Monthly Archives: October 2010

Day 16: Jude!

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Posted in Day Entries, Earth, Jimmy Olsen #134, Supporting Characters.

The duly elected captain of the Mountain of Judgment is Jude, looking every bit like a grown-up, twenty-something Kamandi (the Last Boy on Earth) or the moody, angelic Angel from Boys’ Ranch (or, for that matter, a younger version of Thor or Captain Victory!). The blond hippy is part of a new, mobile scientific society known as the Hairies, who constantly ride the Zoomway (“…to avoid our unseen enemies”) in the giant green vehicle, creating splendid new devices to aid mankind.

It’s interesting to speculate (for me, anyway!), why Jack chose the name Jude. Given the high esteem he held for The Hairies (as we’ll see in the entry to come) regarding their idealism and respect for life, ya gotta wonder if the name choice comes from St. Jude, the patron saint of lost causes in the Catholic Church. Yet, as I don’t reckon Jack got too New Testament on us with any frequency, perhaps it’s more likely he snagged the name from The Beatles song that had been #1 on the Hit Parade a few years prior, longer than any other single up to its time, the ever-popular “Hey Jude.” Enough digression… suffice to say it is a cool name that connotes peace and serenity… Now, back to our tale:

Superman saves the Whiz Wagon from being crushed by the Mountain of Judgment but man and super-car are sucked into the giant maw of the Hairie bus. Out burst the mysterious clan who know of Morgan Edge’s REAL reason for supplying the Newsboy Legion with the sleek, silver-coated ride…

Day 15: The Mountain of Judgment!

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Posted in Day Entries, Earth, Jimmy Olsen #134, Vehicles.

The Levithan of the Zoomway! The giant vehicle — the exterior made to resemble a giant green monster, the chassis a converted missile carrier, the interior “a buzzing world of mechanical wonders!” — is driven by the Hairies, a clan of young geniuses who are creating an amazing array of devices and creatures for the even-more mysterious underground complex called The Project! Why the fearsome appearance? To ward away unseen enemies and Wild Area innocents alike, so The Hairies can continue their super-scientific efforts to make a better planet without interference, earthly or Apokolipian… and, yep, the hippy geniuses actually live and work in what’s later described a gignormous mobile home!

“Man, you don’t grab it!” a terrified Yango explains to Jimmy, “The Mountain — I-it’s not like a place — I-it’s more like a thing! Like Moby Dick! You go out and meet it — and die!” Two other Outsiders later describe it: “The howling White Whale! The mammoth Moby Dick –” “–that can make you turn chicken — or man!”

Day 14: Flippa-Dippa!

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Posted in Day Entries, Earth, Heroes, Jimmy Olsen #133, Supporting Characters.

Okay, okay, this is way off the chronology as far as first-appearances here, but this scrawny kid is full of pugnacious courage and off-the-wall craziness, all in his perennial scuba gear, I gotta single him out… I just love it when Jack goes a little bonkers: I mean, how was the King thinking he could regularly use a newspaper delivery boy-slash-adventurer who always wears a wet suit, flippers, diving mask and oxygen tanks??? You’d think the lad would be a… errr… fish out of water, wouldn’t ya? Well, this sequence, taking place during the wild underwater ride on the Zoomway, is your answer, skeptics!

Flip is, natch, the newest member of the New Newsboy Legion (given he wasn’t born into the group). In a follow-up ish, we find that his unnamed father (Mr. Dippa?) is coincidentally associated with the now grown-up original Newsboy Legion! I mean, what are the odds…?

I still haven’t figured out if the newest Newsboy’s official name is Flipper Dipper (sometimes with a hyphen) or Flippa-Dippa (sometimes without). Me, I dig the non-parenthetical latter, dig?

Day 13: The Big Jump!

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Posted in Day Entries, Earth, Events, Jimmy Olsen #134.

Careening down the Zoomway, Jimmy, the Newsboy Legion and the biker gang called “The Outsiders” are heading for the leviathan of the Wild Area, the ominous “Mountain of Judgment.” Watch out, there’s a big gap up ahead! This is where things get lethal, Kirbyheads!

(Awright, maybe this entry is a stretch but the way Kirby builds up to crescendos with all that kinetic drama, these things are bona fide events! “Can’t make it — Aaaaaa!” Gotta love it…)

Day 12: The Zoomway!

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Posted in Day Entries, Earth, Jimmy Olsen #134, Locations.

