262-411: Miracleman is a superhero comic book series, centred on the character of the same name . Originally created by Mick Anglo and published by L. Miller & Son, Ltd. as Marvelman between 1954 and 1963, the character was revived in 1982 for a revisionist story written by Alan Moore , beginning in the pages of British anthology Warrior . From 1985 the character was renamed Miracleman, and
524-528: A 12-inch single featuring a recording of "This Vicious Cabaret", a song featured in V for Vendetta , which was released on the Glass Records label. Moore wrote the song "Leopardman at C&A" for David J, and it was set to music by Mick Collins for the album We Have You Surrounded by Collins' group The Dirtbombs . Moore's work in 2000 AD brought him to the attention of DC Comics editor Len Wein , who hired him in 1983 to write The Saga of
786-595: A successful franchise which pioneered the Kyodai Hero subgenre where the superheroes would be as big as giant monsters ( kaiju ) that they fought. The kaiju monster Godzilla , originally a villain, began being portrayed as a radioactive superhero in the Godzilla films , starting with Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster (1964). By the 1970s, Godzilla came to be viewed as a superhero, with
1048-416: A "Marvel"-brand douche caused DC executive Paul Levitz to order the entire print run destroyed and reprinted with the advertisement amended to "Amaze", to avoid friction with DC's competitor Marvel Comics . A Cobweb story Moore wrote for Tomorrow Stories No. 8 featuring references to L. Ron Hubbard , American occultist Jack Parsons , and the " Babalon Working ", was blocked by DC Comics due to
1310-513: A "more-than-worthy addition to the Miracleman tale"; however, Greg McElhatton of Comic Book Resources noted "I wish "All-New Miracleman Annual" #1 was better, but if anything, it's just a sharp reminder that Gaiman's success writing "Miracleman" post-Alan Moore is that much more of an impressive feat. It looks gorgeous but, considering the "All-New" part of the title, these stories have scripts that feel old and somewhat stale.". The second book
1572-400: A British music magazine. (Steve Moore wrote the strip under the name "Pedro Henry", while Alan Moore drew them using the pseudonym of Curt Vile , a pun on the name of composer Kurt Weill .) Not long afterward, Alan Moore succeeded in getting an underground comix -type series about a private detective known as Roscoe Moscow (who is investigating the "death of Rock N' Roll") published (under
1834-627: A basis for the Awesome Universe. Moore was not satisfied with Liefeld, saying "I just got fed up with the unreliability of information that I get from him, that I didn't trust him. I didn't think that he was respecting the work and I found it hard to respect him. And also by then I was probably feeling that with the exception of Jim Lee, Jim Valentino – people like that – that a couple of the Image partners were seeming, to my eyes, to be less than gentlemen. They were seeming to be not necessarily
2096-466: A beneficial impact on society. He expanded on this for a 2009 book-length essay entitled 25,000 years of Erotic Freedom , which was described by a reviewer as "a tremendously witty history lecture – a sort of Horrible Histories for grownups." In 2007, Moore appeared in animated form in an episode of The Simpsons – a show of which he is a fan – entitled " Husbands and Knives ", which aired on his fifty-fourth birthday. Since 2009, Moore has been
2358-705: A book entitled Business Zero to Superhero . In 2014, he received a cease and desist from DC and Marvel who claimed that his use of the term superhero would cause confusion and dilute their brands. He was offered a few thousand dollars in settlement to change the name of his book, but he did not concede. A few days prior to the scheduled hearing at the Intellectual Property Office in London, the companies backed down. A similar scenario occurred when comic book creator Ray Felix attempted to register his comic book series A World Without Superheroes with
2620-483: A budding writer with credits for 2000AD and Doctor Who Monthly under his belt, Moore mentioned this in an interview with David Lloyd for The Society for Strip Journalists , a small press British comics industry publication. Moore provided a detailed proposal for a revival that updated the story to present times; Moore even suggested that should the idea to revive Marvelman be abortive most of it would be salvageable as "a pastiche character called Miracle Man". Skinn
2882-548: A classic." The rest of Book One followed in Miracleman #2-4; among the included extra material was the first colour versions of the future-set story "The Yesterday Gambit" (originally printed in Warrior #4 and skipped by Eclipse), "Saturday Morning Pictures" (the framing sequence for the 1984 Marvelman Special ), and coloured versions of Leach's Warpsmith strips, also originally produced for Warrior . In September 2014,
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#17327832412983144-436: A company he'd vowed to never work with again". Lee and editor Scott Dunbier flew to England personally to reassure Moore that he would not be affected by the sale, and would not have to deal with DC directly. Moore decided that there were too many people involved to back out from the project, and so ABC was launched in early 1999. The first series published by ABC was The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen , which featured
3406-523: A couple of years, I realised that I would never be able to draw well enough and/or quickly enough to actually make any kind of decent living as an artist." To learn more about how to write a successful comic-book script, he asked for advice from his friend Steve Moore. Interested in writing for 2000 AD , one of Britain's most prominent comic magazines, Alan Moore then submitted a script for their long-running and successful series Judge Dredd . While having no need for another writer on Judge Dredd , which
3668-654: A cult following throughout subsequent decades. Marvelman (later retitled Miracleman for legal reasons) was a series that originally had been published in Britain from 1954 through to 1963, based largely upon the American comic Captain Marvel . Upon resurrecting Marvelman , Moore "took a kitsch children's character and placed him within the real world of 1982". The work was drawn primarily by Garry Leach and Alan Davis. The third series that Moore produced for Warrior
3930-693: A decorated officer in the United States Air Force who would become a costumed superheroine herself years later. In 1975 Shotaro Ishinomori 's Himitsu Sentai Gorenger debuted on what is now TV Asahi, it brought the concepts of multi-colored teams and supporting vehicles that debuted in Gatchaman into live-action, and began the Super Sentai franchise (later adapted into the American Power Rangers series in
4192-596: A desire to provide a financial legacy for his children. Moore stated he would donate his initial royalties for the reprints to Mick Anglo, and Marvel credited him as 'The Original Writer' on all official materials. Marvel's first output featuring the character was the Marvelman Classic Primer , a one-shot including historical text pieces by Mike Conroy , an account of Quesada meeting Anglo and pin-ups by Mike Perkins , Doug Braithwaite , Miguel Angel Sepulveda , Jae Lee , Khoi Pham and Ben Oliver . This
4454-422: A different age and class – all meet in a European hotel and regale each other with tales of their sexual encounters. With the work, Moore wanted to attempt something innovative in comics, and believed that creating comics pornography was a way of achieving this. He remarked that "I had a lot of different ideas as to how it might be possible to do an up-front sexual comic strip and to do it in a way that would remove
4716-597: A fan of the character, was engaged to provide covers. The next issue didn't arrive until over a year later; Yronwode would claim that Gaiman had deadline issues at the time, feeling he was over-committed to other projects. However, Gaiman's recollection was that Eclipse were tardy in paying the creators for their work, and as a result they wouldn't start on an issue until payment for the previous instalment had arrived. Around this time Eclipse were able to persuade Gaiman to greenlight an ongoing spin-off named Miracleman Triumphant , which unlike Apocrypha would entirely take place in
4978-442: A few of his one-off stories for Doctor Who Weekly and Star Wars Weekly . Aiming to get an older audience than 2000 AD , their main rival, they employed Moore to write for the regular strip Captain Britain , "halfway through a storyline that he's neither inaugurated nor completely understood." He replaced the former writer Dave Thorpe but maintained the original artist, Alan Davis, whom Moore described as "an artist whose love for
5240-600: A framing sequence by Gaiman & Buckingham (modified from that of Miracleman: Apocrypha ), and containing new stories "Blood on the Snow" (by Ryan Stegman ), "Whisper in the Dark" (by Mike Carey and Paul Davidson ), "Kimota's Miracle" (by Peach Momoko and Zack Davisson ) and "The Man Whose Dreams Were Miracles" (by Jason Aaron and Leinil Francis Yu ), as well as a pin-up and short cartoons by Ty Templeton . As with Apocrypha these stories were established to be fictions from
5502-411: A further derivative of Marvelman created by Anglo and publishing in 1965 as Miracle Man . It was in fact suggested by Moore as an alternate name during his original Warrior proposal should Skinn had ultimately decided on a fresh work instead of resurrecting Marvelman, and he had used it for an analogue of the character briefly featured in his work on Marvel UK 's Captain Britain strip. The new title
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#17327832412985764-567: A further £10 a week from this, he decided to sign off of social security and to continue writing and drawing Maxwell the Magic Cat until 1986. Moore has stated that he would have been happy to continue Maxwell's adventures almost indefinitely but ended the strip after the newspaper ran a negative editorial on the place of homosexuals in the community. Meanwhile, Moore decided to focus more fully on writing comics rather than both writing and drawing them, stating that "After I'd been doing [it] for
6026-562: A future 1997 where a fascist government controlled Britain, opposed only by a lone anarchist dressed in a Guy Fawkes costume who turns to terrorism to topple the government. Illustrated by David Lloyd , Moore was influenced by his pessimistic feelings about the Thatcherite Conservative government, which he projected forward as a fascist state in which all ethnic and sexual minorities had been eliminated. It has been regarded as "among Moore's best work" and has maintained
6288-454: A grade of 7 out of 10, writing, "As long as you don't come into Miracleman immediately expecting the same caliber of work from Moore that he delivered on Watchmen or Swamp Thing, you'll find a thoughtful, intelligent look at a once-campy superhero. It's just a shame that Marvel insisted on cramming the issue with supplemental content and driving up the price accordingly. Wait for the trade, perhaps, but don't miss this chance to finally experience
6550-518: A group known as the Northampton Arts Lab . The Arts Lab subsequently made significant contributions to the magazine. He began dealing the hallucinogenic LSD at school, being expelled for doing so in 1970 – he later described himself as "one of the world's most inept LSD dealers". The headmaster of the school subsequently "got in touch with various other academic establishments that I'd applied to and told them not to accept me because I
6812-401: A host of feted artists, including Phil Jimenez , Chris Sprouse , Steve McNiven and David Aja Marvel released the digital comic Who is Miracleman? as part of their Infinity Comics Who is...? range on 8 February 2023, written by Ram V and illustrated by Leonard Kirk . In the original material, after nobly helping save Guntag Borghalt from attackers, Daily Bugle copyboy Micky Moran
7074-461: A killing spree, and Batman's effort to stop him. Despite being a key work in helping to redefine Batman as a character, along with Frank Miller 's The Dark Knight Returns and Batman: Year One , Lance Parkin believed that "the theme isn't developed enough" and "it's a rare example of a Moore story where the art is better than the writing," something Moore himself acknowledges. Moore's relationship with DC Comics had gradually deteriorated over
7336-606: A lack of interest, and when Moore told Skinn that his friend Alan Moore would "give his eye teeth " to write Marvelman, Skinn agreed to let him submit a pitch for the series. Alan Moore had also read Marvelman as a child before discovering DC Comics . However, as a teenager he found some of the Marvelman annuals while holidaying in Great Yarmouth , and enjoyed them more than he had expected. Also influenced by reading Harvey Kurtzman 's Mad spoof " Superduperman ", he
7598-537: A larger one. Another important event was the debut of Mazinger Z by Go Nagai, creating the Super Robot genre. Go Nagai also wrote the manga Cutey Honey in 1973; although the Magical Girl genre already existed, Nagai's manga introduced Transformation sequences that would become a staple of Magical Girl media. The 1970s would see more anti-heroes introduced into Superhero fiction such examples included
7860-449: A letter column of the pulp magazine Thrilling Wonder Stories , the word superhero was used to define the title character of the comic strip Zarnak , by Max Plaisted. In the 1930s, the trends converged in some of the earliest superpowered costumed heroes, such as Japan's Ōgon Bat (1931) and Prince of Gamma (early 1930s), who first appeared in kamishibai (a kind of hybrid media combining pictures with live storytelling), Mandrake
8122-418: A lot of what I saw were the problems with pornography in general. That it's mostly ugly, it's mostly boring, it's not inventive – it has no standards." Like From Hell , Lost Girls outlasted Taboo , and a few subsequent instalments were published erratically until the work was finished and a complete edition published in 2006. Meanwhile, Moore set about writing a prose novel, eventually producing Voice of
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8384-520: A media celebrity, and the resulting attention led to him withdrawing from fandom and no longer attending comics conventions (at one UKCAC in London he is said to have been followed into the toilet by eager autograph hunters). He and Gibbons had earlier created the character Mogo as part of DC's Green Lantern Corps and a short story by Moore and artist Kevin O'Neill published in Green Lantern Corps Annual No. 2 (1986)
