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| Tuesday, December 14, 2004 11:46 AM |
| Geek-Out! |
 by Fëanor |
So, I finished all those graphic novels I got out of the library, and I thought I'd tell you all about them. Aren't you lucky!
The Justice League book I was talking about is called A League of One, and it basically involves Wonder Woman learning of a prophecy that says a dragon is going to show up and that the Justice League will all die killing it. So she decides to betray and incapacitate all of her fellow Leaguers so she can face the dragon alone. The art in the book is lovely--lush, detailed paintings--and the story is a quite good, as well, if corny at times. I think the author does a good job with the characters and characterization. I particularly like the way Superman is handled.
But the next book I read was Saga of the Swamp Thing, written by Alan Moore, and it's just on another level entirely from League of One. I know very little about the Swamp Thing (I saw the movie and maybe read one or two issues of the comic before), and I've never really been that interested in the character. I picked this book up simply because it had the name "Alan Moore" on it and, as usual, this was an excellent indicator of its quality. Saga is really just a few issues of the Swamp Thing comic collected together, from sort of in the middle of a story arc. Luckily, in a helpful introduction, Moore explains the backstory. He also says some other interesting things in the introduction that helped give me a better perspective on his work and on some of his predilections. For instance, he mentions the odd conceit of comic books, that all the books made by a particular company are understood to be taking place in the same universe. Superman shares a world with Batman, and with the Swamp Thing, and with any persons or creatures you might come across in any other DC title--be it a horror comic or even a Western/cowby comic. Moore is clearly fascinated by this idea (see League of Extraordinary Gentlemen), and by the idea of there being a world full of super-powered men and women--what would a world like that really be like? And what would those people really be like? (See Top 10 and Watchmen.) Another, related idea is that of archetypal characters and stories that reappear and recur throughout the ages, reaching across both time and space to affect the universe (see From Hell and Promethea).
The opening story of Saga is excellent, and is probably the best story in the book. It's about an incredible realization, a realization that is the central idea of the entire book: the Swamp Thing is not human, and has never been human. It is not a man who's become plant-like, it's a plant infected with the consciousness of a dead man. This realization drives the Swamp Thing to do violence, but ultimately leads him back into the swamp and into a kind of stasis from which he will not awake for quite a while.
This is a huge and courageous step to take with a character, but Moore takes it with the skill and assurance of the professional he is. And meanwhile, he tells a totally engaging story with plenty of other great characters. The man who makes the discovery about the true nature of our title character, for instance, is himself a complex, twisted, and totally fascinating character. He will become a kind of opposite of the Swamp Thing--or really, what the Swamp Thing could have been--a raging, evil plant-thing taking revenge on the human world.
But, as Moore mentioned in the introduction, this book takes place in a world full of other monstrous, or "super," characters, and a number of them get cameos, including the Justice League and the demon Etrigan. Some parts of the book aren't quite as good as the first story, but it's always competantly written and interesting. As for the art...well, at first glance, I really didn't like the style, but I got used to it. Like I was saying to poppy, for me it's the writing that's important. She takes more of a quick glance at things, and goes more by the visuals. And she thought League of One was really bad, by the way.
Yeah, so, I'm a serious multi-classing geek here now--what with the comic books and the role playing, and the video games, card games, and board games, and the coding and the movies and the science fiction and...well, you know, all that stuff. And now that I'm reading all these graphic novels and getting involved in a D&D session both at once, I'm gaining so many geek experience points I'm going to level up twice in a row.
Hee hee. |
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