The ownership of the comic book character Marvelman was the subject of several legal disputes, both before and after the character was renamed Miracleman in 1985. The character and its derivatives were created by Mick Anglo in 1954 at the request of the publisher Len Miller. Unlike many comic book creators from the period, Anglo retained copyright of the character. Following Anglo's death in 2011, ownership is held by Mick Anglo's estate.

Misconceptions over Mick Anglo's ownership that persisted following the character's revival in 1982 and the collapse of publisher Eclipse Comics in 1994 led to the Miracleman series being kept out of print for over a decade. During this period, several parties claimed ownership, even though Anglo had never sold the rights — controversies that overwhelmed most discourse and overshadowed interest surrounding the character. These disputes and claims were resolved by the confirmation and re-assertion of Anglo's sole ownership of his copyright in 2009. Marvel Comics subsequently licensed Miracleman from Anglo, publishing new stories featuring the character alongside reprints of earlier volumes.

Ironically, the character of Marvelman was actually created by Mick Anglo in response to legal issues. Hackney publisher L. Miller & Son had bypassed British law forbidding imported American comics by licensing Captain Marvel and Captain Marvel Jr material from Fawcett Publications, which Miller then repackaged as a weekly comic for sale in the British market. The titles were a success; however only a few months after they began the American legal system handed out a long-gestating judgement, ruling that Captain Marvel infringed partially on DC Comics' Superman. With superhero comic sales falling anyway as the Golden Age market contracted, Fawcett simply cancelled their range of superhero comics. Not wanting to lose one of their bestsellers, Miller hired Anglo's Gower Street Studio to create a similar but distinct pair of characters to continue the series, resulting in the creation of Marvelman and Young Marvelman in 1954. They were even more successful than their predecessors and their series ran until 1963, when the impact of re-legalised imported American comics and the competing boys' weeklies of Fleetway Publications and DC Thomson made them unprofitable. Miller ceased its comics publishing in 1963, with the masters for their inventory of stories sold to rival Alan Class Comics.

At the time it was rare for creators to retain rights to their output, which was generally done as work-for-hire with the copyrights retained by the publisher. What little indicia were in the Miller comics (a broad statement noting "All stories and illustrations are the copyright of the Publishers and must not be reproduced without permission") seemed to support this, but some strips bear text reading "© Mick Anglo". Whether by default or design, Anglo thus retained copyright on the Marvelman characters - though that the works stayed in publication after Anglo left Miller and set up his own Anglo Features (complete with the title Captain Miracle, an obvious clone based on redrawn Marvelman material) suggests even the artist himself was unaware of this. L. Miller and Son ceasing comics publishing in 1963 left Mick Anglo as the sole remaining rights holder to the Marvelman characters. Anglo moved away from creating comics to compiling material for the British market, while Alan Class Comics only reprinted a small amount of the inventory material they purchased from Miller, and none of their reprints featured the Marvelman character, which spent the remainder of the next two decades out of print.

The subsequent chain of perceived owners of Miracleman, from the character's revival in 1982 until 2009, were all based on the misconception that the rights to the character had been sold by Mick Anglo to Dez Skinn. Mick Anglo never sold the rights to Dez Skinn, so all claims to ownership made by anyone other than Anglo over this period from 1982 until 2009 are all invalid and not legitimate.

In 1982 Marvelman was revived at the instigation of Dez Skinn of Quality Communications, for the anthology Warrior. There are conflicting accounts of how this was arranged; Skinn has claimed he believed the character was in the public domain, and that later royalties paid to Anglo were a friendly gesture; the new strip's writer Alan Moore recalled Skinn telling him he had purchased the rights from the Official Receiver's Office, while Moore's successor Neil Gaiman would claim Skinn later told him he had done nothing of the sort, instead reaching an informal private agreement with Anglo. In 2001 Anglo recalled that "Dez contacted me and he wanted to revive it and I said go ahead and do what you like." Moore would grow doubtful that the character's ownership had been acquired by Skinn, and in 2001 speculated that Anglo still retained ownership — something that would turn out to be confirmed some eight years later.

At this stage, that Anglo retained ownership of the Marvelman characters was unknown. Skinn told Moore that he had purchased the rights from the Official Receiver following the liquidation of L. Miller & Son in 1966, something the writer initially accepted but later began to question as his relationship with the editor soured. Skinn for his part has recalled that he did nothing of the sort - believing the character to be in the public domain - and instead entered into an informal agreement with Anglo, an arrangement he later reiterated to Neil Gaiman. Anglo for his part recalled that "Dez contacted me and he wanted to revive it and I said go ahead and do what you like.". Warrior had an unusual pay structure for the comics industry of the period; while Skinn offered lower page rates than Quality's competitors the content creators would be given "shares" in their characters, which would allow them to earn considerable royalties if material was reprinted in overseas syndication or albums. Believing he had the right to do so, Skinn split ownership of Marvelman three ways between Quality, Moore and Leach. When Leach was replaced by Alan Davis the deal was restructured, with Moore, Leach and Davis each owning 28% of the character and Quality Communications 15%. Warrior was a critical success but not a financial one, its losses being subsidised from Skinn's profitable comics shops. Behind the scenes things soon became fraught as well, with some creators feeling they deserved greater payment for the magazine's more popular features, and chaffing against the restriction Skinn's dream of a shared universe imposed on future material.

Meanwhile, Skinn, a former Marvel UK editor, had been wary of using Marvelman's name on the covers and attracting litigation. However, in 1984, with Marvelman having won Eagle Awards and featuring the name on the front of Warrior #5 and again on #16, Skinn decided the rival publisher was unlikely to protest. As a result, he put together the Marvelman Summer Special, consisting of a framing sequence by Moore and Davis, a trio of Anglo-era reprint tales and a story featuring Skinn's own character Big Ben. The use of the word 'Marvel' on the cover however resulted in legal action being taken by Marvel Comics. Their British legal agents Jacques & Lewis sent a cease and desist notice to Quality Communications, which Skinn printed in the editorial pages of Warrior #25. This unusual step resulted in an exchange of letters with the practice, which Skinn again printed. While Skinn publicly implying the legal action was the reason the strip had disappeared, when in fact Moore and Davis had fallen out.