Marvelman promo image with my caption
Something rare happened at the SDCC and the news was supposed to be big. You can head over to your favorite comic news sites for all the details.
This post is my view on the situation.
I’m actually not impressed, and this news is not huge to me as a comic fan. It honestly is not. Miracleman, who can now go back to his original name of Marvelman. Ask most comic fans in their teens to I’d say early thirties and you won’t get much recognition I think.
Marvelman is a very niche character that you either like and read about. Or you just never bought his books. In that sense it’s a very closed character. You either read his stories, or you didn’t. Their was very little middle ground their.
This news was supposed to be the fabled “Break the Internet in Half” it was a tired joke when Bendis said it and anyone knowing basic programming skills knows such a phrase is just impossible and can’t relate to the Internet.
But you want to know what news would have got me excited and drove fans to the stores?
How about news like:
Todd McFarlane returning to draw Spider-Man on a monthly series
Jim Lee returning to the X-men on a monthly series
Don’t tell me news like that wouldn’t pique most fans interest and more importantly get them to purchase the book in the stores. I know I’d be on line for those issues.
Sure the above is not happening. I’m just saying if you want big news. I consider topics like that big news.
I think with Marvelman, the news really isn’t clicking because I’m seeing a lot of posts about:
Who is the character?
I don’t know him.
Why should I care?
This is not big news to me or holds my interest.
As I said, Marvelman is very niche a character. And in my view not much of an interesting one. The only reason he got interesting was because Alan Moore and later Neil Gaiman wrote good stories.
Before then Marvelman was little more then a copy of Fawcett’s Captain Marvel. Outside of the Moore and later Gaiman stories, all the previous work with the character is nothing worth mentioning. Much less have any big reader demand to see in print.
The details are still shrouded, but I heard a rumor Marvel might have paid millions to own the character?
Also they might not be able to use the word Miracleman in the stories, meaning the text in stories would have to be altered and say Marvelman instead?
What I find most strange of all is Marvel buying another companies characters. That almost never happens with this company.
I think besides various trade paperbacks, they will try to produce some good mini-series with the character.
Though it’s only a matter of time before this character in one form or other gets streamlined and becomes a part of the regular Marvel Universe. And then it gets watered down and every writer is using him.
Finally a return of the Ultraverse would be more interesting to me. Now how about it Marvel? That’s your new assignment get to work. 