The first weekend of the DC FanDome — a 24-hour, multiplatform, virtual hype fest that continues this weekend — included among its many trailers, featurettes and celebrity interviews an image of Darkseid wielding a spear from the vaunted “Snyder Cut” of Justice League.
It gave me pause.
The spear is a versatile weapon. It can hit from a distance, allowing the wielder the ability to stab and parry while keeping their body away from swords, and in a pinch, it can be thrown at a distance to hit a target. It’s used by someone who values distance in a fight.
It should not be the weapon of Darkseid.
A Darkseid who keeps his distance in a man-on-man fight is a Darkseid who is inherently wrong. Darkseid is not afraid to get his hands dirty, and he is not afraid of the weapons of his foes. His goal is to make you submit. If Darkseid cannot break your spirit and make you submit, then he will break your body. Darkseid is inevitable, and he doesn’t want to see you dead. He wants you to obey him without a thought, for all should think what Darkseid orders. And the difficulty and the desire to turn him into a villain whose fate is to be defeated, and to be destroyed with something as basic as fighting, is the result of a failure to understand what Darkseid and Apokolips offer.
If anything, Darkseid works well as a final boss, but not one you defeat. He’s Michael Myers at the end of Halloween — he will be back because he is a force. He might be stopped, but he will persist because evil remains in the heart of humanity and all species in the universe. If you want a victory against the forces of Apokolips, Darkseid shouldn’t be the target, especially when he can provide his Elite!
During the creation of the Fourth World, Jack Kirby made foes who needed to be faced but weren’t just there to be beaten down. He made gods of Apokolips who could be set against an individual hero, and around whom you could build a good battle narrative. Kirby made enemies who represented ideas — something even Avengers: Infinity War lacked. The Black Order, the servants of Thanos created by Jonathan Hickman and Mike Deodato, lacked definition and, for most of them, names. There was the evil Squidward with the needles, a tall lady with a spear, a big rocky guy, and the other guy, I think. I’m pretty sure there was another guy there who hung out with the spear lady (and knowing their names from the comics is cheating).
I want to take an aside, though, to talk about the construction of a good fight because it is something that in many cases, American Big Two comics have also struggled with, especially compared to manga. Part of this is a difference in publications, as most Big Two stories need to fill at most two trades with about six issues each because chances are another writer will be coming on after that. This means as a writer you lack the ability to draw things out. Meanwhile, a manga with weekly issues and eight to 10 issues (equivalents) in a volume can fill up an entire trade with one battle between people because the creator is not going to change.
But moving past the publication differences, manga creators understand the importance of matching up heroes and villains to make a good fight, especially since victory is almost always the endpoint, with some exceptions. But it’s not just making the sword person fight another sword person, it’s also about matching or opposing personalities. It’s about having something the characters can learn or someone they can lose to so the villains build heat, without letting the heroes lose all of their credibility. One Piece creator Eichiro Oda has done a good job of mastering these formulas in almost 20 years of working on a series where, even when victory is good, the path to that victory is entertaining and contains surprises, without needing to rely on shocking twists like a sudden character death. Characters get something out of the battle on both sides and have enough development and time to allow for multiple beats to each fight (while more recently also leaving gaps allowing the anime adaptations to expand on sections — yes, I support those One Piece filler episodes, cowards).
But I also bring up manga because the original Elite of Darkseid — the people who are pure Kirby creations, for the most part — fit this foundation and could be used to lead to better fights. I’m less keen on a lot of the later creations by other people because oftentimes they were riffs that lacked a full idea behind them or because they were more just horny because John Byrne made them. So below are some of those pure Kirby creations, what their deal is and how they can be used across media.
Steppenwolf
Steppenwolf’s goal in Snyder’s Justice League movie was getting some puzzle pieces to transform the world. He had an ax and was a tough boy who looked like a Dark Souls boss or more like someone trying to make a Dark Souls boss. There seemed to be a consensus that people were like, “Who is he supposed to be?” because Apokoliptians usually follow some kind of theme and have a gimmick. Dark Souls boss man was not a gimmick.
Steppenwolf is the general of Darkseid’s forces but is himself a trained fighter who dresses like a noble. His name comes from the Herman Hesse novel that deals with a man balancing his humanity and his aggression, in much the same way that Steppenwolf looks to balance his nobility with being a trained and violent fighter. Steppenwolf is your fighter who gets to peel back layers, going from someone who toys with his opponent to unveiling his actual ferocity. He’s trained, but that is something he might use more to hold himself back. Steppenwolf will play upon the expectations of his enemies and then make them pay for not being prepared. Turning him into a generic baddie with an ax didn’t really accomplish any of that. He should be someone who holds up your most trained fighter or the one whose pride is most important.
