Scraps for the King

Jack Kirby is left picking over the bones Carmine Infantino’s scavengers have left him, as the National/DC publisher continues to drain the life from the King’s Fourth World, a dead man’s shell. Forever People # 10 (September, 1972), published 50 years ago today, 1 June, 1972 is the penultimate issue of Kirby’s run on the title, as the former flower power masterpiece descends to DC detritus, at no fault of its creator.

Kirby wrote and drew the issue in February 1972 and knew the writing was on the wall. It seems he commentates on his own demise and expresses his incredulity that someone could be so short-sighted as to mess so badly with his work: ‘Among their strange experiences on the planet earth, four young adventurers from New Genesis have stumbled into the most bizarre involvement yet. Fate has put a restless Deadman into their path.’

Infantino had told Kirby to put Deadman in the Fourth World because horror comics were selling well¹ but Boston Brand’s presence is ‘bizarre.’ It detracts from the epic story Kirby was trying to tell as his original characters become guest stars in their own comic and references to the New Genesis/Apokolips magnum opus become incidental. Kirby is forced to scavenge scraps from his own concepts to tell the limited tale Infantino favours.

Deadman (Boston Brand) is chasing his real killer, a man with a hook, and the Forever People help him against the ‘Director’ and the scavengers, there’s really nothing more to the plot than that. The Forever People, Mark Moonrider, Vykin, Big Bear, Serifan and Beautiful Dreamer used to take their place in a larger counter-cultural context, the use of their powers, their expression of character, meant something more, it pointed to a commentary on the real world of the reader.

Now, Beautiful Dreamer creates an illusion that comes off as a cheap, parlour trick, Big Bear assumes a ‘secret identity’ as a chauffeur and the portrayal of the hippie Woodstock nation is a one figure passer-by on the street, about as insightful into youth culture as a Marvel comic of the same period.

When a scavenger steals the Deadman ‘follower’, which the Forever People had planned to give to Boston Brand to reanimate his spirit in a physical ‘body’, it’s almost as if Kirby is critically commenting on the reduced circumstances he finds himself in. His characters no longer live as he would have them breathe, they and the stories he is forced to write are ‘….like a zombie with reflexes…’. They follow, they don’t lead.

His relationship with contemporary youth, his metaphorical, meta moments, are now no longer visionary, he is a step behind: ‘At that moment, the other Forever People arrive – too late. W-what’s wrong? Where’s the follower? It’s gone. What’s most important – is who took it? And why? The answer could be meant for Deadman.’ It’s like Kirby is talking to the knowing reader and saying, ‘that magic I was able to bring is still in me but it’s no longer here. The Age of Aquarius, Magic Alex, the soaring Sixties hope, the alternative way of life, the greater consciousness, is gone.’ This panel is a goodbye.

Deadman and the Forever People chase the Director and the scavengers to retrieve the follower body and the Director says ‘…-- I get the feeling that this thing is a – shell. – A shell –waiting for ‘something’ to possess it.’ Kirby could not say things more baldly. What is it that you expect me to do with this empty vessel, Carmine, this ‘…fully automated robot circus…’? You’ve taken my Art and given me the controls to a ‘klanking’ machine.

Ahead, there is only ‘…something horrible…’, the realisation that Kirby is no longer the creative owner of his work, he is only a ‘tenant’, renting space from a landlord, on limited time. Kirby, like the counter-culture around him he was once able to include meaningfully in his work, has steadily seen trust in leadership eroded. 

Only a few short weeks after Forever People # 10 hit the stands, burglars broke into the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate Hotel in Washington D.C. Among them was ex-Central Intelligence Agency man, James McCord, now security co-ordinator for the Committee to Re-Elect the President (CREEP). Like the end of Kirby’s Fourth World, the demise of a Presidency was an inside job.

The last panel in Forever People # 10 is telling. Not a promo for the final issue (# 11) but an ad for a new title, The Demon, which would debut on 22 June, 1972. Kirby’s irrepressible belief in himself, drawing from his wellspring of creative ideas, was always seeking the next new thing. If only he had continued to have been given the chance to do that with his beautiful, inspiring, kind, forever youth, instead of having to send them to scavenge through their own shadows.

¹See Jack Kirby Collector # 80 pg. 110. Horror and mystery comics were selling well in 1972. Affidavit fraud created the misconception that Kirby's 4th World titles were selling poorly. So Infantino had Kirby conjure up The Demon and asked for Deadman to become a character in Forever People. Comics, always late on the uptake, had followed the horror trend that film had set in 1968 with the abolition of the Hays Code. Film moved from censorship to the ratings system we know today.

Comics:

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

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

-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)

The Games People Play (Eric Berne, Penguin, 1964)

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

-The Vietnam War: The Definitive Illustrated History (Penguin Random House, 2017)

-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 43rd of a projected 46 Fourth World commentaries (only three to go!). He may also do commentaries on the 1984 New Gods # 6, the graphic novel Hunger Dogs, the Absolute Jack Kirby volume two story and a final commentary/overview of the Fourth World. Check out his earlier entries on this blog and tell him to stop talking so pretentiously in the third person for God's sake!