In the event, God forbid, that one day all of my comics went up in flames and I had time to save only a handful, the choice is simple. I’d save my entire run of Miracleman, #s 1-24. It really is no contest. I received the first issue of this series, written by Alan Moore with art by Garry Leach, free when I ordered some comics from one of those back issue companies you see advertised in comics. This company, I can’t remember the name, used to send 2 free “grab bag” comics with every order. With this particular order, I got a months-old issue of Marvel Age, and the first issue of Miracelman. A few months later, while browsing my local comic shop, I saw the entire run of this series being sold for, I believe, around $100. It was worth every penny.
A brief history:
Miracleman (whose real name is Marvelman, but to avoid any possible lawsuits from a certain comics giant was renamed when he made his move to America in the 80s) was born in 1954 when Fawcett Comics, its publisher, found itself with no material to publish once the Captain Marvel stories were put on hold during a lawsuit from DC Comics when they decided Fawcett’s Captain Marvel too closely resembled DC’s own Superman. So Fawcett decided to, instead of copying another company’s character, copy their own and the transition from Captain Marvel and the Captain Marvel Family to Marvelman and his sidekicks Young Marvelman and Kid Marvelman was an easy one.
The characters:
Mike Moran, Dicky Dauntless, and Johnny Bates were the Marvelman family, but eventually, as comics sometimes do, they vanished. However, there was something about them. In 1982, Alan Moore and Garry Leach got to revive the character for Warrior magazine, being published independently by Dez Skinn. In 1985, the strip was picked up by Eclipse Comics and ran for 24 issues before vanishing once again, this time due to Eclipse Comics going bankrupt.
Book one:
One day in 1963, Miracleman and his sidekicks were caught in an atom bomb blast. Young and Kid are killed (so it is believed. Johnny Bates, Kid Miracleman, turns up later in the first issue, grown up and very dangerous) and Mike is left with no memory of his time as Miracleman nor of the magic work, “Kimota”, which is used to summon his alter-ego. When Book One opens, Mike Moran is a 40-something-year-old Londoner. It’s 1982, he’s married, and works as a freelance journalist. One day at a political rally, Mike and a bunch of other journalists are taken hostage by a group of terrorists who plan to steal the plutonium from the plant the reporters are there to write about. Mike inadvertently utters the magic word he hasn’t been able to remember for almost 20 years, and Marvelman--sorry, Miracleman--is reborn.
This first book, “A Dream of Flying”, reprints the first 3 issues, which were also reprints from the original “Warrior” run, and tells the story of Mike’s first few months back as Miracleman as he and wife Liz try to adjust to this huge new addition to their lives.
What Mike learns about himself, his sidekicks, and the entire world he’s grown up knowing surprises not only him, but the reader as well. Early on, as Mike is telling his wife about his career as Miracleman in the 50s and 60s, she asks why she’s never heard of him. Mike says maybe the government hushed it up. But in book one we learn this wouldn’t have been necessary as Mike’s history as Miracleman was nothing more than an experiment, a computer-generated life inside a government facility called “Project Zarathustra” where Mike gained his powers, very much like The Matrix only without the kung-fu. Book one is a short one compared to the ones that followed, spanning only 4 issues when books 2-4 take up a good 5-6 issues each, but as a starting point, it just doesn’t get any better.
“Once upon a time there were three heroes. They knew magic words. They did good deeds. And they killed all the monsters and dragons... They were living happily ever after when one of them died. His name was Young Miracleman and he died by fire. One up to the dragons. The second hero was called Miracleman. He came through the fire, but it made him forget he was a hero. He married and lived happily ever after... Until yesterday. Yesterday he remembered that he was a hero. But it wasn’t until today that he remembered about the dragons... The third hero was only a little boy. He was called Kid Miracleman and he was very powerful. Without the other two heroes to bother him, he could do whatever he liked... He grew up. He grew up into a dragon.”
“Get out Liz. Get out of the building. Get out of the AREA! Now,Liz!!”
“And she runs. Liz Moran is a brave woman, and she loves her husband very much. But she is only human. She runs...for to be human is not enough...when gods cry war amidst the thunder.”
Christ, I love Alan Moore’s writing. But to see the page is so much more powerful. Garry Leach, and later, Alan Davis, do such justice to Moore’s words, the menace of those panels jumps out at you and it’s one of the few times reading a comic book you’ll feel yourself in danger. The scene with Mike and Johnny Bates on the balcony outside Johnny’s office, holy crap, I still get chills just looking at the panels and thinking of the discussion between them.
“John, I listened to your story just now...rags to riches, redemption through honest toil. It’s a great story. I really wanted to believe it, John. But then halfway through I got this funny idea into my head. I thought, ‘What if he’s lying?’ I tried to get rid of it. I tried. But I couldn’t. I thought ‘What if he didn’t lose his powers? What if he survived that blast that took out me and Dickey and was STILL Kid Miracleman?’ I tried to imagine what it would feel like...to be sixteen years old and the most powerful creature on the face of the planet...and to be answerable to no one. You could do anything, John. You’d never need to turn back to dull, weak, human Johnny Bates ever again. Oh, sure, you could take his name, his identity...but you could stay as Kid Miracleman forever. You could have it all...money, prestige, fame... You could sever all your links with humanity. You could become remoreselss, unstoppable...and totally corrupt. Is that it, John? Is that what happened? You’re still Kid Miracleman, aren’t you? I can tell by your voice, by the way you stand...you’re not human, John. I can feel it . . . John, are you doing something to my mind?” Liz comes outside and with the distraction, Mike pushes John over the rail. And John doesn’t fall.
That’s the kind of stuff that make comics memorable. Moore’s words, Leach’s art, a perfect combination, the look on Liz’s face, the evil on John’s face. And that’s just in the first third of the book. What follows from his awakening will keep you guessing to the end as Moore reveals one more layer and one more layer and one more layer, a bit at a time. Miracleman, Book One: A Dream of Flying has me more psyched to be reading comics than I’ve been in over 10 years and I can’t wait to jump into Book Two.
The art is by Garry Leach and Alan Davis, and the use of space is amazing. Panel layout is designed to give the story not only a great flow, but a dramatic one as well, leading the eye where it needs to go to get the full experience, serving to enhance the dialogue and caption boxes in a way few other comics creators can manage before or since this book’s original publication in the pages of WARRIOR magazine in the early 1980s.
The latter half of this collection contains a ton of extra material, including a “between the scenes” Miracleman story from “the future” and two Warpsmith stories, characters which we have yet to be introduced to in the original issues from which this collection was compiled, but who will come to play a huge part in Miracleman’s story later.
I enjoyed the shorts here, but they were nothing compared to the main storyline, and, since we haven’t met these characters yet, they feel out of left field. Still, for someone who’s read the entire series a few times, these stories definitely helped flesh the Warpsmith concept out.
The final 60 pages or so are somewhat pointless reprints of original concept art and pages from the WARRIOR run, but these add nothing to the overall experience, nor do they enhance the story at all. I could have done without these pages, but I was going to pay whatever the cover price was for this collection regardless. Because it’s Alan Moore’s MIRACLEMAN and every great thing comics have ever strived for or have achieved starts right here. This isn’t just a great comic, it is, simply, the BEST comic. I just hope Marvel keeps them coming so I can collect the rest of the series in these awesome hardcover editions and then, God willing, get the final chapters of the story, 25 years overdue.
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Luxmortem
The amazing first steps of The Original Author in mainstream American comics.
Reviewed in Germany on April 28, 2021
