Imagine the movie Easy Rider with a whole gang on the motorcycle alongside "Captain America" and "Billy". There are still the free and easy attitudes towards property, class structure and there's still that abrupt ending. It might be comething like Jack Kirby's The Forever People. According to reports the the original title of The Forever People was simply Darkseid. Given that the original title Kirby wanted for New Gods was Orion, it seems clear that he began this book as something of a counterpoint to New God. Darkseid appears in The Forever People more than in any other of the "Fourth World" books and his early appearances in the title are aomong the finest pages produced for the incomplete saga.
The first issue of
The Forever People is also the very first installment of the "Fourth World" epic that Kirby worked on, even before he turned his attention to the earliest installments of
Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen. In this issue we not only meet the five members of the "Forever People" (Mark Moonrider, Big Bear, Vykin the Black, Serifan, and Beautiful Dreamer) we encounter Darkseid in person for the first time. But dominating this story is Superman, a Superman who is at odds with himself and his longtime role as Earth's protector. We encounter a Superman who is feeling alienated from the people he works tirelessly to save time and again and we see that he is all too human with totally understandable and selfish motivations to mingle with is own kind. It's off-putting in this first issue since the Superman art is so altered by Al Plastino by the order of Carmine Infantino. Unlike some of the later alterations by MurphyAnderson, the Plastino changes really don't fit very well at all.
In the second issue
The Forever People are reunited having saved Beautiful Dreamer from the clutches of Darkseid and are up against it when Mantis attacks the Earth. The team summon their ultimate power the Infinity Man to defeat the threat. Like a gang of spritely "Billy Batsons" the Forever People are able to summon a mysterious figure of great power to help them out of jams. Their relationship to him is a mystery which alas Kirby will never get the chance to solve.
With the third issue of the series (the first I picked up off the stands) the series really seems to find itself. In the person of Glorious Godrey Kirby finds to my mind the best expression of the deadly "Anti-Life Equation". Based on Billy Graham, Godrey preaches to his zealous followers that they are in the service of something greater than themselves and they are all too ready to sacrifice themselves for forces they don't truly fathom. But it makes them feel empowered and that becomes to my mind the most important message of the Fourth World stories. Darkseid is that evil which resides in all human beings, the darkness we keep at bay which will show itself when we consider other lives less important than our own. When selfishness replaces selflessness we are in thrall to Darkseid and are ready clay for his molding.
In the fourth issue of the series (arguably the finest of the run) the Forever People are trapped in a deadly and insane amusement park. Inspired by Disneyland no doubt DeSaad's heinous carnival of mind-traps are cruel and insidious. He enjoys tormenting people, taking pleasure in suffering. It's notable that Darkseind rejects this but nonetheless has no qualms in turning DeSaad's work to his own purposes.
The Forever People are ultimately by their own Mother Box which summons the powerful warrior Sonny Sumo to rescue them. It's a grand battle and in many ways is the climax of the story of the Forever People.
The Forever People and their ally Sumo are transported to various time periods by the power of Darkseid and his "Omega Effect", but they are mostly rescued and returned to the here and now. Their time-lost adventures had them involved with historical figures such as Abraham Lincoln in the last moments of his life, the early expeditions of Ponce De Leon as he sought a Fountain of Youth, and even the legendary King Arthur in a time when the Romans were leaving their outpost of Britain.
The story wraps up when the Forever People are reunited and learn that their savior Sonny Sumo was left in the distant past, but lived a happy and worthwhile life. His mind which held the "Anti-Life Equation" safely beyond the clutches of Darkseid.
When the Forever People are held by a secret "Sect" and confront the deadly and controlling mind of Billion-Dollar Bates, they are really fighting one of their last battles in the war against Darkseid. This one-shot story felt a little truncated after the four-part epic that preceded it. But by this time Kirby was getting more and more interference from DC's editorial outfit to make the comics less epic and more readily accessible to potential readers.
And that's why we get a totally off-the-wall misadventure with Deadman. The story begins with a modern-day wannabe Frankenstein named "Doc" Gideon whom fashions a monster of sorts out of dead human parts, but who is only able to quicken his creation to a semblance of life when he chances upon the power contained in Serifan's "Cosmic Cartridges". The Forever People are trying to find a place to settle down and rent a room from Trixie MaGruder. But her seances bring back more than is bargained for when Deadman shows up.
The Deadman story was forced on Kirby and his handling of the character shows that he knew only the most bare facts about Boston Brand. Deadman was and is one of DC's finest characters, but inserting him into
The Forever People was a disaster. His previous saga is unraveled a bit when yet another gang of hooked-hand villains is uncovered. The presumption is that a new Deadman series will grow out of this but that never happens and that's a good thing really.
And then just like that it's over. The Forever People after being used as a platform to supposedly launch another series is deemed to be a victim of poor sales and truth told it was the least successful of the Fourth World books. As can be seen there was quite a lot of directions in a short time and the gang from "Supertown" was hard to pin down as guest-stars stole the limelight. If this was to be Darkseid's book then it is hurt when he all but disappears from the final issues, being the power behind the lance when he sends "The Pursuer" to run the Forever People to ground. They summon the Infinity Man (who almost seemed forgotten) and then they are trapped on a other-dimensional world called "Adon". The chipper team see this not so much as a setback as an opportunity and they literally walk off into the distance as they and the Fourth World rumble to an incoherent and abrupt conclusion of sorts.
Next time it's a book of miracles.
Rip Off
The Forever People always seem to be forgotten, or at least relegated to the background, when the Fourth World is praised & discussed in depth. And I think that's a shame. Partly it's because they're considered "dated" (a horribly overused word these days) -- but they're simply sensitive, curious, still idealistic youth of any & every generation. Yes, the hippie trappings are from a specific time; but the spirit that drives them is timeless. And there are hints that they're a step further on from the current New Gods, or at least the possibility of being so. Yet no one has known what to do with them ever since their comic ended, even more so than Mister Miracle & the rest of the New Gods.
ReplyDeleteJ. M. DeMatteis' mid-80s mini-series tampers with some of what Kirby had created, I know -- but since Kirby called the New Gods a myth for our times, I take DeMatteis' work as his own response to that myth, in that it examines free-spirited & searching youth once it hits midlife. Granted, I'm exactly the right age to have enjoyed & identified with the Forever People in hippie days, and to have been approaching midlife in the 1980s, so that mini-series strikes a deeply resonant chord for me.
You're absolutely right about the imposed Deadman story derailing the original series, of course. Those first few issues were indeed among the best of the collected Fourth World. Happyland, Glorious Godfrey, the Justifiers -- all still have the power to chill the reader, especially now, when they're suddenly all too relevant again.
I didn't grok The Forever People when I was first tuning into the Fourth World, I was so gob-smacked by Orion's grim demeanor, but they've grown on me a great deal over the decades. Thinking about the book as being perhaps Darkseid's really made this reading a different experience.
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