The Fourth World Of July - Newer Gods!

The Anti-Life Equation is the deadly secret over which the war between New Genesis and  Apokolips is fought. It's an way to access a power to rule the minds and wills of other people, to effectively turn others into your willing servants and slaves. On the Fourth of July there could hardly be a better subject to discuss, as freedom and liberty are the focus of this holiday here in these United States of America. Jack "King" Kirby was a guy who fought for liberty in real palpable and life-threatening ways during World War II. He was a man who was and enormous talent but even more enjoyed his freedom to create as he chose. But the rigors of raising a family and meeting their needs has made many a person turn from the purity of their principles. Freedom doesn't feed the baby all by itself as much as we cherish it and so sometimes we give up aspects of our freedom, become de facto serfs to systems which use our talents to larger and sometimes even greater well-meaning ends. Getting men and women to surrender their liberty is what Darkseid wanted in the end.

Darkseid's plots had been dormant since the final Jack Kirby issue of Mister Miracle until he popped up again as the mastermind behind The Secret Society of Super-Villains. That is save for the one issue which heralded the "Return of the New Gods". The series is written by Gerry Conway and drawn with consummate skill by up and coming Don Newton. Newton doesn't attempt to ape Kirby, but instead brings an atmospheric feel to the stories all his own. 

1st Issue Special #13 landed on the racks in January of 1976 and it shows just how eager DC was to exploit Kirby's Fourth World creations. He had just left DC and his final work on Kamandi was hitting the stands just as his first Captain America work from Marvel was bringing a whole new chapter to the Kirby saga. But DC had told Kirby these characters weren't profitable and that's why his Fourth World tetralogy had been largely cancelled after the first few years. But literally the door hand not quite slammed shut and they rushed a new version onto the racks. The story by Denny O'Neil and Mike Vosburg reignites the war between New Genesis and Apokolips and sees a differently garbed Orion press the fight to Darkseid's own doorstep. It would be a year before more was done, but when it was done it was done quite well.

When the New Gods did return in regular order it was with a flourish and they picked up their old numbering as Gerry Conway and Don Newton crafted some new stories in what would become one of DC's key mythic arenas. In Return of the New Gods #12 meet the New Gods as they are dispatched first to the abandoned Moon base of Darkseid and then to Earth where six New Gods find they have a human to protect. Each human has part of the Anti-Life Equation and must be protected from the warriors of Apokolips. Joining Orion, Lightray, and Metron are the Forager the Bug, Lonar and his steed, and a new character named Jezebelle.

The Gods are met with different emotions when they try to rout the attacks from Apokolips, specifically the attacks of the Deep Six. Orion is able to save  the humans but only by killing (again) his enemies.

All of the New Gods are called upon across different parts of the world to battle against Doctor Bedlam who is even more powerful than ever thanks to Darkseid.

The ongoing battles result in a tragic loss for the New Gods when Darkseid at long last gets his hands on part of the Anti-Life Equation. Also a strange new pact of sorts is made between New Genesis and Apokolips.  This issue was drawn by Rich Buckler who is the best of all the artists of his generation of evoking the "King".

Darkseid is able to strike at the very heart of the society of the New Gods, but still they battle taking the war to the enemy in some familiar locales from the classic Kirby run.

We learn again about the origins of Orion and why he's so dedicated to defeating his father Darkseid and we at long last learn that Jezebelle of the Firey Eyes is in fact another defector from Apokolips and the untender care of Granny Goodness. 

Ultimately as the series ends for a second time with its nineteenth issue the surviving New Gods fight together on Earth even as the secret of the Anti-Life Equation is captured by Darkseid and used by him to bring the world to its knees. We learn that the Infinity Man and the Forever People have a role to play yet in this drama, but as the series itself closes out, the story moves over to an expanded Adventure Comics.

This collection has Super-Team Family #15 appear at this point in a story in which the Flash meets up the New Gods to save Orion and more beyond. There is a reference in the upcoming Adventure stories to this episode, but frankly it's not all that good. Despite being written by Conway, the story doesn't feel much like a New Gods story at all and in the context of the larger epic is utterly forgettable.

The sage of the this third conflict between New Genesis and Apokolips wraps up in two issues of Adventure Comics and that's fortunate, because these stories might well have been consigned to the limbo that the DC Implosion created for so many finale issues. We get an ending, and the war is won of course, but you already knew that. Darkseid is dispatched, the status quo is not quite brought back, but for my money there is an incomplete and somewhat wrongheaded understanding of the Anti-Life Equation in these last several installments. It seems to be a device to make anything possible when I've understood it to mean control over all thining creatures, as if that wasn't enough.

