Mister Miracle (2019)

Mister Miracle, the world's greatest escape artist, is a character that is written by Tom King in this series that was collected as a trade paperback in 2019. A character that I was not familiar with at all, the only reason this books was on my radar at all was because of discussions on the internet of people claiming its one of the all time greats. Which is why I greatly appreciate the quick character recap at the beginning of King's story. It makes it feel like a new beginning for an old established character of the Kirby era, and a welcome letter to new readers like myself. I will say that this book had a more adult feel and theme to it than I was expecting when I picked it up. For example, self harm is a central plot point in the first issue and beyond. The question is, can the world's greatest escape artist escape his own made death. This is not a negative, just surprised me when I began reading it. 

I really have so many pros to this book, let's start with the art. I really enjoy the use of 9 panel spreads. The repeated instances of art to add emphasis and the repeated 9-panel sequences just show how thought out a lot of the action and writing was for this book. This is not a new innovation or anything, but I really love how the team behind this book uses the style effectively. Something else I'll point out about the art style is the "glitchy" art moments. Something you can notice on the front cover and the back cover of the book is that this story uses panels and sequences that look like a glitch in a movie or video game. This is a story of paranoia and mystery that constantly makes the reader question what is real and what is fake. The glitch style of art really just adds to this and makes the reader further question everything they are seeing. 

Next, let's look at the writing. This is truly a master class of what comic book writing can be. Stories like this one, of this degree of excellence, are few and far between. Not to say that other books today are not written well, but once you read enough comics you start to realize what good writing and bad writing look like and King's Mister Miracle (2019) is among the great examples of literary writing. For example, I love Barda and Scott’s relationship, as someone who doesn’t really know DC Comics that well and really didn’t know Mister Miracle at all before this book, I wonder if this is the average relationship for them or an enigma only for this story. This book makes me want to seek the answer to this by reading more, but for now I'll just point out that I love the philosophical and loving conversations for the two. The relationship felt very real and every time they were on panel together I genuinely enjoyed it. Other moments in this book will haunt me for a while such as "I saw the face of God" or "Darkseid is", these are phrases that King uses to hint to the reader that something bigger might be at play with this story. As King explores these ideas of deities it only becomes more and more apparent that what it is is inescapable for Mister Miracle. 

Though the written story is one of a divine battle that has been foretold for who knows how long, what we really get with this series is a very personal story about a very broken man. One who deals with mental health issues, trauma from his childhood, and a struggle to properly communicate his emotions in fear of being ridiculed or not understood. Ultimately, this is a story of a man learning to care about life again, his life needs to find meaning. A story of feeling small in the grand cosmic scheme. A story that sadly many men can relate to when reading King's excellent work, I mean I can honestly say that this book made me very emotional especially in the back half of it, but I do not want to give away too much as to why. 

Can there be hope found in the little moments with the people of our lives? Read Mister Miracle and find out! For all the reasons described above, this book gets a Rayburn Seal of Approval!

Rating: 10/10