Part Two: "Kirby’s Unfinished Opera" by Gary Chapin (another guest essay!)

(Here's the second part of Gary Chapin's epic look at Jack Kirby's Fourth World...er... epic.  Part one is here.  You're really going to enjoy this!)

Now’s the Time

Mark Evanier, in the closing essay for Volume 3 of the Kirby’s Fourth World Omnibus, points out the critical reaction to Kirby’s treatment of Deadman. Kirby, said this critic (I paraphrase), clearly did not get the Neal Adams Memo. Graceful lines, art school realism, and noir subtlety “were” the way of “now.” Kirby represented “the past.” Adams and company represented the future. This is a point of view I would have heartily, and stupidly, embraced at the time.  “The future” is not a fixed point, however. And even the present is a bit slippery.  My “now” is different from your “now.” There’s a joke that says, “The golden age of music is 12.” My golden age of Kirby is 45. This is my “now.”

But Then Was Not

After around a year, the wheels came off the bus (or super cycle) of the Fourth World. Sales dipped, and books were canceled. The remarkable achievements that were “The Pact” (New Gods #7) and “Himon” (Mister Miracle #9) and “The Death Wish of Terrible Turpin” (New Gods #8) were not seen as masterpieces at the time.  The combat between Orion and Kalibak in the Turpin story will remind you what sort of glory can be found in a slugfest. 

New Gods #7, March 1972 (Jack Kirby with inks by Mike Royer)

 

But then it ended. The last issue of the New Gods (“Darkseid and Sons,” #11) was, in fact, brilliant (the run from #7 through the end is worth everyone’s time). The story didn’t end as Kirby wanted it to, but it was a very effective stopping point with a lot of “What?? What just happened???” moments. It was very satisfying. The end of the Forever People was much more of a mess, possibly because their action was always peripheral to the New Genesis/Apokolips story being told in NG and Miracle.  “The Kids” end up stranded on a paradise planet in a faraway dimension when the Pursuer’s lance blows up, “destroying” the Infinity Man. While it technically makes sense, the pretext is as weak as it sounds.

Mister Miracle lasts a bit longer than the other two, but when the Big Story falls away, it becomes a series of one-off monster stories. This didn’t have to be a problem. Kirby spent the ‘50s being the master of one-off monster stories.

New Gods #8, May 1972 (Jack Kirby with inks by Mike Royer)

According to Evanier’s essay, though, Kirby was feeling demoralized and his heart wasn’t quite in it. You only have to notice that one of the stories begins with Miracle and Barda stumbling on a “haunted” house while walking in the woods near their house. Yeah, time for a new direction (which took him to the Demon, Kamandi, et many al., so one can’t entirely complain).

The Problem with Endings

Kirby’s vision from the beginning of the Fourth World was an enclosed story that reached through a number of books and ended in a Fourth World Ragnarok, closing the book on these characters for good. I don’t know how he ever thought that was going to happen. 

New Gods #11, November 1972 (Kirby with inks by Mike Royer)

 

It seems almost quaint, looking back from the other side of the graphic novel naissance, but in 1972, DC Comics was not going to let Kirby develop amazing properties – which is what he was brought in for – and then have them succumb to irrevocable destruction.

This may have been the one place where Kirby – a man preternaturally in synch with comic book aesthetic – may have had an ambition for something that can never exist in the superhero-comic book medium: an ending. This wasn’t a function of the times Kirby was writing in, but a function of the medium. Just consider the New Gods. We’ve had The Hunger Dogs, Kirby’s own imperfect – but beautiful! – attempt at an ending. We’ve had Death of the New Gods. We’ve had Final Crisis, where Darkseid is “finally” killed. 
 

Wait, who was that who was featured in the new Justice League 23.1?
 

To butcher Fitzgerald, “There are no last acts in comic book superhero lives.” Even characters who are never brought back, are constantly being brought up (e.g., Jor-El, Gwen Stacy). I wouldn’t be the first to suggest that while Crisis of This, That, and the Other Thing had all the hallmarks of a Ragnarok, they lacked the one key element:  the end of the world. They weren’t resetting the DC universe, they were resetting the DC stylebook.

DC Graphic Novel #4: The Hunger Dogs, January 1985 (Kirby with inks by D. Bruce Berry)

I think Kirby really wanted the end of the world for his characters. He had the Wagnerian urge. But like so many great creators he was an inventor, not a destroyer. He began things. He began great things. And not a single one of them – not Cap, not the FF, not the New Gods – has ended. And even if they fall into a space where they seem to have ended – books get cancelled – there is always a new issue coming down the line.

