Moore's Twilight
Abhiji...@transarc.com
Moore for a grand x-over of DC's characters sometime around 1987-88
(just before he soured on DC) ? If not, Glenn has put it up at
Alan Moore's Twilight can be gotten via:
http://www.digimark.net/wraith/Comics/twilight.html
or straight text via ftp:
ftp digimark.net
cd wraith/Comics
get twilight.txt
Its possible that its a fake, but very, very unlikely. After reading it,
its inconceivable to me that anyone other than Moore could have
written it. And if it was someone else, that person is nearly as good a
writer as Moore.
Moore (assuming he's the writer) has some very perceptive things to say
about x-overs, superhero myths and legends and the like. The plot he
mentions, which involves most DC superheroes, and John Constantine (in
a pivotal role) is very complex, and shows Moore's amazing vision. I
don't agree with all his ideas for DC's characters, and there are times
when he seems to be using some plot elements purely for shock value.
Also, the proposal is obviously quite crude in places, but it still
puts anything superhero related DC has done since Crisis to shame.
Very much worth reading for fans of the DC Universe, or of Moore, or
both. I'd be interested in seeing some discussion of this.
Abhijit
Steven Chaput
: Has anyone here read the Twilight proposal, supposedly written by Alan
: Moore for a grand x-over of DC's characters sometime around 1987-88
: (just before he soured on DC) ? If not, Glenn has put it up at
A friend was able to get a copy about a year ago, and it is indeed
fascinating. If you read it carefully it appears that certain ideas pop
up in some Elseworld books. Now I'm not saying that anyone is ripping
Moore off, or that it would be impossible for others to come up with
similar ideas about the same group of characters, but it is something to
think about.
In fact it pre-dates the whole Elseworld concept by several years. If
Moore was able to forgive DC for their shabby treatment, it would still
be wonderful to see the story appear.
As for the storyline, most people who have read it were bothered by the
sexual habits of the characters more than anything else in the book. As
usual you'll have people upset by one of their favorite characters
portrayed as (Oh, my gawd!!!) a homosexual. Also the marriage of two
central characters was also disturbing to a few, though in the context of
the story it was certainly logical. I really wonder if DC could bring
itself to publish this story in any form?
I'm looking forward to seeing what others have to say. Since I don't
want to give anything away, I'll wait to see what others have to say
after they have a chance to read the story themselves.
Steve
--
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
sh...@panix.com "That's beyond authentic, it's almost primal!" - me
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Andrew Hess
> Abhijit Khale wrote:
> : Has anyone here read the Twilight proposal, supposedly written by Alan
> : Moore for a grand x-over of DC's characters sometime around 1987-88
> : (just before he soured on DC) ?
>
> A friend was able to get a copy about a year ago, and it is indeed
> fascinating.
WhoaWhoaWhoa!
I came in on the middle of this thread.
Does someone have a copy of Moore's Twilight s/he could post? I would love
to see what the hub-bub is about.
And if possible, E-Mail it to me?
Thanks,
me, Andrew Hess
Michael Lee
>Has anyone here read the Twilight proposal, supposedly written by Alan
>Moore for a grand x-over of DC's characters sometime around 1987-88
>(just before he soured on DC) ? If not, Glenn has put it up at
>
>Alan Moore's Twilight can be gotten via:
> http://www.digimark.net/wraith/Comics/twilight.html
I just read it, and some of the comments I'm going to make spoil it, so
we'll give a big fat spoiler break for those that want to read the outline
first...we'll still be here when you're done.
Well, it _feels_ like it could be Alan Moore; and I'm not going to bother
wasting my time trying to decide whether it is or not.
There are two lines of thought on it...one with the story, the other with
the possible influence the proposal actually had....
First of all, while I'm a big fan of Moore's work, I don't know if this
would work. While the "apocolyptic" nature of the series is all well and
good, and DC eventually tried to do some of this with the Armageddon 2001
series [which I'll get back to later], I'm not sure if I like the way the
_Super_ heroes are treated in this story. In the outline I saw, there are
no heroes at all [barring Batman and company, perhaps], and while that is
fine and good when it's Miracleman, it isn't quite the same when it's
Superman and Capt. Marvel. I don't see how Billy Batson could have the
sexual habits he described; and I also don't see Plastic Man as a male
prostitute.
I did appreciate some of his comments with regards to the presentation of
a future earth, however. It sounded like it would have been an innovative
view of the world, one different from the versions that have appeared in
the recent past.
Constantine's role was interesting; you can tell that the outline was
written before the Hellblazer series [or if a more recent fraud, it was a
very clever addition.] The characterization was still very good,
especially the twist at the end.
Over all, the plot was interesting, however, and while I doubt it would
have been done [after all, a DC tie-in "superseries" is not going to have
a "For Mature Readers Only", which this series would almost have to had].
It's why I have my doubts about if it is what it claims to be, but if it's
a fraud, the creator should be very happy, cause it is thought provoking.
===
Of course, DC eventually did do Twilight.
It was Armageddon 2001.
While the execution of the series left a lot to be desired, the general
idea -- do the "Ragnarok" of DC is there. Waverider takes Constantine's
place, and the Monarch doesn't have an exact analog, and instead of
presenting one future, they presented a multitude of futures. It had some
of the feel of what Twilight's author said the goals were, and it also set
up some continuing series in its aftermath. Why Armageddon 2001 didn't
actually present the _fall_ of the superheroes -- since parts of it take
place much after that -- certainly some of the annuals had their goals to
tell apocolyptic stories [a few of the Superman ones spring to mind]
I'm _not_ trying to imply that Twilight was where this A2001 had its
genesis -- after all, they are both really coming from what Dark Knight
Returns set up as it's goal -- to "cap off" a heroes career, something a
continuing comic just can't easily do.
--
Michael Lee
mich...@cs.wisc.edu
Computer Sciences Department, University of Wisconsin-Madison
<A HREF="http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~michaell/">On The Web</A>
Abhiji...@transarc.com
X-posted to racm
yl...@simile.cc.columbia.edu (Yeechang Lee) writes:
> Along those lines, anyone get the feeling Moore isn't . . . well
> . . . very fond of the United States as a nation? Not just Twilight,
> but some of his other work.
Moore's political views are left wing, with a strong mix of paranoia thrown
in. He doesn't have anything against the United States per se, what he
objects to is what he sees as fascism and the subversion of the US
Constitution by the military industrial complex, the CIA etc.
Slightly off-topic for DC-U, but Moore did a comic called _Brought_To_light_
with Bill Sienkcwicz which purported to reveal CIA assasinations,
plotting and the like. In fact, Moore used a Uncle Sam like character
in this comic, much the way he wants to make use of Uncle Sam in
twilight. Moore is clearly somewhat paranoid. You can see it even in
his comics, which often deal with elaborate plots and conspiracy
theories. He's very distrustful of governments in general and very
pessimistic.
But Moore's political views (a lot of which I don't agree with) don't
in general impair his skills as a writer. If anything, they give his
writing an extra edge.
Abhijit
Abhiji...@transarc.com
A few points.
Firstly, while there are a couple of things that bother me, its
very hard for me to believe that the Twilight proposal was not written
by Moore. If anyone else can write at this level, that person wouldn't
have wasted what would probably be several weeks writing this plot as a
fake. He or she would be out writing professionally. In fact, few pro
comics writers can write at this level either. Furthermore, there's an
amazing knowledge of Moore's works even down to obscure stories like
his GLCorps story and his Vigilante sory.
There are two things that bug me a little. At one point, Moore refers
to Zatara as being alive. But Zatara is dead: something Moore should
know, since he killed him off in Swamp Thing #50. Secondly, Moore shows
an amazing prescience in commenting on x-overs and big events. This
could be an indication that its a fake or that Moore is a brilliant
visionary (which we all know anyway).
That aside, Moore's vision, even in this crude form, is amazing. His
comments on superhero myths are bang on, and his extrapolation of
future society as well as superheroes is fascinating. As far as the sex
references go: Moore seems to be trying to see how far he can go with
the editors. Moore clearly believes (correctly) that the American
audience has a far greater tolerance for violence than sex, and he
seems to want to shake people up a bit. He did this in Miracleman,
where he has an extremely violent and disturbing sequence of scenes in
book 3, and a childbirth in book 2. For a lot of people, the
childbirth is more shocking.
Intentionally or not, there is a lot of similarity between some aspects
of Invasion and A-2001 and Moore's plot. But Moore is far more detailed
and precise in his plotting and characterization.
Incidentally, it seems to me that both Superman and Batman come off as
fairly heroic in the book. Maybe this is the old fanboy in Moore
showing himself: he can't really bear to show characters he's fond of
from his own childhood in a very unflattering light. Wonder Woman is
another matter. Clearly Moore is not particularly interested in writing
her, so he relegates her to a relatively minor role as Superwoman.
Moore's comments about Batman as being an immortal mythical character
are again very much on. And Constantine is portrayed brilliantly.
I doubt this would ever have been made as a mega crossover because of
all the adult themes in the main storyline. On the other hand, it might
have made a great Elseworld type series.
Its a shame that Moore doesn't write for DC anymore and that he hardly
ever does superhero comics anymore except for money, and doesn't try to
approach the intellectual sophistication of his earlier superhero work.
Still, all DC fans should be glad that he worked at DC for a while and
gave us arguably the three most brilliant superhero comics and the best
horror comic ever written.
Abhijit
M...Coale
>Abhiji...@transarc.com wrote:
>: Has anyone here read the Twilight proposal, supposedly written by Alan
>: Moore for a grand x-over of DC's characters sometime around 1987-88
>: (just before he soured on DC) ? If not, Glenn has put it up at
>A friend was able to get a copy about a year ago, and it is indeed
>fascinating. If you read it carefully it appears that certain ideas pop
>up in some Elseworld books. Now I'm not saying that anyone is ripping
>Moore off, or that it would be impossible for others to come up with
>similar ideas about the same group of characters, but it is something to
>think about.
I thought that too when I was reading the synopsis, though I really
couldnt think of a specific one off the top of my head.
>As for the storyline, most people who have read it were bothered by the
>sexual habits of the characters more than anything else in the book. As
>usual you'll have people upset by one of their favorite characters
>portrayed as (Oh, my gawd!!!) a homosexual. Also the marriage of two
>central characters was also disturbing to a few, though in the context of
>the story it was certainly logical. I really wonder if DC could bring
>itself to publish this story in any form?
Again, I agree. The one that bothered me the most was ...
(well, spoiler space I guess)
The Marvel Family stuff. Sure, it turned out that wasnt Cap, but
still, the implication of Cap and Mary being in an incestuous
relationship.... *shudder*
Im sure the Supes and WW stuff may annoy some people, but hey,
remember this dialogue from the Superman annual Moore wrote:
(supes and WW kiss)
WW: Why dont we do this more ofte? (paraphrasing)
S: Too predictable, I guess.
The two things that made me giddy while reading it were:
1. The Avenger cabal
2. The boom tube thing
Man...
mlc, who was so jazzed from reading this, he went back and read the
first three books of Miracleman
Dane Johnson
Andrew Hess <andrew_...@pacsci.org> wrote:
>
>WhoaWhoaWhoa!
>
>I came in on the middle of this thread.
>Does someone have a copy of Moore's Twilight s/he could post? I would love
>to see what the hub-bub is about.
By interesting coincidence, I happened to come across this last Friday,
just before heading to the Bat-Theater to see the Bat-Movie...
Try:
http://www.digimark.net/wraith/Comics/twilight.html
Dane, whose Bookmark list in Netscape is getting waaaaay to long...
Marc Singer
>Abhiji...@transarc.com wrote:
>: Has anyone here read the Twilight proposal, supposedly written by Alan
>: Moore for a grand x-over of DC's characters sometime around 1987-88
>: (just before he soured on DC) ? If not, Glenn has put it up at
>
>sexual habits of the characters more than anything else in the book. As
>usual you'll have people upset by one of their favorite characters
>portrayed as (Oh, my gawd!!!) a homosexual. Also the marriage of two
>central characters was also disturbing to a few, though in the context of
>the story it was certainly logical.
And I think I know exactly the two you're talking about... but hey, the
pharaohs did it...
I thought the proposal was quite brilliant. The only problem was that no
major reason was given for the "darkening" of so many heroes, causing many
of the changes and much of the grimness to seem superficial. But an actual
story would've probably fleshed this out more. And it didn't seem likely
that they would fight and fracture so easily, but again, an actual story
would have made it much more believable (especially if by Mr. Moore).
Overall, it's one of the most gripping plots I've read.
Marc
Henry R. Broaddus
Abhiji...@transarc.com writes:
> Firstly, while there are a couple of things that bother me, its
> very hard for me to believe that the Twilight proposal was not written
> by Moore. If anyone else can write at this level, that person wouldn't
> have wasted what would probably be several weeks writing this plot as a
> fake. He or she would be out writing professionally.
I'm not so sure. While I agree that this could be Moore's work, it's
not difficult for me to believe that some fans would take a lot of
pride in producing such a believable imitation. As for the quality of
the piece being indicative of a comic book professional, I wish the
industry worked like that. Unfortunately there are a lot of people who
write at this level trying unsuccessfully to get their first work
published while fans browse racks of utter trash (IMHO of course).
> In fact, few pro
> comics writers can write at this level either. Furthermore, there's an
> amazing knowledge of Moore's works even down to obscure stories like
> his GLCorps story and his Vigilante sory.
While it's true that the content of the script is very good, extensive
knowledge of Moore's other works is not an uncommon thing among rabid
Moore fans. Furthermore, the author of this script makes errors Moore
would be unlikely to make. As you noted,
> At one point, Moore refers
> to Zatara as being alive. But Zatara is dead: something Moore should
> know, since he killed him off in Swamp Thing #50
I didn't notice that in my read through, but I don't have anything like
the extensive knowledge of the DCUthat you have, Abhijit.
One thing that did bother me does not relate so much to content as to
style. I find it hard to believe that a writer as skilled as Moore
would repeatedly make the mistake of using the objective case of a
pronoun where the subjetive is required.
i.e.
"*Him* and Oliver have strong
political differences but are firm friends despite this."
"He knows instantly that he could love this woman forever.
Knows who she is, knows how happy *him* and all his future selves are
going to be with her..."
Of course, these mistakes could be errors committed in transcribing the
script.
Overall I enjoyed reading Twilight (more than I enjoy reading most
comics these days -- I have been dropping more and more titles as of
late). The whole organization of Super-heroes into warring camps
bugged me a little bit. In essence, Twilight came across as a
sophisticated Ho'od Win...a damn good Ho'od win, but nonetheless
unworthy of Moore's attention.
Of course, were it not a verifiable fact, nobody could have convinced
me that Alan Moore wrote the script for the Violator mini-series.
-HB (Henry.R....@Dartmouth.edu)
"Imagination was given to us to compensate for what we are not; a sense
of humor to console us for what we are." - Sir Francis Bacon
M...Coale
regarding the Zatara 'error:'
I noticed that the House of Mystery has Zatara ( as mentioned) but not
Zatanna. So, could that be chalked up to a flip flop, either by the author
or the transcriber, between father and daughter?
mlc
Abhay Khosla
-Hitler, jr. in Swamp Thing #153
- Mark Millar(cool guy incidentally...)
WARNING: Thoughts on Twilight follow a brief Rant. You've heard it
from me before, and you'll hear it from me again. Warning.
Okay, just read Twilight. Whew...the happy stories never stop here, do they?
God, I miss that, you know. Intelligent superheros. Moore's apology,
1963, was great, and Grim & Gritty & Glum was a nasty period to go
through but damn, there were some great books... The Dark Knight, all of
Moore's stuff, Marshal Law. It wasn't the psychosis, it was the
intelligence in plots and IDEAS. Imagination...
