alan moore – Nerds on Earth https://nerdsonearth.com The best place on earth for nerds. Fri, 05 Feb 2021 16:31:50 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.3 https://nerdsonearth.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/cropped-nerds_head_thumb2-100x100.png alan moore – Nerds on Earth https://nerdsonearth.com 32 32 All the podcasts from NerdsonEarth.com, under one umbrella. We create short run podcasts for nerds, covering D&D, Marvel, Starfinder, and more! You vote for your favorite shows and they just might get a second season. alan moore – Nerds on Earth false episodic alan moore – Nerds on Earth jason.sansbury@nerdsonearth.com podcast All the podcasts from NerdsonEarth.com, the best place on Earth for nerds. alan moore – Nerds on Earth https://nerdsonearth.com/wp-content/uploads/powerpress/noe-podcast-logo.png https://nerdsonearth.com/blog/ Who Watches the Watchmen? Hopefully YOU! https://nerdsonearth.com/2019/12/who-watches-the-watchmen-hopefully-you/ Tue, 17 Dec 2019 13:29:45 +0000 https://nerdsonearth.com/?p=28166

We review the nine-episode HBO Watchmen television series.

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***SPOILER ALERT – MAJOR PLOT DETAILS OF HBO’S WATCHMEN WILL BE DISCUSSED IN THIS ARTICLE! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!***

Wow. That was truly amazing! HBO’s Watchmen nine-episode run wrapped this past Sunday with all of the twists and turns one would expect from a comic book based television show. While most folks at NoE central have been drooling over The Mandalorian (and rightly so; it’s fun and nostalgic), Watchmen has been the better show on almost every technical level one could evaluate a television show. 

No, there weren’t any cute fifty-year old infant aliens that have been meme’d to death, but there were weird clones being grown by Adrian Veidt in a lake on Jupiter’s moon Europa…so that has to count for something! 

Simply put, HBO’s Watchmen is a brilliant sequel to the original comic. Faithful to the source material without being a mere “rerun” that rehashes the story over again for a new generation.

Picking Up Where the Comic Left Off

Watchmen is celebrated today by a vast majority of readers as the greatest comic book ever written. It’s an accomplishment in graphic storytelling that has certainly inspired nearly every funny book to be slapped on the shelves since its release, but it has seldom been met, let alone exceeded, by that output. It’s no wonder that many wanted to adapt the comic book to the big screen. It’s grand, audacious, and…un-filmable.

That was the general beat on the comic since it was released. Spectacular story, but the content’s density couldn’t be given true justice with a feature film. Zack Snyder’s 2009 adaptation proved just how difficult it would be to adapt the twelve-issue miniseries down to a “digestible” 163 minutes. 

The folks at HBO and DC, along with series showrunner Damien Lindelof, decided to not go the direct adaptation route. Instead, they focused on making a sequel set decades from the original, in 2019. The comic book? The Holy Bible of the show: absolute canon from the first panel to the last. Given that backdrop, the show sprung from that fertile ground, deftly tying in connections to the original series all the while being set in Tulsa, Oklahoma, a site never once referenced or visited in the comic book. 

The great strength of the show was just how well the creators respected the intelligence of the viewer. There were no needless recaps of the comic book, no synopsis necessary for catching the viewer up. Lindelof & Co. dropped the world of Watchmen into the modern era and demanded everyone accept it and enjoy the ride. 

And what kind of ride was the viewer in for? A doozy, that’s for sure. 

Catching Up With the Watchmen

Watchmen focused on the trials and travails of the Tulsa police force, who had been attacked in 2016 by a group of Rorschach mask-wearing white supremacists called Seventh Kalvalry. With much of the police force decimated by the attack or too afraid to put on the uniform, the Tulsa police decided to don masks like the vigilantes heroes from a bygone era.

By 2019, the Kalvalry had resurfaced, killing a black police officer and then allegedly killing its police chief, Judd Crawford (Don Johnson). Series star Detective Angela Abar/Sister Night (superbly played by Regina King) begins investigating the murder in what initially looks like the Angela Abar show. What follows is a twisty road of murder, intrigue, and yes, Adrain Veidt putting around on Europa. 

Veidt’s particular role in HBO’s Watchmen is a particularly interesting one. Originally thought to be dead, it’s revealed that he is enjoying (?) retirement on an unnamed country estate. As always, all is not as it seems with Veidt. The mad hero who killed millions in an effort to save humanity found himself unloved in the modern era.

The secret of his plot still intact, the viewer eventually learns that Veidt is in a somewhat self-imposed exile, voluntarily banished to Europa by Doctor Manhattan himself, where he would be worshipped by the residents of Manhattan’s utopian creation. It’s all Veidt ever wanted until he didn’t want it anymore. The long view treat of following Veidt’s deliciously weird exploits was one of the best parts of the show, and much of the credit comes down to Jeremy Irons’ portrayal of the enigmatic smartest man on Earth.  

