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More specifics about the actual content of the 1980s Superman reboot will come in future posts (yes, it’s continuing into next week). You can find the previous posts under the newly-created “byrne reboot” tag, so I don’t have to keep adding a large list of links to past posts at the top of each entry.
Today, I wanted to post up something else I found in that long preview articles from Amazing Heroes #96 (1986). Now, I’d read this ‘zine when it originally came out, and I know I absorbed every column inch of this article in anticipation of the Byrne reign of Superman. It’d been several…well, decades (egads) since I’ve read it, and peeking back at it as reference for this series of posts have reitroduced me to some interesting bits of information.
Specifically, this plan for a Superman team-up comic (like the defunct DC Comics Presents) as part of the reboot, written by…well, take a look:
When I spotted this, I immediately popped it up on Bluesky and it generated some discussion.
Bully the Little Fanzine Bull noted that this magazine “was pretty infamous for just letting creatives run at the mouth and printing that as news, though,” which, you know, fair enough. That is the foundation for many a ‘zine, prozine and fanzine alike, and while this article does appear to be informed by primary sources, I’m sure some of the noted plans weren’t firmed up yet, or no more than floated ideas.
Like, this Alan Moore thing sounds like it was no more than “can you do it?” “strewth, I don’t have the bloody time, mate” “oh okay thanks” and that was that. At that point in Moore’s career, I’m sure he got lots of job offers like this. “Can you write West Coast Avengers for us?” “Flippin’ ‘eck!”
Adam Knave had the probably very correct response in saying “I’m sorry we never got it and glad he didn’t do it at the same time.” I mean, yeah, Watchmen (or The Watchmen) would end up being an ugly mess re: merchandise royalties and creator ownership, not to mention being plundered by lesser talents for knockoffs. Probably best that there’s not also a one or two year run of Superman team-up stories by Moore to provide content to be clumsily reinterpreted later by writers whose names might rhyme with Reff Rohns.
But on the other hand, would we have read a run of Alan Moore-written Superman team-up comics? Oh, you bet your sweet bippy we would. Imagine, like, 24 or 36 issues of comics on par, or even better, than this one. That would be an absolute treasure, Moore just traipsing through the DC Universe.
On the other other hand, this was the period when Moore was at his deconstructive height, pulling apart the very idea of superhero comics and looking at their components in a new light. I don’t know if DC, in their fragile “we’re not sure entirely what’s going on here” post-Crisis phrase, trying to rebuild continuity after the structural damage inflicted by Crisis on Infinite Earths, would want Moore going through its new direction upending things even more.
Just picture the aftereffects on Adam Strange, after his brief 1987 appearance in Moore’s Swamp Thing run, and how his reinterpretation there still affects Adam Strange stories to this day. Now picture that with dozens more characters in addition to the ones he’d already touched with his wizardy powers. It really would be Alan Moore’s DC Universe now.
But even if the Moore thing had been a done deal, as blogging brother Andrew said on Bluesky, “the question then would be ‘how long until Byrne and Moore got on each other’s nerves and one/both quit'” and he ain’t wrong. I feel like the two would not play very well together. All it would take is Byrne saying “hey what you’re doing here with Superman isn’t in line with my vision,” and Moore would be all “blimey, you’re a barmy bloke, I’m gutted” and he’d be in the wind.
Anyway, thought that was an interesting bit of forgotten trivia involving this particular time in funnybook history. I don’t know how close this actually came to happening (like I said above, probably not too close), but it’s still quite the thing to think about.
I’ve written before about my nostalgic perusal of the magazine racks whilst shopping at the grocery store. I still do it, every Sunday evening (my usual hunting-and-gathering time) though the selection doesn’t change a whole lot between visits, and usually it’s only publications like this:
I mean, no offense to anyone out there into coloring cat farts, ready to frame, and I know there must be a few of you since this is Volume Freakin’ Eleven, but I just don’t swing that way, friends.
But every once in a while I spot something that at least gets me to pick it up and flip through it as I decide whether or not to take it home, like some Lord of the Rings mag that’s been on the rack there for a while. But this past Sunday I spotted this (one of the two copies left, so I’m presuming it must have sold at least a few copies) and had to get it:
At last, I have the Ultimate Guide. Sorry Scott McCloud, this is what will finally help me understand comics.
Okay, I make fun, but I honestly haven’t done much more than skim through it so far and it looks…you know, at least surface level sufficient in covering comic book history. It’s certainly not going to be so granular as to explain why Bob Kane sucks or how come the whole “Quack-Fu” thing in the Howard the Duck comic was a multi-layered parody/social commentary versus just another duck pun in the film, but for someone just dipping their toes in, it may whet their appetite.
The tiny heading at the top of the cover reads “Hollywood Spotlight,” a brand name that’s also brought you similar mags about the Transformers and the A-Team and various Marvel movies, so that’s the impetus for this publication. It’s for the reader who’s seen the superhero films and maybe wants to learn more about the source material, which, you know, isn’t a bad thing. The timing maybe is a little bad, given the superhero movie market is, if not dying, then at least stumbling around a bit coughing blood spittle into its hands (I mean, we’ll see how Deadpool & Wolverine does), but there’s always someone discovering these characters via the films that do exist and this mag might make a good primer.
That said, like I noted above I haven’t read it yet. The Golden Age and the Silver Age of comics each get about three or four pages apiece, I see an article about horror comics and Wertham’s Seduction of the Innocent and the Comics Code, a thing about event comics like Crisis on Infinite Earths and Secret Wars, and so on. The focus is of course on Marvel and DC (with a handful of movie stills to remind us of the final evolved form of comic books, natch), though there a feature on indie comics, a sidebar about Maus, and, well, back to DC with Watchmen and Dark Knight. Can’t wait to read what they say about Alan Moore.
Hey, here’s a bit about Gail Simone and “Women in Refrigerators” which is not something I expected in here. And of particular interest to me is this article about the ’90s market crash, ooh yeah feed that into my eyeballs. “Origin of Image Comics” is in here too, which I always said was “Marvel artists leave Marvel to create their own Marvel,” but it looks like this article goes a little deeper into that.
It all wraps up with “How Comics Took Over Hollywood,” likely without the addendum that, um, not so much anymore, but overall it looks like a very general overall approach to comics history. I don’t know what they’ve got wrong yet, and they’re covering a lot of ground for a ~100 page magazine, so certainly Your Favorite Topics undoubtedly got short shrift (“no 10-page examination of Ralph Snart, c’mon“). But it appears to do what it’s meant to do, give someone who knows all these “Holy Classic Characters, Batman!” from their media adaptations at least somewhat of an idea of where it all came from. Hopefully that’ll be enough to get them to at least look deeper into the parts that only get passing mentions.
Oh, and I’m afraid to say one of the first full page images in the mag is of Bob Kane posing with a Batman painting I’m sure he claimed he painted. SPOILER: he didn’t.
Okay, the prediction posts are done, time to talk about something Current and New…which of course means the long-awaited revival of Miracleman.
