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Post by rberman on Jan 29, 2019 9:25:20 GMT -5
Shining Knight #4 “The Last Stand of Don Vincenzo” (October 2005) The Story: Gloriana the Faerie Queen departs in the middle of Justin’s duel with zombie Galahad, confident in the hero’s defeat. But not before we learn the surprise that the art has been hinting at all along: Justin is really Justina. Justina prevails, beheading Galahad. In a flashback to 10,000 years ago, we see that it was Galahad who knighted Justina originally, not realizing that he was a she.  Don Vincenzo rises from the dead due to the mystic cauldron. He mounts Vanguard the Pegazeus and leads his forces into battle against Ne-Buh-Loh. But to no avail; the Don dies, and the bad guys claim the cauldron, so they now have two of the McGuffins (the cauldron and the sword).  My Two Cents: “The disguised female soldier” is an ancient trope, celebrated in folk songs like “Sweet Polly Oliver” and films like Disney’s “Mulan.” Gender fluidity is a common Morrison trope anyway. Other than that, this issue held no great surprises or complexities. Bianchi has actually been drawing Justina as female all along, despite my use of male gender. Even my first grade son looking at the covers used female pronouns.  Seven Soldiers Theme: The creation outlives the creator. Galahad made Justina a knight, then died. Then rises from the dead a zombie, so she must kill him again.
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Post by codystarbuck on Jan 29, 2019 14:09:08 GMT -5
For the best use of the disguised female soldier trope, check out Terry pratchett's Monstrous Regiment. A young woman goes looking for her missing brother, who is a soldier, and ends up in a group of new recruits, all with secrets. By the end, it seems everyone has a secret. Pratchett plays with the conventions and uses it to make statements about gender preconceptions.
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Post by rberman on Jan 30, 2019 6:09:31 GMT -5
Zatanna #3 “Three Days of the Dead” (September 2005) The Story: After Zatanna and Misty deal with minor Satan-figure The Tempter, they encounter Ali-Ka-Zoom, who wants his magic wardrobe (the one from the magic shop in San Francisco) back. They help him burn it beachside. Then it’s off to the walled compound of Don “Kid Scarface” Vincenzo in the hills of Los Angeles, the scene of the bloodbath at the end of Shining Knight #4. Misty commands a squad of Sheeda warriors to stop torturing Vanguard the Pegazeus, and surprisingly they obey.  Turns out that Misty is Snow White, and Gloriana Tenebrae is her wicked queen stepmother, and Neh-Buh-Loh is the huntsman who took Misty “out into the woods” and refused to kill her. He allows Z and Misty to escape on Vanguard, but he still claims the Cauldron from Vincenzo’s mansion for his mistress Gloriana.  My Two Cents: Zatanna is a bystander in this issue; the main stories belong to Ali-Ka-Zoom (in exposition of backstory) and Misty (in present day and flashback). He describes being part of a teen group that went to Slaughter Swamp and met the Fairy Queen and a Terrible Time Tailor. We’ll see that happening in the next chapter. Also, remember this comment below from Ali-Ka-Zoom, which will prove both relevant and odd in light of Guardian #4.  Ali-Ka-Zoom explains the coincidence of meeting Zatanna: “Destiny is at work, ladies. Mighty and unseen hands shape our mortal clay.” These are the hands of the Seven Unknown Men who are writing this story. Misty’s life expands our tour of European folk tales to include Sleeping Beauty, who pricked her finger on the needle of such a spinning wheel. She also mourns a dead Sheeda spider-mount at Don Vincenzo’s compound which “has been all the way from the dawn of time to the last days and back.” We’ll see that whole spectrum of time in the final chapter of Seven Soldiers.
