But none of that now, this is all about bringing in the Forever People themselves; who appear in Metropolis via a Boom Tube (which, for its first appearance, warrants two solid pages worth of onomatopoeia and Kirby Grandeur), and riding a futuristic vehicle; The Super Cycle. And we’re also introduced to the Forever People themselves, though they don;’t get much characterization in their debut issue; Big Bear is loud and excitable, Serephen is a telepathic cowboy, Vykin the Black is… black, and Moonracer is also a member of the team. And after they appear and nearly drive a pair of teenagers off the road in fright (saving them with the power of the living computer called The Mother Box), they announce that they traveled to earth from Supertown in pursuit of the fifth member of their band Beautiful Dreamer, who is being held captive by Darkseid somewhere near Metropolis.
Meanwhile, back at the Daily Planet, Clark Kent is feeling glum after conducting an interview with Rocky Balboa (!?!?) when he realizes (all of a sudden) that as he is a man with super powers, he simply can’t relate to an average man, like Rocky Balboa and is all alone with no one he can really consider a peer. Superman apparently forgot about, like, any of the people he hangs out with at his other job. And also forgot about the reason he has a mild-mannered reporter as an alternate identity.
Just then Jimmy Olsen (this story must take place just before the whole Wild Area thing) and reveals he just got a scoop about these wild space teens from a place called Supertown, and Superman decides, then and there, that there’s nothing in the world more important to him than moving to a town that sounds like it’s full of super powered people, and he flies off in pursuit of the FOrever People, unfortunately grabbing the attention of Intergang, and their (currently nameless) leader Bruno “Ugly” Manheim, who answer to Darkseid directly, and who has gifted them with weapons of otherworldly power.
The Forever People decide to trust Superman immediately once they see that Intergang is trying to kill him and that Superman is strong enough to withstand Apokoliptic weapons, and agree to take him to Supertown once they finish saving Beautiful Dreamer. Luckily, between the technology of the Mother Box, and Supermans abilities, they’re able to find the bunker where Dreamer is being held captive. Unluckily, the bunker is protected by lethal Radion Gas (a poison potent enough to kill a God) and also Graviguards; alien monsters adapted to life in gravity fields thousands of times stronger than Earths.
Things look dire until the Forever People use the power of the Mother Box to combine into one; Infinity Man (or possibly Infinity Man is a another guy who appears in exchange for the Forever People, it’s kind of vague) and Infinity Mans vague, but enormous power is enough to beat all the Graviguards, and also call Darkseid out of hiding, and admonish him for kidnapping Beautiful Dreamer and trying to use her unique brain chemistry to unravel something called The Anti-Life Equation.
Darkseid is happy to relinquish Dreamer as, while her brain is capable of understanding the Anti-Life Equation, it’s also impossible for him to use any of his machinery to extract that information from her, and there’s no point to using her as a captive any more, and departs for Apokolips. Darkseid also boasts a pretty different design than usual in this book. Honestly, I’m a bit disappointed it didn’t stick around longer; dude looks good in a cape and long pants.
Anyway, true to their word, the Forever People open a Boomtube to Supertown for Superman to visit, which he almost does. But he reconsiders when he realizes that this Darkseid fellow has designs to attack the Earth and he can’t bring himself to leave it undefended from a menace like that for even an instant.
And, on the whole, I can kind of see how Forever People got its weaker reputation if this is the inaugural effort. It introduced a lot of pretty important bits of the Fourth World mythos, but none of the heroes made any particular impact and Superman acted kind of like a giant dingus the whole time through. Also; Infinity Man looked kind of stupid considering what a Big Deal he’s treated as.
So next is the first issue of The New Gods, Orion Fights For Earth. And at first I was going to make some kind of goof about it sounding like a Little Golden Book title. And then I turned the page and saw this;
That’s Page One
And what followed was 23 pages of Kirby, at his Kirbiest, Kirbying harder than he’s ever Kirbied before.
This is the Superstar Ultra of Kirby, played on a pink DS. That’s how Kirby this thing is.
It’s also the best introduction we’ve had yet to the whole concept of the Fourth World, an introduction to almost all of the most important characters in the saga, and heaps of Orion just wrecking dudes. Also, reading this with Kirbys run on Thor still fresh in my mind, it is blatantly clear how much of it inspired this.
Short version of the BOMBAST illustrated above is that the Old Gods who represented Good and Evil had one final, apocalyptic battle that broke their world in half; the good side eventually reforming as the peaceful planet of New Genesis (very obviously Asgard. Like, straight up, “I think Kirby just reused some sketches of the place he already had), and the dismal perpetually on fire Apokolips (Hell… it’s just Hell)
Anyway, one day in space, Orion (God of War, and wielder of The Astro-Force) received a summons to his home world of New Genesis by his buddy Lightray (God of… just being everybodys pal?), as the leader of the Gods of Genesis, High Father (Odin, if he calmed down a lot) has found a prophecy written by a Giant Flaming Hand connected to The Source; the force that created the universe itself that is kind of implied to be capital G-God.
Remember what I said before about the Fourth World being a Space Opera that is also a Biblical Epic?
Anyway, Orion is pretty curious/enthusiastic about the prophecy (Which simply says “Orion will go to Apokolips. Then to Earth. Then to War”) but is also greeted by the laziest New God Metron (God of Being a Smarty Pants. And also slouching in a space-chair). Metron and Orion plainly don’t get along well, at all, but the reason for their animosity is left unexplained; save that Metron teases Orion about his heritage and his pursuit of knowledge unleashed some great threat.)
So Orion flies off to Apokolips, and then spends the next dozen-ish pages just beating the ever-loving hell out of armies of Parademons, and Darkseids dimwitted, but horrifically powerful son, Kalibak the Cruel. And he also finds that Darkseid and the worst of his generals have already left Apokolips for Earth.
Metron shows up again and explains that Darkseid has the knowledge that vestiges of the Anti-Life Equation, capable of eradicating free-will, can be found in the minds of human beings, and he’d been secretly abducting humans for years trying to find it, before deciding to expedite the process by conquering the Earth first. Orion frees the captive humans and helps them escape back to Earth via a Boomtube, but winds up trapped on the planet along with them, secure in the knowledge that Darkseid is somewhere on the planet and vows to find and kill him.
So…. yeah…
That’s a dang good bit of comic booking right there.
Octoprime Movie Time! 