iFanboy Video Podcast
Show Notes
It’s some of the earliest known work from comics superstar Alan Moore but due to a morass of rights complications and conflict, Miracleman (or Marvelman as it was originally known) hasn’t been available to comics readers for years. A complete collection of 24 issues will cost you plenty.
But is it worth it? Josh, Ron, and Conor read Miracleman, and tell you what it’s about, and if it’s worth all the hype. The series contains early work from Alan Moore, sure, but also Garry Leach, Alan Davis, Rick Veitch, Jon Tottleben, Mark Buckingham, and even Neil Gaiman, who took over writing with issue #17. Plus, who is the mysterious Chuck Beckum?
Kimota!
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I liked the whole video, but the blooper real was the best part for me!
I’m also now curious about the Superboy conroversy, which I’ve only heard brief whispers about, never the full story. You lads needn’t make a whole episode about that, though; I’ll just hit up lmgtfy…
Oh… well that isn’t very interesting at all, is it? Must’ve been a bigger deal at the time.
I gotta say the first artist on the run, I think his name was guy leach, fantastic looking art. His figures look like where Alan Davis would go with his.
I think I’m with Ron and Conor on just reading the first 5 issues.. I just can’t get into that weird Alan Moore stuff and crowning babies.
I think this is one of the few comics that, most people would agree, its almost kinda sorta ok for for you to check it out online, kinda.
When (or if) these are ever put out in tpb I will definitely be picking them up.
I had to read these comics on my computer that were tracked down via torrent. And this may be the only (really viable) way of reading these issues – as it stands today. So don’t feel guilty fellow readers. Sorry but I just don’t have $400 to spend on the Olympus paperback……I don’t even want to know what the hardcover would cost.
All that being said, great episode – you guys hit on just about everything that needed to be said. But, I wish there would’ve been a little more focus on the later part of Alan Moores run – being issues 11-16. There is some fantastic stuff in there and issues 14-16 having some amazing moments of God vs. Evil God and what can be done to stop Kid Miracleman, etc.
Thanks guys. Keep ’em coming.
I have all the issues and paperbacks (although the first paperback doesn’t have the prologue from the first comic and The Golden Age paperback doesn’t have the back-up story from his issues).
Honestly, I love this series. It treats the characters as real people with real motivations and has interesting things to say about the consequences of a benevolent dictatorship.
I really hope they get it sorted out, although I met both Neil Gaiman and Garry Leach in the last couple of years, and while they were both hopeful that there would be a resolution, there was definitely the feeling that its probably a lost cause, sadly.
Best story part for me is the Olympus story-line (Miracleman’s final solution for Johnny Bates is probably still the one page of comics that literally left me reeling), although it has to be said that the way people react to the Birth issue is kind of fascinating – what, so iFanboy has no problem showing drawn images of violence and genocide, but a child being born, as they are every minute of every day, is too much? I think you wimped out a bit guys, you should have shown the most notorious sequence. It’s actually all drawn from photo-reference of the most popular child-birth book at the time, so there really shouldn’t be anything to be squeamish about, no?
Everyone should really bittorrent it. It’s an important work from one of the most important creators in comics, and certainly lays the foundation for stuff that he did after – Watchmen, Supreme, Top 10 even.
The Olympus arc, to me, is the best arc of comics I’ve ever read. Tottleben’s art is just incredible… Veitch’s is terrific too, but Tottleben just explodes on the pages. I wish you wouldv’e spent more time on issue #15 as that battle is insane and seems the precursor to the squid scenes in Watchmen. Also, the fact that this issue is usually the one that grabs over $200 on ebay alone. It’s just so brutal and beautiful at the same time, it literally has me gasping for air when I first read it. To that point, chalk me up as another one that read this on the computer since it’s just way too expensive to buy second hand and these legal rights will never bo solved.
I think the Gaiman stuff is lacking in comparison to Moore’s work. There’s some interesting ideas there, but without a complete picture, it’s hard to get behind it.
I prefer the first part of the series over the rest, but I loved it all. The second half/trade was hurt by inconsistencies in the art. I haven’t watched the ep yet so I don’t know if this was mentioned, but the first part of the second arc was drawn by Chuck Beckum, which was the birth name of fan non-favorite Chuck Austen.
