It all ends here!





(I was going to use "Who Let the Dogs Out?"; but, 5 seconds of it told me I couldn't inflict that garbage on unsuspecting people. Besides, George Clinton!)

As I spoke last time, this began life as a story called "On the Road to Armagetto, which was to conclude the New Gods epic, in the Baxter-format reprint. However, neither DC nor Jack Kirby were happy with it. DC agreed to give it more room to breath and the Hunger Dogs graphic novel was conceived. New pages were created to be added to the original story, original art was tweaked for the larger sized format, pages in the story were shuffled around, and D Bruce Barry came on to do inks (Mike Royer being otherwise engaged). The result? Well..........................

We'll get to that in a moment. First, let's see the story...

When we last saw Orion, he had been riddled with "bullets" in an ambush staged by Darkseid. Our story, here. opens with the lowlies, the "Hunger Dogs" of the title, in open revolt in an area of Armagetto. They grab a sentry and stick a knife in his back. They throw grenades and molotov cocktails. Darkseid's troops counter with push-button weapons. darkseid observes in disgust. There is a rather confusing page of a conversation between Darkseid and a tech, about virtue vs expediency in war.



This is part of the new material and it is really hard to figure out how the dialogue is supposed to flow. The dialogue itself is choppy and there isn't a natural progression. Kirby is making a point about modern push-button wars, where the human factor is minimized, making killing easier. Darkseid makes a point about New Genesis retaliating and about when the virtuous lose their virtue, it has a way of coming back at those who eroded it. It's a fine point lost in a sea of confusing art.

The scene shifts to Orion waking up and screaming in massive pain...



Now that is a powerful image! We have seen Orion battered and bruised before; but, never like this. Look at the gaping wounds, the bruising, the look of sheer agony on his face. I suspect Kirby channeled some war nightmares here. Orion is in the care of Himon, the rebel who aided and taught Scott Free, leading to his escape from Apokolips. The Hunger Dogs believe Orion is dying and start to turn on Himon, calling him a failure. Himon subdues them and expresses his disgust, in an excellent piece of writing, "Poor, ignorant Hunger Dogs! Eternally used, eternally abused. Lie for Darkseid. Die for Steppenwolf! Cry for food....and try each road to futility!"

I've spoken before of the game of combining Kirby's boldly-lettered dialogue, into Beat Poetry. Lie,Die, Cry, Try. In his own idiosyncratic way, Kirby really was a poet.

Himon's daughter Bekka enters the room, as Orion speaks of finding love on Apokolips. Himon wonders if he means Bekka. This seems strange, as this is her first appearance. I don't know if this odd element is due to the page shuffling or if Kirby was confused with the previously seen Eve Danner. Regardless, Orion is healed by Mother Box and his more handsome face restored. We switch to Darkseid walking to a lab, a carpet laid by whipped Hunger Dogs. There, we are introduced to Micro-Mark, the technology that has changed the war. the unseen genius behind it is crowing about how a tiny pellet can destroy whole cities. now, he has crafted a bomb that can destroy a world. The scene is interrupted by Himon, who phases in and steals the bomb, escaping before the genius can attack him. However, the genius has a counter. We see Himon arrive back home and Bekka watches as the device crumbles, thanks to the counter-mechanism of the genius.

We switch to New Genesis, where plagues and monsters are destroying to unspoiled nature of the planet. Lonar arrives at Supertown and consults with Highfather. He is garbed in the trapping of the old gods, including a rather familiar looking winged helmet. Highfather forbids him from returning to the surface of the planet and shows why. We see hot spots all over the globe, indicating devices that are destroying the planet. A boom tube opens and a servant of Darkseid throws in a bomb, which Lonar catches. Lightray hears this and decides to head to Apokolips to aid Orion in stopping the destruction. he finds a barrier keeping them out and goes nove to break through. he is reunited with Orion and they are attacked by a robot, tracking Lightray. Lightray is able to reprogram and sends it to join its murderous brethren, destroying all with his improvised time-bomb. Lightray then departs in a flash, leaving Orion and Bekka to converse.

The scene shifts to Darkseid's troops slaughtering Hunger Dogs, when they find a defiant crowd. Out of it comes Orion, who turns the tables on the soldier. The Hunger Dogs rise in support of Orion. Darkseid receives warning of this and consults with the twisted genius behind Micro-Mark. We find out that the horrible little told is the deformed once-beautiful child Essak.



We learn that Metron abandoned Esak to search for something more, leaving Esak in charge of previous investigations into the unknown. Esak grew twisted without guidance, as he made discoveries and applied them without conscience. He has now unleashed ultimate destruction; but, he is still the little boy inside, who longs to ride with Metron on the Mobius Chair. Orion smashes through his machines and destroys them. he brings destruction to Esak and tells him that he is what the source made him. Esak lies dying and in torment. orion prays to the Source to grant him peace and remember him as he was. We see Esak transformed back to the beautiful child of old, as he succumbs to death.

