Following Jack Kirby’s DC debut — Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen — February 1971 (cover-dated) brought us two pure Kirby creations, Forever People #1 and New Gods #1 (though Alan Stewart says Kirby wrote the Forever People’s first issue before he started on Jimmy’s book). “In Search of a Dream” is written by Kirby and drawn by Kirby, though Al Plastino redid Superman’s appearances to fit the house style.
As I keep mentioning, the Fourth World books came out when Dad returning to America and bringing us with him led to a no-comics-buying couple of years. By the time I got to the Kirby stuff, it was on its last legs. The super-hippies of Forever People were the weakest of the books. Reading the earlier issues later, though, I realized they had the strongest statements of the life vs. anti-life theme fueling this mythos.
This issue opens with the sight of a boom tube, then our new heroes emerge through it in Kirby’s usual dynamic style.
As we soon learn, they’ve arrived on Earth to rescue the final member of their commune, Beautiful Dreamer, from Darkseid. Almost immediately we learn about Mother Box.
Meanwhile Superman, as I mentioned Monday, is suffering some heavy-duty angst. First a boxer complains Superman makes all physical effort pointless.
Then Clark has the blues.
When Jimmy barges in with a photo of the Forever People and the Boom Tube, Clark’s super-eyes spot a miraculous town at the far end. Is it possible it’s somewhere even a Superman could be happy? The Kryptonian Crimebuster flies off to investigate. Meanwhile the Forever People have become targets of Intergang, under the orders of Darksed.
Superman teams up with the Forever People only to have Intergang unleash fighters with heavy-gravity powers to take him down. Which they shouldn’t — Superman has a lot of other tricks he can pull — but it sets up the Forever People’s mysterious ally, Infinity Man, to demonstrate he’s playing at Superman’s level.
The two supers then meet Darkseid.
One thing that bugs me is that Darkseid never seems like someone who’d get this up close and personal with anyone less impressive than Orion or Highfather. Evil gods have people for that. However he does introduce Beautiful Dreamer, and gives Superman a chance to prove he plays on Infinity Man’s level too.
Infinity Man then trades places again with the Forever People. To their dismay, Superman decides to leave Earth and the battle against Darkseid for a visit to Supertown, the one place he can call home.
This feels like Kirby trying to write Superman with Marvel-style melodram, but it doesn’t work for me. He’s got the Justice League, he’s got Supergirl; if he wants to go home to Krypton, he has Kandor. What’s the unknown Super-Town going to offer him? And I can’t buy Superman deciding to leave Earth, even if Darkseid wasn’t around. He’s not the type to pull a Spider-Man No More character arc.
#1 is not a bad book by any means. If I’d read it fresh in 1971 would I have been blown away? Maybe. Then again if not for Superman I might have assumed it was a Marvel book and passed it by (IIRC, that’s what I did with Mr. Miracle #1). Looked at now … well, it’s a decent start. I’ll have more to say as the saga gets further along.
