My first encounter with Alan Moore was his work on Miracleman and V for Vendetta in Warrior Magazine from Quality Publicatins. The latter I've discussed a few times, but Miracleman not so much. Let me correct that oversight.
Miracleman began as Marvelman, a 1950's superhero meant to take the place of Fawcett's Captain Marvel, which had been summarily cancelled. The hero caught on and lasted into the early 60's. This fondly remembered hero was perfect fodder for Alan Moore's purposes, to take a classic hero and remake him for a leaner and meaner modern audience. The name change came at some point to avoid potential conflicts with Marvel Comics. Given the direction that Moore took the character "Miracleman" actually works better.
Mickey Moran is a typical middle-aged reporter who is beginning to wonder about life despite being married to a very lovely woman named Liz. (I can relate.) He gets caught up in a terrorist event which causes him to suddenly transform into a superhuman. It seems he'd been Miracleman all along but had forgotten to transform. Moore makes Moran and Miracleman into two different personalities, the former filled with the weaknesses of normal folks, the latter a gleaming perfect specimen. Soon enough he has trouble when he remembers how he came to have amnesia and remembers what happened to his two colleagues Young Miracleman and Kid Miracleman. The former is apparently dead as a result of an atomic blast the trio confronted. Miracleman was struck with amnesia and Kid Miracleman has become a successful businessman. There is so much more to this story as we meet a mercenary named "Cream" who has sapphires for teeth and Miracleman learns that his whole life might just have been a lie.
Great stuff, exceedingly well drawn by Garry Leach and later by Alan Davis. Miracleman had few cover appearances in Warrior, sharing that stage with many others, but here are the ones which are relevant to this collection.
Later Eclipse Comics took on the character and published reprints of the Warrior stories. This time color was added.
After years of confusion, the character was at long last revived by Marvel Comics and they too reprinted the Warrior material.
Also included in this collection are two stories featuring the Warpsmiths, bizarre warriors who traverse time and space to uphold some sort of coherence and maintain some manner of order. These are exceedingly strange but magnificently wrought stories which do tie into the Miracleman saga. I won't pretend I grokked all the dialogue which is intentionally bizarre to effect the feeling of alieness.
This is a stunning beginning to the Miracleman saga, which as we learn is only just beginning. The secrets of Miracleman's origins are coming back, the secrets revealing the truth about old enemies. More on that next week.
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I only ever read MM in Warrior and I have long since given most of these to charity shops/friends ( i still have my first 3 issues tho') so I may pick this collection up as you've piqued my interest in MM now. Nice summary Rip.
ReplyDeleteI did pretty much the same thing, getting shed of my Warriors several decades ago despite the high quality. (Yoiu can't keep everything.) I was not that attracted to the Eclipse work, probably out of some sort of snobbery on my part about what comic books should be. Thank goodness I've matured...a little.
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