#Fourth World Saga

[chernobog13]

Metron of the New Gods by Steve Rude.

[vertigoartgore]

Jack Kirby New Gods Concept Presentation Oversized Collage Art (circa 1969-1970).

[pat1dee]

The Golden Gaurdian

Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #135

January 1971

Art by Kack Kirby and Vince Colleta

[skelltan]

i don't think i like grant morrison canonizing darkseid as this 'ultimate evil'

so i preface with i haven't read final crisis/multiversity in forever and i never touched other fourth world dealings of grants but. i'm reading new gods and i love it. and granted i'm not the biggest fan of grant but. i don't think i like their characterization of darkseid as a multiversal agent of evil which has now gone further to constantly portray darkseid as some ultimate evil.

i can see why grant did this considering the high falutin stuff they write and there's arguably elements of it in the original fourth world saga what with the source wall but. doesn't it kind of undermine a lot of the fourth world saga?

what is the point of darkseid finding the anti-life equation if he's already a super powerful multiversal threat? why is orion so much considerably weaker despite being his spawn? (and don't get me started on ALL of the new gods being multiversal constants - i understand this doesn't automatically equate power but it still begs the question of why darkseid is so much more above and beyond the others)

kirby compares darkseid's forces to hitler and the nazis, and in these early stories, darkseid isn't some multi-omniversal god. he's definitely a force to be reckoned with, but he's not so unstoppable that it takes all of earth's heroes to find some macguffin to stop him. i think like hitler, a lot of his power is a mirage of his dictatorial rule. orion, especially with the help of the new gods, can fight darkseid, just like how the world's nations could end the predominant reign of what is commonly seen as the most evil movement in recent history. i think buying into the illusion of darkseid's power undermines the stakes and storytelling of the fourth world saga for these reasons. but maybe i'm crazy.

[rgf-settings]

Jack Kirby & Mike Royer, Mister Miracle #15, story page 5 (DC, 1973). Ink over graphite on Marvel Bristol board, 10" x 15" image area. Via Heritage Auctions.

[craigfernandez]

[havendance]

Mr. Miracle Is definitely the stand out title in my fourth world read so far. Now I’m thinking about Barda and Saga and the line of subversive literature that connects Barda and Alanna… the power of love…

[cantsayidont]

December 1988. Overall, the Jim Starlin/Mike Mignola COSMIC ODYSSEY miniseries is pretty awful — it has cool art, but, like most of Starlin's DC work during this period, it's gratuitously brutal and ugly, and both Starlin's offensive treatment of the Kirby Fourth World mythos and the senseless character assassination of John Stewart did lasting damage — but it does have its moments.

[inspectorspacetimerevisited]

The Fourth Inspector had strictly forbid W.I.T. from building, operating or owning a temporal projector.

So, naturally, Mary Shelburne-Grey had one installed in W.I.T. headquarters and has it up and running, just in time for the Fifteenth Inspector to have need of it. (For Emerald’s search for her birth mother.)

[cupcakegalaxia]

Yall would not believe how much of Yetenek took Wingfeather saga as a massive inspiration and just ran with it.

[krafty1]

"Super War!"

Image Credit: DC Comics The Forever People #2 Cover Artist: Jack Kirby Publisher: DC Comics Publication Date: May 1971 In recognition of the Kings’ birthday this week. If you haven’t read Kirby’s Fourth World Saga, what are you waiting for? The 57-issue run spans from the pages of Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen, The Forever People, New Gods, and Mister Miracle and culminates in the Hunger Dog’s…

[chernobog13]

Darkseid and sons by Walt Simonson.

[vertigoartgore]

Darkseid and his sons Orion & Kalibak by artist Walt Simonson. Done in 1982, when he drew the Uncanny X-Men/New Teen Titans story and way before his excellent Orion series (from the early 2000's).

