Alan Moore's Miracleman and Superhero Deconstruction - Comic Tropes (Episode 34)
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 15 ม.ค. 2017
- Alan Moore is one of the most respected writers in the history of comic books. I take a look at his handful of tropes and look at Miracleman #3 to see how many we come across. Since Moore is known for "deconstruction" I deconstruct a toy each time we encounter a trope - with a super heated knife.
/ comictropes
/ comictropesshow - บันเทิง
![มองหน้ากันไม่ติด (Awkward) - โอ๊ต ปราโมทย์ FEAT. MAIYARAP [Official MV]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/4b02SY_r6Gw/mqdefault.jpg)
very illustrative that Alan Moore's tropes are things like "extensively detailed backstory" and "experimenting with story structure", and then other guys' tropes are things like "close ups of lips" and "pouches" lol
And rape
The writers give instructions to the artists. The close up of the lips is likely an instruction from the writer.
1085243 You ride a fine line between snide intellectual and arrogant schmuck.
Tropes arent necessarily bad though. So it's not like he is being unfair. Also his clairemont critics are probably s better comparison.
@@AngryRamboShow I won't say that you are a pretentious person, but I will say that this is a pretentious comment.
Alan Moore's run on Supreme was basically the opposite of Miracleman. It took a grim and gritty character and turned him into the fun and nonsense of Superman in the 50s (while still managing to keep him in a real world setting). It's an amazing piece of retro-nostalgia.
Supreme is fucking awesome. I wish more people were aware of it.
Moore mentioned that he did that as an apology to Superhero fans for all the deconstruction he did in the 80s.
You wouldn’t believe that Miracleman and Supreme were written by the same guy.
Tom Strong is definitely a continuation of Alan Moore's reconstructionist take on super hero that started with 1963, and Supreme
The best silver age Superman story ever told. Too bad he didn't get to finish it.
Alan Moore can turn a nobody character into the most interesting character or humanize the greatest of Super Heroes
Referencing comic books in a comic book is another moore trope
Great point. Obviously Watchmen is his most famous example.
skunkape Yeah I loved in the world of super heroes people read pirate comics or in Promethea people read Weeping Gorilla Comix with a crying Gorilla on the cover. It's a parody of DC using a gorillas on the cover to sell books in the 50s and romance comics of that era for those who are not esoteric in comic book lore.
I would add open to interpretation endings. Batman killing the joker in killing joke. Does the guy at the new frontier print Rorschach's journal in watchmen.
Batman didn't kill the joker in Killing Joke, pretty sure Moore said that
Alan Moore's take on Supreme is my favorite. The fact he took the opportunity to work on a terrible Superman knock off and make his story into a love letter for Superman's history and Comic book history from the beginning all the way into the 90's.
What issues did he do. I have like 1-10.
Moore took over the end run of Supreme after issue 41 & finished out the series.
fun fact: v for vendetta takes place in a timeline where miracleman never remembered his magic word
Proof?
Source?
source?
I remember an article in the original Warrior magazine back in the early 80's where they-Dez Skinn or maybe Alan Moore-were talking about how all the Warrior stories might be the foundation of a linked universe like Marvels. How the Fate computer somehow attains consciousness away from Earth and the time span was thousands of years (these are 35 year old memories) I remember there was a lot of discussion in the letters pages regarding the identity of V, some reference to an image of V in silhouette, without his guy fawkes mask when he's blowing up Lark Hill and he looks like MM...in the article i remember I got the impression that it felt the writer was trying to impose a framework on unconnected stories...it might actually have been tongue in cheek. i think that's where this comment comes from. The readers letters influenced the article and vice versa and V's Identity was a big discussion point, one possibility being that V and M could be the same person.
Crikey I've got old enough to become a comics historian! When'd that happen? !
@@kellyjane2662 You're fantastic.
I thought that Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? written by Alan Moore was the last story of the silver age Superman. And this is my favorite Alan Moore story.