Regular reader Thom H. noted in the comments here that he wasn’t sure if he was onboard with the final issue of the current volume of Miracleman, “The Silver Age.” At around the same time, I spotted a post on Bluesky from a user by the name of “ElNarez, Herald of Dorkness” (I approve) who had this to say on the topic:
“the comics industry is not beating the ‘wildly unable to deal with any work of substance’ the way Marvel has been fumbling Miracleman; you have an essential post-Watchmen text and it’s treated as this little curio for freaks”
I’ve been dwelling on this for a bit, more so than I usually dwell on Miracleman just as a matter of course. The assertion of the industry being “unable to deal with any work of substance” can be true, mileage varying per publisher, but regardless of commitment the various houses are constrained by resources and potential audiences. I’m sure everyone would love to have a full set of every Little Lulu comic in print in handsome color volumes, available at all times. But those books cost a lot to produce, would cost a lot to warehouse the entire catalog, and probably wouldn’t attract enough sales to justify the costs.
Or to use Marvel as an example, their Marvel Masterworks hardcovers are representing significant material from its publishing history…but they generally have limited print runs, and they cost a lot of money. The recent paperback editions collecting the same material are a good alternative, but several of those are already out of print.
And there are the omnibus editions from Marvel and DC (awkwardly heavy and expensive) and other reprint volumes from both companies (mostly focusing on more recent comics, with some older stories occasionally released), the “facsimile” editions of old comics released piecemeal, and so on. And that’s just The Big Two publishers…smaller publishers have even fewer resources to maintain a backlist of books.
This is just a general overview, and hardly covering every problem faced by publishers (nor does it address digital alternatives, which can have their own issues), but in short: I’m sure every publisher would love to devote the time and money to keeping top material in print in the best formats at affordable prices. The marketplace, however, can’t support it.
Now this wasn’t the complete gist of ElNarez’s comment, I realize, but I wanted at least to mention those topics. More to his point, it was Marvel’s marketing of the material that was botched. But I’d argue it’s not necessarily entirely their fault, but like I’ve said in the past, the publisher sure as hell didn’t help.
Not Marvel’s fault was its inability to promote the material using the name of Alan Moore, who is one of the most famous writers in comics. He asked that his name be removed, and Marvel dutifully removed it from the comics, calling him instead “The Original Writer” (which received some mild mockery).
Definitely Marvel’s fault was the formatting of the comics themselves, in which they reprinted all the previously released stories as a lead-up to the (eventual) new stories. I wrote about this problem way back in 2013 in two posts (pre and post-release), in which the small amount of the comics you’d actually want to read were backed up by editorial material and straight reprints of the original Marvelman comics of the ’50s and ’60s that nobody really asked for, at $5.99 a pop during a time when $5.99 wasn’t a regular price you’d find on Marvel comics.
That basically strangled the baby in the crib, as it were, and even discounting the first issue as I did, sales were not great. Another blow came with a significant printing error cropped up in a later issue, and a promised corrected edition was never issued. That further turned people off, as they realized if Marvel wasn’t going to stand behind this prestige project to any real degree, why should they buy and read it?
That is the kind of fumbling I believe ElNarez is speaking of, a lack of care in curating and presenting the material, which undermines any enthusiasm that may have existed for a comic that 1) features the writing of both Moore and Neil Gaiman, and 2) was a formative work for the deconstructive storytelling that dominated the more prestige superhero books of the period. That’s a long sentence, even for me…I apologize. Anyway, it’s all reprinted in various formats now, and they appear to be all currently available, which is unusual for Marvel.
But again, it may not be entirely Marvel’s fault. There’s the whole “you can lead a horse to water” thing. Sure, you can publish it, and maybe it’s the best comic in the world, but customers aren’t necessarily going to pick it up. To be clear, it’s great comics. I really enjoy Miracleman. I’m the target audience for this, the Guy Who Waited 30 Years for Someone to Pick It Up after Eclipse Comics Went Under. And that may be part of the problem.
In discussing this on Bluesky, esteemed fellow comics commentator Johanna Draper Carlson said (in a post I can’t locate now because Bluesky’s search function stinks…if I got this wrong, Johanna, let me know!) (EDIT: here it is…thanks, Johanna!) that Miracleman may not be getting the attention folks like me thinks it deserves because it’s, well, old. Time may have passed it by. Its innovations may have been copied, its influences bled too far into the art form, for it to really stand out. Who needed to see that John Carter movie when its source material had already been played out in Star Wars and its ilk? Why should we read this new version of an old thing when there are new new things to read?
Which leads me to think that the main audience for this comic is people like me…folks who were reading Miracleman in the early ’90s, who managed to wait this whole time for it to come back without 1) dying or 2) otherwise leaving comics. And even some of them may have dropped away after Marvel’s initial reprinting of Miracleman ended and the promised new stories by Gaiman and artist Mike Buckingham wouldn’t come out for another six years. (Again, not necessarily Marvel’s fault, in that Gaiman had a lot of what I presume to be much better paying work to attend to first, but maybe Marvel could’ve planned things out a bit better to avoid such a gap).
So yes, we’re getting new Miracleman stories at last. And the “Silver Age” chapter of the story concluded just this month, with the new chapter, “The Dark Age” coming eventually. (And to get back to Thom H. — yes, I think the ending of this section is fairly portentous, and can’t wait, but likely will, for the next part.)
And again, yes, this whole hoohar is written by Moore and Gaiman, absolute giants in the field. But it feels like Miracleman’s time in the sun is pretty much done. It was huge when that first Eclipse Comics issue was released in 1985, when Alan Moore had just become a red hot commodity in American comics. And it continued to sell very well as the series continued to push the boundaries of just what a superhero comic was, through Moore’s 16 issues and Gaiman’s following work.
But that 30 year gap. That ain’t nuthin’. I can’t say for sure why this isn’t grabbing the attention it once did. Moore may not be held in as high esteem by current comic fans as he once was. Gaiman’s appeal in comics may be heavily tied to Sandman and not much beyond. Miracleman may just be this thing old people like, a “curio for freaks.” I appreciate that it’s coming out again and that maybe we’ll see an actual conclusion to this story. However, I feel the comics-gnoscenti at large will only begin to really care once the promise of that Timeless one-shot is fulfilled and Miracleman (or more likely, Marvelman, to keep things distinct) enters the Marvel Universe.
Just rambling along, continuing with your 2023 comic industry predictions and seeing how you — and I!?!? — did! Don’t forget to put in your 2024 predictions, too!
And here are the previous five parts: 1 2 3 4 5.)
• • •
Patrick Gaffney hits me with the following hooks
“Marvel will hire Henry Cavill, Gal Godot, and Michael Keaton to play Hyperion, Power Princess, and Nighthawk in one of their Multiverse movies.”
While the Squadron Supreme remains unconverted to filmic form, your idea would be the biggest nose-thumbing to DC by Marvel in either companies’ histories.
“DC will start a collected edition line to compete with Marvel’s EPIC and MASTERWORKS. Oh, wait, you wanted predictions that will come true. In that case DC will continue to ignore their rich history of publishing except for a omnibus every 3-6 months, and they will cancel 1/2 of those.”
