Written by Varian Johnson
Art by Daniel Isles
Published by DC Comics
The back cover of DC’s new Young Adult graphic novel, Mister Miracle: The Great Escape, calls it “a modern reimagining of the iconic Jack Kirby characters…”
Unfortunately, that’s the only acknowledgement Kirby gets anywhere in this book.
Not even a “Based on characters created by…” credit, in spite of the fact that a large part of this story of young Scott Free and Himon and Apokolips and Barda and the Female Furies comes straight from Jack’s fevered Fourth World saga.
The “modern” part is that the book pairs all these concepts with 21st century teenage realities, and not just young romance and bullying but dealing with illnesses, isolation, suicide, and abuse.
Scott and Himon now have black skin but it doesn’t seem to make any difference as everyone not in power is treated poorly on Apokolips.
Young Scott is a student of Granny Goodness on Darkseid’s hellish planet, and he’s been trying to escape it along with secret help from an older man, Himon, who has escaped it before. The Amazon-like Big Barda is brought in by the troll-like Granny to keep Scott in line but to also trick him into giving away secrets. This fails when the two actually are attracted to one another. Then Kalibak shows up to fight Scott. All Kirby, there.
Writer Varian Johnson tells the story well, mixing and matching his borrowed Kirby Koncepts with what appears to be a fairly solid understanding of complicated teen relationship issues.
Sorry to say I was less than impressed with Daniel Isles’ manga-inspired artwork. Beyond the dull, muted color scheme throughout, and the general lack of backgrounds, I found myself fixating on those weird little orange ovals flying around in scores of panels. What the heck are those things, anyway? I’ll tell you one thing they are is a distraction, and they shouldn’t be.
Kalibak looks vaguely like a Blue Meanie out of Yellow Submarine. I couldn’t tell at first if Himon was supposed to be a man or a woman in this version. Every once in a while, Scott wears a variation on Kirby’s Mister Miracle mask for no apparent reason and even refers to himself as “Mister Miracle,” for no apparent reason. Darkseid is talked about a lot but we never get to see him.
There’s a bit of racial commentary in the otherwise upbeat, amusing ending. If you’re a teen reader unfamiliar with Kirby’s Mister Miracle, this is a good story, dealing with some important issues, and even offering some real-world resources in the back.
Me? I’m gonna go to the Source and dig out my Kirby Komics.
