Opposing him is Orion, his son raised by Highfather and his enemies on New Genesis. Darkseid, the evil lord of Apokolips, seeks the Anti-Life Equation which will allow him to control the thoughts of all living beings. 'The Fourth World' dealt with the battle between good and evil as represented by the worlds of New Genesis and Apokolips. Cover art by Jack Kirby and Vince Colletta. The first page of Orion of the New Gods showed the same scenes from Thor-a planet torn in half and armored gods holding swords and dying on a fiery battleground. Though he wouldn't ever say it publicly, the New Gods books started right after the gods in Thor killed one another. Now he was presenting it in its original context. Instead, he tried the idea in his Inhumans stories. He wanted to have two planets at war and end with Ragnarok, the battle that would kill Thor's lucrative pantheon. The idea of the New Gods had come to Jack years earlier, when he was plotting 90 percent of the 'Tales of Asgard' stories in Thor. As author Marc Flores, who writes under the pen name Ronin Ro, described:

Unhappy with Marvel Comics at the time, as he had created or co-created a plethora of characters without having copyright or creative custody of them, he turned to rival publisher DC Comics, with his sketches and designs for a new group of heroes and villains. The three original titles constituting the 'Fourth World' were The Forever People, Mister Miracle, and The New Gods. This delayed the introduction of the 'Fourth World' titles until the following year. Kirby reportedly objected to this, and Showcase was cancelled. DC Comics had planned to introduce the 'Fourth World' titles in the November 1970 issue of their preview omnibus title, Showcase. He began the 'Fourth World' in Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen #133 (Oct. Toward this end, Kirby envisioned a finite series that would be serialized and collected in one tome after the series had concluded. Publication history Initial 1970s comics Īs the newsstand distribution system for comics began to break down, Jack Kirby foresaw a day when comics would need to find alternate venues for sale. Although they were not marketed under this title until the August–September 1971 issues of New Gods and Forever People, the terms Fourth World and Jack Kirby's Fourth World have gained usage in the years since. ' Fourth World' was a metaseries of connected comic book titles written and drawn by Jack Kirby and published by DC Comics from 1970 to 1973.

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