LoEG: Century 2009 - Boy Meets God

[espanolbot]

A century long conspiracy to bring about the Antichrist comes to a head, and just when it seems all looks lost, an unexpected person comes to the rescue...

Triggerwarning for gore


I should note that her appearance isn't out of nowhere, she's appeared in the background series times throughout the series to my knowledge.





That's right, in the LoEG universe, Mary Poppins is either God or the most powerful being in the universe, and by extention, the entirety of fiction. Heh. And how she defeats the AntiHarry is actually kind of special to, to be honest.

Weirdly enough, this does actually make sense in the context of the novel itself, as one of the overall themes of the book is the progression of literature from having primarily male protagonists to female ones. There are numerous examples of this throughout the book, including the new M (Emma Peel, last seen in the Black Dossier under her maidenname Night) being the first of the characters who bore the title to actually be actively heroic in her own way.

A thing that amused me though, is after all the fuss that Moore and his fans have made over the use of his characters in Before Watchmen (even though they're technically DC's characters, and reimaginings of their other characters like Captain Atom, the Question etc. at that), the fact that he made the choice to overtly use other people's characters in this that are still under copyright to other people. Namely through his decision to use Harry Potter as the Antichrist, a thing hinted since the 1910 volume, as well as an explicit reference to both James Bond and the "JB is a title" theory that the director of Die Another Day claimed was canon.

Comments

[yvonmukluk]

Wait, in LoEG the Antichrist is Harry Potter?

Does Rowling know about this?

Still, that aside this certainly looks interesting, if nothing else. I'll definitely give it a look.

[espanolbot]

They don't refer to him by name, but in the last segment the main villain possessed a magician who was a teacher at a "wizard school up North" who happened to be called Tom Riddle, and the heroes in this comic pretty explicity go to Hogwarts...

Yeah, the Antichrist is Harry Potter in this. His scar is intended to be the Mark of the Beast and he went on a rampage when he discovered what he was that caused to kill EVERYONE (even Hedgewig). But it happened so early in his own story that he really is very limited in his magical power, and has to get by on some lightning projection and immortality to be a threat to the protagonists.

On the bright side, Hermione and Ron aren't raped by anyone, which is what worried me might happen.

[glprime]

It's funny how I only just discovered Armstrong and Miller and get the extra layer of humor in the Anti's language.

Glad this is out finally (I usually hold off on reading any of a known multi-part story until I can read it all in on go).

[crinos]

Mary Poppins as God is SO canon in my rpg now.

[biod]

More even than Marry Poppins being the most powerful being in the world, which is just natural really, I love the "Oh shit, oh fuck" reaction she provokes.

[espanolbot]

According to her creator, Mary was apparently intended to be the Great Exception, meaning she's the only adult capable of using the magical powers that all children are meant to have but loose as they grow older (like how in Grant Morrison's Invisibles they had the idea that infants can see the world in a radically different way to adults, but as they grow they lack the ability to describe what they see, so the world becomes muted as adulthood filters reality to the point it's easier to comprehend).

So this basically has Harry Potter, who in this version never even finished the second year of Wizard School, (a banal antiChrist and a banal magician, according to Haddo) going against a woman with literally unlimited magical potential.

The result is as funny as it sounds.

[sadoeuphemist]

"A thing that amused me though, is after all the fuss that Moore and his fans have made over the use of his characters in Before Watchmen (even though they're technically DC's characters, and reimaginings of their other characters like Captain Atom, the Question etc. at that), the fact that he made the choice to overtly use other people's characters in this that are still under copyright to other people. Namely through his decision to use Harry Potter as the Antichrist, a thing hinted since the 1910 volume, as well as an explicit reference to both James Bond and the "JB is a title" theory that the director of Die Another Day claimed was canon."

This really isn't the same thing though. Parody, transformative work, allusion, these are understood to fall under fair use. For example, Grant Morrison had an alternate universe Captain Atom mimic Doctor Manhattan in Superman Beyond, and plans to use the original Charlton characters in a Watchman-inspired story. And no one has a problem with that.

The appeal of LoXG is not that if you like Harry Potter, here's some more Harry Potter for you, let's retread JK Rowling's work. In fact it's the opposite; if you like Harry Potter you'll probably be kind of upset at seeing him depicted as the antichrist.

[mrstatham]

The thing about people who say that Moore basically 'copied' the Charlton characters also never seem to bear in mind that he and Gibbons were ASKED by DC to create a different set of characters, which, in effect, ARE the creations of Gibbons and Moore. That they are parallels in certain respects ignores the work Moore and Gibbons put into them. They may be 'reimaginings', but tell me - Does Rorschach actively ACT like any version of the Question we've ever seen? If the Watchmen characters were just knockoffs of the Charlton set, why doesn't DC just use the Charlton cast in Before Watchmen?

[espanolbot]

The idea is kind of a sideways look at the character of Potter in a way.

The book version (I've only ever seen the films, sorry) from what I understand seems to flip back and forth over his statis as the Chosen One figure. Sometimes he revels in it, others he curses it due to the misfortune that it brings upon him and his friends and family.

Here it seems to imply that, yes, Harry is the product of 100 years worth of carefully arranged magical eugenics and is intended to being about the end of the world, but he isn't exactly happy with this. He wanted to be good, but everything introducedto him in his new magical life turned out to be a lie or a test to prepare him for a role that he doesn't want, and this causes him to go insane.

