The question I’ve been wanting to know with regards to  Marvelman has been answered, but with some not so great news.  Marvel will be reprinting the original Marvelman adventures written by Moore, but in completely shocking (shocking!) news he wants his name removed from the copy.

In this interview with Mania, Moore explains why he wants his name removed not just because of his troubles with Marvel, but because he wants the money to go to very old Marvelman creator Mick Anglo. I can appreciate that, and as Captain Hook would say: Good form. What’s actually constantly entertaining about this entire situation is that Marvel originally sued to have Marvelman’s name changed to Miracleman, while Moore was working on the title. Which caused Moore to vow to never work with the publisher.  He reiterates his stance in the interview:

After being initially informed by Neil’s lawyer, I had to think about it for a couple of days. I decided that while I’m very happy for this book to get published—because that means money will finally go to Marvelman’s creator, Mick Anglo, and to his wife. Mick is very, very old, and his wife, I believe, is suffering from Alzheimer’s. The actual Marvelman story is such a grim and ugly one that I would probably rather that the work was published without my name on it, and that all of the money went to Mick. The decision about my name was largely based upon my history with Marvel—my desire to really have nothing to do with them, and my increasing desire to have nothing to do with the American comics industry. I mean, they’re probably are enough books out there with my name on them to keep the comics industry afloat for a little bit longer. I left a message to that effect with Neil. I’ve since heard back from the lawyer upon another issue, and he said that he was certain that would be the case—that Marvel would accede to my request. That looks like the way it will be emerging. And, Neil will be able to finish his Marvelman story because he has a completely different relationship with Marvel than I have with them—or rather, don’t have. The main thing is that I will feel happy to know that Mick Anglo is finally getting the recompense he so richly deserves. And, I will have distanced myself from a lot of the deceit and ugliness that surrounded the relaunching of Marvelman as a character.

I think it would be good for everyone if we just forget that Mr. Moore just said that there are enough books out there with his name on them to keep the industry going for a little while longer. Yeah.

Regardless, its a really great interview on how Moore got to be involved with the project in his nascent years coming up in comics.  Considering his work on the character was seen as a launching pad for modern comic luminaries like Mark Buckingham, Alan Davis and Neil Gaiman (above, pictured with Moore).

Regardless of that statement, Moore goes on to justify his reasoning for taking his name off the project as really not at all about his hatred for the super-ironic Marvelman/Miracleman merry-go-round but to give Mick Anglo money he feels he’s owed.  Its worth a click to get the whole  story behind Moore’s involvement with the project, and his clear-eyed direction on the controversy. I just can’t wait for these volumes to come out.

Everyone has been talking up the Marvelman business, from Neil Gaiman, to Mark Buckingham and Rick Veitch.  Now the man who previously owned the rights to Miracleman, talks to Comic Book Resources and says:

“Here’s what I know as a guy who’s been living a complicated life: I will be having meaningful conversations with my lawyer when I get home.”

Complicated in the sense, that it just isn’t clear what is going on.  Melrose details how McFarlane came to have a stake in this character.

McFarlane entered the picture in 1996, when he purchased for $40,000 the creative assets of bankrupt Eclipse, which supposedly included the Marvelman licensing agreement with Warrior publisher Quality Communications. Although McFarlane apparently had plans for Marvelman, those rights eventually became leverage in his dispute with Gaiman over ownership of the characters Angela, Cogliostro and Medieval Spawn. It later emerged, however, that Marvelman was not part of the Eclipse assets, and that Quality never owned the rights in the first place.

Oh I see. Except for the fact that the character, when owned by McFarlane, was titled Miracleman.  Right? The name was changed to appease Marvel. So, that’s why in the weeks after Comic Con we haven’t heard anything from McFarlane. Though it does take some time to lawyer-up, and present suit but I don’t think there’s much McFarlane can do.  For me, considering when McFarlane had the character, he was known as Miracleman. With Marvel buying the character known as Marvelman, I would say the only rights Marvel has to the character’s  stories is under that name, or whatever rights Gaiman, Veich, et. al give them for their stories.  So, I guess, McFarlane doesn’t have a legal recourse when it comes to “Marvelman.”

Whatever.  Clearly, I’m into this whole situation and I’m sure I’ll be annoying the hell out of you all with it until the day the first issue of the new series comes out.

