Jack Kirby's New Gods

picardfan007 complains that this book is in black & white; I thought I'd explain what I know about this, which I learned reading an interview with John Totleben which I can't find right now.Before the mid-1980s or so, comics were colored for a certain kind of printing press. After comics switched to new printing processes, the old presses were mostly destroyed. The only color for older comics like Jack Kirby's exists in the form of plates for these old presses; since they don't exist any more, the original color art cannot be reproduced.And you probably wouldn't want them to be printed that way anyway, because, let's face it, old comics were printed pretty poorly.The only solution is to re-color the entire comic, which Marvel has done with some of its Masterworks series. It's probably expensive and difficult to get someone to re-create the color schemes for these old comics, so it's only done with high-profile titles (the Incredible Hulk comes to mind).Titles like Kirby's New Gods and Moore, Bissette, and Totleben's Swamp Thing get released in black & white. I personally think they're better for it.

....Jack Kirby's much ballyhooed, much anticipated move to the Marvel Universe's arch competitors--DC Comics--was an event that shook the entire comic fandom world. The question most asked--could King Kirby succeed without the scripting of his Marvel comics co-conspirator, Stan Lee?These great stories from his DC tenure showed that he obviously could. These are a bit reminescent of his own Silver Surfer stories done for Marvel and the great 'Star Wars' franchise (before it was even a franchise)...without the universe consuming demigods and laser sabres. They are stories of the evil Darkseid and his minions trying to imprison the forces of good--fought and frontlined by his battlescarred, motherboxed, boomtubed son, Orion. They are fabuloso stories. In recent times a brief exposure to his Fourth World series was done in the WB cartoon series "Superman".Kirby, alas, was unable to develop his dream universe at DC--my opinion is because of the dreaded "industry think" of the comics at the time. No profit, no PR, no support. And so, one can detect a faltering of the quality and the confidence this great series promised. One of the things I did notice was that when Superman was sketched in his great Jimmy Olsen series, the powers that be always redid the Man of Steel's face by some other in house artist like Al Plastino or Curt Swan or Anderson. (This practice did produce some stunning covers by Kirby and fan favorite Neal Adams--I think I also saw a stunning drawing by Kirby and Barry Winsor-Smith.) But overall fan reaction was "How dare they mess with the King?" Yeah--HOW DARE THEY?But before he sucuumbed to the industry think, he, along with Vince Coletta, Mike Royer, et al, put out some great sagas here, in "The Forever People", in "Mister Miracle" and those great "Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen" comics. Kirby, dig, WAS the inventor of the modern day superhero comic book. I get the feeling that we were in the presence of greatness which will never, ever be seen again....

This is the centerpiece of Kirby's Fourth World Series and the best work of his career. There is power and intensity, especially in stories such as The Pact, The Death Wish Of Terrible Turpin, and The Deep Six. This set of stories pre-dated Star Wars by almost a decade and I also believe that a lot of the New Gods inspired George Lucas. In fact, after being used to comics such as this, I was not surprised by revalations in the Star Wars saga. The New Gods was groundbreaking for its time. It was originally released as a tetralogy with Forever People, Mister Miracle, and Jimmy Olsen (three parts of the tetralogy are available in this format). Jack was one of the pioneers of the writer-artist in comics and, to this day, many comics professionals acknowledge a great debt to Mr Kirby.

Jack's legendary New Gods is must reading for any comics fan. Intense storylines and highly entertaining characters. Too bad DC cancelled the series before he could finish it. At the time, it was the best in comics.

This book collects Jack Kirby's ground-breaking New Gods series in an affordable format. Many consider this 1970's DC series to be his most imaginative and original work, in which he had the opportunity to both write the stories as well as draw the art. The artwork is in black and white with gray tones. I'm trying hard to avoid the phrase 'epic modern fantasy' without much success. Jack Kirby was creator or co-creator of some of the most important characters in comics, including Captain America, the Fantastic Four, the Incredible Hulk, Thor, the Silver Surfer, and the Challengers of the Unknown.