Miracleman Book 2: Red King Syndrome (#5-10) NSFW

NSFW:  Warning!  Contains very graphic images of childbirth that leave nothing to the imagination!

"Is this it Gargunza?  Is this what all those years were for?" - Miracleman

OK, so this sucks.  I'm doing another Brit comics month and I was supposed to be doing The Complete Ballad Of Halo Jones as my Alan Moore comic.  But those cocksuckers in the UK postal service are obviously too busy gargling each others cum to ensure I get my post, and it's lost somewhere in limbo.  So I'm doing the second Marvel Miracleman reprint collection which I think was originally still mostly published in the UK first.  Fuck I don't know, wikipedia is not helping me.  But as it's the only Alan Moore comic I can at least tenuously link to the UK I've have to hand so it'll have to fucking do OK?  Fuck.

Hrmm, I think two months looking at Garth Ennis's stuff has had a deleterious effect on my usual prim and ladylike manner of speech.  Let's start again.

Miracleman (or Marvelman as it was originally known) was an old Silver Age British knock-off of Captain Marvel.  Miracleman, Young Miracleman and Kid Miracleman all had magic words they could say to turn from normal humans into powerful superbeings.  By the early 1980's the series hadn't been published in a long time so writing for Warrior comic, Alan Moore revived and rebooted the series as one of the first deconstructionist takes on the superhero archetype, as middle-aged schlub Mike Moran remembers his long forgotten magic word and transforms into Miracleman, gets his wife pregnant, fights the now evil Kid Miracleman and then finds out all his memories of his old adventures were simply beamed into his brain via a virtual reality machine. I looked at Book One here and here.  The first Book of Miracleman ended with him departing the govenment bunker where his past had been manufactured in the company of one Evelyn Cream a government agent who was meant to kill him, but who betrayed the UK government to team up with Miracleman for his own reasons.

Miracleman and Liz

The book begins with Liz and Mike Moran arguing.  She says that although Miracleman can't be hurt, Mike can.  Mike says it's not his fault Miracleman was done to him and if Liz wants reassurance she can talk to him and he changes into Miracleman in the next room.  We then get a look at what's happening to Johnny Bates, the teenage vessel for the evil Kid Miracleman.  He is in a vegetative state externally through the sheer effort of fighting Kid Miracleman's persuasion to get him to change.

Evelyn Cream is meeting with his ostensible boss, Sir Dennis Archer.  Cream wants Miracleman left alone and Project Zarathustra suspended immediately.  Sir Dennis asks if he realises just how powerful Miracleman is?

Evelyn Cream: "You made it an enemy.  I made it an ally.  There is a difference."

Sir Dennis: "Not at all Mr. Cream.  It has made you it's pet!"

Miracleman appears naked to Liz and they start to embrace and make love.  She realises that with his power there is no reason to be scared and yet:

Narration: "So why does she feel so vulnerable? And Afraid?"

Later Miracleman is sitting on a rock in a wooded area somewhere.  There is a boy who is hiding stuff that he will need post-nuclear war.  He spots Miracleman and asks him "Are you a pouf [UK slag for a homosexual]? Or are you a superhero?" A surprised Miracleman introduces himself as Miracleman, superhero.  The boy says he is called Jason.

Jason is a little dubious about Miracleman's claims, so Miracleman destroys the big rock he was sat on.  Satisfied, Jason asks him if he could stop a nuclear war happening.  Miracleman says he'd doe his best.  They part and when Miracleman gets home he comes across the living room all smashed up and Liz (who is now heavily pregnant with Miracleman's kid) has been abducted.

Cream woken from a prophetic dream.

In the midst of a nightmare, Cream is wakened by a panicked phoncall from Miracleman. We briefly see Liz in a comfortable bedroom while two voices off screen scan her and note her total lack of panic at what has happened to her.  Back with Miracleman, Cream denies all knowledge of what happens.  They figure out it must be someone who knows Miraclemans secret identity.  First they phone the hospital Johnny Bates is in, but he hasn't gone anywhere. 

Then Cream phones Sir Dennis and tells him Miracleman will destroy one city an hour until he gets Liz back.  Desperately Sir Dennis says he hasn't got her, but he knows who might have her. We then return to Liz and a man called Gargunza, who was behind Project Zarathustra and he says to her, regarding Miracleman:

Gargunza: "I created him.  He is almost my son.  And shortly Mrs Moran, very shortly.. he will be my father."

The real Gargunza

Later Cream is preparing to fly to where they have been told Gargunza is hiding out.  They are going by plane as it would be to cold for Miracleman to fly Cream under his own steam.  On the plane he ponders meeting Gargunza who is holed up in South America, and finding out his secrets to use for "his own ends".

Gargunza performs various check-ups on Liz, who takes it all in her stride.  When he tells her sheis having a girl, she simply replies "I know".  Later that night Gargunza has a nightmare where the Miracle foetus stares him down, and knowing he won't be able to go back to sleep he remembers his time with Project Zarathustra.  Cue flashback.

He and his assistant, Fabian are overseeing the three Miraclemen being given false memories as dream programmes.  Then one day he turns off the "somatic inducers" and the Miraclemen keep on dreaming independantly.

We then travel into the gorgous dreamworld of the Miraclemen.  Miracleman comments that it doesn't feel real and he has felt like he is in a dream for a while now.  They are presented by a city with "Sleepytown" written up the side and they go in to investigate.  Outside Garguza notes that their subconciousness are trying to tell them things aren't real.  The Miraclemen come across three huge slumbering figures which look exactly like them to their discomfort.

Gargunza: "Their subconcious minds are trying to overload on absurdity to shock the brain into wakefulness by crossing the threshold of disbelief".

Gargunza says he anticipated this might happen and installed failsafes.  A dampner field will drain the power of their minds and allow them to rein in the warnings from their minds.  Inside their dream the Miraclemen come across vampires and start fighting them as Fabian says the dampner fields aren't working.  As the Miraclemen fight, Gargunza muses:

Gargunza: "Tell me Fabian, have you ever read Alice in Wonderland?  You have? Do you remember the Red King?  He slept and dream and no-one dared wake him.  They were afraid you see, that they were all part of his dream. And if he were to wake the whole of existence would vanish".

Fabian says that existence wouldn't end if the Miraclemen wake up.  Gargunza replies "It will for us."  And then we return to him in the present.

The Miraclemen's shared dreamworld.

He is sat with Liz as they drink coffee together.  She asks him who he is and where he comes from.  he says he is an old man, close to death and he comes from vera Cruz.  Liz expresses an interest in hearing his life story so he obliges.  He says he was around six when the Mexican government fell and US troops were sent to keep the peace, it was 1911.  When he was nine, his father died and he and his mother lived in poverty in Rio.

He joined up with a local gang and because he was small and intelligent, the head gangster Aurelio adopted him as a mascot.  One day though Aurelio tried to sexually abuse him and when Gargunza resisted he was badly beaten.  However Gargunza's intelligence and earning power had bought him the loyalty of the rest of the gang and one night he had Aurelio dragged from his bed.  Gargunza then raped his girlfriend in front of him and beat him to death with a baseball bat. He was fourteen.

