Kamandi Challenge Special #1, Part Three

I'm falling further and further behind on my comic reading because of this Kirby shit.

I know, I know. Jack Kirby was a god among nerds. But if he was so great, how come he's dead now?

The third Kamandi story is from Issue #60. Remember that issue? It's the one that contained a "mind-blasting new origin of OMAC by Jim Starlin!" Who decided that everything Jim Starlin wrote would be described as somehow melting or destroying a person's brain? Was his writing really that trippy? If so, I should drop this blog and start up a Jim Starlin only blog. I bet it would be like reliving my LSD days. I say that as if my LSD days are over. I sure hope they aren't!

This issue is in black and white. Was it this way originally or does DC think I'm going to adult color it?

This issue isn't by Jack Kirby at all, so why am I wasting my time? The credits say it's by Jack C. Harris, Dick Ayers, and Danny Bulandi. The colorist's name has been removed just like the color. I'm sensing there was a lawsuit somewhere along the way!

This issue begins with Kamandi falling into The Vortex. I think that's the name of a vortex.

This is not a vortex.

Jim Starlin's OMAC story must have been really fucking weird for it to get the label "mind-blastingly" over the Kamandi story. Kamandi enters the Vortex which carries her away to a parallel universe. But that's not the weird part. By the 70s, that was cliché by DC's standards. The weird part is when Doctor Canus and his friend Sherlock Dog (who has a sidekick named Doile) try to help their parallel universe friend Pyra not die from a lack of energy. To do that, they need the help of the mutants who managed to open the huge doors in the Wondrous Western Wall which led to the vortex. But the dog-men can't get close without their radiation suits which were destroyed by the energy of the vortex. And because of all that, Pyra's ship turns into a bug.

I should have stuck to my original idea five years ago: critiquing Penthouse Forum letters.

My mind is pretty well blasted already so I hope this Special doesn't include Starlin's OMAC origin. I don't know why it would unless the Kamandi Challenge is going to feature a heaping helping of the One Man Army Corps.

On her journey through the infinite reaches of all space and time, Kamandi learns that he gets to be the focal point on which all futures rely.

Yeah but if there are infinite realities where all choices are possible, doesn't she actually choose all of them and none of them at the same time? So none of this really matters!

I suppose I'm being too hard-headed and should probably work with the story. I get what the Voice is saying. All these realities exist but sometimes some special person or event can change them in ways outside of the usual "all choices exist as parallel" worlds paradigm. And Kamandi is that special person!

Sometimes I like to argue with and correct myself before I have to hear from a blowhard Internet Actually Nerd. Mostly because their responses are never funny. They really should work on their material. It might not be so bad to be Actually'd if I could have a laugh at the same time.

Kamandi's friends are about to be murdered by the Kangarat Murder Society while Kamandi runs off to a brand new Earth that never experienced a natural disaster linked with radiation. The last hope her friends have is that Kamandi will turn away from this last temptation, turn away from the voice of the vortex devil, and return to sacrifice herself for her friends. I mean, she won't really sacrifice herself. But she is giving up a world where she can probably wear something nicer than the crusty Daisy Dukes she's been wearing for years and where her hair won't be full of lice and where they probably still have toilet paper.

On Kamandi's way back home, he's grabbed by Brute and Glob who decide to take him to The Sandman. Oh. That's probably why this issue is being featured! So that people reading it can go, "Oh shit! That's where Brute and Glob came from?! A Sandman comic before The Sandman! It's so nice that new kids are being born all the time so that comic book companies can use the same characters over and over again so that they seem new but then older fans who never grew out of comics can be jazzed about seeing old characters done in a modern way! Or something!"

The Sandman decides that Kamandi needs to learn that whatever she's seen in the vortex is as real as whatever she sees in dreams. So not real at all? Anyway, it seems like an unneeded delay for Kamandi. She's just being hassled by some guy who feels the need to prove that his job is way more important than it actually is. Don't get me wrong, I love dreaming! But if the person behind my dreams was all, "Stop thinking of them as entertaining! They're fucking super important, asshole!", I'd just think he was a twat with low self-esteem. You can't force people to appreciate things the way you think they should be appreciated. I suppose this whole control freak side of The Sandman is reflected in Neil Gaiman's take on his Sandman.

