The Marvelous Miracleman! Part 10 of the Blog history of the many Captain Marvels!

     
When last we left our Hero, Marvelman,

Skinn shopped around his package of characters to various US comic book companies, but the name "Marvelman" and the letters from Marvel's attorneys kept getting in the way of closing a deal. It was decided to change the hero's name, and Alan Moore came up with "Miracleman," a name he had used before. Under this name, the property was sold to Eclipse Comics in September 1984, and the first issue of Miracleman appeared with a cover date of August 1985.

The series began by reprinting all that had appeared in Warrior, through issue #7, and (after complicated contractual dealings) Alan Moore picked up the story with #8. However, a flood destroyed the all-new art for that issue, so it became a fill-in issue with reprints of old L. Miller and Son-era stories. #9  began the all-new material, featuring a graphic, anatomically accurate telling of the birthing of the child of Miracleman by Mike Moran's wife.

This was highly controversial, as were future issues that wrapped up the Kid Marvelman conflict in issue #15. In that issue the entire city of London was razed to the ground in the climactic battle between hero and villain, with the inevitable and terrible deaths of thousands of civilians. A horrifying two-page spread by artist John Totleben showed the results of unfettered superpowers in battle in a realistic world.

Alan Moore finished his story arc and left the title on issue #16, which finally came out in 1989. replaced by Neil Gaiman (who got some share of the character rights in the deal). The stories continued into a series of stories world run by Marvelman as a benevolent super-powered dictator called the "Age of Miracles" (ironic, seeing as how this was a play on the "replacement" name for the hero). Eventually, however, the book was cancelled and for different reasons, Eclipse Comics went under.

Comics writer/artist Todd McFarland, creator of "Spawn," bought all the rights and properties of Eclipse Comic at auction , and believed the rights to Miracleman were included. But the complicated rights-sharing agreement established between Dez Skinn and the various writers and artists of the character was apparently still in play. Lengthy wrangling between the players involved ensued, which can be tracked by their various statements in interviews over the years.

Somewhere in there L. Miller and Son dissolved itself, with no documentation assigning the rights to Marvelman to anyone.

Eventually, Marvel Comics came into the picture. To make a very long and complicated story short, they paid Mick Anglo, the creator of the original Marvelman, ostensibly for the rights to the character, came to some sort of agreement with any other parties that may have had rights claims to the revived version of him, and most all the interested parties now accept that Marvel Comics owns both versions of Marvelman/Miracleman.

Starting in 2010, Marvel Comics began reprinting the original L. Miller and Son Marvelman, Young Marvelman, and Marvelman family stories, but stopped after a few albums  They have also completely reprinted all the "Miracleman" material available, including some unpublished material from the end of the run.

Much of the information in this post was drawn from the website and book "The Poisoned Chalice" by Pádraig Ó Méalóid

MIRACLEMAN! the Marvelous revival of the British Captain Marvel Rip-Off! (Part 9 of the Blog History of ALL the Captain Marvels!

    

When last we left our hero, Marvelman (the British rip-off/follow-up/substitute to Captain Marvel created by Mick Anglo in 1953), his publisher, L. Miller and Son, had cancelled publication in 1963, due mostly to new competition from American superheroes.

In the succeeding years, the company, whose name had been changed to L. Miller and Co. (Hackney) in 1959, faced a variety of adversities as they changed their business several times (including becoming a film producer), and folded in 1974 for an accumulation of reasons. According to The Poisoned Chalice by Pádraig Ó Méalóid, there was no mention of the ownership of the Marvelman character in any document relating to the closing of L. Miller and Co. (Hackney). This will prove to be important later, as we will see.

In March 1982, a new British company called Quality Communications Ltd. launched a comic magazine named Warrior featuring several new stories, including a revival of Marvelman. Quality Communications Ltd. had been founded by Dez Skinn, a British comics professional who wanted to create a new monthly anthology comic magazine with a dark edge, and wanted to include a superhero character, preferably a revival.

Alan Moore was an English comic book writer who had recently done significant work for the British anthology comic 2000AD and for Marvel UK's line of comic books for the British market. He had become a fan of Marvelman through the 1960's and 70's, reading the old comics, and even envisioned doing a Mad Magazine-style spoof.

