Please Stand By...

As may be obvious by now, there won't be a Fourth World Fridays entry this week. I'm catching up with a major project right now, as well as dealing with some family issues. We'll return next week.

The Forever People #11--"Infinity Man Returns!"

KEEP ON TRUCKIN’.

So the last two issues have seen the Forever People renting an apartment, getting jobs, and just generally showing signs of giving up their hippie lifestyle. Which may have been timely, given that the 60s had been over for two years at this point, but it did seem to run counter to what made the book interesting. The FP’s weren’t really meant to settle down, as evidenced by what happened last time they tried to do that…and sure enough, more or less the same thing happens this time around. Namely, a minion of Darkseid shows up, trashes the place, and sends them scurrying off.

This time, though, the threat comes not from a suicide bomber or a lone religious maniac. This time the threat is a name spoken in hushed whispers across the Fourth World:



I think it’s the red short-shorts that add that extra soupcon of intimidation.

Devilance is apparently one of Darkseid’s big guns, as we see when Big Bear moves in to grapple with him and he tosses him aside. I would ask why Devilance wasn’t sent in to take care of the FP’s right from the start, but it’s pretty clear that Darkseid mostly just enjoys jerking these kids around, teleporting them willy-nilly and throwing them back in time, even in situations where he has them at his mercy. At any rate, Devilance doesn’t seem to be messing around, and it’s only the timely intervention of the police, responding to Mrs. Magruder’s call, that gives the FP’s time to teleport away. Dev just contemptuously shrugs them off and flies out the window, using the first of many functions he’ll demonstrate on his wonderful lance.

The Forev Peeps haven’t wasted their moment; they’ve teleported, using Mother Box, to an abandoned mine shaft “a vast area” away. Despite the efficacy of their hiding place, and the fact that they can seemingly teleport away anytime they feel like it, Mark Moonrider knows that they’re only temporarily safe. “What’s going to happen to us, Mark?” frets Beautiful Dreamer. “Devilance won’t give up until we’re imprisoned on Apokolips—or dead!” “We’ll keep calm and plan a defense, Beautiful Dreamer!” responds Mark, sort of condescendingly. “It’s all we can do!”

I guess I should mention here that this is the final issue of The Forever People. Like The New Gods, it was brought to a screeching halt by low sales; unlike The New Gods, it wasn’t revived by Kirby later on (there was at least one revival, in 1988, by J.M. DeMatteis and Paris Cullins, about which I know nothing). It’s hard not to see this issue as a compilation of several issues and ideas Kirby probably wanted to run throughout the series. As mentioned, the natural inclination of the comic was to be a travelogue; introducing Devilance, a relentless, Terminator-type pursuer, to keep them moving from place to place, would have been a logical addition to the strip. The ending here also would have been more satisfying if it had capped a storyline covering several issues, but it’s still pretty good.

Which brings me to Infinity Man. What? Yes! Infinity Man! You know, the nigh-omnipotent being that the FP’s used to be able to call upon to get them out of a jam? And whom we haven’t seen hide nor hair of since the above-linked issue #3? Well, as you’ll recall, that issue had Darkseid zapping Infy with some kind of ray that reversed the little Captain Marvel/Voltron-style switcheroo that the Forever People had learned how to do. It turns out that this was actually a permanent thing, which is why the FPs hadn’t been able to call on him since.

And that’s both cool and logical—as I mentioned, it was getting a bit silly that the FPs could just call on this omnipotent being anytime they felt threatened. But, y’know, it might have helped just a tad with the storytelling if Kirby had, I don’t know, told us any of this stuff. As it is it kind of comes off like the FPs just wandered off and forgot Infinity Man even existed. Almost as if they’d partaken too heavily of some kind of chemical substance. Which is clearly ridiculous.

Anyway, Infinity Man was banished by the power of Darkseid to “a corner of the Universe where time, space, and matter change and merge”:



Some kind of barrier prevents him from going back to…wherever it is he normally hangs out when the FPs aren’t using him. Actually, it’s kind of weird that we’re just now seeing the guy “apart from” the FPs, and this seems to confirm that they’re definitely separate entities. But who knows; these are gods, after all. The idea of “taking on an aspect” is one found throughout literature. Um, though I have to admit you don’t usually see multiple people taking on the same aspect.

At any rate, this pocket universe isn’t a complete craphole; in fact, there’s a lush, beautiful, and uninhabited world nearby, to which Infy keeps returning when banging against the walls of the Universe tires him out. This planet is apparently called “Adon”. If you read 52, the recent DC “event” series, you may remember that, near the beginning, Animal Man, Starfire and Adam Strange were all banished to a paradisical planet on the other end of the Universe…where they encountered Devilance the Pursuer. It’s for this reason, and others that will become clear, that I think that Adon was that same planet, and this issue therefore seems to have had a big impact on 52.

Speaking of Devilance, it turns out that he’s tracked down our hippie friends, and they’re soon engaged in further combat. Mark tries his Megaton Touch, but it misses, and Devilance lunges forward—into a pit filled with goopy, comic-book lava. The blast was just a distraction to entice him forward, and Beauty had whipped up an illusory floor for him to step out onto. But Devilance is merely trapped for a moment, allowing them to teleport away once more.

This time they wind up on a remote island in the South Pacific, covered with giant stone heads…that look nothing like the famous Easter Island heads. It’s like Kirby read about Easter Island somewhere and decided to draw his own interpretation without bothering with visual reference:



Anyway, Devilance is on them almost instantly. This time the plan is for Vykin to use Mother Box to separate him from his lance, without which he’s “considerably weakened!” Vykin uses his “Magna-Waves” to tap the lance in a little cyclone, and Big Bear rushes in to pummel him, but once again Devilance cleans his clock when his lance somehow figures out a way to return to his hand. Man, Big Bear’s looking like a chump in this issue. In fact, it’s freakin’ Serifan who rushes into save him, using one of his Cosmic Cartridges to once more pull a convenient, never-before-mentioned power out of his ass and encase him in some extremely heavy metal. And that’s the only time you’ll ever hear “Serifan” and “heavy metal” used in the same sentence.