To teach Kamandi the lesson that needs to be taught for some reason, The Sandman decides to show him a movie about the some war on Santa Claus. He wants Kamandi to "watch and learn what an alternate Kamandi named Jed once learned long, long ago." I hate learning things that other people learned. How is their learning relevant to my life? Boring!

Anyway, Christmas is saved and Jed manages to make it back home where she saves her friends and everybody lives happily ever after.

What Did I Learn?
The Glob and Brute story in The Sandman makes a lot more sense to me now! I mean, it made sense before in the context of The Sandman that a few nightmares had escaped and created their own mini-Dreaming while manipulating humans into thinking they were the real Sandman. Of course it makes this story a little bit darker than it should be knowing that this Sandman will eventually kill himself due to Glob and Brute's machinations! Oh, I also learned that Kamandi's grandfather was OMAC and that Kamandi's world is OMAC's nightmare of what the world will become if he fails to do his duty. I also learned that I can only take about three Kamandi stories before I get tired of writing about Kamandi stories and just sum up the last story in one sentence.

Kamandi Challenge Special #1, Part Two

I have to read this in bits and pieces so I feel like I'm accomplishing more than I truly am.

I ended the first part by celebrating how I won't have to read "The Birth Bag!", Issue #2 of Jack Kirby's Kamandi. It was only later as I was coming down off the elation of having achieved the barest minimum of goals for the day (that goal being reading part of a comic book) that I realized the whole scam of this Kamandi Challenge Special: they're just reprinting a bunch of Kamandi issues! I don't mean for that to sound like I don't want to read these old comic books. I totally love them! I just don't want to read a comic book called "The Birth Bag!" Hopefully they'll just reprint issues that introduce characters that will be part of the Kamandi Challenge. I also hope Jack Kirby's estate is making money from this. I'm sure they aren't, DC Comics being one of the tycoons of the industry making money off the pudgy backs of comic book artists and writers, especially the ones before the Image Era.

My definition of The Image Era was a time when writers and artists (but especially artists and especially especially artists who can't write) decided they should get more money from the company profiting off of their ideas. I totally agreed with them and still agree with them! But I never really bought any Image books in the nineties because most of the art was the kind of art which garnered only compliments of how "kinetic" it was (I said most! Get off my wide-brushed paint brush!) and the writing was terrible. But it caused a surge in speculation which caused DC and Marvel to think, "Hey! People really love these comic books with terrible writing and 'kinetic' art! Let's copy what Image is doing! I mean, not everything! All ideas are still owned by us!" I think eventually The Image Era helped improve compensation for writers and artists. But I could also be wrong because I don't do research. That's for losers who think they're going to live forever. I'm not wasting my time on looking up facts to back-up my opinions!

I will say this about The Image Era though: it would pave the way for The Second Great Image Era which is happening now (this era is also called The Era of DC and Marvel's Loss is Image's Gain). Writers and artists save the work they're most interested in doing (which usually makes it their best work because they're putting all of their effort into it) for Image or, if they're a bit more ambitious, self-publishing. I don't many truly great innovative characters or story arcs coming out of The Big Two due to many economic factors. Although we'll always see some, probably from newer writers who need to work up to an Image deal, like Tom King's Omega Men and Tom King's The Vision and Tom King's The Sheriff of Babylon. Also probably some writers and artists other than Tom King.

I begin Part Two by looking at the map of Kamandi's future world. Based on what animals are ruling what countries, I think Jack Kirby took the same view of research as I do. The tigers rule the East Coast of the United States because why not? Then the lions rule the West Coast which makes more sense except I'm sure they're African lions and not American mountain lions. Middle America and the American Non-Coastal Southwest are ruled by gorillas which might be social commentary. Mexico is the Wild Human Preserve which seems about right since I'm sure the Lions, Gorillas, and Tigers don't want humans coming up and stealing their jobs and bananas.

