The New Gods (USA) di Ram V

[Man of Steel]

New series announced, New Gods by Ram V and Evan Cagle.
Ram V: It's nice to bring these characters back into the DCU.

Ram: "Absolute and All In triggers a cosmic imbalance which starts this spiral between new genesis and apocalypse"
Ram V: "This story is about fatherhood."

OH SHIT!!!!

[pizzul]

In Hype per Ram V 

[Hugostrange70]

Ram V su new gods? 

[Arkin Torsen]

 

[Clod]

Molto interessante

[Man of Steel]

Letto #1
...
Non so nemmeno da dove partire, lel.
Credo sia già diventata la testata più importante per me, questo perchè è praticamente "TAYLOR-MADE" per me.
Ram V è andato a parare ESATTAMENTE dove volevo, a scrivere i New Gods esattamente come speravo...anzi, molto di più!
Fino ad ora credo che abbiamo tutti quanti solo intravisto il vero potenziale di questo writer, sono grato che anche i piani alti lo abbiano colto e gli abbiano affidato questa testata, perchè è proprio attraverso i New Gods che potrebbe avere il suo grande boom.

Il DCU, per svariate ragioni, è molto simile alla cosmologia induista e ovviamente essendo la mia verità, mi vien da dire anche la realtà delle cose, passatemi il termine.
I mean, if you know you know, ma questo primo numero era meticolosamente pensato e scritto in quel modo, ogni balloon, profezia, nuovi pg creati ecc...
Io e Ram V abbiamo le stesse secret origins e questa volta vedo veramente ciò che vedo hahaha, anche se da seeeempre mi sono affacciato al DCU proiettando la mia cultura o forse questa è la ragione per cui sono da sempre orbitato di più verso il DCU che Marvel Universe.
I reboots per me sono come dei "mahapralaya", le varie ere come Golden Age, Silver Age ecc... sono i miei Yugas e le versioni pre o post reboot di un Superman sono solo delle reincarnazioni della stessa anima/atma.

Ora, specialmente quando si comincia a parlare del Quarto Mondo di Kirby, quindi robe come avatars, The Source ecc...la cosa degenera per me, mazza che hype.

The Source = Brahman.

La cosmologia è veramente profonda e complicata e si lega a...beh tutto, non solo ad una moltitudine di cose, sto meramente namedroppando certe parole ora, ma racchiudono libri interi, il solo "Aum" racchiude tutto tecnicamente.

Anyway, la storia ha tutta la mia attenzione e la premessa mi ricorda vagamente Uncanny X-Force di Remender (mado ) Kamal = Genesis = Kalki.

Kamal vuol dire fior di loto e per noi ha un significato (anzi, ne ha svariati) importante, generalmente viene usato come esempio per dire come uno dovrebbe vivere la propria vita, ovvero...far parte del samsara/mondo senza aprire il suo cuore al maya/cose materiali/attaccamento.
Pianta acquatica, si nutre dell'acqua, ma è al di sopra/staccata dal fango, maaaaa vista la storyline, i guess V abbia optato per l'altro significato, il bambino che diventa Dio.

Ritorna sulle pagine DC il concetto di uno stesso male che assume altre vesti/vessel/avatars/mani.

The Great Darkness has many names, many forms!
"A New Hand of Darkness approaches" dopo la morte di Darkseid!

Ma per coloro che credono nel Non-Dualismo, cosa altro è l'oscurità/il male/Adharma se non l'assenza della luce/bene/Dharma?
Non esiste il freddo, si parla solo dell'assenza di calore, same thing here!

È praticamente questo il significato delle pagine disegnate da Fornés, bellissime, ma anche quelle di Evan Cagle, tanta roba.

The Source/Brahman è knowledge, ma è anche la verità, la PRIMA, quella più grande e quella immutabile, tutto il resto è temporaneo, illusorio, soggetto al tempo.
Come disse Geoff in DClock "Change is a constant".

Purtroppo la ragione per cui sono nati questi pg è particolare e la loro prigione è così...tricky e una da cui nemmeno Mr.Miracle può sfuggire, la natura never-ending (come la vita del resto) e a la "To be continued..." dei comics viene vista come un bene, quando forse la vera pace la trovi nella morte, nel punto finale, vero Superboy Prime? Si spera...

Metron è solo un comune mortale a cui è stata regalata la vista divina/Divya Drishti come ad Arjuna nel Mahabharata, ma quanto riesca effettivamente a comprendere il gioco divino, a vedere la rete invisibile che lega tutto è sempre un blind-spot.
Orion, come un giusto servo del suo Signore, non può fare altro che obbedire gli ordini di suo Padre.
Tuttavia è proprio questa la bellezza del grand design divino, tutto ha un perchè, everything is connected.
Ci sono veleni che ti aprono gli occhi e per trascendere qualcosa deve morire.

