “The Funky Flashman character in an upcoming Kirby book is Stan Lee and Flashman’s assistant is Roy Thomas,” so even if it wasn’t obvious to the casual newsstand customers, the heart of fandom knew exactly what Jack was up to.

That would include the young editors up at Marvel Comics, who were extremely loyal to Lee, and decided to engage in a bit of tit-for-tat.

Newfangles #52 also stated that “in friendly retaliation for Kirby’s killing of the old gods in New Gods a while back, Thor will feature a story where the young gods mess things up and the older ones save the day.”

That story would seem to be in Marvel’s Thor #202-203 (which would’ve been produced in February-March 1972), which introduced young Jackson Kimball (note his initials were “J.K.”; while

AUGUST 1971–FEBRUARY 1972 (December 1971–June 1972 On-Sale Dates)

nicknamed “Jackie” in Thor #202, he curiously became “Jason” in #203). He was an AfricanAmerican character—and not coincidentally, an artist—recruited along with two other humans

by Heimdall at Odin’s command. All were transformed into a “new race of gods… a younger race”

by Ego (another Kirby creation), in a story [above] written by Gerry Conway, just after the Funky Flashman story appeared in print.

“…there was temperament to contend with, and they had all new editorial people. There was a lot of different temperament to contend with... They cut the heads off my Superman, and then they replaced them with a standard Superman head... It bothered me, of course, because a man is entitled to draw things in his own style. I didn’t hurt Superman. I made him powerful. I admire Superman, but I’ve got to do my own style. That’s how I would see it, and I had a right to do that, and nobody had the right to tamper with your work and shape it differently. What if he gave it to an amateur? Think of what an amateur might do to your work. What if this guy thought this amateur had great possibilities, and he wanted to see what he could do with that story? And he picked your story? And you knew damn well what would happen.

“Let me say that all editorial decisions coming down from administration weren’t always wise. Let me put it that way.”

Jack Kirby interviewed by Gary Groth, conducted Summer 1989, published in The Comics Journal #134, February 1990

Work on Fantastic Four #129 (around June 1972) also took place after the staff at Marvel Comics saw the debut of Funky Flashman. That FF issue, by Roy Thomas and John Buscema, featured the new character Thundra [right], who—with her similar stature and headgear—many saw as Marvel’s own version of Big Barda.

“Thundra was, I suppose, a sort of response to (though not a copy of) Big Barda, a character I both liked and didn’t like. But the similar ending of the two names is coincidental (and of course those final three letters are in a different order, so I didn’t even notice it, let alone intend it). I was basing Thundra’s name on the word ‘thunder’ and Thun’da, the old ME character, not on Barda at all. Nor was I trying to divert any attention away from Jack’s stuff... I didn’t feel that was my job. I was simply coming up with a new character for Marvel. Now comics fans had both, and except for both being tall, I didn’t feel there was any particular similarity.”

ROY THOMAS:

Roy Thomas, via email to John Morrow on November 9, 2020

Jack’s DC work was making waves throughout fandom, and Marvel offices at that point were full of fans-turned-pro. So it’s not surprising that it caused some there to want to take on Jack in the commercial marketplace, either by paying tribute to Kirby’s work, or in defense of Lee. [previous page] Kirby drawing Mister Miracle #7, page 18, in September 1971.

During the course of this photo shoot, the photographer also took this shot [left] of the pencil art from page 21 before Kirby had added the dialogue.

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CANCELLATIONS, AND MOVING MISTER MIRACLE AWAY FROM THE EPIC New Gods #11 Forever People #11 Mister Miracle #10-18

Suspension And Disbelief

n late March 1972, Kirby set to work completing his yarn for Mister Miracle #10 (originally intended for #9 before “Himon” got moved up), which ended up being a far cry from the implied flashback story that would’ve filled in the gaps in Scott Free’s (and potentially Orion’s) backstory. It instead opened with the hero, Big Barda, and the Female Furies returning to Earth in a Boom Tube following the events of #8, to battle a non-Fourth World villain called “The Head”—a villain that was described on Kirby’s early presentation art for a Big Barda and her Female Furies solo title [bottom right].