The FPs, allowed a momentary break in the action, retreat to the jungle to mull what to do with their pursuer. “We can’t kill Devilance!” mutters Beauty. “Our creed is non-violence!” puts in Big Bear.

…excuse me?!? Non-violence?!? And it’s Big Bear of all people saying that? I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, Bear, but you yourself were doing some pretty serious pounding as recently as a few pages ago. And you’re in a freaking Kirby comic. You really think you’re going to be allowed to be non-violent? Only girls get that option.

What I assume he meant was that they don’t kill. But they waste precious time talking about it, and wishing vainly for news from The Source, and next thing you know it looks like Devilance is free again. Smooth, guys.

The Forever People try to hold him off with logic, pointing out that they can just keep holding him off forever, resulting in a stalemate. Devilance blows that aside by saying that he’s willing to kill, and the Forev Peeps aren’t, so he’s bound to get the upper hand eventually. But just as things look bleak, the Mother Box rises into the air. “Is she calling for the ”contact ritual?”” asks Beauty. “Yes!” responds Vykin, “She strongly senses a contact with Infinity Man!”

You see, Infy has been thinking furiously back on Adon. “The young Forever People! They are the key! In the magic word ’Taaru’, which links us as one, destiny shall do what the powers of time and space command it!” He then…thinks very hard at the barrier that blocks him off from the rest of the universe. Back on Earth, Moonrider says that he thinks they can access Infinity Man now, after months of being unable to make contact, and Infy senses their presence.

Oh, Infy. All this time and you’re still a big, walking, omnipotent deus ex machine. It’s a shame you didn’t think of this “thinking hard” trick back when the FPs were trapped in Desaad’s amusement park of doom.

Anyway, the ritual kicks in, and suddenly Infy is standing there, ready to take on Devilance. It’s the battle of the dudes in short-shorts!



The battle mounts as Infy tries to grab Devilance’s lance away, resulting in a series of more and more “energetic” panels, until finally the island itself explodes, leaving only Jack, Kate, Hurley, Sayid and Sun floating on the open ocean. Oh, wait.

Suddenly, we cut to Darkseid and Desaad, watching all this mayhem from…somewhere. “Thus, blind destiny writes an ending well beyond the wisdom of Darkseid himself!” intones Darkseid. With Infinity Man destroyed, the Forever People are now trapped on Adon…forever. But hey, if you have to be banished someplace, this is about the nicest planet you could ask for. Cheerfully accepting their lot, the Forever People walk forward to begin exploring their new home.

“A moment stirs! A moment lives! A moment Passes on! The young Forever People, for this moment, turn their back on Earth and face heir future on this new world! Will they return someday? Destiny will answer this question, too!”

Seriously, thematically, this is a great ending. It’s hard not to mist up a little as you see the fivesome walking off into the lush, pastel-coloured rococo landscape. The sixties were over, and it was becoming clear even to squares like Kirby that the utopian visions the counterculture had nurtured were drifting away, becoming an impossible dream. If the book had continued, it probably would have been forced more and more into a conventional format, with the FPs giving way to and compromising with the forces of mundane reality. With this abrupt ending, the fivesome never has to make that compromise, and can dwell on forever as a platonic ideal, romping amongst fields far beyond our ken. It was a long, strange trip while it lasted, but they were always strangers here, on this place called Earth. Shine on, you crazy diamonds.

Mister Miracle #10--"The Mister Miracle To Be"

TO BE? OR NOT TO BE? THAT IS THE QUESTION.

The fourth and final volume of the Fourth World Omnibus collection kicks off, appropriately enough, with Mister Miracle—appropriate, because he’ll be dominating the first 2/3rds of this collection. That is, before we leap forward 15 years and Orion takes center stage again. But more on that as it comes.

If you’ll cast your mind back a couple of issues, you’ll recall that Scott and Barda had returned to Apokolips for some cathartic foiling of Granny Goodness’s plans…though he still hasn’t quite managed to defeat her for good, so I’m not really sure what the point was. But she’s definitely been weakened by virtue of the fact that the Female Furies have seemingly all gone over to Barda’s side, and in fact the “big four”—Stompa, Lashina, Mad Harriet, and Burnadeth—are all returning to Earth with her and Scott as this story opens.

Unfortunately, it seems that (apparently for the first time ever) they’ve miscalculated and sent a Boom Tube to the wrong place—a bland-looking grassy plain that the Furies immediately proclaim to be a dump. Scott, more sensibly, points out that it’s an improvement on Apokolips…which is, of course, a cue for the explosions and ammo. While Barda dodges the fire of an automated machine gun, Scott crawls underneath it and disables it just in time. The other Furies, conveniently, hang back off panel while this is happening.

No sooner has Scott succeeded than a sinister bld fellow in Khakis and his array of goons pop up, guns trained on Scott. “You ’all-nation’ agents are getting increasingly ingenious!” he proclaims. Despite Scott’s proclamations of innocence, the guy prepares to open fire, and Scott is once again forced to kick, dodge, and scurry his way out of the gunfire as he takes out the agents, spouting limp one-liners like “I get a kick out of meeting people I don’t like!” Even Scott admits to himself that this is a horrible cliché once the guys are all rendered unconscious. I guess either Kirby was becoming aware of his limitations as a writer—there are more and more of these self-criticizing moments as the series goes on—or else someone else was poking him about it.

At any rate, the Furies, Barda included, have run off somewhere, and Scott somehow decides that they preceded him down into the hatch from which Baldy emerged. Um, yeah, no doubt, Scott. Just be glad there isn’t a killer on the loose, because that whole “splitting up to wander off down a dark corridor alone” routine tends not to work so well in those situations. Actually, they usually lead to trouble in superhero comics, too.

