Category Archives: Villains

Day 60: Darkseid’s Minions!

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Posted in Apokolips, Day Entries, Supporting Characters, The New Gods #1, Villains.

At the risk of repeating a Himon quote I’ve already used in this blog, I can’t resist the succinct and graphic definition of service on Planet Darkseid by that “lovable old rascal who taught Scott Free his trade”:

“You’re a nothing! You’re an object! Your body is a weapon! — And your mind is its trigger! You’re given a world of conflict to test and improve your ability to kill! And you kill! — For Darkseid! — It’s the driving purpose of Apokolips!!”

As apt a description as any for the inhabitants of the holocaust world, especially so for the soldiers and specialists who serve as minions for the supreme ruler and his elites, those just above the slave labor “lowlies” and below the officers and “aristocracy” in the rigid caste system of Apokolips. Allow yours truly to delineate some specific groups of different corps:

Gravi-Guards: Possibly the subterranean contingent of Darkseid’s shock troops are some of the earliest Earth invaders. These magenta-colored, oversize creatures are endowed with the power to “transmit gravity waves from heavy mass galaxies,” and are able to apply crushing weight to even the mighty Superman.

Darkseid’s personal guards are audacious enough to abuse even the Tiger-Force’s elites, as a couple manhandle and berate Mantis.

Unnamed uniformed “Underlings” who attack Orion en masse when he first arrives on Apokolips during the opening volleys of the Super-War. Apparently without superior officers, they seize the initiative and rush the new god: “We have sufficient numbers to do away with you, great Orion!” Another exclaims, “We are nurtured in war — and savage in battle!” And yet another: “Come! We shall swarm over you like a roaring flood!”

(I suspect the aforementioned unidentified platoon is related to an earlier encounter with Orion, when as a boy he is forced into the dimension chamber after flattening a good number of the soldiers in resistance.)

Glorious Godfrey’s Justifiers: While certainly a good number of the zealots are earth-born, others seem to be Apokolips natives, as one exclaims, “Anti-Life works! We’re justified in ridding the city of this human trash!” Godfrey’s immediate lieutenants look like Madison Avenue types, well-coiffed and one bespectacled; whether they are of Darkseid’s world is debatable.

Inter-Gang goons: While some seem to speak in an American vernacular (two of ’em tell Thaddeus Brown, the original Mister Miracle, “Yeah! We think you smell, too!” and “Your gimmicks are rusty! They drag, man!”), 1970s’ slang is not unknown on Apokolips, as indicated by the seductive talk of Section Zero’s guard post sentry who woos a Female Fury: “It’s your hands I dig, Gilotina!” I tend to think the ones appearing in trademark Kirby uniforms typically as recruits from Apokolips, though they can also be of mixed origin. These thugs include:

• Steel Hand’s henchmen, one a sniper who assassinates the Great Thaddeus

• Pilot/gunmen of the Inter-Gang helicopter who fire at Superman with a Sigma-Gun (though the gunner does sound like an Earthling with his Dracula banter)

• Ugly Mannheim’s shock gun-wielding Assault Troops, who attack and kidnap Jimmy Olsen, the Guardian and Goody Rickels

Back to the Apokoliptian hordes, Steppenwolf’s Demon Raiders appear in the hunting party sequence where Izaya’s wife is murdered (and likely a designation that becomes become Darkseid’s Raiders later in the saga). Certainly, the Para-Demons, both present and pre-Great Clash, qualify for minion status but are unique enough, methinks, along with the Dog Calvary [coming tomorrow!], to warrant their own entry.

We also have the “Soldier Boys” of Granny Goodness (a.k.a. Granny’s Raiders), with their bug-like, pointed helmets, doubtless trained in her notorious “Finishing School.” They appear on Earth during the Overlord sequence, spouting their affection for the old battle-ax: “She’ll sing our praises and give us gifts! I can’t wait to get back!” (And the schoolmistress returns the love — “My soldier boys never fail their Granny! My solider boys are the best!” even given her tendency to open a can of whoop-ass on the grunts.)

