Kamandi
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Kamandi is a DC Comics comic book character created by acclaimed artist Jack Kirby. The bulk of Kamandi's appearances occurred in the comic series Kamandi: The Last Boy on Earth, which ran from 1972 to 1978.
Kamandi is a young hero in a post-apocalyptic future. After a huge event called "The Great Disaster", humans are a persecuted minority in a world ruled by intelligent, mutated animals.
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Origin of the concept
The concept for Kamandi came from several different sources:
- The name "Kamandi" was recycled from a newspaper strip idea Kirby pitched in 1956, entitled "Kamandi of the Caves."The Collected Jack Kirby Collector, page 108, pictured
- In Alarming Tales # 1, September 1957, Kirby drew a story entitled "The Last Enemy." In this story, a man travels in time to the year 2514, where he finds that humans are extinct and the world is ruled by tribes of intelligent tigers, dogs, and rats. Kirby's drawings of these animals are very similar to his later drawings in Kamandi.Alarming Tales # 1, September 1957.
- The 1968 movie Planet of the Apes also portrayed an animal-ruled world. The cover of Kamandi # 1, showing a demolished Statue of Liberty, was very similar to the final scene in this movie. Cover of Kamandi: The Last Boy on Earth # 1, pictured here.
- DC publisher Carmine Infantino claimed to have created the premise for the series, after having failed to purchase the rights for a Planet of the Apes series.
Kamandi: The Last Boy on Earth
Kamandi's world is set on a future Earth, often referred to as "Earth A.D. (After Disaster)." The rulers of this world are intelligent animals who stand on their hind legs and have human-level intelligence and humanoid hands; these include gorillas, tigers, dogs, lions, cheetahs, and other mammals. Other animals have not changed their physical appearance but are still intelligent and can speak; these include snakes, dolphins and killer whales. Some small animals have acquired gigantic size or have mutated in a variety of ways; these include insects and crabs. Horses have not been affected.
Early in the series, it is revealed that the former United States is divided into regions. The largest regions are ruled by gorillas, by tigers, and by lions. The city of Chicago is populated by robot gangsters, and bulldogs rule England.
Most humans in the series do not talk and are dependent on the intelligent animals. There are some exceptions, such as Kamandi's mutant friend Ben Boxer.
The nature of the "Great Disaster" was never explained, but it "had something to do with radiation". In Kamandi #16 an explanation is given for the talking animals. A gorilla doctor reads the diary of a dead human doctor that was written at the time the Great Disaster occurred. As the night goes on and a battle rages between the gorillas and the tigers in the ruins of Washington D.C. the gorilla doctor reads how Dr. Michael Grant invented a chemical called cortexin. The chemical apparently spilled into the water supply, and when the animals ingested it, it gave them greater intelligence. These effects have been passed on to the animals' descendants. Many of the original intelligent animals came from the Washington Zoo. In issue #16, the gorilla doctor recreates this chemical. While he is dying he sees the same effects occur with the formerly animalistic humans; this implies that perhaps humans will someday regain their intelligence.
One of the key issues of this series is issue #29 in which Kamandi discovers Superman's costume, thus linking Kamandi for the first time to the DC Universe proper. Kamandi is thus shown to live on one of the many parallel Earths that filled the DC Universe before the Crisis on Infinite Earths. After this, Kamandi occasionally guest-starred in DC Comics Presents and The Brave and the Bold teaming up with Superman and Batman. But for the most part Kamandi continued to live on his parallel world separate from the other DC characters.
Kirby stopped writing the series with issue 38, but he continued drawing it until issue 40. Although many other Kirby titles were cancelled when he left, DC continued the title through issue 59. Issues 60 and 61 were written, pencilled, and partially inked, and can be found in Cancelled Comic Cavalcade.
After the original series
From 1978 to Crisis on Infinite Earths
The late 1970s series, Hercules Unbound, tried to tie together and explain several of DC's 'after disaster' series such as the Atomic Knights, Kamandi, and others, and tried to explain where the intelligent animals from Kamandi came from, building on what was revealed by Kirby.
Toward the end of the Kamandi series, ties to OMAC were set up, which would be used in later stories.
When the 12-issue limited series Crisis on Infinite Earths unified all of the future timelines in the DC multiverse, Kamandi's timeline was rewritten. In the revised timeline, the boy who would have become Kamandi is the grandson of Buddy Blank, and is left in a shelter until he is rescued and renamed Tommy Tomorrow - the name of a character that predates Kamandi by twenty-five years. As a tribute to Kamandi the boy is found in "Command D", which is the name of the bunker that gave Kamandi his name in issue #1.
Other versions
The miniseries, Kamandi: At Earth's End was issued in 1993, but had little relation to the Kirby comic except by name. This series was followed up by Superman: At Earth's End.
A tribute was paid to Kamandi in the 1998 Superboy series when Superboy appeared in a Kamandi-like world.
In the third story arc of the Superman Batman series, which showed the heroes travelling through time, they met or fought with, variously, Sgt Rock, Jonah Hex, Darkseid, and Kamandi.
The Savage Dragon story arc "This Savage World" (from #76-81) was directly inspired by, and a tribute to, Kamandi.
Kamandi appears in Justice League Adventures #30 aided by the Flash.
Revival
In the aftermath of the Infinite Crisis, a bunker named Command D has been built under the ruins of the city of Blüdhaven. "Counting Down to Countdown IV: The Great Disaster and the Atom" at Newsarama.com, on the web here.
In early 2007, DC Nation house ads showed a partial picture of Darkseid and mention a "Great Disaster". Additional DC promotional art for the series Countdown show the Statue of Liberty in ruins, similar to Kamandi #1. (Although later, Dan DiDio revealed that the Statue's appearance in that teaser ad was a reference to the Sinestro Corps War.) Throughout 2007, DC Comics contained continual references to a coming Great Disaster. In Countdown #31, Buddy Blank and his unnamed blonde grandson are introduced into the storyline. As of Countdown #6, The Great Disaster is in its early stages due to the outbreak of a virus, which is causing humans to develop animal like features, and animals to develop humanoid features. In Countdown #5, the virus claims Buddy Blank's daughter, but his grandson is safe. Una, an alternate Earth's version of the Legion of Super Heroes Triplicate Girl, gives him her Legion flight ring, which he uses to safely get him to Cadmus's "Command D" facility, which was used to control Brother Eye, and has the defenses necessary to protect them from the virus's victims. As he settles in, he hopes that his grandson can forgive him for making him "The last boy on Earth."
Comments from Grant Morrison at 2007's San Diego Comic Con indicate that Kamandi The Last Boy will appear on the last issue's last page of DC's upcoming event Final Crisis, mirroring the appearance of Anthro The First Boy on the first page of the first issue.
In Countdown: Arena #2, an ape Starman from Earth-17 mentions he is attempting to form a truce between the forces of Kamandi and Ben Boxer.
Reprints
Kamandi: The Last Boy on Earth is being reprinted as part of the DC Archive Editions series.
Kamandi: The Last Boy on Earth #1, #10 and #29 will be reprinted in an 80-page giant entitled Countdown Special: Kamandi, the Last Boy on Earth.DC Comics April Solicitations.
Other Media
Kamandi appears on Batman: The Brave and the Bold on the opening theme sequence, and on the teaser portion of the "Dawn of the Deadman" episode of that series.
External links
- "Counting Down to Countdown IV: The Great Disaster and the Atom" at Newsarama.com