Questo bambino, così come Scott, fanno già parte di un gioco divino...volente o nolente, ma chi è il vero burattinaio? Highfather? colui che sussurra al Pastore? o la Mano della Creazione? FREE TO FORGE HIS OWN DESTINY!
Il male è davvero necessario? o è semplicemente inevitabile? Dopo un Darkseid, Saddam Hussein, Gheddafi puoi sempre e solo avere Isis? Darkseid Is.
E Darkseid sta per rinascere.

Testata al centro del main DCU e Absolute Universe e Ram V is in the eye of the storm.

[Rain]

Per altro se non ho capito male, leggendo questo primo numero, mi sembra che parte dalla fine del Mister Miracle di King, spazzando via gli eventuali dubbi sul finale della storia.

[Man of Steel]

Credo che sia out of canon, vecchio!
Forse Ram V lo ha pure confermato, .a dovrei googlare.

[Rain]

Strano, a vederlo così i disegni che vedono Scott, l'ambiente e Orion, richiamano proprio quelle dinamiche... dubito sia un caso.

[Hugostrange70]

Questa la aspetto come il natale 

[Man of Steel]

Strano, a vederlo così i disegni che vedono Scott, l'ambiente e Orion, richiamano proprio quelle dinamiche... dubito sia un caso.

Eh lo so, ma infatti non è un caso, solo che qua ha una figliA e non un figlio!

[Man of Steel]

Bellissima intervista, riprendo i miei punti preferiti dove parla di Darkseid, Morrison, Hypertime e la mitologia indiana:
"I Want the Toys Nobody Else is Playing With" - Ram V and Evan Cagle on the Return of the New Gods

CBR: Hey guys, I loved the first issue. What struck me about the first issue was how much it captured the spirit of Jack Kirby's New Gods without trying to BE Jack Kirby's New Gods. Something that I was thinking about was the fact that, when Kirby first started the New Gods, when he came up with the concept, his plan was that he would come up with the ideas, but other people would actually write and draw the books. And DC said, no, if we're gonna do this, you're going to be the guy behind it. So it strikes me that, over the years, people have gotten almost a bit PRECIOUS with how they treat Kirby's original stories, while his intent was for OTHER people to be doing those original stories. He initially WANTED to see other creators take on his concepts. So that's precisely what you two are doing here. How important was it for you both to try to avoid being TOO deferential to the original series, while still honoring its spirit?

    Ram V: Yeah, I mean, it's what I've always done. It's why I enjoy storytelling, and comics in particular, because I think comics are the last contemporary mythology, and somewhere I would like to think that Grant Morrison agrees on that, as well. That's been very much the vein of approach that I've taken with a lot of these long-standing characters. They're iconic and successful because they scream out for reinvention and new takes in every era. And so they continue to exist as different entities depending on what generation of people are reading them. And this is very much a book for 2024 and somewhere, I think it was a different podcast where I said this, I'm the fool who walks into the church and asks, "Who's Jesus?" So I'm the guy who walked into the comics industry and went, yeah, let me take on the New Gods and not do it exactly like Kirby. I think that there's a child-like joy to that that I've tried to maintain throughout my time, whether it was doing Swamp Thing as a British writer (or a Britain-based writer), or, you know, taking on Batman and Detective Comics. There's always been a need from my side to do something new with it. And yeah, I wanted that on the art side as well, with Evan, given that I figuratively DRAGGED Evan into this this project. I didn't want to have an artist who was trying to do like Kirby. I wanted someone who had that spirit of storytelling that Kirby had, and that energy and that scale, but I wanted someone who felt like they had been influenced by a whole range of artists, all the way up until 2024.

CBR: An interesting thing about Kirby is that he was always famously a sponge, like so many comic book writers at the time were, in that he soaked up ALL sorts of pop culture and mythology around him. Yes, while Greco-Roman and Norse mythology were Kirby's biggest influences, but a notable thing is that Kirby sucked up so much that it was almost like he would get unintentional influences. For instance, Indian mythology has influenced so many other cultures, that whether Kirby KNEW he was taking Indian mythology (and certainly, there were times when he definitely KNEW he was doing so), there is that basis in so much of his work over the years. Like he famously loved Erich von Däniken's Chariots of the Gods, and there is literally a Chariot of the God temple in India. So how important was it for you, Ram, to get those Indian mythologies more DIRECTLY into the series now?