By the time he was eighteen he was rich enough to keep his mother in comfort and he left for Europe and began to study science.  His reputation spread and one day he met Hitler and was offered a position in the Reich to study genetics.  In 1941 he realised the war was unwinnable for Germany and defected to England where he started working under Sir Dennis Archer.  After the death of his mother in 1947 he realised he did not want to die.

The mystery spaceship that helped start it all.

One night he was summoned to the site of a poison gas leak, which turned out to be a cover story for the landing of an alien spacecraft.  He and a few others entered it and could hardly comprehend what they were seeing.  Further into the ship they discovered the alien body that Gargunza spent a long time puzzling over.

It was the same being but had two bodies fused together, it was one mind but with two bodies.  Garguza theorised that the ship had crashed after the alien had suddenly and catstrophically had both bodies occupy the same space at the same time.  Gargunza believed he could create humans who could switch bodies in the same way and experimented on three orphans, he also makes a passing mention of two who came later, "Rebbeck and Lear".

When they had been physically altered, he went to work on a way of controlling them via their minds.  He hit on using the superhero narrative after seeing a comic one day (and that comic is shown to be Captain Marvel) and used technology created using what they had found in the alien spacecraft.

The Miracle family are created.

Liz asks why he did all this  Gargunza says he wants to live for ever.  He thought about wiping Miracleman's mind and transferring his conciousness into him, but that wouldn't have worked.  A baby on the other hand, that had inherited Miracleman's abilities naturally, well that would be a different matter altogether.  And finally Liz is shaken by what he is implying.

We return to the flashback the night in 1961 when the Miracle family started to wake up. The dampner fields overload and the Miraclemen start creating their own dreamworld.  Miracleman is still uneasy, saying something is wrong and nothing feels real.  His mind is creating absurdities upon absurdities in an attempt to wake himself up.

Miracleman: "No!  This is wrong!  Don't you see?  We're being seduced.  They're trying to stop us thinking!"

His subconcious projection is so powerful it even changes the logo on his real life costume.  Gargunza desperately looks for a way to reassert control as Fabian says Miracleman is moving.  Gargunza finally hits on having them wake up inside the simulation with all the crazy stuff as just being all a dream.  This appears to work, although Miracleman's costume logo is still changed. 

Gargunza reasserts control... maybe.

Back in the present, Liz is accosted by Cream who tells her that her husband is coming for her.  Miracleman comes raging through the compound destroying everything in his path.  He tells Gargunza that he is going to kill him.  Gargunza laughs and says the word "Abraxas" which turns Miracleman back into Mike Moran.  Mike says his magic word but nothing happens.  Gargunza has activated a mental failsafe that will keep Mike from transforming into Miracleman for another hour.  Then he places his dog on the ground and says "Steppenwolf" which transforms the dog into a huge, vicious "Miracledog!"

Cream arrives on the scene with Liz.  Liz and Mike hug and Gargunza says Mike and Cream have three minutes to make their getaway before he sets Miracledog on them.  He says now Liz is pregnant, Mike has outlived his usefulness.  Cream and Mike leave, but soon Mike collapses in despair saying he is too fat and old to run.

Miracledog.  Not a very friendly guy.

Cream says that inside Mike is a God who must be protected.  He gives Mike his gun then leaves him to try and draw Miracledog away and buy Mike some time.  He remembers his nightmare and realises the "whiteness" he reached for was not the "the hot whiteness of steel.  Or of sanctity.  It is the whiteness of bone.  It is death."  Miracledog catches up with him and cuts his head clean off, thus ending Cream's involvement in the story.

Miracledog then catchs up with Mike and when Mike points his gun at it, snaps the gun up taking two of Mike's fingers with it.  Mike tries to figure out how to defeat an opponent whose magic word it can't even say.  Then he realises that the magic word could be said by someone else besides Gargunza.  He tries  it and Miracledog changes back into a harmless animal.  Mike beats it's brains out with a rock then sits and waits.

Gargunza's men are out looking for Mike and Cream's bodies.  They find Cream and Miracledog, but then Mike transforms back into Miracleman and kills all of them.  He then speeds back to Gargunza's compounds and smashes his way down to where Gargunza is.  Before Gargunza can say the counterword, Miracleman grabs him by the throat.  Then he flies him up above the Earth.

Miracleman: "Can you see the planet?  How big it is?  Can you see the scale I live on?  Gargunza, can you see how small you have always been?"

He kisses Gargunza farewell, then hurls him back down towards the Earth.  Gargunza burns up in the atmosphere and only a small amount of bone makes it back down to the surface.

Sucks yo be you now, Gargunza.

(I've got a feeling that this was the point Miracleman ceased being published in Warrior, as the rest of the book is made up of much longer chapters, which makes me think this was when the strip went over to US publisher Eclipse in full.)

Back with Liz, her contractions start.  She struggles outside to seek help to find the place wrecked.  Then Miracleman appears angelically in front of her.  She gets a bit hysterical but he holds her and says it's "all gone away".  She doesn't want to have her baby where they are now, so Miracleman puts her in a nearby truck and then flies her inside it to find a quiet place she can give birth.

There is a brief interlude with two strange humanoid characters who gain entrance to the facility where Johnny Bates is being treated.  They enter his mind as try and talk to him about his "Change-self".  When Johnny refuses to respond they withdraw and Kid Miracleman pops up wondering "what they hell were they?"

There is now an extensive birth scene rendered in extremely graphic detail with a series of beautiful and life affirming captions.  It's not easily summed up and is really the emotional heart of the entire book, so here are some images from it to give you some idea how lovely it is.

Behold!  Miraclebaby!

Finally with their daughter safely delivered, Liz says over and over, "is she alright?".  To which Miracleman responds "Yes. Yes she's all right."  And just as they breathe a sigh of relief and enjoy the fact their world is finally safe and sane, their newborn baby girl says "Ma-ma".

The action then cuts back to the strange humanoids who are keeping an eye on all the beings like Mike/Miracleman who can change, whether alive or dead.  Their speech is odd and hard to follow and very elliptical, but one thing they do reveal, that there is a Miraclewoman out there as well.

Returning to the new family, they are back at the Moran home.  Liz is unable to keep up Miraclebaby's need for sustenance.  Miracleman changes back into Mike and is still missing two fingers, overwhelmed by all the stress he has been under he passes out.

We then cut to Johnny Bates, inside his head, Kid Miracleman has managed to trick Johnny into coming out of his vegative state that had trapped them both.  He knows Johnny won't say the magic word and free him easily, but that it's more likely to happen if Johnny is concious and mixing with the other kids in the group home.

Kid Miracleman plots....

Back with the Morans, Liz is feeding the baby formula to keep up with her hunger.  Liz confesses that when she was pregnant, the baby, who she names "Winter" kept her stress down and made her calm.  But now she's given birth she feels like she doesn't matter and she is depressed.  Then oddly her mood changes and she feels happy again.  As this conversation was being shown from Winter's perspective, the implication is that she used her powers to make her mum happy again.

