Tom King and Mitch Garads deliver another amazing issue of Mister Miracle for DC comics!
After hearing so much positive buzz around their run on Mister Miracle, I just HAD to delve into back issues to get up to speed to review issue #5.
Yes, I am jumping on the Mister Miracle train, 5 stops along the journey. It’s a journey of 12 issues. And what a journey it is!
For first time readers, and newcomers to the Fourth World of the late great Jack Kirby (Kamandi, New Gods, Orion, Demon, Forever People, Devil Dinosaur, Black Panther, Captain America, etc), here’s the utter basics: Scott Free is Mister Miracle. Sort of a Houdini-style escape artist. Ok, done.
What Tom King has done is to infuse the current arc of Mister Miracle with an updating and mashup of Kirby’s 1970’s DC title. Scott is in a relationship with Big Barda, one of the Forever People. He’s being set up in a bad way, by members of the New Gods, who have gone “off the ranch”, or perhaps “off their rockers/rocketships”. He has to fight a big fight, or else. Characters from various New Gods titles are brought into play (Granny Goodness, Darkseid, Orion, etc)
Expect more twists and turns in this ‘cosmic drama-gone Hollywood’ in this issue.
I won’t divulge plot points here, suffice it to say that the story progresses nicely again from issue 4.
What I will do is tell you that, if you are into comic titles that challenge the usual comic book storytelling style, you really should search out the back issues and read this title. The fact that Tom King is involved should be reassuring. He has developed a strong track record after his recent success on Marvel’s The Vision title, and current Batman run.
The artwork is really good; the visual style simulates a video broadcast, in that we see page after page of small panels throughout the comic(s), with a cinematic look to them. Sometimes there will be visual distortion, such as you might get when your TV cable signal gets messed up. This style of storytelling allows for a flexible time expanse between panels, i.e. a moment could pass between similar looking panels, or it could be hours or even days between panels, like a time-lapse effect. The story is being told as a series of vignettes, or slices of time. When put together, they stitch into a cohesive story.
Enough of my explanations, just check out Mister Miracle already!
DC Mister Miracle #5 of 12, $3.99 24 pages of content
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