Canada is the Dominion of the Devils which seems so far from reality that I'm beginning to believe this future truly is a crazy, upside-down world of danger. Alaska is now known as Strange Fire Area, probably because global warming has set fire all of the snow. One bit in the North that hasn't changed?

Intelligent Killer Whales off the Pacific Northwest Coast.

Australia also hasn't changed being that it's home to the "Kanga Rat Murder Society." The Pacific Island Nations have become the Orangutan Surfing Civilization. I hope there's an issue with Kamandi visiting those guys.

Other inhabitants and places of note: Snow Wizards in the Fjordic countries (those are the Nordic countries full of fjords); Polar Parasites in Moscow; Death Worshipers and Screamers in Africa; Wolves, Baboons, and Gorillas throughout Europe; Bulldogs ruling Britain; Savage bats, jaguar sun cults, and God-watchers in South America; and Ireland.

Kirby must have gotten bored by the time he got to Antarctica because he just calls the people who live there Antarctic Ice Dwellers. I'm going to assume they're sentient penguins.

The second story in the book is simply called "The Last Boy on Earth!" Which I've already noted is totally a lie because Kamandi is obviously the last girl on Earth. Kirby explains, with liberal use of exclamation points (which I'm totally in favor of), that Kamandi is named after the building she and her grandfather, the possible last people on Earth, lived in. Eventually Kamandi's grandfather decided to send her out into the world to reclaim their lost home.

Grandfather: "Kamandi, my grandson..."
Kamandi: "Granddaughter."
Grandfather: "You must go out into the world and find a woman..."
Kamandi: "Man."
Grandfather: "...to take your seed..."
Kamandi: "Ew, gross."
Grandfather: "...so that mankind..."
Kamandi: "Fuck mankind, Gramps."
Grandfather: "...can continue to grow and prosper!"
Kamandi: "You know what? Good idea. I'm out of here, you old freak."

This will the the spin from Kellyanne Conway and Sean Spicer when Trump brings about the apocalypse: "It was a natural disaster! Natural! Couldn't be helped! Stupid scientists didn't even see it coming!"

Kamandi heads up the Hudson River and finds a tribe of people. But they flee when she calls out to them. I guess waving and yelling "Hello there!" translates to "I'm going to fuck you up!" in their language of grunts and hand motions. It took Kamandi a few days to paddle this far in her little life raft so it must be a real pain in her ass when she sees the explosion from the bunker she left days ago and feels forced to go back to check on her grandfather.

"Am I mating? Is this mating? Is something pregnant yet?"

Kamandi returns to find looters have broken into Command 'D'! She must save her grandfather at all costs! Well, maybe at some costs. And maybe she doesn't really need to save his old patriarchal ass either, really.

Kamandi finds some humanoid wolves have killed her grandfather so she kills them. Afterward, she leaves Command 'D' forever. She steals the wolves kinky truck and hits the road for an American adventure!

Kamandi's first encounter is with Great Caesar and his platoon of tiger-men. They're riding horses who are probably thinking, "What the fuck? Why aren't we sentient in the future?! This sucks." Kamandi saves Great Caesar's life by killing a sniper and subsequently becoming Great Caesar's pet. I suppose if a dog pulled out a pistol and shot some guy who was about to shoot me, I'd feel obligated to take him in and feed him. Since Great Caesar is busy with his war, he sends Kamandi off with one of his men to be locked in the Royal City Kennels until Caesar returns from battle.

Kamandi is cleaned up and dressed by a sentient dog which must be humiliating. I suppose it could have been worse and one of the sentient felines could have licked her clean. She's then brought to Great Caesar's victory celebration where she discovers the sentient tigers worship a nuclear missile. Was Jack Kirby ever sued by the creators of The Planet of the Apes?

