Miracleman poll

[CBG]

Reprinting the single issues?

I somewhat doubt that, from Marvel, even if it would draw in readers.

I'd love to have a Miracleman Omnibus, however, and Gaiman to finally finish his run.

 

[Anubis]

Personally, I'd get Alan Moore to ghost write a mini to kinda, reintroduce the character to the comic buying public, and give all the proceeds to that guy who created him whose name I can't be arsed to remember.

 

[Tron Bonne]

Reprinting the single issues?

No, the trades. I'm pretty sure all the Moore/Gaiman stuff is out of print

I ended up grabbing the first 7 issues of Moore's run off Ebay like, a year or two ago, and quite frankly, that business with Kid Miracleman in London? Well, lets just say that stuff went down that would make Garth Ennis blush.

That's...disturbing

The original Miracleman comics by Moore came out in 1982, reprinted in the US in 1985, which was my first exposure to the character and it blew me away... though comics have become a LOT more darker and grim nowadays, so that stuff from 25+ years ago might not seem so "impressive" to today's readers...

Kind of sad to think that some people think that way. There was a lot of great stuff in that time period.

 

[Anubis]

No worries, it actually got much brighter by the time Gaimen came on. But seriously, that was some f**ked up s**t.

 

[Tron Bonne]

Personally, I'd get Alan Moore to ghost write a mini to kinda, reintroduce the character to the comic buying public, and give all the proceeds to that guy who created him whose name I can't be arsed to remember.

That'd be cool if they could get him to do it. Probably won't happen, if Marvel tries to call him he'll probably call a pox on them or something

 

[Tron Bonne]

No worries, it actually got much brighter by the time Gaimen came on. But seriously, that was some f**ked up s**t.

What did he do? I have to know now

 

[Anubis]

Well

Spoiler

Miracleman was kinda remembering this business with one of his former sidekicks, Kid Miracleman, who had gone insane at one point and they had just barely managed to defeat him, but the kid had to live with this crazy ass ex superhero in his brain. Miracleman had basically abandoned him, and he was stuck in an orphanage or something. One day, a bunch of the older kids decided it would be fun to rape the little bugger. He had no choice really. He said the magic words and so began probably the most disturbing insane super rampage in the history of comics. I mean some sick stuff. It took one hour for Miracleman and all the other heroes to get to him, in one hour he killed like over a 100,000. And in such sick ways. Made it rain body parts, made a worm outta smashed up school children. I mean, damn! When the heroes finally got there there was very little they could do. He beat the hell outta all of them too. The only way they were able to stop him was when this one dude started teleporting stuff into his head. Steel girders, pipes, whatever. They caused him enough pain to make him transform back to the kid, which would heal him. The boy was left alone, just sitting there in the rubble crying. Having had to sit there and watch all the horror he had unleashed. Miracleman hugged him, crying himself, and......smashed the little guys head.

 

[Tron Bonne]

 

[JewishHobbit]

Also...

Spoiler

When the little boy Kid Miracleman wanted to lose his virginity, he found a nice woman on the street... and brutally raped her. And I think then killed her. Crazy stuff. But Aza Chorn... the teleporting guy mentioned above... that dude was freakin' sweet!

 

[Themanofbat]

That was the "look" on ALL of our faces back in 1986...

 

[Havok83]

I never even heard of Miracle Man

 

[Gamma Goliath]

I think he was an independant character before marvel aquired his rights.

 

[Anubis]

Well then you two should go to Wiki and find out more about this awesome character.

 

[CBG]

No, the trades. I'm pretty sure all the Moore/Gaiman stuff is out of print.

The trades? That's a given that they'll reprint that.

 

[Sawyer]

So, what's the story here? Any recent news?

 

[runawayboulder]

I haven't seen anything. [BLACKOUT] I think that either Miracleman or Kid Miracleman is going to show up during SIEGE as Osborn's secret weapon.[/BLACKOUT]

 

[Anubis]

So, nothing other than crazy ass theories.

 

[runawayboulder]

It would explain the lack of info. Miracleman was the MOST sought after comic property for the longest time. Marvel scoops up the rights makes an announcement back over the summer and here we are in January and nothing. No "coming in 2010" teaser. Nada. That's how I'm looking at it.

 

[moraldeficiency]

I wouldn't be for a mini, I wouldn't mind an omnibus of the Moore work, a reprint trade of the Gaiman stuff already done (the golden ages) and then let Gaiman finish the rest of his series (the second and third arcs were to be called the Silver Age and the Dark Ages) which he already indicated he'd be on board for (see link below) and then finally bring him into the 616 proper with something like they did for captian marskrull.

