Issue 1, page 2: the story begins!The story at a glanceAs most people won't have the book in front of them, I'd better give a quick outline. The cover showed Captain Victory (hereinafter CV) with ridiculously oversized guns, and a space battle going on behind him. The splash page, in contrast, showed him standing stiffly, arms behind his back, with the whole galaxy behind him. Page two (today's installment) is an argument with Klavus, his second in command. Klavus wants to attack the enemy right now, before they escape, but CV asks him to check the data for a sixth time. And so our saga begins!
This is not a superhero comicPage two is startling and confusing for a superhero comic. Rather than the hero reacting to some great danger, CV spends the first two pages of his epic doing the opposite: trying NOT to react. He faces a danger of galactic proportions, where apparently he can solve it, and every second counts, yet he refuses to act unless he has absolutely no choice. This turns superhero comics on their head. So what is gong on here??? I think
Icctrombone hit the nail on the head. He asked, where is the drama if the captain cannot be permanently killed? To find out I went away and read issue 2, just to clarify the story. What I discovered turned everything upside down.
(I am trying to read as little ahead as little as possible. I want to see this as Kirby intended: as a new reader, as someone who has heard maybe the key ideas, such as "this is the son of Orion", somebody who knows that Kirby has this gigantic reputation, and somebody who has skimmed the comic in the shop before buying it. I want to ask the questions Kirby expects me to ask. And to be clear, I don't think Kirby made every decision consciously. Most of Kirby's decisions would be intuitive. I am just asking, why would The Master intuitively choose this situation and not a more obvious one?)
When I read issue 2 I expected to find the battle raging, and our hero doing his hero thing - saving the galaxy! But issue 2 is a real shock: essentially nothing happens. Sure, the story progresses, and there are a couple of minor skirmishes, but it's basically a waiting game. There is no cliff hanger at the end of issue 2, they are just waiting, not knowing what is happening. It reminds me of the end of books like Food of the Gods, or Te First en in the Moon, or the Time machine, where everything is left open and the real drama is the reader asking questions. Superhero comics are not like that!
I can see why the CV comic was forgotten. One of the letters in issue 2 summed it up: some kid named "Tom Brevoort" (wonder what happened to him?) said that he just purchased X-Men 151, X-Men Annual 5, New Teen Titans 13 and Captain Victory 1. He said "for a new title to be compared to these masterworks and still shine, it has to be a magnificent mag". I think that's probably where most readers were coming from. As a reminder, X-Men 151 is Claremont firing on all cylinders, the first battle with the Hellfire CLub. X-men annual 15 is an all out slugfest with the X-men, Fantastic Four and Shi'ar versus the Badoon. New Teen Titans 13 is the middle of Perez and Wolfman's classic run. This is what readers expected from comics: soap opera, witty banter, big battles, and superheroes! But what do they get from CV? The opposite. The natural reaction would be "this is not what we want". So what is Jack actually giving us here?
Jack was not doing superheroesI think the key to understanding Jack Kirby is that he was always original. So he always moved forward. Kirby already gave us the archetypal superhero with Captain America: the weak guy who becomes strong, then endlessly fights and (usually) wins. Kirby's next major superhero, Fighting American, moved beyond that trope: he was a satire of politics, fighting bumbling foes that we should probably not be fighting. By the time Kirby created the Fantastic Four I would argue that he was long past superheroes. Sure, he would draw superheroes to pay the bills, but in my view the Fantastic Four is not a superhero comic,
it is a monster comic. Kirby's Hulk was not a superhero comic either, it was a monster comic as well. Thor began as a superhero and was utterly forgettable, until Kirby turned the focus to mythology, other dimensions and exploring the galaxy. yes, X-men were superheroes, but Kirby obviously lacked interest in the title and it never sold well. New Gods is essentially a monster comic as well: the humans are helpless as aliens battle it out. I think Kirby's later works are essentially monster comics. That is, everything about that world and the humans within it is ordinary and realistic, but a single great danger appears from outside and we have to ask "how would we cope?" To me, Kirby is not summed up by "Wham, Pow" but by the three words "what's out there?" He is all about the little guy facing threats that are far, far bigger than he is. Where there is no obvious solution, so we have to ask "what will we do?" Where the best we can do is unite together, and try to learn what we can, in the hope of finding some new angle that will help us to survive, or at least stop us making things even worse, while we still can.
Which brings us back to CV and his reluctance to act. If he does nothing then some terrible danger might become worse. We are still not told the nature of that danger. This is not like Captain America 1, where Hitler is on the cover. Or like Fantastic Four 1, where a monster is on the cover. Or X-Men 1, where Magneto is on the cover. In a well designed comic the conflict is summarised on the cover. In CV 1 the conflict is between CV and himself. Because on the one hand he has a clear enemy and his job is to smash that enemy. But on the other hand in doing so he simply kills billions of people, endlessly. His own life is a travesty: he throws himself into battle, kills billions, sooner or later he is killed, and a clone take his place. The clone does not learn, all his memories are implanted from the previous version EXCEPT for the final death, the one thing he might actually learn something useful from. Is that a life? CV is an essential part of a system of constant death on a vast scale. No wonder CV is desperate for any other choice, anything rather than carry on this cycle forever. How many other deaths does he want on his hands? A hundred billion more? A million billion more? Is there no other way?
