Warning! Spoilers for Action Comics Annual 2021 #1 below.
There is no more incredible escape artist in comics than Mister Miracle, as the hero has routinely broken free from some of the deadliest, scariest traps he's ever faced. However, DC Comics just revealed one trap the New God couldn't escape from in The Phantom Zone, as the latest Action Comics Annual #1 reveals Scott Free died in the throws of the iconic pocket universe.
Jack Kirby created Mister Miracle, who was an integral part of his Fourth World saga in the early '70s. Scott Free (get it?) was born as a god on New Genesis and the son of its leader, Highfather. However, in efforts to make peace with its warring rival planet Apokolips, Highfather and Darkseid agreed to trade sons. So while Orion (Darkseid's son) grew up in the paradise of New Genesis, Scott was raised in the hellish firepits of Apokolips, where he mastered the techniques of escaping, leading him to break free and come to Earth. It's there he met Thaddeus Brown, a circus performer who initially used the moniker Mister Miracle - which Scott adopted as his own as he became the world's greatest escape artist.
In Action Comics Annual 2021 #1 by Phillip Kennedy Johnson, Scott Godlewski, Siya Oum, Hi-Fi, and Dave Sharpe, the future Superman family gathers together for a wedding between Alura Van-El and Khan. But, when Superman's evil son Pyrrhos crashes the ceremony, he banishes his family members to the Phantom Zone. After fighting swarms of enemies in the interdimensional prison, the family comes across Hank Henshaw, who explains that the Phantom Zone represents a living God named Aethyr's mind. Previously, the God slept, which made the Phantom Zone much less volatile. But, when he awoke in the future, it became a place of nightmares - and the final resting place for Mister Miracle.
Henshaw leads the family to Mister Miracle's corpse, as the hero's bones are held together by roots on a wall. The hero's dead body has a Motherbox, which is how the descendants of the Superman-family ultimately break free from the Phantom Zone.
The issue establishes the Phantom Zone has become a nightmare along with a near-inescapable prison. By showing that not even Mister Miracle, who's the greatest escape artist in the world, couldn't break free while holding a Motherbox, it emphasizes how terrifying the Phantom Zone has become as it awakens. Mister Miracle has broken free from near-death many times more than most heroes, but in DC's dark future, the Phantom Zone proved to be too much... even for him. Action Comics Annual #1 is in comic book stores now.
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July 15, 2021 at 11:31PM