What’s freedom all about if it’s not about hittin’ the road? Jack could definitely dig the American obsession with motoring, and nowhere is car and road more beloved than that land of the Little Deuce Coupe, the Golden State! And who could convey that better than the King of the road! (groan!)

The Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways — y’know, the I-95s, etc., that crisscross this great nation which came to fruition by the 1950s (under the administration of President Ike) — changed the American way of life, and none more so than in California. Suddenly folks could drive virtually anywhere on a U.S. infrastructure that was the envy of the world. (Ahh, those were the days!) And, like I keep hammering away at here, Left Coasters lived in their automobiles — being conceived, spending vacations, going to school, driving to work, conceiving, driving-in the movies, eating at the drive-throughs, drinking, and, well, dying in increasing numbers… you get the gist.

So it was natural for Kirby’s Kalifornia — that’s what I call the Wild Area (and certain portions of Apokolips — yuk-yuk!) — to be linked by the incredible Zoomway — a combination of SUPER-superhighway, roller coaster ride, and Deathrace 2000 — which traverses underground tunnels and waterways, in varying degrees of condition, weaving in and out of The Wild Area, Habitat, and into ominous zone called The Project. The Outsiders, led by their new leader, Jimmy Olsen, are out to find the thunderous, mysterious “Mountain of Judgment” that’s shaking the very foundation of Habitat!

Watch out, Whiz Wagoneers: The Big Jump is ahead!

Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen #133

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Posted in Bonus, Cooke Looks, Jimmy Olsen #133.

Cooke Look: “Jimmy Olsen Brings Back The Newsboy Legion!”

[As a bonus, it makes sense to include a synopsis and brief (yeah, right) discussion of the issues as I go along, thus at the end of distilling all the wacky Kirby Kharacters ’n’ Koncepts, we’ll do just that! — JBC]

The word that might best describe Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen #133 is inventive. In a mere 22 pages, in his debut comic book during his 1970s tenure at DC Comics, Jack “The King” Kirby let loose his creative energies and hurled one new idea after another at our tender, unprepared noggins, and those of us who “got” it, those of us who didn’t compare this wild new material to his Marvel stuff with Stan Lee, those of us who were amused by his oft-corny interpretation of the youth culture… well, we were changed for good.

Would I feel the same way if the Kirby saga in Jimmy O was a stand-alone epic and not prelude to the cosmic mythology we now call Kirby’s Fourth World? I dunno, but as I mentioned in my introductory post, I distinctly recall picking up the orange-colored “first” issue and being just floored by the sheer inventiveness, and I do believe I would hold that book in the highest regard of, at least, the entire JO run (and don’t forget: Edmund Hamilton’s superb Nightwing and Firebird saga partially took place in the pages of that title, with that luscious Curt Swan and George Klein artwork, so it ain’t all “Jimmy as giant turtle-man” kitsch…).

But JO #133 was prelude to the greatest super-hero adventure of them all. (Alan Moore’s “Marvelman/Miracleman” epic might be the singular contender, though “Born Again” in Dardevil by Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli also comes darn close, in my less-than-humble opinion.) Not only do we get the first inklings of the encroachment of Darkseid and his hordes of Apokolips, but we also get the reintroduction of a bona fide Kirby Kid Gang, The Newsboy Legion. Only now the group has left the gritty despair of Suicide Slum, and instead lives in an amazing futuristic new world of Kirby’s imagination… the best kind of nostalgia and yet not looking back. And, anyway, as we would subsequently learn, their presence would lead us to a revitalized golden avenger, a character I would grow to love.

I’ll admit that I have always been mildly annoyed with the other-dimensional quality to the myths Kirby embraced and/or created. Like, for instance, just exactly where was Asgard, home to the Mighty Thor and his brethren? And where precisely is the earth-side entrance to the Rainbow Bridge? Hell, I can buy the “fact” a Norse god flies earthly skies courtesy of a hammer only he could hoist (I mean, the physics alone boggle the mind!), or that a scrawny 4F 90-pound-weakling is injected with a serum to become a super-soldier, but I guess I yearn for some exactitude in the fantasies I love. And I’m not alluding to the exact “where” of Apokolips and New Genesis here (I’ll get to that conundrum in a post to come, you betchum!); what I wanna know, desperately, longitude and latitude, is the location of the Wild Area, okay? It seems far from Metropolis and yet is still within thermonuclear-explosion range… Boy, ain’t I pathetic and petty!

