Hey! Apokoliptan anon here, thanks for the advice, I called the League and they actually put me in touch with my cousin Scott? Apparently he’s been living here for years and is a League Reservist. I had no idea.
I’m trying to do some research on him and his family before inviting them over for dinner, but I’m a little confused. He seems to share his stage/superhero name with a human? What’s up with that guy?
Well...YOU certainly have interesting family. And family that comes from just as interesting a CHOSEN lineage as the BORN one. Though this one is probably a bit more pleasant than being communally raised by Darkseid and Granny Goodness for what it's worth.
While many people assume that the title of Mister Miracle is a New God mantle, especially due to the geometric patterns and over the top coloring often resembling the fashions of New Genesis, it was in fact developed by a human being. A human being who built that persona in the ORIGINAL homeland of gaudy colors, over the top motifs and long, billowing, absurdist capes.
SHOW BUSINESS!
(An old publicity still I was able to lift from a news story about Thaddeus Brown)
Thaddeus Brown was born in one of the poorer parts of New York city, so forgotten and neglected by the system and his own family that his birth year is unknown. He lived his early childhood under the control of an abusive and horrid uncle. Living in malaise and squalor Brown was excited by the glitz and glamor of the then newly emerging Hollywood and the draw of the west coast. Escaping from under his uncle's thumb he train hopped his way to San Francisco where he met the thing that entranced him beyond all dreams of avarice. Street magicians.
So inspired by their ability to spread wonder and joy even among disaffected city crowds in the middle of the street, Brown threw himself into his studies. Prestidigitation, acrobatics, showmanship. But his TRUE talent was found when he uncovered the field of Escape Artistry. It was only then that he developed his alter ego known far and wide as Mister Miracle! Which was developed and debuted only shortly before the idea of the Mystery Man became the subject of national attention after the Sandman and the Crimson Avenger's intervention against the Phantom of the Fair in 1939. A comparison that Brown did nothing to downplay as his career rose with lightning speed.
Rumors persist that he acted as a mystery man on an ad hoc basis, though records are scarce. There are some writings in the personal journals of Giovanni Zatara that mention "consultation" with Brown on a mater multiple times through the war years but Zatara was not a dumb enough man to write his intentions in plain ink and so whether it was a matter of stagecraft OR asking the man for assistance in action is unknown. Only further muddied by the fact that Zatara and Mr Miracle toured many times in the 1940s and ran in many of the same circuses and performing troupes.
It was also during that time Thaddeus would meet and become close friends and partners with Oberon, a man with dwarfism who became Brown's assistant, manager and partner. The shows they put on were the envy of even the great masters of the escape arts and the majority of his tricks baffle performers, scientists and magicians to this day (both the mundane and magic kind of magician, which tells you how good the man was).
Brown was a well known and well loved entertainer for many decades until...well until he came upon your cousin. Seeing the alien refugee, bereft of direction and obviously skilled in the art of escape, he began to train the young man as his assistance and confidante. There are some tricks the current Mr Miracle learned from Thaddeus Brown that can't even be accounted for by the capabilities of the mighty Mother Box, or so it's been said.
Thaddeus Brown would eventually lay down his life to defend his charge, being struck down by the gangster called Steel Hand in a hit that was aranged by the notorious Intergang. He passed the Mr Miracle identity fully to his protege upon his death, which that protege then used to become the escape artist-cum-superhero we all know and love. He is also survived by Oberon, who has become just as much confidant to the current Mr Miracle as he was to the old. His son Ted, who acts as the financial manager for Mr Miracle and his father's old circus in general. And his former young "gopher" Shilo Norman who has joined your cousin in the use of the Mr Miracle name for both entertainment AND crime fighting.
A mantle that has become the fear of criminals both far and near. As well as a symbol of rebellion and resistance against Darkseid himself was born not in the flame pits of Apokolips or the floating Utopia of New Genesis. No, the unchained man that spits in the eye of the God of Tyranny was born on a San Francisco street corner by a man who simply wanted to see the people smile and be amazed.
If that metaphor doesn't tell itself I don't know what will.