And indeed, no sooner has Scott emerged from the elevator than he’s greated by…a disembodied head. The Head of the World Protective League, as he calls himself. In classic villain fashion, he proceeds to show Scott around his “Tinker’s Shop”, as he calls it, where his men are preparing an “orbital plague bomb” with which they plan to hold the world for ransom. Yes, that “protective” moniker applies in the sense of “protection racket”. This is standard supervillain stuff, of course, but adding that little flourish is a clever touch. Actually I think it would have been even neater if we’d started off by assuming that they were a bunch of good guys, and then the play on words had shifted our perceptions.

At any rate, the Head has been labouring under the assumption that Scott and the Furies are a bunch of secret agents, sent to disrupt their plans. Because secret agents have a tendency to show up in flamboyant, brightly coloured costumes and set off your evil lair’s defenses, don’t you know. At any rate, Scott helpfully waits until the Head is ready to hit him with a brain beam that renders him unconscious.

Meanwhile, the Furies are waking up in a cell, enclosed by foot-thick glass. Apparently the Head saw fit to render them all unconscious and take them prisoner, while allowing Scott to wander right up to him. Well, you’ve got to give props to the head: he recognized that the Furies are a lot more of a physical threat than Scott. What he failed to notice is that Mad Harriet has secret “power spikes” secreted in her knuckles…



Whoa, “Snikk”? And this was two years before a certain Canucklehead burst onto the superhero comics scene. Oh Kirby, is there anything in comics you didn’t anticipate?

Mad Harriet carves a hole in the glass, and Stomp kicks it out, freeing the Furies and knocking out the guard. Across the room, the Furies find another prisoner, one who starts smarmily demanding they free him. Turns out he’s “Mike McKracken of the All-Nations Agency!”, super-spy and secret agent (though not so super that he can avoid getting captured, it seems.) He immediately pours on the Neanderthal charm with Barda, which gets her to rip the bars out of his cell, at least, though only for the purpose of wringing his neck. McCracken, in case it isn’t obvious, is a parody of the numerous 60s-era superspies with out-of-control libidos who worked for vague UN-like international organizations; pairing him with the Furies is an amusing bit of snarkiness on Kirby’s part. While Kirbs wasn’t immune to sexism himself from time to time, this whole storyline is undeniably a shot fired at the rampant chauvinism of the previous, supposedly enlightened decade.

At any rate, before the Furies can get sufficiently angry at McCracken to polish him off, security shows up, leading to a standard slugfest, with the Furies making short work of the flunkies. Uh, I guess the Head was too busy to knock them out again long-distance?

Specifically, he was busy with Phase Two of the Generic Supervillain Five-Year Plan: put your hero in an elaborate deathtrap instead of just shooting him. This is often sort of elided over in Mister Miracle because the villains have heard of his fame and want to see if he’s Really That Good, but The Head has no idea who he is, so why bother?



Oh. Right. Floating Heads always have an array of random mental powers, so I should have figured on plot-convenient telepathy, too. At any rate, is there really a lot of suspense in seeing Mister Miracle bound hand and foot and thrust into a hyperbaric chamber that is promptly flooded with “death gas”? To no one (outside the comic)’s surprise, the chamber is opened and the empty shackles fall out…and when the thugs peer in, baffled, Mister Miracle comes flying out feet-first into them. Scott grabs the head and takes it hostage, as the villains stand agape at Scott’s ability to overcome his mental powers. The Head, however, has at least figured out Mister M.’s use of hidden gadgets, and calls a penalty in the form of a huge psychic blast that puts Scott out again.

This time, it’s the arrival of the Furies that saves him, particularly Lashina, but the Head still manages to get away…dragging Scott’s limp body behind him on a magnetic tractor beam. Before the Furies can catch up, the Head has arrived at the launch site and throws Scott into the germ-carrying rocket.

Hmmm. This is starting to look a little familiar. Fortunately, there’s a twist at this point: a magnetic pull drags the Head towards the rocket’s hull and affixes it there as the rocket takes up…then explodes in the upper atmosphere.

Damn, Scott, that’s cold. I mean, yeah, he was insane and evil and a threat to the world, but that doesn’t usually stop superheroes from sparing their enemies’ lives. The traditional out is for the villain to somehow be foiled by his own devices and fall down a pit, or be eaten by his own monster, or something. But that was Scott just flat-out executing the guy. Also, I kinda hope that rocket got high enough before exploding that the germs aren’t going to trickle down to Earth and infect everyone.

The Furies catch up to find Scott waiting calmly in the control room, ready to deliver one of his patented expositional speeches about how he escaped (in brief: by using his usual assortment of Deus Ex Machina Gadgets.) Surprisingly, though—possibly because Kirby suddenly realized he had five pages left—we get a little additional drama as they track down Barda’s missing mega-rod, which is in the hands of a leprechaun:



…Or an evil research scientist, whatever.

They catch up with him pretty easily—boy, that was gripping—and, after taking back the Mega-Rod, give him four hours to evacuate the base. Then McCracken sabotages the base to explode and Barda whisks the batch of them away.

But there’s still some pages left, and they’re given over to an epilogue in which we check on the long-absent Oberon. Or rather, the left-behind-for-three-issues Oberon. Left to rattle around Thad-now-Scott’s old house, Obie’s going a bit stir-crazy, so he’s delighted to receive a visitor: Thaddeus Brown’s son, Ted, who is only just now bothering to show up. Seems he’s been walking the Earth, like Caine in Kung Fu, trying to find himself, and possibly running away from his father’s long shadow. However, having received a letter from Oberon some time back, he’s finally realized his calling in life: to be a PR man.

Yeah, I thought that was a little anticlimactic too.

It’s especially ironic given the whole counterculture tone of the Fourth World Saga up until this point…but then, change was in the air for Kirby when he produced this issue. Let me note briefly that Scott, Barda, and the Furies arrive home with impeccable timing, and Ted promptly decides he’d love to help promote their act, thus ending the issue with a new phase in Mr. Miracle’s life about to begin.