Kamandi decides the only hope at this totally hopeless point of being freshly washed, fed (with dog vomit but it's still food!), and clothed that the only answer is to kill everybody by blowing up the nuclear missile. I guess she loved her grandfather more than I've been giving her credit for. Kamandi's attempt at blowing the missile with a stolen laser is thwarted by Doctor Canus, probably because the stolen laser looks so much like a stick and Doctor Canus can't help but retrieve it.

Now kiss!

Doctor Canus decides to help Kamandi because he's a scientist and he'd like to do experiments on a talking animal.

This is unnerving. I'm beginning to hope all Doctor Canus wants to do is experiment.

I know I wrote I wanted them to kiss earlier but that was before I really thought that they might!

Inside the room is Ben Boxer. He has the ability to press his chest and emit radiation. It doesn't sound like the safest power which is probably why Canus keeps him in the closet. Doctor Canus calls Ben Boxer "a natural atomic-pile." I really hope Atomic-Pile is his superhero name.

Kamandi hugs Ben Boxer and cries and asks, "Grandfather says we must exchange seeds now." The end!

That's it for Part Two! Here's hoping this comic book doesn't become prophetic this year!

Kamandi Challenge Special #1, Part One: "Kamandi the Last Boy on Earth!"

A 40 page giant spectacular?! Welp, there goes my whole day.

I have a theory and once I tell it, you will all be on board. You will all think, "Of course! Why didn't I see it first?!" You will honor me and laud me and celebrate January 21st as Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea Day! It might be a bit awkward to celebrate though. Because you might be at a bar getting drunk and eating cake like people normally do when they celebrate notable days when somebody comes up and asks, "What are you celebrating?" Then you'll say, around a mouth stuffed with cake, "Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea!" Then they'll punch you in the face and scream, "Asshole!" before sweeping the rest of your cake onto the floor and shitting in it. "You like it so much, eat my shit, dickface!" they'll scream around the strained grunts of a typical bar patron's overly difficult bowel movement. Then you'll be all, "What the fuck just happened?" It's at that point that the Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea Elves will burst from their hiding places and sing Ozzy Osbourne's "Mister Crowley" in falsetto. Then a kind stranger will have sex with you because everybody gets to have sex on Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea Day! Except for people who are put off by singing elves and beshitted cake.

Oh! I almost forgot to tell you my theory: Kamandi is not a boy at all. He's a prepubescent young girl. I mean she is! It's so fucking obvious. Just look at that cover. People think it's just Jack Kirby's style to draw effeminate long-haired boys who pal around with talking animals while trying to survive a post-apocalyptic world. But think about this! Why would DC insist on naming the comic book "Kamandi, The Last Boy on Earth"? Because they didn't dare admit to the young boys they assumed they were selling the comic to that the main character was a girl. But just about all of Jack Kirby's characters were actually females. Again, why call the character "Klarion the Witch Boy"?! Why add the boy instead of calling him a warlock? Klarion was a fucking girl too! And don't get me started on Darkseid. I mean, you probably don't have to get me started because I'm assuming you've already guessed my conclusion!

The Kamandi Challenge begins by challenging readers to read Jack Kirby's original Kamandi origin story about her origin. Challenge accepted, DC Comics Challenge Headquarters! This will be the second challenge I've ever accepted from the DC Comics Challenge Headquarters. I hope it's not as dangerous as the first Challenge where they challenged you to believe Benjamin Franklin was both a president and on the fifty dollar bill and that Batman couldn't figure out one of the Riddler's riddles that basically amounted to spelling BOOBIES on a calculator! Unless the Benjamin Franklin bit was something I conflated with something else in the intervening thirty years. I need to reread DC Challenge! Challenge accepted!

