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Do you believe in miracles?
I
was big on comic books when I was a kid. I eventually graduated to Encyclopedia
Brown and, much later, books by Ellen Gilchrist, Thomas Pynchon and Jaques Vallee
and stories by Raymond Carver. It wasn't until my junior year in college that
I got turned on to comics again, because I was on a road trip and when my buddies
and I stopped at a gas station, I spied a rack of comics. Issue 300 of "The
Amazing Spider Man" was on sale, and Spidey had a bizarre new black and white
costume, so I picked it up. Comics had changed during the decade or so since
I'd stopped reading. I've been hooked ever since.
I got drawn into the world again, and that's an entirely different story, but suffice it to say that works like Neil Gaiman's "Sandman" and Alan Moore's "Watchmen" totally changed my perspective from what it had been previously. The writing was more literary and complex, and the artwork was way beyond what I remembered. At one point, I came across an issue of "Miracleman," a series that had been going on for a couple of years. That issue was written by Gaiman, but I soon learned that he had taken over the helm from Alan Moore, so I scrambled to collect and read all the back issues.
Here's
some history from the '30s, '40s and '50s: First, there was Superman, then came
Captain Marvel - or, "Shazam!" (both of these characters were American creations),
then came the lawyers. It was argued that Captain Marvel was a thinly-veiled
imitation of Superman, and the Superman side won. At that time, a publisher
in England was reprinting the Captain Marvel titles with great success, and
faced financial disaster if that portion of their lineup was removed. The publisher
re-tooled the title and renamed it "Marvelman." The modifications to the concept
changed the characters very little; Captain Marvel's Billy Batson became Marvelman's
Micky Moran, who had blond hair instead of black. His costume was blue instead
of red, and he didn't wear a cape. It was enough for the lawyers to back away.
The Marvelman title enjoyed a healthy run in England before folding (due mostly to competition from the US) in 1963. Almost twenty years later, a new British publisher revived the title by signing Alan Moore to the task, and Moore remade the character into an allegory for identity and power in a different age. Micky Moran became an orphan of military parents, and the subject of an experiment by an evil scientist. The entire earlier series became more or less a "dream," and the years between the series' incarnations had passed in real time. The amnesiac adult Mike Moran suddenly realized that he could transform into the superhuman Marvelman by saying the keyword "KIMOTA!," and as the series developed, Marvelman became more than a superhero. He became a latter-day messiah - a mortal elevated to godhood.
When
the series tried to jump the pond again, lawyers came back into play, arguing
against the US appearance of a comic book character that went by the name of
a prominent US comic book company. When the new stories finally appeared in
the US, the character's name had been changed to "Miracleman." After a period
when all the litigation had been finalized, Alan Moore left the series and Neil
Gaiman (another Brit) took over the writing duties.
As the story goes, world society under the rule of an all-powerful being had changed in every way imaginable during Moore's tenure. All national borders were erased, all drugs were deemed legal, all prisons were opened, all money and commerce was erased. All things became available to all people. Gaiman's run concentrated on what the ramifications of this upheaval of the status quo meant to the ordinary citizen in that society. If you're interested, look up the trade paperbacks. They're available.
What
I'm thinking the most about right now is the final issue of the story arc that
Gaiman wrote as the Golden Age of Miracleman came to a close. There is a large,
worldwide celebration that happens at the end of civilization as we once knew
it. Carnivals are held all over the world to mark the passing of all that had
come before and to celebrate the adventure of whatever might come next. Safari's
post about October 1st brought the story to mind and I felt it was appropriate
to share with you all today.
This is for you, Xebra...
#20
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