DC Versus Marvel Omnibus Pt. 8: Darkseid vs. Galactus: The Hunger #1

As we saw with the first generation of DC/Marvel collaborations, those published between 1976 and 1982, the emphasis was on stories featuring the respective companies' most popular characters...as it should be. It makes the most sense, as such stories were likely to attract the most readers, to generate the most media coverage and to have the greatest chance of pulling in lapsed or new comics readers.

The 1995 publication of Darkseid vs Galactus: The Hunger is another instance in which I wish there was an introduction explaining the thinking behind the book, as it was most decidedly not a crossover featuring the publishers' most popular characters.

In fact, while Darkseid and Galactus had at that point long been recurring presences in their respective fictional universes, from 1970 and 1966 respectively, neither had ever had their own comic book—not even a miniseries or one-shot (Galactus would get a mini in 1999 in the form of Galactus the Devourer, while Darkseid would get one-shots in 1998 and 2017).

Who, exactly, was this book for...?

I suppose the obvious answer is that it was for hardcore comics fans, who would of course know that both cosmic characters are among the most feared villains in their universes, and that both were the creation of Jack Kirby. Galactus appeared during Kirby's seminal run on the Fantastic Four with Stan Lee (with whom he shares a creator credit for the character), while Darkseid was introduced in an issue of Kirby's run on Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen and became a major figure in Kirby's "Fourth World" suite of books before eventually being adopted as a DCU-wide villain. 

Another guess? Maybe John Byrne pitched the book, and neither publisher was inclined to turn down an offer from a relatively popular creator of Byrne's caliber, one who had created foundational stories for both of them?

And make no mistake, this is a Byrne book, as he handles both the script and the art, the only other credit being for colorist Rick Taylor (No letterer is credited, so I'm not sure if that means that Byrne handled that himself too, or if they just left the credit off of the title page for some reason.)

Now I had missed all of the work that Byrne is best known for, his late '70s and 1980s work on The Uncanny X-Men, The Fantastic Four, The Sensational She-Hulk and the post-Crisis reboot of the Superman line. I could probably count on one hand the number of Byrne books I've read (Wait, let's test that out: Man of Steel #3, Legends, Batman: The Many Deaths of the Batman, JLA arc "The Tenth Circle" and Genesis...Yep, that's only one hand!). 

So his presence here wasn't something that particularly excited me the way it might have readers a decade or so older than me; I mean, I skipped it when it was originally released in 1995, and, like the X-Men/Titans crossover discussed previously, I wasn't really looking forward to reading it here.

Like most of the DC/Marvel crossovers of the '90s, it's just 48-pages long, and the plot and basic conflict are simple and straightforward. You might have even intuited it from the title alone. Galactus, the space-faring cosmic giant who sustains himself by draining all of the energy from planets and feeding off it, has set his sights on Apokolips, the home planet that tyrannical space god Darkseid rules with an iron fist.

(Of note is a special thank you included on the title page. After a nice dedication to Kirby, "who created his own universes when ours alone proved too small to contain him, " there's a special thanks given to a Marc Galinis McFinn, "who one day said to me 'Galactus tries to eat Apokolips...'")

Byrne opens with a four-page recounting of the origins of Apokolips and New Genesis and their respective New Gods and has those on New Genesis in great excitement of a coming threat, one to which the Source suggests Highfather respond to with this cryptic message: "Hide The World."

Something must be done to get New Genesis out of the path of Galactus, of course, or else why would he choose to attack Darkseid's Apokolips, when a much more appetizing alternative is right there?

This they do, so that when Galactus' herald the Silver Surfer streaks onto the scene, in a dramatic splash page, he heads straight for Apokolips, where he's immediately swarmed by scores of Parademons. They are no match for him, of course, and he sends out the signal to his master.

While Highfather waits from his now-hidden planet, he tells Orion of Galactus' origin story, and then the giant lands on Apokolips and begins to busy himself setting up his planet-draining apparatus. From here on out, it's basically just what the title says, Darkseid vs. Galactus, the former throwing his planet's various defenses against the invader in a vain attempt to stop him.

Meanwhile, hotheaded Orion, unable to take standing by and doing nothing for so long, dons his helmet and flies into action, tackling the Silver Surfer. This leads to a fight between the two, which manages to stretch out the page count a bit (as does Darkseid's recounting of the Surfer's origin; despite what seems like a relatively niche appeal, this book is really written with potential new readers in mind). 

The Surfer eventually overpowers his New God foe, blasting him with a bolt of the power cosmic ("Let the annoyance end now") that should have killed him...but when the Black Racer arrives to collect Orion, the Surfer delays him long enough that Orion's Mother Box is able to heal him. (Certainly there are Kirby fans out there that appreciated seeing the Silver Surfer and the Black Racer sharing a panel, right?)

So where does all this fighting end up...? Well, there can't really be a victor, and not just because this is an inter-company crossover, and thus neither side's character can really thoroughly, unequivocally vanquish the other. No, because of the stakes, victory for either combatant would mean the destruction of the other, and we can't have a comic where Darksied kills off Galactus any more than we can have one where Galactus destroys Apokolips...and, presumably, all those that live there.