I really, really think that the first three issues (the first trade) still hold up as some of the greatest comics ever written.
Didn’t like the Gaiman stuff on first read, but have grown to love it. It reads like an anthology set in the Miracleman world. Miracleman is a background character for most of the arc. From my understanding Gaiman was setting up Young Miracleman and Miraclewoman to be the new threats.
Thank you for continuing to gently caress my nostalgia gland, ifanboy.
Might I suggest an out-of-print comics episode?
Also wanted to say that the cover logo is one of the greatest ever designed. I mean, does that leap out at you or what?
I was fortunate in that I picked up all my Miracleman comics and trades long before Todd muddied the waters and the book became stuff of legend and therefore prohibitively expensive.
I actually bought one of my copies of #15 in a £1.00-and-under bin at a comic store that was going out of business in Belfast. Got the trades and the rest of them all on eBay, must have come to less than £60 all told. Then when the thing became a big deal and I needed some quick cash I put the cheap (but NM) copy of #15 on eBay and it sold for over £200. I still have a copy of it here though, so it wasn’t too much of a wrench.
That is my one and only example of me making money from comics.
I also have the Warrior 3D special that has a Miracleman story by Moore and Davis that’s never been anywhere else, and the Warrior Summer Special that had a non-canon story (it was Moore’s concept of how the battle between MM and KM might occur, but I suppose he must have re-thought it as its fairly different from how #15 portrays it).
Miracleman: Apocrypha is another trade I have – it’s a reprint of a 3 issue anthology series Eclipse put out at around the same time as the Gaiman stuff. Mostly good stories, by the likes of Gaiman, Steve Moore, Kurt busiek, James Robinson, Alex Ross, Darick Robertson, Matt Wagner, Kelley Jones, Mark Buckingham, Melinda Gebbie and quite a few others.
Next do a Flex Mentallo show.
Wow. I’ve only ever heard about the series, so it’s great to get some explanation about what it actually is. Thanks for breaking it down for us.
Having said that, I’m sure that if this comic is ever re-released, I’d be part of that half who read it and was disappointed. I like Alan Moore and all, but when he gets too big and grand he loses me. That’s also probably why I’ve only read the first trade of PROMETHEA.
I’m of the opinion that Promethea is a masterpiece, so I guess it’s a case of diff’rent strokes….
I loved the way Promethea started but then it became "hey, let’s take a journey through this book I just read." When it focused on the characters, like it did during the first 8 issues or so, it was very, very good.
In 94-95 they announced a Miracleman:Triumphant series drawn by Mike Deodato that never came out. I’m thinking maybe some of the pages have been leaked to the net but I’ve never sought them out.
Kimota: The Miracleman Companion is a fascinating book about the genesis of the character and the subsequent legal disaster over his rights. Features interviews with virtually everyone involved with the character. Fascinating reading, even if you don’t give a crap about Miracleman.
Great show, guys. I’ve been waiting for this one for a long time, and you didn’t disappoint.
I got the whole series (and all the trades except vol. 1) in the early ’90s when I was about 14 years old, around the time I first started searching out "good older" comics as opposed to whatever was on the shelf this month. The prices weren’t nearly so high back then. It was an eye-opener, to say the least. I read Watchmen, Dark Knight, and Sandman around the same time, too, and honestly, though Miracleman is far less polished and consistent, it became my favorite comic series ever. Of course, in a way you can’t compare 24 issues of Miracleman to 75 issues of Sandman or 400 issues of Uncanny X-Men or whatever, but for what it is, when people ask me what my favorite comic is, I saw Miracleman. And not just to seem cool.
Miracleman was where Moore first started reconceiving what superheroes were. Before he twisted Swamp Thing’s origin and before he twisted the Charleton characters in Watchmen, he tested out his magic on Mike Moran. Not only was Miracleman where Moore’s postmodern innovations first took off, but Miracleman was where he took those innovations to their furthest reaches and logical conclusions. Moore really makes the superman a god on Earth, a ruler of humanity, and to my knowledge that had never really been portrayed before, and it hasn’t been portrayed as well since. The fact that Marvelman always looked like an Aryan ideal underscores the point: this is a scary conclusion, but a conclusion that almost seems inevitable when you really consider what the existence of a true super-human would mean for the world.
