Impossible to even contemplate.
Creative Staff:
Story: Tom King
Art: Mitch Gerards
Colors: Mitch Gerards
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
What They Say:
Darkseid has put an offer on the table— something that can end the war between New Genesis and Apokolips once and for all. The stakes are high, but peace is important. Mister Miracle finds himself caught having to make a decision that won’t just change the new life he’s been building, but potentially the entirety of the universe.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Mister Miracle has brought us to an interesting point in the war with the previous issue as we ended with Darkseid willing to concede to most everything – in exchange for Jacob. Tom King has crafted creative and hard choices for characters in this series since early on and he’s done that in a big way with other works as well, which is one of the draws for me because it really challenges the core of the character, which we see with Scott and Barda here. It’s also something that, through the style used here with the grid formula, results in letting these hard moments breathe, the way the mind races, and the emptiness that you come up with because you can’t respond. Mitch Gerards has been on fire since panel one and that continues here.
As expected, Scott and Barda are back on Earth to figure this out and neither of them really wants to talk about. Scott does keep trying to broach the subject because they have to figure something out with this considering the billions of lives at stake. But like any couple faced with a serious issue, the walls have kind of come up and there’s a retreat to what they’re feeling and thinking. It’s more focused on Scott, which is problematic since it’s not exactly a single-person choice, but we see it through his perspective and the struggle of it all because of his position as the Highfather and knowing, well, everything involved in it. This does lead to some interesting discussions in a slightly roundabout way with their own pasts on Apokolips and where they are now but the approach and the simple shutdowns that comes from it makes it hard to really make progress.
We do get some fun time at a bar with Scott meeting up with Blue Beetle and Booster Gold (as Mitch Gerards requested to illustrate them timed with a celebration of Steve Ditko’s life that gets a nice end-book two-page spread) that’s just a delight as they increasingly drunk and we get to see the problems of war in relation to boom tubes as an Uber-style device. There’s also a really fun and cute couple of pages devoted to Funky, which is always iffy for me, but it ties well to Jacob and give Scott some stuff to really think about from the least expected place. Hell, we even get Scott in typical man fashion just asking random strangers, such as a retail clerk, about what he should do about giving his son to Darkseid. That’s just so utterly male.
In Summary:
Mister Miracle puts out leads into an impossible spot and forces them to figure out how to deal with it. While a solution is come up with you can see how fraught with problems it is and just how disastrously bad it can go, even if it’s the only real one besides simply giving in. And admittedly, that would make for an engaging story to move forward with. King and Gerards takes us through the complicated emotional aspect of this in regards to the relationship at hand and that makes for some really discomforting moments of humanity for all involved. There’s nothing easy about this and even if you feel there’s nothing to say as Barda does, you do have to actually talk and figure it out and that will most definitely change the nature of the relationship, even if both are on the same page. Being put into this position simply changes everything and the team here put it to paper beautifully.
Grade: A-
Age Rating: 17+
Released By: DC Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: August 1st, 2018
MSRP: $3.99
