Popverse's top stories

• What's next for GLITCH after The Amazing Digital Circus's finale? A dark, Wreck-It Ralph-style take on video games starring Helluva Boss, One Piece, and Smiling Friends headliners
• Critical Role's The Mighty Nein season 2 release date seems imminent, because all the episodes are "almost entirely finished" says Travis Willingham
• An obscure manga casts Steve Jobs as a sort of mind control wizard in the early days of his ascent at Apple and I love it [Popverse Jump]

Orion, despite what you might have heard, is not that kind of god.

At least, that’s the deeply held opinion of graphic novelist Ngozi Ukazu, whose YA take on the classic Jack Kirby DC character comes to bookstores later this year as Orion. And while the book is decently multipurpose - it serves as a follow-up to her other Fourth World OGN, Barda, for example - part of what the new tale sets out to do is set the record straight.

Popverse got the chance to sit down with the Check, Please! author at this year’s BookCon in New York City, where Ukazu was only happy to share her deep love (and understanding) of the Prince of Apokolips. Having heard her take on Orion’s besmirchment over on the Off Panel podcast, we had to ask - how will you combat this cosmic confusion of characterization?

"For my take on Orion," begins Ukazu, "I really go back to the source, no pun intended. [That is], rereading Jack Kirby's New Gods, Mister Miracle, and Forever People to understand what the purpose of Orion is in his theology. I also look really heavily at the Walter Simonson books, because I think he gets Orion very well."

"My Orion," she continued, "Is the YA version, where we have a character who is not quite separate from his parental unit. Not quite his own, who is trying to figure out exactly what his place is in this huge, Kirby-dotted cosmos. [...] It's that old question of nature versus nurture and whether his nature is going to one day overtake his nurture. So I wanted to address that. I feel like a lot of other like Orion takes are about his powers and him fighting some war. That's why we have to go to the emotion. We have to go to the like family aspect."

Winding the clocks back a while, Ukazu made a similar reference to the theme of learned vs. innate personalty in Kirby's works right before her first foray into the King's Fourth World came out. Writing for the DC Comics Blog in 2024, Ukazu said that "Barda is Jack Kirby’s Fourth World writ small—a case study in how nature vs. nurture is truly irrelevant. All that matters is that those who align themselves to good will always triumph."

Back to BookCon, we had one more question regarding the nurture/nature theme Ukazu worked into Barda and, apparently, will revisit in Orion. If these characters are raised with Darkseid either in their history or in their blood, what makes them turn out to be heroes? Why would someone raised in the darkness believe in the light? To answer, Ukazu let us in on a little spoiler, though it's technically something you'll find in the Kirby comics.

"There's a scene where the Highfather has just traded Scott Free away," she described, "Traded his son away to Apokolips, and he receives Orion. [...] He sees Highfather, and he's like, 'This is this guy. They told me you are my father; if you're my father, you hate me. You're the reason for my pain.' He has a knife, because of course Orion has a knife, and he tries to attack Highfather. Highfather says, 'Stop, take my hand. You can trust me. I'll be your father, and I'll raise you, and I'll love you, but just drop the knife.'"

"And Orion does," she concluded, "He has no reason to. He was born and raised on Apokolips. He has no reason to trust anyone. But despite that, he does. And that is the nature vs. nurture. There's always potential for goodness. There's always potential to live past your expectations. Orion is the case study of that."

Ngozi Ukazu's Orion comes to bookstores everywhere July 7. You can pre-order it now.

Need more? Here's our picks for the best DC Comics stories of all time, and here's a list of all the free DC comics you can look forward to as part of this year's Free Comic Book Day 2026 and Comics Giveaway Day 2026.