Day 33: The Super-Cycle!

The Forever People’s road hog, the Super-Cycle, is a suped-up Supertown Harley Davidson motorcycle — seats fives! — that traverses not only earthly thoroughfares, but also the Boom Tube and the Electron Road, the latter which Beautiful Dreamer describes as, “I-it’s like your jet-stream — only a little more complex!!” (Yeah, right, “a little”!).

But the metal beast, helmed by Big Bear (he with the perpetually giant grin who obviously relishes being the driver), is more than just a mode of transportation: It also can shift, Transformer-like, into “fort mode,” for self-defense. “On New Genesis,” a caption describing the re-arrangement states, “the creed is ‘life!!‘ Programmed to ward off ‘death,’ the ‘Super-Cycle’ defends itself!!!” It is equipped with paralyzer guns to keep evildoers at bay…

Seems to me that the supersonic tricycle actually lives, cares about Big Bear & Co., and has the will to survive, whatever the “programming.” Ya gotta wonder if Jack could have featured a solo story or two just to this vehicle alone had the series continued. This ain’t no “Wheelie and the Chopper Bunch”!

4 thoughts on “Day 33: The Super-Cycle!

  1. John S.

    Wheelie and the Chopper Bunch? Nah. That’s a New Genesis Big Wheel!

    Although I’ve always loved Kirby’s art on this series (especially once Royer started inking it), it’s fun to speculate what the book would have looked like if Kirby’s plan to use other artists had actually materialized. From what I’ve read, I think he had Don Heck or John Romita in mind for this title, and I’m sure both of them would have done a pretty good job on it. Come to think of it, just try to visualize for a moment what an Alex Toth-illustrated Forever People would have looked like. Pretty nifty, I’d wager. One more way in which I feel the comics of yesteryear were superior to today’s books was in the sheer variety of art styles they had. Today’s super-hero comics look incredibly generic and uninteresting by comparison.

    1. JonBCooke Post author

      Nice to fantasize about Alex working on Jack’s concepts — and they did cross paths at Ruby-Spears during Kirby’s animation days — but I know his X-Men one-shot stuck in Alex’s craw… and he just could never shine to Jack’s work and was very vocal about it. I miss the old bastard and I’d wager in a million years he wouldn’t have chosen to work on a Kirby koncept…

      Alex worked in comics when he wanted to, not because, unlike 99.9% of other artists in the field, he needed to (does that make sense? I’m fried tonight…). Animation seemed to be suiting him just fine as a job…

      1. John S.

        I wasn’t aware that Toth didn’t like Kirby’s stuff. I don’t know a whole lot about him. I was under the impression that the two of them were at least respectful acquaintances, if not really good friends. And I don’t think you can really compare the X-Men stuff to a book like Forever People, ’cause Toth just did finished pencils over Jack’s layouts on that, didn’t he? Whereas Kirby’s intention with the Fourth World books was to have other artists do complete pencils on them. I imagine an artist with as unique a storytelling sense as Toth would MUCH prefer that to just doing finishes.

  2. JonBCooke Post author

    Not a big fan, no, but they got along at the San Diego Comic-Cons. Kirby’s fantasy material just didn’t appeal to Toth, who obviously was more into nuance and mood than bombastic action. Now give him a good mystery or romance, watch out!

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