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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