We also get this little yarn by Conway and Newton which reveals how Lightray got his powers. I didn't realize that required an explanation, but someone seemed to think so and what we have actually reads a bit like an adventure of "Little Orion" and his buddies.

The story finally wraps up a few years later in the pages of Justice League of America when the New Gods become part of the long-standing tradition of including a third in the annual date of the JLA and the JSA. Justice League of America #183 is significant in many ways, not least of which is the hint of the return of Darkseid after what seemed a pretty grim demise. But for me personally this issue is a heartbreaker because it is the last issue drawn by the great Dick Dillin. I still remember reading the notice as I stood in the grocery line to pay for the book. It was a sad moment.

But my sadness over Dillin's passing was salved by the next month's issue featuring George Perez's debut on the book. He was considered one of the great up and coming talents and his work on The New Teen Titans was magnificent, but with this gig he became a bonafide super-star artist. He does a fantastic job of telling this jam-packed story. We have a handful of superheroes from Earths 1 and 2 alongside the New Gods trying to rescue the people of New Genesis trapped on  Apokolips and attempting the resurrect Darkseid himself.

As with most of these "Crisis" epics the story moves at a breakneck pace but Conway and Perez keep the ride vivid and lively. The ending is abrupt but that was not uncommon with these stories. Suffice it to say that when this story was done, so was DC at trying to get others to tap into the potential of Kirby's great Fourth World creations, at least for a little while. 

Before the cataclysm which was the Crisis on Infinite Earths Jack "King" Kirby would be invited back to bring his epic saga to some conclusion. And when he did it, the stuff produced by other talents in these tomes was whisked away into the ether of the fanboy's memory and imagination. It was as if these stories never happened, but then of course they did. That''s the delight of a world without "Anti-Life", I am free to remember and think what I choose. That's the lesson of the Fourth of July and also the lesson of the fabulous Fourth World. 

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The Fourth World Of July - Secret Societies!

When Jack "King" Kirby busted out from the Bullpen at Marvel Comics and took his talents to the competition, the house of Superman and Batman, it was big, big news. It's still big news in the rear view of how I see the history of comics. Free at last of his partner Stan Lee, Kirby was allowed to create with abandon and he did just that. His "Fourth World" books The New Gods, Mister Miracle and The Forever People proved not to immediate financial successes but few argue they were creative victories. His second wave of characters featuring Kamandi the Last Boy on Earth, The Demon, and OMAC The One Man Army Corp, were somewhat more successful on the average with Kamandi being a real hit. Kirby took on war in The Losers, and bounced out new concepts such as Atlas and a new spin on The Manhunter as well another kid team called the Dingbats of Danger Street. Toss in some ghostly tales, and a few one off adventures for other characters he had not created and Kirby fulfilled his five contract with a reasonably high level of creative success. But he was happy to bounce and once again was back in the "House of Ideas" as his final DC efforts were getting publication in the bicentennial year.

But no sooner was Kirby out the door at DC and creating new things for Marvel again like The Eternals and Machine Man, DC resurrected the "Fourth World"  and handed the books off to new incoming talents from Marvel such as Gerry Conway and Steve Englehart. What Kirby had wanted to do with the "Fourth World" books all along, to ignite and hand them over to capable talents so he could create more was in fact what DC chose to do once Kirby was no longer around to participate.

Over this Fourth of July holiday I'd like to examine DC's use of "The Fourth World" after Kirby's departure but preceding the infamous Crisis on Infinite Earths. And weirdly enough after a one-shot revival of all the "Return of the New Gods" in an issue of 1st Issue Special the first time place the characters popped up was in the "Conway's Corner" production The Secret Society of Super-Villains. 

In that debut issue (which was actually the second stab at it as I will explain down below) we meet our villains dejour -- Gorilla Grodd, Captains Cold and Boomerang, and Mirror Master from the Flash's Rogue's Gallery and Sinestro and Star Sapphire from Green Lantern's adventures. Toss in Bat-baddy like Copperhead and you have a brew. In addition to the Kirby concepts, the Goodwin and Simonson Manhunter was revived (in a fashion) to lead up the team. They were bad people who were summoned to battle a bigger baddie and while there are no names we can tell pretty quickly that Darkseid is the name. 

Captain Comet returns from space after twenty years to join the melee and with Hi-Jack to replace a captured Copperhead the Society finds itself fighting Mantis and his minions from the pages of the New Gods. 

