New Gods
New Gods (Eng. "The New Gods") is a series of comic publications that the US publisher DC Comics , a subsidiary of the Time Warner Group, has been publishing since 1972.
The New Gods Comics go back to the New York writer and draftsman Jack Kirby , who developed the concept of the series as well as the visual designs of its locations and main characters. In terms of genre, the New Gods Comics are located in the area of science fiction or fantasy. Characteristic for the comics are, depending on the theme, pronounced mythological echoes that are based on the structure, narrative style and atmosphere of ancient epics. There are also echoes of the superhero comic, a specifically American sub-genre of science fiction comics that Kirby himself co-created in the early 1940s.
At the center of the series, which is also known in the USA as " Fourth World Mythology " or Jack Kirby's Fourth World , are the eponymous "New Gods", a powerful extraterrestrial race consisting of two rival peoples. They consider themselves gods because of their immense innate powers and therefore bear this name. The addition "New" is routinely explained within the plot of the series with the fact that both races trace their ancestry back to an ominous, in the dark of "history" lying, people of common ancestors, which within the universe of the "New Gods" stories only as "The old gods" is known.
Release dates
The original "New Gods" comics
Since the early 1970s, DC has published nine regular, "ongoing" series, as well as a variety of miniseries and a few graphic novels featuring the "New Gods" material. The core is formed by the four "original" "Fourth World" series published between 1970 and 1973, in which Jack Kirby, as author and illustrator, laid the foundation for the entire Fourth World mythology.
These series were, on the one hand, the series Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen (1970–1973), which had already been running for fifteen years when Kirby took over, and on the other hand, the three specifically for Kirby's "New Gods Project" Life-called series The New Gods (Volume 1), Forever People (Volume 1, 1971-1973) and Mister Miracle (Volume 1, 1971-1973). The series Jimmy Olsen, which focuses on the young photographer - and self-proclaimed best friend of the hero Superman - James Olsen from the futuristic city of Metropolis, was originally a slapstick series characterized by humorous and fantastic adventures before Kirby took it over The starting point and draft horse of his epically tinged adventure stories from the "Fourth World": He used the main character of the "Jimmy Olsen" series, well-known to American comic readers for years and already well-established, as the "guide" and "companion" of his readers, in order to be able to familiarize them step by step with his new concepts and ideas. The character of Jimmy Olsen functions above all as a kind of exposure figure who has to discover the world of the "New Gods" just as much as the readers: By drawing Olsen through a series of entanglements in the confrontations of the New Gods, the Introduced readers to the world of the new gods. Just as the reader of the Olsen comics sees the Fourth World for the first time, the Jimmy Olsen character is someone who sees this world for the first time. Accordingly, Kirby was able to use the "Jimmy Olsen" series to have the main character - as an "experiencing newcomer in the fourth world" - ask all the questions his readers had to ask themselves as "reading newcomers in the fourth world" and provide readers with all the answers they need. Mister Miracle , New Gods and Forever People finally built on the knowledge offered to the readers in Jimmy Olsen and began to tell completely new stories that initially revolved exclusively around new characters created by Kirby especially for this purpose.
These series were set up as independent - and therefore understandable - series, but at the same time were also embedded in the "epic large complex" sought by Kirby, within which they acted as complementary components of a "larger whole". This means that on the one hand, each row could be understood as a self-contained individual row, but at the same time it could also be lined up as a component in a larger frame that results in a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.
Since the four rows had to be discontinued prematurely, Kirby could not lead his space saga to an end, but had to “let the project rest” from 1973 onwards. In the late 1970s, seven more editions of Mister Miracle appeared as a partial continuation of the old series , which continued the numbering of the old series, which had been discontinued after 17 issues (# 18-25). In addition, Mister Miracle was a frequent guest star in the 1970s and 1980s in the "Team-Up" series The Brave and the Bold and DC Comics Presents , in which Batman and Superman experienced adventures together with changing characters from the DC publisher.
The later "New Gods" comics (1981-2003)
In 1984, the eleven issues of the "New Gods" series were reissued as a six-part mini-series, with the first five issues of the new mini-series each reprinting two of the old issues, while issue # 6 was issue # 11 of the old series and one by Kirby Contributed new supplementary chapter included, which did not quite end the series, but dissolved some unfinished storylines and logically rounded off the epic that was suddenly broken off. In addition, Kirby wrote the Super Powers series since 1984 , in which he told stories about Darkseid, Metron and other "New Gods" characters, among other things.
