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the Creeper by Steve Ditko
DC Comics
Release Date February 24th, 2010
$39.99 USD
256 Pages, HC
DC Comics has just announced that Steve Ditko's wacky 1960’s superhero, “the Creeper” will be immortalized in a hardcover volume this coming February.
In 1968, Ditko fresh from such triumphs as Spiderman for Marvel and the Blue Beetle for Charlton, moved to DC Comics, and created one of the most unusual heroes in their pantheon. The Creeper debuted in Showcase #73 and along with “Beware the Creeper” ran for seven issues before Ditko moved on from DC Comics for reasons unknown. I don’t know what it is about the Creeper with his yellow skin and mane of red fur, but he has always fascinated me. I loved his Shadowesque way of taunting criminals from the shadows with his spooky laugh before he would leap into their midst to dispense justice to the assorted villians.
The Creeper has the wonderful pacing and rich texture that is the trademark of the mysterious Steve Ditko and is one of the most underated of all of his creations. But it is, in my opinion, one of Ditko's greatest gifts to the comic book world.
Thank you, Mr. Ditko, wherever you are...
All DC Comics characters and the distinctive likeness(es) thereof are © DC Comics, Inc.
Jack Kirby's Fourth World Omnibus Volumes 1 to 4
DC Comics
Released July 2007- March 2008
My feet fell to the sidewalk in a steady and excited pace as I made my way up 2nd Avenue to St. Mark's Place in New York City. Today's adventure was acquiring a collection of what I consider the apex of the comic book superhero genre and the most important graphic masterpiece to grace the memory of my youth. I entered St. Mark's Comics and walked up and down the store, eventually finding my comic grail, the first volume of Jack Kirby's Fourth World Omnibus.
In the fall of 1970, after many years of fueling the rocket ship ride known as the Marvel Age of Comics, Jack Kirby left Marvel for their competition, DC Comics. It was like a hurricane had hit Marvel leaving them bereft of the inventive eye of their creative storm who along with Stan Lee co-created the Fantastic Four, the Hulk, the X-Men and many more legendary characters. Upon arrival at DC, Kirby was asked to incorporate one of their titles into his upcoming Fourth World masterpiece. Ever the gentleman, Kirby asked which DC comic at the time had no established artist and said he would take over that title. Kirby made this unusual request because he's reported to have not wanted to put someone else out of a job. Kirby chose the moribund and painfully lame, Jimmy Olsen, to join the pantheon he was about to let loose on the world. Bolstering the ranks of the Fourth World were three other brand new Kirby original comics he'd been working on even as he steered the Marvel ship to its 1960's triumphs.
The first and epicenter of the Fourth World quartet, "The New Gods” starred the fearsome Orion and a Wagnerian cast of Gods from the idyllic planet New Genesis and its malevolent doppelganger, the scarred and energy-pitted planet of Apokolips. This galactic inferno's leader, the awe-inspiringly evil Darkseid, is truly one of graphic narrative's greatest villains. The series focuses on Darkseid's search for the Anti-Life Equation, which will grant him complete mental domination over all who live in the universe. Darkseid is opposed by his benevolent counterpart, Highfather, and the other Gods of New Genesis who travel to earth to battle the hordes of Apokolips. We learn about the mysterious connection between the warrior Orion and Darkseid, his true father, and of the pact that sent him to New Genesis to achieve a ceasefire in the cosmic war that almost devastated both planets. Also introduced in this volume are Orion and his friend Lightray, Highfather and the inscrutable Metron, an Einsteinian celestial who roams the universe in his dimension spanning Mobius Chair. We meet their counterparts from Apokolips from Darkseid to Desaad, Mantis, and Orion's savage malformed brother, Kalibak. We see the stirrings of an epic tale that takes us from the arrival of the Gods on Earth to the first attempts at Earth's subjugation by Darkseid.
The second to headline his own title in the Fourth World series was "Mister Miracle, Super Escape Artist". Mr. Miracle was the earthbound name for Scott Free, escapee from Apokolips and, as revealed in the next volume, the true son of Highfather. In Mr. Miracle, the longest running of the Fourth World titles, we follow Free; his diminutive assistant, Oberon; and Big Barda, the fabulously beautiful love of his life who followed Scott to earth, as they fight the outrageous villains of Apokolips. In the first volume, we meet the nightmarish Granny Goodness, a grandmotherly harpy who ruled the Orphanage on Apokolips like a WWII death camp, as well as the fiendish Doctor Bedlam who tries to trap Mr. Miracle in a skyscraper filled with people that Bedlam has exposed to a gas that drives them into a mad frenzy of paranoia and destruction. The villains are fresh and inventive with names that could have been taken from the Cosmic Thesaurus of the Unusual.