Anyway…it’s about this time that Kirby apparently started to learn that the Fourth World books weren’t selling that well. Combined with the brewing economic times affecting America in general and the comic industry in particular during the 70s, Kirby seems to have suddenly realized that the good times of (relative) experimental freedom and personal expression that he’d enjoyed for a decade were about to grind to a halt. DC wanted concepts out of him that could compete with Marvels’ for the burgeoning fanboy dollar, but they weren’t really willing to let the King stretch his creative muscles in a way that would really accomplish this. For their purposes, they were getting Kirby at his least commercial—or at least, that’s how it must have seemed then. As I’ve argued before, I think Kirby was right on the cutting edge at Marvel, but here he was too far ahead of his time. By the late 70s, the cosmic vision of the Fourth World would have been completely suited to comics and pop culture in general, but at the time it was still a slowly-budding market.

That wasn’t good enough for DC, which was only just starting to lose its grip on the #1 spot in the comic book market. A lot of people don’t realize this—for all Marvel’s passionate fans throughout the 60s, they were a pretty small segment of the market compared to that of DC and some of the other giants, like Dell. It wasn’t until after Kirby left that Marvel started to overtake them, and the explosion of fanboy fervour which has been associated with comics ever since has distorted the historical view. It was unfortunate timing on Kirby’s part; he’d been part of a team of underdogs on their way up, but now he was suddenly allied with an industry leader starting to enter a decline. It was the worst of both worlds: he got a nervous, conservative boss that hated to take chances, without the commensurate money and readership that might have counterbalanced it. Though I should note that some blame corporate backstabbing rather than genuinely low numbers for the cancellation of the Fourth World—but more on that later.

The long and the short of it is, Kirby could probably sense that the game was winding down, as this comic not only sets the stage for the future of Mister Miracle, it also seems to reflect a listlessness and a growing lack of interest on Kirby’s part. The next phase of the Fourth World saga is a little depressing, but it does have something that at least vaguely resembles a happy ending….

The New Gods #10--"Earth--The Doomed Dominion"

DOES WHATEVER A...BUG OF UNSPECIFIED SPECIES DOES.

So. Last issue dealt with the “Bugs”, the subterranean dudes in costumes insectile life forms who mutated from biological weapons loosed upon New Genesis in the great war. We learned that one of them, Forager, was an adoptee, probably a New God himself, and that he was loyal to “Prime One”, the brains of the colony who ended up being sacrificed to the new order when Mantis, stooge of Darkseid, took over. Barely escaping with his life, Forager hightailed it to Earth to warn Orion of the coming invasion.

We open on Mantis charging up in his power coffin as he did the first time we saw him. Rising from the coffin, Mantis gives a less-than-effective rallying speech:

MANTIS: We go to Earth! And there Mantis will make you the Masters!! There you shall rule instead of run!!
BUGS: We hear you, O Mantis!!
MANTIS: Hear further! Hear how this war between Apokolips and New Genesis will end with victory—for us!!
BUGS: We know, Mantis!

Not exactly the St. Crispin’s day speech. “Yeah, yeah, shut up already, great Mantis.” But they go along with Mantis’s poorly-explained invasion plans anyway, almost like they have no individual wills of their own. Like they’re some kind of…hive creatures or something.

Oddly, Mantis promises them powers such as his own ability to charge and drain energy, and that each other them will rule a part of Earth once its conquered. Since there appear to be roughly fifteen sqadrillion bugs, I’m wondering just how tiny the patches of land each bug is going to be allowed to rule over will be. “Hey, you! This is my clodpile! Stay within your boundary marker!” But then, these guys don’t have a lot of experience with individual will-to-power, being bugs and all.

Meanwhile, on Earth, Forager has stopped to do what he does best—steal food—and is being pursued for his troubles by a pair of comical stereotype chefs with poofy toques and everything. He proceeds to hop all over main street, frightening and unnerving pedestrians, and eventually runs straight up a building thanks to his “foot adheso-grips”…almost like a certain well-known wall-crawler belonging to a certain company Kirby had recently vacated.

Kirby’s role in creating Spider-man has always been a little cloudy—the character, obviously, is usually accredited to Steve Ditko and Stan Lee, the latter of whom claims he was inspired by a childhood radio program called “The Spider!” But Kirby had, unquestionably, pitched a few variations on a character known as “The Human Spider” or “Spider-man” to various comic companies (including MLJ, forerunner of Archie) throughout the 50s, so he probably got the ball rolling at least. I wonder if Forager is meant to be another twist on this character Kirby never got to realize his own way at Marvel. Certainly there’s a vague resemblance:



Also like Spider-Man, Forager finds himself relentlessly pursued by the cops, who eventually pick him up in a net while he’s trying to enjoy the loaf of bread he swiped. They carry him off to the station, where his path is fated to cross with Orion’s. As you might recall, the cops had busted into Orion’s apartment last issue and arrested him, assisted by the extremely reluctant Dave Lincoln. As Lincoln is quick to point out to DA Mason Hartwell, they’re not really equipped to contain Orion and Lightray and are, as a random cop admits, only holding them “because they’re cooperating”. “…And that’s true!” adds Dave, redundantly. In response, Hartwell blusters that “Taking ‘guff’ is not my prime attribute!” He then adds that he has a +2 Sword and over a thousand hitpoints, and is ranked as Lawful Good.

He proceeds to get into a dick-waving contest with Orion, insisting that he needs to get Darkseid’s, um, side of the story before he can exonerate Orion for the damage he caused battling Kalibak. (Of course, they do have Kalibak in captivity, but apparently he doesn’t get to give a statement.) At that moment, the cops drag Forager in, and sighting Orion, he starts pleading with him for help. “You called me by name!” marvels Orion. “You!” adds Lightray, “A lowly New Genesis ’bug’!” Forager manages to get their attention, though, by snatching off his helmet and revealing the godlike face within, and alerts them that Mantis is coming.

