Mister Miracle (Shilo Norman)

Mister Miracle
Cover to Seven Soldiers: Mister Miracle #1 Art by Pasqual Ferry.
Publication information
Publisher	DC Comics
First appearance	Mister Miracle #15 (August 1973)
Created by	Jack Kirby
In-story information
Alter ego	Shilo Norman
Team affiliations	Seven Soldiers of Victory New Gods
Abilities	Master escapologist Advanced hand-to-hand combatant Genius-level intellect Proficient scientist and inventor Expert athlete and acrobat Carries a Mother Box and advanced gadgets

Shilo Norman is a superhero in the DC Comics universe. He is the third person to use the name Mister Miracle. Created by Jack Kirby, he first appeared in Mister Miracle #15 (August 1973).

Fictional character biography

Biography

Shilo's mother abandoned him as an infant. He spent the early parts of his youth in an orphanage in the Suicide Slum in Metropolis. Shilo was unsatisfied with his lot in life, so he fled the abuses of the orphanage and began living on the streets. ^[1]

Shilo becomes the informal ward and assistant of escapologist Thaddeus Brown, the first Mister Miracle. When the mobster Steel Hand kills Brown, his protege Scott Free assumes the Mister Miracle mantle, after which Shilo becomes his ally. ^[2] Scott trains Shilo in escape techniques and gives him advanced New Genesis technology. ^[3]

Shilo later becomes the warden of the Slab, a metahuman prison.

Celebrity

Shilo becomes a successful and well-paid escape artist, using the name Mister Miracle. He became famous for large scale televised stunts, including well-publicized escapes from the second dimension, the center of the Earth, and a miniature black hole. Inside the black hole, Darkseid subjects Shilo to the "Omega Sanction", causing him to live a series of oppressive lives.

In Seven Soldiers #1, Shilo is killed while rescuing Aurakles from the Dark Side Club. However, he escapes from the grave and resurrects himself. ^[4]

Firestorm

In Firestorm #33, Shilo approaches Jason Rusch and Martin Stein, the two halves of Firestorm, and informs them that the Firestorm matrix contains a quarter of the Life Equation. ^[5]

Final Crisis

In the second issue of Final Crisis , Shilo is seen talking to the Japanese metahuman Sonny Sumo, telling him of a "cosmic war", that "the powers of evil won", and that Motherboxxx is "the only thing left". He asks for the hero's help in recruiting a team. He leads a team of rookie Japanese heroes in an unsuccessful attempt to combat Darkseid's growing power.

Brightest Day

In Brightest Day , Alan Scott is driven insane by his Starheart power and creates a fortress on the moon. Shilo, among other heroes, are recruited to infiltrate it. ^{[6] [7]}

Powers and abilities

Shilo Norman has no superhuman powers, but he's a superb athlete, with great acrobatic and gymnastic skills. In his youth, Shilo was trained by Thaddeus Brown in all techniques of the escape arts. Shilo Norman became a highly qualified escape artist and was later trained by Scott Free himself. Shilo discovered his passion for escaping early and tried a number of times to escape different scenarios even as a young child. Shilo shows his proficiency by becoming a world renowned known escape artist.

Shilo also was trained by Scott Free and Big Barda in various fighting techniques and martial arts. Shilo has demonstrated to be a skilled fighter with amazing reflexes.

Later, as a student at New York University, Shilo studied a wide variety of subjects, and in his spare time he performed sleight of hand and small feats of street magic for the crowds in Washington Square Park. He developed an annoying habit of talking in non sequiturs, which he attributes to too many comparative philosophy classes. He was apparently studying for a degree in physics, and had taken several other modern science courses. He met and began to date Fiona Leeway. During this time, he experimented with the "hero gig" as a third generation Mister Miracle, standing in for Scott as a member of Justice League International using New Genesis technology that he had either modified or built himself, such as his Enerjams and Zoom Pads.

Equipment

• Enerjams - Shilo's most distinctive invention, enerjams are mounds of pure energy produced from his gloves which can emit heat and magnetic fields that help him grip onto walls. ^[1]
• Mother Box - None of Shilo's new devices would work without the symbiotic power of Mother Box, a living computer he received from Scott Free. Shilo adapted his Mother Box. ^[1]
• Multi-Cube - Shilo has his own version of Scott's multi-cube, a 1" square that acts as computer and communicator, emitting both regular and ultraviolet light, sonic vibrations, and holograms. ^[1]
• Sticky Boots - Shilo's boots contain "thermal inductors" and magnetic grips. ^[1]
• Uniform - Incorporated within the hood of his JLI era uniform were synapse-sensing devices that allowed much of the circuitry in his costume to react at the speed of thought. To track criminals, he carried tiny mini-transmitters with a morphogenetic gamma field detector equipped with an EM filter circuit to dampen electromagnetic interference. ^[1]
• Zoom Pads - A redesigned version of Mister Miracle's Aero-Discs. ^[1]

References

1. See Oraclewiki: Shilo Norman ^{[ permanent dead link ‍]}
2. Comics Bulletin - Jim Kingman: Comic Effect - Mister Miracle #15 Archived 2016-03-03 at the Wayback Machine
3. The Unofficial Shilo Norman Biography
4. Cowsill, Alan; Irvine, Alex; Manning, Matthew K.; McAvennie, Michael; Wallace, Daniel (2019). DC Comics Year By Year: A Visual Chronicle. DK Publishing. p. 303. ISBN   978-1-4654-8578-6.
5. Firestorm (vol. 3) #33 (April 2007)
6. Justice League of America (vol. 2) #47 (September 2010)
7. Starman/Congorilla one-shot (March 2011)

External links

• Oracle Files: Shilo Norman ^{[ permanent dead link ‍]}
• Mister Miracle #15 - The Secret Gun
• List of New Gods technology
• DCU Guide Mister Miracle III
• Index to the Earth-1 Fourth World stories