Kamandi # 1 (November, 1972), was published 50 years ago today, 29 August, 1972. National/DC lost the Planet of the Apes film adaptation rights to Marvel and in its place, Jack Kirby created Kamandi which both evokes the film and also provides something wholly original.
It''s difficult to look at the cover and and not see it as a metaphorical comment on our own world, our own times, the Last Boy on Earth, paddles away from a once great democracy destroyed by unstoppable currents, freedom swamped. After the Great Disaster, "...a natural disaster linked with radiation. The people in the bunkers lived out their lives and died dreaming of a day or return--the radiation would be gone--and the world they left would be waiting."
The importance of actively preserving what is best about ourselves together, not becoming complacent and watching our differences destroy us.
Kamandi is an ingenue whose eyes are forcibly opened but who perseveres in what he believes: "He realizes now that the world known to the people of the bunkers has undergone radical changes--or no longer exists--. There are vast differences between the things Kamand's been taught--and what he now sees."
The Last Boy on Earth doesn't want to be alone. "Man is down but he is not out. Kamandi can keep going now...he has the purpose to live...."I'm not alone. I'm not alone." Kamandi does not have all the answers by himself. He needs others.
As always, Kirby’s work can be read purely for the adventure, for the fantastic worlds, for the action but there is a deeper heart behind his work which 'the harder he presses, the brighter he glows.'
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