The Fourth World Of July - Secret Societies!

When Jack "King" Kirby busted out from the Bullpen at Marvel Comics and took his talents to the competition, the house of Superman and Batman, it was big, big news. It's still big news in the rear view of how I see the history of comics. Free at last of his partner Stan Lee, Kirby was allowed to create with abandon and he did just that. His "Fourth World" books The New Gods, Mister Miracle and The Forever People proved not to immediate financial successes but few argue they were creative victories. His second wave of characters featuring Kamandi the Last Boy on Earth, The Demon, and OMAC The One Man Army Corp, were somewhat more successful on the average with Kamandi being a real hit. Kirby took on war in The Losers, and bounced out new concepts such as Atlas and a new spin on The Manhunter as well another kid team called the Dingbats of Danger Street. Toss in some ghostly tales, and a few one off adventures for other characters he had not created and Kirby fulfilled his five contract with a reasonably high level of creative success. But he was happy to bounce and once again was back in the "House of Ideas" as his final DC efforts were getting publication in the bicentennial year.

But no sooner was Kirby out the door at DC and creating new things for Marvel again like The Eternals and Machine Man, DC resurrected the "Fourth World"  and handed the books off to new incoming talents from Marvel such as Gerry Conway and Steve Englehart. What Kirby had wanted to do with the "Fourth World" books all along, to ignite and hand them over to capable talents so he could create more was in fact what DC chose to do once Kirby was no longer around to participate.

Over this Fourth of July holiday I'd like to examine DC's use of "The Fourth World" after Kirby's departure but preceding the infamous Crisis on Infinite Earths. And weirdly enough after a one-shot revival of all the "Return of the New Gods" in an issue of 1st Issue Special the first time place the characters popped up was in the "Conway's Corner" production The Secret Society of Super-Villains. 

In that debut issue (which was actually the second stab at it as I will explain down below) we meet our villains dejour -- Gorilla Grodd, Captains Cold and Boomerang, and Mirror Master from the Flash's Rogue's Gallery and Sinestro and Star Sapphire from Green Lantern's adventures. Toss in Bat-baddy like Copperhead and you have a brew. In addition to the Kirby concepts, the Goodwin and Simonson Manhunter was revived (in a fashion) to lead up the team. They were bad people who were summoned to battle a bigger baddie and while there are no names we can tell pretty quickly that Darkseid is the name. 

Captain Comet returns from space after twenty years to join the melee and with Hi-Jack to replace a captured Copperhead the Society finds itself fighting Mantis and his minions from the pages of the New Gods. 

Darkseid shows himself in the third issue along with Kalibak. The battle rages and somewhere in there Green Lantern shows up to join the fray as Captain Comet reveals he's a good guy after all. 

The Wizard from Earth-2 is a member now too and he and Hi-Jack face off as the war with Mantis continues. Then Kalibak and Gorilla Grodd face off for a pretty dang good battle and as the fourth issue ends the Black Racer appears to fulfill his mission of death. 

And then the wheels come off. The first four issues had been plotted and written by Gerry Conway and David Anthony Kraft with Pablo Marcos doing a pretty presentable job on pencils beneath some good inking from Bob Smith and some indifferent inking from Vinnie Colletta (a veteran of the "Fourth World" books). Vinnie stays on but Rich Buckler takes the penciling chores over with Bob Rozakis taking on the scripts. The plot has been simmering and it's time for our finale but it seems these new cooks have different ideas. In a mere seven pages Rozakis and Buckler (doing a fair Kirby imitation) end the threat of Mantis and Darkseid and seemingly kill both Big D and Manhunter as well. You flip the page and Funky Flashman shows up to spin the Society and comic book into a completely different direction. "The Fourth World" is shown the door for the most part. 

Now to be completely thorough (I think) I must mention a story which appeared in The Amazing World of DC Comics which was the first try at Conway and Marcos with penciler Ric Estada making a Society comic. It's similar in many ways but is missing many Flash villains and replacing them with Clayface. Another difference is that Darkseid is on stage immediately. It's not as good as the one they published but shows even more how quickly DC wanted to use the "Fourth World" concepts, concepts they told Kirby were not successful in the marketplace. Makes you think don't it. 

More tomorrow as Mister Miracle returns, but then he never really went away thanks to the "Haneyverse".

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The Secret Society Of Super-Villains!

Let's set the scene. It's the winter of 1975 and Jack "King" Kirby has finished his contract with DC Comics which he started when he famously jumped from Marvel at the turn of the decade. His tenure at DC had ups and downs but there's no doubt it left a mark. His epic saga of the New Gods had been cancelled some years before because of apparent low sales.

