One Must Imagine Scott Free Happy Release!

My book, One Must Imagine Scott Free Happy, has finally been released. It can be purchased on Smashwords and Amazon. Here is the official summary of the book:

FROM THE PAGES OF PANELXPANEL COMES...

ONE MUST IMAGINE SCOTT FREE HAPPY!

In 2017, DC Comics began publishing Mister Miracle, a 12 issue comic book series written by Tom King and drawn by Mitch Gerads. It tells the story of a man who survived a suicide attempt and what followed from that dreadful night. It's a story about war, abuse, comics, and love. It's one of the most interesting texts of 21st century comics literature.

One Must Imagine Scott Free Happy is an exploration of these themes and so many others. What happens when a book haunts the subconscious of the mind? How does one survive the 21st century when one doesn't know if things make a lick of sense? Are dreams another means of ghosts haunting you? Is there life after birth? Is there life on the Earth?

There are twelve main essays, focusing on themes and ideas within Mister Miracle, fourteen side essays, focusing on texts related to Mister Miracle, and two appendices (one featuring the original reviews written for PanelXPanel, the other exploring other texts written by Tom King).

When A Good Man Goes To War: Thesis on Tom King

Commissioned by Mitchell Gosser

I'd love an essay on Tom King's shift between The Omega Men and Mister Miracle, on the consequences of these 12 issue miniseries. While Omega Men was billed that the ending would set up a huge conflict for the DCU, and The Vision teased the end of the world but shrunk in scope but increased in intimacy for the family, Mister Miracle feels like Tom finding absolution in not needing the narrative to affect the larger DC Universe. I felt Oberon's talk with Scott is the most telling about the shift of the plotting intimacy of King's books with time.

I kinda didn’t want to write about Tom King for a while. It’s not that I’ve soured on him, he’s still one of the best comics writers working today. It’s just that… look, when you write a book that’s about 125,000 words long, you really want to not write about that for some time. And it’s not like I’m never going to talk about Tom King at length ever again. I’m sure something will come out of Strange Adventures (no doubt a podcast series where I make David Mann suffer) and I’ll probably talk about him in length in an upcoming podcast on Doomsday Clock: The Official Sequel to DC Comic’s Watchmen, a DC Comics Production.

But I was requested to talk about a through line between these three works. To be fair, while I talk about all three in the book, I don’t really talk about them in context. There is, to be sure, a connective tissue between the works beyond Tom King’s presence. The Vision and Mister Miracle, for example, are about the cross section between the mundane and the weird, but the latter lacks the former’s interest in the ways in which attempting to be normal (white and straight) ultimately leads to disastrous and toxic results. Mister Miracle and The Omega Men, meanwhile, explore the ways in which war corrupts a society, but The Omega Men looks at it from the perspective of those on the front lines while Mister Miracle is focused on those who order men to their deaths (and also serve on the front lines). The Omega Men and The Vision both have an interest in the apocalyptic implications of superheroes gone horribly wrong, but the theme is very muted in the latter (until it suddenly isn’t) and the former is more interested in the subject of Sci-Fi war stories and the ways their implied utopias don’t always pan out.

But perhaps the theme connecting these three comics the most is that of masculinity. Masculinity is somewhat of a minor theme within the comics in the sense that it’s not, say, Steven Moffat writing the Doctor as unsure what makes a good man with contrasts ranging from the ideal man in the form of Rory Williams to more flawed, but still ultimately good men like Santa Claus. On the surface, the theme is nonexistent within The Omega Men, considering that’s a story of flawed, broken people working to make the universe a better place. However, one can find the theme within the character of Kyle Rayner. Kyle, in many ways, is a Good Man who’s gone to war. When he arrives in the Vega system, he rejects the worldview of the Viceroy that there is a distinction between us and them. That, ultimately, all life is valid and worth existing. The terms “savage” and “civilized” are used by those in the former to demonize the latter. (Insert clip from Pocahontas here.) Kyle’s goodness comes from his rejection of such binaries in favor of a better world.

The Vision, by contrast, is a bad man. He’s a bad man precisely because of what he thinks it takes to be a good man. Good men, The Vision’s been sold, are violent men. They fight against all odds to protect their families from those who would do them harm. They are breadwinners who rarely, if ever, actually have time to spend with their families, but will give pat answers to their issues that don’t really help them in the long run. And, if our families are hurt, men like The Vision ought to Avenge them. No matter how many bodies he will leave in his wake. All to be a good man.

Mister Miracle, ultimately (among other things discussed in my book which will come out by Christmas or I will eat a shoe), is about a man who broke and tried to build himself back together. And when that didn’t work, he realized that the best way forward was not by keeping his feelings bottled up in masculinity (like his brother, Orion, did), but by being open and honest about it even as it hurt those closest to him. Tom King understands this quite well. Though, from my knowledge, he has not experienced the childhood trauma of being thrown into a volcano, he has been traumatized by his experiences in war. These experiences are things he can’t fully express publicly, but they still linger in his mind.

And so, he writes stories that rhyme with his experiences. Stories about those who broke and lashed out at the people closest to them. Those who broke by breaking themselves. Those who tried to make the world a better place and came out the other side scarred. The secret at the heart of all of Tom King’s stories is empathy.

That is, after all, the moral heart of the flawed Heroes in Crisis: The Flash had a pervious breakdown that accidentally caused the deaths of those closest to him (sometimes metaphorically). He concluded from this that he was a monster for being unable to remain normal and sane like all his friends, to keep it together and not have a nervous break. So he tried to kill himself. Because he believed that was the right thing to do, the heroic thing. But the system that made him believe such rubbish was flawed. Broken even. Ultimately, the way forward presented was to have empathy for such people as Wally West, as The Vision and Kyle Rayner and Scott Free.

Not because they did horrible things and should get a pass for being white men. (For starters, Kyle’s Latinix.) But rather because one doesn’t fix a problem simply by acting as if it’s an outside problem, one that can be repelled, as opposed to a systemic one. Masculinity, especially in Batman where King presents the titular character in the midst of a nervous break due to his inability to accept rejection, is broken. It aligns with toxic ideals and is rewarded frequently for embracing them. There is, however, something within the male archetype worth salvaging. All it has to do is be open when it’s failing.

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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