1956

In Eclipse Comics and again in Marvel Comics, a 1956 Mick Anglo Marvelman Family story is adapted as a Prologue to Miracleman. As I understand it, the writer of Miracleman changed some of the words but none of the art. For example, the opening words:

"PROLOGUE 1956 An age of lingering innocence, an age of golden dreams for the.. MIRACLEMAN FAMILY" (Miracleman, no 1 (New York, 2014), p. 1..."

- read like a rewrite.

The Marvelman Family story is a hopelessly inconsistent time travel story which, nevertheless, makes perfect sense in this context. (It will emerge that inconsistencies were deliberately built into the Family's early adventures to test their credulity and controllability.)

In the Prologue, the Science Gestapo attacks from 1981 whereas I am sure that, in the original, they came from many millennia in the future. However, this change makes sense because, in the 1980's, Miracleman will recall his adventures of the 1960's.

The story:

in 1981, the United Earth Government prevents Kommandant Garrer's Science Gestapo from enslaving the world;

the Gestapo travels in Chrono Cruisers to conquer instead the world of 1956;

a local compares the Chrono Cruisers to "...space rockets, just like in Dan Dare!" (p. 3), which strikes me as another rewrite;

Johnny Bates, happening along, transforms to Kid Miracleman and fights the invaders but more arrive so he goes at "...atomic speed..." (p. 4) for help;

Kid and Young batter the invaders who, however, recover unexpectedly quickly;

one trooper explains that the atomic storm troopers are arriving in other countries and we see them in Paris and Saigon;

Micky Moran reads stop-press news of the invasion and transforms to Miracleman;

the Miracleman Family and the Army subdue the first landing in Cornwall;

the Family split up to liberate Rome, Washington and Moscow, respectively;

the invaders in Cornwall recover and bombard the Army with "...rare magnetic gases from our secret video rings!" (p. 6) (words are sometimes used with no apparent knowledge of their meanings);

the Family returns to find fighting again in Cornwall;

Garrer orders his men to destroy the Chrono Cruisers, of which more are still arriving, so that he and his men cannot be returned to 1981;

leaving KM to fight in 1956, MM and YM travel "...at atomic speed..." (p. 8) to 1981 when they destroy the Chrono Cruisers before their departure, capture Garrer and hand him over to "...the Commander, Twelfth Area, World Police" (p. 10), who expresses no surprise and says that 1981 can now become a utopia;

ironically, MM hopes that he lives to see it;

in 1956, the atomic troopers fighting KM suddenly vanish!;

then, hearing MM's account, KM accepts instead that they were never there! - while MM jokes that "...that's the way it was...or was it?" (p. 10)

Hopeless:

if the Chrono Cruisers had already arrived in 1956, then destroying them before their departure in 1981 could not possibly prevent them from having already arrived in 1956;

if the Cruisers had not arrived in 1956, then MM and YM would not have traveled to 1981;

 
and, if the Cruisers had arrived in 1956, then there is no reason why the troopers fighting KM should suddenly disappear at some later time;

please do not tell me that they disappeared in 1956 at the exact same time as MM and YM destroyed the Chrono Cruisers in 1981! (Please don't!)

However, thanks to the ingenuity of the writer of Miracleman, we now know exactly what is really happening here. Gargunza is thinking, "They can even swallow that!"

Marvels And Miracles

The History

DC Comics prosecuted Fawcett Comics because the latter's Captain Marvel resembled, and outsold, the former's Superman. When Fawcett stopped publishing Captain Marvel, the imminent cessation of Captain Marvel reprints for British publication generated the new British character, Marvelman. In the US, Timely Comics became Marvel Comics and published a new character called "Captain Marvel." Thus, the name "Marvel" continued in Marvelman, Marvel Comics and the Marvel Comics Captain Marvel.

Later, Marvelman, unable to compete with newly imported American superheroes, ceased publication although his creator, Mick Anglo, briefly revived him first as Captain Miracle, then as Miracleman. Years later, DC Comics re-launched the original Captain Marvel but their comic book starring the character was entitled Shazam to avoid prosecution by Marvel Comics. A Miracleman clearly based on Marvelman cameo-ed in Alan Moore's Captain Britain from Marvel UK. (Captain Britain represents another superhero line of descent from the original Captain America.) Then, Moore revived Marvelman in a deconstructed version for adult readership. Marvel Comics threatened legal action because of the name. Moore's Marvelman ceased publication in Britain and resumed as Miracleman from Eclipse Comics in the US. Moore completed his story-line and was succeeded as writer by Neil Gaiman.