But it's odd that the moment when Kirby left DC to return to Marvel for a time, that the powers at DC immediately brought the Fourth World concepts back, first in the pages of the final issue of 1st Issue Special which featured the "Return of the New Gods" and the next month in the pages of The Secret Society of Super-Villains, which hails from the brief but potent "Conway's Corner".

Gerry Conway is the writer and Pablo Marcos is the artist. The story also brings back Manhunter created by Archie Goodwin and Walt Simonson, that is it almost brings him back. It seems that Paul Kirk had some surviving clones and this Manhunter is one of those. The premise is simple enough, Manhunter gathers together some of DC's super-villains to work for a mysterious benefactor. They gather at a San Francisco office building dubbed the Sinister Citadel and immediately find themselves battling robot versions of the Justice League. The original gang consists of Captain Cold, Mirror Master, Grodd, Sinestro, Star Sapphire, the Wizard, Shadow-Thief, and Copperhead. After their initiation, they are offered the proposition by Manhunter to work together for booty and power down the line and they agree for the moment. Grodd and Copperhead are the first two to act together to steal some plutonium and they fail and Copperhead is caught by the authorities.

In the second issue by new scribe David Anthony Kraft with Marcos staying on art, the status quo set up in the first issue if upset when injected into the team is vintage hero Captain Comet. Comet has been in space for many years and has been out of touch with modern Earth doings so when he lands on Earth in the city of San Francisco and finds the villains Grodd and Hi-Jack under attack by Green Lantern, he assumes the former are the victims and intercedes on their behalf. The villains seek to continue the ruse and bring him to the Citadel where he is inducted into the Secret Society as something of a potential pawn. While Comet is visiting his long dead relatives in a graveyard he is met by Manhunter who reveals that he is actually using the Society to bring down the Benefactor and that the villains are his pawns. Suddenly Mantis attacks and the two fend him off  before the Society is gathered (Grodd, Captain Cold, and Star Sapphire) to find a secret lab full of weird biological experiments. The Benefactor is revealed to be Darkseid and Mantis returns and the two forces fight.

In the third issue by Conway, Kraft and Marcos the battle picks up. While the Society battles Mantis and his forces Darkseid watches and sends his son Kalibak to check into matters.

Captain Cold, Captain Comet, and Grodd are captured and Manhunter and Star Sapphire escape while in a prison some distance away Copperhead escapes with help from the outside. Meanwhile at the Citadel Captain Boomerang, Mirror Master, Sinestro, Wizard, and Hi-Jack wait for word. Manhunter appears, tells them of the threat and they head off to battle the forces of Mantis and rescue their comrades-in-arms. Star Sapphire on the other hand goes to Green Lantern for help. The Society attacks the secret lab and appear to be winning, but Darkseid watches and orders Kalibak to enter the fray.

Things get really confusing in the fourth issue by Conway, Kraft and Marcos with Vince Colleta stepping in as inker, when after having won a momentary battle two of the Society decide to pull out. Sinestro and Wizard decide they don't want anymore to do with it and leave while Star Sapphire and Green Lantern discover Mantis and a fight breaks out. Sinestro and Wizard return to the Citadel and discover Funky Flashman who offers them a new deal. Back at the secret base Kalibak arrives and Manhunter, Grodd, Star Stapphire, and Captain Cold face him as Darkseid decides to show up too. Grodd and Kalibak battle in the streets and under water with both exhausted. As Darkseid confronts the defeated Mantis the mysterious harbinger of death, the Black Racer appears.

In the fifth issue it all changes. Gerry Conway, David Anthony Kraft, and Pablo Marcos are gone and Bob Rozakis and Rich Buckler are in as the status quo of the Secret Society is utterly changed. "Endgame" begins as Darkseid orders the Black Racer to leave the scene and the Society (Manhunter, Captain Comet, Star Sapphire, Mirror Master, Captain Cold, and Captain Boomerang confront Darkseid and Mantis. Darkseid gets somewhat disgusted with the whole thing and attempts to leave the scene using a Boom Tube but Manhunter in a desperate gambit jumps into the Boom Tube after him and reveals he is in fact a living bomb. There is a terrific explosion, the Boom Tube collapses and that's all we see of Darkseid and Manhunter. Then in a series of epilogues we meet Funky Flashman trying ot make a deal with Sinestro and getting rebuffed, Captain Comet rescuing Green Lantern and meeting the JLA and getting his head on straight about good guys and bad guys in the 70's. While he's doing that, Sinestro appears at the Secret Citadel to destroy it and Comet goes to try and save it. Hawkman helps him and the two heroes defeat Sinestro as Captain Comet contemplates his future.