The other returning characters also get great moments in the spotlight. The revelation that Laurie Blake (Silk Spectre II) has become a grizzled, sarcastic FBI agent in charge of the vigilante task force was a bright spot. Her hardnosed approach to investigating the Kalvalry gave the show a deep connection to original series.

And then there’s Doctor Manhattan, whose big reveal came as a surprise to many in what would become the central story of the show. For the first two-thirds of the show, his presence (or lack thereof) loomed large over everything. Once the big reveal showed that Doctor Manhattan was Angela’s husband Cal, the show hit its stride, tying in the one character everyone wanted to see.

Doctor Manhattan’s reveal displays another strength of the show: the fact that it was patient in its storytelling. Several of the last few episodes dealt heavily with flashbacks. Given the show’s self-contained nature, one might think the last few episodes would ditch the flashbacks in favor of action, action, action. Instead, Watchmen took time to develop its characters background, delivering story shattering bits of information out in a measured manner, teasing all the way to the end. 

Even in its final episode, Watchmen begins with a lengthy flashback revealing that Lady Triue is the real villain behind everything, and not the Seventh Kalvalry. In the era of peak story driven television, viewers expect a certain degree of explosiveness from finales, often times in a literal sense. Though the Watchmen finale provides plenty of action, its patient ability to still deliver new content while simultaneously wrapping things up in a satisfying manner places it above many comic book shows. 

Shying Away from Controversy?

It’s hard to pick anything overly negative about such a well written, intricate show that dazzled on almost every level possible. The biggest obvious failing of the show is that it didn’t really tackle the racism of the Seventh Kalvalry as directly as it could have. Despite being set up from the beginning as the boogie man, the Kalvalry and its brand of white supremacy never really gets the full treatment that it deserves beyond labeling racism as bad.

The show does reveal that the white supremacists were being used by a wealthy one-percenter for their own personal, narcissistic motives (sound familiar?), the show never really delved deeper into the politics of the racial divide that exists in America. The scene stealing line from Joe Keene in episode 7 should have been a catalyst for more exploration: “It’s extremely difficult to be a white man in America right now, so I’m thinking, I might try being a blue one.” 

Is white supremacy too much to tackle for a television show about superheroes? According to the source material, not at all. As I mentioned in a recent article, Alan Moore has never shied away from politics in his work. Apparently, we still do have to remind people why racism, prejudice, and discrimination are wrong in our society in 2019. Simply saying it’s wrong isn’t enough. Despite the fact that the Kalvary does get its well-earned punishment in the end, Watchmen could and should have explored the issues of white supremacy a bit deeper, but it’s a minor quibble.  

Will There Be a Watchmen Season Two?

The finale solved much of the questions raised in the nine issue series, but also left us with others. The creative team and HBO have been deliberately coy about the chances for a second season. Watchmen certainly works well as a one and done show. Watchmen’s self-contained nature allowed the showrunners a sense of creative freewill that many scripted shows are not offered.

And yet, who doesn’t want to see what happens next as Angela Abar takes her first step onto the water, having presumably taken on Dr. Manhattan’s powers by consuming a humble egg? The number of questions that remain surely offers justification enough for a second season. Only time will tell, I suppose. 

Regardless if there’s more, Watchmen is a more than worthy sequel to the original comic book series. It is certainly outdoing the comic book sequel Doomsday Clock that has improbably been released slowly through the last almost two years. HBO’s Watchmen offers a believable, interesting look into a world still struggling to get by after Adrian Veidt’s scheme to unite it to avoid nuclear holocaust. But did it work? Is the world a better, safer place? In an imperfect world, is that kind of security even possible? 

That’s one of the many unanswered questions Watchmen has left us to ponder. Watchmen once again looks at the world and says “No” as we are left to consider its meaning. 

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The 7 Best Alan Moore Classics Every Comics Fan Should Read https://nerdsonearth.com/2019/12/best-alan-moore-comics/ Thu, 12 Dec 2019 13:00:00 +0000 https://nerdsonearth.com/?p=28092

Alan Moore has written some of the best comics of all time. Here is our list of 7 titles we believe EVERY comics fan should read.

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It’s not an exercise in hyperbole to say that Alan Moore changed the vocabulary of comic books. Outside of perhaps Lee and Kirby, Moore has done more to advance the evolution of the comic book medium. Certainly, Alan Moore can be credited as the godfather of creators who helped bring comic books a level of respectability that they hadn’t previously held. 

There’s no doubt that Alan Moore’s bench is full of rock star titles. It’s difficult to narrow it down to just seven titles that one should check out. If Alan Moore’s name is on the cover of a book, it practically begs for your attention and well-earned dollars. While not everything Moore writes is a classic (avoid his Liefeld universe books like the plague), he almost always has something interesting to say in a medium that is still too interested in navel-gazing at guys in tights punch each other ad nauseam.  

With the latest live action adaptation/sequel of his work, Watchmen, wrapping up on HBO, I thought it would be a great time to reflect on Alan Moore’s seminal works. In 2018, I wrote about seven Alan Moore stories that I thought were underrated outside of the usual. I listed at that time the seven works that always get the spotlight. Today, I want to explain why I think those books shine above all others. 

