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A review by uosdwisrdewoh
A Dream of Flying by Alan Moore, Alan Davis, Garry Leach
4.0
This minor lost classic was out of print for decades due to deeply complicated rights issues which largely stem from its first publisher Dez Skinn pretty much stealing the character of Miracleman from its creator Mick Anglo,* who himself created the character as Marvelman in the 60s as a transparent copy of Captain Marvel—not the Brie Larson one, the one that eventually became Shazam—to publish when DC sued Captain Marvel out of existence in the 50s. As I said, it’s complicated.
Dez Skinn dug this character out of the vaults in the 80s and hired a young Alan Moore to write it in a more mature, sophisticated way. Moore ran with it and created a work so deeply influential that when you read it today its innovations are blunted by their prevalence throughout all of comics-derived pop culture. Subversive, extremely violent takes on superheroes are everywhere from The Boys to Kick-Ass, and these supposedly grown-up stories didn’t take long to whip back around to juvenile.
All that notwithstanding, this seminal work still retains some of its power. Alan Moore’s gift for storytelling is present very early in his career, and he convincingly sells elements that are now cliches like the evil government conspiracy, the “everything you knew is a lie” origin, and the corrupting influence of total power. Moore, along with the very talented artists Garry Leach and Alan Davis, convey the awesome potential of superpowers, from the frightening to the awe-inspiring.
Even with the talents involved, the blind spots of the original work show. Miracleman’s wife Liz is an important figure in the book, but the reader knows what her naked body looks like well before they discover anything about her personality. One of the villains is a Black assassin with diamond teeth named Evelyn Cream, a very uncomfortable blaxploitation villain coming from the pens of very white creators.
Marvel eventually straightened out the rights issues in 2014 and reissued it in pricey hardcovers. The art has been reconstructed and recolored; some find such work garish, but I think it’s perfectly fine. Like so many of Marvel’s books, though, it’s staggeringly expensive for the page count, $30 for 112 story pages. The volume is padded out with original art scans and variant covers. Back-up stories featuring the Warpsmiths that conclude the volume are included here for completeness’s sake, as they’re tangentially related to Miracleman and by the same creative team, but they’re a real step down in quality from the rest of the book and have a wildly different tone.
All of this is not to distract from Miracleman being a landmark work in mainstream comics, a key step in their journey out of juvenalia. It could easily have been lost for ages. It’s nice to have it at last.
*This cheating of Mick Anglo is the primary reason Alan Moore asked to have his name removed from these editions. He’s credited as “The Original Writer” so that Anglo’s family can earn his full royalty as co-creator.
Dez Skinn dug this character out of the vaults in the 80s and hired a young Alan Moore to write it in a more mature, sophisticated way. Moore ran with it and created a work so deeply influential that when you read it today its innovations are blunted by their prevalence throughout all of comics-derived pop culture. Subversive, extremely violent takes on superheroes are everywhere from The Boys to Kick-Ass, and these supposedly grown-up stories didn’t take long to whip back around to juvenile.
All that notwithstanding, this seminal work still retains some of its power. Alan Moore’s gift for storytelling is present very early in his career, and he convincingly sells elements that are now cliches like the evil government conspiracy, the “everything you knew is a lie” origin, and the corrupting influence of total power. Moore, along with the very talented artists Garry Leach and Alan Davis, convey the awesome potential of superpowers, from the frightening to the awe-inspiring.
Even with the talents involved, the blind spots of the original work show. Miracleman’s wife Liz is an important figure in the book, but the reader knows what her naked body looks like well before they discover anything about her personality. One of the villains is a Black assassin with diamond teeth named Evelyn Cream, a very uncomfortable blaxploitation villain coming from the pens of very white creators.
Marvel eventually straightened out the rights issues in 2014 and reissued it in pricey hardcovers. The art has been reconstructed and recolored; some find such work garish, but I think it’s perfectly fine. Like so many of Marvel’s books, though, it’s staggeringly expensive for the page count, $30 for 112 story pages. The volume is padded out with original art scans and variant covers. Back-up stories featuring the Warpsmiths that conclude the volume are included here for completeness’s sake, as they’re tangentially related to Miracleman and by the same creative team, but they’re a real step down in quality from the rest of the book and have a wildly different tone.
All of this is not to distract from Miracleman being a landmark work in mainstream comics, a key step in their journey out of juvenalia. It could easily have been lost for ages. It’s nice to have it at last.
*This cheating of Mick Anglo is the primary reason Alan Moore asked to have his name removed from these editions. He’s credited as “The Original Writer” so that Anglo’s family can earn his full royalty as co-creator.