What I need to realize is it’s best just to be swept away by Jack’s uncharted creativity. Not worry about whether he drew Lightray’s mask correctly or how Scott Free just happened to be outside Thaddeus Brown’s house at a pivotal moment… I need to let go, let Kirby be Kirby, and be grateful to join the ride and not worry about unimportant matters like continuity and exact location…

What is important is that Kirby arrived at DC Comics with guns a’blazin’, his imagination unleashed as never before. If we thought his mid-Fantastic Four run was fertile — and it was one of the most creatively productive eras in comics history — we were still unprepared for the awe that was yet to come… Darkseid, Super-War, the Anti-Life Equation, Infinity Man, Scott Free, Glorious Godfrey, Granny Goodness, the Pact, Himon, Bug, Kalibak, Glory Boat…

So, as you can see, I hold JO #133 in the highest esteem. As introduction to Jack’s epic, with all its unabashed exuberance and unapologetic “gee whiz” approach, it counts as chapter one to a story arc I deem the finest of fantasy literature, as important as The Lord of the Rings or The Elric Saga, the 55-issue mammoth-sized tale we call the Fourth World…

(Before I end-rant, I just gotta comment about the trio of legendary “orange covers” DC published between 1968 and ’71, and their super-groovy contents: Wonder Woman #179 [Nov.-Dec. 1968], where Mike Sekowsky began a spectacular run re-inventing Diana Prince as a comic-book Emma Peel; and Superman #233 [Jan. 1971], with Denny O’Neil’s great reboot of the Supes mythos, aided by superb “Swanderson” art (and one of Neal Adams’s finest covers); along with JO #133… well, not comment exactly, just sigh over them one more time!)

Now, back to our story: just what is this “Mountain of Judgment” Yango keeps yammering about…?

X-Numbers:
Cover: X-111
Story: No visible #
Text Page: “Jack Kirby — Continued,” X-112

On Sale Date: Aug. 25, 1970

Day 11: Habitat!

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Posted in Day Entries, Earth, Jimmy Olsen #133, Locations.

By 1970, the environment was becoming a huge concern to average Americans (note that the first “Earth Day” was marked in that year) and there was a “Back To Nature” movement taking place within the counter-culture, with young people gathering into communes, living self-sustaining lives.

Jack tapped into these issues and, I suspect, might have visited a Giant Redwood forest (having moved recently to the Left Coast), and his feverish imagination went into overdrive.

Of course, Habitat is a section of the Wild Area, adopted home to the “dropout society” called The Outsiders… But just who built the wooden city… and for what purpose? And what about these rumors of a monstrous “Mountain of Judgment”?

After Supes recovers from being zapped with a Kryptonite Paralyzer Rod and wakes up in Habitat, we learn that Jimmy’s assignment is to find answers to the aforementioned questions.

Day 10: Green K Paralysis Ray!

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Posted in Day Entries, Jimmy Olsen #133, Weapons & Devices.

Trigger-happy Yango the Outsider zonks Supes not once, but twice, with the Hairie-built Green K Paralysis Ray Gun, in the first two issues of Kirby’s JO run. How fortuitous that it contain green Kryptonite, which is lethal to Superman (until the events of Jan. ’71’s Superman #233, natch)… But if the Man of Steel is familiar with The Project and a friend to the Hairies, why have they prepared a weapon to be used against him (or Supergirl, I presume)? Must be that Yango is just a mean person, eh?

Where Fourth Art Thou? Part Two

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Posted in Bonus, Where Fourth Art Thou? Essays.

Part Two: In the Beginning…

The story so far: Jack “The King” Kirby is dissatisfied with his arrangement at Marvel Comics and, negotiations having failed, signs up with rival DC Comics (a.k.a., National Periodical Publications). Let’s now join our story already in progress:

The bombshell news of Jack’s “defection,” as big a story in comics publishing as there ever was, hits the street in March, 1970. His intention at the House of Superman is to establish a DC Comics West, with Jack serving primarily as a sort of California editorial director of the outfit, writing and drawing a title or two, but mostly launching ideas into the hands of creative teams. Kirby’s idea is to initially launch three titles that encompass a “New Gods Trilogy” — The Forever People, Orion, and Mister Miracle — a wide-canvassed, interlocking epic to run over many, many issues of said comics, which he hopes, down the road, to be trimmed and edited into a huge graphic novel (to use modern parlance). Obviously, Jack’s concepts regarding comics publishing are as far-ranging as his imagination for the stories themselves: The King envisioned over-sized comics, magazine-sized comics, hardcover comics…

