Life In Four Colors #29: A Miracle or Marvel?
A look at one of comic's most controversial characters
Welcome back everybody to first REAL and brand new Life In Four Colors column in over five months. This particular column was supposed to go up here on the site back in late June. Friday June 26th to be exact. At the time Life In Four Colors was a bi-weekly column and had just celebrated its one year anniversary here at Comic Related, and the column that you are reading now was supposed to be the very first in the second year of its existence.
Unfortunately things occurred that kept that from happening as originally planned. My father's health started to rapidly decline in June and I dropped several projects, this column being one, to spend more time with him. Looking back I wish I could have dropped EVERYTHING because every minute I spent other than spending time with him is now forever lost to me. But spending every minute with my dad was unrealistic, and he was more than grateful for the time we did have together.
As was I.
Also back when this column was running on a regular schedule it appeared every other Friday....without fail. For a year and I was very proud of that fact. True the column does make it's return as of today but a lot of things have drastically changed in my life these last few months and I am only going to be able to submit a new column once a month and if things go as planned the latest column will always appear the last Friday of the month. At the time that Life In Four Colors went on indefinite hiatus I had just launched a new back up feature for the column which I was calling "Four Color History". That feature is gone now, and as I have explained elsewhere, it has evolved and morphed into the "Comics That Don't Suck" segment of the RaynMan Power Hour podcast that can be heard here on Comic Related every other Monday at 4:00 in the afternoon. I co-host the podcast with good friend Frank Raynor....and as fate would have it this column is co-written (actually spoken) by Frank as we take an in-depth look at one of his favorite comic stories, one of his favorite characters in comics and what may just well be the best story ever written by Alan Moore.
Miracle Man...who just recently went back to being known as Marvel Man. (I do want to point out this conversation does take place a month before Marvel secured the exclusive rights to the character after years of countless legal battles, but I did not change any of the original content.)
This conversation started, and yes I recorded it, after I ran across a complete run of Alan Moore's Miracle Man at the store. I knew Frank was looking for this for quite some time and told him over the phone I would hold them for him, if he promised that he would let me read them after he had re-read them.
So with that allow me to say the magic word "Kimota" and introduce you to Mike "Micky" Moran...better known as Miracle Man...I mean Marvel Man...actually I like Miracle Man better....Ozzy had a song called Miracle Man...so I'm going with Miracle Man. Final answer.
Frank Raynor: You know I can still remember back when I was younger and I was talking to this dealer in Rhoades Island and I came across this quirky looking book and asked...hey, what's this....and she was like it's a strange little British produced book...and I was like what do you mean, strange? And she was like...it has issues. Well, Hell it was a comic book, it was supposed to have issues, right? I later learned she was talking about something else. I ran across the book again years later when I was working for Bill (not me-G-Man editorial footnote) at Hawkeye's Comics here in Springfield Ohio and I thought about picking it up then, because I learned the stuff had been collected into trade paperbacks, but the trade paperback stuff was even harder to find because of all the lawsuits and stuff.
G-Man: But you didn't?
FR: Well back then my opinion on comics was a bit more a skewed, being 20 maybe 21 years old...I wasn't really into the whole independent comic scene, per se. It was kind of weird.
GM: Well the independent comic scene back then was quite different. And you, like me, at that age...basically if it wasn't Marvel or D.C you weren't really interested. I mean this was before the Image explosion and all that.
FR: Right. And at the time, I hate to say this, I was part of that scene that was collecting everything I could get my hands on, which isn't good.
GM: As long as it was Marvel and D.C....
FR: Yeah...that was bad. If it looked pretty I bought it, like an idiot. But something about that Miracle Man book really got my attention and I actually got a chance to read the entire Moore and later Gaiman run of the book...without ever owning the books because ...I ended up reading it on the internet or something....but once I did get the chance to read it the thing I found most appealing about Miracle Man was that it was a very unapologetic rip off of Captain Marvel...the Shazam Captain Marvel.
GM: It always reminded me in a way....in regards of being an unapologetic rip off of another better known character...of the whole Dracula/Nosferatu thing, with Nosferatu being a very unapologetic rip off Dracula.
FR: And to touch on the whole Image thing...when I came across some of the books a second time while working for Bill, Image had taken off by then, They were big. And there was Valiant which started out strong as well...but this book wasn't part of the big explosion or implosion however you may want to look at it. But still I wasn't really open to the thought of broadening my collecting habits to anything not from the "Big Two". Like I said, I was younger...much less open minded...it took me a long time to give these other lesser known books a chance.
