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Miracleman #3
Miracleman, Book Three: Olympus
Book Three of the New York Times bestselling series begins! Gods and monsters walk the earth, as the aliens whose technology created Miracleman seek to exterminate Project Zarathustra's survivors. And even as the future of humankind hangs in the balance on the far side of the galaxy, and the month-old baby Winter begins to speak, the price of godhood takes its toll on Johnny Bates. A single word is uttered, and hell on Earth is unleashed. Kid Miracleman is loose!
As smoke rises over London, Miracleman must face Kid Miracleman—and realize his destiny. The sick will be healed, military powers will be disarmed, poverty will be abolished. Every day shall be a day of miracles, a new dawn for humankind. The original Miracleman opus comes to its majestic close!
Collecting Eclipse Comics original Miracleman #11-16.
As smoke rises over London, Miracleman must face Kid Miracleman—and realize his destiny. The sick will be healed, military powers will be disarmed, poverty will be abolished. Every day shall be a day of miracles, a new dawn for humankind. The original Miracleman opus comes to its majestic close!
Collecting Eclipse Comics original Miracleman #11-16.
328 pages, Hardcover
First published September 1, 1991
49 people are currently reading
841 people want to read
About the author
Alan Moore
1,578 books21.6k followersAlan Moore is an English writer most famous for his influential work in comics, including the acclaimed graphic novels Watchmen, V for Vendetta and From Hell. He has also written a novel, Voice of the Fire, and performs "workings" (one-off performance art/spoken word pieces) with The Moon and Serpent Grand Egyptian Theatre of Marvels, some of which have been released on CD.
As a comics writer, Moore is notable for being one of the first writers to apply literary and formalist sensibilities to the mainstream of the medium. As well as including challenging subject matter and adult themes, he brings a wide range of influences to his work, from the literary–authors such as William S. Burroughs, Thomas Pynchon, Robert Anton Wilson and Iain Sinclair; New Wave science fiction writers such as Michael Moorcock; horror writers such as Clive Barker; to the cinematic–filmmakers such as Nicolas Roeg. Influences within comics include Will Eisner, Harvey Kurtzman, Jack Kirby and Bryan Talbot.
As a comics writer, Moore is notable for being one of the first writers to apply literary and formalist sensibilities to the mainstream of the medium. As well as including challenging subject matter and adult themes, he brings a wide range of influences to his work, from the literary–authors such as William S. Burroughs, Thomas Pynchon, Robert Anton Wilson and Iain Sinclair; New Wave science fiction writers such as Michael Moorcock; horror writers such as Clive Barker; to the cinematic–filmmakers such as Nicolas Roeg. Influences within comics include Will Eisner, Harvey Kurtzman, Jack Kirby and Bryan Talbot.
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January 29, 2016
The Miracleman changed and the whole world with him!
This TPB collects the third storyarc known as “Olympus” featuring issues #11-16 of “Miracleman”, plus additional stories “October Incident: 1966” & “Seriously Miraculous”, along with a “Behind-of-Scenes” section with sketches, pin-ups, cover variants, etc…
Warning: This TPB contains “Mature Content”
Creative Team:
Writer: Alan Moore (despicted as “The Original Writer”, based on characters created by Mick Anglo), also Grant Morrison (for the short story “October Incident: 1966”) and Peter Milligan (for the short story “Seriously Miraculous”)
Illustrators: John Totleben (Miracleman: Olympus main story), also Joe Quesada & Mike Allred (for the additional short stories)
ENTER: MIRACLEWOMAN
An unexpected female counterpart seemed normal in the context of your lives.
They thought that Project: Zarathustra was the only one.
They thought… wrong. Very wrong!
The insidious creator of the Miracleman Family had another secret lab. A laboratory so secret that even the British Government (who was economically founding Zarathustra) didn’t know anything about this second lab.
There, the insidious creator released all his creepy, sick and nasty desires.
A dog turned into a real monster. A young boy turned into a real psycho. A young girl turned into the sleep slave of the insidious creator.
An accident happened and the psycho, Young Nastyman, escapes. This helped to the release of Miraclewoman that later she went underground, changed her civilian name and kept a low profile.
However, now the makers of the stolen technology, that allowed that the insidious creator could make all the enhanced beings, are following the remaining ones and deciding their destiny.
Moreover, the makers of the changing bodies technology are only a side of the galactic equation. Since there are another powerful alien race able to manipulate space (thinking about locations and distances) at their will.
Miraclewoman needs to reveal herself to Miracleman. But in a world of gods… where a normal woman like Liz Moran fit?
WINTER IS COMING
You’re barely six weeks old and you’re already more advanced than she (Liz Moran)…
Father, I’m already more advanced that you.
Remember the sweet baby from Miracleman and Liz Moran?
Well, the sweet little six weeks old girl is already able to talk, reading mind, influence states of mind, flying, etc… Basically able to do anything that Miracleman does and more, way more.
Kids grow up so fast… but Winter Moran taken it to a whole new quantum level!!!
But that’s a good thing since thanks to her birth, now the Qys and the Warpsmiths, the two alien empires which divided the universe between them, now they are considering Earth, an intelligent world (before Winter’s birth, we were basically considered as animals).
So, now it’s up to Miracleman and his new team to force an evolution into the world, not matter if people want it or not. They are after all, just people, what can they really know in comparison to the wisdom of gods?
A BLOODY AFFAIR
He got out. Bad Johnny got out.
Poor Johnny Bates, the 13 years old human alter-ego of the now adult "Kid Miracleman". He tried so hard to keep his psycho alter-ego inside of him, but the unfair sickness of humanity mess into the things and he had to say the magic word…
…and London paid it, with blood. With A LOT of blood.
If you think that you already seen what a superpowered villain can do to a normal city full of normal human beings…
…you think wrong. Insanely wrong.
Kid Miracleman was finally free again, free to do whatever he wanted, and he was able to do a lot of deathly things. He was quite creative about it.
Miracleman and his new team arrived to the scene, four hours late.
Four hours was plenty enough time for Kid Miracleman to make easily one of the bloodiest, scariest, sickest and cruellest massacre ever seen in the history of comic books. (And even in other storytelling formats)
And this was only beginning, still Miracleman’s team needed to deal with Kid Miracleman.
This TPB collects the third storyarc known as “Olympus” featuring issues #11-16 of “Miracleman”, plus additional stories “October Incident: 1966” & “Seriously Miraculous”, along with a “Behind-of-Scenes” section with sketches, pin-ups, cover variants, etc…
Warning: This TPB contains “Mature Content”
Creative Team:
Writer: Alan Moore (despicted as “The Original Writer”, based on characters created by Mick Anglo), also Grant Morrison (for the short story “October Incident: 1966”) and Peter Milligan (for the short story “Seriously Miraculous”)
Illustrators: John Totleben (Miracleman: Olympus main story), also Joe Quesada & Mike Allred (for the additional short stories)
ENTER: MIRACLEWOMAN
An unexpected female counterpart seemed normal in the context of your lives.
They thought that Project: Zarathustra was the only one.
They thought… wrong. Very wrong!
The insidious creator of the Miracleman Family had another secret lab. A laboratory so secret that even the British Government (who was economically founding Zarathustra) didn’t know anything about this second lab.
There, the insidious creator released all his creepy, sick and nasty desires.
A dog turned into a real monster. A young boy turned into a real psycho. A young girl turned into the sleep slave of the insidious creator.
An accident happened and the psycho, Young Nastyman, escapes. This helped to the release of Miraclewoman that later she went underground, changed her civilian name and kept a low profile.
However, now the makers of the stolen technology, that allowed that the insidious creator could make all the enhanced beings, are following the remaining ones and deciding their destiny.
Moreover, the makers of the changing bodies technology are only a side of the galactic equation. Since there are another powerful alien race able to manipulate space (thinking about locations and distances) at their will.
Miraclewoman needs to reveal herself to Miracleman. But in a world of gods… where a normal woman like Liz Moran fit?
WINTER IS COMING
You’re barely six weeks old and you’re already more advanced than she (Liz Moran)…
Father, I’m already more advanced that you.
Remember the sweet baby from Miracleman and Liz Moran?
Well, the sweet little six weeks old girl is already able to talk, reading mind, influence states of mind, flying, etc… Basically able to do anything that Miracleman does and more, way more.
Kids grow up so fast… but Winter Moran taken it to a whole new quantum level!!!
But that’s a good thing since thanks to her birth, now the Qys and the Warpsmiths, the two alien empires which divided the universe between them, now they are considering Earth, an intelligent world (before Winter’s birth, we were basically considered as animals).
So, now it’s up to Miracleman and his new team to force an evolution into the world, not matter if people want it or not. They are after all, just people, what can they really know in comparison to the wisdom of gods?
A BLOODY AFFAIR
He got out. Bad Johnny got out.
Poor Johnny Bates, the 13 years old human alter-ego of the now adult "Kid Miracleman". He tried so hard to keep his psycho alter-ego inside of him, but the unfair sickness of humanity mess into the things and he had to say the magic word…
…and London paid it, with blood. With A LOT of blood.
If you think that you already seen what a superpowered villain can do to a normal city full of normal human beings…
…you think wrong. Insanely wrong.
Kid Miracleman was finally free again, free to do whatever he wanted, and he was able to do a lot of deathly things. He was quite creative about it.
Miracleman and his new team arrived to the scene, four hours late.
Four hours was plenty enough time for Kid Miracleman to make easily one of the bloodiest, scariest, sickest and cruellest massacre ever seen in the history of comic books. (And even in other storytelling formats)
And this was only beginning, still Miracleman’s team needed to deal with Kid Miracleman.
August 25, 2024
Aliens come looking for Miracleman. Winter, Miracleman's daughter, begins speaking before she's a month old. Miraclewoman makes her presence known. Kid Miracleman returns. A utopia is created.
The third Miracleman volume is kind of a disappointment. Firstly, it's a wordy son of a bitch, huge blocks of purple prose on every page. Secondly, apart from Kid Miracleman returning, it's pretty damn boring. Utopia is just as uninteresting as it sounds. Not only that, Miracleman went from being a revisionist Captain Marvel character that was bursting with potential to looking more like his ancestor, Superman.
All that being said, it's still an interesting piece of comic book history and asks the same question as the Squadron Supreme miniseries that came out shortly after this. What would happen if the superheroes took over the world? Too bad what Miracleman, Miraclewoman, and the Warpsmiths cook up is on the bland side. Two out of five stars.
2024 reread Yeah, I still think this was wordy as hell and not all that exciting apart from the brief return of Kid Miracleman. I'm holding off on rereading Golden Age until I buy Silver Age and I'm holding off on buying Silver Age because NG was outed as a sexual predator.