I mean, Image hires Alan Moore and has him writing Spawn miniseries when
he could be doing something so big. Yeah, yeah, From Hell is great but
there still is something worthwhile about superheros. And its mostly
Moore's fault, writing intentionally dumb for "the Image audience," as if
some of his older fans wouldn't pick up the books too or as if Image fans
deserved Badrock vs. Violator(as if anyone deserved the first Violator
miniseries...yeesh...) 1963 was lovely, I really enjoyed that. But
there's room for that and something as similairly imaginative as Twilight.
And there's not enough of either instead.
I understand: his novels and his personal stuff means more to him and
IMage is for money- good idea, fine. And I agree with him and Morrison
that in many ways Watchmen was misguided. But dammit I liked it
anyways, and you can still do books that...Big, for lack of a better
word... and not have it end up with a million ROrschachs pretending to be
Green Lantern or whoever. And just because its Image doesn't mean it has
to be so stupid(because really the Lobo folks do it better, smarter, and
with cooler art for a while than he did in Violator...)
THE RANT IS NOW OVER. Thank you...
On 24 Jun 1995, Henry R. Broaddus wrote:
> In article <4jv2XtGSM...@transarc.com>
> Abhiji...@transarc.com writes:
>
> > very hard for me to believe that the Twilight proposal was not written
> > by Moore. If anyone else can write at this level, that person wouldn't
> I'm not so sure. While I agree that this could be Moore's work, it's
> not difficult for me to believe that some fans would take a lot of
> pride in producing such a believable imitation. As for the quality of
> the piece being indicative of a comic book professional, I wish the
> industry worked like that. Unfortunately there are a lot of people who
> write at this level trying unsuccessfully to get their first work
> published while fans browse racks of utter trash (IMHO of course).
Well this would make a horrible first time submission, though, don't you
think? I mean, something this big they wouldn't want to give to someone
noone's ever heard of, especially with alot of the things that it was
asking for(Superman being beaten to death, for instance...)
> > At one point, Moore refers
> > to Zatara as being alive. But Zatara is dead: something Moore should
> > know, since he killed him off in Swamp Thing #50
>
> I didn't notice that in my read through, but I don't have anything like
> the extensive knowledge of the DCUthat you have, Abhijit.
It seems to me that for a series like this Moore would want to pull out
all the characters, all the stops like they did in some part with
Crisis. Its strange that this would happen but that didn't make me
wonder as much as your next point.
> One thing that did bother me does not relate so much to content as to
> style. I find it hard to believe that a writer as skilled as Moore
> would repeatedly make the mistake of using the objective case of a
> pronoun where the subjetive is required.
Sometimes, there were just little things. For example, from memory, "THe
Marvel family with editions." Editions? Is this some sort of British
thing? There were many things that I couldn't figure out if there were
mistakes or wierd British idioms. It was a clunky read at times..
> Of course, these mistakes could be errors committed in transcribing the
> script.
A most probable guess...
> Overall I enjoyed reading Twilight (more than I enjoy reading most
> comics these days -- I have been dropping more and more titles as of
> late). The whole organization of Super-heroes into warring camps
> bugged me a little bit. In essence, Twilight came across as a
> sophisticated Ho'od Win...a damn good Ho'od win, but nonetheless
> unworthy of Moore's attention.
Exactly, dead, on the money. Ho'od Win with some big fun ideas in it. I
can see this being done by someone other than Moore on the basis of just
the plot because it just ends with one huge fight. There were
indications that it was Moore though(the essay on crossovers, I thought)
enough, but it did just end up as being okay...now this character dies,
cool huh? Okay, now this character... The twists are wonderful but it
ends up that the reason I think those scenes would have been good is
because it would have been by Alan Moore. Nonetheless, there were plenty
of other ideas floating around outside of the battles that made it a fun
read.
On reasons for its rejection, I would have to speculate that its bringing
back some sort of pre-Crisis reminder is the most probable reason for its
rejection. I don't think DC wanted to deal with the time flaw(?). I
mean, he had Barry Allen running around in there, didn't he say? Alot of
things DC wanted gone showed up and is probably why we never saw it. Pity.
Really, the problem I had with this is ... a certain lack of hope. The
end fo the superheros is presented wonderfully, but its such a depressing
story. The ending with Constantine I didn't like. The strength of the
story is its twists and turns, particularly the twist involving Captain
Marvel as well as the way it singles out the things that really make DC
special and give it an epic quality. But the thing Moore missed about
the Robin HOod stories and the fact Ulysses was killed with a spear by
his son or whatever, or the Dark Knight Returns, is that while there is a
tragedy in the story, it ends hopefully. It always pissed me off when I
was a kid that Ulysses got killed by his kid in poverty. I mean no, they
didn't have birth control back then, but come on! But its noble that
Ulysses accepted his fate and was still a hero to his people. Dark
Knight Returns- its tragic with the death of Alfred, the death of the
actual Batman persona, the Batman story being over, but that last page is
just hopeful.
Twilight didn't do this for me in the proposal. It was neverending
death, and then a few twists, and its over and John Constantine's looking
out over Utopia. The deaths feel too meaningless, Superman's
especially. Batman really isn't given a proper role(though I think this
was out of respect for Dark Knight). Hal Jordan is never mentioned.
The Wonder Womans are terribly aimless. The Justice League and Titans
don't come off as noble. The idea of a superhero universe ending in a
big HOo'd Win is popular. Kingdom Come seems to be a play on this(should
be fun to see what they do...). But none of it really felt like it was
reason. None of it felt noble. The goal of the primary movers and
shakers: free earth from those horrible superheros? And the goals of the
superheros? Well, we know what Billy Batson's goal was but besides
that...(who was the homosexual? I missed that. Blackhawk, I would guess
though Moore never puts it in words...)
Its like Howard Chaykin said. Alan Moore doesn't really write for a
strong conclusion in mind. Great beginnings, wonderful middles, and then
you're at the end and a big freaking alien teleports in and you're saying
"What the hell is this?"(No, really I love the alien, but it was an
example and I know alot fo people for whom that really kinda ruined
things a bit...).
Besides that, this was a wonderful proposal, rich with ideas, and really
the proper treatment of superheros: as something more than people with
costumes and powers. It would have made a lovely series and I'm sure
Moore would have resolved my problems and the feeling that none of it was
for a reason. But 12 issues though? Seems like this woul dhave taken
more than that... Hmmm, has me wondering what Alex Ross and Mark Waid are
up to... someone should pass them this...
I'll have to post eventually on my thoughts on that opening essay on
crossovers. That was the best thing about this proposal for me. Some
strong thinking...
> Of course, were it not a verifiable fact, nobody could have convinced
> me that Alan Moore wrote the script for the Violator mini-series.
Ah the rant continues... Moore barely wrote a script from what I
remember. He gave the artists panel breakdowns since he wasn't sure if
Todd would be comfortable with a script(shows his trust in the people he
was workign with). The script they did print, with an arrow pointing to
it saying "This is what a professional script like Alan MOore's looks
like" was like "Panel 1, Page 3 Violator : Gaaaaah. Guy with Gun:
Oooof!" It was sad. If he can publish the From Hell scripts, he could
make a pamphlet out of the VIolator scripts.
Yes, I admit it. I miss the deconstruction of superheros. Some of those
book were really good. The early pieces in any artistic movement usually
are until the imitators get to it. This just depressed me, because I
intend to buy Moore's first issue of Wildcats...oh god...
-Abhay
akh...@umich.edu
Scott Hollifield
Spoilers for Alan Moore's Twillight proposal ahead...
: I just read it, and some of the comments I'm going to make spoil it, so
: we'll give a big fat spoiler break for those that want to read the outline
: first...we'll still be here when you're done.
:
: In the outline I saw, there are
: no heroes at all [barring Batman and company, perhaps], and while that is
: fine and good when it's Miracleman, it isn't quite the same when it's
: Superman and Capt. Marvel. I don't see how Billy Batson could have the
: sexual habits he described; and I also don't see Plastic Man as a male
: prostitute.
That's 'cause you're not Moore. :-) I can very easily see Moore coming
up with a *proposal* for these characters like this, even if he knew
in his heart that we'd never get to see Billy Batson as a twelve-year-old
in S&M get-up. On the other hand, his idea about Doll Man was strangely
compelling for some reason. Talk about revamping...
: Of course, DC eventually did do Twilight.
: It was Armageddon 2001.
And they're going to do another one, of sorts: Mark Waid and Alex Ross's
Kingdom Come, which won't be as twisted as Moore's proposal, but has the
potential to be quite good. It will only be an Elseworlds, of course,
with no solid link to present continuity.
--
"When Green Lantern lost his own book and got bumped into the back of
The Flash, no one could have anticipated the imminent creation of one
of the most intense new characters in comic book history... He named
the thing 'Itty'!" -- _Ambush Bug_ #3
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Scott Hollifield * sco...@cris.com * http://www.cris.com/~scotth/
Aaron Michael Severson
I just read the Twilight summary last night, and I have to agree with
Abhijit--having read Moore's notes for other projects (for instance, those
in the hardcover WATCHMEN), it certainly _sounds_ like Moore, and it reads
like something Moore would come up with.
A couple of points.
1) I didn't care for the formal "feudal house" idea. I suspect that this
would have disappeared later on; I have no problem with there being
agglomerations of superheroes like what I can't help calling "the House
of Cheese" (the House of Thunder), but the feudal aspects seem a little
too heavy handed.
2) It really seems like Moore has tried to tackle more characters than
there would realistically be time for in a 350 page WATCHMEN style
maxi-series. Some of the nastier changes he's made would be easier
to cope with if the characters were important to the story. I like his
image of Uncle Sam, for instance, but if the only point of it is a bit
of pathos on the sidelines, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I _like_
Uncle Sam, and I always have. (I'm still disappointed in that John Byrne
Action Comics Elseworlds, with a British Superman--I was hoping it'd
be a set-up for Superman vs. Uncle Sam). I love the idea of Blackhawk
as a bitter and obsessive old queen recruiting boys for his private army,
but I'd like it better if it were more important to the story. And the
Congorilla/Gorilla Crime Boss of Gotham City thing made me fall out of my
chair.
3) Some of the characters seem logical extensions of their present selves,
some don't. Wonder Woman seems to lose out terribly, which is a terrible
shame, and the actions of the Martian Manhunter are entirely out of character.
I don't object to characters doing troubling or controversial things--the
description of Nightwing seemed plausible--but they should be some kind of
logical extension of the character's existing personality. Superman comes
across something like he does in DARK KNIGHT; he's not really evil, but he's
compromised himself between conflicting principles to the point where he
doesn't know what to do anymore. This seems logical.
4) I'm nebulous about the use of the Shadow and Doc Savage (and Tarzan!),
as they've never really been DC universe characters. I'd personally prefer
to see it be purely Batman's show.
5) The use of Constantine was dead-on, and it reminded me of why the HELLBLAZER
title has so steadily disappointed me. It's also a sign of why separating
the "Vertigo" characters from the mainstream was a mistake. And the ending
was perfect--ironic, nasty, and entirely in character for Constantine.
I would have been interested to see Moore develop these ideas further.
Some of the Marvel family stuff I think either made it into MIRACLEMAN (
Part 3 wasn't done when this was written, I don't think)--or was passed
on to Neil Gaiman for same. And of course, something of the basic concept
survived into Armageddon 2001, which was one of DC's greatest letdowns.
Interesting piece of work, though.
Abhiji...@transarc.com
jar...@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Joseph T Arendt) writes:
> Superman has tended to be protrayed as very patriotic
> to the United States.
I'd be interested in seeing even one in continuity story in the last
twenty years in which Superman has been shown as blindly patriotic.
>This was shown so brilliantly in Miller's _The Dark Knight Returns_.
Absolutely incorrect. Superman in _TDKR_ was not shown as patriotic at
all. He was doing what he did merely because he had struck some sort
of Devil's bargain with the US govt, in which he got to save lives.
Note that Batman taunts him as saying "Yes to anyone with a flag"
but that never struck me as being remotely accurate.
> of smaller countries, I still can't picture Superman giving up
> on the principles of the U.S. such as democracy, voting, the
> Constitution, etc.
Superman is not just of the US. He is (and pre-Crisis was even more so)
a citizen of the world. He was a citizen of every country pre-Crisis.
But even Pre-Crisis he did little about bringing democracy or voting to
other countries outside the US.
> In contrast, for Frank Miller's _The Dark Knight Returns_,
> I could see how the characters get from point A to point B.
You have to remember this is a preliminary proposal. If Moore had
flushed it out, I'm willing to bet he would have given logical reasons
for every transition (far more logical than Miller did). He would
probably have flushed out the history fully.
Abhijit
Yeechang Lee
|Moore is clearly somewhat paranoid. You can see it even in his
|comics, which often deal with elaborate plots and conspiracy
|theories. He's very distrustful of governments in general and very
|pessimistic.
The Oliver Stone type, eh?
Another example is _V for Vendetta_'s introduction, in which he (IMHO)
equated Thatcher Conservatism with incipient fascism.
|But Moore's political views (a lot of which I don't agree with) don't
|in general impair his skills as a writer. If anything, they give his
|writing an extra edge.
Agreed. His work that I've read is almost uniformly very good. A
fellow rac.* and lsh-l'er and I discussed the left-wing aspect of his
work on IRC a while back; he pointed out some of the more
paranoid/(perhaps) anti-US satirical aspects of _1963_, which got me
thinking about this a bit more.
Anyone else?
Yeechang Lee | http://www.columbia.edu/~ylee/ | Nevada Las Vegas Mission'92-'94
WinningerR
paranoid/(perhaps) anti-US satirical aspects of _1963_, which got me
thinking about this a bit more.<<<
I don't think Moore is anti-US any more than he's anti-England,
anti-Soviet Block, or anti-government in general.
It should be noted, incidentally, that the BROUGHT TO LIGHT project
mentioned earlier was "commissioned" by and entirely based upon materials
collected by the Christic Institute, an organization of (for want of a
better term) "left-wing" activists. The book wasn't the result of Moore's
own theorizing.
Joseph T Arendt
be a proposal by Alan Moore for a series called Twilight, I have
to say that I hated it.
*** SPOILERS ***
While the idea of having different Houses of superheroes acting
like feudal kingdoms was fine, I can't see it for the DC stable of
heroes. I certainly can't see it within a thirty year time frame.
Put it in an alternate reality like Watchmen or set it two hundred
years in the future with great-great-grandchildren of the current
heroes and I might like it.
Superman has tended to be protrayed as very patriotic
to the United States. This was shown so brilliantly in
Miller's _The Dark Knight Returns_. How would Superman ever get
to the point of having a fiefdom? I
just can't picture Superman-present getting to that
type of Superman-future. Even if the U.S. got broken up into a bunch
of smaller countries, I still can't picture Superman giving up
on the principles of the U.S. such as democracy, voting, the
Constitution, etc. Superman wants to marry off his kid for
political gain like some medieval prince? What the hell? This has
to be a pod-person.
As for all the sex stuff, I disliked that immensely too.
Billy Batson into S&M? Worse yet, it seems Billy and Mary are into
incest. I don't buy it.
Wonder Woman, Plastic Man, and the others don't feel remotely
like the characters I have come to know.
In contrast, for Frank Miller's _The Dark Knight Returns_,
I could see how the characters get from point A to point B.
Superman has most often been protrayed as patriotic and respectful
of the gov't, so it is not a large step to see him as remaining
patriotic even if the gov't goes bad. Maybe I wouldn't expect
this of Superman, but at least I can follow some logic for it.
Batman gets where he likes causing crooks pain, such as when he
deliberately uses a blow that hurts after saying he knows several
defenses that kill, several that do no damage, and one that hurts.
Again, while I may not have pictured a future Batman as being
so sadistic myself, I can at least follow the logic of Batman ending
up that way after Jason Todd died. I can easily get from
Superman-present to Superman-future, Batman-present to Batman-future,
and Green-Arrow-present to Green-Arrow-future. This was a large
part of the fun for me.
In this proposal, I can't see much logic for getting from any
of the current DC characters to their proposed future versions.
