Thread by @Exalted_Speed

The story of Miracle Man, is not a simple story of good men vs bad men, it's a story about comic history, creators rights, and the complicated relationship between UK and US law, this is a story that SOMEHOW stretches the golden age to the modern age, this is Miracle man.

The possible owners are not as simple as just Mick Anglo the creator, in fact if we want to list the "owners" here are the names
*DC comics
*L Miller and Son
*Mick Anglo
*Dez Skinn
*Alan Moore
*Gary Leech
*Alan Davis
*Neil Gaiman
*Todd Mcfarlane
*Marvel
and *Emotiv

this is the short list of people who POSSIBLY OWN THE RIGHTS, these are just some of the major players in this drama shockingly DC and Marvel are honestly kind of minor in this drama, but well let's get to the drama but first I want to ACKNOWLEDGE MY AGONIZING RESEARCH.

First up is Kimota the Miracleman companion, made in 2001, this contains some really fucking important interviews that she some light on everything and everyone involved. It's also brings into question several things but it provided a good look into how messy it all was.

Next is the Poisoned Chalice it provided me with a whole fucking ton of detail on this whole thing, mostly from the articles on comic beat but it's writer did so much research into this and helped present a coherent timeline he also found other wrinkles..

Now Let's get into where this drama starts initially it's starts with two companies Fawcett comics the creators of Captain Marvel made a deal to publish reprints of the title in the UK, and did so until the lawsuit from DC comics in the 1950's.

L Miller then went to Mick Anglo......who according to Mick were DESPERATE to get a something to replace Cap so he drafted up Miracleman and then Mick OWNE.....

Wait no the son of the owners of L Miller actually said that FAWCETT HELPED developed Marvelman(the original name of the character) and MIGHT HAVE a legal stake in him! Fawcett got bought out by DC comics so THEY MIGHT OWN HIM TOO!

and you have the problem right there, see this wasn't well documented and relies on several dead companies, memory of old people, dodgy copywrite law, SEVERAL contradictory interviews and constant new info. So KEEP IN MIND ANYTHING I SAY HERE SHOULD BE QUESTIONED.

now with that said Marvelman was not creator owned when he was created, NO comic company at the time in the US or UK would have a deal like that, He was at least maybe Owned By L Miller and Sons, and not Mick who was more of a comic studio.

Mick for his part was a former army person who hired a bunch of them for his company and THEY would make the Marvelman stories, this lasted until the 1960s where Marvel comics entered the Market and just kind of killing the sales of the book.

Now let's talk about the character Marvel man was a pretty 1 to 1 copy, Mick Moran would say Kimota(atomic backwards) and transform and he also had his own family Young Miracleman(the stand in for Jr) and Kid Miracleman(the stand in for Mary)

This also is probably what drew Alan Moore to want to deconstruct him, see this aspect of being rip off makes his more arch typical and also people didn't care as much ABOUT him, there is just more to mess and twist about him for a story.

L miller and son would go out of business and Mick would more onto other projects not really caring about Marvelman for the better part of 5 decades, Alan read some books as a kid and it did stick with him but it wasn't his favorite book, still it stuck in his mind.

This brings us to the 80's and we get to Dez Skinn, Skinn was a former Marvel UK editor who wanted to make his own comics and he brought over a bunch of talent he cultivated during his time there for Warrior. This new anthology comic title he cooked up.

Dez was relying on a lot of proven ideas and concepts to help the magazine, like V For Vendetta, V came about because he wanted a strip similar to the Night Raven comics by David Lloyd(the artist for V by the way) and even came up with the name, but left Alan and David alone.

Now usually when I talk about characters production is often a secondary priority, but Miracleman and it's history and story RELY on it to a shocking degree, so it's impossible to JUST talk about the comics, in fact the comic that would launch in Warrior would have GUEST stars

but let's get to rights quagmire of Warrior, Warrior was launched with the ideal of the comics being creator owned and creators receiving royalties, but the CREATORS would work for a low going rate, Dez described Warrior more....as a hobby.

Dez wasn't exactly the best handler of the title, he lost a lot of money on it and it didn't sell that well, at all. Many of the creator started out in sync on the book and it's direction but this drifted as time went on and BAD BLOOD started to fuel shit. The story is rather sad

So Alan actually worked for Dez before on some Marvel titles, but Dez just plain didn't know about him, he wasn't big back then, Alan at the time in an interview said he would LOVE to do his version of Marvelman and Dez....well he had his plans.

Dez wanted to make a splash, and to do that, he thought getting the rights to Marvelman, now HERE is what Dez figured.