Along the way to the so-called utopia, however, there’s room for a LOT of interesting ideas and storypoints. As a series Miracleman has a lot of imperfect art and rough writing, but for every bit of that there’s some gorgeous art (Totleben and Buckingham in particular) and some very elegantly-phrased sentences later on, particularly in #15 and #16. Overall, it’s definitely worth tracking down. This is really the birth of postmodern comics. For it’s flaws (there aren’t THAT many of them), it’s worth it to see the postmodern comic striving to be born, so to speak.
There has to be some CC Man comics parody out there… Creative Commons Man. Tiuswal is too obvious a word to use though.
Moore was writing V for Vendetta at virtually the same time for 2000 AD magazine, and both came before Swamp Thing. There was nothing like these books at the time they came out except maybe Rick Veitch’s The One (1983). Appropriately enough, Veitch provided the art for the end of the second arc, including the infamous childbirth scene.
You didn’t talk about the awesome 3D special!?!
Great show. Having read this as it came out, I want to emphasize something you said in passing. This series was absolutely an example of groundbreaking comics. No one was publishing stories anything like the content in these. Bits and pieces of these echo throughout later comics including KINGDOM COME, ASTRO CITY and the idea of Superman as a godlike being.
Until this podcast I couldn’t figure out why I didn’t have every issue. I thought that it was possibly a release schedule thing. But I remember not enjoying the last issues I bought, a sentiment legitimized by your comments. Curiously, I just found #14 just this last weekend and wondered when you guys might do a MM show. Oooo, Twilight Zone music.
Hi fellas, good show as always. MM was one of the stories that really got me into comics, I bought and read all the trades before Watchmen, after The Dark Knight (and felt it was the best of the bunch)
The first issue of the Silver Age DID come out, and it seemed that it was going to be a more linear story than the Golden. You can also get that on ebay (sometimes). Anyway, thanks!
This episode has given me a great deal of joy. Thank you guys.
@ultimatehoratio Actually, both Marvelman and V for Vendetta were published in Warrior magazine, not 2000AD.
At one stage it seemed as if V was going to turn out to be Marvelman, but happily common sense prevailed there.
Both Garry Leach and David Lloyd were kind enough to sign my issue 1 of Warrior a couple of weeks ago – now all I have to do is go to Northampton and bother Moore to get his signature too!
@theronster
Ha, I was getting ready to correct myself but you beat me to it. The original stories were in black and white, if I’m not mistaken. (Again.)
If you manage to get into Moore’s inner sanctum, please have a video camera handy. That would be something.
This was a fanstic epiisode. The gag reel deserves a gold star.
The opening was hilarious and reminded me of the
Of the time Conor had the power of Shazam in his nose
Damn you and damn the person on ebay that you bought from!
Sorry, it’s just when I see someone reading a series no one else has read….I get a bit jealous.
But yeah great episode and discussion guys. I hope in the future I will be able to read this because it’s something that is like, on my top 5 comics I need to read before I die. But you mention the baby moment and while that certain is disgusting and funny at the same time….Wasnt there a horrible gang rape in this? Like isn’t that how Kid Miracleman comes back in the first place? I dont know it’s just all here say but I heard there was such a thing occurring in one of the issues.
@TNC – Yes, there is a scene like that.
I feel so behind!!! I put the podcast on my ipod in hopes I can see it while I on break~!
I thought for some reason you guys were doing a Green Lantern show this week or sometime soon. Maybe that’ll be next week. You mentioned it a few weeks ago.
I’ve seen these books several times through my short-lived comic career, but never knew anything about it. Did you guys ever do a show on Valiant?
I’ll see what I can pick up, but I’m not gonna take it in the tail-pipe over the price.
I’m sorry to repost, but you have to count the 3-D special no. 1. So its 25 issue.