Comparisons have been made between this and Armageddon 2001. I
liked most of Armageddon 2001. I hated the use of Hawk as
Monarach. I really, really, really *HATED* the use of Hawk
as Monarch! However, looking at the individual issues, most of the possible
predicted futures were somewhat logical. I found this to be the
case even for the Bat books and Superman books where each book
(Action, MoS, etc.) got its own alternate future that could totally
contradict the others. I could see Superman-present becoming the
Superman-future that ran for president and won. I could see Batman-present
becoming the powered exoskeleton Batman-future. I could see Hawk-present
and Dove-present having a future kid named Unity.
This proposal just doesn't have that plausibility in the future
versions of the heroes, IMHO. The long established personalities
seem ignored in the demand to shove heroes into the various fiefdoms.
This proposal also wants to set up a "Fluke" field, caused by the
Time Trapper, where alternate reality stories can be used. It
seems a limited disabling of Crisis.
I think Crisis did serve a useful purpose. DC makes-believe
all the standard stories take place on one earth, and this seems to work
pretty well if one doesn't nitpick. I must admit finding inconsistancies
post-Crisis is not hard, and Zero Hour just tried to sweep them
under the rug.
For example, I really loved Earth-2, even if I'm not overly
impressed with Roy Thomas's writing skills. Earth-2 has a graying-haired
Superman that was around during WWII. Earth-1 has a perpetually 30
year old Superman. Which is the real Superman? Both being "real" is
not an intuitively obvious answer to a new reader or a young kid. :-)
As a reader, I like to believe that a story I read "really"
happened. I don't like it when, say, _Son of the Demon_ shows Bruce
fathering a kid, then later the powers-that-be decide, "Nah, that
didn't happen."
With alternate earths or "fluke" fields, I think it is too easy
to discard any inconvenient story.
I like the Elseworld solution that DC eventually came up with
instead.
Joe
Yeechang Lee
| Well, after looking at the www site at what is purported to
|be a proposal by Alan Moore for a series called Twilight, I have
|to say that I hated it.
|
|*** SPOILERS ***
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|United States. This was shown so brilliantly in Miller's _The Dark
|Knight Returns_. How would Superman ever get to the point of having
|a fiefdom? I just can't picture Superman-present getting to that
|type of Superman-future. Even if the U.S. got broken up into a bunch
|of smaller countries, I still can't picture Superman giving up on the
|principles of the U.S. such as democracy, voting, the Constitution,
|etc. Superman wants to marry off his kid for political gain like
|some medieval prince? What the hell? This has to be a pod-person.
Along those lines, anyone get the feeling Moore isn't . . . well
. . . very fond of the United States as a nation? Not just Twilight,
but some of his other work.
More generally, the proposal (if genuine), while brilliant in many
ways, frankly makes me wonder what Moore was smoking at the time.
| For example, I really loved Earth-2, even if I'm not overly
|impressed with Roy Thomas's writing skills.
Ditto. However, I must add that the only Thomas books I've read are
the Reflecto arc in LSH ('nuff said) and _Infinity Inc._ #1-10 (the
some of the worst teenage dialogues I've ever read, by far), which may
probably isn't representative of his overall work.
Joseph T Arendt
In article <MjvAggiSM...@transarc.com>,
<Abhiji...@transarc.com> wrote:
>
>
>jar...@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Joseph T Arendt) writes:
>
>> Superman has tended to be protrayed as very patriotic
>> to the United States.
>
>I'd be interested in seeing even one in continuity story in the last
>twenty years in which Superman has been shown as blindly patriotic.
>
I guess I'm going from impressions that aren't recent or
in continutity. For example, the old "Truth, Justice, and
American Way" of the TV show. Another example was telling
JFK his secret just because you gotta trust the president...or
maybe just Jack. (I'd really like to see that story rather than
just hearing about it.)
When I was a kid, there was the oversized DC comic with Superman
with a big U.S. flag. I think he was flying past the Statue of Liberty.
It's been a few years, though, so I am not sure I remember that
one exactly right.
Well, obviously none of that is post-Byrne.
Let's see. Post-Bryne, Supes acted as a U.S. gov't bodyguard
when he followed gov't orders to escort the evil leader of Quarac back
to the U.S. to stand trial. At least, I think Supes was acting
for the U.S. and not the U.N.
Also post-Bryne, Supes didn't exactly get U.N. approval when he
lost his temper and trashed the Qurac military either. It was more a sense
of you take on my city/country, then I trash yours. The cover had Supes
holding a tank over his head.
BTW, the follow through was terrific as Clark Kent found that
some of the Arab community assumed Superman hated them.
I haven't got my Superman collection at college, so I can't
easily supply issue numbers. Sorry.
On the other hand, as you say, Superman sometimes refers to
himself as a citizen of the world.
*** Possibly SPOILERS for the purported proposal by Alan Moore
*** for a series to be called TWILIGHT. ***
>> In contrast, for Frank Miller's _The Dark Knight Returns_,
>> I could see how the characters get from point A to point B.
>
>You have to remember this is a preliminary proposal. If Moore had
>flushed it out, I'm willing to bet he would have given logical reasons
>for every transition (far more logical than Miller did). He would
>probably have flushed out the history fully.
>
Well, I'm not really sure this was written by Moore.
Perhaps Moore (if he really wrote the proposal) could have flushed
out the story so that it would make sense for these feudal houses
centered around current superheroes would make sense as far as
the characters are concerned, but that isn't here so I can't
really comment on what he might do. From what is here, I see little
of that logic. What I see is pod-people.
Even in a basic premise for _TDKR_, I'd imagine I would get the
sense of a Batman story. An older, more ruthless and viscious Batman,
to be sure, but Batman.
For Armageddon-2001, I generally got a proper sense of the charcters
even if the stories are given in the shortest synopsis. For example,
Superman decides to run for president after Pete Ross is badly wounded. Hey,
I could see Superman doing that. It doesn't need lots of elaboration
before I could picture this as a Superman story. For example, Batman
resorts to a powered exo-skeleton after a back injury. Hey, no problem.
A counter example, Hawk becomes Monarch. Big problem, although I can
picture Captain Atom becoming Monarch! :-)
With this TWILIGHT proposal, there is a huge gaping chasm between
how each character gets from today to the future version. I can't
even begin to picture how to cross that. Maybe an excellent writer
like Moore could manage it, but I'd need to see more evidence before
I believe it. Here are things I would need lots of selling on.
-- Wonder Woman changes her name to Superwoman.
-- Superman becomes a feudal lord.
-- Superman and Wonder Woman want to marry off their kid for
political gain.
-- Captain Marvel and Mary Marvel are married even though brother
and sister.
-- Captain Marvel Jr. gives up honor and screws Mary.
-- Nightwing becomes more grim'n'gritty than Batman ever was.
-- The Martian Manhunter became a villian.
-- Blackhawk becomes an "urban fascist" that hangs out at "leather bars."
It just goes on and on like that. About the only change I
like is for Doll Man, because that is given a decent explanation.
I don't mind seeing heroes deconstructed and made to seem more
human if it is logical. James Robinson's _The Golden Age_ managed
to really tarnish some heroes, which annoyed many fans, but even there
the changes weren't as drastic is this. Robotman gives up on being
human and loses his morality with his humanity. Hey, that's shocking
and disturbing, but not hard to follow. Mr. Terry What's-his-name with
the "Fair Play" sign may have resorted to bribery, violating his
own logo. Again, that's shocking and disturbing, but not hard to
follow.
With this proposal, the changes do satisfy the criteria of
being shocking and disturbing. Very much so, in some cases.
However, I find the changes themselves practically impossible to
believe. Without more explanation, what I see is pod people
serving the plot purpose of having Houses of various superheroes.
Having feudal Houses, each based on superheroes, is not a
bad idea. In fact, I think it is a fun idea. It is the way it
is done with these particular long-established heroes that bothers me.
Even for a preliminary proposal, I'd expect clearer explanations.
If Moore took Watchmen thirty years into the future and created
his various feudal Houses, I'd have no problem with it since I'm not
as attached to the long history of the characters.
Joe
Marc Singer
Yeechang Lee <yl...@simile.cc.columbia.edu> wrote:
>
>Along those lines, anyone get the feeling Moore isn't . . . well
>. . . very fond of the United States as a nation? Not just Twilight,
>but some of his other work.
You're saying he should be fond of an alternate America run by Richard
Nixon? :) Seriously, while he might have criticized its policies in Watchmen,
or its flaws in American Gothic, it's not like he's inventing these things
out of whole cloth. And America doesn't get anywhere near the treatment
that Britain does is Moore's work. (I'm also not certain why one would even
mention Moore's "lack of fondness" in this manner at all, since it certainly
hasn't hurt his work, and has often helped it.)
>More generally, the proposal (if genuine), while brilliant in many
>ways, frankly makes me wonder what Moore was smoking at the time.
When the alternative is more generic good-guy-in-spandex-saves-day stuff,
again, I'm not sure why one would bother wondering what he's smoking.
Hell, I think this is *normal* for Moore. If he's smoked anything, it's
when he's written Violator.
>Ditto. However, I must add that the only Thomas books I've read are
>the Reflecto arc in LSH ('nuff said) and _Infinity Inc._ #1-10 (the
>some of the worst teenage dialogues I've ever read, by far), which may
>probably isn't representative of his overall work.
All-Star Squadron. Read it. 'Nuff said.
Marc
Marc Singer
<Abhiji...@transarc.com> wrote:
>
>
>jar...@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Joseph T Arendt) writes:
>
>> Superman has tended to be protrayed as very patriotic
>> to the United States.
>
>I'd be interested in seeing even one in continuity story in the last
>twenty years in which Superman has been shown as blindly patriotic.
>
>
>Absolutely incorrect. Superman in _TDKR_ was not shown as patriotic at
>all. He was doing what he did merely because he had struck some sort
>of Devil's bargain with the US govt, in which he got to save lives.
>Note that Batman taunts him as saying "Yes to anyone with a flag"
>but that never struck me as being remotely accurate.
You've just hit on a very interesting paradox, Abhijit; *Batman* is the
one who's always been more authoritarian (although he wouldn't say yes to
anyone *else* with a flag), and Superman the one who's more... for lack of
a better term... "populist." Yet Miller inverts that in TDKR.
>You have to remember this is a preliminary proposal. If Moore had
>flushed it out, I'm willing to bet he would have given logical reasons
>for every transition (far more logical than Miller did). He would
>probably have flushed out the history fully.
Absolutely. He pulled off an equally drastic transformation between the
young and old Rorshachs, while still showing how the seeds of that
transformation were always there... a fully fleshed-out story would've
offered more, I think. What it *really* needed was a big reason why *all*
the heroes were so drastically changed...
Marc
JRA...@utcvm.utc.edu
I caught were very unlikely typos, but very reasonable things to show up
in written text scanned by a good OCR program and then subjected to a
spellchecker. Zatara/Zatanna, the fact that "rt" shows up as "n" several
times (sort as "son", part as "pan"). Possibly a disctracted transcriber,
I suppose, though.
I absence of any reports of Mr. Moore denying having written this, I'm
inclined to think this is genuine. It's the odd details that convince me:
the "Uncle Sam" character being so similar to the Eagle in "Brought to
Light"; the similar use of Congorilla here and in Swamp Thing Annual #3
(Which, despite being credited to Vietch, I'm told was mostly plotted by
Moore), and the characterization of Constantine, which is very close to
the way Vietch wrote Constantine back when he was mostly going by
Alan Moore's songbook. (The later, Delano J.C. wouldn't have even known
about Millenium, let alone tried to recruit Swampie into a starring role...)
Ken Arromdee
Joseph T Arendt <jar...@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu> wrote:
> Superman has tended to be protrayed as very patriotic
>to the United States. This was shown so brilliantly in
>Miller's _The Dark Knight Returns_. How would Superman ever get
>to the point of having a fiefdom? I
>just can't picture Superman-present getting to that
>type of Superman-future. Even if the U.S. got broken up into a bunch
>of smaller countries, I still can't picture Superman giving up
>on the principles of the U.S. such as democracy, voting, the
>Constitution, etc. Superman wants to marry off his kid for
>political gain like some medieval prince? What the hell? This has
>to be a pod-person.
Considering how left-wing Alan Moore's politics seems to be, he probably
doesn't associate the USA with democracy, voting, the Constitution, etc.
anyway. ("God exists and he's American" would not likely be thought up by
someone who associates America with rights and freedom.) It's not clear Alan
Moore _can_ imagine someone who is both a patriotic American and good.
--
Ken Arromdee (email: arro...@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu)
Romana: "But he had such an honest face!"
Doctor: "Romana! You can't be a successful thief with a _dis_honest face!"
Joseph T Arendt
On Date: 25 Jun 1995 00:57:26 GMT
I wrote:
> For example, I really loved Earth-2, even if I'm not overly
>impressed with Roy Thomas's writing skills.
That generated the responses...
In article <3siopd$o...@cville-srv.wam.umd.edu>,
I just picked up the four-issue "America vs. the Justice
Society" written by Roy Thomas. This was from a few years
back. I guess I don't need to say SPOILERS for something about
ten years old. :-)
I love Earth-2 and the Justice Society of America, but
I didn't like this.
In the introduction, Roy Thomas describes how he always
wanted to write a history of the Justice Society. That is
basically what this is. A history. The story is just an
excuse to tell that history, which is a pity because the
story itself could have been very good if not bloated with
irrelvancies.
Off on Earth-2, Batman is old, dead, and buried. He was
murdered, but that is solved and the murderer caught prior to
this series. Dr. Fate did something or other so that the general
public knows that Bruce Wayne is dead and Batman is dead without
making the connection that Bruce is Batman. That is prior to
this story too.
Where this story starts is the discovery of Batman's diary. This
diary claims that the Justice Society of America didn't do a whole
heck of a lot to end WWII because they were dupes for Hitler.
Good premise, I think. James Robinson used a similar train
of thought in _The Golden Age_ to show how the real heroes of WWII
were the everyday soldiers and not the superheroes.
Roy Thomas then uses facts from a mix of old and newer revisionist
Earth-2 stories in the diary which are reinterpeted or misinterpeted
to support the premise of the Justice Society of America being Hitler's
stooges.
That is the set-up. Adult Robin is there, as is Bruce Wayne and
Selina Kyle's biological daughter Helena who has taken on the costumed
identity of Huntress. Hey, even when corny, I liked this Earth-2 stuff.
It had such a sense of time and history to it. ;-)
A congressional trial is held. Here is where the story breaks
down. Roy Thomas, who seems to be the caretaker of Earth-2, recounts
the entire history of the JSA, whether relevant to the investigation
or not.
Some of this history includes very silly stories.
Recounted is the defeat of the crystal space aliens, the
JSA joining a circus, the JSA stopping a reincarnated Napoleon and
Atilla the Hun, and a whole lot of forgettable, weird stuff.
It really is the history of the JSA and Roy Thomas has lots of
little boxes explaining where you can find it. The boxes say
things like "* As seen in All-Star Comic #5, 1940." Or something
like that.
I'm left with a confused sense of puzzlement as what possible
relevance this has to finding out if the JSA acted on behalf of
the Nazis. Roy Thomas is continuity-obsessed, to the point
of ignoring the story.
So, that is my most recent experience with Roy Thomas's writing,
even if the story itself is hardly current. This is what I based
my comment on.
Roy also did the All-Star Squadron. This ran for several
years. I find it easy to find in the cheap back issue bins, so
have many issues. In it, the time period is always 1942. Year
after year of real time, the period stays 1942. I guess Roy liked that
year. :-)
Unfortunately for me, I didn't tend to like the heroes that
Roy had make up the core of the All-Star Squadron. Johnny Quick
is there most of the time. I don't like Johnny Quick. I like
the Golden Age Flash, Jay Garrick, much better. They both run
really fast, so I don't know why I like Jay better, but I do. :-)
Hawkman, who I like, was in some of the early issues, but then
he vanishes. Grumph. Green Lantern has a issue devoted to him
where he is under the delusion he ended the war with his power
ring, but then Green Lantern vanishes. Wonder Woman shows up
a few times, complete with Steve Trevor who she loves so much
it's sickening, but that's what the Golden Age WW stories were
like. :-) Wonder Woman vanishes and is gone for most of the stories.
