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arbre_rieur (arbre_rieur) wrote in scans_daily,
@ 2009-04-10 18:32:00

Entry tags:

char: glory, char: wonder woman/diana of themyscira, creator: alan moore

Alan Moore's Glory proposal
In the late 90's, Rob Liefeld hired Alan Moore to revamp Liefeld's "Awesome Universe," the superhero universe of such characters as Supreme and Glory. Moore's version of Supreme, which was something of a Superman pastiche/homage, is fairly well-known to fans, and a lot of people have sung its praises. Somewhat less well-known is Alan Moore's proposed revamp of Glory, which would have followed along similar lines, using Wonder Woman instead of Superman as a template. There were some troubles with Liefeld's company around the time it was set to come out, so not much in the way of actual comic book work materialized. However, Liefeld did end up publishing Alan Moore's outline for the revamp, alongside a bunch of other stuff, in a one-shot called "Alan Moore's Awesome Universe Handbook."

It's quite the fascinating read, as Moore shares some thoughts on early Wonder Woman comics and the way mythology tends to be approached in shared universe superhero comics. It's an intriguing peak at what might have been if Liefeld had only run a tighter ship. And it's a testament to Moore's skill as a writer that this mere proposal, by itself, is more interesting, imaginative, and charming, probably even more intelligent, than most superhero comics being published these days. I especially like his description of the Diamond Chariot, the equivalent to Wonder Woman's Invisible Plane that he comes up with. Oh, so many possibilities.

I'm a little confused as to whether the idea was for Moore himself or someone else to do to actual writing. At places in the outline, it sounds like the latter's the intention, but the few issues that actually were published, first by Awesome, then later by Avatar, were written by Moore.

Did that Avatar mini-series ever get completed, by the way? The fact that, to this day, Liefeld is sitting on several issues worth of Alan Moore scripts that have never seen the light of day is just... well, it's the sort of thing that'll make you want to cry.

And while I'm on the subject of Alan Moore's work for Liefeld, does anyone know in what behind-the-scenes material it was stated that Johnny Panic was Darius Dax's biological son? It's a question that's been bugging me for a while now. Wikipedia claims it's mentioned in Moore's Youngblood proposal, but that's not the case.

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aaron_bourque
2009-04-11 12:58 am UTC (link)

~~Two~~Three thoughts.

1)Interesting what got carried over to Promethea. The straightlaced romance with an FBI agent, though much less comedic due to the secret identity of that Promethea, the Qabbalistic idea of the cosmic realm, etc.

2)The Diamond Chariot sounds a great deal like the invisible plane WW eventually got in the late 90s. When was that published, and when was this published?

3) Goddammit, DC and Warner Bros., when are you going to realize the scale and scope of the GENIUS you let slip through your fingers not ONCE, but TWICE because you can't manage to deal with a temperamental artist who's been burned too many times? I WANT MORE MOORE AND I'M NOT THE ONLY ONE, I'M SHORE.

. . .

Aaron "The Mad Whitaker" Bourque; see, it's a pun, and . . . yeah.

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	sianmink 2009-04-11 04:49 am UTC (link)
	WW's invisible plane revamp was detailed in Wonder Woman Secret Files #1, 1-Mar-1998. Wish I knew when the above paper was written. It's just too similar to be a coincidence. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	icon_uk 2009-04-11 09:23 am UTC (link)
	Moore's Glory came out in 1999, and this will have been written a wwhile earlier by my reckoning. Given my suspicion that something like this document would have been passed from pro to pro out of sheer mutual admiration I can imagine this MIGHT have influenced it. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	arbre_rieur 2009-04-12 12:41 am UTC (link)
	The day John Byrne chooses to borrow an idea from Alan Moore is the day he realizes that saying blonde Latinas look like hookers might for some goshdarned reason be offensive. For some bizarre reason, Byrne seriously dislikes Moore as a writer and as a person, as he's made evident in his comments over the years. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	cricharddavies 2009-04-14 05:23 pm UTC (link)
	"For some bizarre reason". Gee, ya think it might be the petty jealousy of a rampant egomaniac who thinks only he should ever get to alter or modify anything Jack Kirby ever came up with? (Reply to this) (Parent)

bluefall
2009-04-11 08:04 pm UTC (link)

Thing about the chariot is that it, like Byrne's revamp, completely misses the point of the Invisible Plane. Yes, it's quirky and bizarre and kind of delightful in that insane Comic Book Way, but that's not the point, that's just a bonus. The point of the invisible robot plane was twofold: 1) keep the at-the-time-flightless Diana competitive with her flying allies and enemies, 2) demonstrate just how crazy sophisticated the amazons are. Because they can invent an invisible plane.

The first has been gratuitous since long before the revamp. The second still, theoretically, has some legitimacy, BUT... if you make it a gift? (And then, later, bizarrely, an actual living creature in and of itself, as Moore also hints at here?)

Then the plane has no reason to exist except to be quirky and weird, and that in and of itself is simply not justification enough for it to be in the mythos. Not even in comics, not at this point in the genre's evolution. Moore would ordinarily get a bit of leeway on the "parodying a famous trait of the source character" front, but if you're giving her a father, I think "but we're trying to hit all the important traits of Wonder Woman for this character" ceases to be a legitimate excuse.

I think the stuff that got carried over into Promethea, at least in terms of the cosmology, was less about "I have this cool idea, I want to use it," and more about "this is how I see the world, so I'm going to write it wherever possible." That was kind of his self-professed thing in writing Promethea, yes? The whole thing's didactic, a setting and perspective loosely disguised as a story.

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arbre_rieur
2009-04-12 12:35 am UTC (link)

Moore didn't seem to care much about having the Awesome characters' origins sync up with their templates'. His Supreme is a human who gets his abilities from an accident. Likewise for Suprema, the Supergirl counterpart. In fact, there's a complete absence of any counterpart for Krypton. Professor Night doesn't have murdered parents or any similar tragedy in his background. Darius Dax doesn't have any equivalent to losing his hair. And so on. I think that says something about how he views superheroes.

But beyond that, Silverfall was a holdover from Rob Liefeld's version of the character.

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aaron_bourque
2009-04-13 09:37 pm UTC (link)

I'd like the invisible plane to be similar to the Bug, or Archie. An invisible, flying Batcave for Diana. It would be where she keeps her armor and weaponry, and a good spot for breathers in the middle of the fight, like she's got something that would save the day stashed in there, somewhere.

. . .

But, y'know, calling it an invisible robot plane just makes me want it to be like a Robotech/Macross Valkyrie or a Transformers PowerMaster (in Japan at least): a transformable mecha. That would warrant it being included in the WW mythos, surely. If anyone besides Batman or the Toyman should be in a big crazy robot fighter, it's Wonder Woman.

Aaron "The Mad Whitaker" Bourque; imagine the fights with Giganta! And as for the visual dissonance of tiny floating Diana several dozen feet away from whatever's fighting Giganta on her level, just have it only have stealth-invisibility only while in plane mode. Then we can keep the cool visual of the gerwalk mode! Yes. Loving this idea more and more.

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