It's from Superman Annual #11, 1986. Silver Age is generally considered to have ended around 1961 when Marvel published Fantastic Four #1. 1970 at the latest.
skunkape the silver age didn't end around 1961 fantastic four #1. fantastic four #1 as well as the re-design of the flash are actually the very start of the silver age.
Showcase #4 1956 is the beginning of the Silver Age. Some say the Silver Age ended in 1974, others say 1970-1971.
Whatever Happened...? was the last story from the continuity that is most associated with the Silver Age Superman, at least sort of. DC defines it as happening on a related alternate Earth (423) that more or less was Earth-1, except it didn't merge into the new Post-COIE continuity. Technically, DC Comics Presents # 97, a mindscrew of a Phantom Zone and Mxy story, was the last one in Earth-1's canon before the effects of the Crisis took hold and gave us the Byrne/Wolfman Superman. In fact, many years later, when Superman/Batman reality hopped, they canceled the events of Kingdom Come and that Superman became the one from Whatever Happened as a result of the changes.
Whatever Happened? was in Superman V1-423 and Action # 583. Superman Annual 11 had 'For The Man Who Has Everything', Alan's very popular deconstruction of Krypton not blowing up. Not that the Silver Age version was all light and fluffy - Jor-El and Lara had a second son but then all 3 died in an accident.
@@ComicTropes You are extremely confused.
Miracleman was/is still amazing. Gaimans work as well as Buckingham's art as the series continues is also worth reading. Not the easiest material to find but the entire run is must read material.
Check Marvel store. You're welcome.
I've known about Miracle Man, but didn't really know anything about it like the actual plot to the comics or anything. This is great.
RobotsPajamas Totally worth reading. Lots of interesting ideas and some great art.
I'll need to read it now.
I think the publisher might have called him Miracle Man because Marvel Comics already had a character called "MARVEL MAN"! In the 40s or 50s (perhaps after Fawcett stopped publishing Captain Marvel) Marvel had a space hero called "Marvel Boy"! Fantastic Four writer at the time ROY THOMAS brought back an adult version of the character and called him The Crusader! Eventually he was renamed first "Marvel Man" and ultimately QUASAR!
I'm on the same page as you pajama. This will be my next purchase at my comic shop.
THIS is how you should do a comic book channel- NOT just reading and showing the comics to the audience.
I get those TH-camrs can be good for people with disabilities- but I kinda feel like it takes away from comic creators
Chris on the other hand respectfully presents material where you can still go back and read it
Alan Moore's run in the UK Capt Britain comics was one of my favorite Pre-Excalibur runs, with his introduction to the Capt Britain Corps, Mad Jim Jaspers and The Fury
And was the origin of the Marvel multiverse
@@ironflyellis3817 first calling marvel mainstream reality "616" :)
Whatever Happened to The Man of Tomorrow is my fvaorite Alan Moore story and my favorite Superman story of all time. And it is that story that is the last story before DC rebooted after crisis, not For The Man Who has Everything, And I like that story as well. But, Whatever Happened To The Man Of Tomorrow is the pinnacle of Superman stories.
Providence by Moore is my favorite most recent work of his.
"Just wanted to see how much pressure it would take to destroy this thing" Kid Miracleman would be proud of you
Thanks for featuring the RoomMates Wall Decals! We appreciate the exposure! And we love your show! I've been collecting comics for over 40 years and I still learn tons from you.
Man I absolutely love your videos and how you always have some fun, unique thing to do for every trope.
👍
This makes me very curious about reading some Miracleman! I've never even heard about this character even though I have read (and enjoyed) many other Alan Moore titles. There are so many elements of his writing that I recognize here; Alan Moore is so good at finding new and compelling ways to tell new stories about already existing pulp characters. Thanks for this video, great work!
Miracle is a great comic book and you honor it well, sir! I'm an amateur of Alan Moore's works too. TOP TEN is another fine work of deconstruction and a brilliant series.
Hello, There...
