katepowellshine's review
4.0
For years I've refused to read this series because I was put off by the (what I think of as) old-fashioned art. I finally caved earlier this week, when enough of the reprints had piled up and I just started reading. I tore through them, and when I ran out of reprints, cried, "I need more Miracleman!" so my husband kindly pulled out the issues I've been asking him to quit nagging me to read for the past ten years :-D
It's funny, the art doesn't seem bad now.
What an awesome story. On to the next!
It's funny, the art doesn't seem bad now.
What an awesome story. On to the next!
darylnash's review
5.0
I'm giving this one five stars, but I'm not really sure I liked it.
The art is gorgeous, full stop, so we can get that out of the way first.
But I don't think this is Moore's most compelling work: Watchmen and Swamp Thing are his best work from this time period. Part of the reason Olympus left me cold was that it is framed as a retrospective, which gives all of the events a narrative distance and removes the immediacy. It reads almost like an outline for a story rather than the story itself. Also, the prose is extremely purple at times.
And yet... It's written as the memoir of Miracleman so presumably any of the excesses of the prose could be because it's in his self-proclaimed godlike voice. And occasionally it strikes moments of poetry. The immediacy that is lacking could be a direct commentary on the typical form of super-hero comics, which eschew intellectual consideration for an exciting narrative. Instead, Olympus is an examination of the introduction of superheroes to the world and how it changed everything, almost as a poetic dissertation. A history rather than an action movie or literary thriller.
Plus the big ideas and narrative style remind me of Morrison and, more recently, Hickman, so it's clear that the influence of this volume of Miracleman is far-reaching.
So the more I thought about it, the less I was comfortable giving it 3 or 4 stars. I didn't love Olympus, but I respect the hell out of it.
Any utopia seems unsustainable, so I'm very curious to finally see Gaiman's follow-up completed.
The art is gorgeous, full stop, so we can get that out of the way first.
But I don't think this is Moore's most compelling work: Watchmen and Swamp Thing are his best work from this time period. Part of the reason Olympus left me cold was that it is framed as a retrospective, which gives all of the events a narrative distance and removes the immediacy. It reads almost like an outline for a story rather than the story itself. Also, the prose is extremely purple at times.
And yet... It's written as the memoir of Miracleman so presumably any of the excesses of the prose could be because it's in his self-proclaimed godlike voice. And occasionally it strikes moments of poetry. The immediacy that is lacking could be a direct commentary on the typical form of super-hero comics, which eschew intellectual consideration for an exciting narrative. Instead, Olympus is an examination of the introduction of superheroes to the world and how it changed everything, almost as a poetic dissertation. A history rather than an action movie or literary thriller.
Plus the big ideas and narrative style remind me of Morrison and, more recently, Hickman, so it's clear that the influence of this volume of Miracleman is far-reaching.
So the more I thought about it, the less I was comfortable giving it 3 or 4 stars. I didn't love Olympus, but I respect the hell out of it.
Any utopia seems unsustainable, so I'm very curious to finally see Gaiman's follow-up completed.
rebus's review against another edition
4.25
Moore shoots for an epic metaphysical ending and falls a little short in the conclusion. He's reaching a bit too hard for the Boomer vision of Utopia and like that narcissistic generation sees no other ideal. The main problem is that the Utopia is ushered in in a fascist manner and expected to be seen as the most benevolent of gifts (with the tired Boomer trope that cultural miscegenation can be Thanatic and Destructive or Erotic and Creative, while movements from that generation became sterile and reflexive). He does admit that the houses of gods are built on human bones, which recognizes the bonobo theory above is a little flawed, but it's simply not as engaging as previous volumes.
Kurzweil's Boomer immortality trip is also touched upon, and entertainment is ludicrously included as a fundamental human right in this Utopia, but it simply doesn't resonate with Moore's supposed anarchist leanings and it's why the story falls a bit flat in the end.
Kurzweil's Boomer immortality trip is also touched upon, and entertainment is ludicrously included as a fundamental human right in this Utopia, but it simply doesn't resonate with Moore's supposed anarchist leanings and it's why the story falls a bit flat in the end.
spelingexpirt13's review against another edition
2.0
I'm not sure why I continue to read this, probably because it is on my pull list for my gf and I read all the comics that come into the flat but by god I hate this. Volume 2 was actually pretty decent which is probably why this volume angers me so much. I despise every single character.
ivan_tw's review
5.0
Holy hell, Moore knows how to close off a saga; the storyline starts off exponentially more widescreen and epic than the last, and just grows from there. John Totelben's art is light years beyond Chuck Bekham's scribbles, and though I still miss Alan Davis and Garry Leach's dark, vicious shadows of the first book, Totelben's work on Marvelman's Ragnarok in issue 15 is impressively shocking and appalling. Moore is in full flower again, a story that posits superheroes as literal gods and takes an unsurprising dig at organized religion as a result...when gods walk the earth, how can society not end up fascist? Mind-blowingly well-written, crushingly depressing, beautiful and horrific in equal turns, Marvelman's final act really shows how forward-thinking Moore was, and how ripples of this work are still felt today, in comics, movies, and literature. We are robbed at a very base level that this masterwork isn't available for all to read, taken together it has to be one of the great trilogies of our lifetime.
verkisto's review against another edition
4.0
(This review is for all three volumes written by Alan Moore. Potential spoilers may follow.)
