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Apr 28, 2018

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1158: New Gods #5, October 1984

https://www.comics.org/issue/39159/

An interesting element is added in today's issue in the bug civilization.

But my Mum and Dad arrived today, and I'm tired, so I'll fill you in on this tomorrow.

(A couple of days later...)

I'm fascinated by the idea that there is another sentient civilization living on New Genesis, though I suppose the same can be said of Apokolips and its Hunger Dogs. But that the "Eternals" of New Genesis see these creatures as vermin is a bit odd. Aren't the New Genesis gods supposed to be the magnanimous ones? But as far as I can tell, they're happy to exterminate the bugs, even though they appear to have a relatively advanced civilization. And then there's the problem of The Bug, or Forager as he's called in the issue. It turns out that he's not actually a bug, but a New God, but although this is revealed to him and to Orion and Lightray in this issue, no one tries to figure out how one of the young of New Genesis ended up being raised by the bugs.

The thing is, it's because that's not really that important to Kirby's story. I've been looking at this series as a very basic myth. Not too many bells and whistles, very direct, so the story of Forager's origin, assuming it is of no consequence to the larger tale, is unimportant. What is important is the role he plays in warning of the bug invasion of Earth. None of the characters do anything or are involved in anything that does not drive the plot forward. Perhaps it's a bit off-putting in that in contemporary media we're often exposed to an A-plot and a B-plot. Kirby has no B-plot in this series. Everything is A-plot. This is deployed in a very self-conscious manner. In fact, the final panel of today's issue seems to speak directly to the reader, as if the gods themselves, and not their writer, were telling us that they're here, on the pages of a comic book, but never too far away:


I think that Orion's statement there is as good an articulation of what I get from Kirby's cosmic superhero work (New Gods, Eternals, maybe even Thor) as anything. Note that even as Orion is talking about reflections, we are looking directly into his eyes, as if staring into a mirror.

More to come...

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