The third of this terrific trio, “The Forever People", centered on a small band of love children from New Genesis who find their way to earth in search of one of their own. They arrive via an interdimensional bridge called the Boom Tube and rescue the ravishing Beautiful Dreamer from the clutches of Darkseid and his minions. Forever People are innocent explorers against the backdrop of a galactic war that secretly begins to be waged across the universe. They are protected and guided by Mother Box, a living computer which all inhabitants of New Genesis carry and treat with a deference granted to items of deep religious significance. It is new and original concepts like the Mother Box and the Boom Tube that endeared this adventure to my teenage mind many years ago.
But the star of the early Fourth World series is the visionary and wildly adventurous Jimmy Olsen. Prior to Kirby's arrival, Jimmy Olsen was one of the most devastatingly boring comics in the DC stable of titles. It seemed every issue centered on the cub photographer's misadventures which almost always ended with Superman being summoned to rescue Jimmy. After 132 issues, this formula was as stale and lame as a Gilligan's Island plotline. I found it unreadable even at the tender age of 10 and most of my contemporaries agreed with me.
Issue 133 of "Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen" bore "Kirby is HERE!" emblazoned across the cover. Underneath was the comic's logo which now read "Superman's Ex-Pal, Jimmy Olsen", with the image below of an angry Jimmy Olsen with a fearsome looking hippy on a souped-up three-wheeled motorcycle running over Superman. It was obvious to any who held that now-classic issue that things had changed drastically for Jimmy. Inside we see Olsen as he meets the Newsboy Legion, a motley crew of youngsters in possession of an amazing super car called the Whiz Wagon. They were given this vehicle in exchange for visiting and filming Olsen in the Wild Area, a shadowy dropout world near the city of Metropolis. The group enters the Wild Area, and after their first encounter with the motorcycle gang "The Outsiders", Olsen assumes control by defeating their leader in a fistfight. The story takes us down the Zoomway in search of the mysterious Mountain of Judgment and into comic book history. Kirby unveils a plot involving DNA, cloning, and a military operation by the name of "The Project", which controls all. Duplicates of Olsen and the Newsboy Legion pop up all over in this rambunctious rollercoaster ride of a story that rampages across the first six issues of what is eventually titled "Superman's Pal, the New Jimmy Olsen."
Throughout Jimmy Olsen and other Fourth World titles, Kirby deftly wields themes and concepts that have become today's headlines, examining, to mention a few, the consequences of DNA research and weaponization. In the Forever People we see the Counterculture at its most perfect and the villains they face attempt to subvert our heroes using mind control, indoctrination, and the anti-life equation. The New Gods is the main battleground for the war that rages in the background between New Genesis and Apokolips as Orion fights to defend the weak against these monsters from the beyond. Lastly, my personal favourite, Mister Miracle with its thematic background of freedom and the battle to escape a tyranny as evil and twisted as the nightmare world of the Nazi death camps.
I'd waited months for DC Comics to release a hard cover collection of this legendary series, even selling all my original issues of the Fourth World in anticipation. When I peeled the plastic wrap off my copy of Jack Kirby's Fourth World Omnibus Volume 1, I was not disappointed with my choice to part with my valued and tattered childhood collection. I applaud the brave decision to use newsprint instead of the usual high gloss paper used in most DC hard covers. It adds a retro feel to this edition that feels somehow appropriate. The design of the end papers and cover are up to the high standard I've come to expect from DC and their hard cover line of archives and collections.
The Fourth World is a frightening reflection of 21st Century Earth and the horrors that await those who stray into the shadows of dictatorship and despair. At the same time, the Fourth World preaches of peace and love as the most powerful thing of all. To be able to achieve a sweeping vision of terror and hope in just 55 short issues of a comic book series is nothing short of genius.
Jack Kirby is aptly named the King of Comics, and the Fourth World is a wonderful adventure that gives proof to this sobriquet.
Long Live the King.
All DC Comics characters and the distinctive likeness(es) thereof are © DC Comics, Inc.