Back on Apokolips, one of Granny’s military escorts is abused into submission by Big Barda upon her return to the barracks of the Female Fury Battalion.

Virman Vundabar’s troops appear similar in appearance to Goodness’s crew and might be from the same company/division. In their Earthly encounter with Barda bathing in a stream, we even catch a glimpse of a couple of fancily-clad superior officers, who order her to be shocked by an Energy Disperser. Vundabar’s subordinate Klepp gives us another look at an upper-level officer of Apokolips.

The Harrassers of Night-Time are “brutal, relentless, and efficient” in beating obedience into the young and fearful new recruits to Granny’s Happiness Home. We learn that Hoogin, the presiding Harrasser, had been demoted when Scott Free first escaped Apokolips.

Additionally:

• There’s also Doctor Bedlam’s chrome-skinned Animates, servitors of the evil possessor of the Mind-Force

• Border Guards, one an “arrogant dog” who dares to fire upon Big Barda of the Special Powers Force

• Kanto the Assassin’s Jet-Bow Squad, executioners attempting to pierce Mister Miracle on his return to the nightmare world

• Aero-Cycle Patrol, guardians riding levitating speedsters in the neighborhood of Longshadow

• Section Zero guards, including those escorting combatants of The Lump and “Non Being” prisoner guards, who openly berate the captive wife of Darkseid, Tigra, the disfavored mother of Orion

• Wonderful Willik and his District Protectors, a troop which brazenly massacres Lowlies in ruthless pursuit of Himon, the man “hounded by an army of Darkseid’s murderers — He’s the only free mind on Apokolips!”

Though it’s definitely fear that keeps the subordinates of Apokolips in line, it is worth noting that in a “Young Scott Free” sequence we see the cadets dining mess and ascertain the food they eat, their “Energy Blocks,” are “saturated with ‘Brain Drain‘ chemical,” as phantom Metron informs the future Mister Miracle.

The bottom-most caste in Darkseid’s cruel, merciless society? They are the Lowlies and, in the climax of this epic adventure, we will call them the Hunger Dogs…

Day 59: Para-Demons!

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Posted in Apokolips, Day Entries, Supporting Characters, The New Gods #1, Villains.

Darkseid’s Para-Demons are the sentries of Apokolips, patrolling the skies over the sinister planet to secure the air from intrusion by the gods of New Genesis. As a “Young Scott Free” vignette tells us, “Bred by Darkseid to destroy all intruders in the dark spaces above Apokolips, nothing equals the para-demon for ferocity and speed!!”

There seem to be a few different varieties of the airborne sentinels, some with four-fingered hands, some five-fingers; others with three toes, a type with four digits on their feet. All are appropriately demonic in appearance, though certains ones decidedly better looking than their brethren.

Their use pre-dates the “Great Clash,” as an Apokoliptian defender screams in the opening attack by New Genesis on Darkseid’s home world of that conflict : “War! War! Apokolips is under attack!! The enemy has broken through our para-demon air defense!!”

We can see they are relatively humanoid, but are they human? We’re not privvy to their origins but their services will no longer be needed by the time of The Hunger Dogs, being replaced with high-tech planetary shielding, as Lightray will learn.

But, in their prime, para-demons were used in mock battle exercises to help train Darkseid’s military cadets, as Scott Free, during his days in the Granny Goodness warrior academy, thwarts para-demon defenses during war games: “In a world of destructive extremes, young Scott Free, training as an aero-trooper in Darkseid’s forces, learns the extent of his skill — against para-demons!!”

Armed with mechanized clubs, the para-demons boast, “Batter poles up!! Pick your man — and fly in swinging!! Go, demons!!” But, though “the sky is filled with darting, savage forms,” the future Mister Miracle eludes punishment and, in “a primitive first attempt at the ‘escape art,’ strikes out a raging, murderous sentry.

