Apokolips without Intergang

[Cipher]

I've just read the 52 Aftermath: Crime Bible series via a Comixology sale, and it sent me down a bit of a well:

Prior to the New 52, Apokolips and its various evil New Gods was one of my favorite elements of the DC Universe. That hasn't been the case recently, but I wondered if I'd simply become burnt out on it vs. when I was a newer reader (in my first few years of real DC reading, I've gone through all of Kirby's Fourth World material, various Post-Crisis appearances from the New Gods, 52, Final Crisis, etc., along with most of their New 52 appearances).

But returning to this simple, Crime Bible-focused series (and I'm glad to finally be reading it, having loved 52 and all of Batwoman), I think, no. It's just that a major element of the mythos is missing.

Can you have Apokolips without Integrang (and by way of Intergang, all of the other earthling groups that popped up in later years, as is heavily implied to be the case with the Religion of Crime)? To me, this was part of making Apokolips seem like the greater, more otherworldly threat it is. Kirby hands it a deliciously, maybe even painfully, slow build-up in Jimmy Olsen (Morgan Edge --> Intergang --> Earth-based projects like the Evil Factory --> Apokolips and Darkseid).

Until the New 52, creators continued to add different human groups acting, wittingly or unwittingly, in service of Darkseid. You had different heroes encountering these groups without even realizing their origins (Batwoman interestingly ends up dealing with a Darkseid conflict thrice removed). All of it made sense with a Darkseid and Apokolips after a more nuanced version of subservience, and it made their goals seem that much more insidious. It kept them a constant greater presence in the world, with various actors to further their ends. (I guess, see also any of Glorious Godfrey's followers.)

As far as I know Apokolips hasn't used any human followers in the New 52 yet, has it? Has Intergang even shown up?

This isn't meant to be a New 52-bashing thread, as I like a lot of the content to have come out under that banner. It's rather a reflection on what makes the Apokolips mythos work, and why. So, per the thread: Can Apokolips work without Intergang? Has it?

[Outside_85]

To be honest, if Intergang showed up with new allegiances or never showed up at all again, it wouldn't bother me the slightest.

Mostly because I think the likes of Darkseid getting involved with some two-bit crooks on Earth seems out of character, especially when he has enough firepower under his command to turn most of Earth into ash if he wanted to. The Religion of Crime... I think it worked better in Final Crisis: Revelations than it did with Batwoman. It's been a while since I read either, but I recall the whole thing about Batwoman ended up with her getting stabbed, and Mannheim becoming somekind of god that abandoned Darkseid for someone else (who was never revealed and nothing ever came of it). But as the fanatical followers of the biblical Cain, that pretty much does the bible's message backwards? That I thought was cool... if short lived since the Spectre immolated most of them once Allen found his faith again. No so sure the addition of Vandal Savage as Cain was necessary though.

But I am fairly certain that Apokolips will eventually have some human nutters as willing followers, same as all the other 'I am evil incarnate' forces out there in the DCU.

[t hedge coke]

To be honest, if Intergang showed up with new allegiances or never showed up at all again, it wouldn't bother me the slightest.

Mostly because I think the likes of Darkseid getting involved with some two-bit crooks on Earth seems out of character, especially when he has enough firepower under his command to turn most of Earth into ash if he wanted to.

That's not what he wants, though, at least when well-written. Darkseid isn't here to carpet bomb the planet and be done with it. Darkseid is here to evil it up in all ways. Darkseid is the god of gangsters and monsters, sadists, parasites, thieves and monsters. Darkseid is a gangster. He's the chairman of the board of evil. Every pimp and bonebreaker, every shakedown man and heroin dealer tithes to Darkseid, even those with "the best of intentions."

Oh, btw, Savage was not-Cain-ed almost as soon as he was Cain, and the Mark of Cain turned out to be just a thing transferred from person to person, with him inheriting it from someone else who got it from someone who got it...

[mr_crisp]

To be honest, if Intergang showed up with new allegiances or never showed up at all again, it wouldn't bother me the slightest.

Mostly because I think the likes of Darkseid getting involved with some two-bit crooks on Earth seems out of character

Out of character? Darkseid was shown interacting with them from the start. How can that seem out of character when the person who created the character has Darkseid dealing with them?

[mr_crisp]

Considering that DC now has Darkseid has more hands on there is no need for Intergang. No more working behind the scenes for Darkseid.

[Deniz Camp]

I've just read the 52 Aftermath: Crime Bible series via a Comixology sale, and it sent me down a bit of a well:

Prior to the New 52, Apokolips and its various evil New Gods was one of my favorite elements of the DC Universe. That hasn't been the case recently, but I wondered if I'd simply become burnt out on it vs. when I was a newer reader (in my first few years of real DC reading, I've gone through all of Kirby's Fourth World material, various Post-Crisis appearances from the New Gods, 52, Final Crisis, etc., along with most of their New 52 appearances).

