Retro Trade Review: Mister Miracle by Steve Englehart and Stever Gerber w/ Marshall Rogers, Michael Golden, and more!

Contains The Brave and the Bold #112, 128, 138, Mister Miracle #19 – 25, and DC Comics Presents #12 (April 1974 – August 1979)

Written by Bob Haney (BatB #112, 128, 138), Steve Englehart (MM #19-21, DCCP #12) John Harkness (who is Steve Englehart; MM #22), Steve Gerber (MM #23-25)

Pencilled by Jim Aparo (BatB #112, 128, 138), Marshall Rogers (MM #19-22), Michael Golden (#23-25), Rich Buckler (DCCP #12)

Inked by Jim Aparo (BatB #112, 128, 138), Ilya Hunch (MM #19), Vince Colletta (MM #20-21), Rick Bryant (MM #22), John Fuller (MM #22), Joe Giella (MM #23), Russ Heath (MM #24-25), Dick Giordano (DCCP #12)

Coloured by Jerry Serpe (BatB #138, DCCCP #12), Liz Berube (MM #19-21), W. Argyle Nelson-Smith (MM #22), D.R. Martin (MM #23), Cory Adams (MM #24-25)

Spoilers from forty-seven to fifty-two years ago

I’ve written before about how Mister Miracle is my favourite of the Fourth World characters, and while I’ve never really engaged with the work that Jack Kirby did with them, I’ve often enjoyed seeing other creators take their swings with them.

In the early 1970s, Kirby was back at DC, producing a massive amount of material, until he wasn’t. After a period of about three years, the title returned, under the guidance of legendary creators Steve Englehart and Marshall Rogers. Englehart didn’t stay on the book for long (there’s an issue where he asked to not be credited for his writing), and then Steve Gerber took over. Shortly after that Michael Golden came on board to draw the comic. This title was canceled with issue twenty-five, despite the fact that issue twenty-six was being produced; it was a victim of the infamous DC Implosion of the late 70s, I think. Rogers and Golden are among the two best artists of that era, and when I saw this nice hardcover reprinting their work, I couldn’t resist it. 

I knew I had some of the issues contained here, having picked them up in $0.50 bins over the years, but I was surprised to see, when I dug out the right longbox, that I actually have all of them, albeit in pretty rough shape. The thing is, I only have scattered memories of the story they tell, given that I probably never read them in order.

Anyway, for some reason this book opens with three issues of The Brave and the Bold, not written by Englehart or Gerber (Bob Haney, of course, is the writer), which makes the title of this volume a bit inaccurate. I assume that these are here to fill in whatever happened to Scott Free and his friends after the Kirby run ended. This book also ends with an issue of DC Comics Presents, although it is at least written by Englehart.

I’m sure there’s an interesting story of what happened behind the scenes with this book, and I’m equally as interested in knowing why DC would choose to collect such a troubled title, but since there is no forward or afterword in this book, I’ll have to do some internet sleuthing. Anyway, I’m here for the actual comics, and I’m curious to see how the various pieces in this book fit together.

This book features the following characters:

Villains:

• Ingrid Borg (BatB #112)
• Granny Goodness (BatB #128, MM #19-21, 25)
• Cosimo (BatB #138)
• Kraken (BatB #138)
• Dr. Bedlam (MM #19-21)
• Kanto (MM #19-22)
• Vermin Vundabar (MM #19-21)
• Darkseid (MM #21-22, 25)
• Kalibak (MM #21)
• Marvelous Marno (MM #22)
• Intergang (DCCP #12)

Guest Stars

• Batman (Bruce Wayne; BatB #112, 128, 138)
• James Gordon (BatB #112, 128)
• Atun (BatB #112)
• Superman (Clark Kent; DCCP #12)

Supporting Characters:

• Oberon (BatB #112, 128, MM #19-22, 24-25, DCCP #12)
• Big Barda (BatB #112, 128, MM #19-21, 24-25, DCCP #12)
• The Shah of Karkan (BatB #128)
• Highfather (Izaya; MM #19, 21-22, 24)
• Himon (MM #19, 21-22, 24)
• Hecate (MM #21)
• Nuit (MM #21)
• Virgoon (Lowlie; MM #22)
• Ethos (MM #23)
• Ted Brown (MM #24-25)
• Ida Hubbard (MM #24-25)
• Rex Hubbard (MM #24-25)
• Alianna (MM #24-25)
• Lois Lane (DCCP #12)
• Jimmy Olson (DCCP #12)

