We've had this discussion before (on the old, old board), but this time I would like to take it beyond the Kirby series. Here is a brief summary of what has been discussed so far.
ISSUE #1: Mister Miracle, the escape artist Thadeus Brown, is preparing to make a comeback. He is practicing in a field with his dwarf assitant, Oberon, while a young man nearby looks on. When Oberon binds Mister Miracle, locks him in a cabinet and sets it afire with a flame thrower, the young man intercedes. But Mister Miracle doesn't need any help. He escapes on his own and the young man introduces himself as "Scott Free." Thadeus Brown has made a bet with a criminal named Steel Hand of Intergang. Steel Hand has wagered $10,000 that Brown will not be able to escape from his "inescapable trap," but now Steel Hand is starting to get cold feet and has sent a few of his thugs around to intimidate Brown. Scott Free, Oberon and Thadeus himself make short work of the thugs, and Mister Miracle invites Scott Free to stay at his house for a few days.
Thadeus tells Scott about his own son, lost in the war, and reminisces about his days as "The Great Thadeus." Scott offers to show him some new tricks using "gadgets," one of which he demonstrates by escaping from a set of chains. The next day, while Mister Miracle is practicing his act, a sniper takes him out with a rifle. Scott uses a box attached to his arm to ease Brown's pain ans he peacefully passes away. Later, "Mister Miracle" (actually Scott Free in disguise) confronts Steel Hand in his hideout. Scott is subdued, strapped to an Integang missile and shot into space. Somehow, Scott manages to free himself and captures Steel Hand. Oberon offers to become Scott Free's assistant, and Scott replies, "Done, Oberon! From now on, we're both part of Mister Miracle--Super Escape Artist!"
ISSUE #2: Overlord - Followers - The X-Pit - Granny Goodness - Mother Box - Boom Tube - sonic flyer - aero-discs - Darkseid
ISSUE #3: The Paranoid Pill - Dr. Bedlam - Apokolips - "animates"
ISSUE #4: Big Barda
ISSUE #5: Professor Virman Vundabar
ISSUE #6: Funky Flashman - The Female Furies (Mad Harriet, Stompa, Lashina & Burnadeth)
ISSUE #7-8: Return to Apokolips: Kanto, Harrassers, Para-Demons, Gullotina Lump of "Section Zero"
ISSUE #9: (Flashback to origin): Himon, Wonderful Willik, Auralie
ISSUE #10: Mr. Miracle and Big Barda return from Apokolips with the Female furies in tow (for some reason). they soon blunder into "X-Latitude" where they find the "Head," the world's first brain transplant into a "pseudo-tissue skull." The Head is the leader of the World Protective League, a terrorist organization which runs a "protection racket" on a global scale. Their current project is the Obital Plague Bomb. Mr/ Miracle, Big Barda and the Furies ally themselves with Muike McKraken of the All Nations Agency.
Back in the house of Thadeus Brown in the suburbs, Oberon greets a guest: Ted Brown. Ted Brown, Thadeus's son, was mentioned in issue #1 as having died in the Korean War, but Oberon has apparently tracked him down somehow. He is a failed public relations man who has never found the right act to manage. Just then, Scott Free and the gang return, having defeated the Head.
ISSUE #11: It was in the midst of producing this issue that Jack Kirby received word that DC was cancelling all of the "Fourth World" books, except Mr. Miracle which it neutered. I have heard many reasons why the bean-counters might have cancelled those titles, but the one I put the most credence in has to do with the books' "sell-through" rate. Oftne the reason is attributed to "low sales," but I don't think that's it. If you compare the annual sales figures to second tier books such as Green Lantern or Flash, you will find that New Gods and Forever People had similar circulation. But Carmine Infantino had perhaps oversold Kirby to the suits in order to get him to come to DC, and they started publishing the "Fourth World" titles at Superman levels before they had found an audience, and books were returnable in those days of newsstand distribution. Just to make up some figures, let's say DC published 500,000 copies of New Gods and sold half of them; that's 250,000 copies or a sell-through rate of 50%. But Green Lantern printed 250,000 copies a month and sold all of them; a sell-through rate of 100%. So Kirby's series were selling in good numbers, they just weren't selling through (their print runs). As soon as Jeanette Kahn took over and got a look at the sales figures, she reinstated the titles, but by that time it was too late; Kirby had returned to Marvel.