    RV: Yeah, I think the Indian mythology influences are present in the very nature of psychedelia and that era of art as well. And you can definitely see that in the books, not only in Kirby stuff, but as contemporaries as well. But I think the thing that I wanted to bring in was, in particular, a distinct angle that exists in Indian mythology. The point of mythology is often different for different cultures. Like, the Greco-Roman gods, the Norse mythology stuff, those were people essentially revering the natural manifestations of power, right?

  EC: Like a step apart from animism, basically.

    RV: Yeah. And I think those gods were there for manifestations of those powers. And I suppose anthropomorphic manifestations of these powers, as well, and acted accordingly. You know, Zeus was thundering, and he commanded everyone, and Poseidon was as large as the ocean, if you will. Whereas, I think Indian mythology, even though older, was a little bit more nuanced for its time. And the thing that I really loved about it as a child, growing up with a grandmother who was telling me these mythological tales, was that it was much more focused on gods acting like petulant human beings, and they were not ideals. They were not things to be revered or feared. They were cautionary tales in some ways. And I think the real joy of writing this book for me is in going, "Yeah, it's two brothers with daddy issues, obviously, but what if they were gods, and what if the fates of entire universes depended on their actions?. What would you do then?" And I think that that's the stuff that I take from Indian mythology, and then I love doing it because it's a Kirby thing. I also love doing the absolute absurdism that comes with it all. We've got a god in the first issue that no one's seen before, called Akala, and he's a god of doorways. It's because in Indian mythology, there's a god who stands next to every doorway and guards it. And you know, how is that going to show up in the book? And what does that mean to be a god of doorways? We will have to see!

CBR: You mentioned that you've had this pitch for a while, so obviously Darkseid's absence couldn't have been part of that pitch then. So did you have to dramatically change your Darkseid angle on this or no?

    RV: Actually, interestingly, even at that time, there was this sense that Darkseid had been used in quite a few events, and he always showed up as the big bad. So one of the things I got back from editorial, even three years ago, was like, yeah, can we do a story that maybe DOESN'T revolve around Darkseid, because he sucks up the air in the room as soon as he shows up. And so the story was intended to be about all of these other characters. Darkseid DID have a role in it, but obviously, that's dramatically changed. But that's not to say that Darkseid doesn't continue to have a role in the book. We'll just have to see.

  EC: Yeah, I was going to say that it's amazing how much in the air he actually sucks up not being there. Like, characters are constantly referencing his absence. It's like he's a fourth dimensional Darkseid, where now all you get is the empty space where he was and people obsessing over that.

CBR: That reminds me of how Grant Morrison once said that Darkseid cast no shadow. He IS the shadow. So yeah, if you remove a presence like that, it's certainly significant.


So, Ram, as this is obviously part of DC "continuity," how do you even go about determining what is canon with the New Gods in DC? Is it just a pick and choose deal, using whatever you think struck you as interesting from past stories or what?

    RV: No, I take the approach that everything happened, and everything is true all at once. And I like that approach, because that's how mythologies function, right? You get stories contributed to this grand tapestry over time. And in some of them, like, take Indian mythology, for example. Some of them are like, "No, Shiva is the greatest god because he did this and this and this, and all the other gods were in awe of him." And then somebody else comes in from a Vaishnavite tradition and says, "Actually, that wasn't Shiva, it was Vishnu." And I think that kind of contradiction only makes mythological storytelling that much more attractive, that much more interesting. I know there are people who are interested in pinning everything down, but I think pinning everything down makes it more tangible and therefore limited and contained within your definitions, like everything fits here in this singular piece, whereas I think mythology is beautiful because everything fits but none of it is in one place. They're all approximations. We're doing quantum storytelling. Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. Things are a cloud. They can be five things at once, and they're all true.


I mean, I guess that's Morrison and Waid's Hypertime, right? That whole concept of anything you want.

    RV: Yeah, yeah, and particularly, I think Morrison is great, because their approach to some of the New Gods stuff that they've dealt with in Final Crisis and Seven Soldiers. I think someone else pointed this out to me, that, really, they were the first to look at the New Gods as part of a grand mythology for the DCU, like today's modern day superheroes are today's modern day superheroes because of all of these things that happened with the New Gods. And I think that that is a great approach to look at this canon with. And therefore, I think of the New Gods as mythology for the contemporary superhero DC Universe, and therefore necessarily rife with contradictions and retellings and mistelings, and they're all true.