But this is not the problem with endings. The problem with endings is that our experience of the work is shaped by “how things turn out.” Forget how things turned out. These are astonishingly rich stories, executed to a ridiculously high degree; the creation of a visual aesthetic that’s analogous to Tolkien’s linguistic aesthetic. This will always be true, no matter how things turn out. Kirby could not achieve his operatic ambition, but that’s irrelevant. I love these books.

Gary Chapin usually blogs about French accordion music over at www.accordeonaire.blogspot.com.

Part One: The Epic Rhythm of Kirby by Gary Chapin (a guest essay!)

Note: This is a guest essay by Gary Chapin, and I am honored to run it here.  I think after you read it, you'll be as excited about Gary's ideas as I am! And here... we... go...

Part One: The Epic Rhythm of Kirby

I picked up Jack Kirby’s Fourth World Omnibus after reading Joel’s write-ups about the Kamandi sets. I would like to be able to say I was revisiting old favorites, but the truth was I had never cottoned to Kirby during my developmental collecting days. I had preferred the clean lines of Byrne and the baroque richness of Perez and Jim Starlin. The expressionistic outbursts of Kirby (and Carmine Infantino and Steve Ditko) were wasted on the feckless youth that I was.

So, lame though it was, at the age of forty-five I finally found my way into Kirby via this set collecting The New Gods, The Forever People, Mister Miracle, and Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen. I’ve read through volumes one and two and part of volume three. My mind is blown.

Jack Kirby, words and pencils/Vince Coletta, inks (New Gods #2, April-May 1971)

Something different is happening here. Part of it is timeless. We call things “epic” all the time these days. If something is loud, long, and spectacular it’s an epic. The Fourth World Omnibus is intentionally and genuinely epic – sharing traits with the first epics, The Iliad and The Odyssey.

The characters are extraordinarily broad. Orion is war. Scott Free, like Odysseus, is cleverness. They have no inner life. There is no psychology going on here, no soap opera. That may seem like a criticism – “The characters have no inner life?” – but within this context, the stories and characters ring absolutely true. Just as the ancients were entranced by their own epics, these stories are completely engaging. Like, I’m falling asleep reading them because I can’t intentionally put them down to go to sleep. I haven’t liked a comic that much in years.

Other similarities to the epics? There is a complete absence of irony in Kirby’s work. It’s playful, absolutely. There’s plenty of humor. But there’s no knowing sarcasm, world-weary snarking, or irony. Also, the geography of these books is mythologically general. We find out at some point that the New Gods stories are taking place in Metropolis, but throughout, it’s simply referred to as “the city.” Which city? I don’t know, reader, could it be your city.

The Jimmy Olsen stories take place in a cavern underneath Metropolis that is so large that it has a number of distinct regions (the Wild Area, the Habitat), and a highway (the Zoomway) so lengthy that an RV the size of an apartment block can drive the highway perpetually. That sounds like something out of Paul Bunyon stories. The writers of the epics knew about the rule of cool, and so did Kirby.

Jack Kirby, words and pencils/Vince Coletta, inks (Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen #136, March 1971)

But they weren’t writers; they were singers, and here’s where I’m going to go out on a limb about Jack Kirby. His work has rhythm. His lines, more than any artist I know, create the illusion of motion, and that motion – within a panel, from panel to panel, page to page – drags you along like a great dance tune, or an extravagant opera, or an epic being sung by a blind poet – a blind, maybe heavy metal poet.

And it is the lines that carry the rhythm for Kirby. It isn’t the events of the story, or the pace of his plots. It’s the drawings themselves. The Fourth World stories, really, are relentlessly violent. Kirby loves his fight scenes, and so do we. His characters are a troupe executing a very distinct choreography.

You can witness the truth of it when the rhythms of his lines are interrupted. In the Jimmy Olsen stories, DC had another artist re-draw the face of Superman over Kirby’s pencils so that this Superman would match the “typical” DC-brand Superman. It throws off the entire panel! It inserts a bland and lifeless and boring (in a Kirby work!) element into something wild and spectacular; a dollop of oatmeal in the middle of a bowl of kick-ass curry. Look at the un-inked pages, included as an appendix in volume 2. The Superman panels take on a new life. The Superman content suddenly makes sense in the Kirby context.