[panlight]

Does anyone else remember when breaking dawn book came out the fans criticized it, and meyer kept retconning her words in every single interview? she stated one thing then she would say something else. There was a person who made a petition about a letter to her about breaking dawn and her brother seth gave a very rude response. Fans of twilight (I myself just realized this) need to realized the twilight books are about the author stephaine meyer herself. it's meyer's dream, she is bella cullen, edward is her dream man and renesmee is her dream baby girl she never got. the whole twilight saga franchise of the novels are written for her, not the fans as she stated before in a interview (when she said that i was shocked).

what are your thoughts on this?

I was around for the Breaking Dawn controversy. I wasn't as invested in the fandom at the time, just sort of dipping my toe in, so it was more that I was watching it from the outside than being really involved myself, but yeah it was a lot. A lot of people really hated Breaking Dawn, and one of the sticking points was that the fandom felt like SM had shut down any possibility of Edward and Bella having kids with her answers about vampire reproduction, so for her to do this surprise twist of like, "haha I didn't say a vampire couldn't have kids with a human!" went over like a lead balloon. A lot of people felt lied to, even if SM didn't technically lie. Misled, at least.

I vaguely remember the petition to the brother (who managed her website at the time), and I also remember some leaks a few days before the book came out and everyone trying to figure out who Nessie was and what the name could be short for, and people guessed Agnes because it meant lamb and people complained about what a terrible name Agnes was (oh you sweet summer children!).

As I said, I wasn't super invested at the time. I had read the other three books but I had read them as part of a marathon read of vampire books, so it wasn't that I was into Twilight specifically, more vampires generally, but I spent quite a bit of time reading through Amazon reviews because some of them were so funny. I waited for the book to be available at the library before I read it, though. I wasn't in a place of "you ruined my favorite thing!" it was more like, haha wow this is weird!

And like, I get it. At the end of the day, SM wrote this for herself because she had a cool dream. She's a mom and a wife and that's the world she knows and the "happily ever after" she wanted for her story. But Breaking Dawn just kind of laid all the weirdness of the other books bare. Things I thought were hyperbole or exaggeration I was like, "oh wait, that was all literal this whole time? Wild." And everything that bugged me about Bella being the center of the universe who everyone fell all over themselves to help and protect and comfort and reassure (and if they didn't, they were Bad) was taken to the next level with everyone's instant devotion to Renesmee, who I personally found uncanny and soulless as written rather than cute and endearing.

I found it interesting how SM misjudged how a large portion of the fandom would feel about Renesmee, and especially Jacob's imprint on her. It's like she didn't understand Team Jacob at all if she thought they'd be happy with this. I remember following someone's recap and they got to a point where they were like "ugh are Jacob and Leah going to be a thing? That's so predictable" and then read them epically freak out when the imprint on Nessie happened and they were like "I take it back! Give me Jacob and Leah!! Anything but this!!!" And she misjudged a segment of Team Edward too, who wanted Edward and Bella to have sexy and romantic vampire adventures rather than a kid.

She wrote the story she wanted, so much so that she fought to have a fourth book so she could include Renesmee who was in her original ending (Forever Dawn). And that's her right as an author, and you know it worked out for her, she made a ton of money from the book and movie(s). But her version of a HEA (marriage and kids) came off to some as strange in a teenage vampire romance. I remember SM explaining that the Twilight Moms seemed to get it, that nothing was sexier than your boyfriend becoming your husband and the father of your child, and it's like, cool, but these characters are teenagers so the younger readers who related to them weren't expecting this yet.

[oneknightstand-if]

If the ROs were IF readers what would be their favorite titles?

Man, have I played enough IF for this question? Okay, discarding visual novels and going with only text-based IF... Also, some of these are lies.

Merlin: A Kiss From Death - Avoid the fated apocalypse! Also horny.

Adrian: World's Apart - Yes, he's a hipster. Parser-based text adventure from the 1990s! It would've been Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy but he forgot to bring his towel and ragequit.

Arthur: Save the Date - Look, his mind is blown by any of these games, but perhaps try and let him splash around in the shallow end with a relatively easy one that doesn't depend too much on stats. Also, you did your best. Move on.