Alan Moore was given the job of writing this revival, and Garry Leach was the first to draw it. This is generally acknowledged to be the first "post-modern" superhero comic book.

Context of the term "post-modern" in superhero comic books: In the comics of the Golden Age (1930's - early 1950's) and early Silver Age (mid 1950's to late 1960's), superheroes were mostly simple creatures, beloved by the public, unburdened by excessive personal problems and existing in a world in which the biggest challenge a superhero faced was a supervillain, not the daily challenges of paying the rent, getting along with fellow superheroes, and negative public opinion.

The first "modern" heroes appeared in the early 1960's, when Marvel Comics introduced their new superheroes such as The Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, The Avengers, and the X-Men. With stories and dialog written by Stan Lee and pages of pictures drawn by the likes of Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, these heroes were more human. They bickered and quarreled, faced practical challenges of relationships and bill-paying, and were not always the "beloved idols of millions."

Alan Moore's Marvelman broke new ground in not just considering the personal effects of a superhero career, but also the ultimate, apocalyptic potential of super-powered humans in the real world. The hero and his alter-ego were actually separate people who switched places in a limbo-like dimension through the transformation that occurred at the sound of the word "kimota!" Micky (now Michael) Moran had grown up to be a pudgy, middle-aged schlub working as a journalist who had completely forgotten about his time as a superhero. A stressful incident with nuclear terrorists awakened his memory, but the world into which Marvelman awoke was not the one in which he had previously lived. His "mushroom cloud" transformation did physical damage to people and the area around him. His super-strength near-killed every normal human he fought. And it was the tension-fraught 1980's of Margaret Thatcher and the Cold War, not the friendly 1950's of cartoony mad scientists and fictional foreign dictators in which he found himself.

The villain turned out to be Kid Marvelman, who had not transformed back to his normal human alter ego in twenty years, and was now a charismatic business tycoon, pretending to be his look-alike alter ego, Johnny Bates. He was ultimately revealed to be a sociopath with the power to fulfill his basest desires by the most  destructive means, often graphically depicted. In the meantime, Marvelman's powers seemed to defy the laws of physics. And though he still had a basic underlying personal similarity to Michael Moran, and looked like an idealized, super-fit version of him, he proved to be smarter and more charismatic, and made love to Michael's wife in a fantastically superior manner.

The story did not reach its apocalyptic climax in the pages of Warrior, however. 

Before it got to that point, creative differences and financial difficulties led to Alan Moore and new artist for the strip Alan Davis to cease working for Dez Skinn. The Marvelman strip therefore made its last appearance in Warrior in August, 1984, after 112 pages, and with a cliffhanger.

Soon after, attorneys for Marvel Comics sent a cease-and-desist letter to Skinn, claiming that the use of a character with the name "Marvelman" misrepresented Quality Communications as the company that owned the trademark on the word "Marvel" and the name of the superhero "Captain Marvel," Marvel comics. Skinn (and his attorneys) had a lengthy correspondence with Marvel's attorneys, but the days of Warrior were numbered. Its last issue was #26 in February, 1985.

NEXT: The Marvelous Miracle! Or was it Miraculous Marvel?

Some important parts of the information in this post were drawn from http://www.comicsbeat.com/poisoned-chalice-part-4-intermission-1963-to-1982/, a very thoroughly researched work about the history of Marvelman.

MARVELMAN! It's a Miracle! The British Capt. Marvel rip-off! (Part 8 of the Blog History of ALL Captain Marvels)

This history makes reference to material that can be found in the following books:

       

As we have already seen, in 1953 Fawcett settled the lawsuit with the company now known as DC Comics and agreed to never publish Captain Marvel comics ever again.

It turns out, however, that L. Miller & Son had been publishing black-and-white versions of these stories in the United Kingdom for years. The material was supplied by Fawcett and the books were printed in the UK. When word reached these publishers of the imminent cessation of material, they realized they had to do something, because Captain Marvel was extremely popular!