The back cover copy frames the conflict as "an unstoppable force meets an immovable object," which sounds about right. So how to resolve it without stopping the force or moving the object?

Byrne has an exceptionally clever twist that essentially leads to a draw, the two title characters facing one another, acknowledging one another's similarities and then dropping their conflict, leaving the status quo of either unchanged.

It ends, in other words, as it must, but Byrne comes up with an interesting rationale for it doing so, one that fits in well with Kirby's creations.

None of these characters are really my personal cup of tea, despite their strengths and attributes. That is, I find they generally work when facing off against more relatable heroes, or when in stories with point-of-view characters that ground all the cosmic opera in something approaching the real world.

Here, Orion and the Silver Surfer are as close as we get to relatable heroes though, and both of them talk in the same overblown, purple dialogue that all the other characters do. This is not the fault of Byrne, of course. It's just who these characters are and how they have always been portrayed. 

I'm not a big fan of Byrne's art style either, although, to be fair, it is here completely focused on the otherworldly, so everything he draws is essentially a "cover" of a Kirby design, and there's no visual relief from that 20th Century futuristic look, nothing to contrast it with.

There is therefore little to grab onto here; you're either a fan of Kirby's creations as recreated by Byrne, or this story probably isn't for you.

That said, Byrne does a solid job of reintroducing all the players and concepts, so it's not beyond the realm of possibility that one could encounter this story and become a fan of Kirby's creations, and, thankfully, Byrne keeps the proceedings quite simple.

Not only in the basic nature of the conflict, but the storytelling. He doesn't get too deep into the histories and continuities of the various characters. The pages also feature relatively few panels each, and there are lots of splashes and big panels devoted to showcasing "moments" of import (The Surfer confronting Orion, Darkseid using the Omega Effect on Galactus, etc). It's a relatively quick, painless read.

What would happen if Galactus tried to devour Apokolips? This is Byrne's answer, in the form of a short but epic-feeling comic.

Next: 1995's Spider-Man and Batman #1

Review: Female Furies #1

When DC Comics first announced Female Furies, a six-issue mini-series featuring a group of characters from Jack Kirby’s sprawling 1970-1973 saga about a mythic war between twin planets populated by superheroes and supervillains, there was little indication that writer Cecil Castellucci had anything out of the ordinary in mind.

Here is how the first issue was solicited to retailers and readers, back in November:

All their lives the Female Furies have been raised to be the meanest, most cunning and most ruthless fighting force on all of Apokolips. So why are Granny Goodness' girls left behind every time the men go to war? With the might of New Genesis hanging over the planet, and the Forever People making mincemeat out of Darkseid’s army, Granny thinks it's about time that changed...And so, Big Barda, Aurelie, Mad Harriet, Lashina, Bernadeth and Stompa set out to beat the boys at their own game. Little do they know the game is rigged—and one accidental murder could spell disaster for them all!

If this was going to be a feminist reading of the characters and their place in the traditional Apokolips vs. New Genesis story, if there was any telegraphing in the announcement at all, it seemed to be of a rather standard, current pop culture, safe level--women are just as good as men, or, specific to this setting, just as good at being bad as men.

That is, in large part, what makes this issue so surprising, if not shocking: Castellucci and artist Adriana Melo have turned a story about a half-dozen female super-warriors, each with a particular gimmick or power reflected in their often childish name--Lashina, Stompa, Bernadeth, etc--into a #MeToo-era superhero comic exploring and eviscerating all of the types and degrees of sexism women are subjected to on a daily basis in a world where men hold all of the power.

If you’re unfamiliar with what has become known as Kirby’s Fourth World story, here are the basics. Red-eyed, stone-skinned god of evil Darkseid rules the industrialized hell-scape planet Apokolips with an iron, dictatorial grip, his high court helping him keep the population down while he quests for The Anti-Life Equation, which will allow him to crush all free will and subject all sentient life in the universe to his will. He is opposed by the white-haired, white-bearded Highfather, ruler of Apopolips' utopian sister planet New Genesis, whose heroes all seem like your typical superheroes, albeit it cut with pop culture hippie-ism and New Age philosophy.

The two rulers traded sons once upon a time as part of a peace deal, so that Highfather’s son Scott Free was raised on Apokolips, eventually growing up to be the super-escape artist Mister Miracle, husband of Big Barda, one of the Female Furies, while Darkseid’s son Orion was raised on New Genesis, struggling to repress his bestial nature while fighting for the side of good against his own evil father.

In that story, the Female Furies have always been among the more colorful of Darkseid’s "name" soldiers, standing out from the crowd of winged Parademons and giant dog-riding warriors; they are the elite squad serving directly under Granny Goodness, a short, stocky hag in green chainmail who is in Darkseid’s inner circle and is charged with raising the population’s orphans, like Barda and Scott.

Female Furies opens in the distant past, the night that Darkseid takes control of his planet, in order to better catalog the indignities Granny Goodness suffered in her career. On that night, she wasn’t yet "Granny," but is just the ironically named Goodness--Big, tall, strong and young. It is she that defeats and strangles Darkseid’s mother Heggra for him, although she gets a last minute assist from Desaad, who immediately takes credit for her accomplishment.

