From: heifetz!lokkur.dexter.mi.us!scs@uunet.UU.NET (Steve Simmons)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.info
Subject: Good Week Reviews, 8/30/92: Miracleman 23/Silver Age 1
Date: 30 Aug 92 22:48:33 GMT
Followup-To: rec.arts.comics.misc
Organization: Inland Sea



Good Week Reviews is an irregular series, published whenever spare time
and a good batch of comics happen to converge.  This is the first time
in over a year that two good weeks have come back to back.

Editorial Comments: I *hate* when the all the followups to a review of
eight different books all get lumped under the Subject of the review
title.  Eight different threads under one subject.  Feh.  Each Good
Week Review is posted separately with the issue in the Subject line.

Rating scale: excellent, good, acceptable, poor, awful

For those wondering what `acceptable' means: I buy maybe 15 comics
a month.  IMHO, 95% of the market is *not* acceptable.  On the other
hand, the goal is `excellent'.  There are a number of other things
I enjoy besides comics, so something merely acceptable is going to
pushed aside if something really good comes up.

Comparisons: My kids are better than your kids are better than his kids.

=======================================================================

Miracleman 23/Silver Age 1
Writing: Neil Gaiman
Art: Mark Buckingham
Painting: D'israeli
Cover: Barry Windsor-Smith
Ratings: Writing good, art poor, overall acceptable.

This is one of the most disappointing issues I've seen of Miracleman.
The art is a particular disappointment.  Buckingham is not up to his
normal standard (especially noticable because of the nice "Mark
Buckingham's Sketchbook" section at the end, a fine b&w collection),
and the coloring is wretched -- D'israeli should turn in his magic
markers.  If this book had been ground out to make a 30-day deadline
it might be acceptable, but it's been about six months between issues
(I notice that First has given up any pretense of it being a regular
book; one honesty point for them -- but about three years late).
Even the cover is forgettable.

The writing (and the story) is decent.  But if MM were coming out
monthly at this quality, after 6 months I'd stop buying it.

Spoilers ho:

We see the Miraclekids as teenagers, and it's not a pretty sight.
They're classic adolescents but with superpowers and no guiding
adults.  This may be what Gaiman is going for with `The Silver Age,' a
kind of "Lord of the Flies" for supermen.

Dauntless seems at first a caricature.  But after a while you realize
that he was made to be one by Gargunza's dreams.  This makes his
one-dimensional reactions to things more understandable.  Admittedly,
he is supposed to be in a state of shock.  But that's not what I'm
referring to.  After meeting the other topdwellers of Mt. Olympus,
his talk with MM reveals a very shallow personality.  When he
becomes the mailman and breaks down we see things in a different light.

One problem with the story is inconsistancy.  When Winter was born,
she appeared to be maturing very quickly -- and in fact, chided her
father for being so backwards.  Although 19 years of story have gone
by, Winter has if anything become less mature.  Similarly there is
no trace of extended intelligence or morality from most of these
miraclechildren.  They're ordinary adolescents with more powerful
toys, that's all.

The sharp-eyed will notice a change to Miraclemans costume -- the
center circle with the initials is now empty.  We're shown it clearly
several times.
-- 
 "When Dexter's on the Internet, can Hell be far behind?"
		-- Steve Simmons, scs@lokkur.dexter.mi.us



--
-Hades (Brian V. Hughes) 
	    "Egads! These look like a women's fingerprints"
						   -- Durlock Holmes