If Neh-Buh-Loh is the huntsman and is a figure from Celtic mythology, then we can identify him at least thematically with Cernunnos, the Celtic hunter-God who appeared in Justice League of America #49 (1966, Gardner Fox). The Tempter was a Satan-figure that Superman and Hawkman faced in World’s Finest #209 (1972). Zatanna and The Tempter agree that growing societal skepticism toward the Bible has carried with it a resistance to “obsolete” Bible-based villains like The Tempter. Whereas the Christian view on the matter on the matter is that skepticism toward the Bible is exactly what demonic forces would promote; cancer is more likely to kill you if you don’t believe it exists.   Zatanna doesn’t like that the air tastes “like it does when you touch the tip of your tongue to a battery.” This is similar to how Laurie describes kissing Dr. Manhattan as “like licking a battery” in Watchmen.
Seven Soldiers Theme: The creation outlives the creator. Ali-Ka-Zoom says that the last rule of magic is “the one where the magician has to vanish along with his trick, leaving the audience and his beautiful assistants to go on without him.” That's what comic book writers do as well.
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Post by rberman on Jan 31, 2019 8:07:01 GMT -5
Guardian #4 “Sex Secrets of the Newsboy Army!” (November 2005) Frame Story: Edward ‘Baby Brain’ Stargard tells Jason his life story as the Guardian building comes under attack by Sheeda forces. Jason has been thinking about quitting for the sake of his family, but at least for the moment, protecting Stargard takes priority. Flashback Story: Stargard was the tiny genius member of the Golden Age Newsboy Army, a team of seven kids including starlet Li’l Hollywood, Millions the wealthy dog, Chop Suz mistress of “tech fu,” Ali-Ka-Zoom the magician (already met by Shining Knight and Zatanna in present day), Kid Scarface (the future Don Vincenzo), and Captain, whom the kids will eventually stuff into Ali-Ka-Zoom’s cabinet for an apparent sex crime. According to internet gossip, Captain impregnated Chop Suz, somehow leading to her death. I can’t find that information in the actual comic books. The closest that we get is with Ali-Ka-Zoom’s comment in Zatanna #3 that the box is “where we dropped a poor foolish boy… because he did something the rest of us decided was wrong.” Well yeah, rape and murder do sound kind of wrong, if that’s what happened. It’s never elucidated.  We see them as grade schoolers living a re-enactment of the opening “running from the natives” scene from “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” We see them as teens, battling a man possessed by a Sheeda warrior riding on his neck.  We see them in Slaughter Swamp, discovering the cabin containing the cosmic sewing machine, one of the Time Tailors (later identified as Zor), and Gloriana Tenebrae. Zor takes Ali-Ka-Zoom’s magic top hat and makes the kids new suits, i.e. new identities as Golden Age innocence gives way to darker stories of later times. The house in Slaughter Swamp contains a cosmic sewing machine not of the modern sort seen in in Seven Soldiers #0, but the medieval spinning wheel used by Misty Kilgore in the flashback in Zatanna #3. More fairy tale iconography. My Two Cents: This issue isn’t about the Guardian at all; it’s world-building and historical exposition. Morrison has an apparently inexhaustible supply of new super-teams, all with the requisite seven members. But only six of them go to Slaughter Swamp (Millions stays home), and they meet a bad end, as teams of six always do. We also discover that Jason’s father-in-law Larry Marcus was once a kid associate of the Golden Age newsies, known at the time by the nickname “L. Mar” (pronounced El Mar). It is he who convinced Jason to become a costumed hero, but at least so far this development hasn’t had the salutary effect on Jason’s marriage which Larry hoped for.
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Post by mikelmidnight on Jan 31, 2019 12:48:36 GMT -5
I didn't even notice that there were seven members of the Newsboy Army!
Their quirkiness didn't work for me though. I mean, did any of them actually deliver newspapers?