Let’s see what happened in the comics, with some commentary as I go:

• Having read this first Brave and the Bold story, from issue 112, I’m even more puzzled as to why it was included. It opens with Commissioner Gordon and the GCPD, with Batman, moving towards an art museum that has been attacked by people in purple suits and orange masks. The men outside the museum are shot down by the cops, while Batman fires a tear gas canister into the museum. Batman, Gordon, and some cops rush the place, but Batman senses something (he claims he has Bat-sense, which is something I’ve never heard of again) and covers Gordon as a grenade goes off inside the museum. The curator appears with a statue that was found in a newly-recovered tom of Hotep. He believes that the men were after it, as it contains the secret of the location of the tomb of Atun, the first pharaoh, who knew the secrets of immortality. An Inspector from the Egyptian National Police appears accusing the museum of having stolen all these relics, which the curator disputes. Batman agrees to go to Egypt to investigate. Somewhere, some men stand over another man who is attached to medical devices; they say they can only keep him alive for another couple of weeks, and decide they need another plan, since Operation: Hotep failed. In Paris, Mister Miracle has chained himself to the lightning rod on top of the Eiffel Tower. Below, Oberon and Barda worry about him. Just as the tower is hit by lightning, Mister Miracle escapes and finds a woman, Dr. Ingrid Borg, waiting for him with a dare. When Batman arrives in Cairo, he finds the guy who arranged the sale to the museum has been killed. He talks to the Inspector, and then heads into the desert to find the Tomb of Atun. During a sandstorm, Batman’s guide tries to kill him. The same storm brings down Ingrid and Miracle’s helicopter, but he manages to escape. Batman finds a bat-shaped rock over a pool, and recognizing its description from the relic, dives into the water and finds a secret door; he’s found Atun’s Tomb! Mister Miracle and Ingrid have also found their way inside (we’re not told how), and she starts to translate some pictograms. We learn that Atun was a leader who brought much advancement to the Egyptians, but the day he was going to share the secrets of immortality, a beam hit him and he disappeared. They created a tomb for him and decreed that from then on, all notable Egyptians will be buried with the things they need in the afterlife. Ingrid is happy that they’ve found the tomb, and as she runs around excitedly, she triggers a wall which traps them in a room. They are joined by Atun himself, who asks where his people are. Ingrid claims to be a descendant of Hotep, and when he says that the secret of immortality is in his sceptre, she grabs it and runs, with Miracle following. They get trapped again, in a room where the floor is about to crush them into the ceiling. Miracle blasts a hole in the ceiling, and they move on. Another trap causes Ingrid to fall into a pit, but Miracle flies down and saves her. His technology leads him to an exit, and that’s when Ingrid turns on him, pulling out a gun and shooting at him. He evades her, causing her to shoot wildly in the enclosed space. She gets hit by her own ricochet and dies. Taking the sceptre, Miracle looks for the actual way out (he was suspicious of her and lied about what his circuitry told him). He finds Atun’s sarcophagus and is surprised by what he finds inside it. Just then Atun enters and fires energy at him from his helmet; Miracle fires back with his mask; Atun collapses and, upon taking off his helmet, is confused. He’s actually Batman! Miracle found his costume in the sarcophagus, and he explains he put on the ancient clothing out of curiosity (this is not a very Batman thing to do). They leave the helmet behind but keep the sceptre. An energy beam appears and starts to chase them. They find their way into a hidden chamber, where they discover the ‘boat’ Atun first arrived in. It’s actually a spaceship, and as the beam returns, Miracle pilots it out of the tomb. Once they’re outside, the tomb collapses and the river buries it. Both the spaceship and sceptre both crumble to dust, and Miracle admits that he felt like something had taken over his mask and guided them out. Elsewhere, the people we saw before declare that their master is dead (I wonder if this group ever appeared in BatB again). On another planet, some aliens tell Atun that they don’t think Earth is ready for immortality. (I get the feeling Haney was reading some weird stuff about the pyramids in the 70s and it fueled this story, which is pretty wild and ridiculous.)
• It would appear that in 1976, Gotham was experiencing the global energy crisis, so when the Shah of Karkan, a massive oil producer, was set to come to the city, the Gotham Police (who I guess manage state visits) arranged for Batman to be on hand to help out. Batman, though, is inspecting an abandoned arena, where he sees what looks like someone throwing a body in a sack off the roof. He moves to catch the body, but it bursts out of its sack; it’s Mister Miracle! Barda grabs Batman, and Miracle explains that after marrying Barda, he grew bored of living on New Genesis, so they’ve returned (with Oberon) to arrange for his big come-back show. They are practicing in secret, and Batman agrees to keep quiet about it. He leaves to meet the Shah. As it turns out, there’s a very complicated plot involving Batman and the Shah disguising themselves as laundry van workers, and to keep up their disguise, they complete a full route of picking up and dropping off laundry. Once Batman gets to their destination, though, he finds that the Shah is missing, and there’s a ransom note signed ‘Gigi’. Commissioner Gordon is very worried, and when the President calls, Batman lies and says that the original decoy Shah is the real Shah once he discovers that Gordon’s phone is bugged (there is a red rectangle on the bottom of it, which apparently can’t hear discussions in the room). Batman effectively tells the kidnappers where the Shah is, then rushes out. He returns to Mister Miracle, trying to get him to help him. He has to cheat in a contest first; he and Miracle are frozen in ice, and Batman breaks free first. That night, Batman, disguised as the Shah, goes to bed. A helicopter comes above him and lifts the four-poster bed out through a skylight. Batman, disguised as the Shah, is surprised when the helicopter moves under the water and moves towards the remains of a heavy cruiser that was sunk during the Second World War off Gotham. On board, he finds a woman sitting with the real Shah. This is when Gigi makes her appearance – it’s Granny Goodness. She explains that she wants to be young again, and wants to use the Shah to bargain so she can get an ounce of a youth serum that takes years to produce. She threatens to kill both Shahs unless they reveal who they are; Batman reveals who he is (ripping off a mask, we see that his cowl ears are still sticking up, which makes no sense). Granny now plans on killing them both still, but that’s when Mister Miracle arrives on the scene, explaining that he was hiding in the Shah’s bed. The Shah karate chops Granny’s arm, and soon the three men are running from her goons, who are shooting at them. They get trapped in a room that starts to flood, but Miracle uses his finger lasers to break down the water. They find one aqualung and Miracle insists that Batman and the Shah use the buddy system to get to the surface. Miracle cuts the hull of the ship open and Batman leads the Shah out. Miracle realizes there is a store of gunpowder in the adjacent room and uses his laser to blow it up. Batman and the Shah reach the surface and are joined by Miracle, who won’t explain that his cape is bombproof. This story is ridiculous.