When Eclipse went out of business, the ownership of Marvelman/Miracleman was disputed. Todd McFarlane, claiming ownership, having bought Eclipse characters, but, legally challenged by Gaiman, launched the completely unrelated spin-off, "Man of Miracles." Now Marvel Comics own Marvelman and do not need to change either the character's name or his comic book's title. I gather that Marvel were able to buy Marvelman directly from Mick Anglo because the British publisher of Alan Moore's Marvelman had not owned the character so that neither had Eclipse Comics or McFarlane.

Thus, currently, in July 2010:

DC Comics have, among many other characters, Superman and the original Captain Marvel;

Marvel Comics have, among many other characters, Captain America, Captain Britain, the Marvel Comics Captain Marvel and the original Marvelman;

Todd McFarlane has, among several other characters, the Man of Miracles.

DC and Marvel each have the character that they legally objected to. Captain Marvel ceased publication once, Marvelman twice and the latter, re-named Miracleman, a third time but they and two or three off-shoots are still with us. Alan Moore is incorporating another Mick Anglo character, Captain Universe the Super Marvel, into The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, where he also referred to Marvelman's mentor, Borghelm or Bargholt. 

  

Questions and Observations

Could Eclipse have retained the character's name by entitling his comic Kimota? ("Shazam," "Kimota" and "El Karim" are the empowering transformation words respectively of Captain Marvel, Marvelman and Captain Miracle.) In any case, the name change was appropriate because both Mick Anglo and Alan Moore, Marvelman's creator and re-creator, had already used the name "Miracleman" for revisions of the character. Also, the new name enabled Gaiman to write a celebratory verse with several rhymes for "miracle."

 

I remember Superman and Marvelman but not Captain Marvel from the late '50's. The history is longer than the lives of most current readers. Mick Anglo's Marvelman is simplistic and insubstantial but I remember that its visual imagination, with exotic settings and characters, appealed to primary school pupils. It provided material for Moore's adult graphic series in which Johnny Bates transforms into the now thoroughly evil Kid Miracleman because he is being raped by other teenage boys in a care home. What he does to Londoners ensures that "Kidding" becomes a swear word and that "London" becomes the name of an event, like Hiroshima.

It is to be hoped that Marvel Comics will re-publish some more of Mick Anglo's Marvelman, all of Moore's Marvelman/Miracleman and all of Gaiman's Miracleman. This last, apart from being re-re-named "Marvelman," must also be completed because Gaiman's story line was interrupted by Eclipse's bankruptcy as Moore's story line had been interrupted by the termination of the British Warrior magazine.

Superman inspired superheroes in general and the Marvels in particular. Superman reached a culmination in "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?," a "last Superman story" by Alan Moore. Superheroes reached a culmination in Watchmen by Alan Moore. The Marvels reached a culmination in Marvelman by Alan Moore. 

Marvelman addressed not only the nostalgia of those who remembered the original character but also Moore's own understanding of story telling and heroic mythology. The character, like his readers, has grown up and forgotten his earlier adventures. The world is as we knew it to be when reading Warrior in the mid-80's, with conflict in Northern Ireland and cuts to the National Health Service. A derogatory remark about "that woman" is understood in context as referring to the then Prime Minister. Nevertheless, a free lance journalist called Moran somehow remembers his absurd adventures of the late 50's and early 60's. Alan Moore explains this discrepancy without invoking parallel Earths. Decades ago, DC Comics, introducing an impossible-seeming story line, would assure readers that this was "Not a dream! Not a hoax! Not an imaginary story!" Well, Marvelman's powers are real but his earlier adventures were the induced dream of a "para-reality program," a virtual reality contrived with alien technology. Inside the program, the Marvelman Family repeatedly defeats the freakish dwarf genius, Doctor Gargunza, although their fights resemble a game where nothing really bad ever happens.