Issue #11 featured the return of Dr. Bedlam, and was really the last "Fourth World" issue of Mr. Miracle. Mr. Miracle had been selling slightly better than New Gods and Forever People, so it was spared the ax, but Kirby was forced to make him just an escape artist rather than a New God. C'est dommage.
ISSUE #12: Colonel Darby and Mystivac
ISSUE #13: Albert von Killowitz (a.k.a. "King Komodo"), a Nazi war criminal who is actually Ted's enemy.
ISSUE #14: Madame Evil Eyes runs a fake Satanic cult to cover a hijacking ring.
ISSUE #15: Shilo Norman and Mr. Fez. Like Mystivac and King Komodo and Madame Evil Eyes, Mr. Fez is one of Kirby least-inspired villains. Shilo Norman, OTOH, eventually becomes the new Mister Miracle (at least on Earth), a position he still held last time I checked. I tend to associate him with the post-Fourth World era, and sometimes forget he appeared in only four (Kirby) issues.
ISSUE #16: Professor Egg and his "insecto-sapiens" (actually Professor Exe, Master of Illusion).
ISSUE #17: "Murder Lodge" featuring Peppi Lamoko and Mungo. They run a refuge for fugitives, but sell them out to whoever is looking for them. they mistake Mister Miracle, Big Barda and Shilo for the "Ticky Trio," Mad Merkin, Della the Dinosaur and Little Bullets. It is also in this issue that Shilo gets a costume for the act, not dissimilar to the one once worn by Sandy the Golden Boy.
ISSUE #18: "Wild, Wild Wedding Guests." Mr. Miracle and Big Barda get married, and Jack Kirby trots out his "Fourth World" characters for one final lap aropund the track. From Apokolips we have Virman Vundabar, Granny Goodness, Kanto and Doctor Bedlam; from New Genesis, Orion, Lightray, Highfather and Metron; and of course Darkseid. Darkseid philosophizes that, although he wasn't able to stop the wedding, he did spoil it. "It had deep sentiment--yet little joy. But--life at best is bittersweet."
Jack Kirby gets the final word:
THE 'MISTER MIRACLE' SERIES WILL NOT BE CONTINUED... ITS NEW AND THRILLING SUCCESSOR WILL SOON BE ON SALE! LOOK FOR IT!
Thank you, Jack Kirby
Replies
THE BRAVE & THE BOLD (#112, 128, 138):
More than four and a half years passed between Mister Miracle #18 and #19. In that time, Mister Miracle guest-starred with Batman in three issues of The Brave & the Bold by Bob Haney and Jim Aparo.
#112: Although #112 appeared more than a year after Mister Miracle #18, it takes place "shortly before Mr. Miracle's recent marriage to Barda, after which they left Earth for his home world, New Genesis." Although Oberon is in it, neither Shilo Norman nor Ted Brown appears or are even mentioned. The plot concerns Atun, "the ancient Egyptians' legendary first paraoh... who gave them their science, art, and unique belief... in immortality!" It turns out [SPOILER] that Atun is an alien who actually did posess the secret of immortality but it was deemed "too great a gift for such savage, primitive beings" (i.e., Earthlings) to share. [END SPOILER]
#128: Mr. Miracle and Big Barda return from New Genesis for a "Farewell Tour" which never happens. Again, Oberon appears but not Shilo or Ted Brown. The villainess is Granny Goodness who goes by the "Gigi" in this story. Presumably that stands for her initials, but wouldn't it be wild if that was actually her first name? Her plan to to kidnap the Shah of Karkan in return for the "Once of Youth," a youth serum supposedly developed by "America's rival" power" (which seems like an odd thing for an immortal being to pursue).
#138: This issue's villain is Cosimo the Magnificent, Europe's greatest acrobat who "often competed in escape matches" with Mister Miracle. I don't remember him, but Bob Haney never felt constrained by previous writers' continuity. Cosimo was employed by the Kraken, which ended up being [SPOILER] a giant computer [END SPOILER]. Although this issue was released after Mister Miracle #19, a footnote places it just prior.
