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Darkseid's Ring: Images of Anti-Life in Kirby and Tolkien

Abstract

What is the nature of ultimate evil?  Answers will vary, but it is logical to say that they will depend on what one considers to be the core of humanity: that which attacks that core is the ultimate evil.  Evidence in Jack Kirby's "Fourth World" mythos and J. R. R. Tolkien's "Middle-earth" mythos suggests that they both saw free will at the core of humanity, and that ultimate evil lies in the domination and subjugation of the will of others.  Kirby symbolized this evil in the "Anti-Life Equation"; Tolkien in the One Ring of Sauron.  This paper will compare the images of evil in the two authors'  works.

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