GM: I was the same way. I was a straight up Marvel guy...Hell I had a hard enough time picking up a D.C. book...let alone other stuff. But now I love some of the stuff that truly independent writers and artist are coming up with. But as you and I both know there's good independent stuff out there...and there's some crap out there too.
FR: Yeah, right. Sure. But let's be honest here. There's a lot a mainstream crap out there too. And... Good God...we're talking the nineties here.
GM: Just the mention of nineties comics can cause most collectors to break out in hives...thankfully I wasn't collecting much back then. I was too busy being a Dad...and a husband that didn't read.....comic books. My ex-wife was allergic to comic books...and almost everything else that I liked.
FR: But I was in the middle of all that stuff...The Marvel/D.C. crossover stuff ...all that. And when I came across the series the second time, Bill knew a little more about it and he told me it was actually pretty good stuff. But we never ran across the whole set...it was like an issue here and an issue there so I just gave up looking for it...until a friend of mine that had just came back from Korea managed to hook me up with a copy of the series in pdf. That actually had the whole first 24 issues including the Gaiman stuff. I started reading it and I was like...WOW...and once again what I found really remarkable is that it was originally written in 1982.
GM: Back in serial form in Warrior Magazine. Because of course Warrior printed it first, and then Eclipse Comics collected it in a comic book series, adding color to the original black and white art. I think the idea was to re-print the old stuff and start with new stories and I think that the Warrior stuff was re-printed in Eclipse up to about issue # 6....
FR: Issue #8. I'm pretty sure it was issue #8.
GM: Well issue #8 was actually a re-print of the very first silver age Marvel Man stuff from the 50's...with the original writer and creator...
FR: That's right, and issue #9 was the birth of Miracle Man's daughter...
GM: That's where I started to lose just a little bit of interest in the series...it's still good. It's still better than a lot of independent stuff out there...today...not to mention what was actually being printed back then. Back then it was light years ahead of its time....but for me about the time his daughter was born it just didn't appeal to me as much anymore. Well of course up to the issue that Johnny Bates realizes who he is and comes back for that big confrontation....but it seemed to slow down up until the build up of that big show down.
FR: Well you know, you got to figure that those first few issues are so damn strong because you get the origin. Who he is...and who he thinks he is. I mean in issue #2 he's already fighting his former side kick....Kid Miracle Man/Johnny Bates. And they already explained by then what had happened to their take on what was essentially the Captain Marvel Family. One died. That was Miracle Man jr...Young Miracle Man, that's what they called him. He died...and Miracle Man disappeared and just recently came back. And you never knew exactly what happened to Kid Miracle Man. But then you learn that he's been around the entire time Miracle Man has been missing, but he's evil now...he's a psychopath...and that leads up to that big, big confrontation.
GM: Well Kid Miracle Man actually said the magic word...that really isn't a magic word in this story...
FR: Kimota.
GM: ...which is basically Atomic backwards...he said the word and became the super powered alter ego which refused to say the word again and revert back to the kid...which may have planned into the reason why he went insane...
FR: Right, he never went back. He never became that little boy again. And so you have this huge beginning and the first two issues really just jump right into it and then it grabs your attention as Moore does a slow build with the truth behind Miracle Man. And what I really liked was when we got to meet Stan Lee a few years back, remember he was talking about how he always wanted to explain the super-powers that the characters he created had. He was talking about Thor...remember that...and how Thor doesn't really fly. He throws his hammer into the air and hangs on. But Moore does it one better. He explains this back story layer by layer and it has a much more scientific edge to it, and therefore it's a little more believable. He's not just a hero that invokes a magic word like Shazam and gets transformed into this cosmic being. Moore takes his usual stab at the governing powers. The government did it. The government was behind it. This scientist , mad scientist, whatever...creates this entirely separate, super-powered being....and he doesn't just change into this guy, the word Kimota triggers this event where Michael Moran changes places with Miracle Man.
GM: Almost like Marvel's Captain Marvel with Rick Jones and Mar-Vell changing places in the Negative Zone.
FR: But in this story the super powered alter ego is actually created by the government. And the mad scientist feels he never really got what should have been coming to him and he hunts Miracle Man down, and then like you said there's a little bit of a dip...
GM: Not so much in a dip in quality. The story just slows down and focuses on Moran's wife failing to come to grips with the fact that she's married to what is essentially a God. He she has given birth to God's child...and she decides she wants no part of her husband and baby...who starts growing at an alarming rate of speed. She just can't take it and she leaves....and that crushes the human alter ego part of Miracle Man, but doesn't affect Miracle Man in the least.
FR: That's because he's so above all that human stuff. A prelude to Doctor Manhattan, maybe?
