DC Comics appears to have had high hopes for The Demon when the title was first launched, back in June, 1972. After just one issue — well before any reliable sales figures could have become available — the publisher increased the book’s frequency from bi-monthly to monthly with Demon #2, which was released in August. That month happened to be the very same one that DC dropped the ax on artist/writer/editor Jack Kirby’s core “Fourth World” titles, Forever People and New Gods, each with their eleventh issues– two series in which the veteran creator had almost certainly invested more of his passion, imagination, and energy than he ever would The Demon, or, for that matter, any other comic he’d work on for DC in the 1970s. Yet neither title had ever received the show of faith on DC publisher Carmine Infantino’s part that monthly status would have indicated, nor had (or would) the lone surviving Fourth World title, Mister Miracle — which continued coming out every two months (albeit gutted of virtually everything that had made it a Fourth World book in the first place), while both The Demon and its fellow “new” Kirby creation, Kamandi, the Last Boy on Earth, sprinted along at their monthly pace.
But in October, 1973 — sixteen months and fifteen issues following its debut — The Demon, too, had reached the end of its road. Not that that was in any way suggested by Demon #16’s cover by Kirby and inker Mike Royer — unless you took it as a sign that the Demon Etrigan’s foe in this issue was the same one he’d faced in his premiere storyline… an antagonist who’d also played a pivotal role in his centuries-old origin. But to make that connection, you’d have had to recall how, in the previous issue’s last panel teaser, Kirby had promised the return of “Morgaine le Fey — the Immortal Enemy!” — since the cover blurb only used the latter two-word designation for the famous sorceress, and not her proper name (or her traditional descriptor of “the Fey”, or “the Fairy”)… not to mention that Morgaine was looking considerably better than she had the last time we’d seen her.
While I’m sure that my sixteen-year-old self — a regular purchaser and reader of The Demon since its first issue –did in fact recall issue #15’s tease of Morgaine’s return when I saw #16 in the spinner rack, I don’t recall seeing it as being in any way ominous; I suspect that, rather, I was just glad to have her back, since her reappearance represented a return to the Arthurian legend-inspired themes that had been a big part of what had attracted me to The Demon in the first place, and that probably would have kept me reading for years to come had the title continued, in hopes of Merlin or Morgaine popping in for an issue or two — despite the fact that I’d been growing steadily more disenchanted with the series in recent months.
My main cause for dissatisfaction at that time was what seemed to be Kirby’s predilection for riffing on old horror movies rather than coming up with something more original — or, a bit more accurately, doing his personal takes on horror movie tropes without directly referencing the original source material. I was in fact quite happy to read about “real” werewolves, and had been doing so, in DC’s comics as well as in those of their primary competitor, Marvel — so why did I need a new werewolf “type” monster from Kirby, like issue #6’s “The 
Howler!”? Similarly, if Kirby wanted to create stories about the Phantom of the Opera, or Dr. Frankenstein and his Monster, there didn’t seem to be any reason for him not do so directly; for that reason, I couldn’t see the point of devoting three issues each to “The Phantom of the Sewers” (#8-10) or “Baron von Evilstein” (#11-13). (It didn’t help matters that Kirby had been down this road a couple of times already since his return to DC in 1970; first in the “Transilvane” two-parter in Jimmy Olsen #142-143, and then in “The Monster in the Morgue” in Forever People #9.) And while it was true that the last two issues of The Demon had featured the return of what was probably Kirby’s most unique (and, other than Etrigan himself, most enduring) character creation for the series, Klarion the Witchboy, Klarion’s return engagement with our infernal protagonist had cast him in a more straightforwardly villainous, and consequently less interesting, role than he’d played in his first appearance, back in issue #7.
While it may well be true that Jack Kirby was trying to bring his “A” game with this material every bit as much as he’d done with his Fourth World books — that, as his friend and former assistant Mark Evanier wrote in his 2008 introduction to a Demon trade collection, after the cancellation of Forever People and New Gods “Kirby mourned his aborted magnum opus for a day or two, then rolled up his sleeves and gave the new books [i.e., Demon and Kamandi] his all” — even the most dedicated and strenuous effort can only accomplish so much in the absence of inspiration; especially, I think, for an intuitive creator like Jack Kirby. And in the latter half of his run on The Demon, if not the whole, Kirby’s still-prodigious imagination seemed to be running on fumes; the spark just wasn’t there. Which may be why The Demon — a character concept literally made-to-order for the “horror hero” trend that was doing very well for both DC and Marvel in the early-to-mid ’70s — ultimately failed in the marketplace.
