Review: New Gods Book Two: Advent of Darkness trade paperback (DC Comics)

[A series on post-Jack Kirby New Gods titles by guest reviewer Zach King. Zach writes about movies at The Cinema King and about comics on Instagram at Dr. King’s Comics.]

“I had loved The New Gods since the series premiered. It was truly Kirby’s masterpiece. … I had always loved collaborating with Mark Evanier, so it was an easy decision.” - Rick Hoberg

While the first post-Crisis trade collection of New Gods spent its time wallowing where Jack Kirby had gone before, New Gods Book Two: Advent of Darkness, collecting issues #15–28, moves a bit further forward, albeit by going back into the past. You may find yourself scratching your head on that notion, but that means you’re in good territory; much of Kirby’s later output wrestled with the fundamentally ineffable (see also 2001, The Eternals, Silver Star, etc.) and it’s only appropriate that his inheritors would similarly tread upon unfathomable ground.

Put another way, Advent of Darkness is cosmically incomprehensible yet all the same driven to advance the narrative Kirby started, and while the end result might be nobody’s favorite comic book, I have to say it is just about exactly what one would need from a New Gods continuation.

At the end of the last volume, Highfather had won the battle for the soul of New Genesis, Darkseid had vaporized Desaad and Kalibak for the crimes of ambition and free thought, and Orion had made a semblance of peace with his heritage and relocated to Earth to find himself. And so we return and begin again, with Darkseid resurrecting Desaad, Highfather continuing his optimistic crusade for peace, and Orion assuming the role of “superhero” in New York City. If it all sounds familiar, you’re not alone; Kirby did it, Gerry Conway did it, and now Mark Evanier’s doing it.

[See the latest DC trade solicitations.]

Yet Advent of Darkness does advance the plot and build out the world by journeying into the past. In the last volume, we met the Dreggs, the zombified Old Gods confirmed by Evanier (and as implied by Kirby) to be the Norse pantheon. (Here, they’re Lokee and Wotan and an unnamed hammer-wielder, perhaps to avoid any messy corporate entanglement.) Having already met — and dispatched — Darkseid’s mother Heggra in the Kirby run, it’s only natural that Evanier and co-plotter Paris Cullins should introduce us to Darkseid’s father, the fearsome Yuga Khan. Khan’s appearance is teased and postponed with that quintessentially comic book brand of delayed gratification, so he’s suitably scary when he finally arrives. All horns and armor, his visual design would seem to anticipate Nicola Scott’s New 52 update on Steppenwolf — and, by extension, the film version portrayed by Ciaran Hinds. 

In a franchise as mythically heavy as New Gods, it’s easy to get caught up in discussing the story, but those visuals were such an indispensably potent element of Kirby’s work. This second trade collection transitions from Paris Cullins to Rick Hoberg, such that Hoberg headlines the book’s trade dress and spine. Hoberg, such a great partner with Mike Grell on their iconic Green Arrow run, is never quite as dynamic as Cullins, whose figures always seemed larger than life. Hoberg’s New Gods are more mundane, more human, though his sweeping backgrounds seem possessed of the Kirby spirit. That said, Hoberg draws a great, almost Mignola-esque Darkseid, rendering thick shadows all over the god of evil’s craggy face.

With Orion still the star of the show, Advent of Darkness does a better job than New Gods Book One: Bloodlines at engaging with the rest of the cosmic cast. New Gods keeps Mister Miracle at arm’s length; he was, after all, a ranking member of Justice League International while also starring in his own series, written first by J.M. DeMatteis and Len Wein, and later by Doug Moench. Yet Lightray is effectively elevated to co-star, while Metron gets a fascinating “origin” issue, detailing his creation of the Mobius Chair and his own cursed pact with Darkseid. Later, the Forever People return, late of their own miniseries by DeMatteis and Cullins (heretofore uncollected), but their story is less about them and their new status quo as it is a cautionary parable about the perils of pollution.

Indeed, Advent of Darkness is surprisingly preachy when it comes to topics better suited to after-school specials than twilights of the gods. (And I say this as someone who treasures treacle like “Superman for the Animals.”) Kirby was allegorical and fabulistic in his run, but Evanier’s storytelling hasn’t aged as gracefully. We’ve got the aforementioned two-parter on toxic waste, a story about AIDS, and a drunk driving tale, but since these societal ills are so foreign to the denizens of New Genesis, Orion and Lightray can do little more than gape in abject confusion at their horrors. By extension, it’s hard to reconcile the narrative scale when the book’s primary antagonist is a literal evil god.

Ultimately, there’s a sense that Advent of Darkness never really goes anywhere. Unlike Gerry Conway, Evanier is never keen to “resolve” the Fourth World Saga, and once Yuga Khan is defeated, the book sputters toward cancellation. Still, the book feels right for the New Gods; while Yuga Khan’s defeat comes at the hands of his own machinations rather than anything our characters might do, that ironic contrast has an appropriate ring to it. Meanwhile, the book continues its breathless insistence on introducing new characters like the warlike Agogg, the Apokoliptian mortician Necromina, and Desdemona, Metron’s erstwhile lover. Without Kirby, the Fourth World probably shouldn’t have an ending - and if it would, Grant Morrison’s Final Crisis is about as fine a resolution as any - so perhaps the most appropriate direction would be expansion, addition, and continuation. 

Maybe I’m just an inveterate Fourth World shill, but for all its faults and false starts, its unresolved plot points and its cyclical repetition, Advent of Darkness was never quite disappointing, and it’s certainly never boring. It’s clunky, but so far it’s the closest thing we’ve gotten to Kirby since Kirby, and it’s worth appreciating the fact that DC bothered to collect this mildly obscure, barely beloved relic from the early '90s at all. 

This New Gods volume has certainly gotten better treatment than its contemporaries. I mentioned in my review of the Mister Miracle hardcover that the DeMatteis-and-company run of Mister Miracle remains uncollected; at 28 issues (plus a one-shot by Evanier and Steve Rude, lauded by no less than Kirby himself), DC could follow the New Gods model and take two good-sized trades to collect it. Meanwhile, the 1988 Forever People miniseries by DeMatteis and Cullins seems almost indispensable to Advent of Darkness, and it’s never been republished either. Then again, I’m sure our gracious host has not forgotten that the New 52 Forever People series, by Dan DiDio and Keith Giffen, wasn’t ever collected; with DiDio’s exit of late, I can’t imagine we’ll see it any time soon. (The Forever People never seemed to catch on in the way that the other Fourth World characters did, a subject that could be its own non-review someday.)

Indeed, the New Gods collection history is perilously spotty in places, about which I’ll have more to say next time when I review John Byrne’s Fourth World Omnibus. At 30 issues, it’s hard to imagine that volume missing any content, but it does … from a certain point of view.