Brian Truitt

USA TODAY

Comic-book legend Jack Kirby's "Fourth World" is forever if Dan DiDio has anything to say about it.

The DC co-publisher continues to add to the legacy of Boom Tubes, Mother Boxes and iconic New Gods with DC Comics' Infinity Man and the Forever People, launching Wednesday and co-written by DiDio and artist Keith Giffen.

After leaving Marvel Comics for rival DC in 1970, Kirby — the co-creator with Stan Lee of the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, the Hulk and other timeless classics — built his trippy, cosmic Fourth World with three primary books following the tales of heroes such as Orion and Mister Miracle, the futuristic city of New Genesis and the villainous Darkseid and his minions from the hellish Apokolips landscape.

And while the original New Gods series and Mister Miracle were exciting for fans over the years, DiDio always thought The Forever People was the most overlooked.

"They're younger and they should have a different point of view from the other New Gods we're seeing," DiDio says. "I'm having a lot of fun with really taking a younger perspective in the New Gods mythology and really trying to build on that in the new series."

The new Forever People centers on four students who travel to Earth from New Genesis, which has survived great loss from a war with Apokolips but also risen above it.

Vykin is the de facto leader of the group and has a sibling rivalry with his sister Serafina, Mark Moonrider is the resident counterculture challenger of authority, and Beautiful Dreamer is an ethereal enigma.

"She really works at a different pace than everybody else," DiDio says, "but ultimately as the story unfolds, you find out she's probably the most powerful and dangerous member of the team."

The society on New Genesis is controlled very tightly, though, and that's a situation just ripe for youthful rebellion.

DiDio sees the youngsters as similar to the Peace Corps, he says. "They're coming to Earth to help the planet evolve and move along, because they believe that if they help Earth move along and progress, they will find allies in case they go into a greater war with Apokolips.

It has a very altruistic approach but there's a means behind it, DiDio adds, and some of the kids resist that. "They really want to help people but they think they're helping them for the wrong reasons."

ForeverPeople has a light tone at times because it's also a fish-out-of-water story. The foursome lands in Venice Beach, Calif., where their grizzled and battle-weary Earth adviser Big Bear has already set up camp. They operate out of a singles apartment complex, according to DiDio, and Big Bear chose their new locale due to it being the one place where the odd-looking bunch can blend in unnoticed.

"Ultimately when they wind up here, it's about a discovery of the planet as much as it is the adventures that take place and learning about each other along the way," DiDio explains.

"You're getting a sense of these guys learning what's going on, but the real crux of it is that every time they try to do something they think is going to move mankind forward, they wind up creating more problems for everybody."

Then there's the Infinity Man aspect — when the four students are working together, they can tap into and change places with this very mystical character whom no one knows much about other than those in the very highest echelons of New Genesis.

The fact that they can access such power worries some of the folks they trust back home. Infinity Man is such a wild card that when he's activated, some characters on New Genesis keep secret from their leader Highfather "because they're afraid of the ramifications that it might bring," says DiDio.

Forever People boasts a variety of guest stars — "Very recognizable ones, and some of them who are bovine," DiDio says with a laugh — as well as multiple factions hidden on both New Genesis and Apokolips and doublecrosses galore.

One of the main antagonists is the New God known as Agog, the leader of the Cult of Yuga Khan. The goal of the movement is to resurrect the father of both Darkseid and Highfather.

Yuga Khan was the older god put down by his sons, DiDio says. "They rose in his place and now it's him coming back to take his throne and basically teach his own kids a lesson."

Forever People will be evolving artistically, too, over the course of its first three issues — Giffen illustrates the first issue, followed by artists including Tom Grummett and Jim Starlin.

The third issue in August features "that incredible dreamscape sensibility that Starlin used to bring to his books," DiDio says. "It's basically Beautiful Dreamer having a conversation with the Anti-Life Equation."

The September stand-alone "Five Years Later" fourth issue ties directly into events that are taking place in the weekly Futures End, and the conclusion of what happens in that tale starts in the beginning of a new story line in October's Forever People No. 5, which sees the return of Giffen as regular series artist.

At least DiDio's keeping it all straight.

"Years of training with great writers like Grant Morrison allows me to work on multiple planes and multiple timelines simultaneously so I'm prepared for this," he says with a laugh. "All the muscles are in shape."

DC has big plans overall for the New Gods coming up, including story threads being seeded in Forever People. Various characters including Orion will be appearing in a number of series, and Apokolips plays a key role in the upcoming weekly Earth 2: Worlds End — Darkseid's forces have been very active recently in the main Earth 2 book.

What keeps the Fourth World special for DiDio is its expansiveness.

"Jack Kirby was writing, drawing and editing a book a week, which is unheard of in today's business," the co-publisher says. "The fact that he's moving so quickly, there is so much pure energy and raw thoughts on the page — and this was a person who was brimming with those ideas.

"You see this incredible canvas that he built so you can't help but want to immerse yourself in it and bring it to today's audience and hopefully get a little bit of a contemporary tone. You'll see a lot of the ideas he had there are still relevant today and can be built on."