I started reading all of The Brave & the Bold starting with the Batman team-ups a couple of years ago with the intention of continuing into Batman & the Outsiders, but I abandoned that project before completion. I have to get back to that someday.
MISTER MIRACLE #19:
I didn't read any of Kirby's "Fourth World" titles until New Gods was reprinted in 1985. To be perfectly honest, I had never even heard of New Gods or Forever People prior to that, but as soon as I became aware of them I started picking up the backissues. Once I had collected all of those, I began to move forward into the post-Kirby issues, and was quite pleasantly pleased to discover that Mister Miracle #19-22 were by the "definitive" Batman team of Steve Englehart and Marshall Rogers. Their classic run on Detective Comics was another series I had missed in the '70s which I familiarized myself with when it was reprinted in the Shadow of the Bat min-series in the '80s. So why isn't their Mister Miracle considered "definitive"? The answer is obvious, on would think: Jack Kirby's series is definitive. But before I post my thoughts on #19, let's look at Steve Englehart's.
Steve Englehart: "I came to DC to do The Batman and JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA, but Marshall Rogers and I had some free time so they revived MISTER MIRACLE for us (continuing the numbering from where Jack Kirby had left off years before). I had time to do three issues, then for some reason they needed a fourth from me just as I was about to leave the country. I dashed out that issue literally overnight and, because I didn't think it measured up to my previous issues, put my pseudonym, John Harkness, on it. But most people seem to like it okay."
Englehart defines Mister Miracle as four in one: a (New) God, a super-hero, an escape artist and a man. He and Barda have settled on New Genesis, leaving Orion and others to fight the war with Apokolips. (I might note at this point that Marshall Rogers has drawn Himon to more closely resemble Jack Kirby.) Suddenly, a boom tube appears, and Granny Goodness, Kanto, Dr. Bedlam and Vermin Vundabar emerge from it an kidnap Big Barda, but instead of taking her to Apokolips, they take her to Earth. Scott Free follows, stopping first at the house of Thadeus Brown to pick up Oberon. (Ted and Shilo are neither seen nor mentioned.) Using Mother Box to track Barda's kidnappers to an abandoned mine in Utah, Mister Miracle purposefully walks into their trap. He escapes, but the villains get away with Barda. A throwaway remark by Vermin Vundabar about "lookinh down on Earth" leads Scott to conclude that they have taken Barda to the the Moon.
MISTER MIRACLE #20:
Mister Miracle collects Oberon and tries to retrieve his Mother Box which he was forced to abandon last issue, but She tells him She is beyond repair and that all of the Miracles She bestowed are no a part of him. Up until now, he had none of the powers of the other Gods which were his birthright. He uses his powers to fly himself and Oberon to the Moon without harm. Meanwhile, the four baddies have brainwashed Big Barda and force them to fight. Scott loses and, when he awakens, finds his arms strapped to twin missiles ("dis-missiles," actually). The villains clear the launch pad and he (of course) escapes. By this time, Oberon has managed to free Big Barda and she's running around loose, still brainwashed. Scott supplies Oberon with an "air-plume" and they venture out to the surface of the Moon and are quickly attacked by Barda. Scott subdues her this time, and decides to let Granny et al get away for now in order to deprogram Barda on New Genesis.
This series is as good as anything else Englehart and/or Rodgers have done together or separately.
MISTER MIRACLE #21:
Barda is not responding to treatment on New Genesis. In addition to brainwashing her against her husband, she was also brainwashed to lose the will to live if separated from Granny Goodness. Oberon refers to Highfather as "Chief" to avoid thinking of the implication of who he might be now that Mister Miracle considers himself to be a messiah. Himon is revealed to have been a New God from New Genesis all along, not a native of Apokolips as Kirby established. He was in on "The Pact" with Highfather, and more details are revealed surrounding why Highfather would ever have agreed to such a thing. Basically, he foresaw a time in which his son would need to be tough in order to fight against Darkseid, a kind of "Boy Named Sue" situation. I had forgotten that. Much of this series will be rendered a "Mopee" by later series. Mister Miracle decides to "preach" his first "sermon" on Apokolips for the Lowlies. The entire thing is broadcast to Barda on her sick bed. When she sees her husband escape from all of Darkseid's traps, she recovers. Hope begins to take root in Armagetto.