GM: But the confrontation with the mad scientist...or actually like you pointed out, with Johnny Bates first and then the mad scientist is just so strong it just overshadows the transition issues just a little bit, but those issues are still crucial to the over all story.
FR: I agree totally...I mean I enjoy it all but the confrontation with Emil was just incredible. I almost enjoy that as much as much as the end of the entire Alan Moore run and the final confrontation with Kid Miracle Man.
GM: I agree. I mean there's stuff in there like the two aliens...and this story and the origin of Miracle Man owes a lot to an alien space craft and deceased life form discovered by the government...well other aliens start to pop up and you can't have that really intense conclusion to Moore's run on this book without these story components. But there is still a slight sense of story drag.
FR: And after they get past the initial re-printed material they start to introduce other characters that also have super powers...
GM: Big Ben and Miracle Woman...I don't know...I'm pretty sure Big Ben was also in Warrior Magazine...
FR: Oh yeah...he was ...and maybe even Miracle Woman...but Moore starts to work towards the end he always envisioned with the addition of new material and new characters, some of which you mentioned. I don't know if Moore knew he was going to end it end his story at issue #16...but by God he ends it. Boy does he end it. In ...how would you describe it...graphic? I don't think that does it justice. It's not graphic...graphic...it's intense. Shocking. Brutal. I mean even today...yeah stories like this have been done now...but this was back in the 80's and early 90's. Nobody was doing stuff like that back then. I mean Moore went to a really dark place to conclude this story...
GM: And writers have been following him to that dark place ever since. I mean Irredeemable...I love the book, but honest to God it owes a lot to Moore's Miracle Man...and the Sentry over at Marvel...a very poor, watered down, deluded version of Miracle Man as well. But even as shocking as these books are, if readers today could go back and get their hands on this book and read it, they would find out Moore's story is still much more hard hitting.
FR: Well he had a character kill 40,000 people. Not in some huge explosion or off page conflict with another being and these people were wiped out in the cross fire...he had this guy go on a rampage and kill these people one at a time...40,000 people torn limb from limb and some of the things he did with the bodies afterwards...it was insane. It was insanity portrayed in comic book form, flawlessly. I mean this guy would walk right by some people and never left a finger to harm them and then turn around and slaughter a family of four, right down to the children.
GM: All in the context of evolving and progressing the story and the character. It wasn't violence and horror laced mayhem just for shock value. Moore wanted something that numbed the readers when they saw it. There was no...this would be a good place to rip off an old lady's head and shove it up her husband's ass....just to sell the comic.
FR: The biggest revelation that I get out of this is that independent work can be high quality. Moore proved it with this story. When people hear Moore's name mentioned they automatically think of the Watchmen. This was done four years prior to that.
GM: Well a lot of people just haven't been exposed to this story. As you mentioned back issues are hard to find, partially due to the fact that a flood destroyed a large number of those back issues before that actually shipped, which is why Eclipse ran that original Miracle Man story back in issue # 8. And when people do run across it some people see the content and it turns them off...not realizing that there's a very intelligent story attached to it. Others don't like the art. I mean the art is good...very good...but it has a very British look and feel to it and some people like their books all glammed up in the American way. But let's get down to the nitty gritty. Do you personally think this is Alan Moore's best work?
FR: You know it's tough to say. I mean you're talking about of course the Watchmen, League of Extra-Ordinary Gentlemen, V For Vendetta, From Hell...that's a pretty damn amazing body of work. Then you have the Swamp Thing saga and the Killing Joke. Concept wise...yeah I think it's his best. Everybody is probably going to say Watchmen is his best...and I love the Watchmen, don't get me wrong....but I feel this book is why Moore was allowed to do something like the Watchmen. Because they knew he could deliver based on what he did with Miracle Man. This book never won any awards like Watchmen did, but damn it...it deserves one!
GM: Well the Watchmen had the complete backing of one of the Big Two comic companies. Watchmen put D.C back on the map...
FR: ...and Miller's Dark Knight, both of these books came out about the same time and both of these books changed comic status quo for years to come.
GM: But unlike the Dark Knight...D.C really.....really bought into Watchmen. I mean we're talking a twelve issue maxi-series. That's a pretty definite vote of confidence. And as far as creativity and concept....yeah...I'll go ahead and say Miracle Man is Moore's best stuff. I personally always liked League more than Watchmen anyway, but I liked Miracle Man better than the League of Extra-Ordinary Gentleman.
FR: Think about other comics out there that has the scope of this book. What comes to mind....Kingdom Come...maybe...and we're talking 26 years before that story came about.
GM: I'm not a big Kingdom Come guy....