I got annoyed. Roy Thomas has many these great characters
hanging out on Earth-2, but rarely uses them. Maybe this was
under orders from DC management to not confuse new readers by
including heroes who have versions active on Earth-1 like Superman, Batman,
Wonder Woman, Hawkman, and Flash. I don't really know.
I found it annoying knowing that these heroes were around someplace,
but I was stuck reading a story about Robotman, Johnny Quick,
Liberty Belle, and Sir Justin the Knight.
It's not that the characters Roy Thomas did regularly use are
terrible. They're not. They just aren't who I would have preferred to read
about on a continuing monthly basis.
There is my take on Roy Thomas.
Joe
Marc Singer
Ken Arromdee <arro...@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu> wrote:
>
>Considering how left-wing Alan Moore's politics seems to be, he probably
>doesn't associate the USA with democracy, voting, the Constitution, etc.
>anyway. ("God exists and he's American" would not likely be thought up by
>someone who associates America with rights and freedom.) It's not clear Alan
>Moore _can_ imagine someone who is both a patriotic American and good.
Of course he can, your attempts to generalize your feelings into truth aside.
Hollis Mason is patriotic, good, and American. So is Chester Williams,
actually. They may not be the flag-waving Ed Blake or Nelson Gardner types,
but they're still patriotic in their own, unambiguous ways. Bernie the
newsvendor *is* more of a flag-waving kind, but still shown to be a good
person in the end. Britain also has its good patriots: Eric Finch, perhaps
Eve and (depending on how you define "good") perhaps even V. Probably
Dominic, too.
The "evil patriot" (Blake, Sunderland, all the British fascists, etc.) may
be far more predominant in his work, but that doesn't mean that good patriots
aren't to be found.
Marc
Abhiji...@transarc.com
yl...@simile.cc.columbia.edu (Yeechang Lee) writes:
> work on IRC a while back; he pointed out some of the more
> paranoid/(perhaps) anti-US satirical aspects of _1963_, which got me
> thinking about this a bit more.
1963 is parodying the very crude anti Communism of the early Marvel
comics. If anything, 1963 is less anti Communist than early Hulk or
Iron Man. I don't really see anything anti-US about it.
Abhijit
Abhiji...@transarc.com
arro...@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu (Ken Arromdee) writes:
> Considering how left-wing Alan Moore's politics seems to be, he probably
> doesn't associate the USA with democracy, voting, the Constitution,
Well yes, in the sense that he seems to think that they've all been
subverted by the Govt. There's an odd similarity between his "logic"
and that of some of the right wing militias.
> anyway. ("God exists and he's American" would not likely be thought up by
> someone who associates America with rights and freedom.)
No, it would be thought up by someone who has a strong understanding
of godhood, power, politics and the like.
> It's not clear Alan
> Moore _can_ imagine someone who is both a patriotic American and good.
It's not clear to me that Moore imagines that anyone can be totally
"good". Well, except Superman :-). Most of his characters are heavily
morally ambiguous. Moore is far more interested in giving us a
character whose personality and motivations we can understand than a
character who is "good". Even Moore's psychopaths are fully fleshed out
(Sir Gull in From Hell, the Joker in Killing Joke, Rorshcach in
Watchmen).
In V for Vendetta I'd say that V himself was patriotic, as was the
honest police Inspector. True, it was set in the UK, but Moore holds
the UK government in as much disdain as the US govt.
The real question for me is: Do Moore's paranoia and politics influence
his writing negatively ? With the exception of _Brought_to_Light_,
which was a political tract, the answer is No. Moore is too good and
too strong a writer to allow his writing to become crude attacks. Most
of his stories work on a number of levels and politics is only one part
of the complex tapestry he weaves.
In fact, his paranoid nature enables him to write stupendously complex
conspiracy type plots "American Gothic" in Swamp Thing, Watchmen, the
Royal Conspiracy in From Hell. Even _Big Numbers_ plays with patterns,
mathematical patterns. One doesn't have to accept what he says: one
just has to observe and enjoy his intricate plots. Much of his serious
work is intended to make you think: about politics and the human
condition, about the nature of power, about godhood, about utopias and
dystopias. And that's far more important to me than any political views
he might have.
Abhijit
OWEN JONATHAN ERASMUS
Yeechang Lee <yl...@simile.cc.columbia.edu> wrote:
> <Abhiji...@transarc.com> says:
>|Moore is clearly somewhat paranoid. You can see it even in his
>|comics, which often deal with elaborate plots and conspiracy
>|theories. He's very distrustful of governments in general and very
>|pessimistic.
>fellow rac.* and lsh-l'er and I discussed the left-wing aspect of his
>paranoid/(perhaps) anti-US satirical aspects of _1963_, which got me
>thinking about this a bit more.
>
Well heres said lsh-l'er throwing in his two cents. Moore is/was fairly
politically active, during his fifteen minutes in the mid eighties.
(He got a fair bit of mainstream coverage over here) he mentioned
various anti nuclear and feminist causes fairly prominently.
I dont think that his views are that extreme, with all due respect
to any Americans reading a lot of US policy be it democrat or republican
is viewed as rather right wing over here and I guess Alan is just seen
as being extreme due to cultural differences. The anti-nuclear thing came
out of living near a US air base as far as I can remember. I haven't read
his intro to V as David Lloyd wrote the british introduction but I cant
see it being that different, V was after all inspired by fears for
Britains future under Thatcher and those fears were shared by a large
proportion of the British population. David Lloyd and Jamie Delano are
other comics pros with similar stated views but I would consider Moores
views to be pretty much the same as many brits working in the arts.
A conspiracy theorist yes, and definitely left of center by British standards
but not exactly extreme. The Thatcher/facist comparison that seemed to bother
Yeechang has been made repeatedly in the UK in far molre mainstream mediums
than comics.
Owen
Ken Arromdee
<Abhiji...@transarc.com> wrote:
>> work on IRC a while back; he pointed out some of the more
>> paranoid/(perhaps) anti-US satirical aspects of _1963_, which got me
>> thinking about this a bit more.
>comics. If anything, 1963 is less anti Communist than early Hulk or
>Iron Man. I don't really see anything anti-US about it.
What about the Captain America clone at the Kennedy Assassination story?
What about the ads? Did real 1960's Marvel have ads asking you to draw
Communists, or offering Monster-Sized Commies?
Ken Arromdee
<Abhiji...@transarc.com> wrote:
>But Moore's political views (a lot of which I don't agree with) don't
>in general impair his skills as a writer. If anything, they give his
>writing an extra edge.
I would have to disagree here.
For one thing, in his last Miracleman issue, he tried to depict a utopia
with flaws. But his politics were so extreme that I had great difficulty
telling if anything in particular was supposed to be a flaw, or whether it
just looked like a flaw to everyone else, but Moore thought it was one of
the good parts.
Abhay Khosla
> In article <wjvKe=GSMV1Z...@transarc.com>,
> <Abhiji...@transarc.com> wrote:
> >> work on IRC a while back; he pointed out some of the more
> >> paranoid/(perhaps) anti-US satirical aspects of _1963_, which got me
> >> thinking about this a bit more.
Er, while its clear moore isn't a big fan of government, which is as
valid a view as any I suppose, I think you're blowing 1963 way, way out
of proportion.
> >1963 is parodying the very crude anti Communism of the early Marvel
> >comics. If anything, 1963 is less anti Communist than early Hulk or
> >Iron Man. I don't really see anything anti-US about it.
It was a joke more than a political statement(if it was a political
statement, I have this wee feeling Moore could have driven it home alot
better than having Affable Al say so...). I thought it was hilarious.
> What about the Captain America clone at the Kennedy Assassination story?
Uhm, it was funny and a good story? It was U.S.A(Ultrahuman Secret
Agent? Don't have it in front of me...) What about the anti-Communism
in it was anti-US? In it, USA fights the Red Brain who as it turns out
was Jack Ruby(Ruby means red, and Jack turned into Brain somehow through
anagrams...maybe it was John). If the original stories were anti-commie,
which they clearly were, then the parody should be too don't you think?
And if its being done by a satarist, thats the best time to poke fun at
the USA's history too(which is possible even if the topic is
pre-Clinton). I mean he never said anything like "Death to US
Imperialists." It was more jokes like having USA say "Wow, the Military
Industrial Complex sure helps all people..."
> What about the ads? Did real 1960's Marvel have ads asking you to draw
> Communists, or offering Monster-Sized Commies?
Uhm, parody. Uhm, satire. It was part of the whole Affable Al routine.
Old 60's Marvels ads did have things like Learn How to Whatever which
looking back are just bizarre and corny and hilarious. The Ads were one of
the funnest things about 1963.
Separate thought: 1963 was kind of depressing. It came out near the
explosion of all these universe like the Ultralameverse and Defiantly
Stupid and Acclaim That Shooter Earned Before We Fired Him(just joking,
don't ask me why ...sorry if you liked any of those... I rather liked
Dave Lapham's art if not the stories or characters...and Jim Robinson's
Firearm was okay and...Punx may be cool even if I never liked much from
Valiant). But 1963 beat them all. Good characters(I'd love a Hypernaut
series though His Name is ... Fury almost made me quit the series), better
stories(the USA one I particularly liked, and Horus
had more ideas in it than Marvel's had for 2 years total..), nice arts,
pin-ups separate from the story and by some of the best, and even though
it was a parody of things 30 years old, it felt fresh. I mean, how long
could it have taken Moore to write some of those series? He could take a
weekend every month off and pull out an issue of 1963...
-Abhay
akh...@umich.edu
Oh nevermind, he's busy with Badrock vs. Violator...
Arthur C. Adams
>years. I find it easy to find in the cheap back issue bins, so
>have many issues. In it, the time period is always 1942. Year
>after year of real time, the period stays 1942. I guess Roy liked that
>year. :-)
As a note: I believe Thomas had said that, roughly, one year of
time in the "real world" would equal one month of time in the
"All-Star World". Thus, it would have taken him 144 issues
to cover 1942. (The book did start in 1941, incidentally.)
--
He's Southern, he's a billionaire, and he has an army of mutated produce.
Check out the ILF WWW Page at:
http://allison.clark.net/pub/arthur/ilfhome.html
Abhiji...@transarc.com
jar...@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Joseph T Arendt) writes:
>
> Let's see. Post-Bryne, Supes acted as a U.S. gov't bodyguard
> when he followed gov't orders to escort the evil leader of Quarac back
> to the U.S. to stand trial. At least, I think Supes was acting
> for the U.S. and not the U.N.
Except that at the end of the story, Superman specifically gets angry
at the US general who asked him to perform the mission because some
details are concealed from him. He also says to the General that he
stands for more than just the US government. In fact, the story proves
exactly the opposite point: that Superman is not a lackey of the US
govt.
Abhijit
Chuck1111
>As for the storyline, most people who have read it were bothered by the
>sexual habits of the characters more than anything else in the book.
That's part of my problem with TWILIGHT. Mainly, I don't think DC's
superheros would end up naturally as gangs of neurotic madmen, sleeping
with their sisters, murdering each other. It sounds fascination, but only
at a distance. Up close, it sounds too much like what has been done to
Hal Jordan.
charles lePage
Abhay Khosla
> > Superman has tended to be protrayed as very patriotic
> >to the United States. This was shown so brilliantly in
> >Miller's _The Dark Knight Returns_. How would Superman ever get
> >to the point of having a fiefdom? I
Interesting point. But Moore was reacting largely to Alvin Toffler's
works and made clear in the premise that the disintegration of the
government was unstoppable and Superman was reacting to that to keep
America alive in some way by holding it together himself personally. The
unifying of the two houses is a way to bring all America back
under unified control.
The artist should have had American flags all over the place in that
House. I agree that Superman isn't really all that well handled(no Billy
Batson but...yikes!), his death while more dramatic than the actual Death
of Superman(hell me making toast is) just wasn't that inspiring or
worthwile. But I can see the House system. Heck, its just a cool idea
for the Ho'od Win.
> >of smaller countries, I still can't picture Superman giving up
> >on the principles of the U.S. such as democracy, voting, the
> >Constitution, etc. Superman wants to marry off his kid for
Well, it wasn't clear if Superman was a dictator or how the Houses
operated. It did feel rather like a monarchy but proper handling and
characterization would have clarified this and Moore is certain capable
of that...
> Considering how left-wing Alan Moore's politics seems to be, he probably
> doesn't associate the USA with democracy, voting, the Constitution, etc.
Left-wing doesn't = believing in USA?
And its possible to see the government at times during its history not
working towards democracy or voting as possible as it is to see the
government working towards it. The US has an involved and fascinating
history that way.
> anyway. ("God exists and he's American" would not likely be thought up by
> someone who associates America with rights and freedom.) It's not clear Alan
"Separate but Equal" wouldn't either, but it was policy. Moore doesn't
kiss the flag but there is a respect for... people and for ideals in his
work. HIs actual thoughts on government though are those of someone who
sees a downside to it as being particularly great. Ideals of a country
and actions of a government aren't always equal. V for Vendetta's chief,
the guy with the computer(its been a few years...) believed in the ideal
of his country but his country was tremendously facist and Moore
portrayed him as being terrifcally human.
God exists and he's American is actually pretty bitingly funny. It taps
into that blind patriotism that they teach kids in school. It taps into
that whole cold-war hate the Russian ethic. Its kind of blasphemous and
kind of like a high school pep rally at the same time. I kind of like it.
> Moore _can_ imagine someone who is both a patriotic American and good.
Sure he can, he's a writer. Its his job to.
-Abhay
akh...@umich.edu
Abhay Khosla
If you haven't read it yet, go read it first. I don't want people
complaining to me that I spoiled it for them. Its a cooler read than
anything I have to say, so go read it.
On looking over this proposal again, because it really is some resonant
stuff, it seems like Moore wasn't really wanting to do Ragnarok as much
as a more complicated Illiad.
Constantine = Ulysses for instance. The marriage of Superboy(who made me
think alot of the current Superboy..) and Mary Marvel Jr.(Mary Jr? No
wonder she left Earth...) = the earlier marriage. Billy Batson= those
passages with the horses.(Man, did Moore actually htink he'd get away
with that in a company wide crossover? And come on..honestly..how many
people on RAC would be calling for Moore's death at that...). Martian
Manhunter(Mean Manhunter?) = the Horse.
While serving as an "End to Superheros", thinking of it in terms of the
Illiad makes more sense to me. Yeah, Superman's death is going to be
entirely pointless(though god, I wish we'd seen that rather than
Doomsday), but so was ... Hector(?)'s death since we liked Hector
so much.(Paris's brother...god its been a while...). Or at least I did.
And there was plenty of moral ambiguity in the Illiad as with
Twilight(what with Agammemnon and ... Acchiles? fighting over the
slave-woman...). John Constantine at the end staring out over utopia
post-no-superhero is the rise of Greece.
Twilight the proposal still has lots of problems that would have been
resolved in the writing. The sexual stuff, yes, should have been very
much toned down(Come on, wouldn't C.C.Batson still have been alive around
when Moore wanted to do this?). This SHOULDN'T have been a company-wide
crossover(if I were 8 and I saw that Billy Batson scene...I would have
been scarred for life...I'd never have gone to prostit- er <G>) It would
have been a good read, certainly if Moore could have resolved many of the
problems(and if Alan Moore did it. Not many other people could pull this
series off).
Anyone think he could have pulled this off in 12 issues? Between wanting
to focus on the bar and the non-House characters to establish what all
the Houses were like to properly give enough time to all the new
characters like the various "princes" to giving the right amount of time
to Superman and the big characters that he uses to the time needed to
make a decent enough impact with Batman and the Shadow and that sect,
this was one busy, busy proposal. I wish we could have seen something
like it. I wish Alan Moore didn't think that period of his career was a
mistake. I wish somebody new would come along and try to do it again and
have some talent this time(and maybe not be from Britain).