I sense a little irritation at DC here! I think the focus was in reprinting newer material versus vintage (’30s – ’60s) work, though I did track down on a Silver Age Green Lantern omnibus that came out late last year, far as I can tell. DC’s announcement of their compact paperback reprints have focused on newer stuff (as in Watchmen are forward) but maybe if they do well we can get more old material. Like, one of these days I’d like to have a nice color collection of all the Metal Men comics. I mean C’MON
• • •
Hal Shipman sends along
“1) DC will NOT publish the missing Levitz LSH stories for another year.”
I think the last of the Legion of Super-Heroes reprint books (continuing on from the DC Archives editions) was late 2021. I haven’t given up hope yet on more volumes, since there was quite a gap between those Archives and the reprint books that followed. Given DC’s reticence toward reprinting lots of old material (outside their big ol’ “80th Anniversary” or whatever books) it may be a while, but I’m pretty sure we’ll get one eventually.
“2) DC will let the LSH series languish in its limbo/not cancelled state while Bendis finishes the cartoon and then forget about the property entirely again.”
The team’s been on hold all year (save for a brief appearance in Green Arrow, of all places) so I don’t know if we’ll get The Return of Bendis (unlikely) or just an extended absence awaiting another retooling and relaunch.
• • •
Here are some predictions from someone named…
Mike Sterling? Huh, sounds like a handsome and intelligent guy
“1. Penguin Random House will end free shipping on comic orders to retailers.”
Hasn’t happened…yet. Sooner or later they gotta realize shipping out one comic at a time can’t be viable.
“2. A new live action adaptation of Swamp Thing (either TV or movie) will be announced.”
Late in January 2023, a new Swamp Thing movie was announced as part of the James Gunn and that other guy’s new media plans for DC Comics. Given how superhero movies have been doing lately, I’m not holding my breath that this new initiative will last long enough to get to that film.
“3. There will be another revamping, if not outright relaunching, of the X-Men line.”
Well, looks like this would’ve made a good prediction for 2024 instead.
• • •
William Gatevackes opens up with
“1. There will be a comic book adaptation of ‘Misfits of Science.’ Alex Ross will do the covers.”
I feel like there’d be an audience for that. To be completely honest, I was entirely surprised no revival of Misfits of Science showed up at all in any medium.
“2. James Gunn’s new job as DC film guru will last well less than his 10 year plan. His first film under his watch, be it good or bad, will be slammed for no good reason, giving Warners execs cold feet.”
Was it ten years? Hoo boy. When that Superman movie doesn’t make back its budget, that plan is going to be tossed in favor of something else that won’t work.
Maybe I’m being cynical.
“3. There will be a DC and Marvel crossover of some sort, either official or unofficial.”
I don’t think either company is quite at the level of desperation to want to start doing these again, as they were back in the crossover heyday of the 1990s.
Unofficially…I’m sure someone somewhere in one of the books pulled something like the Impossible Man and Mr. Mxyzptlk being the same entity, or Superman appearing in What If #1, or like that. I can’t recall seeing any, but if someone spotted one in the last year, maybe they can let me know!
• • •
Brian F does my bidding by predicting
“1) Man-Thing gets more comics.”
Not his own series, but he popped up in the new Incredible Hulk comics, at least. Also, he got a swanky lunchbox!
“2) Deadman gets more comics.”
Again, didn’t get his own solo series, but was featured in DC’s event series in 2023, Knight Terrors!
“3) Machine Man gets more comics.”
Can’t seem to find any info on Machine Man appearances in recent months. He didn’t have his own title, but I’m sure he guest-starred in something. Again, if you’ve got details, let me know!
• • •
joecab pulls up to the curb with
“1) WB will make at least one ‘WTF?? Why them’ DC movie announcement. My money is on ‘Mazing Man!”
While ‘Mazing Man would be, well…’mazing, I think maybe the wildest announcement would be The Authority. Again, I don’t actually expect it to happen, but if it does, I don’t imagine much of its tone will translate into film. Expect punching but with more swearing. Unless they decide to really play up the “gay Superman/Batman analogue couple” which would be interesting but I keep picturing it as becoming borderline exploitative. But again, perhaps I am not in the mindset to be discussing superhero movies right now.
“2) In an effort to save money, Marvel Studios will introduce longtime character Elf With a Gun to appear in every Phase 5 MCEU movie to thin out the cast (and therefore those salaries).”
Marvel’s really missing a bet here. What, are they afraid of making a film that won’t make money?
“3) Announcement of a Tales of the Beanworld animated special … because I demanded it!”
I think Tales of the Beanworld would translate very nicely into a cartoon. I can picture it as being quite charming, and just weird enough to grab attention and get people hooked with its ongoing storyline. C’mon somebody, get on it!
• • •
Okay, probably only one more post of actual predictions to go, then the follow-up, so it’ll all be done this week! Thanks for reading, everyone, and I’ll see you on Wednesday!
Lessee how we all did with your 2023 comic industry predictions (and get in your guesses for 2024 before too much 2024 gets by us)! Previous installments: 1 2 3.
• • •
Xanadude did decree
“1) Rob Liefeld will tour comic shops to promote Deadpool: Badder Blood, and will use that as an excuse as the reason his magnum opus Heirborn is ‘delayed.’ Similarly, ‘The Defiants’ will never go beyond the NFTs that have already been produced. Backers will still be waiting for copies of their crowd funded ‘Brigade’ comic.”
Well, that’s a lot to unpack. Liefeld did do some signings over the last year, and it looks like it was mostly as cons, big and not-so-big. I don’t know if he’s said that’s contributed to any delays of his work, but the only Heirborne thing I found was apparently a short story included in the Brigade Remastered special edition released a couple of months ago.
Okay, The Defiants NFT…hoo boy. NFTs are…not my thing, and I’m not sure what’s going on with this. I Googled around and found lots of news stories about The Defiants comic coming out, but not any that I could see that it had come out. Looking at the place where this NFT is obtainable, I guess, it looks like you can buy things related to the comic, and there’s a listed owner of one of the items with a sale price of over $7000, and I don’t know, it all looks like nonsense to me. Anyway, I think this is all there is of The Defiants, as Xanadude says.
And here’s the listing for the Brigade Kickstarter. It was successful, bringing in twice the money asked for. I’m not sure what to make of this, as Rob’s updates say “I’M SHIPPING OUT MORE BOOKS!” and the comments are all “it’s been 10 years where’s out books” like within the last few weeks. And a general online search shows a lot of unhappy people regarding this thing. Did anyone get their Kickstartered Brigade book?
“2) Dan Didio will be removed/quit from the Frank Miller comic book line.”
Still there, far as I know! YOU CAN’T DEFEAT THE DIDIO
“3) Archie will see a spike in sales of their digest comics with the integration of their superheroes into them.”
I don’t know overall, but I haven’t had any additional interest in the Archie digests at the shop. I don’t know if the extra superhero content is enough to boost interest beyond a very, very niche market (sorry, Sean!).