Man, you opened the Alan Moore Can... Love his work. My personal favorites are Watchmen, The Killing Joke and Promethea but pretty much everything the man does is really great. Cool Video...
Just a couple of points (I'm pretty sure you know this already, but in case anyone else is interested regarding Miracleman):
- Captain Marvel was published by Len Miller in the UK as black and white reprints. In the fifties DC sued Fawcett Comics over the (obvious) similarities between Captain Marvel and Superman and won. Fawcett stopped publishing Captain Marvel but Miller decided to create his own version of the character (Captain Marvel was hugely successful over in the UK). Miller then commissioned Mick Anglo to create MarvelMan which was pretty much the same character but with the changes mentioned in the video.
- The Moore issues were published in Black and White on Warrior Magazine in the UK. Later on Eclipse reprinted the series in color in the US, where the name Miracleman was coined for the reason you mentioned. (It's been said that one of the reasons Moore vowed to never work for Marvel was because of said change -This and AND because some legal stuff regarding his Captain Britain stories).
Cheers!
i.
Ike Morph I did know but tried to summarize the relevant bits off the top of my head because it's such a big story to get sidetracked on. But an interesting one!
Oh yes. His whole run is awesome... By the by, regarding your comment about Moore's use of cinematic techniques, I found this quote from an interview he did in LA Times a few years ago:
"If you approach comics as a poor relation to film, you are left with a movie that does not move, has no soundtrack and lacks the benefit of having a recognizable movie star in the lead role."
articles.latimes.com/2008/sep/19/entertainment/et-hero19
I think is a very good point, wouldn't you agree?
Cheers!
i.
Can skip an ad against poaching, but forced to watch a full truck ad.
That's TH-cam for ya. 🤔
Still one of my fave vids, you're a wholesome personality on this site and I'll always love your vids
Great vid! Have been waiting for an Alan Moore episode, and miracleman is definitely amazing. Watchmen is easily my favorite work and promethea is really cool too, but I enjoyed a lot of his lesser talked about DC stories like "Mogo doesn't socialize", the superman/swamp thing team up story, and the phantom stranger story he did.
Andrew Z his Phantom Stranger story is my personal canon of the character’s origin.
This is my favorite of Moore's comics, even more than Watchmen and V for Vendetta. Nice job.
I first read Alan Moore back in the mid-eighties, and ‘blew my mind’ is such a cliche, but it’s true. Swamp Thing and Miracleman were unlike anything I’d read before. I just reread his ST run. It still holds up.
Moore is my biggest inspiration as a comics writer. Adore his work.
Didn’t know you were local till I saw The Dreaming! Been going there for about twenty plus years! Subscribed because of it! 👍🏽
just from the outside it looks dope
I read "The Ballad of Halo Jones" whilst young and unemployed in the early 1980s in Northern England and it gave me the confidence to leave my home town behind and leave the country. Anybody who has read the trilogy of Halo Jones will completely understand.
when you went you said “local comic shop in seattle” i literally dropped my phone. ima seattlite, it is so cool to know i can go shop at the same spot as one of my all time fav youtubers
Love your stuff. Keep em coming!
Captain Marvel was owned and published by Fawcett Comics until circa 1954 when they settled a lawsuit with National (DC) Comics initiated in 1940 over Captain Marvel's similarities to Superman. DC didn't purchase rights to Captain Marvel until about 1973, by which time Marvel Comics had established their own character with the same name which was why DC could not use the name Captain Marvel as a title for their comic featuring the original C.M., which was why it was called "Shazam!" And although Marvel's Captain Marvel's comic was eventually cancelled and the character killed off in a famous comic by Jim Starlin, Marvel kept up publishing new comics featuring new characters named Captain Marvel so DC could not obtain rights to the name. Marvel Man was created out of necessity by a British publisher, L. MIller, which had been publishing reprints of the original Captain Marvel stories but once Fawcett went out of comics publishing no new stories were forthcoming and so the analog was created, and they continued publishing Marvel Man until 1963.