Until then, how was Spawn:Blood Feud #1? Good...<Sob>...writing?
-Abhay
akh...@umich.edu
WinningerR
utopia
with flaws. But his politics were so extreme that I had great difficulty
telling if anything in particular was supposed to be a flaw, or whether it
just looked like a flaw to everyone else, but Moore thought it was one of
the good parts.<<<
I have to agree with the gentleman who posted from the UK. Moore's views
never struck me as "extreme." What specific ideas do you see as "extreme?"
WinningerR
Communists, or offering Monster-Sized Commies?<<<
No, obviously not. 1963 was a parody.
The real comics had lots of ads that glorified the military establishment
(the target of this particular piece of parody). Remember 500 Soldiers in
a Box! and Missile Command Playset!?
Abhiji...@transarc.com
arro...@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu (Ken Arromdee) writes:
>
> For one thing, in his last Miracleman issue, he tried to depict a utopia
> with flaws. But his politics were so extreme that I had great difficulty
> telling if anything in particular was supposed to be a flaw, or whether it
> just looked like a flaw to everyone else, but Moore thought it was one of
> the good parts.
I think thats part of the way you're supposed to react to the issue,
since "Utopia" means different things to different people. There are
clearly aspects of Moore's Utopia such as the near complete abolition of
money at the beginning that strike me as being somewhat socialistic
(although for the large majority of the World's population, it would
doubtless be an improvement).
What Moore sees as the flaws in his Utopia are the essential loss of
what makes us human. That's why the scenes with Mrs Moran and the final
page with Miracleman are so brilliant and unsettling. This is a Utopia
yes, but would you really want to stay here ?
Abhijit
Abhiji...@transarc.com
oj...@aber.ac.uk (OWEN JONATHAN ERASMUS) writes:
> I dont think that his views are that extreme, with all due respect
> to any Americans reading a lot of US policy be it democrat or republican
> is viewed as rather right wing over here and I guess Alan is just seen
> as being extreme due to cultural differences.
Being non American myself, and having spent some time (although not a
whole lot) in the UK, I agree with this statement. I don't consider
Moore extreme either.
> see it being that different, V was after all inspired by fears for
> Britains future under Thatcher and those fears were shared by a large
> proportion of the British population.
Not large enough to prevent her from winning several times :-). In any
case, in the beginning of V, Moore more or less says that he believes
the future of V is coming to pass, and he thinks minorities will be
legislated against, and the riot police bear a resemblance to the
police in V. Strikes me as paranoid.
One of the things that bugs me a little about Moore's work is that he
is hardly ever critical of left wing organizations or governments. He
doesn't praise them either, he just seems to ignore them. Example: In
Watchmen, he hardly ever comments on the politics and internal affairs
of the Soviet Union. Also, I remember his criticizing right wing
attempts to censor comics and books in the USA, but he's singularly
silent about left wing attempts to do the same. If he is indeed the
believer in liberty, social justice and human ideals that his books
seem to make him out to be, then he should be equally criticial of all
threats to freedom.
Abhijit
Aaron Michael Severson
I would tend to disagree here. I've seen more than one interview with
Moore (one was in COMICS SCENE #7 or #8, a couple years back) about "left-wing"
censorship. He comments that he does think that stuff like the FIRST BLOOD
movies say something distressing about the state of our society, and wonders
what kind of message it sends to young children, but he affirms that he
has no right to censor work like that than others have a right to squelch
the birth scene in MIRACLEMAN. I agree with your point, but I think you
and I have read different interviews.
I agree with Frank Miller that the theme emerging from Moore's work is not
so much socialism or leftist politics versus facism, but a profound
distrust of demagoguery (see Chris Sharrett's interview with Miller in
THE MANY LIVES OF THE BATMAN). No, WATCHMEN doesn't say anything about the
Soviet Union other than the observation in the text section of "Watchmaker"
that based on the Soviet experience of World War 2, the assumption of
the U.S. that the existence of Dr. Manhattan will be enough to deter
the Soviets from aggression or the use of nuclear weapons is foolhardy.
I don't see that Moore has any agenda of Soviet superiority to push here,
and the Soviet Union barely appears in the story except as a perceptible
but unseen threat.
Bill Henley
I came in late on this thread but I can't resist commenting.
I admire Alan Moore's writing (some of it, anyway) but not
particularly his politics. I lost interest in MIRACLEMAN
shortly before Moore left the book, but I do recall a scene
from one of his later issues, where Miracleman is in the process
of taking over Britain to create his utopia. As he tells the
British government how things are henceforth to be run, Margaret
Thatcher, the supposedly "fascist" British Prime Minister,
tries to speak up to object and defend her free-market policies.
Miracleman silences her with a silent, meaningful glare,
reminding her that she no longer has any power because he has
the super power to do whatever he wants.
So we have Moore's "villain" -- a real political leader who
pursued policies objectionable to many, but who won three
free elections and never tried to eliminate her opposition by
force-- vs. Moore's "hero," who claims the right to disregard
the result of a popular vote and to ignore attempts at
rational argument, because he has the raw power to impose his
will by force.
So just *who* is really the Fascist, here?
Or was Moore satirizing/criticizing his own "utopian" views,
here? I hope that's the explanation for this otherwise
very objectionable bit of business.
--
"The Psi-Corps is your friend. Trust the Corps."
******** Bill Henley (aa396), Assistant Sysop, Cleveland Free-Net
Science Fiction & Fantasy SIG. All opinions solely my own; don't
blame the SIG. What do you mean, I'm part of the conspiracy??
Johanna Draper
>> to the United States.
>
>twenty years in which Superman has been shown as blindly patriotic.
Isn't there a difference between "very" and "blindly" patriotic? I think
you're reading connotations into Joseph's statement that he might not have
intended.
>>This was shown so brilliantly in Miller's _The Dark Knight Returns_.
>
>Absolutely incorrect. Superman in _TDKR_ was not shown as patriotic at
>all. He was doing what he did merely because he had struck some sort
>of Devil's bargain with the US govt, in which he got to save lives.
This isn't the way I read the story ... I definitely saw Superman as
wrapping himself in the flag.
>Superman is not just of the US. He is (and pre-Crisis was even more so)
>a citizen of the world. He was a citizen of every country pre-Crisis.
That would account for why he spent more time saving Lois's life than
solving disasters in third-world countries, right? :)
Superman, due to the location of his creators, has always been an American
hero, regardless of what the comics say. He reflects the US mythology.
Johanna
thad a doria
that Moore was slated to do the cross-over to follow Crisis
on Infinite Earths, with the tentative title Crisis of the
Soul. His proposal was indeed turned down because the powers
that be were uncomfortable with certain sexual aspects of the
story. Dan Jurgens also had a proposal about this time for a
cross-over called Crisis on Captive Earth, but it was not
used either. Legends and Milennium got the nod instead.
[Source: Amazing Heroes Preview Specials 1986-1987]
Better hit the web and read the story myself...
Thad Doria
Defending the indefensible since 1994
Bill Hay
> Let's see. Post-Bryne, Supes acted as a U.S. gov't bodyguard
> when he followed gov't orders to escort the evil leader of Quarac back
> to the U.S. to stand trial. At least, I think Supes was acting
> for the U.S. and not the U.N.
I don't think that was orders just a request. And the Martian Manhunter who
is not american and is probably a communist (at least vis-a-vis martians)
has been known to work for the US government.
> Also post-Bryne, Supes didn't exactly get U.N. approval when he
> lost his temper and trashed the Qurac military either. It was more a sense
> of you take on my city/country, then I trash yours. The cover had Supes
> holding a tank over his head.
His city not necessarily his country. He sees himself as mainly a protector
of metropolis. He doesn't have to be patriotic to want to protect his
friends and neighbours.
--
America - the only country in history to have gone from barbarism to decadence without the
usual intervening stage of civilization.
Bill Hay
Elmo Forever
> Firstly, while there are a couple of things that bother me, its
> very hard for me to believe that the Twilight proposal was not written
> by Moore.
Just skimming, there are at least two misuses of language that leap out at
me: a use of "editions" for "additions" and a reference to CMJr being under
the shadow of a "senior protege" (which is a ancestor/descendant sort of
error).
Not having seen the Watchmen proposal, I don't know how Alan Moore puts
his notes together, but the listmaking--e.g. the "Houses of..." section--
strikes me as more fannish than professional.
Let me rush to say that these are first, shallow impressions. Until
I can get back on my main computer, I'm not going to be able to look
at the entire doc with any sort of thoroughness.
--
"All men are stupid. All women are crazy."
--Matt Groening
elmo (mor...@physics.rice.edu,mor...@fnal.fnal.gov)
[ YES ] rec.arts.comics.xbooks
[ YES ] rec.arts.comics.dc.lsh
[ NO ] rec.arts.comics.dc.vertigo
Glass
<Abhiji...@transarc.com> wrote:
>
>A few points.
[...]
>There are two things that bug me a little. At one point, Moore refers
>to Zatara as being alive. But Zatara is dead: something Moore should
>know, since he killed him off in Swamp Thing #50. Secondly, Moore shows
>an amazing prescience in commenting on x-overs and big events. This
>could be an indication that its a fake or that Moore is a brilliant
>visionary (which we all know anyway).
I took the "Zatara" reference as a scanning error for "Zatanna," much as
the scanner took references to Cyborg's mechanical parts as his
"cybernetic pans." I can't see Moore as wanting to bring Zatara back from
the dead for a super-crossover cameo, either -- the scene in #50 was too
good to tamper with.
[...]
>Incidentally, it seems to me that both Superman and Batman come off as
>fairly heroic in the book. Maybe this is the old fanboy in Moore
>showing himself: he can't really bear to show characters he's fond of
>from his own childhood in a very unflattering light. Wonder Woman is
>another matter. Clearly Moore is not particularly interested in writing
>her, so he relegates her to a relatively minor role as Superwoman.
>Moore's comments about Batman as being an immortal mythical character
>are again very much on. And Constantine is portrayed brilliantly.
I -almost- agree completely here. Moore always wrote Superman with a
reverential awe that always felt a bit strange to me coming from him. I
can't think of a single panel of his involving Superman or the associated
mythos (especially Luthor in Swamp Thing) that treated the material with
anything but a very poignant, almost elegiac respect.
Likewise, while I could see traces of the Miller Batman in the proposal,
the portrayal here brought tears to my eyes and made me decide to forward
the file to a friend who has always loved Batman best.
Wonder Woman, on the other hand... Moore does seem a bit fixated on the
idea of Wonder Woman as the ideal natural mate for Superman. Maybe we
would have seen more of her in the finished work (at very least, Moore
would probably have finally had the chance to explore the idea of Diana
and Kal to his heart's desire), but I guess we'll never know.
[...]
>I doubt this would ever have been made as a mega crossover because of
>all the adult themes in the main storyline. On the other hand, it might
>have made a great Elseworld type series.
It also would have been extraordinarily hard to follow an Alan Moore
Extravaganza in the main monthly line, regardless of whether it's all
"just an imaginary story" or not. A2001 was largely forgettable due to
its uneven quality, but something like this may have eventually prejudiced
things too much.
fredrick b. chary
Well, thanks to Todd Allen I actually got a gander at the sucker. This
definitely feels like Moore. Elmo has pointed out the obvious writing
errors, but nonetheless I think it's his. My immediate reactions
after some thought. :):)
spoilers ho :)
Glenn tells me this is an Elseworlds, I can deal with that. In continuity,
it would bug the daylights out of me.
Dev Em and Wildfire would kick the fire out of all of them :)
I knew that it was J'onn in disguise immediately on reading the match
sequence.
Now, a naked grab for the most tasteless comment Squiddy: If Mary Marvel
were my sister, I'd be all for incest too :):)
I *hated* the Plastic Man and Doll Man stuff.
Moore's been doing too much Miracle Man, 'cuz Billy ages.
This is the real Constantine, dammit :)
The Spectre has proven that he'd take out *all* the others, so why isn't
the magic house the most powerful.
I *LOVE* the Batman, Doc Savage, Shadow, Tarzan cabal. I am a big Doc fan
and I always thought he'd be great buddies with Bruce :)
I do wonder why deutero-Moore (just a little OT humor :)) considers Bats
more of an icon than Superman, or maybe I am reading too much into his
remark :)
Mike, using Fred's account
Marc Singer
Bill Henley <aa...@cleveland.Freenet.Edu> wrote:
>
>Thatcher, the supposedly "fascist" British Prime Minister,
>tries to speak up to object and defend her free-market policies.
>Miracleman silences her with a silent, meaningful glare,
>reminding her that she no longer has any power because he has
>the super power to do whatever he wants.
>
>So we have Moore's "villain" -- a real political leader who
>pursued policies objectionable to many, but who won three
>free elections and never tried to eliminate her opposition by
>force-- vs. Moore's "hero," who claims the right to disregard
>the result of a popular vote and to ignore attempts at
>rational argument, because he has the raw power to impose his
>will by force.
>
>So just *who* is really the Fascist, here?
>
>Or was Moore satirizing/criticizing his own "utopian" views,
>here? I hope that's the explanation for this otherwise
>very objectionable bit of business.
First of all, Moore does end up examining the very ideas you brought up.
No matter how utopian the society is, how much of a Utopia can it be if
it's run by MM imposing his will?
Secondly, you stack the deck in the above paragraphs just as much as Moore
does in the opposite direction. I think the situation was a bit more
complex than represented above, esp. in light of Bates' destruction, and
besides Moore *did* consider the points you bring up.
Thirdly, Moore considers this point in his other works as well. The first
V lets himself get killed because he knows he's too much of a thug to build
a better government than the one he tore down. Watchmen especially considers
your point and the morality of it; Veidt makes a utopia of sorts, but at
a terrible cost. And the rightness of his actions is the major moral
dilemma of the series (in all its various permutations -- how far can you
go to make things right?), one which is left unresolved. I think Moore is
a bit too intelligent to just assume that any left-wing rule is good, esp.
when it rules by murder or dictatorship.
Marc
Francis Hwang
> oj...@aber.ac.uk (OWEN JONATHAN ERASMUS) writes:
> > I dont think that his views are that extreme, with all due respect
> > to any Americans reading a lot of US policy be it democrat or republican
> > is viewed as rather right wing over here and I guess Alan is just seen
> > as being extreme due to cultural differences.
>
> Being non American myself, and having spent some time (although not a
> whole lot) in the UK, I agree with this statement. I don't consider
> Moore extreme either.
Hey, I'm an American, and from what I can see of Moore's views, they
seem to be completely sensible.
> One of the things that bugs me a little about Moore's work is that he
> is hardly ever critical of left wing organizations or governments. He
> doesn't praise them either, he just seems to ignore them. Example: In
> Watchmen, he hardly ever comments on the politics and internal affairs
> of the Soviet Union.
It's not as if political struggles have only two sides. Moore doesn't
cover all of the right wing - not all of it suits his purposes.
Accordingly, I don't see why he really has to deal with some of the left
wing, either. If he had to deal with all gamuts of all political issues,
his stories would be huge.
I don't think his interests lie there. I consider both V for Vendetta
and From Hell to be primarily British concerns, which is hardly a surprise
considering that Moore is british. Watchmen is a book based in America,
because Watchmen is about the ideas behind superheroes, and superheroes
have the most resonance in American culture.
Besides, knowing what Alan Moore knows, what new light could he shed on
the Soviet Union? At the time he wrote it, the west still knew relatively
little about the inner politics there.
--
Francis Hwang
Editor, the Idolum Quarterly
Francis Hwang
> arro...@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu (Ken Arromdee) writes:
>
> > Considering how left-wing Alan Moore's politics seems to be, he probably
> > doesn't associate the USA with democracy, voting, the Constitution,
>
> Well yes, in the sense that he seems to think that they've all been
> subverted by the Govt. There's an odd similarity between his "logic"
> and that of some of the right wing militias.