Watchmen

First things first: you have to read Watchmen. Period. There’s no debating this. Ignore every other recommendation in this article to your peril, but you must read Watchmen. I don’t want to come off as a gatekeeper. However, there’s a reason Watchmen is considered to be the greatest comic book of all time. 

The Arkenstone in the Alan Moore treasure hoard of comic book gems, Watchmen inarguably stands today as the greatest achievement in the medium. Alan Moore expertly deconstructs the superhero mythos by translating these godlike heroes into something most people never could comprehend: as humans. Moore strips away the austerity of the superhero in a tale that both hews close to reality while also entrenching itself in the fantastical.  

Watchmen follows the story of a world standing on the brink of nuclear annihilation between the US and USSR. Superheroes have been banned via the Keene Act, and in their absence the world has slowly decayed. The antihero/vigilante Rorschach investigates the murder of former “hero” (because, let’s face it, there aren’t any real heroes here) the Comedian.

What spins out from there is a tale featuring superheroes backstabbing one another, plots involving the end of the world, extradimensional terrorist attacks, and several pages featuring a blue penis. Watchmen is truly an accomplishment in superhero storytelling. It’s not farfetched to say every comic since the publication of the series has tried in its own way to be Watchmen

Batman: The Killing Joke

Considered by many to be the best Batman story of all time (seeing a trend here with Moore’s writing?), The Killing Joke is one of the earliest attempts to give the Joker an honest to goodness origin story. Along with artist Brian Bolland and colorist John Higgins (a remastered version released just a few years ago would feature Bolland recoloring the book), Moore creates a story that focuses on the Joker’s attempt to drive Commissioner Gordon insane. The Killing Joke is a tragic tale that remains one of the strongest Batman stories to date. 

Originally intended as a standalone 48-page one-shot, the popularity of the events portrayed in The Killing Joke were folded into the regular Batman continuity of the time. Famously (or infamously), Joker’s shooting and crippling Barbara Gordon became a mainstay of DC continuity up until the New 52.

The Killing Joke also features a deliciously ambiguous ending. Does Batman finally go full-on Punisher and end the clown prince of crime’s life, or do they simply share a laugh together in the rain? It’s a credit to Moore and Bolland’s storytelling that we still debate the ending today.  

Swamp Thing

Before there was a Vertigo imprint, Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing introduced the themes and atmosphere that would define that imprint. So important were Moore’s Swamp Thing stories, it’s not surprising that the title helped create what we now know as the Vertigo imprint, becoming one of the standard bearers for Vertigo throughout the imprint’s lifespan.

RIP, man. RIP.   

Moore rescued Swamp Thing from the brink of cancellation by turning the horror comic into something more. Moore was given virtually a blank slate to rewrite the series as he saw fit, becoming the first mainstream comic book to ditch the outdated Comic Codes Authority.

Tossing out the origin of the creature, Moore gave Swamp Thing a new lease on life. By exploring adult themes such as the environment, sexuality, and spirituality, Moore rewrote what a mainstream comic book could explore. Moore’s four-year run on Swamp Thing catapulted him to mainstream stardom, and for good reasons. The depth and detail of his storytelling still resonates today as reprints of his Swamp Thing run continue to be published and read today.   

V for Vendetta

V for Vendetta deserves a spot on the all-time greatest Alan Moore story list for its unflinching exploration of politics in a post-apocalyptic future. Originally published in the British anthology Warrior, V for Vendetta is most closely associated with DC Comics and the Vertigo imprint.

Politics lie at the center of V for Vendetta, which is common for all of Moore’s writing, but it’s especially on display here. Moore’s use of politics sometimes turns readers off, but Moore clearly isn’t bothered by that qualm. Any Moore comic book outside of the Liefeld stories (*puke*) is going to feature heavy doses of political opinions.

The story oscillates between the totalitarian force of the fascist British government and the anarchical chaos espoused by V. Wearing a Guy Fawkes mask, V shows that ideas are bulletproof in the face of oppression. The mask is both a symbol of nihilism and hope, both in the comic book and the real world. The Guy Fawkes mask has become the symbol of protest for many, most famously with the group called Anonymous. Such acts of rebellion actually please the curmudgeonly Moore and show just how far the influence of V for Vendetta has reached. It’s a book that demands the reader’s attention. 

Marvelman/Miracleman

I have written about my love of Marvelman on Nerds on Earth before. To me, it’s Alan Moore’s masterpiece. Like V for Vendetta, Marvelman began life in Warrior in the UK. Once it was reprinted here in the good ol’ US of A it was renamed Miracleman due to legal issues with a certain American comic book publisher. Oh, and Marvelman’s history is absolutely pockmarked with legal issues that are too deep and wide to get into here. 

Marvelman follows the tale of Mick Moran, a journalist who has forgotten that he is the hero Marvelman. Upon rediscovering his true identity, everything changes for Moran, his wife, his former young allies, and the world. What does one do when they realize they are a god? It’s an interesting question in a genre filled to the brim with godlike heroes that trounce villains on the daily while wearing spandex and quipping one-liners. 

