Jack Kirby's "Fourth World" is his magnum opus, his masterpiece. He was at the height of his powers, and he was driven by years of being a second banana to prove he was a significant artist in his own right. With the Fourth World he proved it in spades. After being kicked out of DC back in the 50's and forced to scrounge for work, he found it with Stan Lee at Martin Goodman's lackluster outfit. He'd worked with Stan before when the latter was a kid working for his uncle back in the "Golden Age", when with partner Joe Simon, Kirby had made Marvel very successful with the monster hit Captain America. Seeking to maximize their worth, the duo went to DC and repeated that success with the best-selling Boy Commandos. Then came the army, and after that some gypsy years of trying to find success with their own company Mainline and later with other projects for Harvey Comics.
After a split from Simon, Kirby found himself back at DC but left on hostile terms after editor Jack Schiff sued him over a newspaper project. He left behind the successful Challengers of the Unknown. Once again, he was out with an artistic style which was a favorite of readers but seemed unpolished to DC editors. Partnered with Stan Lee he created scores of monsters then later the most famous Fantastic Four which kicked off the "Marvel Age". There was no denying Kirby's power to sell comics then as Marvel crept up on the elder DC. Soon DC was confronted at once with a generational change and with the need for new ideas. When Kirby felt slighted by Stan "The Man" he decided to hold back some big creations. Those new creations became the Fourth World and he offered it to DC and they said yes.
The Fourth World is made up of the three main new titles New Gods, Mister Miracle, and The Forever People. Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen is a fourth title in the tetralogy which sought to tell four independent stories within the framework of a larger over-arching saga. As was his wont, Kirby created two new worlds, each an opposite reflection of the other. One was dedicated to good and the other to evil. Pretty simple stuff really, but of course the stories soon showed that simple ideas of good and evil were much more complex than normal comics had allowed. The heroes were conflicted, the villains confident, especially their leader the notorious Darkseid. To put it mildly, the Fourth World blew my mind. It still does. Sadly, before he could complete the epic, Kirby was forced by DC to abandon it and turn his attentions to other projects which while often quite good lacked the scope of the Fourth World.
And that explains why I keep buying it. Most recently I picked up the handsome sleeved Absolute volumes which present the saga in its proper way, as it was published. This allows a reader to enjoy not just the magnificence of the single series but the majesty of the whole epic. And now I'm going to read it again. I try to read the saga every few years, to savor it and remind myself of its glory. It's never let me down.
Since its earliest days I have always adored the Fourth World. When Kirby returned to DC for a fourth time in the 80's to put a finale on the project he'd been forced to abandon it was okay, but clearly the great man was past his prime and the ending was adequate but hardly up to the standard of the saga itself. For its part DC seemed of two minds about the concepts, little interested in making the originals available for new readers but exceedingly keen to use the concepts and characters for new stories by new talents.
The Fourth World books New Gods and Mister Miracle were revived mere months after Kirby left DC in the 70's and sturdy talents such as Steve Englehart, Gerry Conway, and Steve Gerber wrote new stories with art by reliable artists such as Don Newton, Marshall Rogers and Michael Golden. It was good stuff, true in many ways to what Kirby had imagined. He'd always thought these books would eventually by done by new talents, but he also imagined he'd be the one overseeing the operation.
Later still, after Kirby's return and finale had appeared the books were revived yet again. This time with the writing being done by Marve Evanier among others. Evanier had been an assistant to Kirby when he first worked out the concepts for the Fourth World and seemed a reliable candidate to carry it forward.
Later still Walt Simonson brought out a new book starring Orion. Simonson is also an exceedingly worthy talent, fully capable of approaching the vision that Kirby first imagined.
Before Simonson, John Byrne had taken at stab at the Fourth World. Just as Simonson had recaptured some of the glory Thor after Kirby's departure, so had Byrne done on the Fantastic Four. Sadly Byrne's work has not been made available in a handy trade, though it has been reprinted in an omnibus. Some of the back up stories have been reprinted though and feature many modern exceedingly good folks such as Frank Miller, Steve Rude, and Steve Ditko among others.
Jim Starlin had a few cracks at the Fourth World. First he took the heroes of the New Genesis on a Cosmic Odyssey to save the universe and later wrote some early issues of the second revival. This was drawn by Mike Mignola. Over two decades later he both wrote and drew the unusual The Death of the New Gods series which was a great read but eliminated from DC's constantly shifting continuity almost as soon as it was written.
