DC COMICS – @DCComics
[This review was originally posted on Patreon.]
WRITER: Tom King
ART: Mitch Gerads
COLORS: Mitch Gerads
LETTERS: Clayton Cowles
COVER: Nick Derington
VARIANT COVER: Mitch Gerads
32pp, Color, $3.99 U.S. (October 2017)
Suggested for mature readers
Mister Miracle created by Jack Kirby
“Meet Mister Miracle”
Mister Miracle is a DC Comics superhero created by Jack Kirby. Mister Miracle first appeared in Mister Miracle #1 (cover dated: April 1971) and is also known as Scott Free, who is the son of Highfather, ruler of New Genesis. Highfather gave Scott to Darkseid, ruler of Apokolips, as part of a peace agreement. Free would later escape to Earth where he became the apprentice of the escape artist Thaddeus Brown, the original Mister Miracle.
2017 marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Mister Miracle's creator, Jack Kirby. What better time than now to start this new comic book, Mister Miracle, a 12-issue miniseries (once called a “maxi-series”). It is written by Tom King and drawn and colored by Mitch Gerads, the creative team behind the acclaimed DC Comics/Vertigo series, The Sheriff of Babylon. King and Gerads are joined on this comic book by Clayton Cowles as letterer and Nick Derington as cover art.
Mister Miracle #1 (“Meet Mister Miracle”) finds Scott Free in a state of great distress. He has attempted suicide by slitting his wrists... or is this another escape trick? Everything is so confusing, and even his wife, Barda (Big Barda), seems different (brown eyes instead of blue). Then, here are his brother, Orion; his sire, High Father; and the mega-tyrant, Darkseid.
Part of me wants to never read the King-Gerads Mister Miracle again, but part of me is intrigued. This miniseries feels like one of those dark and edgy re-imaginings that DC Comics did quite a bit of in the 1980s (think Green Arrow). Or maybe it is like one of those psychological romances, by which I mean a comic book that does an excavation of a DC Comics character's interior life or mind (think Batman: Arkham Asylum).
Really what Tom King is doing is introducing by way of teasing the direction of this story. This is, as I said, intriguing, but also off-putting. Mitch Gerads' art is a soundscape of shifting graphical dialects. It is not that I think this art is bad, but I like my Mister Miracle Jack Kirby-style or at least done by an acolyte of Kirby's, say Steve Rude.
If I try the second issue of this Mister Miracle, I will talk to you about it, dear readers.
B
6 out of 10
Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"
The text is copyright © 2017 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for syndication rights and fees.
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