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Marvel Comics last year announced it had purchased the rights to the character Marvelman (formerly called Miracleman here in the U.S. to avoid legal disputes with Marvel itself).

If you're scratching your head at the names "Miracleman" and "Marvelman," you're not alone. The character's ownership has been tied up in legal battles for close to twenty years and most people who weren't heavily into comics in the eighties and early nineties have never heard of him.

I don't want to portray Miracleman (as I've always known him) out of proportion to his actual significance, so I'll simply say that the Miracleman series published by now-defunct Eclipse Comics is one of the five comics stories any fan of the medium absolutely must read.

I'm not saying it's a fucking great story - it is, but that's not the point - I'm saying it's critical. Essential. Indispensable. You've got your Watchmen, Dark Knight, Sandman, the Dark Phoenix saga, and Miracleman. Those are the five.

Need something to back this up? Okay. The first fifteen issues or so were written by a fellow named Alan Moore. Yeah, that Alan Moore, whose Watchmen was named one of the top 100 novels (not comics, novels) of the twentieth century. And man, was he on his game.

Need more? Okay. The last nine or ten issues before Eclipse went belly-up were written by another fellow named Neil Gaiman. Yeah, that Neil Gaiman, whose Sandman is in the top two or three spots on any comics lover's list of the best titles of all time.

By way of background, "Marvelman" started out in the Fifties or so as your typical toilet-paper chewing-gum-for-the-mind superdude comic over in England, basically a cheap knockoff of Captain Marvel. In the States it had to be sold as "Miracleman" to avoid problems with Marvel Comics, as noted above.

Alan Moore, as is his wont, revived the character in the Eighties and turned his entire conception around, in a way that brilliantly deconstructed the superhero myth and moved on to exploring how an essentially invincible character would reshape society (reminiscent in some ways of his treatment of the Dr. Manhattan character in Watchmen, but also, of course, totally different).

Neil Gaiman later took the ball and ran with it, exploring the impact of Miracleman on society at a much more personal and individualized level.

If Marvel limits itself to reprinting the Fifties comics, this will be of interest only to people who wax nostalgic over badly-drawn and badly-written superdude stories for kids. I can't imagine that's their plan, because no-one is interested in that.

If, however, Marvel gets the creators to allow the reprinting of the Alan Moore/Neil Gaiman series...or (please please please) to finally continue the story after all these years...you need to pick this up. I'm seriously hnyah.

Well keep us up to date Wolf! You have yet to lead me astray when suggesting definative comic reading.

~O

This Thursday the first Marvelman product from Marvel Comics will hit the stores. Reports are that it will just be a reprint of some of the fifties adventures (pre-Alan Moore). However, there are hints that Neil Gaiman will be finishing his story eventually, which means that they'll probably reprint the Moore/Gaiman series from the eighties and then build up to the new material. Watch this space.