• Brave and the Bold #138 opens with Batman and someone in a plane, flying a chartered plane towards Trond-Hag, a volcanic island. The pilot decides he’s too afraid to go to the island, with its strange magnetic field, so he pushes Batman and his companion out of the plane. As they fall, they realize their parachute cables have been cut. Luckily, Batman’s with Mister Miracle, who changes into his costume and uses his anti-grav discs to catch Batman. The magnetic field impacts them too, and they crash into the water. As they swim to the island, we learn that Batman used a radio signal he got from Superman to call Mister Miracle on New Genesis and get him to come help him find his friend Steve Lang who was exploring the caves on the island when he went missing (at no point does he explain why he would need Miracle’s help). Reaching the island, they are almost taken out by a lava flow, but Miracle uses his finger lasers to vaporize it. They see that the inside of the island is full of machinery, and that the lava was fake. They enter and start to explore. Batman sees Lang’s pickaxe, but it’s booby trapped. Luckily Miracle saves Batman. They are confronted by Cosimo (picture a cross between Batroc and Crossfire and you’ll get an idea of this guy’s terrible costume). He’s an old enemy of Miracle’s (I guess that’s a coincidence?), but Miracle is able to keep him from attacking by throwing tracking pebbles under his boots. Batman and Miracle run, and we learn that Cosimo is also an escape artist who has a grudge against Miracle. They trigger another attack but Miracle saves them with his cape. Cosimo finds them and shoots at them, so Miracle distracts him while Batman flanks and tries to grab him. Cosimo escapes, but they find Steve Lang, who keeps repeating the word Kraken and seems drugged. Cosimo manages to catch both heroes in a net. Cosimo knocks out and strips Miracle, so he can’t use the circuitry in his suit. Cosimo lets Kraken, his boss, know that he’s got them, and is told how to follow a radio signal to get out of the maze of tunnels. He sees that Miracle has escaped and has a gun on him, so he frees Batman. Really, both heroes are still in the net, so Cosimo runs. Miracle gets dressed and explains that he used hypnosis on Cosimo. They follow the radio signal to leave, and get caught in another booby trap that they figure killed Cosimo. They keep moving through the tunnels and find a huge cache of gold and treasures, such as the Mona Lisa. Kraken, it turns out, is a giant computer named after a Viking legend. They figure that it’s a big crime boss that’s been responsible for all of their problems. Batman concocts a plan to get Kraken’s data, and we see that someone shadowy is somewhere, watching this on a screen. Batman starts to recite the Mary had a little lamb rhyme, and it makes the computer go crazy and blow up. They run, and because they feel some wind, Miracle makes his cape into a balloon filled with helium pellets, and lets it carry him, Batman, and Lang to freedom as the island explodes. We learn that Batman managed to steal all the data out of Kraken, leaving his voice for Kraken’s unseen master to use. Batman explains that he’ll use the data to track down the whole network of criminals involved. I wonder if any of these plotlines got picked up in later issues, or if that’s it.
• Now that we’ve gotten through the Brave and the Bold issues, it’s time to focus on the books that I bought this hardcover for. Mister MIracle #19 features writing by Steve Englehart and pencils by Marshall Rogers (with inks by Ilya Hunch, who I believe is a pseudonym). Scott and Barda are hanging out in the gardens of New Genesis, feeling a little guilty for not being involved in the war with Darkseid that is currently raging elsewhere (Scott draws the comparison to how peaceful life was in American during the Vietnam War). Highfather joins them and recaps Scott’s backstory (traded to live on Apokolips as an infant, growing up under Granny Goodness’s care, and then escaping to Earth). HIghfather doesn’t want Scott or Barda to fight anymore, and he leaves them to make out. A boom tube opens and Granny Goodness, Dr. Bedlam, Kanto, and Vermin Vundabar spill out. There’s a fight, but in the end they manage to shackle Barda and hold Scott. As they are taken back into the boom tube, Scott escapes. Highfather and others arrive, but Izaya explains he can’t afford to pull anyone off the front lines to help Scott. Scott returns to Earth to recruit his little friend Oberon. He tells him what happens, and refuses to explain how his Mother Box works, but soon they are off, flying to Nevada where the Mother Box says Barda is. Scott is about to enter a mine when a projection appears; Granny tells him that he can negotiate for Barda’s release if he removes his Mother Box before joining them. He slips away from Oberon and takes it off, while also removing the circuitry from his mask (this makes him very sad). He hides x-ray lenses, a dyno-therm bomb, and an electronic lock pick on his body and enters the mine. Kanto doesn’t find these when he searches Scott. Granny shows him that she has employed a device to make Barda more obedient to her, but she knows that Scott can’t be reprogrammed. Instead, she has Kanto and Vundabar shackle him and seal him in a tank of water. Like all villains, they walk away, and Scott goes to work freeing himself. Just as Granny is going to work on Barda some more, they see Scott coming and boom tube away. Scott believes they are on the moon, so he plans to look there next.

