From: Greg Clow <ecurrent@zooid.guild.org>
Subject: Miracleman = Cap Marvel?
X-To: DANIEL FRANK
Organization: The Zoo of Ids
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1992 15:17:00 GMT

danfrank@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Daniel Frank) writes:


DF>>...Ditto for Moore's MIRACLEMAN... allowing
DF>>for the slight differences for copyright reasons, he took the 
DF>>character Captain Marvel and (a) radically rearranged his origin, (b) 
DF>>explained where he'd been since the fifties, and (c) made him a much 
DF>>more serious sort of charcter all without (d) invalidating any of the 
DF>>previous stories (except, of course, in the peculiar sense that they'd 
DF>>all been a dream.  Or had they?)
DF>
DF>Really? I didn't know that MiracleMan was based on Cap. Color me 
DF>ignorant.

Wellllll, Moore's Miracleman being based on Captain Marvel isn't *exactly* 
true.  What happened is this... in the 1950's, there was a character in 
British comics called Marvelman.  He was a boy who would say his "magic 
word", KIMOTA!, to be transformed into his super-powered alterego.  He had 
a "Miracle Family" of Young Miracleman and Kid Miracleman (I'm not 
positive about the second name, 'cause I don't have the books here).  One 
of the two had to say MIRACLEMAN! instead of KIMOTA! to be transformed.  
Is this starting to sound familiar??  Yeah, it was all a thinly veiled 
rip-off of Captain Marvel, but I guess it was ignored by the publishers of 
SHAZAM at the time (Fawcett?) since it was basically on the 
other side of the world, and the chance of American readers coming across 
a Marvelman comic were pretty low.

Anyway, in the early 80's, Moore started a revived Marvelman serial for an 
English magazine.  When Eclipse got the rights to publish the Marvelman 
serial in the US in comic book form, they suddenly found themselves in 
legal  troubles NOT with DC, the publishers of SHAZAM, but with Marvel, 
who felt that the character's name was copyright infringment.  So, they 
ended up having to re-name the character Miracleman for the US series.  
(If you look closely in the early issues, you can spot where all cases of 
"Marvelman" have been relettered with "Miracleman".)

Moore's character, meanwhile, was more than a straight revival of 
Marvelman - as mentioned above, Moore did a lot of "retconning" to the 
Marvelman character (which, I suppose, indirectly retcons Captain Marvel, 
but not really...).  Anyway, that's the scoop.  Sorry for boring those of 
you who already now this!  :-)


DF>Being a big fan of the Big Red Cheese, I'd appreaciate it if 
DF>someone would email to me a list of what stuff MM has appeared in...

Well, There have been 4 major storylines in the Eclipse Miracleman series. 
The first three ("A Fear of Flying", "The Red King Syndrome" and 
"Olympus") were written by Alan Moore and illustrated by various folks.  
The fourth ("The Golden Age") was written by Neil Gaiman and illustrated 
by Mark Buckingham.  All 4 of these are collected into trade paperbacks 
which should be easily available at your local comic shop.

The fifth storyline, "The Silver Age", just started this week with the 
release of issue 23.  The creative team remains the same as the previous 
storyline.

As well, there was a three issue series with a name that I can't spell, 
but it begins with an "A".  It was published between the 4th and 5th 
storylines, so it should be pretty easy to find.  This series featured a 
bunch of "imaginary" Miracleman short stories by various writers and 
artists.

Where to start?  Pick up the first trade paperback.  If you like it, keep 
going.  


Greg
ecurrent@zooid.guild.org
sizone!ecurrent@ee.ryerson.ca





--- WinQwk 2.0 a#0
Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.misc