Alan Moore is one of the most prolific comic writers in the history of the medium. He's responsible for a lot of the changes that have come to the comic industry over the years, bringing a maturity to comics that had never before been seen. One of the biggest examples of this was Watchmen, a comic that has gone down not only as one of the greatest comics ever, but also one of the best pieces of literature of the 20th century (according to Time Magazine).
As great as Watchmen is, can it really be considered his best work, though? There are some out there who point to Miracleman, a book started in the UK under the name Marvelman, as his best. Which one is better- Miracleman or Watchmen?
10 Miracleman Is Better: It's An Actual Superhero Story
Watchmen is a lot of things but it's not really a superhero story. Only one character in Watchmen is technically super- Doctor Manhattan- and considering him a hero is a bridge too far. He may do the right thing at some points in his life, but he's not doing for any altruistic reasons.
Miracleman is about a legitimate superhero with superpowers and the book focuses on what the world would be like for him. It's full of big superhero concepts, fights, and a dash of sci-fi, just like all of the best superhero comics.
9 Watchmen Is Better: It Can Be Purchased Anywhere
This isn't really a judgment call on either book, but it's very important. Miracleman is very hard to find. There was a massive battle for the legal rights of the book and eventually, Marvel won. They did exactly one reprinting of the book (in three volumes) before more legal troubles sidelined the whole thing.
Copies can be found, of course, but it's nowhere near as easy to get as Watchmen, which can be bought online, at any bookstore, or any comic store. Being able to buy a book is very important and Watchmen is just easier to get.
8 Miracleman Is Better: The Genesis Of Maturity
Moore started Miracleman in the UK as Marvelman in 1982 for the comic anthology magazine Warrior. Marvelman was a '50s-debuting pastiche of Captain Marvel (or as the character is known nowadays, Shazam)- at the time, Americans comics, by law, couldn't be printed in the UK, so there were a lot of rip-offs of popular American characters around the British comic industry.
Moore took the character and injected a new degree of realism into the character and concept. Moore was already dealing with a lot of mature concepts and using superheroes to tell stories about them years before Watchmen supposedly began that trend.
7 Watchmen Is Better: The Art
While Miracleman has some legitimately great art- the last few issues by Moore's Swamp Thing collaborator John Totleben are breathtaking in places- on the whole Dave Gibbons' art in Watchmen is much better.
Watchmen having one consistent artistic style makes a lot of difference but on the whole, there's just way much more to look at with Gibbons' art. It feels like he and Moore worked together better and were doing something very different with comic art to tell Watchmen's story- it was often just complicated as Moore's script and the story is better for it.
6 Miracleman Is Better: The Warpsmiths
Alan Moore is a great sci-fi writer and the section of Miracleman highlighting the Warpsmiths is one of the best parts of the book. The Warpsmiths are a race of aliens who can teleport just about anywhere, shifting between matter and energy at a whim.
Moore does an amazing job of highlighting just how different they are from us, giving us a glimpse into how their society works. It's a look at aliens that still is pretty rare in comics, where alien species are usually pretty much just humans with different color skin.
5 Watchmen Is Better: The Characters
The biggest problem with Miracleman is that none of the characters are very likable. Miracleman is the hero but after discovering his powers, he becomes more and more detached from his humanity, making it hard for readers to relate to him, which is sort of the point but it's still a problem.
Watchmen's characters aren't exactly paragons of likability, but readers can relate to some of them and they seem more real. Moore did a much better job at making the characters of Watchmen multi-dimensional and interesting as people than he did on Miracleman.
4 Miracleman Is Better: The Final Battle
Miracleman's final battle is one of the best superhero fights of the '80s. While Miracleman and Miraclewoman were in space with the Warpsmiths, the insane Kid Miracleman was slaughtering the city of London. They return to a scene of horrific destruction and immediately go to battle with the monster who caused the devastation.
What follows is a terribly realistic battle between superpowered beings that perfectly captures what would happen if what basically amounts to gods battled in the streets of a modern city.
3 Watchmen Is Better: The Artistry Of The Whole Thing
Moore and Gibbons pulled out all the stops while creating Watchmen. Gibbons' art was full of sly foreshadowing and Easter eggs. Moore used all kinds of literary devices that weren't typically found in superhero comics on top of the more mature themes and events of the book.
This is one of the things that sets the book apart from the grim and gritty comics that it "inspired"- Moore made sure that the narrative was told in just as a mature manner as the events happening in the story and didn't just depend on those events to give the story its maturity.
2 Miracleman Is Better: Utopia?
The end of Miracleman sees Miracleman and his friends take over the world in the aftermath of the battle with Kid Miracleman, recreating human society in their image. It's all presented in very utopian terms but there's something undeniably sinister about those godlike beings dictating to humanity what their world is going to look like from now on.
Moore takes superheroes to their ultimate extent- what better way to protect the world than control it? He presents this concept in all of its inhuman glory, leaving readers feeling slightly dirty for rooting for the heroes up to this point.
1 Watchmen Is Better: The Twist
Much has been said about Watchmen's twist over the years. It's gotten to the point where just about everyone knows it even before they read the book. However, even knowing it, it's still one of the best twists in comic history and adds something to the story that it wouldn't otherwise have.
It shows the price of heroism and that sometimes, saving the world can be more complicated than just punching the bad guy. It makes readers ask themselves a hard question- are the lives of millions more important than the lives of billions? Even all these years later, it's still powerful.