Miracleman Book Three: Olympus

Rating:
Summary: Superhero comics at their best
Review: Alan Moore is probably the best writer to work in the comics medium, and this is his greatest story. If you enjoyed Kingdom Come, this is a must read, the paralells (not that Kingdom come is a rip-off) are striking. These comics are so amazing, there's really no excuse for them being out of print. Even if you have to pay several hundred dollars to collect this series, it's worth it.

Rating:
Summary: Horrifyingly Excellent
Review: Forget your pre-conceptions as to what a superhero would mean to our world. Alan Moore has a new point-of-view on the subject, and after you read it, you'll never look at Superman or his ilk the same way again.

Miracleman is a super-hero who exists in "the real world", which means that the real world affects and is affected by him. This means several things.

First of all, and most notably, it means that when his evil counterpart, Kid Miracleman, goes on a rampage in London, people DIE. And not just die...they're arms are ripped off, stuffed down the throats of their loved ones, and then boiled. It's a grotesque but thoroughly TRUE interpretation of the way things would be in a world populated by these beings.

Secondly, any superhero whose worth his salt would realize that trouncing supervillains doesn't save the world. Eliminating all currency and weapons of mass destruction does...and so Miracleman does it. A clear example of Moore's own distaste for convention and conformity. If the story works, tell it.

And thirdly, the villain, in this case Johnny Bates, is finally returned to existence because of the very cruelty (his own rape in a school for orphans jumping immediately to mind) of his fellow human beings. A fine statement: We don't need supervillains to make the world a worser place.

A deeply brooding and philisophical (my significant other would call it long-winded) treatise on the superhero's place in the world, Olympus is definitely worth more than you'll pay for it.

Rating:
Summary: As comic books go, it's a perfect diamond.
Review: I was happy to discover that my copy of this is worth $175. I also have the other books in the series and consider them together to be a personal treasure.

Book 3 is the the climax of Moore's best early work, written when he was still fresh and feeling out new ideas that have in the two decades since completely reshaped and rebuilt 'western' comics into a diverse and mature artform.

Or at least one corner of it is diverse & mature. Most of it is still crap. There is some excellent Japanese work but the American mainstream still rarely impressive. This was a very high, early peak in the artform.

Anyhoo, With Miracleman:

First there is interesting dovetailing and wrap-up of a very enjoyable and original plot started in the previous books. It's full of issues that are ripe with philosophy and ethical/moral implications.

Then there is terrific dramatic buildup to earthshaking, cataclysmic violence, centered around my favorite character, Kid Miracleman.

He is one of the most sympathetic evil psychopaths I've ever read in comics. Born as MiracleMan's sidekick, Kid Miracleman becomes a victim and puppet of all his worst impulses. He goes through a Dr. Jekyll / Mr. Hyde transformation to become truly, consciously evil, rather like Nietzche's Overman. His breakdown and demise are truly tragic.

The final part of the book is a brief story about the Miraclefamily establishing a Utopia on earth, supported by their ultimate and unlimited power, they become benevolent dieties, breaking humanity's selfish vices and reinventing the world as it should be. It's a wonderful and fascinating 'what if' scenario that was completely new and inspired.

And then there's romance and a few moments of sublime joy and beauty. Comics can convey many emotions, sometimes better than words alone. I've never seen a better visual depiction of this sort of holy, sensual intimacy in a any comic/sequential art book. I found it beautiful and moving.

Obviously I like this book. It's a shame they still can't untangle the Gordian knot of ownership here and get this whole reprinted. It's a lost classic of the artform.

Rating:
Summary: As comic books go, it's a perfect diamond.
Review: I was happy to discover that my copy of this is worth $175. I also have the other books in the series and consider them together to be a personal treasure.

Book 3 is the the climax of Moore's best early work, written when he was still fresh and feeling out new ideas that have in the two decades since completely reshaped and rebuilt 'western' comics into a diverse and mature artform.

