Kamandi

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Kamandi
Cover to Countdown Special: Kamandi, The Last Boy on Earth. Cover art by Ryan Sook.
Publication information
Publisher	DC Comics
First appearance	Kamandi #1
Created by	Jack Kirby
In-story information
Species	Human
Place of origin	Earth A.D.

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 have been reduced to savagery in a world ruled by intelligent, highly evolved animals.

Contents 1 Origin of the concept 2 Kamandi: The Last Boy on Earth Series 2.1 Storyline 2.2 Publishing History 2.3 Connections to the DC Universe 3 Revival 3.1 Final Crisis 3.2 Wednesday Comics 4 Collected editions 5 Alternate versions 6 Other media 6.1 Television 7 See also 8 Notes 9 References 10 External links

[edit] 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."^[1]
• 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.^[2]
• 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 the movie.^[3]
• 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.^[1][4]

[edit] Kamandi: The Last Boy on Earth Series

[edit] Storyline

Kamandi is a teenage boy on a post-apocalyptic Earth (which the textual narrative describes as "Earth A.D. (After Disaster)") that has been ravaged by a mysterious calamity called the Great Disaster. The precise nature of the Great Disaster is never revealed in the original series, although it "had something to do with radiation." (In the series' letter column, Jack Kirby and his then-assistant Steve Sherman repeatedly asserted that the Great Disaster was not a nuclear war, a fact confirmed in issue #35.) The Disaster wiped out human civilization and a substantial portion of the human population. A few isolated pockets of humanity survived in underground bunkers, while others quickly reverted to pre-technological savagery.

Shortly before the Great Disaster, a scientist at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Dr. Michael Grant, developed a drug called Cortexin, which stimulated the reasoning abilities of animals. During the Great Disaster, Grant released the experimental animals affected by the drug, and dumped the Cortexin itself into the stream created by a broken water main. In the ensuing days, animals escaping from the National Zoo drank from that stream and became affected by the drug.

By Kamandi's time, an unspecified period after the Great Disaster, the affects of Cortexin and the radiation unleashed by the Great Disaster itself had caused a wide variety of mammals, including gorillas, tigers, lions, cheetahs, leopards (all descendants of escaped zoo animals), rats, dogs, wolves, and kangaroos to become bipedal, humanoid, and sentient, possessing the power of speech. Others, including dolphins, killer whales, and snakes, developed sentience, but retained more or less their original size and form. The newly intelligent animal species, equipped with weapons and technology salvaged from the ruins of human civilization, began to struggle for territory. (Horses were apparently not affected, and serve as a means of transportation in the technologically impoverished world of Earth A.D.)

By this time, most surviving humans are bestial, with very limited reasoning ability. Most have only the most rudimentary ability to speak, although they can be trained. (The precise cause of the loss of reasoning ability is ambiguous in the original series.) The animals treat humans as beasts, using them for labor or as pets.

Kamandi is the last survivor of the human outpost in the "Command D" bunker near what was once New York City. ("Kamandi" is a corruption of "Command D"; it is unclear if Kamandi ever had any other name.) Raised by his elderly grandfather, Kamandi has extensive knowledge of the pre-Disaster world, thanks to a library of microfilm and old videos, but he has spent most of his time inside the bunker, and is unaware of the state of the world outside. When his grandfather is killed by a party of rats, Kamandi leaves the bunker in search of other human outposts.

He soon discovers that the only other intelligent humans left on Earth are Ben Boxer and his friends Steve and Renzi, a trio of mutants genetically engineered to survive in Earth A.D. He also makes a number of animal friends, including Dr. Canus, the canine scientist of Great Caesar, leader of the Tiger Empire, and Caesar's teenage son, Tuftan. Even the most sympathetic animals, however, are nonplussed by Kamandi and Ben's ability to speak.

Kamandi and his friends set out to explore the world of Earth A.D., in hopes of one day restoring humanity to sentience and civilization.

[edit] Publishing History

The Kamandi series was launched in October-November 1972. It was written and drawn by Jack Kirby through its 37th issue, in January 1976. Kirby also drew issues #38 through #40, although they were scripted by Gerry Conway. Kirby subsequently left DC, but the series continued, initially written by Conway and drawn by Chic Stone. Later issues were alternately written by Paul Levitz, Denny O'Neil, David A. Kraft, Elliott S! Maggin, and Jack C. Harris, with art by Pablo Marcos, Keith Giffen, and Dick Ayers. It was canceled during the "DC Implosion" of 1978, despite respectable sales figures. The final published issue was #59, cover-dated September-October 1978. Two additional issues, completed but not released, were included in Cancelled Comics Cavalcade #1 and #2. Kamandi also guest-starred in Brave and the Bold and DC Comics Presents, as well as the Crisis on Infinite Earths limited series.

[edit] Connections to the DC Universe

During Kirby's run on the book, Steve Sherman indicated in the letters column that the series was connected to Kirby's contemporary OMAC series, which was set sometime prior to the Great Disaster. The only explicit connection to the DC Universe occurs in issue #29, where Kamandi discovers a group of apes who worship Superman's costume, and who speak of legends of Superman trying and failing to stop the Great Disaster. The story leaves it ambiguous whether the legends are true (although Kamandi believes Superman was real) and whether the costume is indeed Superman's.