After the battle, Darkseid corners her and propositions her: "Battle makes me hungry for what food cannot fill," he intones, grabbing her. She resists long enough to let readers know she doesn't reciprocate Darkseid's lust, but reluctantly obeys when he makes it clear her "career" depends on it. "Do as I say and rise higher than anyone else," he says. "Refuse and find yourself back with the lowest of the low."

While her obedience doesn't hurt her career, it doesn't seem to help much, either; she's given a less-than-desirable post, while the male members of Darkseid’s court all grumble at the fact that she gets "special" treatment from their god-king. The treatment she receives will sound familiar, as the Apokolips bros call her hysterical, suggest she be less emotional, comment on her looks and how she uses sex to get what she wants.

In the present, the cycle begins anew, as she presents her new Furies to Darkseid and her co-workers, but they seem more interested in the women's looks than their fighting abilities. After Darkseid refuses to let the Furies join the males in his armies--some of the arguments sounding quite familiar to anyone who has followed arguments of the integration of our own armed forces over the years--one of his circle, Willik, offers to give one of the Furies, Aurelie, private martial arts lessons.

She refuses, but is eventually convinced by Goodness, and during the training, Willik repeatedly gropes her, making a threat similar to that Darkseid gave to Goodness years ago. Aurelie is similarly punished by her peers, who chide her for using her looks to her advantage, for taking so long with Willlik and, not knowing what happened, Barda scolds her: "Stop complaining...Any of us would trade places with you in a heartbeat to get private instruction from Protector Willik."

Double standards, objectification, gaslighting, sexual harassment, sexual assault--in just the first 22 pages of the series, Castellucci covers a lot of ground, little of which has been previously covered in the almost 50 years of tellings and retellings of characters' stories, and little of which seems to contradict or take away from any of those previous tellings.

The genius of using these particular characters for such a story isn't merely that they are among the only female characters in the male dominated story cycle--in much the same way that Castellucci and Melo still stand out as rare in the male-dominated superhero comic market*--or that they are demonstrably better at fighting and killing than their male peers, the vast bulk of which don’t even have names, but that their home setting has always been the most cartoonishly evil place in comics, this side of hell.

Of course working with the god of evil, ruler of a planet of evil, who is intent on subjugating all life is a hostile work environment. Darkseid coercing a henchwoman into sex, or his other underlings sexually harassing her, might not be something we have seen in their past appearances, but it's certainly well within conceivable behavior for them. The trick of writing comics starring supervillains is to always pit them against worst villains, and next to Darkseid and his court, the Furies can’t help but seem heroic--even were it not for the presence of Barda, whom we know ultimately rebels against Apokolips and fights for New Genesis at some point after this series concludes.

There's also the matter that, while these characters are, like seemingly all superhero characters these days, fodder for cartoons, TV shows and even have a movie in the works, they are minor enough in the grand scheme of things that Castellucci and Melo can make the bad guys particularly repugnant without worrying too much about making them unmarketable, in the way DC might have worried if someone proposed a comic book in which, say, Lex Luthor, Brainiac and The Joker sexually harass Cheetah or Giganta in The Legion of Doom headquarters or something.

While Castellucci’s first issue chronicles all this supremely toxic male behavior, that;s not all there is to it. It's complicated, as the difference between Goodness' and her Furies' reactions, and Goodness' reaction to their reaction reflect generational tensions and differences that have arisen in the wake of Weinstein and #MeToo, and, well, this is still a story. Near the end of the first issue, immediately after being groped by Willik, Aurelie hears one of the male soldiers offering to torture a victim less of she kisses him, and she responds by slitting his throat, forcing Barda to help her hide the body and keep it a secret. With five more issues and about 100 pages to go, clearly it won’t remain a secret.

It's also funny. There is some humor in the juxtaposition, and in the discomfort that juxtaposition causes in readers, who might laugh nervously at the chutzpah of the book, but Castellucci includes scenes clearly meant to be read as funny, as in the second stage of the Furies' demonstration of their martial abilities to Darkseid and his court, which is basically just a 20th century beauty pageant transported into space, complete with a bake-off and evening gown and swimsuit competition (the latter renamed a "smile competition").

Humorous, yes, but blackly so.

It's always difficult to review a comic book series by its first issue, particularly a limited one like this, when one knows it will completed and republished in a new and complete form in a half-year's time, but it can be worthwhile when an easy to overlook comic delivers so much more than is expected. How successful Female Furies will ultimately be as a story remains to be seen, of course, but the first issue reveals that it is one well worth reading to see: Sharp, funny, relevant and ambitious, it's the too-rare superhero comic book with a point to make.



*I counted 58 serial issues of comics slated for release by DC into the direct market for this month, only three of which have both a female writer and a female pencil artist/primary artist listed among the creators, but it's always possible I miscounted a book or two.

Well that's interesting.

The title page of the latest (and, sadly, last) issue of DC's Superman Family Adventures not only contains the credits of the folks who made this issue and the traditional "Superman created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster" credits but, if you read between the panels, you'll also see these new credits:

Superboy created by Jerry Siegel.

Supergirl based on characters created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.

By special arrangement with the Jerry Siegel family.

