Shout, shout, let it all out

“Is not oblivion forever a dark red line which leads the mighty to the sewers of the contemptible silent?”₁

A dictator rules, demanding his populace give him total obedience, fighting ‘a new kind of war for a new age’₂ by remote control with deadly toxins, poison sprays, ravaging life-forms, with an ultimate weapon, a piece of mobile technology that you can hold in your hand, at its heart  ‘a fearsome pygmy’₂₃, a little electronic mark that enslaves millions, poor ignorant Hunger Dogs controlled by ‘push button babes.’₄

Jack Kirby’s prophetic voice rings clear in the Hunger Dogs, his final word on the Fourth World, which came out 40 years ago today, 21 March, 1985. Following on from the events of ‘Armagetto’ in New Gods # 6 (Baxter series, August, 1984), we return to Apokolips with Darkseid triumphant, overseeing new methods of domination, Orion dead, and the beginnings of an underclass rebellion from the lowest of the Apokoliptian low, the Hunger Dogs.

It doesn’t take long for Kirby to bring a revelation. Orion lives! Resurrected by Himon on Apokolips, a legend cannot die. The Hunger Dogs are repulsed, they distrust what they see, ‘poor, ignorant Hunger Dogs, eternally used, eternally abused, lie for Darkseid! Die for Steppenwolf…try each road to futility.’₅

Darkseid’s corrosive influence is felt beyond Apokolips as his boom tubes ‘pour their hideous bounty of carrion and toxic rot upon New Genesis’.₆ The Anti-Life equation now transformed, replaced by technology and transported instantly anywhere, micro-marks spreading hate planet-wide, a crowd-control device that is ‘cheap, swift and unfailing’₇ and ‘could destroy a continent.’ ₈ Micro Mark, ‘the fearsome pygmy’, ‘….shall labor for Darkseid with the swiftness and ease of his notable sensitivity.’₉

Technology, in service of a dictator can destroy our communities, our way of life, its narcissistic efficiency takes no account of human relationships, tradition, our shared values, the good we have built. In the hands of young zealots ‘…the cosmos lies open to button-pushing babes…’,₁₀ success is measured purely in numbers. Technology frees the evil in our own hearts.

Who can stand against this insidious force, that creeps into the cracks in every conversation? None but heroes, Himon, Lightray, Orion, Bekka (Himon’s daughter). Orion leads a revolt of the Hunger Dogs, against Darkseid and his chief advisor, shockingly revealed as the formerly innocent New Genesis child, Esak: ‘For what is power now but cheap techno-plumbing and an aging, quaking Darkseid.’₁₁ Esak, once protégé of Metron, untethered from his guide, his faith in technology leading him to ‘….revelation! Revolution! Then…pain.’ ₁₂ Darkseid pegs him, ‘By the dark infinite! Is there no end to the casual arrogance of your wonders?’₁₃

Orion easily defeats Esak and in a touching scene, Kirby continues Orion’s character development as he does not judge Esak but instead empathises with him. Orion rejects his own dog-solider cynicism and intercedes for Esak with the Source, ‘Judge him as he was, and not what he became.’₁₄ Orion could easily be talking about himself.

Kirby believes in the power of personal transformation to meet great challenges, in the power of love to overcome hate, in the strength of someone’s heart not in the way they look. Orion reveals his true from, sans motherbox,  to Bekka after the battle against Esak, saying ‘There can be no love Bekka…unless it can live with truth.’₁₅ He turns to Bekka and she says ‘Can one resist the face…after she’s seen the heart?’₁₆

The irony of the Hunger Dogs is that the story is more about these moments than the Hunger Dogs rebellion which opens and  closes out the book. Darkseid is deposed as New Genesis explodes and Apokolips collapses in paranoid chaos. Orion outsmarts Darkseid by rescuing his mother Tigra, completing the mission he started in New Gods # 6 Baxter series.

Darkseid is left alone to rebuild his empire. Defeated, friendless, betrayed by those he once dominated, a colossus reduced to a speck on a disappearing horizon.

Highfather and his New Gods escape on their floating city towards ‘a planet called hope.’ ‘The world we seek must find us – we are the ones who are lost.’ ₁₇ The haughty New Gods, who made an idol of beauty, who elevated themselves skywards above others, are now humbled, they must remake themselves ‘without arrogance or desperation.’ ₁₈ Highfather had earlier realised that ‘…this problem is our own…it has risen among us.’₁₉ Good cannot continue to battle evil in the same way it did in the past, it must be born again, it must go back to the Source.

Even as their world is destroyed, as they oppose overwhelming forces, as many of those around them give up and lay down, Orion, Lightray, Bekka, Highfather, Himon, Lonar, stand up. They live their values and shout to be heard against the evil in the world because love, community, family, forgiveness, history, truth, matter more to them than power and control. There can be no love unless it can live with truth.

‘Shout
Shout
Let it all out
These are the things I can do without
Come on
I'm talking to you
Come on’

Shout by Tears For Fears (# 10 on the Billboard charts for 21 March, 1985)

Footnotes

₁ Hunger Dogs, pg. 12, The Elder Gods.

₂ Ibid, pg. 5, Darkseid.

₃ Ibid, pg. 13, Darkseid.

₄ Ibid, pg. 17, Darkseid.

₅ Ibid, pg. 8, Himon.

₆ Ibid, pg. 21, Highfather.

₇ Ibid, pg. 5, Darkseid underling.

₈ Ibid, pg. 13, Darkseid underling.

₉ Ibid, pg. 13, Darkseid.

₁₀ Ibid, pg. 17, Darkseid.

₁₁ Ibid, pg. 42, Esak.

₁₂ Ibid, pg. 43, Esak.

₁₃ Ibid, pg. 37, Darkseid.

₁₄ Ibid, pg. 46, Orion.

₁₅ Ibid, pg. 49, Orion.

₁₆ Ibid, pg. 50, Bekka.

₁₇ Ibid, pg. 60, Highfather.

₁₈ Ibid, pg. 61, Highfather.

₁₉ Ibid, pg. 24, Highfather.

Research this issue -

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

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

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

Popular culture:

-Chronicle of the 20^th Century, Editor in Chief John Ross, Viking, 1999.

-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 58-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 50^th (or 40^th) anniversary of publication of each issue of Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen, Forever People, New Gods and Mister Miracle, he published a contextual commentary. This is his 48th of a projected 50 Fourth World commentaries. He will also do commentaries on  the Absolute Jack Kirby volume two story, ‘Road to Armagetto’ 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!