Marvel Just announced at the ‘Cup o’ Joe’ Panel at San Diego Comic-Con that they have acquired that rights to begin publishing Marvelman comics!

Quesada stated that “Marvelman belongs to Marvel”, indicating that the company purchased the character from creator Mick Anglo, a process that started in 2007 thanks to word from Neil Gaiman. “Mick is 94 years old, and I talked to him on Wednesday for an hour and a half,” said Buckley noting that Marvel had discussed plans for the character and reprinting its previously published (but hard to find) stories written by Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, Alan Davis and Mark Buckingham.

“I’m excited to see this character not just at Marvel, but the continued adventures of Marvelman,” said Quesada.

“It is an honor to work with Mick Anglo to bring his creation to a larger audience than ever before,” said Dan Buckley, CEO & Publisher, Print, Animation & Digital Media, Marvel Entertainment Inc. “Fans are in for something special as they discover just what makes Marvelman such an important character in comic book history.” Buckley also stated that Marvel was talking with several creators who wrote Marvelman stories in the ’80s and ’90s. Both Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman are amongst those creators, but nothing has been announced beyond the acquisition. [ED note: I very Much doubt that Alan Moore will be interested in the slightest in working for Marvel Comics again]

Originally created in 1954 by Mick Anglo and appearing in some of the most celebrated comic stories of all time, Marvelman is Micky Moran, a young reporter gifted with the power to save the world by simply uttering the word “kimota”!

“I did not think it would ever happen,” said Mick Anglo. “It’s a wonderful thing to see my creation finally back.”

Shortly after the announcement, the panelists, including EiC Joe Quesada, Publisher Dan Buckley, Jeph Loeb, Jim McCann, and C.B. Cebulski, changed their attire, and were seen sporting blue t-shirts emblazoned with the classic Marvelman “MM” symbol . I just discovered that these shirts are available to buy from the Marvel Online Store, and am now a proud owner

Marvelman, known for trademark reasons as Miracleman in his American reprints and story continuation, is a fictional comic book superhero created in 1954 by writer-artist Mick Anglo for publisher L. Miller & Son. Originally intended as a United Kingdom home-grown substitute for the American character Captain Marvel, the series ran until 1963. He was revived in 1982 in a dark, post-modern deconstructionist series by writer Alan Moore, with later contributions by Neil Gaiman.

The character is notorious for the long, complex and expensive legal battle over various creative rights attached to it. As yet unresolved, the litigation has directly involved Gaiman, Todd McFarlane and several other people who also claim at least partial ownership of the character and the works containing him. This rights conflict has prevented the reprint and distribution of any of the Miracleman stories, making the critically acclaimed work extremely difficult to find.

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