Behold The Superman: Remastered Miracleman #1 Art Released

The first issue of Marvel’s reprint of Miracleman, drawn by Garry Leach and written by someone Marvel is referring to as “The Original Writer” in order to avoid litigation, but who we will refer to as “The Cranky Old Bastard,” will be released on January 15th, 2014, which, purely by coincidence, will be the same day that my original Eclipse Comics copy of Miracleman #1 plummets to a value where it will be less expensive to use as attic insulation than fiberglass.

While I have been excited for these reprints, it has only been in that they are precursors for Neil Gaiman’s and Mark Buckingham’s completion of their The Silver Age and The Dark Age stories that were scuttled in the 1990s when Eclipse went under. After all, I do own the complete original Eclipse run (including Miracleman: Apocrypha, Miracleman 3D and one or two of the trade paperback reprints of the original issues), so it’s not like I need the reprints for the story. And sure, Marvel has announced that they’re completely digitally remastering the artwork, but really: how much of a difference could that make?

A reasonable amount, it turns out. Marvel has released a few pages from that first issue to show off some of that remastered original Leach art… and it’s looking pretty good. And you can check them out after the jump.

Click each image to see it full-sized (and click it again if it gets cut off on the image page):

And while that is crisp looking art, it probably doesn’t tell you much if you’ve never see any Miracleman before. Well, Comic Book Resources has put together some direct comparison images for a few of the pages, scanned directly from Eclipse’s Miracleman #1, so you can get a sense of what’s changed.

And actually, it makes a lot of sense that this version will look cleaner: Eclipse printed Miracleman on old-school, 80s pulpy paper, which has a tendency to leach the ink and colors outside the original intended areas. Further, colors and lines are never going to look as crisp on dull pulp paper than it will on glossy stuff.

So is this remastered art enough reason to buy the new reprints if you already have the Eclipse issues? Maybe, but it doesn’t matter, because you (and I) were gonna buy the things anyway. If only for the novelty of being able to read an issue of Miracleman without the sinking understanding that if you fuck it up, you’re gonna be out several bucks and have a damn hard time finding another copy.

(via Comic Book Resources)