I'll be upfront and say that I'm not sure that this annual is really worth the $4.99 price tag.
We're clearly paying for the Morrison story that they've unearthed, written in 1984 but unpublished. It's an interesting look into (presumably) the moment that Johnny Bates crossed into villain territory, killing a Catholic priest who saw him fall to the ground the night that the Miracleman Family was purportedly killed. I'm assuming that he did it to cover his tracks, to make sure his identity remained a secret, but Morrison doesn't really make that clear. After all, Bates never used his powers in public after that night, so I'm not sure why he would need to be worried that someone would know that a super-human was out there somewhere. But, as usual with Morrison, we're left to draw those conclusion on our own.
The second story features another moment where Miracleman came close to realizing that he was in a dream, after a week of fighting "death rays, evil dolphins, and amnesia vapors" resulted in no one getting seriously hurt. It's a clever story, but it is something that we've already seen in the main title, so it's not particularly entrancing here. That said, I'm not usually a fan of the Allreds' work, but they are the perfect people to depict the retro Miracleman Family stories.
In other words, it's a solid regular issue, but don't expect anything groundbreaking in this first annual outing.
*** (three of five stars)
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