Elsewhere in “the city” (this is all still happening in Metropolis, right? Man, Kirby really didn’t like being forced to tie this into the DC Universe) Mantis is emerging with his army within sight of a couple of comical hobos making a two-panel cameo. The bugs, riled up by their leader’s crotch,



storm forwards into the city. On spotting this advancing horde of monsters armed with heavy weaponry, the people scream and run, including one understated gentleman who bellows, “Someone get the police! They look dangerous!” (Just once I’d like to see that in a horror movie. The monster comes looming into view, and the doomed redshirt yells, “That thing looks dangerous!” before being eaten.)

Orion and Lightray prepare to smash some bug carapaces, but Hartwell still isn’t letting them leave. “If you gimmicky goblins take one more step—I’m ordering my men to shoot!” You can practically hear Orion’s eyes rolling as the three Eternals teleport themselves away, and Dave Lincoln drily notes that Lighray moves at the speed of light to the bemused cops, now standing in an empty cell.

What happens next is pretty straightforward; Orion, Lightray, and Forager intercept Mantis and his crew and start with the punching. It’s not really made clear whether Orion and Mantis are evenly matched; remember, Mantis took on Infinity Man and, at least briefly, fought him to a standstill. If Orion can beat Mantis, that suggests that he’s the equal of Infy. But then, all we get to see is Orion holding him off for a while, so maybe he couldn’t actually beat Mantis if it came to that. That may explain why Lightray zips off to attempt a new strategy. He finds it in the form of a very convenient “sonic research” lab, one with an elaborate transmittal device Lightray plans to use to broadcast sound waves (generated by himself) and foil the bugs. The startled scientists are understandably dodgy about this, but Lightray takes an uncharacteristically harsh line, and besides, a moment later the scientists spot the bugs swarming across the city. “Start the sonic transmitter!!” sputters one. “…and hope that we’re on the right side!” responds the other. (Hmmm…there’s a whole theme here about the various New Gods not being immediately recognizable as “good” or “evil” to the average citizen, isn’t there?)

Forager leaps into the fray, trying to hold back his former colleagues:

FORAGER: There’s no victory in this for you! Mantis is using you as tools!
BUG: You lie, traitor!
FORAGER: Then I’ll fight you to the death!

Boy, that didn’t take much.

Orion and Mantis are pretty much deadlocked in combat, until Lightray’s sound beam hits, causing the bugs to clutch painfully at their ears. Rather anticlimactically, they create a boom tube and run off, seemingly never to return.

There’s a pretty big problem with this issue: the New Genesisians are supposed to be noble and enlightened heroes of virtue and equality, but again we see that they treat bugs like dirt, despite the fact that they’re clearly sentient beings. Now, I could buy that Kirby was trying to show us that the New Gods aren’t perfect, that they need to learn a lesson about treating supposed “lesser beings” with respect. That certainly seems to be the intent. But he kind of throws a monkey wrench in this by having Forager be one of Orion’s kind, and further by showing him to legitimately be superior to the Bugs. He can make decisions on his own, he has human emotional attachments, and he’s just generally the saviour of his adopted species…with said species being shown, otherwise, to be mindless, violent cannon fodder, apparently completely deserving of being gassed, shocked, and starved by the New Gods. I’m sure Kirby didn’t intend things this way, but the subtext here certainly comes off as arrogant and chauvinistic.

But hey, bug warriors invading Earth. That’s cool.

Please Stand By

For only the second time since I started this project, I'm going to have to miss this week's Fourth World Fridays installment. I've got a nightmarishly busy weekend crammed with work, plus a few family obligations.

Back on the 27th! By the way, I believe FWF will actually be coming to an end sometime in September, at which point I'm going to attempt some new material.

The Forever People #10--"The Scavengers!"

"DON'T LOOK SO SURPRISED, YOU RAT! YOU CAN'T KILL A DEADMAN!"

“Among their strange experiences on the planet Earth, four young adventurers from New Genesis have stumbled into the most bizarre involvement yet! Fate has put a restless Deadman in their path!!” Um, four young adventurers? Is Beautiful Dreamer ever going to be taken seriously? Anyway, we’re on the second-last issue of The Forever People, and sad to say, Kirby’s still sidetracked with reinventing Deadman. The wheels were beginning to come off the whole enterprise at this point, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t still enjoyment to be had.

We open on a really bizarre (and typically Kirby-ish) robbery as a daredevil hanging from a trapeze suspended from a supersonic plane drops onto a high-tech “pollution-free engine”. He activates the drivers’ ejection seat by remote control, takes over the steering by himself, and drives the car away to be stripped. And that, children, is why we’re still driving gas-guzzling, carbon-emitting vehicles almost 40 years later. You can blame…The Scavengers.

Yes, The Scavengers, a high-tech operation that steals things for top buyers. As the toad-like director explains, “This is a super-age--of super-tools--used to serve the super-seller! And “The Scavengers” are a super-firm, geared to peddle super-merchandise!” Well, that makes super-sense! Thanks, super-ugly-face!

This continues the tradition of the characters in the Fourth World often reacting quite cavalierly to the New Gods. It does make a certain amount of sense—this is the DC Universe, after all, and these folks regularly see Superman and Wonder Woman zipping past—but it doesn’t explain why they’re not consistant about it, with characters occasionally going “Oh my god! You’re stronger than ten men! It’s not possible!” and so on. Either be blasé towards superhumans, or don’t be, average bystanders! Pick a reaction!

Anyway, continuing in their M.O., Toad-face is giving a guy in a fez an assignment to steal the “pyramid of Gazi”, by which I assume he means “Giza”. Apparently they have a super-rich backer who wants an authentic pyramid on his estate.

