Chuck Austen

Ah, The Original Writer...I mean...Alan Moore. I think he's trying to be as spiteful and tempermental as Harlan Ellison, but no one can out-Harlan Harlan.

I have to admit, I have a love/hate relationship with Moore, and it typically rears both heads within the same series.

- Watchmen? Loved most of it, hated the ending.
- From Hell? Well researched, not bad, but Moore truly defecates on the mattress at the end. Completely ruined it.
- League of Extraordinary Gentlemen? Absolutely loved show more this...until Moore decided to test the patience of his readers by getting more and more ridiculous.

I could go on, but you get the drift. It feels like Moore starts out with a great idea, and is gung-ho, pedal to the medal with writing like we've never seen before, being taken places we've never been before...

...and then...

...and then it feels like Moore either thinks, something along the lines of, "well, I got away with all of that, let's see exactly how much they'll take before the project falls apart" or else it's simply the case of, "no idea how to end this, so let's just through in some unexplained/really bizarre/left field stuff and walk away from the smoking ruins."

This starts out very well. It doesn't bring comics into a more dark, adult sphere of storytelling, it takes the entire genre and pretty much upends it. Which is good. And then Moore unleashes the darkest, unholiest hell imaginable with a truly unrepentant villain. Also good, though it's something can only be done occasionally.

And then, Moore gets weird. The Warpsmiths. The weird talking aliens. The long long long long long long long screeds of quasi-poetic word jumbles that really add nothing to the plot, but they fill pages.

And then Moore decides to paint in his new world as gods would remake it, which goes really hard with the heavy-handedness.

I guess what I'm saying is, in the beginning, Moore is there to show you his chops, and to entertain the heck out of you. But then he turns into that homeowner who's held a party but now decides he wants everyone out so he starts acting obnoxious and petty and loses all interest in entertaining you. Instead, he'll just annoy you until you leave.

So, yes, this was absolutely the game-changer everyone says it was, but then Moore...well, I guess the best way to say it is, he got Moored to the idea that he could do anything he wanted and we'd love it.

Some probably even do, but not this kid.

Four stars for the game-changing bits. And one star off for all the bits I had to basically skip over because they were dumb. show less

A reread in anticipation of finally reading the rest of the Neil Gaiman story I've been waiting on since 1993 after reading Miracleman #24. I didn't know at the time that the finished material for issue #25 would not show up in comic book stores for decades, mired in a twisted and frustrating legal battle over IP ownership.

I'd forgotten how short the original serialized chapters were, causing the plot to unfold so quickly and abruptly. Still, it's amazing to take this in again and remember show more how exciting it was to see everything you thought you knew about comic books permanently changed in real time. So many shocking turns, so many indelible lines and images.

I have all the Eclipse issues and some of the original Warrior magazines, but it was easier to get this new collection from my local library instead of moving around all those boxes in my basement looking for them in the many boxes in which they are probably scattered. I was sorry to see this collection cuts out all but one of the Mick Anglo stories that were embedded in the story in the original comics -- though keeping the framing sequences that surrounded them -- so it's not a complete collection, but good enough.

A PORTION OF A REVIEW I WROTE IN THE 1990s:

One of Eclipse's shining jewels was the MIRACLEMAN comic. Back in the eighties, writer Alan Moore revived the 1950's British comic book character Marvelman for a British magazine called WARRIOR. Marvelman was a transatlantic rip-off of our own Captain Marvel (the SHAZAM! guy, not the Kree warrior). Eclipse Comics brought Marvelman to the states and rechristened him Miracleman to avoid a lawsuit with Marvel Comics. We were thus treated to one of Alan Moore's deconstructions of the superhero mythology. Miracleman was no Superman. In MIRACLEMAN, things got a bit bloody when a couple of villains set out to achieve world domination. Then things got bloody unpredictable, when the hero actually attained world domination himself. At that point, Alan Moore left the book in the hands of a minor writer named Neil Gaiman. show less

The second volume of Miracleman is very attention-grabbing—it contains both gruesome violence and an extraordinarily detailed rendering of a birth, as Michael Moran's wife gives birth to their baby. In the post-Watchmen, post-Authority era of superhero comics, the violence isn't so striking, but I still can't think of any other superhero comic I've read in the following four decades where a baby's head emerges from a woman's vagina in close-up detail.