Listening now. Ah, you guys are brining back memories. I’m not totally sure I own everything, but I believe I have the first two trades (maybe Olympus, but I may have read that while working in a comics shop), and I also bought all the Gaiman Golden Age stuff in issues. I also bought Apocrypha in issues, though I remember that being a little disappointing. Anyway, good stuff! It’s fun to hear you guys all experiencing it now.
I do hope someone can eventually bring all of this back into print. It’s definitely a worthwhile series.
There must be someone out there who bought the original issues and must think he/she is the richest person in the world.
agian i ask HOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW
We acquired issues through various ways. Conor said he bought some. Some were donated to the show, and others we found. You’ll have to figure it out for yourself.
I bought about 75% of the series on eBay in 2000.
I just hope Miracleman lives up to his name and finally sees a reprint.
Are you intentionally targeting those of us old enough to have bought these issues? Is that why Jim did his take on ROM? Wow. Another blast from my past. After watching the show, I ran down and pulled out issues 1-19 from my long box. I think I’ll gingerly re-read the run again.
Great show guys. Let me just say that issues #14 and #15 still stick with me, after all of these years. I agree that these aren’t perfect, but you did you have put in context of what was out there in the 80’s. Someone should do a thesis on dystopian PoMo comics from MM to Irredeemable.
Oh, and when one of you guys have your first kid, the birthing issue isn’t such a big deal. : )
and THIS is why i love this site you guys rock
Found the first two issues by accident one day and bought them simply for Alan Moore’s name. I had no idea that there was a big controversy going on about this series though. Oh Well, I just love how Frank Miller ripped off the idea of body transfer for Shazam. Public domain will solve it before anyone freaking agrees. So that’s something.
Great show.
I dont even wanna know what conor had to do to get issue #15 🙂
One of the images that will forever be burned in my head is in issue 14 when *SPOILERS* Kid Miracleman is unleased again and walks up to one of the nurses of the orphanage and says "Do you know you were the only one who was ever kind to me. The only one. I think I’ll let you live." and walks off. Then, he walks back up to her and says "I’m sorry. They’d say I’m going soft, wouldn’t they?" and then punches the nurse’s head off. It’s honestly more chilling to me than the whole of issue 15 for some reason.
Great show, when I saw the headline for the podcast I could not wait to see it. You guys did a great job covering the entire aspect of the series, but I wish you had spent more time on the story itself. As Conor said once or twice, THIS WAS GROUNDBREAKING STUFF AT THE TIME!
I read these as they came out in issue, and honestly was mesmerized and shocked by just about every episode through the first arc. The entire take on Kid Miracleman as God gone bad wasn’t just a departure from the superhero norm, it was a screaming left turn through the guardrail and into the abyss. You quickly mentioned the rampage Kid Miracleman goes on in London, but I wish you had lingered a moment on some of those panels. They are just haunting, and make you shudder at the thoughts bouncing around in Moore’s mind. I can still see the full husks of human skin that were stripped off of bodies and hung on the clothesline to dry. Further, the panels showing Miracleman’s angst ridden face as he finally deals with Johnny Bates was some of the most expressive art drawn at the time. Violence like this had never really existed in comics before this time other than in magazine runs like Heavy Metal (hard to imagine in a world now filled with titles like Crossed).
I also loved the later Miracleman Utopia run. Just the introduction to one of the issues that focused on a lone character from another world…………..which happened to be a pet science project of Miracleman was genius.
While it is a shame the series went to pieces I will give it credit for being the most groundbreaking piece of work I read during the period when it came out.
ive decided to use my first post to share that I found issue #15 in an antique store in Upstate NY for $4 about 2 months ago. I picked it up out of curiousity, and cuz i knew the series was out of print. I read it, didnt like it and havent looked at it again in months. Now i find out its worth over $200….whoa..
That’s why Alan Moore doesn’t need the money. He secretly reprints them and sells them to collectors.
I was lucky to get the four trades in the early ’90’s, then found the Silver Age and Apocrypha lssues later. Damn lucky.
The bad: Both Moore’s Miracleman and V for Vendetta have similar second-act problems; you get the feeling he’s just treading water while getting to the big finish. I didn’t find Beckum/Austen’s art "bad," but in the issues between Leach and Totleben the art is… I’ll be kind and say "inconsistent." I never found the "Birth" issue especially shocking; I don’t suppose there was a parental advisory on the gore-splattered "Nemesis" issues, was there?
