Comic review: Miracleman #1- Neil Gaiman and the Perpetual 80’s

Writer: Neil Gaiman
Artist: Mark Buckingham
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Released: 2nd September 2015



I didn’t read Alan Moore’s Miracleman series when it was first released in 1982. I was around at the time, but doing something else, probably obsessed with American football, or just plain old football, I expect. I was reading 2000AD though, irregularly, and this new Miracleman #1 by Neil Gaiman very much reminds me of that time period in my life.

This new book has a narrative starting date of 1987. It’s a future parallel world 1987 with a God like superhero and a destroyed, then rebuilt London, but it’s a very familiar 1987. It’s a 1987 that is very, very 1980’s. It’s a 1987 that could have been written in 1985, at least, that’s how it reads.

Perhaps it’s just me, but whenever I read anything by Neil Gaiman it has that 1980’s feel about it. I get the sense that he doesn’t really care about the contemporary neoliberal world. His narrative universe is the late 1980’s, and so he is the perfect choice to be the writer on a book that is set in a parallel universe 1987. He doesn’t have to deal with anything that has actually happened in the real world for the past twenty eight or so years, he can build his cocoon in the late 80’s and he can go back to the past, a place where he very evidentially feels most at home.

The narrative itself in Miracleman #1 is instantly accessible. It’s easy to follow and brings the reader straight into the world, telling a story from the point of view of a man with hope, seeing him through a difficult journey, and concluding with a revelation of either hope realised, or hope destroyed. I won’t spoil it. The story is okay, it’s enjoyable, and I think that it’s worthwhile you getting the book to enjoy it for yourself.

The art has a bit of a Watchman feel about it, mixed with some of the recent stuff I’ve seen in Jeff Lemiere’s Trillium, and in the art by Matteo Scalera in Rick Remender’s Black Science. The faces are a bit sharp, very pointy noses and high cheekbones, and very blonde, and the colouring has an unreality to it that screams ‘sci-fi comic’ of the 1980’s, but in colour. I don’t have any problem with it. I’d term it as ‘old fashioned new’ if that makes any sense, and it’s perfect for this kind of book.

Let’s sum things up then. Do I have a problem with Neil Gaiman being stuck in a perpetual 1987 world? No, of course not. He’s a successful, talented man, and his work is always enjoyable.

However, I’m the self-appointed (self-important) post 9/11 false flag/ NWO/Neo-liberal/Globalist comic book reviewer. So what I am after is never going to come from somebody like Neil Gaiman who doesn’t want to get out of the late 80’s, well at least from what I’ve read of his work anyway.

That’s cool man.

Miracleman#1 is a good book. I enjoyed it. The very last part confused me a bit, but I’ll be back for issue #2, and hopefully it will make some sense there.

Get the book if you enjoy Neil Gaiman’s late 80’s worlds, and yes I know he’s just continuing a series left off in the 80’s, so he has a good excuse for doing it here. If all you’re after is a decent comic book with a 1980’s nostalgia feel about it, then this one is a lot better than most of the other mainstream junk that’s being pushed onto the masses today. Check it out, put on those old 80’s records, and go back to a time when the Internet didn’t exist, Thatcher was killing off all working-class resistance and the BBC still had an aura of truth and respectability about it.


Rating: 7/10 (Back to the late 80’s with Gaiman, and why not?)