Outside of that, though, this feels show more like the weak link in the chain of the Miracleman saga. Not that it's bad, but in terms of story, what happens in the two volumes on either side of it are more significant and more interesting; in a classic middle-volume-of-trilogy situation, we need this volume to get from book one to book three, but it doesn't have as much to say on its own. We need the birth, we need to see Miracleman investigate his origin, and there's some important themes and resonances here, but they're not so interesting as what the other two books do.

Thankfully, given it's by Alan Moore and some talented artistic collaborators, how it says what it says is always interesting. Interesting writing as always (though some of what it does with race is very dated now), and Alan Davis and John Ridgway in particular are always great illustrators worth reading. (This might be the first time I've seen John Ridgway art with color and not felt it diminished by the coloring, so kudos to Steve Oliff.) Highlights include: Miracleman's conversation in the woods with a kid scared of nuclear war, the flashback chapters about Gargunza manipulating the dreams of the "Miracleman Family," and the way the malignant government agent ends up helping Miracleman in the end.

There are two extra stories here: one a kind-of-funny story about Young Miracleman trying to hit on a receptionist in 1957, and a frame story by Cat Yronwode to a set of Mick Anglo Marvelman reprints that had to be run in Miracleman #8 when a flood damaged the Eclipse offices, which I guess is nice to have for completeness's sake but pretty meaningless on its own.

Most of the extras in this volume are pages of uncolored original art, which is less interesting to me. Two things I find frustrating about the otherwise detailed archival presentation of these volumes are 1) there are no individual art credits (which chapters did Alan Davis draw? who knows) and 2) there is no original publication data given. Where did these stories originally appear? This is particularly frustrating as the extras will say things like "this is the cover of Warrior #16"... but you have no clear indication of which story originally appeared in Warrior #16! show less

BAM! WHAP! SKKKZZZTTT welcome back to what is becoming increasingly less joyful for me to read.

Killing folk? Well these are comics so I kinda get it.

Meeting alternate evil versions of beloved chars? Again, yep comics signed on for this.

Purposely leaving chars behind? Now wait a minute assholes...!!!

I'll try to explain, but first our realities.

The first three-parter is uh quite the world...that we've apparently already been to, so time to revisit from a different angle. I gotta admit Namora show more is pretty spot on - why the hell do they all just listen?

But the story decided they'll leave TJ (who's totally okay with it???), take some guy named Beak who's a GOOD FATHER and HUSBAND and possibly one of the most tolerant people ever instead.

Exiles ain't just baby killers, murderers and world enders--they homewreckers too now.

An issue where Morph gets to "shine".

Then our last world where the Exiles face their toughest opponent yet: common. fucking. sense.

A lot of this arc is predicated on the Exiles unwavering faith in Blink, lack of proper planning and luck. So. Much. Luck.

You see for some reason or other a mutant I've never heard of nor have we seen be an issue before (which she should have been given her powers) tips off Mystique who impersonates Blink for the majority of the book.

This is where the blind Faith in Blink comes in. Lotta red flags are thrown up, but no one REALLY thinks about those.

Which comes to their second idiocy, they never thought to make a plan in case this happens. It never once occurred to any of them, most of whom I can safely state know Mystique in some capacity, to make a contingency plan in case she pretends to be one of them.

And lastly luck. They were lucky that Calvin Rankin was like "well damn why be a criminal!". They were lucky that Mystique didn't create more issues. Mimic appears to be lucky that Blink didn't know he slept with Mystique!Blink.

So much luck.

Give me back TJ dammit. show less