That's a lot of creation credits. I guess I'll wait for someone like Jeff Trexler to explain what this means and why it's happening now at The Beat.

That last bit about Supergirl being based on Superman (and, I suppose, 'boy) is particularly interesting though, because that character is singled out by name, whereas this particularly issue is filled to bursting with Superman characters (Both sets of his parents, Lex Luthor, Jimmy Olsen, Lois Lane) and characters based on Superman in the same way Supergirl is (that is, wearing red capes and Superman logos, and, in some cases, coming from Krypton and having his powers, like Steel, Krypto, Streaky, Squeaky and, um, is that Super Turtle...?)

The issue also contains plenty of other characters who generally earn "created by" credits, like Batman and Wonder Woman and, to much more occasionally, Aquaman (Darkseid, the Justice League and a handful of Super Pets also appear).

I've always been curious about the whys and hows of creation credits, as, from a reader's perspective, they seem quite arbitrary. The last DC trade I read, for example, was Secret Six: The Darkest House, and I noticed it had a "Doom Patrol created by Arnold Drake and Bruno Premiani" credit on the title page, as the Doom Patrol appear in two of the seven issues collected in the trade. Other guest stars, like, Jack Kirby's Etrigan the Demon or Keith Giffen's Ambush Bug didn't have "created by" credits, nor did the Secret Six (which may be understandable, as it's basically just a repurposed name from a completely unrelated comic book concept), nor did any of their more prominent individual members, like Bane, Catman or Deadshot.

Should be interesting to keep an eye on the credits pages of DC comics, particularly the ones starring characters who wears capes and S-shields, in the near future...

Me, I always thought the miniskirt was the scariest part of his outfit.

DC has unveiled Jim Lee's "New 52" redesign of Jack Kirby's Darkseid.

Just how evil is Darkseid?

Well, he'll neither wear pants nor will he cross his legs; you'll just have to deal with it.

Twelve thoughts about Superman/Batman: Torment

I’m either a glutton for punishment, or have some crippling addiction to Superman and Batman that I cannot resist reading about them, but despite how little I enjoyed Michael Green and Shane Davis’ Superman/Batman: The Search for Kryptonite, I didn’t let that stop me from reading the next available Superman/Batman trade from a local library, Superman/Batman: Torment by Alan Burnett, Dustin Nguyen and Derek Fridolfs.

This one collects a six-issue arc that ran right before Search For Kryptonite (Well, right before the fill-in issue right before Search for Kryptonite), and right after Mark Verheiden’s short, nine-issue run that kept up title founder Jeph Loeb’s crazy shit happening at random formula, but was somehow even worse, operating with an attitude that wasn’t merely continuity-lite, but continuity-adverse. Although it was Pat Lee’s artwork on the Metal Man retcon/reboot that finally caused me to drop the title).

So, given what came before and what came after, I just sort of assumed that this was going to be a rough read and expecting the collection’s title to be more or less literal.

But, to my great surprise, this was actually pretty decent. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have liked it nearly so much as it was originally being serialized, as it does have to do with Jack Kirby’s New Gods, which, at the time, were in a weird state that varied from title to title (DC hadn’t used any of them for a while, to get ready for Final Crisis, but then apparently decided to use them everywhere during Countdown, killing them all off in preparation for Final Crisis). And also, if I read it in that format, I would have been paying for the privilege.

But as a trade, after Final Crisis, read for free from the library? It’s really not bad at all. It’s probably Burnett’s best DCU work (not that he’s done much) and maybe, just maybe, the best arc of the series’ existence, but it’s hard to say—I mean, Loeb’s the good writer on this book, so quality is pretty relative.

Although this was much, much better than The Search For Kryptonite, I am going to address it in the same format as I addressed the last collection of the series, and continue this weekend’s lazy, list-making review technique (I did write at least one real, paragraphs-and-everything review this weekend though! There’s a Hotwire: Requiem for the Dead #1 review at Blog@).

1.) Dustin Nguyen is a really good artist. Superman/Batman has been blessed with some of the industry’s more popular artists, many of whom are actually quite good at what they do. That’s why Shane Davis or Pat Lee’s work kind of stuck out as being particularly bad, I think. I don’t know that Nguyen is quite as popular as, say, Ed McGuinness or Carlos Pacheco, but he’s certainly good at what he does. I haven’t got a single complaint about the art end of things here; it’s easy to read, many of the designs are rather inspired, the action is lively.

Nguyen seems to have taken some cues from Mike Mignola, as his Darkseid has the bulk and square-ish shape Mignola gave him in Cosmic Odyssey. Nguyen’s Batman also occasionally reminds me of Mignola’s, in certain medium to long shots of Batman in costume.

2.) Hey, how come this collection doesn’t get an introduction? Green’s Search For Kryptonite had an introduction to it, as did Green’s Lovers and Madmen, but here? Nothing. Lame.

3.) That’s Killer Croc? Okay, well, there’s one design I’m not overly fond of, and that's Nguyen’s Croc. He doesn’t look much like himself, although perhaps that’s not as much Nguyen’s fault as DC’s somewhat lax stance on character design. Croc was pretty radically transformed in Batman: Hush, either given plastic surgery or somehow mutated by Hush to make him look more like a crocodile, and that look has mostly stuck. Nguyen’s version seems like something of a compromise between the pre- and post-Hush looks, but his Croc also has craggy, stalactite-like spines all over his back that make him look like an entirely different character.