• Oberon goes looking in the mine shaft for Scott, only to be grabbed by him as he runs out, barely ahead of a strange blast. Scott tries to put his mother box back together, but she’s too badly damaged. He pours his love and belief into her while Oberon watches, skeptically, but can’t save her. Instead, the mother box speaks to him, telling him that everything she ever showed him is now inside him. Scott realizes he has the godly powers of the other New Gods now, and manages to fly Oberon to the moon to look for Barda. Granny continues her ‘treatments’ on Barda while her underlings bicker. Dr. Bedlam (who is apparently not a physical being) takes possession of an animate and changes it to look like Mister Miracle. Bedlam then attacks Barda, who fights back (we see that this is part of Granny’s plan to turn her to their side). This is when Scott arrives and fights Bedlam and the others. Barda attacks him though, and then takes off. Granny has Scott manacled to two separate missiles, so that he’ll be pulled apart when they launch (she makes a reference to Jesus here). Scott still has a dyno-mite bomb in his glove. The missiles launch, and the underlings squabble over whether or not Scott is actually dead. They go looking for Barda and realize she’s escaped onto the surface of the moon. One of their ‘air plumes’ is missing, so Granny deduces that Oberon must have helped Barda. He watches this, and then Scott grabs him again, revealing that he escaped the death trap. He explains that he used his little bomb to free one hand, and then rode the other rocket, using his new powers to stay alive. Oberon puts on an air-plume and they go looking for Barda. She finds them and attacks Scott. They fight, and eventually he is able to put her down (this would never happen in a current comic). Scott needs to take Barda to New Genesis immediately to save her mind, so they have to let Granny get away. Scott explains that Granny’s comparing him to Christ gave him an idea, and now he wants to go to Apokolips and use his escape arts show to inspire the people to rebel against Darkseid.
• On New Genesis, Highfather explains that Barda is dying because Granny Goodness programmed her to resist deprogramming, and made it so she’d lose her will to live if Granny wasn’t around. To that end, they’ve had a New God named Hecate dress like Granny, but it’s not been enough. Scott refuses to give up. Oberon and Highfather talk about Scott’s character, and how Oberon knows him better than his father. Scott goes to talk to Himon about why he was blocked from developing his powers. Himon explains that they needed him to build his own courage on Apokolips as a child, and therefore they withheld his natural abilities. Scott leaves for Apokolips. Granny goes to see Darkseid to show him a flyer for Scott’s intended escape act. He sees humour in it. Scott shows Oberon around the armagetto (one of Kirby’s best names) as they prepare to broadcast a message. Scott announces himself to the lowlies, while his message is broadcast back home for Barda to watch. He promises to show them how to escape Darkseid at his Terrorium. He and Oberon escape as Darkseid’s forces come to arrest him. Back on New Genesis, Barda seems a little better. Darkseid sets himself up at the Terrorium, so when Scott’s show begins with fireworks spelling out his name, he can confront him. They talk, and Darkseid’s minions search Scott and Oberon for devices. They bind them and take them into the arena, where they are strapped to a machine called a necro-file (okay, that one is pretty funny too). It’s a big spinning blade thing that is hard to make out because of the way Rogers laid out this page. Basically, the blade descends and chops them up, but Scott knows how to mess with it, and so while they duck into the machine, it grinds itself up. Scott and Oberon emerge unscathed and tell the large audience that he’s going to go to war with Darkseid soon. Before leaving, he dedicates this work to Barda, who wakes up back on New Genesis in her right mind.

