Dave Howlett is here to give you the rundown on the Miracleman / Marvelman history so you’ll be up to speed when the new editions start up in 2014!

Take it away, Dave:

I won’t believe it until I see it on the shelves myself (and even then I’ll probably still doubt it), but it looks as though the long-lost Alan Moore series MIRACLEMAN will finally be reprinted this January from Marvel. The subject of a protracted legal battle than includes participants like Neil Gaiman and Todd McFarlane, the comic has long been sought after as both one of Moore’s earliest and most influential works, as well as one of the first and best examples of a comic that explored the transformative impact of a godlike super-being on the world as we know it. Here are a few quick things you need to know before the reprints begin (first in single issue form, with the inevitable collections to eventually follow) this winter:

-The character of Miracleman was originally called Marvelman in his 1950s incarnation, and was a thinly-veiled U.K. knockoff of the hugely popular CAPTAIN MARVEL strip (that series had been a top seller in Great Britain in the 1950s, and when the reprint rights of the American series were lost, Mick Anglo was commissioned to create an imitation). When Eclipse Comics planned to publish an American version of WARRIOR Magazine’s Alan Moore-penned revival of the character, Marvel Comics threatened to sue if they used the word “Marvel” in the name. Moore agreed to change it, but swore he’d never work for the House Of Ideas again (he had previously written CAPTAIN BRITAIN for Marvel’s U.K. branch). By mutual agreement with Marvel, Moore’s name will not appear on the reprint series–solicitations list him as “The Original Writer”.

-MIRACLEMAN fits into Moore’s revisionist catalogue, along with CAPTAIN BRITAIN and SWAMP THING. The first arc deals with the newly revived hero–once a schoolboy named Mickey Moran, now a middle-aged family man named Mike Moran–rediscovering the magic word (Kimota!) that transforms him into a superhero, while also coming to realize that everything he thought he knew about his superheroic origin was a lie. Moore presents us with a fascinating alternate explanation for his superpowers (and a nifty sci-fi spin on the Billy Batson/Captain Marvel dynamic).

-Eclipse Comics published the existing Moore MIRACLEMAN stories and continued the series when WARRIOR folded. Moore’s story ran 16 issues. Issue 15, featuring the brutal final battle between Miracleman and former sidekick Kid Miracleman, is a highly sought-after collectors’ item (if you thought the climactic clash between Superman and Zod in MAN OF STEEL was over the top, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet).

-When Moore finished his run, he turned the character over to a friend of his, an up-and-coming young writer by the name of Neil Gaiman. The Marvel reprints of MIRACLEMAN will include one finished but previously unpublished Gaiman issue (shelved when Eclipse went out of business), and will then continue the run with all-new stories that will bring Gaiman’s arc to a conclusion.

-Todd McFarlane purchased Eclipse’s properties in the mid 1990s, hoping to reprint MIRACLEMAN while also introducing the character into his SPAWN series. McFarlane produced a statue of the character and a print featuring a Spawn/Miracleman teamup before Neil Gaiman’s claim of ownership halted the revamp (although a character named “The Man of Miracles” did appear in a SPAWN story in an Image anniversary hardcover). A protracted legal battle began, with Marvel Comics taking Gaiman’s side; in fact, a portion of the proceeds from sales of the Gaiman-penned 1602 series went towards the author’s legal fees. The court eventually ruled in Gaiman’s favour, paving the way for Marvel’s upcoming reprints and the conclusion of Gaiman’s arc (although former WARRIOR publisher Dez Skinn still claims that he owns the rights to the character).

-Marvel’s upcoming reprints will feature new, digitally-enhanced colouring, background material on the series, and, of course, a whole raft of variant covers by the likes of John Cassaday, Leinil Francis Yu, Joe Quesada, and Alan Davis (who worked on the original series in the WARRIOR days).

So there you have it. Like most superhero battles, the struggle to bring MIRACLEMAN back to life has been a nearly-endless one, but it’s almost over. Whatever drama happens to surround it, MIRACLEMAN is an important foundation stone in the exploration of “realistic” superhero stories, as well as being one of the great lost works in the early careers of two of comics’ most celebrated writers. It’s also a helluva good read, with some beautiful artwork by Alan Davis, Garry Leach, and John Totleben, and it’s also pretty cool that Neil Gaiman’s continuation of the series will finally be concluded after nearly three decades. Now, if Marvel can resist the urge to bring the character into their superhero universe so he can join the Avengers or something, that would be truly miraculous!