Miracleman #1 (Marvel)

(via CBDB)

writer: Alan Moore

artist: Garry Leach

One of the things fans never thought they'd see was the return of Miracleman.

This requires a bit of explaining.  Miracleman is Marvelman, who is Captain Marvel, who is definitely not Superman.  But we have Miracleman because we couldn't have Marvelman because we couldn't have Captain Marvel, who was definitely not Superman.

And we have Miracleman thanks to Alan Moore.  Miracleman was Moore's first Superman, before "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?," before Supreme, before Tom Strong.  As far as I'm concerned, Moore seems to be typical of British creators who famously invaded American superhero comics in the '80s, but who didn't necessarily understand American superhero comics, and didn't necessarily care to understand them.

Point of evidence?  Miracleman.  

Like a lot of comic book fans, I had never read Miracleman.  I knew it was one of those seminal '80s characters, that it was part of how Moore developed his reputation.  But Miracleman was gone by the time I started actively reading comics in the '90s.  Long gone.

Miracleman became tied up, ironically and appropriately, in the same legal tape as every other...definitely not Superman version of the character.  And so he disappeared for years.  Not unlike, it would now seem, the Miracleman in Moore's stories.

So now he's back.  It's back.  Marvel has been working toward this moment for a few years now.  It started by resurrecting via reprint the old Marvelman comics, celebrating British creator Mick Anglo, as is done again in this reprint.  Anglo has become more famous than whoever it is who created Captain Marvel.  (And to further complicate matters, not the Marvel Captain Marvel.)  (Yesh.)  

In Moore's story, Miracleman has been away.  For decades.  Dude forgot he was even Miracleman to begin with.  But then he remembers.  And is definitely no longer to be mistaken for Superman.  In any way.  Like a lot of recent Supermen, he becomes the opposite of the Man of Steel.  He becomes a terror.  He becomes, well, the villain.

Moore's love of Superman stems from the Silver Age, the fun-loving Superman.  The one filled with whimsy.  That Superman hasn't existed since, well, the Silver Age.  And I think Moore was pretty upset about that.  Even though he was one of the creators who definitely made sure comics were never as a rule like that again.  Except when he later wanted them to be like that, so he wrote like that himself.  But not with Superman.  

Instead, he began the work of deconstruction.  His Miracleman is all about that.  It's about as cynical as anything Garth Ennis ever did in The Boys.  

I mean, I know what Miracleman was all about.  But it's quite another thing to be reading it for myself.  Knowing other things Moore did at the time, or even things he did after it, doesn't really prepare you for this one.  Well, maybe the callous crippling of Batgirl in The Killing Joke, a flippant twist of fate creators maintained although redeemed for decades.  

This is kind of different.  It's not bad reading.  It's, just, so cold.  So dismissive.  It doesn't seem to think superheroes make sense anymore.  As a rule.  That's the whole standpoint.  Which makes perfect sense, to some extent.

Is this really what some fans have considered one of comics' great Holy Grails?

If you excuse me, I'll be waiting for Zenith.  (Which apparently, will finally happen starting at the end of the year.  I'll be waiting with baited breath...)