Miracleman (also known on the England side of the world as Marvelman) started as a Captain Marvel replacement and ended up as a legal hot potato that involved bankruptcy, confusion over copyright ownership, lawsuits, two different comic book companies buying the rights from two different copyright holders, delays, confusion and still no end in sight. And it’s a sad story because not only are the Alan Moore stories now out of print, but the Neil Gaiman stories have never finished their storyline. But who or what is Miracle(Marvel)man?

Back in the 1940s and 1950s, a London publisher was reprinting Captain Marvel comics for the England market. After the end of the DC/Fawcett lawsuit, they switch seamlessly to characters that had similar powers and backstories as the Captain Marvel Family and Marvelman (and the Marvelman family) were born. That lasted about 10 years before the market changed and other comics took over the market. So Marvelman sat on the shelf for 20 years. Then a new comic magazine named Warrior started in the early 1980s and asked Alan Moore to contribute a couple stories. One ended up being V for Vendetta and the other was Marvelman. Apparently the publisher never actually bother to buy the rights for the character, but led others to believe he had.

Eclipse Comics in the United States bought the rights from Warrior and reprinted the stories from Warrior in the first 6 issues. When published in the USA, Marvel said that they were not happy about the characters name and a name change to Miracleman was done. Alan Moore (with a variety of artists) finished his storyline with issue 16 and handed it over to Neil Gaiman. Gaiman’s run went through issue 24 before Eclipse went bankrupt. Todd McFarlane then bought the Eclipse rights to Miracleman and was planning on giving them to Neil Gaiman over their feud about Angela (lawsuit is still going on), but that plan fell through. At sometime in here, Mick Angelo confirmed that he never sold the rights and they were still his. Marvel then bought the rights from Mick Angelo. So, at some time in the future, theoretically, there could be more Miracleman books.

The Alan Moore run of Miracleman started in a similar manner to Superfolks. Mike Moran is a free-lance photographer with a wife and an dream that he can’t quite remember. During an assignment at a nuclear power plant rally he is hit on the head and while not quite awake, he sees the backwards reflection of the work atomic. That triggers a memory and causes him to say Kimota (atomic backwards) and Miracleman is returned. The series then goes on with the implications of his relationship with his wife, the reality behind the comic book version of Miracleman and the impact of Dr. Gargunza, the comic book villain and real-life evil genius in book 1. A big portion of book 2 is taken up with the birth of Miracleman’s child, the introduction of many other races and the re-appearance of Miralewoman. Book 3 deals with Kid Miracleman (who had an appearance in Book 1) destroying the world and the Miracles creating a better world with their technology and sensibilities.

The first Neil Gaiman storyline deals with the ramifications of the new world order and tells a set of vignettes, set in the world which deal with many of the main characters and how they are handling the new world. The second storyline (which is where the series ended) started to deal with some of the not so good aspects of the world.

The series as a whole is remarkable and should be considered up with some of Moore and Gaiman’s other classic series. If you can find it, you should read it. Highly recommended.