You know there's been an apocalypse because Lady Liberty is sinking.
Kamandi, The Last Boy on Earth was a science-fiction comic book series published by DC Comics. The series was first published throughout The '70s and its characters have appeared in various other comics since.
After the success of Planet of the Apes (1968), DC Comics editor Carmine Infantino asked artist/writer Jack Kirby to create a series with a similar premise after failing to secure the rights to that series (Marvel Comics got it instead). Kirby had never actually seen the film, but took what little he did know and combined it with some of his previous sci-fi one-shots (namely The Last Enemy
) and a few unused ideas. Thus Kamandi was born, a title which — unlike most other comics Kirby created for DC — lasted for many years, though Kirby would leave the book about two-thirds into its run.
In the original series, a mysterious incident known only as "The Great Disaster" caused the collapse of human civilization. Fast-forward a few centuries and a human boy is living with his grandfather in a bunker called "Command-D" somewhere near New York City. When his caretaker dies, the young man — named after the place — sets outs to find more people. What he discovers is that most humans are now primitive and unable to speak, while many animals became humanoid in form and gained human-level intelligence; the latter the result of an experiment that was being carried out shortly before the Disaster. Naturally, this means humans are now treated as animals, and the animals have developed their own civilizations that were suspiciously similar to ancient human ones (e.g., the tigers are The Roman Empire).
All the animal races are also at war with each other, scavenging and fighting for resources among the Ruins of the Modern Age, with the main conflict being between the Tigers and the Apes. The plot followed Kamandi's attempts to restore humanity's sentience in this new era of Earth A.D. while avoiding the various animal armies. Over the course of his journey, he is able to befriend individuals such as the science-minded hound Doctor Canus, as well as encounter some mutated humans who are still capable of human reasoning and speech.
Other comic appearances:
- In 1993, the character saw a Darker and Edgier reboot in a six-issue Elseworlds miniseries entitled Kamandi: At Earth's End, which was in turn followed by the more well-known and infamous Superman: At Earth's End (i.e., that story with the twin clones of Hitler).
- During the 2007–2008 miniseries Countdown to Final Crisis, a present-day version of Kamandi and his grandfather, after becoming involved with a sentient satellite he created and a trip to Apokolips, are transported to an Alternate Universe where a plague from the future has re-created the setting of the original series.
- The 2009 anthology series Wednesday Comics featured Kamandi stories written by Dave Gibbons and drawn by Ryan Sook.
- 2017's Kamandi Challenge, a twelve-issue Round Robin series that served as a sequel to the 1980s DC Challenge.note
- The 3-issue Generations event in 2020-2021 has Kamandi brought together with other heroes and villains taken from different eras to stop a threat to all the timelines.
Outside of the comics, Kamandi made multiple appearances in Batman: The Brave and the Bold, and got his own DC Showcase short, released as a bonus feature for Justice Society: World War II.
Tropes involving Kamandi:
- After the End: The series takes place after a mysterious cataclysmic event called the Great Disaster, which wiped out the majority of humankind and caused the few remaining survivors to degenerate into a feral state.
- Alternate Company Equivalent: There are plenty of similarities between this series and the animated series Thundarr the Barbarian. (Note that Kirby worked on that show.)
- Alternate Universe: Kamandi's world was just one of many possible futures for the DC Universe (and is now a Parallel Earth). A time travel story had Kamandi begging Superman to prevent the Cataclysm, but Supes has enough experience with time travel to realize Kamandi isn't from his world's future, so there's nothing he can do.
- Animal Is the New Man: A great disaster has killed off nearly all humans, with the few survivors regressing to a feral state, and in the meantime, races of humanoid animals have risen up to take the humans' place on the food chain.
- Animal Stereotypes: The different animal races acted pretty stereotypically. Apes are cruel, big cats are imperious but noble, etc. Kamandi manages to deduce that one villain is a snake before seeing his unshrouded form.
- Apocalypse How: The Great Disaster was a mystery: The original series established that it had not been a nuclear war, but not what it actually was. Later Retcons did establish that it had indeed been a war, and in Countdown to Final Crisis, a plague.
- Applied Phlebotinum: Cortexium, the drug that mutated the animals.
- Body Horror: Leonid Vassilov is one of the few humans who have managed to survive the Great Disaster. However, exposure to radiation has severely mutated his body, transforming him into a boneless pink creature with acidic skin.
- But What About the Astronauts?: Actually, some astronauts did survive the Great Disaster, like Kamandi's buddy Ben Boxer. They wound up mutated so their "cyclo-hearts" would turn them into solid steel in response to radiation.
- Canon Welding: Kamandi is at the center of a rather intricate web of this. His apocalyptic future is the same as the one the Atomic Knights come from! His grandfather was actually Buddy Blank, the host for O.M.A.C.! In an alternate universe where the world wasn't destroyed he became Tommy Tomorrow! And he's also Jed Walker from The Sandman (1989)!
- Cockroaches Will Rule the Earth: The comic takes place in an alternate future where humans are all but extinct and animals have become more anthropomorphic and sentient.
- Company Cross References: In one issue Kamandi becomes entranced by some old comics he finds. The character on the cover is clearly Jack Kirby's character Etrigan.
