The Hunger Dogs by Jack Kirby

Sadly, the Fortress Keeper doesn’t have the $$$ to drop on the Fourth World Omnibus series. Still we, do own the material in different - if inferior - formats.

We are, however, curious about the remixed and remastered version of Jack Kirby’s The Hunger Dogs. The graphic novel, which was supposed to wrap up the Fourth World saga, was heavily edited by DC brass at the time because the company didn’t really want to kill off potentially profitable characters like Orion and Darkseid.

The sentiment is a bit ironic now, considering DC’s eagerness to kill off the New Gods as part of its wretched Countdown “event.” Even though Kirby himself wasn’t pleased with Hunger Dogs - there’s no easy way to wrap up the saga in one volume - it’s still superior to Jim Starlin’s cynical slaughter of the beloved characters.

(And really Mr. Starlin, couldn’t you think of a better way to depict the embodiment of The Source than drawing a slimmed-down version of Zzaxx?)