The third Miracleman volume is kind of a disappointment. Firstly, it's a wordy son of a bitch, huge blocks of purple prose on every page. Secondly, apart from Kid Miracleman returning, it's pretty damn boring. Utopia is just as uninteresting as it sounds. Not only that, Miracleman went from being a revisionist Captain Marvel character that was bursting with potential to looking more like his ancestor, Superman.
All that being said, it's still an interesting piece of comic book history and asks the same question as the Squadron Supreme miniseries that came out shortly after this. What would happen if the superheroes took over the world? Too bad what Miracleman, Miraclewoman, and the Warpsmiths cook up is on the bland side. Two out of five stars.
2024 reread Yeah, I still think this was wordy as hell and not all that exciting apart from the brief return of Kid Miracleman. I'm holding off on rereading Golden Age until I buy Silver Age and I'm holding off on buying Silver Age because NG was outed as a sexual predator.
Read
May 22, 2015That’s it, I give up! I’ve struggled for two weeks to get through this third and final book in Alan Moore’s Miracleman trilogy and I can’t do it; it’s too depressing. I gave up on page 62, just over the halfway mark(!), but I’m going to review it anyway partly because not being able to finish the book says something about it in itself but also because the 62 pages I read were some of the worst comics pages I’ve ever read.
So spoilers from here on out because I have to get specific.
Mike Moran and his wife Liz have had their baby daughter, Winter. Winter is growing exponentially quickly, mentally more than physically, and has already surpassed Miracleman’s powers. Meanwhile some aliens try to murder Liz and Winter; Mike and Liz’s marriage breaks down; and Miracleman and Miraclewoman go discuss space politics with some aliens. What happens afterwards and how it all ends, I don’t know and I don’t care.
The single biggest complaint I have about Olympus is Alan Moore’s writing. To say it is grossly overwritten and pretentious is an understatement. You’ve heard of “purple prose”? Moore surpasses it to some fathomless level only he occupies. Dense, overloaded sentences describing nothing - what can laughably be called the “plot” is already moving at a snail’s pace but Moore’s rendering of it through Miracleman’s endless monologues and self-important soliloquies make it excruciating to wade through.
Here are some examples of what I’m talking about:
“There came a word with syllables that rattled like a night train steaming nearer through the blackness with its cyclops lantern glaring, ‘til it hit and all the world was burned away in one white moment.” p.24
“Through rare and iridescent pigments glisten on the palette of mankind’s desire, they obstinately choose to sketch their love in charcoal, while in secret dreams they smear their fingers through forbidden violets, oranges and blues. They must be taught, though colourblind with guilt, to fathom the impending borealis: taught a new chromatic scale of passions and delights.” p.22
“My words smoulder, cooling upon the open page. I cross to the windows, heels dusted with sparks. More than a thousand floors below, wind-driven clouds drag zebra skins of sunlight and shadow across the waking city. To the north, the same breeze drives the painted sails of windmill forests that wring electricity from clear skies. The great vanes turn, serene as kites, gorgeous and hypnotic as the fans of geishas. Looking down, London becomes a composition of smoke-blues and forties-film-grey, viewed by an abstract painter, or one suffering from aphasia.” p.20 (this monologue goes on for three interminable pages)
Still with me? Imagine reading page after page of that drivel! Here’s some more, this time from when Miracleman and Miraclewoman go into space!
“As if enjoying evening’s breeze, the And/oroid stands on a balcony with neither breeze nor evening, such ideas unknown here save by absences: by poignant holes left in the And/oroid’s small, abstract life. This comfort in a word unsaid or artifice unrealised they call (01000000), with no equivalent amongst the tongues of earth of other worlds.” p. 37 (this monologue goes on for 3 soul-deadening pages)
“A phosphorescent cancer that aspired to be a continent, Hir light dappled the furthest reaches of the auditorium’s dome, while platforms holding fifty souls or more revolved about Hir, both in orbit and in audience, was this, then, our tribunal?” p.43
Then Moore introduces some b-movie sci-fi plot:
“Intelligent space is divided between the Qys Imperium and the Gulf World’s Confederacy, under Warpsmith rule. In perpetual coldwar deadlock, our vast empires coexist: have done so for eleven thousand years.” p. 43
And then we meet a character who literally talks like this:
“WE-WILL-COM-MUN-I-CATE-IN-IN-GUL-ISH-FOR-THE-CON-VEE-NEE-ENCE-OF-OUR-TE-REST-REE-AL-GUESTS.” p.44
Man alive. I don’t know why Moore is held in such high regard as a writer - this is horrible, horrible writing! If you read the first Miracleman volume, imagine a book-length version of that Warpsmith nonsense.
Of course, it wouldn’t be an Alan Moore comic without a woman getting raped in the first 25 pages, so we get Miraclewoman’s tedious origins: getting repeatedly raped while unconscious! The space politics - I kept getting flashbacks to the Star Wars prequels which also had the most boring focus on space politics. Why?! Guys, this shit is not interesting!!
I’m pretty sure Moore was stoned out of his mind when he wrote most of this book and, being the good hippy that he is, his solution to all the aliens’ problems? Love. Just love each other, man, have an orgasm - have two! I gave up when Miracleman started doing his galactic dance.
You know what makes Olympus worse? The first two Miracleman books were pretty good. I didn’t view them as the greatest superhero comics ever written, which many of Moore’s fans insist upon, but they were decent. Why Olympus went so wrong, so quickly, I have no idea - maybe Moore began believing his hype that he was the greatest writer in the universe and always will be? Because his writing is so pompous and stuffy, it’s a wonder he saw what he was typing with his head wedged so firmly up his own bum!
A word on this 2015 Marvel hardcover edition: Olympus is actually only 120 pages long. I didn’t know this when I bought it - I thought this was a 328 page big finale. And it is 328 pages long, it’s just most of it isn’t comics. Besides the 120 pages of the actual comic people are mainly going to be picking this up to read, there’s 20 pages of a previously unpublished Grant Morrison Miracleman script drawn by Marvel head honcho, Joe Quesada, and a Peter Milligan short drawn by Mike and Laura Allred.
But Moore’s writing left such a bad taste in my mouth, I not only gave up the book but didn’t want to read these extras - and I’m a fan of Grant Morrison and Mike Allred!
That only adds up to 140 pages of comics though - there are literally 180+ pages of filler! This consists of “behind the scenes” stuff, showing John Totleben’s sketches, how the original pages looked contrasted to the remastered pages. We had this in the first two Miracleman volumes and, even if we didn’t, wouldn’t a few pages of this suffice? Do we need to see the entire comic as pencils?! There’s even more padding with sketches and covers.
This edition is so obnoxiously overstuffed with way too many extras (in the same way Moore overstuffs his sentences with verbiage), it made me hate an already dislikable comic that much more. The extras are literally longer than the actual comic. And all so Marvel could charge more for the book! Fuck. You. So much, Marvel.
Miracleman, Book 3: Olympus was one of the most miserable reading experiences of my life - and I suffered through V for Vendetta, cover to cover! Don’t let anyone tell you this is a masterpiece or the greatest superhero comic ever put to paper. The first two books are ok but the third is complete and utter garbage, so much so I’m not sure it’s worth even recommending to check those two out seeing as where it heads is Moore believing he’s the comics Shakespeare. This book deserves no stars and no stars it shall receive.
So spoilers from here on out because I have to get specific.
Mike Moran and his wife Liz have had their baby daughter, Winter. Winter is growing exponentially quickly, mentally more than physically, and has already surpassed Miracleman’s powers. Meanwhile some aliens try to murder Liz and Winter; Mike and Liz’s marriage breaks down; and Miracleman and Miraclewoman go discuss space politics with some aliens. What happens afterwards and how it all ends, I don’t know and I don’t care.
The single biggest complaint I have about Olympus is Alan Moore’s writing. To say it is grossly overwritten and pretentious is an understatement. You’ve heard of “purple prose”? Moore surpasses it to some fathomless level only he occupies. Dense, overloaded sentences describing nothing - what can laughably be called the “plot” is already moving at a snail’s pace but Moore’s rendering of it through Miracleman’s endless monologues and self-important soliloquies make it excruciating to wade through.
Here are some examples of what I’m talking about:
“There came a word with syllables that rattled like a night train steaming nearer through the blackness with its cyclops lantern glaring, ‘til it hit and all the world was burned away in one white moment.” p.24
“Through rare and iridescent pigments glisten on the palette of mankind’s desire, they obstinately choose to sketch their love in charcoal, while in secret dreams they smear their fingers through forbidden violets, oranges and blues. They must be taught, though colourblind with guilt, to fathom the impending borealis: taught a new chromatic scale of passions and delights.” p.22
“My words smoulder, cooling upon the open page. I cross to the windows, heels dusted with sparks. More than a thousand floors below, wind-driven clouds drag zebra skins of sunlight and shadow across the waking city. To the north, the same breeze drives the painted sails of windmill forests that wring electricity from clear skies. The great vanes turn, serene as kites, gorgeous and hypnotic as the fans of geishas. Looking down, London becomes a composition of smoke-blues and forties-film-grey, viewed by an abstract painter, or one suffering from aphasia.” p.20 (this monologue goes on for three interminable pages)
Still with me? Imagine reading page after page of that drivel! Here’s some more, this time from when Miracleman and Miraclewoman go into space!
“As if enjoying evening’s breeze, the And/oroid stands on a balcony with neither breeze nor evening, such ideas unknown here save by absences: by poignant holes left in the And/oroid’s small, abstract life. This comfort in a word unsaid or artifice unrealised they call (01000000), with no equivalent amongst the tongues of earth of other worlds.” p. 37 (this monologue goes on for 3 soul-deadening pages)
“A phosphorescent cancer that aspired to be a continent, Hir light dappled the furthest reaches of the auditorium’s dome, while platforms holding fifty souls or more revolved about Hir, both in orbit and in audience, was this, then, our tribunal?” p.43
Then Moore introduces some b-movie sci-fi plot:
“Intelligent space is divided between the Qys Imperium and the Gulf World’s Confederacy, under Warpsmith rule. In perpetual coldwar deadlock, our vast empires coexist: have done so for eleven thousand years.” p. 43
And then we meet a character who literally talks like this:
“WE-WILL-COM-MUN-I-CATE-IN-IN-GUL-ISH-FOR-THE-CON-VEE-NEE-ENCE-OF-OUR-TE-REST-REE-AL-GUESTS.” p.44
Man alive. I don’t know why Moore is held in such high regard as a writer - this is horrible, horrible writing! If you read the first Miracleman volume, imagine a book-length version of that Warpsmith nonsense.
