Writer: Tom King
Art, Colors, Inks: Mitch Gerads
Cover Art: Nick Derington
Published: October 11, 2017
While the first two issues of Mister Miracle weren’t exactly fun, or light, they were interesting and engaging comics that could be wrestled with a little bit. That begins to change somewhat in issue #3. In the first scene Orion has Granny Goodnesses dead body dug up and then he removes her head. This all occurs while Scott recounts a “Christmas” story that Granny used to tell him about a young innocent jewish boy who said the wrong thing, which lead to his and his families’ death in the holocaust. The juxtaposition of the visuals and the story all beg the question of why. Granny’s horribleness was previously established, Scott’s uncertainty about the meaning of his childhood experience is an ongoing thread, Barda not being totally sympathetic is the status quo. It’s unclear what this story is reaffirming for the reader. Is this repetition of established ideas or some impenetrable thematic development?
After Orion removes the head from Granny’s dead body, Scott finishes recounting his story to Barda but then can’t sleep. He runs into Bug the Forager in the living room who tells Scott about how Orion has used the war to diminish the population of Bugs. Lightray (on behalf of Orion) then appears and vaporizes Forager on the spot as a traitor. This coupled with the beating that Orion delivers to Mister Miracle at the end of the issue where he then stands over him repeating, “This is the face of God” point to Orion sort of being the real big bad (at least right now). Scott, with wrists still taped from his attempted suicide, is caught up in a swell of people rushing to defend New Genesis against Darkseid, who still hasn’t appeared. But maybe he doesn’t need to. The threat of him has proved strong enough to provoke supposed heroes to cruel and abhorrent actions making it unnecessary for Darkseid to actually show up (but I hope he does). The black “Darkseid is” panel only shows up once in this issue although the phrase appears two other times. Forager says it once in a way that a phrase of respect is used, (similar to when the name of the deceased is used, and then immediately followed by “May she/he/they rest in peace”) and then soon after Scott asks Barda what the phrase means and receives no response. Because of how often the “Darkseid is” panel appeared in the first issue, attention is paid to it whenever it appears. But the more promising and interesting question in this book may be the idea that man is not supposed to look upon the face of God. And is this connected to Scott’s suicide attempt which he is still struggling to understand the cause of? He puts questions/theories to Barda and Orion and is mostly rebuffed in both cases, once verbally, once physically.
The Mitch Gerad’s art is once again fantastic. He does a great disheveled Scott Free which is just so appropriate for where Scott is right now. Whenever Scott is in plain clothes his wrist bandages are still present and are often the only white or the brightest object in the panel so that attention is drawn to them and the beginning of this story is not forgotten. While there weren’t the sort of comedic opportunities in this issue there is one point where Mister Miracle is climbing a ridiculous number of ladders, and the way he is drawn just going up and up is a light moment in a heavier issue. Overall this was a good comic book with great art. It may have not hit the highs of the previous two issues, but people should still be getting on board with this book.
(Subjective) Score out of 10: 7
Comicsly 