8646-523: A multimedia franchise that used footage from Super Sentai . Internationally, the Japanese comic book character , Sailor Moon , is recognized as one of the most important and popular female superheroes ever created. The first use of the word "super hero" dates back to 1917. At the time, the word was merely used to describe a "public figure of great accomplishments." However, in 1967, Ben Cooper, Inc., an American Halloween costume manufacturer, became
8908-422: A narrative and music work which was released on CD. After prompting by cartoonist and self-publishing advocate Dave Sim , Moore then used Mad Love to publish his next project, Big Numbers , a proposed 12-issue series set in "a hardly-disguised version of Moore's native Northampton" known as Hampton, and deals with the effects of big business on ordinary people and with ideas of chaos theory . Illustration of
9170-406: A new universe for the characters he had brought with him from Image. Moore's "solution was breathtaking and cocky – he created a long and distinguished history for these new characters, retro-fitting a fake silver and gold age for them." Moore began writing comics for many of these characters, such as Glory and Youngblood , as well as a three-part mini-series known as Judgment Day to provide
9432-492: A number of other publishers over the course of his career. Meanwhile, during this same period, he – using the pseudonym of Translucia Baboon – became involved in the music scene, founding his own band, The Sinister Ducks, with David J (of goth band Bauhaus ) and Alex Green, and in 1983 released a single, March of the Sinister Ducks , with sleeve art by illustrator Kevin O'Neill . In 1984, Moore and David J released
9694-658: A number of writers (including Moore) that challenged the Thatcher government's recently introduced Clause 28 , a law designed to prevent councils and schools "promoting homosexuality". Sales from the book went towards the Organisation of Lesbian and Gay Action, and Moore was "very pleased with" it, stating that "we hadn't prevented this bill from becoming law, but we had joined in the general uproar against it, which prevented it from ever becoming as viciously effective as its designers might have hoped." Moore followed this with
9956-504: A pair of unnamed cleaners tidying the Project Zarathustra bunker while watching some of the video cassettes held there - the revival having retconned the characters' older adventures as dreams induced by Emil Gargunza. This conceit allowed reprints of material from Marvelman , Young Marvelman and Marvelman Family to be printed without disrupting continuity, as well as a Big Ben strip previously created by Skinn (who
10218-642: A personal cosmology". ABC Comics was also used to publish an anthology series, Tomorrow Stories , which featured a regular cast of characters such as Cobweb , First American, Greyshirt , Jack B. Quick , and Splash Brannigan. Tomorrow Stories was notable for being an anthology series, a medium that had largely died out in American comics at the time. Despite the assurances that DC Comics would not interfere with Moore and his work, they subsequently did so, angering him. Specifically, in League of Extraordinary Gentlemen No. 5, an authentic vintage advertisement for
10480-492: A post-modern superhero series, featured a hero inspired by characters pre-dating Superman, such as Doc Savage and Tarzan . The character's drug-induced longevity allowed Moore to include flashbacks to Strong's adventures throughout the 20th century, written and drawn in period styles, as a comment on the history of comics and pulp fiction . The primary artist was Chris Sprouse . Tom Strong bore many similarities to Moore's earlier work on Supreme , but according to Lance Parkin,
10742-423: A profound effect on Japanese television . 1958 saw the debut of superhero Moonlight Mask on Japanese television. It was the first of numerous televised superhero dramas that would make up the tokusatsu superhero genre. Created by Kōhan Kawauchi , he followed up its success with the tokusatsu superhero shows Seven Color Mask (1959) and Messenger of Allah (1960), both starring a young Sonny Chiba . It
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11004-532: A profound effect on me. While continuing to live in his parents' home for a few more years, he moved through various jobs, including cleaning toilets and working in a tannery . In late 1973, he met and began a relationship with Northampton-born Phyllis Dixon, with whom he moved into "a little one-room flat in the Barrack Road area in Northampton". Soon marrying, they moved into a new council estate in
11266-505: A promiscuous manner. Through the overdeveloped bodies of the heroes or the seductive mannerisms of the villains, women in comic books are used as subordinates to their male counterparts, regardless of their strength or power. Wonder Woman has been subject to a long history of suppression as a result of her strength and power, including American culture's undoing of the Lynda Carter television series. In 2017's Wonder Woman , she had
11528-416: A proposed age-rating system similar to those used for films. After completing V for Vendetta , which DC had already begun publishing, thus enabling him to finish the final few episodes, in 1989, Moore stopped working for DC. Moore later claimed that fine print in the contracts regarding Watchmen and V for Vendetta , which stipulated that the ownership rights would revert to Moore and the artists after
11790-577: A publishing agreement with DC Comics that allowed them to introduce a line of comics that included characters of many ethnic minorities. Milestone's initial run lasted four years, during which it introduced Static , a character adapted into the WB Network animated series Static Shock . In addition to the creation of new minority heroes, publishers have filled the identities and roles of once-Caucasian heroes with new characters from minority backgrounds. The African-American John Stewart appeared in
12052-405: A realistic birth sequence was something both Moore and Yronwode both felt passionately about. Having noticed that a previous comics delivery had used a Hustler centrefold as reference, the editor instructed Veitch to model it instead on A Child is Born , a book featuring photo studies of a birth taken by Lennart Nilsson . After a South California retailer told Yronwode they would not stock
12314-407: A regular strip. I didn't want to do short stories ... But that wasn't what was being offered. I was being offered short four or five-page stories where everything had to be done in those five pages. And, looking back, it was the best possible education that I could have had in how to construct a story." From 1980 through to 1986, Moore maintained his status as a freelance writer and was offered
12576-520: A result, Moore took the opportunity to insert a prelude in Miracleman #1 - a modified, colourised L. Miller & Son strip called "Marvelman Family and the Invaders from the Future". Moore reworked some of the dialogue and an additional page consisting of a gradual zoom into Miracleman's eye, accompanied by a quotation from Friedrich Nietzsche 's Thus Spake Zarathustra . Skinn provided a history of
12838-515: A second political work, Shadowplay: The Secret Team , a comic illustrated by Bill Sienkiewicz for Eclipse Comics and commissioned by the Christic Institute , which was included as a part of the anthology Brought to Light , a description of the CIA 's covert drug smuggling and arms dealing. In 1998 Brought to Light was adapted by Moore in collaboration with composer Gary Lloyd as
13100-757: A secondary character of the Green Hornet media franchise series since its inception in the 1930s. ). Kitty Pryde , a member of the X-Men, was an openly Jewish superhero in mainstream American comic books as early as 1978. Comic-book companies were in the early stages of cultural expansion and many of these characters played to specific stereotypes ; Cage and many of his contemporaries often employed lingo similar to that of blaxploitation films, Native Americans were often associated with shamanism and wild animals , and Asian Americans were often portrayed as kung fu martial artists . Subsequent minority heroes, such as
13362-406: A single source." DC and Marvel have continued to expand their commercialization of the "superhero" mark to categories beyond comic books. Now, the two publishers jointly own numerous trademarks for figurines (see Spider-Man, Batman), movies, TV shows, magazines, merchandise, cardboard stand-up figures, playing cards , erasers , pencils , notebooks , cartoons , and many more. For instance,
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#173278324129813624-513: A skull-faced creature with superpowers to fight evil; she debuted in Fiction House 's Jungle Comic #2 (Feb. 1940), credited to the pseudonymous "Barclay Flagg". The Invisible Scarlet O'Neil , a non-costumed character who fought crime and wartime saboteurs using the superpower of invisibility created by Russell Stamm, would debut in the eponymous syndicated newspaper comic strip a few months later on June 3, 1940. In 1940, Maximo
13886-512: A soft spot for Mick Anglo ... So, given the difference between a brand-new character who would sell no more copies, or a somewhat forgotten character who might sell about a dozen more, I opted to follow the similar relaunch I'd done with Captain Britain —tease at first, then, as a bonus, surprise those who actually cared. If it failed, it was only six pages out of 52—the beauty of the anthology approach. Skinn's first two choices to write Marvelman were Steve Parkhouse and Steve Moore . Both expressed
14148-534: A spate of work by a variety of comic book companies in Britain, mainly Marvel UK , and the publishers of 2000 AD and Warrior . He later remarked that "I remember that what was generally happening was that everybody wanted to give me work, for fear that I would just be given other work by their rivals. So everybody was offering me things." It was an era when comic books were increasing in popularity in Britain, and according to Lance Parkin , "the British comics scene
14410-445: A strong supporter of the series, naming it fourth on his list of favourite comics from 1986. For the third arc, Moore wanted a single artist to illustrate the work - feeling that while all of the artists on Book Two had been capable the chopping and changing had left the story with an "uncertain" tone. He selected John Totleben , with whom he had previously collaborated on Swamp Thing for DC Comics ; Totleben had already contributed
14672-406: A suit not unlike the swimsuits in the T.V. show Baywatch . The sexualization of women in comic books can be explained mainly by the fact that the majority of writers are male. Not only are the writers mostly male, but the audience is mostly male as well. Therefore, writers are designing characters to appeal to a mostly male audience. The super hero characters illustrate a sociological idea called
14934-457: A super-dog Radar, and a Kryptonite -like material known as Supremium, in doing so harking back to the original "mythic" figure of the American superhero. Under Moore, Supreme proved a critical and commercial success, announcing that he was back in the mainstream after several years of self-imposed exile. When Rob Liefeld, one of Image's co-founders, split from the publisher and formed his own company Awesome Entertainment, he hired Moore to create
15196-452: A team named "Challenger Force", with Marvelman, Moore and Leach's Warpsmith , Skinn's Big Ben and new character Firedrake among the planned members. Few of the elaborate ideas in their chronology (such as V for Vendetta being set on an alternate Earth where Marvelman had never returned, Emil Gargunza being the creator of the Fate computer and Axel Pressbutton 's adventures being set far in
15458-581: A trade paperback by Eddie Campbell Comics. It was widely praised, with comics author Warren Ellis citing it as his "all-time favourite graphic novel". The other series that Moore began for Taboo was Lost Girls , which he described as a work of intelligent "pornography". Illustrated by Melinda Gebbie , with whom Moore subsequently entered into a relationship, it was set in 1913, where Alice from Alice in Wonderland , Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz and Wendy from Peter Pan – who are each of
15720-504: A two-part story for Vigilante which dealt with domestic abuse. He was eventually given the chance to write a story for one of DC's best-known superheroes, Superman , entitled " For the Man Who Has Everything ", which was illustrated by Dave Gibbons and published in 1985. In this story, Wonder Woman , Batman , and Robin visit Superman on his birthday, only to find that he has been overcome by an alien organism and
15982-594: A variety of characters from Victorian adventure novels, such as H. Rider Haggard 's Allan Quatermain , H. G. Wells ' Invisible Man , Jules Verne 's Captain Nemo , Robert Louis Stevenson 's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde , and Wilhelmina Murray from Bram Stoker 's Dracula . Illustrated by Kevin O'Neill , the first volume of the series pitted the League against Professor Moriarty from the Sherlock Holmes books;
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#173278324129816244-461: A variety of literary and television figures including Neil Gaiman and Damon Lindelof . He has lived a significant portion of his life in Northampton, England, and he has said in various interviews that his stories draw heavily from his experiences living there. Moore was born on 18 November 1953, at St Edmund's Hospital in Northampton to a working-class family who he believed had lived in
16506-423: A wide array of different backgrounds and origins. Some superheroes (such as Spider-Man and Superman ) possess non-human or superhuman biology or use and practice magic to achieve their abilities (such as Doctor Strange and Captain Marvel ) while others (for example, Iron Man and Batman ) derive their status from advanced technology they create and use. The Dictionary.com definition of "superhero"
16768-436: A world long abandoned by superhumans, and feature Kid Miracleman. Gaiman's original proposal for the trio of storylines simply noted that "things go bad". Legal proceedings over the ownership left the title out of print, leading to back issues and trade paperbacks of the series greatly increasing in price in the collector's market. In 2009 it came to light that Anglo had in fact held ownership of Marvelman since 1954. Once this
17030-554: Is Nick Fury , who is reinterpreted as African-American both in the Ultimate Marvel as well as the Marvel Cinematic Universe continuities. Alan Moore Alan Moore (born 18 November 1953) is an English author known primarily for his work in comic books including Watchmen , V for Vendetta , The Ballad of Halo Jones , Swamp Thing , Batman: The Killing Joke , and From Hell . He
