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Reviews
A Dream of Flying by Alan Davis, Garry Leach, Paul Neary, Steve Dillon, Don Lawrence, Mick Anglo
whimsicalmeerkat's review against another edition
4.0
Alan Moore is at the top of his writing skill, and the series continues to be great with Neil Gaiman. John Tottleben does an outstanding job with the art. The series includes Andy Warhol, has an absolutely moving issue called "Birth" and I love Winter, the child. Amazing.
georgesc's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
trilbynorton's review against another edition
4.0
Miracleman (Marvelman originally, but changed due to various intellectual property shenanigans) was Alan Moore's warning shot fired at the American superhero comic. These first four issues represent as thorough a dismantling of superheroes, their origins, and their place in the world as you could hope for.
brandonadaniels's review
3.0
It’s always great to see the early, sometimes messy work of the greats. This doesn’t quite hold up as well as V For Vendetta or Swamp Thing, but there’s still some good stuff here.
dryden's review against another edition
adventurous
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
dantastic's review
4.0
After an almost 20 year absence, Miracleman reappears, throwing his alter ego Mike Moran's life into chaos...
Back in the day, before he was Alan Moore: Supreme Curmudgeon and Master of Beards, Alan Moore was simply a cutting edge comic book writer. Miracleman was his ticket to the big time, before Swamp Thing, before Watchmen, before whatever it is he's doing these days besides seemingly being pissed off all the time.
Miracleman started life as Marvelman, a 1950s British Captain Marvel homage/ripoff. Moore, Alan Davis, and some others brought him back in the pages of Warrior, a UK comic magazine. How does one revive a ripoff character from the 50s and make him relevant?
Spectacularly! That's how. Moore takes essentially a kid's comic, breaks it down, and shows what superheroes might be like in real life. I love how he deconstructs the Captain Marvel-like hero and actually makes it believable. Also, this volume nicely illustrates the carnage super heroes would create in the real world.
I do have a couple gripes, though. This volume is super thin for what it costs. Also, I'd much rather have a couple more issues included instead of the Warpsmith material and the sketches, especially considering I still have a couple issues of Warrior and Miracleman lying in some dark corner of the Dan Cave. The story itself is a little dated, more by the writing style than the cultural references. For a comic, it was pretty wordy.
All things considered, Miracleman is still pretty damn good and a cool piece of 1980s comic book history. Four out of five stars.
Back in the day, before he was Alan Moore: Supreme Curmudgeon and Master of Beards, Alan Moore was simply a cutting edge comic book writer. Miracleman was his ticket to the big time, before Swamp Thing, before Watchmen, before whatever it is he's doing these days besides seemingly being pissed off all the time.
Miracleman started life as Marvelman, a 1950s British Captain Marvel homage/ripoff. Moore, Alan Davis, and some others brought him back in the pages of Warrior, a UK comic magazine. How does one revive a ripoff character from the 50s and make him relevant?
Spectacularly! That's how. Moore takes essentially a kid's comic, breaks it down, and shows what superheroes might be like in real life. I love how he deconstructs the Captain Marvel-like hero and actually makes it believable. Also, this volume nicely illustrates the carnage super heroes would create in the real world.
I do have a couple gripes, though. This volume is super thin for what it costs. Also, I'd much rather have a couple more issues included instead of the Warpsmith material and the sketches, especially considering I still have a couple issues of Warrior and Miracleman lying in some dark corner of the Dan Cave. The story itself is a little dated, more by the writing style than the cultural references. For a comic, it was pretty wordy.
All things considered, Miracleman is still pretty damn good and a cool piece of 1980s comic book history. Four out of five stars.
cassie_grace's review
4.0
A compelling deconstruction of golden age superheroics. Rights issues have kept it out of print for two decades, and I'm glad it's finally back.
ericbuscemi's review against another edition
4.0
This Vulture article made me very excited to read this recently re-released comic, and now that I have, I don't even know where to begin with a review. So here is a brief history of the comic, taken from the Vulture article (click the link above for the full article):
When the U.S. stopped importing then-popular Captain Marvel to Britain in 1954, British publishers created their own knock-off, Marvelman, who was popular until U.S. comics import restrictions eased in the early 60s, causing Marvelman do disappear in 1963. In 1982, Dez Skinn launched the anthology Warrior and brought back Marvelman, giving it to writer [a:Alan Moore|3961|Alan Moore|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1304944713p2/3961.jpg]. This series continued until 1984, when it came to a stop amidst rumors Marvel Comics pressured Warrior to drop it because of the Marvelman name. In the early 90s, American publisher Eclipse bought the character rights and started reprinting the Warrior comics with the character renamed as Miracleman. They also continued the story with writer [a:Neil Gaiman|1221698|Neil Gaiman|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1234150163p2/1221698.jpg]. This lasted until Eclipse went out of business in 1994. Then, in 2009, Marvel bought the rights to the character, and announced they were reprinting all the stories... and letting Gaiman write and publish the end of the saga.
