To me this is the pinnacle of Jack "King" Kirby's awesome accomplishments in comics. I will never forget the sheer thrill which filled me up when I first saw the cover of debut issue New Gods atop the spinner rack at the local drug store. I'd been familiar with Kirby at Marvel on Fantastic Four and Thor but had fallen in love with the work of John Buscema and so didn't give the "King" his proper due. The Fourth World books made me a confirmed Kirby fan for life and I've picked up almost everything he's done since that day.
The saga he told in the Fourth World books of a world of gods which had fallen allowed him to continue thematically the work he'd begun at Marvel in the pages of Thor in which he described Ragnarok, the ultimate battle at the end of the universe.
The battle to end all battles is picked up and the ferocious nature of the war strikes to the core of anyone who cares to understand the consequences. This is the end, and out of that ultimate destruction will come something new, if not necessarily improved. (Note: The presence of inker Vince Colletta, though much derided by many was critical in making sure this transition was smooth and evident.)
It's Orion, the black-souled son of Darkseid the master of Apokolips we see come out of the chaos. Riding stoutly atop his Astro-Glider, he's the very angel of destruction come to deliver the word.
He tells us that the battle is coming and when wars break out it's incumbent on all people to choose their sides. It's the crucial choice of right or wrong and in the New Gods as nowhere else in comics that division was strikingly marked. It's definitely a decision we must all make even in our modern day. Orion spoke to us then and he speaks to us still today. We all must choose.
One more installment to come Kirby fans!
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I agree, it was indeed thrilling to see Kirby at it again with his new title. Like many other famous fantasy authors, he literally created his own world and populated it with his own cast of characters. I also thought the photo-collage work was very effective for this title.
ReplyDeleteI admit that I was such a loon for comics continuity that the quality that Kirby had for ignoring the larger universes he worked in (especially at his Bronze Age stop at Marvel) that I was a tad annoyed. But quickly I realized his new additions were being fused into the larger mythos and made the whole richer. He didn't have to worry about continuity, that was for others with more orderly if less imaginative minds.
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It must have been pretty cool to be there and see the saga unfold, straight from the spinner rack (that little corner from where I started collecting comics almost ten years after the Fourth World began to unfold). When I read these comics for the first time a couple months ago in the black and white trades, I started with The Forever People and was pretty impressed by it but then was resoundingly floored when I read The New Gods after. It was a level of gravity I did not expect, and every single issue of the eleven was a powerhouse comic book. I mean, I couldn't believe the consistency of craft and conceptual absorption Kirby was shelling out every other month - and with three other titles that seemed to have no less creative contemplation. This is definitely the winner!!
ReplyDeleteThe only downside is that you would be somewhat aged now. That said, it was a treat to discover these treasures in real time, but the beauty of them is how well they stand up through time. (The offbeat hippie Forever People notwithstanding.) The creativity flowed out of him like a river and a raging one a times since he sometimes didn't allow new stuff to establish before he took off on another jaunt. Great stuff, a wild ride indeed.
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