We shift to Orion and Bekka, together, at Himon's place. Bekka speaks of love to Orion and he shows her his true face, as a warning. Bekka teaches him that she has seen his heart, which holds his "true face" Outside, the world begins to erupt in calamity. We see New Genesis explode in a Kirby collage...



Darkseid's men see the power of the weapons they have been stacking. They begin to fear their own destruction and try to dismantle the machines. The Hunger Dogs break through and begin smashing things. Darkseid retreats and finds Himon, Bekka and Orion working underground. Himon sacrifices himself so Orion and Bekka can escape with their prize, Orion's mother, Tigra. They fly off in a ship as Darkseid watches. Then, Apokolips explodes. Our final scenes are of Supertown, which left New Genesis before its destruction. The New Gods survive, to bring forth a new generation. Highfather has protected the future. We finally see Metron re-enter the story, his Mobius Chair towing a new planet, which will become the home for the New Gods.

I first encountered this by accident, flipping through a graphic novel display spinner in the first comic shop I entered, in 1985. I had recently picked up the reprints and read about this. here it was.  I bought it and took it back to my dorm to read. I wanted to love it, for it to be the epic end to the epic saga. It left me troubled. There is an epic quality here, in fits and starts. The story is confusing and the page reshuffling makes it worse. The original story elements seem at odds with the added material. The chronology doesn't make sense. Yet, there is a power here and an expression of ideas.

Kirby seems to be making his statement about nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction. Our technology had outstripped our morality. We created the weapons of our own doom. We see this in Micro-Mark and Esak's other weapons. As Darkseid warns, those weapons come back to haunt Apokolips. There is no honor in killing with a button. War is death and destruction; but, there is more honor in facing your opponent, than from doing it at a safe distance away. At least, that is how I interpret Kirby's story. Kirby was a combat veteran, I am not. I served during the first Gulf War; but was stateside. Like the rest of the country, I watched CNN footage of Tomahawk missiles being fired from ships, laser-guided smart bombs blow up buildings and vehicles. As a naval officer, I saw message traffic which spoke of weapons not covered by the media, until much later. We dropped a psi-war bomb; a large concussive bomb, the size of a trailer, from a cargo plane, creating a massive airburst and shock wave. our allies thought we had used a nuke. It served no purpose except to scare the Iraqis into surrender, which they were doing anyway. The war became an excuse to test our stockpile of technologically advanced weapons. I joked with a colleague that I could see generals Powell and Schwarzkopf sitting on a hill, drinking beers, with an armaments catalog, telling some subordinate to fire G-13, so they could see what it does. Now, we launch attacks by drone; sometimes we hit the right target, at others, we kill innocents at a wedding feast. To me, this is what Kirby spoke of.

Esak is the twisted genius, abandoned by his "father" Metron. Left to explore and create wonders without moral guidance. He found the secret of creating horrible weapons. In this he parallels the Manhattan Project and Nazi atomic efforts (and things like Mustard Gas and the gassings of battlefields in WW1). He never stops to think about the moral implications of the discoveries he makes. He does it because he can; but, he never asks if he should.

Meanwhile, Kirby has Orion find love, though it seems not the love he originally intended. He also rescues his mother, though it comes out of nowhere, as we don't see him finding her. Just that she is in his arms. When last we saw her, she was chained to a platform, above a firepit. How did Orion rescue her? We don't find out. The romance with Bekka seems abrupt and the page shuffling seems to be part of that problem.

Kirby's art is strong in places and weak in others. Not as weak as the Super Powers mini-series; but, age and health problems affected Kirby's art. The panel layouts on several pages are headache inducing; but, there are glorious images that speak of the Kirby of old. That is what is so heartbreaking about this; we can see the glimmer of what was and the reality of what is. Maybe the New Gods should have remained the unfinished masterpiece.

So, the New Gods comes to an end 20 years later. It's not a satisfying end; but, life rarely grants you the ending you want or expect. Kirby was mostly retired from this point, occasionally producing a pin-up, for things like Who's Who and anniversary tributes. He was unable to sign things at conventions and his health had its ups and downs, until he suffered a heart attack and died, in 1994. I learned of his death via a title card, on the X-Men cartoon, one Saturday morning (in the pre-internet expansion). The King was dead; but, long will his art live. The 4th World is Kirby's epic for the ages. Fantastic Four, Captain America and Thor may be what people cite; but, this was his Edda, his Odyssey, his Beowulf. Where his other books were adventure, wonder and drama, this was grandeur, poetry and metaphor. It was literature. No one has done it justice since. Oh, there are good stories and good uses of some characters; but, no one has achieved this level of epic myth. That is why Kirby was the King; he was a god in comics; the God of Epic Adventure. We have been worshipping at his altar ever since he made his presence known and will still do so, long after the other temples have crumbled into dust.

For another viewpoint on The Hunger Dogs, check out Peter Sanderson's essays, at hs website...

sequart.org/magazine/15891/1986-the-older-generations-farewell-the-hunger-dogs-part-1/