It’s a riveting story that was just so gosh darn hard to find once Eclipse went under and reprints, along with individual issues, skyrocketed in price. For years, reading Marvelman was a costly venture. Thanks to the efforts of Marvel, the company that forced the initial rename, Marvelman once again is in print for all the masses to enjoy. 

I think one of the most impressive aspects of Moore’s Marvelman is that it gave a young Neil Gaiman the opportunity to continue the story. Though we only got a handful of issues from Gaiman’s run, his Golden Age is strikingly beautiful, holding the potential to possibly exceed what Moore accomplished on the book.

Though Marvel has endlessly teased that Gaiman will return to finish his planned Marvelman story for the past decade, nothing has come of it. Perhaps one day we will see if Gaiman can truly surpass Moore’s original sixteen issue tale.

From Hell

Moore’s stories often involve elements of horror and weird fiction just as much as they do politics. Without a doubt, From Hell stands out as his horror masterpiece.

From Hell is Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell’s take on the heinous Jack the Ripper killings. It was a labor of love for Moore and Campbell, taking almost ten years to complete across a variety of different publishers before finally landing at Kitchen Sink, with reprints now being published by Top Shelf. The gripping and often gruesome retelling of the Whitechapel murders is a meticulous exploration of British society in the 1880s and how the murders were a product of the times.

From Hell is massive! The various collected editions of the story clocks in at almost six hundred pages each, depending on how much backmatter and supplemental material is included. Moore obviously did his homework on the murders and posits his own suspect in the form of Sir William Gull, physician to the royal family. In Moore’s telling, Gull is enlisted by Queen Victoria herself to silence the lives of prostitutes who have knowledge of an illegitimate royal child.

What follows is a chilling rebuke of Victorian society where time and motives are constantly in question. Freemasons, prostitutes, dirty royals, detectives. From Hell has it all. It’s a brilliant take on well-trodden ground, but it’s quite a yarn. 

As with almost any film adaptation of Moore’s work, everyone should avoid the From Hell movie. It egregiously stands out as the single worst adaptation of Moore’s work, and that’s saying something. It’s a mind-bogglingly bad film, let alone a terrible adaptation of some of Moore’s finest work. No wonder he gets so prickly when Hollywood comes calling!  However, the comic book is a must read for fans or horror and period fiction. 

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill’s League of Extraordinary Gentlemen began in 1999 and just recently ended this year, marking Moore’s supposedly “final” comic book publication. Spread out between four volumes and several spin offs, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is a saga that spans decades and literary history.

Following the exploits of fictional characters such as Mina Murray, Alan Quartermain, Dr. Jekyl, and Captain Nemo, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen teamed up some of literature’s best fictional heroes into a proto-esque Avengers or Justice League. 

A mix of humor, horror, and socio-political commentary, the various volumes that make up The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen offer Moore another chance to stretch his creative muscles and dive deep into his literary inspirations. Each issue is absolutely filled to the brim with references to literature, art, and culture, as well as previous volumes of the title. Reading the League books always involves reading the story and then returning to them to catch all the references and nods one may have missed.

If volume 4, The Tempest, truly is the last original comic book we will ever see from Alan Moore, one could do no worse. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen has proven to be a fun and entertaining way for such a giant to close out his storied career in comics.  

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7 Alan Moore Stories Worth Reading (Outside of the Usual Suspects) https://nerdsonearth.com/2018/09/7-alan-moore-stories-worth-reading-outside-of-the-usual-suspects/ Mon, 10 Sep 2018 12:00:10 +0000 https://nerdsonearth.com/?p=19747

With such an huge catalogue of books, there are bound to be some of Alan Moore's works you missed that are well worth looking up!

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My recent rereading of Alan Moore’s Miracleman got me thinking about his impact on comic books.

Alan Moore is considered by many to be the greatest comic book storyteller of the medium, an assessment that I believe is difficult to argue against. The modern view of Alan Moore has him oscillating somewhere between being a prophetic auteur of the medium or as a curmudgeon whose best days have long since passed. Regardless of how one feels about Moore, his approach to comic books deftly mixes mature themes with a suspicious eye towards the concept of heroism in a way that his made him stand well above any of his other contemporaries..

A cursory look at his work finds some of the biggest and most beloved stories in the comic oeuvre:

  • Watchmen
  • Killing Joke
  • Swamp Thing
  • V for Vendetta
  • Marvelman/Miracleman
  • From Hell
  • The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

These aren’t simply great stories so much as they are required reading for any serious comic book fan. Moore tends to stretch the vocabulary and boundaries of the medium with each work he publishes.

Writing such titans of the genre can make it easy to overlook other works that don’t quite pack the same commercial wallop. With such an omnipresent catalogue of books, there are bound to be works that get lost in the shuffle. Moore’s career has had him write for virtually everyone, including Marvel, DC, Image, and slew of other indie publishers.

Today, I want to offer up seven stories comic book readers might not have read from Alan Moore. And no, I won’t be recommending his time with WildC.A.T.S. from Image, but yes, that was an actual thing Moore did in the 90s.

