I’m afraid it’s just an unsupported theory on my part.
There’s no reason it should be true, except that I think it would be kind of neat.
Look at it this way:
Captain 7 is an unnamed black kid who’s imprisoned in a magic box for supposedly having sex with and impregnating an underage girl.
Shilo Norman, Mister Miracle, is African American. He’s a super escape artist. He’s got form with regard to having lived a number of divergent pseudo-lives. Some of these lives revolve around guilt arising from a childhood incident. Could getting out of Ali-Ka-Zoom’s magic cabinet have been one of his first big escapes?
The present-day Ali and Don Vincenzo are quite old, as are Hollywood and Baby Brains (though they look young). Ok, it’s true that today Shilo is only about 23 years old. But who knows what being in a magic box or black hole or successive life-traps does to your chronology?
For powers/gimmick, does kid football star map to adult celebrity escape artist? Sure, why not. And an escape from a bottomless cabinet would surely set one on the path to a career in escapology.
In terms of the metastory, I think there’s a reasonable case to make.
Note that Morrison eventually showed us the grown-up versions of all the (surviving) Newsboys, except Cap 7.
We even saw Suzi’s children, and Millions’ (presumably) great-great-grandpup. The revelation of Lars and Lena’s parentage, and the consequences of such - Baby Brains was somehow the father, Cap 7 was punished for something that he possibly didn’t even do - comes from out of nowhere. Cheeky Mr Morrison drops this bombshell in an obscure clue in a corner of a crossword puzzle outside the main narrative. Ditto for the few throwaway panels revealing the fate of Millions’ millions and ancestor (in SS #1 and Bulleteer #3).
Many readers have had a problem with the way the Mister Miracle mini tied into the main arc. It was cute that for the “solution to the previous crossword”, readers were referred to the very page in SS #1 that Mister Miracle’s segment began. I think Morrison was acknowledging that there were a lot of question marks around the MM miniseries. He answers a few questions in SS #1. Could a “big” twist - Cap 7 is Shilo - be left to be guessed on an online message board? In this series, sure it could!
Of course if anyone has a good reason Captain 7 can’t be Shilo, I’m happy to hear it!
Throughout the series, readers are invited (implicitly and explicitly) to play a part in the story, and the story of the story. We’ve done it in this thread, making connections, looking for the big picture and filling in the blanks.
There are still questions and mysteries. Anyone want to continue? |