FR: I'm talking the comic, Bill...with Alex Ross. Not that dreadful Led Clone band from the 80's...
GM: I knew what you meant...but I liked Miracle Man so much more than Kingdom Come....for me the best part of Kingdom Come is the very end when they're in the restaurant....you just had to read through all that other stuff for that scene to pay off. This book was great and I'm very glad you went on and on about for all these years, and now finally own it...for real...and let me read it. I liked the slanted take on the almost squeaky clean Shazam stuff...and I thought it even had elements of Captain America's origin in it.
FR: Well Captain America's origin is based in science. Captain Marvel's back story is all magic. Moore did a complete and deliberate slant on the Big Red Cheese and turned the scientific edge on the Captain America origin way up. I mean in the story the government creates Miracle Man...keeps him held in status living in a false world piped into his brain until Moran changes places with him.
GM: Well the very essence of this character from day one was fully intended to be a Captain Marvel rip off. That aspect of the story was not Moore's....and I'm blanking on the guy's name that created Miracle Man...or as he was originally known as ....Marvel Man. But Moore makes it also believable through the science of his story. He takes this cookie cutter boy scout and turns him into...a believable character. Despite all the crazy science fiction elements...Miracle Man is a very believable character.
FR: Moore puts this guy through Hell. Issues three through eight where Miracle Man starts to learn more and more about his past and leads up to that confrontation with Emil...and it's revealed that those wholesome Marvel Man stories from the fifties were actually those false memories being pumped into Miracle Man's brain while he was being held in status...like you just mentioned. And I'm sure that was Moore's idea. To me that has Alan Moore written all over it. I mean it's almost like the Matrix...but again light years ahead of the Matrix. I mean do you remember the flashback story where they fought the vampire?
GM: How about the Young Miracle Man story where the bad guy pours the powdered soap into the sewer system and the city is overcome by these big soap suds.
FR: I'm telling you, the way Moore used those stories...I mean he tied in those hokey little stories with the very dated looking art...and used them to play out the stark contrast of the story...man that was great. Just great.
GM: But going back to the showdown with the evil doctor dude...man one of the best parts I liked about all of that was his dog. This guy used the same technology he used to create Miracle Man and to trigger the Michael Moran and Miracle Man exchange ...on his freakin' dog! The dog had its own verbal trigger...when Emil said Steppenwolf the dog turned into this huge honkin' komodo dragon on steroids. And it was chasing Moran through the jungle and Moran couldn't speak...
FR: ...because the doctor drugged him or something. I can't remember exactly. But he couldn't say Kimota...
GM: ...and this is where the story really grows a pair...I mean up until this point I thought Moran was just simply the host body for Miracle Man. Like Billy Batson for Captain Marvel or Donald Blake for Thor...but that Dragon Dog thing bites off a good portion of Moran's hand...and those fingers never magically come back after the Miracle Man exchange.
FR: It's not long after that that Moran does the same thing as Bates....well not the same thing. Bates turned to Kid Miracle Man...and Kid Miracle Man never turned back to Bates...until he was later tricked by Miracle Man or something...which really pisses off Kid Miracle Man...that's why he tears London a new one when Bates is forced to say Kimota in the boy's school because of the whole rape scene. But Moran writes Miracle Man a note...and tells him I'm done. I never want you to say Kimota ever again. It's basically a suicide.
GM: Because Moran has lost his wife, become a cripple...he was like you said ...done. Just forget about me. That was just yet another part of a very incredible story.
FR: And then there's the scene after the rampage through London and Bates is a little kid again and he's so afraid of what is going to happen the next time the Kid Miracle Man persona gets out...and Miracle Man makes that promise that it will never happen again.
GM: And he seals the deal.
FR: That's one way of putting it.
GM: Well , Frank I think it's time we seal the deal on this...let's wrap it up. Thanks for talking to me about all this.
FR: Hey no problem....you know what would really be cool. Maybe one day we could do a podcast on Comic Related and talk about stuff like this.
GM: Careful what you wish for, pal. You never know.
And the rest as they say in my neck of the woods is history. Thanks for hanging with me again....hope you had a great Thanksgiving holiday and I'll see you again in thirty all too fast days...until then....see you in the funny papers!!!!!
Bill Gladman - Bill is a writer and illustrator and currently working on several different projects including the first issue of an ongoing comic book series (Prodigy), an illustrated fantasy novel (The Book of Noheim), and the first of four illustrated science fiction/fantasy novels (Jack the Rabbit, Living Legend of the Purple Plains) as well as a light-hearted on going mini-comic (Three Wise Men). Bill also pens a column for Comic Related and will be doing a mix of regional convention coverage.
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