Kamandi's origin story was written, drawn, and edited by Jack Kirby. I don't mind that he wrote and drew it. That makes sense. But he edited his own work? That's a recipe for Bad Writing Quiche! Nobody should ever be allowed to edit their own material! If most writers edited their own books, they would include the semen stains on the typewritten pages because they were essential to understanding the creative themes within the way too long work they spent years on. I say "semen stains" because being a male writer, I can only speak for what comes out of male writers when they masturbate during the non-writing down times. Some day I hope to learn what comes out of female writers when they pleasure themselves! I suppose I could find a video online but I don't want to ruin the surprise.

Chapter One of Kamandi's origin story is two pages long. Wow! That's almost as long as one of my novels! This guy is practically Shakespeare.

I can't tell if Doctor Canus is a family name or a derogatory slur.

This is what happens when you edit your own material. You think scrawling "ME!" really hugely across every other page is what the readers want. The readers are not your unchecked massive ego, Jack!

Assuming Doctor Canus is actually a doctor and not just a dog pretending to be a doctor like half the dogs I've ever met, what does he know about alien lifeforms? Why should Kamandi take his word for it that she shouldn't excite it? My guess is he's talking from experience. "Look at how scorched my proboscis is! This thing is dangerous! Also, for your own edification and the satiating of your curiosity, this creature does not seem to have an anus." Doctor Canus (hey! That has "anus" in it!) is a typical dog with low self-esteem so he has to pepper everything he says with multi-syllabic words.

It's called a boner, Ben Boxer.

Instead of saying he's learned to communicate with it, Doctor Canus says he "established some sort of contact with it." Christ, Doc. Do you have to molest every form of living being that lands on your pervert dog island? I assume the contact is sexual based on all the dirty talk on the previous pages about how the alien made Ben "grow" and then "reversed" the process and then, I'm assuming, took a nap.

When you edit yourself, "we" and "us" are different.

Doctor Canus might be able to talk and remove gall bladders now but he still talks like an idiot dog would probably talk. "Look! It is one thing! Now it is two things! Now it is many things! ROWF! ROWF! I'm a good boy! I scienced!"

Doctor Canus concludes that living energy is the ultimate life form. I should probably accept that this dog knows what he's talking about. Jack Kirby didn't spend a few hours at his desk with a pencil in his mouth thinking, "How do I convey to the reader that this talking dog really knows what he's talking about? Oh! A high collar! And make him a doctor!"

The living energy just wants to go home but it can't find it's way. Ultimate life form, my ass! I almost never forget my way home when I leave the house. I'm so much smarter than this living energy.

Me the Alien throws a temper tantrum because it's upset. It's tantrum takes the form of an electrical storm and begins killing all of Prince Tuftan's adorable royal tiger guards.

Doctor Canus uses the most tried and true disciplining tactics he knows. Lucky for the living energy's tender proboscis, the future doesn't have rolled up newspapers.

Doctor Canus explains that Me the Alien trusts him because he is a scientist. I wonder how it knows he's a scientist? I know I couldn't tell a cool dog from a nerdy dog.

Doctor Canus heads off with Me the Alien to examine the flying saucer it came in. That's probably a good place to start if you're looking to help it find it's way home.

Prince Tuftan and Kamandi look at each other covered in sand and dog shit and share a moment where they both laugh uproariously at how stupid the other one looks. "You're a walking, talking tiger covered in sand fleas and seaweed!" "Well, you're a young topless girl in hot pants and go-go boots!" Then they laugh and laugh! Afterward, Prince Tuftan makes sure to mention how he hasn't laughed in a long time because there's nothing remotely funny about the end of the world. Except maybe the idea that a dog can do science.

It turns out Prince Tuftan is also a teenager like Kamandi. It's hard to tell since he's a tiger.

While the two teens hang out on the beach and smoke the reefer, gorillas attack Tuftan's ship off-shore! Fucking monkeys! You know they're on the villainous side because they're monkeys. Sentient apes and gorillas always wind up being bad guys: Grodd, Mallah, probably other ones. Unless they have the possibility to fuck a hot chick like in Angel and the Ape and then they'll generally behave. One platoon of gorillas storm the island to capture Prince Tuftan and Kamandi.