CV is like FrankenstainThe closest parallel I can think of to CV is Frankenstein (the original book). Frankenstein is not a hero, and when we think of the book we think of the monster (whos is unnamed, like the captain). Frankenstein is not in special danger - or at least, not at first, and he would happily die if he felt he could end the situation he finds himself in. Frankenstein is merely the focal point of a moral dilemma: mankind holds life and death, and in the desire to move froward, to solve illness etc., might cause its own extinction, or turn itself into a moral monster. Frankenstein is subtitled "the modern Prometheus" for good reason. He brings fire from heaven. So does CV, literally. He can rain fire down on a world and destroy it. And then carry on and do it again and again and again. And whatever he does, billions will die, usually with himself as well. What is it all for? What is the end game? Is this it, the future of life, forever? How is CV any better than the insects, locked into an endless mindless struggle merely to survive against a hostile foe? CV is not a superhero comic. It is not about the battle. It is about life's biggest question: what is it all for? Where is the
Victory
And so most pages of CV are not about fighting. They are about vast dangers hovering over our heads (in issue 2, literally) or ready to burst out from beneath our feet (in issue 2, literally). Dangers that are far bigger than we are. Dangers where we are intimately involved: we have to press the button, or (in issue 2) we are enlisted and brainwashed on the side of the enemy. CV is about contemplating questions we would rather avoid, not about any easy superhero solution. I think this is because Jack Kirby spent his life fighting. He knew what real fighting was like: mostly waiting, under pressure, being overwhelmed by forces you seldom see, let alone defeat. And even if you spend your whole life fighting it's a toss up whether you win, and when you get old you wonder if there was not a better way. And yet you fight to survive. And you must fight honourably and selflessly. I think CV is Kirby's life. In my view.
Other points on page 2As usual I have written far more than I intended, and have barely scratched the surface of this page. So I'll only mention a few of the more obvious points.
On this page CV's eyes are always covered in shadow, whereas in almost every other picture his eyes are clearly visible. This is establishing his dilemma. He cannot see what to do.
This is the sixth time he has insisted that the data be checked again: we will later see that his hesitation allows the villain to escape and almost destroy Earth. Is this his fatal flaw, hesitation? Then his fatal flaw is to be human, to want free will and not merely act as a cog in the machine of endless death.
Klavus asks, in exasperation, if CV will ask for the data to be crunched a seventh time (note the Biblical symbolism: seven indicates completion and perfection, six is incomplete and imperfect).
Klavus is a fascinating character: the real hero perhaps? The back cover to issue 2 says he is not hat he seems. The name Klavus (usually translated clavus) is proto-indo-european for a "nail" (see the previous comments on ancient origins, Kree-tus etc). Klavus is hard as nails. IT can also mean an implement fr picking locks (as in something hard and sharp), and it is through Klavus that we unpick CV's mind. In modern English clavus is hard skin on the foot caused by rubbing, and Klavus is an irritation to CV, a constant reminded of CV's unpleasant duty. I love Kirby's choice of names.
Klavus also brings us to Kirby's wonderful dialog. Almost every character in the story has to act in authority. They speak in plain, clear, unpolished language so as not the misunderstood. Their language is often a little awkward, it is not natural, because they are saying words they would rather not say. Think of how Jeff Goldblum speaks in his movies, when he's choosing every word carefully, then imagine that his heart wanted to say the opposite, and his mind was elsewhere. That's the dialog we see from CV, and later the police (who don't want to follow CV - their hearts and heads are in conflict and they are completely out of their depth, as reflected in their words).
The only time when CV speaks naturally is when he hints at how he hates his work - "it's a rough game to play" - or when later cracks and he embraces violence. he then gives a magnificent paeon of praise for raw power. It is truly Shakespearian. This two page intro is like something from Shakespeare as well, when we see the dialog that leads up to the explosive main event on the next page. Like King Lear deciding how to split his kingdom, or Hamlet being depressed. The next page, the ravaged world, is like Lear disowning Cordelia, or Hamlet seeing his father: the explosive drama we all remember, which triggers the rest of the story.
Ironically the only character who can speak naturally, because he accepts his role (or so it appears), is the only major character who's role is simply to follow orders, The cog in the machine, Klavus. He has a clear vision and purpose and talks in a relaxed yet passionate way. Though as I said before, we have to remember that one Kirby frame is like six frames elsewhere, so imagine a good movie, where there may be several seconds between each line, and every word is carefully chosen. Klavus is the reminder that yes, Kirby can write natural dialog. But Kirby is only does so for contrast: most of his people are under extreme pressure all the time.
One last thing, on an FF tangent. Kirby often uses phrases like "it's rough game to play" or (next page) "a swift and terrible process". It reminds me of when Reed Richards first summoned his team to "a task that awaits us -- a fearful task". This suggests to me that Lee was using a phrase from Kirby's marginal notes, rather than using his own more relaxed prose. We already have evidence that
Kirby was writing the FF as early as issue 3, and it is clear that Stan got Kirby to radically to change the ending to issue 1. And that Kirby was writing his stories before issue 1 as well. I think the evidence suggests that issue 1 was no exception. Meaning that the famous synopsis (that only briefly outlines the first part and is contradicted by the comic) was simply the minutes to their story conference, and Kirby was right when he said he never saw that document.
I could go on about page two for much longer, but there are only so many hours in the day.
Next: we are two pages into a Kirby story and we haven't yet seen a planet be destroyed, nor have we established this story as a continuation of all previous epics. Time to fix that!