- Convection, Schmonvection: At one point Ben carries Kamandi past some spewing lava. Ben is pretty invulnerable, but in real life Kamandi would have been roasted.
- Fantasy Counterpart Culture: Possibly justified in that the animals may have been influenced by surviving records.
- Future Imperfect: The animals have no idea that humans have ever been anything but dumb animals, and tell stories of their ancient homeland of "Zuu". We also meet a pack of gorillas who consider the Watergate Tapes to be their holy text.
- Godiva Hair: Flower and Spirit, like every other women, are topless, but conceal their nipples with their long hairs.
- Hair-Trigger Temper: Kamandi follows the impulsive hero archetype that is commonly featured in Jack Kirby's works, being portrayed as a courageous, emotional young man who gets into fist fights at the slightest provocation. One of the earliest demonstrations of his aggressiveness is when he punches another man for accepting to be a tiger's pet, as he believes such subservience is a disservice to humanity's legacy.
- Hope Spot: Though several stories make it appear as if Kamandi's goal of finding another sapient member of his own species can be accomplished, his hopes are always dashed at the last minute. One example is issue 20, where Kamandi discovers what appears to be a thriving human community in Chicago, only for the ending to reveal that those people were just animatronics being operated by an artificial intelligence. The story concludes with Kamandi sorrowfully lamenting that he is truly alone.
- Hope Springs Eternal: Though Kamandi never manages to find another sapient human being, issue 16 suggests that there is still hope for the species. At the end of the story, some humans are exposed to Cortexin, a synthetic compound which made animals progressively more intelligent with every generation. The panels juxtapose the scientists' research notes with displays of the affected humans' newfound problem solving skills, implying that, within a few decades, mankind may recover to its former glory.
- Hulk Speak: A few humans like Flower retain a certain degree of intellect and can communicate in broken sentences. However, the majority can only grunt.
- Humans Are Morons: After the Great Disaster, humans lost most of their intellect while other animals became sapient, leading the former species to be seen as pets at best and expendable slaves at worst. Even then, Canus suggests that the current scientific community believes human beings to have been ignorant even before the disaster.Canus: (Human beings) don't deserve help! There's evidence they were the main contributors to the conditions which led to the Great Disaster!
- Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: Kamandi gets into a lot of gun battles. Fortunately the animals all tend to be pretty lousy shots.
- Last of His Kind: There are humans who've lost their intelligence (though some are still capable of Hulk Speak), and some mutants (like Ben Boxer, Misfit, and the human gophers), but Kamandi is the last remnant of humanity as we know it.
- Line-of-Sight Name: Kamandi's name comes from "Command D", the bunker he lived in before venturing into the surface world.
- Made of Iron: Kamandi's mutant friends, Ben Boxer, Steve, and Renzi, who can turn their bodies into living steel, like the later Colossus of the X-Men.
- Monstrous Germs: Morticoccus is a virus that is self-aware and malevolent. Its only desire is to destroy whatever life forms it can infect.
- Monumental Damage: The cover for issue #1 prominently features the remains of the Statue of Liberty after New York had been flooded.
- Multiple-Choice Past: Exactly who Kamandi is supposed to have been is a mystery in itself. Kirby hinted that Kamandi was the grown-up version of the boy from The Sandman (1989); later this was changed to making him O.M.A.C.'s grandson. And later still, he was made to be an Alternate Universe version of DC's Space Policeman, Tommy Tomorrow.
- Panthera Awesome: Tuftan, Prince of Tigers, is one of Kamandi's few animals friends.
- Replacement Goldfish: Kamandi loses Flower, a girl he travels with who shows signs of regaining original human intelligence. Later he meets her identical sister.
- Shiny New Australia: According to a map appearing in one issue, Australia was ruled by the "Kanga Rat Murder Society".
- Short-Lived Organism: The Crater People are a race of mutated humans who are born with adult-level intellect, but age extremely quickly. They reach adulthood at three years of age, but spontaneously die at five or six. They obsessively pursue Kamandi due to the belief that he, the last normal boy on Earth, is the key for them to achieve longevity.
- The Speechless: Whatever the "Great Disaster" was, it apparently took away the human race's ability to speak.
- Talking Animal: Variation: Some of the animals can talk, but humans can't.
- Tap on the Head: Kamandi gets knocked out more than once, but always springs right back into action.
- Terrified of Germs: The crocodiles that Kamandi fights in the resort are fiercely protective of their territory not only because the establishment runs on the law of the strongest, but because they strongly believe that humans carry germs and may contaminate their pool.
- Title Drop: Kamandi apparently is the last boy on Earth- who can speak, that is.
- Unspecified Apocalypse: Before the retcons, we never learn what the "Great Disaster" really was.
- Whole-Plot Reference: One issue is a retelling of King Kong, with Kamandi replacing Fay Wray. It's explicitly lampshaded at the end, with Kamandi saying something along the lines of "Even the ancients' movies could never have come up with something as incredible as this!"
- World War III: Though the exact nature of the Great Disaster is never firmly established, Jack Kirby drops some hints that it may have originated from the Cold War degenerating into a nuclear conflict. Kamandi is told that a significant portion of the biosphere has been contaminated with radiation, and he later comes across a recording from a Soviet space ship where the astronauts are horrified due to witnessing explosions on Earth's surface.
