Why aren't the New Gods more popular?

[Green Goblin of Sector 2814]

It's superhero comics. cheese is built into the bones. I can't defend Crazy Quilt, but he's not a supposed cosmic tyrant, either. Freeze at least has a touch of tragedy to humanize him.

Exactly. Cheese IS built into the bones of superhero comics. The Green Lanterns, for example, constantly take out their enemies with boxing gloves made out of green light. And at the end of the day, we're talking about space gods with incredible power. His name being Vermin Vunderbaar doesn't take away from him being a cosmic god who is also a fascist.

I dunno if that is the right analogy. More like if Thor were constantly pummeling Thanos by himself. I'm not a huge Marvel reader, but I don't think that happens much at all.

It is. And it does happen, more often than you'd think. Its the right analogy because you have a god (Thor) being matched and/or beaten by a mortal (Hulk) who is about the same level of strength as Superman. Thanos isn't a god. When he has the Infinity Gauntlet––an artifact of literally infinite power––he's unbeatable. That's not so true when he doesn't.

Thor is a Viking God. He likes to fight and hit things with a hammer. Darkseid is supposed to be a master manipulator who very rarely gets his hands dirty. I would expect Thor to wade into battle with the Hulk. Darkseid should not trade punches with Superman unless it's a last resort.

Don't see how this makes it "unbelievable" that Superman would be able to beat Darkseid in combat. Yes, when Darkseid is written well he is the master manipulator who rarely gets his hands dirty. However, that doesn't mean that when they do come to blows that him losing the battle between himself and Superman makes him "weak," especially when Superman could probably take on (and has taken on) Thor and the Asgardians of Marvel. Hell, Superman even once lifted Thor's hammer and proceeded to beat him. Plus, you know, Darkseid is the bad guy. He has to lose eventually or the whole point of the story––good triumphing over evil––wouldn't be served.

Thor and the Asgardians at least have significant contact with Earth and its inhabitants. It humanize them. For the main, but for Loki and sometimes Odin, they are good guys. As opposed to Darkseid and his merry band of evil gods trolling through the multiverse chasing the Anti-Life Equation or some such. They show up, look ridiculous, and get sent packing by the Justice League. And because of that, New Genesis is painted into a corner. What purpose have Highfather, Orion and Lightray when the League bounces Darkseid on the reg?

To serve as the good guys? As long as they've been around, in-universe, the League isn't immortal. Darkseid is. The gods of Apokolips are all immortal. So, the gods of New Genesis serve as the eternal counterbalance to them. Also, they serve as friends of the League, you know especially with Barda and Mr. Miracle serving as members of the League during the classic Griffen/DeMatteis run.

[Hypestyle]

Invent some new New Gods. Change their status quo. Update and clarify their abilities, skills, weapons. Acknowledge that some of their names are just way out there (Granny Goodness? Glorious Godfrey? Scott Free? Seriously?)

[Trey Strain]

Invent some new New Gods. Change their status quo. Update and clarify their abilities, skills, weapons. Acknowledge that some of their names are just way out there (Granny Goodness? Glorious Godfrey? Scott Free? Seriously?)

Those names are awful but creating more of them won't help. As I said earler in this thread, most dogs won't eat it. Putting more of it in the bowl won't make it more appetizing.

Just respect Kirby and flush them. What is the reasonable objection to doing that?

[CaptCleghorn]

Invent some new New Gods. Change their status quo. Update and clarify their abilities, skills, weapons. Acknowledge that some of their names are just way out there (Granny Goodness? Glorious Godfrey? Scott Free? Seriously?)

Wanting stats on the New Gods is like wanting stats on Neil Gaiman's Endless. They weren't created to be heroes and villains, they were created as ideas and beings different than what we are. We're not supposed to relate to them, we look at them and see how much of each of them are parts of us.

Obviously Kirby and Gaiman work in very different ways and produce very different results. But the closest analogy to the New Gods I can come up with are the Endless. The Lee/Kirby Thor was more human than either of these concepts. So are Jim Starlin's Titan folks. As much as some may want to see Gaiman's Death and Destruction in skin tight spandex, they really don't work well that way. Same with Kirby's crew.

[Lightning Rider]

I thought the appeal of Game of Thrones was the violence and sex and nudity.

If they did a New Gods series where the ladies got naked a lot, I'm betting that would sell.

(For that matter, New Gods needs more heroic ladies. After Barda it drops fast to what...Jezebelle?)

That helps in spots, but after season 2 it's much more rare. The real attraction is the set of interesting characters and the political intrigue. Shows like Spartacus, Vikings, The Borgias, and the Tudors would be just as successful if period costumes, sex, and violence were the main strengths.

[BohemiaDrinker]

I thought the appeal of Game of Thrones was the violence and sex and nudity.

You thought wrong. The appeal of Game of Thrones goes from a detailed believable world (the same way as LOTR, for instance), to unseen levels on tv of sarcasm and witty comebacks (and if you look at at all at the reaction for game thrones, favorite characters and what not, that is gonna be the most common theme) to it's no holds barred regarding characters, which includes, but is not limited to, sex and violence.

You can over-simplify why the people like the show to boobs and gore, as you can do it to super-heroes, powers and costumes (as Dan Didio did once). But you would be wrong (as he was).

If they did a New Gods series where the ladies got naked a lot, I'm betting that would sell.

