Kamandi, the Last Boy on Earth

On the planet Vision, a group of aliens discovered a way to predict the future with a high degree of accuracy. They attempted to stop the Great Disaster from occurring on Earth by traveling there and changing history as the Global Peace Agency. They transformed a normal human named Buddy Blank into OMAC, the One Man Army Corps.

The aliens ultimately failed and the Great Disaster occurred nearly wiping out all humans and those that survived were thrown back into a nearly feral state. At the same time, experiments on animals created animals that spoke and walked upright. These animal men began to be the dominant life form on the Earth.

One of the few survivors of the Great Disaster was Buddy Blank. Living in a bunker in New York, Buddy survived and raised his orphaned grandson. He taught his grandson about the world that had been before through microfilm that survived in the bunker. One of the greatest things that was lost during the Great Disaster was one of those baby name books, because the child was named after the bunker in which he lived. The bunker was called Command D so the boy was given the name Kamandi, the Last Boy on Earth.

When his grandfather was killed by a group of wolf men out hunting, Kamandi fled into the wasteland. He was eventually befriended by a dog man scientist named Doctor Canus. He also met and worked with a trio of scientists from a science enclave. Because of the radiation of the Great Disaster, the group had the ability to transform into living metal. The most memorable of this group was Ben Boxer.

The Crisis on Infinte Earths wiped out Kamandi's timeline. Kamandi will instead grow up to be Tommy Tomorrow.

Jack Kirby brought his distinctive style to DC Comics in the 1970s. While his greatest contribution to the DC Universe was the introduction of Darkseid and the other New Gods, his longest-lasting series was Kamandi, the Last Boy on Earth, which began in 1972.

Originally, Kamandi was the last normal human survivor after a vague "Great Disaster" which occurred (or at least started) in the 1980s and involved, but was not limited to, a nuclear war. Later comics fleshed out this disaster and, as explained in the previous node, tied Kamandi's story with that of Omac, the One Man Army Corps. By then, Kamandi had encountered many other relatively normal humans. Kamandi's earth was Planet of the Apes on steroids; most humans were inarticulate savages, while anthropomorphic animals, including apes, tigers (for some reason, based in North America, a region not known for its tiger population), lions, wolves, bears, and others lived in developed, generally feudal civilizations.¹ Wreckage of our own civilizations littered the landscape.

Kamandi had several associates over the run of the comic book, including a mutant human named Ben Boxer (who could transform into metal and who wore something akin to a superhero outfit) a dog scientist named Dr. Canus, a castaway alien known as Pyra, and two nearly-identical semi-feral human sisters called Flower and Spirit (one died and the other later replaced her) Time-travel stories allowed Kamandi to crossover with Batman and Superman.

As other writers took over the comic, retcons assailed continuity. Dr. Canus, for example, transformed from a strong-willed and courageous character into a pusillanimous, simpering son of a bitch. Pyra was originally a living fireball who took on semi-human form only with the aid of sophisticated equipment on her ship, which took a "pattern" from Kamandi and transformed her into an earth-friendly form. Later stories gave her race the innate ability to take on humanoid form at will. Despite these changes to his secondary characters, Kamandi himself changed little, and even continued to wear only the same torn blue pants in which he'd made his debut.

Kamandi lasted until 1976. As the actual 1980s dawned, his reality became an alternate timeline. He appeared briefly in DC's Crisis on Infinite Earths, in which his story fused with that of Tommy Tomorrow. Nevertheless, Kamandi and his world reappeared in 1993's Kamandi at the World's End.

1. Kamandi never would have been published had it not been for the success of Planet of the Apes. Early issues regularly recall images from the movie series. In all fairness, however, Kirby had tackled similiar material earlier in his career. His story, "The Last Enemy" from a 1957 Alarming Tales featured a future world of anthropomorphic animals. The story is reprinted in Shocking Tales #1.