So writer-artist Mick Anglo created Marvelman, a new superhero with remarkable similarities to the Big Red Cheese, not the least of which was his name. His alter ego was young Mickey Moran, a copy boy for the Daily Bugle (I have found no evidence that Stan Lee ever saw this comic before writing Spider-Man), who met the astrophysicist Guntag Barghelt, who gave him the super-scientific word "Kimota" ("atomic" misspelled backwards) which, upon utterance, would turn the boy into the mighty hero...Marvelman!

Marvelman was super-strong, invulnerable, and could fly. He wore a blue suit with no cape and had a blonde crew-cut with a superman-style spit-curl forelock. His face was a dead ringer for the World's Mightiest Mortal. Micky Moran, likewise was a carbon-copy of Billy Batson, but with the same blonde crew-cut and forelock as the hero into which he would transform.

Marvelman's debut was presaged by a brief promotional campaign in which Captain Marvel and Captain Marvel, Jr, in their respective L. Miller & Sons comics, stated that they were taking a break, but to watch for something new in the coming issues. After a few issues of this, the titles of these comics were changed to Marvelman and Young Marvelman, respectively, and thus were the names of the new heroes that appeared inside.

Young Marvelman was a uniformed messenger boy who gained the power to turn into a superhero version of himself by saying the name of Marvelman.

Marvelman's arch enemy was Dr. Emil Gargunza, who was essentially Dr. Sivana with hair. The stories followed the basic patterns of Captain Marvel stories, and even some covers and panels were direct copies of Captain Marvel pictures. However, being in Great Britain, it can safely be assumed that neither Fawcett nor DC noticed or cared.

In time there was even a Kid Marvelman and a Young Gargunza, and even supervillains named Nastyman and Kid Nastyman. A Marvelman Family comic contained stories of the whole team.

Original stories were written and drawn for most of the decade and enjoyed a great degree of popularity. Thwn, in 1959, certain laws were changed that allowed the full-color American comics to be imported to the UK. followed by a few years of reprints, until the line of Marvelman and family comics was cancelled in 1963. by this time original comics from the US were reaching the British markets, and there was no longer as much interest in this old hero.

 Marvelman stories were reprinted in Italy and Australia, and also in Brazil, where the hero had the name "Jack Marvel." The Brazilian reprints were printed in Marvel Magazine and the "MM" logo on the hero's chest was erased.

Some parts of this history are a bit confusing. Apparently, Mick Anglo also created a character named "Captain Universe," which existed in two issues of an eponymous comic published by Len Miller's son in 1954. Threat of a lawsuit (it is unclear from whom) shut it down.  Mick Anglo left Len Miller in 1960, and saw that some of his Marvelman stories were reprinted or redrawn with the character named "Captain Miracle" or "Miracle Man" with a different costume.

Then, in 1981, Warrior Magazine in the UK published a revival of the character, written by Alan Moore. We will cover this revival in the next chapter.

Note: this is a basic overview. A well-researched, lengthy, and detailed history of the character and many issues surrounding him at http://www.comicsbeat.com/poison-chalice-interlude-1953-1985-roundup-and-some-notes-on-copyright/

A lot more detail about the creation of Marvelman, with a focus on the ownership of the intellectual property rights, can be found at http://www.comicsbeat.com/poisoned-chalice-part-16-who-own-marvelman-part-ii/

Another, more brief history can be found at https://www.leylander.org/intercom/marvelman/

We're back!

Hi, everyone. I've been away for a while, fighting at international medieval combat tournaments, producing videos, working in the insurance industry, having a girlfriend, that sort of thing, but I am revving back up the Captain Marvel Culture project. With that in mind, I wanted to share some very recent Captain Marvel news.

As you should know by now, Marvel Comics has reprinted scads of Marvelman comics and is currently reprinting the Alan Moore series about the character under the name "Miracleman," it's title in the US.

Noh-Varr became The Protector and descended into obscurity, a dead Mar-Vell showed up in a miniseries, and Carol Danvers took on the mantle of Captain Marvel in a new series written by Kelly Sue DeConnick (who I interviewed at NY Comic Con. I'll post that interview in a later blog post).

Meanwhile, over at DC, the newest re-imagining of "Shazam" (now the name of the character carrying the franchise of the original Captain Marvel) has become a regular back-up character in Justice League comics. He had his own back-up series that established the new character's origin, which includes a half-dozen foster kids (including Billy Batson and Mary) who can all transform into variants of Shazam heroes.