It was a new publisher in 1982 that decided to bring back Marvel Man in Warrior, a comics anthology title that also published V for Vendetta, and that Alan Moore got the chance to do his take on the character, whom, when reprinted by Eclipse Comics in the mid-80s, was renamed MIracle Man to avoid legal trouble with Marvel Comics, which had already threatened legal action against the British publisher resulting in the cancellation of Warrior and made Moore royally loathe Marvel Comics. When Eclipse had used up all the British reprints, Moore and various artists continued the story from where it had left off in Warrior but at an erratic schedule such that although the entire output of Moore's run was only 16 issues consisting of both reprints from Warrior and new material, those 16 issues represented work from nearly 8 years, from Warrior #1 published in March 1982 to Miracle Man #16 published in December 1989.
Just the background to Miracle Man is complex, from what was the most popular ever Superman knock off (for several years Fawcett's Captain Marvel outsold Superman); to the British analog; then another Captain Marvel created in 1966 by Karl Burgos (who also created the original Human Torch in 1939), cancelled after just 2 issues; to Marvel's 1st Captain Marvel and at least 3 successors to that name, including most recently Carol Danvers, originally a supporting character in early Captain Marvel stories; to DC bringing back the original Captain Marvel in the '70s; to Alan Moore bringing back the British analog and all the subsequent legal troubles and the renaming as MIracle Man; to finally Marvel Comics bringing back that analog. Oh, yeah, and DC finally giving up on Marvel ever giving up rights to the name and so renaming the original Captain Marvel as his magic word, Shazam!
What a long, strange trip it's been, as Jerry Garcia might have described it. And most of this may not have happened if National Comics (later renamed DC Comics) hadn't initiated that lawsuit against Fawcett Comics. But out of the mess came several incredible Marvel Captain Marvel stories by Jim Starlin and Marvel Man/MIracle Man stories by Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman.
Holy crap. I'm three years late to the comments, but thought I was the only living person that knew all that.
Well done!
You didn’t even mention Todd McFarlane and that whole era of who owned the rights post Moore/1989! Mike made a brief appearance at Image before that got stopped because someone claiming ownership sold the rights to Todd.
What I get from this is that the people that make comics need to look up "marvel" in a thesaurus and maybe pick some different words...
I'm from the UK, I started reading both Moore and Gaiman when they wrote for Marvel UK on I believe the Doctor Who comic first before rebooting Captain Britain. I maybe biased but they are among my my favourite writers. You're are right about the cinematic thing The Absolute edition of League contains art scripts for Kevin O'Neil and they read like cinema shooting scripts just so much detail. I also love that he doesn't destroy canon just adds stuff, it's refreshing in an era of having the big companies rebooting every couple of years to have lineage
The portion where MM and Liz are testing his powers is one of my favorite moments in the whole series. It's so human and sincere. Also Chuck Austen was great in MM, he drew his face looking almost too symmetrical somehow, it really made him beautiful and startling to look at, which is the character's whole vibe in general. Best example of this is the panel where he smashes those two guys heads together in issue 7 or 8
Saga of the Swamp Thing for me, personally. I actually have not finished it yet. I've been reading through the TPBs and am currently in the midst of book 3, I'm really excited to see where else the series goes. It's just now starting to go in some really cool directions, opening the world up quite a bit (particularly with the introduction of John Constantine).
I'm trying to take my time with it so as not to fly through it too quickly, as one would binge-watch a Netflix series or something. It needs time to digest, and I make sure to appreciate the art and everything else on the page as much as I can before moving on. Fantastic series so far :D
Very insightful lecture. I'd be interested to hear your take on Cerebus.
Ohno
Dave Sim’s cute Aardvark?
i love this show, thank you for making it
Moore fans should also check out:
Maxwell the Magic Cat - where he started his graphic work as a cartoonist
His 2000AD work - my favourite is "The Ballard of Halo Jones"
Watching comic tropes is sort of like watching someone who loves comics slowly go insane. Why is he cutting balls in half? Lol. GREAT STUFF!!!