See because L Miller was gone HE THOUGHT Marvelman was PUBLIC DOMAIN, yup no joke, and honestly this isn't that farfetched an idea since if no one was renewing the copy write then Marvelman might actually be public domain.

but, L Miller might have given it's rights to a company called Atlas, and Mick might have copywrote an art piece back in the 70's for Marvelman and.....oh dear lord this was dubious at the time and this info WOULD not come out till way later.

and with that....I got to go get dinner with my family and get back to this, this is a complicated story and this....one I might take several breaks.

Now young Alan Moore with his friend Steve Moore(no family relation) approached Dez with his proposal, see after reading Superduperman the mad parody of Superman, he thought what if I did that but make it a drama, and so he proposed his Marvelman book to Dez.

Moore's story would show the darker implications of Superheroes, during the comic run comparisons to gods will be drawn, dark sinister stories would happen and....Alan Moore would own it.

See Dez TOLD his straight up he got the blessing of Mick Anglo and Mick WOULD ALSO get paid for his work on this, and everyone who did something would own a piece of it, so Alan had a claim, Gary Leech his artist had a claim and Dez did too.....where could this go wrong?

Now Dez did track down Anglo and actually did legal work to make sure this was okay and at the time it seemed it, at the time. Look no one had internet back then so let's keep that in mind, and so Warrior got it scripts but here a factor of the early plans.

One did you know V for Vendetta exists in a timeline alternate to Marvelman where Micky didn't get his powers back? Yup, they planed to make the comics kind of one universe with a timeline and this would allow crossovers.....kind of....okay.

*we interrupt this thread for Exalted's lizard brain
*Hey what if Micky is actually V in V for Vendetta?

Anyway Marvelman would debut this comic, comic would become the breakout hit for daring to make Superheroes darker, have shocking moments and being very atypical at the time.

there is a lot to take for granted with this run, from how old the main character is, to a darker Superman take, it can feel I've heard it all before but this was rather new at the time in 1982, this comic was 4 years before Watchmen.

there are some unorginal aspects though, Johnny Bates is one, the former Kid Miracleman is reveled to be a villain early on and you can see this more as taking the Dark Phoenix saga to a higher more personal shocking extreme

Now, I have to bring up another work Alan Moore was doing Captain Britain, a title he inherited from another dude, it would be another work with Alan Davis, Marvel did play a huge influence on creators at the time and X-men was paving a way for a lot of this too.

One problem that plagued Miracleman early on was Gary Leech, GARY WAS slow and was missing deadlines so Alan Davis was brought onto to Marvelman to help things out and do some issues, Davis looked at it as a very work for hire thing.

Despite this Gary would still help ink to keep the look consistent and Davis would get RIGHTS TO HIS WORK, and so it seemed to be happy for a time....oh boy.

There started to be friction at Warrior Magazine and I mean a lot, from late payments, to creators starting to get on each other nerves and some editorial interference, for one Big Ben here was created as a new Character for Warrior and was dumped into the story.

the comic would make Ben a loathsome buffoon talking about commies, he was created by Dez earlier and had some strips ready that would contradict this appearance but it's why him and also the character Warpsmith are part of the story.

This was apparently Alan doing a bit of take that towards Dez who was starting to have one huge problem, being late with payments, and Warrior was just going to get more chaotic from here.

Marvelman in warrior would end on a cliffhanger, now the story your probably going to hear is that MARVEL gave a cease and desist but this was a convenient lie, while Marvel was WORRIED DEZ ACTUALLY JUST STOPPED PAYING ALAN DAVIS and SO DAVIS JUST STOPPED.

the reason Marvelman was gone from Warrior was less Dez worried about the legal stuff, he apparntly just told people that to hide the fact that he couldn't pay Alan Davis anymore and so Davis just stopped, Alan Moore believed Dez and there is a reason for that.

the Alan's relationship COMPLETELY DETERIORATED during this time, see Moore was getting more exposure for DC and so kind of had shit go to his head a little and he and Davis started to have friction because of one major thing.

Moore didn't want this Cap run reprinted in America, Moore developed some bad blood with Marvel, some of it was over the name, firing an editor he liked working for and, reprint rights, Meanwhile Davis WAS TICKED THAT MOORE MIGHT HAVE COST HIM A BIG BREAK.

Alan NOW is a very well known artists(he's actually one OF MY FAVS OF ALL TIME) but back then he was just starting out and for him this was a chance for a new audience to see his stuff and BUILD a fanbase, AND GET MORE COMIC WORK.

I do have a lot of respect for Alan Moore, but I can understand the frustration many of his collaborators felt working with him and how while he does have his principles he sometimes doesn't compromise for cases like these or see the other side.