We then return to the odd humans, they are in a doctor's office, the receptionist speaks to the female doctor and says they have asked for her using the wrong name, "Lear" and seem to be foreign.  Then the receptionist, still speaking to the female doctor over the phone says "Kim who?" and the side of the building shatters as Miraclewoman says the magic word "Kimota" and makes a quick getaway.

Miraclewoman.

Back with the Morans, Liz has started feeding Winter solid food to satisfy her.  When Mike queries this, Liz says something told her it was the right thing to do - "mother's instinct". Mike goes to check on the baby and is overhwelmed by love for her.

Mike: "How can anything so wonderfully complex be made so small, so flawless in every details.  Her perfect little fingers.  Her perfect little eyes.  Her perfect little ears.  Her perfect little mouth... with it's... perfect... little... teeth".

The book concludes with the mysterious couple in South America inspecting the body of Miracledog.  Their next target is Mike who they are detirmined not to allow to escape them like Miraclewoman did.  They travel back to England in a burst of light.

The mystery humanoids... aliens perhaps?

And that concludes Book Two of Miracleman.  After the impact the first Book had at the time, added into the fact this book was being put out during the final period of Warrior magazine and then transferred over to US publisher Eclipse, this middle book suffers a little from feeling like it's acting mainly to tie off loose ends from Book One (Evelyn Cream and Gargunza) while setting up plotlines for the epic events of Book Three (the introduction of Miraclewoman, Johnny Bates coming out of his fugue state, the odd humanoid aliens, Winter's fast development and powers).  However it's still a fantastic read in it's own right, the birth sequence alone is some of the finest, most heartfelt writing I have ever read by Alan Moore and showing the birth in all it's unsanitised detail keeps the premise of Miracleman as a superhero book grounded in gritty reality alive. This reprint package as a whole is just as lavish as the previous one, there are two extra stories, a short fun little one starring Young Miracleman trying to impress a lady, and a fourth wall breaking framing sequence for some reprints after the Eclipse publishing offices got flooded. Add in all the covers, promo art, as well as other artistic treats, all bound together in hardback and you have a fantastic package any lover of comics must have in their collection.
 

Miracleman: Book 1 - A Dream Of Flying (#1-4) PART TWO

"Out of the dark he is coming..." - Narration

The story so far:  It's the early 80's, shabby middle aged bloke Mike Moran has been haunted by dreams of flying towards a grey shape that explodes and consumes him in fire.  After being taken hostage by terrorists while covering a protest at a nuclear plant he sees the word "Atomic" backwards through a window.  He says the word "Kimota" and turns into the superhuman Miracleman.  He returns to his/Mikes wife Liz and after filling her in on his rather silly history they sleep together. Next day he is called up by Johnny Bates who was Kid Miracleman, now the owner of a large multinational company. Back as Mike, he and Liz go to meet Johnny.  Turns out Johnny hasn't lost his powers and is also completely corrupted and evil.  He and Miracleman fight, but Johnny is stronger, before he can finish Miracleman off, he accidentally says Miracleman's name, which is the magic word that triggers his transformation.  He turns back into sixteen year old Johnny Bates and seems to have lost his power to return back into his superpowered self.  Miracleman and Liz leave him virtually catatonic, while elsehwere in London, the authorities have unleashed the ultimate sanction to deal with Miracleman, a black man with sapphires for teeth called Evelyn Cream.  And now, back to the story.

We next find Mike and Liz out on an excursion to the moors to do some tests on his powers.  It seems Liz initiated this idea making her an early example of one of Moore's proactive females.  Mike seems a little uncertain about all this but changes into Miracleman nontheless. It seems two months have passed since his battle with Kid Miracleman, his face is still burned but has healed substantionally. Liz grabs some comics from the car boot.

Miracleman: "Comics?"

Liz: "Mmm, Amercian comics.  I thought if we wer going to investigate your power, I'd better do some research work."
She lists off some of the powers she's compiled.  Flight, super-strength and near invulnerability get an affirmative.  When she starts listing things like superbreath though, Miracleman looks adorably confused.

Kid Miracleman trapped in Johnny's head

Back with Johnny Bates, he's in some sort of fugue state being examined by doctors and inside his head he's being yelled at by Kid Miracleman, who swears revenge on Miracleman.

Kid Miracleman: "He just better hope I never get out of here.  He better hope I stay in here forever."

Liz and Miracleman are still on the moors. Miracleman picks up  huge boulder and lets it smash down onto his head.  Liz posits the idea that he has a forcefield that stops him being driven into the ground by the weight.  She thinks his power might be all in his mind.

We then move onto Evelyn Cream and I am not going to lie, I do find him a somewhat worrying character.  Not because he is black, but because he is black and so comprehensively "othered" by his sapphire teeth, white suit and dark glasses.  It feels like making him black as well was to increase his "exoticism" and that makes me uncomfortable.  But also, he is kind of a bad ass character too.  He's charming, intelligent and fiercely cultured, he quickly discovers Mike is Miracleman.  He has him at his mercy but decides to betray his governmental masters to help Miracleman find out the secrets of his past.  So he's a fascinating character even as he is also an contradictory one.

Evelyn Cream

Anyway, he's already narrowed down the list of possible Miracleman suspects to pressmen at the Larksmere terrorist incident.  He visits the hospital where one of the terrorists is being treated after mulling over the fact that the transformation might be accompanied by extreme heat and light.  So as only one of the terrorists had burns, he's the one to go and interview.  Once inside the hospital he shows fake ID and goes to see him.

Back with Mike and Liz, Liz thinks Mike and Miracleman are two different people.  The switch takes place when the magic word is said, which is why Miracleman didn't age and Kid Miracleman did.  Mike isn't sure as they share the same mind, although Miracleman is cleverer than him.  As they drive off, Liz drops a bombshell.

Mike's inferiority complex on display

Liz: "I've missed my last two periods and I'm going to have a baby and it isn't yours, it's Miracleman's."

Mike: ".............what did you just say?"

Poor Mike, this really starts the beginning of his disillusionment with how his "normal" self can't measure up to Miracleman's perfection.  Miracleman being so potent he got Liz pregnant after one night together, when he's never been able to give Liz kids.

Back with Cream, he is in with Steve, who is still deafened so Cream interviews him via written questions on a pad.  Steve describes Mike and Cream marks him on his list of possible suspects then he shows Steve the following message:

Cream's Pad: "Oh.. and remember how I promised not to kill you?"

Steve: "Yeah?"

Cream's Pad: "I was lying Steve."

It's an Arnie quip, before Arnie quipped it!  Anyway, Cream suffocates Steve and then leaves.

Alas poor Steve...

We return to the Moran's house over breakfast after Miracleman has been out enjoying the freedom of flight.  Mike is sulky and uncommunicative and has been since Liz told him about the baby two months ago (which does beg the question what Cream has been up to in the four months he was called in as the "ultimate sanction"). He apologises saying Miracleman is just so much better than he is.

