scans_daily: League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century: 2009 cover and preview Up

espanolbot (

espanolbot) wrote in

scans_daily,
@ 2012-03-30 10:33 am UTC

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creator: alan moore, creator: kevin o'neill, title: league of extraordinary gentlemen

League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century: 2009 cover and preview Up

Cover, which isn't really as interesting as the previous ones, though that's just my opinion.

Some panels, which include references to Lost, Judge Dredd and Dan Dare behind the cut,
http://www.bleedingcool.com/forums/comic-book-forum/56868-preview-league-extraordinary-gentlemen-century-2009-a.html

Hopefully Moore won't resort to using women getting molested again as a plot device, but I guess we'll have to wait and see. See, the thing is that I don't not like the LoEG series, and I get the reason for some of the problematic content (the first volume satirises Victorian racism and sexism, for example), but just using the same stuff over and over for shock value is... cheap.

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golden_orange
2012-03-30 10:45 am UTC (link)

Have to admit, I'm not looking forward to this one as much as the other ones; my estimation of Moore seems to have been dropping a bit, and "League" in general has been suffering from a bit of diminishing returns for a while now. Based on things he's said in interviews, I also kind of get the feeling that he's going to be presenting a lot of modern culture very contemptuously without necessarily being that familiar with it, so I'm a bit concerned it's going to be a bit annoyingly cynical AND inaccurate.

And yeah, his use of rape and sexual assault as a plot device really is starting to get to the point where "I'm exploring the literary and cultural implications of it" is beginning to sound like a bit of a weak excuse.

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	no subject darkblade 2012-03-30 05:10 pm UTC (link)
	Kind of like how Voldermort faired in the last one. Seriously, of all the things he could have done, attempting to drug and rape Mina is just wrong. Unnecessary for the story and wrong for the character. (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent) (Thread) (Hide 14 comments) (Show 14 comments)

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mrosa
2012-03-30 09:24 pm UTC (link)

Kind of like how Voldermort faired in the last one.

I thought that was the highlight of the volume, actually, turning the personification of evil in a children's book series into a guy who just casually molests a stranger tripping out on acid, during a concert. When you think that Valdemort is the badass of badasses, I get a kick thinking, "Oh, and he likes to feel strangers besides killing mothers in front of their children."

I also thought the scene was very interesting, culturally speaking; Moore's vision of the 1960s is dispassionate, as a serious writer's should be. He plumbs below the cliches that inform the popular view of the Love Generation and reminds us, "You know, those free-loving, peace-loving hippies were actually indulging in rape. These concerts weren't these great communal experiences wheve everyone was equal and lived in harmony. And they're our ancestors. How's that for the basis of the new generation?" The message may be harsh, but writers are not here to soothe us.

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darkblade
2012-03-30 09:32 pm UTC (link)

I understand the ideas Moore was going for but Voldermort as he was originally written has nothing in common with the guy in LoEG.

Voldermort is an asexual wizard Nazi, outright displaying disgust at the sight of muggles and obliviousness to sexual advances by his female followers. It's a stretch to even have him at a muggle concert, much less molesting a muggle while there.

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espanolbot
2012-03-30 09:48 pm UTC (link)

It could be explained that the change in personality was the result of him being possessed by Haddo, or whatever the bodythief Aleister Crowley guy was called. Though that was a guy who'd gained immortality through the serial possession of his followers, leaving them trapped in his old shell while he made off with their wives and fortunes.

Huh, just realised that Voldemort's obsession with immortality could make sense in the LoEG-verse due to Haddo's astral battle with Mina combined, with Jack Carter shooting his physical form, making it impossible for him to continue his cycle of serial possessions.

Though this probably means that they'll be treated to a panel or scene of Voldehaddo attempting to molest Hermione or something at some point, as that WOULD be in character for Haddo. *annoyed sigh*

Huh, I wonder if Harry Potter is the Moonchild that is the focal point of the Century series?

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halloweenjack
2012-03-31 12:22 am UTC (link)

Voldermort is an asexual wizard Nazi, outright displaying disgust at the sight of muggles and obliviousness to sexual advances by his female followers. It's a stretch to even have him at a muggle concert, much less molesting a muggle while there.

Go back to Half-Blood Prince, chapter 13, "The Secret Riddle," in which Dumbledore is getting Tom Riddle from the orphanage:

"And then"--Mrs. Cole took another swig of gin, slopping a little over her chin this time--"on the summer outing--we take them out, you know, once a year, to the countryside or to the seaside--well, Amy Benson and Dennis Bishop were never quite right afterwards, and all we ever get out of them was that they'd gone into a cave with Tom Riddle. He swore they'd just gone exploring, but something happened in there, I'm sure of it. And, well, there have been a lot of things, funny things..."

Later, when Dumbledore is talking to Riddle and has just offered him a place at Hogwarts:

"You can't kid me! The asylum, that's where you're from, isn't it? 'Professor,' yes, of course--well, I'm not going, see? That old cat's the one who should be in the asylum. I never did anything to little Amy Benson or Dennis Bishop, and you can ask them, they'll tell you!"

