I Really Should Read This 11: Forever People, by Jack Kirby

Forever People, by Jack Kirby

1970, collected in 2020

I had read in some places that Forever People was one of the weak links in Kirby's Fourth World. After reading it? It's not his best!

Since last summer, I've read New Gods, Mister Miracle, and the Demon of 70s Kirby work, and the Eternals from his 70s Marvel. To be fair to the Forever People, it's worse by a matter of degrees, but none of it is flawless. All these works have really high highs, and really really low lows. I still had a ton of moments in this where I delighted at what I was reading.

Not one of these characters' names give a hint of their character

I'm not going to make a big issue out of it, the characters are what they are, but Vykin the Black is a poorly-named character. Around issue five, a Japanese character is introduced, Sonny Sumo. Vykin the Black is DC's first black superhero. Kirby was trying to broaden the scope of the comics, but he was also in his 50s. By modern standards, it's laughable, but his heart was in the right place.

All of these characters look great; Kirby was great at designing, but, like the New Gods and the Eternals, their names and powers are generally vague. Mark Moonrider has a "megaton touch." Serifan has capsules on his cowboy hat that can do what the story calls for. Only Beautiful Dreamer has a power that can survive an elevator pitch: she can pull images out of your mind and make them temporarily real. Compared to the characters he made with Stan Lee in the 60s, they don't have the same hook. Kirby was pretty free to run with his imagination, but maybe he was well-served by having someone to bounce ideas off of from time to time.

What else about the Forever People? They're from a place in New Genesis called Supertown, and when they put their hands together and say the word TAARU they change into Infinity Man (whom they have an arrangement with).

This is about all the explanation Infinity Man gets

It's not an easy read. Kirby had so many ideas, and he picks them up and drops them at a whim. On the stands, as single issues, they likely worked fine, with each issue overflowing with new concepts. But as an 11 issue collection, they don't make much sense when read as a whole.

He talks about the Omega Effect and the Anti-Life Equation, and as best I understand it the Anti-Life Equation is a kind of fascist mind control that obliterates free will, but I don't understand it. I just go along for the ride. I just finished Grant Morrison's Batman Omnibus Two, which uses these concepts from the New Gods, and I didn't understand it much there either.

I think if Infinity Man had become a bigger character, his look wouldn't feel so generic-Kirby

Infinity Man seems like a bad name, and an uninspired costume, and I didn't like him at all. After, I was looking at the costume, and it's not so much better or worse than other Kirby designs, but probably the name and lack of personality meant that it didn't click with me or with readers. It's not a bad idea, it's like Captain Marvel/Shazam, but with a team instead of a single kid, but then Kirby moves on from it. After issue three, this character I disliked so much disappeared from the book and this aspect of the Forever People is ignored. In the final issue, they announce Infinity Man is back! and I had all but forgotten he existed. 

Hmmm

The Forever People are modeled on hippies, and hippies are referenced in places. Kirby was trying to stay in touch with the kids. They sometimes talk about peace and love. The final issues of the book, the Forever People rent a room with a retired ex-flapper named Mrs. Magruder and we get to see the generation gap play out. Mrs. Magruder says things like, "Well, I never --!" It's entertaining, but it's not a justification to buy the book.

One of the first pages that really floored me. It's creepy, bold, and that's a Kirby gun if ever there was one

The art and relentless novelty of the images are the justification to buy the book. The book is reinvented a few times in its 11 issue run. This is part of the first wave of post-Marvel Kirby DC books, and he was still finding his new footing. By the Demon, he had really gotten into the swing of it, lots of splash pages and he regularly did double page spreads on pages 2 and 3 that I got really excited to see each issue. With this book, the art is good from the start, but it's a few issues in before he starts running wild with it.

That is a horse. Cut it out and plaster it on a giant canvas, and it's an futurist painting from the 1910s that sells for millions

The more New Genesis and Apokalips stuff he throws in, the better. It's weird, it's idiosyncratic, and I can't get enough of it.

Page 2-3 double page spread. It's so good

He has a time travel story in the middle, "I'll Find You in Yesterday!" where he goes wild drawing Abraham Lincoln, Spanish Conquistadors, and Roman Centurions. Sure, I'm happy to read that.

He just felt like drawing this

A lot of this Kirby work can be a hard read for modern readers, myself included. The pacing and the overdone narration can be a slog. It was made as disposable work for children and not to be overanalyzed by adults. So some of the criticisms I would have for a 21st century book aren't applicable. I appreciate the aspects that appeal to me now, and am able to brush aside the stuff that was never targeted at me. Over the coronavirus lockdown, I took the time to really read Kirby's work and not just admire the artwork. It took a long time, maybe 20 to 30 issues, to get my head synced up to the pace of his books. And this is the ninth fat trade collection of his work I've read cover to cover in the past year. I'm into it. I like it. Unironically, without reservations, it's just good work.