Oh, Neil Gaiman. How glad I am that you decided to make this dream a reality.
One of the things that I found distressing about "Miracleman (2022)" #0, which I couldn't quite articulate at the time, was the fact that all the stories seemed so...pulpy, like the original Miracleman stories set in the 1940s and 1950s. The characters were all two-dimensional. I found myself wondering why "Miracleman (2014)" and "Miracleman by Gaiman and Buckingham (2015)" captivated me in the first place if all the stories were like that issue's.
Gaiman in his brilliance shows that I was almost meant to feel this way. Young Miracleman serves as the reader's surrogate as he struggles to get a grasp on the technocolor insanity of this era.
The issue begins with Jenda and Zapster, two of the Miraclechildren (who we first saw in "Miracleman (2022)" #0), fighting each other on "an island in the South Pacific" that looks a lot like Manhattan. Gaiman gives sly nods to Marvel throughout their fight: the children battle a Galactus-like figure named "Klingsor the Galaxatron, Destroyer of World;" Jenda yells, "It's pulverizing time;" and "Klingsor" quips that Earth will become another battery in his cosmic "power pack."
Suddenly, a fellow Miraclechild, Mist, interrupts the battle to inform the pair that Panorama wants them to come to her since Miracelman is waking up Young Miracleman. It turns out "Klingsor" is a third Miraclechild, named Duncan, and they're all excited to see the awakening. Given the destruction they're committing, I assumed that the scene would dissolve into something like the Danger Room, but the Miraclechildren talk about reconstructing the island after resuming their fight the next day.
Here, Gaiman is making it clear the extent to which Miracleman and his cohort really are gods and Earth is their playground. It's possible the island is just a playground created for them, as they keep referring to destroying the World Trade Center (which definitely isn't on a South Pacific island) in a previous fight. It would explain why we see no people throughout their battle. Either option, though, underscores just how powerful the Miracles are.
The Miraclechildren arrive at a floating space station where we're introduced to other Miraclechildren, including Panorama. She uses her telepathic powers to connect to Winter, who is present at Young Miracelman's awakening.
Young Miracelman (who'll I'll call by his "human" name, Dicky, to save on typing) awakens, and Miracleman enters his room. Miracleman explains to Dicky that he has been dead for 40 years and stresses that he wants to take his reintroduction slowly. Buckingham is brilliant in these pages, as Dicky is basically the epitome of a handsome 1950s teenager, something Gaiman emphasizes through the script as well. It helps highlight just how displaced Dicky is in this reality.
When Winter enters Dicky's room, against Miracleman's wishes, Miracleman realizes that his plan of a slow reintroduction has failed. He then takes Dicky into the rest of Olympus and introduces him to the Pantheon: Miraclewoman (Dicky is taken aback when Miracleman introduces her as his "consort" though not as Winter's mother), British Bulldog (formerly Big Ben), Huey Moon the Firedrake, Kana Blur and Phon Mooda of the Warpsmiths, and Mors from the Qys. Dicky is unfailingly polite through this conversation, with his 1950s vernacular standing in sharp contrast to the wonders he's encountering. He then asks Miracleman to escort him to his room so he can rest.
In his room, Dicky explodes. He asks about the "woman in that - that filthy bathing suit," the "coloured gentleman," and the man in the animal costume. He expresses confusion over an extremely large statue of Johnny grabbing onto who we know is Kid Miracelman and a similarly large portrait of Dr. Gargunza.
Realizing he has to tell Dicky the truth, Miracleman asks Dicky recount his origin story. To Dicky's mind, he was an orphan who stumbled upon a secret plot where former Nazis sent messages to each other in "hollowed-out vegetables from the orphanage market garden," a brilliantly ridiculous plot only an old-school comic could contain. Dicky met Micky Moran, who was on the story's trail for the "Daily Bugle," and they found the Nazis' submarine headquarters. During the fray, one of the Nazis shot Dicky. Micky called for Guntag Borghelm to save Dicky, which he does by allowing Miracelman to share his energy with him. Dicky exposits to us that he had to call out "Miracleman" instead of "Kimota" since he didn't have a direct connection to "atomic harmony" like Miracelman did.
Reluctantly, Miracleman is forced to tell Dicky his real history. He informs Dicky that his father didn't die in the Battle of Britain, and his mother didn't die in the Blitz. Dicky's father came home to find Dicky's mother in bed with his best friend and killed them both before committing suicide. Gargunza later kidnapped Dicky from the orphanage to become part of the Spookshow. Miracleman explains all their memories from that period where artificial implants (something I had forgotten) while they actually slept for eight years. The British government eventually balked at the program, and, in in 1963, they were all sent to their deaths via atomic bomb, as we know.
Miracelman explains that he resurrected Dicky after taking over the world, and Dicky devastatingly asks why. Miracleman explains that he thought he deserved a second chance. Dicky asks if Miracelman killed Johnny (news that Miracleman had broken to him earlier) to make the world safe for "peace and democracy," and Miracelman explains that he alone is in charge. Dicky asks for a minute, and Miracleman leaves. He then turns into his human form - dressed as the messenger he was - and, in one of the most devastating scenes I've ever seen in comics, sobs that he wants his mom.
Back at the space station, the Miraclechildren watch, with the same emotionlessness that we saw earlier. Kay announces that she wants to have sex with Dicky, and another Miraclechild comments on Dicky's hokey accent. Conversely, Panorama is shaken, and Mist ominously notes how traumatized Dicky is and "where it goes from here is anybody's guess." Jenda and Zapster then discuss resuming their fight. Jenda declines because "sometimes you can get really bored with hitting people through buildings," and the issue ends with Duncan and Zapster continuing the fight on their own, with Duncan appearing as another Marvel villain, Vril-Vrox-Vrang (i.e., Fin Fang Foom).
Again, Gaiman is brilliant here. It's clear that he's using Dicky to show us the corruption and perversity of the Pantheon and the Miraclechildren. Given Dicky's comment about "peace and democracy," it seems possible that Dicky will be the one to take on Miracelman and his regime. The question still is how welcome Earth's people will find his attempt to do so. Do they really appreciate the 19 years of "miracle" they've enjoyed at this point? Or are they under the thumb of a god-like dictator and his insane lieutenants? (British Bulldog in particular seems unhinged.) Only time will tell!
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