Miracleman #21

Written by Neil Gaiman
Art by Mark Buckingham and D'israeli

Bought new: Oxford Comics
Bought used: found in old box.

When I was a kid there were two magazines I read religiously, the Economist and Amazing Heroes.  Amazing Heroes was like the internet of it's time.  It was the place to get teasers on what was coming up in the world of comics.  Sometime in 1985, (I think it might have been the Secret Wars II issue of Amazing Heroes) I saw an add with a man flying into space and exclaiming "I'm Miracleman and I'm back."  I had no idea who Miracleman was but I saw the name Alan Moore and decided to give it a go.

It was a good decision.  I followed Miracleman all the way through the Apocrypha.  In fact when the 90s came around and I had a new wife, and new kids, and a lot less money, Miracleman and the Sandman were the last comics I continued to buy every month.  So here we have one of my favorite issues from the Gaiman years, because this is the "Spy Story" issue.

The story begins with Ruth waiting for a cab.

As you can probably tell Ruth has some issues.  Ruth is a spy and as it turns out despite her precautions she's jumped into a car driven by another spy.  He passes on a message before dropping Ruth off.  Ruth makes a call using her code name 1860, to setup a meeting.

She then changes her mode of transportation but she can't help noticing the conversations around her.

Ruth stops at the fishmonger who after she asks for something less oily, directs her to the back.  There 1860's handler is debriefed on her most recent mission and refuses to answer her questions adding to her creeping paranoia.

The next day Ruth is worried that she may be cracking up.

Then it hits her, she doesn't even know where she lives.  She questions a co-worker, Howard, about what he knows about the city.  Howard's reaction raises Ruth's suspicions which she tries to stamp down.

After feeling like she's being watched in her home, Ruth decides to pay Howard a visit.  Holding a knife to his throat, she demands to know if he's a spy.  At first he denies it but when Ruth makes clear she will kill him he relents and admits that he's an agent.

Ruth having had enough of it all decides to flee the city.  Then she comes to a wall and she realizes there's no escape from the city.  She waits knowing they will come soon and take the knowledge out of her head.  So she calls out.

Then he appears.  Evelyn Cream.  

Cream explains that the Miracles created the city because the intelligence community was having the most trouble adjusting to the new world order.  So Ruth who is really named Sandra has become aware of the true nature of the city.  He tells her that she is now free to leave the city.  Which she does.  She relocates to Bristol and becomes a librarian but...

So that's it.  I still love this story.  It reminds of the great, reality isn't what you think it is works like the Prisoner or Philip K. Dick's Time Out of Joint.  And here's the thing, this isn't just a good Miracleman story, it's a great story but Gaiman found a way to tie it into the Miracleman universe and mythos perfectly.

The Miracleman series, both Moore and Gaiman, was simply fantastic and it's shame that it hasn't been reprinted.


Next time- Mutant Rebellion!