Kirby got to conclude the Fourth World on his own terms in 1985 with the graphic novel “The Hunger Dogs.” New Genesis is destroyed and its people become nomads, while Darkseid is left all alone after the oppressed people of Apokolips finally rise up against him.
Nevertheless, the same thing that Kirby had grown sick of at Marvel happened at DC; his personal mythos became part of a corporate-controlled story. In modern DC comics, Darkseid is more often an adversary of Superman and the Justice League, not Orion and New Genesis.
In a way, Darkseid also did become a Marvel villain though — Jim Starlin, a writer then over at Marvel, was a fan of Kirby’s New Gods. So, when writing “Iron Man” #55 in 1973, he debuted a character right out of the Fourth World: Thanos the Mad Titan, based both on Darkseid and his fellow New God, Metron. Unlike Darkseid, though, Thanos is not a god. He’s not driven by a pure will to dominate but by love, specifically a love for (Lady) Death.
To bring it full-circle, Starlin would later write the Fourth World itself in the 1988 mini-series “Cosmic Odyssey” (drawn by a young Mike Mignola, future creator of Hellboy) and then 2008’s “Death of the New Gods.” Unfortunately, Starlin’s Fourth World isn’t as successful as his Marvel Cosmic comics. He tries to make the New Gods less larger than life than Kirby had, inferring that they’re simply aliens rather than literal Gods. He also retcons Anti-Life from an ethereal concept symbolizing Fascism into a literally demonic monster the heroes can beat up.
The best Darkseid writers are the ones who understand that he’s a villain greater than he appears. Sure, on the surface he’s a scary stone monster with laser eyes, which is more than enough for a super-villain. Except, that’s just the face he wears; Darkseid is evil both incarnate and ethereal.
In “JLA” storyline “Rock of Ages,” writer Grant Morrison coined the in-universe phrase “Darkseid Is.” Akin to the passage in the Book of Revelation where God declares, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last,” those two words convey there is no permanently overcoming Darkseid. It’s not “Darkseid Was” or “Darkseid Will,” it’s “Darkseid Is,” now and forever. That’s why the Anti-Life Equation binds you to his will. If life has no greater purpose, then there’s nothing left to do but submit to Darkseid.
Taking after Morrison, Tom King and Mitch Gerads’s 2019 “Mister Miracle” mini-series weaved Darkseid’s omnipresence into its formal storytelling. The comic frames every page inside a nine-panel grid, creating a consistent rhythm. Sometimes, that rhythm will be interpreted at seemingly random times with a black square panel, empty except for two words I bet you can guess.
Darkseid’s evil may be confined to the DC Universe, but what he represents — each and every one of our own dark sides — extends far beyond it.
Darkseid represents the ultimate evil of the DC Universe … but had a butterfly flapped its wings differently, he could’ve been a Marvel Comics villain. Read More