Almost exactly a year ago, I picked up the first issue Ram V’s New Gods based on the premise alone. The man’s work had always managed to captivate the mind and senses by mixing mythical grandiosity with very personal emotional stakes – with books like The Many Deaths of Laila Starr and Aquaman: Andromeda being a couple of personal standouts. Coupled with his uncanny ability to find the perfect artist to complement his writing from project to project, New Gods felt exactly like something that shouldn’t be skipped. And after a year and 12 truly outstanding issues, the final issue of the series ceremoniously brings the curtain down on a truly ambitious re-framing of the legendary Fourth World mythos.
Never feeling for one second like a mandatory DC KO tie-in (though it could’ve easily been forced into this mold due to the subject matter), it still manages to effectively weave strands into that greater event without compromising on legacy, trauma and self-discovery that has defined this run. And for everyone who has followed the story of Orion, Mister Miracle, Big Barda, High Father, and the much beloved Kamal…there is pay off. There is heartbreak. And most important of all, there is hope to be had in the pages of this book.
The Culmination of it All
The New Gods #12 begins with a prologue (drawn by the amazing Phil Hester) that sets the emotional tone of the finale: a mirrored sequence showing the childhoods of Orion and Scott Free, contrasting their origins: paradise vs. hell, nurture vs. nature. With this framing set, we come back to the present timeline where the cosmically omnipotent Kamal finds his fate hanging in the balance after having been betrayed and handed over to the forces of Apokolips. From being on the run, ripped from his parents and forced into universe and powerscape he has no understanding of, Kamal’s undergoing transformation is one that heralds an entirely new frontier of hope and fear.
Meanwhile all the remaining New Gods rally their forces and their energy to rescue Kamal, with Orion leading the charge, and with Big Barda and Scott Free bringing the backup. And while the heavy hitters try their best to save the day, in the end, in the final hour before Kamal is pushed into the void – it is Scott Free, the living embodiment of a miracle who stretches out his hand to save Kamal from the seemingly inevitable. With that final rescue, the issue and series end with promise of new beginnings. Lives are transformed, roles are shifted, the status quo has truly been shaken in a way that fundamentally alters the Fourth World. And only the future will show what that means, but for the moment there is a satisfying sense of closure
Perfectly Balancing the Mythic and the Intimate
Ram V’s Fourth World swansong opening on the prologue really does set the stakes at highest – both in terms of the universal consequences and the personal ones. Orion and Scott Free – two siblings of the New Gods – torn apart by political scheming, raised as polar opposites, shaped by their harshness of their expectations and personal fears. Their core differences are touched on as the lynchpins of the story to come: their pasts governing their futures. While Orion always feared the beast that lurked inside him ever getting loose on idyllic New Genesis, Scott lives up to the freedom he held onto all the years he suffered in the fires of Apokalips. And that is where the true seeds of change are set to come from.
Kamal’s story in the present finally converges with all of these threads, and under Ram V’s careful guidance, reach the shattering point where the cosmic and personal collide. It is this literal and spiritual conflict where most of the action happens too. Orion tries – and fails – to reconcile with Kamal’s growing powers, which ultimately prevent him from saving the child. Big Barda finally gets to blow off some steam when she faces off in an epic confrontation with the other furies – and gets to finally vent eons of aggression and pain onto the likes of Granny Goodness and her former enslavers in one of the book’s most satisfying moments. The Black Racer unleashes the full power of entropy as he commits one of the coolest action set pieces against an entire fleet of invaders. And even the Justice League play their own small part as both spectators and supporters of all this theological action.
Scott Free though, gets to be the real man of the hour. Ram V’s writing of Scott Free throughout this series has always felt like the perfect spiritual successor to Tom King’s seminal run on the character and it shows. Scott embodies the hope of renewal that permeates the entire DNA of this series and it all comes to a close when Scott reaches out – with love, with hope, with the promise of possibility rather than war or fear or aggression – to a child like Kamal that this character journey of his really reaches its highest point. Scott knows the consequences of what he’s doing. He knows there are fates far worse than death. He knows the singularity that is trying to consume Kamal holds something far more primordial and sinister than one could imagine. A darker side of the universe (wink wink nudge nudge). But he throws himself into it anyway. Because that’s just who Mister Miracle is. And Ram V writes him across both frenetic sequences of action as well as some of the most emotional story beats put to page. And with his story being so clearly defined form start to finish, he mirrors that onto Kamal as well: a wholly original character who quickly became the heart and soul of this Fourth World adventure, where men and gods sought to define his future, yet it was a truly fearless man who can escape anything that helped him transform theirs instead.
An Epic Drawn to Life
Phil Hester’s prologue is a very meditated shift from the art we’ve been used to throughout this journey so far, but his line work and Ande Park’s inks perfectly capture the mirrored existence of Orion and Scott’s origin points. The atmospheric energy almost has a Mignola-esque quality to it and perfectly embodies the deeper interplays of shadow and light existing parallelly to each other and even within each other. It’s a very noted choice that further amplifies things to come in the pages that follow.
Once Evan Cagle takes over, we are once again back into the precise and truly gorgeous space operatic and cosmically resonant art that this series is much beloved for. Cagle has a gift for capturing scale – be it emotional or actions. From the most epic fight scenes to the most heart warmingly deep character moments, Cagle’s line work has a purity to it renders both these events as the single most important thing in the frame. There are particular scenes in the Singularity where Kamal is losing himself before he’s saved by Scott Free that stand out in particular for their bleak beauty, while an incredible two pager of Scott Free fighting back against Desaad at the start of the book is another hallmark of how Cagley effortlessly transforms Ram V’s scripts into such captivating visual splendor. There’s honestly far too much to gush over when every panel is almost a work of art, but it’s telling that Cagley and colorist Fracesco Segala manage to craft such mythical wonders consistently.
Renewed Gods and Beginnings
For readers like myself who followed this series from its burgeoning infancy to this conclusion, New Gods #12 is a catharsis for both us readers and the characters themselves. It respects and captures the truly grand design of Kirby’s compelling mythology of yesteryear, while planting seeds for an entirely new modern epic – carrying on the cyclical nature that is part and parcel of such a sprawling mythology. The smallest quibble I can think of is that with such a rich collage of characters to work with, some of the story threads can feel more narratively compressed than they should be. But this is less an artistic failure and more of the sheer magnitude of the scope that needs to be covered.
Ultimately, New Gods ends on a positive note that genuinely rewards the investment its built from the beginning. It gives such beloved characters genuinely satisfying conclusions, while also setting them up to face the new status quo in exciting ways. With story and art beautifully highlighting this, it goes with little saying that this is a journey that has been truly worth following, and one that I’m excited to follow on forward as well.
Score: 9/10.
A mythical epic that beautifully concludes a yearlong story in heartwarming fashion while promising a bold new future for Kirby’s Fourth World.