The monkey men work for the Wayne Foundation. Of course it survived the apocalypse! I bet Bruce's brain is in an ape's body now.

Chapter Two ends with the reader discovering that these are "Gorilla Commandos" and the reader falls all over themselves with laughter at the pun. How old is this comic? Is he the first to use the Gorilla/guerrilla pun? Probably! I bet it's why people hold him in such high regard.

I just realized this entire series wasn't just written by Dan Didio. I guess he lost his hold on rewriting all of Jack Kirby's characters when DC flushed The New 52 down the Rebirth toilet.

I don't think I'm reaching when I say there's a whiff of subliminal sodomy in this dialogue. The lead gorilla's name is, after all, Ramjam.

The gorillas are only interested in kidnapping Prince Tuftan. They seem to think of the humans as animals. Thanks, Trump!

To be fair to the ape, he understood the regular English language as well as the language of violence.

Kamandi rushes off to fetch Doctor Canus. Usually it's the other way around, amirite?! No? Anyway, Kamandi is flipping the fuck out like anybody who was the last girl on Earth being threatened by anal sex fixated sentient apes. She's all, "Dog! Dog doctor! Doctor who is also a dog! Attack! Kill!" Doctor Canus is all, "Well, this is most unfortunate! I'm busy doing science and those damn apes are interrupting the sciencing!" And Kamandi is all, "Also they're killing tigers and kidnapping Prince Tuftan!" And Doctor Canus is all, "But I'm about to make a major science breakthrough with science! Can't those damn apes wait?!" And Kamandi is all, "They're going to sell the U.F.O. which I probably shouldn't call a U.F.O. because it's totally an alien space ship and not unexplained at all and currently not flying either." And Doctor Canus is all, "What? They're going to sell the ship?! They must be stopped!" Fucking scientists and their agendas and priorities. They don't care about human or tiger life at all. They just want to make some kind of major science breakthrough so they'll get a treat.

Doctor Canus explains to Kamandi that they'll make Me the Alien fight for them. But Kamandi is all, "Is that right? Should we really exploit it in such a manner?"

Don't tell me. I don't want to know. I mean, I sort of want to know. Okay fine. I desperately want to know!

The fourth chapter is called "Satan in the Sand!" With the exclamation point which I feel I need to explain since American copy editors would insist the exclamation point go on the inside of the quotes even if I were using it to express my own excitement of the name being "Satan in the Sand!" Maybe. I don't really care what copy editors say. I edit my own writing.

The Gorillas move in to take the space ship when they're confronted by Doctor Canus and Kamandi.

"I am a scientist! I am not defenseless!" "He's a witch! WITCH DOG! WIIIIIIITCH!"

Most of the gorillas, being typical post-world morons, are all, "A talking animal! It must be witchcraft! Spells! Sorcery! Fake news!" But Ramjam, being the leader which means he probably went to college and understands science and how it can be used to manipulate idiots by telling them science is full of bias and agendas, points out that anybody can teach an animal to talk. So easy! Also maybe the scientist was using ventriloquism!

To keep Ramjam from Of Mice and Menning Doctor Canus, Me the Alien takes the form of a giant sand giant which attacks the gorillas. Gorillas, being a superstitious and cowardly lot, mostly run off to complain about how arrogant Doctor Canus is. But Ramjam stands his ground and throws a grenade at the beast. He also calls the grenade a "demolition dumpling" which is so poetic that I just flipped off Robert Frost for wasting so much of my time.

When the Demolition Dumpling fails to defeat Me the Alien, Ramjam and the other gorillas surrender. Doctor Canus locks them in Me the Alien's spaceship. Me doesn't seem to suspect that perhaps he made a terrible deal. That's his fucking way home, not a prison for bone-headed apemen!