MISTER MIRACLE #22:
We are now up to the story from which Steve Englehart had his name removed. Here's what he had to say about it: "Note that later, in the dark days of FANTASTIC FOUR, 'John Harkness' came to mean that I'd been prevented from doing a good job, but here, it meant only that I didn't think I'd met my own standards." But, as previously quoted, he added that "most people seem to like it okay."
Mister Miracle decides to take the fight directly to Darkseid, despite Oberon's objections. Oberon contacts the "Chief" (Highfather) for help, but he and Himon seem to think it's pretty funny. Mister Miracle allows himself to be captured and is confined by Kanto, but manages to escape (because that's his thing). He comes face-to-face with Darkseid, who throws him down the "Cerberus Chute." There's not a lot of depth to this story, but it's not bad for one that was written "literally overnight."
MISTER MIRACLE #23:
#22 was Steve Englehart and Marshall Rogers' last issue; #23 is the first (of three) by Steve Gerber and Michael Golden, another surprise for me when I first read them. (I was first introduced to Michael Golden in Micronauts: Special Edition and was reading Mister Miracle as backissues, remember.) Mister Miracle falls down the Cerberus Chute, lands on a giant gameboard, and meets an androgenous being who introduces him/herself as "Ethos." Mr. miracle at first mistakes him/her as the embodiment of Mother Box, but Ethos explains that he/she is beyond concepts of good or evil. The rest of the issue is one of those symbollic, metaphysical mish-mashes one might expect from Steve Gerber. The practical uphot of this experience is that Scot Free, the offspring of both New Genesis and Apokolips, is not a god at all ("new" or otherwise), but is actually a human. This is something of a EYKIW regarding Englehart's stories. We'll have to wait and see how that affects his role as "messiah."
That may (or may not) connect to later plots. There was a time when DC was publishing "Jack Kirby's Fourth World" when Scott ascended to the throne of New Genesis and insisted on asking Shazam whether he could get rid of his own godhood first. I don't think it was explained why, nor who was the recipient of that godhood. Shazam turned up in the "Power of Shazam!" book not too long after with surprising and perhaps unexplained new powers, for what it is worth.
No, you've got it right. Consider this exchange from JKFW #12:
BARDA: Do not be too quick to judge, Shilo! Sooner or later we all make decisions we regret.
TED: I get the feeling that's directed at your husband, Barda.
SCOTT: Oh? Is Ted right, honey? Do you think I'm doing something I'll come to regret?
BARDA: Giving over your God Power to the wizard Shazam does not seem altogether wise--especially if you mean to recommence your career as Mister Miracle.
Mister Miracle's waxing and waning Godhood reminds me of when Captain America gained super-strength for a while in the '70s. That was a bad idea; it's much more impressive if Captain America has only the power of a normal man (a physically perfect normal man, yes, but normal nonetheless). It doesn't make sense (to some) that Scot Free wouldn't have "god powers," but that also lessens the effect of his escapes (for others) if that's what he uses to make his escapes.
MISTER MIRACLE #24:
It strikes me that the Englehart/Gerber's "messiah" Mister Mracle reminds me a bit of Jim Starlin's Warlock, another of my faves. Mister Miracle collects Oberon and the retreat to New Genesis, where they find Big Barda fully recovered. He renounces his ties to both New Genesis and Apokolips and relocates to Earth to begin his career as messiah. He soon sells Thadeus Brown's home without discussing it, which is kind of a dick move since Oberon had lived there for 30 years. (Big Barda had to punch him in the face at one point because he was becoming too ful of himself.) He then contacts Ted Brown and hires him to become the act's PR man again. The plan is to move to California ("where most of the nation's fads originate") because his new "ministry" needs "that fanatic mentality," but their first stop on the way is Las Vegas.
In the Mojave Desert, a husband and wife observe their daughter battling a rattlesnake in some sort of test. The mother has been grooming the daughter for issue #25.
Mister Miracle next big escape is an 800 foot drop into the Colorado River at the Hoover Dam. He has designed it to be highly symbolic, a "double-bind" metaphor representing "the 'choice' between suffocation and the harrowing plunge into the unknown" (although I question how many among his audience of thrill-seekers picked up on that). He survives the stunt and ascends into the air with his arms outstretched, with the sun in the background providing a halo effect.
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