Tower of Iron Will

Scott Free, a.k.a. Mister Miracle, is an escape artist, an alien god, and a superhero, but this story is miles removed from typical superheroics. This is a story about escaping. In places it is about escaping from the trauma of an abusive childhood and escaping from the horrors of war. In other places it is about escaping from the banality of everyday life. Scott and his wife Barda debate renovating their condo while dodging death rays and acid gas. They prepare for the birth of their first child while serving as generals in an interplanetary war in which billions are dying.

The book opens with Scott bleeding on the bathroom floor after a suicide attempt. He tries to play this off as the ultimate escape attempt: escape from death itself, but clearly something is very wrong with Scott. We learn early on that Darkseid has acquired the Anti-Life Equation and may be using it to warp reality and drive Scott insane. As the story progresses it increasingly becomes more about the daily trials of a young married couple who have just become parents for the first time.

In the end Scott may have found his escape not by defeating the forces of cosmic evil but by embracing his role as a husband and father. On the other hand, none of it may be real and he never escaped at all. It is almost a "choose your own adventure" story in that sense. The artwork is as unconventional as the story, with the artist capturing the affect of the rolling distortion of a weak signal on an old broadcast TV to convey the warping of reality or the distorted perception of it as the case may be.

I must admit I have no idea what the current status of the New Gods is in DC comics continuity. A few years back Jim Starlin did a mini-series in which the New Gods were killed off. Then almost immediately afterwards Grant Morrison killed them again in Final Crisis. I know Geoff Johns recently did a Darkseid War series in Justice League, but I have not read it. Mister Miracle does not appear to be part of regular continuity, but it could be. I would not recommend Mister Miracle as anyone's first exposure to the New Gods, but I would definitely recommend it to anyone who has read a lot of comics and is familiar with the tropes of the medium and its various deconstructions.