17292-512: Is "a figure, especially in a comic strip or cartoon , endowed with superhuman powers and usually portrayed as fighting evil or crime", and the Merriam-Webster dictionary gives the definition as "a fictional hero having extraordinary or superhuman powers; also: an exceptionally skillful or successful person." Terms such as masked crime fighters, costumed adventurers or masked vigilantes are sometimes used to refer to characters such as
17554-409: Is "quite possibly Moore's most underrated work". Soon after this, Mad Love itself was disbanded as Phyllis and Deborah ended their relationship with Moore, taking with them much of the money that he had earned from his work in the 1980s. Meanwhile, Moore began producing work for Taboo , a small independent comic anthology edited by his former collaborator Stephen R. Bissette . The first of these
17816-421: Is a motorcycle-riding hero in an insect-like costume, who shouts Henshin (Metamorphosis) to don his costume and gain superhuman powers. The ideas of second-wave feminism , which spread through the 1960s into the 1970s, greatly influenced the way comic book companies would depict as well as market their female characters: Wonder Woman was for a time revamped as a mod-dressing martial artist directly inspired by
18078-544: Is a website satirizing the sexualized portrayal of women in comics by recreating the same poses using male superheroes, especially Marvel's Hawkeye . In 1966, Marvel introduced the Black Panther , an African monarch who became the first non- caricatured black superhero. The first African-American superhero, the Falcon , followed in 1969, and three years later, Luke Cage , a self-styled "hero-for-hire" , became
18340-410: Is a wish come true. The book takes place in the early 2000s, with Miracleman having run the world for almost twenty years. A new generation of superhumans has risen and Miracleman's scientists are able to bring Young Miracleman to life. He awakens to a world unlike anything he imagined. It's an amazing book, already shaping up to be a classic." The third issue containing the first finished publication of
18602-645: Is an occultist , ceremonial magician , and anarchist , and has featured such themes in works including Promethea , From Hell , and V for Vendetta , as well as performing avant-garde spoken word occult "workings" with The Moon and Serpent Grand Egyptian Theatre of Marvels , some of which have been released on CD. Despite his objections, Moore's works have provided the basis for several Hollywood films, including From Hell (2001), The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003), V for Vendetta (2005), and Watchmen (2009). Moore has also been referenced in popular culture and has been recognised as an influence on
18864-532: Is arguable that the Marvel Comics teams of the early 1960s brought the biggest assortment of superheroes ever at one time into permanent publication, the likes of Spider-Man (1962), The Hulk , Iron Man , Daredevil , Nick Fury , The Mighty Thor , The Avengers (featuring a rebooted Captain America , Thor, Hulk, Ant-Man , Quicksilver ), and many others were given their own monthly titles. Typically
19126-426: Is currently unknown if the series will ever be officially published. In 1995, after several financial reversals and Yronwode's divorce from Mullaney, Eclipse declared bankruptcy, leaving Miracleman without a publisher. Only two issues of "The Silver Age" had been printed; a third was ready but due to their dire finances Eclipse were unable to find a printer who would provide them with the credit needed to actually get
19388-714: Is gifted the Key Harmonic of the Universe by the astro-scientist. Calling out "Kimota!" then turns Micky into the Mightiest Man in the Universe, the superhero Marvelman. As Marvelman, he is superhumanly strong, can fly and is invulnerable, and uses his powers to fight evil and disaster. Confronted with a large workload, Marvelman enlists the help of messenger Dicky Dauntless for one mission; the boy's courage impresses Marvelman and he arranges for Borghelm to also grant Dicky powers. Calling "Marvelman!" allows Dicky to become
19650-481: Is hallucinating about his heart's desire. He followed this with another Superman story, " Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? ", which was published in 1986. Illustrated by Curt Swan , it was designed as the last Superman story in the pre- Crisis on Infinite Earths DC Universe . The limited series Watchmen , begun in 1986 and collected as a trade paperback in 1987, cemented Moore's reputation. Imagining what
19912-402: Is married to Liz and unable to remember his past or his change-word. After rediscovering this in 1982, Miracleman was able to return. He discovered that former ally Kid Miracleman had become corrupt and battled him in London. With the aid of Evelyn Cream he then discovers the true nature of his past as a British government super-weapon. Subsequently, Liz becomes pregnant with Miracleman's child and
20174-658: Is possessed by an ancient pagan goddess, the titular Promethea, explored many occult themes, particularly the Qabalah and the concept of magic , with Moore stating that "I wanted to be able to do an occult comic that didn't portray the occult as a dark, scary place, because that's not my experience of it ... [ Promethea was] more psychedelic ... more sophisticated, more experimental, more ecstatic and exuberant." Drawn by J. H. Williams III , it has been described as "a personal statement" from Moore, being one of his most personal works, and that it encompasses "a belief system,
20436-435: Is ready". Quesada would attribute the delay to wanting to "do it right", including acquiring original artwork and high-quality Photostats for restoration. Others have noted other potential factors, including ongoing uncertainty over who owned the 'Miracleman trademark (speculated to have actually been owned by McFarlane) and negotiations with Moore over the permission Marvel needed to reprint his work. By 2012 Marvel had secured
20698-479: Is targeted by his creator Doctor Emil Gargunza, who wants to implant his consciousness in the newborn. Miracleman is able to free Liz, kill Gargunza and deliver his baby successfully. As Gargunza used salvaged Qys technology to create the superhumans, agents of the alien race come to investigate, leading to the previously secret Miraclewoman making her presence known. The Qys are sterile, so the birth of Winter sees them form an alliance with Earth's superhumans, as well as
20960-506: Is uncommon, the USPTO will grant joint ownership in a mark. For example, in the case Arrow Trading Co., Inc. v. Victorinox A.G. and Wegner S.A. , Opposition No. 103315 (TTAB June 27, 2003), the TTAB held that when "two entities have a long-standing relationship and rely on each other for quality control, it may be found, in appropriate circumstances, that the parties, as joint owners, do represent
21222-491: Is widely recognised among his peers and critics as one of the best comic book writers in the English language. Moore has occasionally used such pseudonyms as Curt Vile , Jill de Ray , Brilburn Logue , and Translucia Baboon ; also, reprints of some of his work have been credited to The Original Writer when Moore requested that his name be removed. Moore started writing for British underground and alternative fanzines in
21484-515: The 1963 stuff I'd become aware of how much the comic audience had changed while I'd been away [since 1988]. That all of a sudden it seemed that the bulk of the audience really wanted things that had almost no story, just lots of big, full-page pin-up sort of pieces of artwork. And I was genuinely interested to see if I could write a decent story for that market." He subsequently set about writing what he saw as "better than average stories for 13- to 15-year olds", including three mini-series based upon
21746-668: The Black Canary , introduced in Flash Comics #86 (Aug. 1947) as a supporting character. The most iconic comic book superheroine, who debuted during the Golden Age, is Wonder Woman . Modeled from the myth of the Amazons of Greek mythology , she was created by psychologist William Moulton Marston , with help and inspiration from his wife Elizabeth and their mutual lover Olive Byrne. Wonder Woman's first appearance
22008-535: The Emma Peel character from the British television series The Avengers (no relation to the superhero team of the same name), but later reverted to Marston's original concept after the editors of Ms. magazine publicly disapproved of the character being depowered and without her traditional costume; Supergirl was moved from being a secondary feature on Action Comics to headline Adventure Comics in 1969;
22270-527: The Lady Liberators appeared in an issue of The Avengers as a group of mind-controlled superheroines led by Valkyrie (actually a disguised supervillainess ) and were meant to be a caricatured parody of feminist activists; and Jean Grey became the embodiment of a cosmic being known as the Phoenix Force with seemingly unlimited power in the late 1970s, a stark contrast from her depiction as
22532-443: The Marvelman characters was unknown, and it was instead believed by all involved that the rights were split between Moore, Leach, Davis and Quality Communications the strip was unable to continue without approval from all parties. A young Grant Morrison , having recently began working on Warrior strip The Liberators , was eager to take over but this was vetoed by Moore. As of 2024 the black-and-white unmodified Warrior strips with
22794-706: The New York Times and The Colbert Report , and embraced by anti- Islamophobia campaigners in San Francisco who plastered over anti-Muslim bus adverts with Kamala stickers. Other such successor-heroes of color include James "Rhodey" Rhodes as Iron Man and to a lesser extent Riri "Ironheart" Williams , Ryan Choi as the Atom , Jaime Reyes as Blue Beetle and Amadeus Cho as Hulk . Certain established characters have had their ethnicity changed when adapted to another continuity or media. A notable example
23056-480: The Spawn series: Violator , Violator/ Badrock , and Spawn: Blood Feud . In 1995, he was also given control of a regular monthly comic, Jim Lee 's WildC.A.T.S. , starting with issue No. 21, which he continued to write for fourteen issues. The series followed two groups of superheroes, one of which is on a spaceship headed back to its home planet, and one of which remains on Earth. Moore's biographer Lance Parkin
23318-633: The Spectre , the Demon , the Phantom Stranger , Deadman , and others, and introduced John Constantine , an English working-class magician based visually on the British musician Sting ; Constantine later became the protagonist of the series Hellblazer , which became Vertigo's longest-running series at 300 issues. Moore wrote Swamp Thing for almost four years, from issue No. 20 (January 1984) through to issue No. 64 (September 1987) with
23580-669: The Twilight proposal before starting work on their series, but that any similarities are both minor and unintended. DC Comics confirmed that the full text of the story would be released in December 2020. Moore wrote the lead story in Batman Annual No. 11 (1987) drawn by George Freeman . The following year saw the publication of The Killing Joke , written by Moore and illustrated by Brian Bolland . It revolved around The Joker , who had escaped Arkham Asylum and gone on
23842-466: The Warpsmiths . The group becomes public knowledge after Kid Miracleman returns and obliterates a large section of London, killing some forty thousand people before they are able to subdue him. As a result, Miracleman and his allies take benevolent control of Earth, moulding it into a paradise. The end of the 20th century is thus a golden age of humanity, seemingly free of want thanks to the presence of
24104-492: The Warrior Summer Special , the story suddenly jumped forward three years in a story that hinted at the future plans for the combined universe. The strip returned to telling Marvelman's 1982 rebirth from Warrior #5; however, Leach's meticulous style was causing delays. Moore would later claim Leach was too slow, while Skinn would blame Moore's overdetailed panel descriptions. Leach for his part noted that while
24366-671: The X-Men 's Storm and the Teen Titans ' Cyborg avoided such conventions; they were both part of ensemble teams, which became increasingly diverse in subsequent years. The X-Men, in particular, were revived in 1975 with a line-up of characters drawn from several nations, including the Kenyan Storm, German Nightcrawler , Soviet / Russian Colossus , Irish Banshee , and Japanese Sunfire . In 1993, Milestone Comics , an African-American-owned media/publishing company entered into
24628-669: The hero ; typically using their powers to help the world become a better place , or dedicating themselves to protecting the public and fighting crime . Superhero fiction is the genre of fiction that is centered on such characters, especially, since the 1930s, in American comic books (and later in Hollywood films , film serials, television and video games ), as well as in Japanese media (including kamishibai , tokusatsu , manga , anime and video games). Superheroes come from
24890-399: The " male gaze " which is media created from the viewpoint of a normative heterosexual male. The female characters in comic books are used to satisfy male desire for the "ideal" woman (small waist, large breasts, toned, athletic body). These characters have god-like power, but the most easily identifiable feature is their hyper sexualized bodies: they are designed to be sexually pleasing to
25152-428: The 'Miracleman' trademark and at New York Comic Con 2013 announced the reprints and eventual continuation would use this name, contrary to previous proclamations. Marvel opted to title the revival material 'Miracleman', while retaining 'Marvelman' for potential future use. In an interview with Comic Book Resources , Quesada said this was because it "was the coolest name" and was the name Marvel staff used when discussing
25414-568: The 1970s as an alternate for Earth's Green Lantern Hal Jordan , and would become a regular member of the Green Lantern Corps from the 1980s onward. The creators of the 2000s-era Justice League animated series selected Stewart as the show's Green Lantern. In the Ultimate Marvel universe, Miles Morales , a youth of Puerto Rican and African-American ancestry who was also bitten by a genetically-altered spider, debuted as
