FOURTH WORLD INTERLUDE #3 - THE CANON

I have, in the past segments of Fourth World Thursday, mentioned that I regard the canonical stories of the Fourth World as the 69 tales seen in the original Kirby runs of "New Gods", "Forever People", "Mister Miracle" and the King's issues of "Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen". That's 55 main stories, plus the 14 shorter tales that make up the "Young Gods Of Super-Town", "Tales Of The D.N.A Project" and "Young Scott Free" back-up features.
So these are the 69 stories which I'll be covering in Fourth World Thursday...
The main stories...


SUPERMAN'S PAL JIMMY OLSEN

...Brings Back the Newsboy Legion!
The Mountain of Judgement!
Evil Factory
Saga Of The D.N.A. Aliens
The Four Armed Terror
The Big Boom!!
The Guardian Fights Again
Will The Real Don Rickles Please Panic?
The Man From Transilvane
Genocide Spray
A Big Thing In A Deep Scottish Lake
Brigadoom!
Homo-Disasterous
A Superman In Super town
Monarch Of All He Subdues


THE FOREVER PEOPLE
In Search Of A Dream
Super War
Life Vs. Anti Life!
Kingdom Of The Damned!
Sonny Sumo
The Omega Effect
I'll Find you in yesterday!
The Power
Monster IN The Morgue!
The Scavengers
Devilance The Pursuer


NEW GODS
Orion Fights For Earth!
O' Deadly Darkseid
Death Is the Black Racer!
Orion Gang And The Deep Six
Spawn!
The Glory Boat
The Pact!
The Death Wish Of Terrible Turpin!
The Bug!
Earth -- The Doomed Dominion
Darkseid And Sons


MISTER MIRACLE
Murder Missile Trap
X-Pit!
The Paranoid Pill
The Closing Jaws Of Death
Murder Machine
Funky Flashman
Apokolips Trap
Battle Of The Id!
Himon
The Mister Miracle To Be
The Greatest Show Off Earth
Mystivac!
The Dictator's Dungeon!
The Quick and The Dead
The Secret Gun
Shilo Norman, Super Trouble
Murder Lodge
Wild, Wild Wedding Guests


And then there's the shorter, back up stories...

TALES OF THE D.N.A. PROJECT
Hairie Secrets Revealed! (JO 142)
The Alien Thing (JO 143)
The Torn Photograph (JO 144)
Arin The Armoured Man (JO 146)
Genetic Criminal (JO 148)

YOUNG SCOTT FREE
Part 1 (MM 5)
Part 2 (MM 6)
Part 3 (MM 7)

YOUNG GODS OF SUPERTOWN
Introducing Lonar (FP 5)
Introducing Fastbak (NG 5)
Raid From Apokolips (FP 6)
Lonar and His Horse Thunderer (FP 7)
Vykin The Black (FP 7)
Beat The Black Racer (NG 8)

At the moment my plan for the shorter stories is to do one blog entry for each feature, so the five DNA Project tales will be covered in one entry, the six Young Gods stories in another, and the three Young Scott Free stories in a third.   

That means there should end up being 58 Forth World Thursdays, not counting the occasional interludes such as this one and the ones dealing with the apocryphal non-Kirby stories. And then, who knows? Although I will probably look at Kirby's later "endings" to the saga in the stories "On The Road To Armagetto", "Even Gods Must Die" and "The Hunger Dogs". Even though they may not been Kirby's original intended ending, they were at least by the King himself. Still, that's a long way off.

The next regular edition of Fourth World Thursday will appear on your screens on, not-surprisingly, Thursday at 00:30 BST, when I'll be looking at the first issue of New Gods. Five down, fifty-three to go...
See you soon,
Steve