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Promethea (Wildstorm/ABC)

While a majority of fans will point to Watchmen as Moore’s definitive work, I would argue that Promethea is his best. I can’t say for sure if Promethea is Moore’s own favorite work, but I suspect that he loved writing the book immensely because it mixes all of his favorite subjects and themes: magic, spirituality, sexuality, mysticism, and superheroes.

Promethea follows Sophie Bangs, an awkward college student who comes to manifest the mythical embodiment of the apocalypse, Promethea. The series starts out in a somewhat traditional superhero fashion, but quickly dovetails into a truly poetic exploration on Moore’s belief and philosophy on magic. The book’s scope is grand and sweeping, and quite unlike anything Moore has done before or since. Promethea is the only series that I have ever read that I intentionally reread each new issue several times to catch all of the hidden meanings both in the words and art.

Of course, Moore is always adept at choosing his collaborators, and Promethea is no exception. Joining Moore is artist J.H. Williams III, who provides a psychedelic, dreamlike quality to his visuals. Each page is chock full of mesmerizing art, detailed backgrounds, and some pretty funny background jokes (Weeping Gorilla still kills me). Even the covers are masterpieces, with the series providing homages to other artists and stories for pretty much its entire run. I would argue that this is the perfect Alan Moore book because of its unique mix of both writing and visual art.

Tom Strong (Wildstorm/ABC)

Like Promethea, Tom Strong is another one of the creator owned books from Moore’s America’s Best Comics. Moore brings in his love of the Silver Age and pulp heroes of yore by exploring science fiction and the superhero genre without his generally pessimistic and nihilistic flavoring. Not known for his rosy disposition as a person or in his work, Tom Strong is a delightful, positive read that finds Moore comfortable, loose, and most importantly, having fun.

The science hero Tom Strong follows the title character and the misadventures of his family. The book feels a lot like a modern reimagining of the Fantastic Four without losing the campy, pulp-inspired action that marked the early Stan Lee and Jack Kirby run. The cast of supporting characters in the title is one of the strongest in any of Moore’s work. His wife Dhalua and daughter Tesla aid him in his adventures, while the robot Pnueman and ape Solomon provide comic relief and family support.

Tom Strong featured art from Chris Sprouse, who brings the Strong Family to life with his vibrant art. Sprouse makes the pages absolutely hum with excitement and action, true to form for the pulp feel Moore was aiming for in the series.

Tom Strong has actually made a return of late in the pages of Jeff Lemire’s The Terrifics. It’s nice to have Tom back, but his original series is a fantastic read that lacks the cynicism that much of Moore’s work embodies.

Supreme (Image)

I have already hyped Moore’s homage to Superman, Supreme, once before on Nerds. However, I would be a terrible Alan Moore fan if I didn’t recommend it as one of the great Moore stories most folks haven’t read. With Supreme, the thinly veiled Superman pastiche from Rob Liefeld’s early Image work, Moore once again shows his talent with making treasure out of someone else’s trash.

Moore’s Supreme tackles all of the hallmarks and clichés of Silver Age Superman. Moore reinvents the character as he explores themes such as comic book history, retcons, and the cyclical nature of comic books. It’s a mix of Moore’s penchant for exploring the dueling nature of superhero nostalgia and postmodernism in comic books, which Moore essentially wrote the book on with Watchmen.

Moore’s many artistic collaborators on the Supreme include Rick Veitch, Kevin O’Neill, Chris Sprouse, Keith Giffen, Stephen Platt, and many others. The rotating artists gives the book an inconsistent feel at times, but it also fits with Moore’s framing of the series of exploring the past to gain insight on the present.

For anyone who wanted more of Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow, Supreme provides fans with the “what if Alan Moore wrote Superman” scenario.

Captain Britain (Marvel UK)

While some comic scholars would consider Moore’s run on Captain Britain to be one of his best, I have found that many fans still haven’t given this title a shot. In what is the earliest example of Moore doing so, he takes over a story midstream from another creators and changes all expectations about it, creating something horrifying and unique out of what should have been a mess.

In his first and only major Marvel work, Moore takes Captain Britain (and Marvel) firmly into the multiverse. The story begins with Captain Britain being warned by his alternate universe counterpart Captain UK that future Prime Minister Jim Jaspers poses a problem to all superheroes. Her universe’s version of Jaspers has an assassin android, The Fur,y kill all superheroes… and now that droid has infiltrated the 616 (Moore’s newly minted label for the Marvel Universe)! The story pits Captain Britain against the reality warping Jim Jaspers, an unassuming villain that nonetheless shines.

Moore’s take on Captain Britain is immeasurably aided by the excellent artwork provided by Alan Davis. The creative team presents a story that is both unnerving and consequential. Moore’s Captain Britain has all the gravitas that his Marvelman/Miracleman work had, while giving him the rare opportunity to play with some of Marvel’s toys.

