Miracleman

In the 1950's DC Comics sued publisher Fawcett Comics, on the basis that they were infringing upon their Superman character with their own Captain Marvel, effectively halting the series (later, in the 70's, DC ended up buying and publishing Captain Marvel themselves.)
When news of the cancellation reached England, publisher L. Miller & Son, who were publishing Captain Marvel over there, hired Mick Anglo to come up with a new character so they could continue to publish comics. Mick Anglo promptly created Marvelman, a thinly veiled Captain Marvel analogue. Marvelman ran until 1963.
==Marvelman==
A reporter named Mick Moran encounters an astrophysicist who gives him superpowers based on atomic energy. To transform into Marvelman he has to speak the word "Kimota." He was joined in his adventured by Dicky Dauntless, a teenager who became Young Marvelman, and Johnny Bates, a kid who became Kid Marvelman; both of their magic words were "Marvelman".
==Miracleman==
In the 1982, the editor of Warrior acquired the rights to the character (or did he?*) and commissioned then newcomer writer Alan Moore and artists Garry Leach (and later Alan Davis) to write a new series based on the character. Moore introduced a grown up Mick Moran who hasn't been Marvelman for years and in fact doesn't even remember he used to be a superhero until an incident with some terrorists lead him to remember the magic word "Kimota".
The series stopped being published in issue #21 of Warrior and was left incomplete until 1985, when Eclipse began to reprint the Warrior stories, now in colour. Moore was allowed to continue the story where the Warrior run ended with artists Chuck Austen, Rick Veitch and John Totleben. However, Marvel Comics prevented them from using the name Marvelman, claiming they had trademark over "Marvel," thus the series was retitled Miracleman.
Alan Moore wrote 16 issues of Miracleman, then let his friend Neil Gaiman continue the series. With Gaiman the series ran until issue #24 before Eclipse collapsed and stopped bussiness. Issue #25 was presumably completed, but to this day it hasn't been printed anywhere.
==Notes==
*Alan Moore's series is widely regarded as one of the greatest superhero stories of all time. A lot of his latter style and output (such as Swamp Thing and Watchmen) can be traced back to this series.
*Both Moore and Gaiman's runs are nearly impossible to find. They have been out of print since their initial publishing and due to a really lenghty and convoluted dispute over the rights it is highly unlikely it will be reprinted in the foreseeable future. Marvel recently bought the rights to the original Marvelman, but apparently they only include the original Mick Anglo material.
*Alan Moore has gone on record saying that if his series is ever reprinted, that he wants his name off the books and that his share of the money be given to Mick Anglo instead.
Category:Alan Moore