With the twenty-first issue of Kamandi The Last Boy on Earth the series enters into its second half under the control of its creator Jack "King" Kirby. By the end of this second score of issues Kirby will be gone and before that his influence on the series will be diminished. But more on that as we progress.
The story picks up on the shores of what is called "Monster Lake" which had during the Great Disaster absorbed much of what was once Chicago and the lands around. Kamandi comes upon a battle between a creature called Ahab and a weird mob of soldiers apparently from the sea. Kamandi assists the lone warrior and discovers he is the trained guard human for an intelligent Dolphin named Inspector Zeel. He and Ahab are heading to a place called Seaway and Kamandi joins up with them. Along they way they battle a giant crab, encounter giant frogs fleeing ferocious packs of wild humans. The humans break the water-bearing container Zeel depended on and the trio press on but are on their last legs when they finally find Seaway.
Seaway is in fact a community of Dolphins who use humans as labor and press some into battle as squires. Kamandi is delighted to find Ben Boxer, Renzi, and Steve living and working in Seaway, the trio having been rescued by the Dolphins when the team was forced into the ocean off the shore of Florida.
Boxer informs Kamandi that the Dolphin society is under threat from their arch-foes the equally intelligent but more ferocious Killer Whales. The most deadly agent of the Whales is mysterious human named "Red Baron". As the story closes Kamandi joins Ben and the others as they rush out into the water to fend off the attack of the Red Baron.
The Red Baron is confronted and rebuffed but not defeated. Ben rescues Kamandi who had been struck by the Red Baron and then they lick their wounds.
Soon Boxer and his comrades decide they must use their mutant might to fend off the Red Baron's attacks and use their atomic powers to transform themselves into metal and rush to battle where a great explosion appears to end the fighting for all. Kamandi then encounters one of the Killer Whales and is attacked and left to drift in the great lake.
Coming ashore Kamandi is startled to find a massive mansion on a small island.
In that massive house he encounters a Monkey named Flim-Flam and three humans named Jukie, Lukie, and Dukie. It turns out the mansion in which they are all stranded is "haunted" and the power in the place takes possession of first one then another of the mute humans. Finally Kamandi is able to discover the secret of the power and determines it is not supernatural but the residue of long-ago experiments in mind control.
Kamandi and his new allies look for a way to leave their remote island but before they begin three metallic figures walk out of the sea.
The Kamandi adventures have a slam-bang pacing which keeps the reader breathless. Kamandi himself jumps headlong into danger and uses his wits and sheer bravado often to survive. He is also blessed with a great deal of good luck. In this sequence he is reunited with the Ben Boxer team and already this feels more akin to destiny than mere good fortune. These characters find one another across the broad landscape of the ruined Earth and always greet each other with good cheer and comradeship. In fact it's evident that at this point Kamandi is finding as many friends as enemies in this apocalyptic world.
The artwork takes a hit sadly as D. Bruce Berry is simply not as adept at adding the drama to Kirby's pencils that Mike Royer had done. The closest analog to Berry that I can think of is Chic Stone who was a key Kirby inker at Marvel for a few years. Both Stone and Berry offer an open style, but Stone was able to give the work more energy than Berry accomplishes. Perhaps that is also reflective of how loose Kirby's pencils have become in the intervening decade.
In the twenty-fifth issue of Kamandi, The Last Boy on Earth Jack Kirby sends his blonde-haired hero on arguably his weirdest adventure yet. In the course of the preceding issues Kamandi has bounded all across the North American continent and beyond but always in the upper reaches of that continent has been a territory mysteriously labeled "Dominion of the Devils". We met a "Devil" in some earlier stories, and it turned out to be an enormous grasshopper Kamandi bonded with.
Now in this story Kamandi and Ben Boxer prepare to leave Ben's comrades Renzi and Steve behind as well as the oddball cadre of Flim-Flam and his trained humans. The duo use a giant Eagle to fly over a great barrier into this unknown territory. The Eagle is injured and dies in the attempt but does get them into a new land filled with giant plants and giant insect life. Attributed to a Greenhouse Effect the land once known as Canada has become a wild jungle filled with teeming life of all kinds. Not least among these are the Leopards who work for Sackers Department Store. They are in this land to capture what they can and kill what they can't. Needless to say Kamandi and Boxer have other ideas.
Kamandi and Ben Boxer also find the offbeat Captain Pyper, a member of a European army of British Bulldogs who have affected the dress and style of the British Cavalry as seen in the classic poem "Charge of the Light Brigade" by Tennyson.
He and his capable ally an Aborigine which is in fact a giant mutated Ant, help Kamandi and Ben Boxer escape the rapacious Leopards working for Sackers and the two end up effectively conscripted into his foreign force, with Kamandi assuming a role akin to the famous Gunga Din.
Kamandi finds that three armies have used a land bridge to travel from what was once Europe into this area formerly known as Canada.
The three forces are part of the Nations of Atlantic Testament Orders (N.A.T.O.) and are comprised of the Bulldogs which affect a British feel, Wolves which speak French, and Apes which have a Prussian cast to their dress and style. They are battling the Leopards for control of the Dominion of the Devils, and the resources there. After a great battle among the forces both Kamandi and Ben move on.
Kamandi and Ben Boxer see a flying Ape. They then find the Tablet of Revelation which tells the story of "The Mighty One" who looks very familiar to regular DC readers. A cult of Apes worship this Mighty One and have devised tests which attempt to approximate the powers he was reputed to have in order to detect who might be a worthy to gain control of the mantle of "The Legend".
Ben and Kamandi get drawn into these tests competing with an Ape named Zuma. The tests are to be flung up, up and away into the air by catapult, lift a great stone dubbed "The Daily Planet", and survive a hail of gunfire by being faster than a speeding bullet. Kamandi finds a familiar red and blue suit and knowing who the owner was leaves it for his eventual return.
Finally begins one of the weirdest Kamandi adventures yet. Kamandi and Ben Boxer take refuge in what they believe to be a small bunker but which is in fact a legit U.F.O.They found by the Pilot who takes them in tow and they travel quickly and far.
When they escape the craft they find themselves a junk yard of time with artifacts from across the whole of human history sprawled in the sand. Apparently these things are being sent through a vast door in space. Boxer and Kamandi find themselves on an airplane of the dead headed into the maw of this door but the activation of a briefcase nuclear device causes the doorway to abruptly close stranding the Pilot wgi confronts Kamandi and Ben but loses cohesion since it is a creature of pure energy when his suits is torn apart. Kamandi recovers only to find that Ben has changed dramatically.
Clearly Kirby is redirecting the series now, having entered the Dominion of the Devils he has exhausted the parameters of his original map of the post-Great Disaster world and must reach beyond it for more. Cleaving off Kamandi and Ben Boxer is smart as it reduces the cast and makes the adventures quicken in pace and style. Now we have the two most interesting characters in the series entering some truly startling new landscapes. The inclusion directly Superman is in keeping with Kirby's work since coming to DC, but it does specifically link the world of Kamandi with the larger DCU. With the U.F.O. adventure Kirby seems to want to expand beyond the limits of the post-Apocalyptic setting and get into some other sci-fi tropes. I'm not sure how effective it is, but we'll discover more next time.
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I was a hardcore Marvel fan so I'd never even heard of Kamandi until a few years ago but it looks like a fun series and I'm enjoying these reviews and Kirby's art.
ReplyDeleteGlad to introduce you to this wonderful wacky stuff.
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