Let’s complete the last Kirby full series of the Fourth World retrospective.
Mister Miracle #15 (1973)
by Jack Kirby
Hey, a cover where Mister Miracle is not tied to a super-trap!
Also we are promised the origin of a new superhero: that’s not Mister Miracle.
We begin with Big Barda showing off the biggest attraction of Mister Miracle’s new show: her gigantic…
…nutcracker.
We are introduced to two new characters: Lieutenant Driver, who wants Mister Miracle to take care of the kid Shilo Norman.
When an assassin tries to kill him, Shilo demonstrates he’s not just an innocent bystander.
Mister Miracle saved his life with the circuits of his mask.
At this point I hate that device with increasing intensity… not only it’s been used to defeat the bad guy in the last FOUR ISSUES straight, he’s STILL using it for everything!!!
Speaking of bad guys, this issue’s is the imaginatively named Mister Fez.
Why do ALL the bad guys from this series that don’t come from Apokolips suck!?
Mister Miracle and Barda know Shilo will leave as soon as he can, which is exactly what he does.
Uhm… we’ve SEEN Apokolips at the time you grew up, Miracle, and nobody else was flying around in these things!
Not that Shilo needs much help.
Still, the help is appreciated.
.
And at the end, Mister Miracle basically adopts Shilo to train him as a successor.
Splash pages: 3 out of 20 (15%)
Splash + double splash pages: 5 out of 20 (25%)
Most Kirby panel
Most WTF panel
Mister Fez is too hip to buy into the jive of super-cats.
Mister Miracle #16 (1973)
by Jack Kirby
If the cover is to be believed, Shilo is the new protagonist. Has Kirby grown tired of Mister Miracle already?
Shilo is the only one who can see this insect man who keeps showing up.
At least until the being kidnaps Barda and Oberon.
And Mister Miracle INSTANTLY figures out we are dealing with shrinking technology.
Shilo gets shrunk and has to fight several creatures.
Until he meets their boss: Professor Egg.
See, I told you that all the villains not from Apokolips suck.
Professor Egg’s plan is to rip off Adam Warlock.
The result is slightly less handsome than Adam Warlock.
Aaaaand it was all a dream.
OH COME ON!!!
Or maybe not, considering the visit from Professor Exe.
That’s how it ends.
Splash pages: 4 out of 20 (20%)
Splash + double splash pages: 6 out of 20 (30%)
Most Kirby panel
Bonus points for the word “clobber”.
Most WTF panel
Apparently super-strength is something you can teach.
Mister Miracle #17 (1974)
by Jack Kirby
Kirby was really placing all his energies on Shilo, wasn’t he?
He’s even credited in the title.
Shilo now has his own costume.
Am I the only one thinking he looks way too much like Kirby’s Sandman?
The story is about the gang sleeping in a weird hotel.
Notice Barda is sleeping in a separate room.
Big Barda and Mister Miracle are taken out immediately.
Shilo is left alone fighting the hotel’s owner: Peppi Lamoko.
Yes that is his actual name.
This hotel can’t possibly get good reviews.
Eventually, Shilo frees the others.
Words cannot express how much I hate those freaking circuits at this point.
So what’s the deal with this hotel? It’s a front to kill specific rival criminals…
…who JUST HAPPEN to look like our protagonists!!!
I believe I’ve seen this plot in a movie once.
Least exciting Kirby fight ever.
Although to be fair, it does include one of the most imaginative fighting moves I’ve ever seen: punching a filing cabinet so hart it shoots missiles.
So, uhm, did Kirby forget Shilo is supposed to be human?
In the end, the gang leaves the criminals to the police.
Splash pages: 3 out of 20 (15%)
No double splash pages
Most Kirby panel
Most WTF panel
The second panel is for context: you CAN teach super-strenght!!!
Mister Miracle #18 (1974)
by Jack Kirby
Well that was pointless. Let’s move to the last issue and see if Kirby can pull off a finale, for once.
Well we begin with Apokolips attacking Mister Miracle, so at least we’re back to good villains.
Mister Miracle barely escaped, and for once it’s not thanks to those freaking circuits!
Sensing there’s only one issue left, Mister Miracle decides to ask Barda to marry him.
Kind of anticlimactic.
Now THIS is more like something that I’d expect him to pull off.
Granny Goodness also shows up, possibly to ask whatever happened to the Female Furies.
Who have not been even mentioned since issue 14!!!
Did Kirby forget he brought them to Earth???
Adding this to the countless weapons Apokolips never brings back despite their immense efficacy.
It’s a reunion of all the good villains of the series.
And Kanto.
They still have the silliest traps.
This requires the intervention of Orion, who I should mention has not appeared in this series before.
Plus Lightray, who tricked the villains into believing their trap actually worked.
Which kind of makes this the first trap that Mister Miracle doesn’t escape on his own.
Highfather and other New Gods show up because the series has to end with a wedding.
No, seriously, that’s the actual reason they’re here.
Mister Miracle has to say goodbye to his surrogate father and his surrogate son because… uhm… why exactly does he have to go back to New Genesis again?
He has expressed ZERO interest in leaving Earth in the previous 17 issues!
Just when you thought Orion couldn’t get more insufferable, he shoves the supporting cast out of the book.
Everyone is expecting Darkseid to show up at any moment.
Because The Source has been very specific about what has to happen.
As a reminder, The Source is basically God writing flaming messages on a wall, which Highfather then reads.
Not gonna lie, this is not the Jack Kirby series where I expected to see an Eternal marriage.
And then SUDDEN TORNADO!!!
