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Real name
Michael 'Micky' Moran
Current alias
Aliases
Identity
Alignment
Affiliation
Relatives
Elizabeth Moran (wife); Winter Moran (daughter)
Universe
Base of operations
England

Characteristics
Gender
Hair
Status
Citizenship
Marital status
Occupation
Superhero
Origin
Creators
First appearance

Marvelman #25 (1963)

History[]

Micky Moran was a young orphan working as a copy boy for the Daily Bugle who was apparently given the power to 'tap into the key harmonic of the universe' by an alleged astrophysicist by the unlikely name of Guntag Barghelt (how an astrophysicist supposedly discovered this power remains unclear). Simply saying the word 'Kimota' (which is very nearly but not quite 'atomic' spelled backwards) would instantly transform the boy Micky into the adult superhero Marvelman. Borghelt (sometimes also spelled Borghelt, Barghelm or Borghelm), who was supposedly dying, claimed to be bestowing this power on Micky because he was 'honest, studious and good', and Micky duly used it to fight injustice as a superhero.

Before long, plucky Micky was joined by two others; Dicky Dauntless, alias Young Marvelman, and Johnny Bates, a.k.a. Kid Marvelman. Collectively, MM and his two junior partners were known as the Marvelman Family. They fought crime and tackled villains such as Young Nastyman and Dr. Emil Gargunza in the 1950s and early 1960s before disappearing.

1980s resurrection

Marvelman3

Two decades later, a now adult Mike Moran (who had lost all memory of his time as Marvelman) became aware of his super-powered nature again, and discovered that he had lost his memory after being caught in a nuclear explosion which had killed Young Marvelman. First fighting and defeating an insane Johnny Bates (who had grown up with his powers intact and become a schizoid megalomaniac), Moran went looking for the truth about his past and discovered that his origins as he remembered them were a lie. His memories were false, implanted in him by a government agency called the Spookshow who had financed the experiments using captured alien technology created by the Qys. This technology had turned Moran and several others including Dauntless, Bates and a woman named Avril Lear into superhumans. They were all the children of deceased air force personnel.

Moran fought the deranged super-agent Big Ben, then confronted his own 'creator', Dr Emil Gargunza, who intended to use him and his wife to achieve immortality. Killing Gargunza, Moran tried to return to a normal life with his wife Liz and their newborn daughter Winter, but Winter proved to have inherited her father's powers and been born super-intelligent. Moran also had to contend with Bates again, and Bates murdered forty thousand people in London before Moran was able to execute him (assisted by Lear and by the alien Warpsmiths). Subsequently, Liz Moran left her husband, and Michael Moran elected to commit a form of suicide, submerging himself forever beneath his superheroic alter-ego's persona.

Aided by Lear and by alien races the Qys (who had pioneered the technology Gargunza had used to create him) and the Warpsmiths, Marvelman began reshaping the Earth into a Utopia with himself as its benevolent dictator. However, when he offered to give Liz a super-body so that she could be his equal, she turned him down and disappeared from his life forever. He eventually used Qys technology to resurrect Dauntless, but his former partner was also horrified at what he had done to the world.

Powers and abilities[]

Powers

Transformation: By saying "Kimota!" Michael Moran can switch places with his superhuman body in infraspace, Miraclman, and viceversa. All of Miracleman's abilities are psionic in nature, stemming from his mind, and he will become stronger the longer he stays in his superhuman form.

  • Flight: Miracleman can telekinetically lift his body through the air.
  • Superhuman Strength: Miracleman can telekinetically lift objects that he touches. He is capable of lifting large boulders, cars and trees, and can rip open metal doors.
  • Superhuman Speed: He can fly at speeds beyond mach 2.
  • Superhuman Durability: His body is surrounded by a telekinetic force field that protects him from harm like bullets, water pressure and explosives.

    Abilities

  • Superhuman Intellect

    Strength level

Superhuman.

Weaknesses

Human Form: When in his human form, he is completely vulnerable. Likewise, if he hears the word "abraxas" he will instantly be transformed into his human state and unable to transform back for 1 hour.

Paraphernalia[]

Transportation

He can fly.

Notes[]

  • The original Marvelman stories were published between 1954 and 1963 by L.Miller & Son. The later origin and adventures of Marvelman (post 1963) were a retcon created when the character was revived in 1982 in Warrior magazine by Alan Moore, Dez Skinn and Garry Leach. Many of the later events described were actually recounted in the American published Eclipse Comics series 'Miracleman' after Warrior's publisher Quality Communications was threatened with legal action by Marvel Comics over use of the name; in America, the stories were therefore first reprinted and then continued with the character renamed Miracleman in order to avoid further such complications. The story was left unfinished when Eclipse Comics went out of business. The Marvelman character has since been bought by Marvel Comics, but their acquisition of the rights seems only to cover the original L.Miller published stories, so the character's later history may now be apocryphal.
  • Marvelman was portrayed as American in the original Miller & Son stories, but was British in the 1980s revival.

Trivia[]

  • Prior to Marvelman being renamed Miracleman for the American reprint series, Alan Moore had previously introduced another version of the character also called Miracleman in his Captain Britain series for Marvel UK; however, this Miracleman was basically cannon fodder and appeared in only one panel!
  • Another version of Mike Moran appeared as the 'Man of Miracles' in US writer Todd McFarlane's 'Hellspawn' series. McFarlane apparently erroneously believed at the time that he had bought the rights to Miracleman, but was forced to backtrack on plans to resurrect the character.

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