Though, as I’ve already said, I didn’t yet have any inkling of that failure when I first turned past the cover of Demon #16 to its opening splash, back in October, 1973…
Finding the buffalo-like Kafir too physically resilient to be quickly taken down by his strength alone, the Demon opts to employ another weapon from his arsenal…
“The clinging cloud” is as good as its name; it affixes itself to Etrigan’s face and rapidly chokes him out…
As we’ve already noted, in addition to being the first villain fought by the Demon in his series, Morgaine le Fey also played a role in Etrigan’s origin story, having been the instigator of the fatal attack on Camelot centuries earlier which caused Merlin first to invoke the Demon, then to disguise him in the form of the human Jason Blood. But this is a very different Morgaine, visually speaking, than we’d seen even in that flashback, where she wore the same heavy robes and metal mask that she did when seeking to restore her youth in the present-day action of Demon #1 and #2.
At the end of issue #2, Morgaine had vanished in the midst of an Etrigan-created conflagration. But she’d been in the midst of a rejuvenation ritual at the time, and Kirby had clearly left the door open to the possibility that the sorceress had succeeded in her aim, and had simply disappeared rather than been destroyed. As Jason Blood put it at the time: “If she has been renewed, then that which destroyed Camelot and many great works of man before it… will strike once again!” Now, fourteen issues later, Jason’s prophecy is coming true at last — just in time to bring the series full circle.
Who says Jack Kirby couldn’t draw sexy women? For my money, the new-and-improved Morgaine le Fey ranks right up there with the King’s most alluring females (e.g., Big Barda, Beautiful Dreamer, and the original “Frightful Four” iteration of Medusa, the Inhuman).
Glenda Mace is the only member of the series’ regular supporting cast to put in an appearance in this final issue. And if Kirby felt he only had room in “Immortal Enemy!” for one of Jason Blood’s three closest friends (the other two being Harry Matthews and Randu Singh), he probably made the right choice — since, in addition to being Jason’s “love interest”, she’s also the only one of the three who doesn’t already know his secret. So, you could say that Kirby — and Jason — still have some unfinished business to take care of.
The mysterious object being wielded by Glenda is the Philosopher’s Stone (aka the Sorcerer’s Stone, if you happen to be an American “Harry Potter” fan). It had been established as being in Jason’s possession back in issue #8, and had featured in several subsequent issues as well, before falling into Glenda’s hands in #15.
The occultist Warly, like his mistress Morgaine, had been introduced in The Demon‘s premiere two-part storyline, and hadn’t been seen since. Since Glenda hadn’t met him on that occasion, she naturally has no idea he’s bad news…
Meanwhile, back at Morgaine’s place, Warly’s boss has decided to test her dominance over Etrigan with a little demonstration…
Dismissing the Smasher, Morgaine taunts the bewildered Glenda, telling her that Warly didn’t lie: “Jason Blood is here”…
Releasing Jason from her withering spell, Morgaine commands Warly to hand the Philosopher’s Stone over to her; the old sorcerer has other ideas, however…
Hmm, an Egyptian mummy and/or sarcophagus would seem a less than appropriate final fate for a sorceress derived from European folklore and literary traditions. But I don’t suppose Morgaine’s in any shape to register a complaint…
As he’d done with the final issues of Forever People and New Gods, Jack Kirby brings down the curtain on The Demon with a final scene that, if not quite a proper ending to his characters’ story, still feels like a decent stopping place. Of course, there’s no real reason why The Demon should need an ending, at least not in the same way the Fourth World books (most especially New Gods) seemed to; while we readers desired (and on some level expected) Orion and Darkseid to have their final battle one day, and for the latter’s quest for the Anti-Life Equation to be thwarted once and for all, one can easily imagine Etrigan’s Merlin-ordained crusade against supernatural evil going on, well, forever. (Naturally, if you were in Jason Blood’s shoes, you might consider a definite conclusion to that struggle a thing devoutly to be wished; but we’re talking about the expectations of the average reader.) Even so, it’s entirely proper for Jack Kirby to give his creations a formal farewell, and he does so quite effectively with this issue. (Although, to be honest, at the time I was a little miffed at the time that Merlin — who’d been such a presence in the book’s early issues, but hadn’t shown his bearded face even as a narrator since issue #7 — didn’t show up for the finale for at least a panel or two.)
