I wonder how many alternative names they went through before deciding on “Miracleman” (and how disappointed they were to find “Mighty Man” was taken).
Just a couple o’quick responses to comments on Wednesday’s post:
Daniel T sez
“I really hope MM doesn’t actually interact with the Marvel Universe. He so, so, SO doesn’t fit in there.”
My assumption (and I haven’t read any of the recent news stories about the character’s apparent involvement with the Marvel Universe) is that the version we’ll get there will be different from the “Miracleman” that was in the Alan Moore/Neil Gaiman story. The latter is like “its own thing,” with a presumed narrative and planned ending. I suspect the Marvel Universe version will be named Marvelman and be more along the lines of the pre-Moore era.
Here’s a page which goes into detail on the character’s previous interaction with the Marvel Universe, mostly in that one Captain Britain story where we see MM’s grave. (The pic there says “Miracleman” but I’m pretty sure it said “Marvelman” in its original printing.)
That said, there’s a little aside in the original Moore issues, during the battle with Kid Miracleman, where various apocryphal events are described that may or may not have occurred in this event. I believe one of them involved MM traveling in time to encounter himself in the past? Something like that, don’t have the issues in front of me. Anyway, this version could make a side trip to the Marvel Universe as part of one of these weird happenings during that big conflict with KM. Kid Miracleman somehow gets loose on Earth-616, Miracleman chases after him, the rest of this Earth’s superheroes get involved, it’s a Whole Big Thing ’til they’re both returned back to Eclipse’s issue #15.
I mean, I have no idea. We’ll all find out eventually. It still smacks of DC surprising us with that Watchmen tie-in at the end of the DC Rebirth special way back when.
Thom H also sez
“It really is weird to see MM interacting with Marvel characters.”
Whenever Marvel has, like, a Superman-level character in the books (like maybe Sentry, or Gladiator, or, you know, even Superman his own self) it feels like it’s almost…milieu-breaking. Like, a Character Like This shouldn’t exist in the Marvel Universe, which is basically New York and other outlying environs, just with superheroes with more limited powersets. It’s like if, I don’t know, Jeannie from I Dream of Jeannie showed up on Babylon 5. Does that fanfic exist? If not, © © © ™ ™ ™ me.
That’s probably not exactly what you meant…I guess you mean more it’s a mismatch in general tone, a character used to examine and break superhero tropes suddenly hanging out with characters who traffic in said tropes. Yes, it’s weird, but I am looking forward to see how the Miracleman Universe mixed with the Marvel Universe works out. Could be fun, could be a car crash, I look foward to it either way.
And one last bit of business…Joseph has a lot to add about Watchmen Heroclix, so I’m just gonna point you to what he wrote. I will say the folks who sent me the Watchmen ‘clix set for review also promised to send along one of those Giant Dr. Manhattan Heroclix statue thingies, but alas, none ever arrived. I’M STILL OWED A GIANT HEROCLIX THINGIE.
No jokes about “GIANT THINGIE” and Dr. Manhattan, please.
“The pic there says “Miracleman” but I’m pretty sure it said “Marvelman” in its original printing.”
My understanding is that it was always Miracleman, which made changing Marvelman’s name to that a few years later at Eclipse kind of funny.
Thanks for the shout-out! That’s actually exactly what I meant. It feels weird to see MM next to characters who can fly and talk to birds or even change shape when he could kill them just by walking through them.
It might be interesting to see him go up against the Phoenix, but otherwise he seriously outclasses most Marvel characters.