I know I had these two issues for a reason, but...

The blog's name is Random Happenstance, but it just as well could've been Faulty Headmeat Misfiring, since I'm not positive why I was thinking of these two issues for the same post. I think, on my walk home the other day (sometime in the last three months, since who knows when this'll be posted...) and was thinking about an issue I don't have handy: Justice League International #21, a fun Giffen/DeMatteis/Templeton romp with the team on Apokolips, and the return of Mister Miracle.

I think Mister Miracle is a character I like the idea of, more than any actual issues I've read of his. And I have the Kirby trade, and I've read a bit of his solo books, and some of the Morrison/Seven Soldiers version, and I loved his guest-spot in the last issue of Orion. (That last one will end up in "The End" Week one of these years.) And I think I still have the Steve Rude Mister Miracle Special from 1987 somewhere, too. It's not bad, but Rude's art there isn't as...lush as it was in Nexus. Or as animated as it was from this other book Rude did in 1987: from Comico, Space Ghost #1!

With Mark Evanier co-writing, Willie Blyberg on inks, and painted colors by Ken Steacy (!) Rude drops a love-letter to Hanna-Barbera's cartoon hero that reads like the extra-length episode you always wanted. A mysterious figure frees some of Space Ghost's greatest foes from intergalactic prison, including Zorak, Brak, and the Lurker; and the masked hero is going to have to run the gauntlet. Straight-forward, but super-fun.

Unfortunately, it's also square-bound, so it was a bear to cram in the scanner. Oddly, though, I think I have a spare copy of this bagged up somewhere from my college days; and that just makes me wonder what the distribution and sales were like for it...!

But, since I had been thinking of Mister Miracle, I also thought of this issue, also written by Mark Evanier, as luck would have it: Superman Adventures #42, "Living (Scott) Free" (Art by Neil Voker, inks by Terry Austin.) After a quick retelling of Scott's escape from the orphanage of Granny Goodness and Apokolips itself, we catch up with Mister Miracle trying to drum up publicity with daring escapes...that keep getting interrupted by Superman saving him.

Superman can't figure out why someone would willingly risk their life for nothing, but as Scott describes it as a celebration of freedom. Of course, Granny Goodness gets in on the action, planting a bomb on Scott's rocket-sled trick that will explode if he gets off, or crashes, or if Superman picks it up. Undaunted, Scott opens a boom tube to Apokalips, to "take a faulty product back to the manufacturer!"


This ish also features Big Barda, and some Parademons who use the "Pachydermatological Ray" to cause a ruckus at the circus, and is a lot of fun. Still, that doesn't really explain how my poor brain connected these two comics together, yet here we are.