Miracleman Annual #1

   I was really looking forward to this annual, since it includes the first new Miracleman stories in a heck of a long time.

   Add to that the creative teams represented - Grant Morrison and Joe Quesada on the first story, Peter Milligan and Mike Allred on the second - and you can understand why my expectations were high.

   Perhaps that was the problem - I was expecting too much.

   After all, Morrison's story was written early in his career - in the 1980s - so it lacks the depth of his modern work.

   All of which is to say, I didn't care for it much. It tries a little too hard to mislead, and the visualization of the antagonist is a bit too far off the model. But aside from that quibble, the art is quite good.

   The second story is a bit lighter, being set in the fantasy Miracleman world the heroes enjoyed before reality set in.

   It's loaded with flights of fancy and silly bits of business, but it's all in good fun. But it's also very reminiscent of an earlier story by the - ahem - Original Writer.

   So I can't really give this a strong recommendation - it's a fair effort, but it has some powerful storytelling to live up to, and it doesn't quite reach the mark.

   Nice art, though.

Grade: B-

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