I remember waiting 2 years between issue 15 and 16. This was a book that was so worth it.
I would only ever bother to join a "Book Club" if the thing we were going to read and discuss was Miracle Man (followed by Promethea). Obviously Moore has dozens of awesome runs on original, revamped, or just borrowed for a moment titles -- but Miracle Man has some of the most thought provoking ideas -- and that is saying something for not only Moore's work, but comics as a whole. (Spoilers?) At the end of Moore's run on Miracle Man, it seems like the world pretty much becomes a Utopia -- which is an interesting commentary on what Supers or Gods could/would? do on Earth, and of course -- at what cost. And then Neil Gaiman takes the reigns and explores whether that world really is a Utopia or not. All in all, Miracle Man should be like required reading of classic literature -- from Dante to Orwell, Huxley, Bradbury, and Herbert.
Promethea is SO underrated
Another great video...well done! Just enough information to pique viewers' curiosity. Marvel/Miracleman is truly excellent and is well worth checking out. From a similar era, people should also check out Alan Moore's Captain Britain stories (I think they were retro-actively named "The Crooked World"). They've been reprinted many times, which says a lot. My favourite Alan Moore work? Probably V for Vendetta or the Captain Britain stuff...but as you say, he really never does anything less than interesting. The Killing Joke is another high point for me.
Yes, his Captain Britain work is very innovative. Holds up well.
I have read a lot of alan moore but looking at your vid, it reminded me of Captain Britain and How cool the retconning actually is in that book. I wish I had it at home still, I would read it right now. Ho well...
I really appreciate your insight and I am a new subscriber. There is another Alan Moore "final" Superman story that you may not be aware of. It is called "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow ?" It is a two parter that starts in Superman #423 and ends in Action Comics #583. It is very cool and deserves your attention.
Loves this series. So good. Especially when Tottlebon started drawing it.
That emoji ball’s face perfectly matched what you were doing to it
The New "Silver Age: Miracleman" Comic run continuing from Gaiman has been great.
this was first seen in Warrior comic way back in the 80s in the UK. Same comic as first told V for Vendetta. I bought it as a young teenager and loved it!
Wait! Did Miracle Man inspire The Sentry?!
Axel Tman It’s probably an influence, yeah.
Well the original character was around before Marvel, so when Alan Moore did a reboot of Marvelman they tried to sue, forcing him and everyone else to change the name to Miracleman. Unfortunately for Marvel the whole fiasco caused friction with Alan Moore who decided to have nothing to do with them. Later still Marvel bought the rights to the character but still kept the name as Miracleman. Very odd. Captain Marvel is a totally different character.
Hey great video and you deserve more views - anyway I grew up in the UK with Alan Moore's work blowing my tiny mind, so here's some background that might be interesting to people. As you say, this was originally published in a monthly - not weekly - anthology comic called Warrior. This evolved from some Marvel UK comics that were originally just b/w reprints of US Marvel but increasingly featured some UK talent like Alan Moore, many of whom cut their teeth on weekly sci-fi anthology 2000Ad. Operating out of a couple of rooms above a kebab shop in dingy London locale Kentish Town - but pretending they had a more auspicious premises called 'Jadwin House' which didn't exist - UK editor Dez Skinn revamped Marvel UK. I didn't like all his decisions, but that's another story. Then he left and set up Quality comics, where Warrior was born. For all of the 26 issue run Miracleman was still called Marvelman, though all reprints change the artwork and lettering, they were treading too close to Marvel's toes keeping the name once they tried releasing the stories in the US - and in the first couple of issues Marvelman (as he will always be to me) looks like Paul Newman. And that was deliberate, Alan Moore told artist Gary Leach to draw him that way. My understanding is that this too was becoming legally dangerous so that likeness was toned down when Alan Davies took over the art. Of all Alan Moore's work, Marvelman/Miracleman is special to me, but my all-time favourite is like yours, V For Vendetta. But Dez Skinn deserves more credit concerning Marvelman/Miracleman, as it was his idea to revive the character, and he took the idea to Moore. Without him, no Miracleman.