Outside the program, we learn what a villain like Gargunza would really be like. When he kidnaps the girl who is to become Miraclewoman, he has halvah on his breath. His hand goes inside her shirt and the schoolgirl detective yarn of a foreigner and a car becomes, in her words, "a different story." (1) Later, Gargunza rapes the unconscious Miraclewoman, a pitiful troll mounting a sleeping goddess, while her mind roams freely in a colorful comic book universe. We now "know" that, while Mick Anglo's Marvelman fought Gargunza, Marvelwoman had parallel adventures in para-reality while she was being raped by Gargunza in reality. Meanwhile, Gargunza's employers in British Intelligence contemplate the "mega-death potential of such a creature in an international conflict." (1)

Bates realizes his mega-death potential in London but then the rest of the Miracle Family and their alien allies change the world, incidentally overthrowing all existing governments. In human politics, revolution from above cannot liberate a population because it has to be enforced and will be resisted. But this revolution from above is implemented with superhuman power and receives mass support. When weapons of mass destruction have been teleported into the Sun, when resources from the Solar System have been used to save the terrestrial environment and when money has been abolished, then the mass of the population is happy, former potentates are disinherited and isolated and many thousands volunteer to administer the new regime. In real life, we have to do this ourselves.

 

Before that, but years after the closure of the real Emil Gargunza's "Project Zarathustra," Michael Moran is an adult, married, insecurely employed, suffering from migraines. He dreams of flying, cannot remember that word ("Kimono? No. Komodo? No. Krakatoa? No. Jesus, this headache."(2)), then has to tell his incredulous wife that he has suddenly remembered living the life of a comic book character. He assures her that, even if everything else he has said sounds like a joke, what happened in 1963 definitely wasn't. The Marvelman Family was hit by an A bomb. Mick Anglo's Marvelman comics ceased publication...

I had noticed inadequacies in superhero comics but would never have imagined this solution which perfectly blends fiction with reality.

(1) Moore, Alan, Miracleman No. 12, , September 1987, Eclipse Comics, Forestville CA, p. 6.
(2) Moore, Alan, Miracleman Book One: A Dream of Flying, Forestville, California, October 1988, p. 10.

More On Marvel Comics Miracleman no 1

(The attached image is the cover of Eclipse Comics Miracleman no 1. There never was a Marvelman no 1 because Marvelman continued the numbering of the Captain Marvel British reprints.)

Marvel Comics Miracleman no 1 (New York, 2014) contains, after the front cover and a contents page:

the first two short Marvelman episodes from Warrior as they had been republished by Eclipse, on smaller pages, colored, but here recolored, and with the character's superhero name changed;
three black and white Marvelman stories;
a Marvelman Family story that, renamed Miracleman Family, had been colored and re-presented as a Prologue to the Eclipse Miracleman no 1 and is presented thus here;
some art work;
an article explaining the origin of Marvelman, illustrated by pages of Marvelman;
extracts from an interview with the since deceased Mick Anglo, illustrated with photographs.

Thus, this is a combination of a comic book and a magazine. It is good to be able to compare and contrast Marvelman with Miracleman although I would have preferred more of the latter.

A caption in the large introductory panel of each Marvelman story summarizes the fictitious origin of the character, twice referring to MICKY MORAN as "...a Boy...," then referring to MARVELMAN as "...a Man..." The caption informs us that, when MICKY MORAN "...says the Key Word KIMOTA, he becomes MARVELMAN, a Man of such strength and powers that he is invincible and indestructible." (pp. 42, 48, 58).

So it doesn't sound as if he will ever experience any difficulty in defeating his opponents?

The perspective and quality of the writing in Miracleman could not be more different. The adult, married Moran thinks:

"If only I could remember that damn word. Kimono? No. Komodo? No. Krakatoa? No. Jesus, this headache." (p. 14)

We soon realize that we are reading a character who both remembers the old Marvelman stories from the inside and inhabits the same world as us - until, inevitably, he changes that world into something new and strange.

Five Cessations Of Publication

(i) Fawcett Comics Captain Marvel.

(ii) Mick Anglo's Marvelman.

(iii) Warrior magazine with Alan Moore's Marvelman and V.

(iv) Eclipse Comics where Marvelman had been renamed Miracleman and Alan Moore had completed his story but Neil Gaiman had not yet completed his sequel.

(v) Marvel Comics Miracleman reprints.

Still to be completed: Gaiman's Miracleman.

Alan Moore's Miracleman is complete. Miracleman remembers being Marvelman who was an imitation of Captain Marvel who was an imitation of Superman.

Moore wrote happy endings for Superman and Swamp Thing and ambiguous endings for Miracleman, Watchmen and V who is a masked avenger. The others are superheroes. (Moore super-powered a swamp monster.)

