It’s probably not unreasonable to define love for something as the feeling of wanting more of it. When I feel in love with Alan Moore’s work, I rushed to find whatever comics, books, or poetry he had written. He rarely disappointed. The biggest disappointment was, in fact, learning that I couldn’t have one particular thing he had written: the Marvelman comic.
This next bit could get confusing, so hold on tight: Marvelman was Mick Anglo’s corny 1950s hero comic, a sort of British Superman. In 1982, Alan Moore reimagined this story as a very modern, dark fantasy. Production of this rebirth eventually moved to the US, where pressure from Marvel Comics forced the change of name from Marvelman to Miracleman. Moore wrote a total of sixteen issues over the next few years.
A lot happens in this sixteen comic books. Miracleman is updated for the 1980s, his original adventures are explained (both within the reality of the story and, well, outside of it) and it all comes to an explosive ending, one of the most ambitious Moore has attempted. The story justifies the corniness of the original quite cleverly, and it sentences Miracleman to a 25-year hiatus from his super powers. He regains them —along with the memory of his alter ego — in the new nuclear age, paranoid rather than patriotic.
It’s a great series. It’s very similar in tone, quality, and theme to another 80s classic, Swamp Thing. This overlap doesn’t make the two characters redundant; in fact, Miracleman zags where Swamp Thing zigs. Considering Moore’s other works from this time, one wonders just how deep his well of ideas — things to say — runs.
Here’s the bummer, though: due to the legal troubles with Marvel, the number of authors, artists, and other rights-owners (Neil Gaiman picked up the story after Moore’s final issue) and Moore’s own stubbornness and general frustration with the comics industry, Miracleman hasn’t been reprinted. This means that the only copies you can find are used, expensive, and unlikely to come as a full, sixteen-book package. Marvel Comics claims to own the rights currently, so there may be a reprint in the works, but don’t hold your breath.
After I learned this part of the story, I was pretty much resigned to the fact that I’d never get my hands on the darn comic. But then a friend mentioned that he probably had the whole thing in his basement. It turned out he did indeed, and it also turned out he was awesome enough to let me borrow it.
I’m not a nostalgic man, and maybe nostalgia isn’t the right thing to feel for something you’ve never seen before, but it sure felt like that as I unwrapped perfectly preserved, wonderfully yellowed, crisp, waxy pages of Miracleman #1-16. There I was, discovering after 25 years a comic about a man who rediscovers his powers after 25 years. We both had a lot of fun with it.
Update: Chris, the awesome dude I borrowed the comics from, wrote a little bit about why he loves it.
