nice i hadnt seen that.Chris posted quite a few in progress shots of that painting on his FB page when he was doing it

Are you planning on ever reading the Gaiman issues?

Hanzo,
I just wanted to tell you how much I'm enjoying your reviews.
I'd not read nor seen these books since I bought them off the shelf
and your helping me re-visit them is a pure joy.
Thank you for your continued efforts.

Gerry,
Thank you for your input as well.
The view from MM's home across the seas is a real bonus,
not to mention the glorious art you find and post.

Best to you both and big thank you's all around.
TT

Probably not -- I'm a huge Alan Moore fan but am lukewarm to Gaiman, so I'm not interested in making that investment.

Thanks, Tommy -- feel free to chime in with your reactions as you re-read along with me!

That's too bad, I enjoyed the Gaimen issues a lot. The Spy and Warhol issues especially. That said.... the last page to the Moore issues is one of the best endings to a comic book series ever. Really thought provoking.

I didn't care for the Gaiman issues though right when it was getting interesting it stopped so maybe it would have been cool.

I'm the opposite. I liked the fourth trade (Book one of the Gaimen issues) because they were standalone stories that had MiracleMan as a background character. A sort of continuation of the Moore issues that didn't change anything Moore had done(that great Moore ending in Book 3).The Gaiman issues following Book Four were obviously going to change the Status Quo.

I wanted to see where they were going to go with The Silver Age, unfortunately it was cut short...

They do have one more issue on the Net....without any dialogue. A very frightining direction...to say the least. It would have led to the Dark Age afterall.

Where is that?

The version I have has no dialogue.(I torrented the issues because it was easier than digging out my Trades ) Looking on the net I found some pages WITH dialogue.........so I'm kind of confused. Wiki has this to say

(Spoilered So Hanzo doesn't throw his computer against the wall)

I saw some of that in the book but it was light, no real details.

It'll make you throw the comic across the room.

Hanzo has inspired me to re-read these issues.

I'll post here when I have, and see if I actually like them, now.

I decided it was time to move on to Moore's Captain Britain and Swamp Thing, so I wrapped this puppy up last night.






SPOILERS


Wow, this was great. I was slightly let-down by the earlier issues, called "Dreams of Flying" and "The Red King Syndrome" in trade form -- ground-breaking and influential for their time, well-written and entertaining -- but not the "your mind will be blown" stuff that I had been promised by fans for so many years.

The final story, "Olympus" was what was advertised. Absolutely brilliant conclusion to Moore's Miracleman saga... he really takes the idea that superhumans would be so far above us that they'd practically be a different species to a satisfying and haunting conclusion. The way Miracleman and his friends enforce a "utopia" on humanity was chilling -- human protests reduced to the crying of a child who doesn't want to go to bed.

Particularly poignant was Mickey Moran's life falling apart. After the triumph of Gargunza's defeat and the birth of his child, I was sure Miracleman would live happily ever after with his wife. "Perhaps now that they're with the aliens, they'll figure out a way to make Liz into a Miracle Woman as well." And they did -- but Liz's defiant, "You're asking me to give up" was as heart-breaking as a moment in superhero comics could be. The human spirit lives on, but rather than a triumph of the will, it was a sad resignation to being obsolete. Moran committing "suicide" by wanting to be placed in his space coma permanently and Miracleman's faux funeral for his alternate self were also quite moving.

This final storyline is just another highlight of why Moore is regarded as being head and shoulders above his peers. Over 20 years later, we see J. Michael Stracynski reheating these same ideas and concepts in Supreme Power -- and not even coming close to Moore's original tale. Another example of why he shouldn't be working on Watchmen, particularly the Dr. Manhattan character -- it's just too heavy a lift for someone of his caliber.

But anyway, yeah -- this is a fitting end for Moore's deconstructionist examination of the Superman archetype. The triumph of the superhuman is directly tied to the downfall of the human. Gorgeously executed, this is a highwater mark for both Moore's career and the genre.

Do you think they stand the test of time?

I think they do. When I read them, I was surprised at how well done Moore explored all those superhuman issues; and even today they don't feel dated.

To me, that's the mark of a true classic.

The first two "books" hold up as good, well-crafted entertainment but you really need to keep the perspective of comics' history in mind to appreciate how ground-breaking they were. The final volume holds up completely, feeling as fresh and innovative today as they did in the 80s.

One of my all time favorite series and pure genius. It showed why Moore is above his contemporaries.

Read the whole Moore run yesterday. Loved some of it, didn't care for a little of it, didn't read the unbelievable diarrhea of words in all those captions in the last few issues, but still enjoyed the wrap-up. I really only didn't care for the gratuitously violent return of KM and the fascistic conclusion (albeit the logical progression of the super-being in a "real" world). With the latter, it wasn't anything inherently wrong, to me; I just have a different idea of how I'd like a comic to be than where Miracleman went. I know what he was doing, and for what he was doing, it was a brilliant conclusion.

Not sure if I want to read the Gaiman issues or not. It seems like the end of the Moore run is a perfect way to end the series.

I felt the same way though when I was younger I liked the violence. The ending was too much of a pretentious dream.

i DID read the GAIMAN issues and did not care for them though I was looking forward to the conclusion to see where it went.