Comic review- Miracleman #2: In this wasteland of the now

Story: Neil Gaiman
Art: Mark Buckingham
Publisher: Marvel
Released: 16th September 2015 


I’ve spent my morning with Neil Gaiman, and he’s led me down the path of yesterday, leaving me drenched in sweet, nostalgic sad, empty, hindsight regret.

Still waiting.....

There’s an initial pleasure to be gained in looking back, but when you get to deep you see yourself as you actually were. You see the stupid mistakes, the missed chances, the should have beens, the almosts, and the never weres. Regret rises to the surface and pleasure soon ebbs into a useless, longing feeling that things should have been better, but they weren’t, and there’s nothing that you can do about it now, because the past is gone, the people are gone, and you yourself, as you used to be, you are gone as well.

Miracleman #2 is split into three individual parts. The later two are probably connected, and are tied into the larger narrative, hinting of a return, of the villain.

The second part is school in the late 80’s/90’s, in England, as I remember it, personally. It’s behind the bike-shed, a pretty girl, spots, being cool, being detached, messing things up, being a silly boy, it’s the things that I remember, and I’m not sure if it will mean anything to kids in their twenties who are reading the book, but for a 80’s/90’s kid, Gaiman is a witness to how things actually were, he gets to the soul of it, and he takes me back to that time, that place of memory and regret, a school uniform and the wish, now, that things had turned out a bit better than they actually did.

The first story, the main story is equally as sad, but in a grown-up sense of deluded expectations, disappointment and waiting for something that isn’t there. The story is about a man holding out for physical perfection, stupidly, rejecting the possibility of love, rejecting reality, and waiting for the return of an impossible Goddess.  It’s a lonely tale, and it reminds me of 90’s libraries, reading Gaiman, walking home in the rain, alone, of course, but with Gaiman in my head, telling me that the world is sad, telling me that I shouldn’t give up, because who knows? Perhaps, some day, somebody will give a s***.

for the girl

Yes, it’s an emotional trip for me to spend time with Neil Gaiman on a September morning in 2015. I have emotional baggage with the dude, old memories, mostly crappy, but they would have been even worse without him. He’s a bloody good writer you know. He’s a craftsmen, and I do appreciate him, and I do admire his work, even the new (old) stuff, with the memories that come with it, stuck in my own past.

I should probably leave Neil Gaiman well alone from now on. I’m too old, and it’s making me painfully aware of my own useless past. I read his work today, and it’s good, very good, but there’s deep sadness there.

When I read Miracleman #2 I feel a sense of time, of wasting it, waiting, too much time waiting, only for nothing to happen and to wake up one day with nothing gained from the wait, just more waiting, more waiting. Reading Gaiman takes me back to the past, my own neglected graveyard, of dashed hopes and an almost tangible feeling of time slipping through my fingertips.

The world outside swirls and changes, and yesterday fades into memory, becoming further, and further away, as new memories fail to materialise, so all that is left, though not worth remembering, is all that there is, in this useless, silent, far too still, wasteland of the now.


Rating: 9/10 (Taking me back, as Gaiman always does)