• Issue twenty-two’s writer is credited as John Harkness, a pseudonym that Englehart often used. On his website he wrote that he used this name because he wrote this issue in a hurry and wasn’t proud of it, but also points out that it does not denote that he was unhappy with his editor, which is typically the case when that name appears on a Fantastic Four book. Anyway, Scott tells Oberon that he has to kill Darkseid, but Oberon thinks that he’s not up for it. They are attacked by some armored goons, and they kill them. One of them has a projector on his back, and a message from Darkseid is played, telling Scott that if he doesn’t come to him, he will destroy the Earth. Later, Scott sneaks into the structure around a Fire Pit. Oberon gets in touch with Highfather and Himon, asking for help. They find the whole thing kind of funny. Oberon escapes when missiles destroy his communication device. Mister Miracle starts to speak to some workers, but guards come and capture him easily. He then breaks out of his shackles and fights, but gives up when he realizes they will kill the workers. As he’s taken away, they kill the workers anyway. As Scott’s being led inside, Kanto comes up and finds more devices hidden on him. Scott is placed in a cage and lowered into a cavern. He’s told that Darkseid doesn’t want to see him, so he uses the bomb that Kanto figured he’d have but couldn’t find and escapes. He makes his way to the Cerebus Chute, where Darkseid has his throne room. Scott sneaks in and explores in the dark until Darkseid appears before him. Scott says he wants to fight, and uses the weapon he stole from a guard earlier (and managed to conceal), but it doesn’t hurt Darkseid at all. The villain talks about how light and dark must always be in conflict, suggesting that there will always be war between New Genesis and Apokolips. Darkseid laughs as he teleports or somehow transports Scott away.
• Stever Gerber and Michael Golden take over with issue twenty-three (although it doesn’t look like Golden had a ton of time to work on this issue, as it’s less detailed than his other art in this period). Scott is falling through space after whatever Darkseid did last issue, and as he falls, he worries about Oberon and Barda. He finds himself stopping on a floating checkerboard, where a robed figure named Ethos greets him. For a moment, Scott thinks Ethos is his Mother Box, but he’s corrected. Ethos explains that they are “the embodiment of a principle”, and that they want to help him understand himself. Ethos sends Scott through a door, and he finds himself in a flying vehicle with Oberon, competing in a race of some sort against Darkseid. Scott figures out that Ethos is saying that the war between New Genesis and Apokolips is essential to universal balance, and will therefore never have a winner. He tries to rally the Lowlies to fight Darkseid, so Darkseid kills them. Scott finds himself back with Ethos, who sends him through to New Genesis, where Scott thinks about how he’s different from the other New Gods. Orion (in his hideous 70s costume) attacks him for being against their cause. Scott gets knocked down, and realizes he’s landed on a bunch of tiny humans who are building a mountain. Barda attacks next, accusing Scott of not caring about the consequences of his actions. He doesn’t want to fight her so he flees, and sees Mother Box, who shrinks him to human size. A human (with antennae and a bikini) puts Scott to work. Darkseid, who is still giant-sized in comparison, appears and threatens to stomp on Scott and the others. He uses all his power to deflect his weight, toppling him, but crushing many humans anyway. Scott feels horrible, but Ethos’s touch soothes him. Ethos helps him to realize that when he fled Apokolips the first time, he went to Earth for a reason. She helps him realize that despite being born of New Genesis and raised on Apokolips, Scott is actually human. Scott’s metaphoric chains disappear, and he’s ready to return to his world with full knowledge of self (although that doesn’t explain all the new powers he got a couple of issues back).

