1. So, god help us all, I have a few thoughts on the Synder Cut, Jack Kirby, Richard Nixon, Billy Graham, anti-Semitism, L. Brent Bozell, crusader LARPing, the motherbox, and techno-Freudianism.pic.twitter.com/1qwT86BUR2
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5. But as pervasive as shadow cast by Kirby's Fourth World has been, something has been lost in the popularization: the specific political context that the work was Kirby's grappling with how the hopes of 1960s were besieged by reactionary & atavistic forces.
6. Stuff like "the anti-life equation" & "the motherbox" in the Justice League are just generic fantasy McGuffins (like the Infinity Stone in the MCU). But in context they referenced the politics of reactionary fear that Kirby thought thwarted human flourishing.
8. Darkseid, the villain pursues his goal of domination in alliance with very specific social types: Glorious Godfrey (a televangelist who stirs up hatred of minorities and sexual liberals) and Billion Dollar Bates, a plutocratic lech.pic.twitter.com/Fq9hUCT6Dn
9. According to Mark Evanier, who during the early 1970s was Kirby's assistant, creation of Darkseid & Glorious Godfrey was influenced by Nixon and Billy Graham, who Kirby believed were allied anti-Semites. (Subsequent White House tapes verified this fear).pic.twitter.com/sjE2CEeUaB
10. Glorious Godfrey helms a vigilante group called the Justifiers who dress in crusader garb and target an unnamed minority group (in scenes that call to mind Kristallnacht) as well as libraries with "decadent" books.pic.twitter.com/KIuFrC5ZJa
11. Godfrey's Justifiers are also suicide bombers. I think in creating a group of medieval garbed religious fanatics Kirby could have been influenced by the "Sons of Thunder" -- a group created by L. Brent Bozell which attacked abortion clinics.pic.twitter.com/C5j1P4hAUc
12. Arrayed against Darkseid & his alliance of plutocracy with religious fanaticism are various manifestations of Oedipal rebellion, in the form of the Forever People (hippies), Mister Miracle (the artist who escapes) & Orion (the rebellious son).pic.twitter.com/W7x8u2d1ct
13. The thematics of Oedipal rebellion (Darkseid's main opponent is his son Orion) brings Freud into conversation & the Fourth World is fairly explicitly Freudian, with a science fiction twist ("The Battle of the ID" where the ID is a literal monster).pic.twitter.com/dwYZealZ27
14. The Mother Box is very much part of the Freudian thematics Kirby was exploring. In the movie, Mother Boxes are just easter eggs (like the Infinity Stone). In Kirby's narrative they are attempt to imagine a technological response to Freudian family drama.
15. A Mother Box, in Kirby's narrative, is a handheld AI that offers psychological, spiritual and medical relief: a super-smart iPhone: A substitute mom in a world where biological reality has been erased (the high tech world of both New Gods & Darkseid).pic.twitter.com/lNMTZhANSf
16. In other words, the Mother Box is also suggestive distillation of social critique. That's all lost in Synder's Justice League. I'm not sure how any of this could be adapted short of a multi-year miniseries.
17. All of which is to say I really hope people read Kirby's Fourth World books (available in multiple reprint iterations) which have a richness that has yet to be fully mined.
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