More On Moore's MM

Superman: the original superhero.
Captain Marvel: a first rate copy of the original.
Captain Thunder: Captain Marvel's original name, later re-used by Roy Thomas.
Mick Anglo's Marvelman: a second rate copy.
The Marvel Comics Captain Marvel: a later superhero cashing in on an earlier name.
Mick Anglo's Captain Miracle and Miracleman: third and fourth rate copies.
The Miracleman in Alan Moore's Captain Britain: an alternative version of Marvelman.
Alan Moore's Marvelman/Miracleman: a definitive statement on superheroes.
Neil Gaiman's Miracleman: a continuation of Alan Moore's Miracleman.

Mick Anglo's Marvelman despatched a Nazi with an uppercut in a single panel. Alan Moore's Marvelman/Miracleman killed several horribly after one of them had accepted him as the Superman:

"He was a vision... That blonde hair. Those blue eyes... When I was a youth, our leaders spoke of a new kind of man. An ubermensch, ja? I saw him then in my mind. I saw him again, tonight. We waited for him to come for forty years..." (1)

Nazi: "Forty years. Forty years we have waited for you, for the first of the blonde gods that would replace us. Overman. You have come at last."
Marvelman: (face already covered with dead men's blood, putting his finger, then his arm, through the Nazi's body): "Yes. You can go now." (2)

Moore correctly deduced that a Nazi would respond like this to a superhero. It helped that MM, unlike his predecessors, was seven feet tall with blonde hair. Moore also reasoned that a superhero team would be able to change the world and ended with MM wondering whether they have been right to do so. Moore's successor, Neil Gaiman, was beginning to show conflict in utopia when his story line was interrupted by the publisher's bankruptcy. We hope that the story continues...

(1) Moore, Alan. The Red King Syndrome, Forestville, July 1990, p. 77.
(2) op. cit., p. 83.

1956 Revisited

The original writer of Miracleman (New York, 2014) created a perfect contrast between the PROLOGUE (pp. 1-10) and episode 1, "A Dream of Flying" (pp. 11-19). Each of these short comic strips presents an interaction between the mid-fifties and the early eighties but their perspectives are opposite in every respect.

The first strip, written by Mick Anglo, was originally published in 1956. When the writer of Miracleman adapted it as his Prologue, he revised it verbally though not visually. Thus, in the Prologue, science fiction villains from the future, in the revised version from 1981, invade 1956 and the Miracleman Family counter-attacks in 1981, whereas in episode 1, originally both published and set in 1982, Michael Moran, unexpectedly transformed into Miracleman, suddenly recalls his strange adventures of the fifties although, like everyone else, Liz Moran has never heard of a Miracleman.

Mick Anglo had looked forward to a science fictional future whereas his successor looks back to a simpler time. As I say, a perfect contrast.

1956 is significant year for me because it was the first year in which I remember noticing that we were in a year with a number and that that number would change after 31 December. I was seven. We lived in the Lake District in the North West of England and, in 1956, I began to attend a boarding school, now closed and the building demolished, in a small seaside resort that was also a "dormitory town" of Glasgow. I occasionally read Superman and Marvelman in comics and hard back annuals.

The Miracleman Prologue highlights 1956 and episode 1 mentions "...the Lake District..." (p. 14) so that reading these strips feels like coming home but as an adult.

More On Miracleman

"After a while he turns away to look at the city spread behind him...London, huddled against the stinging rain...
"He wonders what to do next."
- Miracleman no 2 (New York, 2014), p. 12.

With the benefit of hindsight, this is ironic because we know in graphic detail exactly what Bates will do to London the next time he has the opportunity. Moran should have killed him when he had the chance but, again, this statement is made with the benefit of hindsight.

In no 3, we learn that MM's costume can be torn and his body battered. He never fought anyone with comparable, let alone greater, strength in Mick Anglo's comic.

Bates is schizophrenic. Back in child form, he denies responsibility for his crimes.

Evelyn Cream is a big black man with blue teeth in white clothes. What I mean by this is that he is eminently noticeable and recognizable. I know that he has the government on his side but I still think that it makes no sense for him to walk into a hospital in broad daylight, speak to two staff members in Reception, ask for a patient by name, then go and kill that patient.

Morally, since Cream works for a covert arm of government and since the man he kills is a nuclear terrorist, it might be argued that this killing is a summary execution, not a murder. We want to like Cream because he is capable, urbane, polite and allies himself with MM. (We do not know that last part yet. I am getting slightly ahead of the story.)