• Russ Heath inking Michael Golden gives us the kind of art I was expecting when I started this book; his faces are so interesting, and there’s a sleekness to the art that the previous issue was missing. We open on Apokalips, where Oberon has been found in the wastelands by a couple of Darkseid’s stormtroopers. Scott arrives and takes them out. He can’t really explain where he’s been to Oberon, but then they are attacked by more troopers. After defeating them, Scott uses his new teleporting powers to take them both directly to New Genesis. They go to Barda’s room and find Highfather and Himon with her. Barda’s back to normal and happy to see her husband. Scott says they are going home to Earth, and when Highfather asks where he’s been, he refuses to tell him. Highfather gets angry and summons the power of the Source, but so does Scott. He declares that he’s no longer a citizen of New Genesis and will be a free agent. Himon asks if he’s working for Apokalips, but Scott gets mad and then teleports back to Earth with Barda and Oberon. When they go in their house, Barda wants alone time with Scott, but Scott is hung up on not being able to explain what he’s learned. He says that he wants to be an alternative to the ways of both of his other planets; Barda’s annoyed enough to slug him in the face, and then take him to bed. The next morning, Scott leaves early and visits a number of strange local businesses, before going to the office of Ted Brown, his public relations guy. He has big plans and wants Ted to help him. In a weird interlude, we see a young woman walking through the Mojave Desert by herself, while (presumably) her parents watch through binoculars. Ida and Rex argue, with Ida insisting that the girl, Alianna, is able to take care of herself. She kills a snake. Scott announces to Barda and Oberon that he’s sold their house (Oberon is not happy) because they’re moving to California, with a stop at Las Vegas first. When they pull into Vegas, we figure out that Scott has an escape planned, and we learn it’s one he’s putting a lot of symbolism into. The next day, Scott is chained up and put in a steel coffin that is welded shut. He’s attached to a helicopter by a chain, and flown to the Hoover Dam. Once Ted and the others arrive, his coffin is dropped into the Colorado River (at the lower end of the dam). Time passes, and Barda gets angry at an onlooker who makes a joke, but then Scott appears, flying above them all.
• After his trick, Scott addresses the crowd, speaking words meant to inspire them to shake off their own shackles, while Oberon, Ted, and Barda debate Scott’s ability to play a messiah role. Darkseid is also watching from Apokolips, and feels that doing motivational speaking on Earth makes Scott too dangerous for his own plans. He tasks Granny Goodness with stopping him. Just then, some of Darkseid’s photon troopers attack Scott, but he’s able to defeat them while the crowd watches. Scott thinks that Darkseid thinks he’s solved the anti-life equation, even though this has never been mentioned in this book before now. Oberon worries that they are now going to be a target, while Darkseid decides they should attack with evils from Earth. Later, Scott and his crew chat, and he explains how he escaped from his chains and metal coffin (if he used his new phasing abilities to protect himself from the impact when he fell into the water, why not just use them to escape?). From here, the narrative switches to the Hubbard family, who we last saw in the desert. We learn that Alianna was in a terrible accident that left her paralyzed and in constant pain as a child, but her mother encouraged her and shared her strength with her, allowing the girl to learn to master her pain. She became very strong and athletic, and does not feel things like fire, since she is already in agony (even though it doesn’t show on her quiet, stoic face). We learn that her mother sees her as a potential superhero, but then Granny Goodness appears. Scott and crew fly to Los Angeles, where they are met by a real estate agent who has purchased a spacious home in the hills (for seventy-five thousand dollars). Oberon is salty but comes around quickly. After they settle in, Ted asks about all the messiah conversation, so Scott explains, reminding him of the struggle between New Genesis and Apokolips, mentioning that it’s all about the anti-life equation. Just then, they realize they are being attacked – Barda and Oberon have been knocked out by gas, and Scott pulls on his mask to protect himself. It’s Alianna, and she attacks Scott, surprising him with her speed. She knocks him down and Granny chastises her for not killing him first. Alianna argues that she doesn’t want to kill. Granny starts to choke her, but Scott recovers and punches Granny in the stomach. Granny says that Alianna’s parents are dead, and that she’s going to go look for the anti-Christ equivalent of Scott as she teleports away. And that was the end of this series, because of the DC Implosion of 1978. I don’t think any of the threads of Scott’s messianic plans were ever resolved.