Burnett refers to him as reptilian too, which didn’t use to be the case—he was just a big, strong guy with a skin disease, not a crocodile/human hybrid—and uses him in a somewhat strange way. He’s hired by a mysterious villain to steal something from Lex Corp, which is more of a Catwoman-y job than a Croc one, you know?

4.) I like the messy hair Nguyen draws on Clark Kent.

5.) There’s a really nicely-executed page of Superman freaking out while sitting at his desk, seemingly beat-down by his own narration boxes. I thought that was a very effective scene. And kind of amusing, given this title’s traditional over-use of narration boxes, although I doubt that was the intent here.

6.) The Scarecrow working with the Desaad and traveling to outer space just doesn’t seem right. I love The Scarecrow, and the prospect of him taking on Superman is kind of interesting, but he doesn’t quite seem to fit in well with the sci-fi aspects of the story. Once he’s on a planet-sized warship in outer space, the clash between Superman and the New Gods and this rag-wearing Bat-villain seemed particularly discordant.

7.) Oh hey, this is the book with that cover. I’m not sure if you remember or care or not, but issue of this series was originally solicited with an image of Batman standing behind Bekka, his right hand resting between her throat and her breasts. When it finally came out, however, the hand was removed, and was now hidden by Batman’s cape. Apparently, his hand was too close to brushing her breasts on the cover for DC’s comfort.





The pair do make out and maybe more in the story. Batman does strip her naked and lay atop her on the floor kissing her for a while. But apparently the cover was a little risqué. In the back of this trade, there are a series of pages showing Nguyen’s roughs for the covers, and there are four different versions of the cover, with Batman’s hand on her neck, her stomach or simply on his batarangs.

8.) Wait, Bekka? I had no idea Orion was even married. I guess he doesn’t talk about his wife very much in his appearances in other books, does he?

9.) Batman is “aroused beyond all reason.” When I got to this part, I remembered that Batman’s secret Canadian girlfriend Rachelle Goguen had a pretty amusing review of this issue (With lots of scans! Check it out!). In a nutshell, Bekka is a goddess and, like all of the New Gods and New Goddesses she has a power of some sort, and hers doesn’t seem all that useful—the men around her really, really want to have sex with her, and she really, really wants to have sex with them. The more hardened the heart, the stronger it is, which is why she married Orion. And you know, Batman sure is heard-hearted, so the pull is strong. The only way they can get past it is to have sex, which they don’t want to do.

This whole conflict is kind of interesting, in a Well I’ve never seen THAT before kinda way, and Burnett does try to use this as an opportunity to describe how sad and lonely Batman is in life, but man, is it ever silly. Plus I guess Batman must have an erection for, like, the whole second half of this book? I guess it’s a good thing he wears that long, flowing cape.

10.) Oh yeah, Superman dies. So what’s Desaad up to here? Well, Darkseid lost his Omega powers, and is kind of sad and depressed and sort of losing it now. When we first see him, he trips. Desaad has found the late Highfather’s magic cane embedded in the Source Wall, and the plan is to have a brain-wiped Superman retrieve it for them and use it restore Darkseid’s eye beams. Once that’s occurred, they zap Superman with it, and he finds himself in The Source. But first he has this crazy hospital scene where various characters appear and pay their respects. Starro brings him a basket of cupcakes.

It’s pretty amusing, but seems pretty out of place with the rest of the story, which is about the evil of the evil New Gods and Batman’s unreasonable arousal.

11.) The second to last page is pretty awesome. After Desaad and Darkseid are defeated and the heroes make it back to Earth, Orion picks Bekka up on the flying elliptical machine he travels around on, and gives Batman a pretty dirty look.

Once they’re back home on New Genesis, they apparently sex it up for a while, and there’s a neat couple panels of Orion putting his belt and helmet on, and Bekka lying naked in bed, asking when he’ll be back from making war on the gods of Apokolips.

I really like the banal domesticity of their life, as if Orion’s a neglectful husband about to go on a business trip again. Except his business if flying over to the next planet to beat up Kalibak and Granny Goodness.

12.) The last page is super-dumb. Once Orion flies off to work, Bekka thinks to herself, “As long as he returns, all will be right. Thoughts of Batman will pass. They must.”

And then she notices a pair of white, triangular eyes I the shadows of her room. A black hand stretches out of the shadows, and there’s a “CCHHHOOOO” sound that makes Bekka glow and say “AAAARRHHH!” while a “FSSSSS” appears. In the very last panel, a burning scrap of the sheer cloth she had wrapped herself in floats out the window, and someone off panel says “So begins the end.”

Because I read a lot of DC comics and a lot of reviews of them and pay attention to creator and editor interviews on Newsarama, I knew that around this time some mysterious stranger was going around killing all the New Gods characters in the DCU. I didn’t read Death of the New Gods or Countdown, so I don’t remember who it actually was—it was revealed to be Infinity Man in one comic I read, but maybe it was Darkseid posing as Infinity Man…or something…?

