I’m not sure which issue of Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen this text page appeared in but it’s worth posting here even so.
The Hairies debuted in #134, the product of something called the DNA Project (the prototype for Project Cadmus, for any of y’all more familiar with post-Crisis Superman). While their mobile base makes a visual impression —
— the Hairies themselves never impressed me much. Perhaps because they’re smart, contemplative and thoughtful, Kirby couldn’t make them come alive as dynamically as the Newsboy Legion of Orion of the New Gods (who’s on the way).”They wing it with a zest to live and learn and make existence an art form” — I don’t get that at all from the characters in the story.
Kirby’s vision for them, expressed here, is much more captivating than the Hairies in these stories. Indeed, inspiring.
“When has man, as a species, disseminated idealism without destruction? When has man tried idealism as a viable, constructive pattern of living?” Good question. The answer is, very rarely. The early Christian church. Various communes and drop-out movements before and during the 1960s (not all of which tried idealism, but that’s a long discussion). Time and again when people have an ideal — well as Kirby says, it’s easier to export idealism and kill for it than live by it. As the British writer G.K. Chesterton once put it, it’s not that Christianity was tried and found wanting, it’s been wanting and never tried. That’s true of most belief systems.
The idea that things can be different, should be different, is immensely appealing. Kirby wrote this piece in the Cold War, when nuclear annihilation seemed a very possible threat (as a child of that era I can attest to that). Now we have countless other threats and some of us are still trying to impose their ideals on everyone else. Which is fine with some ideals, mark you. Freedom of religion, letting everyone live by their own ideals, has been one of America’s greatest strengths. Live and let live is an ideal in the same vein; as the Wiccans say, if it harms none, do as you will.
Other ideals, not so much. Oklahoma politician Dusty Deevers insists forcing unbelievers to accept Christianity is doing them a favor. He’s wrong, even if he believes what he’s saying. The classic description of evangelism is “I was hungry and a man told me where to find bread.” Coercive Christianity is “I don’t care whether you’re hungry. Eat this bread or I’ll cram it down your throat.”
Not that Christianity’s unique in this. The tendency exists in any religion and many secular belief systems. Communism was oppressive in the USSR and China. We’re living with the effects of unfettered absolute capitalism.
Jack’s vision of the Hairies still appeals. But I can understand why he had to imagine a new species to believe anyone could achieve it.
Yeah, it’s been fair while since I’d read Kirby’s Jimmy Olsen, so I hardly remember the Hairies. They did not make a lasting impression. In fact, pretty much all I recall is that pretty impressive-looking RV of theirs.
They’re definitely more interesting in the text piece (which, according to the GCD, appeared in the following issue, i.e., Jimmy Olsen #135).
Kirby lived through the horror of WWII and like Vonnegut it turned him into something of a humanist who could see the absurdity of the world order. He seemed particularly fascinated by hippies around this period, and with the Vietnam War still raging, his Fourth World saga is so much about war and trauma and life and freedom.
I don’t think I’ve read this text page before– good stuff.
Yes, there’s the whole idea of Darkseid being eager to snuff out all independence and free will, while the Forever People embody kids doing their own thing.