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Post by rberman on Jan 31, 2019 23:09:53 GMT -5
Klarion #4 “Burn Witchboy! Burn” (December 2005)
 The Story: Klarion’s return to Limbo City earns him a burning at the stake. But before the deed can be carried out, Mr. Melmoth breaks through the wall in his subterrene drill machine and sets his goons upon the hapless citizens. Even the Grundy Men zombie servants fall before the goons’ hail of bullets. So Klarion and his cat Teekl run to the submissionaries’ magic wall, activate the Horigal spell, and merge into a fearsome beast which wipes the board. Melmoth assumes a flame-form and flees the scene.   My Two Cents: Pretty straightforward plotwise. The main twist comes in Melmoth’s exposition on the nature of Croatoan as being a computer consisting of two six-sided dice. These are the dice now possessed respectively by Klarion and Misty Kilgore. It also reminds me of the six-sided sun in the realm of Ra-Man ( Zatanna #1). And that in turn calls to mind the computer-sun Solaris which was the focus villain of the whole DC Universe across many millennia in Morrison’s DC One Million event from November 1998.  Seven Soldiers Theme: The creation outlives the creator. Melmoth also says that although most of the folk of Limbo-town are from human-Sheeda hybrids, the submissionary leaders are robots. He is in one sense or another responsible for them all, but they went their own way long ago and now violently reject him. He’s not literally dead…yet? I wonder whether this Limbo town was named after the one in the 198s Swamp Thing reboot. Could just be a coincidence. |
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Post by rberman on Feb 1, 2019 8:39:44 GMT -5
By the way, does anyone know the origin of the idiom "Burn, Person! Burn!" I would guess it's an instance of a more general idiom "Command, Person! Command!" but I wonder what its pedigree is. Here's an instance from Swamp Thing #2 (1982).  |
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Post by rberman on Feb 2, 2019 8:00:10 GMT -5
Mister Miracle #1 “New Godz” (November 2005)
 Art Team: Pasqual Ferry on pencil and ink. Colors by Dave McCaig. The Story: While engaged in a David Blaine-style celebrity “escape from certain death” stunt involving a black hole, Shilo “Mister Miracle” Norman encounters Metron, who urges him to return to New Genesis to face a threat. What’s a Boom Tube? Despite his professional successes, he can’t put his finger on something that’s wrong with the world. He rejects a session with a troupe of high-priced call girls (whom he says work for “the other side -- the dark side”). His psychiatrist Dr. Dezard urges him not to see the world in such black and white terms. A man in a wheelchair announces that bets have been placed on his survival, just as a trio of cars come bearing down on him.  My Two Cents: Morrison is staking out some interesting philosophical ground again. What if the victory of Darkseid didn’t look like ten-mile craters shooting Kirby Krackle up into a planet’s stratosphere? What if it looked pretty much like what our world looks like now? What are we going to do about the evil around us? This idea will carry forward into Morrison’s subsequent series Final Crisis, as well as the previous graphic novel JLA: Earth-2. all of these concern a world where the creator (the author) has tipped the scales so that evil triumphs, with Hell on Earth. The television show “Angel” walked similar ground in its final seasons when, after spending years fighting a demonic takeover of Earth, the protagonists discovered that it has already happened long ago, that Earth was already Hell, and that they were going to have to work within that existing system if they wanted things to be any better. Shilo Norman was a black teen sidekick whom Scott “Mister Miracle” Free took under his wing starting in issue #15 (1973) of his original series. Norman’s policeman brother had died, which will be important a few issues from now. J.M. DeMatteis also used Norman in early 90s issues of Justice League of America. Then in the 2001 Joker mini-series Last Laugh by Chuck Dixon, Norman was the chief of security at the Slab prison. The cover and opening splash page put Mister Miracle in a crucifixion pose. Since his 1971 first appearance as part of Jack Kirby’s Fourth World, he’s been depicted escaping from various death traps. But at least on the covers I found, Kirby studiously avoided crucifixion scenes. What in the world is Dr. Dezard munching on? It’s the color of a Duracell nine volt battery, but the relative dimensions are wrong. And why is he eating it? In the next issue, Zatanna will comment about the world tasting like a nine volt battery. You’ve all stuck such a battery on your tongue, right? It’s OK, you can admit it. 
