Jack Kirby’s Fourth World Omnibus: Volume Four
Review by Tim Janson
May 7, 2008

Written by: Jack Kirby
Art: Jack Kirby & Mike Royer 
Editor: Jack Kirby
Publisher: DC Comics

When Jack Kirby left Marvel for DC around 1970, he was given unprecedented creative control to develop his Fourth World titles.  The main reason that Kirby left Marvel was because he had created or helped create most of Marvel’s top characters yet he had no control over them.  Now there are two schools of thought on Kirby’s departure to Marvel.  On one hand, DC perhaps really thought that they had scored a major coup by stealing away Marvel’s top artist.  However, it can be argued that by 1970, Kirby was no longer the top guy.  Artists like John Romita and John Buscema were the new “go to” guys and were getting the best assignments.  Other artists like Neal Adams, Jim Steranko, and Barry Smith had become the new fan favorites.

The other theory is that Kirby was given full control so that if he failed, it was totally on his shoulders.  As noted in the recent outstanding book by Mark Evanier, Kirby:  King of Comics, Jack had worked at DC in the 1940s and 50s and there were factions within the company that didn’t care for him.  Ultimately, none of the three core Fourth World titles (Mister Miracle, The Forever People, and The New Gods) lasted past 18 issues.  The more complex themes and storylines proved to be too far ahead of their time.  In the years since, Kirby’s creations have become integral in the DC universe, particularly the arch villain Darkseid, Mister Miracle, and many of the New Gods.  The titles have gained a new appreciation from fans, and in 2006, DC began collecting the titles into hardcover, omnibus format.  The fourth and final volume has just been released.

This volume collects issue #11 of both The Forever People and The New Gods (Issue #11 was the last for both) and issues 10 – 18 of Mister Miracle, along with the Hunger Dogs graphic novel that Jack did in 1985.  The book also includes extras such as Who’s Who profiles, and original pencil pages.

While Kirby was able to tie up a few loose ends with The Forever People and The New Gods, the stories were left unfinished.  The final panel of The New Gods has Orion, Darkseid’s son, vowing to use his powers to battle Darkseid and end the war between Apokolips and New Genesis.  Knowing the Fourth World epic had met an untimely conclusion, Kirby largely sidestepped the plotlines for the last several issues of Mister Miracle.

The Hunger Dogs graphic novel was intended to be Kirby’s conclusion to the Fourth World Saga but again, Jack found himself not being able to control the characters he created.  The problems with Hunger Dogs were numerous.  It was some ten plus years later and Kirby’s skills have noticeably deteriorated.  He wasn’t helped by the inconsistency of three inkers either.  Still, Hunger Dogs truly shows the scope of Kirby’s vast imagination.  In fact, if you look at the entire Fourth World saga, you’ll begin to notice that Jack had been working on the concepts of a cosmic milieu and modern day gods even before he moved to DC in 1970.  Marvel characters that Kirby created or co-created such as The Silver Surfer, Adam Warlock, The High Evolutionary, Ego the Living Planet, Galactus, and the Rigellian Recorder are all precursors to the Fourth World.  Jack had been perfecting these ideas for many years.  Even after he left DC to go back to Marvel he continued to work on these themes with his characters the Eternals and the Celestials.  This also seems to bear out the belief that Jack was the major force behind many of those 1960s Marvel titles and not Stan Lee.

The entire Fourth World saga is stunning in its scale.  They didn’t always work, and the dense plotting could be confusing at times but you have to marvel (pun intended) at the sheer brilliance of Jack Kirby.

Rating: 8 out of 10 (On its Way to Greatness!)

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