Darkseid shows himself in the third issue along with Kalibak. The battle rages and somewhere in there Green Lantern shows up to join the fray as Captain Comet reveals he's a good guy after all. 

The Wizard from Earth-2 is a member now too and he and Hi-Jack face off as the war with Mantis continues. Then Kalibak and Gorilla Grodd face off for a pretty dang good battle and as the fourth issue ends the Black Racer appears to fulfill his mission of death. 

And then the wheels come off. The first four issues had been plotted and written by Gerry Conway and David Anthony Kraft with Pablo Marcos doing a pretty presentable job on pencils beneath some good inking from Bob Smith and some indifferent inking from Vinnie Colletta (a veteran of the "Fourth World" books). Vinnie stays on but Rich Buckler takes the penciling chores over with Bob Rozakis taking on the scripts. The plot has been simmering and it's time for our finale but it seems these new cooks have different ideas. In a mere seven pages Rozakis and Buckler (doing a fair Kirby imitation) end the threat of Mantis and Darkseid and seemingly kill both Big D and Manhunter as well. You flip the page and Funky Flashman shows up to spin the Society and comic book into a completely different direction. "The Fourth World" is shown the door for the most part. 

Now to be completely thorough (I think) I must mention a story which appeared in The Amazing World of DC Comics which was the first try at Conway and Marcos with penciler Ric Estada making a Society comic. It's similar in many ways but is missing many Flash villains and replacing them with Clayface. Another difference is that Darkseid is on stage immediately. It's not as good as the one they published but shows even more how quickly DC wanted to use the "Fourth World" concepts, concepts they told Kirby were not successful in the marketplace. Makes you think don't it. 

More tomorrow as Mister Miracle returns, but then he never really went away thanks to the "Haneyverse".

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Black Lightning Strikes Again!

Black Lightnng proved too good a character to let disappear when the original series passed away during the great comic book implosion. Jeff Pierce was a smart and adept black man who wanted to bring justice to Suicide Slum and those were stories needed telling. So what to do?

World's Finest, the longtime home of Superman and Batman tandem was a dollar comic for a time and had room to rent to aspiring heroes and heroines looking for a place to next. Hawkman and Hawkgirl too up residence as did Captain Marvel / Shazam. Green Arrow had been there in the pre-dollar days and that left room for one more and Black Lightning stepped in.

Written by Denny O'Neil and drawn by Dick Dillin, George Tuska, and Rich Buckler among others the stories sadly were not that strong. O'Neil didn't get Isabella's take on Black Lightning and instead of a good man pretending to be a brash superhero we get just the former, a hero full of platitudes all too eager to call attention to the color of his skin. 

The fight against the underworld continued but the private life of Jefferson Pierce was almost never dealt with aside from a few antique references to mimeographing some tests. (That was a blast from the past, I'll say that.)

Things were a little better when Black Lightning guest-starred alongside Superman. The threat is from the school Pierce works at and that helps, but the absolute oddness of the threat is not the kind of thing Black Lightning ought to battling. He doesn't do aliens. '

Which is pretty much what he told the Justice League of America when they checked him out for membership, In classic Silver Age style they tested  him under the guise of presumed villains but it felt weird and in the end he turned them down. 

One excellent thing about the two-parter, a favorite of mine from this era of the JLA, is that Dick Dillin and Frank McLaughling drew Black Lighting exceedingly well. His costume really had snap and I got a real sense of what should look like. It had seemed rather drab really from the get go, a side effect of Vince Colletta's inks (I generally like Colletta, but he doesn't hit the mark on his turn on Black Lightning). 

Then it was off to Detective Comics, also a dollar book as Black Lightning closed out his Bronze Age career. 

He looked quite sharp alongside Batman when Dick Giordano drew him as they worked in parallel mostly to stop a deadly gang of gas theives. 

But it was in the last two installments of his run that new writer J.M DeMatteis and artist Gerald Forton really hit the ball out of the park. Suddenly the personal life was back and the school was front and center and the whole thing felt exactly right. The tone of the character was the strongest it had been since Isabella's departure. 

And like that it was over. Black Lightning finished out his run and then went on to join Batman in the replacement comic for The Brave and the Bold -- The Outsiders. Drawn by Jim Aparo (as he was in his Who's Who entry he looked quite sharp. (See the cover at the very top of this post.)

It would be some time before he'd return again under the hand of his creator Tony Isabella. That's coming soon.  

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