Thursday, August 10, 2017

Mister Miracle #1

   Let me just say, I hope DC never decides to honor my memory. (Not that there's much chance of that.)

   This is the second of the tributes to Jack Kirby that I've read in the last two weeks, and I suspect they would both have Jack scratching his head.

   I talked abut the New Gods Special here, and this week Mister Miracle gets his turn in a new 12-issue series.

    One of my favorites of Kirby's original New Gods series, this comic follows the young god named Scott Free, born to New Genesis but raised in the pits of Apokolips - but he managed to escape and made his way to Earth, where he established himself as the ultimate escape artist.

   But instead of high-flying adventures, this series by writer Tom King and artist Mitch Gerads takes us on a surreal trip into dark places, where reality is suspect and heroes seem to be non-existent.

   The story is all mystery at this point, so there's time to redeem its dark beginnings - but the opening sequence is very disturbing, and it's a scene I don't think you'd ever have seen in a comic by Jack Kirby.

   It seems like a disrespectful way to honor "the King."

Grade: C+

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3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'd give it a little better grade. The book seems to be channeling Keith Giffen, which would offend Kirby purists like you, but I'm giving it a few more issues...

-Anon

Bruce R said...

Glad I'm not the only one that felt this way. I'm okay that's it's non Kirby-ish, but I think they went too far. What happened to the hero? But hey, he's a favorite character, so I'll give them a chance I guess.

Chuck said...

The funny thing is, apparently the comic is getting a lot of attention. The owner of my comics shop offered to buy my copy back - he said he'd had quite a few people come into the shop looking for a copy. (I didn't sell.) Go figure!