And later, after Dumbledore and Harry had left the Pensieve:

"And as you saw, they were not the random experiments typical of young wizards: He was already using magic against other people, to frighten, to punish, to control. The little stories of the strangled rabbit and the young boy and girl he lured into a cave were most suggestive... 'I can make them hurt if I want to...'"

That's about as explicit as Rowling gets, in any of the books.

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	no subject espanolbot 2012-03-30 09:38 pm UTC (link)
	Never really was ever impressed by Voldemort to be honest. He lacked scope. Perfer my dark lords a bit more metal, (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent) (Thread) (Hide 1 comment) (Show 1 comment)

	no subject glprime 2012-03-30 10:17 pm UTC (link)
	...I can't help but hear a pretty sick guitar riff accompanying that picture. (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent)

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halloweenjack
2012-03-31 12:36 am UTC (link)

I don't think that Moore was trying to go to quite that extreme, but basically, yeah, he's saying that not everything was peace and love and people having sex that was completely consensual even though most of them were tripping out of their gourds.

And I really wonder why more people aren't examining why they're so uncomfortable with "his use of rape and sexual assault as a plot device", but apparently OK with the routine use of murder and non-sexual assault as a plot device, to the point where some s_ders were saying (in a post after this one) that a scene where Spider-Man apparently punches Al Gore, a sixty-four-year-old man, is funny.

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golden_orange
2012-03-31 01:47 am UTC (link)

Yeah, to be fair, I'm not one of them.

And I get the idea behind what Alan Moore's trying to do; my issue is that he does it in what seems to be almost every single project he's involved in. Which starts getting a bit weird and uncomfortable after a point for reasons other than what Moore is suggesting -- depictions of rape are loaded with all kinds of sexual connotations in a way that murder and non-sexual assault, as much as they are often trivialised by popular culture, do not necessarily possess.

It was one of the commentators on "Mindless Ones.com" who put it best for me -- "Violate enough fictional women and you start to look like you like it." The problem's not necessarily what he's trying to do so much as the fact that he seems to be trying to do it all the frigging time, which gets weird for reasons beyond those he intends.

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halloweenjack
2012-03-31 02:28 am UTC (link)

"Violate enough fictional women and you start to look like you like it."

FFS. Do people accuse writers who depict entire races (or even worlds or universes) being destroyed of fantasizing about genocide? Do people accuse the creators of Law & Order: SVU of "liking" sex crimes? Does it even make a lick of sense to take Alan Moore's work out of the context of the comics industry in general, which usually handles violence against women, particularly sexual violence, very badly when it's mentioned at all?

Starting to see red. Need a break.

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golden_orange
2012-03-31 03:03 am UTC (link)

"FFS. Do people accuse writers who depict entire races (or even worlds or universes) being destroyed of fantasizing about genocide? Do people accuse the creators of Law & Order: SVU of "liking" sex crimes?"

Well... yes. They do. Or, at least, people have.

Certainly, I've read criticisms of Law and Order: SVU that suggest that the writers at times seem to take a rather prurient or exploitative interest in the subject matter (it's been a while since I've seen the show, so I can't say how fair these criticisms are in every case). Can't think of any specific genocidal comic book accusations, but someone who's art constantly depicted massive populations of people being killed in horrible and grotesque ways might prompt their reader to wonder whether they might have some kind of issues or violent fantasies that were being expressed through their work -- and while we're on the subject of comics creators getting analysed, how many times have Garth Ennis or Mark Millar been accused of being fucked up, fairly or otherwise (around these parts particularly) due to the subject matter of their works? Even in that thread you link to, people are accusing the Marvel editorial team (fairly or otherwise) of being climate change deniers due to the content of the issue. People read messages into things.

Now, granted, this aren't exactly perfect or even necessarily fair examples. Nor, I should stress, do I believe that Alan Moore is some kind of suppressed sex offender, which I probably didn't make as clear as well as I could have. Nor do I necessarily have a problem with the way he depicts rape or sexual assault in individual cases which, like you say, is often a lot better than a lot of other people working in the comics industry (although still not without issue; there's no way of getting around the fact that the whole 'fall in love with your potential rapist' thing in Watchmen is really problematic, among others).

But subtext is a thing. Works of fiction reveal things about the mindset of their authors. Alan Moore is no different. If an author frequently writes about a topic, it's not unreasonable to suggest they have some kind of an interest in that topic, which can get a bit uncomfortable when that topic that is frequently raised happens to be rape or sexual assault in a way that doesn't necessarily happen if the topic is Captain America punching Nazis. Fair or otherwise, there's sexual connotations loaded there that can't help but prompt the reader to wonder why the author is constantly dealing with this kind of material.

"Does it even make a lick of sense to take Alan Moore's work out of the context of the comics industry in general, which usually handles violence against women, particularly sexual violence, very badly when it's mentioned at all?"

Again, yes. The comics industry isn't a vacuum. Just because Alan Moore's a lot better at dealing with this kind of subject matter than many of his peers in the same industry does not mean that there's not problems or issues with how he presents that subject matter or that those problems shouldn't be discussed or addressed in a broader context. He's a fantastic comics writer, but he's not God.

