Good things come to those who wait. Now that said, I don’t think that Neil Gaiman intended to make us wait this long for Miracleman: The Silver Age. That said, we’re finally here, and I can’t wait. I’ve always dug Alan Moore’s take on Superman in particular, and Miracleman was a place for Alan to play. Later, when Gaiman took over the book, it led to some incredibly fascinating and interesting stories that were cut short due to Eclipse Comics going under, and the various purchases and starts and stops, but here we are in 2022, Miracleman is finally coming back.
In light of this Marvel released a zero issue of Miracleman to commemorate his 40th anniversary in his modern incarnation. So without further ado, let’s begin, shall we?
The Book
Miracleman Issue 0
Written by Various
Illustrated by Various
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Miracleman issue 0 is a prologue to the recently released issue of one of the Silver Age stories. As such it is an anthology of stories, comic strips, and cool images to honor the character with where he’s been, and maybe show the audience where it’s going. The story that features between each major story is called Apocrypha and is written by Neil Gaiman and Mark Buckingham. It’s colored by Jordie Bellaire and Lettered by Todd Klein. It’s nothing too fancy. It’s a nice bridge between the various styles and stories you see. If you’re looking for a revolutionary story, this isn’t it, but it serves its purpose in the anthology by bridging all the stories together, opening and closing the sequence like a book or a recording.
The first story in the collection is Blood on the Snow by Ryan Stegman who writes and draws it and is joined by inker JP Mayer, colorist Sonya Oback and letterer Joe Caramagna who letters the next three stories as well. In the first story, Stegman writes about a younger Miracleman who is on a mission to destroy every single nuclear warhead in existence. It’s very show and concise as you can see him come into the mountain, grab the nuke and destroy it, getting one step closer to peace with one disposed of a nuclear bomb at a time. I really love that Stegman did such a twisted homage to the Superman movie The Quest For Peace. It made me grin, and appreciate the sheer foreboding that maybe this Miracleman’s plan isn’t for everyone’s benefit. Solid opening to the issue.
The next story in the collection is Whisper In The Dark, which features Jakksa Gun and is written by Mike Carey, Illustrated by Paul Davidson, and colored by Antonio Fabela. In this, one of the miracle kids, Wednesday Morning, murdered the crew of the entire ship, because a whisper told him to. This story contains quite a few twists in a short amount of pages. It turns out the crew will be resurrected, which leads to the question of why even murder them at all. The answer was super intriguing. Carey and Davidson craft a clever little tale. I won’t spoil the ending, but Jakksa was a lot of fun to see. I hope I see more of him in the series to come.
The next story is Kimota’s Miracle which is written and illustrated by Peach Momoko, co-scripted by Zack Davisson, and lettered by Ariana Maher. A customer seeks to be reborn, but the journey to get there is quite painful…with maybe a bit of a twist. This is my favorite art style in the entire anthology. The art style has cool metaphysical horror and fits the darkness in the Miracleman universe perfectly.
Ty Templeton then gets a page or two of old-school Saturday-style morning cartoons. My favorite one is the Kimota Kat. It’s perfectly positioned after Kimota’s Miracle and has the silliest ending. That said, I also loved the humor of Doomed. Buried. As in a few paragraphs, people realize the challenge of wanting to rebel, yet dealing with superpowered monsters. All four of them are fun and light reads.
Then we get to the last story which is the Man Whose Dreams were Miracles. It’s written by Jason Aaron, illustrated by Leinil Francis Yu, colored by Sunny Gho, and Joe Caramagna closes the anthology lettering this story. Here, a writer by the name of Mr. Solomon is confronted by one of his creations…Miracleman himself. Here, Miracleman wants an ending, and he figured it’d all end by killing the creator that made him. This is almost quintessential Aaron as he is perfectly at home writing about Gods and Monsters. Yu is too, drawing this stuff as only he can. It’s a wonderful finale about wrestling with dreams and the magic of creation.
All in all, this is a nice collection of Miracleman to get you acquainted or reacquainted with the character. I don’t think it’s necessarily groundbreaking, but there is an impressive array of talent doing cool things in the book. For that alone, it’s worth picking up. I’m happy, as I finally found a marvel title I can invest in.
The Business
This week I get to prep my November. I’m working on a new show and we’re starting to put all the pieces together now. The first ad for the whole thing comes out next week on the podcast. I’d enjoy taking on the challenge of telling stories in any format. This show will be a lot of fun. Stay tuned for more soon.
I’m writing a couple of short stories and I’m working on the novel I’m prepping for next year. I got Gail Z. Martin to interview today on my Twitch, and I’m working on the guests coming to the show in November. Should be cool to have a few of them announced soon.
All in all, I’m busy and making money as a creative. What’s not to love about that?
That will do it this week on the podcast. I hope you stay inspired and keep reading comics. I may review a whole miniseries or something independent next. We’ll see. Stay inspired until then everyone.
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