Musician and writer Gerard Way is the showrunner for DC’s Young Animal imprint which takes up a corner of the DC Rebirth universe. The imprint is just that and not an alternate reality for Elseworlds type tales. Way just a corner of DC Rebirth to play with.
With Bug: The Adventures of Forager #1, the Allreds (Lee, Michael and Laura) of the book tackles Jack Kirby’s New Gods pantheon and other 1970’s Kirby creations at DC Comics.
In addition, Bug: The Adventures of Forager #1 seem to pick up the threads of and take place after the classic Cosmic Odyssey storyline from the 1980s.
A fun read so here we go.
DC Comics Rebirth and Young Animal Spoilers for Bug: The Adventures Of Forager #1 follows.
The book opens with the Forager recounting his death and Batman’s reaction to it.
These are clearly from Cosmic Odyssey from…
…the Forager’s heroic sacrifice to…
…Orion’s callous response to the Bug’s heroics…
…and Batman’s passionate response to a god!
Well, were did Forager go after her died? Well, glad you asked. He ended up in a cocoon in a home’s basement.
He didn’t die, but…
…was sleeping.
He followed a seeming aparation with a teddy bear who uses dominoes to come up with the Mother Box circuity diagram…
…the Forager gets a look at things and people to come…
…such as…
- Sandman – Hector Hall (red / yellow costume);
- Sandman – Wesley Dodds (purple / yellow costume);
- more teddy bear time;
- the Black Racer of the New Gods;
- Manhunter – likely Mark Shaw as he was created by Jack Kirby vs. the Paul Kirk Manhunter who had the same costume;
- Metron of the New Gods;
- Atlas;
- OMAC; and
- Deadman.
So, it turns out Forager in dreamland and the monsters he faced are minions of Sandman. The little girl, teddy bear and dominoes are gone as dreams can be fleeting I imagine.
The Forager, Sanamdn and his minions are trapped and brought into the read world by villain General Electric who was Sandman’s special whistle made of a sliver of Orichalcum that allows Sandman to travel between the dreamscape and the real world.
General Electric has a second sliver / whistle too and with Sandman’s plans to some damage in reality and the dream world by making dreams of terror and conquest come true, become real.
Forager breaks their prison and…
…falls through a dimensional hole!
An action packed debut of this six issues mini-series by Les Allreds very worthy of Jack Kirby.