• When Mister Miracle turned up in DC Comics Presents #12, and was written by Steve Englehart, I thought he’d maybe return to some of the themes from his MM run, but that was not the case. Scott completed an impressive trick in the Nevada desert, but was frustrated that the network that aired it was competing with a Superman documentary at the same time, and didn’t draw a large audience. Flying around Las Vegas, he spots a woman that he knows is an Intergang chieftain who just escaped from prison. He follows her to a meeting with other Intergang leaders, where he learns they’ve developed a ‘mentropy machine’, which they intend to use to destroy Superman’s memory, so he forgets how to live and dies. They test the device on an Intergang member who was planning on testifying against them, wiping the part of his memory that would allow him to tell anyone about them. The woman says she feels like she’s being watched, so they teleport away on their thought-waves, taking the machine with them (I don’t understand how that works either). Mister Miracle phones Clark Kent to pass on a message to Superman about how he was in danger, but he finds he can’t talk or write about what he learned (which is not really how memory works, but okay). Realizing he can’t warn the hero, he hatches a complicated plot to go to Metropolis and prove he’s better than Superman. He starts rescuing people from trucks and collapsed buildings and stuff, being sure to try to show up Superman in the process. Superman confides to Jimmy Olson that he’s a little bothered. Finally, Superman finds Mister Miracle on patrol, and tries to have a conversation with him, suggesting he go to another city where there are no heroes to help out. Scott instead challenges him to a battle. We learn through a number of news broadcasts that they are going to fight in an uninhabitable (due to nuclear bomb testing) area of the Nevada desert, with the press waiting to hear what happens. Before they fight, as a storm rolls in, Scott tells Superman which way Vegas is in case he gets lost, and then uses a number of tricks to distract and stay ahead of Superman in their fight. Finally, Superman defeats him, knocking him out with a punch, and then heading back to Vegas (it’s hard to believe Superman wouldn’t make sure he’s not too badly hurt). The Intergang guys have set up their device at the edge of the fight zone, expecting Superman to fly over, but it’s Mister Miracle who shows up and destroys their machine. This restores his ability to explain things, so when Superman flies up, angry that he’d been sent in the wrong direction, he’s able to explain everything to him.

It’s very strange to me that DC decided to publish this book. It’s clear that they wanted to release the Englehart and Gerber issues, but that there wasn’t enough there for a hardcover, so they added the random Brave and the Bold and DC Comics Presents issues to pad out the book, since they do not have anything to do with one another. 

I haven’t read any of Bob Haney’s Brave and the Bold before now, and I can see why people have such high regard for the book (especially the Jim Aparo issues), because it’s fun to see Batman team up with random heroes, but the book is also a bit annoying – there don’t appear to be subplots or anything that builds from one issue to the next. At least in Marvel Team-Up, Marvel tried to give Spider-Man story arcs. I imagine the same holds true for DC Comics Presents. They were simply episodic stories that could be read in any order, it seems. I guess that’s cool, but I’d expected Englehart to at least touch on some of the work he’d already done with Scott’s character in the DCCP issue.