Kalibak
Kalibak is Darkseid’s son and the chief ambassador of big boi season. He’s the brutal idiot who gets dropped down to fight the heroes to a standstill or to get in their way. He’s a twisted mirror himbo whose goodness has been replaced with hate and fury and also his big stick. Also depending on your level of New Gods, he may also want to prove himself to his dad, especially to show up Orion, his half-brother who was raised on New Genesis, the good opposition to Apokolips. If you want a wall of muscle for your heroes to fight, you’ve got Kalibak. The thing is you defeat him by outsmarting him — but you need to find that time to think while he follows his easier plan to just crush you.
Kanto
Kanto is the chief assassin of Apokolips, and he dresses like the bard in your D&D party because that’s what he’s into. He’ll chuck some knives at you, use some poison, taunt you, all while you’re doing your best to survive because you only see Kanto if he wants you to. He’s the jerk of the party who would look at Psycho Mantis in Metal Gear Solid 2 and say, “What if we went further?” He’s someone you don’t get to fight directly. He’s on the run, you’re on the defense chasing and he knows where he’s leading you. If the hero wants to survive, they’ll need to change the script. And then they’ve still got to fight him.
Glorious Godfrey
Glorious Godfrey is the charismatic preacher who is weaponized. He will turn everyone you know into believers in Darkseid by unifying their hates and their fears while also giving them a target. And that target might just be you! He doesn’t work as well as an ensemble villain, but he has his uses — if he can control a massive number of people to get them to submit to Darkseid, he can turn those followers on you. He won’t face you directly, either. You have to fight an idea, not just a person.
Granny Goodness
Granny Goodness stands as a counterpoint to Glorious Godfrey and his way of bending you to follow Darkseid. Granny will break you and remake you into someone fit to serve Darkseid. And while she is an intimidating force by herself, she has dedicated graduates in the Female Furies, and holds the connections to get most of the Elite to come to her aid, as she was the one who trained them. She will work to break the hero again and again until they escape from her — but when survival is the best prospect compared to death or submission to Darkseid, she still remains a force that needs to be faced.
Desaad
Desaad is the master of torture for Darkseid, and he’s adept at getting what he needs — be it information or pleasure — because, let’s be clear, he is nasty. Desaad is your way to take a powerhouse out of the equation. He’ll snap Batman into a psychic blob to figure out what makes him tick, or torture a Green Lantern until they have no willpower left. He’s not much to look at — a generic cloak-wearing enemy — but he does his job well, and he enjoys it.
Virmin Vundabar
Virmin Vundabar is like the guy who keeps posting about the efficiency of Nazi Germany in your unrelated Twitter thread except that he also makes death traps. Vundabar is there to try to kill you so he can learn how to kill the next person more effectively. He’s the person who once you cut the wire with seconds to go, he shows up to tell you that’s just the first set of wires. He’s a death-trap villain who needs someone to outthink him and then track down his Prussian fanboy ass (and we need more creative death traps in superhero movies).
Doctor Bedlam
Doctor Bedlam is the zeitgeist villain who uses his knowledge to get you to do what he wants. He might kidnap the person you love and put them in danger, but he will also tell you he did it and what you need to do about it. He plays with his hand open as he attacks you with waves of mind-controlled innocent people, robots or whatever. He doesn’t fear you because for one thing, he has no actual body, and for another thing, he will be back in a week with a new plan if you get out of this. Even victory against him is less satisfying because he hasn’t really been stopped. It is a battle in the war, and he can go on longer than you.
The Others
There are more figures in Darkseid’s army, such as Devilance, a master space hunter; Mantis, the villain who gets put over because the other residents of Apokolips fear him; the Deep Six, a team of fish men; and even the aforementioned Female Furies, each of whom has her own gimmick.
These are all essentially A-level villains who can serve as threats on their own, who all have bits and ideals, and who with their defeat can say, “You defeated me, but you’ll never defeat Darkseid.” Because it’s true, Darkseid won’t be defeated by force, outthinking, resistance or any other way. Darkseid is. Making him someone who can be beaten by punches does a disservice to one of Kirby’s greatest creations and kneecaps his level of villainy. If you beat a universal threat, where do you go from there?
You don’t need to reduce Darkseid to someone who uses a spear because that isn’t who he is. You don’t need to reduce the villains to people who just seek to invade Earth. Turn them into challenges the heroes need to outthink. Build up the battles so they go in new directions. When you have access to iconic characters, why have a slugfest when you can do something more and different?
Luke Herr
Luke Herr does a lot of ridiculous things, and some of the ones that people enjoy are MultiversalQ and Exiled.
