This Forever People limited series by writer J.M. DeMatteis and artists Paris Cullins and Karl Kesel has never been collected so contrary to my usual practice, I had to dig out the original issues to read them. Most everything concerning Jack Kirby's Fourth World has been reprinted, so I guess it's only a matter of time, but this does deserve the treatment.
(The final panel of Forever People #11 by Kirby)
The story opens years after the final scene of the original Forever People #11 which saw the team transported to a lush and beautiful alien world which we learn is named "Adon". They find a primitive people there but use their New Genesis technology to help these folks create a modern civilization. Serifan is presented as dissident, overcome by his desire for the old days. Big Bear and Beautiful Dreamer have married and are expecting a child. Mark Moonrider found a new love and is married with a couple of kids. Sadly, Vykin died creating the new world.
But things change when the team is brought to Earth and returned (more or less) to their status when they left. Dreamer is no longer pregnant, Moonrider's wife and children are vanished, and Vykin the Black is once again alive. This is pretty potent stuff, a change which would wipe any real person out and possibly throw them into deadly despair. There is some of that, but the members try to deal with the changes and the newer modern world of 1988.
Moonrider is overcome with sorrow and rage at his losses and falls victim to the shadow demons which are called "The Dark" and which have followed them to Earth. He is seduced by the power and turns against his former allies. The Forever People though are assisted by a mysterious and powerful woman named Maya who claims to be from New Genesis.
The battles are ferocious as Moonrider turns on the team and they battle. The Dark enemy wants control of the Forever People and the world as a whole. The creatures feed on despair and fear of others, and so set about to create scenarios which will supply their needs.
It seems the team has been brought to Earth to help a man named Donny who they assisted years before when was an imperessionable boy. He has grown, married and had a child but has been overcome by despair as his life seems to have lost some of its direction and meaning. Eventually Moonrider overcomes his grief and anger enough to once again join his mates and together they bond to send for the Infinity Man. The Infinity Man is able to fend off the Dark, thus saving them all.
The Forever People now are poised to learn the truth of their origins. It turns out that New Genesis is not their natural home, but Earth is. They are each a young orphan child plucked from across time and space on Earth and taken to New Genesis to be reared. They grew up together and formed the team we know who were drawn to Earth when the war between New Genesis and Apokolips began to do their part. Maya reveals herself to be an incarnation of of the Infinity Man and both are incarnations of the Mother Box. Maya gifts the team with a new Super-Cycle and the team prepares for the future.
DeMatteis sets up a nifty background for the Forever People which is very much character driven. We learn a great deal about each of the members, save perhaps for Vykin who always seems to get a short straw in these stories. Later stories by other talents revise the status quo of this series and sort of forget that the Forever People are supposed to be from Earth. The Forever People has always been the Fourth World book which was most rooted in its time, the early 70's. The characters are variations of stereotypes of youngsters in the drop out culture which thrived for a time. They are cosmic hippies and so tied to the attitudes of a specific era. This makes it difficult to fit them into a more modern landscape. DeMatteis and Cullins and Kesel to a decent job.
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