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AS midnight fireworks crackled brilliantly above Sydney Harbour this week, England's heartbroken Ashes squad were urged to rejoice in small mercies.
"Good news,'' tweeted former England captain Michael Vaughan.
"Mitchell Johnson has not taken a wicket this year.''
The fact that the year was one minute old had a bit to with it but the English batsmen were not complaining.
When you are being shot to pieces by a lone gunman, just knowing that his weapon has been put in the holster for a day or two can be comfort enough.
Rarely has a fast bowler created as much terror on Australian soil as Johnson this summer with his hostile pace and fierce body language, including a bristling moustache, adding new lustre to the term mojo.
Such has been his rampant domination you half expected him to storm into England's New Year's eve party, shout "boo,'' then giggle as a handful of English tailenders scattered behind the couch.
All this from a man who retreated from the game physically and mentally broken two years ago almost craving to be dropped.
Throughout a turbulent career Johnson has been described as gifted, enigmatic, fragile, inspirational, unpredictable and intimidating but, for all the snakes and ladders, the bottom line is now quite spectacular.
Johnson's three man-of-the-match awards in this series give him eight best-on-ground performances in 55 Tests.
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The figure deserves a thumping exclamation mark when you realise his man-of-the-match strike rate outshines Test match legends Shane Warne (17 from 145) and Glenn McGrath (11 from 124) who once ruled the world for fun.
Though Johnson's form has hit England with the force of a summer hail storm, those who know him well noted the dark clouds floating in England's direction well before the first Test.
When Johnson visited Brisbane in July to announce his signing for the Heat Twenty20 side team-mates who had grown up with him and watched his demeanour at the launch were taken by how relaxed he was.
"He will go well this year,'' Heat keeper Chris Hartley predicted.
"He is enjoying life again. Being a father has been great for him.''
Minutes earlier Johnson had pulled his mobile phone from his pocket and proudly showed team-mates and pressmen photos of his newly-born daughter Rubika.
He even looked up at their faces to see their reactions and smiled when they smiled.
The joy of fatherhood was there for all to see.
"'It definitely changes your perspective … I'm really enjoying myself more than I was 18 months ago,'' Johnson said of his daughter's arrival.
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"You come home from what may not have been your best day and you've got your family there. Your little one smiles at you and it just makes everything better.
"If I bowl a bad over and go down to fine leg I can think about the good things in life.''
He looked a man at peace with the world and for Johnson, as his team-mates regularly point out, this is highly significant.
Johnson is not a Shane Warne who somehow managed to put a mental fence around his turbulent private life when he took the field and bowl as if he was the happiest man in the world.
Sensitive, shy and, as Ricky Pointing says, sometimes amazingly lacking in confidence despite his supreme talent, Johnson's off-field life shapes his on-field demeanour, often for better and occasionally for worse such as on the Ashes tour of England in 2009 when his form was undermined by a family meltdown featuring his mother.
England's Barmy Army tormented him to the point of despair that tour. He wobbled on for a few years before a toe injury sent him out of the game for seven months, a setback he considered a blessing because it gave him a merciful peep outside the cricket bubble he had lived in since his teenage years. He felt hungry again. He missed the game he had almost hated a few months earlier.
Johnson's father, Townsville-based Kevin, says the setback was a key factor in his current form surge.
"That foot injury was the best thing that happened to him,'' Kevin said. "He was under the pump and it gave him a break from the game. He must have thought he would give it a real crack otherwise he would not be playing again.''
But for all the joy of fatherhood and the freshness of the break Johnson needed some tinkering under the bonnet to become the roaring machine he has been this season and his long-time mentor Dennis Lillee appeared as the man in the blue overalls.
How Mitch beat his demons
Lillee urged Johnson to lengthen his run-up and increase his fitness by going back in time and doing something Lillee swore by but is now far less fashionable - running.
At the start of his career Lillee had a rollicking, wild colonial boy run-up to the crease but refined it under the tutelage of professional sprint coach Austin Robertson who taught him a tighter, more economical running style which saved precious energy he then used to bowl longer spells.
Lillee's instruction to Johnson was not simply to go running but to carry a cricket ball on his journey so it felt like it was part of him and would improve his balance at the crease.
This summer Johnson has faced all comers without flinching but his bashful disposition made him baulk at the thought of running through the streets of Perth with a ball in his hand and risking punters shouting things like "hey mate, I know you are lengthening your run-up but seriously ...''
So, ball in hand, he did some of his running after dark, becoming the night stalker who would eventually bring down England.
The result of Johnson's increased work is that he is fitter and standing higher at the crease with a high bowling arm that is not suffering from the infamous radar scrambles of yesteryear.
In sprinting tests among his West Australian team-mates he does not dominate and nor is he the fittest.
But when they assess strength with squat jumps he soars to the head of the pack to the point where it has been quipped he may have been a frog in another life. His strength is literally his strength.
Johnson was so confident of his form before the Ashes series that when a Brisbane reporter privately said to him before the first Test "be careful about all these big fire and brimstone predictions you are making '' he replied "it's fine ... I am just telling people what they want to hear but after all these years I reckon I finally know what sort of bowler I am.''
Mitch before he was mean - at four months old.