We follow his deductive process:

the superhuman burst out of the power station so he must have been in it;
only the terrorists and the pressmen were in the station and all the terrorists are accounted for;
the transformation to superhumanity must require energy;
only one of the captured terrorists, Steven Cambridge, is burned;
Cambridge confirms that he was with a journalist who whispered and exploded;
when Cambridge describes the journalist, Cream, who has a list, circles the name "Moran."

Thus easily is a secret identity penetrated. Mick Anglo's Marvelman Family were forever transforming directly in front of witnesses ( see p. 44) but we now know (or later find out) that that was in the para-reality program where it was not necessary that events make sense.

Liz continues her deductions. In fact, she deduces that Mike has two bodies, the one not currently in use stored elsewhere, only the one in use aging normally. Mike thinks that this is "...a bit science fictiony." (p. 13) Again, our world and the superhero world are starting to interact before the latter goes on to obliterate the former. Mike points that they share the same mind but then concedes that it is not exactly the same. They share memories but Miracleman is cleverer. So are they the same person? Legally, two bodies means two persons but laws change with circumstances.

Two months later, Liz is still at it: how come MM's costume was intact the next time he transformed? Why did they not even notice? Mike is oppressed by his inferiority to Miracleman:

Miracleman got Liz pregnant;
his thoughts are like poetry and his emotions are pure;
his love for Liz is gigantic, strong, direct and clean, unlike Mike's. (p. 19)

So the differences are not merely physical. MM is a "superman" in more than the comic book sense and not in the Nazi sense.

Mike mentions the Falklands, which was then a current war, and his editor mentions Profumo, a scandal of the sixties. We still have one foot firmly in our reality.

Miracleman And Captain Marvel

Although I recognize Alan Moore's Miracleman as the ultimate culmination of a superheroic lineage from Superman through the original Captain Marvel and Mick Anglo's Marvelman, I now accept the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) Captain Marvel as a spectacular addition to that tradition. Like MM, CM is a human being enhanced by alien technology.

Whereas Miracleman starts in Thatcher's Britain and changes the world, this Captain Marvel starts in 1995 and pivotally affects the MCU. She is not in the same league as Miracleman but no one is, not even Doctor Manhattan who is an adaptation of Captain Atom.

Syllogisms And Triads

A syllogism is two premises and a conclusion, e. g.:

All men are mortal;
Socrates is a man;
Therefore, Socrates is mortal.

A Hegelian triad is a thesis, an antithesis and a synthesis. e. g.:

being;
nothing;
becoming.

Imaginative fantasy is written within a syllogism or triad, e. g.:

the Golden Age of Baghdad, complete with jinns, flying carpets etc, existed exactly as described in the 1001 Nights;
Baghdad is now as we know it from the news;
so what happened?
Neil Gaiman presents a conclusion or synthesis in The Sandman: Ramadan.

Michael Moran remembers that he was Miracleman in the fifties and early sixties;
the world in the eighties was how we experienced it at the time with no knowledge or record of any Miracleman;
so where did Michael's memories come from?

The dialogue in Miracleman, no 1 (New York, 2014), expresses Michael's and Liz's bewilderment -

Liz: ...that's just so stupid!
Michael: I suppose you're right. Actually saying it out loud like that, it does sound...well...pretty unlikely. I never really thought about it before. But I had to believe it, don't you see? I was Miracleman. I was a being of almost unlimited power!!
Michael (later): This may, damn it...This does sound silly in 1982, but in the fifties it made perfect sense. This is how I remember it. This is how it happened. (p. 23)

Two realities meet and interact so what will happen next? The first thing that happens is that Michael shouts, "Damn you, Liz, you're laughing at my life!!" (p. 24) and puts his fist through the solid oak floor and she believes.

Cessations Of Publication

The Fawcett Comics Captain Marvel

The Mick Anglo Marvelman

The Alan Moore Marvelman

The Alan Moore/Neil Gaiman Miracleman

- all ceased publication.

Marvel Comics republished Miracleman, although with a long interruption, and now will not complete it.

Miracleman is the Alan Moore Marvelman renamed. 

The Mick Anglo Marvelman was a virtual reality experienced by Miracleman.

The Fawcett Comics Captain Marvel was the inspiration for the virtual reality.

The Era Of The Overman

Marvel/Miracleman is Britain's no 1 superhero! (see image)

There are three meanings of "Superman":

Nietzschean;
Nazi;
comic book.

