The Day Superman Died Chapter 4: Miracles
Miracles
A Miracle is an event not explicable by natural or scientific laws.
My birth was a Miracle.
My father, Izaya, our Highfather was at war with his estranged brother, the disgraced prince of Old-Genesis; Uxas.
Uxas had harnessed the Omega Effect, a dangerous forgotten magic that had deformed his mind, causing him to become obsessed with solving the fabled Anti-Life Equation.
This equation was said to show its witnesses the pointlessness of life, thus making them fall slave to whoever harnessed its power.
Uxas used the Omega Effect to build an army dedicated to serving him out of fear. After years of using this dark power, his skin cracked like rock. His eyes became smoldering flames, any signs of shadows of a good man were lost, only a pale reflection of his former self remained, he became the despotic ruler; Darkseid.
My mother Avia, was one of New Genesis’s top generals in the war, and despite her pregnancy, she would still fight on the front lines with the rest of our forces. Avia was a kind woman, she treated Bugs and Gods alike, never talking down to either. Unfortunately, none of that mattered when Granny Goodness impaled her pregnant belly with a power lance.
I shouldn’t have survived, even though the lance missed me by an inch, I was still premature and the energy current from the Nth metal spear tip should have ended my life before it began.
But Like I said, my birth was a miracle.
Izaya…Highfather I mean, had our best Source-Medics tend to Avia and as she passed, she gave me two gifts, the first, the gift of life, the second, she whispered into my father’s ear, her last words “our child…a regular Mr. Miracle”.
She gave me my purpose.
My father didn’t seem to take the cue and named me Scott instead. Unfortunately, my miraculous birth did not mean a sea of smooth sailing. The war waged on for years and it wasn’t until Darkseid and Highfather struck a twisted bargain did the fighting end.
The two estranged brothers would trade a child, one of their sons, to be raised by the other, a show of faith, an act of peace.
I remember Izaya kneeling, so he could look me in the eyes, he didn’t shed a tear, he just said; “Today Scott, today, you usher in a new era of peace.”
I only ever saw it as getting thrown away.
My father received Darkseid’s second born son; Orion.
Listen, I don’t want to paint with a broad stroke, but Orion is an entitled ass-hole.
Darkseid got me…he took one look at me, and shrugged me off, giving me to his paramour.
Darkseid is…an absentee father.
And that is how I came to be in the “loving” care of Granny Goodness, Darkseid’s War-Witch and royal Torture-Smith.
Granny Goodness…what a fucking riot of a name…I wonder why Apokolips decided dramatic irony was a priority.
Granny threw me in a hole and threw away the key…then threw away the hole…and when I say hole, I mean a tesseract of a torture prison that changes and adapts to prey on its occupant’s fears and doubts. The X-Pit. An achievement in psychological and physical torture.
But I wasn’t born a miracle to die in a cage.
So I started to run.
I started to hide.
I started to learn how to escape.
The first rule for any escape artists is that are no rules, only guidelines.
An escape is only an escape if it is worthy of the prison, meaning, couldn’t just run right out, I knew the path, but it wasn’t the point.
The point wasn’t to simply get out, it was to escape, to truly be free.
I couldn’t just leave the X-Pit, I had to conquer it. I had to break it, find every possible escape route, every possible way out so that it could never again hold power over me.
So that SHE could never again hold power over me.
The first escape I discovered was the only one I still have yet to take.
We all have it, the one route we can all travel, the ultimate, and final escape.
But death is a grand escape, it is the escape of everything all at once, it is both too easy and far too significant to waste on the X-Pit.
No, death was to be my final act, and the X-Pit was not final act material.
You see once you realize you have one, then you discover the second rule of escape artistry; “There is always another path.”
Death is our first and last escape, but if there is one, there must be another, and we owe it to ourselves to find as many different paths as we can.
And then one day, I did it.
I exhausted all the X-Pit had to offer me, I left it behind, to find new venues, new prisons, new audiences.
My mother knew my purpose the day I was born, It took me until that day to discover it myself.
On that day I earned my name, I was named Scott at Birth. But after that day.
I was Scott Free.
And I was leaving Apokolips.
I didn’t get out alone though, I made quite a few allies along the way, every great magician needs an assistant….and if Barda ever hears me say that out loud I will be doing my final escape much sooner than expected.
Ah….Barda…she’s larger than life….she is my life…and today, that life is threatened.
I knew my escape would never be permanent, that’s the thing about escapes, they’re temporary,
Because until we die, we are the slaves or mortality, and our only recourse is to escape this realization for as long as possible.
Today it’s getting hard to escape thoughts of death. Looking up in the sky, it feels like final act material.
The world is on fire, Para-Demons swarm the skies, and my monster of a father has just claimed to kill one of the most powerful men on earth.
I’d say…if earth needed anything right now
It’d be a Miracle.
Next:
Chapter 5: Darkseid Is
Masterpost