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Post by codystarbuck on Feb 3, 2019 0:01:46 GMT -5
Kirby was a Jew and wasn't likely to use crucifixion, other than in a literal sense. Englehart was the one who presented the idea of Mister Miracle as a sort of messianic figure. Kirby's take was not so much a messiah as someone who just wanted a life beyond the constant warring, until he took a more definite hand, in the later stories, before editorial dictates mostly ended the battle with Apokolips and turned things into mystery/horror tales. He really doesn't take a direct hand until the latter part of the run, when he and Barda go to Apokolips and free Tigra, Orion's mother and liberate the Female Furies. Kirby's deathtraps tended to be more of a chain-reaction kind of thing, with MM under heavy restraints....       Kirby focused more on the gimmick, than the symbolism. He put the philosophy in the dialogue. Not a fan of morrison messing with the 4th World, though he isn't alone in that. I don't think most of the people who tried their hand at it did it much justice. Mark Evanier had the deepest understanding of Kirby's intet; but, even he couldn't put himself in Kirby's headspace. Walt Simons came closest, for me, though Byrne had moments and Englehart at least made Mister Miracle interesting, even if the messiah role was a bit overstated. Orion is the deliverer, in Kirby's saga, as he will bring about Darkseid's end (and probably his own). |
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Post by rberman on Feb 3, 2019 7:45:08 GMT -5
Zatanna #4 “Zor!” (December 2005) The Story: It’s Zatanna and Misty’s turn to explore the Time Tailors' house in Slaughter Swamp. It contains the old spinning wheel that we saw in Guardian #4, as well as in Misty’s flashback in Zatanna #3. Misty flies off on Vanguard the Pegazeus to seek her destiny.  Zor the evil Time Tailor arrives at the swamp. He and Zatanna have a magic duel which culminates with a contest as to which of them can break the Morrisonian fourth wall better; Zatanna wins and finds herself jumping out of Grant Morrison’s typewriter entirely, landing in the higher realm of the Seven Unknown Men who have been orchestrating our story. She is allowed to meet her dad who says that the “four secret books” which he left behind to help the world are actually Zatanna, his pride and joy. Aww, how sweet!  My Two Cents: Zor is quite the obscurity, having battled The Spectre in two 1940 issues of More Fun Comics (#55 and 57). Internet pics of those appearances are similarly sparse, but I did find one en Espanol.  This shot of Zor shooting bullets out of his eyes (in our current issue) is way cool, though. He can do that sort of thing because he is an Eighth Unknown Man, gone rogue and thus representing bad writers who mess up the shared world of comic book continuity. Zor is the one who took Ali-Ka-Zoom's top hat in Guardian #4 and then left it at Cassandra's magic shop as seen in Zatanna #2. Looks like he got another one, as did Ali-Ka-Zoom.  As I mentioned above, Morrison uses “breaking out of the comic book panel into the higher dimension of comic book writers/readers is a super power” a lot. Hopefully you’ve seen some of the other threads where I discuss this in Animal Man, The Filth, Flex Mentallo, and JLA; I won’t post examples here to avoid repetition. Apparently this sequence replicates Spectre’s previous battle with Zor at a high level of homage fidelity.  Seven Soldiers Theme: The creation outlives the creator. In Zatanna’s case, she is the biological product of the deceased Zatara. She is his “books.”