• • •
Bob Stec sticks in the following
“1) The success of Marvel’s Silver Age omnibi 1962 and 1963 will be copied by DC with similar Golden Age omnibi 1938, 1939, and 1942”
No, not that I’ve seen. Though I flashed on the very possibility of a Scribbly omnibus and I may have wept a little.
“2) Mark Russell will be groomed to follow in Chip Zdarsky’s footsteps and take over a major title like Batman or Spider-Man”
I bet it’ll happen eventually, but not yet. Mark Russell Spider-Man would be amazing (so to speak).
“3) Team-Up books will make a comeback because DC is running out of new Batman title concepts and, eh, the Brave and the Bold relaunch seemed like a good idea at an editorial retreat; Marvel will quickly copy this with their own relaunch of Marvel Team-Up…written by Mark Russell (did you see what I did there?)…”
Well, we did get Brave and the Bold, which I don’t believe is a straight up team-up book like the original series, but other characters from the DCU definitely show up, so close enough. And I would absolutely read a Mark Russel Marvel Team-Up, which would be absolutely wild.
• • •
Kurt Onstad speeds his way in with
“1. My second podcast (Gothamites, with Carla Hoffman) will have released at least one episode, hopefully closer to 30 or 40 by the end of the year.”
Very very sneaky, trying to get me to plug your new podcast Gothamites here on my site. I refuse to acknowledge your podcast Gothamites here, or that it’s reached nearly two dozen episodes by the end of 2023, or that Gothamites is hosted by two people I know personally. This blatant Gothamites promotion will not stand, and I won’t have it!
“2. DC will have already undone some of the changes they introduced with ‘Dawn of DC.'”
I don’t know, did they really do that many significant changes with Dawn of DC, aside from pulling back from the whole “THE MULTIVERSE IS GOING TO EXPLODE, ALSO THE MULTIVERSE IS BACK” plotlines from the last couple of years? I don’t believe they’re in backtracking mode just yet, but give it another year or so when sales start to flag again.
“3. Marvel movies will continue to make all of the money ever, and yet YouTubers will declare that they are failing because they are ‘woke.'”
Mmmmmmm Marvel movies, and superhero movies in general, kinda hit a wall this past year, through a combination of burnout, waiting for streaming, new movie-going habits encouraged by both streaming and COVID, and (as I saw someone suggest) Avengers: Endgame functioning as a “jumping-off” point for at least the Marvel franchise. (“Oh, they’re still making Marvel movies? I thought Endgame was, you know, the end.”)
And there are other reasons, but I’m fairly certain none of the actual reasons are “they’ve gone ‘woke,'” given (as I’ve said before) that the Barbie movie was woker than a woke thing that was awake and it made a billion bucks.
A couple Marvel movies did do well…Guardians of the Galaxy 3 (last installment in a beloved series that’s suffiencely different from the rest of the MCU) and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (a stylish animated film, following up a previous installment, oh and also fills most bozos’ definition, as much as they have one, of “woke”). But I think we’re definitely at a point where maaaaaybe throwing a super-flick at the big screen every couple of months is no longer sustainable? And makes them no longer special? Hell, I don’t know, I’m just a dude that runs a comic shop. And definitely doesn’t listen to Gothamites, the premiere Gotham TV show review podcast.
• • •
Lain lines these up
“1. Watchmen will somehow be removed from, and then added back into, the mainline DC storyline universe in the same year.”
Well…outside of Cleopatra “Nostalgia” Pak from Doomsday Clock showing up in the New Golden Age one-shot in late 2022, I think that may have been it for Watchmen stuff of late. Again, I don’t read everything, so maybe something got past me (which would be annoying, since I’m trying to follow all of DC’s misguided rejiggerings of Watchmen out of perverse fascination. So I think for the most part the whole Watchmen thing isn’t explicitly out so much as being ignored while the “Dawn of DC” publishing initiative continues.
“2. Crunchyroll will buy a major american manga publisher, and proudly announce they are selling volumes that are translated entirely by AI.”
I don’t think Crunchyroll purchased any manga companies, but one publisher did announce their usage of A.I. translation which went over as well as you’d expect.
“3. One of those celebrity likeness parody comics will make a comic about God King Trump that involves an ‘accidental’ call to action of violence against the sitting president so blatant it will have to be recalled.”
Well, I know this didn’t happen because I didn’t get an endless parade of phone calls and in-store visits from people I’ve never seen before demanding copies of it. Which is good because I wouldn’t have ordered enough to go around, given my usual orders on things like this is exactly zero copies.
• • •
Gareth Wilson presents
“1) As research for a comic about British politics, Kieron Gillen will create a new real-world political party in the UK, which will be surprisingly popular.”
I’m going to say “no,” even though since my knowledge of British politics is generally limited to occasionally seeing on TV people on opposite sides of a room boisterously shouting at each other, this could have happened and I’d have no idea.
“2) A major comics publisher will announce that they will no longer include named characters who are police officers.”
Huh, that’d certainly be a step to take, but I don’t think anyone’s made it yet.
“3) An MCU streaming series will be referred to as the ‘Marvel Andor’ by more than one reviewer, but this phrase will be controversial.”
No, a new Howard the Duck series hasn’t shown up on Disney+ yet.
• • •
It just isn’t a prediction review post here at Progressive Ruin Industries unless
googum shows up to googum his guesses
“1. With DC films in a regrouping/rebuilding phase, somebody is going to try and grab that #2 spot for comic book movies. Spawn seems most likely to make a serious try for it.”
I feel like everyone’s now in the “let’s see how the comic movies thing shakes out” mode, letting others lose millions before they try anything. Which reminds me, whatever happened with whoever it was getting the media rights to the Seaboard/Atlas characters? Where’s my Grim Ghost movie? Or Morlock 2001?
“2. Despite selling a mess of copies, the new Batman/Spawn thing doesn’t open the doors for new crossovers. Maybe the opposite, if the corporate owners feel those promote somebody else over them.”
Yeah, it did sell pretty well, but no other Big Team-Ups along those lines have really popped up. I’m sure there’s probably a small one here or there I’m forgetting, but not, like, “Spider-Man/Spawn by Todd McFarlane” which would sell more copies than the Bible. Oh, wait, there’s that Justice League/Godzilla/King Kong thing, but that’s not quite the same.
“3. Marvel goes back to the well with this year’s big crossover, making a direct sequel to an old one, like Acts of Vengeance II or something. Maybe not that hacky…maybe that hacky. Eh, probably still a few good ones in there.”
What did we have this year, G.O.D.S.? I think this was mostly its own thing. Have we had an “Evolutionary War II” yet? That’s a good one to try.
• • •
And that’s enough for now. Don’t worry folks, I’ve only got a couple more of these to go, so if you’re already sick of them, just hang in there! Thanks for reading, pals, and I’ll see you on Friday!
We’re well on our way looking at your 2023 comic industry predictions (previously: parts 1 and 2), so let’s see how you did!
(And get in your 2024 predictions, too!)
• • •
MisterJayEm smokes up the following
“1) Someone on Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav’s disastrous team will turn their evil eye towards D.C. Comics… Nothing good will follow.”