The Demon would indeed have a long post-Kirby career, and a relatively prosperous one, all things considered. But as the year 1973 wound down, I would guess he was already a rapidly receding figure in the consciousness of the man who’d made him up. As the last-panel blurb in Demon #16 that would have ordinarily teased the contents of the next issue declared, “a new and exciting comic from the DC Kirby-works” would be coming readers’ way “very soon!” — though, as it happened, the next full creation of the King’s to find its way to spinner racks — OMAC — wouldn’t do so until June, 1974. (No, I’m not going to count The Sandman, a collaboration with his former partner Joe Simon that Kirby reportedly took on only under pressure from above, which came out in January.)
As it happened, the very next Jack Kirby comic book that would arrive on stands — just two weeks after Demon #16 — was the final issue of the last remaining vestige of his Fourth World opus, Mister Miracle… a series which, ironically, managed to outlast the first of the new Kirby titles that DC had intended to succeed the Fourth World, if just barely. We’ll be looking at that one early next month; I hope you’ll join me then.
I found the philospher’s stone annoying, a little too convenient in its abilities.
I was never a huge Demon fan — it fell into the category “Okay, this is fun, but I don’t see why people say Kirby’s a genius” — but you’re right about it falling off as it went along. Though I did like the Howler.
I’d never thought about the last issue as going full circle. Interesting point.
I guess the guest appearance by Sue Richards was done with Marvel Comics’ permission?
In all seriousness, Jack could certainly draw attractive women–although many of them looked somewhat alike.
in spite of disappointment and hampered by so much nonsense —or perhaps in defiance—the pure comics energy of Jack Kirby’s Demon series cannot be denied.
thanks for posting!
I always liked the Demon as a concept. Jack was a lazy student of Arthurian lore, at best, and his stories wobbled back and forth between Arthurian characters that bore little resemblance to what we knew from legend and rip offs of old Universal monster movies. Also, was the Philosopher’s Stone attributed with such power in the original stories? I thought it only granted eternal life (that misunderstanding may be on me and not Kirby).
Anyway, I liked Jason Blood and the Demon even though, as you said, Alan, it often seemed that Jack’s heart wasn’t really in those stories. I think the Demon is one of his few creations that actually fared better in the hands of other writers who perhaps, had more enthusiasm for the character and his backstory.
Strange isn’t it, that while Kirby will always be remembered for the Fourth World and the creation of Darkseid, Kamandi was his longest running, most financially successful DC creation, while being the one least-remembered by the fans.
Thanks, Alan.
In legend, besides rejuvenation, the Stone was capable of transmuting base metals into gold or silver. In DC, Silver Age Flash foe Doctor Alchemy used a Philosophers’ Stone to transmute any element into any other element, so Kirby didn’t pull that out of nowhere.
Thanks. You learn something new every day.
Given it was “Planet of the Apes and Other Animals” Kamandi turned out wildly imaginative. And real, in the sense that the animal civilizations felt like they existed long before Kamandi showed up (https://frasersherman.com/2016/12/21/not-being-the-chosen-one-kamandi-the-last-boy-on-earth-sfwapro/).
I just got through rereading Byrne’s Wonder Woman run. He retcons out all the changes subsequent writers made so that he can restore the original Kirby version (his usual “nobody understands this character like the creator, and me!” shtick, I guess). I do not think that was an improvement, and I don’t think anyone paid attention to it afterwards.
I can’t say I’ve ever cared for the Demon much, with or without Kirby. I barely read any of the Kirby stuff and most of the stuff subsequent. I thought he was okay as a guest star sometimes as long as he didn’t overwhelm the star of whatever book he appeared in. For some reason I can’t explain, Kamandi and OMAC interested me very much, despite not caring overly much for Kirby’s art and wincing at the awful names he’d come up with for characters.