Alan was getting BIG at the time, and sometimes it often makes you overlook stuff like others trying to build themselves up, but Alan didn't want to compromise with Davis at all. So David and Alan stopped really communicating, they would never really work together again.

Warrior would limp to have 26 issues, and that was it, so at this point to get something more of this hobby and critical acclaim Dez went to America to see if he could see these characters in some way over there.

Dez shopped around for various places one first up, was DC, dc would later get V but they turned down Marvelman for one reason, they didn't want to deal with the trouble of his name, and they WERE ALREADY HAVING PROBLEMS WITH SHAZAM and they didn't want to have another problem.

I'm going to note this now....but somehow in all of this DC comics is the most sensible and mature one. Somehow.

He then Jim Shooter at Marvel who said
"Look this guy, not our bag, one if we made him part of our company with that name he would be considered the face, and I can't have that with him having a crew cut and being British. Were American"*Note not exact quote.

He would get close with pacific comics but they also shut down before they could produce any issues and so Miracleman ended up at Eclipse....

Eclipse was a comics company started in the late 70's by two brothers Dan and Jan Mullany, this company was pretty famous for it's creator owned work. it's expansion into the direct market and also helping to bring manga to the US.

Now Eclipse would have problems...
*The flood
*shady dealings
*stealing artwork
*rights dumfuckery
*Divorce
*legal loopholes
*bad communication
.......man I miss Hawkman's conitunity. It's easier to follow.

so the plan was to reprint the Warrior run with some adjustments like color and also add in a new sequence to issue one to contrast the grim nature(the famous Neitzche sequence using an old Marvelman story) with the name Miracleman.

Miracleman was ONE of Alan's forgotten names he made in case Marvel man's rights were not clear and he also forgot a little cameo of him in Captain Britain that showed and from here on out I'm just going to call him Miracleman.

Anyway after issue 5 new material would be made to fill out the series....but Eclipse did some shady shit during this period and Alan is also a little to blame here.

Alan Davis was ticked, he was NOT going to let Miracleman get reprinted and WHAT COULD ECLIPSE do? He owned the rights, they couldn't reprint his work without his permission. Anyway they did that.

Eclipsed used Warrior magazine to scan it in and color it and that is how they did it, Davis never saw a dime from it and was SO furious he gave up his rights, and gave them to Gary Leech who he thoughts would come back during his time on the title. Gary never did but still.

Anyway the title was slow to come out mostly cause one Alan was BUSY in 86 with some no name title no one has ever heard of and Swamp Thing but you know priorities.

They would go through a couple artists for the new material, Chuck Austen(Producer of Stephen Universe) and Rick Vietch would be the mains one during the middle portion or at least notable.

One controversial issue is the LIVE BIRTH issues, where we see with EXTREME detail the birth of Miraclman's daughter...yes you do see everything. It caused quite a stir at the time.

Now the final artist Stephen Bissette would finish it out, but he was late because of a degenerative eye disease, and so it caused delays and the story finished out in 89, now here's what happened next.

Moore's last issues were highly praised at the time for taking things further and the final battle with Miracleman and Kid Miraclman is a sight to behold, and the sheer horror and scale of it. It's highpoint of the run and this era of comics.

Now enter the NEIL....Gaiman.
*Who is Every Goth girl's favorite writer?
NEIL!
*Who somehow got a world fantasy award for a comic?
NEIL!
*Who is a former Scientologist counselor?/
NEIL!.....wait what?(this is true)

Anyway he was Moore's pick to replace him.

Neil wasn't BIG at the time, being more of at best considered an Alan Moore hangar on, at the time every British writer was considered that(You still today can see Grant Morrison seeth about it) but he was the pick and Alan gave him rights of some sort to Miracleman.

Him and artist Mark BUCKINGHAM, would team up for a run that was highly praised and was planned for 3 arcs, the Golden Age, the Silver age and The Dark age, one one a quarter of it would get published.

see here's what was going with Eclipse was one, they had a flood, two they were not paying their manga people, 3 harper collins fucked them in a deal apparently and.....the main editor and writer...it's mess.

Alan when he gave the rights away said he was giving away a Poisoned chalice and as you can see even at the time, many felt that, even Dez sold his rights to eclipse but.....keep that in mind for this story.

Eclipse fell into miasma of personal drama, it was a family operation, and this page that seems to be a well weird non sequitur was this.
Those Who Read Code Can Get The Real News Dean Has Left Me For A Woman Named Jane Kingsbury Who Has Bone Chips In Her Brain – Cat

take the first letter of each line and that is what is said, the editor was married to the publisher and things went south HARD, and so they went bankrupt and everything went up for auction.

But now we must enter....the Todd...and with that were.....done.....with part 1.