Para-demons are used in one of Darkseid’s innumerable attempts to kill Himon, as Mister Miracle’s mentor is “dropped by para-demons from the sky.” Needless to add, that and other attempts are unsuccessful… for a time.

The hellish creatures seem not to possess wings in a traditional sense, but small, wing-like protrusions from their backs (possibly containing some anti-gravitational element?). Though they valiantly try, para-demons are unsuccessful in stopping Scott Free from breaking the pact by escaping to New Genesis.

Day 49: The Birth of the New Gods!

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Posted in Apokolips, Day Entries, Heroes, Locations, New Genesis, The New Gods #1, Villains.

Their world torn apart in an orgy of self-destruction, the old celestials pass onto Valhalla and make way for the new eternals, as the globe’s violent rendering form two spinning, molten spheres, worlds that will cool to become planets named New Genesis and Apokolips, one a Eden-like paradise, the other consumed with fire and brimstone.

And so Jack Kirby sets the good-and-evil duality of his saga, as these worlds are the respective homes of Darkseid and Highfather, worlds about to be engulfed in a Super-War.

These planets are the homes of the New Gods, and they are the stage where we will learn of the many fascinating and engrossing characters that will be cast in the Fourth World epic. We will meet Orion, son of Darkseid and hero supreme of New Genesis; Scott Free, the soon-to-be Mister Miracle; Kalibak the Cruel, Orion’s half-brother; Metron; Himon; Desaad; the Female Furies; Esak; Granny Goodness; Fastbak; Steppenwolf… Oh, you get the idea! We are in for a fantastic journey, a multi-layered saga of Shakespearean proportions, chock full of Dickensian touches, Faustian lessons and Faulkneresque family drama.

We, my friends, are about to go cosmic…

Day 48: The Death of the Old Gods!

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Posted in Apokolips, Day Entries, Heroes, Locations, New Genesis, The New Gods #1, Villains.

Who but Jack Kirby would begin the masterwork of his life with an epilogue, and one that (metaphorically, at least) eliminates his prior legendary characters in a conflagration of death and inferno, closing the book on the myths he created for a certain House of Ideas. Look closely at the hammer-wielding warrior about halfway down and to the left on this page-one splash page of his New Gods #1 and you tell me that doesn’t resemble a God of Thunder. (You want more evidence? Check out the artifacts Lonar discovers, particularly the winged-helmet, in “The Young Gods of Supertown” back-up vignette in The Forever People #5, when he chances upon a city of the old gods.)

Yes, here we finally witness the End of It All: Ragnarok! Warring gods battling for pride and possession and resulting only in their mutual destruction! “An ancient era was passing in fiery holocaust!”

(Allow me a quick aside regarding Jack’s frequent use of the word “holocaust”: It needs to be understood that the term, as we know it today, pretty much singularly refers to Germany’s war against the Jews (and other folk despised by the Nazis). The U.S. Holocaust Museum, for instance, is devoted to the genocidal events on the 1930s and ’40s in Europe. Though frequently a term used to describe the attempted extermination, the connection between the word and the event wasn’t etched in stone until, of all things, the broadcast of a U.S. television mini-series, Holocaust, in 1978. (The American Heritage Dictionary defines the word as “Great or total destruction by fire.”) So please note, the former Jacob Kurtzberg, acutely aware of the Nazi atrocities against his people, the Shoah — as you will see in the allegories to follow — was not using the term lightly.)

Besides the ruins of an old city chanced upon by Lonar and The Source, all that survives the great destruction are the “living atoms of Balduur” and the evil “which was once a sorceress” (Karnilla, Balder’s lover in The Mighty Thor?), which respectively settle upon the two worlds of New Genesis and Apokolips, planets sprung from the split sphere of the dead celestials.

As in the real world, life follows death and the eternal cycle begins again, and so it is from the ashes of the Old Gods rise the New.