But there’s nothing in this book to give the scene any context; there’s no “To be continued in Death of the New Gods” or anything, no foreword or afterword to make sense of the scene.

If this was the only DC comic you read in trade, I can’t imagine how this scene plays out. Did Batman, who was in her thoughts in the previous panel, who wears black gloves, who sticks to the shadows, and who has white, triangle-shaped eyes, travel to New Genesis to take care of their problem by incinerating Bekka? Did Darkseid, the villain of the book, return from what could have been his death to get revenge on Bekka?

I thought it was the latter for a while, and then remembered the whole New Gods Killer plotline from a year or so ago. At any rate, a pretty strange note to end a book on.

One thing that would have made Final Crisis better?

If instead of slowpoke J.G. Jones, they hired Art Baltazar to draw it.

For evidence, allow me to submit a few scans from this week's Tiny Titans #12:








I rest my case.

Eleven Things You Can Learn From Tales of The New Gods

The recently released Tales of The New Gods trade paperback is a pretty well-timed collection of short stories dealing with the characters created during Jack Kirby's late-seventies experiments with pop mythology for DC Comics.

With Death of the New Gods putting the characters front and center in the current DCU line, and that big, gorgeous, multi-volume Kirby omnibus project making sure the original stories are readily available, the New Gods iron is probably as hot as it's ever going to get.

Tales of the New Gods consists almost exclusively of short stories highlighing different characters and different eras of their fictional histories by different creators. Most of the stories are either written and drawn by John Byrne or written and drawn by Walt Simonson, as the bulk of the material comes from bits and pieces of Byrne's Jack Kirby's Fourth World and Simonson's Orion, but there's a real who's who of talent involved.

The list of those providing art is as varied as Erik Larsen, Arthur Adams, Howard Chaykin, Dave Gibbons and John Paul Leon. There are some real "gets" in terms of creators, like a short Frank Miller-illustrated piece, and a never before published story featuring Darkseid and his court written by Mark Millar (presumably from back in the day when he was doing whatever DC work he could get) and drawn by Steve freaking Ditko.

I was actually a little surprised there wasn't more in it, as it doesn't really strive to be a complete collection of short-pieces featuring the Fourth World characters. For example, I remember there being a tale of the young (and suprisingly hot) Granny Goodenss meeting Darkseid for the first time in a Secret Origins 80-Page Giant*, and if I were putting the thing together, I would have been sure to include the few pages of "Lost Pages" from Grant Morrison's JLA that appeared in 1998's New Gods Secret Files and Origins #1. Not because it was any good at all—it's just a couple of pages, and read like a scene cut from a movie to steamline it—but simply to add one more big creator name to the credits.

How worthwhile the reader will find the book will ultimately depend on how interested he or she is in Byrne, Simonson and/or Kirby's Fourth World characters. Personally, I didn't really need to see Darkseid and Desaad as young men, for example, or Mister Miracle and Metron hanging out in the Old West disguised as cowboys. I think the book's major value is in its ability to satiate a reader's curiosity over how well various creators tackle the Kirby characters.

And its educational value, of course. You can learn a lot of things from Tales of The New Gods.

At least eleven different things.

For example...



1.) That if anyone could make a Mister Miracle comic really work, it’s Steve Rude and Mark Evanier. Seriously, Tales of The New Gods is worthwhile for the nice reprint of their 1987 Mister Miracle Special alone.

Check out some of Rude's art from the story:


(Above: Big Barda in her action bikiki, plus Oberon and Scott performing at the circus. Quick rule of thumb: Rude + the circus = awesome)



(A full-page spread of Scott thinking on his past while locked in a safe that's about to be run over by a steamroller driven by a clown)



(Mister Miracle vs. a robot in a trap-filled funhouse erected by Granny Goodness and Darkseid)



2.) Mister Miracle had a previous wife, who had the unlikely name of Fancy Goodbody. And, despite her funny name, she was from England, not Planet Kirby



3.) That John Workman really is the greatest letterer



4.) How much sillier Darkseid’s outfit looks when, instead of a big, gray, craggy-faced, rock-looking guy, there’s a normal, human-looking dude in it:


(Byrne's drawing of the big D's brother, rocking Darkseid's look)



5.) Why Kanto dresses like someone from a medieval court



6.) The secret origin of Kanto’s moustache. Come on, you know you've always wondered.



7.) How long the Forever People have been wearing those particular outfits



8.) Just how bad a combination of John Byrne art and computer-generated graphics can look:





9.) That the whole evolution of Frank Miller’s art style seems to have been in service to drawing the most perfect Darkseid visage of them all:





10.) Baby Orion’s first utterance was “RAAAA!”



11.) If the Jeph Loeb and Rob Liefeld team can do Kirby’s creations any justice. Here's a hint:





*Update: I have it on reliable authority that the Granny Goodness story from that comic, "Goodness and Mercy" by Simonson, Jon Bogdanove and Bill Reinhold, was reprinted in the trade collection of Simonson's Orion, which may explain why it wasn't re-reprinted here, despite it fitting in so well with the contents of this collection.

