Friday, April 14, 2006

More Alan Moore Controversy On The Cards


I've heard whispers that the currently circulating Shazam! script features just a small number of scenes that echo Alan Moore's Miracleman stories a little too closely.

For those who aren't up to speed, Miracleman was created in the 50s as Marvelman, by lifting, pretty much wholesale, the specifics of Fawcett's Captain Marvel - who was himself, originally, a loose copy of Superman.

Alan Moore revived Miracleman in 1982, subverting his origins so radically and creating storylines so adventurous that its hard to see how they've ended up getting woven into any current Captain Marvel work.

Apparently, though, they have.

I think a clue might be, funnily enough, The Brady Bunch Movie.

I'm doing research, and should I find out any more, then I'll share it with you as soon as possible.

I'm finding it hard to even guess how Moore will react if he has been plagiarised here.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Welll... Alan did take a few of his plot tricks in Marvelman from Superfolks.

Mark Kardwell said...

The whole damn point of Captain Marvel is that he is a kid who says his magic word and turns into a super-powered adult. It's a classic, and powerful, bit of literary wish-fulfillment. It's the reason his comic used to whip Superman's sales figures before DC/National took Fawcett to court.
Removing this from the movie, to concentrate on an adult Batson having a Mike Moran style rebirth sounds awful.
Hell, it's that sort of trying to "adult-up" the should-remain-whimsical SHAZAM franchise that have kept it from working every time DC has tried to revive the character since the seventies. If that sentence isn't too coherent, it's the hot whiskeys I've taken for this cold. Anyway, the gist is: sure, Marvelman is for the adults now, all deconstructed and debased, but keep Captain Marvel clean for the kids. And don't drink and blog!