One of my favorite songs growing up was The Devil Went Down to Georgia. It wasn’t one of the songs I thought as my favorite at the time, but it was one that was obviously a favorite in retrospect. The song, as you are probably aware, tells of the time the Devil, in need of a soul, went to Georgia and challenged a guy named Johnny to a fiddle contest for his soul. Johnny, knowing it might be a sin, accepted the challenge and won a fiddle of gold.
There are a few subtleties to the song that one might not notice upon hearing the song. Firstly, Johnny’s clearly a black guy. Throughout the song, the Devil refers to Johnny as “boy,” which at the time was a derogatory term for black people. And while it could very well indicate him to be a child, the implications of the song are far more interesting if one assumes the Devil is racist. Given this, what do you suppose would happen to such a man carrying a fiddle of gold in Georgia? Sure, the Devil might not have gotten Johnny’s soul and Johnny might have bested the Devil, but someone sure as salt lost their soul for that fiddle. You might think the Devil is only after you, but the Devil is always thinking about the people around you. Something to think about…
In many ways, this is the best issue of Mister Miracle yet. It’s not as structurally interesting as the previous issue, but it nonetheless pushes the baseline quality of the series to newer heights. There are so many things to talk about the issue, from the Da Vinci story to the Mirror of Goodness to the panel where Mitch Gerads samples a Kirby drawing to highlight a character’s anger as being symbolic of said character’s return to a baser, more primal mode of being. There’s so much in this one issue that I scarcely know where to start. Plot wise, it simply tells of attempts at negotiating the end of a war that there is no way of winning through conventional means. Both sides bluster, intimidate, and bribe their way to victories until the one person not at the table changes the rules of the game from into something far bleaker.
But before I get to that, I first want to talk about the invocation of “Darkseid is.” Throughout the series, those words have been connected to solely to the character of Scott Free. With only one exception (two if you count the first issue), Scott has appeared in the panel prior to the appearance of those two words. And in that one exception, the character who does appear is invoking Scott Free in an awful pun about how screwed the President is.
But in this issue, it’s Kalibak who appears in the panel prior to the words “Darkseid is.” And all he says is “Whatever.” Kalibak, for those not reading this book, is Darkseid’s other son. The son he actually raised as his own as opposed to sending to live with his arch-nemesis (God, eldest of things) or tossing into the pit to be raised by an abusive old woman. Kalibak is the son Darkseid actually raised. And yet for all that he was raised by Darkseid… the bleak God of Apokolips never seems to care for the lad.
Indeed, more often than not it’s Orion who deals with Darkseid’s gaze. And when he’s not tormenting his flesh and blood, it’s Scott whose chair he sits on. But he never seems to care much for Kalibak. For all his monstrosity both in form and in personality, there is a sadness to Kalibak. A son who is able to avoid the physical and verbal abuses his brothers faced… but only because his father doesn’t care enough to notice him (which in and of itself is abusive). And yet, as with Scott and Granny, Kalibak loves his father and seeks his approval and his love. Unlike Scott though, he doesn’t want closure. That would imply a desire for finality. What Kalibak wants more than anything… is commencement. Given all this, though not as frequently as Scott, one must imagine Kalibak thinking to himself
Why shouldn’t I commit suicide?
Given this, the ending becomes all the crueler. On the last day of the negotiations, Darkseid rejects the offer New Genesis brings to the table for peace. At first, this is assumed to be a rejection of peace between the two warring worlds, but Kalibak (who acts as Darkseid’s emissary) elaborates that Darkseid has a counteroffer. The pessimism God of Apokolips is willing to give up everything. Not just a withdrawal of all his forces, a return of all prisoners, and a complete and utter disarmament of Apokolips, but he is even willing to give up the Anti-Life Equation, that which would give him mastery over the entire universe. All he asks is one small thing (given what that thing is, it’s hard not to notice the sadness in the way Gerads draws Kalibak before the reveal. For all his size, Kalibak looks tiny in the face of what he’s about to say): “He asks for custody of his only grandchild, Jacob Free. He asks that the boy be raised on Apokolips. That he be raised here as the one, true heir of Darkseid.”
This is perhaps the most obvious thing Darkseid could have done. The consequences of the resolution for the last time New Genesis and Apokolips went to war (Orion, son of Darkseid, was traded for the nameless son of Highfather, God of New Genesis. We know him as Scott Free) have reverberated throughout the series. Indeed, every analysis of the issue, every conversation about how this issue’s going to end, all thoughts of this issue have reflected this very event. The emotional trauma of forcing someone to repeat the sins of their father is an extremely Darkseid thing to do. Darkseid corrupts the most noble of deeds such as self-sacrifice into returning to a cycle of abuse. To do otherwise would perpetuate a war Scott can’t win.
Were he Orion, Scott would probably give up his son. Needs of the many and what not. But Scott is not his brother. He is, by his own admission, Granny-Raised. Which, for him, means Scott is broken, traumatized, and ultimately caring. Upon hearing the deal, Scott sits agape while Barda and Lightray prepare to go to war over this. This is the no-win scenario. The trap the series has, in retrospect, been building to since the very start. From the admission in issue four of Scott’s bitterness towards his father over not being given a name (does he think Darkseid would allow Scott his name when he refuses so much else) to issue one’s repeated talks of the parenthood of Orion and Scott Free all the way up to the origin of Jacob’s name being a story about the false hope of escaping Apokolips, this trap was perhaps always the way the story was going to end. And no matter what, Darkseid wins.
But is there a way out? Well… consider, for a moment, the issue of Jack Kirby’s Mister Miracle this one quotes. That issue, also #9, tells of Scott’s final days on Apokolips before escaping. As he reaches the portal to escape the world of holocaust and misery he has known his entire life, in what is perhaps my favorite moment of Jack Kirby’s New Gods sage, two of his fathers come to offer him a vision of what his escape means. Darkseid, representing Apokolips, says that should he leave Darkseid, Scott’ll still find Death. Himon, representing New Genesis, says that he’ll find the Universe should he escape. But instead of embracing Himon in the New Genesis way of thinking, Scott’s escape rejects both of them in favor of finding himself.
What, then, does it mean to find one’s self? Is there an innate self, found by looking inward? Are we the sum of the contradictory human race that surrounds us? Or is there no true self to find, merely a fiction built to deny the truth that all things are mere flesh? If so, does this make the quest to find one’s self Sisyphean in nature? And is this moment filled implications and meaning that which Tom King built his miniseries on top of? Something to think about…
“Please don’t tear this world asunder.Support the blog on Pateron.
Please take back
This fear we’re under.
I demand a better future.”
-David Bowie, A Better Future
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