The New Gods (1998)

$11.95 DC Comics

Credits:

Written, drawn and edited by Jack Kirby

Overview:

An epic tale of two sets of Gods, incredibly powerful cosmic forces, and good versus evil, stretching from brilliant New Genesis to the crackling and dark Apokolips, to the cities and oceans of trembling Earth!

Review

From 1971 to 1972, freshly broken from Marvel, Jack Kirby spun a tale through the DC Universe like none seen before. Kirby, creator of Captain America and defining artist of the Marvel Age, started over, creating the saga of Orion of the New Gods. The series, called “the New Gods,” was canceled before the story came to an end, despite its growing popularity. The new trade paperback The New Gods gathers all the original stories together into one volume, and boy, what a read.

What can I say that hasn’t been said? Modern readers should be warned that The New Gods is uniquely Kirby: it’s ostentatious, over-dramatic, and grand, so grand that everyone - - everyone! - - speaks in a sort of faux-Shakespearian that grows on the reader after a while. You have to sell your soul to the story, a bit, and let the high-flown language become familiar. The effect, in the end, is a sense that you're experiencing a series of events that can shake the foundations of the universe. So everyone has to talk that way.

The plot, in brief, involves Orion, stalwart demigod of New Genesis, who becomes aware of a plot by Darkseid, Lord of Apokolips, to destroy New Genesis. The battlefield chosen is the lush planet Earth. Kirby draws on varied sources, spinning forward and backward in time to create a deep background for his characters. The Universe he single-handedly creates is vast and ambitious, and we humans are but pawns. And even the pawns have stories, and some become heroes. Everyone has a story.

You get caught up in The New Gods, as you read it. There’s a heady sense of wonder that only Kirby could quite pull off, but Alan Moore made a good play at when he wrote his satirical 1963 series. So heady that you might be tempted to put it down, but you can’t, so completely is Kirby sold on his grand opera.

There’s also a delicious sort of innocence and naiveté to The New Gods. Moore’s modern epic Watchmen was imbued with a cynicism and nihilism fitting the 80’s; Kirby has none, he’s out to tell tales of great heroes of old saving the universe and occasionally the humans. And of course, there’s all that bizarre Kirby art, machines that seem to have knobs with knobs on them, people with muscles with muscles. Kirby seems to say, “you liked Galactus? Here’s Galactus times ten.”

So here’s the scoop: this is not a deep and thought-provoking tale. This is what deep and thought-provoking tales like Dark Knight and Watchmen responded to. This is comics history, the brilliance that gave the moderns something to respond to. Serious comics fans should read it for the history. Fans of heroes should read it because it moves like a God and it’s a heck of a ride.