CBR: CCI Cup O' Doodle: Marvelman

[CBR News]

Joe Quesada presents his process behind the creation of the first official Marvelman piece of artwork in nearly two decades in this special Comic-Con edition of Cup O' Doodles.


Full article here.

[Sighphi]

Man i just love that Marvelman gimme-your-money pose.
I think I'm going to get that tattooed.

[Bevbos]

ha ha ha ha... love Joey Q's artwork, and just as much, I love him talking through the process, as someone who's flitted around experimenting with drawing art before. But I have to say, his Marvelman is very insecure looking... yet also intriguing! I mean, who the ---- IS Marvelman? I have to be honest, I have no idea. And yet, now I'm intrigued!

[RolandJP]

Ms. marvel has got to meet this guy.

[Bevbos]

Just read the wikipedia article on this guy and all I can say is VEDY INNTERESSTING.

Hope it's well-executed and not gummed up by a lot of ill-conceived Spider-Man guest appearances.

[Grendel Khan]

ha ha ha ha... love Joey Q's artwork, and just as much, I love him talking through the process, as someone who's flitted around experimenting with drawing art before. But I have to say, his Marvelman is very insecure looking... yet also intriguing! I mean, who the ---- IS Marvelman? I have to be honest, I have no idea. And yet, now I'm intrigued!

Get thee to a comic book shop to buy back issues or to a used bookshop to buy the trade paperbacks! Forget the Mick Angelo stuff and, for the time being, the Neil Gaiman stuff and go for the Alan Moore take on the character.

In March 1982, a new British monthly black-and-white anthology comic was launched called Warrior. Until issue #21 (August 1984), it featured a new, darker version of Marvelman, written by Alan Moore, illustrated by Garry Leach and Alan Davis, and lettered by Annie Parkhouse.

Moore had been fascinated by the notion of a grown-up Michael Moran and this was the Moran presented in the first issue: married, plagued by migraines, having dreams of flying, and unable to remember the word that had such significance in his dreams. In his initial run of Marvelman stories, Moore touches on many themes of his later work, including the superhero as a source of terror, the sympathetic villain, and exploring the mythology of an established fictional character.

Moran is working as a freelance reporter when he gets caught up in a terrorist raid on a newly built atomic power plant. Fortuitously seeing the word "atomic" backwards when being carried past a door with the word written on glass, he remembers the word "Kimota", Marvelman is reborn and saves the day. As Marvelman, Moran remembers his early life as a superhero, but comic books are the only evidence, and his wife Liz finds his recollections of the adventures ridiculous. Moran later discovers that Johnny Bates (Kid Marvelman), not only also survived, but lived on with his superpowers intact. Bates, however, was corrupted by his power and is now a sociopath. After a brutal confrontation, Kid Marvelman says his magic word ("Marvelman") by mistake and reverts to his alter-ego, the 13-year-old Johnny Bates. The boy, innocent but aware of the evil he committed as Kid Marvelman, mentally recoils in shock and reverts into a catatonic state.

With the aid of renegade British Secret Service agent Evelyn Cream, and after a short fight with a new British superhero called Big Ben, Marvelman makes his way to a top secret military bunker. There he discovers remains of an alien spacecraft, and two non-human skeletons fused together. Marvelman views a file that reveals his entire experience as a superhero was a simulation as part of a military research project, codename "Project Zarathustra", attempting to enhance the human body using the alien technology. Moran and the other subjects had been kept unconscious, their minds fed with stories and villains plucked from comic books by the researchers, for fear of what they could do if they awoke. As their enhanced minds fought the enforced dreaming, those administrating the project grew fearful of what would happen if they awoke. As a result, it was decided that the project was to be terminated, and so were Marvelman and his two companions: in a final, real adventure they were sent into a trap where a nuclear device was meant to annihilate them. Moran survived, his memory erased, and Young Miracleman died. In the meantime, it is revealed that Liz has conceived a child with Marvelman, which has the potential of being the first naturally-born superhuman on Earth.

The series stopped (incomplete) in issue #21 of Warrior, just after Moran meets his dream-world arch-nemesis Dr. Gargunza (loosely based on Dr. Sivana). In "reality" Gargunza was the scientific genius behind the experiment that created Marvelman. Gargunza, after working as a geneticist for the Nazis, had been recruited by the British after World War II. Unable to keep pace with the U.S. and Soviet nuclear arms race, the British had backed Gargunza to use genetics to develop a new superweapon. By coincidence, an alien spacecraft crashed in the U.K. in 1947 and Gargunza was able to reverse-engineer enough technology to create the first Marvelmen. The alien technology, and thus the Marvelman project, consisted of giving someone a second body, which was stored in an extradimensional pocket of space when not in use; when a special word was spoken the two bodies switched place in space and the mind was transferred as well. After the cancellation of the project, Gargunza escaped to South America where he developed bio-technology weapons such as "Marveldog". It is revealed that Gargunza has a deeper purpose: after the death of his mother, he has a mortality complex, and intends that the child of Marvelman will act as the host of his own consciousness.