Yes. That’s right. He wants the scavengers to swipe one of the Great Pyramids and put it on his own land. Because, after one of the world’s most recognizable landmarks vanishes, no one will ever suspect the guy who suddenly has a pyramid in his backyard. It’s probably a good thing for all concerned that this plan appears to come to nothing and isn’t mentioned again.

Meanwhile, the logical gaffes keep on coming, as the Scavengers have been observing the Forever People, and now have footage of their latest exploits. Shot from “in hiding” in their basement. Yes, supposedly there was a villain crouching in their small basement, with a camera, able to get a perfect view of their activities, and none of the FPs noticed. Yeesh.

And what were they up to? Using New Genesisian technology to make a new body for Deadman. Remember the “Follower” Mr. Miracle employed way back when? That’s what the gang have dredged up, a Follower in the shape of Deadman’s traditional acrobat getup. (By the way, if I was a spirit forced to wander the world, and I had a chance to get my body back, I’m pretty sure I would ask for a version without creepy makeup and a flamboyant leotard, especially if I’d been forced to wear it throughout eternity up until then anyway.) We also learn that the Followers are actually biological instead of technological, and can be grown from “anything organic”. The toad-faced guy shows a particular interest in the Follower’s form, as he appears to recognize Boston Brand, and in the final panel of this sequence we see that he has a hook for a hand. Uh-oh.

Remember how Serifan was all being a sexist jerk in the last issue? And how Beautiful Dreamer seemed to be slowly increasing in height and musculature? Both of those things reach absurd proportions on this splash page:



OK, to be fair, she’s revealed to be standing on a box in the next panel, but she still looks as though she could crush Big Barda between her thighs. Despite this, she remains completely passive towards Serifan’s condescending dickishness, and his demand that she to drop what she’s doing and meet up with the other FPs. The person she does stand up to is the photographer, who’s, y’know, paying her to be there, and thus isn’t crazy about her leaving. She foils him by assuming the appearance of a hideous hag, causing him to fear for his sanity and bolt from the room. Ha ha! Take that, photographer! That’ll teach you to expect me to work in exchange for money!

A moment later, we learn that Beauty isn’t the only FP to have joined the ranks of the gainfully employed:



So awesome. And since the other three make no mention of getting a job, you just know Beauty and Big Bear were going to be carrying the rent. But then, that’s a pretty un-hippie thing to be doing, isn’t it? I wonder if Kirby was starting to realize that he’d missed the counterculture boat here and was attempting to get with the times (“the times” being the materialistic 70s). Again, this being the second-last issue, it’s hard to say if this was supposed to represent a new direction for the series or if it was just a pit stop into satire, but I’ll have more to say about this in the final issue.

Anyway, despite the apparent excitement caused by the Forever People getting together to give Deadman a new body (which Beauty describes as “like a big birthday party!” The hell?) Mark, accompanied by the ghostly Deadman, has decided to go upstairs and have a snack, courtesy of Trixie Magruder, their new (temporary?) landlady. This leaves the Follower unguarded, allowing a Scavenger operative to sneak in and steal it (it helpfully starts to follow his every move without any further prompting besides the guy standing near him). Oooookay…I’m not seeing why Deadman isn’t *already* in this body—I mean, it’s nice to wait for everyone and all, but I don’t think Boston really needs the company of a gang of kids he just met last issue before gaining the thing he’s been wanting for so long. Why would he leave it unattended?

Oh, right. Narrative convenience.

Of course, Mother Box quickly sounds the alarm—just a little too late—and Deadman is immediately chastising himself while running down the stairs (couldn’t he just pass through the floor?) but the Scavenger is gone. In fact, with typical Kirbian transition speed, the Follower is already back at the base, and being tested. This is how the Scavengers test it: by setting a beefy guy in boxing trunks to give it a punch. The Follower, of course, reflects his actions and punches him back, knocking the guy out. Wow, the Scavengers use their time wisely.

Toad-face, meanwhile, is haunted by the fact that the Follower looks like Boston Brand—with whom he clearly has some kind of history, wink wink nudge nudge—and has come close to sussing out exactly what the Follower is meant for. Fortunately, just as he makes up his mind to destroy it, Boston shows up, enters the body of the Follower, and violence ensues. Especially once Boston spots the Director’s hook-hand. The FPs show up and join the melee, smashing through a wall of steel-hard glass just in time for Deadman to be hit by a “frost beam” that freezes him solid. “See the look on that face!” Declares the ever-douchely Serifan. “Deadman’s very atoms have been locked to that body, so he can’t leave it!” So maybe you could, I don’t know, HELP HIM, you moron.

Meanwhile, the Director is unleashing another of the Scavengers’ ill-gotten weapons: an army of “Mechan-apes” from a “fully automated robot circus”. Oh, of course, that makes total sense. Not only that something like that would exist, but that an international criminal organization would want to steal it. If the mechan-apes don’t work, no doubt they’ll unleash some of the other terrifying weapons they’ve stolen: a length of string, a shiny button, and a quarter.

Of course, the mechan-apes make for a rousing fight scene. “Whoever built these things should have foreseen their being used with evil intent!” declares Big Bear as he demolishes them. Yes, of course. How could someone build robo-apes and NOT foresee that they might be misused by the hook-handed master of a gang of petty thieves? It’s just common sense, really.

The Director makes his getaway in a classic Blofeld-esque go-cart on a track, but is stopped by Beautiful Dreamer projecting a horrible monster up ahead. He bails out and surrenders, but the FP’s troubles aren’t over; his underling, referred to only as Manager, has stayed behind to unleash more exhibits from the Robot Circus on them, including a knife-throwing machine. Fortunately, Vykin uses his technical savvy to disable it, as Serifan thaws out Deadman. Grabbing hold of a trapeze, the undead avenger swings up to the Manager’s glass viewing box, smashes his way in, and knocks him unconscious.