Or at least one corner of it is diverse & mature. Most of it is still crap. There is some excellent Japanese work but the American mainstream still rarely impressive. This was a very high, early peak in the artform.

Anyhoo, With Miracleman:

First there is interesting dovetailing and wrap-up of a very enjoyable and original plot started in the previous books. It's full of issues that are ripe with philosophy and ethical/moral implications.

Then there is terrific dramatic buildup to earthshaking, cataclysmic violence, centered around my favorite character, Kid Miracleman.

He is one of the most sympathetic evil psychopaths I've ever read in comics. Born as MiracleMan's sidekick, Kid Miracleman becomes a victim and puppet of all his worst impulses. He goes through a Dr. Jekyll / Mr. Hyde transformation to become truly, consciously evil, rather like Nietzche's Overman. His breakdown and demise are truly tragic.

The final part of the book is a brief story about the Miraclefamily establishing a Utopia on earth, supported by their ultimate and unlimited power, they become benevolent dieties, breaking humanity's selfish vices and reinventing the world as it should be. It's a wonderful and fascinating 'what if' scenario that was completely new and inspired.

And then there's romance and a few moments of sublime joy and beauty. Comics can convey many emotions, sometimes better than words alone. I've never seen a better visual depiction of this sort of holy, sensual intimacy in a any comic/sequential art book. I found it beautiful and moving.

Obviously I like this book. It's a shame they still can't untangle the Gordian knot of ownership here and get this whole reprinted. It's a lost classic of the artform.

Rating:
Summary: "Balanced on the diamond capstone of Olympus"
Review: If there was ever a series that EVERYBODY gets excited about, it's Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman's Miracleman. The first 10 issues are a very entertaining spy story, reworking the title character's origins in classic Moore fashion. The art is a little spotty, unfortunately, and the story suffers for a couple of issues in Book 2: The Red King Syndrome. Olympus is the payoff. Moore and Totleben were made to make comics together, as evidenced by their acclaimed run with Steve Bissette on Swamp Thing, and this is the best work either of them has ever done, and perhaps ever will do, with the super-hero genre. This book is abou 150 pages of the most heartbreakingly beautiful comic art you will ever see in your life; Totleben's baroque line art impressively manages to save Moore's purple prose from caving under its own weight, and Moore has Totleben draw some of the most compelling characters and moving scenes in any medium, all while decorating it with beautifully poetic language. There's a reason that everyone gushes about this series, and Olympus is that reason.

Rating:
Summary: "Balanced on the diamond capstone of Olympus"
Review: If there was ever a series that EVERYBODY gets excited about, it's Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman's Miracleman. The first 10 issues are a very entertaining spy story, reworking the title character's origins in classic Moore fashion. The art is a little spotty, unfortunately, and the story suffers for a couple of issues in Book 2: The Red King Syndrome. Olympus is the payoff. Moore and Totleben were made to make comics together, as evidenced by their acclaimed run with Steve Bissette on Swamp Thing, and this is the best work either of them has ever done, and perhaps ever will do, with the super-hero genre. This book is abou 150 pages of the most heartbreakingly beautiful comic art you will ever see in your life; Totleben's baroque line art impressively manages to save Moore's purple prose from caving under its own weight, and Moore has Totleben draw some of the most compelling characters and moving scenes in any medium, all while decorating it with beautifully poetic language. There's a reason that everyone gushes about this series, and Olympus is that reason.

Rating:
Summary: THE GREATEST SUPERHERO SAGA EVER TOLD! 'NUFF SAID
Review: Okay, this is not the best comic that Alan Moore has written, that honor goes to FROM HELL. But Miracleman Book 3 is the best superhero comic book ever done. Miracleman is the first on-going series that Moore did, and despite that he wrote 16 issues, which were released over the course of 7-8 years, he left a mark on how we see superheroes. Sure, Watchmen was a great superhero saga but it was and reads like a classic suspense novel. Watchmen is very calculated book, right from the start, and does have a formula; but I get the feeling from reading Miracleman that the same reasoning can not be applied here. Miracleman was a natural writing experience for him, it flows very organically into it's story.