Percy: One Knight Stand

Merlin: (ভ_ ভ) ރ ／/ ┊ \＼ I swear no more desserts for you if you don't stop breaking the fourth wall, Percy! Percy: 👎

4̶0̸4̸ ̶E̴r̸r̶o̷r̷ ̷N̴o̴t̵ ̸F̵o̴u̷n̸d̵: Damn I said no visual novels, so no Doki Doki Literature Club I guess the new Restore, Reflect, Retry

Cassandra: Evertree Saga

Gwen: Wayhaven Chronicles

Vivian: Someone's phone/tablet/computer is getting short-circuited if she tries to play an IF. If you tried to play a paper Choose Your Own Adventure or other gamebook with her... you're gonna get a very creepy experience there! Otherwise, she'd obviously favor one of the all completely unfinished stories about the rusalka or something such floating around like Abysm's Veil.

Lorelei: Infinity Saga

Broderick: What the hell is an 'IF'?

[otomehonyaku]

Diabolik Lovers Lost Eden Drama CD Translation ☽ Vol. 4 Mukami Saga ☽ Track 1・Feelings Towards Eden

Original title of this track: エデンへの想い Voiced by Sakurai Takahiro (Ruki), Suzuki Tatsuhisa (Yuma), Kishio Daisuke (Azusa), Kimura Ryōhei (Kou) English translation by @otomehonyaku Click here for the audio (as always, BIG thank you to @karleksmumskladdkaka!)

TRACK 1 ・TRACK 2 ・TRACK 3・TRACK 4・TRACK 5・AFTER STORY

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

This is the fourth volume of the Lost Eden drama CDs! I'll make separate posts for each track and update the links above as I go. I absolutely loved this first one—especially the narration by Ruki at the start of the track (⁄ ⁄•⁄ω⁄•⁄ ⁄) It was a blast to translate, so I wish you happy listening and reading along!

Please do not reuse or post my translations elsewhere or translate my work into other languages without my permission.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

00:00 Ruki: Banmaden—the Founders’ castle in the Demon World. A single woman was left behind there—Eve—who holds the most exceptional and highly sought-after blood in all of the Demon World. By orders of the First Bloods, she is waiting devotedly for someone to come and get her. Oh, she is forlorn. Hopelessly so. The biting cold of the stone castle will soon freeze over not only her body, but also her spirit. She waits and waits, endlessly, so long a time that it feels like forever. One day, out of the blue, the sounds of countless flapping wings reach her ears. Right away, she understands that her salvation is near. The flapping wings persuade her to follow them, and so she leaves the stone castle behind and follows the sounds deep into the Demon World forest. With nobody else to depend on, she lets the wings aid her on her quest to find her saviour.

01:31  Ruki: I had steeled myself for this, but when I took in the scenery with my own eyes, it still hit home. The ever-blooming flowers of Eden wilted, having lost their master and the nourishment he supplied them with. Eden’s rich waters were close to drying up. The water that had glistened with life before, sparkling like sand crystals when you cupped it with your hands, was dead. Filthy. I remembered once again, in vivid detail, that His powers had given life to this castle. Karl Heinz—the man I considered my father, the man I revered—is no longer in this world. And now we are losing Eden, too. 

02:25 Azusa: I feel a… tightness in my chest… Because of him, everything is changing… Yes… That day, we were called to Eden… We thought this was the place… that was considered paradise (1). It was the place where the seven-coloured birds would sing… Where the golden butterflies fluttered about… The place whose sweet, pleasant scent… calmed us… This place… will be gone soon… This place has been reduced to nothing…

03:52 Kou: I felt myself becoming hopeless. I probably wasn’t the only one. Because this place was our home. A place we could always return to. The place where He was always waiting for us. The man who showed us both kindness and a certain cold-hearted severity. Eden was a place we cherished unlike anything else. It was irreplaceable. But now, it looked nothing like we remembered it. It was said to be a sanctuary for the immortal, but…

04:40 Yuma: I used to think ‘home’ wasn’t a physical place, but I was reminded once again that it was quite nice to have a physical place to come home to. No matter where I looked, I saw nothing but death and decay. It made His death feel all the more real. For the first time, I realised that Eden was more important to me than I had ever thought.