But returning to this simple, Crime Bible-focused series (and I'm glad to finally be reading it, having loved 52 and all of Batwoman), I think, no. It's just that a major element of the mythos is missing.

Can you have Apokolips without Integrang (and by way of Intergang, all of the other earthling groups that popped up in later years, as is heavily implied to be the case with the Religion of Crime)? To me, this was part of making Apokolips seem like the greater, more otherworldly threat it is. Kirby hands it a deliciously, maybe even painfully, slow build-up in Jimmy Olsen (Morgan Edge --> Intergang --> Earth-based projects like the Evil Factory --> Apokolips and Darkseid).

Until the New 52, creators continued to add different human groups acting, wittingly or unwittingly, in service of Darkseid. You had different heroes encountering these groups without even realizing their origins (Batwoman interestingly ends up dealing with a Darkseid conflict thrice removed). All of it made sense with a Darkseid and Apokolips after a more nuanced version of subservience, and it made their goals seem that much more insidious. It kept them a constant greater presence in the world, with various actors to further their ends. (I guess, see also any of Glorious Godfrey's followers.)

As far as I know Apokolips hasn't used any human followers in the New 52 yet, has it? Has Intergang even shown up?

This isn't meant to be a New 52-bashing thread, as I like a lot of the content to have come out under that banner. It's rather a reflection on what makes the Apokolips mythos work, and why. So, per the thread: Can Apokolips work without Intergang? Has it?

I think the removal of Intergang is just one in a long line of changes that, intentionally or not, have served to drain the mystery and the...numinous, transcendental character of the New Gods away. I don't think most writers really see what the New Gods are, or what they were meant to be. At best they understand a certain elevated stature which, in comics, is always brought across with the same metaphor -- physical power. Often they don't even intuit that much.

But the New Gods as a big self-reflexive examination of the modern human condition is gone. The heart of any great mythology is mystery. Great science fiction, to. What was it PKD said? "If it is good science fiction the idea is new, it is stimulating, and, probably most important of all, it sets off a chain reaction of ramification-ideas in the mind of the reader; it so-to-speak unlocks the reader’s mind so that the mind, like the author’s, begins to create."

Intergang represented a kind of modern, urbanized death cult, didn't it? It was the religion of capitalism gone horribly, horribly wrong. Speaking generally, the modern city dweller doesn't fear religious persecution; it is this kind of organized criminality in the name of greed that was a force of that day (today you might have Darkseid act through bankers & CEOs, or through an organized terror network).

By working through human agents in 'mysterious ways' you got the sense that these were small, almost insignificant squabbles in a vast machaean conflict, so grand that even the smallest shards crashed into OUR reality with an impossible gravity. Even moreso when, as during the Morrison portions of "52", they say as much!

Only Grant Morrison and Walter Simonson ever really understood that in the greater context of the DCU, after Kirby. So it's hardly a "New 52 Problem", and much more an 'entire history of the New Gods" problem. Or, maybe, a 'DC comics problem' is more apt.

[Noxex]

To be honest, if Intergang showed up with new allegiances or never showed up at all again, it wouldn't bother me the slightest.

Mostly because I think the likes of Darkseid getting involved with some two-bit crooks on Earth seems out of character, especially when he has enough firepower under his command to turn most of Earth into ash if he wanted to.

Darkseid getting involved with some two-bit crooks on Earth IS his character in many ways. He doesn't attack with firepower. In fact did Kirby ever have him kill anyone with his Omega Beams? He wants evil to flourish and for the universe to submit to his will. DARKSEID SAYS...

The defining Darkseid moment will always be the issue of Forever People where he's walking around the evil carnival that Dessad has created and talks with a child, who is the only person there who even notices him.

[t hedge coke]

Darkseid getting involved with some two-bit crooks on Earth IS his character in many ways. He doesn't attack with firepower. In fact did Kirby ever have him kill anyone with his Omega Beams? He wants evil to flourish and for the universe to submit to his will. DARKSEID SAYS...

The defining Darkseid moment will always be the issue of Forever People where he's walking around the evil carnival that Dessad has created and talks with a child, who is the only person there who even notices him.

Darkseid doesn't invade with a fleet of ships. Darkseid chills on your couch, embarrasses and humiliates you, and won't leave. And he drinks everything in your fridge.

[FanboyStranger]

Darkseid doesn't invade with a fleet of ships. Darkseid chills on your couch, embarrasses and humiliates you, and won't leave. And he drinks everything in your fridge.

And you go out and work for him. And bring him food. And clean the place for him. And pretty much do everything for him. And convince your neighbors to do the same. Until, finally, everything that exists only exists for Darkseid.

Darkseid Is.

(I think that's what most creators miss about Darkseid and the New Gods in general. Darkseid isn't evil personified, but a very specific type of evil based on self-interest. He is control.)