25676-554: The 1980s revival received a mixed reaction. The series was collected as a trade paperback while two archives apiece of Marvelman Classic and Young Marvelman Classic were released. As of 2024 no further volumes of either Classic title have been released since 2012, with sales of the hardcovers having been poor - dropping below 300 copies apiece. Anglo died on 31 October 2011, aged 95. A three-year hiatus followed, with Marvel Senior Vice President of Publishing Tom Brevoort assuring fans that it would be published as "soon as everything
25938-458: The 1980s, superhero fiction centered on cultural, ethnic, national, racial and language minority groups (from the perspective of US demographics ) began to be produced. This began with depiction of black superheroes in the 1960s, followed in the 1970s with a number of other ethnic-minority superheroes. In keeping with the political mood of the time, cultural diversity and inclusivism would be an important part of superhero groups starting from
26200-409: The 1980s. In the 1990s, this was further augmented by the first depictions of superheroes as homosexual. In 2017, Sign Gene emerged, the first group of deaf superheroes with superpowers through the use of sign language . Female super heroes—and villains—have been around since the early years of comic books dating back to the 1940s. The representation of women in comic books has been questioned in
26462-483: The 1986 Kirby Awards ; Miracleman #1 was also nominated as 'Best Single Issue', but lost to Daredevil #227. After the Warrior material ran out new stories by Moore appeared from Miracleman #6 that broadly retained many of the plans established in the Quality proposals and chronology; for example, the writer has recalled discussing the planned realistic depiction of Miracleman's daughter Winter with Skinn before
26724-415: The 1988 Eisner Awards and received praise from Andy Mangels of Amazing Heroes due to being "incredibly richly textured", with the writer placing Miracleman 6th on his list of the 20 best comics then in publication. While the narrative broadly followed the plans Moore had originally mapped out during the Warrior days both his own growth as a writer and the opportunity of collaborating with Totleben saw
26986-561: The 1990s). In 1978, Toei adapted Spider-Man into a live-action Japanese television series . In this continuity, Spider-Man had a vehicle called Marveller that could transform into a giant and powerful robot called Leopardon, this idea would be carried over to Toei's Battle Fever J (also co-produced with Marvel) and now multi-colored teams not only had support vehicles but giant robots to fight giant monsters with. In subsequent decades, popular characters like Dazzler , She-Hulk , Elektra , Catwoman , Witchblade , Spider-Girl , Batgirl and
27248-548: The Amazing Superman debut in Big Little Book series , by Russell R. Winterbotham (text), Henry E. Vallely and Erwin L. Hess (art). Captain America also appeared for the first time in print in December 1940, a year prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese government, when America was still in isolationism . Created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby , the superhero was the physical embodiment of
27510-800: The American spirit during World War II. One superpowered character was portrayed as an antiheroine , a rarity for its time: the Black Widow , a costumed emissary of Satan who killed evildoers in order to send them to Hell —debuted in Mystic Comics #4 (Aug. 1940), from Timely Comics , the 1940s predecessor of Marvel Comics . Most of the other female costumed crime fighters during this era lacked superpowers. Notable characters include The Woman in Red , introduced in Standard Comics ' Thrilling Comics #2 (March 1940); Lady Luck , debuting in
27772-478: The Avengers) with her brother, Quicksilver. In 1963, Astro Boy was adapted into a highly influential anime television series. Phantom Agents in 1964 focused on ninjas working for the Japanese government and would be the foundation for Sentai -type series. 1966 saw the debut of the sci-fi/horror series Ultra Q created by Eiji Tsuburaya this would eventually lead to the sequel Ultraman , spawning
28034-639: The Birds of Prey became stars of long-running eponymous titles. Female characters began assuming leadership roles in many ensemble superhero teams; the Uncanny X-Men series and its related spin-off titles in particular have included many female characters in pivotal roles since the 1970s. Volume 4 of the X-Men comic book series featured an all-female team as part of the Marvel NOW! branding initiative in 2013. Superpowered female characters like Buffy
28296-521: The Curt Vile name) in the weekly music magazine Sounds , earning £35 a week. Alongside this, he and Phyllis, with their newborn daughter Leah , began claiming unemployment benefit to supplement this income. After the conclusion of Roscoe Moscow , Moore started a new strip for Sounds – the serialized comic "The Stars My Degradation" (a reference to Alfred Bester 's The Stars My Destination ), featuring Axel Pressbutton. Alan Moore wrote most of
28558-595: The Fire , which was published in 1996. Unconventional in tone, the novel was a set of short stories about linked events in his hometown of Northampton through the centuries, from the Bronze Age to the present day, which combined to tell a larger story. In 1993 Moore declared himself to be a ceremonial magician . The same year marked a move by Moore back to the mainstream comics industry and back to writing superhero comics. He did so through Image Comics , widely known at
28820-656: The House of Thunder (led by the Captain Marvel family). These two houses are about to unite through a dynastic marriage, their combined power potentially threatening freedom, and several characters, including John Constantine, attempt to stop it and free humanity from the power of superheroes. The series would also have restored the DC Universe's multiple earths, which had been eliminated in the continuity-revising 1985 limited series Crisis on Infinite Earths . The series
29082-529: The Magician (1934), Olga Mesmer (1937) and then Superman (1938) and Captain Marvel (1939) at the beginning of the Golden Age of Comic Books , whose span, though disputed, is generally agreed to have started with Superman's launch. Superman has remained one of the most recognizable superheroes, and his success spawned a new archetype of characters with secret identities and superhuman powers. At
29344-729: The Mightiest Boy in the Universe, Young Marvelman, and he also embarks on a crimefighting career. Later they are joined by a third comrade; when young Johnny Bates calls "Marvelman!" he is transformed into Kid Marvelman. The trio fight crime separately and together as the Marvelman Family. Among their enemies are the fiendish scientist Dr. Gargunza and his nephew Young Gargunza, and the superpowered alien youth Young Nastyman. The original stories were typically light in tone and normally self-contained – though occasionally multi-part serial storylines were produced. The adult Mike Moran
29606-520: The Miracleman universe. Reception to the new material was largely positive, though some noted that working knowledge of the character was required for the work to be fully appreciated. According to ICv2 , Miracleman #0 was the 19th best selling comic book in October 2022. Marvel originally announced that the long-anticipated Silver Age storyline would continue in 2016 following publication of The Golden Age ; however solicitations were cancelled when
29868-564: The Scenes", featuring associated work by Garry Leach ; one of Conroy's articles and excerpts from Quesada meeting Anglo in 2010 (both originally from Marvelman Classic Primer ). The online version of #1 also featured edited art for the digital version to cover Liz Moran's buttocks The first issue was a commercial success; according to Diamond Comic Distributors , Miracleman #1 was the 23rd best selling comic book in January 2014. Reception to
30130-497: The Schanes brothers at Pacific Comics of San Diego in 1984 to continue the story - unaware at the time that he did not have the rights to do so. Most of Pacific's assets were taken over by Guerneville -based rival Eclipse Comics after being won at a foreclosure auction by co-owner Dean Mullaney , including the Marvelman deal. Initially the title was advertised and promoted as Marvelman . However to avoid any further legal action
30392-514: The Spirit , who may not be explicitly referred to as superheroes but nevertheless share similar traits. Some superheroes use their powers to help fight daily crime while also combating threats against humanity from supervillains , who are their criminal counterparts. Often at least one of these supervillains will be the superhero's archenemy or nemesis . Some popular supervillains become recurring characters in their own right. Antecedents of
30654-827: The Sunday- newspaper comic-book insert The Spirit Section June 2, 1940; the comedic character Red Tornado , debuting in All-American Comics #20 (Nov 1940); Miss Fury , debuting in the eponymous comic strip by female cartoonist Tarpé Mills on April 6, 1941; the Phantom Lady , introduced in Quality Comics Police Comics #1 (Aug. 1941); the Black Cat , introduced in Harvey Comics ' Pocket Comics #1 (also Aug. 1941); and
30916-564: The Swamp Thing , then a formulaic and poor-selling monster comic. Moore, with artists Stephen R. Bissette , Rick Veitch , and John Totleben , deconstructed and reimagined the character, writing a series of formally experimental stories that addressed environmental and social issues alongside the horror and fantasy, bolstered by research into the culture of Louisiana , where the series was set. For Swamp Thing he revived many of DC's neglected magical and supernatural characters, including
31178-408: The USPTO. Felix is one of many who argue that the term "superhero" has become generic (see discussion below). Felix's mark is currently abandoned, but he has stated that he intends to fight against DC and Marvel for use of the term. In 2024, Superbabies Limited managed to obtain a default judgement and cancel the "super heroes" trademarks as genericized, except for the animation pictures mark. This
31440-540: The Vampire Slayer and Darna have a tremendous influence on popular culture in their respective countries of origin. With more and more anime , manga and tokusatsu being translated or adapted, Western audiences were beginning to experience the Japanese styles of superhero fiction more than they were able to before. Saban 's Mighty Morphin Power Rangers , an adaptation of Zyuranger , created
31702-529: The West as Astro Boy , was published. The series focused upon a robot boy built by a scientist to replace his deceased son. Being built from an incomplete robot originally intended for military purposes, Astro Boy possessed amazing powers such as flight through thrusters in his feet and the incredible mechanical strength of his limbs. The 1950s saw the Silver Age of Comics . During this era DC introduced
31964-401: The adult Kid Marvelman as a mix of Jon Finch and David Bowie . He also updated the character's distinctive "MM" logo to a more modern look and settled on a lithe physique for the superhero instead of a muscular look. For his part, Alan Moore worked with Steve Moore on a chronology that would tie the Warrior strips together as part of Skinn's plan to have the heroes eventually work together as
32226-551: The age of five, getting books out of the local library, and subsequently attended Spring Lane Primary School. At the same time, he began reading comic strips, initially in British comics, such as Topper and The Beezer , but eventually also American imports such as The Flash , Detective Comics , Fantastic Four , and Blackhawk . He later passed his 11-plus exam and was, therefore, eligible to go to Northampton Grammar School , where he first came into contact with people who were middle class and better educated, and he
32488-512: The archetype include mythological characters such as Gilgamesh , Hanuman , Perseus , Odysseus , David , and demigods like Heracles , all of whom were blessed with extraordinary abilities, which later inspired the superpowers that became a fundamental aspect of modern-day superheroes. The distinct clothing and costumes of individuals from English folklore , like Robin Hood and Spring-Heeled Jack , also became inspirations. The dark costume of
32750-482: The archetypical hero stock character in 1930s American comics, superheroes are predominantly depicted as White American middle- or upper-class young adult males and females who are typically tall, athletic, educated, physically attractive and in perfect health. Beginning in the 1960s with the civil rights movement in the United States, and increasingly with the rising concern over political correctness in
33012-541: The ban on importing American comics was lifted in November 1959. In 1960 they had dropped to a degree where L. Miller & Son switched the title to monthly reprint titles, and Anglo ended his relationship with Miller. Marvelman and Young Marvelman were finally cancelled after the February 1963 editions - both having reached No. 370. The publisher subsequently entered bankruptcy. At the time of Marvelman's creation it
33274-539: The carnage in a realistic fashion. Contrary to popular belief, Miracleman #15 was not short-printed - Eclipse's sales manager at the time, Beau Smith , estimated the issue had the same print run of 85,000 copies as others of the period, and attributed the aftermarket demand to the story's critical reputation. Virginia Williams-Pennick praised the issue's realism in Amazing Heroes , noting that "The atrocities perpetrated on innocent humans by Bates are nightmarish in
33536-403: The character Swamp Thing , and penned original titles such as Watchmen . During that decade, Moore helped to bring about greater social respectability for comics in the United States and United Kingdom. He prefers the term "comic" to " graphic novel ". In the late 1980s and early 1990s he left the comic industry mainstream and went independent for a while, working on experimental work such as
33798-414: The character for two issues, the first of which would later receive an Eagle Award. Nevertheless, Leach's workload as art director for the magazine and artist on Marvelman proved too great. Moore suggested Alan Davis as a replacement, with whom he had a productive relationship on Marvel UK's Captain Britain strip and in 2000AD' s D.R. & Quinch . Skinn recalled he had baulked at the idea of having
34060-408: The character. A wide array of notable comic artists would provide cover art for the series, including Art Adams , John Cassaday , Dave Gibbons , Adi Granov , Bryan Hitch , J. G. Jones , Alex Maleev , Humberto Ramos , Alex Ross , Bill Sienkiewicz , Leinil Francis Yu and Quesada himself, as well as new pieces by Garry Leach , Alan Davis , John Totleben and Buckingham. The original artwork
