New Gods #8 (1972)
by Jack Kirby
After a surprisingly good issue, will the series keep the new level of quality?
Well Orion is back on the cover, so I’m not very hopeful.
Kalibak is also back. Considering he’s Orion’s first adversary (if we discount Parademons), he’s done shockingly little so far.
He’s looking for Orion, but since he finds only the civilians he rescued it’s up to Dave Lincoln and his amazing ability to always announce his full name.
You might wonder when superheroes are going to show up, but I’m guessing the cops are the only superheroes now?
Also you can’t convince me that’s not at least a laser gun.
All while Orion and Lightray are busy stalking some random teenagers.
Hey remember how two issues ago they left a grieving father to starve to death in the middle of the ocean and sent his daughter back home after she lost her brother? Maybe focus on those civilians?
We interrupt this… well I was going to say ether “superhero comic” or “space opera”, but good luck identifying what kind of genre New Gods is supposed to be… to bring you the setup for a sitcom episode that won’t actually happen.
Is it just me or is Lightray getting creepier every issue?
I’m not entirely sure why Dan Turpin is now the resident expert on superhumans, considering he hasn’t done anything at this point. My best guess is his expertise as one of the Boy Commandos, but even that is stretching it.
But how are regular cops going to deal with Kalibak?
Yeah that’s about right.
Notice that the police immediately responded to the emergency call coming from the only apartment Orion has ever been to, while our resident ““““protagonist”””” continue to waste everybody’s time.
So I guess the MotherBox™ isn’t as efficient as a phone.
This is what passes for humanizing alien beings in this series.
On what planet does Lightray look “famished”, by the way?
This is more or less the same setup with Silver Surfer in the original Galactus Trilogy, and yet I find that scene infinitely more believable.
Thankfully, we’re spared more pleasantries when Orion learns about the Kalibak attack from our most reliable source of information, Plot Convenience News.
I can’t believe we’re not focusing this entire series of Dan Turpin, who is SO AWESOME that he decides to fight Kalibak ALONE.
It… doesn’t go well for him.
Thankfully Orion is here to save the day!
Aaaaany time now.
Well at least he’s going to defeat Kalibak in a creative way.
Because it sure would be underwhelming if Orion turned the tide of the battle by simply being stronger.
And Dan Turpin is STILL going at it!!!
Kalibak sees Orion’s real face for the first time, and once again I must stress how Kirby missed the mark by not making his “monster face” ugly enough.
Kalibak is eventually defeated when the cops discharge the entire electric grid on him, because that’s something the police can do.
This could have been redeemed if it turned out that Orion’s face is perfectly normal and that it’s in his head, but that’s asking too much from this series.
We have once again another short “story” featuring Fastbak and Black Racer.
I can’t believe we wasted all that time with Orion when we could have had METEOR SKATING and FIRE-BREATHING SPACE BATS the entire time!!!
Eventually Fastbak, the character nobody’s ever cared about, manages to save a character who hasn’t been introduced and who serves no purpose.
Yay?
Historical significance: 0/10
Kalibak was arrested and Dan Turpin has five or six concussions more. That’s basically all that happens in this comic.
Silver Age-ness: 6/10
The police can just casually dump all the city’s electricity into one target, plus of course we have the FIRE-BREATHING SPACE BATS.
Does it stand the test of time? 4/10
To answer my initial question… no, the series couldn’t keep the same quality of issue 7.
The pacing is SLIGHTLY better than the first issues, and Dan Turpin is awesome, but I still can’t get over just how uninteresting Orion can be as a protagonist.
Splash pages: 2 out of 26 (8%)
No splash pages
This includes the Fastbak pages.
Most Kirby panel
Most WTF panel
Wait, there was a question whether the various actions from the Apokolips villains were real?
Interesting letters: future DC writer Bob Rozakis liked issue 6 because it was a bit more realistic than expected. Then again, I don’t know who was expecting any from New Gods.
Christopher has an excellent analysis of many things that don’t work in this series.
Mark Evanier answers every point.
I’m calling bulls#it on point 2, by the way. This is a series were both barely anything happens and there are probably more splash pages than in the average Image comics from the initial creators.
I do, however, concede that Kirby’s heart was in the right place with the conscientious objector… even if the execution left A LOT to be desired.
