Here's an excerpt from my review:
Mr. Miracle enters his house with his diminuative aide Oberon at his side; however, instead of finding his wife Barda waiting for him, Mr. Miracle is greeted by Darkseid, sitting in an armchair sipping wine. Seriously, I wouldn't kid you. Even though Keith Giffen's Ambush Bug mocked the idea of Darkseid's ubiquity in DC Comics all the way back in 1985, it seems no one got the memo as Darkseid would continue to make appearances like this up to present times. Darkseid sipping wine in Mr. Miracle's living room is about as menacing as Darkseid serving Ambush Bug a hamburger in Ambush Bug#2. Ah well; in 1987, I knew of Darkseid through the Super Powers figures and Super Friends cartoon show, so at least he was a familiar face.
Above you can see the image of Darkseid calmly sipping wine while lounging in Mister Miracle's living room, and below is the final page of Ambush Bug #1 (1985) by Robert Loren Fleming and Keith Giffen. This was the start of a running gag in the four-issue Ambush Bug mini-series as each issue would conclude with Ambush Bug encountering Darkseid in some mundane locale, but the succeeding issue would completely ignore that scene. Finally, at the end of Ambush Bug #4, Ambush Bug reveals that the "Darkseid" in his stories was just an inflatable dummy. He says to the deflated dummy, "Thanks, pal. You bought me an extra fifty thousand sales in the comic shops!"
This trope of Darkseid lounging around in a mundane location instead of unleashing his power to destroy his enemies-- that's become a well-worn trope in DC comics. And I suppose my reaction in the above review came out that way because I was used to a post-Jack Kirby Darkseid. Post-Kirby, Darkseid was no longer the arch-enemy of the New Gods-- now he was basically everyone's arch-enemy, from Superman to the Suicide Squad, from Mary Marvel to the Legion of Super-Heroes. Writers still seemed to understand that he was a villain who needed to show restraint (or else he'd simply wipe most of Earth's heroes out of existence), and thus the many images of Darkseid lounging. This was particularly apparent in the 1987 Legends crossover, which resulted in Darkseid appearing in many, many comics within a six-month span, but mostly he appeared only to plot and scheme rather than take action.
What I didn't appreciate about Darkseid was that Kirby had pretty definite ideas about how to play his arch-villain; after a few cameos in Kirby's Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen stories, Darkseid made his big debut in New Gods #1 (1971), which also introduced Darkseid's true opponent, Orion. Orion spent the entirety of issue #1 battling his way through Darkseid's armies on Apokalips only to learn Darkseid was on Earth. The issue ends with Orion heading to Earth, where Darkseid promises on the last page, "I hear you, Orion! The battle begins!"
But New Gods #2 opens up with Orion entering an apartment where he simply finds Darkseid lounging, waiting for him, as seen above (and it does look like Giffen drew directly from this image for the end of Ambush Bug #1). There is no physical confrontation with Darkseid in that issue; although Orion continues to oppose all of Darkseid's schemes, New Gods was cancelled before the promised showdown with Orion and Darkseid could occur. So, Fleming and Giffen weren't just making light of Darkseid's ability to add sales when they used him in Ambush Bug - they were also poking fun at how, from their perspective, the promised fight between Orion and Darkseid kept being put off.
I should note that Giffen was also the artist of a Legion of Super-Heroes story titled "the Great Darkness Saga," written by Paul Levitz (Legion of Super-Heroes #290-294, 1982). It was a lengthy storyline where the antagonist was ultimately revealed to be Darkseid, still alive in the 31st century; in the climax, Orion suddenly appears and they have the epic battle that fanboys had been asking for since 1971. It's basically fan-fiction, Levitz and Giffen trying to write their own ending to Kirby's New Gods. Many fans call it "the greatest Legion of Super-Heroes story!" That's how lame the Legion are, I guess... their best story is a stealth New Gods comic.
"The Great Darkness Saga" happened early enough in Darkseid's post-Kirby history that it seems to have been extremely influential. Yet I also wonder how much the version of Darkseid seen in that story - the cosmic powerhouse who goes fist-to-fist with the entire Legion of Super-Heroes - owes to Thanos. Thanos was, after all, created by Jim Starlin in 1973 as what he admitted to as a being directly inspired by Darkseid. For Thanos' early appearances, he was quite a bit like Darkseid - he employed a number of lieutenants to do his dirty work and mostly plotted and schemed. It wasn't until he obtained the Cosmic Cube during Starlin's Captain Marvel stories that he ceased being on the sidelines and instead directly engaged the heroes (I wrote a 10-part history of Starlin's Thanos; here's part 1, where I discussed those early comics). I'd say that Starlin's Thanos stepped out from Darkseid's shadow when he reappeared in Warlock as Warlock's ally against the Magus. Although Thanos' quest to win the love of Death could be compared to Darkseid's quest for the Anti-Life Equation, Thanos' subtlety and guile in those Warlock stories is very unlike Darkseid's single-minded approach.
Post-"Great Darkness Saga," DC reprinted Kirby's New Gods stories in 1984 as a prestige-format series. In the final issue, Kirby finally wrote and drew the conclusion to Orion and Darkseid's unresolved fight. To put it mildly, it's not what fans like Levitz and Giffen anticipated. In fact, there is once again, no fight. Orion pursues Darkseid, but Darkseid continually beats a strategic retreat rather than engage in combat. Finally, Darkseid leads Orion into an ambush; a squad of Parademons blast Orion's body full of bullets and he drops out of sight, seemingly dead; the end.
And this isn't a course-correction on Kirby's part, it's consistent with all of his Darkseid stories in the 1970s. Although Darkseid deployed plenty of lieutenants against his enemies, his own interest was simply the Anti-Life Equation. He would indulge his lieutenants if he thought their plans might bring him the equation (or at least inconvenience his enemies so they wouldn't interfere with him) but Darkseid didn't use power for power's sake. I think any of the confrontations Kirby wrote between Darkseid and Desaad would be instructive; Desaad would inflict pain on his enemies because he enjoyed the sensation; Darkseid, however, was not a sadist and expressed annoyance at Desaad for placing his sadism above his actual goal - the Anti-Life Equation. Outside of flashbacks, the only characters Darkseid killed with his own power in Kirby's stories were his lieutenants when he felt they'd gone too far off-track - and then Kirby gave him the power to resurrect his lieutenants in his graphic novel Hunger Dogs (1985), albeit the resurrected lieutenants were mere shades of their former selves.
I submit, then, it's possible that the Darkseid of "the Great Darkness Saga" is a combination of Levitz and Giffen's fanboyish wish for a Darkseid who fights, drawn from Starlin's Thanos. Kirby's Darkseid was not Starlin's Thanos; he had plenty of raw power, but next to no interest in unleashing it. Perhaps a true "final" New Gods story in which Darkseid obtained the Anti-Life Equation would bring the character to a point where he would unleash his full power. But that's not Kirby's Darkseid; without the Anti-Life Equation, what is there for Darkseid to do, but... lounge.
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