Now, for the main event, the seven issues of Mister Miracle’s own title, that are the centrepiece of this book. These were weird comics. To begin with, I’d always assumed that Steve Englehart was taken off the book over creative differences, but on his blog, he claims that he was only ever set to write three issues, and then was extended for a fourth that he didn’t really have time for (hence the John Harkness pseudonym). He doesn’t say much, so it’s hard to say whether or not there was a plan for the book’s transition to Steve Gerber, but it is odd that he ended things on such a cliffhanger.

Englehart’s take on Scott and his crew worked for me. I liked how the story started with him having a run-in with Granny Goodness and her underlings, and led to a pretty standard scenario, where he had to fight to rescue Barda, who was then changed by the whole thing. It felt like Englehart was trying to play to Marshall Rogers’s strengths, although the need to find things for Scott to escape from every issue must have gotten tiresome. 

Having not read the Jack Kirby issues prior to Englehart reviving the title, I’m not sure what the situation was with Scott and his mother box (should that be capitalized?). These devices have always been a little mysterious, but when Scott removes it from his costume, it doesn’t seem like a big deal until later, when that act appears to have killed it and/or caused it to merge with his being? This wasn’t very clear, and led to some of the further even more unclear things that happened in this comic. When Scott gets his ‘godly powers’, they seem pretty extreme (he can now teleport all over the galaxy?), and different from the other New Gods. I also wasn’t very clear about Scott’s goals on Apokolips. The idea of him becoming a bit of a messiah to the Lowlies is a cool one, and could have fueled a lot of stories had it been given time and a more limited scope. In the John Harkness issue, Scott’s fight with Darkseid feels like it came too soon, and is over way too quickly. I’m not comparing that to modern comics, which would have gotten a whole trade out of it, but I just mean that it does not match the buildup.

Then Steve Gerber comes on board. I’m not sure where this falls in Gerber’s career timeline (before or after Man-Thing and Howard The Duck), but Gerber’s always been a very unique writer, with a unique approach to things. His first has Scott meeting the cosmic figure Ethos, and things take a bizarre turn. He seems to lose a lot of his new powers, and we learn that he’s just a regular human? But then we see him use those powers again, so that confused me, unless Ethos was suggesting that he is human in his alignment, but that needed a little more explanation. 

From there, Gerber continued to break from what Englehart had established. He had Scott reject the New Gods, and decide to return to Earth, where he wanted to further explore this messiah complex, only he wanted to become a messiah to humans through his use of escape artistry? Perhaps Gerber was planning on saying something about celebrity worship, but even in the 70s, I would think that people had moved on from these kinds of spectacles, and were more likely to see Scott as an amusing oddity than a potential messiah.

Gerber also brings the anti-life equation into the mix rather suddenly, and without clarity. Perhaps, had the book not been cancelled, things would have become more clear and all the pieces would have snapped together, but this was feeling aimless.

As for the art, I’m not sure that I can think of any artists better than Rogers and Golden to draw this book, but even their work was a bit disappointing. Rogers’s work often looks rushed, and the quality of the inking limited what he was usually able to accomplish. Golden’s first issue was decent, but once Russ Heath started inking, his work was phenomenal. Again, I would have loved to see it continue, and wonder how long he’d have stayed with the book. I do see how some of his approach to Apokolips was echoed in his depiction of Homeworld in the Micronauts.

Both Rogers and Golden understood my favourite thing about Mister Miracle, which is his costume, especially the weird way in which his mask covers his lips but not his mouth, but is obviously a mask around his eyes; I don’t think any other hero has a mask that operates like this.

One thing that really stands out to me is how, before Keith Giffen started using him in Legion of Super-Heroes, Darkseid was not particularly buff or imposing. Yes, he was always really powerful, but in these issues, he seems small and a little silly, with his helmet and bodysuit. It’s curious to look back at a time when Darkseid wasn’t the main villain in the entire DC Universe, but just the ruler of his weird little planet.

I’m glad I read this book. I hadn’t read these issues in order before, and while they didn’t add much context, I did enjoy the bookend issues of Brave And The Bold and DC Comics Presents, as they spotlight how outside of the mainstream Mister Miracle really was. I’ve written about Mister Miracle before, when his series was more domestic-oriented, but this feels like a very different character. 

It’s curious that I’ve spent my summer reading books that got taken out by the DC Implosion, but I’m not really surprised that this one didn’t make the cut. It was probably a little too weird.

Speaking of weird, my next retro trade review will look at a strange character that was added to a prominent super-hero family, but never really fit in, despite getting an ongoing for a while.

You can check out my Retro Review archives here.

If you’d like to read this trade, follow this link.