Alan Moore[1] and Denis Gifford [2] would later speculate that the comic's audience was primarily prepubescent boys who would not react well to a female character.

[7] At the suggestion of artist Garry Leach, the character retained a business suit for his present day appearances, with the original yellow version largely being restricted to flashbacks.

[25] Being orphaned and related to RAF staff, Jonathan "Johnny" Bates' name found its way onto a list of potential candidates for Spookshow's Project Zarathustra.

As with the previous recruits – Michael Moran and Richard Dauntless – he was kept unconscious while captured Qys technology was used to grow a superpowered clone version that was placed in infraspace.

[26] The project's inventor, Doctor Emil Gargunza, used a complex series of induced dreams that kept the superhumans docile and suggestible, making all three believe they were superheroes fighting evil.

[29][30] Unknown to the project head Sir Dennis Archer, Gargunza planned to use the superhumans to produce a new body for himself, and was diverting funds from Zarathustra to a secondary lab.

This consisted of luring the trio out of Earth's atmosphere to what they believed was a new space station made by a fictional analogue of Gargunza the scientist had inserted into the dreams, however this was actually a nuclear bomb cloaked by holograms.

Bates would later tell Moran he had felt unsettled and instinctively dived away from Dragonslayer, suffering burns and broken bones – though he also claimed he had lost his powers at the same time.

Initially he was able to convince the Morans he had lost his powers but Mike detected his former friend was attempting to control his mind and correctly guessed he was lying, and still a superhuman.

Thanks to his far greater experience as a superhuman, Kid Miracleman was able to twice trounce his former mentor, having gained the ability to fire incinerating beams from his eyes and electrically charge clouds.

[44] After killing the attackers and – after a brief hesitation – Trish – he devastates London, butchering thousands largely to pass the time until he is noticed by Miracleman and his allies.

However, Chorn hits on the idea of warping debris inside Kid Miracleman's forcefield, grievously injuring the adversary before being killed himself.

The unbearable pain causes Kid Miracleman to splutter his change-word, switching places back to the traumatised, tearful Johnny Bates.

Johnny Bates' headless corpse features prominently in the Stanley Kubrick documentary Veneer, an assemblage of footage taken during the aftermath of Kid Miracleman's massacre,[49] though it is not immediately clear to viewers who he is.

[29] During Project Zarathustra field tests, Kid Miracleman was capable of easily out-pacing the fastest military jets of the period, and flying through a solid titanium bunker without effort.

[27] He is fast enough to reach a distance from the explosion of the Project Dragonslayer nuclear device where it causes him no lasting harm; a witness to his survival recalls him being on fire but still mobile.

He uses his advanced brain to rapidly build up a business and is even able to control the minds of humans in order to allay suspicions, though the latter ability is not flawless and is detected by Mike Moran.

Collins listed Kid Miracleman as one of "The Ten Best Super-Hero Sidekicks", noting the "concept of a litte boy who enjoys pulling the wings off of flies coupled with the ability to shift continents is pretty damn scary.