Day 42: Darkseid’s Faithful Gravi-Guards!

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Posted in Apokolips, Day Entries, The Forever People #1, Villains.

For, I believe, their singular appearance in the Fourth World opus, up from the underground come the magenta-colored Gravi-Guards, those who “transmit gravity waves from heavy mass galaxies” strong enough to “hold any super-being!” And the particular super-being enduring their crushing weight and obnoxious boasts? Why, Superman, of course!

Our tale thus far: Upon seeing evidence of Supertown and listening to Jimmy Olsen’s description (heard from Bobby the shutterbug) of The Forever People, Clark Kent steers the cub reporter out the door, changes into the Man of Steel and takes to Metropolis skies “…to find those kids!” Inter-Gang agents in a helicopter spot Supes and, sensing a threat to their mission, contact Darkseid, who orders them to attack with their Sigma-Gun.

Just as the super-hero lands to introduce himself to Big Bear & Co., Sigma-blasts zzzaps and zzzaarraaps him and he flings a telephone pole that destroys the chopper. The youngsters think Supes is a fellow Supertownie and explain their intent on rescuing Beautiful Dreamer, and he ponders, “I must gain the confidence of these super-kids — if I ever hope to achieve what I came for!” The Last Son of Krypton senses a trap but the Forever People rush in and poison gas envelopes all. Superman creates a mini-twister, dispersing the vapor, and suddenly the yellow-helmeted Gravi-Guards (clad in fetching gold-and-purple trunks) lunge from out of the ground!

Superman being crushed, Gravi-Guards descending on them, The Forever People call upon a maternal device to unite them as one…

Day 38: Inter-Gang!

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Posted in Day Entries, Earth, Inter-Gang, The Forever People #1, Villains.

It’s appropriate that Jack, who had lived in the realm of real-world hoodlums as a kid growing up on the vicious mean streets of New York’s Lower East Side, had his greatest cosmic villain, Darkseid, not only ruling an entire planet of evil, but also serve as head gangster for an earthly crime organization, Inter-Gang. It brings the salient point home that despots and dictators are nothing but puffed-up gangsters, no matter what the fashionable accouterments or lofty-sounding rhetoric. Jack linked a high-tech Mafia to the dark god’s malevolent empire, expressing a fear-filled image that among us lurked an underground Apokoliptian Fifth Column, its rosters filled with thugs betraying their own planet motivated by (doubtless empty) promises of wealth and power from the Master of the Holocaust.

Yes, these are the same scoundrels Jack has portrayed since his beginnings in the art form, whether in Captain America Comics, “Newsboy Legion,” Justice Traps the Guilty, Fighting American, “Green Arrow,” or his innumerable Marvel tales: tough-talking, mean-natured, shallow, and murderous mobsters, a scourge to civilized life, grabbing what is not theirs and killing anyone who gets in their way. In other words, Jack always stuck with the Warner Brothers stereotype and, I strongly suspect, had real-life archetypes to contemplate, as a career in crime was a serious option to young Jacob Kurtzberg and the other youthful denizens of Manhattan’s slums.

Inter-Gang (International-Gangsters? Intergalactic-Gangsters?) was particularly active in the early issues of the Fourth World tetralogy, and as hackneyed and cliché as some of the goons are portrayed, they are all deliciously cruel and (of course) ill-fated in that indomitable Kirby style.

Jimmy Olsen had Ugly Mannhiem and the nameless killer of Jim (the original Guardian) Harper — and don’t forget the Scottish field office with Felix MacFinney and his “daughter,” Ginny; Mister Miracle had Steel Hand and even a secret Inter-Gang missile; The News Gods featured Badger, Sugar-Man, Country Boy and Snaky Doyle; and The Forever People? Well, they had this unnamed squad of Darkseid-connected racketeers, every-ready to to murder the unaware Super Kids and take out a certain Superman.