Mike: "His emotions are so pure. When he loves you it's so gigantic. His love is so strong and direct and clean."

He apologises to Liz saying he'll sort it out then heads to the paper he works freelance for to try and hustle up some work.  His editor is complaining that the government has slapped a "D-Notice" (a gagging order) on stories about the battle between Miracleman and Johnny back in february. The editor then says he has no work for Mike and a somewhat sad Mike leaves the office.

In the lift he gets in is a woman with a baby and Cream hid behind a newspaper.  The woman hands Mike her baby while she gets something out of her bag, then Cream whispers in his ear:

Cream: "How are you going to change to Miracleman without roasting that innocent little baby the way you roasted that terrorist."

His trap sprung, Cream shoots Mike at point blank range and everything for Mike goes dark.

Cream takes down Mike with ease.

The next chapter has an interesting structure.  Each page has a strip running across the middle in with silhouetted figures talking about current events, this being the government "Spookshow" behind Miracleman's creation. The chapter begins with Miracleman transformed and being attacked ineffectively by soldiers, then flashes back to Mike and Cream. So I'll discuss that bit first.

Cream has Mike tied up and gagged.  He only shot him with tranquiliser bullets.  Cream then lays some facts upon him.  First that he was created in 1954 as part of a project  called Zarathustra, carried out by the Spookshow.  In 1963 they decided to terminate the experminent with an A-bomb and they have also hired Cream to kill him.  Mike thinks it can't be true about his origins, but doubt starts to creep into his mind.  Cream says they should work together so that Mike can find the truth and Cream can gain some valuable information.  He unties Mike and removes his gag.  Mike transforms and Cream can only say "remarkable."

Keeps his cool in the presence of an angel.

The Spookshow realise that Cream has sold them out, "he must know what the Zarathustra secret is worth".  One man wonders why the Zarathustra bunker is still operational.  Dennis Archer admits he kept the project open, hoping to recoup some of the massive cost. He also  admits that the last line of defence protecting the bunker is another super-powered individual.

Finally the chapter shows Miracleman walking slowly and deliberately towards the bunker's front door, swatting away every attempt to stop him like you would swat a fly.  He finally makes it to the entrance only to be confronted with a muscular man in a tight suit and tie, wearing a bowler hat and wielding an umbrella.  He calls Miracleman "a bolshevik blighter" and in voice over Sir Dennis Archer says his name is "Big Ben".

The somewhat lame, Big Ben

The next chapter starts with Evelyn Cream talking to himself, he has a lot to say so here is a truncated quote that gives you a flavour of what he's driving at:

Cream: "Educated at Rugby, trained at Sandhurst.  You read the untranslated novels of Colette and own an original Hockney. Good God sir you are practically white.... and yet you follow this white Loa.  This Miracleman who leaves a trail of dead and fish-eyed fellows in his wake. Can it be that you have gone native Cream? Mr. Cream do you at last believe in Ju-ju? Great Grandfather, pass me down the gris-gris and the pointing bone, for I have at this late stage opted to become another crazy n*****"

Now I can tell you that final word was not censored in the original comics, and while I understand Marvel's reasons for doing so it's still a shame.  Miracleman is so heavenly and Godlike that even a man as cultured as Cream feels primitive by comparison.  His self lacerating monologue speaks to a man who fears that under the surface of his "practically white" identity lurks a confused idea of a tribal past that Miracleman is forcing him to confront by his very perfection.  The use of the word "nigger" at the end is like a verbal gunshot, pulling us up short and making realise just how disconcerting being around Miracleman can be if it can reduce a proud black man to someone who'll use racial epithets about himself.

Back to Big Ben, and I do believe he was another Warrior character whose use in Miracleman was forced on Moore by the editor.  Which probably explains why he is so laughable and pathetic.  To Moore's credit he ties him into Project Zarathustra seamlessly so you'd never know he was an unwanted element.  He attacks Miracleman over and over, under the mental impression Miracleman is a Russian agent, while Miracleman just stands there.

Miracleman: "I wish I knew who he was.  I wish he'd stop hitting me."

"Foolish human."

Finally Miracleman gets bored and with a contemptous slap sends Big Ben crashing through the trees into the ground.  Evelyn Cream then puts some dynamite on the door to blow it open, but, in a gorgeously drawn panel, Miracleman looks at him with a mixture of amusement and pity and rips the door right off with one hand.  They enter the bunker.

The penultimate chapter - "Zarathustra" - is absolutely jammed packed with text so some serious summarising is going on here.  In another interesting structural move, this chapter is mostly narrated after the fact by Sir Dennis Archer.  He found the carnage outside the bunker "horrifying" and that Big Ben was still alive though somewhat frozen up.

Digital recorders showed that Miracleman and Cream entered the bunker and looked around, where they would have noticed the skeletons of the "superhuman" (it's two skeletons fused together, obviously Young Miracleman) and the "visitor" which is a non-human skeleton, as well as part of the Visitor's ship.  They then started studying the tapes and spent forty-five minutes watching them until at 03:56 Miraclemen went suddenly berserk.

Miracleman SMASH!

The tapes show doctors using information gleaned from the Visitor's ship to create a superhuman from a single cell.  Two identical "infra-spatial" trigger devices are implanted so that when the "replicate" is displaced into "infra-space" it remains connected to the human subject.  When the trigger is activated the human and the replicate switch places, the trigger being a keyword.

The tape goes onto say that the superhumans were the UK's attempt to make nuclear bombs obsolete and it shows Kid Miracleman performing some feats of power and speed. The three test subjects were chosen because they were children of deceased airforce personel.  Dennis then reports that they overwound the tape and came onto the creation of Big Ben. He was not as powerful as the Miraclemen as Project Zarathustra's originator had disappeared taking his findings with him, so they were working with incomplete data.  Hence Big Ben's instability which came about due to their limited understanding of the para-reality programming.

The Miraclemen's REAL origins.

Miracleman and Cream then rewound the tape to the section all about para-reality programming. The Miraclemen were fed their Silver Age adventures via a virtual reality style computer set-up.

Tape: "...and the creatures have lain dreaming for the past eight years.  Their entire existence a computer designed fantasy.  In order to explain the finer details of this all-important mind programming, here is the controller and originator of the Zarathustra Project Doctor Emil Gargunza."

Gargunza: "... we have completely programmed the minds of these near-divine creatures. Providing them in the process with an utterly manufactured identity which is ours to manipulate at will. To whit:  the identity of a children's comic book character."

This revelation does not go down well.

It was at this point that Miracleman went berserk, Gargunza being his repeated nemesis in the the adventures he had that he thought were for real. It seems Cream managed to calm him down and they both left, leaving a clean-up crew to move in.  This includes to psychiatrists who gently take away Big Ben who has had a complete breakdown and is lost in his fantasy world. The story ends with the same lines it started with about some trucks being empty and some not.

