The New Gods
Ideas for tales of Jack Kirby's Fourth World, the realm of idyllic New Genesis and hellish Apokolips.

"The Inheritance"
Orion and Mr. Miracle are given a gift by Highfather Takion, the opportunity to commune directly with the Source and speak to their deceased father, Izaya the Inheritor, the first Highfather of New Genesis. Orion will confront the young Izaya of the Techno-Cosmic War between New Genesis and Apokolips, before he found the peace of the Source and became Highfather. Adoptive father and son in fierce combat intended to help Orion make peace with the fury and bloodlust in his conflicted heart.

Scott Free (Mr. Miracle), Highfather's biological son, grew up on Apokolips as part of the Pact that ended the active phase of the endless war. The heroic part of his soul recognizes that his own suffering helped end a devastating war, but there is another part of his that rages against the father who traded his own son into terrible slavery for the greater good. Time for a little father and son screaming, cursing, raging, and maybe understanding. I mean the "maybe" part, since I believe most of Scott's anger toward Highfather has little to do with being exchanged for Orion as part of the Pact, is has to do with the one terrible day the young Scott Free, on the run from Granny Goodness's ghoulish orphanage, turned the terrible power of the Anti-Life Equation against the hapless denizens of the Armagetto.

Fathers and sons, fathers and sons.

"The Never People"
The young Forever People just want to live lives of carefree exploration: a truly endless summer. Alas, the schemes of Darkseid's evil minions are legion. The Never People, darkling reflections of the Forever People created in Virmin Vundabar's laboratories, have reached through time to capture an ally of our heroes and twist him into a weapon of dreadful power, The Anti-Lifeguard. Only those who know the complete Anti-Life Equation can resist it's power; so, how will the Forever People ever stop the Never People? And that's without even bothering to ask how they will resuce their friend without killing him. Heck, maybe I'll even throw in the Newsboy Legion for good measure. The Forever People getting their butts kicked, the Super-Cycle, the Infinity-Man, Anti-Life, the Newboys' Whiz Wagon! (Or do I go with the latest name, the Zipp Drive?) "The Never People"'s got is all!

The Forever People - Mark Moonrider, Beautiful Dreamer, Big Bear, Serifan, Vyken.

The Never People - Sunripper, Dreadful Nightmare, Big Boar, Oneshot, Sazin.

"The Forever War"
On a remote planet, a patrol of Monitors (the military of New Genesis) are ambushed by Apokoliptian Aero-Troopers. The sole survivor, Solon, is pursued by the Aero-Troopers, especially by their zealous young captain, Zaladin. Solon's Mother Box is mortally damaged and so cannot open a boom tube back to New Genesis; without enough energy to both cloak Solon from Zaladin's sensors and call for help, Mother Box devotes her dying moments to screening her young charge from detection.

Back in Supertown, the flying capital city of New Genesis, Solon's boyfriend Oceon refuses to believe that the girl of his dreams is dead, even after hearing that no signal can be detected from her Mother Box. The Monitor communications monitors (hee hee) in Supertown heard the death screams of the Mother Boxes of the rest of Solon's patrol, but none from Solon's Mother Box. Everyone to whom Oceon turns to for help tells him that he must accept that Solon has gone back to the Source, and that he must move on with his life to honor her memory. Eventually, Oceon convinces the second fastest of all the New Gods, Fastbak, to aid him and the two secretly boom tube to the as-yet-unnamed remote planet.

Meanwhile, the war between Solon and the Aero-Troopers has turned into a grim exercise in hours of patient stalking and seconds of furious, desperate hand-to-hand struggles, New Gods fighting and killing each other in the mud, a long, long way from the topless towers of Supertown and the unspoiled natural glory of New Genesis. Recalled by his superiors to Apokolips, Zaladin goes renegade, vowing to remain and finish off Solon in single combat. War is Hell, even for gods.

"The Inheritance" is about the intersection of love and hatred, mentorship and apprenticeship between fathers and sons. "The Never People" is a straight adventure story. I want "The Forever War" to be the We Were Soldiers Once... And Young or In Pharaoh's Army of the Fourth World.