There are some truly inspired moments in Kamandi, like the ape cult based on the Watergate tapes (“Arm them with subpoenas! They must bring the committee witnesses to be — interrogated! And then we will impeach!”)
Yeah. Glenda did seem like a re-purposed Sue Storm. Ben Boxer in human form looks something like Ben Grimm in human form and his metal form echoes the Silver Surfer. (On the other hand, Kamandi looks like Angel from Boys’ Ranch.)
I always thought Demon #1 might be Kirby’s best drawn DC Comic. However, like other posters,, I liked Kamandi and OMAC a great deal more.
The odd thing is that The Demon got a Batman Team Up in B&B in the Summer of 1973 . . . and Haney seemed to “get” everything that Kirby was trying to do: Merlin; hot takes on classic monsters.; all of it. Not the usual case. Mr. Miracle got a B&B story . right after his book was canceled that also showed more attention to continuity than Haney usually bothered with.
I think the basic concept for Kamandi came from Infantino, not Kirby, which might be why the title got a friendlier pub schedule. (I believe Infantino specifically wanted a Planet of the Apes rip-off, which is why the Statue of Liberty was on the cover of the first issue.)
Sales during this era were tricky. Unless the book was a big, big hit, a sellout, it was pretty hard to judge how well any comic was really doing until well after it was released, since it was all based on returns back then. I think there was a lot of guesswork to it, and management had their own biases come into play when it came to deciding to cancel a title or not.
There was also a good deal of plain corruption in the system, books that were sold being reported as unsold and people pocketing the difference.
The success or failure of an individual title probably had more to do with office politics than business. Probably still true today, sadly.
I think Paul Levitz has reported that the Fourth World books were mid-tier sellers by DC’s standards — not huge hits, but not bitter failures either. They outsold other books which weren’t cancelled, such as Wonder Woman and The Flash.
This just reinforces my belief that Infantino didn’t “get” Kirby’s Fourth World and didn’t fully support it, leading to the cancellations. My impression is that, like so many others in the industry, Infantino thought he knew what was best for Kirby better than Kirby. Which is sad.
From what I’ve read, Infantino and the DC office wanted two things out of Jack —
1) Weaken Marvel’s position in the market by taking away its top creator
2) According to Mark Evanier, act as a “gateway drug” for the Marvel readers to come over to DC and realize that they had the better comics
Obviously, neither happened, the Fourth World comics were just mid-tier sellers, so Infantino thought moving Kirby to other comics might get him those larger sales figures. Horror’s big? POTA is big? Put Jack on those instead and see if the sales spike.
I think the most telling thing is that after Infantino was fired and Kahn was brought on board, she saw the sales figures for New Gods and Mister Miracle and brought both titles back. But Jack had already left DC at that point.
Kirby may have given “his all” to the comics for DC he did after the 4th World but I don’t think his all was anyway near what it had been – that was a severe gut punch to what he considered was going to be his masterpiece, and, I think, the proof he didn’t need Stan to create such. It’s a damn shame … bring on the haters but I really believe if he’s had a good dialoguer – Evanier might have been acceptable to him – the 4th World would have done much better. I worshipped Jack and even a true believer like me shook his head at some of the stuff Jack had coming out of the character’s mouths.
I did love OMAC – will you be getting into that?
As well – it really causes some head-shaking when I see a DC movie and note how much they continue to mine the stuff Jack gave them, and that they failed to appreciate.
John — alas, I’m afraid that OMAC, like Kamandi, was one of those post-Fourth World Kirby projects that just didn’t click with me back in the day.
I didin’t see it when it was new – by the time the 4th World ended I’d abandoned comics for sex,drugs, and loud guitars. It was only later that I started picking up books again (and I was really disenchanted with what Marvel had become, and the prices)
I liked a lot about OMAC – the World Peace agents or whatever hey were called , the facelessness, Brother Eye. The first one I saw was the build-a-friend one and – I’d missed Wacky Jack.
Kamandi I bout the entire run at a used book store for $5 or something and once I got over the shameless Planet of the Apes-ness, there was a lot to like. Isn’t it weird that *that* was the successful title he had at DC?
A bit, but considering the times, maybe not? It was similar to a successful property and the concept was probably much easier for kids / casual readers to understand than New Gods or OMAC.