The good: It seems I liked Gaiman’s run more than you guys. From a writing standpoint, what Gaiman did makes sense: Define the new world, give a taste of people’s everyday lives, and pick up the threads Moore left dangling (what happened to Liz and Winter? Even Cream and the kid who Miracleman met in the woods gets a follow-up). Gaiman was definitely building to something bigger, he just never got the chance to get there. I also couldn’t believe the same artist did all the Golden Age stories — Buckingham changed his style with every issue, and nailed it every time.
The great: Moore’s first and third acts still stick in my mind as among the most thought-provoking, brutal yet strangely beautiful storytelling I’ve ever read, even to this day. The destruction of Moran’s illusions, Bates’s horrific corruption, and the ultimate battle for the fate of the planet… "operatic" would be my one-word description, both wryly comic and epically tragic. It’s been at least five years since I last read these, but so much of it stays with me today.
As someone mentioned above, Two Morrows’s "Kimota" companion book is a great resource. Hopefully, it’s easier to find than these issues are.
Nice work, guys.
I’ve often heard about the series, but the podcast finally gave me the push I needed. Having managed to come across a copy (<_<) (>_>) I’ve really enjoyed the first few issues. However, I must say I wish I hadn’t learned of so many plot points beforehand, they’re always at the back of my mind… I suppose you have to take the good with the bad.
Okay, I gotta ask:
On a scale of 1-Scat, how Graphic is issue 9?
I download it and read it 5 years ago…after reading Alan Moore’s ABC comics, and i gotta say that the story is awesome. I agre that the most entertaining story is in the first arc.
Please outline the show before recording. When you get excited, get the info in wrong order, and it’s confusing.
How about a similar treatment for Grant Morrison’s Zenith?
This is one of the series I’d recommend using piratebay for.
Just go to 4shared.
Torrents are for people who WANT the FBI in your house.
One of the covers you showed was actually a JIM STARLIN (!) cover (I think commissioned by Eclipse)…I think.
Always loved Miracleman. The Totlebon arc is amazing. The Gaiman issue where the normal guy gets to make love to Miraclewoman was also really touching.
I loved when you showed the "Andy Warhol" art of Gorgonza (sic)…I forgot how great that was. Wouldn’t that make a great apartment piece of art…you know, a faux Warhol of Gargonza…cool!
This might have been already mentioned but doesn’t DC have a Miracle Man? You know Miracle Man and Big Barda. Is DC’s a way to have ownership of the name? How can DC get away with having a character of the same name?
@lantern4life: Not Miracle Man, Mr. Miracle.
Excellent I’ve just got back from holiday to se this in my feed. I’d guessed you’d do a show on this eventually and I’m looking forward to seeing how you pick through the mess.
Actually, Marvel has a supervillain named Miracle Man who was an old FF foe.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_Man
Loved the show….this is one comic that I love (although I have only read the Alan Moore issues as my Neil Gaiman run is incomplete) and cant stop recommending it to friends to buy it when it comes out in Tpb (just dont hold your breath). I first read it in Warrior in Black and white which i prefer what is the American fascination with colouring things in? (by the way the other stuff in Warrior is also excellent "V for Vendetta" and Laser-eraser and Pressbutton to name two, as I am wearing rose-tinted glasses) and loved it only it was cut short and I was well upset until Eclipse started reprinting them. I think it still stands up as a great comic, is this childhood reminiscing?
So Chuck Austins to blame for the terrible artwork… Good to know, I would not have realised otherwise.
Also I think the first 10 issues are the best. It starts to get weird for me when Miracleman and Miraclewoman go off to the alien planet. I think for me thats when they stop feeling like real people to me and I begin to stop caring.
I bought the trade of the Gaiman issues dirt cheap (probably 99p) in a discount bookshop years ago. These shops often had piles and piles of trades that weren’t selling well. Miracle Man: The Golden Age was one of them.
