"Madbomb" ... how did Jack know...?

There's a story about Jack Kirby.  During the 70's, he apparently worked sporadically on a novel entitled The Horde.  Not a whole lot is known about The Horde except that it involved a kind of modern ay Genghis Khan emerging from Asia and waging war against the world.  The story goes that Jack stopped working on The Horde because he was scaring himself.  He would read the morning paper, or watch the evening news, and see the fictional events he was describing coming to pass in the real world.

Others have noted that Kirby's 70's work has turned out to be surprisingly prescient.  Maybe this isn't really so surprising - Jack was an unusually forward-thinking guy who believed in technology - and the human heart - and believed they would guide us, hopefully, into a positive future.

That kind of prescience isn't the result of magic.  Merely logic + imagination.  But, having said that, picking up "Madbomb" in late August 2019, I find myself in the midst of a story that's prescient in some very disturbing ways.  And it's scaring the hell out of me.

"Madbomb" ran in Captain America (and the Falcon) issues 193-200, roughly October 1975 to May 1976, beginning on the eve of the Bicentennial (anyone else out there remember that?).  It was the first new work Kirby had done for Marvel in 5 years.  Although he was welcomed back as a hero, many didn't like Kirby's new stories, or his more extreme art style.  I've written about this elsewhere.  Another grump some fans had was that Kirby pretty much did away with any continuity with Steve Englehart's long run on Captain America.   Englehart's run had been marked by some decidedly subversive themes, with Cap even abandoning the Captain America identity for a time, due to his disgust with Nixon-era America.

Kirby's take on Cap was different.  This Captain America would never turn his back on the patriotic symbols that defined him.  That might have seemed corny in 1975-1976.  But the truth is, what Kirby was up to may have been a lot more subversive than anything Englehart had ever imagined.

"Madbomb" starts with Cap and the Falcon being caught in a riot in the streets of New York.  This leads to a briefing by no less than then-Secretary-of-State Henry Kissinger(!).  It seems this riot was set off by a curious bit of technology called a "madbomb" - a device that blankets an area with sonic waves, causing anyone in range to turn into a homicidal maniac.  SHIELD has discovered that whoever is using these weapons has developed one large enough to blanket the entire US.  Dispatched to some remote region of the country, where several SHIELD agents have disappeared, Cap and the Falc find themselves captured by something called The Royalist Forces of America, and forced to participate in brutal gladiatorial games.

The Royalists are a cabal of fabulously wealthy men planning to unravel American democracy, and replace it with an aristocracy - "men born to be served, who live(d) above the common rabble!"led by a grump named Taurey (in case we missed the joke, his partner is named "Heshin").

The gladiatorial games are witnessed by an unruly mob, completely in thrall to a simulated image of a non-existent leader who exhorts them into a frenzy.  They also encounter the selfish, ruthless, and stupid daughter of a Royalist leader, Cheer Chadwick, who provides some exceedingly grim comic relief.

Landing in the midst of all of this is possibly the strangest Kirby story ever published.  "Captain America's Love Affair" is such a bizarre detour it stands out as odd even in the often odd world of Jack Kirby.  It's also one of the best Kirby comics ever published.

Having rounded up the rank-and-file of the Royalists, Cap, Falc, SHIELD and the US army are still searching for the full-size madbomb.  And they've found a clue in the actions of Mason Harding, a brilliant scientist who's been missing for two years, but now seems to be making appearances at an isolated mansion on the east coast.  On a spying mission, Cap discovers the reason for Harding's visits: his daughter Carol, recovering from an unnamed illness, is convalescing at the mansion, where she's kept largely under wraps.  Figuring the most humane way to keep her safe while SHIELD raids the house, he arranges a rendezvous with her on the beach.  This quiet and thoughtful interlude alternates with scenes of solid Kirby panel-busting action as Falcon and SHIELD tear the place apart, leading to Harding's capture and confession (Harding has been blackmailed into developing the madbomb) and, of course, a final confrontation with Taurey and the Royalist leaders.

"Madbomb" has the usual Kirby problems - stilted dialog, corny monologues by Cap and the Falcon (his attempt to write hip lingo for the Falcon is particularly awkward), odd and not always logical plotting.  And when I first re-read it a couple decades ago, I found the notion of the Royalists a bit silly.  Why would anyone want to re-install a European style, 18th century model aristocracy?  Besides, plutocrats have been gaming the American system since Day 1.

To sit here in 2019 and read the "Madbomb" stories, while watching on the news as our own US president, and allies in congress, openly flaunt not only social norms but the very laws that have held our fragile system together all these years... it's well-nigh impossible not to see the shadow of Trump and his hideous children, the Koch brothers attempts to bankroll a system that guarantees only more wealth and privilege for people like themselves, aided and abetted by the Mitch McConnells, Paul Ryans, and Mitt Romneys and all the other 1% clowns, willfully tossing aside the very laws and values their alleged patriotism is supposes to support. It's hard not to see the image of the Trump offspring in Cheer Chadwick, or the fired-up "crowds" at Trump rallies in the chaotic audience of at the Royalists gladiatorial games.

Kirby grew up poor in Jewish ghetto.  A member of "the greatest generation", he served as a scout in WWII.  In later years, he spoke proudly of Leon Klinghoffer, a childhood friend, who stood up to terrorists in the Achille Lauro incident in 1985 (and died for it).  He believed in those values that Cap was supposed to symbolize.  And he understood how easily they could be taken away.  Re-reading "Madbomb" today, I don't find it silly.  I find it all too prescient.