I Can't Escape

The second greatest Darkseid moment comes from The Forever People #4. (The greatest is his analysis of Weird Al Yankovic in the Teen Titans Go! episode Two Parter.) In it, the diabolical demiurge wanders around Happyland, his thriving amusement park that is most assuredly not Disneyland. While there, a small child sees him and is quite sensibly terrified. His grandfather tries to assure the child that Darkseid’s just some guy in a costume, but Darkseid rebuke’s the man’s efforts. Darkseid then explains that young humans can see monsters such as Darkseid for the evil that they are, but the adults of the world like to tidy up such things with “cock and bull stories” so as “to keep the premises smelling sweet.” Darkseid laughs maniacally whilst the old man takes the child away whilst calling the God a fool.

This is the nature of Darkseid at his purest. Not that of the paper tiger who occasionally gets punched in the face by Superman while having a side gig of sitting on people’s chairs. Nor a mere conqueror of worlds that wishes to dominate and control everything and everyone until they love him for it. Rather, what Darkseid is… what Darkseid represents (for characters such as Darkseid, Highfather, and Mr. Worldly Wiseman are metaphorical figures more than they are straightforward characters) is the willingness to ignore the suffering of others for our own gains.

Let’s start with Happyland itself. It’s a theme park like any other with rides and games for the people to play. But underneath, there’s a dark underbelly of abuse and cruelty including the torture of the titular Forever People as well as several humans unaffiliated with either side. In regards to non-comics worlds, there are the numerous sweatshops that exist in third world countries that build our smartphones, laptops, and clothes. There are the numerous disenfranchised people who are being beaten to death by the police solely due to the color of their skin. Then there’s homeless who starve slowly on the streets of our beautiful cities. And then there are the children we bomb because their nation has a resource we want.

There are so many other children of Omelas I could mention. So many horrors that fuel this utopia we call capitalism. And Darkseid is the voice in our heads that tells us to ignore the screams. “Worry not of the children of some backwards foreign country,” he’ll whisper in an insidiously calm tone with the voice of Tom Hanks, “there’s nothing you can do about it. There’s no ethical consumption in capitalism, so it’s best not to think about it and enjoy what you have. Don’t listen to those people who claim what you have is wrong. Those “Social Justice Warriors” want to destroy comics. Thankfully users like Sledghammer1488 and MagaSpiderman are dealing with them and their ilk, so you don’t need to worry. Who cares if the tactics make those SJWs ask themselves

Why shouldn’t I commit suicide?

They deserve it for ruining your fun. They’re evil that must be stopped. Everything was fine before they invaded. Everything will be fine again. Everything is fine. Everything is fine. Everything. Is. Fine. Obey.” And in ignoring the screams, they grow ever louder…

Which makes his ultimate fall in Mister Miracle #11 a bit… anticlimactic. Not to say that the issue itself is bad. Quite the opposite, it’s an amazing read full of wonderful, brilliant moments. From Scott Free slowly crawling over to the food tray while Darkseid’s shadow looms over his broken body (an apt metaphor for this his role within the series) to Barda’s interacting with Leilan before the main action begins being more akin to sorority sisters reuniting than representatives of opposing sides of the war to the third best Darkseid moment ever, where the villain remains stone faced while baby Jacob plays with his nose to Dessad’s “Misery Builds Character” monologue, and so many other little moments.

The art and structure of the issue remains brilliant as always. In particular the opening of the trade where it’s clear that the obvious way to depict the scene would be to combine panels, but by not doing so it emphasizes just how small and trapped Scott and Barda feel and how imposing Darkseid is. There’s the way Mitch Gerads draws the darkness of Dessad’s hood, always making clear how smug his smile is even when you can’t see his mouth. And then there’s the moment where Scott is stabbing Darkseid to death, finally getting the catharsis for his years of abuse, where the arm in one panel nearly perfectly connects to his body in the next. But the big, “Holy Shit” moment of the comic is of course the two-page spread of all the superheroes. And it is here where the comic feels the most… off. 

There are many pathways one could take with this spread. One could note that of the three superheroes of color, two of them have their faces obscured in one form or another. Someone could explore the implications of the phrase “There is another world” and how it ties into Grant Morrison’s final issue of Doom Patrol (another narrative about trauma). Alternatively, one could look at the placement of the “Trinity Heroes” and extrapolate the implications of Wonder Woman being in the center of them. Or one could write an extremely nerdy piece on the placement of Adam Strange on the “Heroes are a thing of wonder” spread and how it contradicts DC’s current MO of the character as “ADAM STRANGE MUST SUFFER FOREVER!!!!!!!”

But what I want to focus on are the two central figures of the spread: Highfather and Metron. Highfather’s relationship to the narrative has been, not necessarily negative per say. He’s not the surprise villain like Ozymandias or a villain the text treats as heroic like Dumbledore. Rather, Highfather is a character the story up to this point has treated with some mixed emotions. Most notably in the fourth issue, Scott has a monologue about his… issues with his father. He speaks of how Highfather was willing to give up his own son to stop the war (regardless of the traumas the son would experience) and his desire to have at least been given a name. There’s a sense in his words that there was never time to ask. Even in the first issue, when Highfather was alive, there’s a distance between Scott and his father in how they talk to each other.

At the same time though, it’s more complicated than that. Consider Scott’s “final” words to his son. In them, he remarks about the similarity between his situation and his father’s. He doesn’t remember what his father said to him and he admits he’d probably hate what it was. But at the same time, the feeling of those words was a comfort to him when he was in places he couldn’t escape from. He knew, or rather believed, that someone out there loved him. Someone who’ll be there when thunderstorms get too frightening or when the spinach needs to be eaten. Highfather, the person, could never be that for Scott. He’s too much of an idea, an abstract, a ghost in Scott’s life to be such a father. But the hope for someone like Highfather certainly was enough to keep Scott going.

Which leaves us with only Metron where the ending truly feels off. Consider his previous appearance in the second issue: a haggard old man screaming “YOU ARE NOT TO KNOW THE FACE OF GOD!” at Scott over and over again. Now, all of a sudden, he’s a younger, sleeker version of himself telling Scott to look into the face of God as if doing so in the sixth issue didn’t traumatize him enough. Furthermore there’s the paralleling on the final page itself, wherein the heavily distorted image of Metron is structurally paralleled with Darkseid’s corpse to imply a connection between the two. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

Then again… The Jack Kirby narration on that last page talks of how easy it is to trap a man such as Scott Free. A man who has achieved a long sought out catharsis for his childhood trauma; a family man with a wife and son who love him very much; one whose friends will be there for him through thick and thin; a person who has seen darkness and cruelty, but who is at the end of the day happy. And indeed, it is easy to trap such a man: tell him that his happiness is a cage and the world that he finds himself in is wrong. Then laugh as the man calls you a fool while reinforcing the cage with cock and bull stories.

One more issue to go…

“Is someone behind it all, I wonder? Some Idiot-God… Some cruel audience out in the ether, taking joy in my downfall? A-And if there is? If… if you’re listening? You should know that I hate you. I hate you for building a world where I can’t escape what I am. I hate you for cursing me with the simple fact of my birth. I hate you for crushing me beneath the impossible truth that I… cannot ever overcome-- my destiny.”
-Simon Spurrier, Slouching Towards Bethlehem

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Please Don't Tear This World Asunder

Originally published in PanelXPanel #12.

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.
Please take back
This fear we’re under.
I demand a better future.”
-David Bowie, A Better Future

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