Joe Quesada's Marvelman

With all the hubbub over Marvelman becoming a property of Marvel, which is kind of funny considering Marvel complained all those years ago causing the name to be changed to “Miracleman”, there seems to be a prevailing question over Internet people regarding the original issues.  That question is whether the old Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, Mark Buckingham landmark issues will be re-printed.  John Parker provides a list of do’s and do not’s regarding this property:

DO

Give the reprints — if you get the rights to them — the Deluxe treatment: hardbacks, dustcovers, additional material, the “compleat” Alan Moore edition – but release the paperbacks concurrently. People aren’t going to shell out a hundred bucks for something that’s they’ve only heard is supposed to be great. Well, most people won’t. Everybody else is doing something known in Psychology as “hoarding.” These are damaged people, and one can’t build an entire audience on damaged people. You’re Marvel, not Brian Pulido.

DON’T

Change the name back to “Marvelman.” Yes, it was the original name, yes, when Moore was writing those first magical scripts, he was writing “Panel One: Marvelman does such-and-such” and then six more pages of description. Doesn’t matter. First of all, Miracleman, hands down, is a cooler name. Secondly, Marvel already has enough characters named Marvel something, and having even one character named after your company is about as cool as wearing a Wilco shirt to a Wilco concert. People are staring, fer chrissakes.

I like the Wilco shirt at a Wilco concert analogy, because its long been my belief that you don’t wear your nerd shirt to a comic con, its like wearing the band’s t-shirt to the band’s show.  Its just a no-no.  But, you know, it wouldn’t be much of a point to change the name back to Miracleman when the entire point was that “Marvel” now has “Marvelman”, but then again Marvel did complain way back when on the name of the title so I guess Marvel’s entire involvement just kind of looks like a dog chasing it’s tail.  But that old argument was forever ago, and really not relevant to today anyway.

Regardless, Gaiman posted on his journal regarding the announcement and commented on whether we’d see the reprints of his work:

Regarding Marvel’s recent announcement concerning the acquisition of the rights to Marvelman — Will you be involved in any way with the future publications and/or marketing? If so, would you and Marvel possibly consider continuing to use the name Miracleman rather than reverting to Marvelman? My personal experience with the character began in the mid-80′s with the Eclipse run by Alan Moore and then you; and, regardless of the actual reasons those stories used the Miracleman name, I have always felt “Miracleman” was — for lack of better explanation — a classier, more appropriate, more adult designation than “Marvelman”. Thanks for taking the time for this.

We’ll see. And no, I think it’s Marvelman, which is what it was until 1984ish when Marvel complained.

Right now I’m not entirely sure what’s going to happen, and Mark Buckingham and I haven’t signed anything, but I’m really hopeful that Marvel will bring Alan Moore’s stories back into print, and the work I did with Mark Buckingham (Miracleman 25 was finished, ready for printing, 16 years ago. It’s still in Mark Buckingham’s possession, although some of the lettering balloons have gone a bit yellow.) I’m not entirely sure what Marvel’s plans are for the character at this point — obviously I’d like to finish the story I started.

I’m really interested in seeing what Marvel does with the character, but what I’m really interested in is in reprinting Gaiman, and Moore’s work to see what the big deal is.

Marvelman poster by Joe Quesada

So that super secret thing that Rich Johnston alluded to that was going to be announced at Marvel’s Cup O’Joe panel? Well that thing is the company has bought the rights to Marvelman.

“It is an honor to work with Mick Anglo to bring his creation to a larger audience than ever before,” said Dan Buckley, CEO & Publisher, Print, Animation & Digital Media, Marvel Entertainment Inc. “Fans are in for something special as they discover just what makes Marvelman such an important character in comic book history.”

For those not in the know, the Marvelman comics have  been out of print and included some ground breaking runs by the likes of Alan Moore, Alan Davis and Neil Gaiman, before the creators were hits here in the U.S.  The character was originally created by Mick Anglo in 1954 and published in the United Kingdom’s Fawcett Comics.  The comic revolved around a reporter named Micky Moran who when he utters the word “Kimota” it bestows powers of superhuman strength, invulnerability, and force energy blasts.

If you’re not at all familiar with the character, and that’s not so hard to believe, because the character hasn’t been seen in print for a while and has been in the center of a raging legal battle over who owns the character.  Neil Gaiman and Todd McFarlane were locked in a battle over the rights to the character, but only recently did Anglo come out and say that he always owned the rights to the character, and Fawcett (the original publishers) never owned it.  So, that’s my short way of saying it was Anglo’s right to sell the character to Marvel.

Regardless, what’s past is past as they say, and now Marvel has the character and is celebrating that fact. With a limited edition poster (see above) and a t-shirt. Mr. Ayers, you may wanna hop on that train asap.