There is a short epilogue chapter which shows two working class men cleaning up in the bunker.  I believe there has been some censorship here as well, when they put a tape on originally it showed an insulting Chinese "Fu Manchu" sterotype, but has been changed to show Steed of the Avengers and the word balloon altered accordingly.  Again I understand why it was done, it's just I believe work that was of it's time should be presented warts and all.  There is also a short story which shows Miracleman in the future working with Warpsmith an alien who was given a couple of stories in Warrior also included in this book but never caught on by himself.  He goes on to play a much bigger role in Book 3 though.  I assume "The Yesterday Gambit" as it's called is non-canon now as I think it contradicts the later Miracleman strips, but I could be wrong.

Warpsmith and Miracleman.

The main event of this book though are the ten chapters from the first - "A Dream Of Flying" to the last "Zarathustra".  It's no exaggeration to say they went off in the comic culture like a bomb.  Warrior had a pretty small circulation, I believe roughly twenty-thousand copies on average were sold per issue, with a quarter of that in the USA.  In the same way that it was said only one hundred people saw The Velvet Underground live but they all went on to form bands, so too did it seem Marvelman as it was then known had an influence that far outstripped the low sales of the comic it was in.  Realistic treatments of "silly" superheroes became fashionable, and in a more direct sense, Marvelman led to Swamp Thing which led to Watchmen which of course was even more influential. Book One ends with the character and his history revamped and totally deconstructed.  What was now interesting would be how Moore would go about reconstructing the character he'd so lovingly pulled apart...

Miracleman: Book 1 - A Dream Of Flying (#1-4) PART ONE

"Eighteen years.  Eighteen years trapped in that old, tired body." - Miracleman

Miracleman, Marvelman, Marvelman, Miracleman.  A few years ago I would have classed this as an Alan Moore Obscurity, because although this collection does not bear his name, the Northamptonshire Eeyore is "The Original Writer" of credit.  A couple of decades of rights hell had rendered his famous updating of the Silver Age UK creation "Marvelman" difficult to find and expensive to collect.  Even during it's original publication, first as an eight page black and white strip in early 80's UK comic Warrior, to it's continuation as a full length colour comic published by Eclipse in the late 80's, it had become in the words of second artist on the strip Alan Davis "a snake pit of egos".  It's ironic that Marvel is responsible for the recent reprints once a deal with Moore had been finally hammered out with Moore (and all the other people who felt they owned a stake in the character over the years), as threatened legal action from them in the 80's over the original name "Marvelman" (even though Marvelman predated the name Marvel being taken on as a corporate identity) forced a change to Miracleman, and it was fallout from this that led to Moore blocking reprints of his Captain Britain work for so long and likely one of the main reasons he has refused to allow this reprint material to go out with his name on, also meaning Marvel can't exploit his name for publicity.  Considering the shabby treatment Moore had suffered in the early part of his career from Marvel, it's a decision I am totally in his corner for, while being glad that he agreed to allow his most famous unread work back into mainstream circulation, just not credited "officially" to him.

Unused Warrior cover art.

Before I look at the actual Moore penned Miracleman story, let's look at this package as a whole.  A very nice package it is too. I was a little wary when I saw that it was going to be recoloured, I'd seen the somewhat haphazard recolouring of the Eclipse reprints in excerpts online and not been too impressed.  But this colouring job is beautiful, the original artists Garry Leach and Alan Davis couldn't have asked for better.  Because "Book One" of Miracleman only filled the equivalent of four normal length US comics when collected, this volume has been bulked out with some great extras. 

There is the non-canon special story Moore penned early on that was designed to give first artist Garry Leach more time to finish his episodes, and three "Warpsmith" stories that flesh out the titular alien race. One of whom appears in the non-canon special, but who goes on to have a greater role in later books.  There are also a covers gallery and pages from Leach's design notebooks, all very welcome and lovely to look at.  And then there is the story that kicks off the collection, a reprint of an old Marvelman story from the fifties.

Hmmm.

For the two people who might not be aware of the fact, Marvelman was created in the fifties when the US series Captain Marvel fell into publishing limbo.  The characters are virtually identical.  Everyday human says a magic word (in Marvelman's case it's "Kimota!" - Atomik backwards) and transforms into a being with the power of Superman.  As well as Marvelman himself, there was Young Marvelman and Kid Marvelman and together they fought monsters and colourful villians and so on.  Now perhaps part of my issue with starting the book with this "flashback" is my real problem with Silver Age comic book stuff.

Silver Age Miracleman, Young Miracleman and Kid Miracleman.

Oh, I love the concepts, the characters, the inspiration the ideas have given to writers and artists who came later... but in practice, time and again I am repelled by the art and writing (what can I say?  I'm a child of the Bronze and Dark Ages).  So while I'll enjoy Neo-Silver Age stuff like Grant Morrison's All Star Superman or deconstructions of it, like, well Alan Moore's Miracleman, I'll leave the rest of it in the past.  It's not for me.  That said, it does at least show quite spectacularly just how much Alan Moore pulled the concept to pieces before rebuilding it in quite a different way.

As the Alan Moore storyline gets underway you'll notice two things.  Firstly the artwork is astounding.  Garry Leach's work is almost photorealistic and sadly couldn't last as it was taking him all month simply to pencil and ink one six to eight page strip.  Alan Davis takes over about halfway through, with Leach inking Davis on two chapters to smooth the transition.  Davis is a fine replacement, but the art gets noticably more cartoony as a trade-off.  The other thing you'll notice is how ridiculously cramped the narration and speech bubbles are.  Moore was at his most verbose during this period, and it's not helped by the fact that  the page size has been reduced from the "2000AD sized" original Warrior comics to the standard US comic size.  Break out your magnifying glasses people, but at least you feel like you've got your money's worth of plot and dialogue compared to todays decompressed age.

Narration: "In the sodium lit hours before dawn, the great trucks roll north. Some carry breakfast cereal, and some carry ball bearings. Some are empty.  And some are not."

Immediately grounding the story in the real world, we are introduced to a couple of domestic terrorists planning to steal some plutonium, before cutting to our main protagonist Mike Moran who is having a familiar dream.  He dreams he is flying with two other people towards "a vast grey ship".  The "sky catches fire" and he briefly sees one of his friends "flickering like a doppler image" before he is consumed by light and thunder.

Mike and Liz Moran.

He wakes screaming, waking his wife Liz as well.  He groans that he has a migraine and Liz offers to call his work at get him out of the Larksmere assignment.  He grouchily says they need the money from his journalism and he doesn't like his wife being the main breadwinner, showing how emasculated he feels.  He catches the train to Larksmere nuclear power station to cover a protest.  Once there though the terrorists appear and herd the journalists inside to record their advertisement for people who will want to buy plutonium off them. 

Mike's migraine gets worse, he is almost crippled by pain.  One of the terrorists takes him away down a corridor.  Mike sees the word "atomic" reflected backwards through a window.  He mumbles the suddenly familiar word "Kimota". And...

Narration: "The whisper is drowned by thunder. The screams of the man called Steve are lost in the sudden flood of light.  His face is scarred and blistered, his eardrums have burst.  His eyes have seen glory."