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Post by rberman on Feb 4, 2019 0:02:44 GMT -5
Bulleteer #1 “Ballistic: How the Bulleteer Began” (January 2006) Art Team: Yanick Paquette penciled it. Michael Bair inked it. Alex Sinclair colored it. Serge LaPointe inked subsequent issues. The Story: Lance Harrower wants to be an eternally young superhero and hang out with cool superheroes, so he invents a metal coating that renders mice both strong and invulnerable. Will it work on humans? His wife Alix doesn’t want to try it with him, so he tries it on himself. It kills him, and when his wife tries to help, she gets a smaller dose which has the superhero effect he was looking for.  Alix discovers that he had a superheroine porn obsession and also was having an online affair with a superheroine “Sexy Sally Sonic” and was planning to abandon Alix after super-izing himself. She tries to kill herself in grief but ends up saving people from one of the many fiery train derailments that strike in comic books. Maybe she will try out this superhero thing after all. My Two Cents: This is a story about pornography. Lance Harrower is obsessed with it, sneaking at 5 am out of the bed he shares with his heroically-proportioned wife to ogle and chat with superwomen online, then guiltily closing the browser window when his wife walks in on him. Notice how he tries to put her on the defensive, challenging her on being awake to forestall questions about his own activities.  They have no children to consume their attention and energies, and Lance wants to become a superhero so that he can be eternally young, a wink at how Superman is no older now than he was in 1938. However, we’ve already seen a mystery woman in Zatanna’s therapy group ( Zatanna #1) who considers her eternal youth a curse. Note the wedding ring that Lance has removed for his video sex session in the image below, and the double entrendre of just what the "something stupid" is that he’s done-- infidelity or taking the dangerous super-treatment.  Scott Summers also "done something stupid" when he had a telepathic affair with Emma Frost in Morrison's run on New X-Men. Scott is another guy who messed up his relationship with a beautiful wife due to chasing a rainbow with no pot of gold.  Alix is trapped in pornography by the pen of Paquette which, no doubt at Morrison’s insistence, renders her perfect body in a state of near-constant undress, posing just like the women on Lance’s computer screen. Her husband wants to drag her into his superhero fetish fantasy and succeeds against her wishes. By the end of the issue, his obsession has gotten him killed, and she accepts her role as an object of the male gaze, complete with bustier top, phallic helmet and masculine name (Alix). As in Flex Mentallo, Morrison is laughing at those who downplay the voyeuristic element in the appearance of superheroes. This, he says, is wishful thinking. And yet pornographers and voyeurs appear in Morrison’s superhero work only as villains or pathetic characters, since he believes that super-heroes should be wholesome.  So that’s the theme of the story. But its form is a twist on the Silver Age trope of the scientist whose experiments lead to heroic transformation, and the Golden Age trope of the hero who ropes his girlfriend into being his sidekick. James “Bulletman” Barr was one of the first Golden Age heroes, having debuted in Nickel Comics in 1940. His girlfriend-then-wife Susan “Bulletgirl” Kent followed soon after.  But these new characters Lance and Alix are surnamed Harrower, which can’t be good news in a story in which “The Harrowing” refers to the bad guys conquering the world. We’ll see where it goes! There’s a line about Alix working with autistic children. This might seem just like a throw-away to establish her as a sympathetic, sacrificial figure who cares for the disabled. But it’s also a connection to another teacher of autistic children whose husband is addicted to pornography: Abby Arcane Cable in Alan Moore's Swamp Thing. If Morrison wants to escape Moore's shadow, he has a funny way of showing it-- more likely, a funny way of egging people on, inviting comparisons.   I’ve seen it suggested that Lance died because he had taken off his wedding ring (=lost his integrity) while dallying online, whereas Alix survives because she keeps on her ring, which somehow allows her to breathe when Lance was asphyxiated by his metallic coating. I don’t see any evidence of that in the story. The Metal Mouse survives just fine without a wedding ring. Maybe Alix just got a smaller, nonlethal exposure since hers was secondhand. Maybe her innocence saves her, where his impure motives show Lance unworthy of super-hero powers. Note that ultimately Alix is ogling herself admiringly, standing on her tip-toes to accentuate her bust and buttocks for the mirror’s gaze.  By the way, Morrison likes the “say bang and pretend your fingers are a gun” thing. It happens in the Pax Americana issue of Multiversity. The pose also appears on the cover of Bulleteer #3. And Shelly Gaynor did the pose back in Seven Soldiers #0 too. I have seen other examples of the pose (without the sound effect) in Morrison's work on Batman and Action Comics.   Seven Soldiers Theme: The creation outlives the creator. Lance the inventor of bullet-skin dies, but Alix survives, permanently covered in his life’s (and death’s) work. She also a wears a sexy costume he made for her, as will be discussed more in issue #3.