I don't like him as a person but his talent for story telling can't be denied.
Not having a go. But do you know him or why do you not like him?
I would come across Miracle Man back in the day and skim through it-it definitely was not a comic to just skim.
My favorite was Watchmen.
ALAN Moore best work promeathea you should read and review it is realy great stuff.
I'm finishing that run now. I'm on the last volume but I'm reading Tom Strong to get to know that character before he appears in Promeathea. Its an amazing story! I still think I like League more and Watchman will probably always be at the top. But League and From Hell are close seconds.
Oh, and I got nearly all of those Eclipse issues off the stands for the cover price -- the one issue I missed from Moore's run was #15, the 2nd battle with Kid Miracle Man, although I did get the Eclipse collection that included that issue. Aside from the poor art in the middle section, Moore's run is one of the all-time great runs in comics.
You did the hot knife trend before it was a thing a couple years ago, fascinating
*me, watching you cut up dolls with a hot knife*
....you ok, bro?
the hot knife on toys sure made this video have a dark, almost twisted feel.
Thank you for addressing the creepiness. The self awareness put me at ease lol.
Jeez, this dates me. I remember purchasing the first edition of warrior back in 82-May I think-it was a monthly anthology and Moore was credited with Marvel Man and V and I think he was actually doing more stuff under a pseudonym 'Pedro Henry' but I might be wrong. Distribution of Warrior was awful, you'd go months without a copy then stumble across one. Again, I might be wrong but I was under the impression that the whole Marvel lawsuit thing was secondary to Alan falling out with the Warrior Editor Dez Skinn in the removal of MM but I guess they did in fact change the characters name and at the time it seemed very plausible that the American giants were going to squash the upstart British creative. I remember Warrior breaking 2000ad's traditional clean sweeps at the comic industry 'Eagle Awards' in the following years so they would have been well aware of the story quality.
I was familiar with Moore from 2000ad and the marvel UK Captain Britain and I think some Doctor Who weekly strips but Warrior really allowed him to show his talent. Warrior takes it's place in the pantheon of original British anthology comic magazines... A1, Blast, Deadline and others right up to 'Clint' which for some reason or other failed to catch and hold on to a loyal readership.
I loved Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen!
Idk why but I genuinely lost it when the toy car went ablaze. I just found it very funny.
From Hell is not only my favorite Alan Moore story, but IMO the greatest graphic novel ever written...I read it once every other year, this year I'm doing the IDW color reprints which are fantastic!!
Favourite work of Moore's ? Jasper's warp from Captain Britain
I believe the last Superman story before the reboot after the Crisis of Infinite Earths in the '80's was written by Alan Moore, but it was a two issue story published in the last issues of Superman and Action Comics called "Whatever Happened to Superman?" It was an imaginary tale (aren't they all) about the last days of Superman when all his arch-enemies resurfaced at the same time. It's not canon, obviously, but one of my favorite Alan Moore stories.
Sorry, didn't mean to out-nerd anybody out there, but I guess I did.
I remeber when this comic series came out. It was mind blowing for the day, totally different.
You can tell you really love this story!
People hear the word "deconstruction" and assume they know what it means: to take something and bring it down to its elements. But the literary theory of deconstruction is about the impossibility of finding meaning in a text because of the instability of language as an arbitrary system of symbols. Nothing being discussed here has anything to do with this. Moore didn't know anything about deconstruction when he wrote Marvelman and given his thoughts about language expressed later in his work and in interviews -- seeing it as a magical/artistic device -- it doesn't seem like he took an interest later.
Halo Jones is maybe my favourite of his. Serialised in 2000ad with great art by Ian Gibson. Was apparently meant to run to an epic 10 'books' (trade paperback length stories), but only made it to 3.
The significance of Halo Jones as a historical character is starting to be hinted at in the last book (we cut to scenes in a distant future where she is being talked of by a teacher as if she is a long dead mythic figure).