So this first volume, collecting Miracleman issues 1-4, is a bit dated and distinctly British, but it is also the early work of graphic novel legends Moore and later, Gaiman, and it shows. The opening gambit, a Golden Age interpretation of Miracleman and his sidekicks had me quickly flipping through the book to make certain the entire run wasn't like that, but fear not, it isn't. It is just a brilliant way to contrast the way Miracleman is about to be handled going forward -- by turning everything the reader, and he himself, knows end over end. In a word, this comic is an early archetype of the subversive work Moore would later be known for.
This is not on the level of [b:Watchmen|472331|Watchmen|Alan Moore|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327866860s/472331.jpg|4358649] or [b:The Sandman|23754|The Sandman, Vol. 1 Preludes and Nocturnes (The Sandman #1)|Neil Gaiman|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1358923255s/23754.jpg|1228437] -- at least not this first volume -- but it is unmistakably brilliant in its own right, so much so that [b:The New Avengers, Vol. 2: Sentry|105910|The New Avengers, Vol. 2 Sentry|Brian Michael Bendis|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1317302961s/105910.jpg|102091] basically stole Miracleman's origin for their Sentry character.
I do have one issue with this collection that does not relate to the comic run, and that is that this 176 page hardcover book is about a third filler material, some of which is the type of obligatory sketches almost always found at the end of most trade paperbacks, but there are also multiple comics at the end that do not feature Miracleman at all. So just be aware going in that this collection is a bit slimmer than you might initially expect. I guess Marvel has to make as many trade paperbacks as it can out of a 24-issue initial run. And, of course, I will run out and buy them all. Sigh.
When the U.S. stopped importing then-popular Captain Marvel to Britain in 1954, British publishers created their own knock-off, Marvelman, who was popular until U.S. comics import restrictions eased in the early 60s, causing Marvelman do disappear in 1963. In 1982, Dez Skinn launched the anthology Warrior and brought back Marvelman, giving it to writer [a:Alan Moore|3961|Alan Moore|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1304944713p2/3961.jpg]. This series continued until 1984, when it came to a stop amidst rumors Marvel Comics pressured Warrior to drop it because of the Marvelman name. In the early 90s, American publisher Eclipse bought the character rights and started reprinting the Warrior comics with the character renamed as Miracleman. They also continued the story with writer [a:Neil Gaiman|1221698|Neil Gaiman|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1234150163p2/1221698.jpg]. This lasted until Eclipse went out of business in 1994. Then, in 2009, Marvel bought the rights to the character, and announced they were reprinting all the stories... and letting Gaiman write and publish the end of the saga.
So this first volume, collecting Miracleman issues 1-4, is a bit dated and distinctly British, but it is also the early work of graphic novel legends Moore and later, Gaiman, and it shows. The opening gambit, a Golden Age interpretation of Miracleman and his sidekicks had me quickly flipping through the book to make certain the entire run wasn't like that, but fear not, it isn't. It is just a brilliant way to contrast the way Miracleman is about to be handled going forward -- by turning everything the reader, and he himself, knows end over end. In a word, this comic is an early archetype of the subversive work Moore would later be known for.
This is not on the level of [b:Watchmen|472331|Watchmen|Alan Moore|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327866860s/472331.jpg|4358649] or [b:The Sandman|23754|The Sandman, Vol. 1 Preludes and Nocturnes (The Sandman #1)|Neil Gaiman|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1358923255s/23754.jpg|1228437] -- at least not this first volume -- but it is unmistakably brilliant in its own right, so much so that [b:The New Avengers, Vol. 2: Sentry|105910|The New Avengers, Vol. 2 Sentry|Brian Michael Bendis|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1317302961s/105910.jpg|102091] basically stole Miracleman's origin for their Sentry character.
I do have one issue with this collection that does not relate to the comic run, and that is that this 176 page hardcover book is about a third filler material, some of which is the type of obligatory sketches almost always found at the end of most trade paperbacks, but there are also multiple comics at the end that do not feature Miracleman at all. So just be aware going in that this collection is a bit slimmer than you might initially expect. I guess Marvel has to make as many trade paperbacks as it can out of a 24-issue initial run. And, of course, I will run out and buy them all. Sigh.