Of course, it wouldn’t be an Alan Moore comic without a woman getting raped in the first 25 pages, so we get Miraclewoman’s tedious origins: getting repeatedly raped while unconscious! The space politics - I kept getting flashbacks to the Star Wars prequels which also had the most boring focus on space politics. Why?! Guys, this shit is not interesting!!
I’m pretty sure Moore was stoned out of his mind when he wrote most of this book and, being the good hippy that he is, his solution to all the aliens’ problems? Love. Just love each other, man, have an orgasm - have two! I gave up when Miracleman started doing his galactic dance.
You know what makes Olympus worse? The first two Miracleman books were pretty good. I didn’t view them as the greatest superhero comics ever written, which many of Moore’s fans insist upon, but they were decent. Why Olympus went so wrong, so quickly, I have no idea - maybe Moore began believing his hype that he was the greatest writer in the universe and always will be? Because his writing is so pompous and stuffy, it’s a wonder he saw what he was typing with his head wedged so firmly up his own bum!
A word on this 2015 Marvel hardcover edition: Olympus is actually only 120 pages long. I didn’t know this when I bought it - I thought this was a 328 page big finale. And it is 328 pages long, it’s just most of it isn’t comics. Besides the 120 pages of the actual comic people are mainly going to be picking this up to read, there’s 20 pages of a previously unpublished Grant Morrison Miracleman script drawn by Marvel head honcho, Joe Quesada, and a Peter Milligan short drawn by Mike and Laura Allred.
But Moore’s writing left such a bad taste in my mouth, I not only gave up the book but didn’t want to read these extras - and I’m a fan of Grant Morrison and Mike Allred!
That only adds up to 140 pages of comics though - there are literally 180+ pages of filler! This consists of “behind the scenes” stuff, showing John Totleben’s sketches, how the original pages looked contrasted to the remastered pages. We had this in the first two Miracleman volumes and, even if we didn’t, wouldn’t a few pages of this suffice? Do we need to see the entire comic as pencils?! There’s even more padding with sketches and covers.
This edition is so obnoxiously overstuffed with way too many extras (in the same way Moore overstuffs his sentences with verbiage), it made me hate an already dislikable comic that much more. The extras are literally longer than the actual comic. And all so Marvel could charge more for the book! Fuck. You. So much, Marvel.
Miracleman, Book 3: Olympus was one of the most miserable reading experiences of my life - and I suffered through V for Vendetta, cover to cover! Don’t let anyone tell you this is a masterpiece or the greatest superhero comic ever put to paper. The first two books are ok but the third is complete and utter garbage, so much so I’m not sure it’s worth even recommending to check those two out seeing as where it heads is Moore believing he’s the comics Shakespeare. This book deserves no stars and no stars it shall receive.
June 1, 2020
20i3 read: Gods and monsters walk the earth, as Miracleman's non-human creators seek to exterminate Project Zarathustra's survivors. More trials and tribulations for Bates. And with one one word the worse of the worse is set loose and the cost could well be like nothing you've seen in comics before. Alan Moore's masterpiece moves into the triggers for hyper violence, be warned! 10 out of 12, Five Star Read
Collects Miracleman 11-16 and All-New Miracleman Annual 1
Collects Miracleman 11-16 and All-New Miracleman Annual 1
March 28, 2023
he dreamed a little dream of a perfect place where everyone got along. there was no war or nuclear weapons or chemical weapons, no capitalism or even money, none of those dirty grubby things. imagine that, as the song goes. sadly, the only way for humans to achieve such a vision is if Übermenschen do as they will with us, because God - or some such being - only knows that we dirty grubby humans could never put our differences aside to create such a place on our own. the "he" is Alan Moore and his vehicle for humanity's uplift is Miracleman and his miraculous allies.
this is a surprisingly hopeful book, especially in comparison to books 1 & 2. not much of a plot: a journey to an alien place, a horrifying massacre of thousands, and then humanity gets uplifted. plus lovemaking in the sky by Miracleman & Miraclewoman (bystanders applaud). I'm not used to seeing forever-nihilist Alan Moore, king of closed circles and downward trajectories, in an optimistic mood, detailing the steps to creating his perfect world. although I suppose it is a sort of nihilism if Moore thinks such a place could only exist after an imperial takeover by godlike beings. I think I may agree with Moore on that.
the art by John Totleben is awesome.
also awesome: the names of the book's lookalike villains: Young Nastyman and Kid Miracleman!
this is a surprisingly hopeful book, especially in comparison to books 1 & 2. not much of a plot: a journey to an alien place, a horrifying massacre of thousands, and then humanity gets uplifted. plus lovemaking in the sky by Miracleman & Miraclewoman (bystanders applaud). I'm not used to seeing forever-nihilist Alan Moore, king of closed circles and downward trajectories, in an optimistic mood, detailing the steps to creating his perfect world. although I suppose it is a sort of nihilism if Moore thinks such a place could only exist after an imperial takeover by godlike beings. I think I may agree with Moore on that.
the art by John Totleben is awesome.
also awesome: the names of the book's lookalike villains: Young Nastyman and Kid Miracleman!
August 9, 2015
Oh dear. There's a really good, really interesting story here. But too often, it gets buried beneath layers and layers of Moore's purple prose. For the most part, I could get through it fine. But every now and then, I'd come across a caption or a panel or even an entire page so horribly overwritten that I'd have to take a break from the book. It took me almost twice as long to read this one as it normally would a graphic novel of this size. And unfortunately, that wasn't because it was giving me so much to think about. The dense writing was simply standing in the way of the story. Which is a shame, because I think the basic idea was really quite fantastic, and I'm looking forward to seeing what Gaiman did with the book after.
November 12, 2015
This was an excellently produced collection, though too expensive, especially since it also had less than half the page count in story.
It's an ending, and Moore took it to its natural conclusion. I like the inherent optimism of a benevolent hero-god who will husband the entire human race into the heavens and beyond.
It's an ending, and Moore took it to its natural conclusion. I like the inherent optimism of a benevolent hero-god who will husband the entire human race into the heavens and beyond.
January 20, 2021
This is the third and final book in the Miracleman series. It was quite a ride. I'd stumbled upon Miracleman when I read Neil Gaiman's GN. Having no background, I decided to go read the entire Alan Moore series. I am glad I did so. I admit this is not a series for everyone. It's a bit strange, a bit graphic, and a bit odd for most people. However, if you appreciate big ideas and some great prose then you will appreciate this great series.
This final volume wraps up the story. Miracleman and Miraclewoman have managed to have Earth enrolled in a Galactic Alliance for Worlds capable of producing superhumans. But back on Earth, Billy has released his dark version of Miracleman and goes on a killing spree that will kill tens of thousands of Londoners. When Miracleman and his allies arrive to fight Billy, the resulting battle nearly levels London. In the aftermath, Miracleman rebuilds the world in the new image of the Miraclemen, who are viewed akin to gods.
A very dark and twisted story that is told in a strange format. But, perhaps this difference lends the story its originality? I enjoyed it. Many of the underlying questions about Superhumans and their role in society were quite interesting. The plot is dark and twisted and I appreciated the maturity of the story. The artwork works very well with this entire story and fits the style. The prose? I loved it! It stands so far superior to the normal comic writer's pap, that it seems a work of art. A few examples:
"In nocturnal parks where globe-lamps hourly alter hue, lovers kiss, dwindling this splendid cosmos to a bead of pure awareness, held between converging tongues."
"My dance grows weary, echoing his solitary ascent. It is the dance of crippled birds, of Bergman films, and brown-skinned children holding sugar skulls. It is the dance of Death."
"These charnel pastures serve as a reminder. A memento mori, never letting us forget that though Olympus pierce the very skies, in all the history of the Earth, there's never been a Heaven; Never been a House of Gods that was not built on human bones."
If you appreciate such prose in your comics and the deep ideas they espouse, you will appreciate the Miracleman trilogy. It is a dark comic story that is certainly original and unique in its outlooks of the rise of the Superman and it's consequences on society.
Highly recommended, though not everyone will like it.
This final volume wraps up the story. Miracleman and Miraclewoman have managed to have Earth enrolled in a Galactic Alliance for Worlds capable of producing superhumans. But back on Earth, Billy has released his dark version of Miracleman and goes on a killing spree that will kill tens of thousands of Londoners. When Miracleman and his allies arrive to fight Billy, the resulting battle nearly levels London. In the aftermath, Miracleman rebuilds the world in the new image of the Miraclemen, who are viewed akin to gods.
A very dark and twisted story that is told in a strange format. But, perhaps this difference lends the story its originality? I enjoyed it. Many of the underlying questions about Superhumans and their role in society were quite interesting. The plot is dark and twisted and I appreciated the maturity of the story. The artwork works very well with this entire story and fits the style. The prose? I loved it! It stands so far superior to the normal comic writer's pap, that it seems a work of art. A few examples:
"In nocturnal parks where globe-lamps hourly alter hue, lovers kiss, dwindling this splendid cosmos to a bead of pure awareness, held between converging tongues."
"My dance grows weary, echoing his solitary ascent. It is the dance of crippled birds, of Bergman films, and brown-skinned children holding sugar skulls. It is the dance of Death."
"These charnel pastures serve as a reminder. A memento mori, never letting us forget that though Olympus pierce the very skies, in all the history of the Earth, there's never been a Heaven; Never been a House of Gods that was not built on human bones."
If you appreciate such prose in your comics and the deep ideas they espouse, you will appreciate the Miracleman trilogy. It is a dark comic story that is certainly original and unique in its outlooks of the rise of the Superman and it's consequences on society.
Highly recommended, though not everyone will like it.
August 24, 2024
(Some Spoilers Will Follow)
"And sometimes...sometimes, I just wonder"
it is here that we see the end of the first series in Alan Moore's spiritual superhero trilogy, which ends on a rather paradoxical note, as we see one of the weaker stories in Alan's Miracleman run, but one he makes up for with an ending that will punch you straight in the nuts and make you say thank you for it. It was truly the ending of the series that got me to really love this and declare it one of Alan's more underrated works, which I still think that it is. But then I see some of my friends here who absolutely loathe this series, or at least the ending arc of it, and I won't pretend to see why they do. Alan's tendency to tell more than he allows to show often rears it's ugly head, and while he got better at it with him growing as a storyteller, it certainly hasn't gone away. But for my friends who found themselves dissatisfied with the ending arc, I can only direct them to wait until the ending, as to really understand the weight of Alan's ending for a man who's become a god.