Seven Things I Learned From Justice League of America #183-185

A while back a friend gave me some old late-'70s issues of Justice League of America, from the so-called "Satellite Era" of League history, an era which Crisis on Infinite Earths knocked large chunks of out of continuity, which DC has precious few stories from available in trade form, and which current JLoA writer Brad Metlzer and current Action Comics/Green Lantern/JSoA writer Geoff Johns seem to have particular affection for.

I started using them as raw material for EDILW feature "Satellite Era Spotlights", of which there will likely be no end, as a few weeks ago I acquired a big box full of JLoAs stretching from #180 to #247 or so, with some holes here and there (Did the Secret Society of Super-Villains kill the Justice League and Justice Society? I'm missing the end of that arc!).

That's an awful lot of Justice League comics. (See Fig. 1.1)


(Fig. 1.1. See DC? Look what you made me do! Look what I bought! Now I don't even need your stupid trade collections of the Satelllite Era! You just lost a sale, DC trade collection editors!*)

Anyway, up until recently, all I've been getting out of these comics is an idea that Hostess snack cakes are probably the greatest achievement of human history, that Len Wein has a new Swamp Thing comic coming out featuring our favorite "muck-encrusted mockery of a man" and that there's no stopping the new DC now.

And then I got to 1980's Justice League of America #183-185 by Gerry Conway, Dick Dillin, George Perez and Frank McLaughlin, the annual team-up between a couple Justice Leaguers and a couple Justice Socialites. As was often the case, a third group was involved with this story, and this time it was the New Gods.

This story proved quite educational, particularly compared to some of the previous stories I'd read, and I learned a lot while reading it.

And, as is my habit, I will now proceed to share those lessons with you dear readers.




1.) Orion went through more than one phase where he wore a really stupid looking costume. Yes, that's Orion in the middle there with the big "O" on his chest. The O is, presumably, for Orion.





2.) New Genesis used to be presented as a truly awesome place. And by "awesome" I mean really awesome, as in "inspiring awe"-awesome and not, you know, the other kind of awesome that is more frequently talked about here. I guess 1980 was still early enough in Jack Kirby's DC mythology's existence that every superhero hadn't visited the home of the New Gods three to eight times, and Darkseid had yet to appear in every single comic book.

So rather than being just another well-trod DC space setting like Rann or Mars, New Genesis was still being presented as a fantastic place that could cause even superheroes to gasp. This double-page spread by Dillin and McLaughlin goes a long way towards conveying the nature of the place, but Conway's scripting helps immensely too.

Superman talks wistfully to Power Girl (while standing creepily close to her the whole time, talking directly into her lips) about the temptation to stay there instead of returning home, since he feels like one of many supermen on New Genesis.

Later, Conway tells us this about the size of the place: "Distances are almost impossible to measure on a world where cities average a thousand miles wide, and where the Earth would barely dispace the waters of a small lake"





3.) Earth-2 Wonder Woman is...Christian? Or Jewish. Or possibly Muslim. Or a Deist? But since this panel appears in an American comic book created by Americans in New York City for mass consumption by America's youth in the year 1980, I'm going to assume she's meant to be espousing a crypto-Christian belief. Or maybe a Jewish one. And how weird is that?

She doesn't deny the existence of her own gods, who she should be pretty darn sure exist (seeing as how they she's hung out with and fought so many of them), but she does say there's only one "true 'God,'" which would imply that all of her gods are false ones, wouldn't it?

I wonder, does this mean Diana's gods also believe in the existence of "He who is the only true 'God'-- whose nature remains unknown," and do they worship him too? Did the gods of ancient Greece convert to Christianity (or Judaism or Islam or possibly Deism)? Are they agnostic?

Man, this is a heavy panel....





4.) Even as far back as 1980, George Perez totally ruled. Click to marvel at the majesty of a Perez-drawn splash page revealing one of Granny Goodness' orphanages.





5.) Darkseid used to be totally bad-ass. Like the planet he lives on and the planet he's always trying to conquer, Darkseid has been greatly diminished by over-exposure in the DCU over the last few decades.

But in 1980, he was still a god. In this scene, we're told that even though Orion has killed Darkseid, the force of the evil god's will is so powerful that it reaches into another world, bends the earth to serve him. That's a city street transformed into a giant Darkseid simulacrum up there, being used toterrorize a trio of Earth-2 villains into raising him from the dead.





6.) Hawkman doesn't care about Hostess cupcakes. Hawkman's flying around one day when he notices a skydiver whose chute fails to open, right?

So Katar swoops in and saves the day, but all this lunatic cares about is his cupcakes.

"Hawkman, you've saved me," he observes, opening a bag to show off a couple packages of Hostess cupcakes (Wait, is that why his chute didn't open? Because he didn't pack it? He filled his bag instead with cupcakes?!) "And the Hostess Cup Cakes. And I'm ready for some right now."

The guy's pals are already chowing down and Hakwman's already on his way before the ingrate gets around to thanking Hawkman for saving his sad, pitiful, cupcake-centric life.

And Hawkman doesn't give a shit. He doesn't stick around to see if anyone wants to give him one of their cupcakes, he just flies away, pronouncing "Hostess Cup Cakes" in a way that looks pretty sarcastic to me.





