Jack Katz was born on this date in 1927. He died just this year on April 25 and at the age of ninety-seven was one of the last of the Golden Age artists to pass away. Katz worked for many publishers including Fawcett, Marvel, and Skywald. His most lasting contribution to the field is the work the Dojo has been remembering all this week -- The First Kingdom.
There is nothing in comics quite like Jack Katz's The First Kingdom. This is nothing less than a modern epic in the tradition of the classics The Iliad and The Odyssey. While it may lack the poetic profundity of those Homerian epics, this nearly eight-hundred page saga nonetheless aspires to be something far greater than anything produced in comics at the time. Only the Fourth World material for DC by Kirby approaches it in scope. I had most of the issues once upon a time, but I traded them away as I did most of my Indy stuff. Titan Books collected the saga some years ago and I am sorry it took me so long to catch up.
Katz was a comics veteran of long standing having begun working in comics in 1943 for Fawcett Comics and went on to alongside Simon and Kirby in the 50's and with Stan Lee at Atlas and elsewhere. Katz used a barrage of pen names and even shows up in some Marvel comics such as the Sub-Mariner as "Jay Hawk". But he wanted to do something greater. To do that he'd have to leave mainstream comics and work independently. That meant at the time the Underground. Like Kirby, Katz moved to California where the Underground movement was centered. Finding publishers like Bud Plant, he began his epic yarn, and it would take him twelve years to complete at a rate of two magazines per year.
The debut issue of The First Kingdom is a rugged beginning. Katz's style, despite his years of experience, had not fully jelled and the style of storytelling he was interested in changed dramatically in the first several issues. He begins with a cramped multi-panel approach which is loaded with text and little visual splendor. As the series progresses the art will open up until the pages almost become a series of full-page images. This transformation will take a while.
We are introduced to our world, a strange one which has risen after the utter destruction of the Earth's civilizations after an atomic war. With technology vaporized, the few survivors live in a post-apocalyptic world of strange giant beasts and ceaseless tribal warfare. This warfare is conducted with sword edges and spear tips. The world is also the home of creatures called "Trans-Gods", tall powerful folk who set themselves apart from mere mankind and seem possessed of strange powers. Some few of these gods are fascinated by men and that's a source of constant friction.
The first part of the saga is concerned with a man named Darkenmoor who we follow from his youth. He loses all those he cares for in the savage world and we follow him as he finds others to love, most notably a woman named Nedlaya. A goddess named Selowan is fascinated with Darkenmoor and despite the prohibitions of her society interacts with him. We follow Darknemoor through one harrowing experience after another as he battles for his life and the lives of others.
Eventually after a great deal of suffering Darkenmoor becomes ruler of a great kingdom and eventually he will have a son. That son will be named Tundran, and it is Tundran who is the main protagonist of this sprawing tale. Like great epics Katz has taken his time in introducing his characters and his themes, and this generational story is just beginning after four issues. This is an amazing way to begin, and not reveals the grand scale of Katz's storytelling but demonstrates a trust in his audience. Following this story required a lot of patience.
And then there is the other story. Running alongside the doings of Darkenmoor and his rise to power and glory, we get elaborate flashbacks which tell us of space travelers from an advanced race who came to Earth when its nuclear threat was determined to be dire, but who get here too late.
These travelers are the Gods who inhabit part of the new world, or at least they are sort of. I hesitate to reveal too much here as there is much of the secret power of The First Kingdom in this side of the tale.
Tundran is in exile with some priests as the story opens and we follow him as he ambles across the deadly landscape of this post-apocalyptic territory and even finds love in a woman named Fara who is in fact a mortalized god named Selowan, who had been in love with Darkenmoor. The two are the star-crossed lovers who will become the center of this saga as it moves forward. Vargran, who overthrew Darkenmoor seeks out his heir and sends fleets to find him and slay him.
But now Katz gives us a parallel story. Each installment will feature a flashback from the perspective of the transgod Manog who is seems was a human alien come to the planet Earth along with his comrades to seek to stop the coming conflagration aboard the spaceship "Galaxy Hunter". But they arrive too late. Manog learns that the giant androids who served the aliens have plans of their own to perpetuate themselves and essentially elevate their kind above their current state. He helps them as he shares in a taste of immortality. This story will unfold from different perspectives as the installments continue.
Katz seems to clearly to want to tell two kinds of stories, a barbarian tale of savage survival and a expansive science fiction saga and somehow he manages to bond these two things into a single narrative, albeit a often bewildering one. (I think I will need to immediately start reading this series again after I've eventually finished it, just to make sure I understand it all.)
One of my favorite characters in this section was "The Eyetelect", an immense artificial intelligence who soberly seeks to control the flow of events. This being is able to affect things in an even more subtle way than the androids and one gets the sense that his goals are the ones we should focus on.
Katz's artwork has gotten ever bolder and perhaps even more confident, and he effectively is telling most of the story now in sprawling single page images. The words are dense and often confusing, and at times so are the images, but one gets the feel of a flow which drags the reader along despite confusions which crop up. Many of the characters look a lot alike and that really mangles my mind as I read.