So there you go—both the Scavenger operation and Deadman’s killer, brought to justice in one fell swoop, right? Well, not really. The Director reveals that his is just one of many Scavenger depots…and each one is headed by a guy with a hook for a hand. D’oh! Sounds like Deadman has his work cut out for him. To that end, Serifan gifts him with the blue cartridge from his hat, which will keep him bound to the body he now occupies, so he can continue in his quest to track down his killer. On that note, the FPs bid him farewell.

I have no idea what happened to Deadman in the immediate aftermath of this story. It seems like the suits weren’t too crazy with Kirby’s reinvention of the character, because every time Deadman’s shown up since—chronologically, the next time I’ve seen him is in Alan Moore’s run on Swamp Thing in the early 80s—there’s been no talk of robot bodies, blue cartridges or Scavenger depots. It’s not really that surprising to me, either; I mean, Kirby’s new paradigm for Deadman pretty much robs him of his distinctive power—the ability to posess people—and turns him into just a schmuck with a robot body (a super-strong, bulletproof robot body, of course, but still.) Further reinventions were probably inevitable, and it’s probably appropriate that Deadman, the ghostly superhero, is never able to rest in peace, constantly resurrected by fan writers, while never quite returning to life either.

Mister Miracle #9--"Himon!"

CONSIDER YOURSELF! AT HOME! CONSIDER YOURSELF! PART OF THE FURNITURE!

When I began this project, I’d read pretty much all of The New Gods and a healthy chunk of Kirby’s Jimmy Olsen. I knew of Mister Miracle from a handful of other sources, and The Forever People were mostly a blank to me. As a result, I started mentally filling in the blanks on both of these two characters before I actually got around to reading up to the end of their respective series. The FPs are and were pretty straightforward (though it’s a bit of a shame that we never get a direct recounting of how they ran off to Earth from New Genesis), but my take on Mister Miracle’s backstory ended up being quite off-base; I’d assumed the guy ran off from Granny’s orphanage, which no doubt resembled a high-tech prison/brainwashing centre, when he was quite young, and spent years kicking around Earth before meeting up with Thaddeus Brown.

This issue proves me quite wrong. I’d already gotten a pretty fair inkling, over the course of the first two omnibi, that Apokolips was quite different from how I’d assumed it to be thanks to the brief glimpse in the first issue of The New Gods. Thanks partly to Kirby’s constant evocation of 1984 and Adolf Hitler, combined with the degree to which the Fourth World inspired George Lucas, I’d been picturing a regimented hellscape of constant military discipline and repressive authority figures, under the unforgiving boot of the ultimate totalitarian, Darkseid. And while this is partly correct—it’s a hellscape alright, and Darkseid loves both his militarism and his authority—Apokolips turned out to be something a lot weirder. As I’ve noted before, there’s a surprising amount of personal liberty of Apokolips, extending even to the military recruits. This makes it far more interesting than a lot of “evil empires” we’ve seen in comics, yet it still enforces Kirby’s ideas of control and freedom in surprising ways. The Apokaliptians are brainwashed in early life, and then turned free more or less to do as they please—as long as what they please is basically in line with Darkseid’s plan. Otherwise, they seem to be free to fight with each other or develop their own “personalities”—most of which seem to be Granny’s mockery of the very idea of individualism rather than a true expression of self-worth.

For now, though, let’s dive into this issue that recounts Mister Miracle’s past, and reveals that the inspiration for Apokalips owes more to Dickens than to Orwell.

We open with a gang of Darkseid’s thugs landing in “Armagetto”, one of the slum-like mining stations on the edge of those blazing, continent-sized fire pits scattered across the face of the planet. A lavish double-page spread (which I’m not going to scan in because it’s too awkward) gives a terrific sense of proportion, showing the Cyclopean architecture towering over the tiny residents, and in turn, the gigantic hellfires blazing away behind them, filling the horizon. Quite an awesome shot here.

This is where the “Lowlies” toil in the service of Darkseid, mining and refining the raw materials to build the weapons and tools Darkseid requires. The goon squad, looking more Lucasian than ever, pours forth at the behest of their superior, “district protector” Wonderful Willik (in classic Kirby fashion, as noted in the last entry, the henchmen are basically interchangeable, but Willik gets a distinctive uniform.)



Willik’s come to track down a known dissident and troublemaker known as Himon, who they believe they’ve managed to trap in this section. The mewling hordes are indoctrinated in the creed of Apokolips—“Die for Darkseid!”—and thus grovel willingly, begging to be able to finish Himon themselves, but Willik’s more of a “Kill everyone and let Darkseid sort ‘em out” kinda guy…and that’s just what he does, ordering his men to take flamthrowers to the mob. As the flames roar up (despite the lack of bodies, this is a pretty brutal scene for a Comics Code approved entertainment!) a single, blurry figure, protected by a forcefield, stands amongst the flames. This is Himon, who, like Mister M. is a technology-powered master of escape, and Willik suspected that he’d be able to survive the flames. Unfortunately, he doesn’t seem to have thought too far ahead, as he now can’t reach Himon without stepping into the fire, and a “dyna-blast” simply ricochets back on him, allowing Himon to make his escape.

Or just barely. Himon nearly teleports into a wall, but is pulled to safety by the young Scott Free, who, we learn, has become his protégé. I should mention at this point that there were a number of little short stories in the back of prior Mr. Miracle issues that detailed Scott’s life in Granny’s orphanage, bucking authority and being contacted by Metron, who basically tended to pop in and taunt Scott, forcing him to question his existence. We now learn, rather abruptly, that this quest eventually led him to Himon, almost in spite of himself. Kirby has a thing for shifting ephiphanies and major decisions offstage at times, and this is one of the big ones.

Still, Scott’s far from convinced by Himon’s ragtag band of orphans, who he’s put to work building and maintaining the gadgets he uses to slip through the fingers of Darkseid’s goons.



Here’s where Kirby’s stated “Oliver Twist” influence comes in, with Himon as a benevolent Fagin amongst the hellish industrial slums. Himon also bears a curious resemblance to Kirby himself, and since Kirby was reportedly very engaged in mentoring the new generation at this point, it’s not hard to see where all this comes from.