It was a competent story for sure, but there’s such a definite departure from the previous issues, that it appears Carmine Infantino had directed Jack to shift Mister Miracle away from the Fourth World oeuvre at this point. A cover was drawn [bottom left] and inked for the issue, but not completely lettered before it was rejected (it was eventually published as the cover of The Buyer’s Guide for Comic Fandom #19 on August 19, 1972). The final cover contained

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Collage used in Forever People #2.

the blurb “A Complete Fourth World Death-Defier!”, indicating that when it was produced, the series was apparently still a going concern in Jack’s mind—or at least he hoped it would be.

Then, in early April, not long after Kirby’s final issue of Jimmy Olsen was published, the bottom dropped out of the Fourth World completely.

Jack was told by Carmine Infantino that due to under-performing sales, DC would “suspend” (in reality, cancel) New Gods and Forever People.

“One afternoon, as he was working on Forever People #11, [Jack] received a very disturbing call of

MARCH 1972–JULY 1973 (July 1972–November 1973 On-Sale Dates)

“It had to end at that point, there was nothing I could do about it. For the New Gods it was unfortunate, but I had no time to make a finale for it. When I do write the finale for the New Gods, it’ll be something spectacular... it’ll be the battle [between Orion and Darkseid]; and the battle itself will be a big surprise, I assure you.

I think [the graphic novel form is] the direction that comic books are going. When I do the last battle of The New Gods, that’s what it will be.”

the good news/bad news variety. The Good News: Kamandi and The Demon looked like sure hits. The Bad News: In order to make sure Jack could keep on doing both sure hits, a decision had been made to ‘suspend’ Forever People and New Gods. Jack was devastated. Actually, ‘devastated’ doesn’t begin to describe it… He was grey and his voice had the solemn tremor of someone struggling to remain strong while announcing that a loved one had died.”

Mark Evanier’s Afterword to the Fourth World Omnibus Edition

According to The Comic Reader #80, January 1972 was when DC made decisions based on Jack Kirby interviewed by Barry Alfonso in 1975, for the fanzine Mysticogryfil sales reports for July-December 1971. Those reports didn’t yet factor in sales of what are now considered the most classic stories Kirby proknow that people criticized the writing and all the rest of it but, y’know, duced, including “The Pact,” “Death Wish of Terrible Turpin,” and the stuff he did at Marvel somehow got better with time, but the stuff “Himon.” So just as the books were reaching their apex (and thus he did at DC got worse with time because he wasn’t supported. The resonating the most with readers), the plug was pulled. If Infantino team around him didn’t bolster him up. There were some people there had given the books another six months, and not forced direction who were Kirby fans, but basically he was let down. It came from the changes on Jack, they may’ve attained the sales goals DC was shoottop. The New Gods could have been one of the best things that DC ever ing for. Over at Marvel, even the Conan the Barbarian book struggled had, but it would mean that maybe Jack Kirby would become the its first two years, but Marvel kept it going till it found its audience, Publisher eventually. And that wasn’t going to happen.” and eventually became one of its top sellers.

Neal Adams interviewed by Jon B. Cooke on September 2, 1997, published in Jack Kirby Collector #17

“National made the move to cancel the aforementioned titles for reasons still obscure to me since the books were money-makers. It was an apparently prevalent policy and I’m certain it was a puzzler to others as well as myself.”

Panic Selling?

Infantino has, rightly or wrongly, taken a lot of heat for the cancellations, but he remained adamant over the years that, at least based on the data he had available, it was strictly a decision based on sales.

Jack Kirby interviewed by Kenn Thomas circa November 1976, and originally published in the fanzine Whizzard #9

“I remember, after Jack died, talking to Roz; she remembered that day so vividly, because that was the day their lives changed. He really took it hard, because he had all these wonderful plans, and he realized that he could not do any of them at DC.”

“A tremendous college audience, but the youngsters didn’t dig it.

They couldn’t understand it. The college kids flaked out completely, but the audience was not broad enough to carry the book...

“There’s a line you must cross. Apparently we didn’t hit the key.

