A couple years back, Marvel and Gaiman got the rights to Miracleman back from all the people who controlled the rights (and there were a bunch of them) and republished the original series with the promise that Gaiman would finish the story that’s been left hanging since about 1994.
The first issue with new material was supposed to come out in April or May 2016, it’s now October and not only hasn’t it come out, I haven’t seen any updates or info for months now.
Does anyone know the status of the series? Is it still being worked on? Any ETA?
Yeah, but the Gaiman story is only about 1/3d done. We’ve been waiting since 1994 for Gaiman to finish and Marvel said once they were done with the reprints, Gaiman would be writing and they would be publishing the rest of the story.
I think things cooled when they realized not that many people were interested in the project. I liked it, the idea of superheroes saying “Screw it, we’re taking over” was an interesting take with lots of story potential since benevolent despots are still despots. But it was an old series that hadn’t been a big seller the first time around, and it seems the reaction was sort of “meh.”
Which is why it’s been done a number of times since; maybe they got a little ways into it and realized what would’ve been groundbreaking then is – less so, now?
That may have been part of it, but I’d have been willing to bank on Gaiman have an interesting take on it, if not an original one. That was always Moore’s MO - not original stories, but a fresh take on the old ones.
I’m not sure i understand the difference between letting men kill each other (which we don’t allow to happen in theory) and letting nations kill each other.
Nor do I think YM is particularly qualified to pass judgment or lead a revolt. We haven’t even seen real cracks in society yet i don’t think.
Maybe the real head scratchers have yet to be discovered like forbidding women to give birth to genetically imperfect children…or something else that would make us as readers go “Ok, hold on.”
I was expecting things to be a bit like the Romans speech in Life of Brian; it doesn’t matter that everything’s better under the rule of Miracleman’s gang, the problem is someone else is in charge and gosh darn it we can’t have that!
Except everything isn’t better in a number of ways–reread Gaiman’s issues and they all have this weirdly compelling sad/melancholy tone. At least some people aren’t happy about the changes, about essentially being pets of the MiraclePeople.
There’s also either something wrong with the story (which, given Gaiman and Moore’s talent, I doubt) or something wrong with the MiraclePeople: Every Single One of them agrees on all the programs and changes they’re enforcing.* If they all think the same about every issue, something’s wrong and stagnation is right around the corner. .
*Except maybe KM. And we don’t even know that for sure. All we know is that he doesn’t like being forcibly kissed by MM. (We don’t even know that he objected to the kiss itself or if he objected to MM doing it without asking)
From YM’s (not KM) point of view the culture shock will of course carry the possibility that he sees some problems with the “Gods” rule.
As far as agreeing…yeah…Miraclewoman seems somewhat naive, the Firestarter was all in…it’s only MM it seems that comes off as pensive.
PERSONALLY…I still think…to people born into that world it’s a great place. They won’t have known any other way. To us…I dunno. I don’t think I’d object and I’m huge on personal liberty and destiny. I might find myself confused by their economy.
Edit: I just had a thought. How do they handle the pedophiles? I almost don’t want to know. if Miraclewoman is in charge of that.
I don’t have the books handy, but what I recall was only one issue: selfishness. These immensely powerful beings are making the entire world a better place for everyone, rather than focusing on just me and my problems: a guy wants them to help his sick daughter, a former spy can’t adapt to a world without secrets, an ordinary guy can’t accept sleeping with mortal women when Miraclewoman’s out there doing porn. Meanwhile, drugs have been decriminalized, everything’s basically free, interstellar space travel is a reality and oh yeah! - everyone can fly like Superman if they want to.
As a public service message, Mage III: The Hero Triumphant is coming out now. It’s up to issue 3 or 4. The art isn’t as nice as Mage I, but it’s much better written.