I first read Miracleman long after I had read Watchmen, and around the time when I decided to read more of Alan Moore's work. Given that Miracleman is basically Watchmen v0.1, I wound up reading the works out of order, but I liked them enough that when the series was finally getting reprinted last year, I started buying them up to re-read them all together. Since The Golden Age finally saw print last month, I decided to sit down and make my way through the series again.
Ultimately, Watchmen is Moore's magnum opus. It takes the ideas that he started examining in Miracleman and Swamp Thing and forms them into a complex analysis of comic book heroes, comic books, and politics, all while telling an engaging, compelling story. It's just a shame that it was the first of Moore's works I read, since all the other stories he's told using these ideas pale in comparison to it.
Miracleman was Moore's first attempt at deconstructing the superhero mythos, and there's no denying that he did a great job with it. When a hero comes along with abilities that make him god-like, it's logical that they would become like gods. Moore takes another version of Superman and does just that with him. When someone with that kind of power exists, and sees ways to improve the world, why wouldn't he do it? Why wouldn't he step in and say "This is how we're going to do things, because if we don't, I have the power to make it happen regardless"? Once the heroes are public, and their strengths are common knowledge, how would one avoid that kind of conclusion?
The opposite side of that coin is someone with that kind of power without any kind of moral compass, which Moore also addresses with the character of Kid Miracleman. That character is one who has internalized his suffering, blaming others for his own pain, so when he has the opportunity to take his revenge, he does so, without remorse, regret, or concern over anyone who gets in his way. Since there are only a handful of others who can survive against such a superhuman onslaught, several innocents are killed in that revenge. Moore doesn't shy away from showing the horrors of such an act, but neither does he shy away from showing the aftermath of it. Some story arcs would approach that story, end it, and then move on. Look at how The Avengers ended, with widespread destruction and (presumably) thousands of deaths. It's all ignored to focus on the victory of the heroes. And it's not at all realistic. Moore attempts to make it realistic, and he succeeds.
The origin story for the Miracleman Family is a little ridiculous, which can be forgiven, since Moore was working within the confines of the original origins of the characters and attempting to create a new mythos while keeping the existing canon in place (see also how he did the same to Swamp Thing). The explanation he creates makes about as much sense as it can, given those constraints, and it makes as much sense as other superhero origin stories.
As good as Moore's run on Miracleman was (and continues to be), it's simply not as good as Watchmen. Considering, though, that Miracleman is still a four-star story when compared to the five-star story of Watchmen, Miracleman is still a story worth reading and examining. I just wish I had read them in the proper order so I could have experienced Moore's development over the course of all his works.
I first read Miracleman long after I had read Watchmen, and around the time when I decided to read more of Alan Moore's work. Given that Miracleman is basically Watchmen v0.1, I wound up reading the works out of order, but I liked them enough that when the series was finally getting reprinted last year, I started buying them up to re-read them all together. Since The Golden Age finally saw print last month, I decided to sit down and make my way through the series again.
Ultimately, Watchmen is Moore's magnum opus. It takes the ideas that he started examining in Miracleman and Swamp Thing and forms them into a complex analysis of comic book heroes, comic books, and politics, all while telling an engaging, compelling story. It's just a shame that it was the first of Moore's works I read, since all the other stories he's told using these ideas pale in comparison to it.
Miracleman was Moore's first attempt at deconstructing the superhero mythos, and there's no denying that he did a great job with it. When a hero comes along with abilities that make him god-like, it's logical that they would become like gods. Moore takes another version of Superman and does just that with him. When someone with that kind of power exists, and sees ways to improve the world, why wouldn't he do it? Why wouldn't he step in and say "This is how we're going to do things, because if we don't, I have the power to make it happen regardless"? Once the heroes are public, and their strengths are common knowledge, how would one avoid that kind of conclusion?
The opposite side of that coin is someone with that kind of power without any kind of moral compass, which Moore also addresses with the character of Kid Miracleman. That character is one who has internalized his suffering, blaming others for his own pain, so when he has the opportunity to take his revenge, he does so, without remorse, regret, or concern over anyone who gets in his way. Since there are only a handful of others who can survive against such a superhuman onslaught, several innocents are killed in that revenge. Moore doesn't shy away from showing the horrors of such an act, but neither does he shy away from showing the aftermath of it. Some story arcs would approach that story, end it, and then move on. Look at how The Avengers ended, with widespread destruction and (presumably) thousands of deaths. It's all ignored to focus on the victory of the heroes. And it's not at all realistic. Moore attempts to make it realistic, and he succeeds.
The origin story for the Miracleman Family is a little ridiculous, which can be forgiven, since Moore was working within the confines of the original origins of the characters and attempting to create a new mythos while keeping the existing canon in place (see also how he did the same to Swamp Thing). The explanation he creates makes about as much sense as it can, given those constraints, and it makes as much sense as other superhero origin stories.
As good as Moore's run on Miracleman was (and continues to be), it's simply not as good as Watchmen. Considering, though, that Miracleman is still a four-star story when compared to the five-star story of Watchmen, Miracleman is still a story worth reading and examining. I just wish I had read them in the proper order so I could have experienced Moore's development over the course of all his works.
cail_judy's review
5.0
Reading this third volume of Miracleman felt like taking my brain through a bizarre jungle-gym of ideas. The mental gymnastics Moore must have is truly remarkable. It's a book you take some time with, the concepts and poetry of the language overwhelming in scope and detail. A remarkable feat of comic writing and artistry.