"Soon you will stop in your tracks! You'll walk toward death!---Wait for it---!"

Mister Miracle #12 doesn't bode well for the now-reduced-in-scope Fourth World series; it seems like filler, a "make it up as you go along" story that just isn't very interesting compared to the heights of the series. I'm even reduced to going with a bit of Female Furies cheesecake for today's Fourth World Panel:

The opening of the issue, with Scott escaping from a torpedo fired at a mine from a military submarine, is entertaining enough, but the rest of it is kind of dumb. Some rich guy tries to trap him by having a robot that can bend people to his will tell him he wants to die, then killing him. But he makes it, the end. There's nothing New Godsy about it, even with the opportunity to maybe tie this into the Anti-Life Equation, or pit old gods (the robot is posited to be a recovery from some Mayan ruins, but it turns out to be a "little green man" style alien). Kirby still throws in some bits of flair; I like the way the robot's expression remains mostly unchanging throughout, a kind of dispassionate, almost bored look, even when it's trying to kill Scott (and note the proto-Wolverine claws; Kirby was there first!):

And I like this two-panel sequence, in which Barda saves Scott from an escape gone awry:

The way she's straining to rush forward is cool, and so is the explosion of rubble when she gets there. Fun stuff. But let's hope it gets better next time.

Next time: "The Dictator's Dungeon!"