That meant being used in short, hostile spells throwing sticks of gelignite rather than, as was the case previously, being a thoroughbred on same days and a carthorse bowling long draining spells on others.
Kevin Johnson sometimes shakes his head in bewilderment that the fire-breathing enforcer he watches on the field is his bashful, mild-mannered son.
"He is not an extravert who needs the attention,'' Kevin said. "He has never been like that. It seems strange because if you don't know him personally you probably think he is very aggressive but he's not. I still find it strange sometimes to think batsmen are fearful of his bowling.''
At a crucial time of his son's development as a young teenager the Johnson family had a spacious 34 perch backyard in Townsville which encouraged his development in all sports.
"He was always active and running around,'' Kevin said.
"Nowadays most kids spend their times in front of computer screens. They will play a game of cricket on X-Box rather than go out and do it.''
As a youngster Johnson had to overcome the challenges of his parents splitting up.
"Kids are pretty resilient and adaptable,'' Kevin said. "We had our ups and downs. It has never been easy. You hope you put them on the right path.''
But despite the challenging off-field life Johnson was not a difficult child to handle and his father can barely remember Mitchell getting into trouble, apart from occasionally not doing his homework and the police once pulling him over and warning him to wear a helmet on his push bike.
There were no silver spoons in the Johnson household in Townsville and when Mitchell asked his father whether he could have a pair of cricket spikes Kevin reluctantly had to reject the request on the grounds he could not afford it but a compromise was reached when Mitchell loaned a pair of his father's old golf shoes.
"It was that or bare feet - fortunately I think eventually someone at the club had a spare pair of spikes and they helped him out,'' Kevin quipped.
Remarkably, Johnson was powering to the wicket in those golf spikes when Queensland cricket scouts, armed with one of cricket's first speed guns, went on a state wide campaign to try and discover the state's fastest bowler.
They even rechecked their readings when they revealed that a no-name teenage Townsville slinger who was unknown in representative cricket was faster than Queensland's entire battery of Sheffield Shield players. Queensland discovered him when he was months away from joining the army and perhaps abandoning the game.
A few years ago when Johnson was honoured by Australia's cricket media for his outstanding progress his acceptance drew raised eyebrows when he said"one of the reasons I am so happy to win this award is that I haven't really won any awards in cricket before.''
For Johnson's old cricketing mates, his form against England is sweet confirmation of their long held few that he was blessed with a talent given to few.
Hartley knew Johnson had rare talent within him from the time he kept wicket to him in the Queensland under-19s against NSW and he bowled a spell quicker than anything Hartley has kept to in a decade long 99-match first class career at senior level.
"It is still the quickest I have kept to and he was 18 years old,'' Hartley said.
"It was frightening. (Future Test batsman) Ed Cowan was opening the batting and I remember him looking back at me taking the ball above my should 25 metres behind the stumps. That was when we realised if he did the little things right he could have a superb career.''
Kevin Johnson, father of Australian fast bowler Mitchell Johnson, in Townsville. Picture: Evan Morgan
But the cricket gods were determined not to fall at Johnson's feet.
He was injured so often in his early years with Queensland the Bulls terminated his contract in 2003 and he went to live in a house in the Brisbane suburb, The Gap where he and fellow fast bowler Nathan Rimmington paid house-mate, landlord and Bulls batsman Brendan Nash just over $100 a week for a room.
Rimmington claims that being sacked from the Queensland contract list was one of the best things that happened to Johnson for the jolt prompted him to sharply increase his work ethic as he mixed cricket with a new job driving for Brett Mortimer's plumbing supplies.
"When he went to work for Morto I noticed a massive change,'' Rimmington said. "I think when he came down from Townsville things had gone pretty smoothly for him but losing that contract was his first big setback.''
In some ways it was not surprising Johnson had a volatile life in cricket because the game was not his first sporting love. As a boy he played a host of sports with tennis his top choice and Pete Sampras his hero.
Johnson has a tendency to shine at most sports and Rimmington well remembers sharing a night of triumph on the pool table with Johnson at Brisbane's Paddo tavern.
"Pool, table tennis, darts - he takes to everything quickly,'' Rimmington said. "I remember one night at the Paddo we took on allcomers at pool and won about 20 games in a row and I was just hanging off the back of Mitch with the form he was in and other guys were getting frustrated because they could not get on the table.''
Brett Mortimer, the plumbing van driver who once saved Johnson's career believes one of the biggest turn-arounds for the fast bowler has been the calming influence of fun-loving coach Darren ''Boof' Lehmann.
''I think Boof Lehmann has been very good for Mitch ... Lehmann is pretty laid back and Mitch loves that because he has always been a free spirit,'' Mortimer said.
Mitchell Johnson with his wife Jessica Bratich-Johnson and daughter Rubika.
No-one is quite sure of where Johnson's journey will end but those on board have enjoyed the ride.
"This is something I never thought would happen,'' Kevin Johnson said. "I watched cricket when I was younger but you never felt you would have a son or relative in the spotlight. Sometimes it feels like a dream.''
A dream for his father and for Australia but a recurring nightmare for English batsmen who will never forget the tour when Australia's lamb-turned-lion came storming from the darkness.