05:16 Ruki: Eden has been reduced to rubble.

Kou: Stop it. Don’t say stuff like that.

Ruki: It’s the truth, isn’t it?

Yuma: It is, but you could’ve said it another way.

Ruki: Yeah.

Azusa: Ruki, doesn’t it make you sad?

Ruki: How so?

Kou: What do you mean, ‘how so’? This place was like home to us. A place where we made memories. How could you flat-out say it’s as good as ruined?

Azusa: Yeah.

Ruki: Let me turn that question around. Do you truly think this does not affect me in any way?

Kou: Of course not.

Ruki: Then you are correct. Of course I think it’s very unfortunate. Other than that, all I feel is resentment. How did it come to this? Eden must have a master. Why did He abandon his duty?

[Ruki punches a wall.]

Kou: Ruki…

Azusa: I’m sorry, Ruki… I never realised…

Yuma: We were a bit thoughtless…

Ruki: No, it’s alright. Either way, wallowing in sadness and anger will not improve this situation. We must do whatever we…

[A bat flies towards them.]

06:52 Kou: Huh? Is that a bat? It might be someone’s familiar.

Ruki: Be careful.  They might be the same species as we are, but do not let your guard down.

Azusa: It looks like it’s… holding a letter.

Yuma: Ah. I’ll take it, then. There we go.

[Yuma takes the letter from the familiar. The familiar takes off again.]

Yuma: Here.

Ruki: Thanks.

[Ruki takes the letter from Yuma.]

Ruki: Oh—this is…

Kou: Who’s it from?

Ruki: This is the Tsukinami family seal.

Azusa: It’s from… Carla?

Ruki: What on Earth could he want?

[Ruki opens the letter.]

Ruki: Ah…

Yuma: A letter from that Tsukinami bastard? That’s a surprise.

Kou: Yeah. It’s someone you would least expect a letter from.

Azusa: Ruki… What does it say?

Ruki: Hey, you three. You have to go to Banmaden. Now.

Yuma: What? Banmaden? The fuck’s goin’ on there?

Ruki: That woman—Eve—is waiting for us.

Kou: What’s Kitten doing in Banmaden? 

Ruki: I don’t know the details. Hurry. You have to go and get her right away.

Azusa: Yes… If she’s all by herself… she must be very lonely…

Yuma: I don’t know what the hell’s goin’ on, but… It can’t be helped. Let’s go.

Ruki: I’m counting on you. I will send out a familiar ahead of you to announce your arrival.

Kou: Alright!

Azusa: Wait here.

[The three brothers walk off.]

08:49 [Kou, Yuma and Azusa are flying to Banmaden. The translator is a little confused as to why they added airplane noises but thinks it’s funny to imagine that vampires sound like airplanes when they fly/levitate.]

Azusa: Still… It’s a little surprising, isn’t it?

Yuma: You mean that Tsukinami asshole?

Azusa: Yeah.

Kou: Why would that arrogant Carla want to leave Kitten in our care? Something must be wrong.

Yuma: Like what?

Kou: I’m not sure… I think it must have been an emergency. He probably had no other choice.

Azusa: I hope Eve… is alright, though…

Yuma: Ugh. Of course she is! Otherwise the guy wouldn’t have asked us to come get her, right?

Kou: Hmm…

Azusa: Oh—that’s Eve!

Yuma: See! I told you. Y’all are worrywarts. 

[Yuma dives towards Yui ahead of his brothers.]

Azusa: Yuma…! That’s not fair…

Kou: He’s calling us worrywarts, but he was clearly the most worried out of all of us.

Yuma: Huh? D’ya say something?

Kou: Nothing at all!

[Kou and Azusa follow Yuma.]

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

楽園（らくえん）: Lit. ‘paradise,’ i.e. the Japanese word for Eden.