Seven Soldiers of Victory part 2

Seven Soldiers of Victory part 2

Seven Soldiers: Zatanna #1-4, Seven Soldiers: Klarion #1-4, Seven Soldiers: Mister Miracle #1-4

Originally released in 2005

Written by Grant Morrison

Art by Ryan Sook (Zatanna), Frazer Irving (Klarion), Freddie Williams II (Mr. Miracle)

Continuing with the Seven Soldiers of Victory, it feels like the stories are starting to tie together. Each series continues to have a different feel to it, with Zatanna's seeming like a twisted fairy tale.

Suffering from a crisis of confidence that leaves her struggling to use her magic, Zatanna runs into a young woman named Misty Kilgore who wants to become her apprentice.  However, there's more to her than meets the eye, and the two of them find themselves drawn to the mafia compound that had been attacked the previous night, as shown in the Shining Knight series.

The mafia boss from Shining Knight's series and the ghost of a magician that Zatanna meets here are both former members of a new incarnation of a group called the Newsboy Legion, who were created by Jack Kirby and have ties to the superhero the Guardian.  They appeared in flashback in the Manhattan Guardian's story, where they encountered a rogue Time Tailor (one of the mysterious men who were bringing the Seven Soldiers together) who forced or revealed increasingly awful fates for the seven members of the Newsboy Legion (eight including their dog).

The rogue Time Tailor made his home in Slaughter Swamp, rebirth-place of the undead villain Solomon Grundy, so Zatanna and Misty travel there.  However, before doing so, they encounter Neb-Buh-Loh, huntsman of the queen of the Sheeda, who had been ordered to kill Misty but spared her and hid her away.  It becomes clear that Misty is a reference to Snow White, among other fairy tale characters, so I figured that the seven unknown men that she was trying to find would be seven dwarves.

Instead, what they wind up finding in Slaughter Swamp is some kind of magical entity called Zor that's impersonating Zatanna's father.  Zor is absurdly powerful, and even with Zatanna's magical ability returning to her, she struggles to win.  Sensing a voice that might be able to help her, she reaches out for their help.

She didn't find the audience - instead, she was able to find the seven Time Tailors, something that hasn't been done before.  The Time Tailors all seem to bear a resemblance to Grant Morrison, so I'm not sure if they're intended to be author stand-ins or something else entirely.

Seemingly as a reward, they capture and imprison Zor, leaving Zatanna to return to her life before it's interrupted by Misty showing up and claiming that her wicked step-mother (the Queen of the Sheeda) is attacking.

Meanwhile, Klarion has an almost religious horror element to it, along with elements of Oliver Twist.  Klarion is stuck in some kind of limbo dimension, a world of greys, blues, and blacks, where the secretive elders control their small community through religious fervour.

They seem to be isolated from the rest of the universe, but when evidence of Sheeda infiltration shows up, the village's leaders take drastic action, conjuring up some kind of demonic entity to defend their lands... which immediately starts slaughtering the village guards, so they seem to have a loose understanding of what "defending their lands" means.

Fleeing out of Limbo, he winds up in the sewers where the climax of the Manhattan Guardian's story took place, where he is saved by a fellow creature of Limbo, Ebeneezer Badde, and his pursuer is run over by a subway train.  If his name isn't enough of an indication, Badde is up to no good, and he plans to sell Klarion into slavery.

Klarion escapes, making it to the surface, where everything is shiny and new, and he's easily manipulated by those around him. (he's been living in an other-dimensional society that's been stuck in the 1500s until now)  He meets a man called Mister Melmoth and is quickly made part of a gang of children called the Deviants.

Melmoth plans to rob and plunder Klarion's homeland, so Klarion returns there to warn them.  Given how close-minded they are, they don't believing and attempt to have him killed before Melmoth's forces attack, proving him right.

Melmoth can't die, with the fluids of an immortality-granting cauldron running through his veins, though he's forced to retreat as Klarion pursues him up to the surface.  I didn't know much about Klarion, but I found his story to be enjoyable, and I read through it quickly.

The last one that I'll cover today is Mister Miracle, an identity that's currently being used by Shilo Norman.  This one seems like it would have the strongest ties to Final Crisis, as it involves the New Gods.

Mister Miracle is performing one of his daring feats of escape artistry when his Mother Box starts freaking out, and he vanishes, appearing in front of Metron.  Metron is a neutral member of the New Gods, serving as an observer and recorder of knowledge in penance for giving Boom Tube technology to Darkseid.  Of course, this isn't just a social call; Metron has grim tidings.

It seems as though the New Gods have all possessed human bodies.  Unfortunately, Shilo seems to have largely stayed out of that side of Scott and Barda's life, so when the Mother Box reveals that a group of seemingly crazy homeless people are Orion, the Forever People, and various other inhabitants of New Genesis, Shilo doesn't know who they are.

Even Darkseid is inhabiting the body of a crime boss for reasons unknown.  The result is what starts out as a more grounded conspiracy-esque take on the New Gods, where the deathtraps involve things like trying to repeatedly crash cars into Shilo.

Shilo's going to therapy, both to deal with ordinary problems and these apparent hallucinations.  Normally, therapy would be helpful, but in this case, his therapist is Desaad, an inhabitant of Apokolips who is obsessed with torture. (he prefers physical torture, but he still enjoys psychological torture)

Making things even worse is that somehow, Darkseid got his hands on the Anti-Life Equation, which will make all who hear it into slaves of whoever said it.  It forces the listener to surrender to hopelessness, but Shilo manages to break free from it.

Unfortunately, Darkseid has other means at his disposal, leading to Shilo being beaten, burned, and left for dead.  The final issue takes a turn for the surreal, as Shilo hallucinates being dragged through a cycle of awful lives, each worse than the last.

The series ends on an ambiguous note where the events might not have even happened, with Mister Miracle being stuck in a black hole for seven days before being released.  This storyline didn't seem to have anything to do with the Sheeda plot (unless I missed something, they weren't mentioned or even alluded to), and it's unclear how much of it even happened, but it feels like a weirdly fitting continuation of Jack Kirby's work on the New Gods.

The Seven Soldiers storyline feels like a puzzle where the pieces are starting to come together.  Despite the name of the series, they aren't really a team, just a bunch of unrelated explorers and superheroes who will seemingly play a part in defeating the Sheeda.  With only two mini-series left plus the final issue, it's not long to go now; I'm not sure if "Death of the New Gods", another series that leads into Final Crisis, is meant to be read before or after this, but I will read that after I've finished Seven Soldiers.