New Gods #7 (1972)
by Jack Kirby
We interrupt the current Orion plots on the pages of New Gods for a story that focuses on the New Gods.
Kind of weird that it took seven issues for it.
This is Highfather’s origin story, going back to his days as a newlywed when he was simply named Izaya.
The narration leaves me confused for so many reasons.
First of all, “the New Gods were formless in image”? What does that mean, they definitely have a physical body right now.
Second, if I understand correctly (BIG “IF”), this is suggesting that all the inhabitants of New Genesis and Apokolis are reincarnations of the old gods in a more literal sense than it’s usually understood.
The couple is ambushed by Steppenwolf, who ends up shooting Highfather’s wife despite the objections of his nephew.
Said nephew is none other than Darkseid himself.
That was just the lead-up to a full war between New Genesis and Apokolips.
If you ever wondered what Darkseid’s mother would look like… meet Heggra.
The reason for this meeting is that Darkseid has figured out a way to teleport past the New Genesis defenses.
Metron shows up out of nowhere to get the X-Element back, but Darkseid will let him have the technology only if Metron builds weapons for him.
I like how truly neutral Metron is being here… but it also makes most of his future interactions with Highfather incredibly hypocritical, isn’t it?
The war rages on, including with one of the most memorable Kirby splash pages.
Highfather gets a rematch with Steppenwolf.
Seriously, I really like Metron… but he’s so incredibly devoid of any sort of empathy that I don’t buy how Highfather will later treat him as one of the family.
If you’re here for larger-than-life Kirby spectacle… and who isn’t really… this issue delivers the most epic of epic epicness.
We have meteors being turned into giant soldiers, stars being turned into huge lasers and planet-size missiles thrown at stars.
The escalation of the war hits Highfather so deep that he temporarily loses his eyes.
And then his shirt.
This leads him to discover The Source. I’m not sure what answers this is supposed to provide, but I’d probably think this is deep if I was high.
We already saw Darkseid’s mother, but we also meet his wife… Tigra.
That was just a marriage of convenience, and Darkseid is taking over after his mother died in the war… OFF-PANEL, because even when he writes a good story Kirby just can’t be bothered to show something important to the plot.
The war isn’t going so well for either Apokolips or New Genesis, so the leaders have decided on one of the weirdest peace treaties ever… their leaders exchange sons.
The son of Highfather will grow up to become Mister Miracle, and I have to highlight he’s NEVER appeared in the series before (he shows up first in his owns series, which I’ll review later).
Apokolis is glad to get rid of Orion. So I guess the previous 6 issues were there to let us sympathize with them.
You can tell Orion comes from an evil planet because he’s bald.
Highfather gets his respect for… basically nothing besides maybe the slightest possible amount of human decency, which to be fair is not a thing on Apokolips.
Having this story serve as the origin for Mister Miracle despite him never showing up before in this series is already weird enough.
But then the back-up story is just 2 pages dedicated to Vykin of the Forever People.
Well, “story” might be too generous. It’s just Vykin noticing an underground troll and sending him away from some kids, while being glad the monster has a genetic defect.
If that was to be counted as its own story, it would probably be the most unnecessary ever told.
Historical significance: 10/10
This is naturally tremendously important for Orion and Mister Miracle, which is why the story is told here and not in the Mister Miracle series.
Silver Age-ness: 10/10
Where else could we buy all that mix of grandeur and nonsense?
Does it stand the test of time? 9/10
When people thing about Kirby’s Fourth World series, this is probably what they have in mind.
It’s unfortunate that it’s not representative of the average story, AT ALL… but this one doesn’t go into weird tangents, has a clear plot, and while characterization is light at least the characters behave in a believable way.
In fact this should have been issue 1. It gives you a proper context for the war and is a more interesting internal struggle for Orion than his vague proclamations.
It also makes Highfather an interesting character (don’t get used to that, he’s back to being a wet blanket immediately)… a warrior who is consumed by revenge and needs to discover peace.
I even liked some of the elements I made fun of, like Highfather’s hypocrisy or Metron’s psychotic neutrality, as they make the world more believable.
It could have used some fixes… Darkseid’s mother is completely unnecessary and her disappearing behind the scenes is perplexing, the pact about exchanging sons could have been developed more… but FOR ONCE, Kirby delivered a good story.
Splash pages: 2 out of 26 (8%)
Splash + double splash pages: 4 out of 26 (15%)
This includes the Vykin pages.
Most Kirby panel
Most WTF panel
Mister Miracle’s civilian name of “Scott Free” isn’t even his real name… it’s just a pun from Granny Goodness.
Interesting letters: I would agree with Jack’s defense of Kirby’s dialogues if only the New Gods talked like that. But humans also talk the same way in this series.
Issue 5 was quite a disappointment for Lester, who comes up with a better way to use Orion than Kirby will.
I don’t get the impression that the New Gods would be considered reincarnations of the old ones, at least not in the sense the word reincarnation is generally used – Being X is directly reborn as Being Y. It sounds more like the planets New Genesis and Apokolips were born out of the essence of a couple of the old gods, with anyone then born on either of those planets therefore being born from the essence of the good and bad gods the planets were formed from.
So all the residents of New Genesis are born from the essence of Balduur, while those from Apokolips spring from the evil sorceress. They’re all incarnations of the two, but not strictly reincarnations.
No clue what Kirby was going on about with the “formless in image” business. I assume he just wanted to use some vaguely biblical sounding creation-related jargon and settled on the phrase “without form and void” from Genesis because it sounded cool but hadn’t put much thought into any literal meaning it might have had.
I just read Tom Scioli’s graphic biography of Jack Kirby, which I very much recommend to anyone who’s not read him before. Apparently by the late 60s Kirby wanted Ragnarok to actually happen in the in the pages of THOR and show all the classic Marvel superheroes of the era being killed as a result, and then have them be replaced by his New Gods characters, which he had already created. That in part explains their name. (Also, he had a lifelong fascination with myth and legend.)
I also did not know until reading this biography that people wrote him at home to tell him how terrible they thought his dialogue was in his DC work in the early 70s, and that that deeply hurt him. It got to be such a problem he had to arrange to have his “fan mail” (if that’s what you could call it) delivered to another address so he wouldn’t be tempted to read it. But even when other writers at DC and then at Marvel (after he returned in the mid 70s to do Captain America and the Eternals) offered to write his books’ dialogue for him, because everyone saw how bad it was, he refused them because he thought they just wanted to ride his coattails to fame and take all the credit for themselves, much the way he felt Stan Lee had done.
It’s such a sad situation because he was such a brilliant myth-maker and artist (as this issue–one of his best for NEW GODS–amply shows), and yet he just didn’t have an ear at all for dialogue. Lee could be corny, but at least his characters could speak with flow.
Exchanging high-rank hostages as a condition for peace was not unknown. “Attack us and we kill the hostages” was understood.
The arrangements were often one-sided, with a conqueror taking hostages from a vassal king. For that matter, European kings often “honored” the sons of their more powerful barons with a position at court.