Now let's see what's out there on the Interwebs...

Return of Marvelman, part 2

Hoo boy! This press release is a brilliant example of marketing over any other consideration.

Here it is in its entirety:

"Marvel is proud to announce the return of Marvelman to shelves everywhere with the release of MARVELMAN CLASSIC PRIMER #1 in June! Who is the mysterious Marvelman? And just why is he one of the most enduring super heroes of all time? The answers arrive in this commemorative one-shot featuring interviews with creator Mick Anglo, superstar Neil Gaiman and more who contributed to this character's history over the years! Plus, get all-new pinups of key Marvelman characters by superstar artists Mike Perkins, Doug Braithwaite, Miguel Angel Sepulveda, Jae Lee, Khoi Pham and Ben Oliver! This landmark issue features two covers--one with the timeless art of Mick Anglo and another with the now-iconic rendition of Marvelman by Marvel Editor-In-Chief--and superstar artist--Joe Quesada!

"Then, in July, thrill to the debut of MARVELMAN FAMILY'S FINEST #1, a new ongoing series reprinting Marvelman's greatest adventures for the first time in the US! Plus, no comics fan can miss MARVELMAN CLASSIC VOL.1 PREMIERE HC, reprinting Marvelman's earliest adventures in chronological order!

"Now's your chance to learn just why Marvelman is one of the most important characters in comic book history-it all begins in MARVELMAN CLASSIC PRIMER #1, this June!"

They claim that Marvelman is "one of the most enduring super heroes of all time" and "one of the most important characters in comic book history," and that Mick Anglo's art is "Timeless" and Joe Quesada's rendition is "now-iconic." What hyperbole! The original Marvelman lasted from 1954 to 1963, and then again from 1982 to 1984, and then again from 1985 to 1994. That's a total of 21 years, including the several years of reprints in the 1960's and the mid-1980's. Just about every member of the original Justice League of America and every Marvel Comics character from 1962 - 1965 has "endured" more, having been constantly in print, either in their own comic, as part of a team, or as a backup story since then. Mik Anglo's art was a decent imitation of C.C. Beck's style, but as such, is quite dated nbow. And to call one's publisher's less-than-a year-old drawing of a character "now-iconic" smacks of self-aggrandizement.

And the big kicker is this: I fit weren't for Alan More's updating and re-interpretation of the character in 1982, and especially if it were not for those estories being reprinted, and then continued by Neil Gaiman, It's likely that Marvelman would have remained a footnote, a trivia question, one of dozens of beloved yet forgotten superheroes from the first three decades of superhero comics. It was those stories that took the concept of "what if superheroes were real people in the real world" to their apocalyptic and utopian conclusion that made him so important. Comics historian Peter Sanderson claims that it was those stories that inspired the trends that led to 1986, the year that changed comics.

And yet, it is the old L. Miller &. Sons stories that are being reprinted. I will admit, I have only seen the ones that wee reprinted by Eclipse in the 1980's, but there was really nothing in them that seemed exceptionally special or brilliant. They were good, fun little stories, decently drawn and enthusiastically presented, but still limited to brief, simple adventures. There were fantastical exploits regarding time travel, space travel, fantastic inventions and deadly crimes, but nothing to compare to, say, the the particularly fine sense of humor of Otto binder, the charm of Mr. Tawny, or the efficiently effective high-stakes drama of "The Plot Against the Universe."

So the Primer looks like it will contain words and art about Marvelman, so that fans will understand who he was and why he is so important, but no actual stories, and the "Classic" will reprint the earliest stories. So if those early stories don't show us anything more exceptional than any other comic stories from that era, particularly any Captain Marvel stories from the preceding decade, then we will just have to take the word of the folks quoted in the "Primer."

Marvel reprints MarvelMan!

Marvel Comics has just announced that it will be reprinting old Marvelman stories starting in June. Here's the article in Marvel News:

http://marvel.com/news/comicstories.11747.marvelman_returns_in_june

Does this look familiar to anyone? The irony here is rather thick. This sounds a lot like the announcements that were made when DC acquired the original Captain Marvel back in 1972 and started reprints in '73, and every time they produce a reprint volume, like the "Shazam Family Annual" a few years back, and their hardcover "Archive Editions" and softcover "Showcase" editions.

