The Source of peace

'Father, father

We don't need to escalate
You see, war is not the answer
For only love can conquer hate
You know we've got to find a way
To bring some lovin' here today’

(What’s Going On by Marvin Gaye, 1971)

Jack Kirby’s modern-day epic, ‘The Pact’, in the New Gods # 7 (March, 1972), published 50 years ago today, 21 December, 1971, is so overwhelming in scope, so cosmic in its destiny, so overpowering in its imagery, that’s it’s easy to forget the King’s up-front advice to the reader, ‘…far from being a chronicle of the conflict, this is instead the story of personal struggles…’

The Pact is less about the war between two great empires, New Genesis and Apokolips and more about the transformation of the individual, specifically two sons, Scott Free, beloved of the Highfather Izaya and Orion, scion of Darkseid, one who brings hope to an evil place, the other whose hate is exchanged for love.

Both children have no control over their circumstances, they are pawns of the Pact, an agreement between two fathers, Izaya and Darkseid to stop the war between the two planets. Neither leader will attack the other if his own child could suffer or die. We know the fate of the two boys because all of Kirby’s previous Fourth World stories have been leading up to this mystery moment, where all our questions are resolved as we look back to the origin of conflict and the birth of peace.

Scott Free’s journey is akin to waking up one day in an abusive family after your parents have been killed in a car crash. He has no knowledge of his true origins, given to Granny Goodness as a baby, ‘serene and fragile…in his features.’ Scott is like the baby Jesus in swaddling clothes of Sunday School memory, Granny like a malevolent mother Mary, sardonically naming him ‘Free’ while planning his slavery, revelling in his pain to come.

In a stunning revelation, Granny and Darkseid plan for Scott’s eventual escape from the hell of Apokolips, so the pact that has just been agreed to, can be broken. Scott’s resurrection will be a pretext to war but not before he goes through unbearable suffering. Yet Scott never loses the belief that he will be free.

Orion is older, like a tearaway tween, a gang member in Bel Air, when he arrives, unwillingly, on New Genesis and meets Highfather Izaya. Armed, dangerous, fully knowledgeable about who he is and where he has come from, his lineage, he attacks the high priest of peace. In the hatred on his face burns the fires of a thousand polarised conflicts, hate as the hope that nothing will change, that no mutual understanding will ever come, that people will always be the same and it’s only our tribe that matters.

Izaya offers the open hand of friendship as the knife in Orion’s hands drops to the floor. Where he sought conflict because that is all he knew, Orion is flummoxed by a man who won’t fight. Izaya can speak to Orion and Orion hears, because Izaya has been on the same journey.

Orion’s path to adulthood in Izaya’s care is not simply a series of classes where he is taught peace. Orion is a teacher, he is a reminder about the outsider in the culture and how that culture will only accept someone if they forget themselves, put on the right clothes, wear the right face. Orion exposes the hypocrisy between a society that says it loves all, welcomes all, yet will not act out its pretty words, New Genesis is a place where ugliness shows its true face in beauty.¹

Kirby’s Fourth World is rarely a place of pure good and evil, it is full of flawed, deeply human Gods. Like Izaya the Inheritor, Kirby has been through fire, rain, fighting, death, war, loss and has overcome it. As a scout for the army² in World War II, he saw things, people, questions before others. He knew what was going on, behind the words, in spite of the actions. Through his comics, his pact with the reader is revelation:

‘Come on talk to me
So you can see
What's going on (What's going on)
Yeah, what's going on (What's going on)
Tell me what's going on (What's going on)
I'll tell you, what's going on (What's going on).’

His world is a place of friends. Here is my hand. Hold on, peace will come, peace be with you, only love can conquer hate.

¹See my commentary on New Gods # 5, ‘Ugliness reveals its true face in beauty’

²As detailed in Mark Peters’ Paste article, ‘Eight Ways Comic Book Legend Jack Kirby Fought Fascism’, 16 February, 2017.

Research this article:

Comics:

-According to Jack Kirby (Michael Hill, Lulu, 2021)

-Comics Journal # 134, February 1990 (Jack Kirby interview by Gary Groth)

- Paste, ‘Eight Ways Comic Book Legend Jack Kirby Fought Fascism’, 16 February, 2017, by Mark Peters

-Mike’s Amazing World of Comics website

-The indispensable Kirby & Lee: Stuf’ Said! (Jack Kirby Collector # 75: TwoMorrows)

-The equally indispensable Old Gods, New Gods (Jack Kirby Collector # 80: TwoMorrows)

Popular culture:

-Helter Skelter, the True Story of the Manson Murders (Vincent Bugliosi with Curt Gentry, W.W. Norton, 1994)

-There’s A Riot Going On (Peter Doggett, Canongate, 2007)

-Time Magazine, December 20, 1971

-Uncovering the Sixties (Abe Peck, Pantheon, 1985) 

-Vietnam: An Epic History of a Tragic War (Max Hastings, William Collins, 2019)

Michael Mead is a 55-year-old New Zealand comic book collector, who likes to think he can do "contextual" commentary reviews of old comics, asking: "where does this story come from?", looking at the social, political, cultural times it came from, the state of the comics industry, the personal and creative journey of the writer or artist, the personal journey of the reader as a child and as an adult. 

As part of this, he is vain enough to think he can bring new insights into Kirby's Fourth World comics and so, on the 50th anniversary of publication of each issue of Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen, Forever People, New Gods and Mister Miracle, he will publish a contextual commentary. This is his 32^nd of a projected 48 Fourth World commentaries. Check out his earlier entries on this blog and tell him to stop talking so pretentiously in the third person for God's sake!