At first, probably. But a lot of the ladies in Arrow got naked quite frequently in Spartacus, yet I don't see a flock of people leaving Arrow aside in order to binge-watch Nyssa get naked.

It's not like boobs are in short supply in today's world; the days of Playboy magazines hidden under the mattress are long gone, and nudity is in no way, shape or form a guarantee to a show success. Actually, if it's main draw, the show is probably gonna fail.

(For that matter, New Gods needs more heroic ladies. After Barda it drops fast to what...Jezebelle?)

That, we agree on. But Bekka did get a power up in recent times.

[adrikito]

I know little about these characters... They must appear in Darkseid war.

[Elegant Dreamer]

I enjoy the New Gods, mostly the heroes. Plus Mister Miracle has the greatest alias in the world! Scott Free!

[batnbreakfast]

Scott, Barda, Granny, the Furies are far more enjoyable than the rest of the Gods. In comics, animation and I hope soon with real actors. Steppenwolf seems poorly done already (judging from the Ultimate Cut)

[Lightning Rider]

I know little about these characters... They must appear in Darkseid war.

By the way, was Darkseid War universally praised? Might pick it up.

[batnbreakfast]

By the way, was Darkseid War universally praised? Might pick it up.

I really liked how it started out but I've heard it went bad after a good start

[BatmanJones]

By the way, was Darkseid War universally praised? Might pick it up.

It was fantastic and included the resolution of stories going back to Forever Evil at least. It was everything a Justice League book should be. But Darkseid and the Anti-Monitor, the apparent big bads, have less than zero personality as usual.

[Kid A]

That's pretty close to my answer.

I was too young for the original Kirby runs, but I picked up the late-70s continuations by Conway, et al, and didn't find them compelling. It gave me a low opinion of the Fourth World stuff. Circa 2007, I went back and read Kirby's original work and it was fantastic.

What was the difference between Kirby's original work and the follow-ups? Kirby had, to put it mildly, a great sense of creating compelling drama, and that often had to do with the reader not knowing 100% what was going on. Reading Kirby's work is like being a passenger in a car driven by a half-mad driver (without the danger).

If you write Darkseid up as a entry in "Who's Who in the DC Universe" and you describe his origin and powers in full detail, you've already ruined what made Kirby's stories work, which is that you don't know what the hell this Darkseid guy and all of the other characters are capable of every time you see them. He might turn you into a dream by looking at you. He might restart time and erase you from the universe. He might make you his willing slave. Reading Kirby's stories, you have no idea what might happen next, but it's nearly always compelling.

What Kirby did vs. what most writers do is like the difference between jazz and Baroque music. Kirby was always improvising, always free-wheeling. If you use his characters but don't write them the way he did, they aren't particularly compelling. And if you do write like Kirby, you have no need to adopt his characters, because the improvisation is the powerful thing anyway, not names and faces.

That is why I think most uses of the Fourth World characters have fallen flat.

Interestingly, The Great Darkness Saga was a great and memorable use of Darkseid and, lo and behold, you had no idea what the mystery villain was capable of (if you read it in the original run).

Not spelling everything out is a powerful approach. Other examples: The posse following Butch and Sundance in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid ("Who are those guys?!?"). Doctor Hurt in Morrison's Batman run. The entire film Picnic at Hanging Rock. Keep the audience guessing. It's why these stories are memorable and a typical Flash-vs-Captain Cold story is not.

Yeah. I've been watching Fargo, so Billy Bob Thornton's character, Lorne Malvo, also comes to mind.

The New Gods are kind of weird, because they were clearly created in the same trappings as like both the Marvel Thor comics, as well as the DCU. But those things, well especially the latter, are kind of a dead end for the creative potential of the New Gods. Everything revolves around like Superman or whoever at the end of the day, which just makes them generic canon fodder for superhero stories that have little to do with the vast thematic depth and potential of the New Gods. Like, Destruction from Sandman is basically what Orion was intended to be, except the former has the breathing space to explore those ideas.

In an ideal world, we would have a self-contained New Gods book by Morrison or Gaiman or whoever that takes some superficial trappings of Star Wars (which liberally borrowed a lot from here), Dune, and Game of Thrones, but can go really deep into exploring Darkseid's embodiment of fascism or Orion's war with himself. But I don't think it would last long.

[Icefalcon]

By the way, was Darkseid War universally praised?

You need to be careful with words like universally and and terms like everyone liked it. I thought it was pretty poor and I suspect I'm not the only one even if we are a minority

[Green Goblin of Sector 2814]

Those names are awful but creating more of them won't help. As I said earler in this thread, most dogs won't eat it. Putting more of it in the bowl won't make it more appetizing.

Just respect Kirby and flush them. What is the reasonable objection to doing that?

Other than the fact that many of them are fan favorite characters, especially Orion, Big Barda, and Mr. Miracle, or that Kirby himself decided NOT to flush them when he was given the chance?

Here's an article on the subject: http://sequart.org/magazine/15891/19...r-dogs-part-1/

And here's an important quote from said article

Evanier wrote about Kirby and the Fourth World characters, “he didn’t want to bring them back just to destroy them.”

Point is, DC will never do it because yes there IS a fanbase out for them. They're Jack Kirby creations. Of course they're are at least a good amount of people who consider themselves fans of those characters.