As for the paradoxical nature of this book, the real issue with the arc is the Qys and Warpsmith arc, which is admittedly Alan's weakest arc of the series, but not because it isn't well written or developed, but rather that it isn't as remarkable as the rest of Alan's work in this run. But, with that out of the way, we also see the ending of the series, which is one that can be oddly comforting, yet completely horrifying at the same time. The final two issues of Alan's arc on Miracleman are nothing short of masterful, with John Totleban, who'd later work with him on Swamp Thing, contributing some truly remarkable work that's nothing short of sublime, but coming with some horrific art as well.
With Miracleman, Alan aimed to deconstruct the Superman and or Shazam concept and show how it could possibly work in the real world, and the point that Alan makes is that, with the existence of these gods, full on terror could ensue, particularly if this godlike power fell into the hands of one like Kid Miracleman, who ends up unleashing a personal holocaust on London, which while well written, is a horrific scene and the entirety of Issue 15 is one that will stick with you for a long time, not just with how horrific the violence is when Kid Miracleman unleashes his power. But that's never what impacted me as much, what really impacted me was the ending, along with its implications, I'm not saying that the horrific violence of Issue 15 isn't effective, but rather it was Issue 16 that really got me thinking, and it even has questioning out of the superhero deconstructions, which one from Watchmen or Miracleman was the most effective. But after giving it some thought, I thought that their endings are both special in their own unique ways.
There are many similarities with Watchmen's ending and Miracleman's ending, as both are ambiguous in their own ways on what actually happened, while in Watchmen, it is Rorschach who gets the last laugh in undermining Ozymandias' utopia, Miracleman's is a much more somber and reflective ending, with Miracleman establishing his 'perfect world' on humanity, but wondering if what he did was the right thing, which will haunt him as the series goes on from here. I'd expect even a god to understand that there's no such thing as 'perfection,' especially from a being who no longer understands humanity and has become little more than a dictator, as the old saying goes, the path to hell is often paved with good intentions, the world Miracleman creates seems to be nice, but Moore cleverly puts in hints that this world, despite its status as 'perfect' seems wrong, even perverse. But Moore has never been one to talk down to his audience or to illustrate his own views on the subject, but rather he allows us, the readers, to do so. It also forces you to think about everything that Miracleman has been through throughout the entirety of Moore's run and almost drives you crazy with the what ifs and the could'ves, should'ves, and would'ves of Miracleman's situation, but it leaves you with a sad thought, with Miracleman creating this 'perfect paradise', he has everything, but at the same, he has lost it as well.
Considering how perfect the ending feels, one can't help but see the flaws in it, which is ironic, considering how Moore tends to carry himself in his works. Moore's writing, while lyrical and well crafted, can show his aforementioned tendency to tell more than show, but that is a double edged sword as every great storyteller has his/her purpose, and the scenes that are crammed full of monologues that are beautiful, while at the same time as droning, like I said before Moore did eventually get better with this, but he still carries these habits in his work from time to time. There's also the aforementioned alien storyline which, while it makes sense, isn't really necessary and it feels like Moore is trying too hard to get us interested in this aspect of the story, while he had some really good material with Bates to get to.
But with that, Alan's first major superhero deconstruction comes to an end with an ending that I dare say rivals the ending of Watchmen, which is why I call it the perfect thematic prequel for the masterwork that would become Watchmen, while its focus is more leaning towards the superhuman aspect of superheroics, we also see the story of how a man goes from being a normal man into a god, and now that he has everything, he can only dare to ask what comes next.
"And sometimes...sometimes, I just wonder"
it is here that we see the end of the first series in Alan Moore's spiritual superhero trilogy, which ends on a rather paradoxical note, as we see one of the weaker stories in Alan's Miracleman run, but one he makes up for with an ending that will punch you straight in the nuts and make you say thank you for it. It was truly the ending of the series that got me to really love this and declare it one of Alan's more underrated works, which I still think that it is. But then I see some of my friends here who absolutely loathe this series, or at least the ending arc of it, and I won't pretend to see why they do. Alan's tendency to tell more than he allows to show often rears it's ugly head, and while he got better at it with him growing as a storyteller, it certainly hasn't gone away. But for my friends who found themselves dissatisfied with the ending arc, I can only direct them to wait until the ending, as to really understand the weight of Alan's ending for a man who's become a god.
As for the paradoxical nature of this book, the real issue with the arc is the Qys and Warpsmith arc, which is admittedly Alan's weakest arc of the series, but not because it isn't well written or developed, but rather that it isn't as remarkable as the rest of Alan's work in this run. But, with that out of the way, we also see the ending of the series, which is one that can be oddly comforting, yet completely horrifying at the same time. The final two issues of Alan's arc on Miracleman are nothing short of masterful, with John Totleban, who'd later work with him on Swamp Thing, contributing some truly remarkable work that's nothing short of sublime, but coming with some horrific art as well.
With Miracleman, Alan aimed to deconstruct the Superman and or Shazam concept and show how it could possibly work in the real world, and the point that Alan makes is that, with the existence of these gods, full on terror could ensue, particularly if this godlike power fell into the hands of one like Kid Miracleman, who ends up unleashing a personal holocaust on London, which while well written, is a horrific scene and the entirety of Issue 15 is one that will stick with you for a long time, not just with how horrific the violence is when Kid Miracleman unleashes his power. But that's never what impacted me as much, what really impacted me was the ending, along with its implications, I'm not saying that the horrific violence of Issue 15 isn't effective, but rather it was Issue 16 that really got me thinking, and it even has questioning out of the superhero deconstructions, which one from Watchmen or Miracleman was the most effective. But after giving it some thought, I thought that their endings are both special in their own unique ways.
There are many similarities with Watchmen's ending and Miracleman's ending, as both are ambiguous in their own ways on what actually happened, while in Watchmen, it is Rorschach who gets the last laugh in undermining Ozymandias' utopia, Miracleman's is a much more somber and reflective ending, with Miracleman establishing his 'perfect world' on humanity, but wondering if what he did was the right thing, which will haunt him as the series goes on from here. I'd expect even a god to understand that there's no such thing as 'perfection,' especially from a being who no longer understands humanity and has become little more than a dictator, as the old saying goes, the path to hell is often paved with good intentions, the world Miracleman creates seems to be nice, but Moore cleverly puts in hints that this world, despite its status as 'perfect' seems wrong, even perverse. But Moore has never been one to talk down to his audience or to illustrate his own views on the subject, but rather he allows us, the readers, to do so. It also forces you to think about everything that Miracleman has been through throughout the entirety of Moore's run and almost drives you crazy with the what ifs and the could'ves, should'ves, and would'ves of Miracleman's situation, but it leaves you with a sad thought, with Miracleman creating this 'perfect paradise', he has everything, but at the same, he has lost it as well.
Considering how perfect the ending feels, one can't help but see the flaws in it, which is ironic, considering how Moore tends to carry himself in his works. Moore's writing, while lyrical and well crafted, can show his aforementioned tendency to tell more than show, but that is a double edged sword as every great storyteller has his/her purpose, and the scenes that are crammed full of monologues that are beautiful, while at the same time as droning, like I said before Moore did eventually get better with this, but he still carries these habits in his work from time to time. There's also the aforementioned alien storyline which, while it makes sense, isn't really necessary and it feels like Moore is trying too hard to get us interested in this aspect of the story, while he had some really good material with Bates to get to.
But with that, Alan's first major superhero deconstruction comes to an end with an ending that I dare say rivals the ending of Watchmen, which is why I call it the perfect thematic prequel for the masterwork that would become Watchmen, while its focus is more leaning towards the superhuman aspect of superheroics, we also see the story of how a man goes from being a normal man into a god, and now that he has everything, he can only dare to ask what comes next.
August 22, 2016
Well that was a waste of effort!
I loved vol.1 of Miracleman, vol. 2 was not as good, but this, this was just terrible.
It was as if Alan Moore just took a load of acid and dumped his poetic nonsense onto paper. It's such a shame because amongst it all was a good story, but it wasn't exposed enough.
Pages full of nonsense, what a waste and a spoilt ending to what could have been a great series.
I loved vol.1 of Miracleman, vol. 2 was not as good, but this, this was just terrible.
It was as if Alan Moore just took a load of acid and dumped his poetic nonsense onto paper. It's such a shame because amongst it all was a good story, but it wasn't exposed enough.
Pages full of nonsense, what a waste and a spoilt ending to what could have been a great series.
April 9, 2009
Considered along with the previous two volumes, this is my pick for Alan Moore's best work. It's out of print, alas, and unlikely to be reprinted soon, given the ongoing legal battle over the rights (between Neil Gaiman, Todd McFarlane, and others).
This third collection starts as a more or less conventional superhero comic, but veers into strange and SFnal territory. In modern terms, I consider it to be a story about the rise of a singularity, and one of the best, regardless of medium. I can only quote Julian Darius's comments on the final two issues in this collection:
(quoted from the Miracleman section of The Continuity Pages.)
Issue #16 seemed to bring the story to a definitive and conclusive ending. Neil Gaiman had the unenviable job of following it up, and did a brilliant job of depicting a strange world distorted by the entities introduced by Moore; when I have a chance, I'll review Miracleman: The Golden Age.
This third collection starts as a more or less conventional superhero comic, but veers into strange and SFnal territory. In modern terms, I consider it to be a story about the rise of a singularity, and one of the best, regardless of medium. I can only quote Julian Darius's comments on the final two issues in this collection:
Issue #15 was a revelation, exploding the super-hero genre that had seemed dead after Moore's Watchmen. Issue #16 moved from deconstruction to reconstruction as the entire world was transformed into a funner, more just and more wonderful place. It was fantastic. It was beautiful. It was one of the few most important moments in American comics history.
(quoted from the Miracleman section of The Continuity Pages.)
Issue #16 seemed to bring the story to a definitive and conclusive ending. Neil Gaiman had the unenviable job of following it up, and did a brilliant job of depicting a strange world distorted by the entities introduced by Moore; when I have a chance, I'll review Miracleman: The Golden Age.
April 10, 2015
After such a glorious beginning to Moore's Miracleman saga, the ending stumbles and falls unexpectedly flat. What's frustrating is that there's so much potential goodness here - the alien space-gods, the slow death of Miracleman's "normal" life, the horrific return of Kid Miracleman. There are many ideas here that would find a better expression later in Moore's career.
