"Darkseid's Ring: Images of Anti-Life in Kirby and Tolkien" is a paper presented at the Comic Arts Conference at Comic-Con Internation, July 29, 2007 in San Diego, CA. It disusses themse of good and evil, free will and domination, as they appear in the Fourth World saga by Jack Kirby and the Middle-earth stories of J.R.R. Tolkien.

1. July29, 2007 Charles F. Huber Comic-Con International
Darkseid’s Ring:
Images of Anti-Life in Kirby and Tolkien
Charles Huber
Davidson Library
University of California
Santa Barbara, CA 93106
huber@library.ucsb.edu
Presented at Comic Arts
Conference, ComicCon
International, July29, 2007

2. July29, 2007 Charles F. Huber Comic-Con International
Visionaries of Cosmic Struggle
• Jack Kirby and J.R.R. Tolkien were two of the
most influential fantasists of the 20th
Century,
whether in their own chosen media or others
(e.g. film.)
• Though they had very different backgrounds,
both drew from myth (especially Biblical and
Norse) to create their own cosmic struggles of
good and evil.
• Their most recognizable symbols of Evil were,
respectively, the Anti-Life Equation and the One
Ring.

3. July29, 2007 Charles F. Huber Comic-Con International
First Glimpses
• Both the Ring and the Equation appear much
different when we are introduced to them than
they would later be portrayed.
• In The Hobbit, the Ring simply confers
invisibility, it is not yet a corrupting force of
domination.
• In Forever People #1, the Equation is referred to
as “the ultimate weapon”, but sounds like merely
a WMD.
• In Forever People #3, Glorious Godfrey refers to
Anti-Life as though it is the ultimate form of
fascism, a philosophy for subjugating the weak.

4. July29, 2007 Charles F. Huber Comic-Con International
Expert Opinion: The Equation
• New Gods #1: Highfather – “The right of
choice is ours! That is the Life Equation!”
Metron: “The Anti-Life Equation…means
the outside control of all living thought!”
• Forever People #5: Big Bear: “This man
knows the Anti-Life Equation! This man
can control all living beings!” Beautiful
Dreamer: “If someone possesses absolute
control over you, you’re not really alive!”

5. July29, 2007 Charles F. Huber Comic-Con International
Expert Opinion: The Ring
LOTR “The Shadow of the Past”: “One Ring to rule
them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to
bring them all and in the darkness bind them.”
Gandalf refuses the Ring, as it would turn him
into a new Dark Lord.
• LOTR “The Council of Elrond”: Elrond, too,
rejects the use of the Ring. Only one who is
already powerful could wield it, and such a one
would be corrupted by the Ring.

6. July29, 2007 Charles F. Huber Comic-Con International
Seduction of the Innocent?
Can anyone resist the temptation of absolute
power? Tolkien and Kirby provide suggestive
examples.
In LOTR, the mysterious Tom Bombadil appears
totally immune to the Ring’s power – he can
even see the Ring-wearing Frodo. It is not that
he has power over the Ring, but that the Ring
has no power over him. Lacking the desire for
power, he cannot be touched by the Ring.

7. July29, 2007 Charles F. Huber Comic-Con International
Seduction of the Innocent?
In Forever People, the mighty martial artist,
Sonny Sumo is discovered to possess the
Anti-Life Equation, and wields it with the
help of Mother Box.
However, the Forever People do not fear
him (because Mother Box accepts him)
and after he is transported to the past, he
apparently never uses the Equation again.

8. July29, 2007 Charles F. Huber Comic-Con International
Wielding the Power:
“Billion-Dollar” Bates
In Kirby’s work, we only see one person
wield the Anti-Life Equation with evil
intent: “Billion-Dollar” Bates (FP #8)
Like Sonny Sumo, he needs artificial
stimulation to access the Equation.
Unlike Sumo, his victims retain the ability to
think and react, though they must obey his
orders, perhaps because he sadistically
enjoys watching them squirm.

9. July29, 2007 Charles F. Huber Comic-Con International
Wielding the Power:
Galadriel
In LOTR, we are never shown the Ring being wielded at full
power. However, Galadriel shows Frodo a vision of what
she might become if she took the Ring:
“And now at last it comes. You will give me the Ring freely!
In place of the Dark Lord, you will set up a Queen. And
I shall not be dark, but beautiful and terrible as the
Morning and the Night. Fair as the Sea and the Sun and
the Snow upon the Mountain. Dreadful as the Storm and
the Lightning! Stronger than the foundations of the
earth. All shall love me and despair!”
Again, the Ring would be a tool of domination of other wills,
but the form is dependent on the personality of the
wielder.