34322-493: The character. The first attempt to make extra revenue was Miracleman: Apocrypha . The first issue of Gaiman and Buckingham's second arc appeared some ten months after the conclusion of The Golden Age , in June 1992. The arc was planned to revolve around the revived Young Miracleman and his reaction to his old friend's new world, examining Miracleman's doubts about his actions and Miraclewoman 's judgement. Barry Windsor-Smith ,
34584-546: The comic produced. Worried by Mullaney's erratic behaviour at the time, Yronwode returned the artwork to Gaiman. Buckingham would allow several pages to be printed in George Khoury's 2001 non-fiction history of the series, Kimota! The Miracleman Companion . "The Dark Age" was originally planned to take place "three or four hundred years" after the events of the Silver Age, featuring the apparent return of Mike Moran to
34846-489: The comic was begun by Bill Sienkiewicz, who left the series after only two issues in 1990, and despite plans that his assistant, Al Columbia , would replace him, it never occurred and the series remained unfinished . Following this, in 1991 the company Victor Gollancz Ltd published Moore's A Small Killing , a full-length story illustrated by Oscar Zárate , about a once idealistic advertising executive haunted by his boyhood self. According to Lance Parkin, A Small Killing
35108-413: The comic-strip characters Patoruzú (1928) and Popeye (1929) and novelist Philip Wylie 's character Hugo Danner (1930). Another early example was Sarutobi Sasuke , a Japanese superhero ninja from children's novels in the 1910s; by 1914, he had a number of superhuman powers and abilities. The French character L'Oiselle , created in 1909, can be classed as a superheroine. In August 1937, in
35370-463: The comics mainstream. In 2005, he remarked that "I love the comics medium. I pretty much detest the comics industry. Give it another 15 months, I'll probably be pulling out of mainstream, commercial comics." The only ABC title continued by Moore was The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen ; after cutting ties with DC he launched the new League saga, Volume III: Century , in a co-publishing partnership of Top Shelf Productions and Knockabout Comics ,
35632-534: The companies filed a trademark application as joint owners for the mark "SUPER HEROES" for a series of animated motion pictures in 2009 (Reg. No. 5613972). Both DC and Marvel also individually owned trademarks involving the "super hero" mark. Notably, DC owns the mark " Legion of Super-Heroes " for comic magazines and Marvel owns the mark "Marvel Super Hero Island" for story books, fiction books, and children’s activity books. DC and Marvel have become known for aggressively protecting their registered marks. In 2019,
35894-552: The companies pursued a British law student named Graham Jules who was attempting to publish a self-help book titled Business Zero to Superhero . Much academic debate exists about whether the "super hero" mark has become generic and whether DC and Marvel have created a duopoly over the "super hero" mark. Conversely, DC and Marvel hold that they are merely exercising their right and duty to protect their registered marks. The following trademarks were or are registered jointly with MARVEL CHARACTERS, INC. and DC COMICS: As mentioned,
36156-525: The corresponding Eclipse issues, while the abundant sketches and artwork Buckingham provided saw the Anglo reprints dropped in favour of extended versions of "Miracleman: Behind the Scenes". On December 29, 2021, the Timeless one-shot was released, featuring the Miracleman "MM" logo on the final page. Later announcements by Marvel confirmed that Miracleman would appear in the Marvel universe going forward. For
36418-448: The cover to Miracleman #9. Moore had considered quitting the title after the end of Book Two after Yronwode and Mullaney berated his then-wife Phyllis over the phone over deadlines, but ultimately decided to stay on due to the opportunity to link up with Totleben again. The first result of their latest collaboration was Miracleman #11, released in May 1987, with the artist drawing heavily on
36680-400: The crossover featured a backup strip called "Screaming" set in the Miracleman universe - the debut of the new creative team, some ten months before Moore and Totleben had actually completed their final issue on the main title. The Golden Age was published with - by the title's standards - relative speed in Miracleman #17-22 between June 1990 and August 1991. Gaiman and Buckingham were joined on
36942-477: The debut of Shotaro Ishinomori 's Skull Man (the basis for his later Kamen Rider ) in 1970, Go Nagai's Devilman in 1972 and Gerry Conway and John Romita's Punisher in 1974. The dark Skull Man manga would later get a television adaptation and underwent drastic changes. The character was redesigned to resemble a grasshopper, becoming the renowned first masked hero of the Kamen Rider series. Kamen Rider
37204-604: The decision was taken to comprehensively re-draw the extant material before proceeding with the rest of the story, as revealed by senior editor Nick Lowe at the 2017 San Diego Comic-Con . At the following year's SDCC Marvel used a retailer-only event to announced legal hurdles causing the cancellation had been resolved and the new series was supposed to begin publication in 2019 with the previously announced creative team of Gaiman and Buckingham on board. On June 24, 2022, Marvel Comics announced that Gaiman and Buckingham would complete Miracleman: The Silver Age , beginning in October of
37466-412: The division of spoils and the potentially constrictive Challenger Force concept. Moore and Leach would shortly collaborate again on Warpsmith for Warrior . Warrior #12 featured a dialogue-free Young Marvelman story set in flashback, written by Moore and drawn by John Ridgway before Book Two began in #13. Warrior #17 saw Ridgway again take art duties for a double-length flashback strip tying into
37728-401: The end of the decade, in 1939, Batman was created by Bob Kane and Bill Finger . During the 1940s there were many superheroes: The Flash , Green Lantern and Blue Beetle debuted in this era. This era saw the debut of one of the earliest female superheroes, writer-artist Fletcher Hanks 's character Fantomah , an ageless ancient Egyptian woman in the modern day who could transform into
37990-444: The epic From Hell and the prose novel Voice of the Fire . He subsequently returned to the mainstream later in the 1990s, working for Image Comics , before developing America's Best Comics , an imprint through which he published works such as The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and the occult-based Promethea . In 2016, he published Jerusalem : a 1,266-page experimental novel set in his hometown of Northampton, UK. Moore
38252-640: The episodes of "The Stars My Degradation" and drew all of them, which appeared in Sounds from 12 July 1980, to 19 March 1983. Beginning in 1979 Moore created a new comic strip known as Maxwell the Magic Cat in the Northants Post (based in Moore's hometown), under the pseudonym of Jill de Ray (a pun on the Medieval child murderer Gilles de Rais , something he found to be a "sardonic joke"). Earning
38514-525: The exception of issues No. 59 and 62. Moore's run on Swamp Thing was successful both critically and commercially, and it inspired DC to recruit British writers such as Grant Morrison , Jamie Delano , Peter Milligan , and Neil Gaiman to write comics in a similar vein, often involving radical revamps of obscure characters. These titles laid the foundation of what became the Vertigo line. Moore began producing further stories for DC Comics, including
38776-425: The extreme". Thomas Yeates would provide uncredited assistance to Totleben for a few panels of Miracleman #16, which saw the arc conclude with Miracleman taking control of Earth and turning into the utopia in what the writer called a "benign dictatorship", admitting he intentionally left flaws in the apparent paradise:. Everybody's dreams come true. What I wanted to do was show the blissfulness of it all, but at
39038-481: The fans wanted rather than being innovative. Next he took over Rob Liefeld 's Supreme , about a character with many similarities with DC Comics' Superman . Instead of emphasising increased realism as he had done with earlier superhero comics he had taken over, Moore did the opposite and began basing the series on the Silver Age Superman comics of the 1960s, introducing a female superhero Suprema,
39300-429: The final chapter of Olympus being double-length. Marvel chose to censor Kid Miracleman 's use of a derogatory slur in the updated version of Miracleman #15. The series was retitled Miracleman by Gaiman & Buckingham in 2015, in preparation for the reprinting and continuation the pair's run, and reset with a new #1. Buckingham and collaborator D'Israeli refreshed the artwork. The story content again matched with
39562-515: The first black superhero to star in his own series . In 1989, the Monica Rambeau incarnation of Captain Marvel was the first female black superhero from a major publisher to get her own title in a special one-shot issue. In 1971, Red Wolf became the first Native American in the superheroic tradition to headline a series. In 1973, Shang-Chi became the first prominent Asian superhero to star in an American comic book ( Kato had been
39824-454: The first entity to commercialize the phrase "super hero" when it registered the mark in connection with Halloween costumes. In 1972, Mego Corporation , an American toy company, attempted to register the mark "World's Greatest Superheroes" in connection with its line of action figures. Mego Corporation’s attempted registration led Ben Cooper, Inc. to sue Mego Corporation for trademark infringement. Due to its financial struggles, Mego Corporation
40086-433: The first issue was largely positive, though some felt the supplemental material did little to justify the book's price Corey Schroeder of Comic Vine gave Miracleman #1 a grade of 4 out of 5 stars, saying, "This issue really defines a “mixed bag” in terms of what you get. On the one hand, it's very cool to see the original stories and, for me, very, very fascinating peering behind the curtain at exactly what went on behind
40348-582: The first new Miracleman material under the Marvel Comics banner was announced. All-New Miracleman Annual featured a 'lost' story that was written in the 1980s and pitched to Warrior unsuccessfully by Grant Morrison , now drawn by Quesada; it was joined by a brand new story by Peter Milligan and Mike Allred . According to Diamond Comic Distributors , All-New Miracleman Annual #1 was the 118th best selling comic book in December 2014. Michael Brown of ComicBook.com called All-New Miracleman Annual #1
40610-397: The first part, titled "1910" released in 2009, the second, titled "1969", released in 2011, and the third, titled "2009", released in 2012. He continues to work with Kevin O'Neill on their League of Extraordinary Gentlemen spin-off, Nemo , with three graphic novels published, "Heart of Ice", "The Roses of Berlin", and "River of Ghosts". In 2006, the complete edition of Lost Girls
40872-424: The following issue, which was split into two chapters to preserve continuity of the format with previous work. Reception continued to be strong, with R.A. Jones praising the first six issues at length - noting that the revisionist story "will not spell the death of the superhero, but it will show that there are no limits to what can be done by the genre - save those imposed by our too-small minds.". However soon after
41134-441: The format allowed multiple Warrior episodes to be reprinted in a single issue, initially priced at 75¢ - at the time the cheapest price a full-colour direct-sales only ongoing comic had been published with. All references to "Marvelman" and its derivatives were modified to "Miracleman". As the American title was a standard 36 pages at this stage the strip contents were entirely Miracleman material, meaning three chapters per issue. As
41396-434: The framing sequence mocked Marvel's former practice of running reprints, critic R.A. Jones would note that this honestly would have been more convincing if it had been on the cover, instead of only revealed in the interior. The experiment would not be repeated during later delays. Following #8 Austen left the title, infuriated by coming home to find Yronwode berating his grandmother by phone over late artwork. Austen for his part
41658-405: The future of Marvelman ) would come to fruition before Warrior folded. The first 6-page episode appeared in the first issue of Warrior (dated March 1982) which also included a four-page article on the character's history penned by Skinn.; the character was not named on the cover or the index, with his identity only being confirmed on the final page of the story. For the fourth issue, branded as
41920-403: The godlike beings at Olympus, a citadel built on the remains of London - although Miracleman is haunted by Liz's suggestion that he has lost touch with his humanity. Superhero A superhero or superheroine is a fictional character who typically possesses superpowers or abilities beyond those of ordinary people, is frequently costumed concealing their identity, and fits the role of
42182-429: The greatest comic book ever written. Alongside roughly contemporary works such as Frank Miller's Batman: The Dark Knight Returns , Art Spiegelman 's Maus , and Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez 's Love and Rockets , Watchmen was part of a late 1980s trend in American comics towards more adult sensibilities. Comics historian Les Daniels noted that Watchmen "called into question the basic assumptions on which
42444-417: The hero fights a fascist dictatorship based in London, in the other an Aryan superman imposes one." Although Moore's work numbered amongst the most popular strips to appear in 2000 AD , Moore himself became increasingly concerned at the lack of creator's rights in British comics. In 1985, he talked to fanzine Arkensword , noting that he had stopped working for all British publishers bar IPC, "purely for
42706-479: The hypothetical heteronormative male audience. Villains, such as Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy , use their sexuality to take advantage of their male victims. In the film versions of these characters, their sexuality and seductive methods are highlighted. Poison Ivy uses seduction through poison to take over the minds of her victims as seen in the 1997 film Batman and Robin . Harley Quinn in 2016's Suicide Squad uses her sexuality to her advantage, acting in
42968-470: The idea of a masked avenger and the superhero trope of a secret identity . Over the next few decades, masked and costumed pulp fiction characters such as Jimmie Dale/The Grey Seal (1914), Zorro (1919), Buck Rogers (1928), The Shadow (1930), and Flash Gordon (1934), and comic strip heroes such as the Phantom (1936), began appearing, as did non-costumed characters with super strength , including
