The Fourth World Of July - More Miracles!

Of all the Fourth World books, Mister Miracle proved to be the most successful. It lasted until its eighteenth issue during its original run but to do that it refocused and paid little attention to its Fourth World roots until the very last. Mister Miracle is Scott Free (what better character to explore during the Fourth of July) and he was adept at getting out of traps, traps of his own invention and traps such as Apokolips the deadly land ruled by Darkseid. His keeper was a hag named Granny Goodness and his mentor was a mysterious Fagin-sort named Himon. He came to Earth and sought a hiding place and found it behind the mask of Theodore Brown the original Mister Miracle who died and passed his stage identity onto this new wunderkind. With the name came Oberon, a loyal assistant who was more powerful than his short stature suggested and eventually he gained a wife in Barda, "Big Barda" she was called who was more gentle and loving than her towering stature suggested. He fought the agents of Darkseid such as Virmin Vundabarr, Doctor Bedlam, and Kano the Assassin. And despite these dangers, a time Scott was happy, maybe even free. But all good things come to an end.

When the New Gods returned it was true for most all of them, but it wasn't really true for Mister Miracle because thanks to The Brave and the Bold and the exquisite location known to fans as the "Haneyverse" he was a fixture in its pages. 

Bob Haney and Jim Aparo tapped Mister Miracle three times to assist Batman with his inquiries, before his cancellation, during his hiatus and just after his return. In those stories, self-contained wonders, the grand spectacle of the Fourth World was little mentioned and Mister Miracle was mostly what he seemed to be for the public an escape artist without peer. 

He appeared in the 1st Issue Special which announced the "Return of the New Gods". He was with his wife Barda in New Genesis when the new threat from Darkseid was revealed. But he played little part in that story and that issue is not in this collection. 

Steve Englehart and his partner from Detective Comics Marshall Rogers kick off the new Mister Miracle series with a two-part tale that sees Barda kidnapped by the forces of Apokolips and Scott donning his garb to rescue her from their base on the Moon. In the course of his battle against Granny Goodness and her forces Scott struggles with his identity as a "New God". He is forced to put away the technology of the Mother Box which is infused in his costume and instead finds that aspects of the Mother Box's powers have developed innately in him.

Scott and Oberon head to Apokolips to ultimately rescue Barda. But it is a ferocious Mister Miracle we see who seems intent on proving himself capable of using his own skills and wits to defeat Darkseid's forces. He also wishes to innitiate a revolt in the downtrodden denizens of Apokolips by presenting himself as some sort of savior. Englehart seems intent on making Scott Free into an even more direct doppleganger of Christ.

But something must go wrong as it's not Englehart who writes the twenty-second issue, but his alter-ego "John Harkness" whose name appears when Englehart is not happy with the story he's been forced by editorial or circumstances to tell. Nonetheless, despite his aspirations Mister Miracle does confront Darkseid and his cast off as mostly ineffectual, though there is a notion that his presence has stirred something in the populace.

Darkseid sent Scott spiraling into limbo and Steve Gerber arrives in tandem with artist Michael Golden to find Scott in a spiritual conflict orchestrated by an androginous being named Ethos.

So Scott rejects Apokolips of course but now he rejects also New Genesis, attempting to find a new way and rejecting the duality which had always resulted in conflict before. He claims he's no longer a "New God" but a "human", whatever that means.

In the last issue of the run Scott and Barda and Oberon are once again on Earth and entertainers but find themselves battling Granny Goodness once again, this time with her new charge a young woman who knows only pain and becomes something powerful as a result. The series skids to a halt, the next issue still on the drawing boards, the cover finished as the legendary "DC Implosion" takes its toll.

This collection closes out with Mister Miracle's appearance in DC Comics Presents, in  conflict with Superman to see which of them is a more worthy hero for Metropolis. Frankly Scott's personality seems way off in this story capably drawn by Rich Buckler and written by Steve Englehart. I'm much surprised as Scott presented here by Englehart is a very angry man indeed, and I can only wonder if it's a bit of a projection. 

I'm not sure about Mister Miracle this time out. Despite some handsome artwork, Englehart seems desperately to want to divorce the character from the beginning from his mythic context, to transform him into a man who is far needier than the confident fellow Kirby created. I guess he wanted to knock him down to build him up, but it doesn't always make sense. Mister Miracle and Big Barda and Oberon will return to help the other New Gods in their struggle with Darkseid in the pages of the Justice League of America, but that would have to wait. More on that tomorrow. 

