Marvel Comics teases adding Alan Moore’s Miracleman to the Marvel universe

It’s timeless #1 promised “the future of the Marvel universe — revealed!” But the final pages of the comic may have given readers even more than they bargained for, with a surprising and significant new addition to the Marvel pantheon — from outside the Marvel Universe itself.

[Ed. Note: This post contains spoilers for Timeless #1.]

Image: Jed MacKay, Kev Walker, Greg Land, Jay Leisten, Mark Bagley, Andrew Hennessy/Marvel Comics

It It’s timeless one-shot — from writer Jed MacKay and artists Kev Walker, Mark Bagley, and Greg Land — is framed around Anatoly Petrov, an aging historian recruited by Kang the Conqueror as a kind of sidekick/mortal mind to go agog at the Conqueror’s great works. Kang is Marvel’s resident time-traveling baddie, known to pop up under a number of alternate code names at various points in his lifetime (Egyptian Pharaoh Rama-Tut in his prime, founding Young Avenger Iron Lad as a teen, and ubiquitous windbag Immortus in his retirement, to name a few). With his inclusion in Marvel Cinematic Universe, he has been even more visible.

In any case, It’s timeless, Kang takes Petrov on a journey through time and space to confront the Doctor Doom of a “pirate” timeline, and on the way he gives the historian intriguing glimpses of events (i.e., Marvel storylines) soon to come. But they all pale in comparison to the book’s last unexpected bombshell.

On the comic’s final page, Petrov reads over his journal of his travels as he tells us, “But what stays with me most are the visions of the potential futures we saw on Oracle Base […]Why are you here? This particular vision imprinted on my mind?” And on the journal in front of him we see, unmistakably, the logo of the hero Miracleman.

Miracleman, who are you?

Image: Joe Quesada/Marvel Comics

Miracleman, originally named Miracleman by Mick Anglo, was an artist and British writer. Marvelman, a name that was later changed, ironically, to avoid friction with Marvel Comics) was a creative attempt by the British publishers of Fawcett’s Captain Marvel (a name that was later changed to Shazam, to avoid friction with Marvel Comics) to continue putting out Captain Marvel-esque stories after Fawcett ceased publication. The new American character was a resemblance to his American counterpart, except that his name and hair color were different. He also lacked a cape. [Ed. note: As for why there are two Captain Marvels, it’s a whole thing.]

Young reporter Micky Moran encountered an astrophysicist who granted him extraordinary powers whenever he said the word “Kimota!” (that is, “atomic” spelled backward, with a K), turning him into the superhero known as Miracleman. Micky quickly assembled a family of Shazam-speaking adventurers including Young Marvelman Dicky Duntless and Johnny Bates.

Marvelman/Miracleman owes his enduring fame not to those Atomic Age adventures, but to his landmark 1980’s revival under the pen of an up-and-coming writer by the name of Alan Moore. Moore proved that all we and Micky thought about Miracleman were wrong in a matter of minutes.

Rather than a plucky reporter granted amazing powers, Moran was in fact the victim of a clandestine government program that had melded him and his young sidekicks to ultra-powerful alien bodies — his cheerful Golden Age adventures were no more than a computer simulation playing out in his head. His power-hungry alien alter ego had subsumed innocent Johnny Bates. In the run’s brutal and infamous climax, Miracleman confronts and kills Bates, in a battle that destroys London, and the world is rebuilt in Miracleman’s image.

Working alongside a series of artists (including frequent future collaborators Alan Davis, Rick Veitch, and John Totleben), Moore’s run was an early and seminal exercise in superhero deconstruction. The writer left the series after that London battle, leaving his handpicked successor, an up-and-coming Neil Gaiman, to flesh out Miracleman’s brave new world in a series of shorter stories with artist Mark Buckingham.

However, by then the book had been bounced around between several small publishers. In 1994, it was finally shut down completely due to ownership disputes. The stalemate wasn’t ended until, following a lawsuit, Gaimain obtained the rights to Miracleman and turned them over to Marvel Comics, which also acquired full ownership of the character from its original creator, British comics writer Mick Anglo. All of which brings us to this week’s latest twist in the Miracleman tale.

What’s the big deal?

Image: Jed MacKay, Kev Walker, Greg Land, Jay Leisten, Mark Bagley, Andrew Hennessy/Marvel Comics

This isn’t the first time Miracleman has popped up in a Marvel-published comic since the company gained control of the character. In 2014, Marvel initiated a series of reprints of classic Miracleman material, including Moore’s (with his name removed by request, as is the writer’s policy on work he’s written but does not own the rights to). Gaiman, Buckingham and others announced in 2019 that they were resuming work on the aborted run. But this marks the first time that Miracleman has been explicitly integrated into a story alongside characters from Marvel’s core universe.

That’s important, because MiraclemanLike WatchmenThe touchstone of contemporary-age superhero comics is ‘, which has been a key figure in modern-day super heroes. Good or bad? Miracleman was the first of an era of dark subversions of superhero tropes that reverberated through the 1980’s and beyond. Its success established Moore’s talent for deconstructing superhero traditions when he pitched the comic that eventually became WatchmenDC Comics. It’s managed to infuse itself into the creative DNA of writers from Frank Miller, to Mark Millar, to Donny Cates. That influence may not always have been beloved, but it’s impossible to overstate the role Miracleman The role of the modern superhero landscape has been shaped by him.

Marvel’s move is somewhat unavoidably reminiscent of DC’s much-ballyhooed maxiseries Doomsday Clock, which ran from 2017 to 2019 and likewise attempted to fit Moore’s Watchmen alongside more conventional superhero characters. The project was delayed and received a negative reaction from the fans. Doomsday ClockIt ended more like a whimper and less with a bang.

We will not know how Marvel intends to incorporate Miracleman. Nor what effect he may have on the line’s future. Like Angela and Conan before him, will he join the Avengers? Fans will approve. He will finally be able to say that he is Marvelman. Kang, the Conqueror could say that only time will reveal.