CBR: That's interesting, so on that point, then I guess the idea of an Earth-born New God ties that all in together, doesn't it?

    RV: It does, and that's why I smiled earlier when you mentioned Kirby and Chariot of Gods, because it does take that very silly concept of, "It was Aliens!" and I love that stuff, and I think it makes great storytelling. And so, I think especially with issue three and Ricardo Federici pages, we're doing, "What if the pre-Ice Age Hyperborea was actually a New God thing? What if the one character that seems to be a constant throughout world mythologies, this old man with a staff imparting knowledge to all earthly beings, what if he was truly a manifestation of the New Gods? And what if mother boxes and father boxes existed long before the pyramids did? And so. yeah, these are all concepts that we will see explored in the run.

Sort of like the Hickman-esque charts.

    RV: I mean, that's very much Evan's first page in the issue, which is The Metron prophecy. It is very, very Hickman-esque, although we wanted to, and I say this with all due respect to Hickman, we wanted to move away from the whole sort of data side of it, and move closer to the idea of collecting pieces of Neo-mythic text. What would a religious artifact in the year 2024 be like if you were looking at it? And I think those elements of language and biology, and a translation of indecipherable source ramblings into words that us meager mortals can understand. So those data pages like that will continue in the series. It was definitely something that was part of the original pitch as well.

Well, Metron in general. It's amazing to have a character where no one knows WHAT to expect from him. He's such a blank slate, you can do whatever you want with Metron, because even Kirby didn't seem to know. Was he good? Was he bad? You never know what you're going to get from him.

    RV: My reading of Metron is that there's a character in Indian mythology called Narada, and he's a sage, but all he seems to do throughout the many tales in Indian mythology is go to one god and say a half-truth, and go to another god and say a different half-truth, and then sit back and watch as entire universes turn on the actions of these gods. And at the end of it go like, "Ah, yes, PRECISELY as I intended." There's actually a bit in Issue three where Metron talks about the butterfly effect, and he muses that human beings came up with this idea while he's been essentially partaking in the butterfly effect for for eons.

https://www.cbr.com/new-gods-ram-v-evan-cagle-interview/

Meh, l'intera intervista è bellissima e parla di worldbuilding, il Patto tra Darkseid e Highfather e il rapporto Orion/Mister Miracle, le mani sporche di uno come Highfather ecc...

Spiacente, ma non sei autorizzato a visualizzare il contenuto degli spoiler.

Spiacente, ma non sei autorizzato a visualizzare il contenuto degli spoiler.

The New Gods #2
A GREAT POWER HAS AWAKENED, AND THE UNIVERSE MAY NEVER BE THE SAME! Mr. Miracle has found himself at a crossroads. Presented with a terrible choice by his brother Orion, he must decide between venturing out to save a child he has never met — a new god made manifest — or stay home to raise a child of his own. Meanwhile, an evil awakens, driven mad by an obsession with a dead god, and sets its sights on this same child. Several forces, of good and of evil, converge on this child as his latent powers begin to reveal themselves to the world.

And while these dramas play out on Earth, the forces of an intergalactic inquisition march ever closer...


The New Gods #3
Deep in the cosmos, an intergalactic inquisition descends upon Apokolips and New Genesis, carrying with it a sinister message: convert or be destroyed. Meanwhile on Earth, Mister Miracle and Big Barda, with their baby in tow, seek out the mysterious child spoken of in Metron's prophecy, desperate to find him before Orion does. Could this child-this new god — be the universe's savior? Or the reincarnation of the universe's greatest evil?



The New Gods #4
THE FATE OF THREE WORLDS HANGS IN THE BALANCE! New Genesis. Apokolips. Earth. Three worlds in the warpath of the deadly interstellar inquisition known as the Nyctari. Three worlds on the verge of annihilation. Three worlds whose only hope of salvation may lie with a young boy imbued with incomprehensible power--a power beyond godlike. But is this boy truly a force for salvation, or the reincarnation of the greatest evil the universe has ever known? And will the forces of these three worlds be able to answer this critical question before it is too late?

[Hugostrange70]

Wow la seconda cover 

[Man of Steel]

Letto #2
Un altro gran bel numero, adoro come Ram V tende a iniziare i suoi numeri, se ogni numero avrà queste intro...tanta roba.
Adoro come sta usando Metron, ha colto il pg in pieno, ma onestamente potrei dire la stessa cosa anche per Barda, Scott, Orion, Desaad e Highfather...tutti, lol.

Belle matite, aspetto con ansia il prossimo numero.

[Nik88]

Hanno annunciato la versione italiana? Troppo presto eh?