Jack Kirby, words and pencils/Vince Coletta, inks (Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen #133, October 1970)

Kirby’s epic rhythm became even more vibrant when Mike Royer took over inks from the indifferent Vince Colletta. Is this akin, maybe, to production value? As I move through the third volume I am drawn further and further into this story in which, when the Gods finally come to Earth, it’s a complete disaster. I’m drawn by the events, by the writing, the characters, the amazing well-spring of ideas – something new every issue – but I’m mostly drawn in by Kirby’s lines and their rhythm.

Part Two is here!

Gary Chapin usually blogs about French accordion music over at www.accordeonaire.blogspot.com.

Hulk NOT confused: A guest editorial

By The Incredible Hulk

Hello!  This Hulk!  Keyboard puny not good for Hulks fingers and Hulk careful not to smash but Hulk find it difficult.  But also Hulk has important thing to tell reader of this blog.  Hulk hear one person read this blog.  Hulk sorry for this person.  Hulk want say find better use for your time but Hulk know not everyone have taste in reading material.  Why adult read picture book for little kid then write about it for all to see instead of hiding fact in shame?  Hulk think he must have screw loose!

Dont worry Hulk not snob.  Hulk read Stephen King on toilet.  King no artist with words but can tell story. Hulk once read part of Tom Clancy book but put it down because bad dialogue.  Point is Hulk was willing to try and not pass judgment before reading.  Puny blogger here can only run puny mouth about things blogger only guess at and not know.  Hulk hate blogger!

Ok now Hulk have to explain something.  Recently big movie with Hulk in it come out.  There have been other movies with Hulk. Eric Bana he good in Chopper.  Edward Norton he good in Fight Club.  Hulk think human can make good Hulk movie with them as Banner.  Hulk wrong.  But Hulk get no money from them.  Hulk get no money from this one.  Hulk think to smash movie producers but Hulk too busy.  So much smashing so little time.  It old story one Hulk sure you understand.  Hulk like Mark Ruffalo though.  Did you see Zodiac?  Hulk enjoy Zodiac where Ruffalo play police man.  Hulk often fight police army navy air force what have you.  If it wear uniform and have gun Hulk fight it.  Always puny humans in uniforms hound Hulk with their weak guns.  That is why.  But Ruffalo okay guy in Hulks book.  So Hulk think this movie okay.

Hulk lose train of Hulks thought.  What Hulk mean to talk about here is this drawing stupid blogger human make of Hulk.  Hulk hear of this from Thing during fight where Hulk and Thing wreck part of Yancy Street.  Hulk interested.  Hulk beat Thing!  HULK ALWAYS BEAT THING!  THING NOT SMART CHALLENGE HULK!  THING NOT SMART TO MAKE FUN OF HULK USING BAD PICTURE BY PUNY HUMAN!

Where Hulk?  Oh yeah.  Hulk beat Thing senseless with Things own foot then leave Thing remember what Thing tell him about picture  smash open Internet cafe look online and find this stupid blog.  Who this person think Hulk?  Hulk know who Maria Hill is stupid worthless human!  You are puny!  Hulk find person.  Hulk say why you make stupid drawing?  Person say I dont know.  Hulk say you stop lying about Hulk!  Humans always lie about Hulk!  Wont leave Hulk alone!

Hulk say Maria Hill work for SHIELD.  Maria Hill important in many events happen to Captain America and Iron Man.  Blogger say it news to him.  He not know that when he make drawing and not know why he kept thinking of name.  See?  Stupid blogger not know who Maria Hill is try to pin ignorance on Hulk.  But Hulk strongest there is!  Make Hulk angry and Hulk gets stronger.  Make blogger angry and blogger turns red in face and wets pants.  It almost make Hulk laugh but really it sad.  Hulk wonder what happened to human discourse.

So Hulk tell person he should feel bad for lying about Hulk and for fooling people who look for good picture of Hulk.  Hulk say you tell them not to look at your picture!  There better pictures of Hulk for them to look at.  Looking at pictures of Hulk is good thing good for the heart.  But not this one.  It bad for Blogger persons health.  Blogger person say Hulk you tell your side of story.  One person read blog.  Chance this person have family or maybe talk to other puny humans at some point in the future.  Maybe even have job where maybe talk about Hulk sometime even if no one listen it still get in their brains.  Hulk think.  Thinking not Hulks strong point but finally Hulk decide puny human blogger have good idea!  Now Hulk finished telling Hulks side.  HULKS SIDE ONLY SIDE!

You go outside.  Enjoy day.  Dont read picture book for little children.  If you do dont write about it like this person.