Future State - Top Ten: #2. Mister Miracle

 

Writer: Brandon Easton

Artist: Valentine De Landro

Out of all the backup features in Future State, Easton & De Landro’s Mister Miracle was not only the longest (running four segments serialized between Superman of Metropolis and Superman: Worlds of War) but the most consistently entertaining, which I assume is why it was longest, and also why it was picked up as an Infinite Frontier miniseries, which recently launched (and I have also enjoyed).

Unlike Tom King’s comic, which featured the more traditional Mister Miracle, Scott Free, this is a spotlight for Shilo Norman, last featured in Grant Morrison’s Seven Soldiers of Victory.

The absolute beauty of it, other than De Landro’s wonderfully simplistic, fantastic art (which, sadly, wasn’t carried over into the sequel project), is Easton’s depiction of Shilo’s relationship with his Mother Box.

Now, as a longtime comics reader who has experienced plenty of Booster Gold conversations with Skeets, just to name one example, I’ve seen this kind of interplay before. But I have never seen it better. The “man in the chair” trope the MCU Spider-Man identified and usually illustrated by Batman and Alfred tends to be defined by an exchange of information. 

Shilo & his Mother Box have a full-blown camaraderie going on.

Again, not like Booster & Skeets. Skeets tends, because Booster is often a comic character, to be the long-suffering counterpoint. The “man in the chair” itself is a gimmick of unequal weight.

Shilo & his Mother Box are pals.

And I loved that! In New Gods lore Mother Boxes are basically smartphones with AI interaction, capable of transporting the protagonist wherever they need to go via Boom Tube. Very infrequently you’ll have a Green Lantern comic where a ring is depicted like Easton does his Mother Box.

(Ooh! Ooh! Get Easton to write Green Lantern!)

The interplay between Shilo & his Mother Box is ubiquitous in the story. For me it was the whole draw. Technically Shilo is involved, the link between, the adventures playing out in the main stories of the Superman Future State titles (which themselves, again, play out in a far more satisfyingly subtle manner than the Batman family’s).

It gives the result a true personality. I hope when the sequel is collected, this is included along with it. The sequel takes a completely different tack, by the way, focusing more on Shilo specifically, but Easton is sufficiently talented, it seems, to not even miss a beat in the transition. A hugely promising new voice at DC.