You know, I agreed with almost everything else in this post but this.
You don't have to be a gun-toting white trash paramilitary fanatic to
think that anything good about the U.S. has been largely subverted. Let's
not confuse a certain breed of dissent with all dissent whatsoever.
Abhiji...@transarc.com
seve...@aludra.usc.edu (Aaron Michael Severson) writes:
> I would tend to disagree here. I've seen more than one interview with
> Moore (one was in COMICS SCENE #7 or #8, a couple years back) about
>"left-wing" censorship. He comments that he does think that stuff
>like the FIRST BLOOD movies say something distressing about the state
>of our society, and wonders what kind of message it sends to young
>children, but he affirms that he has no right to censor work like
>that than others have a right to squelch the birth scene in
>MIRACLEMAN.
I wasn't suggesting that Moore was advocating censorship: just that
he's a lot less eager to criticize left wing censors than he is to
criticize right wing censors.
[ in Watchmen ]
> I don't see that Moore has any agenda of Soviet superiority to push here,
I don't see that either. But, as I said, he's almost never bothered to
subject the Soviet Union to the kind of criticism and analysis that he
has subjected the United States to. I don't think he believes the
Soviet Union to be better than the United States. However, when
writing for an American audience, he does seem to want to drive home
what he perceives as American problems.
Abhijit
WinningerR
This is a DC book? Written by Alan Moore?
WinningerR
attempts to censor comics and books in the USA, but he's singularly
silent about left wing attempts to do the same.<<<
Good point about the absence of left-wing criticism in Moore's work. Even
Frank Miller tossed in plenty of material critical of the right-wing in
DARK KNIGHT RETURNS.
That said, Moore's hasn't been totally silent about left-wing attempts to
censor the arts. He discussed the subject in a little depth in his COMICS
JOURNAL interview.
WinningerR
pursued policies objectionable to many, but who won three
free elections and never tried to eliminate her opposition by
force-- vs. Moore's "hero," who claims the right to disregard
the result of a popular vote and to ignore attempts at
rational argument, because he has the raw power to impose his
will by force.<<<
While Moore obciously had no love for Maggie Thatcher, the actions of his
character were hardly presented as "heroic." In fact, Miracleman's
"utopia" was clearly intended in an ironic vein. By the end of Moore's
run, it was clear that the "utopia" was intolerable.
Johanna Draper
fredrick b. chary <ma...@po.cwru.edu> wrote:
>spoilers ho :)
>Dev Em and Wildfire would kick the fire out of all of them :)
Shouldn't the Legion have been involved with the House of Tomorrow, or
whatever it was?
>Now, a naked grab for the most tasteless comment Squiddy: If Mary Marvel
>were my sister, I'd be all for incest too :):)
But isn't Moore careful to say that Cap. Marvel isn't interested in her
sexually, that he did it only to strengthen the House? (Although, why you
couldn't have a sibling team run the house is beyond me -- maybe Moore just
can't visualize women outside of marriage.)
Johanna
Johanna Draper
>>But isn't Moore careful to say that Cap. Marvel isn't interested in her
>>sexually, that he did it only to strengthen the House?
>
Are you sure it was the Captain? After all, who's sleeping with her?
Johanna
fredrick b. chary
>fredrick b. chary <ma...@po.cwru.edu> wrote:
>>>But isn't Moore careful to say that Cap. Marvel isn't interested in her
>>>sexually, that he did it only to strengthen the House?
>>
>>They had a child. Mary Marvel, Jr.
>
>Are you sure it was the Captain? After all, who's sleeping with her?
>
This is the sentence I am going by, and it seems pretty unequivocal to me.
Did he recant elsewhere?
--begin enclosure--
has every bit as dire consequences as in the Arthurian legends. The
other member of the Marvel clan is Mary Marvel Jr., the daughter of
Captain and Mary Marvel Sr. Mary Jr. is fated to be part of a planned
Mike, using Fred's account.
Bruce Berger
>
>I came in late on this thread but I can't resist commenting.
>I admire Alan Moore's writing (some of it, anyway) but not
>particularly his politics. I lost interest in MIRACLEMAN
>shortly before Moore left the book, but I do recall a scene
>from one of his later issues, where Miracleman is in the process
>of taking over Britain to create his utopia. As he tells the
>British government how things are henceforth to be run, Margaret
>tries to speak up to object and defend her free-market policies.
>Miracleman silences her with a silent, meaningful glare,
>reminding her that she no longer has any power because he has
>the super power to do whatever he wants.
>
>pursued policies objectionable to many, but who won three
>free elections and never tried to eliminate her opposition by
>force-- vs. Moore's "hero," who claims the right to disregard
>the result of a popular vote and to ignore attempts at
>rational argument, because he has the raw power to impose his
>will by force.
>
Exactly. I think you've nicely stated exactly the point Moore
was trying to make.
>Or was Moore satirizing/criticizing his own "utopian" views,
>here? I hope that's the explanation for this otherwise
>very objectionable bit of business.
Short of stating on page #1 that this was a critique of utopianism,
I don't see how Moore could have made it any more obvious that
this was the case. Moore (and later Gaiman) very carefully
colored in both the benefits and the problems.
This is also interesting relative to the convertions of superhero
comics. The title character is traditionally the good guy, and the
tough decisions he makes are portrayed as the correct ones. If
poor decisions are made, the protagonist later regrets them. Moore
deliberately does the opposite - the title character makes a
questionable decision, but nothing overt in the comic tells you
that it is such.
Bruce Berger b...@lns598.lns.cornell.edu
Name that tune (by email):
"In a jungle of the senses
Tinkerbell and Jack the Ripper"
Ken Arromdee
WinningerR <winni...@aol.com> wrote:
>While Moore obciously had no love for Maggie Thatcher, the actions of his
>character were hardly presented as "heroic."
This was one of the things I was referring to, about Moore being so left-
wing that I couldn't tell what was supposed to be genuinely good about the
"utopia" and what was supposed to be a flaw. Sure, to _me_, it's obviously
a bad idea to overthrow an elected leader, even a right-wing one. But does
Moore think that's bad, or good? There are, after all, extremists who'd find
the whole thing a fine idea. I've read plenty of fiction where I had to
swallow lots of ideas I find personally distasteful for the sake of the story,
including a good deal of Moore's other work. Is this another one?
--
Ken Arromdee (email: arro...@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu)
Romana: "But he had such an honest face!"
Doctor: "Romana! You can't be a successful thief with a _dis_honest face!"
Abhiji...@transarc.com
hwan...@maroon.tc.umn.edu (Francis Hwang) writes:
> > One of the things that bugs me a little about Moore's work is that he
> > is hardly ever critical of left wing organizations or governments. He
> > doesn't praise them either, he just seems to ignore them. Example: In
> > Watchmen, he hardly ever comments on the politics and internal affairs
> > of the Soviet Union.
>
> It's not as if political struggles have only two sides. Moore doesn't
> cover all of the right wing - not all of it suits his purposes.
> Accordingly, I don't see why he really has to deal with some of the left
> wing, either. If he had to deal with all gamuts of all political issues,
His stories are huge, already. And he deals with politics, liberty and
the human condition a lot (especially in his earlier works).
> Besides, knowing what Alan Moore knows, what new light could he shed on
> the Soviet Union? At the time he wrote it, the west still knew relatively
> little about the inner politics there.
How much of a new light could he shed on the Ripper ? A lot,
apparently. Certainly someone with his writing genius could produce
an interesting story on the Soviet Union.
[ There is actually one story in which he does deal with the Soviet Union
in passing: that's _A_Small_Killing_, which briefly mentions an ad
exec's attempts to bring a Cola to the post-glasnost Soviets. ]
My point isn't so much to criticize Moore's politics as to point out
that his general unwillingness to dissect the weaknessess of left wing
regimes is a writing flaw.
Abhijit
John Benn
Ken Arromdee <arro...@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu> wrote:
>In article <8jvAss6SM...@transarc.com>,
> <Abhiji...@transarc.com> wrote:
>>But Moore's political views (a lot of which I don't agree with) don't
>>in general impair his skills as a writer. If anything, they give his
>>writing an extra edge.
>
>I would have to disagree here.
Same here.
>For one thing, in his last Miracleman issue, he tried to depict a utopia
>with flaws. But his politics were so extreme that I had great difficulty
>telling if anything in particular was supposed to be a flaw, or whether it
>just looked like a flaw to everyone else, but Moore thought it was one of
>the good parts.
Agreed. Moore's a great writer, but I felt that the whole
Miracleman gets rid of money and distributes wealth to the needy
etc..thing was not very well thought out. Where does this wealth come
from? What are the effects of completely destroying the financial
sector?...etc... I was disappointed. When I was 18 or so (when I
first read it) I was instilled with revolutionary fervor and cheering
for joy, but now that I'm older and hopefully wiser (after having
recently reread the series) I thought that it was a little juvenile.
Gaiman clears up some of these problems by showing that at least some
people aren't impressed by the "new world order" and that substantial
technological improvements were necessary to give the world an easy
lifestyle etc... It still, to this day, needs work though.
--
**** The Shadows were old when even the Ancients ****
**** were young. ---Delenn, Babylon-5 ****
Michael S. Schiffer
Bruce Berger <b...@lns598.lns.cornell.edu> wrote:
>Short of stating on page #1 that this was a critique of utopianism,
>I don't see how Moore could have made it any more obvious that
>this was the case. Moore (and later Gaiman) very carefully
>colored in both the benefits and the problems.
My impression was that this was Gaiman much more than Moore.
Moore created the flawed utopia, but it's not clear that he would
agree with everything I thought was a flaw. For example, he really
seemed to consider the "spacemen" (people who "explored" their inner
psyche using mind-altering drugs, as a profession/calling) a Good
Thing. (Paraphrase: "Every child wants to grow up to be one.")
Gaiman showed the more likely result ("there aren't many of them
left".) Did Moore anticipate this? I don't know-- he certainly
appears to have a more positive view of mind-altering drugs in general
than I do. (This is an impression I've gathered, but I don't have any
specific examples other than Abby's "trip" in Swamp Thing. You're
free to disbelieve me if you want.) It's certainly plausible from the
issue that Moore thought this was a good aspect of the utopia, while
others might not. (As a psych grad student I know-- Paul Estin, for
those who know him-- has said, "If drugs give you such great insights,
_write them down_, and see if they make sense later.")
Did Moore like the idea of Miracleman and Company
restructuring society? My impression from his last issue is "some
yes, some no." But I agree it isn't always easy to distinguish
between Miracleman thinking something a good thing and Moore agreeing,
and Miracleman thinking something a good thing and Moore disagreeing.
(Not to mention instances where Miracleman is ambivalent but Avril or
Winter likes the idea-- I think in most of those cases, Moore is
opposed, but it's not obvious.)
As it happens, I'm very glad that Gaiman took over when he
did, as I think that he's more hardheaded about the utopia than Moore
was likely to be (though I doubt that Gaiman's politics agree much
more with mine than Moore's do). I especially liked the fact that
Young Miracleman kicked some of Miraclewoman's smug sense of
superiority out from under her. (It wasn't the idea of Dickie being
in love with Miracleman that bothered me, BTW. Rather, it was Avril's
being so certain of it from one brief meeting that she encouraged MM
to try to seduce a teenaged(?) boy whose sensibilities were formed by
the 1940's and a comic book 1950's. MM should have at least bought
Dickie dinner first. :-) ) I definitely got the feeling that Moore
agreed with Avril about a lot of things which I thought were
questionable. Even if I misread that, Avril's playing John
Constantine to Miracleman's Swamp Thing (like JC, she's always two
steps ahead of the title character in knowledge) made it seem that she
was supposed to be the smart one, even when she decided to use an
alien power base to make herself co-dictator of the planet.
>This is also interesting relative to the convertions of superhero
>comics. The title character is traditionally the good guy, and the
>tough decisions he makes are portrayed as the correct ones. If
>poor decisions are made, the protagonist later regrets them. Moore
>deliberately does the opposite - the title character makes a
>questionable decision, but nothing overt in the comic tells you
>that it is such.
It was obvious that it was questionable, but it was also
obvious that Moore liked some things about it. (E.g. the encounter
group for world leaders-- _tell_ me you can imagine George Bush
pouring his soul out to Moammar Khadafi. :-) Or the idea that
Charles Manson could trivially be reformed. Manson was in fact
treated more positively than Bush in that issue.) If Moore had wanted
to do more with it, it might have been interesting to see what he had
done, but I liked Gaiman's take on it better. (And I hope someday the
legal nonsense is cleared up and we get to see the rest of his story.)
[Followups to rec.arts.comics.misc, since this is mostly about Miracleman.]
Mike
--
Michael S. Schiffer, LHN, FCS "I decline utterly to be impartial
ms...@tezcat.com as between the fire brigade and the fire."
ms...@midway.uchicago.edu -- Winston Churchill, July 7, 1926
<URL: http://www.tezcat.com/~mss2/>
fredrick b. chary
>
>>Dev Em and Wildfire would kick the fire out of all of them :)
>
>Shouldn't the Legion have been involved with the House of Tomorrow, or
>whatever it was?
Only some members. The ones that were sent back and trapped in the fluke.
>>Now, a naked grab for the most tasteless comment Squiddy: If Mary Marvel
>>were my sister, I'd be all for incest too :):)
>
>But isn't Moore careful to say that Cap. Marvel isn't interested in her
>sexually, that he did it only to strengthen the House? (Although, why you
>couldn't have a sibling team run the house is beyond me -- maybe Moore just
>can't visualize women outside of marriage.)
They had a child. Mary Marvel, Jr.
Mike, using Fred's account.
WinningerR
a bad idea to overthrow an elected leader, even a right-wing one. But
does
Moore think that's bad, or good?<<<
Well, in a sense, what Moore "thinks" isn't all that relevant. He's put
his words on the page; react to them as you will. If you think
Miracleman's idea of a utopia is horrifying, you've come away from the
comic with an idea and insight. If you find the utopia glorious, then
you've still come away with an insight. (Though I think Moore was pushing
you REAL HARD in the former direction).
That said, taken completely alone (ie. we don't complicate this with
issues of who will be the next to grab power), I'd venture to guess that
Moore would find the overthrow of a political leader to be a good thing.
WinningerR
Shawn Hill
: Forgive my ignorance, but what the hell is TWILIGHT?
: This is a DC book? Written by Alan Moore?
and on that note, could someone please post the www address us latecomers
can look it up? There's acres of commentary here but I don't know where
to go read the original!
thanks,
shawn Hill
Damon B. Crumpler
i'd have to say that moore might just possibly be attacking the
demons he personally dislikes.
i don't think that's a flaw in his writing-- it's what he does with these
demons that matters.
i personally feel that i have more to be afraid of right wing
theorie than left wing [to some extent] becuase at least
the left wingers pretend to be for individual rights and freedoms.
obviously, with the advent of pc and its asociated ills, this isn't entirely true, and i'm againt censorhip from either side of the fence.
also, i personally have a hard time imagining a facist
or totalitarian government that was decidedly left wing.
given that a lot of moore's work is about the evils of government,
i can ee it very easily being anti-right.
----
as for moore's liberal attitude toward psychedelics, i'd have to say
that i agree with him to an extent, but given today's
culture, such ideal use isn't really possible on a large scale.
and, as for miracle man, i'd have to say that moore was fully
aware of what mm was doing when he took over the world.
that's actually one of the biggest problems i have with superman--
the most logical outcome of a man with those abilities is world
domination, even if it is done with the best of intentions.
this is one of the reasons i can't stand reading superman comics.
--
Fuck the Communications Decency Ammendment. Fuck the Foster filibuster
(it wasn't About credibility). Fuck the budget tax cuts. Fuck the anti-flag
burning ammendment Gingrich supports. They all just show how useless the
government is, and what a lie politics is.
Michael Hornbuckle
: How did you all get your hands on the TWILIGHT proposal?