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The Many Faces In Scorpio Rose!

Steve Englehart has been pretty frank about his comic book career in interviews and on his own website and such. In the collected Coyote the book is backed up by a few issues of a short-fused project by Englehart and Marshall Rogers called Scorpio Rose. It was meant to be a trilogy but only ever produced two comic books (both of which I remember buying at the time). They concerned themselves with a Romany mystic of a unusual lengthy life and of the demon who loved her at times. 

The saga was adapted and altered from scripts Englehar produced for DC for a projected Madame Xanadu series. The price for those scripts had been misrepresented to Englehart so he refused to turn them over and that was it for Madame Xanadu until some years later when we met her under the name of Scorpio Rose. 

The series went two issues then Rogers was unable to finish it. Instead of getting a new artist Englehart just left it unfinished but in this collection the layouts Rogers did for the final issue are printed with explanations as to how the story wrapped up. Frankly I found the stories very confusing even without an ending. It's not Englehart's greatest by any means, too much mysticism and Rogers art is  often hard to read. But the story is memorable for another reason which reaches back to Englehart's earliest days at Marvel and a character named Mantis.

Mantis of course was the Celestial Madonna (making a comeback perhaps when comics begin to publish again) and her saga unfolded over a very long time in the pages of The Avengers where she courted Swordsman and Vision and others while trying to understand her role in the universe. She gave birth to a child, also the child of an alien plant-person and supposedly this youngster was meant for great things indeed. Mantis disappeared when Englehart left the series. 

Englehart was attracted to DC by the call of better page rates and he took over the Justice League of America, bringing the same wonderful magic to those pages he brought to the Avengers. One issue introduced a green woman from the starts named Willow who was supposed to be Mantis, her story continuing with a new name and place. 

Then Englehart left DC and in the pages of Scorpio Rose from Eclipse Comics he gave us Lorelei, another green lady who was recognizably Willow and Mantis. She assists Scorpio Rose and we meet her child almost hidden in the shadows. 

Later Englehart brought Mantis back at Marvel, but I will always treasure the days when her story was bigger than any one company. For me it always will be.

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I Am Coyote Once Again!

If ever want to read something weird by two of best talents in comics then I recommend I Am Coyote by Steve Englehart and the late Marshall Rogers. It's full of enticing designs, offers a constantly twisting plot, and presents the world a character like few others its ever seen.

Coyote is an orphan, left in the desert by his parents for reasons we never learn and discovered by a geezer who claims to be a half-man, a creature of myth who lives in more than one dimension. Coyote is raised by the half-man and later gets a step-mother who claims to be a psychic vampire. His early life is a primitive one and he grows up a bit feral. He's at some point given access to some of the abilities of his adopted father though he himself is fully human (he says). He does this by means of Peyote. 

In this story which ran in serialized form in Eclipse Monthly (in black and white) the action starts immediately as Coyote runs afoul of what is called The Shadow Cabinet which has an underground bunker beneath Las Vegas and its suggested other places around the globe. Their mission to take control of the world's governments by covert means and present themselves as good guys but who have seen sunny words will not be enough to bring about the world they want. Their quick and casual use of murder undermines these claims.

Coyote infiltrates the base and meets Phyllida, a woman who leads the Shadow Cabinet but who seems to care for Coyote despite his penchant to adopt other people's faces. They go on the run from a deadly killer named "The Void" and Coyote is shocked to find someone else who can "dance" between dimensions as he does.

To say more would ruin the story and it's a pretty decent one. Once upon a time I had all the Eclipse Monthly numbers and originally read this story there. But more recently I located it in a trade which offers all of the Eclipse stories in a single narrative in color. The splash pages are included but the chapters actually flow together quite well. Marshall Rogers was a talented artist who had a knack for making pages which demanded you attention. He sometimes crafted some wonky and oddly stiff figures, but reading his stuff is generally pretty easy. I Am Coyote is a fascinating story.

It was continued by Englehart and other artists at Marvel in the early Epic line, but I only ever read a few of those and don't remember them fondly. But maybe some day I'll give them another tumble.

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