The New Gods hit one area but couldn’t pick up the other level. I was sorry to see New Gods go, too. And Jack was in tears over it. And he was right, he was really building this thing into a tremendous epic. You never know, there may come a day when we’ll bring it back. But it just never picked up that circulation. Hung around a forty percent sale and bang, that was it.””

Mark Evanier interviews Steve Sherman on the “NEWS FROM me” blog (www.newsfromme. com) on August 6, 2020

Rumors of inner-office intrigue have long been a part of the mystery behind the Fourth World’s cancellation.

After all, in fan circles, the series was a critical hit, so how could it get cancelled so quickly? It was known that higherups like DC’s Sol Harrison, among others, didn’t care for Kirby’s work. (Harrison became DC’s Vice-President in Charge of Operations in 1973, and eventually President in 1976, so he wielded power.)

Carmine Infantino, from a 1973 issue of Rocket’s Blast Comic Collector

So, were poor sales really the reason DC cancelled the Fourth World books? I’ve heard several possibilities, including personality conflicts between Carmine and Jack, and lack of merchandising potential. But I have great difficulty believing that it can be written off as simply due to “poor sales.”

Infantino states that New Gods sold only 40% of its print run, so he canceled it. But let’s examine the Statement of Ownership that was printed annually in DC books for actual sales figures.

“Jack Kirby did good comic books for DC. But he was sabotaged along the way. Jack was getting too much attention. I NEAL ADAMS:

Jack Jack with with Neal Neal Adams Adams at at the the 1973 1973 San San Diego Diego Comic-Con. Comic-Con.

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together with him, but I don’t think I went crawling back to him saying, ‘Jack, I’m starving!’ I had immediately gotten a ton of work at Western Publishing, so I had income. I don’t know whether we just kept in contact or what, but I was back with Jack before long.”

Weariness set in on one other key member of the Fourth World’s production—inker Mike Royer [left]. After three years of Mike’s non-stop inking on his stories, Kirby drew Mister Miracle #17 in May 1973, and included in pencil the credit “Inked by a new rising star, John Pound.” But as published, that former San Diego Five-String Mob member was only listed as a lettering assistant to regular inker Mike Royer, so things didn’t work out as planned. Concurrently, William Stout also assisted Royer briefly on The Demon, but Mike would soon find a permanent replacement in D. Bruce Berry, who first helped Royer on Kamandi #16—after which Mike took a well-earned sabbatical, and handed all his Kirby inking over to Berry for a time.

Mike Royer interviewed in 2003 by Jim Amash

Royer hung on to complete the inking on the last issue of the Fourth World’s original run. In July 1973, after being notified that Mister Miracle would finally be cancelled, Kirby drew a final issue (#18) which chronicled the marriage of Scott Free and Big Barda, and reunited the Fourth World characters as wedding guests [above]. Virman Vundabar, Kanto, Granny Goodness, and Dr. Bedlam were back, teaming up to end the couple for good, but the surprise arrival of the New Gods—summoned by the Source to attend the nuptials—saved the day. It saw print in November 1973, and brought Kirby’s Fourth World to an end.

But as Lightray said at the end of that issue, “Goodbye is merely a word, Mortal!” Jack managed to channel New Genesis one last time in some illustrations [below] for the October 21, 1973 issue

“There’s a period before that, when we were at DC and I took my family up to Mount Whitney for a vacation. We were up there for nine days and I stood at the top of the mountain, asking myself, ‘This is so peaceful and beautiful. Why am I going through that rat race every single day?’ I came down from the mountain and asked Jack if I could only do some of the books. His response was, ‘It’s all or nothing.’ That’s why you suddenly see D. Bruce Berry ink an OMAC story and I only lettered it. That must have been the transition period... Now, Jack was not being mean, it’s just that Jack wanted it all done by one hand. So I didn’t work with him for at least three months. I don’t remember how I got back

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been given longer to build its audience, it might’ve survived and prospered. One of the principals involved had additional thoughts about it.

“My feeling was, one of the weaknesses of New Gods was just too much personnel at once.