In 1985, DC finally published the graphic novel The Hunger Dogs , drawn and written by Kirby , which finally presented a conclusion to the "Fourth World" theme.
Between 1988 and 2003 numerous sequels and reinterpretations of the old stories were published in which new authors and draftsmen - mostly excluding the Hunger Dogs story - devoted themselves to Kirby's "New Gods": DC produced the in the later 1980s and early 1990s Miniseries Forever People (1988), a second "New Gods" series (1989/1990), a special (1988), and two other series under the Mister Miracle title (1987–1990 and 1995) by Doug Moench ( 28 issues) and Kevin Dooley (7 issues). In the later 1990s, followed by John Byrne crafted series Jack Kirby's Fourth World (1996-1998) and two Mister Miracle -Miniserien (1997 and 2005). From 2001 to 2003, DC finally released the series Orion (28 issues), most of which was written and authored by Walt Simonson and which also included the "backup series" Tales of the New Gods .
Reprints
In 2000, DC Kirby's "Fourth World" work began to be completely reissued in solid anthologies. In order to be able to “ sufficiently bring out the“ artistic perfection ”of Kirby's drawings , it was decided to reprint the stories in black and white, that is, Kirby's drawings were printed in their original condition, unchanged by the usual coloring.
In 2006, DC presented the entire Fourth World saga of the 1970s in a collected form, here all the 70s stories from all four original "Kirby series" appeared in a single great volume under the title Jack Kirby's Fourth World Omnibus . The individual issues within the volume are arranged in such a way that the chronological sequence of the events is preserved: Instead of printing all Forever People issues or all Mister Miracle issues from the first to the last issue of the respective series one after the other and then the next Following the series as a monolithic block (example “ Mr. Miracle ” # 1–15, then “ Forever People ” # 1–10, then “ New Gods ” # 1–11 etc.) the overall canon of the plot is observed, so that For example, two New Gods magazines are printed one after the other, which are immediately linked to one another, then the story to be played next in chronological order follows - for example from a “ Jimmy Olsen ” magazine, and the subsequent story - e.g. B. three " Forever People " issues - to be placed, etc., so that at the end of the story, the story is presented in a consistent story arc without gaps and jumps.
The first five editions of Simonson's Orion series were presented with some supplementary material as an anthology under the title The Gates of Apokolips .
action
The new gods are the inhabitants of two fundamentally different twin planets that based on the first and the last book of the Bible - the book of Genesis and the Apocalypse of St. John - New Genesis ( "New Genesis") and Apokolips hot. While New Genesis is a utopian paradise with dreamlike landscapes of pristine forests, peaceful rivers and picturesque mountains, which is governed with a gentle hand by the wise and benevolent Highfather ("Holy Father"), Apokolips is a nightmarish, gloomy place on which a People of slaves (the "hunger dogs") eke out a miserable existence. Apokolips is littered with pits of fire from which the embers of the planet's core waft to the surface, and his tyrannical ruler Darkseid has vaulted the planet with hostile, cold, angular, metallic technology and monstrous monumental buildings. The population works in the mines and arms factories to construct terrible weapons and thus satisfy Darkseid's greed for power.
Originally both planets were part of a single great world: after a numinous agony of the old gods known as Ragnarök , however, it split into two parts: a good and a bad world.
Aftermath
Soon after his stories were first published, Kirby's "New Gods" mythology had a major impact on the work of numerous American filmmakers and comics, especially in the science fiction genre: The adaptation of many plot patterns, aesthetic concepts and characters is certainly important the "Fourth World" for the popular Star Wars series . For example, similar to the relationship between Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker, the villain and the main heroes in the "Star Wars" films conspicuously (Darth Vader tries his son Skywalker's "dark side" dark side to win) the relationship between the dictator Darkseid and his son Orion, the main villain or main hero in Kirby's "New Gods" stories.
Another series that has been influenced by Kirby's mythology of the gods is the fantasy comic He-Man from the early 1980s.