Yep. The big news from this year’s Comic-con concerns the aquisition by Marvel comics of Marvelman, renamed Mircaleman on its 80s release because Marvel objected to a comic book character with Marvel in his name existing (for the full convoluted backhistory you could do worse than checking here). Damn! Marvelman, in case you didn’t know, was the comic book that invented Grant Morrison, amonst other things. It was one of the first things Alan Moore wrote, way back in ’82, before I could read. A little like Watchmen, it’s about what would happen if there really was a Superman – the title character is a little bit of Ozymandias AND Doc Manhattan… but it’s much better than Watchmen. It’s more honest, less pretentious, and way more sinister.

(That up there is a quick sketch I just did of the series main “bad guy”, Kid Miracleman, by the way. He lives in an 8 year old boy’s head and enjoys hands-on genocide.)

You know how in comic books, when say, Doomsday attacks Metropolis, then Superman comes along and kicks his butt, the place looks a bit like there’s been a minir earth tremor or something?

In Miracleman that happened in London, and it looked like this.

Yeah.

So.

Um.

Yeah, Alan Moore wrote it for 16 issues, which are the sixteen I read, and basically took the whole idea to its logical conclusion: which was facism. Then he buggered off to do Watchmen, and Neil Gaiman took over. Neil got halfway through his proposed three stories, then the books publisher filed for bancruptcy. That was 20 odd years ago. Now Marvel has the rights to the thing, and say “we are talking to all the people involved in the ’80s/’90s material. Alan (Moore), Neil (Gaiman), Mark Buckingham.”

Like I said, I didn’t read the Gaiman parts. The Moore bit was perfect as it was. I probably will now. But I really don’t see how Marvelman fits into the Marvel universe at all. I know they’re missing a Superman archetype in their roster, but I really can NOT see Mick Moran trading wisecracks with Spider-Man. Eugh.

— Sunday, July 26th, 2009