19/4 Gods and Sods

LIBRARY artefact #041

PADDY O’PINION’S BOOKSHELF!

I have a shit ton of boxes filled with collected editions of comics that have accumulated over the years. In my effort to do something ‘useful’ with all this debris, I thought I’d dip into these shiny volumes as they’re sorted into ‘keep’ and ‘donate’ piles with the aim of selecting a few favourites for a quick review.

Seeing as I’m a shonky son of the seanchaí and as it’s oul St. Biden’s Day, here’s Air sign over Allbow west-dreamed Aqueerius hermsylph no less, waterboarding a circumlocumotive train of thought tracked Zodiacal on a commodious vicus, by Jim! Back alack allahround as falling raingels to the sad bod dad sod and the Springy turf roots of me antsistery, on helical rungs an rites nun-Darewinian hoped skyped and jimped up from the leopardy cohens and 4-lived blooms of Twatted Dad Anna.

An I’ll wear me oul critic hat, buckle and band!

For there’s green in the sea but there’s more on the land!

With a potful of Lucky Charms clasped in me hand!..

Here's renowned ‘Voice of Reason’ for ComicBoxxx and Polythene Paradise, our very own Paddy O’Pinion (‘the wind beneath my wing’), on the subject of New Gods Volume 3 1989 - 1991 by Mark Evanier, Paris Cullins and Mike Vosburg…

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I’ve been reacquainting myself with Mark Evanier’s New Gods work from ‘80s to early ‘90s and they make most other attempts to revive Kirby’s ideas look unambitious and misguided.

When people think of the New Gods immediately post-Kirby, it’s often the mid-‘70s revival attempt, beginning with a tryout story in First Issue Special from 1976 that comes up. This had Gerry Conway and Denny O’Neill writing, and although both comic book masters, they were fine writers given the unenviable task of translating Kirby’s awesome Wagnerian thunder into a prevailing superhero idiom defined by the more mannered and self-conscious work of Stan Lee. 

Where the rough-hewn grandeur and sublime of Kirby’s beat lyricism and propulsive plotting had been was a missing engine-shaped space.

Like a plucky attempt to do an easy-listening version of a metal classic, it was your favourite song flattened to Muzak, where the melody’s still there and it has a pulse but something’s not there anymore. Something’s been hollowed out.

In the attempts to plane off the awkward edges and make Kirby’s declamatory style more palatable to ‘70s comics fans, Kirby’s Techno-Hebraic cadence was lost. There’s Ginsberg in Kirby, and Blake too, but the King as ever is doing his own new thing; he fuses the scriptural roots of his writing with basic comic book tricks: Short action sentences. Exclamations! BOLDS!!! He combines the fast-paced language of Madison Avenue advertising, pop songs, and media speak with the rhythms of the Temple and the Pulpit.

The sculptural, textural quality of the words Kirby chooses to go with his images have the hallmarks of genuine visionary poetry. I find his writing to be as brilliant and evocative as his art.   

Perhaps unsurprisingly, as Jack Kirby’s production assistant for many years, no-one is more faithful to Kirby’s poetic voice than Evanier, and I’m a massive fan of these stories.

What’s interesting about them is that Evanier continues the darker strand of disillusion from Hunger Dogs. He writes the New Gods and the Forever People from the perspective of the Reagan/Bush years when America claimed victory against its ideological enemy in the Soviet Union, then – as if lacking a Shadow to define its shape – began to experience a massive identity crisis that is still playing out today in even more ferocious ways.

The reason this exemplary run is largely forgotten is partly down to the art, which has a crude haste that runs counter to modern tastes. The work of Paris Cullins gets better and better as volume 1 progresses and Rick Hoberg’s Byrne-influenced work can often deliver but there’s no getting away from the regular intrusion of often rushed, awkward drawing – at times it looks more like an indie book than a DC comic but if, like me, you don’t let a rushed or idiosyncratic delivery put you off a brilliant song or story, and if you love Kirby’s Fourth World, I can guarantee you’ll have some serious fun with this, and both Cullins and Hoberg can sometimes pull a blinder.

(Cullins’ depiction of the broken Promethean giant chained to rock for instance comes close to Kirby’s original Blakean vision)

The first volume takes a while to heat up, then comes an extended storyline entitled the ‘Bloodline Saga’ that blew me away. The narrative construction, the language, the ideas, all genuinely advance Kirby’s vision in a way that feels completely faithful to the originals but also allows the ideas to grow up and become self-aware.

This is no retro, post-modern attempt to ‘do’ Kirby pastiche, such as emerged in the ‘90s. Instead, what Evanier and his co-creators deliver is a direct continuation of the original, unfinished saga into a new work with huge scope, emotional power, and imagination. It may not be hyperbole to suggest that it does with New Gods what I believe Damon Lindelof was attempting with Watchmen.

