Forever People

Phantom Stranger #33 (Oct.-Nov., 1974)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

Cover art by Michael W. Kaluta.

Cover art by Nick Cardy.

It’s been quite a while since we covered an issue of Phantom Stranger on the blog — more specifically, since May, 2023, when we took a look at PS #26.  As I wrote at the time, that issue’s crossover between the comic’s lead and backup features (the latter then being “The Spawn of Frankenstein”) represented the end of an era for the Joe Orlando-edited title, as the very next issue, #27, would bring a complete overhaul of the creative teams for both strips.

Gone from the front of the book were writer Len Wein (who’d written every Phantom Stranger story since issue #14) and artist Jim Aparo (whose association with the character went all the way back to #7); replacing the duo were Arnold Drake and Gerry Talaoc, respectively.  Meanwhile, writer Marv Wolfman and artist Michael W. Kaluta had departed the back pages, leaving the chronicling of the modern adventures of Mary Shelley’s classic creation to Steve Skeates and Bernard Bailey.  Read More

Forever People #11 (Oct.-Nov., 1972)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

As I previously covered back in June in my post about the first issue of The Demon, sometime in the first half of 1972 DC Comics requested writer-artist-editor Jack Kirby to come up with a couple of new series concepts to complement the three titles already on his schedule.  The results were pitches for what ultimately became The Demon and Kamandi, the Last Boy on Earth — and DC liked them a lot.  Indeed, from Kirby’s perspective, they may have liked them a little too much. Read More

Forever People #9 (Jun.-Jul., 1972)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

In October, 1971, Don and Maggie Thompson’s fanzine Newfangles reported:

There are indications that DC is in serious trouble. Dealers are not too keen on the 25¢ comic book[s], sales are skyrocketing for Marvel, Charlton and Gold Key (GK has 15¢ books, Marvel and Charlton 20¢)… DC’s titles are also reported to be dying in droves on the stands, if they get that far—wholesalers prefer to handle the 20¢ books, apparently.

A couple of months later, with disappointing sales reports now in for about a quarter-year’s worth of the “bigger & better” format DC had inaugurated in June, publisher Carmine Infantino prepared to make some course adjustments.  The most significant upcoming change would be to the format itself (more on that later), but there were other indicators of Infantino’s efforts to staunch the bleeding as 1972 got underway; for example, Green Lantern, one of the signature series of DC’s Silver Age, was cancelled with its 89th issue, shipping in February.  As for the titles written, drawn, and edited by Jack Kirby, with which DC had clearly hoped to clean up with sales-wise following Kirby’s 1970 defection from DC’s chief rival, Marvel Comics: Jimmy Olsen was removed from Kirby’s purview with the 148th issue (which, like GL #89, came out in February); and while Infantino wasn’t quite ready to pull the plug on Kirby’s three remaining titles — the core books of the star creator’s interconnected “Fourth World” epic — he appears to have been determined to take a more active role in guiding their respective directions than he had before.  If the King could ever have been said to have had free rein in managing “his” comics at DC (and that’s by no means an indisputable statement), that day was over.  Read More

New Gods #7 (Feb.-Mar., 1972)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

Today’s post is one I’ve been looking forward to — with some trepidation as well as considerable anticipation — since I first began producing this blog, six and a half years ago.  That’s because its subject, DC Comics’ New Gods #7, is without question my single favorite comic book of all time.

Please note that I’m not saying that I think it’s the “best”, or “greatest” comic book of all time.  That would be a foolish thing to do, frankly, considering how many comic books have been published over the last century that I’ve never personally read.  I’m not even claiming that it’s the best or greatest comic book in my own collection (though I figure I could argue a strong case for it on that score, if the need ever somehow arose) — simply that, of all the thousands of comics I have read in the last 56 1/2 years, it’s the one I love the most.  And since love is entirely subjective and personal, I’m not required to justify why I favor it above all others, as I might if I were to declare that New Gods #7 is the indisputable worldwide GOAT, or whatever.

That said, I’m still eager — yes, and also anxious — to share this comic book with you, faithful readers, in the hope of having you understand, to whatever degree possible, just why I love it so much.  Read More

Forever People #7 (Feb.-Mar., 1972)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

When we last saw the Forever People, they  — most of them, anyway — were in the process of disappearing.   In the climactic scenes of their sixth issue, their great enemy Darkseid had wielded the terrible power of the Omega Effect against the young gods from Supertown (as well as their new ally, Sonny Sumo), consigning them all to apparent oblivion — all, that is, save for the youngest of the group, Serifan, who was left to face the tender mercies of Glorious Godfrey’s Justifiers alone.