Want to get an inkling of Jack’s world view, at least a good portion? Load up your Netflix queue with the following Warner Brothers gangster movies (and then go read In the Days of The Mob as a chaser)… it’s all in there, pal:

Little Caesar (1931), The Public Enemy (’31), G Men (’35), The Petrified Forest (’36), Angels With Dirty Faces (’38), They Drive by Night (’38), Each Dawn I Die (’39), The Roaring Twenties (’39), High Sierra (’41), and White Heat (’49).

Non-WB productions, but well within the spirit (and they might have well been released by Jack Warner), include the must-see flicks: Scarface (1932) and Dead End (’37).

Day 28: The Incredible Jimmy!

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Posted in Day Entries, Earth, Jimmy Olsen #135, Villains.

Here, finally, is the reveal of just who is under that hood! A giant green clone of Jimmy Olsen, hellbent on crushing the life out of J.O.’s best pal, attacking Supes with “almost galactic force”! Bred by The Evil Factory, its “prize giant” has a singular mission to destroy the Man of Steel, who is “The one ally of Earth,” Simyan explains, “who could successfully defend them against us.”

I am led to believe that Jack did have some big plans for Superman in his Fourth World mythos (later recognized by stalwart creators including John Byrne and Bruce Timm, in comics and animation respectively, who both integrated elements of the Apokolips-New Genesis War into their own Superman projects), and the more you think about the melding of the two — Superman and Super-War — the more apropos the connection. I’ll wax on when we discuss Supes’ guest-star turn in The Forever People #1, but just gotta say, man, what coulda been!

It’s a delightful twist to have another freakish version of Jimmy tramping through the pages of his comic book, one that harks back to the wonky Weisinger-edited tales of Jimmy as a werewolf, or giant turtle man, or super-fat man, stories that were actually a lot of fun, if rankly juvenile. For the life of me, I can’t imagine Jack sitting down and reading the JO run before commencing on the title, but still, it’s a nice echo, whether intended or not.

It’s interesting, too, that the creature has a certain resemblance to another giant green behemoth prone to rage, one The King co-created at the competition nine or so years earlier, though where’s Green Jimmy’s purple pants? Watch out, kids, OLSEN SMASH!

The synthetic Kryptonite has helped the monster to smackdown Superman, and the creature is determined to destroy the entire Project…

Day 23: Mokkari & Simyan!

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Posted in Apokolips, Day Entries, Jimmy Olsen #135, Villains.

The proprietors of Darkseid’s earthbound DNA experimental lab, The Evil Factory, are, we presume, recent arrivals from Apokolips via the Boom Tube, and have set up shop in The Wild Area. Their mission: Steal cloning secrets and cell tissue from the nearby top-secret scientific organization, The Project, and “grow their own.”

While making only a handful of appearances in Jimmy Olsen, the mismatched pair make a delightful impression as almost comedic Fourth World villains. They’re craven cowards before Darkseid’s admonishments, bowing on their knees, head to the floor… Maybe it’s droll to suggest, but when Mokkari, the yellow-skinned tall fella with neato facial tatts, is being attacked by Jolly Green Jimmy later on in this ish, his desperate whining for Simyan (the shorter, Neanderthal-lookin’ gent) suggests perhaps a more intimate relationship between the duo…? I mean, they are all alone, besides the mindless clones, in that dark house of horrors…

ANYWAY, there’s a slight bumbling aspect to the pair — like they are always screwing things up and desperate to avoid Daddy Darkseid’s punishment — and for bad guys engaging in horrific experiments to serve the Greatest Threat To Earth EVER, hand it to Jack for some innovative character development!

Given his apish looks and knuckle-dragging saunter, Simyan is obviously named for “simian”; Mokkari, besides the resemblance to Mercury, I’d reckon Jack just thought it was a cool sounding name… [Consensus, on the FB community page and this blog, suggests that Jack was actually deriving Mokkari from “mockery,” which certainly makes sense, as the dude is making a mockery of The Project by perverting its aims with The Evil Factory.]

