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When Jack Kirby created the world of Apokolips nearly 50 year ago , he recall he had a game - record changer .
The Darkseid - rule Apokolips was a nightmare world where freedom was an infection and daydream beyond Darkseid was demise . Kirby design to chronicle Apokolips ' war against its sister satellite , New Genesis , with Earth catch in the middle . The war would diddle out in a cluster of comics includingNew GodsandForever People , reason with a final heroic struggle , then the " Fourth World " comics would end too .
DC management , however , disagreed with Kirby ’s vision , plus the booksweren’t the Marvel - killersDC hop for . The company set off them with the Fourth World saga unfinished . A few twelvemonth later on , one editor disregard Apokolips and Darkseid as flop best leave .
They were n’t forgotten . By the end of the century as one writer put it , DC editor pass Darkseid around like a bong . Guest coming into court , multiple new serial , a major role in the New 52 , lots of TV — and now the military force of Apokolips flirt a major role in theJustice Leaguemovie .
Here are15 Things You Need to Know About Apokolips .
The Thor connection
Kirby saw the gods of Apokolips and New Genesis as heirs to the deity of Asgard he ’d written about inThor . TheThorbackup seriesTales of Asgardincluded a mates of stories about Ragnarok , the larger-than-life engagement that wipes out Asgard , leaving new gods to inherit the world . Kirby never did anything with the estimation at Marvel , but it became the inspiration for the Fourth World at DC .
New Gods#1 uncover that long ago , the previous gods went to warfare so savagely they shattered their world . New Genesis and Apokolips shape from the ruins . One world was born in light from the atoms of noble Balduur ( the norse God Balder ) , and morose Apokolips from an evil sorceress .
In one write up , the wandering god Lonar finds a token of the Old Gods on a battlefield . It looks like Thor ’s helmet .
Apokolips is about blind, absolute obedience
In Kirby ’s storiesNew Genesis vs. Apokolipsisn’t just good vs. immorality , it ’s life vs. anti - aliveness . Free will , the ability to choose , is the essence of life ; anti - life story is the thoroughgoing thralldom that come from losing that freedom . It ’s anti - life that Darkseid dreams of .
Darkseid ’s great desire is to get the hang the Anti - Life Equation , which entirely negate devoid will . His agent came to Earth because he hope to find the equation in a human mind . Until then , Darkseid settles for create imitation anti - life on Apokolips by “ slogans , scourge , desperation and acceptance . ” His field of study happily turn up their dedication by repudiate their freedom .
On Earth , Darkseid ’s anti - life evangelists spread the same school of thought . Darkseid ’s success at instil anti - spirit by propaganda gives him go for that he can accomplish dead on target , pure Anti - Life some Clarence Day .
Apokolips created the Justice League and Cyborg
In the Silver Age , the Justice League got its start fighting an foreign encroachment from the satellite Appellax . In DC’sNew 52continuity , the invaders came from Apokolips .
In the orifice arc ofJustice League , Darkseid’sparademonsappear on Earth as the invasion ’s item human . Green Lantern and Batman reluctantly ally against the parademons , with Flash , Superman , Aquaman , andWonder Womansoon join them . The Justice League is born .
And so is Cyborg . When scientist Silas Stone try out on a parademon ’s mother box , it exploded , blasting Silas ’ son Victor . To deliver Victor , Silas turn him into a cyborg , creating the final founding member of theNew 52League .
An invasion from Apokolips also had an impact on Earth-2 , where Superman and Batman fight back it off at the monetary value of their own life-time , leading to the divergent reality in DC’sEarth 2series .
The New 52’s Apokolips is much more generic than Kirby’s
Kirby ’s original Apokolips , as noted above , is all about order . Darkseid wants control of everything , but he does n’t want to seize command by brute strength . Instead he craves the right-down domination that only Anti - Life can give him .
TheNew 52 ’s Darkseid seems absolutely happy to conquer by force - open up a manna from heaven thermionic tube to a new property , invade that parallel Earth with an army of parademons , destroy and annihilate , end of story . He might as well be Mongul or Marvel ’s Kree .
alike the Anti - Life Equation , while it still has the king to , is more about pour down . The equation ’s avatar gloats duringJustice League ’s " Darkseid War " spark about the millions of liveliness he ’s take to satiate the equivalence ’s lust for demise . Kirby ’s original freedom / slavery opposition get lose in the shuffle .
Darkseid was not the first ruler
Darkseid and Apokolips seem to go together . Several usurper have replaced Darkseid from time to fourth dimension , but to most buff , he ’s Apokolips only straight sovereign . He was not , however , its first .
InNew Gods#7 , “ The Pact , ” Kirby fills in a little of the New Gods ’ backstory . Before Darkseid take over power , he was a nobody - the humble , duteous Word to the tyrannical Queen Heggra . When Darkseid secretly we d the sorceress Suli , Heggra had her poisoned . She ordered her son into an ordered mate with a woman named Tigra , and Darkseid complied .
