An Escape Artist

Originally published in PanelXPanel #14.

To open his video on Hocus Focus, Greg Stevens of Pop Arena asked a simple question: How many professional jugglers can you name? Take as much time as you need. Not that many? (Unless you’re in the community, of course.) In truth, I wasn’t able to name a single one and even Greg was only able to name a handful. He then asks how many film actors can you name? It’s a larger number, isn’t it? Even if you aren’t really into the film business, cultural osmosis at least places a double digits worth of actors into your head.

The point of this exercise wasn’t to shame people into learning more about juggling (or any of the other arts he brings up). Rather, it was to highlight the hierarchy of arts and the way performance art is considered to be a lesser art. One not cared about in the grand scheme of things enough for information to be preserved. Speaking from experience working at a puppetry museum, it’s disheartening to learn that all the available information on a given puppeteer is just a paragraph on the back of a baseball card. The truth is our society, for whatever reason, places knowing who an actor or a musician is over knowing who a performing artists is. How many jugglers can you name? How many stage magicians? How many escape artists? 

Which brings us to issue 10 of Mister Miracle, the best issue thus far. There’s a lot that can be said about this issue from Mitch Gerads’ crisp artwork (that, in an uncharacteristic move for the comic, instead of highlighting the mundane absurdity of superheroes is used to hone in on the isolation Scott is feeling as the looming idea of Darkseid comes ever closer to the forefront) to Tom King’s clever script (to give an example that I don’t plan on focusing on in the remainder of the review, the blatant nicking of the Galactus story as a dog comic) to Drunk Skeets (which is somehow a better idea than “Evil fucking Skeets”). There are so many good bits that I’d just be retelling the issue if I just talked about them.

But at its core, issue 10 is a character study of Scott Free. Who is Scott Free? We are told that he’s Mister Miracle-- Super Escape Artist, but he doesn’t seem to belong to that community. When discussing who to invite to Jacob’s birthday party, there’s talk of inviting members of the Justice League and some backstage people. But no one brings up inviting fellow performers. Is Scott then more a superhero than a performer? Well, how does one define being a superhero? By the number of lives saved? Well, no. Scott spends more time fighting a war than saving people in the traditional superhero manner. It has been argued that the superhero is a manifestation of traumatic experiences, a means by which an individual may be protected from the dangers of the world. But said dangers involve changes such as ending the endless war or being a father. Change is always painful, and Scott’s life just won’t stop changing (unlike a superhero’s which, with few exceptions, has a status quo to fall back on).

But one cannot be truly defined by their profession. Take, for example, the life equation sequence. The conversation is between Scott and a retail worker named Chet. Based on the cultural beliefs of retail, what kind of person would you say Chet is? Is he a poor person working nine to five to feed his family? Is he a recent graduate who realized too late that his degree isn’t enough to get him a job? Does he vote democrat or republican? He seems like a good person, or at the very least someone willing to indulge in the customer’s weird questions.

So then, what kind of person is Scott Free? We certainly have more information on him than we do on Chet (Scott’s the main character after all whereas Chet’s a two page cameo). What are Scott’s defining traits? The most obvious would be his depression. Indeed, the issue’s greatest moment focuses on this as Scott crawls into a ball while taking a shower. It’s a devastating experience where all those emotions he’s repressed to lead the war effort and be a good father break through. Throughout the whole sequence, we never see his face, and yet we can feel his pain.

At the same time though, his depression isn’t viewed as completely selfless as many a story about people with depression tends to frame it. There are other people in Scott’s life. People who are suffering as much as he is. Going in chronological order, note the way Gerads draws Ted Kord and Michael Carter. There’s an air of sadness to them (or, in Michael’s case, an air of Frazier Irving, which always comes off as sad no mater what expressions he’s drawing). We haven’t seen any of the other superheroes in the book (aside from Scott’s tee shirts and a plushie), so this might be the first time he’s seen these two since he was in the hospital. Plus, they know about with Jacob, how Darkseid wants him for his own. For all their jokes and silliness, they’re still friends. They’ll be there for him as best they can.

But the big one is Barda. Barda, who for this whole series came off as is she had her life together, Barda who got the catharsis of killing her abuser, even she’s, to use the language of the comic, “all #$&@# up.” How dare Scott try to kill himself because “he’s in a bad place” and “he wants to escape from it.” She’s in that same place. They were raised by the same “mother” who abused them and countless other children. And she doesn’t get to escape from this existence. She has to be there for Scott because… that’s all she can do at this point. There’s no one else she can talk to. Maybe the Furies, but they dealt with their trauma by lashing out and hurting people. She never thought Scott would be so selfish as to do the same.

Many have argued that this is all leading up to the reveal that this is all a simulation caused by the Lump or it’s Scott dying in the bathroom. But, to me, such a reveal would undercut this raw moment of emotional honesty. It’s an ugly moment where both parties are at fault and both parties feel the pain. While there is a level of selfishness to committing suicide, the hurt that caused Scott to do such an action is real. He wants to be out of that bad place of pain and misery, to finally come in out of the rain. But Barda doesn’t think it’ll ever stop raining. Unhealthy? Perhaps, but it’s understandable. People manage their pain differently. To say a person is defined by their depression is to say they are defined by their anger.

Perhaps it’s better to understand Scott through what his actions say about him. He cares about people. In spite of everything, all the pain and suffering and cruelties he’s experienced, he wants no one else to hurt. He’s somewhat self-absorbed as his nonchalantness towards Forager’s death shows. He has a sense of humor to his lot in life and he’s cordial to even his enemies (then again, how else are you supposed to act while taking a piss with a God?). He’s indecisive as well. He doesn’t have straightforward answers for things everyone else seems to know instinctively. For example: should he give up his son to Darkseid to end the endless war? Were Orion in his shoes, he would have given up Jacob if it meant wining the war. Barda’s feelings on the matter are quite explicitly counter to this.

But Scott doesn’t know what he wants. Do anyone of us know what we truly want? Is there a means by which we can be defined like numbers on a chart? Or is it possible that maybe, just maybe, life is far too complicated to be boiled down to mere mathematics. It would be like defining poetry by the logics of biology. That is the path of Darkseids Sleep. The tormenter that says that there are people out there who must suffer for the sake of the many. We cannot abide by such a logic.

So once again I ask: Who is Scott Free? Is he a master of spectacular trickery or is he something more? Is he a superhero or an escape artist? The father of Jacob Free? The husband of Big Barda? A member of the Justice League? Son of Highfather and Darkseid? Is he the kind of man who could kill his own father, no matter how much suffering he’s brought both to Scott and all the other people of the world? Does he want to be remembered? Is he a God? Is he a good man? Does he care for those around him? Is he the spirit of freedom or an agent of Anti-Life? Or did he reject the premise of a simple, yet cruel, question:

Why shouldn’t I commit suicide?

“You are the shackles gone tarnished.
You are at last the unharnessed.
You’re an escape artist.
You’re an escape!”
-Alex Reed, Escape (Abandoned demo)

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