43230-466: The idea when first proposed for Warrior . Yronwode would claim the issue drew a lot of negative criticism but would later note this was mainly in fanzines . The following issue concluded Book Two with a number of teasers for Book Three, with the art again from Veitch. Both issues also saw a format change, with a single 16-page chapter of Miracleman and a back-up strip - initially fellow Warrior alumni Laser Eraser and Pressbutton . R.A. Jones remained
43492-477: The issue after learning of its contents, the editor chose to put a sarcastic warning on the front cover, styled after the Surgeon General health warning appearing on cigarette packaging and using wording she had seen used in a warning on a Today report. While the issue has been frequently cited as causing great controversy, Moore recalled response was positive - though he noted that Skinn had blanched at
43754-409: The issues of creator's rights and merchandising. Moore and Gibbons were not paid any royalties for a Watchmen spin-off badge set, as DC defined them as a "promotional item", and according to certain reports, he and Gibbons gained only 2% of the profits earned by DC for Watchmen . Meanwhile, a group of creators including Moore, Frank Miller, Marv Wolfman , and Howard Chaykin , fell out with DC over
44016-415: The late 1970s before achieving success publishing comic strips in such magazines as 2000 AD and Warrior . He was subsequently picked up by DC Comics as "the first comics writer living in Britain to do prominent work in America", where he worked on major characters such as Batman ( Batman: The Killing Joke ) and Superman (" Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? "), substantially developed
44278-467: The latter, complete with a domino mask and a cape, became influential for the myriad of masked rogues in penny dreadfuls and dime novels . The vigilantes of the American Old West also became an influence to the superhero. Several vigilantes during this time period hid their identities using masks. In frontier communities where de jure law was not yet matured, people sometimes took
44540-606: The law into their own hands with makeshift masks made out of sacks . Vigilante mobs and gangs like the San Diego Vigilantes and the Bald Knobbers became infamous throughout that Old West era. Such masked vigilantism later inspired fictional masked crimefighters in American story-telling, beginning with the character Deadwood Dick in 1877. The word superhero dates back to 1899. The 1903 British play The Scarlet Pimpernel and its spinoffs popularized
44802-419: The likes of Batwoman in 1956, Supergirl , Miss Arrowette , and Bat-Girl ; all female derivatives of established male superheroes. In 1957 Japan, Shintoho produced the first film serial featuring the superhero character Super Giant , signaling a shift in Japanese popular culture towards tokusatsu masked superheroes over kaiju giant monsters. Along with Astro Boy , the Super Giant serials had
45064-409: The local paper Anon , and St. Pancras Panda , a parody of Paddington Bear , for the Oxford-based Back Street Bugle . His first paid work was for a few drawings that were printed in NME . In late 1979/early 1980, he and his friend, comic-book writer Steve Moore (whom he had known since he was fourteen) co-created the violent cyborg character Axel Pressbutton for some comics in Dark Star ,
45326-524: The magazine King of the Monsters in 1977 describing Godzilla as "Superhero of the '70s." In 1971, Kamen Rider launched the "Henshin Boom" on Japanese television in the early 1970s, greatly impacting the tokusatsu superhero genre in Japan. In 1972, the Science Ninja Team Gatchaman anime debuted, which built upon the superhero team idea of the live-action Phantom Agents as well as introducing different colors for team members and special vehicles to support them, said vehicles could also combine into
45588-499: The magazine were impressed by Moore's work and decided to offer him a more permanent strip, starting with a story that they wanted to be vaguely based upon the hit film E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial . The result, Skizz , which was illustrated by Jim Baikie , told the story of the titular alien who crashes to Earth and is cared for by a teenager named Roxy, and Moore later noted that in his opinion, this work "owes far too much to Alan Bleasdale ." Another series he produced for 2000 AD
45850-452: The main continuity. Set during a ten-year gap between the events of The Golden Age and The Silver Age , the series was set to be written by Eclipse editor Fred Burke with art by Mike Deodato , with Gaiman having editorial veto over the contents. Despite a trade advert for the series being printed and the first issue being solicited, none of Triumphant was published before Eclipse went out of business, and conflicting accounts of how close it
46112-442: The main narrative, this time featuring all three members of the Marvelman Family. Part of Skinn's informal agreement with Anglo was the potential to earn royalties from reprints of vintage material; this combined with the positive reception to Marvelman in particular led to the publication of the fateful Marvelman Special in 1984. Moore and Davis provided wrapping sequences that framed the strips as an epilogue to Book One, featuring
46374-418: The mainstream, Moore, with his wife Phyllis and their mutual lover Deborah Delano, set up their own comics publishing company, which they named Mad Love. The works they published in Mad Love turned away from the science fiction and superhero genres that Moore was used to writing, instead focusing on realism, ordinary people, and political causes. Mad Love's first publication, AARGH , was an anthology of work by
46636-399: The mark in connection with comic books, and were granted the mark by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) in 1981. In the years leading up to the assignment of the mark, both DC and Marvel battled to register various trademarks involving the phrase “superhero.” However, DC and Marvel quickly discovered that they could only register marks involving the phrase "superhero" if
46898-429: The medium and whose sheer exultation upon finding himself gainfully employed within it shine from every line, every new costume design, each nuance of expression." The third comic company that Moore worked for in this period was Quality Communications , publishers of a new monthly magazine called Warrior . The magazine was founded by Dez Skinn , a former editor of both IPC (publishers of 2000 AD ) and Marvel UK, and
47160-457: The names, and coloured by Olyoptics and Marcus David . As the first issue recounted Young Miracleman's origin an editorial note was included to remind readers that the stories had been retconned as dreams induced by Gargunza. The second issue featured a brief one-page history on the characters by former Gower Street Studios artist Denis Gifford , and the issues featured new covers by Garry Leach and Paul Gulacy , respectively. Having completed
47422-509: The need for the comic to have a superhero strip. Having read Marvelman as a child and having encountered Mick Anglo earlier in his career, Skinn was aware of the character's status as a historic British superhero and settled on a revival for Warrior , explaining: It was always going to be Marvelman. I knew the character's history: I'd had a few Annuals as a kid and those cheap and nasty little comics. Wasn't particularly thrilled with them, outside of occasional stunning art, but I'd always had
47684-432: The new Spider-Man after the apparent death of the original Spider-Man, Peter Parker . Kamala Khan , a Pakistani-American Muslim teenager who is revealed to have Inhuman lineage after her shapeshifting powers manifested, takes on the identity of Ms. Marvel in 2014 after Carol Danvers had become Captain Marvel. Her self-titled comic book series became a cultural phenomenon, with extensive media coverage by CNN ,
47946-478: The next part (several pages of pencilled had been used with Gaiman and Buckingham's permission in George Khoury's 2001 non-fiction book Kimota! The Miracleman Companion ). Buckingham was credited as co-writer of #4, which also featured a newly coloured reprint of a strip from Anglo's Young Marvelman #57 via the device of Miracleman reviewing a recording of one of the dreams induced for the Miracleman Family by Gargunza. Variant covers were once again commissioned from
48208-470: The one-shot's third printing in February 2022, Buckingham produced a cover prominently featuring the character As part of a 2022 celebration marking the 40th anniversary of the character's revival in the pages of Warrior , Marvel issued Miracleman Omnibus (containing the entire Alan Moore run, though he was once again credited as The Original Writer) and a fresh collected edition of Miracleman: The Golden Age . Marvel also released Miracleman #0, featuring
48470-404: The original Marvelman-related names have not been collected. Warrior ended after 26 issues with no further appearances from Marvelman; the title had been running at a loss since it began publication, with Skinn estimating it had cost him in the region of $ 40,000 across its life. Following the demise of Warrior , and after unsuccessful negotiations with DC and Marvel , Skinn struck a deal with
48732-571: The original character for American readers(slightly modified from the similar piece that had appeared in the first issue of Warrior ), while Moore also wrote a text feature on the character for the second issue. Miracleman #2 also debuted the title's letters page, named "Miracle Mail", that would act as a forum for the series and its stories, and was initially answered by Yronwode herself. New covers were also commissioned, featuring work from notable artists such as Howard Chaykin , Jim Starlin and Paul Gulacy . Material from Quality's Marvelman Special
48994-428: The ownership structure of the property it could not be continued without the approval of both. Regardless, what Moore saw as Marvel's bullying tactics and the unfair principle of the American company trying to object to the name of a character created before they had switched to their current identity would greatly contribute to his decision to refuse to work for Marvel again. At this stage, that Anglo retained ownership of
49256-425: The pages of several popular superhero titles from the late 1950s onward: Hal Jordan 's love interest Carol Ferris was introduced as the Vice-President of Ferris Aircraft and later took over the company from her father; Medusa , who was first introduced in the Fantastic Four series, is a member of the Inhuman Royal Family and a prominent statesperson within her people's quasi-feudal society; and Carol Danvers ,
49518-536: The panels, and D'Israeli was replaced as colourist by Jordie Bellaire . David Harth of Comic Book Resources ranked Miracleman: The Silver Age #1 2nd in their "10 Best Marvel Comics Of 2022" list, writing, "Marvel's best books are must-reads for any fan, and that goes doubly for Miracleman: The Silver Age, by writer Neil Gaiman and artist Mark Buckingham. Miracleman fans have waited decades for this book, and it's impressed as much as anyone would have imagined. Gaiman and Buckingham finally finishing their Miracleman story
49780-420: The past decade following the rise of comic book characters in the film industry (Marvel/DC movies). Women are presented differently than their male counterparts, typically wearing revealing clothing that showcases their curves and cleavage and showing a lot of skin in some cases. Heroes like Power Girl and Wonder Woman are portrayed wearing little clothing and showing cleavage. Power Girl is portrayed as wearing
50042-399: The people I wanted to deal with." Image partner Jim Lee offered to provide Moore with his own imprint, which would be under Lee's company WildStorm Productions . Moore named this imprint America's Best Comics , lining up a series of artists and writers to assist him in this venture. Lee soon sold WildStorm – including America's Best Comics – to DC Comics, and "Moore found himself back with
50304-452: The period is connected with the events in some way, including "Elephant Man" Joseph Merrick , Oscar Wilde , Native American writer Black Elk , William Morris , artist Walter Sickert , and Aleister Crowley , who makes a brief appearance as a young boy. Illustrated in a sooty pen-and-ink style by Eddie Campbell , From Hell took nearly ten years to complete, outlasting Taboo and going through two more publishers before being collected as
50566-406: The phrase referenced their own company or a character associated with their company. As a result, DC and Marvel decided to become joint owners of the "superhero" trademark. Although many consumers likely see DC and Marvel as competitors, the two comic book publishing giants are allies when it comes to protecting the trademark "superhero" and variants thereof. Although joint ownership in a trademark
50828-419: The power of a god, but was still drawn to a much weaker, mortal male character. This can be explained by the sociological concept "feminine apologetic," which reinforces a woman's femininity to account for her masculine attributes (strength, individualism, toughness, aggressiveness, bravery). Women in comic books are considered to be misrepresented due to being created by men, for men. The Hawkeye Initiative
51090-520: The public, and policing unauthorized uses. However, misuse by the public alone does not necessarily cause a trademark to become generic if the primary significance of the term is still to indicate a particular source. Some legal experts argue that, like the once-trademarked terms "aspirin" and "yo-yo," the term "superhero" now primarily refers to a general type of character with extraordinary abilities, rather than characters originating from specific publishers. In keeping with their origins as representing
51352-435: The reason that IPC so far have avoided lying to me, cheating me or generally treating me like shit." He did join other creators in decrying the wholesale relinquishing of all rights, and in 1986 stopped writing for 2000 AD , leaving mooted future volumes of the Halo Jones story unstarted. Moore's outspoken opinions and principles, particularly on the subject of creator's rights and ownership, would see him burn bridges with
51614-429: The reprints. The only material skipped was the future-set story "The Yesterday Gambit", partly due to it no longer cleanly fitting into Moore's plans. The series received a positive reception, with Amazing Heroes reviewer R.A. Jones saying "the book deserves to be a hit" after reading the first issue; he reminded readers again to buy it before the second issue appeared. Miracleman went on to win 'Best New Series' at