The story's scope broadened and continued to build in intensity. Moran's daughter was born in issue 9 (which became somewhat controversial due to a highly graphic birth scene, based on medical illustrations of the process); two races of aliens, one called Warpsmiths, the other called Qys (who were behind the original body-swapping technology) came to Earth; Miraclewoman emerged; and certain native superhumans were revealed to already be living on Earth, such as Firedrake.

It was with the return of Kid Miracleman in issue 15 ("Nemesis") that Moore wrote at his darkest. Now out of his catatonia, the small, spindly boy has been repeatedly beaten by several older bullies at his group home. When one of them goes so far as to rape him, Johnny's desperation leads him to transform into Kid Miracleman. Slaughtering his attackers, Bates unleashes a murderous vengeful holocaust on London while Miracleman, Miraclewoman, and their allies are in outer space.

The gory excess of Kid Miracleman's rampage and that of the battle which followed when Miracleman and his allies return to discover the carnage is highly disturbing, featuring a degree of violence not previously seen in superhero battles. John Totleben's detailed apocalyptic renderings are still acclaimed today (by the few who possess a copy of the book). Depicted are people running from a rain of severed hands and feet, skins hung up on clothes lines, corpses impaled on the hands of Big Ben, the Tower Bridge in ruin, mounds of severed heads, heads on pikes, cars full of people plummeting to earth, mutilated children wandering screaming through the streets, and countless dead bodies.
When the Miracles discover what is happening, they and their alien allies collectively challenge Bates. Bates, however, has had many years more experience using his powers than any except Miraclewoman, and is unrestrained by reason or compassion in his use of them. The battle goes poorly, with none of them able to stop Bates. It is only when one of the Warpsmiths, Aza Chorn, realizes that they cannot go through Bates' personal forcefield, and instead teleports some wreckage inside the forcefield -- *into* the body of Kid Miracleman, that he is forced by pain to transform back to his mortal form. His rampage is stopped, but Bates kills Aza Chorn as his last act. Unwilling to risk another chance for repeating this horror, Miracleman quietly kills Johnny Bates, knowing that it is the only way to be certain it will never happen again. The heart of London, however, has been destroyed, 40,000 people are dead, the Warpsmith Aza Chorn lies dead, and the world now knows that gods walk among them.

Moore's last issue, number 16 ("Olympus") ends with an unsettling depiction of Miracleman's apotheosis, as he and his superhuman allies bring the entire planet under their totalitarian control. Miracleman and his companions, explicitly compared to gods, now rule the planet as they see fit, though they are ineffectively opposed by groups such as an alliance of Christian and Islamic fundamentalists. The "age of miracles" is ostensibly benevolent, but in scenes such as the final conversation between Miracleman and Liz, Moore suggests that Miracleman has lost his humanity and that his utopia is ultimately harmful to humankind. This ending contrasts with that of the simultaneously conceived serial V for Vendetta, in which the "hero" destroys a dystopian society. Lance Parkin's book on Moore argues that the two endings, read together, demonstrate the writer's refusal of "easy" utopian/dystopian answers (the ending also contrasts with the conclusion of Moore's Promethea, in which an "apocalypse" of expanded human consciousness heals rather than destroys the world).

[Alexrules]

Well, I'll give Joe this one. It's a surprise. Sure, it was speculated, but it is still a surprise seeing as how the big legal tangle hadn't been mentioned for quite a while. I want to find that 'Total Eclipse' book that is supposed to have the Miracle Man preview by McFarlane. I guess that settles who owns what. I wonder how they got this (legality of ownership) thing worked out.

Hey, what are they going to do with Marvel Boy or the Sentry... maybe, Sentry will be forgotten... again.

[Alexrules]

Just read the wikipedia article on this guy and all I can say is VEDY INNTERESSTING.

Hope it's well-executed and not gummed up by a lot of ill-conceived Spider-Man guest appearances.

AHHH! You mentioned Spider-man! I can never read anything with Spider-man in it. Seriously, that character is done.

I'll make an exception for INcredible Hulk #600(as soon as I get a copy), but nothin' else.

Atleast the Hulk isn't ruined.

[SMARTASS8]

They should just leave it at reprints. After seeing what their go-to guys like Millar or Bendis do with other people's creations, a chill goes down my spine. Brubaker is about the only one on JoeyQ's staff that I would trust to continue "Miracleman's" tales.

[Comicbookfan]

Awesome Love the art work.

[stingerman]

And Joe said he doesn't like the cosmic stuff!

[Make Mine Mar-Vell]

Man i just love that Marvelman gimme-your-money pose.
I think I'm going to get that tattooed.

You're kiddin', right?

[krushjudgement]

I wrote up something for people that are unfamiliar with this situation

http://westcritic.blogspot.com/2009/...iracleman.html

[yesiamaplant]

I thought Quesada's flat color guide was kind of neat and old school looking. I realize that style of coloring isn't in vogue at the moment, but it actually made it look more like one of the Mark Buckingham illustrations when it was like that. I hope they don't try and re-color the old issues in a modern style when they eventually re-release them.

[krushjudgement]

I thought Quesada's flat color guide was kind of neat and old school looking. I realize that style of coloring isn't in vogue at the moment, but it actually made it look more like one of the Mark Buckingham illustrations when it was like that. I hope they don't try and re-color the old issues in a modern style when they eventually re-release them.

I guess the question is, do they have the rights to reprint those old issues?