The other terrorists appear and shoot at Miracleman, but the bullets bounce off him.  He claps his hands together and disables them before flying out of the building and into space where he punches the air in a meta moment shouting "I'm Miracleman. I'm back!!"

A hero returns.

Later Miracleman goes and sees Liz.  At first she doesn't recognise him, but then she does and hugs him tight.

Narration: "He holds her and his touch is as frictionless as mercury. The restrained power in his arms makes her feel like glass."

Miracleman: "Sit down.  I'll make some coffee".

Narration: "'I'll make some coffee'.  The words sound so mundane...  Yet he looks like a god."

Over coffee he begins to tell her his story.  He was a copy boy for a newspaper called the Daily Bugle.  One day he was granted power by an astro-physicist called Guntag Borghelm. He gives him the word "Kimota" the "keyword of the universe" which allows his transformation into Miracleman.  He realises Liz is laughing:

Liz: "I'm sorry Mike, but that's such a bloody stupid story."

Miracleman's origin.

Miracleman uncertainly goes on, saying he was joined by a man called Dicky Dauntless (much to Liz's further merriment) who became Young Miracleman.  Then in 1956 they were joined by Johnny Bates who bccame Kid Miracleman, who changed whenever he said "Miracleman". They fought villains like Firebug, Young Nastyman and a freakish, dwarf genius called  Doctor Gargunza.  They thwarted his plans time and again, but it he never did anything really evil.  It was like they were "playing some a game."

Liz is still amused by all this.  She asked why she never heard of their exploits and Miracleman says it might have been covered up after what happened in 1963.

Liz: "Don't tell me. A couple more Miraclemen turned up and you formed a football team"

Miracleman: "Dammit Liz, you're laughing at my life!!"

And he clenches his fist, crushing the wood underneath it.  Anyway in 1963 he and the other two Miraclemen were blown up by a bomb.  He was found in the Suffolk marshes, badly burned with most of his bones broken.  He had forgotten his life as Miracleman until today. The action then cuts to a new character watching the news footage of Miracleman flying out of the powerplant.  He smashes his desk yelling "Miracleman. He's back. Back to spoil everything!"

The morning after...

The next day Liz awakes next to a sleeping Miracleman, she is naked and the implication is she slept with Miracleman not Mike.  She wanders round the room, touching things, trying to reconnect with normality.  Then the phone rings.  It's for Mike, so Miracleman changes back into him and takes the call.  It's Johnny Bates, Kid Miracleman, the desk smasher of the previous chapter.  He wants to meet up, so Mike and Liz go to his place of work, which is a company called Sunburst Cybernetics that Johnny owns.

They chat and Johnny says when they found the bomb, he flew as high as he could to outrun the blast and was caught on the edge of it.  He awoke in hospital and although he could remember his life as Kid Miracleman, he had lost his powers.

Johnny: "For seven years I had been something more than human. Then all of a sudden the magic went away."

Mike and Johnny reunited.

After chatting some more about how Johnny built his company up from scratch, he and Mike go out onto the balcony to talk privately.  Mike says he wanted to believe Johnny he really did but couldn't help but think, what if he hadn't lost his powers?

Mike: "I tried to think what it would be like to be sixteen years old and the most powerful creature on the face of the planet, and be answerable to no one.  You could do anything.  You'd never have to change into dull, weak, human Johnny Bates again".

Johnny tells him he is being paranoid.  Mike then realises Johnny is trying to do something to his mind. When Liz comes out on to the the balcony to tell them they have to go, Mike pushes Johnny off it.  And Johnny just hangs in the air, grinning, light crackling off him.

Yep, he's a psycho, proto-yuppie, Thatcherite scumbag.

Mike tells Liz to run, Johnny says he kill her after he kills her husband. His secretary arrives with more coffee and Johnny brutally murders her.

Narration: "Her name is Stephanie. She likes Adam and the Ants. Her boyfriend's name is Brian.  She collects Wedgewood.  Her insides have turned to water.  She is only human."

Cleverly, Alan Moore humanises Johnny's first victim with a thumbail sketch of her life, making his actions even more horrifying. Mike asks why he did that, Johnny answers that he enjoyed it.  Sadly Mike says "Kimota".  The pair of them go flying out into the street battling each other.  A small child comes up to Johnny calling him Superman.  Johnny asks if he would like to fly like Superman and picks up and hurls the child.  Miracleman manages to catch him, though the kid breaks a couple of ribs due to how fast he was going.  His mother snatches him back calling Miracleman a "bloody monster".

It's like the third Matrix film's climax, only good.

Johnny then smashes Miracleman high into the sky.  As he flies upwards, Miracleman wonders how Johnny got so strong, and why he aged as Kid Miracleman while Miracleman didn't.  Johnny builds a thunderbolt and blasts him with it, then smashes Miracleman into the ground causing a huge crater.  He thinks Miracleman dead;

Narration: "After a while he turns away to look at the city spread behind him. London huddled against the stinging rain.  He wonders what to do next."

He finds Liz and tells her he's quite relieved now he's out in the open, that it was "degrading" pretending to be human.  He crunches her car into a ball and goes to kill her when Miracleman appears and attacks him. They begin an epic beatdown on each other, with Johnny getting the upper hand quickly.  The narration describes them as having an almost "sexual hatred" for each other.

The authorities respond.

While their fight goes on we are shown various members of the authorities on the phone about them.  One is called Sir Dennis Archer, who goes "Oh God... the monsters are back."  The final person in the chain says he wants the "ultimate sanction. I want you to send for Mr. Cream".  Meanwhile Johnny has beaten Miracleman into near unconciousness.  Over Miracleman's prone body he throws his hands up in triumph:

Johnny: "I beat him!! ...And now I'm going to finish him off! Me!  His adoring junior protege! Me, Kid Miraclem.........an"

He has time for one look of horror at his mistake in saying "Miracleman" the word that changes him, before he turns back into sixteen year old Johnny Bates. Miracleman goes to kill him, but can't bring himself to do it.  Johnny stutters that it wasn't his fault.  He says Miracleman again, but doesn't change.  Miracleman theorises that the battle burnt his powers out somehow, and he and Liz leave Johnny Bates snivelling in the wreckage and fly away.

Poor pathetic Johnny Bates.

We are then introduced to a "black man, in a white suit" called Evelyn Cream, who has sapphires for teeth.  Later we also meet Sir Dennis Archer who reflects that he never should have let that "treacherous little freak build his monsters." He remembers back to when he oversaw the use of an atom bomb to take out the Miraclemen in 1963, then he thinks:

Narration: "Evelyn Cream will sanction the monster.  The dragon will be dealt with."

Introducing Evelyn Cream.

And that marks the halfway point of Book One.  So much crammed into so few chapters.  It's interesting that Moore places what would in other stories be the climatic battle against a super-powered nemesis in the middle of the story rather than the end.  With Johnny/Kid Miracleman out of the way, and having demonstrated the rather dysfunctional relationship the Miraclemen share with their human sides, while also grounding the story fully in the real world of early 80's Britain, the story is free to get on with the business of deconstructing the character in earnest in the second half of the story which I'll be looking at in a couple of days time.