The Lovecraft Trilogy: The Courtyard/Neonomicon/Providence (Avatar)

It might be kind of cheating to lump three books together, but they are related! One of Moore’s consistent, lifelong obsessions is with the work of H.P. Lovecraft. Lovecraft has influenced countless writers, but Moore enjoys bringing in Lovecraftian themes and creatures into his work more than most. One of his more overt Lovecraft homages are his three Avatar miniseries: The Courtyard, Neonomicon, and Providence. The three books weave together a creepy and adults only story of Moore’s interpretation of Lovecraft’s famous mythos work.

The Courtyard is based off the prose story of the same name by Alan Moore, with Anthony Johnson adapting the story of FBI agent Aldo Sax who is tasked with investigating three ritualistic murders. Like anything Lovecraftian, what follows is the agent’s descent into madness and hysteria.

Its sequel, Neonomicon, follows more FBI agents who are on the trail of a copycat killer in the wake of the fallout from Agent Sax’s loss of sanity in the first series. It’s as brutal and unforgiving as anything Moore has ever written.

Providence acts as primarily a prequel to both books. Set in 1919, Providence follows a writer attempting to explore the occult happenings in New England. I won’t spoil anything, but Providence also serves as a sequel to The Courtyard and Neonomicon as well.

Jacen Burrows provides the art for all three series, which is brutal and grim. As with almost anything written by Moore in recent years, each of the three miniseries are strictly for adults due to the violence and sexual nature of the books. But don’t let that deter you from reading the books. While it can be barborous at times, Moore gives an unflinching view of the Lovecraftian mythos

The Nemo Trilogy: Heart of Ice/Rose of Berlin/River of Ghosts (Top Shelf)

This is another cheat, but again, all three books are related and worth the reading! One of Moore’s most successful modern books is his League of Extraordinary Gentlemen titles. While those main books get a lot of attention, the three Nemo graphic novels each provide a 72-page window into a Captain Nemo’s daughter, Janni Dakkar.

Though each title is self-contained, the three three books combine to tell the story of Janni Dakkar, who was first introduced in the third League of Extraordinary Gentlemen series, Century. Like that series, each of the three books in the Nemo trilogy finds Janni in a different decade in the 20th Century.

As with all of the League books, award winning artists Kevin O’Neill provides his extraordinary talents to the series. His highly stylistic art is perfect for Moore’s sensibilities, as the two are still frequent collaborators. The Nemo trilogy succeeds at creating a self-contained story that explores pockets of the League world that haven’t been explored in the main narrative up to this point.

Fashion Beast (Avatar)

My last recommendation is a usual offering from Alan Moore. Fashion Beast is another Moore adaptation from Anthony Johnson. Based on 1985 screenplay written by Alan Moore and English eccentric Malcolm McLaren (famed manager of the Sex Pistols), the 2012 series Fashion is a modern retelling of Beauty and the Beast.

Fashion Beast takes place in a dystopian England. The story follows working class stiff Doll who auditions to become a model for popular fashion designer, the reclusive and supposedly deformed Celestine. Over the course of the ten issue series, palace intrigue fuels Doll’s growth in the fashion industry and in her confidence.

Argentinian Facundo Percio provides art on the series, which reminds me of Moore’s 80s collaborators Dave Gibbons and David Lloyd. Reading the adaptation definitely reminds me of classic Moore. That’s not surprising since this screenplay was written in his most creatively fertile period of the mid-80s.

Avatar heralded Fashion Beast as Moore’s lost classic when it was published nearly 30 years later, and I’m inclined to agree. Fans wanting something more akin in tone to Watchmen or V for Vendetta should definitely check Fashion Beast out.

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It’s tough to pick seven books from Alan Moore to recommend without hitting the usual suspects. As a huge fan, I’m of the general opinion that readers can’t really go wrong with picking up any book that has Alan Moore’s name on the cover. You might not like the book overall, but Moore has a way of challenging the conventions of the medium as much as he is challenging us as readers.

I tried to recommend a variety of books that showcase Alan Moore’s ingenious, multifaceted talents in his approach to writing comic books. I hope there is at least one book that sounds interesting to our readership!

Let us know what some of your favorite Alan Moore works are by following us on Twitter or by discussing this article on our Nerds on Earth 616 Facebook group.

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Iconic Comic Book Panels: Miracleman’s “Sometimes I Just Wonder” https://nerdsonearth.com/2018/08/iconic-comic-book-panels-miraclemans-sometimes-i-just-wonder/ Mon, 06 Aug 2018 12:00:32 +0000 https://nerdsonearth.com/?p=19174

We revisit the last page of Alan Moore's Miracleman Book 3 and the dangling thoughts he has perched atop Olympus.

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Some comic book panels stick with us long after we have read them. They even give us chills years later when we happen upon them, by accident or otherwise, when we reread the comic. Like a whole comic book series, the best comic panels never really leave us. They occupy a long box in our mind.

For me, this is especially true of Alan Moore’s Miracleman. No one ever forgets the first time they read anything by Alan Moore, arguably the best comic book writer the genre has ever seen. Moore has the ability to grab a reader’s attention and never lets it go.