[Outside_85]

That's not what he wants, though, at least when well-written. Darkseid isn't here to carpet bomb the planet and be done with it. Darkseid is here to evil it up in all ways. Darkseid is the god of gangsters and monsters, sadists, parasites, thieves and monsters. Darkseid is a gangster. He's the chairman of the board of evil. Every pimp and bonebreaker, every shakedown man and heroin dealer tithes to Darkseid, even those with "the best of intentions."

Oh, btw, Savage was not-Cain-ed almost as soon as he was Cain, and the Mark of Cain turned out to be just a thing transferred from person to person, with him inheriting it from someone else who got it from someone who got it...

Out of character? Darkseid was shown interacting with them from the start. How can that seem out of character when the person who created the character has Darkseid dealing with them?

Darkseid getting involved with some two-bit crooks on Earth IS his character in many ways. He doesn't attack with firepower. In fact did Kirby ever have him kill anyone with his Omega Beams? He wants evil to flourish and for the universe to submit to his will. DARKSEID SAYS...

The defining Darkseid moment will always be the issue of Forever People where he's walking around the evil carnival that Dessad has created and talks with a child, who is the only person there who even notices him.

This may be just me who thinks this, but Kirby created the New Gods out of his personal view that beings we call(ed) Gods were simply advanced aliens. And the New Gods were simply another kind of aliens with super advanced technology.
My problem with Kirby lies in that over the years he and others have tried and largely failed at converting existing gods into the New God template, where they are just aliens with advanced tech... which he succeeded mostly with Marvel's Thor (I know they predate the New Gods) and the Celestials. Which to me rather ruins the whole point of playing around with gods and myth... because you take out the magic and replace it with science.

To date, Morrison is the only writer I've seen thats written the New Gods (epecially Darkseid) as anything more than powerful advanced aliens, and I'd rather like for DC to continue down that line or just clearly state there is a vast difference between an actual God and a New God.
If they are just going to use them as aliens, then Intergang is fine I suppose, as sort of advanced infiltration unit of locals they employ to gather information, cause disruption and run errants. If you are going to make them actual gods, dont bother, a god shouldn't need bank robbers and racketeers.

[Deniz Camp]

This may be just me who thinks this, but Kirby created the New Gods out of his personal view that beings we call(ed) Gods were simply advanced aliens. And the New Gods were simply another kind of aliens with super advanced technology.

It's not just you who thinks that, but that doesn't make the belief any less wrong.

A close reading of the original text will bear that out. That isn't what he was driving at at all. The New Gods are a genuine mythology for our time, their technology metaphorical.

The Eternals, on the other hand, was a take on the 'chariot of the gods' notion.

[t hedge coke]

There's no fair way to look at the Kirby New Gods as anything but new gods. Later takes, especially immediately after Kirby, yes, but his are clearly born from the wreckage and mess of the old gods and embodying and exemplifying traits the same way pantheons do, their powers absurd and mighty beyond even those of Kirby Thor and whatnot over at Marvel.

When Kirby wanted to do aliens mucking about, he did that. Eternals. The Adam and Eve retelling in Devil Dinosaur. But, his New Gods definitely was not that.

[Cipher]

Considering that DC now has Darkseid has more hands on there is no need for Intergang. No more working behind the scenes for Darkseid.

Well, that's rather the problem.

As others have said, the original Darkseid's goal was a quiet subjugation of the universe, through the holy grail of the Anti-Life equation he sought on Earth or simply through seeding despair and reverence toward himself. The presence of human adherents, even before we fully saw Darkseid, helped sell the idea of Earth being a pawn in the New Gods game, and continued to do so, under a select few writers, until the end of the previous continuity. The continued presence of elements like the Crime Bible and even Intergang itself meant we actually saw relics of Apokoliptian plans continue to play roles in the DCU, with few evening knowing what their origins were. Any gesture from the New Gods could have unintended ramifications on Earth.

Someone above mentioned finding other adherents in sync with the fears of the time (bankers, terrorists, etc.), and I think that'd be aces.

We're certainly a long way from Darkseid chilling in anyone's armchair right now, but, I think, conversely to what Johns and others seem so desperate to convey, the more hands-on Darkseid and all of Apokolips are, the smaller their presence and threat actually feels.

[Outside_85]

A close reading of the original text will bear that out. That isn't what he was driving at at all. The New Gods are a genuine mythology for our time, their technology metaphorical.

Which is my point. The New Gods were not magic based like the Olympians are, the New Gods were science based with items that simply 'looked' like magic to people who didn't understand the technology behind it.

[t hedge coke]

Which is my point. The New Gods were not magic based like the Olympians are, the New Gods were science based with items that simply 'looked' like magic to people who didn't understand the technology behind it.

More the opposite. It looks like technology.

I mean, there's a tube that opens in the air that you walk through, prophecies and fatalism, and a guy who waves his hand at things to evolve them monstrously. Their planets and their lives were created by old gods banging each other with hammers and swords until they all died and coalesced into new forms. That's a lot closer to turning into a swan so you can hook up with a girl than it is a Porsche.