The problem with the Fourth Word was not that Kirby needed a guy to do dialogue,; it was that he needed a good editor or a publisher with a better sense of what sold.
Sometimes, “The Pact” or “The Death Wish of the Terrible Turpin” (or “Mother Delilah” in Boys’ Ranch in the 1950s), Kirby could do Dialogue of heart breaking quality. BUT someone still need to tell him to lose the excessive quotation marks and bolded words.
Just the New Gods and Jimmy Olson would have been great, More focused, brimming with new ideas with JO being Jack’s interface with the DCU and New Gods being the enntry argument into the Kirbyverse
“The Great Scott Free Bust Out” and “Himon” would have made great “”tryouts” for Mister Miricle; maybe done as a DC Special since Shpwcae was defunct by then.
Maybe Forever People # ! could have been New Gods # 1`and the Sonny Sumo story could have been done as a “Mini?”
Forth World is a Masterpeice, but it had a lot of filler due to the format chosen (which Kirby apparently wanted to vary). There were some great Mister Miracle and Forever People tales to tell (but there was a fair amount of filler, too).
The DC editorial staff didn’t get Kirby (Julie Schwartz loved his art but hated his stories,. Boltinoff seemed to avoid it. No one listened to ENB, but I think he “got” it as a fan (but likely did not know how to present it, either),
Say what you will about Stan Lee, but Lee might have been the only one who knew how to present Kirby. He understood the genius, As great an artist as Infantino was, (and as influential as a lot of the work done in his tenure was) Infantino seemed not to have a marketeer’s bone in his body.
If you’re going to give someone credit for “presenting” Kirby, you might want to choose Joe Simon instead — their golden age books sold far more than anything Jack did with Stan.
S&K signed their work, but the sophisticated marketing Lee did, based on fans knowing who created the stories made “Jack Kirby” a thing, more than with Simon.
The rise of “Fandom” precedes Lee and Marvel but Lee fueled its explosive growth.
Just a couple of years before Marvel did Schiff credit him for Challs at DC? If he were a “name” then, he would have.
Sorry, I misunderstood what you were saying.
“Say what you will about Stan Lee, but Lee might have been the only one who knew how to present Kirby. He understood the genius, As great an artist as Infantino was, (and as influential as a lot of the work done in his tenure was) Infantino seemed not to have a marketeer’s bone in his body.”
I think Carmine was one of those DC guys who looked at the marvel books and just couldn’t figure out why people liked them. So he brought Jack in to supply whatever the hell it was the kids liked … and disregarded how big a part of it Stan was
Good point.
To expamd on it, I will say that Infantino DID undersatnd what Marvel was doing. However, I think his understanding was visual.
I think he understood the dynamism and story-telling in Kirby’s art (as he did with his peers, like Kubert and Kane).
However, what Infantino did not get was that Kirby came to DC to do something different than what Marvel let him do,. Kirby pitched the Fourth World to Goodman and Lee in 1967; they passed on it. (Possibly. they knew it wouldn’t sell.)
When Infantino came in as Editorial Director (and, later, publisher) he made Artists Editors to make the books more dynamic. Giordano did some clever stuff, going back into Western Comics and Mystery Books that were tonially different from Orlando’s. Ditko’s Creeper and The Hawk & the Dove (that wrecked Giordano and Ditko’s personal friendship), but were interesting comics.
Giordano was fired as an Editor not long after Kirby arrived. I wonder what would have happened if Giordano had been made Kirby’s consulting editor? Given Ditko, another Marvel guy who wanted to get beyond what Marvel let him do, it might have been worse but Giordano had a deserved rep as a decent and pragmatic man, so maybe . . . .
I wonder if the experiance with Ditko in 1967-68 was considered when they brought in Kirby in 1970?
The research I did for my Witching Hour #13 post a few years ago (https://50yearoldcomics.com/2020/12/31/witching-hour-13-feb-mar-1971/ ) indicated that Giordano quit, rather than was fired. But I suppose it may have been one of those “jump or be pushed” situations.
