For years, the comic book series Miracleman has been in legal limbo. Originally created as Marvelman by Mick Angelo in 1954, the character was later renamed Miracleman and the series gained notoriety thanks to a critically acclaimed run written by Alan Moore, who was succeeded by Neil Gaiman on the book.
Gaiman’s final issue of Miracleman was never published and it wasn’t clear who owned the rights to the character. The Miracleman rights played a major part in the long legal battle between Gaiman and Todd McFarlane.
At this year’s New York Comic-Con, Marvel’s Chief Creative Officer, Joe Quesada unveiled a new video of Gaiman talking about his unfinished Miracleman story and announced that Miracleman will return in January 2014.
During the “Cup O’ Joe” panel, Quesada said that the long out-of-print Miracleman stories will be reprinted in order, culminating in Gaiman’s final unpublished story.
Alongside Axel Alonso, Alex Maleev, Dan Slott, C.B. Cebulski, Tom Breevort, Reilly Brown and Gerry Duggan, Quesada unleashed a number of unusual Marvel announcements. First up was Marvel Universe Live; which is a touring live show that feature performers and stuntmen as some of Marvel’s greatest heroes and villains. It sounds very similar to the Batman Live stunt show.
Disney Kingdoms: Seekers of the Weird was also unveiled as a new project that merges the Marvel and Disney brands. The project appears to be geared towards the young adult audience.
More intriguing for the older comic book fans was George Romero’s Empire of the Dead, with art by Alex Maleev. Quesada shocked the crowd when he invited Romero to the stage to explain the premise of his new project. Essentially, the world is overrun by vampires and zombies who come into conflict with each other. Although Romero noted that the series will have a “human component.”
Quesada touched upon the end of the Fantastic Four and congratulated Breevort for editing almost 150 issues of the long-running series. Breevort joked that Fantastic Four was finished for good before adding that he may lying about the book not being relaunched.
Regarding the recent reversion of the Daredevil rights to Marvel, one fan inquired if Daredevil fit into Marvel’s Phase Three films. Quesada declined to directly answer. And when he was asked about a solo movie for a Marvel heroine, he pointed to Captain America: The Winter Soldier which will have a much larger role for Black Widow.
Marvel’s final announcements of the convention will be made tomorrow.