D.R. And Quinch's Totally Awesome Guide To Life (2000AD #317, #352-359, #363-367, 2000AD Sci-Fi Special 1985)

"Y'know a kiss on the hand might be quite continental, man.  But tactical thermonuclear weaponry is a guys best friend" - D.R.

I'm starting a loose theme month of UK originated comicbooks, with a look at what is probably Alan Moore's most popular work for venerable UK sci-fi comic 2000AD.  Although The Ballad Of Halo Jones is unquestionably his best work for 2000AD that strip was somewhat unpopular with the readership at the time, whereas D.R and Quinch were very much appreciated by the then audience of mainly teenage boys. Alan Moore is sometimes unfairly pigeonholed as a "serious" writer, and his out-and-out funny stuff is rather relegated in importance in relation to his "serious" works (although even his most "dark" work Watchmen contains loads of jokes, wit and wonderful ironies that make the grimness much easier to bear.  There is much humour to be found in every Moore work, if you happen to be receptive to it).  D.R and Quinch is his best known comedic work, although the recent reprints of things like The Bojeffries Saga have finally put some of his finest comedic writing back into the comics mainstream.

Anyway, D.R and Quinch. Now the collection I am looking at today is the Titan Books one from 1986.  This contains all the Alan Moore and Alan Davis 2000AD strips not the later, Jamie Delano penned strip the "Agony Page". There is a more recent collection with every single D.R and Quinch stip in it, but if you're not a completist, the "Totally Awesome Guide To Life" can be picked up for mere pennies and has the added bonus of being the same page size as the originals, avoiding the sometimes cramped appearance the more modern reprints of UK comicbook material can have.

Before we begin it's interesting to note that Alan Moore himself has practically disowned this strip while simultaneously nailing it's enduring appeal.  As quoted in Magic Words: The Extraordinary Life Of Alan Moore, he has this to say about it:

Alan Moore: "D.R & Quinch are probably the comic strip I shall ask to have eradicated and destroyed upon my death bed. What D.R & Quinch are is a continuation of the great British tradition of making heroes out of juvenile delinquents. If you imagine Dennis the Menace with thermonuclear capacity you are probably pretty close to the idea of D.R & Quinch."

He later clarified this saying:

Alan Moore: "It makes violence funny, which I don't think it right. I have to question the point where I'm actually talking about thermonuclear weapons as a source of humour...there are a lot of good things about D.R & Quinch.  I think Alan Davis and I both put a lot of nice work into it and some of it is amusing.  But it has no lasting or redeeming social value as far as I'm concerned".

Introducing D.R.

That's harsh, coming from the man WHO GAVE US THE SHIT SANDWICH THAT WAS FRIGGIN' VOODOO!!! GRAGH!!!  *pant pant* Well, fie Mr. Moore.  It may now be one of you more obscure works, but it's held up over the years and still feels funny and fresh to my jaded eyes.  So without further ado, lets have a look at the strip in question and hopefully you'll be on my side rather than Alan's when we're done.  The artwork alone makes it worth tracking down.  Rereading Alan Moore and Alan Davis's work on Captain Britain it's amazing how quickly both improved, and no wonder Davis went onto a very successful career in US superhero comics.  Here he gives every character a real weight, and isn't phased at all by the number of wacky aliens he has to draw nor the ridiculous situations DR & Quinch find themselves in.  If you're a fan of Davis, this early work of his stands the test of time as much as the writing does for Moore.

D.R & QUINCH: HAVE FUN ON EARTH - Our terrible twosome made their first debut in 1983, in what was called a "Time Twister".  Time Twisters and Future Shocks were short stories often containing a surprising twist that 2000AD used to test-drive new writers and artists before offering them the prize of an on-going series.  Moore was an absolute master of the short story form and ended up with three series in 2000AD as a result. Skizz (his first), The Ballad Of Halo Jones (his best) and DR & Quinch (his funniest), which span out of this one eight page story. 

It's interesting that Moore chose to frame D.R & Quinch within a British tradition of mischevious anti-heroes, as they were actually inspired by two American National Lampoon characters called O.C. and Stiggs.  The pair of them are alien students, Waldo "D.R." (for "Diminished Responsibility") Dobbs, (who looks a bit like a Marvelverse Skrull with a quiff) and Ernest Errol Quinch, his muscular purple skinned companion in crime.  This first tale sees Quinch writing up how he and D.R exacted an elaborate revenge scheme, and amusingly the credits for the story have "E.E Quinch" as writer, rather than Alan Moore.

It begins with Quinch writing that he and D.R had been suspended from college due to Dean Fusk finding stolen good in their locker. So get their elaborate revenge the borrow a time-flyer and go to the pre-history of "this utterly worthless filth-ball planet called Earth"  Using thermonuclear weapons they alter the shape of the continents and then start intervening throughout history to inspire humans to make it out into space.

Intefering in Earth history armed with nukes.

Back in D.R and Quinch's present, humans have arrived in space and met other aliens. Dean Fusk is a member of the "League for Disadvantaged Planets" that Earth is to be inducted into.  D.R and Quinch get a good seat to watch what happens when it gets to the part of the ceremony where Earth is projected on screen.

Quinch: "The shape of the continents in the northern hemisphere spelled out 'Dean Fusk is embezzling the canteen fund' in Centralian...while the southern hemisphere  read 'Mrs Fusk is a convicted shoplifter and their horribly ugly son is a known snitch'"

Naturally for this grave insult, Earth is blown up.  Dean Fusk falls apart after that and QUinch and D.R get back into college when they accused the Dean of having criminal tendencies and that he planted the stolen goods in Quinch's locker.  Quinch reflects that it was a summer well spent and with that it ends.

Earth goes Kaboom.

So eight pages that created a monster.  You can see why it was popular, it's silly and over-the-top and the characters come of as villainous but likeable.  No wonder it was popular enough to gain a spin-off series.

D.R & QUINCH: GO STRAIGHT - The strip begins with D.R and Quinch in court, the judge reads off a long list of charges including "forging sacred relics" and "transmuting base metal into gold." D.R. says they are sorry and "want to give up their irresponsible ways".  The Judge says if they perform an act of charity then he'll reduce their sentences by a century or so.

D.R then discovers where the Judge lives and that he has an empty house nextdoor. They then visit their friend Pulger, a maniac and unstable war veteran. Then they set up a charity for "the rehabilitation of dangerous ex-servicemen" and make the headqarters the house next door to the Judges.  Who is displeased by all the noise and violence that kicks off.  He says threatens D.R with burying them when sentencing comes around.  But D.R says their charity is a success and the Mayor will be visting.

Pulger the loony war vet.

The Mayor arrives and is very pleased with them taking care of ex-servicemen.  D.R. fulsomely praises the Judge and says it was all his idea.  Then the crazed Pulger having flashbacks attacks the Mayor's party along with the other ex-soldiers.  As D.R and Quinch relax in a luxury hotel spending the last of the charity grant money, we find out the Judge was held responsible for the massacre and that D.R and Quinch have escaped judgement.