I’ve never heard that Kirby pitched the Fourth World to Marvel first. Literally every account I’ve read says the opposite — Jack was tired of Goodman reneging on his promises of profit participation from Marvel merchandising, saw he wasn’t going to be well taken care of by Perfect Chemical (who bought Marvel from Goodman), and decided to stop “giving” Marvel new characters around 1968. That’s why you see so few new characters and concepts after that time towards the end of his Fantastic Four and Thor runs.
Apperently, he shopped it to marvel in 1967 and got a pass.
https://www.cbr.com/jack-kirby-fourth-world-showcase-dc-comics-debut/
John, I assume you’re referring to this statement in that CBR piece by Brian Cronin:
“Interestingly, the Orion figure on the cover of New Gods is basically identical to the drawing that Kirby did (inked by the great Frank Giacoia) as part of Kirby’s presentation of the New Gods concept (back before Kirby had decided to do the project at DC, as he was hopeful that perhaps he could do the characters at Marvel under a special revenue-sharing agreement where he would also maintain the copyrights on the characters, but when that fell through, he accepted roughly the same deal at DC that he was getting at Marvel, he just wanted out of Marvel at all costs). ”
I think that “he was hopeful that perhaps” is the key phrase here. I’ve seen plenty of speculation that Kirby might have directly approached Lee and/or Goodman about Marvel bringing out the New Gods (perhaps as a post-Ragnarok “sequel” to “Thor”), but as best as I can determine, there is no hard documentation supporting that thesis. There certainly isn’t any presented in John Morrow’s “Old Gods and New” (TwoMorrows, 2021), which I think is as close to a definitive history of the Fourth World as we’re likely to get.
My inference has been “jump or be pushed” per interviws with Giordano.
Talk about timing… just this past weekend I finally had the chance to read Carmine Infantino’s letter in Comic Book Artist #3 (Winter, 1999), in which he claimed to have fired Dick Giordano outright. Prior to this, I hadn’t even realized that the matter was in dispute.
During Jenette Kahn’s tenure as publisher, Paul Levitz and Dick Giordano were her right hand men, whereas Carmine never returned to a desk job at DC after he was let go in 1976. I’m amazed that Jenette wasn’t fired when the great DC implosion occurred in 1978, but the blame was probably directed at Infantino’s attempt to wildly expand the line to compete with Marvel.
Really interesting comments on this one.
Did Jack need a good editor?…probably; an editor that could discuss and advise, not demand. Stan was a great editor, for a while, but like most artistic ‘partnerships’ (especially musical ones), it went sour after a while. I think that by the time that Jack left Marvel in ’70 he wasn’t seen as irreplaceable. If he was, wouldn’t Stan have been on the first place out to LA to get Jack back?
Did Infantino want to bring Kirby to DC as a spoiler to Marvel, as opposed to what Kirby could bring to DC? I think that a lot of Infantino’s rep with the DC office lay with what Jack could pull off. It was just not in Infantino’s interest for Jack to fail! Did the 4th World really fail…probably not, except maybe against Infantino’s own expectations. Early to mid 70s DC was continually shifting away from super-heroes to mystery and horror. So it would be logical for DC’s strategy to replace the 4th world super-hero titles with the type of titles that Infantino saw as having the best chance in that current marketplace.
Otherwise I wanted to say that although I enjoyed the Demon when I finally caught up with the series a few years ago, I am cold towards the art shown for this feature, with the exception of page 2, which could easily have been a Marvel scene circa ’68. I grew up reading reprints of 60s Kirby Marvels, and compared to those ( yes, even those inked by Roussos and Reinman) Kirby’s art in Demon#16 really claustrophobic. There is too much surface detail, the figures all appear cramped. and the use of background blacks close the panel rather than opens them. The art has little or no depth. There was, along with the action and fight choreography, a grace to Kirby’s 60s work that is now missing. Kirby was a comic’s genius. but compared against some of the other art that Alan has been recently featuring (By BWS, Brunner, Smith, Wrightson) it looks not dull, but uninspired.
Finslly…Jack’s women….my vote is for the enchantress in Journey int Mystery#103!
Given that the Philosopher’s Stone is perfectly symmetrical, I wonder how you know which end to point at someone or something. Glenda’s lucky she didn’t turn herself into flowers.
To paraphrase Dr. Strange in his showdown with Silver Dagger, the Philosopher’s Stone is not a gun. Glenda’s aiming it with her thoughts.