scans_daily: 10th Day of Winter - Heroes and Villains: Sherlock Holmes versus Professor Moriarty

Rainspirit (

rainspirit) wrote in

scans_daily,
@ 2010-12-10 02:46 pm UTC

Entry tags:

char: sherlock holmes, creator: alan moore, title: league of extraordinary gentlemen

10th Day of Winter - Heroes and Villains: Sherlock Holmes versus Professor Moriarty

I'm pleased to say that this is my first post in the long years of lurking around this community!

Seeing as this is a community heavily invested in the trials and tribulations of heroes and their nemeses, there will surely be no small representation in today's category. But on meditating on the subject further (and retreading Alan Moore's fantastic, overstuffed graphic novel, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen), I was reminded of an even older rivalry predating superhero comics: That of Sherlock Holmes, great detective, versus James Moriarty, the Napoleon of Crime.

So then! Here are seven pages from The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume 1, Issue 5.

For those who like context, this is Alan Moore's rendition of the final scene of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes short story, The Final Problem. (Also another note that most of my knowledge of the literary references of the series is supplemented by This website, just in case any of you with a copy of The League and feel like tracking down all those weird little details.)

This page and the preceding one are what makes them worthy of this post. Two intelligent men of highly polar moral views, almost amiable in their dialogue as each makes their characters clear: Moriarty is animated and sinister beneath his joviality, Holmes calm and composed as he writes his (presumably) last, fateful letter to Watson, who was led away by the ruse described in panel 2.

(According to the aforementioned annotations website, Sherlock uses baritsu in this scene, a Japanese form of wrestling.)

From Arthur Conan Doyle's next Holmes story, The Adventure of the Empty House: "I am not a fanciful person, but I give you my word that I seemed to hear Moriarty's voice screaming at me out of the abyss."

This scene, done in flashback, then reverts back to the "present day" of the story, in which Moriarty and Bond are speaking in length on their plans while thinking back on the "fateful day" in Switzerland - all while the Invisible Man listens, unheard. It's a great set-up for a bad guy - Moriarty is shown as brilliant, more than a little demented, and worse than that, actually a figure in the workings of the British government. And it is the one scene where Sherlock Holmes is shown, though he is referenced a few times later on in the lore of the LoeG.

I'd like to take a moment to thank the mod team for coming up with these daily themes - it's great inspiration for first time posters!

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	no subject icon_uk 2010-12-11 09:29 am UTC (link)
	I liked the Jeremey Brett Sherlock Holmes version of "The Final Problem", which had Moriarty mention some of the other ways Holmes had confounded him, including the likes of "The Red Headed League" being down to Moriarty. (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent) (Thread) (Hide 6 comments) (Show 6 comments)

	no subject psychopathicus_rex 2010-12-11 11:17 am UTC (link)
	Well, yes, but that's more of a retcon - modern adaptations of Holmes more or less have to include stuff like that, because Moriarty is so famous that people would complain that he wasn't featured enough. (Although that is a clever method of expanding his role, I agree.) (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent) (Thread) (Hide 5 comments) (Show 5 comments)

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icon_uk
2010-12-11 01:54 pm UTC (link)

Oh I agree, I would have loved to see Moriarty get more of a build up before the reveal in the canon, but he's such an instantly memorable character (His character description is a masterpiece) and the fact that he RATTLED Holmes, he actually made Holmes actively worried, which makes him so instantly memorable, regardless of his brief appearance.

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psychopathicus_rex
2010-12-11 02:10 pm UTC (link)

Oh, he's certainly memorable, and I'm not saying he's a bad character or anything - he makes for a great criminal mastermind - it's just that his actual place in Holmesian lore is misrepresented. He basically faced Holmes (that I know of) ONCE. That's it. You could argue that he was Holmes' GREATEST enemy, perhaps, but he was NOT the recurring arch-enemy that he's so often presented as today. The amount of times you get 'It's Moriarty - up to some new, devilish scheme!' moments in modern interpretations is ridiculous - I'm not even a big Holmes fan, and I can think of two or three right off the bat. The battle between them at Reichenbach falls would have made a great payoff to a long-lasting feud, but that's NOT what it was, dammit.

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	no subject espanolbot 2010-12-11 05:40 pm UTC (link)
	I think that he showed up twice, was mentioned a third time. His henchman, Colonel Moran, may have appeared a few more times, though I'm not certain. (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent) (Thread) (Hide 2 comments) (Show 2 comments)

	no subject psychopathicus_rex 2010-12-11 10:01 pm UTC (link)
	Oh? My bad, then. Still, two appearances do not an arch-enemy make. (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent)

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icon_uk
2010-12-12 05:36 pm UTC (link)

Moriarty only appears in "The Final Problem". He's the power behind the plot in "The Valley of Fear" (published later, set earlier) but never appears in it.

He's mentioned in passing in a few other stories, but only as a reference to the past.

Watson never even meets Moriarty at all, aside from catching a glimpse of him.

Moran himself only appears in "The Adventure of the Empty House"

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