Oh, the irony!
i also bought these as they came out. one thing not mentioned is this was one of the latest bookes ever. by the end it was nicknamed miracleman annual, as we were seeing an issue a year. i love this book, in many ways its superior to watchmen. watchmens execution and form re briliant, but both books basically pose the question "what would happen if superheroes existed in the real world". in both cases the introduction of one superhuman changes the world, but here it is in a much more poiniant way. both end with utopias, but miraclemans, is so much richer. a truly new world, where superhumans are everywhere, all of mans old problems are gone or on their way out. the existance of one superhuman in a "real" eventually leads to a very comic book utopia, almost a picture perectc silver age dc comic where there really is no evil, and everyone is happy. gaiman then goes on to remind us utopias are never what they seem. maybe not as well realized as watchmen, but a very beautiful lyrical ending.
one more thing, it has been suggested that due to various questions about who really owned what, and a lack of paper tail and legal diligence, that the miracleman trademark, may now fall under public domain. if the original rights were never properly transferred and then never defended, the trademark may have become public domain. this would be the trademark, not the copyrights, so who owns the existing intellectual property would be an issue, so still no trades, but as a public domain character, anyone would be free to do their own version (much like erik larsen and alx ross are doing their versions of the golden age daredevil. concievably mcfarlane could do his version and gaiman could finish his story.
i am NOT a lawyer, this is probably just wishful rumor mongering from across the internet, but one can dream, a dream of flying perhaps…
I just got issues 11 and 12 for a dollar piece at a flee market yesterday. Pretty surprised by it to say the least.
I love this blooper reel.
And the rest of the show was real good too.
I had a spotty collection of the issues because I got into it almost halfway into the run (from #9) but I managed to complete it slowly by hunting down the rest. Then I got the trades as well, along with a hardcover of the first volume. I was especially happy to later come across a bunch of old issues of Warrior that had the original b&w MM in a bargain bin at a local bookstore chain. (Which was nothing short of a, um, miracle, because I live in Manila, in the Philippines.)
When I got to read the epic battle of London the first time, I was astounded and knocked over (and not for the first time) by one scene in particular that I felt was representative of the flavor of the entire book, more than the birthing sequence, more than the opening pages of #15 or the chilling closing spread of that same issue: when an increasingly desperate Miracleman lifted a car to throw at his nemesis, it was still full of passengers – "My apologists have claimed that the car I first hurled at Bates was empty, those who’d been inside having all previously escaped—I’m sorry, but that isn’t true." – holy crap!
MM #15 is one of the jewels of my collection, and one of my favorite issues of all time. I recommend you guys picking up George Khoury’s The Miracleman Companion, which among many other wonderful things, puts together some of the existing material of #25.
Thanks for doing the show guys! Fantastic!
Is Supreme Power based on Miracle Man?
Fuuuuuccckkkk. I don’t want to have MM spoiled, so it seemes I will never be able to watch this show.
Mark Buckingham says his "never released" final issue written by Neil Gaiman is ready to be printed now! He’s likely to continue work on the character, and there are hints that he and Neil will finish their long arc on the character! Completing their "Silver Age" and headed into their "Dark Age" finale!
Alan Moore is in talks with Marvel too!: "We’re talking to all the people who were involved in the ’80s and ’90s material – Alan [Moore], Neil, Garry Leach, Alan Davis – we’ve reached out to all these folks. Mark Buckingham, who is also in the house…" The work will be reprinted, will be properly finished, and I can’t wait for this guy to be in NEW Marvel stories. PWND DC!! PWND!
The Ifanboys are going to flip out on this AWESOME news!
@Gabe – you will be able to read it buddy…for $20 off Amazon.com when Marvel reprints the entire series! Happy day! Marvel pulls through again!
I’m going to ask around to see if there is some scanlated version of one of the issues to get a better feel of what that experience is like since no one in my city would actually let someone read it XD.
I really enjoyed this series when it originally came out – the Moore stories that is . . .
The Gaiman stories — not that interesting. But the climax of the Alan Moore run is by far one of teh best comic book battles of all time.
There was a rumor that the #25 issue of miracleman was in Neil Gaimans basement along with the rest of them including the alan moore issues, and I asked him on twitter about it and to my surprise he responded that they are now all in Mark Buckinghams basement.
love the unfinished ending to the show