Jack Kirby was one of the most imaginative and visionary creators in the history of American comic books. His Fourth World story, originally serialized in DC Comics' Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen, The Forever People, New Gods and Mister Miracle, had some of his most important character creations. Starting in May, DC will collect these stories in four oversized hardcover volumes and introduce his world of wonder to a new generation of comic readers.
With the growth of the graphic novel market in both direct market comics shops and bookstores, DC decided it was time for these comics, which have been reprinted in both serial comic books and trade paperbacks before, to receive special treatment. "That's the excitement of comics now, to reach more people than ever before," said Paul Levitz, president and publisher of DC Comics. Levitz said it's a great feeling to expose Kirby's seminal work to a new and wider audience.
The history of the Fourth World series began when Jack Kirby was at the height of his success at DC's rival Marvel Comics. In the 1960s, Kirby and Stan Lee cocreated the Fantastic Four and the Incredible Hulk, brought Kirby's cocreation Captain America back into print and re-created the Norse legend Thor into a popular Marvel Comics superhero. Kirby's work was a major factor in the enormous success of Marvel Comics. But in 1970, in a dispute over creative and financial matters, Kirby left Marvel to work for its primary competitor, DC Comics. He began working on four series, Jimmy Olsen and three original series that he wrote and edited and for which he created and drew a world of new characters.
The overarching saga of the Fourth World dealt with the battle between heroes Orion, Mister Miracle, Lightray and others versus Darkseid, dictator of the planet Apokolips. Among the other characters were the Amazonian Big Barda, the intergalactic guru Metron and space hippies called the Forever People. Kirby created an epic the likes of which had never before been seen in comics.
"He was basically inventing the limited series and the American graphic novel," said Mark Evanier, a comics writer and historian, who worked with Kirby during the time of the Fourth World comics. Evanier will provide afterwords for all four hardcover volumes.
Evanier said that Kirby thought the 32-page comic book was doomed, and he wanted to lead the comics industry beyond this format. He wanted to tell stories that could be read in collected editions, as they can be now. Kirby may have foreseen where the comics medium is now, but that didn't help him in the early 1970s. Evanier said that while the books sold decently, they didn't sell quite as well as some of his editors at DC would have liked—that is, they didn't destroy Marvel's sales.
When DC ran into hardship from the rise in printing costs, New Gods and Forever People were both canceled at issue 11, leaving Mister Miracle, which Kirby stayed with until issue 18, without context. Kirby was finished with his run on Jimmy Olsen by this time, and his new myths were never fully realized, even after getting the chance to conclude the major story lines in the graphic novel The Hunger Dogs in 1985, which will also be collected in this line of books. "It's like Jack was doing a 40-50-page story, and he got cut off at page 19," said Evanier.
While Kirby's stories may have been truncated, his influence has only grown over the years. Levitz spoke of how both the Lee-Kirby Marvel years and the Fourth World series changed comics. "Before them, people kept a character in his own book with no sense that the characters lived in a common universe." The Marvel Universe was the first line of comics that saw constant interaction between all its characters. According to Levitz, "The Fourth World was the first time to try to apply that to a new universe, a new world." Kirby's characters from the Fourth World live on, Levitz said, and he promised that they will play a major role in upcoming DC story lines.
Now that the rest of the comics industry has caught up to Kirby, Levitz said, this is the best time to bring back what he calls "the most passionate work of the career of one of the two or three most important creators in comics."
