Mister Miracle #7
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeMister Miracle #7 holds a firm place in the Fourth World saga as the debut of Kanto — Darkseid's master assassin and one of the most conceptually distinctive villains Jack Kirby added to the New Gods mythology. By transplanting an Apokoliptian New God into the trappings of a Renaissance-era Italian court killer, Kirby gave the Fourth World a new kind of antagonist: refined, theatrical, and quietly tragic, a sharp contrast to the brute-force enforcers who surrounded Darkseid. The issue also marks the first time Big Barda appeared on the cover of Mister Miracle, cementing her co-starring status just three issues after her debut. As one chapter in Kirby's ambitious, interlocking Fourth World tapestry — a saga that earned him the 1971 Shazam Award for Special Achievement — this issue exemplifies how Kirby used the Mister Miracle title to expand Apokolips into a fully realized totalitarian cosmos with its own layered hierarchy of power.
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We Buy Collections ▸History
Kirby served simultaneously as writer, artist, and editor of Mister Miracle, giving him unusually complete creative control over the series — a condition he negotiated upon leaving Marvel for DC in 1970. Issue #7, on sale January 13, 1972, and cover-dated April 1972, was produced at 52 pages under DC's then-expanded format, which allowed Kirby to pad the back half with a reprinted Simon & Kirby Golden Age feature. Kirby personally selected a Boy Commandos story from 1943 — 'The Return of Agent Axis' — to follow his lead story, continuing a reprint thread he had begun in issue #6, likely drawing on his own nostalgia for his wartime collaboration with Joe Simon. Mike Royer inked both the cover and the interior lead story, part of his ongoing partnership with Kirby during this period.
Trivia · 7 facts
- First appearance of Kanto (real name Iluthin), Darkseid's master assassin and a New God of Apokolips, created by Jack Kirby.
- First cover appearance of Big Barda, who had debuted in the interior story of Mister Miracle #4 (October 1971).
- Also introduces the Lump and the Harassers (Granny Goodness's army unit called the 'Jet Bow Squad') in their first appearances.
- Lead story titled 'Apokolips Trap!' written, penciled, and edited by Jack Kirby, inked by Mike Royer; cover also by Kirby and Royer.
- The back-up story is a reprint of the Simon & Kirby Golden Age feature 'The Return of Agent Axis' from Boy Commandos #3 (1943), the second in a series of Boy Commandos reprints Kirby ran in the title.
- Kanto's visual design was modeled on Renaissance nobleman Cesare Borgia, with his physical appearance patterned after actor Errol Flynn.
- The issue has been reprinted in: Jack Kirby's Mister Miracle (DC, 1998), Jack Kirby's Fourth World Omnibus Vol. 3 (DC, 2007/2008), and The Fourth World Omnibus by Jack Kirby (DC, 2017/2018).
Full credits
Reprints
↩ Reprints Boy Commandos #3 (1943)
Reprinted in Aventures Fiction #53 (1976), Hercule #19 (1981), Jack Kirby's Mister Miracle #[nn] (1998), Jack Kirby's Fourth World Omnibus #3 (2007), Jack Kirby's Fourth World Omnibus #3 (2008), Mister Miracle by Jack Kirby #[nn] (2017), The Fourth World Omnibus by Jack Kirby #[nn] (2018)
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