Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION Dr. Gym'll's Cultural Rarities Marvelman/Miracleman

In re-reading this thread just before I posted my review of the first Gaiman/Bucky issue, this post of Thoth's really stood out for me. I interpret it as identifying Moore as the greatest of all fanfic writers. Obviously, I'm biased, but that's really what I take away from it, a vindication for all fanfic writers such as myself.

Thanks, Thoth, whether or not that was your original intention.

Each issue is different tonally (though you are correct they all feed into a larger narrative). Trying not to spoil too much, but each issue will focus on a facet of the new society, and while they all aren't as depressing as this issue, it's a common undercurrent that the new paradise is not a paradise for all (which will feed into story for the Silver Age).

I'm relieved to learn they're not all as depressing as that issue. Thanks, Dave.

Gaiman/Bucky issue #2 was an improvement on the first one, but it all feels rather underwhelming. A super-heroine having graphic sex with a mere mortal man doesn't raise eyebrows the way it did back in 1990. And while there is something to admire about her willingness to confront the man with her imperfect mortal body, the "beauty is only skin deep" message seems rather trite. Also, I don't really get the impression that the guy learned anything from the experience.

The Cult of Bates stuff with the little kids was both weird and predictable. It doesn't say a lot for Gaiman's opinion of humanity at the time. Maybe he's developed a more mature (or at least a more positive) outlook in the intervening years which we'll see in the brand-new material a few issues down the line. Time will tell.

Cobie, are you still following Miracleman? I'd be interested to know what you thought of these two issues.

The next issue, "Notes from the Underground" is my favourite. Of course, a lot of it depends on your opinion of the main character in real life.

I finally got around to reading #1 and #2, and I'm excited to see where this all goes. Knowing there's a wider arc playing out I'm kind of waiting to see what will happen as in my experience, Gaiman's comic books are always enjoyed much better when read in trade formats or with blocks of issues all at once.

That being said, I enjoyed #1 much more than you did, Fanfie, and thought there was a lot of very human emotion being displayed both overtly and subtly. It was enhanced greatly by the grandiose and cosmic--and cold--setting and background, which only became moreso as they ascended up to heaven.

I thought #2 was a great story also. Again, it combines a very mythological, larger than life quality with very personal, gritty and petty human feelings. The moodiness of Bucky's art really worked here too.

Both issues thus far remind me a lot of Sandman, more so than anything else Gaiman has done. I loved Sandman and have reread the whole thing a few times, so for me there is an added enjoyment to see an extension of Gaiman's themes from that series. (I know you dislike Sandman, so there is likely a correlation there as well).

"Notes from the Underground" is a title Gaiman took from a Dostoevsky novella, which I happened to have just read earlier this year for the first time. So I'm doubly intrigued by what the issue will be all about!

That leads me to another point about Gaiman in general. I've studied at length the Russian Romance novelists of the 19th Century, as it was one of my favorite topics in college and grad school, and remains one of my favorite literary times in history. I think Gaiman definitely takes a lot of inspiration from that era, as do some other British writers from the 1980's - 1990's class that flooded into American comic books. Garth Ennis is another one I particularly associate with this. (Another writer you are not crazy about Fanfie).

Specifically the writer they remind of the most is Leo Tolstoy, though Dostoevsky is applicable. What all of these writers do is take very a large and general literary concepts, such as war, heroism, love, mythology, (and in the comic book medium) superheroes. They then proceed to balance these larger, epic ideas with the most gritty, personal, petty and "real" human moments and emotions possible.

For example, Tolstoy spends hundreds of pages ripping apart perceptions of heroism in war by showing the reality of war from the viewpoints of everyone associated with it: decision-makers, soldiers, officers, businessmen, etc. And just when you think he's totally ripped apart every idea you've ever had about "heroism during wartime", he then shows the most brave, beautiful and heroic moments that actually exist and happen during war, and they are wonderfully small, human and real.

I think Gaiman and Ennis try to duplicate that in their work when they tear apart preconceived notions of things. Because they usually try to find some unnoticed quality of the protagonist (and by extent their actions) that shows real love, or real heroism, or real sacrifice that at first seems lesser but in retrospect is all the greater because it isn't bullshit but rather something genuine, no matter how ugly or small it is.