Now, writer-artist Jack Kirby (aided by inker Mike Royer) continues the story.  He opens issue #7’s chapter in a novel fashion, with a character — Highfather — who, while quite familiar to readers of FP‘s companion title New Gods, has only been spoken of in this series, never seen — until now:  Read More

Forever People #6 (Dec.-Jan., 1971)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

When we last left the Forever People, at the conclusion of their fourth issue back in June, our young heroes were in desperate straits.  Having been captured by Glorious Godfrey and his Justifiers in #3, they had then been handed over to the not-so-tender mercies of Desaad, who’d imprisoned them in his own private “kingdom of the damned” — essentially a torture camp, though presenting itself to the outside world as an innocent amusement park called “Happyland”.  The young gods’ sole hope seemed to lie with their living, sentient computer, Mother Box — and with the stranger into whose care Mother Box had teleported herself: a young man named Sonny Sumo.  Read More

Forever People #4 (Aug.-Sep., 1971)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

The fourth issue of Jack Kirby’s Forever People brought us the second chapter in the five-part story arc which would prove to be the centerpiece of this ultimately short-lived series.  But, published as it was on the first day of June, 1971, the issue was also the harbinger of a new era for its publisher, DC Comics — marking the end of the 32-page comic book at the company (at least for the next eleven months), as the standard-size comic’s page length was increased to 48 pages, and the price raised from 15 to 25 cents.

I don’t actually know whether this particular issue was the very first 25-cent DC comic I myself saw or bought — unlike the occasion of DC’s last price hike, I have no clear memory of the specific comic that presented me with the sensation of “sticker shock” that surely must have accompanied my discovery of the change.  (And it was a change I would have been utterly unaware of until I was confronted by it at the spinner rack; DC had given no hint this was coming in the past month’s books, and I was not yet plugged into any fan networks, formal or otherwise, that might have broken the news.)  But Forever People #4 could have been the first — it was in DC’s first batch of 25-cent releases, for sure — so I’m going to use its release as a platform for discussing the change.  Read More

Forever People #3 (Jun.-Jul., 1971)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

The third issue of Forever People leads off with a cover very much in the vein of several of the other covers of Jack Kirby’s Fourth World comics that immediately preceded it in publication date, including that of FP #2; it’s built around a drawn image, pencilled by Kirby and inked by Vince Colletta, which is then set against a photographic background, and, finally, framed by copy — a lot of it.  Based simply on this visual cue, one might expect this issue’s content to be as similar to that of the second issue as are the two books’ covers — i.e., for it to follow #2’s precedent of setting our young heroes from New Genesis against a powerful servant of Darkseid, a foe that ultimately can only be vanquished by summoning the more powerful adult champion Infinity Man to take their place, with everything being set back to the status quo by the end of the issue.

But if that’s what you were expecting, you’d be wrong.  Because with Forever People #3, Kirby abandons the formula he seemed to have settled into with the prior issue’s adventure, moving instead into the first chapter of a four-part narrative considerably darker and more disturbing than anything we’ve seen in a Fourth World comic to date.  Ultimately, this storyline will prove to be the central arc of the entire Forever People series (which, as most of those reading this likely already know, is doomed to meet a premature end with its eleventh issue), and one of the key narratives of the entire Fourth World project.  It’s where Kirby’s great theme of radical freedom versus absolute control — or, in his formulation, Life versus Anti-Life — comes to the fore more fully than it has in any previous chapter.  Read More

Amazing Spider-Man #96 (May, 1971)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

A half-century after the fact, I’m at something of a loss to explain why I stopped reading Amazing Spider-Man for almost an entire year, after my subscription ran out with issue #85 in March, 1970.  Regular readers of this blog may remember that my younger self went through a period of being considerably less interested in comic books than I previously had been, a period that began in the fall of 1969 and extended through the next spring.  But my subscription had actually carried through the bulk of that time span, as it had for my other favorite Marvel comic of the time, Fantastic Four; and I was back to picking up FF, at least occasionally, by June, 1970.  Somehow, though, even as late as February, 1971 — well after I’d resumed buying Avengers, Daredevil, and other Marvel standbys on a semi-regular basis — I was still avoiding becoming reacquainted with May Parker’s favorite nephew.

Until Amazing Spider-Man #96, that is.  This one brought me back into the fold.  Read More

Forever People #2 (Apr.-May, 1971)

Posted on by Alan Stewart

While I can’t claim to have strong, specific recollections of my thirteen-year-old self’s reactions to the cover of Forever People #2 the first time I saw it, sometime in February, 1971, I’m sure I must have found it at least somewhat startling.  Mainly because the five titular heroes — presumably the stars of the book — were relegated to a row of floating heads at the bottom (where they might not even have been visible on the spinner rack), while a brand-new character, Mantis — evidently the villain of the piece — took the front and center spot.  Even the Forever People’s ally/secret weapon/kind-of-alter-ego, the Infinity Man, was relegated to the background, completely overshadowed by this “evil power vampire!”

Power vampire?  I definitely recall being struck by the use of that latter word in the cover copy.  This was likely just because I was interested in vampires, thanks to my enthusiasm for the daytime television serial Dark Shadows.  But it may have also resulted at least in part from my subconscious realization of how unusual it was to see that word on the cover of a comic book — at least one published by either of my two favorite companies, DC and Marvel.  Read More