What killed Miracleman III for me was the framing device: the hero is recounting all these events from a vantage point five years in the future (1987) after every problem in the world has already been conquered and where Miracleman himself lives as a benevolent god. These passages are couched in some of the most overwrought, overwritten, bad-MFA prose that you'd think one of the long-winded Marvel house writers of the 1970s had taken over. It feels as if Moore was so focused on The Point He Was Trying To Make that he sacrificed any kind of emotional immediacy in the story itself, so that even the corpse-strewn London that Kid Miracleman leaves in his wake doesn't prompt any stronger response than "Oh, that's neat" - nothing nearly as powerful as what a similar scene towards the end of Watchmen would achieve.
The rumor is that we'll get to see Neil Gaiman's short lived follow-up reprinted soon, and that he'll get to actually finish the Miracleman story he started in the 80s. If true, can't wait.
What killed Miracleman III for me was the framing device: the hero is recounting all these events from a vantage point five years in the future (1987) after every problem in the world has already been conquered and where Miracleman himself lives as a benevolent god. These passages are couched in some of the most overwrought, overwritten, bad-MFA prose that you'd think one of the long-winded Marvel house writers of the 1970s had taken over. It feels as if Moore was so focused on The Point He Was Trying To Make that he sacrificed any kind of emotional immediacy in the story itself, so that even the corpse-strewn London that Kid Miracleman leaves in his wake doesn't prompt any stronger response than "Oh, that's neat" - nothing nearly as powerful as what a similar scene towards the end of Watchmen would achieve.
The rumor is that we'll get to see Neil Gaiman's short lived follow-up reprinted soon, and that he'll get to actually finish the Miracleman story he started in the 80s. If true, can't wait.
September 29, 2021
I just have one word for this: Brutal!
May 13, 2008
Alan Moore ya había revolucionado el estereotipo de los superhéroes, deconstruyéndolo sin piedad en Watchmen y transformándolo por entero en las dos primeras partes de su trabajo en la serie Miracleman (conocida en Inglaterra como Marvelman). En ésta, la tercera y última de sus series de historias alrededor del personaje, logra una hazaña que no se ha repetido jamás al llevar a sus últimas consecuencias la idea del "individuo superior", que en los comics más rutinarios se queda en una mera fantasía adolescente, a veces sincera (Superman) y otras disfrazada con vagas declaraciones ideológicas (Civil War y basuras semejantes). Los personajes sobrehumanos reunidos alrededor de Miracleman no se detienen en "combatir el mal" ni buscan acomodo con la política "tal como es"; en cambio, una vez que su existencia se da a conocer en el mundo, ponen en marcha una transformación completa de éste con el fin de acabar de una vez con toda desigualdad y sufrimiento. En el proceso, se convierten en dioses: criaturas con la devoción del resto de los mortales, habitantes de un olimpo construido sobre el campo de una batalla atroz. Por si esto no fuera escándalo suficiente, su fin último resulta ser una operación de eugenesia: el "mejoramiento" de toda la humanidad, que podrá pasar a ser una especie entera compuesta por seres de capacidades sobrenaturales.
La trascendencia es un tema raro en cualquier tradición literaria, y Moore lo lleva hasta los límites del lenguaje escrito y visual; las implicaciones filosóficas y éticas son de las que merecen discusiones interminables. Y el dibujo de John Totleben, famoso por su colaboración con Moore en Swamp Thing, da a las imágenes una cualidad inquietante que se mantiene incluso en la apoteosis final, como para recordar que los seres humanos no estamos acostumbrados a mirar más allá de nuestra propia existencia, y cualquier esfuerzo en tal sentido es tan peligroso como irresistible.
La trascendencia es un tema raro en cualquier tradición literaria, y Moore lo lleva hasta los límites del lenguaje escrito y visual; las implicaciones filosóficas y éticas son de las que merecen discusiones interminables. Y el dibujo de John Totleben, famoso por su colaboración con Moore en Swamp Thing, da a las imágenes una cualidad inquietante que se mantiene incluso en la apoteosis final, como para recordar que los seres humanos no estamos acostumbrados a mirar más allá de nuestra propia existencia, y cualquier esfuerzo en tal sentido es tan peligroso como irresistible.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 26, 2016
Si no le doy cinco estrellas es por la lamentable edición de Panini: más de 30 euros por 150 páginas de tebeo, apenas 120 escritas por Moore, y ni un mísero artículo de fondo para contextualizar la obra.
Como si les importara...
Aun así la espera para leer estos números han merecido la pena. Después de los dos tomos anteriores con historias más convencionales, en este llega la trascendencia del universo Miracleman original y la construcción de la utopía planetaria. Un relato contado con textos preciosistas, a veces exageradamente líricos, excelentemente acompañados por una puesta en página de Totleben espectacular. Quizás su composición narrativa no es tan depurada como la de Stephen Bissette, al que Totleben entintaba por entonces en La cosa del pantano, pero plásticamente mantiene su expresividad.
Como si les importara...
Aun así la espera para leer estos números han merecido la pena. Después de los dos tomos anteriores con historias más convencionales, en este llega la trascendencia del universo Miracleman original y la construcción de la utopía planetaria. Un relato contado con textos preciosistas, a veces exageradamente líricos, excelentemente acompañados por una puesta en página de Totleben espectacular. Quizás su composición narrativa no es tan depurada como la de Stephen Bissette, al que Totleben entintaba por entonces en La cosa del pantano, pero plásticamente mantiene su expresividad.
March 10, 2015
It seemed at points that while writing this Alan Moore was going to leave our plane of existence and depart on the metaphysical bullshit express train that he is a frequent passenger on these days, but he held it together long enough to complete this story with a coherent (and very thorough) ending. Unfortunately, the ending lacked the appropriate "Fuck Yeah!" that I was expecting from this long-out-of-print, way-over-hyped book. It's good, but it isn't worth the price that the back issues cost at comic shops....
October 2, 2020
Cuando la tendencia es acelerar, sintetizar lo mas posible; en el cine las escenas duran segundos y en el cómic cada vez se escribe menos.
Si bien hablamos de una obra de mediados de los ochenta, es notoria la cantidad y la calidad de texto que Moore vuelca en estas páginas.
Algo constante en su historial, sumado a las ideas refrescantes y las deconstrucciones, cada hoja es una pequeña pieza de arte en sí, por dibujo y por narración secuencial.
Y no quisiera adelantar el final a nadie, pero el rumbo encarado es muy poco visto.
Si bien hablamos de una obra de mediados de los ochenta, es notoria la cantidad y la calidad de texto que Moore vuelca en estas páginas.
Algo constante en su historial, sumado a las ideas refrescantes y las deconstrucciones, cada hoja es una pequeña pieza de arte en sí, por dibujo y por narración secuencial.
Y no quisiera adelantar el final a nadie, pero el rumbo encarado es muy poco visto.
July 10, 2019
Strap yourself in. This one's a long one....
And so we come to this: the final volume in Alan Moore's run on Miracleman and I'm just going to come out and say it.
This is not a strong end to what started as a decent story. In fact it actually took me a lot longer to push through this volume than it really should have. I felt like I was passing a kidney stone the size of Mt. Olympus itself just trying to get through this.
Miracleman: Olympus in some ways feels like such a departure from the last two volumes that I have to wonder if Moore was given complete freedom at this point to do whatever the fuck he wanted. But I also wonder if someone told him he had a deadline to finish by, so he attached some jumper cables to his bollocks, mainlined some speed and eccy right into his eyeballs and pumped this out over a weekend. Because never have a read a series that was so bloated and needlessly convoluted in such a short framework before. Except maybe for Gail Simone's run on Plastic Man but that was a mini-series.
The story follows Miracleman as he tells the story from the future, his journal being used a framing device to explain the events that happened in the wake of the last arc. We are introduced to Miraclewoman - who was alluded to in the last issue - and the roots of the alien technology that helped to create Miracleman. What follows is a long convoluted trip into space to meet said aliens and an exploration of their culture. In the meantime, Johnny Bates is getting pushed to the edge by Kid Miracleman banging about in his head until the final point where it becomes too much. The ending is both shocking, horrifying and gruesome and the aftermath is quiet unsettling.
So let's bang this out first because this is the easiest. The artwork by John Totleben and Steve Orliff is gorgeous with bright colours, good use of shadows, amazing character detail and some genuinely impressive landscaping. If nothing else, each page is an orgasm for the eyes.
Excuse me, I need to change my pants.....
And some of Moore's prose is genuinely still beautiful and poetic. There are flashes of evocative and strong writing pepper throughout that goes a long way to showcasing what pictures can't. Case in point, the intro of Miraclewoman.
Some things can only be said with words, some with pictures. Some with both.
So for the record, I'm not completely in the boat of thinking that expressive/purple prose is automatically going to make a comic boring.
THAT BEING SAID.....
Ned Stark prepares his anus....
Someone on a comment thread here once said something to the nature that Alan Moore wanted to be a novelist and after reading Olympus, I damn well want to believe that. Right off the bat, the usage of future diary entries was a little off-putting and confusing given that up to this point, the story had been written in the present day.
Secondly Moore's use of written prose results in long-winded textdumps that convey none of the beauty of the setting because Moore is too busy sniffing his own farts than willing to work within the graphic novel format. I really think that Moore was either given an issue limit or the story simply ran away from him because there is FAR TOO MUCH crammed into here for the duration of the plot. I will always applaud and champion writers who try to do new things within the format of literature, but writers also need to understand the format itself. Writing like this distracts from the artwork, the characters and even the story itself.
I'll show you what I mean. The main bulk of the story revolves around Miracleman and Miraclewoman flying off into space and meeting the creators of the tech that made them: The Qys and the Warpsmiths. Through an interaction with their cultures, MM and MW forge an alliance and friendship, in particular to the Warpsmith Aza Chorn.
That's Chorn on the right. Can you feel his stare? Cause that's all you'll get....
Except that Chorn is a silent character who stares like a grumpy gus and says almost nothing. And we really only get a sense of who Aza is through Miracleman's dialogue. Now keep in mind I get what Moore was trying to do here. By having Miracleman speak in these eloquent word-dumps, he was trying to show how Miracleman had changed. How he had thrown his humanity away and become something more alien, almost divine. But when you apply the same style with every other fucking character, I see no reason to give a shit. Even when Chorn dies, his death has so little meaning because I saw no reason to care about him.
....nope still don't care.
It also doesn't help that the other characters introduced through this volume are equally as bland and lacking in personality. Another superhuman is introduced partway through named Firedrake, but he is given the barest of personality aside from being a snarky black bloke who can control fire. The Qys and Warpsmiths are interesting in short spurts, especially in moments where the reader is just allowed to soak up their culture and world but even they suffer from Moore's commitment to bloating up the comic's frames with word after word.
This could've been so much more interesting if it wasn't so fucking wordy!
