A review by darylnash
Miracleman, Book Three: Olympus, by Alan Moore
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.