Prince Tuftan arrives and explains how he escaped: the apes forgot to kill the tigers. At first it sounds like Jack Kirby just ran out of room and was all, "Fuck it! The apes probably lose interest in things quickly and wandered off. Day saved!" But instead, Tuftan was just pointing out that the only safe tiger is a dead tiger. So he and his fuzzy guards slaughtered the ape-men. Doctor Canus and Kamandi congratulate him but don't shake his blood soaked hand. Instead they send the prisoners off with him. Kamandi chooses to stay on the island and help Doctor Canus make a body for Me the Alien. That seems weird. It's easier to make a body for an unknown life-form than to fix its space ship? Anyway, I'm particularly glad I don't have to read the second issue based on the title.

Yuck! It must be pretty disgusting to be a bigger surprise than World War II.

That's it for Part One! Be here whenever next time is for Part Two of Kamandi Challenge #1!

Darkseid! (as seen in Justice League)

PERSONAL DATA
Alter Ego: None
Occupation: Dictator, Would-Be Ruler of the Universe [Oh come on! You can't just put anything you think you should be as your occupation! "Would-Be Master Fellator of Ryan Gosling" just wouldn't check out if my the person reading my resume decided to run some background checks.]
Marital Status: Twice Married [Once Widowered?]
Known Relatives: Heggra (mother, deceased), Steppenwolf (uncle, deceased), Suli (wife, deceased), Tigra (wife), Orion, Kalibak (sons)
Group Affiliation: None
Base of Operations: [Your mom.] The Planet Apokolips
First Appearance: JIMMY OLSEN #134 [Oh fuck me. Jimmy Olsen had his own comic book that ran for over ten years?!]
Height: 7'6" Weight: 515 lbs.
Eyes: [Omega-y.] Red Hair: None

HISTORY
The son of Queen Heggra of the planet Apokolips (see Apokolips), the young Darkseid played the role of a humble, retiring member of the royal court while quietly maneuvering to seize power. Darkseid's first major step was to persuade his uncle Steppenwolf (see Steppenwolf) to go to the nearby planet New Genesis (see New Genesis) to hunt down some of its citizens for sport. While there, Steppenwolf murdered Avia, the wife of Izaya, one of the planet's leaders. Darkseid pretended to kill Izaya, who then, as Darkseid had planned, launched "the Great Clash" between the two planets. During the war Darkseid ceded command of a raid to Steppenwolf, knowing that it would lead to the latter's death at Izaya's hands. Darkseid took over direction of the war and, after his ally Desaad (see Desaad) secretly murdered Queen Heggra, the throne of Apokolips as well.

In the final days of the war Izaya, now known as Highfather (see Highfather), and Darkseid negotiated a peace treaty. Darkseid wanted time to find a means of guaranteeing his ultimate victory. By the terms of "the Pact," Darkseid and Highfather exchanged guardianship of the boy Orion (see Orion), the product of his loveless marriage to Tigra, whom Heggra had chosen to be his wife. In return Highfather sent his son Scott Free, who later became Mister Miracle (see Mister Miracle), to Darkseid.

Years later Darkseid broke the truce by kidnapping people from Earth to Apokolips. He then invaded Earth, hoping to discover in the minds of one of its inhabitants the Anti-Life Equation, the psionic means by which he could control every sentient being in the universe. Hostilities between Apokolips and New Genesis again broke out, with Earth as the battlefield. Darkseid's son Orion became his most implacable adversary in these battles.

Recently, the war has apparently ended with the destruction of New Genesis, whose inhabitants have left for elsewhere in space, and a revolution by the "Hunger Dogs," the slave-like labor force of Apokolips. Apokolips lies in ruins, but Darkseid has survived.

Through unknown means, Darkseid has appeared in the 30th Century to battle the Legion of Super-Heroes (see LSH) [Perhaps because Darkseid is long-lived, if not immortal? Why would it be such a mystery?!]. However, it has been prophesied that Darkseid will someday meet his ultimate fate in battle with his son Orion amid the fire-pits of Armagetto on Apokolips.

POWERS & WEAPONS
The full extent of Darkseid's superhuman powers remains unknown, since he prefers to act through his subordinates. He is known, however, to be the most powerful being on Apokolips.