51876-432: The same time you can't point your finger on what's wrong; it's very difficult. There's got to be something wrong with this. There's something that feels wrong. At the time Moore had announced the issue as the last he would write for a superhero title; while positively reviewing the comic for Amazing Heroes , Jeffrey S. Lang called it a "valedictory address" and praised its thought-provoking nature. The series itself meanwhile
52138-444: The same year. Buckingham noted “Neil and I have had these stories in our heads since 1989 so it is amazing to finally be on the verge of sharing them with our readers.". Miracleman by Gaiman & Buckingham: The Silver Age #1 finally entered publication in October 22, with the first two issues updating the two instalments previously printed by Eclipse. While the material followed the same script, Buckingham recomposed and redrew many of
52400-455: The scenes with this character (the interview with Anglo by Joe Quesada is especially interesting, especially since very little of it focuses on the comic and a great deal focuses on the man himself) but I could see someone who couldn't care less feeling like they're paying extra for nothing. Buyer beware, in that case, but the core story here is as rock solid and resonant now as it was thirty years ago." Jesse Schedeen of IGN gave Miracleman #1
52662-401: The scripts were incredibly detailed he would simply ignore details he felt were extraneous, and felt Moore was always open to suggestions; for example it was Leach's idea that Kid Marvelman would retain his business suit during his confrontation with Marvelman as he felt this better fitted the tone of the story than the character's fifties costume. Artist Mick Austin provided painted covers of
52924-405: The second, against the Martians from The War of the Worlds . A third volume entitled The Black Dossier was set in the 1950s. The series was well received, and Moore was pleased that an American audience was enjoying something he considered "perversely English", and that it was inspiring some readers to get interested in Victorian literature. Another of Moore's ABC works was Tom Strong ,
53186-458: The series hit the first of what would be a number of delays, as Eclipse's offices flooded. As a result, Miracleman #7 was delayed and #8 - instead of featuring the birth of Miracleman's daughter as announced in the previous issue -would instead consist of two modified Mick Anglo-era strips and a preview for the unrelated Eclipse series The New Wave , wrapped by a self-referential framing sequence created by and featuring Yronwode and Austen. While
53448-460: The series was continued by American publisher Eclipse Comics until 1993. Since 2009 the rights to the character have been licensed by Marvel Comics , who have published new material. By 1954, Hackney -based publisher L. Miller & Son, Ltd had experienced considerable success reprinting the adventures of Captain Marvel and Captain Marvel Jr. , licensed from Fawcett Publications . However, legal action by DC Comics led to Fawcett cancelling
53710-472: The stories had gone out of publication, had tricked him into believing he would eventually retain ownership, only to discover that DC had no intention of ceasing publication of the stories, effectively preventing the ownership from ever returning to Moore. In a 2006 interview with The New York Times , Moore recalled telling DC, "I said, 'Fair enough. You have managed to successfully swindle me, and so I will never work for you again'". Abandoning DC Comics and
53972-510: The stories he planned for the character, Moore left the title, hand-picking Neil Gaiman as his successor as a result of Violent Cases and other comics Gaiman had written. [Alan Moore] said "now, I should warn you that by the end of Miracleman #16 I will have solved all crimes, ended all wars and created an absolutely perfect world where no further stories can occur. Do you want to back out now? Please feel free." I said, "No, I'd love to." While initially intimidated by following Moore, Gaiman
54234-403: The story evolve considerably. The storyline featured a graphic showdown between Miracleman and his allies and the returning Kid Miracleman in a devastated London, which Moore intended as a demonstration on the damage a superhuman battle could result in on the real world; Totleben drew on Francisco Goya 's The Disasters of War and the American Civil War photography of Mathew Brady to portray
54496-537: The strip himself while it was shaped before involving other artists from his studio, including Don Lawrence , Ron Embleton and Denis Gifford , who would all go on to have successful careers in the industry. The weekly comics were very successful, exceeding the sales of their predecessors, and led to several spin-offs - including a third title from October 1956, Marvelman Family , a monthly that featured Marvelman and Young Marvelman teaming up with Kid Marvelman that would run until 1959. Sales however began to fall after
54758-468: The strip stalled. However, other aspects evolved as Moore grew as a writer. Art duties were undertaken by Chuck Austen , then working under his birthname name Chuck Beckum. The artist was picked by Moore and announced at the 1985 San Diego Comic Con , and character art he produced featured in #3's letters page. From issue 7 Eclipse increased the price of the title to 95¢, the 75¢ price having been unsustainable despite respectable sales. Austen completed all of
55020-442: The style of Virgil Finlay . However Totleben began struggling with what was initially diagnosed as retinitis pigmentosa , greatly slowing his work-rate. Moore vociferously resisted any suggestion of replacing Totleben, resulting in the nominally bi-monthly six issues taking over two and a half years to complete; by this point the series' slow schedule was well known. Totleben's work on Miracleman would subsequently be shortlisted for
55282-493: The subject matter. DC had already published a version of the same event in their Paradox Press volume The Big Book of Conspiracies . In 2003, a documentary about him was made by Shadowsnake Films, titled The Mindscape of Alan Moore , which was later released on DVD. With many of the stories he had planned for America's Best Comics brought to an end, and with his increasing dissatisfaction with how DC Comics were interfering with his work, he decided to once more pull out of
55544-445: The superhero genre is formulated". DC Comics writer and executive Paul Levitz observed in 2010 that "As with The Dark Knight Returns , Watchmen set off a chain reaction of rethinking the nature of superheroes and heroism itself, and pushed the genre darker for more than a decade. The series won acclaim ... and would continue to be regarded as one of the most important literary works the field ever produced." Moore briefly became
55806-435: The superhero supergroups featured at least one (and often the only) female member, much like DC's flagship superhero team the Justice League of America (whose initial roster included Wonder Woman as the token female ); examples include the Fantastic Four 's Invisible Girl , the X-Men 's Jean Grey (originally known as Marvel Girl ), the Avengers ' Wasp , and the Brotherhood of Mutants ' Scarlet Witch (who later joined
56068-447: The symmetrical design of issue 5, "Fearful Symmetry", where the last page is a near mirror-image of the first, the second-last of the second, and so on, and in this manner is an early example of Moore's interest in the human perception of time and its implications for free will. It is the only comic to win the Hugo Award , in a one-time category ("Best Other Form"). It is widely seen as Moore's best work, and has been regularly described as
56330-410: The term "SUPER HERO" trademark is at risk of becoming generic. Courts have noted that determining whether a term has become generic is a highly factual inquiry not suitable for resolution without considering evidence like dictionary definitions, media usage, and consumer surveys. Trademark owners can take steps to prevent genericide , such as using the trademark with the generic product name, educating
56592-427: The third book - completing Moore's run - were printed in Miracleman #11-16, with the contents now corresponding directly to the respective Eclipse issues. Artist John Totleben provided new covers for the reprinted issues and also contributed a large amount of original artwork and sketches to the "Miracleman - Behind the Scenes" sections, which were again joined by Anglo reprints. The latter were dropped for #16, due to
56854-473: The time for its flashy artistic style, graphic violence, and scantily clad large-breasted women, something that horrified many of his fans. His first work published by Image, an issue of the series Spawn , was soon followed by the creation of his own mini-series, 1963 , which was "a pastiche of Jack Kirby stories drawn for Marvel in the sixties, with their rather overblown style, colourful characters and cosmic style". According to Moore, "after I'd done
57116-429: The time he largely avoided interacting with Yronwode for the rest of the writer's run on the title. Austen was replaced by Rick Veitch from Miracleman #9. Veitch was a fan of the series, crediting it as an influence on his own revisionist superhero story The One . The cover bore a warning due to featuring "graphic scenes of childbirth" as it saw the delivery of Miracleman and Liz's daughter Winter. The idea of doing
57378-482: The title from Miracleman #21 by D'Israeli , who painted Buckingham's work. By the series' standards The Golden Age met with relatively lukewarm reaction, with some readers feeling the small-scale stories indicated there was little future to Miracleman in terms of fresh stories. However, Jeffrey Lang praised Miracleman #17, and felt it was unclear if the Golden Age appellation was ironic, while T.M. Maple lauded Gaiman's characterisation in Miracleman #20. The series
57640-401: The title was retitled Miracleman , with the characters renamed accordingly; previewing the series in Amazing Heroes , Eclipse editor-in-chief Cat Yronwode suggested she had considered a write-in campaign to name the hero. The renaming seems to have taken place independently from "Miracleman" having been among the working names for the character considered by Anglo and Miller, and its use for
57902-425: The titles, cutting off Miller's source of material. Not wanting to lose two of their bestselling titles, Len Miller contacted artist Mick Anglo , whose Gower Street Studios had already created cover art for many L. Miller & Son comics. He designed the characters as the similarly powered Marvelman and Young Marvelman , with the titles renamed accordingly from their respective 25th editions. Anglo initially handled
58164-497: The town for several generations. He grew up in a part of Northampton known as The Boroughs, a poverty-stricken area with a lack of facilities and high levels of illiteracy, but he nonetheless "loved it. I loved the people. I loved the community and ... I didn't know that there was anything else." He lived in a house with his parents, brewery worker Ernest Moore and printer Sylvia Doreen, with his younger brother Mike, and with his maternal grandmother. He "read omnivorously" from
58426-453: The town's eastern district while he worked in an office for a sub-contractor of the local gas board. Moore felt that he was not being fulfilled by this job, and so decided to try to earn a living doing something more artistic. Abandoning his office job, he decided to instead take up both writing and illustrating his own comics. He had already produced a couple of strips for several alternative fanzines and magazines, such as Anon E. Mouse for
58688-421: The two companies also own a variety of other superhero-related marks. For instance, DC owns "Legion of Super-Heroes" and " DC Super Hero Girls " and Marvel owns “Marvel Super Hero Island" and "Marvel Super Hero Adventures." DC and Marvel have garnered a reputation for zealously protecting their superhero marks. As noted above, one of these instances included a man by the name of Graham Jules, who sought to publish
58950-421: The two most prominent superhero strips in the country sharing creative teams but relented, and the first 'book' ("A Dream of Flying") concluded after 10 chapters in Warrior #11. Warrior meanwhile had attracted good notices, including major recognition at the Eagle Awards, but was struggling with sales and heavily subsidised by Skinn's comic shop business to keep going, while the creative teams began quibbling about
59212-498: The weakest member of her team a decade ago. Both major American publishers began introducing new superheroines with a more distinct feminist theme as part of their origin stories or character development. Examples include Big Barda , Power Girl , and the Huntress by DC comics; and from Marvel, the second Black Widow , Shanna the She-Devil , and The Cat . Female supporting characters who were successful professionals or hold positions of authority in their own right also debuted in
59474-528: The world would be like if costumed heroes had really existed since the 1940s, Moore and artist Dave Gibbons created a Cold War mystery in which the shadow of nuclear war threatens the world. The heroes who are caught up in this escalating crisis either work for the US government or are outlawed, and are motivated to heroism by their various psychological hang-ups. Watchmen is non-linear and told from multiple points of view, and includes highly sophisticated self-references, ironies, and formal experiments such as
59736-461: Was D.R. and Quinch , which was illustrated by Alan Davis . The story, which Moore described as "continuing the tradition of Dennis the Menace , but giving him a thermonuclear capacity", revolved around two delinquent aliens, and was a science-fiction take on National Lampoon ' s characters O.C. and Stiggs . The work widely considered to be the highlight of his 2000 AD career, and that which he described as "the one that worked best for me",
59998-401: Was From Hell , a fictionalised account of the Jack the Ripper murders of the 1880s. Inspired by Douglas Adams ' novel Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency , Moore reasoned that to solve a crime holistically , one would need to solve the entire society it occurred in, and depicts the murders as a consequence of the politics and economics of the time. Just about every notable figure of
60260-417: Was The Ballad of Halo Jones . Co-created with artist Ian Gibson , the series was about a young woman in the 50th century. The series was discontinued after three books due to a dispute between Moore and Fleetway, the magazine's publishers, over the intellectual property rights of the characters Moore and Gibson had co-created. Another comic company to employ Moore was Marvel UK, who had formerly purchased