I still can’t get over what a cool facial design the Yellow Man sports! Nice stuff for a third-tier cast member.

(Yeah, I skipped over a villainous character in this chronology, but the Big Green Guy has a much more startling reveal later on in JO #135, and, anyway, Mokk and Sim have been lurking under masks these past few entries… It was time! And, one more thing, sorry if I missed posting yesterday; it’s hard to tell as I, on occasion, pre-post and looks like I mixed up… LOTS going on at Casa Cooke…)

Day 19: Darkseid!

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Posted in Apokolips, Day Entries, Jimmy Olsen #134, Villains.

Such a low-key introduction for the most important figure in Jack’s Fourth World mythos, the Master of the Holocaust, leader of Apokolips, the Revelation and all-round Tiger-Force of All Things… ladies and gentlemen, I give you: DARKSEID!

Jack’s closing caption in the last panel of JO #134 (that’s right, Kirbyheads: 19 entries and already two issues down, 53 to go!), doesn’t begin to allude to the cosmic epic to come: “‘Darkseid!’ With the mention of that name, the outline of a vast, ominous intrigue begins to take shape!…”

Darkseid (pronounced “Dark-SIDE“), breaking the Pact with New Genesis, has surreptitiously arrived on Earth seeking nameless earthlings who unwittingly retain in their minds the secret to the Anti-Life Equation. Once decoded, the equation will make the malevolent ruler master of the entire universe, with the hellworld called Apokolips reigning supreme. His agents on our planet assigned to do his bidding include corporate snake Morgan Edge and Inter-Gang, an worldwide network of mobsters…

Here, in the early stages of the Super-War to come, Darkseid hopes to destroy the threat of Superman and, in the process, the Man of Steel’s allies, Jimmy O. and the New Newsboy Legion (as well as The Hairies, The Project, The Outsiders and Habitat, and whoever else is in the Dark Lord’s way or has something he wishes to possess)…

Darkseid just might be the greatest comic-book villain of them all. Galactus is a superb candidate, except there is an ambivalence, a melancholy about that “God” stand-in which allows for a modicum of sympathy. Not so with the ashen-faced, stoic, helmeted nemesis of all that is good… Empathy? Not a chance! But respect? You betchum, Red Ryder! Ol’ Darkseid doesn’t have to scream and stamp his feet (though he’s known to bellow a little at times), he just stands there, cold as stone, and that’s enough to scare the poop out of anyone in his presence. An inspired and resonant creation, created by an artist seeking answers to deeply profound questions — The Meaning of It All — in the pages of that much-maligned art form, the comic book. Who’da thunk it?

Day Three: Morgan Edge & Galaxy Broadcasting!

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

An inspired updating of the Superman mythos took place when the Man of Steel’s über-editor Mort Weisinger was stepping down at DC in the early 1970s and newly-arrived artist/writer/editor Jack Kirby introduced sinister corporate takeover mogul Morgan Edge as now-TV reporter Clark Kent’s boss. (Technically, Murray Boltinoff was listed as JO editor, but that wouldn’t last too long.) Edge is a slick, devious, urbane and, we soon learn secretly (in JO #134), agent of the most malignant force in the universe, Darkseid, relentless seeker of the Anti-Life Equation, to boot!

Edge, who was a clothes horse, always dressed to the nines in snappy, pin-stripped business suits, would appear as foil in all the Superman family books, particularly in Superman’s Girl Friend, Lois Lane, but, when DC was losing confidence on the Fourth World titles, the duplicitous CEO would fade from the comics line. But while he was with us, sporting a perennial cigarette holder and decked in a shyster’s pin-striped suit, Edge kept the entire cast perpetually on… edge!

