By Jack Kirby & Mike Royer (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-1916-1
There’s a magnificent abundance of Jack Kirby collections around these days (though still not all of it, so I remain a partially disgruntled fan) and this magnificent hardback compendium re-presents the complete “King’s Canon†of possibly his most enduring – although subsequently misunderstood and mishandled – DC creation after the comics landmark that was his Fourth World Cycle.
Famed for his larger than life characters and gigantic, cosmic imaginings, “King†Kirby was an astute, spiritual man who had lived though poverty, gangsterism, the Depression and World War II. He had seen Post-War optimism, Cold War paranoia, political cynicism and the birth and death of peace-seeking counter-cultures. He was open-minded and utterly wedded to the making of comics stories on every imaginable subject.
On returning from World War II, with his long-term creative partner Joe Simon, he created the genre of Romance comics for the Crestwood/Prize publishing outfit. Amongst that dynamics duo’s other concoctions for Prize was a, noir-ish, psychologically underpinned supernatural anthology Black Magic and its short-lived but fascinating companion title Strange World of Your Dreams. These titles eschewed the traditional gory, heavy-handed morality plays and simplistic cautionary tales for deeper, stranger fare, and until the EC comics line hit their peak were far and away the best mystery titles on the market.
Kirby understood the fundamentals of pleasing his audience and always strived diligently to combat the appalling state of prejudice about the comics medium – especially from industry insiders and professionals who despised the “kiddies world†they felt trapped in.
After his controversial, grandiose Fourth World titles were cancelled Kirby looked for other concepts which would stimulate his vast creativity and still appeal to an increasingly fickle market. General interest in the Supernatural was rising, with books and movies exploring the unknown in gripping and stylish new ways, and the Comics Code Authority had already released its censorious choke-hold on mystery and horror titles, thereby saving the entire industry from implosion when the superhero boom of the 1960s fizzled away.
At DC’s suggestion the King had already briefly returned to his Black Magic experimentation in a superb but poorly received and largely undistributed monochrome magazine. Spirit World #1 – and only – launched in the summer of 1971, but as before, editorial cowardice and back-sliding scuppered the project before it could get going.
Material from a second, unpublished issue eventually appeared in the colour comic-books Weird Mystery Tales and Forbidden Tales of Dark Mansion #6, but with most of his ideas misunderstood, ignored or side-lined by the company Kirby opted for more traditional fare. Never truly defeated though, he cannily blended his belief in the marketability of the supernatural with flamboyant super-heroics to create another unique and lasting mainstay for the DC universe: one that lesser talents would make a pivotal figure of the company’s continuity.
The Demon #1 launched in September 1972 and introduced a howling, leaping monstrosity (famously modelled after a 1939 sequence from Hal Foster’s Arthurian classic Prince Valiant) which battled beside its master Merlin as Camelot died in flames: a casualty of the rapacious greed of sorceress Morgaine Le Fey.
Out of that apocalyptic destruction, a man arose and wandered off into the mists of history…
In our contemporary world Jason Blood, demonologist and paranormal investigator, had a near-death experience with an aged collector of illicit arcana, which resulted in a hideous nightmare about a demonic being and the last stand of Camelot. He has no idea that Le Fey was alive and had sinister plans for him…
And in distant Moldavia, strange things were stirring in crumbling Castle Branek, wherein lay hidden the lost Tomb of Merlin…
Blood was wealthy, reclusive and partially amnesiac, but one night he agreed to host a small dinner party, entertaining acquaintances Harry Mathews, psychic UN diplomat Randu Singh, his wife Gomali and their flighty young friend Glenda Mark. It did not go well.