Even Miraclewoman is kind of an robot in looks and personality - despite looking like Marylin Monroe. Her backstory is spilled out in a single long gobbet of word-vomit, detailing her creation alongside Young Nastyman, another character who got shafted in terms of development, his decline into insanity and her fight with him. Her attempts at integrating into human society, her views on Dr. Gargunza and the things he did to her.....
All of it feels so distant and unemotive that I feel no connection to any of it. Again, I get what Moore was trying to do here, but it was handled in such a way that it actually works AGAINST the story and characters.
The story itself has some highlights that are definitely worth looking at even if you skimread the rest. Winter Moran's development is very creepy and unsettling, going from a 3 week old bub to a 5 year old who speaks like a woman of 60. The fate of Mick Moran, which I'll get into further down. The return of Kid Miracleman and the fate of London as a result. And the final issue which which pretty much completely kicks the status quo over and pisses on its corpse. But like before, all of these moments are peppered with so much infodumpage and purple prose that the edge is taken off.
You can really tell that Alan Moore was cutting his teeth on Miracleman before he moved onto Watchmen. A lot of the same elements from that comic are in this one but they are handled a lot more hamfistedly and sloppily here. There are moments of genuinely good writing and worldbuilding in this volume. The artwork is gorgeous throughout and the ending is still unsettling and fits with the overall theme of what Moore was trying to do. But it's also a volume that is long-winded, too reliant on telling rather than showing, too crammed full of ideas that aren't given the space to breathe and too focused on cramming its purple prose down your throat that I can't really recommend it, other than a skimread to get the ideas across.
Final score 2
Okay so now for the final little look-see.....
5.....
4...
3...
2...
1..
Okay you still with me?
Okay let's talk about why being is a Superhero would ruin everything.
So amidst all the wordy faffery that Moore was pissing about with here, I do get what he was trying to go for. This volume was basically Moore's attempt at exploring what being an alien from another planet ALA Superman would truly mean, not just for himself but also for the world at large. And if anything, the world would be far worse off.
Miracleman is what Doctor Manhattan was before the Doc was even letters on a page. At this point in the story Miracleman is so removed from the world and humanity at large that he feels more of a connection to the Qys and the Warpsmiths than to Liz. He willingly flies off into space with Miraclewoman to explore the stars than try and console his wife, who at this point may as well be a piece of furniture. This results in Liz leaving Mick/MM, distraught and heartbroken that the man she married is effectively gone.
Then there's Winter, Miracleman's daughter. Winter is Moore's attempt to trying to look at what someone like Superboy would truly be like. And the result is truly unsettling. Because she has alien DNA, her intelligence, morals and outlook on reality are so removed from humanity that she may as well be a Xenomorph without the penis mouth.
By the time she's six months old, she speaks like a 30 year old. During this time, she's been psychically influencing her mum, calming her fears and paranoia, effectively brainwashing her. She feels no real love for her parents because of her alien genetics. And when Liz leaves, Winter sees no real reason to stay and flies off into space to explore the galaxy.
All of this results in one of the best/saddest/more impactful scenes in the story....
Yeah.....
Yep. Having lost everything because of Miracleman, Mick Moran just climbed up into the Scottish Highlands, removed all of his clothes and with tears in his eyes, just effectively committed suicide. For the rest of the story, Miracleman is all there is and all there ever will be.
And from here, we have the final most well-known arc of the Olympus volume. What becomes of Kid Miracleman. I get the feeling that Moore was trying to use Johnny/KM as a means to look at how children would truly use a superpowered persona. I.e as a way to escape from the hardships of reality because KM feels like the logical conclusion of that. Someone with all that power and the morals of a child throwing a temper tantrum.
Up to this point, Johnny Bates has been committed to a mental hospital. From there he is moved to an orphanage where a group of bullies proceed to try and gang-rape him. And here we have the result when the child is forced to confront the real world. Forced into a corner, with no way to defend himself, Johnny panics and says his transformation phrase.
Kid Miracleman is back and pissed. And what he does to London is truly horrifying.
I just shit myself....
You know that scene from the Amazing Spider-Man 2? Where Spidey is facing down Electro for the first time and all those bellend yobbo idiots are standing around, gawping at the pair of them until Electro starts to throw around electricity and cars and pieces of the street? I always hated that about superhero comics, how the world's destruction would feel more like a romp through a Looney Tunes cartoon. The scene above is more likely what would happen. When you live in a world where everything is made of cardboard, including humans....
Eventually KM is subdued - at the cost of Aza Chorn's life - and Johnny Bates is all that's left. In any other comic, Johnny would be incarcerated in some maximum security prison where he would eventually escape to fight again or be redeemed somehow. Moore says FUCK THAT.
Yeah KM ain't coming back....
But it's the final issue of Moore's run where everything changes. That Nietzche quote in the first issue wasn't just for show, even if it was put in there by editorial mandate. Throughout this series, Moore has been exploring MM as the kind of ubermensch wet-dream that Nazis and facists secretly wank off over and issue 16 dives headlong into that.
The world is never the same after KM's rampage. MM and MW come out to the world and set about making things right. But remember, they're not human. They're basically gods in human guise. They remake the world alright. They bring in new tech, obliterate money and class struggle, topple the world's governments and send all the nuclear missiles into the sun. They institute new laws and usher in a Golden Age for humanity.
All in the form of a benevolent dictatorship.
Yeah.
By the end of the story, humanity is deprived of free will, creativity and chaos are all but outlawed and there's something lifeless about the world at large. But nobody can openly protest because they would look like a pack of Luddite douchebags. And with the advent of tech that can raise anyone up to level of gods.....
By the end, Liz is gone from the picture, refusing to even deal with MM, pining for the man she lost and loved, Winter has returned but is so far removed from humanity that she can't even be called a child and Miracleman is left at the end, sitting there at his balcony, looking over London, wondering if he made the right choice.
Overall, Alan Moore's run on Miracleman is worth a read, but it does get bogged down with a lot of wordiness by the end and while there are moments of brilliance and iconic scenes throughout, I can understand why people would give this book a miss.
And so we come to this: the final volume in Alan Moore's run on Miracleman and I'm just going to come out and say it.
This is not a strong end to what started as a decent story. In fact it actually took me a lot longer to push through this volume than it really should have. I felt like I was passing a kidney stone the size of Mt. Olympus itself just trying to get through this.
Miracleman: Olympus in some ways feels like such a departure from the last two volumes that I have to wonder if Moore was given complete freedom at this point to do whatever the fuck he wanted. But I also wonder if someone told him he had a deadline to finish by, so he attached some jumper cables to his bollocks, mainlined some speed and eccy right into his eyeballs and pumped this out over a weekend. Because never have a read a series that was so bloated and needlessly convoluted in such a short framework before. Except maybe for Gail Simone's run on Plastic Man but that was a mini-series.
The story follows Miracleman as he tells the story from the future, his journal being used a framing device to explain the events that happened in the wake of the last arc. We are introduced to Miraclewoman - who was alluded to in the last issue - and the roots of the alien technology that helped to create Miracleman. What follows is a long convoluted trip into space to meet said aliens and an exploration of their culture. In the meantime, Johnny Bates is getting pushed to the edge by Kid Miracleman banging about in his head until the final point where it becomes too much. The ending is both shocking, horrifying and gruesome and the aftermath is quiet unsettling.
So let's bang this out first because this is the easiest. The artwork by John Totleben and Steve Orliff is gorgeous with bright colours, good use of shadows, amazing character detail and some genuinely impressive landscaping. If nothing else, each page is an orgasm for the eyes.
Excuse me, I need to change my pants.....
And some of Moore's prose is genuinely still beautiful and poetic. There are flashes of evocative and strong writing pepper throughout that goes a long way to showcasing what pictures can't. Case in point, the intro of Miraclewoman.
Some things can only be said with words, some with pictures. Some with both.
So for the record, I'm not completely in the boat of thinking that expressive/purple prose is automatically going to make a comic boring.
THAT BEING SAID.....
Ned Stark prepares his anus....
Someone on a comment thread here once said something to the nature that Alan Moore wanted to be a novelist and after reading Olympus, I damn well want to believe that. Right off the bat, the usage of future diary entries was a little off-putting and confusing given that up to this point, the story had been written in the present day.
Secondly Moore's use of written prose results in long-winded textdumps that convey none of the beauty of the setting because Moore is too busy sniffing his own farts than willing to work within the graphic novel format. I really think that Moore was either given an issue limit or the story simply ran away from him because there is FAR TOO MUCH crammed into here for the duration of the plot. I will always applaud and champion writers who try to do new things within the format of literature, but writers also need to understand the format itself. Writing like this distracts from the artwork, the characters and even the story itself.
I'll show you what I mean. The main bulk of the story revolves around Miracleman and Miraclewoman flying off into space and meeting the creators of the tech that made them: The Qys and the Warpsmiths. Through an interaction with their cultures, MM and MW forge an alliance and friendship, in particular to the Warpsmith Aza Chorn.
That's Chorn on the right. Can you feel his stare? Cause that's all you'll get....
Except that Chorn is a silent character who stares like a grumpy gus and says almost nothing. And we really only get a sense of who Aza is through Miracleman's dialogue. Now keep in mind I get what Moore was trying to do here. By having Miracleman speak in these eloquent word-dumps, he was trying to show how Miracleman had changed. How he had thrown his humanity away and become something more alien, almost divine. But when you apply the same style with every other fucking character, I see no reason to give a shit. Even when Chorn dies, his death has so little meaning because I saw no reason to care about him.
....nope still don't care.
It also doesn't help that the other characters introduced through this volume are equally as bland and lacking in personality. Another superhuman is introduced partway through named Firedrake, but he is given the barest of personality aside from being a snarky black bloke who can control fire. The Qys and Warpsmiths are interesting in short spurts, especially in moments where the reader is just allowed to soak up their culture and world but even they suffer from Moore's commitment to bloating up the comic's frames with word after word.
This could've been so much more interesting if it wasn't so fucking wordy!
Even Miraclewoman is kind of an robot in looks and personality - despite looking like Marylin Monroe. Her backstory is spilled out in a single long gobbet of word-vomit, detailing her creation alongside Young Nastyman, another character who got shafted in terms of development, his decline into insanity and her fight with him. Her attempts at integrating into human society, her views on Dr. Gargunza and the things he did to her.....
All of it feels so distant and unemotive that I feel no connection to any of it. Again, I get what Moore was trying to do here, but it was handled in such a way that it actually works AGAINST the story and characters.