He introduced too many things at once, he was rushing himself too much. Jack would sometimes tell us a whole storyline he had in mind, a brilliant concept, and then he’d cram it into three panels in the story so he could jump on to the next concept. He had enough ideas there for a hundred issues, and he was eager to get them all established. At no point was he ever thinking of the books as closing off at number eleven. “…Jack was trying to do an epic, and DC was viewing it as a bunch of bi-monthly comics. A lot of stuff that didn’t go anywhere in some of those [above] After the cancellation of the Fourth World, issues would’ve made a lot of sense Kirby pitched several new ideas to DC for if Jack had done another forty issues. fulfilling his contract. Neither of these were Particularly the Black Racer and the developed, but 1973’s OMAC was greenlit later.

Darkseid/Orion relationship would’ve of Pro! Magazine (the official publication of the National Football made more sense if Jack had gotten deeper into it. It’s like any good League), wherein New Genesis-style players engaged in a cosmic novel; a lot of things that happen in the third chapter don’t pay off football game, before Kirby moved on at DC with non-Fourth until the last chapter, and Jack never got to the last chapter.”

World series including Kamandi (the Demon had just been cancelled Mark Evanier interviewed in 1995 by John Morrow for Jack Kirby Collector #6 as well), and eventually OMAC and “The Losers.”

But remember that original color presentation drawing of “Lately, a lot of mail has been coming in from readers with all Orion that was used to make the cover image of New Gods #1? kinds of theories as to why New Gods and Forever People were cancelled, ranging from those who thought we were censored due to “For months, DC did not send it back to him. Jack wanted it and excessive violence, to those who said we were too literate… The trilogy DC acknowledged it was his property... but no one knew where it was. was an experiment—a new approach to comic book storytelling—and At one point, he was told that there’d been a rash of original art thefts while the magazines are no longer around, we don’t consider them from the office and it was assumed that the Orion drawing had disapfailures, nor do we hold the opinion that they died due to a lack of a peared in one of them. Then one day, it turned up in a drawer. It had following. Your letters have assured us of that. It becomes a matter been folded in half and severely crumpled when they sent it back to of the way in which comics are sold, plus a variety of intangibles that him. Jack was pretty angry about that. are peculiar to comic “To try and flatten it out, we put it in a cardboard folder and then books… Books are not put the folder under a large, heavy cabinet Jack had in his studio. And cancelled just by a then everyone forgot it was there. A year or so later, Jack and Roz were whim on Jack’s part, or moving out of that house and into what would be their final home, a on Carmine’s, because few miles away. It was the moving men who discovered the drawing they both think too there and handed it to Jack. ‘Poor Orion,’ he said. ‘DC shoved him in a highly of you, the drawer and cancelled his comic... I lost him under a cabinet... but mark reader, and of the my words. He’s too strong for any of us to defeat him. He’ll be back!’” books, as creations.”

Mark Evanier, Jack F.A.Q.s column, Jack Kirby Collector #47, Fall 2006

Steve Sherman, from the “Miracle Talk” letter column in Mister Miracle #18, written in July 1973

Kirby, as usual, was prophetic.

Orion would return, just as his new gods had risen from the ashes of the old. But first Jack, and his Fourth World characters, had a few detours to make.

So, why didn’t the Fourth World series last longer than it initially did?

We’ve covered some of the issues affecting sales (or at least sales reports), and had it

[left] Kirby’s futuristic take on the NFL’s New York Giants, for Pro! magazine.

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INTERLUDE FOUR:

Soldier On The Battlefield Excerpts from interviews with Jack Kirby from 1989 to 1992 by Ray Wyman, Jr.

“The people of my neighborhood were immigrants from Europe.

And, of course, in Europe, it is a common thing among peasants to pass stories down, to sit around the farm house and tell stories they collected.

People were honored for the number of stories they had learned from their mothers and fathers. It was an important part of family tradition.

“Fairy tales, the stories we tell our children now, are part of that legacy.