Various non-Kirby stories tie the series more explicitly to the DC Universe. In Brave and the Bold #120 (July 1975), Kamandi meets a time-traveling Batman. Superman #295 (January 1976) establishes that that the costume seen in issue #29 was indeed Superman's, and that Earth A.D. is an alternate future for Earth-One, distinct from that of the Legion of Super-Heroes. This point was also made explicit in the unpublished issues #60 and #61 (released only in Cancelled Comics Cavalcade), which established that Kamandi was a counterpart of Jed from The Sandman. Issues #49-#50 of the series establish that Kamandi's grandfather was the elderly Buddy Blank, hero of the OMAC series, and features a brief return of OMAC's satellite ally, Brother Eye.

The 1975-1977 Hercules Unbound series and OMAC backup stories in Kamandi and Warlord tie OMAC to both the storyline of Hercules Unbound and to the Atomic Knights, indicating that the Great Disaster was the atomic war of 1986 that precipitated the events of the latter. DC Comics Presents #57 (May 1983) indicates that the events of the Atomic Knights stories were a fantasy in the mind of Gardner Grayle, but DC Comics Presents #64 and Crisis on Infinite Earths make clear that both OMAC and Kamandi still existed in an alternate future of Earth-One.

In the wake of the Crisis on Infinite Earths, the Great Disaster did not occur, and the boy who would have become Kamandi instead became Tommy Tomorrow.

[edit] Revival

In the aftermath of the Infinite Crisis, a bunker named Command D has been built under the ruins of the city of Blüdhaven. ^[5]

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 blond grandson are introduced into the storyline. As of Countdown #6, The Great Disaster is in its early stages on Earth-51 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 Earth-51's 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' "Command D" facility, which was used to control Brother Eye, and has the defenses necessary to protect them from the virus' 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 International indicated that Kamandi The Last Boy will appear on the last issue's last page of DC's Final Crisis, mirroring the appearance of Anthro, The First Boy, on the first page of the first issue.^[6] This eventually did not come to pass, with Anthro as an old man appearing instead.

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, indicating a second variant Kamandi Earth, unlike Earth-51.

[edit] Final Crisis

Kamandi is seen in DC's Final Crisis limited series, a sequel to the earlier Crisis on Infinite Earths and Infinite Crisis. In the first issue he appears in what seems to be a time distortion, asking Anthro, the "first" boy on Earth, for the weapon the New God Metron gave him, a reference to the series' opening scene in which Anthro, like Prometheus, is given knowledge in the form of fire. He makes another appearance in the second issue as one of the captives of the evil New Gods (alongside Batman), warning the detective character Dan Turpin that they are making slaves of them. In the final issue, he appears on Earth-51 after it has been reconstructed.

[edit] Wednesday Comics

Dave Gibbons and Ryan Sook will produce a Kamandi serial for Wednesday Comics. The stories for Wednesday Comics will have their own continuity.

[edit] Collected editions

Kamandi: The Last Boy on Earth is being reprinted as part of the DC Archive Editions series:

• Kamandi Archive:
  • Volume 1 (collects Kamandi: The Last Boy on Earth #1-10, 224 pages, October 2005, ISBN 1401204147)^[7]
  • Volume 2 (collects Kamandi: The Last Boy on Earth #11-20, 228 pages, February 2007, ISBN 1401212085)^[8]

Kamandi: The Last Boy on Earth #1, #10 and #29 are reprinted in an 80-page giant entitled Countdown Special: Kamandi, the Last Boy on Earth.^[9]

[edit] Alternate versions

The Elseworlds 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.^[10]

In the third story arc of the Superman/Batman series, which showed the heroes traveling through time, they met or fought with, variously, Sgt. Rock, Jonah Hex, Darkseid, and Kamandi.^[11]

The Savage Dragon story arc "This Savage World" (from #76-81) was directly inspired by, and a tribute to, Kamandi.^[12]

Kamandi appears in Justice League Adventures #30 aided by the Flash.

[edit] Other media

[edit] Television

• Kamandi made his first television appearance in the Batman: The Brave and the Bold episode "Dawn of the Dead Man!"^[13] voiced by Mikey Kelley. In the episode's teaser, Kamandi helps Batman, who travels to the future in order to find a specific kind of bacteria for an antibiotic. Kamandi, Batman, and Dr. Canus escape an army of mutant rats, and help Batman return to his time portal at the top of the torch of the Statue of Liberty. Before leaving, Batman tells Kamandi to look in the left nostril of the nose of the Statue for a time capsule. The capsule turns out to be a laser cannon Kamandi uses to fight off the mutant rats. Kamandi co-stars in the Batman: The Brave and the Bold episode "The Last Bat On Earth". Kamandi and Dr. Canus help Batman track down Gorilla Grodd when he escapes to Kamandi's future time. Batman arrives during a battle between the Gorillas and the Tiger Empire. Batman, Kamandi, Dr. Canus, and Prince Tuftan (the son of the Tigers' leader, Great Caesar) are arrested by the Tigers while trying to free human slaves. Batman tells the Great Ceasar about Grodd, who has taken over the Gorilla army. The quartet escape and Batman, Kamandi and Dr. Canus rediscover the Batcave, finding it occupied by humanoid "Manbats". Tuftan rallies an army of animal-people to defeat Grodd, including Lions, Bears, Rats, and Snakes. Using the rebuilt Batplane, Batman and Kamandi aid Tuftan's army in battle against Grodd. After defeating Grodd, Batman returns to the present, extending the possibility that Kamandi may come to his time. The character designs of the Gorillas, Rats, Lions, Tigers, and Bears are derived from Jack Kirby's origin depiction in the early issues of the Kamandi comic.

[edit] See also

• Jack Kirby bibliography

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Kamandi at the DC Database Project