But I've digressed...

I think what I'm getting at is that Gaiman isn't pessimistic at all. When you read his highly humorous tweets and essays on things, you can see that coming through in a big way. Rather, I think he takes a very acute and granular view of human beings. He sees through all of the things they say and claim to believe in or aspire to, and is able to see underneath to their real feelings and fears. He knows that people like Miracleman or Superman or Dream or any mythological figure destroying evil isn't real...but somene like the unknown man who stood in front of the tank in Tiananmen Square can be the highest example of human bravery. I think a lot of his stories are about recognizing that and then having those mythological beings recognize it as well, so they can understand those concepts in their truest form, as they really are.

Thanks for chiming in, Cobie. I respect your opinion and I can see where you're coming from, but I think my feelings could best be summed up thus:

I like writers who find the fanciful in the mundane.

I don't like writers who find the mundane in the fanciful.

I'm curious about the publishing. I'll have to dig out my originals, because I looked at the collected edition last night and found the order was different than I remembered the published single issue stuff (especially the backups and the "under space" stuff).

I think even by two issues in, it's probably pretty obvious the "Golden Age" is an ironic title, as people are still unhappy in the New World Order, and as more facets of the new society get exposed, you'll see more and more of the powder keg getting filled up.

As a fair warning, there's not a lot of uplifting endings in store for all the human protagonists we'll meet.

Since I haven't liked any of the humans yet, I doubt I'll shed any tears for them. But thanks for the warning, Dave.

A thought that just occurred to me:

If, as Cobie opined in his recent posts, Neil Gaiman recalls the Russian Romantics, then which literary movement does Alan Moore recall?

Gaiman/Bucky issue #3 was a big improvement over the first two, in my opinion. I have mixed feelings about Andy Warhol, I still haven't decided whether he was an observer or a participant in the celebrity-fying of culture. But I thought Gaiman used Warhol's persona very effectively here. I haven't read Dostoyevsky, as I'm not nearly as literate as I wish I was, but I think I get the gist of what Gaiman was trying to say. The thought of bringing people back to life has always been very unsettling to me, and the final page of the Gargunza clones stacked like dominoes was chilling. In a good way.

So, anyone know WTF happened to this? All that hype and it suddenly stopped?

Looks to me like the same old sh...sorry, same old story.

Just as the previous NG/MB Miracleman comic fell prey to missed deadlines and only the Gods know what else, so we seem to be witnessing a case of deja vu.

Given the colossal mess with the Sandman over the last few years, I wouldn't hold my breath for new Miracleman. I love Neil (reading Trigger Warnings right now) but it's become increasingly obvious that any comics work is not a priority for him. Plus, his Norse Mythology book drops today, so I assume that's going to occupy his time promoting that for the foreseeable future.

It will be interesting given the legal ramifications though, as I thought part of the resolution to this whole legal battle was to get he and Bucky to finish this for Marvel. Of course that was under Quesada's tenure, who knows what the priority at Marvel is on this.

I'm sure once the sales numbers came in as abysmal, all parties stopped caring as much. Which sucks for those of us who were loving a chance to finally read this.

Well, they cocked up by printing The Original Writer's stuff month-by-month rather than announcing it as a big Omnibus of the whole run immediately. Even if it made them more at the time, it gave all the hype years to dissipate before they got to the new Gaiman material, which cost them the chance to make THAT a big deal.

This is mostly how I feel, too. But comics are by their nature ephemeral, no matter how well-written. I remember feeling lost around the time that his human alter-ego was permanently abandoned (or killed? It's been awhile). Or maybe it was just that even "hip" superheroes were losing their appeal to me by that time.

I'd gladly read a limited series about the adventures of Liz & Miracleman's super-daughter.

EDIT: Depending on who writes it, of course.

Yeah, you nailed it pretty well there. A bit of a marketing blunder. Especially when you consider each month it was $4.99 for a single issue's worth of stories and then a plethora of worthless filler material.

Thanks for quoting my post from seven and a half years ago, cle. I had forgotten it and the debate it created with Uranus Lad.

