Yet another chapter in the long, twisted saga of Marvelman/Miracleman has been revealed: a NEW Miracleman has just debuted in the pages of Marvel’s AVENGERS: ARMAGEDDON #4. David Colton previously appeared as a new Captain America in Chip Zdarsky’s Captain America run…now it’s been revealed that he got his powers from some form of Miracleman and has taken up the mantle for Earth-616!
The story of Miracleman – originally known as Marvelman – cannot be easily summarized here. In fact, we ran a years long history of the character and the various legal battles surrounding him here on the Beat years ago. You can buy the collected edition on Lulu as Poisoned Chalice: The Extremely Long and Incredibly Complex Story of Marvelman (and Miracleman) by Pádraig Ó Méalóid. The tale involves Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, Todd McFarlane, Dez Skinn, Mick Anglo, Rick Veitch and more.
The very short version is that Marvelman was a 50s superhero in British comics created by Mick Anglo. In the 80s, Alan Moore and Gary Leach revamped the character for a UK publishers but it was published in the US by Eclipse Comics, now renamed Miracleman because of objections from Marvel Comics. Moore being at the height of his comics writing powers, it was a powerful reinvention that stalled out when Eclipse went bankrupt. Then Todd McFarland bought the Eclipse assets, including Miracleman, and a never published continuation by Neil Gaiman and Mark Buckingham. This became a pawn in a legal battle between Gaiman and McFarland over the character Angela and for decades, the character was in limbo, while fans cried for his return and the story to be finished…until 2009, when Marvel reached a deal that allowed for reprints of the classic Anglo stuff, the Moore material, AND the continuation by Gaiman. And in 2013 an actual return was announced and was the biggest news at NYCC.
The modern return of Miracleman kind of fell flat, however. Gaiman and Buckingham finished the second story arc of a planned trilogy but the final chapter will likely never be seen given charges of abuse by Gaiman that have seen his work dropped by publishers.
Got all that? I may have missed five hundred steps or so.
ANYHOO, any IP that people talk about for 70 years has to have value right? So Marvel has introduced a NEW MIRACLEMAN! People had been guessing about this for a while now, but the hints had been dropping for years, as related by AIPT:
Marvel dropped a much bigger hint at the end of 2021’s Timeless #1, which closed with Miracleman’s distinctive “M” symbol among its glimpses of Marvel’s future. The following year brought another eyebrow-raising development when Marvel celebrated the character’s 40th anniversary with variant covers depicting Miracleman alongside Marvel mainstays including Spider-Man, Wolverine, Moon Knight, and Black Panther.
At the time, however, those covers were just that: covers. Miracleman still wasn’t actually running around the Marvel Universe.
That changes with Avengers: Armageddon #4.
Now apparently Colton has gotten his powers from an Origin Box which might be from the Ultimate Universe, but I guess more Miracleman is in the 616 Universe. But he’s also a 21st century Captain America who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, while OG Cap was thawing from ice and…thinking about this has me so confused I’m just going to quote the press release:
On stands now, AVENGERS: ARMAGEDDON #4, the penultimate issue of the five-issue event series by Chip Zdarsky, Delio Diaz and Frank Alpizar that ushers in the next era of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, delivered a game-changing revelation: the source of the Origin Box that gave David Colton his mysterious—and unparalleled—powers was none other than MIRACLEMAN.
A pioneer of modern super hero storytelling, MIRACLEMAN remains one of the medium’s most revolutionary characters. Now, the character returns in the Marvel Universe as his awesome power finds a new champion in David Colton, the 21st-century Captain America introduced in the opening arc of Chip Zdarsky’s acclaimed Captain America run.
Colton’s transformation couldn’t come at a more pivotal moment. AVENGERS: ARMAGEDDON is reenergizing the Marvel Universe—and comic shops with sold-out printings—as the Avengers face a battle that will forever change how the world sees them as protectors. Now, David Colton assumes the mantle of MIRACLEMAN, who once deconstructed the very idea of what it means to be a super hero, to help usher in this new age. But as Colton embraces his new power and brings it to the forefront of the fight, will there be an Earth left standing to avenge?
“Dave Colton is a fascinating, complicated character, now much more so as he takes on the mantle of Miracleman,” Avengers Editor Wil Moss shared. “Chip has BIG plans for him that will affect not just the Avengers, but the entire Marvel Universe. This is the beginning of something really special.”
AVENGERS: ARMAGEDDON #4 went on sale yesterday with a SPOILER VARIANT cover by Michael Cho. The final cover for AVENGERS: ARMAGEDDON #5 has also been revealed, showing David Colton as Miracleman, and there is also a top secret cover by John Romita Jr. Secrets and mysteries – this one has it all.