In a series that is replete with iconic panels from a magnificent Who’s Who of comic artists from the 1980s, the image that always stuck with me is the last page of Miracleman issue 16, the final page of Book 3, Olympus. It was the last word on the character from Moore, and it’s a hauntingly beautiful rumination on where the series had been and where it would be going in the future.

I was lucky enough to pick up the Alan Moore issues in the late 1990s on the cheap, well after the collections had gone out of print and both them and the individual issues began commanding hefty price tags. I actually got the first ten issues from the dollar bin, while the remaining six issues proved to be a pricier endeavor.

Like many comic fans, Moore wasn’t someone I had read until I got into college. Not to sound pretentious, but Moore wasn’t necessarily writing the kind of books that most teenagers of almost any era would get. There’s too much he’s bringing to the table. It was the 90s. I, like many others, needed busty cleavage, extreme explosions, and multiple pouches to keep my attention. Moore patiently waited for us to grow up and move past all of that nonsense.

With the tutelage of a local comic shop owner, I was well educated in all things Alan Moore (along with the comics of Howard Chaykin and the novels of Philip K. Dick) by the time I earned my bachelor’s degree. I devoured everything I could get my hands on that had Moore’s name on it. His work was amazing, but Miracleman always impressed me the most.

For those who haven’t read the series (and if you haven’t, do so: the books have been blessedly reprinted in recent years), let me situate the story of issue #16 for you: the heroes, as they are often fond of doing, have won. Miracleman and the other superhumans and aliens have saved planet Earth from the deprivations of a maddened Young Miracleman.

However, Moore took their victory to the next logical, realistic step: Miracleman took over the Earth. It wasn’t an evil takeover, but it was no less totalitarian. Miracleman and the others were essentially gods on a mission to remove poverty, violence, bigotry, and all the other ills of society.

If Superman (men?) were real, would he (they?) allow human suffering to continue? The last page finds Miracleman ruminating on his success, and it works magnificently.

Here’s why.

It’s Splashy. Splash pages can be used and misused in a multitude of ways. They can show off cinematic action scenes, or highlight cheesecake pin-up fodder, or show something moody and atmospheric. The latter is true for the last page of Miracleman. The God-Hero alone in his thoughts, looking out over a world that he has saved, wondering if it was the right thing to do. It’s a seductively melancholic way to end a series.

The splash page in issue 16 is not wasteful. It’s an epitaph, a eulogy to the price of success and the sacrifices made along the way.

It’s Existential. Just a few pages before, readers see the final exchange between Miracleman and his estranged human wife, Liz. Their daughter, a highly evolved infant, has left the Earth. Miracleman himself has left humanity as well. Mike Moran is gone. He’s lost touch with what it means to be human having been Miracleman so long. Miracleman offers Liz what he thinks is the greatest gift one can receive, to be a god. Yet Liz rejections him. Miracleman flies away with little emotion.

In that final panel of issue 16, readers in fact find Miracleman struggling with the idea of that rejection. The painful last words on the page reveal that godhood does not guarantee freedom from remorse. Could Liz, a mere human, actually be right? Do the ends justify the means? There remains in Miracleman a lingering doubt if it was all worth it, proof that a god can struggle with his own divinity.

It Sets Up Gaiman’s Run Beautifully. This remaining doubt that Miracleman has sets up Neil Gaiman and Mark Buckingham’s run on the title perfectly. “… sometimes I just wonder.” In many ways, the entirety of Gaiman’s run is an exploration on these final words, pulling at the thread of living in a world imposed by a superhuman God-Hero.

Gaiman’s run is very different than Moore’s run. Gaiman spends most of his time exploring the lives of the average and the not so average people living in a transformed world. Miracleman becomes a supporting character in his own book, aloof and transient, barely there, allowing the reader to continually revisit that last page of issue 16. Gaiman’s Miracleman is in a perpetual state of looking over his spoils of victory atop his fortress of Olympus, pondering his success.

It’s as if Miracleman never really left that balcony.

The end is nigh!

What are the conclusions of all that soul searching? Unfortunately, we don’t know because the book was never finished. After protracted legal battles, Miracleman was finally obtained by Marvel in 2009.

While this eventually led to the Moore and Gaiman runs to be finally put back into print and the reprinting of several trades of the original Mick Anglo material from the 1950s, the promised last two books of Gaiman’s run have yet to be published almost a decade later.

However, at this year’s San Diego Comic Con International, Marvel promised that the second book, The Silver Age, will finally be published in 2019. It’s the perfect time for everyone, veterans and newbies alike, to revisit the series.

As mentioned above, Marvel has reprinted all three of Moore’s books along with the first trade of Gaiman’s run. There’s no excuse to not pick this book up! The conclusion could finally be on the horizon over a quarter of a century later!

The last page of Moore’s run is a pivotal moment in the series, especially if Gaiman ends up delivering his three “books” as promised. It’s the halfway point in a saga that asks readers to abandon the childish notion that Superman is only here to help. His (or her) assistance may come with strings attached. Afterall, Miracleman is not asking for your permission.

