Glorious Godfrey
1806 - Glorious Godfrey's ability to manipulate people manifests as Anti-Life, the removal of free will rendering the subject a mindless follower. It is most abundant on Apokolips, where the people know nothing but Darkseid, but to further test it, Godfrey uses Boom Tubes to leave the higher plane of the New Gods for the material world. going to different planets to create his Anti-Life experiments, building regimes of Anti-Life devotees until the civilization collapses.
30 years ago - Glorious Godfrey comes to Earth, continuing his experiments with Anti-Life, posing as Dr. G Gordon Godfrey and creating the first of his self-improvement cults.
27 years ago - Glorious Godfrey makes a breakthrough in his Anti-Life experiments, discovering that some people are able to perceive Anti-Life, making them immune to it. He believes that this is evidence that an Anti-Life Equation can be found on Earth.
25 years ago - Glorious Godfrey learns of the existence of Beautiful Dreamer on New Genesis, whose powers seem to strip away the effects of Anti-Life. Believing this to be a tool he can exploit, he has her kidnapped and brought to Earth. She is followed by her friends the Forever People, who free her from Godfrey and choose to stay on Earth to help free it's people.
23 years ago - Glorious Godfrey is forced to leave Earth and retreat to Apokolips when too many of his followers are turned away from Anti-Life by the Forever People. He informs Darkseid that he believes an Anti-Life Equation is on Earth, because of their capacity to perceive and ultimately reject the effects of Anti-Life.
18 years ago - Glorious Godfrey begins a new Anti-Life experiment, this time on New Genesis itself, sewing discontent among the Bugs.
6 years ago - Glorious Godfrey's Anti-Life experiments on New Genesis are found by a single Bug, Forager, who manages to steal a mother box and boom tube to Earth. He returns with Scott Free, Big Barda and the Justice League, who are able to fight his regime. He kills Forager, and is destroyed by Orion.
The Fourth World is built, primarily, out of three different actual comic series; New Gods (starring Orion), Mister Miracle, and the Forever People. There are lots of shared villains that cross over through the whole narrative, but each of those three books did function independently, and in each case the book featured one particular villain specifically designed for the hero in question.
Forever People is probably the most esoteric of those three series, with heroes that are more about a collective ideal than any one particular arc, and their main villain was a perfect foil for them. Godfrey represented every idea they stood against, all tied together into a package of tightly conceived metaphor that clearly clicked. The character has been brought back over and over in other stories just because the ideas he represents are so universal, pervasive, and insidious.
Forever People is probably the most esoteric of those three series, with heroes that are more about a collective ideal than any one particular arc, and their main villain was a perfect foil for them. Godfrey represented every idea they stood against, all tied together into a package of tightly conceived metaphor that clearly clicked. The character has been brought back over and over in other stories just because the ideas he represents are so universal, pervasive, and insidious.
Glorious Godfrey's Comic HistoryGlorious Godfrey debuted in the third issue of Forever People, but landed in such a way that it seemed the whole series had been building to his arrival. he was a denizen of Apokolips and follower of Darkseid, but it was the way he operated that really made him stand out. He was essentially a cult leader, preaching a doctrine of self-justification of any action in the service of Darkseid. This was in 1971, so the Manson murders were fresh in everyone's mind, but Kirby went further, drawing clear allegorical connections to the fascist regimes he helped fight in WW2. This is where he actually introduces the concept of Anti-Life; it's the thing Godfrey is actually wielding in his ability to control people, but it's specifically Darkseid who sees this and conceives that an equation must exist to replicate this effect, like a soup manufacturer trying to mass produce grandma's Sunday gravy recipe industrially.
Godfrey continued to antagonize the Forever People through their series, but he would also start to appear in other stories that required secretive manipulation of the masses, most notably in the post-crisis miniseries Legends that sets up the new Justice League, in which Godfrey poses as the human G Gordon Godfrey and talks the world into hating their superheroes. Versions of Godfrey have popped up in lots of different media, either as a more direct adaptation of the character or just as the concept of someone manipulating the public. |
Our Glorious Godfrey StoryWhile Apokolips gives us lots of creative villains, many of them tend to be the looming-in-the-background-while-events-unfold sort of bad guy. That's very cool, and we need those, but Godfrey manages to do that while also being very front and center, making him a great villain to use for a lot of the stories we want to tell.
He's obviously the main antagonist for the Forever People, and we had a TON of fun imagining his time building his secret regime on Earth and their subsequent mission to stop him, culminating in (we love this) the Forever People throwing a big concert that finally drives him off the planet. From there, we really wanted another story to play out on New Genesis among the Bugs, something insidious that could happen without the Gods of New Genesis actually knowing about it? Godfrey was the perfect choice for that role. That also means he gets to finally meet his just deserts at the hands of Orion, and we really like that idea. |