Some of them originate from our ancient history. There were stories about creatures that flew, creatures that menaced them, and some creatures that were very good. Some of the stories came from our instinctual fear of the night; there were menacing and unknown dangers there, things that they couldn’t see. For instance, if you were a Norseman, there were stories about demons of the sea. The Celts told stories about trolls and fairies that haunted the forests. Some of the stories are foundations of our notions of good and evil; right and wrong. There were also stories about gods.

“B

ack then, as we do now, they had God, but they also had different gods. They had the one that we believe in, but before that they had ones for nature, for trees, the sea, the sky, and even ones that governed our feelings. They believed in each of them in every way that we now believe in one God, and for the same reasons. They saw their gods in everything they did, everything that they could imagine. They created stories that they passed through the generations, legends of every imaginable kind. And since it was humans who were telling the stories, their gods were imbued with human qualities. Who was Odin but a father figure? Show me any legendary story that doesn’t have a father figure. Hercules had to bow down to Zeus, or at least talk politely to him. Zeus ran the whole universe. The Germans had Wotan; he ran the universe. The Norsemen had Odin run the universe. Then there were other sons and daughters of gods. They had so many gods that it was of their conditioning, their way of life. They saw their gods in everything—you and I, we’re no different.

“Now, you had your evil gods and your good gods and, of course from time to time they would fight among themselves or against each other.

They formed the mythology that later formed the backbone of civilization; and because of that they tended to be very simple, very easy to understand— they had to be because these were simple folk. It is those stories that I used when I was doing comics because comics are mythology of the modern society; tales of good versus evil done in a simplified form.

“Now, all good stories are based on some aspect of reality. They are

simpler to write that way because you can use elements of your own life to create a fascinating tale. Like good against evil; like the story about Darkseid against Highfather, the gods of Apokolips versus New Genesis. The first thing I did was to go back into history for ideas on how to start the story. There was a custom among the European kings to trade babies, so the French king would give his baby to the English king and the English king would give his baby to the French king, and then they couldn’t go to war with each other because in battle they might kill their own sons. It was a custom bound in self-preservation—a very real aspect to life no matter where you live, no matter who you are. Even kings think about self-preservation.

“It makes good story; it is good copy.

I used it in the New Gods. Highfather and Darkseid would exchange sons in the same manner; Darkseid’s son Orion was to live on New Genesis; Highfather’s son Scott Free (who later became Mister Miracle) would live on Apokolips. “The Pact” is one of my favorite stories that I wrote for New Gods because it is based on the fact that good and evil men can make a pact; in fact, mortal enemies can make pacts—like the English and French did. Of course it never really worked, but they tried.

“I was impressed by the record of history, that men would try such a thing because, remember, although they didn’t have any huge cannons or the atom bomb, they still felt threatened just as we do. They lived with broadswords and shields, but they were the super powers. It was more difficult to win a war back then. It was all hand-to-hand, one man’s hand against another, and it was personal. It was the pillaging of cities; it was setting cities afire. If you lost, it meant that you could lose your entire family.”

“N

ow, the story involves more than aspects of God; there are aspects of ourselves, the condition of mankind as a whole—these are all part of the real picture that I try to describe to the reader. So, every part of the story is important and every character has his own story to tell. When I started New Gods, I never thought about it the same way as we do when we write a story about Superman or SpiderMan. I visualized it as being a novel, a complete story, the first comics novel. There are various qualities that you will find in novels that you

1977 Royer-inked illo for Robert E. Howard’s poem “Musings” in Ariel, the Book of Fantasy V3.

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Collage used in Jimmy Olsen #137.

Exodus

n May 1974, Kirby took one last shot at a DC god concept, with Atlas, an interesting idea that might’ve spawned a great ongoing series, had its reception in the tryout comic First Issue Special #1 been stronger. Instead, Kirby spent his remaining tenure at DC Comics crafting exciting, but only occasionally breakthrough, stories for Kamandi, OMAC, and a few other titles, to fill out his contract.

During that Summer of 1974, Kirby’s son Neal asked Marvel Comics editor-in-chief Roy Thomas to meet for coffee at the San Diego Comic-Con (held July 31–August 5), to determine any interest Marvel might have in his father finally returning.

Thomas took that meeting, and confirmed to Kirby that he and publisher Stan Lee would still be glad to have him back.