After the comic book Superman, there are:

superheroes in general;
the Marvel Families in particular.

By "Marvel Families," I mean:

Captain Marvel and his younger companions;
Marvelman and his companions.

The reconstructed Marvelman/Miracleman is a superhero comic that addresses the Nazi superman idea. Thus, Kid Miracleman to Liz Moran:

"I'm going to do it, you see, where all of them failed. Like that pathetic German clown...a stunted syphilitic proclaiming the doctrine of the superman.
"Poor Adolph. He had no idea. The real era of the Overman starts here, Mrs. Moran. How sad that you won't live to see it..."

- Miracleman, no 3 (New York, 2014), p. 2.

(Liz, following Mike's earlier advice to "Get out of the area!" (p 1), has driven directly to where Bates and Mike have just fought.)

Next, there is comedy. As "...these creatures of near unimaginable power..." (p. 3) resume their fight, several captions solemnly proclaim that we will never understand these "...titans..." The captions conclude:

"...never know their pain, their love, their almost sexual hatred...
"...and perhaps we will be the less for that." (ibid.)

We are brought down to Earth by a British policeman:

"Bloody Nora! What the hell's going on here?" (ibid.)

Our familiar world and the world of the superheroes are starting to interact. When the policeman's colleague asks, "Are you going to ask them to come along quietly?" (p. 4), he replies, "Sod off!" and "They might be paying me to handle Brixton but I'm buggered if they're paying me to handle this..." (ibid.)

When this was written, there had recently been a riot in Brixton.

Hope II

In an earlier post called "Hope," I summarized an exchange between Dream and a demon in which Dream trumped "entropy" with "hope." What the demon in fact said was:

"I am anti-life, the beast of judgment. I am the dark at the end of everything. The end of universes, gods, worlds... ...of everything." (Neil Gaiman, Preludes And Nocturnes, New York, 1995, p. 125)

- but I think that "entropy" summarizes this.

This theme is returned to at the end of the series. Destruction, addressing the new aspect of Dream, says:

"Entropy and optimism: the twin forces that make the universe go around." (Gaiman, The Wake, New York, 1997, p. 79)

- and Matthew the Raven, addressing the Wake, says:

" I mean, despair may be the thing that comes after hope, but there's still hope. Right? When there's no hope you might as well be dead." (The Wake, p. 80)

I said in "Hope" that I thought Gaiman had done something similar with the word "hope" in his Miracleman. He did. In the opening story, "A Prayer And Hope...," a man climbs Olympus to pray to the Miracleman. While climbing, he repeats the word "hope" - so he hopes that his prayer will be answered? In comic books, all letters are capitalized so we do not know whether he says "hope" or "Hope." On the summit of Olympus, he asks the Miracleman to save his daughter, Hope, who has been in a coma since suffering brain damage during MM's battle with his Adversary and is about to have her life support unplugged. MM refuses without explanation, the moral, drawn by another character, being that values change with perspective.

At the Carnival, the man, mentioning but not naming his now dead daughter, asks one of the permanently high "spacemen" what happens when we die. The spaceman, oracular as ever, replies:

"We are far more fair sweet sun, from the shores of my love, and it peeled out and I might touch that. Everyone's all envoys from the future too. Old friends." (Gaiman, Miracleman, No 22, Forestville, Calif. 1991, p. 14)

When asked to explain, he adds:

"Hope. What you dreamed. If they asked. You still groove with grief..." (ibid.)

- so he gives us "Hope" and a reference to dream.

Marvelman/Miracleman

Marvelman/Miracleman by Alan Moore, succeeded by Neil Gaiman, is out of print and might never be republished, let alone completed. How many people have read it or understand references to it? I am fortunate to own the entire published series, partly in monthly comic books and partly in collected editions.

There is a well known tradition of super-strong heroes, starting in mythology (Samson and Hercules), continuing through prose fiction (Hugo Danner in Gladiator by Philip Wylie) and culminating in graphic fiction (Superman, Captain Marvel, Marvelman, Miracleman). I remember from the 1950's that Mick Anglo's Marvelman, some of it recently republished by Marvel Comics, entertained the age-group that it addressed. However, it did not address adults and certainly did not reflect on the tradition that it represented.