Most of Heggra ’s Margaret Court dismissed Darkseid as the obedient toady he seemed to be . His uncle Steppenwolf saw more , but still underestimate Darkseid ’s foxiness . Heggra and Steppenwolf larn too tardily that Darkseid was the ultimate player in Apokolips ’ game of thrones .
Apokolips vs Jimmy Olsen
Along with three young DC books ( New Gods , Mister Miracle , Forever People ) , Jack Kirby also took overSuperman ’s Pal Jimmy Olsen .
Because of Kirby ’s interlinked approach to the four book of account , it wasJimmy Olsenthat introduced Inter - Gang , the DNA Project ( by and by named Project Cadmus ) , and the agent of Apokolips . The agents in question were Simyan and Mokarri , black scientists who stole and misdirect the Project ’s genic research in their own lab , the Evil Factory . They and their lab get blown up near the end of Kirby ’s run after unleashing bizarre freak ( kryptonite Jimmy Olsen clones ! ) on Jimmy , Superman , and their friends .
Darkseid himself made his first appearance inJimmy Olsen#134 , as a aspect on a video monitor give orders to Morgan Edge ( actually anevil clonefrom the Evil Factory ) . It would n’t be untilNew Gods#1 that he appeared in the physical body .
Darkseid seized power by triggering an Apokolips/New Genesis war
In “ The Pact , ” Darkseid suggests his uncleSteppenwolfgo hunt on New Genesis — after all , those goodhearted softy will be well-fixed prey for such a muscular warrior , right ? When Steppenwolf ’s victim work out to be Avia , wife of the New Genesis warrior Izaya , Darkseid drink down Izaya as the only eyewitness . Oops , somehow Izaya survives , and is raging enough to start a war in revenge .
Over the course of the fucking , world - shatter state of war , Izaya kills Steppenwolf and Darkseid murders Heggra ( Kirby hints that her fate was exceptionally smutty ) , make himself Apokolips ’ undisputed master copy .
Izaya , sick of war and retaliation , has matured into New Genesis ’ wiser , sadder leader , Highfather . Meeting with Darkseid , he talk terms a treaty to terminate the state of war temporarily . The price of peace was not pretty .
Apokolips gave birth to two DC heroes
To seal the public security pact , Highfather and Darkseid swapped their kid . Orion , Darkseid ’s son by Tigra , was raised on New Genesis ; Izaya ’s son grew up on Apokolips , in the brutal Happiness Home unravel by Granny Goodness . Granny named the child Scott Free , know Darkseid plan for him to take to the woods Apokolips , thus break the accord . Scott would die in the relief valve , rule out him as a threat .
To Darkseid ’s displeasure , Scott turn tail awake . Arriving on Earth , he became the heroic Mr. Miracle - topnotch - escape artist - defying Darkseid ’s exploit to drag him back . Orion , his delirium tempered by the good of New Genesis , became his father ’s greatest opposition , prophesied to someday destroy him . Highfather afterward explained that was the reason he fit in to the swap — to strengthen both youths into the champions the universe ask .
The people of Apokolips are strangely obsessed with Earth
The New Gods are cosmic being whose struggle rage across the know existence and beyond . Which makes it odd the only planet they seem interested in is Earth .
On Apokolips , Darkseid ’s assassin Kanto models his lifestyle on an Italian Renaissance assassin . Virman Vundabar , as the name paint a picture , patterns himself after an efficient Prussian military officer . The torturer Desaad — well his name pretty much squall “ Marquis De Sade . ”
The same is true of some of the New Genesis characters : prominent Bear of the Forever People is grip by vaudeville , while Mark Moonrider knows who shot Abraham Lincoln . Some of the arrested development can be explained by Darkseid hunting on Earth for the Anti - Life Equation . But the death of Lincoln ? You ’d think for beings so cosmic , a hundred - twelvemonth - old Earth assassination would be isolated trivia .
Apokolips also gave birth to metahumans and the Speed Force
When John Byrne work on aNew Godsrevival serial in the 1990s , he adjudicate that by creating the New Gods , Jack Kirby also created all the God of myth , at least in the DCU . Hence the Godwave .
The Godwave sprang from the same cataclysm that destroy the Old Gods ’ human beings and eventually spawn Apokolips and New Genesis . As the name implies , the end of the Old Gods send a wave of cosmic Energy Department out into the macrocosm .
Similar to the sour subject wave that createsmetahumansin the CW Arrowverse , the Godwave elevated average person on Earth and other worlds to become the gods of Olympus , Asgard , etc . The Godwave also create the Speed Force , and gave homo sapiens the potential for meta - ability .
Kirby , in a sense , make DC ’s full superhuman creation .
