If Jack Kirby isn’t the patron saint of comics, he’s definitely up there in the pantheon of comics gods. So, as a lifelong comics reader, I felt it important that I at least read one book by “King” Kirby - and I also brung along some
I thought titling the buddy read after Curb was just a silly fun pun but my enthusiasm was unfortunately curbed early on into this one!
I’ll just be up front: I didn’t finish this book.
I know, the shame of a DNF! At least I read 12 of the 18 issues so that’s acceptable-ish, right? I got enough of an idea of Kirby’s style and his Mister Miracle anyway. It just got so bad towards the end that I couldn’t face struggling through another unrewarding 140 pages.
This book is 18 issues long, and, if you know comics publishers, they bundle up the issues like this and crap out a bumper book when they have no confidence that people will read the first book of, say 6 issues, and then come back to buy a second or third volume. And for good reason: Kirby’s Mister Miracle is not good!
Mister Miracle is Scott Free (Kirby’s character names - man… more on that later), an orphan from Apokolips, who is both a superhero and escape artist, both for no real reason! He sets up elaborate traps for TV audiences that never appear or see them, and he’s got some beef with people from Apokolips for reasons. But, even though he’s left them behind and made it to Earth, he’s gotta keep going back there to fight them for something… eh. It’s a mess!
Issue one is fittingly the origin story. For no reason, Mister Miracle is an older man called Thaddeus Brown who conveniently dies. So it’s a good thing that Scott happened to be walking by to meet Brown and his tiny assistant Oberon - and was doing literally nothing with his life, and also happened to have everything he needed to be an escape artist - so that he could effortlessly step in to become the new Mister Miracle. Why do it like this - why have Brown at all if he’s just going to be snuffed out? Have it be Scott from the beginning who comes up with the character/costume/schtick himself and it immediately makes more sense.
Convenience is the watchword because, from the start, Scott is put into one impossible trap after another and easily escapes because of some silly contrivance. He’s always locked up or tied to a missile or something and he always happens to have a gadget to get him out of things just in the nick of time. Mother Boxes too seem to do whatever the plot needs them to do, which is handy. Boring to read too - I think Kirby meant for these scenes to be exciting but when the solution is always “Scott escapes because contrivance” then it has the opposite effect.
The series is mostly Scott vs the villain of the week which was repetitive and a bit of a dead end - I wanted a more substantial narrative for the character to go on. And I got my wish because about half a dozen issues in Scott heads back to Apokolips with his girl Friday, Big Barda, to do… something. Kirby’s so weak at sustained, or even clear, narrative that I was never sure what was happening in this part of the book, or why. Scott and Barda are just there endlessly fighting until they’re not.
I think Kirby envisioned Mister Miracle as a kind of futuristic retelling of Oliver Twist because he has all these flashbacks to Scott as a young orphan on Apokolips having a miserable time. And maybe this is where the weird names come in - did Kirby think batty names were Dickensian? The evil Apokolips characters from Scott’s past have names like Granny Goodness and Wonderful Willik, and even Scott’s name is a bizarre pun. Either way, this is as ham-fisted as you can get if this is meant as Dickens homage.
The first few issues of Mister Miracle were definitely corny but tolerable - and then they became corny and intolerable. The bad writing just got to me in the end. I can’t stand the faux-Shakespearean speech or carnival barker-esque narrative boxes of the Silver Age. And you can see why the general impression of superhero comics to most non-readers back in the day was of childish nonsense when you have this basic level of storytelling. Characters announce their origins and motivations to nobody but the reader and the plots are poorly constructed, vague, and thoughtlessly wrapped up when the page count is reached.
I’ll give Kirby this though: he was endlessly creative. There’s so much stuff in this series that is a staple of the DC Universe (and Marvel’s, sort of) today. Parademons and Mother Boxes, not to mention Darkseid - no Kirby, then no Darkseid, which means no character for Jim Starlin to rip off as Thanos, and then the MCU looks very different without that dude! It’s very hit-or-miss though. For every Big Barda or Metron there’s a Doctor Vundabar or Funky Flashman.
I honestly tried to appreciate Jack Kirby’s comics and I’m glad I gave it a shot - he’s such a big name in comics, you kinda have to try reading at least one of his books if you’re a fan of the medium. But I found that, like most older comics, Kirby’s Mister Miracle was outdated, badly written, unentertaining, too goofy, and generally not for anyone without much patience for antiquated, highly stylised superhero comics. In short, not for me!
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