D.R & QUINCH: GO GIRL CRAZY - THis strip is a nice little parody of the ending of Grease.  Quinch is horrified when one day he goes round to D.R's and discovers he's been acting well-behaved and normal.  That is because he is in love with a girl called Chrysoprasia. He also reveals he's joined her drama club and is playing the romantic lead in a play so he can't hang out with Quinch much anymore.

Quinch: "Could this be it? No more extortion, no more fraud, no more putting pirahna bees in rich kid's lockers? Could this be.. the end of D.R and Quinch?"
Of course not.  Quinch grabs Chrysoprasia and takes her back to their secret hideout and shows her a lot of home movies showing him and D.R up to all sorts of mischief.  He hopes that this will put her off D.R but it backfires as she turns from a sweet, innocent girl into "the kind of woman Waldo deserves" and her new name shall be "Crazy Chrissie".  She forces Quinch to go get her boozed up and armed and they crash into the theatre where D.R is performing on stage.

Quinch's plan creates Crazy Chrissie.

D.R is annoyed that she ruined his scene and when the cops arrive and demand to know who is responsible for all the mayhem, he places the blame squarely on her. As she is taken away D.R ponders how he could have fallen for her and decides it was being driven temporarily insane by chemicals in a vegan meal he had a month ago and the strip ends with D.R and Quinch off to seek revenge on the restaurant.

D.R & QUINCH: GET DRAFTED - This story begins with D.R apocalyptically hungover.  He opens a letter from the War Office and it is a draft notice for him and Quinch.  When they get down to the enlistment office, D.R is curious about what weapons they'll get:

D.R: "He showed us a vast quantity of dangerous weapons. Many of them were so utterly horrible that I had not dared to believe they could exist. I felt totally patriotic."

Things seem to be going well until they get to basic training and have to suffer under a nasty drill sergeant right out of Full Metal Jacket. They are sent to fight on a planet called Ghoyogi and D.R writes a letter to Quinch's rich mother asking if she can get them out of this situation.

War is hell.

D.R then accidentally subjects his own side to some friendly fire, and as a punishment, he and Quinch are locked up in the penal stockade with a "psycho".  Luckily he turns out to be Pulger from D.R and Quinch: Go Straight.  He has a convoluted plan to get out, involving him putting on a dress like Klinger in M*A*S*H and using a weapon he carved from soap.  He also has an escape tunnel and D.R says they should just use that instead (although Pulger is already in the dress).

Alan Davis's art really is wonderful on this series.

So they use it to get out, and Pulger admits he didn't dig the tunnel himself it's part of a network of tunnels dug by a native Ghoyogi species called "Snufflegruffs".  They bump into one who turns out to be large and aggressive.  Pulger stands and fights it while D.R and Quinch run away.  They find another exit and pop up in another cell.  This one belongs to Chrissie and she is not pleased to see D.R again. She starts beating the crap out of him saying she had to become a mercenary for the Ghoyogi to survive and got captured and placed in the penal stockade.

Oh hai Chrissie how u been?

Before she can beat him some more, Pulger pops up closely followed by the Snufflegruff who bursts through the stockade walls and allows them to escape.  Unfortunately they bump into a group of marines, then a group of Ghoyogi soldiers.  Caught in the middle, D.R asks why they don't all just get along.  This doesn't go down too well, but before they can get shot to pieces a huge spaceship appears and a huge creature comes out of it.  The soldiers all scatter in fear, but it's only Quinch's mum come to rescue them and D.R, Quinch, Pulger and Chrissie all depart with her.  D.R has some profound thoughts about what happened to them, but forgets them the next day and the strip ends.

D. R & QUINCH: GO TO HOLLYWOOD -  This story allows Moore and Davis to have fun including lots of nods and parodies of famous actors and so on. The strip begins with our protagonists meeting a tramp and giving him some money for coffee.  In gratitude he tells them he used to be a famous screenwriter in Hollywood ( a planet called Hollywood, not the deceased Earth's version) called Torquetto Jubbli.  He developed writes block and the studio head told him to leave, but gave him two tickets to come back if he had an idea.  Which he finally has done and he brandishes his script before falling down apparently dead.

D.R and Quinch make their mark.

D.R immediately grabs the script and they search his body for the tickets and set off for Hollywood.  Once there they start throwing their weight around in a restaurant to "get noticed" and this works, and ends up with famously hard to understand "Marlon" arriving and letting them know he'll work with them. The studio head is impressed they have a Torquetto script and asks them what it is about:

D.R: "Well, like I can't exactly reveal that to you right now...but the third word is probably oranges"

The script is almost totally unreadable, not that this prevents D.R from improvising a movie from it. Helped along by the fact Marlon reads the script and declares it a masterpiece. D.R mixes in oranges, flamingo's, nuns and dead fish together for a big set piece.  Unfortunately Marlon gets squashed under a big pile of oranges, though this inspires the name of the film as "Mind the Oranges, Marlon".

Things don't go quite right.

Being interviewed after the film wraps by a fantastic charicature of then UK film reviewer Barry Norman he notes that their film has become a cult success but has resulted in them being ostracised by Hollywood.  Then another critic, Clive James, reviews the film in a slightly pretensious way and D.R and Quinch leave Hollywood counting their money.  Back home the "dead" body of Torquetti is where they left him. Suddenly he revives and declares he is off to Hollywood with his script.  Too bad for him that the studio head has said he'll kill him if he sees him ever again.

D.R: "Hey, that's showbiz man."

D.R & QUINCH: GET BACK TO NATURE:  This final eight pager was written and drawn when tensions between Alan Davis and Moore were running high due to Moore blocking reprints of Captain Britain and the mess over Marvel/Miracleman was on-going.  So neither's heart seems to be in it any more.  D. R and Quinch are running a summer camp for kids called Camp Apocalypse.  They do such responsible things as throwing kids into poisonous plants to indentify them.  Kill birds for them to identify and introduce them to large vicious creatures by mistake.  When the parents arrive to collect them, the kids are running riot with guns and D.R and Quinch are making a quick getaway.  And that was that for the Moore/Davis D.R and Quinch.

Worst Summer Camp Ever.

D.R & Quinch is well worth seeking out despite Mr. Moore's objection to it.  Yes it's incredibly lightweight compared to his more "serious" works but it's not half-arsed like most of his Image work, at this point in his career even something like D.R & Quinch feels important in understanding Moore's development as a writer.  Also, unusual for sci-fi it doesn't feel dated and the fun references to pop culture are done in such a way that doesn't throw you out of the narrative if you don't get them.  Alan Davis' art is superb, that almost goes without saying.  It's probably best the strip ended when it did though, overstretching a joke can really kill it, so better leave folk wanting more than allowing the strip to wear out it's welcome. The Ballad Of Halo Jones is still his 2000AD masterpiece, but D.R & Quinch run a close second and is probably more accessible, so if you haven't read much of his UK comic work this is as good a place to start as any.  Do it!