If anyone doesn't really know about MarvelMan he's like a cross between the sentry (if he was a good character) who was a total ripoff of MM and Shazam whom MM completely ripped off (if DC would actually take that character seriously). His family and villains in the 616 would be a fantastic addition.

Here's what Gaiman said when he first heard about it:

http://communities.canada.com/montr...arvel-comics-has-bought-marvelman-rights.aspx

Montreal freelance writer Matthew Surridge interviewed Neil Gaiman yesterday (July 28), in preparation for a piece he is writing for The Gazette’s Books page about Anticipation, the 2009 World Science Fiction Convention, which begins Thursday, Aug. 6 at the Palais des congrès. Gaiman will be at Worldcon as guest of honour.

In the course of the interview, Surridge asked Gaiman for comments on Marvel Comics editor-in-chief Joe Quesada’s announcement last Friday July 24, at Comic-Con International, that Marvel had bought the rights to Marvelman from the character’s creator, Mick Anglo, opening the door to the possibility of reprints of Marvelman and new Marvelman stories for the first time in a decade and a half.

Here is Surridge’s transcript of that part of the interview, followed by more background to this long-running story.

MS: I would like to begin, if it’s all right, by asking a couple of quick questions about Marvelman.
NG: Go for it!
MS: All right. Well, the obvious question is, can you say anything about possible future reprints of your work on Marvelman, or new work that might come out?
NG: There’s nothing yet that can be announced. I’m obviously delighted that Marvel have the rights, and that Mick Anglo, who is in his mid-90s, will be seeing some profit from this thing that he created … and that the material will come back into print. Marvel would like to, I’m sure, reprint the work from me and Mark Buckingham, the stuff that we control the rights to, and I know we would very much like to finish the story that we set out to do – 20, 21 years ago, is that right?
MS: It would be about right. This announcement, then, definitely has the feel of a breakthrough for you?
NG: Yeah. I mean the reason why I haven’t said anything is because the ‘t’s are not yet crossed and the ‘i’s are not yet dotted, and I genuinely don’t know how everything’s going to work. And I don’t actually know how things are going to work with regards to the Alan Moore material, which is Alan’s to control. To be honest, I’m just delighted that Marvel have acquired the rights legally, and are talking right now with us about reprinting the work, bringing the work back ethically. Which is a lot more than – you know, [Canadian comics creator] Todd McFarlane [who] … announced that he was going to be reprinting it without paying us. Things are definitely in a better place.
MS: So it’s coming back the right way, hopefully, and there’s the possibility of actually completing the original overall story?
NG: I hope so. I don’t know. It would be very, very good. I need to talk to them, and find out what it is they’ve bought and how they want to play it, and we’re not quite there yet.





Surridge will also be blogging here, at Narratives, from the World Science Fiction Convention (along with Gazette Fantastic Fiction reviewer Claude Lalumière).

Here’s more of the background to the story, from Surridge:
Marvelman was originally created in 1954 by British comics creator Mick Anglo. Similar in many ways to the American character Captain Marvel, the original run of Marvelman ended in 1963, but was revived in 1982, when writer Alan Moore reimagined the character and his world as a metafictional comment on the superhero genre for the British magazine Warrior. When Warrior was cancelled, the American company Eclipse Comics hired Moore, along with artists Garry Leach and Alan Davis, to continue the book for them. When Moore later left the book, he chose Neil Gaiman to succeed him as writer.
Gaiman, along with artist Mark Buckingham, further expanded Moore’s concepts for the series, exploring a world dominated and reshaped by super-heroes. Gaiman envisioned three six-issue stories – effectively, three graphic novels – titled The Golden Age, The Silver Age, and The Dark Age.
Unfortunately, partway through the second storyline, Eclipse went bankrupt. That was in 1994. For the past 15 years, an assortment of complex legal issues has swirled around the character, preventing Gaiman’s and Moore’s work from being reprinted, and preventing Gaiman’s story from being completed. Marvelman has become one of the great lost works of the comics form; much of the better work in superhero comics in the past 15 years has been inspired by elements in Marvelman, but the work itself has been almost impossible to find.