Colton-Miracleman will apparently be a member of November’s new Avengers title by Zdarsky and Marco Checchetto. But the question remains: do people care more about Miracleman’s crazy history than reading about his adventures? Can anything top Alan Moore? Moore’s take on the character was a radical reinvention that upended superhero conventions – something fresh and exciting in the 80s but ho hum in the world of The Boys and Invincible.
Perhaps the most radical thing possible today would be a newish character that readers just enjoy reading about. And most important to me: when will Miracleman appear in Marvel Strike Force?
AVENGERS: ARMAGEDDON #4 (OF 5)
Written by CHIP ZDARSKY
Art by DELIO DIAZ & FRANK ALPIZAR
Cover by DIKE RUAN
Spoiler Variant Cover by MICHAEL CHO
On Sale Now!
AVENGERS: ARMAGEDDON #5 (OF 5) – 75960621563800511
Written by CHIP ZDARSKY
Art by DELIO DIAZ, FRANK ALPIZAR & ARIO ANINDITO
Cover by DIKE RUAN
Variant Cover by JOHN ROMITA JR. – 75960621563800541
On Sale 10/21
When Hickman pulled in the New Universe characters to Avengers, I thought Marvel was really scraping the bottom of the barrel on characters they could refresh without having to create anything new (and thus have to pay the creators more) but this Miracleman thing feels like a new low on a company that only seems to exist anymore to sell toys and market movies.
I’m a Marvelman/Miracleman reader from way back and should be the prime target for this, but it just feels — like everything at Marvel these days — very corporate with no story purpose or need behind it. I don’t doubt that the stories will probably be good (Zdarsky is a great writer) but I can’t for life of me think of any reason why Miracleman is back except to keep ownership of the IP fresh.
The Moore stories never really needed a continuation, and while the Gaiman ones were very good — everything about how much that guy is a total creep has nullified my interest in ever reading anything he touched ever again.
Good luck?
Miracleman feels like Disney buying the Muppets. Nobody at Disney wanted the muppets when they bought them 20 years ago, just Michael Eisner who looked at it as fulfilling his loss when Disney didn’t buy them in 1990. Now Eisner is long gone and no one at Disney knows what to do or cares about the Muppets, but they have to do something with them to justify the purchase, so every few years they try and do something, and it all feels lat because no one really is that invested.
Quesada-era Marvel bought Miracleman at the height of the whole “make inroads with Neil and Alan to fuck with DC and McFarlane”. They had no other goals beyond that. Now, Marvel is stuck with this albatross around their neck that they have to find something to do with.
Everything Marvel did regarding Marvelman/Miracleman just was done wrong. They bought “Marvelman” but still had to spend years figuring out the “Miracleman” end of it, where the name was owned by Todd, the work was owned by Neil and Buckingham (after Moore and all of the original artists passed their rights on, I believe), and the incidental characters like Big Ben, were owned by their creators. So Marvel floods the market with 1950’s Marvelman comics, because that’s all they owned. And they never sold,, because they weren’t actually good, but rather lesser Captain Marvel ripoffs.
And when they finally started publishing the work of “The Original Writer”, it was issue by issue, censored and stuck in poly bags, because PG13 Marvel wasn’t ready to publish a HARD R Miracleman comic.
The audience for Miracleman isn’t Wednesday readers, it’s the bookstore market that buys Watchmen and Sandman, but Marvel has no skill at selling books to those audiences. When they finally put out a 1 book Moore collection (which they couldn’t even use his name on), it was over $100 marketed to fanboys. The Gaiman books took forever, and now are worthless, since the 3 act structure will never be finished, and honestly, I don’t think Marvel cares.
Plus, the whole point of Miracleman is that he’s world-breaking. That’s literally the plot of Moore’s book, and Gaiman’s book was a “what happens after a world is broken”. It’s funny that the only way they can think of making him work is something as fucking silly as “ORIGIN BOXES”. And they aren’t interested in what made Miracleman such a strong work: it’s incredibly British, and more specifically Thatcher-era British. It doesn’t work in the American Marvel U.
Anyway, publishing Miracleman’s debut in the Marvel Universe the day after “Burbank Decision Day” for Marvel Employees, just seems like a fitting epitaph for the House of Ideas.
Love the spoiler in the first paragraph of this story, published less than 24 hours after shops are selling the comic.
Like most people, I simply don’t see a reason for MM in the Marvel universe, except that they need to do something with the IP they fought for but, at this point, I’m used to these kinds of shenanigans. I was probably more irked when DC decided that they needed to rope Tom Strong, Promethea, and Watchmen into the DC continuity in some completely lackluster and phoned-in stories – at least this Armageddon story is good and a centerpiece of the Marvel universe. Still, I think that just goes to show how the pendulum swings. Years later, DC is doing some of their best work.