The Secret Society of Super-Villains becomes a somewhat different comic after that as Rozakis and Buckler feature more different villains and leave the Fourth World elements behind. Only Funky Flashman remains as he develops an odd relationship with the Wizard who becomes an increasingly critical part of the comic.

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Bring On The Badder Guys!

The Secret Society of Super-Villains has to have been one of DC's most loopy concepts. Gerry Conway, fresh from his tenure at Marvel was welcomed and encouraged mightily at DC and he and Pablo Marcos whipped up a dazzlingly fun fondue of a comic featuring some of DC's creepiest  and in some cases most monstrous villains. A bunch of perennial baddies decide to link up and strike against the world. They are organized by Manhunter, the presumably dead hero recreated by Archie Goodwin and Walt Simonson. As it turns out Jack Kirby's Darkseid and the forces of Apokolips are around almost every corner and the Manhunter ain't exactly what he seems. Throw in a near forgotten superhero from DC's vintage past and you have a heady meal for any comic book fanboy.

Captain Comet was created in 1951, a superhero for the time but out of his own. He was a "mutant", a man 100,000 years ahead of the rest of us and willing to use his gifts to help the relative primitives around him. He had a dandy stint in Strange Adventures, but eventually disappeared for decades until he turned up to battle the Society. In a book named for the villains, the hero is the one who lacks titular status and Comet does yeoman work. DC seemed really interested in pushing both the Society and Comet as they often appeared in other titles right along with the regular gig in SSoSV.

The villains tagged for inclusion in the story are some truly monstrous types. The always irritable Gorilla Grodd is large and often in charge, with fellow Flash villains Mirror Master, Captain Boomerang, and Captain Cold also on hand. The wild and scary looking Copperhead is in several issues along with a baddie named Hi-Jack who uses a card motif. Black Sapphire is also around to represent the female persuasion along with Sinestro who flies in from outer space just for the original meeting. That meeting was set up by Manhunter, or more specifically a clone of the original Paul Kirk who has gathered together the villains to combat a greater evil. A quick glance at the first several covers (see below) and you can tell the greater threat was Darkseid and his monstery minions (Kalibak and Mantis) relatively fresh from their defeat in the pages of Jack Kirby's classic Fourth World books a few years before.

The first story arc by Conway and David Kraft with artwork by Pablo Marcos shows the war against Darkseid's latest schemes. The fifth issue has Rich Buckler in his full-Kirby mode inked by Vinnie Colletta, which gives the story a sense of what Kirby might've done had they tapped him for this series. It seems DC had plans for the New Gods, having the month previous to SSoSV's debut brought the heroic Fourth Worlders back in the finale of First Issue Special. But those plans came to very little. Then the SSoSV series is totally redirected.

Another refugee from Kirby's Fourth World, Funky Flashman (a Stan The Man lookalike for sure) tries to take over and the book becomes a who's who of villainy with appearances by Lex Luthor, the Trickster, Matter Master, Felix Faust, Captain Stingaree, and more. The Society starts gathering up sorcery-laden knickknacks while Captain Comet alongside Black Canary, Hawgirl, Kid Flash, and the Creeper tries to put a halt to it. The action comes fast and furious as the book careens wildly for several issues.

The Society lasted a solid fifteen issues, with an unpublished sixteenth, appearing in the legendary Cancelled Comics Cavalcade. The talent in this series is pretty impressive with writing by Conway, Kraft, and Bob Rozakis and art by Marcos, Rich Buckler, Dick Ayers, and in  later issues Mike Vosburg. The original kick-off to the series was showcased in an issue of The Amazing World of DC Comics  featuring a slightly different gaggle of villains including the wildly ugly Clayface and some exciting artwork by Ric Estrada.

Below are the covers of the issues contained in this trade. All or some of the stories from these books will make any Bronze Age fan's heart beat a little faster. This is deep fun stuff, the cream of what made DC's  Bronze efforts so entertaining, a time when DC was however briefly my favorite comic book company. Ah, those were the days.

Actually the solicitiations I read for this book suggested all of the SSoSV  run was contained in one volume. Sadly only half. The rest of the exciting issues (covers seen below) will be in the follow up I assume, which I hope hits the stands soon.

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