InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Galesome."

arbre_rieur (arbre_rieur) wrote in scans_daily,
@ 2009-05-07 14:16:00

Entry tags:

char: stardust, creator: alan moore, title: league of extraordinary gentlemen

Mina Murray's new job
Bizarrely, both League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Astro City, books known for their history of lateness and erratic scheduling, managed to come out this week. If the last issue of Planetary had come out too, I think the universe would have sunk into some abyss of improbability.

Two pages from the latest League volume, Century, follow.

Or perhaps "What Vull was doing in the 1960s," if we use the name she was going by at the time...

Seeing LoEG touch on superheroes makes you realize how cool it'd be if writers applied the series's "everything is connected" approach to the DC or Marvel Universes. I know they're already shared universes, but I'm talking more about drawing as many connections as possible, wehrever they show themselves, like when Moore made Dean Moriarty from On the Road the descendant of Holmes's Moriarty.

Roy Thomas used to do this sort of thing all the time. He'd do stuff like reveal that Robin and the Golden Age Robotman (both had the last name Grayson) were relatives, or establish a connection between the villain Black Knight and the medieval adventure character of the same name. Why do so many of today's writers for the Big Two avoid making these sorts of fun connections? It's such an obvious thing to do.

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	foxhack 2009-05-07 05:09 pm UTC (link)
	"Why do so many of today's writers for the Big Two avoid making these sorts of fun connections?" Because of continuity and the ever-lovely retcons that happen every one or two years. It takes all the fun out of it. (Reply to this)

	thandrak 2009-05-07 05:13 pm UTC (link)
	How... adorable. A swipe at Liefeld and the 90s. God, I'm sick of it from both ends. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	arbre_rieur 2009-05-07 06:35 pm UTC (link)
	That's Stardust, a character from the 40's. http://www.fortunecity.com/victorian/hartford/103/28one1.html (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	aaron_bourque 2009-05-07 06:52 pm UTC (link)
	And even if it was a swipe at Liefeld, Moore worked for Liefeld in the 90s. I think he knows what he's talking about. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	thandrak 2009-05-07 09:21 pm UTC (link)
	Yeah, I know. I was grumpy for some reason. Sorry. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	thandrak 2009-05-07 09:20 pm UTC (link)
	Oh, man. I had completely forgotten about... Well. Different perspective entirely, then. AMAZING convergent style evolution... down to the pointy golden hair. (Reply to this) (Parent)

squirle
2009-05-07 05:31 pm UTC (link)

Awesome to see Stardust the Super-Wizard mentioned. Even if it is in a state like that. (Though if I'm honest, he WAS a sadistic brute).

Its interesting to see Moore move into times wherein I know more characters. Obviously I knew the members of the original league, but the side references where often too obscure for me.

If Century covers the entire 20th century, I wonder what characters we'll see popping up in the later decades. Won't all the big names still be copyright protectected? Or will the LoEG-universe-1970's-and-onwards be based on those jetpack/flying car sci-fi from the first half of the century?

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rab62
2009-05-07 05:37 pm UTC (link)

In advance of the inevitable annotations: I've managed to work out that "Vull the Invisible" was a serial written by Temple Murdoch in The Ranger circa 1935, but apart from that nothing further. Can anyone point me to further info?

Also gotta love that metafictional namecheck for Guntag Borghelm, the Shazam-surrogate from the original Marvelman comics (subsequently retconned by Moore himself as a fiction created by Emil Gargunza).

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arbre_rieur
2009-05-07 06:32 pm UTC (link)

Captain Universe was the star of his own British comic book series. He was created Mick Anglo, the creator of Marvelman. Since his last name's Logan, the brother named Jet mentioned might be Jet Ace Logan, though that character lived in the far future from what I understand, so I'm not sure how that would work out. Marsman (one word) is another British comics character.

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rab62
2009-05-08 12:23 am UTC (link)

The acknowledgement at the start of the book tipped me off to Captain Universe -- I'd seen other stuff by Angle apart from Marvelman, but had never heard of that character until now. Thanks for the tips on the others. According to online sources, Jet Ace Logan was set only a century in the future, so it's still a possible tie-in.

What I'm really hoping for is more info on Vull!

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	(Anonymous) 2009-05-07 07:49 pm UTC (link)
	spittake Wait, there's a new Astro City out this week?! WHY DIDN'T ANYONE TELL ME! (Reply to this)

	leikomgwtfbbq 2009-05-07 09:32 pm UTC (link)
	Oh my god, Stardust the Super Wizard. Awesome. XD (Reply to this)