10. July29, 2007 Charles F. Huber Comic-Con International
Wielding the Power:
Frodo
Galadriel also warns Frodo that he would have to
train his will to dominate others in order to wield
the Ring, and warns him against it.
Indeed Frodo rarely does so, though the Ring does
wear down his will and torment him. But he
does, twice, invoke the Ring’s power against one
of the beings most enslaved by it: Gollum.
Gollum does not behave robotically, like a slave of
the Equation, but his will is bent to Frodo’s
service (though Gollum’s lust for the Ring proves
even more powerful.)

11. July29, 2007 Charles F. Huber Comic-Con International
Wielding the Power:
Sauron
Though we never see Sauron with the Ring in the main
story of LOTR, we are told repeatedly that with it, he
would be invincible.
However, we are also told that he was defeated by the
Numenoreans, and later the Ring was cut from his finger
when he was defeated at the end of the Second Age. Is
this not contradictory?
No: Tolkien explains that his “defeat” by the armies of
Numenor was a trick, so that he would be taken to
Numenor as a prisoner, where he could corrupt them
and bend them to his will. His true defeat came when
Numenor was destroyed by The One (God), and caught
in the disaster, he had not regained his full power when
he fought Elendil, Gil-galad and Isildur.
Nonetheless, it is clear that the Ring’s power is far less
absolute then the Equation’s.

12. July29, 2007 Charles F. Huber Comic-Con International
In Other’s Hands:
The Anti-Life Equation
After the cancellation of Kirby’s Fourth World titles, it was not
long before other writers at DC began drawing on the mythos.
Jim Starlin’s Cosmic Odyssey (1988) recast the Equation as a
sentient entity, a notion since ignored by other writers
Walt Simonson’s Orion (2000-02) reverted to the original notion,
adding a theme of corruption by its power reminiscent of
Tolkien. Darkseid cloned Bates to get the Equation but it falls
into the hands of Orion, who uses it to bring order, first to
Apokolips, then Earth, then the universe. He can only be
stopped by Scott (Mr. Miracle) Free, who we learn has always
possessed the Equation, but has no temptation to use it. His
utter devotion to freedom is a counterpart to Bombadil’s
innocence of power.

13. July29, 2007 Charles F. Huber Comic-Con International
In Other’s Hands:
The Anti-Life Equation
Grant Morrison’s Mr. Miracle (2005-06) introduces a
radically different take on the New Gods, and proposes
that the Equation is a mental construct which instills a
sense of futility and despair in the minds of those
exposed to it.
In a three issue run on Firestorm (2007), Dwayne McDuffie
takes the concept of the Firestorm Matrix (a pocket
reality from which Firestorm’s powers are derived,
introduced by a previous writer) and makes it a
component of the Life Equation (the antithesis of Anti-
Life). Darkseid intervenes to seize the discoverer of this
theory, Prof. Martin Stein, but the series ended before
we could see how this would play out.

14. July29, 2007 Charles F. Huber Comic-Con International
In Other’s Hands:
The Ring
Thus far, the Tolkien estate has not authorized any
other authors to work in Tolkien’s universe (and
probably never will.)
However, Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh and Philippa
Boyens did present their take on the Ring in the
three-part cinematic adaptation of The Lord of
the Rings. They hewed pretty closely to Tolkien
with a few variations. Most notably, the show
the Ring giving off sparks when Gandalf
attempts to touch it in Fellowship of the Ring.
Also, they depict the battle between Sauron and
the Last Alliance, in a manner perhaps
influenced by the battle between Morgoth and
Fingolfin in Tolkien’s Silmarillion.

15. July29, 2007 Charles F. Huber Comic-Con International
Destiny, Freedom
and Enslavement
Just as Tolkien and Kirby both include the struggle
between Good and Evil as major themes, both
deal with the tension between Destiny (or
prophecy or Divine Providence) and human
freedom.
In Kirby’s Fourth World, many prophecies emanate
from the Source. But Highfather insists that all
have the choice of whether to follow them or not.
Most of Tolkien’s prophecies come from seers or
dreams. Other events, like Bilbo’s finding of the
Ring, show signs of Providence. But in all
cases, Tolkien stresses the importance of the
character’s choices.

16. July29, 2007 Charles F. Huber Comic-Con International
Destiny, Freedom
and Enslavement
Throughout Tolkien’s fiction, he stresses that the
domination of free wills is evil, even when
carried out with “good” motives, by “good”
characters. Examples: The Wizards are
forbidden by the Valar to use their power for
coercion; The Valar Aule’s creation of the
Dwarves is a defiance of the natural order,
redeemed by his humility.
Kirby’s emphasis on freedom is shown most
strongly in Mr. Miracle, where the example of
Scott Free is the greatest symbol of rebellion
against Darkseid.

17. July29, 2007 Charles F. Huber Comic-Con International
Conclusions
Though neither the One Ring nor the Anti-Life
Equation display their full power in their
respective epics, their roles as the incarnation of
the ultimate Evil in Kirby’s and Tolkien’s views,
namely, the domination and enslavement of
human freedom, has given them iconic power
that has fascinated the readerships of Middle-
earth and the Fourth World for decades.