Abhiji...@transarc.com
sg94...@dunx1.ocs.drexel.edu (Johanna Draper) writes:
> <Abhiji...@transarc.com> wrote:
[ About Superman in Dark Knight]
> >all. He was doing what he did merely because he had struck some sort
> >of Devil's bargain with the US govt, in which he got to save lives.
>
> This isn't the way I read the story ... I definitely saw Superman as
> wrapping himself in the flag.
Not to my way of thinking. He never thinks anything remotely patriotic.
The only thing he seems to be concerned about is saving lives. He even
thinks that he doesn't like the situation, but he does get to save
lives. When he sees the Soviet Nuke, his thought isn't about the
geopolitics of the situation, but the thought of saving 20 million people.
> Superman, due to the location of his creators, has always been an American
> hero, regardless of what the comics say. He reflects the US mythology.
I'm not disputing that: I'm simply pointing out that Superman, like
Captain America, stands for the American Ideal. That's not necessarily
the same as standing for a specific American govt. With all due
respects to Frank Miller, Superman was never one to say "yes to a badge
or a flag". He began his career by stopping an execution and busting a
US Senator. Did he have any choice in the world of Dark Knight ? I
suspect not.
Abhijit
"This is the story of a perfect man who came from the sky and did
nothing but good" -- Alan Moore on Superman
It Is To Glenn
Glass <gl...@xmission.xmission.com> wrote:
>I took the "Zatara" reference as a scanning error for "Zatanna," much as
>the scanner took references to Cyborg's mechanical parts as his
>"cybernetic pans."
"Parts" is a scanning error, but "Zatara" is on the original (original
here meaning the xerox of a xerox of a fanzine :-). But that doesn't
mean that the fanzine didn't screw it up. I do know that somewhere
between Pat and I, a spelling checker "Americanized" a couple of
spellings (I noticed a "favour" had gone to "favor" and an "-ise" that
had gone to "-ize", and I'm sure there are probably others), and that
must've been Wim's OCR software/spelling checker I guess (which is
pretty weird, since he's in Europe :-). Since I'd read the xerox, I
hadn't noticed the errors introduced by OCR when I marked it up, but
David Goldfarb is helping me clean those up. If it was written in
1987, what's amazing to me is how many elements have been done in
various books since then, including well, Invasion, War of the Gods,
Zero Hour, and the various Infernos. That's a lot of crossovers. :-)
So the prophetic aspect makes me wonder. But the preamble is just
brilliant and sure reads like Moore, and there are so many refs that
are archetypical of his style, so I dunno. I'm almost certain I've
read him saying that bit about myths needing resolutions before, in an
old interview or something. Anyway, a friend of Eddie Campbell's told
me via e-mail that he's asked Eddie to ask Alan about it, so maybe
we'll find out.
Pax ex machina,
Glenn
................................................................
"The fact remains that by far the larger part of DC's continuity will
simply have to be scrapped and consigned to one of 0rwell's memory
holes along with a large amount of characters who, more than simply
being dead, are now unpeople."
--- Twilight
g-car...@uchicago.edu, if you must know
.................................................................
Frederic Ferro
by him, the imitation is very good) and I have a few questions
about this female Flash he mentions, Slipstream or Joannie
Quick.
Did she really appear in DC continuity ?
Is she the character created by Straczewsky in the JSA ?
Who is Barbara Randall and what did she write ?
Did someone list all the Moorean obsessions we can find in the
story ?
I've found:
1 Captain Marvel Jr/Young Miracleman staying in his adult body and
being a pervert. The character Dicky Dauntless appears in the old
Captain Britain stories he wrote for Marvel UK.
2 An Alien Invasion by teleportation (by Zeta beams and Boom Tubes),
used in Watchmen and proposed for Swamp Thing.
3 Superman's Last Stand. Used in the last issue of Pre-byrne Action
Comics. Borrowed from an old E. Hamilton story (Adventure Comics).
4 A Warning from the Future. Ditto. Inspired by numerous Silver Age
stories (cf. the Superboy/Robin cross-over in the 50's).
5 The superheroes as a danger for human freedom. Cf. Watchmen, Miracleman.
There are many, many others, I am sure, like Uncle Sam/the CIA bald Eagle
from _Brought to light_ and so on...
--
Frederic Ferro
Dane Johnson
It Is To Glenn <lf...@midway.uchicago.edu> wrote:
>In article <3snm4p$j...@xmission.xmission.com>,
>Glass <gl...@xmission.xmission.com> wrote:
>
>So the prophetic aspect makes me wonder. But the preamble is just
>brilliant and sure reads like Moore, and there are so many refs that
>are archetypical of his style, so I dunno. I'm almost certain I've
>read him saying that bit about myths needing resolutions before, in an
>old interview or something. Anyway, a friend of Eddie Campbell's told
>me via e-mail that he's asked Eddie to ask Alan about it, so maybe
>we'll find out.
>
Moore mentions the "Myth Resolution" points in his introduction to the
TPB version of Dark Knight that I've got....
Me, I think it's authentic. Even if Moore didn't do it, it's so
interesting that it's authentic anyway...
Dane
Scott Hollifield
: >Absolutely incorrect. Superman in _TDKR_ was not shown as patriotic at
: >all. He was doing what he did merely because he had struck some sort
: >of Devil's bargain with the US govt, in which he got to save lives.
: This isn't the way I read the story ... I definitely saw Superman as
: wrapping himself in the flag.
I didn't. Sure, Superman was acting strictly as an American tool, but
in his own private meditations (to which we were privy), there wasn't
an iota of patriotic thought or inclination. Superman's main motivation,
which he kept to himself, was essentially to stop Bruce, and therefore,
in his mind, prevent the country from falling any further into chaos than
it already was. I suppose one could say that he had the country's best
interests at heart, but the way they were presented was hardly "wrapping
himself in the flag".
--
"I'm sick of stories titled 'Crisis On Earths 1, 2 or 3.' I'm sick of
being on the phone with Roy all the time!" -- Jonni DC
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Scott Hollifield * sco...@cris.com * http://www.cris.com/~scotth/
M...Coale
>Johanna Draper (sg94...@dunx1.ocs.drexel.edu) wrote:
>: >Absolutely incorrect. Superman in _TDKR_ was not shown as patriotic at
>: >all. He was doing what he did merely because he had struck some sort
>: >of Devil's bargain with the US govt, in which he got to save lives.
>: This isn't the way I read the story ... I definitely saw Superman as
>: wrapping himself in the flag.
>I didn't. Sure, Superman was acting strictly as an American tool, but
>in his own private meditations (to which we were privy), there wasn't
>an iota of patriotic thought or inclination. Superman's main motivation,
>which he kept to himself, was essentially to stop Bruce, and therefore,
>in his mind, prevent the country from falling any further into chaos than
>it already was. I suppose one could say that he had the country's best
>interests at heart, but the way they were presented was hardly "wrapping
>himself in the flag".
I always saw Supes as an American tool in DK, esp. the way that Miller
did that incredible page where the flag morphs (to borrow a word that
wasnt used that way in 1986) into the 'S.' (or vice versa, Im typing
quickly during a loud t'storm and dont want to run to find my copy.)
mlc, remember writing a paper on DK for a Poli Sci class as an undergrad and
wonders if he has a copy here in Grad Land...
Francis Hwang
I don't see we should want him to discuss the Soviet Union's problems.
First, being that the cultures he knows are the U.K. and the U.S., I can't
imagine how he'd have any new light to shed on the Soviet Union. Second,
the U.S. and the Soviet Union are not alchemical opposites or anything -
just because Moore criticizes one, that places no obligation on him to
criticize the other.
Bill Hay
> In article <3so7fj$g...@newsbf02.news.aol.com>,
> WinningerR <winni...@aol.com> wrote:
> >While Moore obciously had no love for Maggie Thatcher, the actions of his
> >character were hardly presented as "heroic."
> This was one of the things I was referring to, about Moore being so left-
> wing that I couldn't tell what was supposed to be genuinely good about the
> "utopia" and what was supposed to be a flaw. Sure, to _me_, it's obviously
> a bad idea to overthrow an elected leader, even a right-wing one. But does
Well the apatheid government was elected. The only problem was who was
doing the electing. One could criticise the British system for making it
difficult for the homeless to vote and also for introducing a tax that many
of the poorest were unable to pay thereby forcing them off the electoral
register in order to survive. One could even claim that a 1st past the post
system is inherently corrupt. Now I personally don't think these flaws even
come close to invalidating an election but YMMV.
--
America - the only country in history to have gone from barbarism to decadence without the
usual intervening stage of civilization.
Bill Hay
Bruce Baugh
db...@po.CWRU.Edu (Damon B. Crumpler) wrote:
:also, i personally have a hard time imagining a facist
:or totalitarian government that was decidedly left wing.
If you sit down and tally up people killed by their own governments this
century, though, you'll find that more were killed by regimes claiming to be
socialist or otherwise progressive than by any other kind. Hitler's crimes are
significant, but he's at best the #3 butcher of this century (behind Stalin
and Mao).
On the other hand, I have no pressing problem with writers addressing the
concerns that, well, concern them. When Moore is on a roll, he's excellent.
bru...@teleport.com _____________ http://www.teleport.com/~bruceab/
List Manager, Christlib, for Christian and libertarian concerns
Preview S.M. Stirling's forthcoming novel DRAKON at my home page
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OWEN JONATHAN ERASMUS
>I wasn't suggesting that Moore was advocating censorship: just that
>he's a lot less eager to criticize left wing censors than he is to
>criticize right wing censors.
>[ in Watchmen ]
>> I don't see that Moore has any agenda of Soviet superiority to push here,
>
>I don't see that either. But, as I said, he's almost never bothered to
>subject the Soviet Union to the kind of criticism and analysis that he
>has subjected the United States to. I don't think he believes the
>Soviet Union to be better than the United States. However, when
>writing for an American audience, he does seem to want to drive home
>what he perceives as American problems.
I've always seen Moore as someone who wants his points to be heard,
while Moore criticizing the Soviet Union is likely to be more insightful
than Stan Lee doing the same its still unlikely to provoke any real thought.
By criticizing America in front of a primarily American audience he
adresses topics that the readers have opinions on and some knowledge about.
If Moore ever wrote anything for a Russian audience i'm sure he would
address faults closer to their experience.
(I'll admit that this opinion is based almost totally on Swamp Thing
Letter columns where Moore seemed to be trying to provoke intelligent
discussion of the topics raised.)
Owen
lori ann selke
Bill Henley <aa...@cleveland.Freenet.Edu> wrote:
>Or was Moore satirizing/criticizing his own "utopian" views,
>here? I hope that's the explanation for this otherwise
>very objectionable bit of business.
Well, perhaps not his own, but yes, I think he was attempting to
problematize the situation; Miracleman is quite benevolent,
we see, but he is also a despot.
The end to Moore's Miracleman story was intended, as I understand it,
to take the concept of an ultra-powerful superhero to its
ultimate conclusion. The ultimate do-gooder does his
ultimate good, reforms the world and reshapes it in his
own image...and becomes the ultimate dictator, with the
absolute power to back his decisions up.
And yet the world is so much better than it was.
Right?
And if so, was it worth it?
Lori
Michael S. Schiffer
Damon B. Crumpler <db...@po.CWRU.Edu> wrote:
>i personally feel that i have more to be afraid of right wing
>theorie than left wing [to some extent] becuase at least
>the left wingers pretend to be for individual rights and freedoms.
All I can say is: Stalin and Mao. Many left-wing philosophies
explictly deny the rights of the individual when set against the
general will (which translates to the will of whoever's in charge).
If we're not talking about authoritarians or totalitarians, then
people on the right are in favor of individual rights: the right to
own and control property, to be relatively free of government
interference, to bear arms, etc. Those to the left of center consider
some of these rights less important, and others more important, but
it's hardly as simple as left=pro-individual rights, right=anti.
>also, i personally have a hard time imagining a facist
>or totalitarian government that was decidedly left wing.
Unless you have some definition of left wing which doesn't
include Marxists, the two biggest totalitarian governments in the
world were left wing. Conversely, if it's possible to call Stalin or
Mao conservative or reactionary, I'd be interested in seeing how.
They certainly didn't want to maintain old ways (conservative), or
return to still older ways (reactionary).
>as for moore's liberal attitude toward psychedelics, i'd have to say
>that i agree with him to an extent, but given today's
>culture, such ideal use isn't really possible on a large scale.
Recreational use is one thing, and in the case of some drugs
may not be that bad. However, it strikes me as hard to believe that
taking drugs as a calling could be either productive of useful
insights or good for one's health. (Certainly no one would believe it
if the spacemen were using alcohol rather than unspecified chemicals.)
>and, as for miracle man, i'd have to say that moore was fully
>aware of what mm was doing when he took over the world.
>that's actually one of the biggest problems i have with superman--
>the most logical outcome of a man with those abilities is world
>domination, even if it is done with the best of intentions.
I don't see it. Even in Miracleman, the only reason MM was
able to take over the world was that he had technological and material
backing from the Warpsmiths and Qys. How could he, alone, have ruled
the world? He certainly couldn't have established his utopia, since
that required imported wealth. Sure, he could have smashed any given
military force, threatened world leaders, what have you-- but how
could he restructure the economy? Could he really police seven
continents divided among hundreds of states and thousands of ethnic
and cultural groups? Where would he find the _time_? He's strong,
but will he throw all currency into space? How could he gather it?
What's to stop us from using a new currency? He can fly, but so can I
or any man (with a plane). He's invulnerable, and that makes him
dangerous, but aside from a Bates-like rampage, what are the chances
he'll come to Chicago and interfere in my life? Is he going to trash
a city every time people ignore him? What can he offer people to
accept him as world despot? And why on _Earth_ would he want to be?
It would be a full-time, thankless job. Sure, some people have wanted
that job, but I see no reason to think that most do, or that Mike
Moran had megalomaniacal tendencies. MM only developed them in
response to Avril's prodding and the deal made with the aliens. Now
_Avril_ clearly wanted to rule the world, but even she couldn't do it
without the aliens to provide carrot and stick.
Superman is more powerful than the Miracle Family, but it
seems reasonable that he might have better things to do than take over
the world. He might also know enough history to see what being an
absolute dictator _does_ to people. He may even believe that people's
value depends on something more than how tough they are. (I mean,
Mike Tyson could take Mother Theresa pretty easily, but that hardly
means that Mike Tyson should run Mother Theresa's life.)
Joseph T Arendt
In article <3sq8hd$s...@warp.cris.com>,
Scott Hollifield <Sco...@cris.com> wrote:
>Joseph T Arendt (jar...@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu) wrote:
>: I just picked up the four-issue "America vs. the Justice
>: Society" written by Roy Thomas. This was from a few years
>: back. I guess I don't need to say SPOILERS for something about
>: ten years old. :-)
>
>: I love Earth-2 and the Justice Society of America, but
>: I didn't like this.
>
>: In the introduction, Roy Thomas describes how he always
>: wanted to write a history of the Justice Society. That is
>: basically what this is. A history. The story is just an
>: excuse to tell that history, which is a pity because the
>: story itself could have been very good if not bloated with
>: irrelvancies.
>
>Instead of bemoaning the fact that AvJSA was too much history, not
>enough story, why not enjoy it for what it is? i.e. a HISTORY OF
>THE JSA, like the Wolfman/Perez HISTORY OF THE DC UNIVERSE, only
>with a framing story thrown in as a bonus. I don't often reread
>AvJSA for the awesome plot twists, but I do regard it as an
>invaluable reference.
As a HISTORY OF THE JSA, it's fine. However, I bought it
for the story itself, only to discover it was, as you put it,
simply a "framing story."
That cover of #1 was great. From beyond the grave, Batman
accuses the JSA of treason. This looked like fun stuff. Much
of issue #1 was indeed fun, IMHO. After that, as a story, it
fell apart, in my opinion.
Also, issue #1 had the feel of a good mystery story. Was
this really Batman's diary? Why had Batman said such slander?
Is all of it slander?
Part of a good mystery story is having a clever, logical
resolution.
