Miracleman: The Silver Age #3 is the third issue of the Silver Age storyline – the first new issue in 30 years! This chapter of the Miracleman saga was cut short after only two issues due to the demise of the publisher, Eclipse Comics. Subsequently, the rights to Miracleman were legally disputed between writer Neil Gaiman and Image Comics co-founder Todd McFarlane before Marvel Comics acquired these rights in 2013.
S P O I L E R S
Entitled “Trapped”, Miracleman: The Silver Age #3 follows Dickie Dauntless aka Young Miracleman in the aftermath of his emotional departure from Miracleman’s romantic advances. Young Miraclemen utters Miracleman’s name and that causes him to revert to his (powerless) Dickie Dauntless form. Dickie is haunted in his dreams by the adult Kid Miracleman as he is caught in the middle of Kid Miracleman’s call to chaos on the one hand and Miracleman’s new status quo on the other.
Miracleman: The Silver Age #3 presents to us Dickie’s conundrum. Having only known the comic book-like superhero existence lived in Gargunza’s embedded false memories, the alien nature of true reality is driving Dickie mad. We find Dickie like a zombie in this issue, only reacting to circumstances around him, without any agency, without any pro-active thought. Dickie encounters a normal human and then several super-powered individuals before meeting Mister Master, an obvious analogue for former Miracleman scribe Alan Moore.
Based on these interactions, it seems to Dickie that being super-powered is not quite what it was cracked up to be. Miracleman’s altruistic plan to offer super-powers to anybody equally seems to be back-firing somewhat as well. Dickie’s nightmares of Kid Miracleman challenges the notion of super-heroes as gods, tempting Dickie to defect to the dark side (so to speak) and become an agent of chaos. What will Dickie do? Bring on issue #4, with the return of the Warpsmiths! Highly recommended!!
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