60522-436: Was The Bojeffries Saga , a comedy about a working-class English family of vampires and werewolves , drawn by Steve Parkhouse . Warrior closed before these stories were completed, but under new publishers both Miracleman and V for Vendetta were resumed by Moore, who finished both stories by 1989. Moore's biographer Lance Parkin remarked that "reading them through together throws up some interesting contrasts – in one
60784-405: Was "more subtle", and was "ABC's most accessible comic". Moore's Top 10 , a deadpan police procedural drama set in a city called Neopolis where everyone, including the police, criminals, and civilians has super-powers, costumes, and secret identities, was drawn by Gene Ha and Zander Cannon . The series ended after twelve issues but has spawned four spin-offs: a miniseries Smax , which
61046-469: Was a danger to the moral well-being of the rest of the students there, which was possibly true." LSD was an incredible experience. Not that I'm recommending it for anybody else; but for me it kind of – it hammered home to me that reality was not a fixed thing. That the reality that we saw about us every day was one reality, and a valid one – but that there were others, different perspectives where different things have meaning that were just as valid. That had
61308-430: Was again shortlisted for the 1992 Eisners as 'Best Continuing Series', while Gaiman was recognised as 'Best Writer' for his work on Miracleman combined with The Sandman and The Books of Magic . The title remained one of Eclipse's strongest sellers and, with the company's fortunes dipping, they attempted to find a way to increase the output while not alienating the creative team, who had veto on any material featuring
61570-509: Was already being written by John Wagner , fellow writer Alan Grant saw promise in Moore's work – later remarking that "this guy's a really fucking good writer" – and instead asked him to write some short stories for the publication's Future Shocks series. While the first few were rejected, Grant advised Moore on improvements, and eventually accepted the first of many. Meanwhile, Moore had also begun writing minor stories for Doctor Who Weekly and later commented that "I really, really wanted
61832-519: Was also used but instead of being colourised the relettered pages were subjected to the stereoscopy process by Ray Zone and released as the one-shot Miracleman 3D #1 in October 1985, one of a number of such titles issued by Eclipse at the time. In order to accommodate visually impaired readers unable to view 3D comics, a limited edition mail order black-and-white only version was also produced in limited numbers. The Young Marvelman and Marvelman Family fill-in strips from Warrior were also woven into
62094-405: Was announced in May 1985, shortly before publication. The bi-monthly Miracleman title began in August 1985 by reprinting the extant Warrior material , resized from UK magazine size to US comic book format and edited by Yronwode. Book One had been completed in Warrior previously but underwent modification before publication by Eclipse; the material was colourised by Ron Courtney , and initially
62356-416: Was cohering as never before, and it was clear that the audience was sticking with the title as they grew up. Comics were no longer just for very small boys: teenagers – even A-level and university students – were reading them now." During this period, 2000 AD accepted and published over fifty of Moore's one-off stories for their Future Shocks and Time Twisters science fiction series. The editors at
62618-441: Was credited under the pseudonym Edgar Henry) and artist Ian Gibson , the character having appeared as a guest in the Marvelman strip. After Warrior #21, Marvelman disappeared from the title partway through the second 'book' "The Red King Syndrome". Skinn would publicly blame this on Marvel Comics taking legal action over the titling of the Marvelman Special . However the truth was that Moore and Davis had fallen out and due to
62880-412: Was critical of the run, feeling that it was one of Moore's worst, and that "you feel Moore should be better than this. It's not special." Moore himself, who remarked that he took on the series – his only regular monthly comic series since Swamp Thing – largely because he liked Jim Lee, admitted that he was not entirely happy with the work, believing that he had catered too much to his conceptions of what
63142-408: Was designed to offer writers a greater degree of freedom over their artistic creations than was allowed by pre-existing companies. It was at Warrior that Moore "would start to reach his potential". Moore was given two ongoing strips in Warrior : Marvelman and V for Vendetta , both of which debuted in Warrior ' s first issue in March 1982. V for Vendetta was a dystopian thriller set in
63404-490: Was established Marvel's creative director Joe Quesada , a long-time fan of the title, struck a deal with Anglo himself to license Marvelman, planning to reprint the extant material and then continue it. Anglo only had the rights to the character and the material completed by his Gower Street Studios - due to the policies of both Quality and Eclipse, creators still had the rights to their own individual work and Marvel would have to strike an agreement with each to use it, while there
63666-458: Was fascinated by the idea of what had happened to the fictional character in the meantime. ...realizing that since I hadn't seen an actual Marvelman since the early sixties the title had probably been discontinued, I wondered idly what Marvelman was doing these days. I was struck by the image of the eternally youthful and exuberant hero as a middle-aged man, trudging the streets and trying fruitlessly to remember his magic word. Some years later as
63928-406: Was followed by the six-issue limited series Marvelman: Family's Finest , reprinting restored versions of Anglo's strips from Marvelman , Young Marvelman and Marvelman Family . Cover art was produced by Marko Djurdjević and others (with many drawn from the Classic Primer ), with one a modified version of Anglo's 1954 cover to Marvelman #33. That the contents were the older material rather than
64190-436: Was impressed, and asked for a script for the first episode on spec; after this passed muster Moore was signed on as writer. Skinn's first picks for artist were Dave Gibbons and Brian Bolland , but both declined. Instead Garry Leach, Warrior' s art director, was assigned to draw the strip. Leach's style involved heavy photo reference, and he designed Marvelman to resemble actor Paul Newman , Liz Moran after Audrey Hepburn and
64452-494: Was in All Star Comics #8 (Dec. 1941), published by All-American Publications , one of two companies that would merge to form DC Comics in 1944. Pérák was an urban legend originating from the city of Prague during the German occupation of Czechoslovakia in the midst of World War II . In the decades following the war, Pérák has also been portrayed as the only Czech superhero in film and comics. In 1952, Osamu Tezuka 's manga Tetsuwan Atom , more popularly known in
64714-441: Was industry standard that British comic characters were created on a work for hire basis, with the works belonging to the publisher, and the characters spent over a decade in publishing limbo on this false premise. However, in 2009 it emerged that Anglo had actually retained the rights to the character all along. When planning Warrior , editor Dez Skinn planned a similar set of content to his work with Marvel UK , and identified
64976-452: Was intended to world-build, using concepts mentioned by Moore's final issue, and the pair decided that rather than compete with the epic style of the previous arc they would adopt an anthology approach, with Buckingham wildly varying the style and medium across the stories - later saying he approached the book as an "ongoing sketchbook". The characters from the series also featured in Eclipse's company-wide crossover Total Eclipse ; issue #4 of
65238-451: Was never commissioned, but copies of Moore's detailed notes have appeared on the Internet and in print despite the efforts of DC, who consider the proposal their property. Similar elements, such as the concept of hypertime , have since appeared in DC comics. The 1996 miniseries Kingdom Come by Mark Waid and Alex Ross , was also set amid a superheroic conflict in the future of the DC Universe. Waid and Ross have stated that they had read
65500-508: Was nominated for Best Continuing Series at the 1991 Eisners, as was Moore's writing. In 1988 Eclipse produced a two-issue limited series entirely made up of reprints named Miracleman Family , with the issues dated May and September 1988. Due to the technology of the time, Eclipse were restricted to reprinting material they could find physical copies of. The series presented tales originally printed in Marvelman , Young Marvelman and Marvelman Family , relettered by Wayne Truman to update
65762-456: Was one of the inspirations for the " Blackest Night " storyline in 2009–2010. In 1987, Moore submitted a proposal for a miniseries called Twilight of the Superheroes , the title a twist on Richard Wagner 's opera Götterdämmerung (meaning "Twilight of the Gods"). The series was set in the future of the DC Universe, where the world is ruled by superheroic dynasties, including the House of Steel (presided over by Superman and Wonder Woman) and
66024-465: Was published, as a slipcased set of three hardcover volumes. The same year Moore published an eight-page article tracing out the history of pornography in which he argued that a society's vibrancy and success are related to its permissiveness in sexual matters. Decrying that the consumption of contemporary ubiquitous pornography was still widely considered shameful, he called for a new and more artistic pornography that could be openly discussed and would have
66286-504: Was reprinted with the same modifications in Miracleman #5-10, with backmatter including more Anglo-era strips; original artwork for many of the pages contributed by Alan Davis , Chuck Austen and Rick Veitch ; and a recoloured version of the humorous framing sequence Austen and Cat Yronwode produced for Eclipse's Miracleman #8. Critical reception continued to be positive, with Michael Brown noting that he "was running out of ways to keep saying how good this series is". Updated versions of
66548-515: Was restored by Michael Kelleher and his Kellustration company, coloured by Steve Oliff and relettered by Chris Eliopoulos for the first issue, with Joe Caramanga subsequently taking over from the latter. Miracleman #1 was released on January 15, 2014, and contained updated versions of the first two Warrior episodes; a modified vintage strip used as a prelude in the Eclipse series; a trio of restored, unmodified Gower Street Studios strips (including Marvelman's debut appearances); "Miracleman - Behind
66810-420: Was set in a fantasy realm and drawn by Cannon; Top 10: The Forty-Niners , a prequel to the main Top Ten series drawn by Ha; and two sequel miniseries, Top 10: Beyond the Farthest Precinct , which was written by Paul Di Filippo and drawn by Jerry Ordway , and Top 10: Season Two , written by Cannon and drawn by Ha. Moore's series Promethea , which told the story of a teenage girl, Sophie Bangs, who
67072-543: Was shocked at how he went from being one of the top pupils at his primary school to one of the lowest in the class at secondary. Subsequently, disliking school and having "no interest in academic study", he believed that there was a "covert curriculum" being taught that was designed to indoctrinate children with "punctuality, obedience and the acceptance of monotony". In the late 1960s, Moore began publishing his poetry and essays in fanzines , eventually setting up his fanzine, Embryo . Through Embryo , Moore became involved in
67334-419: Was some confusion as to whether the trademark for "Miracleman" was actually owned by Marvel or McFarlane, with early Marvel material pointedly only referring to the property as "Marvelman". Moore's long-running animosity with Marvel initially looked set to be a problem; however, he eventually relented and allowed Marvel to reprint his work providing his name was not used in connection with the series, partly due to
67596-445: Was swift to see the story possibilities presented by the apparent utopia. Gaiman chose artist Mark Buckingham as a collaborator after being impressed with his work for Heartbreak Hotel ; he initially considered Dave McKean , who would instead provide covers for the first "book" of six issues. The writer planned three arcs for the series - The Golden Age , The Silver Age and The Dark Age , which he loosely mapped out. The first arc
67858-488: Was to release have emerged since. Yronwode has claimed the first issue was completed and the second well underway, with the company's financial problems preventing Miracleman Triumphant #1 from being released in a similar manner to the hold-up for Miracleman #25. However, Gaiman has said he never saw any of the series and had not signed off on it (also noting Deodato was not paid for his work), both statements that Yronwode disputes. Some of Deodato's work has since surfaced; it
68120-611: Was unable to recollect receiving a script for the originally planned version of the issue. Moore's relationship with Yronwode and Eclipse would also decay as the company failed to provide the writer requested documentation that Alan Davis had consented to his work being printed in the title; this was because the artist - not on speaking terms with Moore at the time - had not given permission; Eclipse went ahead and printed his work anyway and according to Davis made little attempt to pay him for doing so. As Moore's scripts would typically require very little editing and he still lived in England at
68382-404: Was unexpected as Marvel and DC had filed a motion to extend time to answer. There is an ongoing debate among legal scholars and in the courts about whether the term "superhero" has become genericized due to its widespread use in popular culture, similar to terms like "aspirin" or "escalator" which lost their trademark protection and became generic terms for their respective products. Some argue
68644-467: Was unwilling to defend itself against Ben Cooper Inc.'s suit. As a result, in 1977, Mego Corporation jointly assigned its interest in the trademark to DC Comics , Inc. ("DC") and Marvel Comics ("Marvel"). Due to the financial prowess of DC and Marvel, Ben Cooper, Inc. decided to withdraw its trademark opposition and jointly assigned its interest in the "World's Greatest Super Heroes" mark to DC and Marvel. Two years later in 1979, DC and Marvel applied for
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