The story itself has some highlights that are definitely worth looking at even if you skimread the rest. Winter Moran's development is very creepy and unsettling, going from a 3 week old bub to a 5 year old who speaks like a woman of 60. The fate of Mick Moran, which I'll get into further down. The return of Kid Miracleman and the fate of London as a result. And the final issue which which pretty much completely kicks the status quo over and pisses on its corpse. But like before, all of these moments are peppered with so much infodumpage and purple prose that the edge is taken off.
You can really tell that Alan Moore was cutting his teeth on Miracleman before he moved onto Watchmen. A lot of the same elements from that comic are in this one but they are handled a lot more hamfistedly and sloppily here. There are moments of genuinely good writing and worldbuilding in this volume. The artwork is gorgeous throughout and the ending is still unsettling and fits with the overall theme of what Moore was trying to do. But it's also a volume that is long-winded, too reliant on telling rather than showing, too crammed full of ideas that aren't given the space to breathe and too focused on cramming its purple prose down your throat that I can't really recommend it, other than a skimread to get the ideas across.
Final score 2
Okay so now for the final little look-see.....
5.....
4...
3...
2...
1..
Okay you still with me?
Okay let's talk about why being is a Superhero would ruin everything.
So amidst all the wordy faffery that Moore was pissing about with here, I do get what he was trying to go for. This volume was basically Moore's attempt at exploring what being an alien from another planet ALA Superman would truly mean, not just for himself but also for the world at large. And if anything, the world would be far worse off.
Miracleman is what Doctor Manhattan was before the Doc was even letters on a page. At this point in the story Miracleman is so removed from the world and humanity at large that he feels more of a connection to the Qys and the Warpsmiths than to Liz. He willingly flies off into space with Miraclewoman to explore the stars than try and console his wife, who at this point may as well be a piece of furniture. This results in Liz leaving Mick/MM, distraught and heartbroken that the man she married is effectively gone.
Then there's Winter, Miracleman's daughter. Winter is Moore's attempt to trying to look at what someone like Superboy would truly be like. And the result is truly unsettling. Because she has alien DNA, her intelligence, morals and outlook on reality are so removed from humanity that she may as well be a Xenomorph without the penis mouth.
By the time she's six months old, she speaks like a 30 year old. During this time, she's been psychically influencing her mum, calming her fears and paranoia, effectively brainwashing her. She feels no real love for her parents because of her alien genetics. And when Liz leaves, Winter sees no real reason to stay and flies off into space to explore the galaxy.
All of this results in one of the best/saddest/more impactful scenes in the story....
Yeah.....
Yep. Having lost everything because of Miracleman, Mick Moran just climbed up into the Scottish Highlands, removed all of his clothes and with tears in his eyes, just effectively committed suicide. For the rest of the story, Miracleman is all there is and all there ever will be.
And from here, we have the final most well-known arc of the Olympus volume. What becomes of Kid Miracleman. I get the feeling that Moore was trying to use Johnny/KM as a means to look at how children would truly use a superpowered persona. I.e as a way to escape from the hardships of reality because KM feels like the logical conclusion of that. Someone with all that power and the morals of a child throwing a temper tantrum.
Up to this point, Johnny Bates has been committed to a mental hospital. From there he is moved to an orphanage where a group of bullies proceed to try and gang-rape him. And here we have the result when the child is forced to confront the real world. Forced into a corner, with no way to defend himself, Johnny panics and says his transformation phrase.
Kid Miracleman is back and pissed. And what he does to London is truly horrifying.
I just shit myself....
You know that scene from the Amazing Spider-Man 2? Where Spidey is facing down Electro for the first time and all those bellend yobbo idiots are standing around, gawping at the pair of them until Electro starts to throw around electricity and cars and pieces of the street? I always hated that about superhero comics, how the world's destruction would feel more like a romp through a Looney Tunes cartoon. The scene above is more likely what would happen. When you live in a world where everything is made of cardboard, including humans....
Eventually KM is subdued - at the cost of Aza Chorn's life - and Johnny Bates is all that's left. In any other comic, Johnny would be incarcerated in some maximum security prison where he would eventually escape to fight again or be redeemed somehow. Moore says FUCK THAT.
Yeah KM ain't coming back....
But it's the final issue of Moore's run where everything changes. That Nietzche quote in the first issue wasn't just for show, even if it was put in there by editorial mandate. Throughout this series, Moore has been exploring MM as the kind of ubermensch wet-dream that Nazis and facists secretly wank off over and issue 16 dives headlong into that.
The world is never the same after KM's rampage. MM and MW come out to the world and set about making things right. But remember, they're not human. They're basically gods in human guise. They remake the world alright. They bring in new tech, obliterate money and class struggle, topple the world's governments and send all the nuclear missiles into the sun. They institute new laws and usher in a Golden Age for humanity.
All in the form of a benevolent dictatorship.
Yeah.
By the end of the story, humanity is deprived of free will, creativity and chaos are all but outlawed and there's something lifeless about the world at large. But nobody can openly protest because they would look like a pack of Luddite douchebags. And with the advent of tech that can raise anyone up to level of gods.....
By the end, Liz is gone from the picture, refusing to even deal with MM, pining for the man she lost and loved, Winter has returned but is so far removed from humanity that she can't even be called a child and Miracleman is left at the end, sitting there at his balcony, looking over London, wondering if he made the right choice.
Overall, Alan Moore's run on Miracleman is worth a read, but it does get bogged down with a lot of wordiness by the end and while there are moments of brilliance and iconic scenes throughout, I can understand why people would give this book a miss.
July 7, 2020
I was rather straining to understand about half of what I read here, but the half I did understand I quite liked. It was trippy, experimental, occasionally mythological, and quite good. Still a step down (a star removed) from Moore's best, though.
May 19, 2020
Utterly stunning, even during the relatively early stages of his career, Alan Moore is an undisputed master. I might enlarge on this just to try and type out my thoughts about the brilliance of Moore's achievement; the power of narrative, philosophy, morality, life, love, death. And poor, brilliant, tragic, Kid Miracleman...
April 7, 2020
After what I thought was a decline in quality from Book One to Book Two, I think this third and final instalment may be the most significant of them all. This features the best artwork of the entire series; it's uncanny, dreamlike, rich, painterly, poetic, haunting, and poised precariously between ugly and beautiful, with some truly striking, grandiose, and beguiling images, such as the huge statues, the Mors god, the swan-shaped funeral-boat, and the vistas of a future utopia.
The writing is the most highfalutin of the series, offering a relentless barrage of purple prose poetry in several big blocks per page, that make this closer to an illustrated novel than a traditional comic book, hence justifying the term 'graphic novel'. This is the aspect of the book that I think is most likely to polarise people, due to its grandiose pretension. Either Alan Moore's truly come into his own as a writer from the first two books and elevated the comic-book form to something comparable to a serious literary work, or he's gone off the deep end into pretentious, highfalutin, faux-poetic self-indulgence. Or perhaps it's a bit of both, I'm not sure I'm fully decided.
He does tend to overdo it at times with the prose, mentioning terms in passing that have wider connotations than what's being written about at hand, making them nigh irrelevant to the context of the text. Sometimes the prose topple into ridiculously overblown metaphors, in a self-conscious attempt to conjure striking and potent imagery that sears itself into your mind. It's an interesting experiment nonetheless, if only to see how far Alan Moore can stretch his verbiage. I'll write it in caps-lock as it is in the comic-book in order to distinguish it from my own writing.
BRIEFLY, I EMBRACED AN INFANT SUN THAT SCRIBBLED BRIGHT, AUTISTIC CRAYON LINES ACROSS EACH RETINA. IT BECAME SOMETHING LIKE A GIANT, SEVERED HAND; A STICKY MOUTH GLISTENING IN ITS PALM.
The narrative is concluded in an extremely satisfying way, with an earth-shattering climax that's followed by an epilogue of a sort that's more thought-provoking than anything else in the story. In terms of emotional content, this reaches a level of tragic pathos, with Kid Miracleman's simple yet heartbreaking utterance of 'I did it again, didn't I?' as he has to contend with the catastrophic mess he's made in the form of his alter-ego, in his final haunting moments with Miracleman. While it could end there, the conclusion goes further than this, in what is perhaps the most interesting part of the entire narrative, as it presents the idea of a dystopian utopia brought about by the destruction of the planet in which the gods reign supreme.
Ultimately, this is a rich, ambitious, and thought-provoking conclusion to the Miracleman saga that's worth reading for anyone who likes Moore's singular political works such as Watchmen and V For Vendetta, probably more so than people who just liked the first two Miracleman books.
The writing is the most highfalutin of the series, offering a relentless barrage of purple prose poetry in several big blocks per page, that make this closer to an illustrated novel than a traditional comic book, hence justifying the term 'graphic novel'. This is the aspect of the book that I think is most likely to polarise people, due to its grandiose pretension. Either Alan Moore's truly come into his own as a writer from the first two books and elevated the comic-book form to something comparable to a serious literary work, or he's gone off the deep end into pretentious, highfalutin, faux-poetic self-indulgence. Or perhaps it's a bit of both, I'm not sure I'm fully decided.
He does tend to overdo it at times with the prose, mentioning terms in passing that have wider connotations than what's being written about at hand, making them nigh irrelevant to the context of the text. Sometimes the prose topple into ridiculously overblown metaphors, in a self-conscious attempt to conjure striking and potent imagery that sears itself into your mind. It's an interesting experiment nonetheless, if only to see how far Alan Moore can stretch his verbiage. I'll write it in caps-lock as it is in the comic-book in order to distinguish it from my own writing.
BRIEFLY, I EMBRACED AN INFANT SUN THAT SCRIBBLED BRIGHT, AUTISTIC CRAYON LINES ACROSS EACH RETINA. IT BECAME SOMETHING LIKE A GIANT, SEVERED HAND; A STICKY MOUTH GLISTENING IN ITS PALM.
The narrative is concluded in an extremely satisfying way, with an earth-shattering climax that's followed by an epilogue of a sort that's more thought-provoking than anything else in the story. In terms of emotional content, this reaches a level of tragic pathos, with Kid Miracleman's simple yet heartbreaking utterance of 'I did it again, didn't I?' as he has to contend with the catastrophic mess he's made in the form of his alter-ego, in his final haunting moments with Miracleman. While it could end there, the conclusion goes further than this, in what is perhaps the most interesting part of the entire narrative, as it presents the idea of a dystopian utopia brought about by the destruction of the planet in which the gods reign supreme.
Ultimately, this is a rich, ambitious, and thought-provoking conclusion to the Miracleman saga that's worth reading for anyone who likes Moore's singular political works such as Watchmen and V For Vendetta, probably more so than people who just liked the first two Miracleman books.