Not yet, far as I’ve heard. The publishing end of DC is still well below the threshold of notice for the Eye of Zaslav. I mean, sooner or later he’s gonna want to free up five or ten bucks and will eventually cut DC down to a Batman reprint house, so we’ll see.
“2) Someone at Hearst Communications will realize that there is untapped value in the Thimble Theatre Cinematic Universe.”
WIMPY: THE MOVIE hasn’t been announced yet, but at least we’re still getting great new Sunday strips by Randy Milholland, which are great!
“3) Writers and artists will continue to craft wonderful creations without regard to the demands of corporations. (At least I *hope* so!)”
Nope, sorry, Disney has bought all comics, past, present and future. Ed the Happy Clown is now a Disney Princess. RESISTANCE IS FUTILE
• • •
Here comes Customer Sean with some very exact guesses for the past year
“1. Disney will buy the rights to The Micronauts and Rom Space Knight from Hasbro (or whoever the current owner is) so that they can be integrated into the MCU. Failing that, Ant-Man & the Wasp: Quantumania will have cameos by quasi-Micronauts re-branded with different character names and/or a different team name like the ‘Quantum Knights’–and/or characters that Marvel already owns including Arcturus Rann, Marionette, and Bug will appear and possibly be spun off into a future Quantum Realm film.”
Well, I don’t know how you did it, but in May of 2023 Marvel reacquired the rights to ROM and the Micronauts. However, it wasn’t to shove ’em back into the Marvel Universe with new stories, but rather to be able to reprint all that old material. Big ol’ omnibuses are coming, reprints of the first issues of both series have been released, and Marvel put out a thick comic reprinting ROM/X-Men crossover stuff.
That said, there is some new ROM material, in the form of (of course) variant covers:
So make your own stories, I suppose.
I haven’t finished watching that new Ant-Man/Wasp movie yet, so no idea if that prediction came true. I haven’t heard about it , so I’m guessing “no….” As far as those Mironauts character Marvel actually owns…once we get a little closer to the omnibus release maybe they’ll pop up somewhere!
“2. Archie Comics will publish more one-shots or limited series featuring its Golden and Silver Age superheroes. This might include another Bob Phantom comic, more The Fox comics, more Black Hood comics and possibly a Golden Age Shield comic, as well as another go at The Mighty Crusaders.”
Well, the only thing I could find was a one-shot featuring the Golden Age Archie/MLJ character Madame Satan. I suspect other old-timey Archie superhero characters (not to be confused with Archie Superheroes) turned up in the many digest releases, but I didn’t check all those.
OKAY FINE I checked one digest, and the Jaguar is in there along with the Riverdale gang, so there you are.
“3. Dynamite Comics will acquire the license to The T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents (since IDW hasn’t been publishing any new T. A. material) and Dan Jurgens will write it and Jerry Ordway will draw it and it will be a faithful continuation of Wally Wood’s original vision: set during the 1960s and possessed of a certain kitsch charm.”
No word on new T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents that I’ve seen, and I don’t expect any new material in the near future given it seems like such a hard sell in the modern comics market. Not sure why, really, aside from maybe just a general resistance to superhero properties outside the Big Two’s roster.
• • •
DK Definitely Kontributed these predictions
“1. The Squadron Supreme will make their live-action debut in a MCU property.”
I don’t believe any of that particular group of characters has turned up or been referenced in any of the live action stuff. I think an adaptation of the Mark Gruenwald series would be fun, but I’m not holding my breath for that.
“2. DC Comics is going to have massive layoffs/restructuring as they are blamed for the underperformance of the DCEU. WB’s thought process will be ‘why are we paying for an IP factory when the output is bad?'”
Nothing quite as drastic as the 2020 layoffs happened, best to my knowledge. So far it looks like the publishing end has avoided being the scapegoat, since the mindset is probably still “we can make real money on this stuff eventually.”
“3. A Watchmen character is going to be a regular, recurring character in a mainstream DC book in 2023. Not Doomsday Clock, OG Watchmen.”
I honestly expected something like this to happen. My much repeated joke of “Rorschach Team-Up” is only sorta half-joking.
The spin-off characters (Nostalgia and (cough) The Watchman) may be more likely to appear, and maybe through them we’ll get some folks from the original Watchmen. I mean, who’s left? Nite Owl and Silk Spectre, right?
• • •
Joe Gualtieri keeps it short but sweet with
“1. Diamond will go under, and take a health percentage of comic stores with it.”
Not yet! I would guess that before that happens, we’ll have enough publishers setting up alternative means of distribution so that when it does happen, the deleterious effect it would have on the industry would be minimized. Not looking forward to it, either way.
“2. The Ezra Miller Flash film bombs, hard.”
There’s a solid “gimme!” Box Office Mojo puts its total worldwide take at $271 million versus its reported production budget of about $300 million, which doesn’t even count the marketing costs. Hoo boy, Zaslav sure picked the wrong superhero film to dump for a tqx break.
“3. Image joins Lunar.”
It sure did. Like Marvel and a few other publishers who set up shop outside of Diamond, Image isn’t exclusive to Lunar, but still that’s probably a good chunk of business taken away from the former One Distributor to Rule Them All. I personally have said losing Image would be Diamond’s death knell, but nope, they’re still hanging in there. Until Lunar takes away their stranglehold on the sexy Japanese schoolgirl PVC statues, anyway.
• • •
Cassandra Miller lives up to her name with
“1. Dawn of DC leads to a spike in sales that will not be sustainable. Numbers will fall back to where they were within the first 4 months.”
I haven’t found reliable information on sales numbers, but at my store we had a small bump on some ongoing titles (like the Superman books) while interest in lessened in new series (like the Green Arrow relaunch). So, no really huge highs, but things mostly going along in a stable and expected fashion.
“2. Jason Aaron will announce he’s writing a book for DC before the end of 2023.”
He sure did…speaking of the Superman line, his first issue of Action did quite well!
“3. With the movie imminent, there will be a lot of talk about a new Legion book. It will not happen.”
Are we talking about the animated movie? It was kind of terrible and DC didn’t even try to capitalize on it anyway, which was just as well.
• • •
Jeff R reveals
“1.Mad Jim Jaspers is the main threat in a cosmic-level marvel comics crossover.”
Apparently he turned up as recently as X of Swords but doesn’t appear to have had much to do of late. Not that I’m a big X-Men guy, but I did like the character from the bits I’ve read of him. My Googling also turned up this “Jim Jaspers Vs. Mr. Mxyzptlk” discussion in case you’re interested. And why wouldn’t you be?
“2. The Legion of Superheroes doesn’t get an ongoing book despite successful miniseries and features on TV and movies (the movie part probably not until 2024 but the hype train will be up and running.)”
No Legion for nobody, alas. A middling cartoon movie and a guest-appearance in Green Arrow and that’s all we got. Look, someday I’ll get my in at DC and write the Bouncing Boy solo series, just you wait. (And will he have a mustache? Darn tootin’ he will.)