Carmine Infantino had been known much of his career at DC as the quintessential artist on The Flash and on “Adam Strange.” His art style was not unlike Kirby’s in some ways — it was kinetic, always in motion, well-designed and vibrant — and you can sense in the work a passion for the sleek and the modern, epitomized by his futuristic cityscapes in Mystery in Space and exploits of the Scarlet Speedster. When DC Comics, flush with Batman TV show merchandising money and buyer Kinney National Services’ hunger for “leisure time” industries, was sold, big editorial shake-ups were already in progress at the Lexington Avenue offices. The artist (“Enfant Rouge” was his self-styled nickname) was not only supremely talented, he was also ambitious to establish himself on the business side of things.

Carmine became close with Irwin Donenfeld, son of one of the publishers and a manager, and together they started planning for the future. Comics sales, despite the 1966-67 Batman bump, were plummeting (for whatever reason — Competition from TV? Shrinking newsstand distribution? The exodus of female readers?), needed a powerful jolt after the Era of Camp: A New Age of Relevancy. Whether by design or accident, Carmine hit upon a “daring and different” concept: Installing a new regime of “Artist as Editor.” In short order, a swath of the old-time editors either met with retirement, health issues, office intrigue or even death, and some of the field’s finest artists, each with tremendous storytelling ability, came on board as the new editorial staff. Among them were Joe Kubert, Mike Sekowsky, Dick Giordano (top-shelf talent recruited from bottom-tier Charlton Comics), and Joe Orlando (ex-Mad man, with whom Carmine had an especially tight bond), and they individually brought a refreshing graphic sensibility to the books (and Ye Blogger’s favorite era in DC Comics’ history, if you care to note). Suddenly double-page spreads opened invigorating and dynamic stories, and new, resonant and exciting characters abounded. Titles were revamped, staid characters re-invented for modern times… (Of course, some of the preceding events overlapped, but in general this was the case.) Young writers and artists were increasing allowed in to contribute, particularly Neal Adams (whose arrival predates the upheaval a bit, but the superb creator seized the opportunity to virtually reinvent the super-hero comic book), Marv Wolfman, Len Wein, and three of “The Studio” quartet, Berni Wrightson, Michael W. Kaluta and Jeffrey Jones. Veteran artists saw new freedom and hit the ground running, especially Gil Kane and Russ Heath, among others. It was, at least to this kid, a golden age…

Anyway, DC Comics’ new owner, Steve Ross of Kinney National Services/Warner 7 Arts, had confidence in giving his managers wide freedom to run their divisions. He thrived on his “people” skills and a refreshing hands-off attitude came from on-high. Carmine was intent to show the Big Guys that he had what it could take…

So, naturally, considering Jack Kirby was responsible for co-creating a vast majority of upstart Marvel Comics’ “universe” of characters and concepts, Carmine’s acquisition of The King’s services must have appeared quite the feather in the editorial director’s cap. (Note, too, that in 1968, Marvel had finally broke free of the yoke of Independent News, the distributor of Martin Goodman’s line, which was owned by the Distinguished Competition — DC to you and me — after being acquired by Perfect Film and joining up with Curtis Circulation Company to get on the nation’s newsstands. Marvel was flooding the market, finally free of the eight-titles-a-month limit imposed by IND, and was snapping at DC’s standing as industry leader. The game, as the good detective said, was afoot.)

Jack Kirby’s grand scheme to revitalize the comics marketplace — with new formats and an entire line of new books and magazines — was reined in by DC’s bean-counters. It was settled in New York that The King would write and draw the three inter-connected titles, plus take on an existing DC comic, which was Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen. But you knew that already…

Day Nine: The Raiders!

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Posted in Day Entries, Earth, Jimmy Olsen #133, Supporting Characters.

No, no, not the Oakland Raiders; the Wild Area Raiders, whom The Outsiders thought they were attacking when they ambushed Superman. I’ve always assumed these machine-gun toting interlopers were actually a military squad from The Project — note the “Red Fox to Blue Patrol” chatter — but mayhap they were well-armed scavengers in that dangerous environment? And, if scavengers, what were they scavenging or raiding? Habitat? I’m now thinking they were hoping to prey on The Project itself… Tell me what I’m not getting here, will ya?

Be here tomorrow for: The Green K Paralysis Ray!