Jerry Siegel And Mick Anglo

Mick Anglo was to Marvelman what Jerry Siegel was to Superman, the creator of a character later transformed by other writers. There is a difference of scale. MM has had two other writers whereas Superman became an industry:

the multi-media Superman;
superheroes;
Captain Marvel;
Marvelman;
the re-created Marvelman, later renamed Miracleman;
the Smallville TV series that began as a Superman prequel but became a distinct story and also proliferated into other media.

MM and Smallville, both good in different ways, are so dissimilar that it is easy to forget their common origin.

The Sound Of Thunder

As Michael Moran wakes from his recurring dream of flying:

"The last thing he hears is the sound of thunder..."
- Miracleman, no 1 (New York, 2014), p. 13.

When he whispers "...the word..." (p. 16):

"The whisper is drowned by the thunder!" (p. 17)

To immobilize armed terrorists, he merely claps his hands:

"He swings his hands together, and thunder bursts from between them." (p. 18)

When he describes to Liz Moran his vision of twenty-seven years previously:

"His vision becomes hers...In her vision she hears the deafening peal of thunder..." (pp. 21-22)

Why are there so many references to thunder? The thunderbolt is the weapon of a god. Someone who is not killed but empowered by a thunderbolt must be favored by the god. In Captain Marvel's case, two gods are involved in his transformation, Zeus, who wields the thunderbolt, and Mercury. (Zeus is the Greek name for the chief god and Mercurius is the Latin name for the divine messenger but pantheons are mixed to generate the acronym SHAZAM. Indeed, Solomon, for wisdom, is Biblical although the Greek wise man, Solon, could have been used.)

Back to the thunder: Miracleman, previously Marvelman, was a British adaptation of Captain Marvel who in his very first appearance was named "Captain Thunder," a name that was dropped for copyright reasons, although it was later revived, both by Roy and Dann Thomas (see attached image) and by DC Comics who, having acquired Captain Marvel, then parodied him with a "Captain Thunder" whose magic acronym was THUNDER.

References to thunder in Miracleman evoke both divine power and the earliest form of the pivotal Captain Marvel.

Marvel Comics Miracleman no 1

(i) Fawcett Comics stopped publishing the original Captain Marvel because of law suits from the publishers of Superman.

(ii) The Mick Anglo Marvelman ceased publication I think because he could not compete with newly imported American superheroes.

(iii) Warrior magazine published a reconceptualized Marvelman, received legal heat from Marvel Comics, then stopped publishing.

(iv) Eclipse Comics re-published, colored and continued the reconceptualized Marvelman, renamed Miracleman, but went bankrupt.

(v) Now Marvel Comics re-publishes both the Mick Anglo Marvelman and the Eclipse Comics Miracleman, the latter recolored, and hopefully will complete the latter.

(vi) Meanwhile, the Superman publishers publish the original Captain Marvel and Marvel Comics have their Captain Marvel.

Moral: a superhero cannot be killed.

Comment: the recoloring is subdued and superb, more like the way DC Comics colored the Warrior magazine V For Vendetta by the same original writer.