7.) While he may prefer navy blue, Darkseid looks pretty good in purple too.





*Aw, who am I kidding? I'll buy the trades as fast as you put 'em out, DC. I've just gotta know if they beat the Ultra-Humanite's Secret Society or not...

The Greatest Superman Vs. Darkseid Fight Ever

Superman and Darkseid sure seem to fight one another a lot, don't they? I wonder why that is, exactly.

I mean, yeah, sure, Superman is the ultimate hero in the DC Universe, and Darkseid is the ultimate villain, so it makes a certain amount of sense that the two would cross paths at some point, but, on the other hand, they belong to two very different franchises, each with their own fairly rich settings and casts.

In fact, if Jack Kirby didn't end up working on Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen at the same time he was creating his Fourth World saga because he lost a bet or took a dare or whatever, the delicate connective tissue between the two characters would be severed.

If I had to offer a theory as to why the two clash so often, I would guess that it's because Superman doesn't have any really great villains that can go toe-to-toe with him (or, more accurately, Superman's writers traditionally don't really like to write any of his really great villains that can go toe-to-toe with him, and/or create new ones that could). And that while Orion and Lighray are cool and all, Darkseid doens't really have a hero with a Q-rating equivalent to his own within the DCU.

The thing I dislike about Superman and Darkseid conflicts is that too often they devolve into fisticuffs, and seeing Darkseid getting smacked around by Superman just really seems to suck all the coolness out of the character for me. I'm a fan of the godlike Superman who can fly faster than light, keep pace with the Flash, hurl planets and do just about anything, but even if it's conceivable that he could kick Darkseid's ass, I don't like to see it happening, because as godlike as Superman may be, he's still a mortal, and Darkseid isn't just godlike, he is an actual freaking god (or ancient alien entity that thinks it's a god. Whatever) and should thus either be able to whomp on Supes or, better still, never lower himself to exchanging blows with him.

My favorite portrayal of Darkseid is probably the one in JLA arc "Rock of Ages," in which he is a stone giant whose Omega Beams were inescapable and would end you if they touched you. I mean, what's the point of calling your eye beams "Omega Beams" if they just knock a dude down? The Darkseid/Superman conflicts I like to see are the ones in which the Apokaliptian tyrant is sort of like a cosmic Lex Luthor, manipulating Superman and watching as Big Blue brawls with his underlings like Kaliback and company because while he could take him down with his neat little zig-zaggy eyebeams at any moment, he tells us Supeman just doesn't deserve to die by Darkseid's hand (Or eye. Whatever).

When Superman and Darkseid go at each other man on man, with Supes shrugging off Omega Beams just as easily as Darkseid shrugs off heat-vision, it reduces Darkseid to just another Superman-level bruiser, akin to a Mongul or Zod or Bizzarro instead of what he is, the universe's ultimate bad guy.

Plus, every story I've ever read in which Darkseid and Superman fought each other has pretty much been terrible (Even those that weren't written by Jeph Loeb).

Which brings us to the subject of this post, The Greatest Superman vs. Darkseid Fight Ever.

It occurred during Cosmic Odyssey. To set the thing up for those of you who haven't yet had the pleasure of this fantastic story (full of great Mike Mignola pencil art), basically Highfather has summoned a group of Earth heroes to New Genesis to discuss a threat, and Supes turns a corner and walks smack into Darkseid.

Their brief fight—two blows exchanged?—manages to make both of them look super-powerful, without actually showing us what exactly happened, so we don't have to look at and contemplate the two of them acting like kids on a school yard. We simply see Superman fly at Darkseid, get knocked down, and then get back up to go at him again, and think "Woah, Superman's hardcore! He flew right at Darkseid like he was nothing! And even after getting totally pwned, he's back on his feet!" And, because Superman got thrown back, we also think, "Woah! Darkseid must be pretty damn powerful! He totally sent Superman flying!"

And because others break the fight up, we don't see any resolution to the question of who's more powerful, and thus neither character is diminished by having his ass totally kicked by the other. (By contrast, after Loeb had Superman beat up Darkseid in Superman/Batman arc "Supergirl," imprisoning him in the Promethean Wall by hand, it was hard to take the big D. seriously as a scary evil god. When we see him in the beginning of Countdown, he seems like just another supervillain. How threatening is the site of him playing with Heroclix now? I mean, if worse comes to worst, we know Superman or Supergirl or Powergirl or Wonder Woman or Martian Manhunter of Captain Marvel could just travel to Apokalips and shove those toys down his throat, right?).

But what really makes this the greatest fight between the two ever?

It's not just the subtle way Starlin and Mignola characterize the combatants, nor the amusing choreography—it's Darkseid's facial expressions. Seriously, look at the grin he gives Supes over Highfather's shoulder, or the boastful "That's right!" glare he gives Superman when no one else is looking.

Man, that's why Mignola is a master of comic book drawing, right there. It's just two throwaway panels, and he does more to characterize Darkseid than just about any of Starlin's words do.

Those panels tell you everything you need to know about the villain: He's an asshole.







(As always, click to enlarge. Sorry about the crappy scans; I erred on the side of not-breaking-the-spine-of-my-trade. The dialogue isn't important to the fight).