“Jack and their son Neal and probably Roz and maybe someone else—got together with me to my surprise to talk about the possibility of Jack coming back to Marvel then, about a year before he actually did. It didn’t quite come to anything just yet, but it was obvious that within that three or four years, the bloom was definitely off the rose at DC, too, and Carmine was now the enemy, as he was to many other people.

“And all I could say to Jack was, ‘The only thing between you really is that Stan was a little hurt about the way you left, but that’s not a big deal. And the Funky Flashman stuff bothered him a little bit, because it seemed, to Stan at least, somewhat mean-spirited.’ I said to Jack, ‘I don’t ROY THOMAS:

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THE GODS OF 1974–1981 A.C. (After Cancellation)

“The Eternals are the gap that we can’t fill. We don’t know what happened back in the biblical days. We’ve killed a lot of people because of it, but we don’t know what happened back then. Did Joshua blow down Jericho with forty trumpets? I’d like to see someone do it. I feel that, from time to time, mankind has risen and destroyed itself and left something for the survivors….”

Jack Kirby interviewed by Leonard Pitts, Jr. circa 1986 for Conversations with the Comic Book Creators

take the Houseroy stuff that personally, because you don’t know me. My relationship to Stan was somewhat like what you said, and partly it’s just a caricature because I was there. And the name ‘Houseroy’ is clever as hell, and I kinda like it.’ I’m even a sympathetic character because I got tossed to the wolves. But I said, ‘We can get past that. Stan would love to have you back; he never wanted you to leave’.”

September 1997: Roy Thomas interviewed by Jim Amash, published in Jack Kirby Collector #18

Kirby then began talks with Lee regarding the possibility of his returning to Marvel. In February 1975, Stan Lee gave his take on it: “I will say, in all honesty that I’d like Jack to come back, I want him to come back eventually. I sort of half-expect that he’ll come back when his contract ends—I think he’d be making a mistake not to come back. I’d say he did his best work at Marvel, his style is pure Marvel. Also I must admit that he has had so many books at National that have failed, whereas if they’d been for Marvel, I think they would still be being published—especially New Gods.

“The thing about Jack is that though he’s a good story man, and a STAN LEE:

good artist, I feel he needs some control, some editing. He tends to get so wrapped up in what he wants to do, that he forgets what the readers might want. I think his material was a little better with us because we exercised some control. I remember on the very first issue of the Fantastic Four, I’d suggested in the synopsis a monster, and Jack drew a hundred red monsters. I said, ‘Jack, it’s more dramatic to have one monster that the reader worries about, than a hundred monsters.’ The trouble with Jack is that he’s so imaginative he tries to put every idea he can think of on every page. He tries to make every page a whole new original thought and action. That isn’t good story. You have to build up a mood. You’ve got to take one idea and stretch it over a few pages and milk the utmost drama out of it. It’s a matter of pacing—you don’t have a chance to catch your breath reading his stories.”

Interview with Stan Lee by Charles Murray in February–March 1975, published April 1975 in Fantasy Advertiser International

[previous page, bottom] A 1976 potential Space God. [top] Jack mixes old and new for the biblical Battle of Jericho in 1980. [above] Satan’s Six, the Devil’s hard luck demi-heroes, circa late 1970s. [left] Kirby’s take on the characters from Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey. Ulysses was the Roman name of Odysseus, who battled the Cyclops in Greek mythology.

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BOOM TUBE

BUZZING IN THE

SIXTH WORLD CAPTAIN VICTORY, HUNGER DOGS, AND SUPER POWERS Captain Victory #1-13 Legion of Super-Heroes #290-294 Super Powers I #1-5 Hunger Dogs graphic novel Super Powers II #1-6

Light From The Darkness

O

n May 21, 1980, The Empire Strikes Back debuted in movie theaters worldwide, and its climatic father/son reveal had most Kirby fans leaving their local cineplex convinced director George Lucas owed a huge debt to Jack. That influence would continue to be felt on May 25, 1983, when the original Star Wars trilogy ended with Return of the Jedi.

