Greg Goldstein's Comic Art Gallery

Tag: New Gods

Steve Rude — Love Letter To The King

Original Art and The Artists

Mister Miracle Special #1, April 1987

We continue to celebrate Jack Kirby’s legacy at DC Comics with a special two-week look at Jack’s characters and concepts as envisioned by other creators. 2021 is the Fiftieth anniversary of the Fourth World storyline. *

Jack Kirby super-fan Steve Rude pens this artistic love letter to Kirby’s Fourth World, in this one-shot from 1987. Along for the tribute are Jack’s best-known collaborators at DC, writer Mark Evanier and inker Mike Royer.

On this inventive and powerful splash page — the best in the issue — Rude cleverly uses a “trapped” Miracle as the backdrop for other Fourth World characters including The Forever People, Lightray of the New Gods, and Big Barda.

Rude and Evanier would reunite again for another Kirby tribute years later with a 1999 Jimmy Olsen story in Legends of the DC Universe # 14. (Inked this time by Bill Reinhold.)

*Purists will note that some of the characters and titles actually made it onto newsstands before the close of 1970, but the fully integrated series (Jimmy Olsen, Forever People, New Gods, and Mister Miracle) — doesn’t fully materialize until the following year.

Alex Ross — Mr. Kirby’s Wild Ride

Original Art and The Artists

Lithograph, 1999

We continue to celebrate Jack Kirby’s legacy at DC Comics with a special two-week look at Jack’s characters and concepts as envisioned by other creators. 2021 is the Fiftieth anniversary of the Fourth World storyline. *

Alex Ross recreates one of Jack’s best-know splash pages from New Gods in his exquisite photo-realistic painted style for a lithograph and Giclee.

Jack Kirby. Alex Ross. Not much more to add here. Different art styles. Different art mediums. Different generations. Both masters of their respective forms.

*Purists will note that some of the characters and titles actually made it onto newsstands before the close of 1970, but the fully integrated series (Jimmy Olsen, Forever People, New Gods, and Mister Miracle) — doesn’t fully materialize until the following year.

As is often the case, the original color (below right) seems more true to form than the digital re-color, above.

Jim Starlin — Superman Among The Gods

Original Art and The Artists

Death of the New Gods #7, May 2008

We continue to celebrate Jack Kirby’s legacy at DC Comics with a special two-week look at Jack’s characters and concepts as envisioned by other creators. 2021 is the Fiftieth anniversary of the Fourth World storyline. *

Superman (with Mr. Miracle’s help) gets into it with the Infinity man in this great splash page and well-crafted mini-series by Jim Starlin.

Starlin of course created Thanos, the not-quite knock-off of Darkseid, who became one of the most popular super-villains in the Marvel Universe, and ultimately the ultimate “Big-bad” of the MCU. So it’s fitting to have him play in the Darkseid’s  sandbox as well.

Ironically, it took Darkseid a bit longer to achieve the same level of popularity in the DC Universe, but his own crown as DC’s ultimate super-villain has been amplified by his inclusion in the Zach Snyder “cut”of Justice League.

As for the series title? Let’s just say that reports of the New Gods’ deaths are greatly exaggerated.

*Purists will note that some of the characters and titles actually made it onto newsstands before the close of 1970, but the fully integrated series (Jimmy Olsen, Forever People, New Gods, and Mister Miracle) — doesn’t fully materialize until the following year.

Darkseid and Thanos, not as similar as you might think. (Darkseid doesn’t need a cosmic cube to be a god — he already is one.)

Jack Kirby — Hello and Goodbye, Rinse, Repeat

Original Art and The Artists

DC Graphic Novel #4 – The Hunger Dogs, June 1985

Jack Kirby’s tenure at DC was ultimately a mixed bag — for both Jack and DC. 

The Fourth World saga was one of the most ambitious projects ever attempted in comics at that time; yet, the books were cancelled well before they had a chance to fully realize Jack’s vision.

And yet…  there was something about those characters and premises that continued to resonate.

Jack’s Post DC career included a three-year return at Marvel (Think Eternals, et al), his own creator-owned comics (Captain Victory, Silver Star) and a home at animation house DePatie-Freleng studios and then later Ruby-Spears.

And then, another opportunity arose at DC to finish his New Gods saga. DC would reprint the original series in “deluxe” format and give Jack a chance to end the saga with new material.

But, unfortunately Jack wanted to end the saga in a way that would kill off the main characters, and by then DC had grown accustomed to having them in the line-up. 

So, Jack was again denied the chance again to finish it in his vision. And somehow the end of the saga morphed into a standalone graphic novel, Hunger Dogs, which also didn’t bring the story to a satisfactory conclusion.

And the graphic novel itself was a mess on the production end. Pages intended for the standard comic books were reworked for the graphic novel using photocopies, corrections, new “border” art and a host of other techniques to turn standard size pages into graphic novel pages.

Fortunately, Jack did create brand new large art pages for the GN, and they are pretty terrific in terms of page layout and composition, as evidenced here.  They are his final work for either of the “big two” publishers.

As for the New Gods? They lived on, and more importantly, Darkseid arguably became the most important villain in the DCU. Jack shared in some of that commercial success, and his family continues to share in that success today.

A fitting ending after all.