Alan Moore's work on this series isn't as polished as his later work on titles like "V is for Vendetta" or "Watchmen." But, you can see him wrestle with some of the same philosophical themes that have dominated his career here.
First, Moore tackles three different aspects of the typical superhero mythos here:
- Miracleman being the father of the baby that Mike couldn't provide Liz gets to the heart of the question of whether they're two actual people. But, it's Mike's lament over competing with the idealized version of man that Miracleman represents that got to me. He notes that his actual relationship with Liz is plagued by fights over household chores whereas Miracleman is able to give her pure love. In that way, Moore plays with the duality that most characters face when it comes to balancing their costumed and civilian identity by taking it to an illustrative extreme. However, it also goes to the metaphoric role that superheroes play for the reader. Usually, most superheroes face challenges that serve as a proxy for challenges that the average person faces; somehow, Miracleman fighting Kid Miracleman is akin to a bullied teenager confronting his bully, etc. But, Mike reminds us here that said parallel isn't necessarily perfect, that we're still maybe expecting too much of ourselves. After all, we can't all be Miracleman; even Mike can't.
- Moreover, Moore raises all sorts of questions not only about the philosophy of superheroes, but the physics of them. How does somebody with a dancer's build throw a boulder into the sky? Why does that same somebody not get hammered into the ground when that boulder lands on his head, even if his invulnerability means that it doesn't hurt him?
- Finally, we don't get the usual suspension of disbelief here when it comes to the bad guys being unable to ferret out the good guy's identity. Mike has no Spider-Sense to warn him not to change into Spider-Man if someone's watching. As such, Mr. Cream is able to quickly ascertain that Miracleman is one of the press people who was at the Larksmere event, since the criminals are all in custody and it was a closed event. It's pretty easy for him to get to the survivor and put together a description of Miracleman's secret identity. By making it so easy, Moore adds a level of realism that even this series' violence can't achieve.
Second, he keeps you guessing. I didn't see Johnny accidentally turning himself into his younger self and then revealing that he never wanted to stay Kid Miracleman all that time. It's remarkably sad, particularly as we see Johnny committed to an institution and doomed to spend months with the Kid Miracleman persona raging at him inside his head.
Finally, it wouldn't be a Moore book without some sort of government conspiracy and here we learn not only that the British government was behind the creation of the Miracleman family in the first place but they were actually the ones to engineer the bomb that theoretically killed them. Moore improves on the original story in this way, making it seem less random that an "astrophysicist" somehow gave him powers.
I don't know much at this point, but I know that it's not going to end well for Mike.
*** (three of five stars)
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