Firstly there was the painful small talk, and the sorcerous surveillance of Le Fey, but the real problems started when an animated stone giant arrived to “invite†Blood to visit Castle Branek. This epic journey led to Merlin’s last resting place but just as Blood thought he might find some answers to his enigmatic past Le Fey pounced. Suddenly he began to change, transforming into the horrific beast of his dreams…
Issue #2, ‘My Tomb in Castle Branek!’ opened with wary villagers observing a terrific battle between a yellow monster and Le Fey’s forces, but when the Demon was defeated and Blood arrested, only the telepathic influence of Randu in America could aid him. Le Fey was old, dying, and needed Merlin’s grimoire, the Eternity Book, to extend her life. Thus she manipulated Blood, who had lived for centuries unaware that the Demon Etrigan – Merlin’s hellish Attack Dog – was chained inside him, to regain his memories and awaken the slumbering master mage. It looked like the last mistake she would ever make…
Kirby’s tried and trusted approach was always to pepper high concepts throughout blazing, breakneck action, and #3 was one the most imaginative yet. ‘The Reincarnators’ saw Blood back in the USA, aware at last and with a small but devoted circle of friends. Adapting to a less lonely life he encountered a cult who could physically regress people to a prior life – and use those time-lost beings to commit murder…
The Demon #4-5 comprised a two-part adventure, wherein a simple witch and her macabre patron actually captured the reawakened, semi-divine Merlin. ‘The Creature from Beyond’ and ‘Merlin’s Word’s… Demon’s Wrath!’ introduced that cute little monkey, Kamara the Fear-Monster (later used with devastating effect by Alan Moore in Saga of the Swamp Thing #26-27) and featured another startling “Kirby-Kreature†– Somnanbula, the Dream Beast.
It seems odd in these blasé modern times but the Demon was a controversial book in its day – cited as providing the first post-Comics Code depiction of Hell and one where problems were regularly solved with sudden, extreme violence. ‘The Howler!’ in issue #6, was a truly spooky yarn with Blood hunting a primal entity of rage and brutal terror that transformed its victims into murderous lycanthropic killers, whilst #7 introduced a spiteful, malevolent young fugitive from a mystical otherplace.
‘Witchboy’ Klarion and his cat-familiar Teekl were utterly evil little sociopaths in an time where all comic-book politicians were honest, cops only shot to wound and “bad†kids were only misunderstood: another Kirby first…
‘Phantom of the Sewers’ skilfully combined movie and late night TV horror motifs in the dark and tragic tale of actor Farley Fairfax, cursed by the witch he once spurned. Unfortunately Glenda Mark was the spitting image of the departed Galatea, and when decades later the demented thespian kidnapped her to raise the curse, it could only end in a flurry of destruction, death and consumed souls.
This three-part thriller was followed by another extended epic (The Demon #11-13) ‘Baron von Evilstein’ a powerful parable about worth and appearance featuring the ultimate mad scientist and the tragic monster he so casually built. It’s a truth that bears repeating: ugly doesn’t equal bad…
Despite Kirby’s best efforts The Demon was not a monster hit, unlike the science-fictional disaster drama Kamandi, and by #14 it’s clear that the book was in its last days. Not because the sheer pace of imagination, excitement and passion diminished – far from it – but because the well-considered, mood-drenched stories were suddenly replaced by rocket-fast eldritch romps – with returning villains.
First back was Klarion the Witchboy who created a ‘Deadly Doppelganger’ to replace Jason Blood and kill his friends in #14-15, before the series – and this wonderful hardcover treasury of wicked delights – ended in a climactic showdown with the ‘Immortal Enemy’ Morgaine Le Fey…
Kirby continued with Kamandi, explored WWII in The Losers and created the magnificent Omac: One Man Army Corps, but still could not achieve the all-important sales the company demanded. Eventually he returned to Marvel and new challenges such as Black Panther, Captain America, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Devil Dinosaur, Machine Man and especially The Eternals.
As always in these wondrously economical collections it should be noted that the book is stuffed with un-inked Kirby pencilled pages and roughs, and Mark Evanier’s fascinating, informative introduction is, as ever, a fact-fan’s delight.
Jack Kirby was and is unique and uncompromising: his words and pictures are an unparalleled, hearts-and-minds grabbing delight no comics lover could resist. If you’re not a fan or simply not prepared to see for yourself what all the fuss has been about then no words of mine will change your mind.
That doesn’t alter the fact that Kirby’s work from 1937 to his death in 1994 shaped the entire American comics scene and indeed the entire comics planet – affecting the lives of billions of readers and thousands of creators in all areas of artistic endeavour for generations and still winning new fans and apostles every day, from the young and naive to the most cerebral of intellectuals. His work is instantly accessible, irresistibly visceral, deceptively deep and simultaneously mythic and human.
He is the King and time has shown that the star of this book is one of his most potent legacies.
© 1972, 1973, 1974, 2008 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.