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Post by mikelmidnight on Feb 4, 2019 13:29:17 GMT -5
Not a fan of morrison messing with the 4th World, though he isn't alone in that. I don't think most of the people who tried their hand at it did it much justice. Mark Evanier had the deepest understanding of Kirby's intet; but, even he couldn't put himself in Kirby's headspace. Walt Simons came closest, for me, though Byrne had moments and Englehart at least made Mister Miracle interesting, even if the messiah role was a bit overstated. Orion is the deliverer, in Kirby's saga, as he will bring about Darkseid's end (and probably his own).
I'm of two minds about it. I'm dissatisfied with a lot of Morrison's stories about the New Gods, but he also seems the most philosophically interesting in his treatment of them (I did love Englehart's version of Mister Miracle and regret that Steve Gerber, who might have been magnificent on it, never got a chance).
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Post by mikelmidnight on Feb 4, 2019 13:31:52 GMT -5
Lance the inventor of bullet-skin dies, but Alix survives, permanently covered in his life’s (and death’s) work. She also a wears a sexy costume he made for her, as will be discussed more in issue #3.
My headcanon: Lance is the son of the Bulletman who was a member of the GI Joe Adventure team, and was trying to emulate his father.
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Post by rberman on Feb 4, 2019 22:14:31 GMT -5
Frankenstein #1 “Uglyhead” (January 2006) Art Team: Doug Mahnke did pencils and inks. John Salisz did colors, except Nathan Eyring did the last issue. The Story: In 1870s, Frankenstein decapitates Melmoth, ending his evil menace for now, but the train they are riding crashes on a steep mountain curve, and our undead hero is buried. Subsequent train wrecks happen in 1925 and 1955 on the same unsafe hairpin curve.  In present day, the pimply teen known only as “ Uglyhead” discovers that he can read the thoughts of his classmates, which are often not complimentary of him. But he has a thought-controlling Sheeda riding around on his back, and soon he’s given one to his pretty blonde classmate. She gorges herself on junk food, running her skin, looks, and figure. At the high school prom, the whole student body is assaulted by Sheeda pupae, soon to hatch into more spine riders like those seen back in JLA Classified #1-3 -- remember that story? Seems so long ago.  The one nice girl in school flees the gym unscathed and encounters Frankenstein, who is rising out of the floor in the hall, beheading Uglyhead and burning the school to the ground. She wants to go with Frankenstein, but he says no, he must fight evil alone.  My Two Cents: This is a tirade against fanboys, replaying the Quentin Quire “Riot at Xavier’s” arc from New X-Men. Morrison is venting his spleen against petty nerds who deserve to be outcasts, because they spend all their time tearing other people down to make themselves seem higher. The only thing you can do with their infected abodes is burn them to the ground. I’m sure Morrison has had plenty of firsthand experience with the negativity-strewn corners of fandom. I was a bit disappointed that Uglyhead is simply a Sheeda pawn; mind control sucks the poignancy right out of a story that could have been about a kid who really was as ugly on the inside as the outside, but we never get to see him without the Sheeda, so who knows?  This series was originally going to be about Etrigan the Demon as part of Morrison’s “new life for C-list Kirby characters” motif, but DC already had John Byrne working on a Demon project, forcing Morrison to make a new character for this segment. Yes, it’s annoying to once again see the monster called by the name of the creator Dr. Frankenstein. DC has had other versions of this character, including one in the Creature Commandos whose WW2 exploits were chronicled in Weird War Tales in the early 1980s. Mary Shelley’s sci-fi spin on golems has fired many an imagination in the last two centuries. I also see some of Alan Moore’s hulking, brooding, implacable Swamp Thing here, but Swamp Thing was a plant of few words, whereas Frankenstein acts and talks in a very Conan-esque stoic, dramatic fashion. “Find your kin, and tell them to gather