January 28, 2017
Well it's not quite the masterpiece I remember it being, but it's really good. It's very well paced, with a satisfying climax and conclusion that justifies the slowness of the first two volumes. The infamous issue #15 is every bit as brutal and painful as its reputation suggests. A lot of the credit for that goes to John Totleben, who turns in wonderfully detailed and dream-like art, even though he was in the process of going blind at the time! My main criticism is with Moore's prose. He is generally a legitimately strong prose writer, and there are many clever and quotable turns of phrase here, but he's also guilty of overwriting and getting a little too carried away to the point where the oh so poetic sequences border on meaninglessness. There are also more than a few plot holes, but there's enough good stuff here to more than make up for that. I love how the story is told like a myth, and how we can watch the myth Miracleman creates span its own new series of myths in the eyes of the people who watch. The whole concept is very clever, and I respect Moore for taking it to its ultimate conclusion and not wimping out.
Alan Moore is basically the only writer I like who does the "deconstructing the superhero" thing. Because honestly, the idea isn't that clever. Yes, superheroes are inherently kind of silly, so the idea of looking at them under a serious light and picking apart their flaws and how they clash with "reality" is so unclever as to barely be worth doing. But Moore is such a skilled and (otherwise) imaginative writer that even something that obvious can yield wonders in his hands, because he takes it in unexpected and interesting directions. Unfortunately a legion of less talented imitators seem to think that there is still some water in this well and return to it time and again, under the impression that they are in some way doing something smart or original.
Alan Moore is basically the only writer I like who does the "deconstructing the superhero" thing. Because honestly, the idea isn't that clever. Yes, superheroes are inherently kind of silly, so the idea of looking at them under a serious light and picking apart their flaws and how they clash with "reality" is so unclever as to barely be worth doing. But Moore is such a skilled and (otherwise) imaginative writer that even something that obvious can yield wonders in his hands, because he takes it in unexpected and interesting directions. Unfortunately a legion of less talented imitators seem to think that there is still some water in this well and return to it time and again, under the impression that they are in some way doing something smart or original.
June 16, 2020
The Kid Miracleman part of the story is what pushed this to 5 stars for me. The parts of dealing with alien cultures, the weird superbaby, and the utopian culture were okay, but I thought the battle with Kid Miracleman was by far the best part.
It definitely seemed as though Alan Moore was done here, as he had taken the series as far as he felt possible. Neil Gaiman picks it up, but really I think this would have been a good ending.
It definitely seemed as though Alan Moore was done here, as he had taken the series as far as he felt possible. Neil Gaiman picks it up, but really I think this would have been a good ending.
February 5, 2018
Este último tomo ha sido demasiado excesivo para mi gusto.
May 24, 2015
I'm giving this one five stars, but I'm not really sure I liked it.
The art is gorgeous, full stop, so we can get that out of the way first.
But I don't think this is Moore's most compelling work: Watchmen and Swamp Thing are his best work from this time period. Part of the reason Olympus left me cold was that it is framed as a retrospective, which gives all of the events a narrative distance and removes the immediacy. It reads almost like an outline for a story rather than the story itself. Also, the prose is extremely purple at times.
And yet... It's written as the memoir of Miracleman so presumably any of the excesses of the prose could be because it's in his self-proclaimed godlike voice. And occasionally it strikes moments of poetry. The immediacy that is lacking could be a direct commentary on the typical form of super-hero comics, which eschew intellectual consideration for an exciting narrative. Instead, Olympus is an examination of the introduction of superheroes to the world and how it changed everything, almost as a poetic dissertation. A history rather than an action movie or literary thriller.
Plus the big ideas and narrative style remind me of Morrison and, more recently, Hickman, so it's clear that the influence of this volume of Miracleman is far-reaching.
So the more I thought about it, the less I was comfortable giving it 3 or 4 stars. I didn't love Olympus, but I respect the hell out of it.
Any utopia seems unsustainable, so I'm very curious to finally see Gaiman's follow-up completed.
The art is gorgeous, full stop, so we can get that out of the way first.
But I don't think this is Moore's most compelling work: Watchmen and Swamp Thing are his best work from this time period. Part of the reason Olympus left me cold was that it is framed as a retrospective, which gives all of the events a narrative distance and removes the immediacy. It reads almost like an outline for a story rather than the story itself. Also, the prose is extremely purple at times.
And yet... It's written as the memoir of Miracleman so presumably any of the excesses of the prose could be because it's in his self-proclaimed godlike voice. And occasionally it strikes moments of poetry. The immediacy that is lacking could be a direct commentary on the typical form of super-hero comics, which eschew intellectual consideration for an exciting narrative. Instead, Olympus is an examination of the introduction of superheroes to the world and how it changed everything, almost as a poetic dissertation. A history rather than an action movie or literary thriller.
Plus the big ideas and narrative style remind me of Morrison and, more recently, Hickman, so it's clear that the influence of this volume of Miracleman is far-reaching.
So the more I thought about it, the less I was comfortable giving it 3 or 4 stars. I didn't love Olympus, but I respect the hell out of it.
Any utopia seems unsustainable, so I'm very curious to finally see Gaiman's follow-up completed.
May 30, 2015
Lovely! I hadn't realized that some of this was published as recently as 2014. I seem to recall that Neil Gaiman's run on the title immediately followed Moore's, so I wonder if any of the recent concluding chapters here invalidate any of Gaiman's continuity? It's been so long since I read any of the original comics that I'd forgotten huge chunks of this. The conclusion of this volume was well-handled and highly satisfying. The last half of the book is chock full of sketches and other bonus material. So, since Alan Moore is hiding behind the alias of, "The Original Writer," I fantasize that Neil Gaiman will insist on being billed as,"The Other Writer." Hey, it could happen ...
January 3, 2013
I'm not a big fan of poetry and this one was definitely verging on graphic novel poetry. Also the story is being confused with inferences to higher states of being in the human mind like the Promethea comics explore. As exploring this mystical soul version of the capabilities of the human mind, it clashes with my empirical version of reality. I really have trouble giving the work credence beyond someone trying to force their own perspective of reality, especially when it's detrimental to the development of the plot and characters.
March 26, 2009
I don't know how a book gets more than a 5 star rating, but the end to Moore's section of the Miracleman story is about as purely amazing as comic books get.
July 3, 2015
Well it all comes to an explosive close as Miracleman's past finally confronts him. Excellent story and very good art make this a nice and very different comic read. Very recommended
November 26, 2023
The first chapters of the third book of Moore's Miracleman, unfortunately and sadly, are quite a bit of a drag. The narrative style of Moore tend to result in him using long descriptions and definitions to express his thoughts. In most cases, this is one of his strengths and what makes him better than the others. Alan Moore wouldn't be Alan Moore without his elegant style of writing. However, sometimes it's pretty easy to get lost while reading between his lines and trying to understand the complicated the ideas that come out of his brain. This was also the case in the first few chapters here.
The last two chapters however, is more than worth enduring the drag in previous chapters. It's an unbelievably well accumulation of all the elements that lead to the ending of the story. A literal utopia was created: no poverty, no universally accepted value of money, no inequality. People were given the oppurtunity to become gods themselves, society was being educated on a level beyond the human brain can comprehend. Yet, at the same time, it was strikingly easy to notice that a really important thing was lost in the way of reaching to perfection.
Perhaps the line from Liz in the last chapter is what summarises this loss the best: "And you've forgotten what you're asking me to give up." Miracleman is so disillusioned, so lost that when he offers Liz the chance to become like himself, he thinks all the barries and all the troubles of past will be long gone. He completely relinquishes the time they got married, the things she adore, the human side of himself. Instead, he chose to be a god, the embodiment of perfection. This is where one can see what happens when a person gains an incomprehensible power, a power that makes them a god. It's thought-provoking to see how uninterested he becomes for commonalities that makes us a human.
The story is not just a twist for this superhero, but mainly it's a great depiction of how detrimental it could be to have an actual superhero among mere humans. The broken concept of superheroes are one of Moore's most frequently explored areas, and this Miracleman story is so ground-breaking that it's most likely the best at showcasing this misconception. It has been explored countless times before I'm sure, but I doubt anything can reach the level of literacy that this work has.
In comparison with Watchmen, which also covers similar topics, it's easy to see the difference of delicacy between the two. Moore's ideas in Watchmen are far too mainstream compared to the ones in here, and the metaphors, the foreshadowing in there sometimes gets in the way of making his point. Perhaps it's easy to relate to the characters that are in Watchmen's environment, simply because the concepts are mostly covered without the inhumane aspects. But the subtlety difference is obvious, in my humble opinion.
It's fair to say that this was a masterpiece, excluding the excessive advert of ideas in the beginning, which lead to an ending that easily eludes all of it.
The last two chapters however, is more than worth enduring the drag in previous chapters. It's an unbelievably well accumulation of all the elements that lead to the ending of the story. A literal utopia was created: no poverty, no universally accepted value of money, no inequality. People were given the oppurtunity to become gods themselves, society was being educated on a level beyond the human brain can comprehend. Yet, at the same time, it was strikingly easy to notice that a really important thing was lost in the way of reaching to perfection.
Perhaps the line from Liz in the last chapter is what summarises this loss the best: "And you've forgotten what you're asking me to give up." Miracleman is so disillusioned, so lost that when he offers Liz the chance to become like himself, he thinks all the barries and all the troubles of past will be long gone. He completely relinquishes the time they got married, the things she adore, the human side of himself. Instead, he chose to be a god, the embodiment of perfection. This is where one can see what happens when a person gains an incomprehensible power, a power that makes them a god. It's thought-provoking to see how uninterested he becomes for commonalities that makes us a human.
The story is not just a twist for this superhero, but mainly it's a great depiction of how detrimental it could be to have an actual superhero among mere humans. The broken concept of superheroes are one of Moore's most frequently explored areas, and this Miracleman story is so ground-breaking that it's most likely the best at showcasing this misconception. It has been explored countless times before I'm sure, but I doubt anything can reach the level of literacy that this work has.
In comparison with Watchmen, which also covers similar topics, it's easy to see the difference of delicacy between the two. Moore's ideas in Watchmen are far too mainstream compared to the ones in here, and the metaphors, the foreshadowing in there sometimes gets in the way of making his point. Perhaps it's easy to relate to the characters that are in Watchmen's environment, simply because the concepts are mostly covered without the inhumane aspects. But the subtlety difference is obvious, in my humble opinion.
It's fair to say that this was a masterpiece, excluding the excessive advert of ideas in the beginning, which lead to an ending that easily eludes all of it.
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