Pitch a Direction: Miracleman

[LordUltimus]

We're all waiting for Gaiman to finish his run, but until then let's come up with some ideas of our own. Imagine if Marvel milked Miracleman in the same way DC milk Watchmen. What would you like to see from them?

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Imagine if Marvel milked Miracleman in the same way DC milk Watchmen.

The two situations aren't the same.

Moore always saw Miracleman as licensed work (from Mick Anglo) and was open about other artists and creators coming in and doing their own takes on the story. Watchmen though was a creator owned work whose contract was broken by an evil company.

So ethically speaking, Marvel could revive and incorporate Miracleman with a clear conscience at least on the point of continuing the story and characters. Continuing Miracleman or incorporating the characters in 616 wouldn't be remotely the same as the evil disgusting things DC are doing with Watchmen with their garbage follow-ups (Before Watchmen, Doomsday Clock, Rorschach 2020).

What would you like to see from them?

I honestly don't know. I don't really have strong feelings one way or another. To me Miracleman isn't some perfect masterpiece of Moore that can't be touched or improved and at the same time I don't think there's more to explore after what Moore did.

Miracleman is a great comic but it's not a flawless work by any means. It's not as great as other Moore stuff -- Swamp Thing, leave alone Watchmen or V for Vendetta. If not for two flat-out masterpiece single-issues -- the final two Miracleman issues in the third arc, it would maybe not be remembered as well as it is. The problem with that comic, for me, is that the character of Miracleman himself. He's a bore. Moore was expressing how someone grows more remote from humanity but the result is that the hero Miracleman comes across as a stiff. The human character Michael Moran is more interesting, as is Liz Moran, some supporting characters like Evelyn Creem, and Johnny Bates as a villain. The entire premise of the comic, which is basically Fawcett's Captain Marvel but grown up and British, is not exactly winning or original to justify an independent interest in terms of world-building.

If you were to incorporate the character into the Marvel Universe, then there are ways to do it:
-- Incorporate it via Captain Britain Corps and Otherworld. A natural fit, since Moore worked on Capt. Britain comics in the '80s, so make it some version of the multiverse or introduce Johnny Bates as an Anti-Monitor type who destroyed the Miracleman universe and sent survivors to the 616 verse and incorporate characters into the MU.
-- Connect them to the Inhumans, because the Miracleman Olympus at the end of the book and Johnny Bates isn't too different from Maximus and Black Bolt.
-- Warpsmiths and the Qys are new alien species for the Marvel cosmic side.

And so on and so forth.

[Hypestyle]

We're all waiting for Gaiman to finish his run, but until then let's come up with some ideas of our own. Imagine if Marvel milked Miracleman in the same way DC milk Watchmen. What would you like to see from them?

just make him a virtuous character. Give him the power to travel to different dimensions, and attempt to right wrongs on those planets. Then he would move on.

[ed2962]

We're all waiting for Gaiman to finish his run, but until then let's come up with some ideas of our own. Imagine if Marvel milked Miracleman in the same way DC milk Watchmen. What would you like to see from them?

I wouldn't want them to integrate MM into the 616, that would defeat the whole point of the Moore and Gaiman series. As would making him just another superhero only in his own universe.

A continuation of MM should be about deconstructing the genre and exploring how such a being could change society and culture.

[CaptCleghorn]

Steal Neil Gaiman's puppy.

Tell him "No Silver Age conclusion, no puppy."

[Vordan]

just make him a virtuous character. Give him the power to travel to different dimensions, and attempt to right wrongs on those planets. Then he would move on.

That would rob him of what makes him interesting in the first place. Miracleman is a hero who took over the world and made it a paradise. In the MU they’d have to treat him the way they treated the Phoenix Five who were attempting to do the same thing, and make him a villain (which again makes him yet another well meaning villain who wants to take over the world to save it), or knock him down to just another generic flying brick hero by recognizing he was “wrong”. And then what do you do with him?

[Jabare]

I don't think Marvel should use Miracle Man in the MCU unless they drastically revamp him.

He could star in his own universe or an animated series I guess, but I don't see how you fit him into the current MCU

[the illustrious mr. kenway]

For the MCU, put him in a universe where he's the sole hero that took over the world.

Maybe pull a Sentry and make him retroactively involved with that universe's version of Avengers so they'd look the other way when he takes over.

He could pop up on Loki as part of a different timeline. Maybe make him a ward of Loki's?

[JudicatorPrime]

How about...

"Billions of years ago when the sun was smaller and before the Earth achieved its life-spawning destiny, life on Venus thrived. It was a world filled with very powerful gods and their genetic cousins, the even more powerful demons. Their conflict wreaked havoc on the planet for centuries, with a population of normal human-like creatures caught in the middle. It was a world where pure evil reigned. This is the world that gave rise to Miracleman."

[Englehart Humperdinck]

Moore always saw Miracleman as licensed work (from Mick Anglo) and was open about other artists and creators coming in and doing their own takes on the story. Watchmen though was a creator owned work whose contract was broken by an evil company.

I don't think Moore always saw Marvelman as a licensed work. Didn't Dez Skinn originally lead him to believe he had acquired the character and shared his ownership with Moore and Garry Leach? And I don't believe DC ever technically broke their contract with Moore.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

I don't think Moore always saw Marvelman as a licensed work. Didn't Dez Skinn originally lead him to believe he had acquired the character and shared his ownership with Moore and Garry Leach?

The saga of the Miracleman rights is long and epic and not worth going over right now.

The point is Moore never felt that Miracleman or Marvelman as he preferred to call it, was a creator-owned property, and he was open to other creators coming in and doing a take on that world. That's why he welcomed and approved Neil Gaiman writing Miracleman, and has no more opinion on the title as long as Mick Anglo is credited and his estate is given royalties.

So Moore wouldn't care about Marvel touching on Miracleman because it's not the same thing as Watchmen.

And I don't believe DC ever technically broke their contract with Moore.

Believe what you want. You can have your opinions, you are not entitled to your facts.

The fact is that DC broke the spirit of the contract and swindled Moore and Gibbons out of the rights of Watchmen.