Here we get an interesting insight into Mother Boxes. We were told a while back that not just anyone can use one, and that’s confirmed here with one of Himon’s charges, the subtly named Kreetin, who can’t get the Mother Box he just constructed to work, even though “every gadget it needs is in it!” Himon tells him, rather patronizingly, that the Mother Box doesn’t work “because you don’t work! What is there about you that doesn’t work, Kreetin?”

Also among the orphans is Auralie, an escapee from the Female Furie training division, and it’s this that blows their cover. A young Big Barda, wearing a simpler version of her familiar costume, comes bursting in, following a tracker in Auralie’s uniform. To her credit, though, she just wants Auralie back, and in fact doesn’t want her to get in trouble with Granny, which means she’s not going to squeal on Himon. In spite of this, she and Scott can’t help blustering at each other a little, with Barda twisting a metal pipe around his neck, and Scott blasting it to pieces with his sonic disruptors. This sublimated display of affection is interrupted by yet another gang of intruders blasting through the door (yeesh, Himon’s not actually that good at concealing himself, is he? He must move around a lot!) This time it’s a mob, and they want Himon’s head. The orphans fade out en masse, but Himon’s forced to stay behind to help Kreetin, and is captured.

Kreetin is let go by the mob, and immediately scuttles off. Metron immediately shows up. In his noncommittal, passive-aggressive way, he prods Kreetin about his cowardice, but Kreetin is a pure pragmatist, happy to let his mentor be killed if it means he gets away. Metron, despite his implicit contempt, remains noncommittal and doesn’t try to force Kreetin into anything—which isn’t surprising, really, because Metron’s not one to be judging anyone after that crap he pulled with helping Darkseid invade New Genesis. I like to think he’s learned his lesson, and that’s why he doesn’t interfere directly but does try to nudge people in the right direction.

There follows an odd two-page montage of Darkseid’s troops trying over and over again to execute Himon via a ridiculous series of traps, much like Scott regularly puts himself through; and like Scott, Himon escapes, over and over again. Finally, we cut to Himon meeting with Metron on the outskirts of town. Metron greets Himon as “master of theories!!” and Himon declares Metron to be “master of elements!!”—with Metron revealing that Himon basically designed all the technology Metron uses, including the Mother Box, Boom Tube and Mobius Chair. Man, that’s quite the resume. It also seems sort of backward—I would have said Himon is the earthbound master builder, and Metron’s the “idea man” who floats freely about the cosmos, but whatever. The two are apparently conspiring to help Scott escape, despite knowing that this will wreck the truce between New Genesis and Apokolips, but also knowing Scott needs to make the decision himself.

Now it’s suddenly time for the obligatory “traitor turns them all over to the villains” scene, and yes, the traitor in question is Kreetin. He’s executed by Willik for his trouble, and then we abruptly see the various young apprentices of Himon, literally “hung out to dry”, their dead bodies suspended from a “Magna-ring”. We, the audience, see them dead even before Scott and Barda do; Barda’s been summoned to attend the death of Auralie (we glimpse part of her dead body, electrocuted in a massive device, which again seems a little gruesome for this era of comics). Barda is horrified, and obviously this lays the groundwork for her eventual about-face. As for Scott, Willik is apparently leery of putting to death a member of the military hierarchy, despite Scott’s suspicious behaviour of late, and has them dragged off by his waiter. Yes, his waiter. That’s after the guy’s brought in his dinner, of course. Oddly, Scott and Barda go peacefully, and Willik tucks in his napkin to enjoy his meal—



Yes, the next panel is a large explosion.

The waiter was Himon, of course, and he leads them off with a rousing pep talk, revealing the secret of his Mother Boxes: they’re a direct link with The Source. In other words, they’re spiritual computers, and only someone with higher aspirations can use them. Scott, meanwhile, is vaguely remembering his mother, and bursting into tears in Himon’s arms.

An unspecified amount of time later, Scott escapes, having been “stripped of this rank! His mechanisms taken!” Boy, talk about compressed storytelling. Scott dodges Parademons and dog cavalry all the way to the edge of Armagetto, where he’s suddenly saved by Barda and the Furies (who apparently don’t hesitate to commit treason against Darkseid if Barda commands it.) Barda takes out a hovering vehicle with a thrown pile of wreckage. As they pass beyond the borders, Scott and Barda suddenly find their bodes growing heavy due to the area being saturated with “mass-gravity atoms!”. In spite of this, Himon and Metron are waiting for him over the next rise, standing on either side of a Boom Tube, offering him a chance to escape to safety. Not only that, but even Darkseid is there, standing behind Scott, booming, “I’ll not stop him now! If courage and bravery took him here!—Some of it was MINE!” It’s the most overtly stylized and symbolic sequence we’ve seen in this book so far, with Himon, Metron and Darkseid all seemingly taking the form of symbolic figures, chattering in Scott’s head, but taking no action to help or hinder him.

DARKSEID: If he leaves Darkseid, he’ll still find Death!
HIMON: If he leaves Apokolips, he’ll find the universe!!!
SCOTT: Let me be Scott Free—and find MYSELF!

And with that, he’s through the Boom Tube, Darkseid’s war with New Genesis is triggered, and Darkseid gets to do his usual speechifying before we fade out.

Evanier reports that Kirby was starting to realize his books were about to come to a screeching halt as DC prepared to drop the axe, so it’s not surprising this book seems a little rushed; as mentioned, there were a series of little “Young Scott Free” back up features throughout the comic, and I assume that the events of this issue would have been seen in that format had the book been allowed to continue. But the writing was on the wall, and Kirby knew it, so he obviously felt the need to get this info out of the way. It’s too bad that we miss out on a few revelations (like exactly how Metron led Scott to Himon), but it’s still pretty well done, all things considered.