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And if it all does as planned I will take a brief break from the Fourth World to take another look at Kirby's 80's project Destroyer Duck. By this time Kirby had given up on the comics industry to no small extent and was making his money in animation. But he was drawn back to the fold a little bit by this and other projects such as Silver Star and an unofficial sequel to the Fourth World from Pacific Comics titled Captain Victory and the Galactic Rangers.
All this and maybe even more as the hot summer draws to a close.
Rip Off
Hot summer? Here in the UK July was mostly wet and windy with temperatures more like October than July.
ReplyDeleteI've never read the Fourth World and I know nothing about it but I'll be following this month's posts with interest.
I cannot recommend it enough. The original Kirby material from the early 70's has been reprinted several times in different formats. There is even a black and white reprint from a few decades ago for the thrifty.
DeleteSo far our summer here has been fairly normal, typically hot with some few days-long heat waves thrown in. But out west the situation is much worse.
As clever and well respected as it is, I just couldn't get into some of these Fourth World titles. Maybe that was partly due to the titles not being regularly available for me to read at the time and I lost the storyline or I was too young to appreciate it at 10 to 11 years old. I did like Mr Miracle (Kirby and Marshall Rogers version ) but Forever People and what I read of New God's itself went right by me. I was given the collected edition of New God's a few years ago as a present but I never get around to reading , I really must make time to read it. It did really enjoy Walt Simonsons Orion series from a few years ago , which was possibly the last mainstream DC book I read.
ReplyDeleteDarkseid's search for the Anti-Life Equation was fairly abstract to me until I saw it happening in real time in my country with the arrival of Trump. I found that Kirby was dead right about how freedom is lost. Looking forward to the Simonson Orion books.
DeleteWell, you know my views already, RJ, but for the sake of balance, I'll restate them. Kirby's masterpiece? Not by a very long chalk. At Marvel, along with Stan Lee, the company made inroads into DC's market and eventually became the top comics publishing company in America, if not the world. At DC, Jack on his own made zero impact on Marvel, and because of that failure, DC cancelled the Fourth World titles. These are the facts, despite later claims that they sold respectably. Nowhere near what DC was expecting though. It was an interesting experiment and could have worked had Jack been a better wordsmith, but alas, he wasn't. I'll take the FF and Thor any day of the century.
ReplyDeleteFinancial success does not equate to artistic success, though often there might be a correlation. I know you prefer early Kirby and I really like it too. But he was heading somewhere, and the Fourth World was it. More as the month unfolds.
DeleteCan it even be described as an artistic success, though, when it was cancelled before it had run its intended course? It might have been a good idea, but its execution was severely lacking. I find it very easy to disagree that this was Kirby's best. His art was no better than it had ever been, but the majority of readers just didn't take to the premise.
DeleteThe Fourth World's success as storytelling has no necessary connection to its sales figures or lack thereof. Lots of rather terrible stuff finds an audience to support it, and I don't begrudge that audience their pleasure. But it doesn't make it good. (I'm talking to the boys at Image -- man that was a long time ago now.) I cannot agree in any way that the execution was lacking. We got a flood of creativity from one of the most creative minds in the history of comics. Pretty dang good.
DeleteI hear what you're saying, RJ, but its low sales figures are also not necessarily unconnected to the perceived storytelling quality - or lack thereof - by readers of the time. Lots of ideas, yes, good Kirby art (in the main), yes, but the fact remains it didn't sell. Now if we were talking about Joe Bloggs who most people had never heard of, then failure could be down to anything other than poor quality. However, this is Kirby we're talking about - everyone wanted the Fourth World to be brilliant, but when readers didn't come to that conclusion, they dropped it like a hot brick. Sure, the premise may arguably have been inspired, but not enough readers at the time were impressed by the way the concepts were realised. Facts are facts, that's all there is to it. However, your youth is wrapped up in these comics so maybe that's a large part of your affection for them. That I can understand.
DeleteThey were shunned for many years. DC harvested the concepts and made good use of some of them. But now I think the books are getting the presentations they deserve. And you're right, I do like them...a lot.
DeleteHard to disagree with this as Kirby's best. Although he was distinguished by his art at Marvel, this series, where had had total creative control, is at the top of the heap.
ReplyDeleteThe peak is such a narrow place it's understandable that an artist doesn't stay there very long. But Kirby stayed longer than most.
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