Here is the latest in our year-long look at one cool comic (whether it be a self-contained work, an ongoing comic or a run on a long-running title that featured multiple creative teams on it over the years) a day (in no particular order whatsoever)! Here's the archive of the moments posted so far!

Today we take a look at the most famous issue of New Gods, #7, "The Pact"....

Enjoy!

"The Pact," written and penciled by Jack Kirby and inked by Mike Royer, comes seven issues into the New Gods series, and works as a brilliant little look back at the origins of the current war between the New Gods of New Genesis and those of Apokolips.

In this story, Kirby cleverly shows how Darkseid came to be in power, but at the same time, he also shows how Highfather came to be the way that HE is.

This story also lays the groundwork for a few notable plot points of Final Crisis decades later.

The book opens with a striking set scene where two lovers are interrupted by violence (note the deadly powers of Radion)...

What an awesome intro, huh?

Later, we see Darkseid establish Boom Tube technology through the help of Metron...

This scene has two major moments for Final Crisis - the establishment that Metron is a separate being than the New Gods and the idea of the "X-Element" (now called Element-X).

After some more machinations by Darkseid, we finally get to the point where the Source steps in, and a "peace" begins, but right from the start, we see that Darkseid was planning ahead (as Kirby uses the stories that have already happened to show that Darkseid was planning them a long time ago - also note how Mister Miracle's "too on point" name is explained nicely)...

and the book ends with a counterpoint to the violence it began with...

What a great comic book.

And there's a WHOLE lot of awesome stuff that went on that I DIDN'T show you - so go seek out the trade collections of Jack Kirby's New Gods work, people! It's great!