That heralds the arrival of Darkseid, meaning Orion’s job is done.
This is how Mister Miracle leaves Earth.
Oberon and Shilo are the only ones to witness the arrival of Darkseid.
In the end, all Darkseid managed to accomplish is make a wedding rushed and awkward, but he didn’t manage to wreck the marriage.
And that’s it! The series ends with the promise of a “thrilling successor”.
The next series Kirby launched for DC was OMAC, which has absolutely nothing to do with Mister Miracle or the Fourth World and is therefore excluded from this retrospective.
Splash pages: 3 out of 20 (15%)
No double splash pages
Most Kirby panel
Most WTF panel
After all the talk about freedom and defying Darkseid, Mister Miracle ends the series by fleeing and leaving behind his surrogate family.
Our hero, ladies and gentlemen!
Historical significance
#15: 6/10
Shilo has taken the Mister Miracle mantle more than once.
#16-17: 0/10
Best forgotten.
#18: 7/10
Mister Miracle marries Big Barda. Not as impactful as you’d imagine considering they have been basically married the whole time.
Silver Age-ness
#15 and #18: 6/10
Pretty standard for the times.
#16 and #17: 9/10
A dream sequence AND absurd coincidences!
Does it stand the test of time?
#15-17: 2/10
#18: 6/10
The first three issues are incredibly forgettable, with Kirby’s artwork being the only saving grace.
The pivot to Shilo is blatant, but unfortunately he lacks any charisma and his personality is very basic. His interactions with Mister Miracle and Big Barda are good, but they’re not very frequent and he’s not obviously ready yet to carry his own book.
The last issue recovers somewhat, in the sense that at least it carries on the main plot of the series. At least Kirby managed to give this a finale, but like he did with Forever People it’s rushed and unsatisfying. I’m fine with the marriage being a sudden idea, but the execution is terrible.
What’s the point of shoving poor Oberon and Shilo out of the scene, only to make way for characters who have never even showed up in the series yet? Or who have, at best, had an incredibly minor role?
Why does Mister Miracle have to leave Earth? Doesn’t that invalidate his entire philosophy and his journey so far?
And WTF happened to the Female Furies after last time???
That’s it for Kirby’s stories of the 70s involving the Fourth World.
They’re not his only 70 series for DC Comics but Kamandi, OMAC, Etrigan, Sandmand and others fall outside of the scope of this retrospective.
The series is resurrected in 1977 but it only lasts 7 issues, written by Steve Englehart and Steve Gerber. While interesting in its own right, I’m just focusing on the Kirby stories.
However the Fourth World part is not quite done yet, because Kirby will revisit this world twice in the 80s. So we’ll check that out.
Rather ironic (though I doubt Kirby was intending irony) that after all the “Go now, mortals,” Oberon and Shilo apparently walked about twenty feet away and were the only ones there when Darkseid appeared.
“You armored old war-wagon” will be my insult of choice from now on.
Considering that my first extended knowledge of Mister Miracle comes from the post-Legends Justice League, I’m surprised to see that he ever ditched Oberon. I guess they get back together in one of the follow-up series that you either skipped over or plan to review soon? Or did Giffen and DeMatties just decide they’d like having Oberon around their Justice League, and to heck with Kirby canon?
Oberon is back in the Englehart issues that follow (which won’t be part of the retrospective), but he’s not a huge part of Scott’s life until the post-Crisis era.
It seems to be that Oberon being a father figure is slightly hinted during the Kirby stories but it’s only elaborated and explored after Crisis.
Yet another case where the heavy lifting for the characters is done after Kirby.
Mister Fez. Professor Egg. For someone who created characters by the dozen, Kirby sure was awful when it came to naming them. Special mention has to go out to Mad Merkin. A merkin is a crotch wig. A mad merkin is a crazy crotch (wig).
I do not want to know how this guy earned the name Mad Merkin.
It is really odd that Shilo’s spotlight has a plot about forceful sleep and a costume that so resembles Sandman’s.
I am probably mistaken here, but it does bring the hunch that Kirby may have been recycling some preliminary panels from his work into what would eventually become the Garett Sanford Sandman. Or maybe he got the idea for Sanford from a second reading of his own Shilo Norman stories?
The last issue does feel entirely made up in the spur of the moment. My best guess is that in Kirby’s view Scott Free was ultimately a child of New Genesis and never meant to take permanent residence on Earth. That would make sense, except that it does not; as you say, he never gives any indication of wanting to return to New Genesis, and there is no obvious reason whatsoever for him to marry on the spot and leave Earth without a second thought now. We are simply told by the other New Gods that the Source demands that it be so. That is a particularly lazy – even recursive – form of “Deus Ex Machina”, and spends panels that could give us any of a number of interesting scenes of interaction between the mortals and the New Gods. Apparently we do not even get to see how Granny Goodness, Kanto and the others react to the arrival of their boss – they just leave the scene, despite Grandfather’s insistence that they must remain there for some reason dictated by the Source.
That is a recurring problem in Fourth World stories: far too often we are simply told that “It Must Be So” because so dictates The Source/Mother Box. Such moments are the perfect catalysts for exploration of character’s minds and values, but that is not what Kirby uses them for.
Maybe he did not have much of a lead-up and wanted to prepare the way for what he later wrote in “New Gods Vol 2 #7” and “Hunger Dogs”? Even so, this is some odd writing.
The thing that always bothered me about Scott Free was that he always depended on Mother Box and gadgetry.
But he was Highfather’s son. Why doesn’t he have any actual powers, like any other New God has?