In the New York Times Magazine article on the relevancy in Marvel and DC comic books (“Shazam! Here Comes Captain Relevant,” by Saul Braun, May 2, 1971), the writer describes the Earthling allies of Apokolips: “…[I]n support of Darkseid are middle managers and technocrats of the Establishment, like Morgan Edge, a media baron who treats his new employee Clark Kent — now a TV newscaster — abominably.”

On the FB community page, Gary Leach mentions Edge wasn’t just a minion of the Evil One: “In spite of being an agent of Darkseid, [Edge] did seem genuinely interested in the Earthly fortunes of GBS (which we learn later to be a prime example of the acorn not falling very far from the tree).”

I’ve sometimes wondered, not too seriously, if Jack had based Edge on a real-life media tycoon, particularly the remarkable Steve Ross, the entrepreneurial wheeler-dealer who would eventually head the Time Warner Inc. communications empire. Just because I’m crazy like that, indulge me with this side-talk on Ross and his relationship to DC Comics, and maybe (just maybe) why there are similarities between Steve and Morgan:

In the mid-’60s, National Periodical Publications, a.k.a. DC Comics, consisted of three divisions: comics publishing, magazine distribution (Independent News Co.) and the recently acquired licensing arm (Licensing Corporation of America), which licensed DC characters to Hollywood, television producers, toy manufacturers… anyone, basically. The cultural explosion of the Batman TV show, a phenomenally successful, if shortlived series, made NPP a very attractive possible acquisition. The rapidly growing Kinney National Services (parking lots, limos, cleaning services, and other ventures, including funeral homes) was a company interested in merging with companies which catered to the leisure time of Americans. (Economists believed, during that era, we’d have to work only four days a week and have pah-lenty of idle time (right!).) Magazine distribution (IND, the most lucrative aspect of NPP) fit right into that prediction. So, for a cool $60 million, Kinney snapped up the House That Superman Built, in 1968.

The head of Kinney was Steve Ross, a bon vivant as colorful as any comic-book character and, in some ways, not unlike King Kirby. Born into poverty in Brooklyn’s tough Flatbush neighborhood, when Ross (birth name: Steven Jay Rechnitz) was a teen, quoting his 1992 New York Times obituary: “[H]e was summoned to his father’s deathbed to learn that his sole inheritance consisted of this advice: There are those who work all day; those who dream all day, and those who spend an hour dreaming before setting to work to fulfill those dreams. ‘Go into the third category,’ his father said, ‘because there’s virtually no competition.'”

Ross took the advice and, starting out as a particularly charming undertaker at his father-in-law’s funeral home, went on to create and head the largest communications conglomerate in the world, Time Warner, which remains the parent company of DC Comics. His achievements are amazing, his personality larger than life…

(There is no evidence, per se, that Ross was like Morgan Edge in being an agent for a great malevolent force, but it’s interesting to learn he was dogged to the end of his days of being, to again quote the NYT obit, “the subject of persistent innuendo involving a case in which two senior Warner executives, close friends of Mr. Ross, were convicted for their part in a racketeering scheme involving a mob-connected theater in Tarrytown, N.Y., a suburb of New York City.” Kirbyophiles may want to know that one of those “senior Warner executives” was onetime LCA head Jay Emmett, nephew of Jack Lebowitz, the former owner of National Periodical Publications… T’is a fascinating story…)

(Tom Stewart, in the reply section, suggests the real-life Edge prototype just might be early ’60s Columbia Broadcasting System president James Aubrey, who shared with GBS President Edge the nickname “The Smiling Cobra”! Judging by the info on the Wikipedia page, our friend just might be correct! Nice catch, T.S.!)

But I digress…

Galaxy Broadcasting System (GBS), the conglomerate headed by Edge, was a perfect updating as a relevant place for Supe’s alter ego, reporter Clark Kent, to hang his hat. It was, after all, the Age of TeeVee, and broadcast news was king. Is this a linking of the merger mania of that time with the ruler of Apokolips? Stay tuned!