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	no subject jlroberson 2012-03-31 06:03 am UTC (link)
	I'm still waiting for someone to put a stop to Geoff Johns encouraging ripping people's arms off. The kids need to know that it's all fun and games until someone's arm is lying on the ground. (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent) (Thread) (Hide 1 comment) (Show 1 comment)

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golden_orange
2012-03-31 07:06 am UTC (link)

I didn't really say anything about Moore's work encouraging other people's actions, though; I was talking about what it possibly suggested about him.

(Although it's perhaps worth noting that ripping someone's arms off isn't exactly something within the physically possible for most people, whereas rape and sexual assault kind of are; they're not quite the same, is all I'm saying. And that particular example might still suggest what Geoff Johns would like to do to people who really piss him off if he could, however...)

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halloweenjack
2012-03-31 04:37 pm UTC (link)

Thanks for your response; I'm a little less irritable this morning.

I still disagree with things like whether Moore brings up sexual assault "constantly" or "frequently"; he certainly brings it up persistently, but usually not more than once or twice in any given work. (Three times during his Miracleman run, two of which were at the hands of the same villain, and not at all during his run on Captain Britain or From Hell, despite the latter being set largely in the seedy underworld of late-nineteenth-century London.) And context matters, too, of course, as looking at the numerous rape tropes shows; whether or not individuals have read exploitation into SVU, I haven't seen widespread criticism of the show on that basis, and it (and several of its creators and actors) have won awards. Garth Ennis, on the other hand, has repeatedly used Rape Is Funny When It Is Male On Male throughout his career, and Mark Millar uses it mostly for cheap shock value, nowhere more ludicrous as when, during his first Authority arc, he had a couple of his faux-Avengers rape Apollo in the middle of a battle that was not going particularly well for their team. Moore's portrayal of sexual assault has been neither exploitative nor indicative of a particular fetish. Even the example from Watchmen that you cite is a bit more complicated than "Sally Jupiter falling in love with Edward Blake."

And, it really, seriously needs to be emphasized, Moore doesn't get enough credit for his persistent positive portrayals of sexuality. Watchmen has Laurie and Dan in the owlship, which ends up being about not only sex, but also Dan reclaiming an important part of his identity in the process. V for Vendetta has "Valerie", which still makes me cry a little when I read it or even think about it. Swamp Thing had "Rite of Spring", which remains one of the single most amazing issues ever published by the Big Two. And so on.

And, finally, I'm not entirely uncritical of Moore; although I've got most of his work, I've skipped over some of the work-for-hire stuff that he did for Image because it doesn't interest me (and, honestly, some of it doesn't seem to have particularly interested him), and I still wince a little when I think of Brought to Light; I'd much rather have had Moore and Sienkiewicz put out another chapter of Big Numbers than have had them illustrate someone's woo-woo conspiracy theory. (Not that there isn't a bit of the woo in From Hell, but that book's virtues heavily outweigh it.) And even WRT his portrayals of sexuality, there are some parts of Lost Girls that are highly problematic, to put it mildly, and probably didn't warrant inclusion. But, you know, nobody bats a thousand.

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Sorry if this repeats some of the stuff you said, but here's my two cents

espanolbot
2012-03-31 08:50 pm UTC (link)

In regards to Ennis, I feel I have to point out that not all of his work have the same tone, and there are series' were male rape is actually given the protrayal it probably should have gotten in the first place, such as in Crossed, and the Boys, for example.

Really with both Ennis and Moore it depends on what tone it is that they're going for that effects how they use narrative devices that have now become associated with them. Ennis, for example, is often associated with male characters having kind of conservative and overly macho self-images (see the lead character in Preacher), but since then he's actually deconstructed the very thing he built in the first place, in that acting like staggering John Wayne character doesn't work in real life (see the examination of this with Hughie in the Boys). Same as how he was intitally very scathing about religion, but in things like Chronicles of Wormwood he shows that there are good things associated with Christianity etc. too.

Really it depends on where they happen to be when they're writing it. Tom Strong, for example, was Moore attempting to rebuild the superhero genre that he'd deconstructed with the likes of Watchmen, so it's generally middle of the road in terms of its content, overly harsh comments from Strong's wife about Jonni Future besides.

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michael_ellis_day
2012-03-30 06:06 pm UTC (link)

This. I loved the first two volumes, then started to feel strong misgivings when Black Dossier took one of my childhood icons of liberated female empowerment, Emma Peel, and made her a naive and helpless pawn in order to build up Mina still more. When Century took a powerful symbol of female anger and retribution, Pirate Jenny, and turned her into a naive and helpless rape victim, I started to wonder why the point of the story seemed to be "None of these characters is as awesome or impressive as you thought they were. Why did you ever like them?"

Also, at some point, doesn't he run the risk of turning into another Andrew Breitbart?

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	no subject espanolbot 2012-03-31 08:52 pm UTC (link)
	Janni is neither naive, nor helpless. Being a teenage girl that's jumped, beaten and raped by five older, larger men in an alley does not make her weak. And when she decides to get revenge, she shows her inner steel and makes EVERYONE pay. (Reply to this) (Thread from start) (Parent)

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