(Marvelman image courtesy of marvel.com)

– Edie Austin, Books editor

 

[Sakuraba]

Well

Spoiler

Miracleman was kinda remembering this business with one of his former sidekicks, Kid Miracleman, who had gone insane at one point and they had just barely managed to defeat him, but the kid had to live with this crazy ass ex superhero in his brain. Miracleman had basically abandoned him, and he was stuck in an orphanage or something. One day, a bunch of the older kids decided it would be fun to rape the little bugger. He had no choice really. He said the magic words and so began probably the most disturbing insane super rampage in the history of comics. I mean some sick stuff. It took one hour for Miracleman and all the other heroes to get to him, in one hour he killed like over a 100,000. And in such sick ways. Made it rain body parts, made a worm outta smashed up school children. I mean, damn! When the heroes finally got there there was very little they could do. He beat the hell outta all of them too. The only way they were able to stop him was when this one dude started teleporting stuff into his head. Steel girders, pipes, whatever. They caused him enough pain to make him transform back to the kid, which would heal him. The boy was left alone, just sitting there in the rubble crying. Having had to sit there and watch all the horror he had unleashed. Miracleman hugged him, crying himself, and......smashed the little guys head.

That splash page in #15 showing the Kid Marvelman sacked London was absolutely brutal.

Two of my favorite moments of brutality in the series were the depictions of Young Marvelman's mashed up body with Dicky Dauntless. And then there was that panel where Marvelman smashes two of Gargunza's guards' heads together and in the next panel he's got blood dripping from his head with that weird look on his face that reads emotionless superhero killing machine, determination to get to his wife, or some f'ed up combination.

Look at those eyes flying.

 

[random_havoc]

I just read all of Moore's and Gaiman's issues. My thoughts are, if I'd read them when they came out, I'm sure I'd have been blown away but as it is I wasn't. The idea of superheroes taking over society and revolutionizing it despite the people not wanting them to was very original, but I prefer how it was portrayed in The Authority.

I also thought a number of the final issues felt like big wastes of time. The story of a depressed woman whose husband leaves her and baby daughter leaves her. Not exactly lightning in a bottle there.

For originality I give most aspects of the series an A+. For putting a really original and cool twist on the Cap Marvel story another A+.

Overall though, maybe I've just been spoiled by modern production quality, or maybe it was the slow issues that seemed like unnecessary filler, but I'm not planning to own it.

Oh, and I think nudity in comics (or any entertainment for that matter) is not only morally wrong but unnecessary. So on that alone I wouldn't own them anyways.

 

[Themanofbat]

The final issues are still stories that need to be told... Gaimen did not get a chance to finish his second (of three arcs), so he still has about 10 issues to complete the saga.

 

[Tron Bonne]

I also thought a number of the final issues felt like big wastes of time. The story of a depressed woman whose husband leaves her and baby daughter leaves her. Not exactly lightning in a bottle there.

For originality I give most aspects of the series an A+. For putting a really original and cool twist on the Cap Marvel story another A+.

Overall though, maybe I've just been spoiled by modern production quality, or maybe it was the slow issues that seemed like unnecessary filler, but I'm not planning to own it.

Are you referring the final issues of Moore's run or the final issues of Gaiman's run before he had to stop? Because I think Gaiman's run was somewhere in the mid-late 1990s. That's pretty modern if it's the latter

 

[CantThinkOfAName]

I just read all of Moore's and Gaiman's issues. My thoughts are, if I'd read them when they came out, I'm sure I'd have been blown away but as it is I wasn't. The idea of superheroes taking over society and revolutionizing it despite the people not wanting them to was very original, but I prefer how it was portrayed in The Authority.

I also thought a number of the final issues felt like big wastes of time. The story of a depressed woman whose husband leaves her and baby daughter leaves her. Not exactly lightning in a bottle there.

For originality I give most aspects of the series an A+. For putting a really original and cool twist on the Cap Marvel story another A+.

Overall though, maybe I've just been spoiled by modern production quality, or maybe it was the slow issues that seemed like unnecessary filler, but I'm not planning to own it.

Oh, and I think nudity in comics (or any entertainment for that matter) is not only morally wrong but unnecessary. So on that alone I wouldn't own them anyways.

Haha, guy, you are the worst!

 

[Themanofbat]

Are you referring the final issues of Moore's run or the final issues of Gaiman's run before he had to stop? Because I think Gaiman's run was somewhere in the mid-late 1990s. That's pretty modern if it's the latter

Yeah... Miracleman #24 came out circa 1993 or 1994... and Gaimen's issues (starting with #17) all have that modern glossy comic look... so I'm not sure what he means exactly by the term "modern production quality"...

If it's the writing, methinks he just skimmed the books... lulz

And liking what came after is the same lack of feeling/sensation/appreciation akin to the people that Pennywise is a better band than Bad Religion, even though the former was a mere carbon copy of the far superior latter.

But what do I know... I'm just an old man living in the past...