“3. For the 35th anniversary Neil and DC do a Sandman comic miniseries, Dreams of Krypton which uses that frame to show some of the untold stories of the history of the Endless.”
Ooh, I would’ve liked that. Didn’t happen, alas. Look, Neil’s got his hands full trying to do more Miracleman, let’s not get him on a second comic book series just yet.
• • •
And that’s enough for now. Thanks for sticking with this, everyone, and I’ll be back Wednesday with more of your predictions. And as always, feel free to send in corrections which I’ll address in a special addendum.
The time has come! January is well on its way, so I suppose I’d better start looking at the predictions YOU made for the 2023 comics industry! Who nailed it, who missed completely, who got partial credit…let all be revealed!
But before too much more of 2024 slides by, don’t forget to put in your predictions for this coming year!
HERE WE GO:
Rich Handley hands in the following:
…Well, Rich actually brought up some discussion points that bear further thought, so Rich, remind me to get back to this after I’m done with all this prediction shenanigans. But to sum it up, Rich says that DC’s miscellaneous exploitations of Watchmen (Before Watchman, Doomsday Clock have been generally resisted by a subset of fandom, but, as Rich asks and, let’s say, “predicts”
“…Do you think that’ll change within the next year, now that Doctor Manhattan has wormed his way into the DC universe? Will Watchmen as a franchise instead of as a single work become more accepted as DC continues to unveil more tie-ins?”
To try to twist my reply into the format of these prediction posts, the whole Watchmen connection to the DC Universe has been scaled back, as things for the publisher’s superhero line seem to have moved toward the “Dawn of DC” initiative. I honestly don’t know if there’s been more than a passing reference in the last year. I honestly thought there’d be a spinoff from Doomsday Clock, if not at least an announcement of a full-blown sequel. I expect there’s more to come at some point.
• • •
Thom H. peeps in with these
“1. Gaiman and Buckingham will finish their run on Miracleman in 2023, including both the Silver Age and the Dark Age. Yay!”
Well, we got several issues, but the “Silver Age” part of the story doesn’t wrap up ’til next week’s Miracleman issue (which I’ve already read, using my evil retailer powers, bwa ha ha). Hopefully “Dark Age” will follow in reasonably short order.
“2. Marvel will attempt to integrate Miracleman into the main Marvel Universe, which will prove to be an awkward fit. Boo!”
I’ve joked before about how one of the chapters of Gaiman/Buckingham’s cite>Miracleman should be “The Marvel Age” with the Marvel heroes just full on making appearances. But Thom, I suspect you get at least partial credit for this…you posted your predictions on December 12th, 2022, and on December 28th, Marvel released the first of their Timeless variants. And in that issue, there is a tease of ol’ MM eventually entering the Marvel Universe.
In my Final ’80s Countdown post on the series, I described that Timeless issue bascially being Marvel’s version of the DC Rebirth one-shot that brought in Watchmen to that superhero milieu. And it seemed like for all the world that Miracleman (or rather, a non-Moore/Gaima-ed version of the character with its original name “Marvelman”) was going to turn up in 2023. But I think that event is probably going to wait ’til Gaiman and Buckingham are done with their story.
“3. DC will announce that Tom King and Mitch Gerads will team up to rehabilitate another B-list hero in another 12-issue miniseries. Yay!”
Well, there was a short serialized story by these folks in Batman: The Brave and the Bold featuring the Joker, but I don’t think that’s quite what you mean. King’s big 12-issue project for the year (with a different artist) was Danger Street, which was a hoot!
• • •
David has a few goliath guesses here
“1. Transformers and g.i.joe will be huge successes at whatever company the licence ends up with.”
They ended up at Image, and so far…yes, actually, they’ve been doing quite well. Certainly selling better than they were at IDW, at least for me. In fact, I was caught a little short of Transformers #4 this week what with everyone adding it to their pull lists, so up those orders go!
“2. The x-men wrap up the current status quo and chip zdarsky takes over the helm.”
Not quite yet…seems like the X-Men line is in the process of wrapping things up right now. And boy oh boy if anything could get me to try an X-Men book again, it’d be Chip.
“3. Alfred comes back to life in batman and he gets his fortune back.”
There was a big tease with Alfred in one of the Bat-related books, but alas, ’twas not to be. I honestly do wonder when and how they’re going to revive the character. That was a pretty definitive death. …I mean, yes, yes, I know, the Lazarus Pits, but that feels almost too easy, right?
And I wasn’t sure about Bruce Wayne’s money, after he lost it, what, a year or so ago? Googling reveals that the money is now in Lucius Fox’s hands, so I suppose Wayne has at least limited access to some of it now, but not livin’ large as he once was.
• • •
demoncat_4 conjures up
“1 as new head of dc films james gunn will announce his first dc animated project is of kingdom come.”
It was Creature Commandos, which is still interesting, I think. I feel like a Kingdom Come movie would be missing one of the primary appeals of the comic — Alex Ross’s art — and instead would be in the perfectly competent but same-y style most of the DC cartoons are in. Doesn’t mean it won’t happen eventually, of course!
“2 james gunn will okay a new swamp thing tv show and film produced by none other then [Guillermo del Toro]”
A new Swamp Thing movie was in fact announced! It seems to be the last in line of Gunn’s initial plans, and given how superhero movies have been doing lately, I’m not holding my breath that it’ll ever actually happen. Del Toro is not involved, far as I know.
“3 disney and warners will finaly work out a deal of doing a dc vs marvel crossover film and it will be jla vs avengers”
While I’d be first in line to see this (I mean, at home on a Blu-ray, I’m not goin’ to any theaters anymore), things would have to change drastically for Marvel and DC to cross over like this in their movies. Like, I’m hoping to see an official Star Trek vs. Star Wars thing someday, but, like, the end times would probably have to be well in progress before I could get that.
• • •
Okay,
ScienceGiant has crushed the prediction format with his giant science, by giving me multiple options to pick from and “fill in the blanks,” as it were. So, let me pick three out here and see what I can do
“1) Wow! I still can’t believe in the year 2023”
…that Nazis are still permitted to exist? I mean, that’s not strictly a comics thing (though we have a few in this business, too), but still. To quote myself from probably Bluesky, “we already had a debate with Nazis. It was called ‘World War II.’ They lost the debate so badly their leader shot himself.”
“3) Wow! That highly anticipated adaptation of fantasy/science fiction IP certainly underperformed at the box office/streaming service. Should we predict that means the franchise dream’s death knell?”
Well, get used to it. Various reasons why this is happening, partially burn out, partially folks not going to every superhero/big franchise film that comes down the pike, partially preferring streaming, all sorts of things. Budgeting these films assuming a billion dollar box office is also not helping. (Being “woke” is not a reason, and if anyone thinks so, maybe they should have a few words with Barbie‘s box office.)
It’s not a death knell by any means, just…studios got scale these back a bit, either their budgets or their release schedules. I said (link should work) on Bluesky “maybe two a year, max” and honestly that should be enough. I think the new Deadpool movie will do great. And the next animated Spider-Man movie will do fine as well.