Darkseid's major known power is his mastery of the "Omega Effect," a form of energy projected from his eyes. Its full range of uses has not been revealed. However, the Omega Effect can be used as force bolts, as disintegration beams, or as means of teleporting a target through time and space. It can even restore targets that it has disintegrated, resurrecting them if they were alive. The Omega Effect beams will follow their intended target, no matter where it moves, until they contact it.

Darkseid possesses superhuman strength that is roughly equal to that of his son Orion.

Darkseid displayed other powers in the 30th Century, including the ability to generate force bolts from his hands as well as a force-field, to levitate and teleport himself, and to control the minds of an entire planet's population psionically. At least some of these abilities may be the result of his having temporarily stolen power from various 30th Century menaces [Or perhaps he's discovered the Anti-Life Equation in the thousand years he's been alive.].

Darkseid is a master strategist and, as ruler of Apokolips, has extraordinary weaponry, superpowerful agents, and vast armies at his disposal.

DeSaad! (as seen in Worlds' Finest)

PERSONAL DATA
Alter Ego: None
Occupation: Master Torturer [I'm putting this on my next resume.]
Marital Status: Single
Known Relatives: None
Group Affiliation: Member of Darkseid's Ruling Elite [I'm also putting this on my next resume.]
Base of Operations: The Planet Apokolips
First Appearance: THE FOREVER PEOPLE #2
Height: 5'11" Weight: 152 lbs
Eyes: Black Hair: Black

HISTORY
Desaad [Now I'm confused about the way his name should be capitalized. The cover of the Who's Who has it as "DeSaad" and it looks like that in the picture. But it remains Desaad in the body of entry. Whatever, DC!] was one of the earliest allies of Darkseid in his rise to power on the planet Apokolips (see individual listings). Desaad was an inventor who specialized in the creation of weapons and devices for torturing and killing, usually in a long, painful manner [You mean like torture? I think there may be some redundancies in the previous sentence.]. In fact, Desaad took a perverse, perhaps addictive pleasure in using Apokolips technology to experience the emotions of his victims as he made them suffer. Desaad designed weapons for the young Darkseid, who came to appreciate Desaad's macabre sense of humor at the expense of their victims.

Queen Heggra of Apokolips disapproved of her son Darkseid's courting of the sorceress Suli [I seriously thought this was going to say he was courting Desaad.], whom Darkseid finally wed secretly. Heggra had Desaad poison Suli. However, although Darkseid was infuriated at Desaad's betrayal, they remained allies, and he forced Desaad to murder Heggra secretly, thus making Darkseid ruler of Apokolips.

Desaad acted as Darkseid's right-hand man during the first series of battles between the forces of Apokolips and New Genesis (see New Genesis) on Earth [Why they gotta fight their wars on Earth? Bastards.]. However, during a fight between Darkseid's sons Orion and Kalibak (see individual listings), Desaad used his technology to increase Kalibak's strength to a level greater than Orion's. Desaad then used his machines to experience the emotions of the two combatants from afar. Furious that Desaad's meddling might lead to Orion's death, Darkseid disintegrated Desaad with his Omega Effect. Sometime later, though, regretting the loss of his confidant, Darkseid used the Omega Effect to resurrect Desaad [It can be used for good and evil! The good use was killing Desaad, if you didn't know!].

POWERS & WEAPONS
Desaad possesses no known super-powers. He is a brilliant inventor of weapons for killing and torture [Right. We got it. Killer. Torturer. Bad dude.]. Perhaps his most spectacular achievement was "Happyland," an amusement park that, behind the scenes, actually served as a prison for his victims [So just like Disneyland? I have a feeling Jack Kirby was making some kind of social commentary with this.]. The prisoners were anguished over the seeming indifference of the park's customers to their plight, unaware that Desaad's technology caused the visitors to see them as something other than what they were [Like happy and fulfilled and receiving good wages with decent benefits?].