She gradually goes from being an ordinary, unemployed young woman in a dystopian future (obviously influenced by the 'dole queue' experience of many young Britons in the early 80's), to becoming a witness to and influencer of portentous events.
Full of great future war and space opera elements.
|Alan Moore is the greatest comics writer of all time. Don't even begin to argue.
The only thing about Miracleman I didn't love was something I thought you'd mention as a trope: The surreal poetry jam intermissions. Get like two pages of MM walking down a spiral staircase with the square narration boxes going on like "Thought, expression, formless color, intermingling endlessly without beginning or end..."
I'm down for an amount of that stuff but sometime before the end of the story I started skimming those sections very briefly.
I've read V for Vendetta, I've read Watchmen, I've read the Saga of the Swamp Thing, I've read LOEG many, many, *many* times.
And Miracleman is *by far* the best comic I've ever read. And Garry Leach's outstanding and over-detailed pages only makes it the more awesome.
Comics are simply not made like this anymore, which makes Miracleman even more of a masterpiece.
In order to fully understand the story, it is almost compulsory to read it along with Mick Anglo's originals (like in 2014's Marvel reprint).
Also recommended "Kimota! The Miracleman Companion" from TwoMorrows.
Man, I laughed at this one. Being creeped out by the doll. I was thinking the exact same thing. The doll was a bad idea.
Ya i scrolled down to make a comment about it being creepy then i see your comment and hear Chris say it was creepy. Great minds... something something.
I love Alan Moore's take on Miracle Man. It is inventive and unique. You did a nice video essay but why the creepy serial killer toy destruction.
These serial killer cutaways are brilliant
Watchmen, v for vendetta, and miracleman are Def my favorites of his but I really need to read more!
Cut up an army man, everything fine. Cut up a doll, "WHAT HAVE I DONE??!"
Review Promethea. My favorite Alan Moore work
Alan Moore's Star Wars stories are just batcrap crazy..
I've only read about two but they were pretty bonkers.
Dean Schaeffer dude, you are the only reference to these I've found on YT and I just recently picked up the dark horse reprints. I LOVED the weirdness of them.
If you did Miracleman...you should do Sentry Mr. Tropes...Sentry, Scout and Lindy...love this channel. 👏
Moore has the skill of writing to the artists' visual sense and to show off their talents. His writing for comics booklet cover the Superman annual and how he broke the story down for Dave Gibbons.
League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is probably my favorite Moore book, but I think From Hell is his best if only because it embraces his obsessive urge to fill a comic with as many themes and concepts as possible, while still telling a fantastic story
Haha I got killer vibes from you cutting the doll. Creepy indeed.
I just received the new Marvel Omnibus that collects the 3 book collection and I’m excited to finally have the chance to read this story for the first time.
My favorite stuff by Alan Moore was his run on Supreme. He took the worst character in comics and reinvented the universe he inhabited, making it fun and interesting.
The one that holds up for me is Watchmen, a dark but real story worth telling, and is what so many writers ape off of since it was made, the man is a true artist and storyteller!!!!
I would have had a toy that was totally disassembled and then put it together as the examples of deconstructing or his tropes came up. I know that is the opposite of deconstruction, but when you deconstruct you can see how a story is put together to put it together better, as he has always taken ideas that already existed and made better, it would make sense.
Little known fact, his kid brought home straight Fs and he is deconstructing these toys in front of ‘m.
A video essay I saw recently made an interesting but subtle point about more "realistic" superhero stories. First was the idea of "superheroes a real people" and he used Spider-Man as perhaps the most obvious example. This includes all the wild, even bizarre details of the superhero genre, yet with essentially normal psychological truths applies to the characters. The other, of which Moore's WATCHMAN is maybe the most famous example, is "real people are superheroes" which begins with normal psychological truths then posits the creation of superheroes of some stripe from there. This latter does not mean abandoning the notion of heroism, but rather putting it into a more naturalistic milieu. THE BOYS does this as well, albeit with the (understandable) tendency to wallow in the dark stuff most superhero stories avoid.
