Mister Miracle 1
From Barbelith
"New Godz"
Barbelith thread: Ping Ping Ping! (http://www.barbelith.com/topic/21563)
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Background and General Commentary
Synopsis:
Shilo Norman, celebrity escapist, has an inexplicable encounter in the middle of his most dramatic stunt yet -- freeing himself from the space-warping energies of a black hole's event horizon. While suspended in that singularity, Norman comes face to face with the mysterious Metron -- and after his escape, begins noticing clues that his comfortable reality is not all that it seems. That New Gods are entering his world from the higher reality of New Genesis. Finally, walking the city streets late at night, Norman comes face to face with a fearsome, shaggy man in a wheelchair. The man introduces himself as the Black Racer, and informs Norman that he's just a piece in a larger game between adversaries he can barely imagine.
Commentary:
Chad -- Love how Metron's the Devil, Darkseid is Satan, and Black Racer is Despair/Death. Finally, a good distinction between Challenge, Evil, and The End. Most times writers mix all three and get a schizoid "Adversary".
Moreso than the other Seven Soldiers stories, this one appears to be chock full of significant bald men, including our hero, the bepierced Shilo Norman himself.
Annotations
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Cover
Here, we see Shilo Norman, as Mister Miracle, suspended upside down much like The Hanged Man in the tarot -- which is a depiction of Odin, hanging from the Life Tree (Yggsdrasil) in order to win wisdom about the structure of reality (wyrd). It could be that we're being set up to accept Mister Miracle as a ritual sacrifice (One Will Die!), or that we're meant to see this as an evocation of the Odin-esque Highfather of Jack Kirby's New Gods. Or, possibly, both.
Also, compare his cruciform restraints to the broken chains of Croatan in Klarion 2.
Page 1
PANEL 3: "Can he cheat gravity itself and free himself from the crushing oblivion inside Black Hole X?"
Jake Jordan heard this stunt advertised on a radio broadcast in Manhattan Guardian #1.
Page 2
PANEL 1: "Motherboxxx?"
Mother Boxes, along with Boom Tubes, were a regular part of Kirby's New Gods stories -- essentially, they're small, portable supercomputers with a few dimension-twisting add-ons. (A Boom Tube is a hyperspatial tunnel, a temporary shortcut that the denizens of Apokolips and New Genesis can use to get from anywhere to anywhere else.) In this story, the Motherboxxx appears to fill the same "familiar" role as Teekl to Klarion, Vanguard to Ystin and Misty to Zatanna.
The extra x's are probably a nod to Outkast's album, Speakerboxx.
Page 3
PANELS 1-3: "Gravitational pullll at the evvvvvvveeeeehhh... gaaaawwwwwwnnnn uuurrrraaaawwwnnnggg... mmmmmmmmuhhhhhhhhhthhhthhthhrrrrb..."
Shilo's syllables are being stretched out due to the effects of relativistic time dilation. From the point of view of an outside observer, time will seem to slow down for any object falling towards the center of a black hole, due to the high gravitational field. Shilo is trying to say, "Gravitational pull at the event horizon... gone wrong... Motherbox!"
Page 5
PANEL 1: "What took you so long?"
The mysterious figure in the Mobius Chair is Metron, one of the New Gods -- a mysterious, near-omniscient figure who observes our mundane reality without interfering... except, of course, when absolutely necessary to his own research. He is fundamentally amoral, refusing to take sides in the ongoing war between Darkseid and Highfather. Instead, he bargains with either side for the arcane knowledge he uses to explore the cosmos. He did secretly help young Scott Free survive his Apokolips upbringing, so his interest in Mister Miracle may be more than simple curiosity.
Page 6
PANEL 1: "We have... profound equations to explain the meaning of love and hate."
One such equation is the Anti-Life Equation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Life_Equation), a weapon long sought by Darkseid.
Page 7
PANEL: "Boom."
This is the sound of a Boom Tube opening. A Boom Tube (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boom_Tube) is an instantaneous form of transportation.
Page 8-9
PANELS 1-2: "It was this perfect place, way out past the last signpost to anywhere..."
The place is the planet of New Genesis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Genesis). The bearded man with the crook is Highfather.
PANEL 3: But there was war, even there."
This panel depicts Orion, Highfather's adopted son fighting the parademon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parademons) armies of Apokolips.
PANELS 4-5: "And the wrong side won. The Dark Side won."
The place is the planet Apokolips (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apokolips). The man with the craggy stone face is Darkseid.
Page 14
PANEL 2: "How long we been friends? I been your manager half that time."
ZZ, Shilo's best friend and manager, with his mutton-chop sideburns, greying hair, and balding head, bears a distinct visual resemblence to Oberon (http://www.mykey3000.com/cosmicteams/profiles/oberon.html), the dwarf who was manager for the previous Mister Miracle, Scott Free (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mister_Miracle). Clearly ZZ and Oberon are not the same person, but the resemblence can't be a coincidence, can it?
In this panel, ZZ is holding a glowing ball that emits strangely colored vapors. We won't learn what this object is until Mister Miracle #3.
Page 16
PANEL 1: "My girls can deliver."
On the surface, the people Shilo has come to meet appear to be four simple prostitutes and their Madame. However they resemble Granny Goodness and her Female Furies. Granny Goodness is the Headmistress of the orphanage system on Apokolips, where Scott Free, the original Mister Miracle, was raised and from which he alone escaped. The Female Furies (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_Furies) are the planet's elite fighting force of warrior women, hand picked and trained by Granny herself. Bernadeth, Lashina, and Mad Harriet are known members of the Furies. Usually these three are accompanied by a fourth named Stompa, but apparently she died shortly before the beginning of this story, so here the fourth Fury is a new one named Wunda. Big Barda (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Barda), wife of Scott Free, was a former member of the Furies who escaped.
Page 21
PANEL 3: "Death, the Black Racer, tells it how it is."
So who is the Black Racer? Previously, he was Sgt. Willie Walker, (http://www.hyperborea.org/flash/black-racer.html) a Vietnam vet whose injuries left him mute and paralyzed, and who was subsequently possessed by a force of the New Gods... the force of Death. So, for the most part, Walker was confined to a hospital bed, but as soon as one of the New Gods died in their war against Apokolips, Walker was suddenly able to zip around at the speed of light. Unfortunately, he did so on, umm, a pair of hyperspace skis. In some ways, this character may have been Kirby's way of trying to create a new Silver Surfer for DC, but heroes on skis just don't seem quite as cool as heroes on surfboards. Anyway, he's appeared in Flash stories on and off since then.
The fact that he's a hero who's possessed by a greater/extra-dimensional force may be significant, if the theorizing about Shilo Norman-as-Scott Free's-fictionsuit amounts to anything.
The chess piece that the Racer holds in his hand is a black pawn. Shilo Norman may also be a pawn, ...in a game played by Gods.
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