But as we amble toward the climax of this saga, Katz is all too ready for many diversions. One of his techniques is to have characters reveal themselves and tell long stories of their origins and doings. We have been trained by Katz that the thread of the main storyline is of interest only in that we are fully cognizant of the complex interrelationships of the many characters who tumble in and out of the narrative.
When we think we know what's going on, we are given a tale which changes the game. In this issue we are treated to the story of Adack a Transgod. We learn that he was the lone survivor of the attack of a gang of space pirates and too deadly steps to stop them. Tundran and Fara for their part find civilization but are taken into slavery.
In this issue we learn more about the sprawling history of the Transgods who are in actuality modified androids brought to Earth aboard the Galactic Hunter. We follow the story of one who encountered cruel pirates and was deposited on a supposedly uninhabited planet but who found life and even some degree of love. Tundran and Fara must fight in the arena as slaves to hope to regain their freedom. They do and find allies.
Tundran has gained a ship and some allies and heads again to Moorengan. We are treated to another story of the Transgods, this one of a deadly war in the past in the depths of space. Vargran, the usurper comes under attack from those loyal to the true Kenmoor of Moorengan but thanks to the coniving ways of his Transgod counseler Nadan and his partner Tedra the plot is undone. Tundran and Fara find a chance to some small peace and romance before Tundran is charged by his followers to go and retake his throne.
Tundran and Fara prepare forces to retake Moorengan and we are treated to yet another memory of a Transgod who tells of a subtrafuge on a far distant planet. We do then finally get some direct information about how the Earth was changed by the Transgods (then still androids) after the atomic conflagration that ended what we think of modern civilization. We see how some of the stranger aspects of the planet are the result of their tampering.
The focus of this issue is yet another alien race called the "Ultranoids", one which like many described by Katz before it, thought it was the apogee of what was possible. This race could teleport across the cosmos but were ultimately trapped. It's suggested this race has a connection to mankind. Tundran finds more allies and begins the shape the force which will be used to retake Moorenagan. Tundran is given a choice to seek happiness or like his father seek vengeance. He chooses to lead the invasion forces to Moorengan, but how that will end remains unclear.
At long last Tundran returns to Moorengan and scales the massive walls built by his father to protect the territory. He and Fara lead a small group into the kingdom to find allies in the mines where slaves are used. The do in fact find allies and the plot thickens. Tundran pretends to be blind and enters the city for the first time, fulfilling several prophecies of his eventual return. We leave him in this humble state as the third Titan volume closes. We are also told yet another story of the distant past from a Transgod attempting to reveal the real origins of mankind.
We finally it seems get to the point of this extravagant story which has occupied nearly twenty installments and a decade of labor on the part of the creator Jack Katz. Katz's artwork continues to get bolder and bolder, with his lush figure work becoming ever more enticing. His earliest renderings tended to make his people very slender but a voluptuousness has taken hold which adds much.
The story of Tundran and his mate Fara seeking to overthrow the despot Vargran reaches a climax in the nineteenth issue when finally the opposing forces confront one another. Tundran escapes to lead his army into conflict, having bypassed an option to not seek vengeance for the deaths of his father and mother so very long before.
In the twentieth issue the game changes utterly as in a matter of mere pages Katz brings the conflict between Tundran and Vargran to a conclusion. The Transgods themselves find an explosive solution to thier endless bickerings. The world is on the edge of a new age when suddenly Tundran and Fara disappear. They are taken aboard a space ship named "The Galactic Hunter" by an extremely powerful alien named "Queltar". Queltar reveals himself to them and begins a long narrative explaining his motives.
The people of Moorengan look in vain for their lost leader Tundran and his mate Fara. Meanwhile the story told by Queltar continues as he weaves an expansive narrative filled with man's promise and his destruction. It seems that generation after generation of intelligent humans find ways to destroy even the most promising civilizations by the tendency of people to harp on differences and divide into factions. Tundran and Fara listen to this tale as it progresses from geneation to generation.
Our story in Moorengan develops slightly when a regent is put in place of the lost Tundran, though the search for him and Fara never ceases. Queltar's long story continues with more generations with more hopes seeming to fall beneath the inevitability of warfare despite great promise. We see couple after couple find love, build societies only to see those crumble after long years as man's worst aspects reveal themselves.
Queltar brings his story to a climax as way to be is finally at last found, at least tentatively. It is in no small part owing to the hopefulness of youth, which is still ripe with idealism. The realities of life and ambition are always nipping at the heels of man's progress, but finally it seems a way is found to put a stop to it. These are people with vast powers, able in some cases to teleport across the cosmos.
The First Kingdom is a bit of a tough read, especially at first when Katz's storytelling is not as supple as it needs to be to tell the story. The story is also hurt by a barrage of strange terms which you get used to as the story rolls along, but which threw me early on. The new terms give the story a fresh strangeness but can be confusing. Also, one thing one needs to get used to reading Katz's saga is the nudity. Women go around topless in this story almost all the time, as do the men but no one gets upset at that. Often full nudes are used, but all of this is done tastefully. While it was racy for its time, there is nothing about The Fist Kingdom which suggests its intent is in any way pornographic. Katz just seems to like to draw the human body and he does so with gusto. His figures are almost invariably slender, often strangely so as in the case of the gods. This saga is a deep dive, but worth the effort.
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