Interestingly, I once had a conversation with a fellow fan of WATCHMAN. This person was firmly of the belief that Rorschart is THE hero of the story, the most admirable and effective person. I countered with the fact Moore himself notes this character is psychologically damaged in the extreme, desperately unhappy and longs to die. Likewise this gentleman insisted NiteOwl is pathetic and weak, who only saved lives to impress Silver Sable (weirdly for years before he even met her). My own view is that NiteOwl is the single most heroic character, someone who simply does his level best to do the most good out of a genuine desire to make the world a better place. It is telling that this other fan looked blankly at me upon my saying this.
Great stuff. Hey are you ever going to cover some of Hickman’s work? His run on FF for example?
Edit: this was the first issue of Miracle Man that I ever bought, years ago before the Marvel reprints. The issue of Sin City with Dwight was the first I ever bought of that title. Weird. Alan Moore is great. I think LoEG the first two volumes might be my favorite from Moore. It’s so intricate, in part due to O’Neil’s art. And it’s dark but not as dark as say Watchmen or From Hell
20:40 I'm so glad that you acknowledge how creepy that was because if you didn't a lot of us would have probably informed the authoritahs.
I got an ad for the Captain Marvel movie before this video. Good job, youtube algorithm.
On the subject of movie adaptations, I always wonder if the film Watchmen would work better as an Animated feature then a Live -Action one
If you’ve never read Alan Moore’s Night Raven short stories (published across various UK comics but available in collected form now) I’d highly recommend them. Again, a clever reinvention of a classic pulp style character into something much more interesting and dark.
Pleased that we have had recent re-prints of Alan Moore works, in particular, Miracleman and The Ballad of Halo Jones in oversized hardback editions. I hope that under the DC Black Label, we'll get an omnibus of Promethea
I think the reason the car caught fire, was because there was probably grease in the gear mechanism because it didn't like till you got near the bottom lol.
The artist you mention was called Chuck Dixon I think. The British run ended with possibly the most unbearable cliff-hangers imaginable ... '' I give you ... Miracle Dog!" ... given that at that time we didn't know if there was ever going to be a sequel. We had to wait years for the next story and Chuck Dixon's rendition of it was less than stellar .... although even more disappointing was the despatch of Evelyn Crème who, as you mentioned in your piece, had a lot of potential. Even so ... even with the shitty artwork this was an immensely satisfying ending to the Gargunza arc, though still a pale shadow of what was to come. I don't really know how even a writer of Gaeman's repute felt he could add anything significant to where Moore left this story. One of his best. I would recommend anything by Moore to readers new to comics, although after they've read his stuff everything else the media has to offer will seem a little thin.
You had some deep and interesting things to say right up until it was all undone by the hot knife thing :p
Just wanna say, deconstruction isn't "handling things realistically", it's picking apart the assumptions of a particular trope/convention/idea. It gets at the "why"s of an idea, not the "how"s.
Great review, although Warrior magazine was printed monthly not weekly. Most of the writers and artists also worked at the British comic book 2000AD.
I feel like this video was really made so he could live out his sadistic fantasy of being Sid from Toy Story
Have your read much American’s Best Comics? The Alan Moore universe line at Image. I loved it Top Ten was my favorite by far, but I like most everything I read. Even the books he didn’t write were enjoyable. I think he helped create the premises and main characters of all the books. It’s great though. I’m sure when a lot of people hear Alan Moore universe they expect it to be mostly dark too, but it’s not. It’s a very positive take on a world with an excess of super heroes. There’s a city run by superheroes, super hero police force etc
Me and my friends comic has a Utopian like Super hero city, but the whole story kicks off because of an alien killing most of them. It’s his latest stop on a super hero wrecking visit to earth. Not his intent he’s just trying to get stuff to fix his ship and they keep getting in his way. And every time he figures out even a bit of the pesky humans language the next place he goes they speak a whole new one. Right next to each other sometimes.