Moore more than made up for this. Michael Moran has grown up into a world of Health Service cuts and Troubles in Northern Ireland, has married a commercial artist but not had any children, works as a free lance journalist, dreams of flying, suffers migraines and cannot remember the word from his recurrent dream. Then he reads the word "ATOMIC" backwards in a glass door....

Moore's and Gaiman's contributions, although less well known, are far more significant than anything that has been published under the titles of "Superman" or "Captain Marvel."

Different Takes On Superman

In Alan Moore's Watchmen, Superman was a fictitious character but comic books changed from superheroes to pirates when there were costumed adventurers in the real world.

In Miracleman, a young boy has seen the first Superman film and we learn that a Captain Marvel comic inspired Emil Gargunza to create the Miracle Family.

In Smallville, Clark Kent will become Superman but, because this TV series was so successful that it ran for ten seasons, many other characters and situations were introduced much earlier than in previous versions of the Superman story.

Watchmen is a single graphic novel whereas Miracleman is an as yet uncompleted comics serial and the Smallville title continues in a comic book sequel to the TV series, even though Clark is by now in Metropolis and has adopted his Superman role. Although Superman has meanwhile returned in a feature film series, I regard Miracleman and Smallville as the two most important conceptual sequels to the original Superman.

Why Collect The New Edition?

I have the Eclipse Miracleman complete either in the original comics or in the collected editions so why buy the current Marvel Comics reprints? Good question. I might have discontinued the order after checking out no 1. However, re-analyzing these early episodes, and comparing them with the Mick Anglo reprints, has enabled me to post quite a lot, which I enjoy doing, and it also helps that some people read the blog. Comments from anyone reading this character for the very first time would be particularly welcome.

I regard Miracleman as a culmination of superheroes as initiated by Superman in 1938 and, of course, Superman had several earlier roots - but I have discussed this earlier on the blog. (See here.) It matters that Miracleman is kept in print in durable editions and whether anyone can surpass it remains to be seen.

Back Again To 1956

The year 1956 is significant for yet another reason. Although both Marvelman and Young Marvelman had long runs, from 1954 to 1963, the team book, Marvelman Family, co-starring MM and YM together with the newly introduced Kid Marvelman, ran for only three years - but it started in 1956.

Thus, Michael Moran tells Liz:

"In 1956 we were joined by Johnny Bates. He was a little kid of maybe seven or eight. When he said my name he became Kid Miracleman. They called us the Miracleman Family."

- Miracleman, no 1 (New York, 2014), p. 23.

Dates of fictitious events as remembered by Moran exactly correspond to dates of publication. The word "Family" is used rather loosely. There is no suggestion that the three are related. And, indeed, being all male, they could hardly have been a family unit as such. However, it was thought that the young male readership would not have welcomed a Marvelwoman who, of course, was added during the Eclipse run, as Miraclewoman. (And Michael and Liz's super-powered daughter, far from being "Miraclebaby," named herself Winter Moran.)

Marvelman Family stories were rare both because of the relative shortness of the run and because, at least in the annual(s?), I understand that a single Family story was followed by MM solo stories. In the fifties, I did hear of, although I never got hold of, Marvelman Family and therefore imagined that I was missing out on something special whereas it is evident that MF stories were no more special than any of the many solo MM or YM stories.

Miracleman 2

Marvel Comics Miracleman no 2 contains:

the next two episodes of the Original Writer's Miracleman;

"The Yesterday Gambit," a future episode published out of sequence but never before reprinted in color (and I am not sure that I still have Warrior back issues in the cellar);

Garry Leach art;

the earliest account of "The Birth of Marvelman", which is curiously combined with the story of a film about Marvelman;

the first ever, four page, Kid Marvelman story, originally published in Marvelman, which has a caption explaining that KM "...has been appointed by Marvelman himself..." (p. 41) - no origin story and KM takes action not only against a crook but also against a prejudiced policeman.

Is all this worth the £3 that I paid for it? Yes, if that is what we have to pay these days. I particularly appreciate having "The Yesterday Gambit" and in color and in better color than Eclipse Comics. Since I found a 20 pence coin yesterday and a pound coin today, I can imagine that the gods have subsidized me by 40%.

In the late 1980's, when I started to read comics again as an adult, I found a pound and went to a newsagent. One DC comic cost 40p and a special with extra pages cost 60p. The news vendor gave me 20p change, not realizing that one comic was a more expensive special. 120%: the gods could afford to be more generous 30 years ago.

All The Captains And Men

Another Attempted Summary

Roy Thomas re-used Captain Marvel's original name, Captain Thunder.