“7) Ehh. I’m not a fan of the latest comic book gimmick, are you?”
I presume Marvel and DC must have got a great deal on foil covers, because boy they slap these on all sorts of things and they don’t always look all that great.
• • •
existentialman exists only to bring me these
“1) As programs designed to create sequential art using artificial intelligence become more advanced, several high-profile works will be released in this format in 2023. A healthy debate will follow but good old human artists will remain as popular and successful as ever.”
Gosh darn it when I saw you post this prediction there was a comic that had just come out and I said “I better remember that when it comes time for my prediction reviews” and of course I forgot. But apparently the art was entirely A.I. But I think by and large most comic artists are treating this tech with disdain and avoiding it. It seems like when it is used, in any way, it’s greeted with derision by the comics crowd, so don’t look for too much of this sort of thing from those folks.
2) Mike’s eyeballs will not only fully heal, but gradually mutate such that he develops “super-speed-reading vision”. By the end of 2023 he will have caught up completely on his stack of unread funny books.”
My eyeball situation continues as normal, though my vision has been seeing (get it?) improvements. A new probably has cropped up, “dry eye” in my right eye, so I’ve been on an endless progression of drops and ointments (and a good old-fashioned plug in the tear duct!) which seem to be working Also, no injections in the right eye for several months now! (Alas, they continue in the left eye, but not nearly as frequently.)
As for catching up on my backlog…ah, Existentialman, you, like existence itself, are very funny!
“3) A bunch of old guys will finally realize that diversity in comics is awesome AND it’s still okay to enjoy the comics of their youth.”
I think most folks think that, and the crowd that thinks otherwise is a minority, both numerically and economically. More voices from more lived experiences means more good comics!
• • •
And on that positive note with which nobody reasonable could disagree, I’ll end this first part of about 200 posts here, and will continue on Friday with more of your predictions for 2023! Thanks for reading, pals!
Okay, this week on the site is a little wonky, given some early morning medical stuff I’ve got going on, so this may be the last post here ’til next Monday.
Anyway this week the new issue of Kevin Smith’s Quickstops came out, and I’ve been enjoying these. I saw this cover and thought “that’s pretty funny,” I’ll get this version:
…and then I saw the other cover with the Watchmen parody, and the decision was made for me:
As as longtime appreciator of Watchmen ephemera, this is right up my alley, but it reminds me that there have been other parodies and references that I passed up at the time and sorta/kinda regret doing so. Like this one from 1987:
Not that I need to add another weird wrinkle to the old comic collecting I still do for myself, along with old fanzines, those last few Seaboard/Atlas comics I need, Popeye comics, and Nancy and Sluggo stuff. But, you know, what the heck.
Speaking of new comics for the week, you got your copy of this, right?
The Venn diagram of “high brow” and “low brow” forms a single circle for this comic. That’s meant as a compliment.
So next up on the ol’ Final ’80s Countdown, the following three-vote getter:
Miracleman (Eclipse Comics 1985-1993)
Hoo boy, where do I even start? Well, technically, I’ve started already, as I’ve got a whole category on this very site talking about Miracleman and its long history and hiatus and revival and hiatus again and revival again. Well, talking, and whatever this is.
Anyway, let me give you a very brief rundown. A British publisher, L. Miller and Son, had rights to publish Captain Marvel (the Shazam! one) stories in the UK, until Fawcett Comics stopped publishing them in the 1950s. However, L. Miller and presumably also the Son were having good sales on these comics, and had Mick Anglo rework the Shazam! Family of characters into the hopefully-lawsuit-avoiding-but-similar Marvelman Family. This revamped series ran though the early 1960s.
In 1982, the character was revived for the British comics anthology magazine Warrior in its first issue. The creative team, Alan Moore and Garry Leach, took an “adult” and “realistic” approach to Marvelman, addressing the clichés and tropes of the superhero genre in a form familiar to anyone who’s read Watchmen and pretty much anything else that was inspired by Marvelman.
Did I say brief? I’m trying, honest. So in 1985 Eclipse Comics got the rights to reprint the Marvelman stories in the U.S., with the minor problem of a little company named Marvel Comics possibly not being amused by another publishr using “Marvel” in a comics title. Hence, the change to “Miracleman,” the name by which the character has been known ’round the colonies ever since. (With a few exceptions, I’ll tell you in a moment.)
That run from Eclipse was 24 issues, which reprinted nearly all from Warrior magazine (save for one short story) by Leach and Alan Davis. That was followed with new material, illustrated by Chuck Austen, Rick Veitch, and John Totleben. Moore departs with #16, and the remainder of the run is by Neil Gaiman and Mark Buckingham.
And then Eclipse went out of business and Miracleman went into limbo and there all sorts of questions of who owned what (with Todd McFarlane believing he owned the character at one point, and attempted to integrate the character into his Spawn comics as well as releasing some limited merchandise).
Eventually things get as straightened oout as they’ll ever be, and Marvel, ironically enough I suppose, now owns the rights to the character. They kicked off their reign with reprints of original Marvelman material from the ’50s, before launching into reprints of the Eclipse run. The promise was that after the reprints concluded, Gaiman and Buckingham would be back to continue the story. Well, technically they did, I suppose, though the reprints ended in 2016 and the new Miracleman stories would not appear until very late in 2022.
Now don’t shout at me if I missed anything…I’m sure I left a bit out of the character’s compliated publishing path. The Wikipedia entry gives a more complete overview (though it notes complaints about the “birth issue” were mainly in fanzines, without noting a particular distributor was certainly not pleased about it).
There was also a mini-series Eclipse released called Miracleman Family, reprinting ’50s material, as well as Miracleman: Apocrypha, a three-issue mini featuring new short stories by various creators. Eclipse also released the Miracleman 3D one-shot, reprinting the UK Marvelman Special, which was a new Moore/Davis framing sequence around more ’50s Marvelman reprints.
Marvel also had some extra material outside the main story, once it got its mitts on the property, with a couple of annuals, Apocrypha-style, with new stories by other creators.
And one should also probably note, once Gaiman and Buckingham were back doing new issues, Buckingham went back and redrew the previous two issues with parts one and two of “The Silver Age” before moving on to the never-before seen story in #3.
Granted, it’s been a little bit since the latest issue of the new Miracleman comics (last one released early May), but at least something has come out after such a long drought. I mean, how many comic book series have had a hiatus of nearly three decades and come back with the same creative team? Not a whole lot, I’m guessing.
Now, what’s the best way to read all this mess? With the Eclipse comics, I’d say…the original comics is the best way, if you can get your hands on them. Or the trade paperbacks released by Eclipse, which I believe reprint through issue #22. There is an Apocrypha trade as well. The problem with any of these options is that they can be a bit on the pricy side. Even Apocrypha is slowly getting up there, after years of being a cheapie (and not yet having been reprinted by Marvel, near as I can tell).
Best bet for an “affordable” version…Marvel had individual collections for the material, which in typical Marvel form are all out of print (save for a volume reprinting all of “The Golden Age” segment, Gaiman and Buckingham’s opening chapters, plus a back-up from Total Eclipse). There is a Miracleman Omnibus with all the material prior to that, including a “Warpsmith” story from the A1 anthology.