Here, the resolution was that Batman wrote the diary because
he had cancer, so was acting crazy. Mixed in was Batman's unconscious
desire to help the JSA get involved with solving a case with a
time-traveler villian. Sorry, I don't like this resolution.
Joe
Scott Hollifield
: I just picked up the four-issue "America vs. the Justice
: Society" written by Roy Thomas. This was from a few years
: back. I guess I don't need to say SPOILERS for something about
: ten years old. :-)
: I love Earth-2 and the Justice Society of America, but
: I didn't like this.
: In the introduction, Roy Thomas describes how he always
: wanted to write a history of the Justice Society. That is
: basically what this is. A history. The story is just an
: excuse to tell that history, which is a pity because the
: story itself could have been very good if not bloated with
: irrelvancies.
Instead of bemoaning the fact that AvJSA was too much history, not
enough story, why not enjoy it for what it is? i.e. a HISTORY OF
THE JSA, like the Wolfman/Perez HISTORY OF THE DC UNIVERSE, only
with a framing story thrown in as a bonus. I don't often reread
AvJSA for the awesome plot twists, but I do regard it as an
invaluable reference.
: Roy also did the All-Star Squadron. This ran for several
: years. I find it easy to find in the cheap back issue bins, so
: have many issues. In it, the time period is always 1942. Year
: after year of real time, the period stays 1942. I guess Roy liked that
: year. :-)
It wasn't that the book was "stuck" in 1942; indeed, the passage of
time in All-Star Squadron was much more realistic than in most books.
With All-Star Squadron, Roy was simply chronicling some events that
happened in 12/41-4/42. The fact that one month of comic time didn't
equal one month of story time (and in what comic *is* this true?) only
meant that more detail was available. Besides, I have a hunch that
those three- and four-part stories would have gotten bogged down if
they'd taken place over *months*. :-)
: Unfortunately for me, I didn't tend to like the heroes that
: Roy had make up the core of the All-Star Squadron...
<snip>
: I got annoyed. Roy Thomas has many these great characters
: hanging out on Earth-2, but rarely uses them.
Although I love the JSA and always have, they *had* their own
book in the '70s. Not to mention annual appearances in JLA since
the '60s. But the Golden Age wasn't all Justice Society; as All-Star
Squadron so clearly revealed, there were tons of *other* heroes which
*no* one had used. I'm glad Thomas took the effort to show us a little
of some of these other heroes (and a lot of a certain few) rather
than keep up the confining focus on the JSA. Besides, the JSA had a
number of spotlight issues in the All-Star Squadron's run; the Green
Lantern story that you blithely pass off as an anomoly had plenty of
JSA action, and there are other examples as well.
: Maybe this was
: under orders from DC management to not confuse new readers by
: including heroes who have versions active on Earth-1 like Superman, Batman,
: Wonder Woman, Hawkman, and Flash.
Hawkman was a major character, and chairman pro tem, of the Squadron
during its first few story arcs. Superman and the others all appeared
prominently on the cover of at least one or two issues; the only Golden
Age JSAer who could possibly be said to have gotten short shrift would be
Batman.
: I don't really know.
: I found it annoying knowing that these heroes were around someplace,
: but I was stuck reading a story about Robotman, Johnny Quick,
: Liberty Belle, and Sir Justin the Knight.
These were new characters as far as most readers were concerned, and
a vital part of the book's vitality. I don't think it would have lasted
as long as it did, or produced as good stories, had the book's roster
been, still after all these years, JSA-only.
--
"Now I ask you, why should a star like myself listen to nobodies like
yourselves -- nobodies who don't even have names?" -- Ambush Bug
WinningerR
people aren't impressed by the "new world order" and that substantial
technological improvements were necessary to give the world an easy
lifestyle etc... <<<
Moore's issues demonstrated this very same thing.
WinningerR
This, in a nutshell, is the essence of MIRACLEMAN. The idea that someone
with the godlike powers of Superman and dedicated to the ideal of "helping
mankind" would spend his time preventing jewelry heists is inherently
absurd.
WinningerR
Thanks much.
Charles M Seaton
Some general thoughts on this thread:
Many cartoonists have found their work influenced or improved by
LSD: Robert Crumb, Howard Cruse, and Dave Sim come to mind. The
"spaceman" thing seemed fine to me; yes, it would stretch the
boundaries of disbelief too much to imagine drunkards in that
position, but here's a newflash: alcohol isn't lsd. =)
* * *
Personally, I'd much rather live in the society ruled by the Miracle
Family than our current society. Not that I think either one is
perfect; but the Miracle one certainly seems better. Obviously,
most people disagree with me on this. =) (Then again, I also
consider George Bush a worse criminal than Manson, although to me
it's a little bit like trying to decide which is wetter, the
Atlantic or the Pacific.)
* * *
I didn't have any problem with them getting rid of money, storywise;
money is, after all, only a means of distributing resources. That a
(nearly) all-powerful dictatorship would be able to impose some
other means of distribution doesn't seem too hard to believe, even
without Moore giving us any details.
* * *
While some more critisism of leftists might have been in order
(although he did get in a shot at Earth First!), I don't think Moore
has any obligation to critisize the USSR - his comics aren't =read=
much in the USSR. And in a way, the entire ending =was= a critisism
of leftism, wasn't it?
I do agree that to refer to "left" and "right" as pro- or anti-
freedom is ridiculous. (Really, viewing it as a flat-line spectrum
from left to right is also ridiculous, but I digress.)
* * *
It was important for the Miracle Family to have political views -
otherwise they wouldn't have had anything to impose at the end, and
the story would have had no point. Moore chose leftist views
because he =is= a leftist - he wanted to have SOMETHING in the
Miracles' views that he agreed with, so that the ending could be
morally ambiguious.
Had Pat Robinson written the ending, the particular politics would
have been different, but the story would have been much the same,
imo (although it nevertheless would have angered me more, and
disturbed me less).
Yours,
--Ennead
John Benn
What are you talking about? Moore's run ended with the creation of
"utopia". The criticisms came from Gaiman.
--
**** The Shadows were old when even the Ancients ****
**** were young. ---Delenn, Babylon-5 ****
WinningerR
this
century, though, you'll find that more were killed by regimes claiming to
be
socialist or otherwise progressive than by any other kind. Hitler's crimes
are
significant, but he's at best the #3 butcher of this century (behind
Stalin
and Mao).<<<
Hitler himself was a declared "socialist" and practically every political
regime in history has declared itself "progressive." (Many would dispute
your "butcher" rankings, BTW, though as far as I'm concerned, a genocidal
maniac is a genocidal maniac). Such declarations are meaningless and
hardly some sort of evidence that right wing regimes are less immoral than
their left wing counterparts.
WinningerR
Mao conservative or reactionary, I'd be interested in seeing how.
They certainly didn't want to maintain old ways (conservative), or
return to still older ways (reactionary).<<<
This illustrates just how useless many of these political labels can be.
Stalin, Mao (and just about everybody else in the world) were both
"conservative" (or "right-wing") and "liberal" (or "left-wing")
simultaneously.
WinningerR
taking drugs as a calling could be either productive of useful
insights or good for one's health.<<<
There are obviously many people on the planet who cannot survive without
drugs.
There have been cultures that have used "drugs" as a source of "insights"
for centuries.
WinningerR
be faster for AOL users.
Okay, I've finally read it. Fascinating.
First off, it's genuine; there's no doubt about it. This is absolutely
Moore's style right down to all the proper idiosyncracies.
Next up: the basic concept was quite sound. A great "closure" to the DC
saga would give the characters more resonance.
I guess the thing that surprises me most is the expectation that this
concept could be mass merchandised while still revolving around some very
adult themes. While I probably would have enjoyed this series, I can't see
DC choosing something like this as its next Crisis/Legends/Millenium-type
thing. It seems to me that such crossovers have to be aimed at a more
"general market" type of audience.
The other thing I'd say is that several of the individual charater ideas
sound less than appealing to me (Cyborg is wrestling with the question of
when does a man become a machine. How many times have we seen this?). But
I don't doubt for an instant that Moore could have pulled them off and
made each sound fresh and interesting. He was a master of pulling out some
obscure uninteresting character and finding unexpected poignancy.
Ian McDowell
Okay, now I'm curious, too. What *is* TWILIGHT. As my news
administrator is still ignoring requests that rec.arts.dc.universe be
added, I've no idea what you're talking about over there. Somebody want
to forward it to me?
Ian McDowell
Robert M Chittister
discussion's been going on for a couple days), I'd like to throw my two
cents in.
Regarding the question about whether it could be pulled off in twelve
issues, I think that would depend in large part on the artist. There are
features in the proposal (Doll Man's transformation, Blackhawk's
recruitment, and Uncle Sam, specifically) that could be conveyed in a
couple of well-drawn panels, or through a bunch of meaningless dialogue,
if the artist is't up to it.
In general, I always thought the entire point of Elseworlds was to poimt
out what could hapen to established heroes, not what did happen. For
example, could you see Kal-El in DC continuity burning the mugger who
killed the Waynes in Speeding Bullets? I know I couldn't; but I believed
that, in another reality (so to speak) the events of Speeding Bullets
could happen.
That's much the same way that I feel about Twilight. I could believe
that a Martian Manhunter who had been persecuted and forced into hiding
would do whatever it took to, in his eyes, free his adopted homeworld
from the superheroes. The Marvels may be harder to swallow, but since I
know little or nothing about them, I'll let that topic go for others to
argue. However, I could believe that Superman would be the head of
something similar to a feudal house, as long as sufficient backstory is
provided to make it believeable.
One question I have is that, in the proposal, there is no mention made
of non-powered humans. Are they serfs to the Houses? Are they fighting
wars in the name of their Lords? Are they sitting back popping brewskis
watching the fight? Or maybe thay're all already dead afterwhatever
events caused the heroes to form the Houses anyway. Thoughts?
It's possible that I'm in favor of Twilight because I haven't been
reading comics for as long as others. Admittedly, I'm not very hung up
on perpetuating the mythos of the characters. I think Twilight sounds
like a hell of a story.
In short, I don't care what it does to old heroes, I don't care about
the sex, I don't care about the violence; I haven't been that engrossed
reading ANYTHING since... well, since Watchmen. Damn the torpedoes,
let's kidnap Moore, brainwash him until he forgets he's mad at DC, and
get him writing this :)
Later on
Max
"A Freudian slip is when you say one thing and mean a mother." --Unknown
Bruce Baugh
winni...@aol.com (WinningerR) wrote:
:Hitler himself was a declared "socialist" and practically every political
:regime in history has declared itself "progressive." (Many would dispute
:your "butcher" rankings, BTW, though as far as I'm concerned, a genocidal
:maniac is a genocidal maniac). Such declarations are meaningless and
:hardly some sort of evidence that right wing regimes are less immoral than
:their left wing counterparts.
Actually, calculations of numbers killed are far from meaningless. Difficult,
and subject to big error margins, but far from meaningless. And things like
the artificially created Ukraine famine aren't nearly widely enough known.
Plus I'm feeling grumpy right now, having just seen some local idiots on local
news explaining how Stalin was misunderstood and really did great things for
all the people he didn't kill out of his paranoid hatred.
Morally, I think, Hitler and Stalin and Mao and Pol Pot and Papa Doc are all
on the same level - deciding to off whoever annoys you puts you on the far
side of a deep gap. It's no less immoral to kill twenty million than forty
million. But the details do matter, in some circumstances, most particularly
in a climate when a whole lot of our own country's best and brightest busily
gave aid and encouragement to precisely the sort of mass murder being done by
some regimes that they'd condemn in others. (And yes, this works both ways,
leftist support for Stalin being no worse than rightist excuses for Franco or
Somoza.)
There's room for someone who can bring as much good sharp attention to the
evils of the left as Moore has done (and continues to do) to the right. That's
praise: Moore is _really good_ at political analysis, and brings a sharp clear
moral sense to his work, tempered by a genuine concern for the well-being of
moe or less average people. I thought BROUGHT TO LIGHT, for example, was very
well-done polemic, and of course the richness of political comment in FROM
HELL is just marvelous. Pity there aren't more comics writers around who can
work on that level.
Bruce Baugh
winni...@aol.com (WinningerR) wrote:
:>>>However, it strikes me as hard to believe that
:taking drugs as a calling could be either productive of useful
:insights or good for one's health.<<<
:There are obviously many people on the planet who cannot survive without
:drugs.
Just so. And of course "drug" isn't a meaningful category - chocolate,
alcohol, and caffeine are all as mind-altering as some of the things ruled
illegal. In general, the history of what's illegal in a given country is a
history of its immigration: the favored recreational chemicals of the natives
stay legal, while those of immigrants (and underclasses) become banned.
Marijuana, for instance, is of tremendous help in dealing with glaucoma and
the nausea of chemotherapy and long-term immune disorders. LSD was shown early
on to be _very_ potent when taken under carefully controlled conditions as
part of a program of psychotherapy for violent criminals; it cut way down on
recidivism. Heroin remains an excellent painkiller, and thus enables people in
chronic pain to lead productive lives. And so it goes.
I'm unconvinced of the merits of the "spaceman" sort of thing we saw in
MIRACLEMAN #16, but certainly there are a great many cases where drug use can
be helpful.
Mark Schlesinger
>
> It's possible that I'm in favor of Twilight because I haven't been
> reading comics for as long as others. Admittedly, I'm not very hung up
> on perpetuating the mythos of the characters. I think Twilight sounds
> like a hell of a story.
>
> In short, I don't care what it does to old heroes, I don't care about
> the sex, I don't care about the violence; I haven't been that engrossed
> reading ANYTHING since... well, since Watchmen. Damn the torpedoes,
> let's kidnap Moore, brainwash him until he forgets he's mad at DC, and
> get him writing this :)
>
It seems that some people are against the story since they don't
believe the characters would act like that. The main point to me is the
story. No story idea has excited me this much in a long time.
So what if there are some flaws here and there, this seems to me to be
an initial proposal. The ideas would get fleshed out more if the project
went ahead.
As to if Moore wrote it or not. Again who cares. Whoever created
this exciting story idea should've been allowed to write it.
--
Mark Schlesinger If I had any opinions...They'd be mine!!!
schl...@maildaztcn.wr.usgs.gov
Giandonato
instead.
ftp digimark.net
wraith/Comics
Get Twilight. txt
If you're not sure how to do the ftp thing e-mail me and I'll try to send
you a copy (of Twilight). This is for the AOL guys only. Sorry, but AOL
doesn't let us send files to people on the Internet. Sorry, folks. :-)
-Giandonato
"Mr. Beetle, why are you so fat?"
Adrian Howard
Bill Henley <aa...@cleveland.Freenet.Edu> wrote:
[snip]
>So we have Moore's "villain" -- a real political leader who
>pursued policies objectionable to many, but who won three
>free elections and never tried to eliminate her opposition by
>force-- vs. Moore's "hero," who claims the right to disregard
>the result of a popular vote and to ignore attempts at
>rational argument, because he has the raw power to impose his
>will by force.
>
>So just *who* is really the Fascist, here?
>
>Or was Moore satirizing/criticizing his own "utopian" views,
>here? I hope that's the explanation for this otherwise
>very objectionable bit of business.
Oh...... I wouldn't go so far as saying it was satire... but I always thought
it was pretty obvious that Moore doesn't see the MM universe as a glorious
utopia (at least, not one for humans) --- remember the scenes with Mrs M?
In the MM universe the Miracle dudes are just plain *better* that us poor homo
saps. I always saw that scene as a bunch of teachers breaking up a playground
fight :-)
Is a truly benign dictatorship better than democracy? Tyranny of the masses
and all that...??? I personally don't think that AM was trying to answer those
questions in MM, but he was certainly trying to make people think about them.
(succeeding too... that commy pinko scumball :-)
aids (adr...@cogs.susx.ac.uk) ObDisclamer: Poplog used to pay my wages
Phone: +44 (0)1273 678367 URL: http://www.cogs.susx.ac.uk/users/adrianh/