For every comic run, there exists an end. For Jack Kirby’s original run of his Fourth World saga, his ending came with the final few issues of Mister Miracle. I talked last week about the end of the original run on The New Gods that left us with Orion and his personal revelation of being one of Darkseid’s children. There was also the final issue of The Forever People, seeing them trapped in the cosmic prison made for Infinity-Man by Darkseid. In our final issues of Mister Miracle, we at least get to end on a more positive note.

You would feel like there’s only so much for an escape artist to do or for his enemies to realize that they need to stop making traps that said escape artist can escape. Unfortunately, the denizens of Apokolips continually believe that their trap alone will be the one to finally rid the world of Scott Free. And we see, through multiple issues, how often this fails. But even if Scott and his assistant Oberon didn’t have these foibles to deal with, they instead could look to their expanding family of assistants for their traveling escape show. As Big Barda had joined Scott earlier, she had brought with her the Female Furies—a squadron of soldiers from Apokolips Barda had led—as they continued their defection from Darkseid. And with the inclusion of Shilo Norman, an orphan from Metropolis that Scott takes under his wing, we have a full cast under one roof.

Or it feels like we would have that full cast, but we don’t get to see them for more than a few fleeting issues. After all this time, we end our story with Mister Miracle #18 and the marriage between Scott Free and Big Barda—all officiated by Scott’s father, Highfather. It is, to date, one of the only times many of these New Gods made it to the pages of Mister Miracle as they had been sequestered to their own series. But we see them all together for this fleeting moment while the marriage of Scott Free and Big Barda takes place, is nearly ruined by a storm sent by Darkseid, and jets off to New Genesis, leaving Shilo Norman and Oberon left to figure out what happened. In terms of series ends, there’s an oddness to it as the final page lets us know that this is the end, but Kirby will be creating something new in the near future.

At least, for one of the series in Kirby’s Fourth World, we were given a kind of happy ending. With Scott Free returned to New Genesis, there were no further cards for Darkseid to play in his eternal battle against Highfather’s world. But that isn’t to say that there would be no more fighting. After DC had reprinted The New Gods nearly a decade after the initial run, Kirby had returned to finish his opus. But his return was a strange affair, one plotted across several stories once again, and even then it was never quite the ending he had in mind.

Get excited. Get hungry.

Drew Barth (Episode 331, 485, 510, 651, & 674) resides in Winter Park, FL. He received his MFA from the University of Central Florida.