If you’re going to read the comic book versions of Marvel’s reprints, keep in mind that Miracleman #14 (2005) had a drastic printing error that Marvel never bothered to fix in the periodical format, but hopefully got right in its trades.
For sampling the earlier material released in England, try the Marvel Tales: Miracleman which includes stuff from Warrior, among other sources.
Okay, I talked a lot about where you can read it and how it came out, but is it all worth it? I would say…yes, yes indeed. It was going the superhero “deconstruction” thing back when it was still a fresh idea, and it’s filled with wonderful and bizarre concepts and new takes on an old genre. (It should be noted that it’s been said that the novel Superfolks has had a strong influence on this series, and other works of Moore’s.) It blew my mind as a young Mikester, and it definitely helped steer where things were going in the comics industry at the time.
I shouldn’t let pass the fact that Marvel, despite being, you know, in charge of the Marvel brand (well, okay, Disney actually is, but go with me here), still kept the name “Miracleman” on the revived series. I suspect very much it’s to keep the very not-Marvel-House-Style-y version of the character as its own separate thing, leaving the company free to introduce its own separate version of the character into the Marvel Universe proper with the less-burdened moniker of “Marvelman.” This feels like what’s going on with the DC Rebirth one-shot-esque revelation at the end of this State of the Marvel Universe special Timeless that M(something)man is going to pop up eventually.
Now I’ve joked that this particular revelation could point at the fact that, following “The Golden Age” and “The Silver Age” Miracleman chapters, we could get from Gaiman and Buckingham “The Marvel Age,” with MM fighting Galactus or Stilt-Man or whoever. If this were the case, I would find myself in the very peculiar state of being simultaneously extremely pissed off and supremely delighted.
But no, I’m guessing we’re getting a Marvelman event in the Marvel Universe entirely aside from the Miraclman thing. Which leaves us with the question of which name will they use for the eventual Marvel movie that will underperform?
I’m getting off-track here. Miracleman was a great comic that I think holds up even today. It’s very early Alan Moore, with some clunky writing at times, but still exciting and compelling. And Gaiman and Buckingham’s follow-up material, picking up from a very definitive conclusion by Moore and Totleben, remains wondrous and fascinating. If you were turned off from reading the series because of Marvel’s initial terrible handling of the material (with overpriced comics stuffed with unwanted material padding out the few pages of interest), give the collected books a go.
(And I didn’t mention it, but you guys probably will if I dont, but Moore had his name removed from Marvel’s reprints, and it was replaced with “The Original Writer.” And lo, there was much frivolity when this was revealed. Look, Moore’s not a big man of Marvel, he could have said “no” to having his stuff reprinted at all, so I’m just glad the material’s available in the first place.)
So I’m not good at “end-of-year” lists where I run down the best comics, simply because 1) I haven’t read everything, so I’ll feel like a dummy for leaving some stuff out, and 2) I haven’t even read everything from the past year that I’ve taken home to read. As I’ve noted time and again, I have stuff from four years ago, about the time I started having my eyeball shenanigans, that I haven’t read yet. I still have that big ol’ collection of pre-Popeye Thimble Theatre to read, for example.
Thus the plan was to at least point out a handful of oversized collections I picked up this year, as I obviously did’t have enough already to read. I had my reasons for acquiring each, which I can detail (though in at least one case you can probably guess).
But here’s the thing…one of these I’ve already discussed, another I need to take some decent pictures of for use here since I can’t find any decent ones at distributors or on eBay that I can steal borrow, and the third is still at the shop stilling on a shelf behind my counter.
The first one, the one I already talked about, is the Absolute Edition of Doomsday Clock. Yes, it’s garbage, but it’s well-presented garbage, with beautiful artwork reproduced at good size, and plenty of behind-the-scenes material to be had. There’s also that extra thingie in the back of the book that literally shocked me. It remains a “was this trip really necessary” kind of thing, with its ultimate purpose (attempting to once again give in-universe explanations for DC’s rejiggering/rebooting of its fictional milieu) already pretty much ignored or supplanted or piled-upon by other DC event books, as everyone assumed would happen.
But, as a collector of weird Watchmen-related ephemera, this felt like an interesting item to have. Plus, it matches up nicely with my Absolute Watchmen slipcased edition, a thought that probably is giving someone somewhere a bit of a twinge right behind their eyes.
The second oversized collection I’ll talk about later in the week, once I get some pictures taken.
The third collection, still sitting shrinkwrapped at the store, is the Thing Omnibus:
This collects the 36 issues of the Thing series from the 1980s, along with a couple of issues of Fantastic Four that tie into storylines in that book. There are also other miscellaneous Thing stories from the period mixed in (like the Barry Windsor-Smith story from Marvel Fanfare, a Marvel Tales back-up, and that Jim Starlin/Bernie Wrightson Thing/Hulk graphic novel). Issue #3 of the computer-game tie-in Questprobe is even included. I kinda wish they’d made room for the Hulk/Thing team-up in Marvel Fanfare #20 and #21, also by Starlin, which has never been reprinted in the U.S. as far as I know. Ah, well, there’s always the next omnibus.
Now why did I need this volume? Well…I didn’t, really. I own nearly all of its contents still…that Thing series, the graphic novel, the FFs, the BWS story. But it is nice to have it all in once place, and that cover…! There were two covers for this book, because of course there were. One cover, by John Byrne (who wrote the early part of the series), was taken from this issue, and it’s…fine, though not a patch on the Ron Wilson cover they did use. That’s one of the great and iconic images of Aunt Petunia’s favorite nephew.
Ron Wilson drew a whole lotta this book, and he is one of the unsung heroes of superhero funnybooks…clearly inspired by Jack Kirby, but not, like, outright copying the guy. One of the surprises this omnibus has for me is its inclusion of a story from the 1990s version of Marvel Super-Heroes which I hadn’t read, featuring 22 new-to-me pages of Wilson art. Can’t wait to see that.
One thing (heh) I am curious about is that in this issue there was a scripting/editing error which resulted in two conflicting names for the same character. It would be nice if that was straightened out. Also, the “How to Draw The Thing” page from this ish better be in there. I need nice, quality printing of the Thing telling me to not give him no lips. (Which of course literally works out to “give him lips,” but I’m not gonna tell ol’ Benji that.) Also, stop giving the Thing a neck, you guys, so long as we’re on the topic.
I know that’s Too Many Words for a book I haven’t even cracked the covers on yet, but it’s an exciting book to have. That Thing series was quite good, with some nice emotional/background work on the character, particuarly in the early issues. And the whole post-Secret Wars “Rocky Grimm, Space Ranger” was a weird ride, with Ben Grimm, adventuring on an alien world, finally with the ability to switch back and forth between human and Thing forms. All fun, all well-drawn, and all solid support for why the Thing is one of the greatest Marvel characters ever created. If not in fact the greatest. Yeah, that’s right, I said it. He’s even better than Hellcow, don’t make me fight you.
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