Nerds That Geek Writer Spotlight: Tom King

Written by Joel T. Lewis

Mister Miracle is a special book, but I can no longer find that surprising. Special books are what you get from Tom King. He took Dick Grayson in a new direction with his spy series Grayson, he reshaped how a lot of us think of Marvel’s Vision in his brilliant 2 volume series, he’s breathed new life into the post Rebirth Batman series, and finally there’s Miracle Man. Look, if you know anything about me from my effusive Moon Knight reviews, or the Movie Mumble Podcast, you are aware of my tendency to discover an author, actor, director, character, aesthetic, what have you, and subsequently devour every little thing that I can about it. It’s almost a compulsion I have, it’s as if by discovering this avenue of content I was unaware of I’ve opened a chasm of desire, a hole in myself that I didn’t know needed filling that I have to fix.
 
I discovered Tom King through the Batman/Flash Crossover Arc ‘The Button’ which was the first real thread of the Watchmen/DC crossover event that was introduced by the Rebirth reboot of the DC Universe. And while I had come to that arc in particular to see what DC were going to do with the daunting task of merging these two comic book universes, I was struck by King’s tenderness when it came to Bruce Wayne. For a little bit of context, in the ‘Button’ Arc Flash and Batman travel to a parallel timeline (created in the DC Flashpoint event) where Bruce Wayne was murdered in that alley instead of his parents, and as a result, Thomas Wayne becomes a twisted foil of Batman and Martha Wayne becomes the Joker. The way that King handled the meeting between father and son across the chasm of time and chance was heartbreaking, generous, and tender, and it was this treatment of a character I love so dearly that brought me back to that series for the following 15 issues.
 
I then picked up King’s outstanding and eerie Vision series. The bizarre charm of King’s domestic drama starring the animatronic Avenger is something you simply must read to believe. From the opening panels depicting the Vision family’s jet-propelled mailbox to the escalating violence and mystery that develops throughout the 12 issue series, King strikes a balance between the uncanny and the innocent. I was mesmerized as Vision and the android family he built for himself, failed to live up to the domestic expectations of middle class suburbia. Reading that series was like eating a Twilight Zone cake: ominous and delicious.
 
Now out of that Batman series nearly every issue was a gem, particularly King’s Batman: Elmer Fudd issue, the whole of the ‘War of Jokes and Riddles’ arc, and the ‘Proposal’ issue, but the story that really stood out for me happened to be issue 23 ‘The Brave and the Mold.’ Now I did write a review of that issue for Nerds That Geek back in July of 2017 so I won’t go into too much detail about it, but it’s probably in my top five issues of Batman ever. Spectacular title, great cover, a Swamp Thing team-up: it has everything. But it also happened to be a one-time collaboration between Tom King and Mitch Gerads, whose work just compliments each other brilliantly. That’s not to say that King hadn’t collaborated with wildly talented artists before this; with talents like Clay Mann, David Finch, Jason Fabok, and Mikel Janin on Batman and Mike Del Mundo on Vision, King is no stranger to seeing his work brought to dazzling life by a brilliant artist. But something was different about the team-up between Bats and Swampy, King and Gerads, and I remember thinking, ‘Man, if they gave these guys their own series together I’d be in on day one.’
 
Turns out DC decided to give them their own series: Mister Miracle. And it was so popular that the first issue sold out so fast that I had to wait for the second printing before I could read it. The reason I haven’t been reviewing this series issue by issue is that I’ve had difficulty putting my admiration into words. One of the invigorating habits of the comic books in my life has been their ability to make me passionately invested in characters I knew nothing about, or couldn’t have cared less about, within the first few panels of a single issue. Christian Ward and Saladin Ahmed did it for me with Black Bolt, Jason Aaron and Russell Dauterman did it with the Mighty Thor, and King and Gerads have done it for me with Mister Miracle. Their startling fresh take on one of Jack Kirby’s New God’s characters, the master escape artist Scott Free has been the comic I’ve been most eager to crack open every month, and the recent sabbatical that the creators took between the two arcs of their 12 issue series was almost unbearable. It’s stunning, it’s tragic, it’s important. There are a number of ways to navigate your way through the wide world of comics. You can follow a character, a storyline, an artist, or if you choose to follow an author, you won’t be disappointed if you start with Tom King. Until next time, Geek On!

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