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.