weapons, for Armageddon’s breath is now upon their necks.” Morrison also included Frankenstein-related material in The Invisibles, including an appearance from Mary Shelley in an early issue:  Frank quotes Book XI of Milton’s “Paradise Lost” while executing Uglyhead. It’s a section in which God’s punishment is being carried out upon Adam and Eve, despite their origins as his special creatures: Two story details that catch the eye. First, the Sheeda apparently are using the Excalibur Fantasy Butterfly World storefront as a base of operations. I have never heard of a store that specialized in butterflies and have no idea what its products might be. Second, when the “nice girl” fled the gym, she was reciting Uglyhead’s name backwards, as if casting a Zatanna-type spell. What’s up with that?  Seven Soldiers Theme: The creation outlives the creator in two senses. First, the character of Frankenstein’s monster outlived Victor Frankenstein. Second, the fictional character has long outlived Mary Shelley, author of the book “Frankenstein.” Obviously the same could be said of the creators of many of the Golden and Silver Age characters featured in this series; they are gone, but their creations live on. It turns out that we saw that back of Frankenstein’s head in Seven Soldiers #0 when Shelly Gaynor was looking at a newspaper clipping of Greg Sanders fighting giant spiders in the Old West during his “lost in time” days as recounted in Len Wein's story for JLA #100. 
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Feb 5, 2019 1:36:13 GMT -5
Kirby was a Jew and wasn't likely to use crucifixion, other than in a literal sense. Englehart was the one who presented the idea of Mister Miracle as a sort of messianic figure. Kirby's take was not so much a messiah as someone who just wanted a life beyond the constant warring, until he took a more definite hand, in the later stories, before editorial dictates mostly ended the battle with Apokolips and turned things into mystery/horror tales. He really doesn't take a direct hand until the latter part of the run, when he and Barda go to Apokolips and free Tigra, Orion's mother and liberate the Female Furies. Kirby's deathtraps tended to be more of a chain-reaction kind of thing, with MM under heavy restraints.... Kirby focused more on the gimmick, than the symbolism. He put the philosophy in the dialogue. Not a fan of morrison messing with the 4th World, though he isn't alone in that. I don't think most of the people who tried their hand at it did it much justice. Mark Evanier had the deepest understanding of Kirby's intet; but, even he couldn't put himself in Kirby's headspace. Walt Simons came closest, for me, though Byrne had moments and Englehart at least made Mister Miracle interesting, even if the messiah role was a bit overstated. Orion is the deliverer, in Kirby's saga, as he will bring about Darkseid's end (and probably his own). So, Your interpretation of a story you haven't read based only on the cover is incorrect. Morrison and Ferry are focusing more on the gimmick than the symbolism, and the philosophy is in the dialogue. Alright, alright, alright. I'll give you this. Morrison and Ferry might be making a passing nod as mythical Christianity, although the divinity (or, specifically, Messiahdom) of Jesus is incidental. Shiloh is a "New God" and Jesus was a "New God" who's story focused strongly on imprisonment, execution, and rolling the rock away ... hey, is that an escape?! There might be a quick reference to Jungian mythological parallelism wherein certain themes reoccur in different cultures at different times, but he's not casting Mister Miracle as a messiah. He's a man who escapes. Also I know this was far more explicit in (Also Jewish) Stan Lee's version of the Silver Surfer, but I can't imagine that the guy who created the Silver Surfer was opposed to mining Christianity for his stories. Also strongly disagree that the traps in Kirby's Mister Miracle were not symbolic, and I think the visuals were as symbol-laden as the dialog, across the whole line. Kirby was much more a visual thinker than a verbal thinker. The entirety of the Fourth World was a metaphor for responses to Vietnam, right? And that was never made explicit in the words. |
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