What would really happen if Gods walked among us? Alan Moore wondered about that himself. Maybe Gaiman will finally give us that answer.


Other Iconic comic book panels: Face it, Tiger. | No More Mutants | Vader’s NO | Professor Xavier is a Jerk.

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History of the Question, Part IV https://nerdsonearth.com/2016/11/history-question-part-iv/ Sat, 19 Nov 2016 13:15:59 +0000 https://nerdsonearth.com/?p=10432

[tw-divider]Nerds On Earth Presents: A History of the Question, Part IV[/tw-divider] We’ve already seen how easy it is for writers to adapt the Question–a literal blank slate–to their needs. But what happens when someone comes along and tries to turn the character, not into something new, but more of what he used to be? You […]

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[tw-divider]Nerds On Earth Presents: A History of the Question, Part IV[/tw-divider]

We’ve already seen how easy it is for writers to adapt the Question–a literal blank slate–to their needs. But what happens when someone comes along and tries to turn the character, not into something new, but more of what he used to be?

You get Rorschach.

Nope, I’m serious!

[tw-divider]Who Watches the Watchmen?[/tw-divider]

In the 80s, famed writer, magician, and awesome-beard-haver Alan Moore had an idea for a comic that would destroy everything we thought we knew about superheroes. He wanted to show all the sex, violence, meanness, and occasional moments of hope that would be a part of a world where superhumans were far less super and far more human. It would eventually become Watchmen, and if you haven’t read that one by now, there’s not a whole lot I can do for you.

When Moore pitched Watchmen, he wanted to use the characters that had been published by the now-defunct Charlton Comics: Blue Beetle, Peacemaker, Captain Atom, Nightshade, and, of course, the Question. But DC had plans for those characters, including assigning Denny O’Neil a Question series (which we discussed last time). Not one to be deterred, Moore simply tweaked the characters a hair, changing them just enough to be legally distinct. That’s how you get the Comedian from the Peacemaker, Nite Owl I & II from Blue Beetle, Silk Spectre from Nightshade, Ozymandias from Peter Cannon, Thunderbolt, and, of course, Rorschach from the Question.

With Rorschach, Moore takes all of the most extreme elements of the original Steve Ditko Question, even going back to Mr. A, and…well, I’ll let Mr. Tufnel explain:

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He actually doesn’t have to exaggerate too much. The uncompromising, unflinching Objectivist crusader that was present in those original comics is indistinguishable from Moore’s take on the character. Everything about Rorschach, down to the mask, is meant to evoke Mr. A’s, and later the Question’s, black and white absolute worldview. The black and white of Rorschach’s “face” never mix. So when Ditko wrote about how man has a choice between absolute good or absolute evil–

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It isn’t hard to imagine him appreciating Moore’s equally committed Rorschach, the man who dismembered a child murderer, refused to obey an unjust law, and followed his own convictions to his  (thirty-year-old spoiler alert) own death. And considering that Rorschach was the clear breakout star of Watchmen (it must be the coat), it’s got to be said that Moore succeeded in creating a great character.

[tw-divider]Accidentally Awesome[/tw-divider]

Here’s the thing, though–Moore didn’t want Rorschach to be a great character. Moore did everything he could to make Rorschach unsympathetic. He lives in filth. He hates women. Those convictions? They don’t help him when he dies weeping, alone, in the snow. Moore wanted to show how sad and twisted somebody who held onto that Objectivist philosophy would actually be. But in doing so, he accidentally tapped into something others would notice many years later–we like our heroes to be uncompromising. We love it when our characters stick to their principles, even unto their own deaths, even unto the complete and utter destruction of the world.

Also, I just have to point out that if Moore didn’t want people to like Rorschach, he shouldn’t have made him such a badass.

[tw-divider]The Imitation Game[/tw-divider]

Watchmen in general, and Rorschach specifically, were vastly, enormously influential on the entire Western comic industry, spawning, along with Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns, the “grim and gritty” mood of the late 80s and 90s. It’s not surprising that it would spawn imitators. And here’s where things start to get topsy-turvy, because by the time we get Frank Miller’s Question in The Dark Knight Strikes Again…

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Or Grant Morrison’s Question in Multiversity

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We’ve got a version of a character that’s based on another character that’s actually meant to be a parody of the original version of the character. Especially in DKSA, the Question is an absurd, myopic Cato Institute wannabe who claims he’s “no Ayn Rander!” because she “didn’t go far enough!” In Multiversity, the Question is more introspective, but subscribes to a bonkers theory about universal colors (although, to be fair, part of that might be my inability to understand what Morrison is trying to say. Either way, it’s nuts).

Again and again, we see that the Question is a canvas. The readers can project whatever they want onto him, and the writers can turn him into whatever they want him to be. None of these interpretations of the character are wrong, and that’s what makes this such a fascinating exercise. The Question can be used in ways that, say, Batman or Superman couldn’t. He can be inserted anywhere, at any time, and made to be a new man (or woman, as we’ll see later), with no stumbles. Because, of course, he doesn’t have any answers. He’s just the Question.

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