So DC sued Fawcett saying that Captain Marvel was a rip-off of Superman. Marvelman was a blatant rip-off of Captain Marvel, bu no one sued L. Miller & Sons back in the 1950's. When Marvelman was revived in the 1980's, it was Marvel Comics who sued, but that was only about the trademark "Marvel," which is why in America he was called "Miracleman." DC, despite having sued Fawcett in the 1940's, and owning the original Captain Marvel in the 1980's, did not sue to claim that Marvelman was a rip-off of the original Captain Marvel. But now Marvel is essentially re-creating DC's marketing campaign for the Big Red Cheese, to wit: reprint the old stuff to establish the character, then create new stories.

The comic book market is very different these days from what it was in the 1940's - '50's. Back then it was almost reasonable to think that someone would confuse one superhero for another from such superficial similarities as the fact that they wore a cape, were super-strong and invulnerable, and threw cars around. Today there are so many superheroes that it's hard not to find similarities between them, but the readers are savvy enough know one character from another.

If DC had any claim on Marvelman, they should have (would have?) staked it when Eclipse published their books in the 1980's, so it's not likely they will be suing Marvel for this. But now Marvel will find out if they can attract an audience with their character that has been dead for 20 years, and that had been dead for 17 years before that.

I'll ruminate on that in my next post.

Marvel (Miracle) Man to be reprinted!

Yes, I am a little behind on this news. Marvel comics acquired the rights to Marvelman (known in the US as Miracleman because of Marvel Comics' claim to the trademark of "Marvel"), the 1950' British follow-up to the original Captain Marvel created by Mick Anglo. Now they have announced that they will be reprinting the 1980's series written first by Alan Moore and continued by Niel Gaiman.

This was a remarkably well written and drawn series that broke new ground for comics and explored the ramifications of super-powers further than any comic book had sone up to that time. Peter Sanderson has lectured that the Marvelman/Miracleman series is one of the most important in comic book history because it kicked off the post-modern movement of 1986, which in his words, is "the Year the Changed Comics."

You can read the post by Graeme McMillan on 109.com here (the comments section, however, turns into a big argument about whether or not Alan More is an asshole for what he is quoted in the post as saying about this).

The British Marvel

During WWII, American comic books had been used as ballast in cargo ships across the Atlantic. Upon their arrival in England, they wound up in the hands of British children. A British publisher, Len Miller & Sons, obtained the license to reprint Fawcett's comics in the United Kingdom. When Fawcett pulled the plug on their comic books, Captain Marvel was still as popular as ever in England, so Len Miller had Mick Anglo's art studio create a new versions of Captain Marvel and the Marvel Family, blatant rip-offs named Marvelman., Young Marvelman, and Kid Marvelman (for whatever reason there was no female member of the family).

Marvelman's Alter ego was a copy boy for a newspaper called the Daily Bugle named Micky Moran. He had been subjected to the effect of a special machine by the dying astro-physicist Guntag Barghelt. This gave him the key to great power. He would be able to unlock this power by saying the word “Kimota” (Atomic misspelled backward). Then in the flash of a mushroom cloud (sound effect: WOOF!) would transform into Marvelman!

Young Marvelman's alter ego was Dicky Dauntless, a delivery boy for Transatlantic Messenger Service, and Kid Marvelman's alter ego was Johnny Bates, a 9-year-old boy. Both of these boys effected their transformations by saying the name of their senior hero-family member, ”Marvelman,” just as Freddy Freeman had affected his transformation by saying “Captain Marvel.”

These comics were drawn in an imitation of the C.C. Beck style, and sometimes covers were blatantly ripped off of original Fawcett covers. The stories followed the same basic patterns, and even their enemies paralleled the Marvel Family's. In the place of Dr. Sivana was a Dr. Garzunga (complete with the short stature and bad teeth, although with hair) and in the place of Black Adam was Kid Nastyman (complete with black and yellow version of the Marvelman costume).

This line of comics enjoyed its ups and downs of success and popularity until it was folded up in 1963. But that was far from the last that would be seen of these characters.