Posted in: Comics | Tagged: Mark Buckingham, marvel, miracleman, neil gaiman

Miracleman By Mark Buckingham For Marvel's Timeless #1 3rd Printing

Published Thu, 03 Feb 2022 19:21:10 -0600

When will Marvel Comics publish new Miracleman drawn by Mark Buckingham? The answer is sooner than we thought – the 9th of March. Because Mark Buckingham had drawn the cover for the third printing of Timeless #1, the comic book that teased the return of Miracleman on its final page, as the Marvel 2022 Calendar promised the scheduling of the long-awaited final issues of Miracleman: The Silver Age and then The Dark Age from Neil Gaiman and Mark Buckingham. And while this isn't that yet, it is a step in the right direction.

The cover depicts Kang looking into the windows of the future, with Ben Reilly as Spider-Man, The Thunderbolts, a possible daughter of T'Challa and Ororo, as seen in the issue. But we never saw Miracleman, just his logo. Now we get to see exactly what Kang saw, and it's a face on look of the Miracleman in question. Can the announcement of a scheduling of Miracleman finally be about to happen?

I was in the audience at San Diego Comic-Con in 2009, when Joe Quesada, then-EIC of Marvel Comics announced they had purchased the rights to Marvelman, "one of the most important comic book characters in decades", from Mick Anglo. That was the first time a story got so much traffic it took the site down. In June 2010, a "Marvelman Classic Primer" one-shot was published, featuring new art and interviews with Mick Anglo and others involved in Marvelman's history. In July 2010, a new ongoing series called Marvelman Family's Finest launched reprinting "Marvelman's greatest adventures." A hardcover reprint edition, Marvelman Classic Vol. 1, was released in August 2010. These reprints contain only early material. Alan Moore has stated that he would donate some of his royalties from any Marvel reprints of his Marvelman stories to Mick Anglo. It was at New York Comic Con 2013 when Marvel announced that they had solidified their rights to Miracleman and that Neil Gaiman and Mark Buckingham would finish the story he had started 25 years earlier. The series adopted a giant-sized format, with each issue containing a reprint of the corresponding issue of the Eclipse Comics series, reprints of select Mick Anglo Marvelman stories, and non-fiction material such as essays, photos, and Marvelman design sketches. The first issue, reprinting the recoloured and relettered stories from Warrior #1 & 2/Miracleman #1, was released in 2014.

The reprints continued, collecting remastered and recoloured work of the original run, with hardcover collections following. In September 2014 the first new Miracleman material under the Marvel Comics banner was announced. Featuring a pitched but never published story by Grant Morrison that they wrote in the 1980s, drawn by Joe Quesada, it was joined by a brand new story by Peter Milligan and Mike Allred. The reprints proceeded through #16 when the series was retitled Miracleman: The Golden Age which reprinted issues 17–22. Miracleman by Gaiman & Buckingham: The Silver Age issues 1 to 3 were announced for release in 2017 but those solicitations were cancelled shortly thereafter. At the 2018 San Diego Comic-Con at a retailer lunch, Marvel announced legal hurdles causing the cancellation had been resolved and the new series was supposed to begin publication in 2019 with the previously announced creative team of Gaiman and Buckingham on board. But the new series had not yet appeared nor have any issues of it been solicited. And now we have a cover…

TIMELESS #1 3RD PTG BUCKINGHAM VAR
MARVEL COMICS
DEC218555
(W) Jed MacKay (A) Kev Walker, Mark Bagley (CA) Mark Buckingham
HOW DO YOU WIN A WAR AGAINST TIME?
A special year-ending adventure that gives portents as to what is to come in the Marvel Universe over the next twelve months! Kang the Conqueror is a warrior, a destroyer, a subjugator-but even he is subject to the whims and vicissitudes of time itself. So when a parallel timeline threatens to overwrite the future that Kang has fought so long and so hard to control, the master of the ages has no choice but to go to war with time itself, battling through days of tomorrow as he struggles to prevent the end of what is to come!
Featuring all the major players in the Marvel pantheon!
RATED T In Shops: Mar 09, 2022 Final Orders Due: Feb 06, 2022 SRP: $5.99

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