The second volume takes a different approach, pulling back from the cosmic operatic scale and bringing the War of Gods down into the streets, perhaps due to the presence of new penciller Hoberg as co-plotter with Evanier, and here we’re treated to some amazingly bleak and existential tales, many revolving around the doomed quotidian lives of average people caught up in Darkseid’s cosmic war as it spills down from the Heavens to express its energies through every aspect of ordinary life on Earth.

With powerful urgent points to make, all the resources of the comic – character needs, arcs, imagery – are coordinated in the articulation and resolution of its central themes in ways that are new and relevant to its times, and surprisingly our own. I often felt these books were talking to me directly about current issues.

One story has at its heart a young poet, clearly gay, clearly infected with HIV and yet his orientation and the precise nature of his illness are never mentioned or revealed, and while his lonely death is all-too typical of pop culture portrayals from the time of gay men as Romantic victims, the story excels in its depiction of the small scale, personal cost, and lack of recognition of true everyday heroism.

There’s even a weird digression to examine the existentially-void un-lives of ‘Dreggs’, fallen divine remnants of the Third World of the Old Gods,. This one offers a zombie Thor as one of its lead characters!

These stories are complex, intricately woven morality tales and for me they represent the absolute best of the post-Kirby attempts to capture the spirit of his Fourth World work and build on it.

Deftly weaving the archetypal cosmic schemes and wars of the New Gods and the comprehensible desires of ordinary and unique human lives, the creative team tackle perennial hot topics like disease, pollution, loneliness, and disillusion through incredibly rich metaphors in ways that are emotionally affecting and incredibly contemporary.

There’s a fierce and bitter compassion, a sense of lost possibility and a weary resignation when it comes to Evil’s refusal to lie down and give up!

One rich and involved 3-part story is based around environmental themes and the death drive and drunk driving. Lightray’s attempts to bring a good woman back from death after she’s killed on the road by a bad man become more grandiose and hopeless as he rages against the dying of the light while the Forever People face climate collapse! And we see how Orion can’t stop turning into a bully, no mater how hard he tries to be the hero in a more nuanced and gripping portrayal of the character than any other I’ve read.

So too with Metron, utterly cold and amoral, recognizing neither the good nor the evil consequences of his actions but simply their utility to his purpose. Evanier’s insights into the Science God’s deliberations remind us what can be done with thought balloons in the right hands.

They’re phenomenal monthly comics and as you can tell from my frenzied descriptions, their fierce anguish feels very much of now and incredibly relevant to a world where the alarms are so much louder now and brighter.

Framing this emotional rollercoaster are two scenes with Beautiful Dreamer of the Forever People, now married to Big Bear and with a child of their own, dreaming…

‘SHE DREAMS OF AN EARTH WHERE CHILDREN PLAY AND BREATHE THE OPEN AIR… SAFE FROM ALL THE TURMOIL THAT ADULTS CREATE TO SPOIL THESE CHILDHOODS THAT THEY ENVY SO MUCH THEMSELVES.’

‘SHE DREAMS OF AN EARTH WHERE SOLDIERS LAY DOWN THEIR ARMS, CONFIDENT THERE WILL NEVER BE THE NEED TO TAKE THEM UP AGAIN.’

‘SHE DREAMS OF AN EARTH WHERE FOOD AND SHELTER ARE RECOGNISED AS BASIC, INHERENT HUMAN NEEDS – AND THAT NO-ONE WOULD CHOOSE TO LIVE IN COMFORT UNTIL THEY WERE SATISFIED THAT EVERYONE ON THE PLANET WAS PROVIDED FOR.’

‘BUT MOST OF ALL, SHE DREAMS OF AN EARTH WHERE THE AIR, LEAVES AND WATER ARE ALL THE COLORS THEY WERE MEANT TO BE…

‘SADLY, DREAMS MUST END AND LIFE RESUME…’

The story that follows is a wrenching acknowledgment of the relentless insistent return of the same old evils every time that hits home on every level.

It ends with a weeping, traumatized Dreamer clutching her baby to her breast after being menaced by Darkseid, and

Her final hopeless soliloquy in full…

‘NO, BIG BEAR. WE DID NOT WIN… LOOK AT THE LAND AROUND US.

‘LOOK AT THE TREES THAT WILL NEVER GROW AGAIN—

‘—AND AT THE FLOWERS THAT WILL NEVER BLOOM, AND A SKY THAT MAKES YOU FORGET IT IS SUPPOSED TO BE BLUE.

‘NO, WE DID NOT WIN.

‘WE JUST HAVEN’T LOST EVERYTHING YET.”

I can’t think of anyone who writes in this kind of emotive, heart on sleeve style anymore and it’s of value just for the intensity of the content and its willingness to go dark and ask difficult questions.

All in all, it’s incredibly satisfying comic book stuff, narratively strong and confident where so many of today’s superhero comics can seem flimsy and vapid, concerned with teenage identity politics, nostalgia or trivia.