Unlike most superheroes, Miracleman aka Mick Moran is not on a quest to fight justice and save the world. He is a man who's thrown into a situation by his former sidekick,the evil Kid Miracleman, and the British Government which created him. Little by little, Mick Moran begins to find out the secrets of how he became Miracleman, this leads into the events of Miracleman: Olypmus also know as Miracleman Book 3.

Book 3 is a masterpiece. Through the powerful and extremely underrated artistic talents of John Totleben, we experience the climax of this story. Miracleman is destined to battle Kid Miracleman to the death. Mick Moran must also decide what he is to do with his life. And finally, Miracleman decides to make a perfect world, a better earth whether we humans want it or not. He becomes the first superhero who actually tries to solve all the problems we have on this earth. Moore answers a lot of questions about superheroes and believe me, it becomes very hard to keep reading superhero comics after this book.

Recently, people are starting to take note of the quality of this series, which it really deserves. When the original comic book issues were coming out it was a comic that was regularly late but now we can the entire Moore epic and read it in one sitting and see its magic and quality. If you can find these books, enjoy them. If you don't have them, get them! They really are worth the trouble of hunting down and in the end you will feel rewarded.

Rating:
Summary: Miracleman - entertaining and intelligent
Review: The Miracleman (Marvelman in the UK) collections are quit interesting, and what's more, offer a terrific deconstruction of the superhero ideal. This ideal was later explored in his SUPREME series, though MIRACLEMAN nonetheless offered a serious approach and proved quite groundbreaking in gaining intellectual readership and redefining literature that was once, long ago, referred to funny books. The several collections are all worth a read though the later books (when Moore handed the reins to Neil Gaiman; this was one of Gaiman's first comic works) as well BOOK 3: OLYMPUS have the best and most picturesque, expressive artwork.

I discovered Alan Moore in my college days, and since then I have been overwhelmed at wealth and back calogue of his work; the man is quite simply very prolific, with the exception of a couple creations or what are simply uninteresting series, we are lucky to have his work. Moore's writing has been compared to the works of others and yet I feel that Moore is often the most solid of any comics writer, hands down. His style is mysterious, magical, and at times disturbing, though always intelligent.

Rating:
Summary: Miracleman - entertaining and intelligent
Review: The Miracleman (Marvelman in the UK) collections are quit interesting, and what's more, offer a terrific deconstruction of the superhero ideal. This ideal was later explored in his SUPREME series, though MIRACLEMAN nonetheless offered a serious approach and proved quite groundbreaking in gaining intellectual readership and redefining literature that was once, long ago, referred to funny books. The several collections are all worth a read though the later books (when Moore handed the reins to Neil Gaiman; this was one of Gaiman's first comic works) as well BOOK 3: OLYMPUS have the best and most picturesque, expressive artwork.

I discovered Alan Moore in my college days, and since then I have been overwhelmed at wealth and back calogue of his work; the man is quite simply very prolific, with the exception of a couple creations or what are simply uninteresting series, we are lucky to have his work. Moore's writing has been compared to the works of others and yet I feel that Moore is often the most solid of any comics writer, hands down. His style is mysterious, magical, and at times disturbing, though always intelligent.

Rating:
Summary: Arguably one of the BEST comic works out there!
Review: To say that Alan Moore is just a comic book writer is like saying Beethoven was just a composer! Married to the incredible artwork of John Totleben (whom I've had the pleasure of meeting and chatting with from time to time), Miracleman: Olympus is one of the best readings out there! Miracleman is the true redefining of the comic book super-hero genre! There is nothing more I can say, go out there, search, beg, borrow, or steal (just a joke) a copy and find out for yourself! I promise you won't be disappointed!