Jack Kirby and the Ancient Astronauts

Kelvin Green, in his comment to my previous post, mentioned Jack Kirby and the ubiquity of ancient astronauts themes in his work, particularly in the 1970s. This reminded me of an editorial from the first issue of The Eternals, published in 1976, in which Kirby openly philosophizes on the topic. Entitled "Will the Gods Return Someday?", it's pretty good evidence that Kirby was a believer in some kind of Von Däniken-esque worldview, which should come as no surprise to anyone who read his comics.

Anyway, here's what Kirby had to say in his editorial:

If they truly exist, I believe they will. Of course, I speak of gods in the historical sense, the kinds of beings who stop ashore from places unknown and impress us with their very images, their manner of communication, and, above all, their display of transcendent power.

The Aztecs, who outnumbered the forces of Cortez by astronomical odds, were completely cowed by the sight of the Spaniard's horse and the effects of his cannon. Were they overcome by their own fear of the supernatural- or were they awed by what they viewed as the fulfillment of their own prophecy- the return of Quetzalcoatl and his band of super-beings, whose memory survived antiquity?

In my own recollection of the early jungle pictures, there was nothing more stupefying to the chattering natives of remote areas, than the sudden appearance of the movie's hero, whose "big white bird" had crash-landed in the center of the village.

Sure, they made him a god, And, if it had really happened, those natives would still be weaving tales about him today.

However, my point is, how often has this kind of thing happened in our past? How many of these so-called gods have stumbled upon this boondock planet called Earth? How many of them have inspired the potent myths which not only laid the groundwork for man's many religions, professions, and sciences, but have left man with a massive mystery on his hands- one that just won't go away...

With the daily accumulation of new artifacts all over the globe, and the simultaneous input of UFO "flapology" on a worldwide scale, humankind is straining its "group memory" to dredge up a proper picture of the ancient past, in order to deal with the provocative incidents of contemporary issue.

The compelling quality inherent in this type of theme has led me to project its mystifying questions into comic magazine storytelling. It's natural for myself and for the comics fan who dearly loves the world that lies between fantasy and fact. We are, in a word, "sympatico".

Still, despite the fact that I've contrived my own version of those momentous confrontations of prehistory, I take them from the de facto questions of today.

What did happen in those remote days of man's early struggle for civilized status? What is the true meaning of the myths which shared a global similarity among diverse peoples? Did beings of an extraterrestrial nature touch down among us and influence our lives to this present day? And then, the all-important question of the lot- are these beings in some cosmic orbit which will lead them back to us someday?

The excitement generated by this last question is undeniable. It leads directly to ourselves, and to how we will react to their arrival. The grab bag of possibilities is a limitless spectrum of spine-tingling visions. They inspire everything from elation to paranoia.

At any rate, we can do nothing but sense the air of this century and look aloft, or listen for sounds not made on this world- or read THE ETERNALS for the vicarious thrill of anticipating, in story and pictures, the astounding experience of coming to grips with the kinds of creatures we imagine the gods to be. Hey, if you're reading this, you're doing it!

Pulp Fantasy Library: Chariots of the Gods?

Initially, I felt a little sheepish at writing a post about this book as part of my Pulp Fantasy Library series, but I quickly decided that, if Erich von Däniken's 1968 book can't be considered a classic of pulp fantasy, very few things could be. Chariots of the Gods? purports to be a work of scholarly research into the involvement of extraterrestrial beings in human history. According to Von Däniken, these aliens -- dubbed "ancient astronauts," in the parlance of the day -- were viewed as gods by the humans they assisted and their handiwork can be seen all across the world, such as:

• The Pyramids of Egypt
• The Nazca Lines in Peru
• Stonehenge
• The Moai of Easter Island

Von Däniken's "evidence" for his hypothesis is, of course, exceptionally weak, based, so far as I can tell on two premises. First, that because certain ancient structures and artifacts look like modern or futuristic things, they must be modern futuristic things. Second, and perhaps most important of all, ancient humans were stupid and inept and, therefore, utterly incapable of having produced wonders like the Pyramids or the Nazca Lines without the aid of ultra-powerful aliens.

Chariots of the Gods? seems patently absurd nowadays and, yet, back in the late 60s and early 70s, the book became an international bestseller, being translated into 32 languages and selling tens of millions of copies. It also inspired a "documentary" film in 1970 and countless imitators. Von Däniken's central premise was widely adopted by science fiction writers. who continue to use it or variations on it down to the present day. And it's not hard to see why they do. The notion that aliens intervened in Earth's past to produce the world we have today may be pseudoscience, but it's very compelling pseudoscience with a long pedigree, with authors like H.P. Lovecraft employing it to create some of their most memorable stories.

In reflecting on Chariots of the Gods?, I was struck by how weird the popular culture of the early to mid-1970s was. Growing up, this kind of stuff was just "in the air" and I ate it up, even though I was then, as I am now, very skeptical of it. I read lots of books on this topic and saw innumerable TV shows and movies that made use of it. It's even a theme that comes up in roleplaying games, with settings as venerable as Blackmoor and the Wilderlands of High Fantasy including alien visitors as important parts of their background. That probably goes some way toward explaining the appearance of similar ideas in my Dwimmermount campaign, with the extraterrestrial Eld, space-traveling Iron God, and dimension-hopping scientists from Earth. It's the stuff of good fantasy in my opinion, so pick up a copy of Chariots of the Gods? in a used bookstore -- they're bound to have a copy -- and enjoy it for what it is rather than what it purports to be. You might be surprised how many good ideas it sparks in your imagination.