Mick Anglo adapted Marvelman as both Miracle Man and Captain Miracle.

Alan Moore put a dead Miracleman in Captain Britain before he adapted Marvelman, then renamed him Miracleman.

The original Captain Marvel was revived but then lost his name to a Marvel Comics character.

Since Mick Anglo had used the word "Miracle" twice, this was an appropriate name change by Moore.

Captain Marvel/Shazam says, "Shazam!"
Marvelman and Miracleman say, "Kimota!"
Miracle Man says, "Sun Disc."
Captain Miracle says, "El Karim!"

Miracleman 3

Marvel Comics Miracleman no 3 contains:

the next three episodes of Miracleman;
a two-part Warpsmith story;
Garry Leach art;
no Mick Anglo Marvelman.

This Marvel Comics series continues to be a surprise and worth its cover price. The Warpsmith story, like "The Yesterday Gambit," had not been reprinted by Eclipse Comics so we are getting something new. Even those who did read Warrior magazine in its entirety - not me - are seeing some of the Original Writer's works republished in color for the first time.

Initially, before she becomes alienated, Liz takes a keen interest in Mike's new powers. She reads American comics as "...research work." (p. 9)

Liz continues:

"I hadn't read any before. When I was a kid I had a girl's comic...'Sally' or something. Some of this stuff's better than you'd expect, but most of it's crap." (ibid.)

We feel that we could have written that - we have certainly said most of it - but, of course, we did not think either of writing such dialogue or of putting it into the mouth of a woman whose husband has become super-powered. It is so authentic that Liz does not quite remember the name of her girls' comic. I am not sure whether there was a "Sally"? (After a google check: There was. Like Sandie, June, Jinty and Misty, it merged with Tammy which later merged with Girl, the former companion title of Eagle.)

Liz has a check list:

flight - yes;
strength - yes;
invulnerability - yes (Mike feels stupid);
x-ray vision - no;
superbreath - (Mike looks puzzled).

Perfect.

Although the Marvel Families never had Superman's visual powers, Bates, his powers growing, has meanwhile acquired something like the dreaded "heat vision."

Further tests:

flight speed - at least mach two, too fast for stopwatch;
strength - "Very, very strong. Ridiculously strong. Christ." (p. 11)
invulnerable to a massive falling rock.

They seriously discuss the absurdities in a way that Mick Anglo's characters could never have done. Human skin cannot possibly be tough enough to be simply unaffected by that rock which should at least have driven his feet into the soft earth so maybe he has a force field which would explain his twinkling effect? A force field cannot explain the strength but neither can "...muscles like a ballet dancer..." so "Maybe it's all in your mind, Mike, the power." (ibid.)

In a thought balloon (rare these days), Liz thinks, "God knows I wonder if it's all in my mind often enough." (ibid.) Here is another possibility, not explored any further but nevertheless present: is one of the characters imagining all these strange events?

In an earlier post, I asked of atomic-powered superheroes: could it be that they mentally control the most basic subatomic forces, thus gaining telekinetic control of their environments which would make it an easy matter to fly, lift heavy objects etc? That sounds almost plausible.

From MA To AM

How can we discuss the new Marvel Comics Miracleman series (Miracleman, no 1 (New York, 2014)) without naming its original writer by whom I do not mean the original writer of Marvelman, Mick Anglo, but the original writer of the Warrior Marvelman?

That original writer acted in good faith when he wrote this serial for a magazine that, unknown to him, had no legal right to the character. The re-conceptualized Marvelman/Miracleman is:

his work for which he deserves credits and royalties;
superb and seminal;
like Alan Moore's Swamp Thing, an absurd, pre-existing comics character completely reinvented and made to say something important;
like Howard Chaykin's Janov Prohaska, Blackhawk, and Mike Grell's Oliver Queen, Green Arrow, a character originally written for children but now rewritten for adults;
in this respect, I think, an even greater achievement than Moore's Watchmen because this superhero revival retains but transforms all the absurdities of the original;
in fact, my childhood revisited in adulthood with timely references to "...selling arms to, like, the people..." (p. 12) and "...the alternative press...man. (p. 15)."

MM says, "Eighteen years. Eighteen years, trapped in that old, tired body. It doesn't matter...It's over now!" (pp. 18-19)

Is this wish fulfillment? It can also be reality when, on the first day of retirement, we start to exercise and become more active than ever.