I've mentioned before, I seem to be accumulating a fair run of
Kamandi, but now I have to keep an eye out for
the Kamandi Challenge Special #1, which reprints what would've been issues
#60 and
#61. I did get all of this series, but just picked up a spare of the last issue, since I didn't remember how it ended, but also I'm not sure which covers I had: from 2018,
the Kamandi Challenge #12, featuring "The Boundless Realm" Written by Gail Simone, art by Jill Thompson and Ryan Sook; and "Epilogue the First: The Answers" Written by Paul Levitz, pencils by José Luis García-López, inks by Joe Prado. José Luis García-López did a
cover, and so did
Ryan Sook, but this one has the Frank Miller cover.
Like the old
DC Challenge, each issue of
Kamandi Challenge had a different creative team, and each previous issue had ended with a cliffhanger, for the next team to have to resolve. Gail seemingly cheats, opening instead with "Kamanda, the Last Girl on Earth!" The last survivor of Command-A, she's dismayed to find a boy, floating face down in the water, but Kamandi surprises her by waking up. Unfortunately, before they can share their first kiss, Kamandi wakes up, in the previous cliffhanger, falling to his doom with the ape Silverbeck and orangutan Royer. He's more than a little frustrated, at having made not a lot of progress in his quest for the series, to find his parents and save the world; but Silverbeck is grateful to him for saving the earth from the Misfit in the previous issue, and makes him part of his tribe, so Kamandi will at least die with a family...unless he can pull off another daring and unlikely escape--well, no spoilers here.
Next, Kamandi and Royer are captured by the rats of Gnawbit, and he realizes his dream with Kamanda had been a warning. Gnawbit is actually mostly cool, though; although he hadn't always been. Warned of a horrible future, the rats had tried to breed human soldiers at the farm, in brutal conditions that would probably be familiar to any chicken farmer, but it didn't work. Kamandi is horrified, but Gnawbit points out humans used to do the same to rats, leaving them in cramped boxes until their tails grew together. But maybe there's a better way...that they had better find quick, before the Misfit's final revenge on earth! In the end, Gnawbit points Kamandi on the final leg of his quest, from his comic collection...to Kamandi's "daddy," the King himself, Jack Kirby!
Like a genie, Jack offers Kamandi three wishes: his first, leading to a taped message from his parents, is disappointing, but a clue. He then asks to speak to the leaders of all the tribes, which also brings back plant-girl Vila; but the last wish is a doozy, as Jack advises him to wish his name--accent on the third syllable--and after the wrap-up, a final cameo from one of DC's leading talking animals, then a two-page tribute to Len Wein, who was going to write this chapter but passed away before he could.
4 comments:
I’m curious how Kirby would’ve wrapped up Kamandi’s story if given the opportunity. Would he single-handily restart the human race or would he eventually die alone as the last human on his Earth?
I’m not sure how well the DC Challenge series sold, but I figure a modern version would make either a nice all-ages book or a slightly more adult (not sex or nudity, but mature themes) book. Definitely worth a shot.
I totally forgot about Len Wein’s passing. I forgot Neal Adams died too last year and was only reminded of that because I saw an ad from a random issue of Batman: The Knight maxiseries written by Tom King & drawn by who I believe is his son Josh. If only King could stick to writing decent stuff like that instead of the usual stuff he writes 🤦♂️
Speaking of disappointments, how is DC or anyone still commissioning work from Miller? His art has gotten so lazy and minimalist that I’m surprised anyone still willingly pays him to draw. I miss old stuff from his DD days. Even his Sin City stuff hadn’t degraded to the level it has now even it was the start.
I like Frank Miller’s art still- his writing, yeah that went out a while ago but he’s got a distinctive style that at least works for covers and pinups.
I think DC Challenge did decent numbers- nothing great but about what they expected. Definitely came at a weird time though, when DC was both celebrating its 50 year history and destroying it. I don’t know about a modern version though- I don’t think there’s 12 writers and artists that could handle that format, considering how many people from this series are dead or retired already and they were probably about it.
Knowing what I know about Kirby (which is some but not a lot), I don’t think he’d have left Kamandi as the last or first human on Earth. I figure there’d be some regular humans in space or on some remote island- he’d been veering towards that sort of thing when he left the title.
Kamandi Challenge is a good book though- I enjoyed the various text pages the authors would have after their chapter. Especially appropriate that Kirby was the one to solve it, considering this was part of the Kirby 100 event they had going on. I don’t know if Kirby was really into personal computers but it’s a clever enough solution that it feels like something Jack would do. Plus, a series harkening back to something from the 80’s needs an 80’s style solution.
His writing style’s even worse than his art, but I’ll happily agree to disagree with you on Miller. Everyone’s entitled to their own opinion.
I think the DC Challenge format can be replicated and even slightly modified to adjust for modern storytelling that modern audiences are used to. Maybe even throw in a “choose your own adventure” type twist at the end?
Disagree on that- the writer/artist ‘jam’ format is kind of baked into the concept, and modern storytelling just doesn’t (or maybe modern writers/artists mostly won’t) allow for that.
Post a Comment