DC COMICS – @DCComics
[This review was originally posted on Patreon.]
STORY: Gail Simone
ART: Jill Thompson; Ryan Sook
COLORS: Trish Mulvihill; Laura Martin; Andrew Crossley
LETTERS: Clem Robins
MISC ART: Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez and Joe Prado with Mark Chiarello; Adam Kubert
COVER: Frank Miller with Alex Sinclair
VARIANT COVERS: Ryan Sook; Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez and Joe Prado with Trish Mulvihill
40pp, Color, $4.99 U.S. (February 2018)
Rated “T” for Teen
Kamandi created by Jack Kirby
[Afterword by Paul Levitz]
“The Boundless Realm”
Created by Jack Kirby, Kamandi, The Last Boy on Earth was a comic book series published by DC Comics in the 1970s. Running from 1972 to 1978, the series starred Kamandi, a teenaged boy in a post-apocalyptic future. In this time, humans have been reduced back to savagery in a world ruled by intelligent, highly evolved animals.
Kamandi, The Last Boy on Earth #1 (cover dated: October 1972) opens some time after a huge event called “The Great Disaster,” which wiped out human civilization. In “Earth A.D.” (After Disaster), many animals have become humanoid, bipedal, and sentient, and also possess the power of speech. These newly intelligent animal species have equipped themselves with weapons and technology salvaged from the ruins of human civilization and are constantly at war in a struggle for territory.
The world of Kamandi returned in the DC Comics miniseries, The Kamandi Challenge. Ostensibly a tribute to the 100th anniversary of Jack Kirby's birth (1917), The Kamandi Challenge brought together 14 teams of writers and artists. Each team produced a single issue (or worked on a single issue) of The Kamandi Challenge, which ended in an cliffhanger. The following issue's creative team would resolve that cliffhanger left behind by the previous creative team however it wanted. That team would craft its own story, which also ended in a cliffhanger, which the next creative team would have to resolve... and so on.
The Kamandi Challenge came to an end with the recently published twelfth issue, featuring two creative teams. The first team is writer Gail Simone; artists Jill Thompson and Ryan Sook; colorists Trish Mulvihill; Laura Martin; and Andrew Crossley; and letterer Clem Robins. The second creative team is comprised of writer Paul Levitz; artist José Luis García-López (pencils) and Joe Prado (inks); colorist Trish Mulvihill; and letterer Clem Robins.
The Kamandi Challenge #12 opens with the story “The Boundless Realm” (by the Simone-Thompson/Sook team), which introduces “Kamanda: The Last Girl on Earth.” Who is she and what does she have to tell Kamandi: The Last Boy on Earth as he enters his final battle with “The Misfit?”
The second story is “Epilogue the First: The Answers” by Levitz- García-López. Kamandi meets his creator Jack Kirby and gets some answers. But what kind of answers are they?
Let us make no mistake, Jack Kirby is a great artist, worthy of being a comic book icon (or the comic book icon) and being in the hallowed halls of museums and academia. The problem with tributes to great artist is that those tributes are sometimes offered by people who, while they are influenced by great artists, are not themselves great artists. In fact, sometimes the people who offer tributes are hacks, in spite of the greatness they admire.
And The Kamandi Challenge is the creation of some who are middling talents, some who are hacks, some exceptional talents that produced middling work in this series. In this final issue, from the ugly Frank Miller front cover to the “it was all a dream” type ending, The Kamandi Challenge #12, like the earlier issues, is a tribute in name only to Jack Kirby. Yes, there are some good moments and good issues in this twelve issue maxi-series, but The Kamandi Challenge is a cynical attempt to make money using Jack Kirby's name and legacy.
The best thing about The Kamandi Challenge #12 is Paul Levitz's afterword, which is a true and loving tribute to someone who was obviously a friend, the truly talented and late Len Wein.
5 out of 10
Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"
The text is copyright © 2018 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog for reprint and syndication rights and fees.
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