Mister Miracle #5
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeMister Miracle #5 is the second appearance of Big Barda — one of the most fully realized female characters Jack Kirby ever created and a figure who would go on to join the Justice League and anchor five decades of DC storytelling. It simultaneously marks the debut of Virman Vundabar, a recurring member of Darkseid's inner circle whose Prussian-militarist affectations and Mussolini-inspired design exemplify Kirby's gift for politically resonant grotesquerie. The issue also signals a pivotal editorial inflection point: it is the first issue of the title inked by Mike Royer, whose collaboration with Kirby would define the visual language of the Fourth World from this point forward. Taken together, those three facts — Barda's expanding role, a new villain introduced, and a change of inker that reshaped the look of the entire saga — make #5 a far richer landmark than its place-in-sequence suggests.
In "Murder Machine!", the Boys—famed escape artists and symbols of freedom—find themselves thrust into a high-stakes international goodwill tour, only to become targets of a sinister Nazi plot during a public celebration. Jack Kirby’s dynamic storytelling and art, with inks by Joe Simon, deliver a tense, fast-paced thriller where every moment feels like a trap. The cover by Jack Kirby and Neal Adams, inked by Mike Royer and Adams, captures the chaos perfectly.
In "The Invasion of America," the Boys—representatives of four great nations united for the liberation of the world—find their goodwill tour of the U.S. thrown into chaos when the Nazis launch a bold kidnapping attempt during a public celebration. With tension rising and the stakes higher than ever, the mission takes a dangerous turn as peace is shattered by a sudden, calculated attack.
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By mid-1971, Jack Kirby had grown deeply dissatisfied with longtime inker Vince Colletta after learning that Colletta had been circulating unfinished Fourth World pages around Marvel's offices before publication, and had been simplifying or eliminating detail in the inking. Kirby insisted on replacing him with Mike Royer, who began on this very issue. Royer's first pass at inking Big Barda's face was unsatisfactory to Kirby, who retrieved the original pencilled heads from photocopies and had them restored before the book went to press — an unusual and labor-intensive intervention that underscores how protective Kirby already was of Barda as a character just one issue into her existence. DC publisher Carmine Infantino had also, around this time, mandated that Golden Age Simon & Kirby reprints be added as back-up features in all Fourth World titles, which is why #5 carries a reprint of the Boy Commandos story 'The Invasion of America' from Detective Comics #76 (1943). The issue's cover received additional touch-up work by Neal Adams to make the weapons more visually readable, with the original unretouched version later published in Comic Book Artist Special Edition #1.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Cover-dated December 1971; published on September 16, 1971 by DC Comics.
- Written, pencilled, and cover-designed by Jack Kirby — part of his self-directed Fourth World saga.
- Second appearance of Big Barda (created by Kirby; first appeared in Mister Miracle #4, October 1971), who had been physically modelled on actress Lainie Kazan, with her personality dynamic drawn from Kirby's own marriage to his wife Roz.
- First appearance of Virman Vundabar, a New God of Apokolips and member of Darkseid's Elite; his appearance was modelled on Benito Mussolini, his name a corruption of the German 'wunderbar' paired with the English 'vermin.'
- Main story titled 'Murder Machine!' (also referenced as 'Doctor Vundabar and His Murder Machine'): Vundabar kidnaps Big Barda to lure Scott Free into his eponymous death trap.
- First issue of the title inked by Mike Royer (22-page lead story); Vince Colletta inked the back-up feature; the cover received touch-up work by Neal Adams.
- Back-up reprint: 'The Invasion of America,' a Simon & Kirby Boy Commandos story from Detective Comics #76 (1943), part of the Golden Age reprints DC mandated for all Fourth World titles.
- The lead story has been reprinted in Jack Kirby's Mister Miracle (DC, 1998), Jack Kirby's Fourth World Omnibus Vol. 2 (DC, 2007 and 2012 editions), Mister Miracle by Jack Kirby (DC, 2017), and The Fourth World Omnibus by Jack Kirby (DC, 2017/2018).
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Reprints
↩ Reprints Detective Comics #76 (1943)
Reprinted in Aventures Fiction #50 (1975), Superman Presents Superboy Comic #109 (1978), Jack Kirby's Mister Miracle #[nn] (1998), Jack Kirby's Fourth World Omnibus #2 (2007), Jack Kirby's Fourth World Omnibus #2 (2012), Mister Miracle by Jack Kirby #[nn] (2017), The Fourth World Omnibus by Jack Kirby #[nn] (2018)
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