Behind the scenes in the early 1980s, Kirby was engaged in a contentious legal battle with Marvel Comics, over the return of his original artwork.

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THE ERA OF RE-GENESIS (1981–1986)

“In my attempt to create a serious novel for our medium, I have chosen that most basic of experiences, one we have all shared at one time or another—survival. If the fate of all mankind were in your hands, what would your decision be? ...As a writer and an artist, I’ve drawn my answer.”

Fearful that soon to expire copyrights on his 1960s Marvel creations would result in him claiming ownership, Marvel withheld thousands of pages of Kirby’s original artwork in their files as leverage, even though they had begun to return artwork to other concurrent 1960s artists. Kirby was singled out for a lengthier release to sign, which included legal language he couldn’t agree to. When word leaked out, a campaign against Marvel began in the fan press (spearheaded largely

by The Comics Journal), and a dark era began for Jack, well after he’d left comics for good—or so he thought.

Brothers Bill and Steve Schanes had co-founded Pacific Comics in 1971 as a mail-order comics dealer for collectors (at the same time affidavit return fraud was causing the Fourth World’s sales to be under-reported). After successfully opening their own comics shop, they branched out into the non-returnable Direct Market distribution of comics, and reached the point of starting their own independent comics publishing house. They approached Kirby in 1981 with a deal that included royalties, full creative control, and ownership of his original artwork—all things he’d never been

Jack Kirby from a DC Comics’ press release, February 6, 1985

offered working for Marvel or DC. It was enough to make him take a leap of faith on the new publisher, and give comics one more try.

Thus, Summer 1981 saw the debut issue of Kirby’s Captain Victory and the Galactic Rangers, published by Pacific Comics, making it Jack’s first comic published specifically for the Direct Market of comic books stores. That cemented a new distribution model for comics, which is still being used today. But it also afforded an opportunity for Kirby to finally produce an ending to his Fourth World storylines—just not at DC Comics.

It was quite a confluence of unrelated events that caused it to happen.

Earlier that year, in February 1981, Jenette Kahn [top] became DC’s president following the retirement of Sol Harrison, and Paul Levitz [center] was promoted to executive vice president, with Dick Giordano [bottom] serving as managing editor. Then suddenly, the New Gods characters made a high-profile comeback in 1982 in a storyline titled “The Great Darkness Saga.” Appearing from January– August, and occurring in the Legion of Super-Heroes title (issues #290-294, written by Levitz and drawn by Keith Giffen), it started as a slow burn with hints of who a shadowy 30th Century “Master” villain was who controlled the “Great Darkness.” That all led up to a big reveal: It was Darkseid, who’d somehow managed to survive the ensuing ten centuries, only to threaten the universe once again.

I think it’s critical to read “The Great Darkness Saga” in order to fully understand how and why Kirby shaped his New Gods’ future from that point on. In it, both Highfather and Orion were briefly resurrected as clones before perishing in battle with Darkseid at the climax, and that may’ve played a part in Jack’s thinking to follow. It wouldn’t be unreasonable to assume he took at least some umbrage at DC presenting that story

IF YOU ENJOYED THIS PREVIEW, CLICK THE LINK TO ORDER THIS ISSUE IN PRINT OR DIGITAL FORMAT!

OLD GODS & NEW: A FOURTH WORLD COMPANION (TJKC #80)

Looks back at JACK KIRBY’s own words, as well as those of assistants MARK EVANIER and STEVE SHERMAN, inker MIKE ROYER, and publisher CARMINE INFANTINO, to show how Kirby’s epic came about, where it was going, and how he would’ve ended it before it was cancelled by DC Comics!

[left] If you had any doubt that Kirby somehow saw all his work as interconnected, this 1981 film premise should lay that to rest. It reads as a combination of New Gods, Eternals, and Captain Victory, and the pin-up on the previous page (from Captain Victory Special #1) may have been done to accompany it, as it matches this concept perfectly.

(160-page FULL-COLOR TPB) $26.95 (Digital Edition) $14.99 ISBN: 978-1-60549-098-4 https://twomorrows.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=98_57&products_id=1554

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