You're right about comics being ephemeral, which, unfortunately, may be a disincentive to make them well written. (Why bother writing something well if you know it's going to be forgotten?) This is one reason why I prefer novels these days: Novelists at least cling to the belief that their stories matter and can have a lasting impact on the reader. I'm not sure this is the case with most comic book writers, and re-reading my old review seems to support this view. In comics, shock value and titillation often pass for depth and meaning. At least that's what I remembered about Miracleman back in 2009.

I've mixed feeling about this one. Having read it before, I was waiting until the new issues. The downside, of course, is that there may not have been enough sales to get that far. So no new issues for anyone. On skimming the odd one, I didn't think there was enough additional material to justify picking it up on those grounds either.

On the memorable moments form the first run. it's not the carnage I remember most. That may be because UK readers were used to seeing that sort of thing in the types of books where Moore cut his teeth such as Battle, Action and 2000AD (where he did do work). I didn't read Warrior until after I'd read his Captain Britain work in the UK Marvel comics. That had a lot of similarly disquieting themes. The Fury and the quiet desperation of the Britain in the story.

From my first reading I remember...

Mike Moran realising that he was never going to be as good at anything as his alter ego.

The job that he couldn't turn down because of family strains that led him to rediscover his powers.

That fear as he realises what his former friend is capable of, before a punch has been thrown.

Miracleman not understanding what he has lost as he stands in his new Olympus.

The abuse that led Kid Miracleman from breaking back out.

Winter's control.

It's a shame that comics chose only to see and copy the darker parts of the slaughter without looking at the many all too human points of the story.


Sometimes I wonder if that's because they were drawn/ turned on to a level of violence they perhaps hadn't seen before, whereas it was commonplace elsewhere to the point that it was the quieter moments that had to make a story. Sometimes I just wonder.

I agree with Thoth.

I grew up during the 80s in a third-world nation where civil unrest was not only a constant, but a given, not unlike the way I've heard Britain was during the same decade. So when I read Moore's Miracleman for the first time back in the mid-90s (at that time, the Eclipse back issues were all easy to find and reasonably priced), the gore seemed like an afterthought, even Bates's grand-guignol rampage. What I took away was the relatable humanity of the characters, even as the events around them became madder, more fantastical, and larger-than-life, particularly Liz. In fact, one of the scenes I remember most vividly is her witty skepticism as Mike tells her the true story of Marvelman/Miracleman.

For the above reasons alone, I'd easily rank Marvelman/Miracleman way above Watchmen. The last time I re-read the latter, it came across to me as an extremely calculated offering, and borderline cynical in the way Moore appeared to me to be dumbing down his talents for dialogue and characterization, with only Rorschach among the main cast registering with me as anything other than a cipher, and, of the supporting cast, only Mason made a good impression on me (which is why I was so upset when I read plot spoilers for Before Watchmen: Minutemen and found out that the writer had turned Mason into a murderous vigilante who kept a tight lid on his dark secrets.)

I appreciate your thoughts, Fanfie and thoth. Both of you grew up in different cultures than I did, so your perspectives offer valuable insights on the series.

You reminded me that Liz was an exceptional character, the humanizing aspect of the series. There were also a lot of other standout memories:

-- The villain with the blue teeth (was that Winter?) and how his end was weaved into the story.

-- A "single issue" which focused on spies and how they would be unhappy in a world which didn't involve conspiracy, surveillance, and danger.

-- Big Ben: a former superhero turned mental patient who was lost in his own self-gratifying delusions (not unlike certain comics fans. ) A very sad case.

-- Mike losing two fingers to a dog (?): A stark reminder of how different his real life was from his ideal superhero life.

Maybe it says something about me that the most significant memories I had in 2009 were of the graphic violence. Maybe I was so disappointed with how the series fizzled out that all I could remember was the "bad" stuff. In truth, the series had lot to offer that was challenging, fresh, and (to use thoth's word) disquieting in the '80s. It is indeed a shame that the darker aspects of MM and Watchmen were what publishers chose to imitate. There were a lot of groundbreaking aspects to both series that should not be forgotten.

Ugh.

Just no.