It could be argued that this version could have been a hero like the real version, except for things outside of his control messing with him. Think of it, if his homelife prior to coming to Hogwarts was the same as his original version, his being introduced to a new and wonderful life of magic where everyone loved him etc., only to be told that, actually, it was just a lie and he's damned to end the world, regardless of what he feels about the subject... that would really cause them to snap.

Or, to be more concise, Harry might be a villain, but he doesn't want to be one and what evil acts he commits are slightly more sympathetic than they'd be if he'd fully embraced his position in life. He's Hellboy without the stable childhood to fully enable him to not carry out his "purpose".

[bbally81]

Still some Literature buffs would tell you that Moore's ending to LoEG Vol2 is a slap to the face of Herbert George Wells' War of the Worlds

[mrstatham]

Well, I haven't picked this up yet, but it already looks distinctly better than the 1969 volume, which I found a little meh.

The idea of Mary Poppins as God is hilarious and yet bizarrely fitting. I mean, she basically comes down out of the sky and is completely unexplained, and in terms of her attitude, either the film version or the book version fits the nature of a God.

[espanolbot]

What does this make Bert though, I wonder. God's mortal best mate? Former romantic partner? Street Prophet?

[captainbellman]

That's actually in keeping with P L Travers' intent. "Mary Poppins" was the culmination of her personal opinions on religion and philosophy after being a longtime passionate devotee of George Ivanovich Gurdjieff. Mary is a being familiar in all worlds - Earthly, Fantastical, Godly, Blazing - and known to all beings. Why else would Travers later admit to naming her for the mother of God?

[bruinsfan]

"Practically perfect in every way."

[golden_orange]

"A thing that amused me though, is after all the fuss that Moore and his fans have made over the use of his characters in Before Watchmen (even though they're technically DC's characters, and reimaginings of their other characters like Captain Atom, the Question etc. at that), the fact that he made the choice to overtly use other people's characters in this that are still under copyright to other people. Namely through his decision to use Harry Potter as the Antichrist, a thing hinted since the 1910 volume, as well as an explicit reference to both James Bond and the "JB is a title" theory that the director of Die Another Day claimed was canon."

Yeah, to be honest, while there's plenty of legitimate arguments to be made against Before Watchmen and around the ethics of the dealings between Moore and DC, I could never bring myself to respect this one; it just seems really hypocritical to me, and seems to boil down mainly to people finding convoluted and slightly pedantic ways of saying "It's different when Alan Moore does it because I like Alan Moore and I don't like DC!"

If it's okay for Alan Moore to take other people's characters and recontextualize them to suit his purposes, then it's okay for other people to take Alan Moore's characters and do the same (especially when, for better or worse, they actually own them). They might not do it as well as Moore does it or for the same reasons, deep down it's the same basic process. Moore isn't the only one who gets to play in other people's sandboxes.

[leoboiko]

No, there’s a clear difference between parody/inversion/reframing/recreation and cheap cash-ins that just sequelitis for profit. Namely, the first is actually creative.

I would be entirely totally OK with a Moore-style deconstruction/perversion/reinvention of Watchmen. But Before Watchmen… isn’t.

[shadowpsykie]

Marry Poppins is GOD/Cosmic Nanny! LOVE IT!

[espanolbot]

[drexer]

Is this out already? On the topshelf site it's only out next week?

[espanolbot]

In the two branches of Waterstones in Reading they seem to have it at both of those, so I think that it came out in the UK on Monday.

[mrosa]

A thing that amused me though, is after all the fuss that Moore and his fans have made over the use of his characters in Before Watchmen (even though they're technically DC's characters, and reimaginings of their other characters like Captain Atom, the Question etc. at that), the fact that he made the choice to overtly use other people's characters in this that are still under copyright to other people. Namely through his decision to use Harry Potter as the Antichrist, a thing hinted since the 1910 volume, as well as an explicit reference to both James Bond and the "JB is a title" theory that the director of Die Another Day claimed was canon.

The difference is that Before Watchmen only exists because they're capitalizing on the name of Alan Moore and of one of his most popular and successful comic books. No one, I think, is really going to buy this because of a Harry Potter joke. They're buying it because it's by Alan Moore. The marking of BW constantly brings up Alan Moore's name as a main selling point. The marketing of LoEG doesn't focus on Harry Potter. That's a bif difference to me.

Perhaps I shouldn't...

[bewareofgeek]

...but I _like_ this.

Re: Perhaps I shouldn't...

[mrstatham]

Why shouldn't you? I mean, there are unsavoury elements in nearly EVERY LoEG story, but they're all enjoyable, by and large. The only LoEG installment I didn't like was 1969, because of the ending.

[donnblake]

Hmm. Puts me in mind of the Neil Gaiman story (hell if I can remember which one, or what the context was) that has Mary Poppins taking the children on an outing to heaven, Jesus being somewhat in awe of her from when she was his nanny, and God commenting "I didn't create *her*! She's Mary Poppins!'

[icon_uk]

It's the short story "The Problem with Susan", which follows what happened to the woman who, as a girl, was the basis for Susan in Lewis' Narnia books (Her brothers and sisters having been killed in a train crash, as seen in "The Last Battle").

Now an elderly professor of literature, she dreams of reading "Mary Poppins Brings in the Dawn", which is a book PL Travers never wrote.

[starwolf_oakley]

I'm surprised by something Moore hasn't done for LoEG: Reveal that Hilda Rumpole really is She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed. I think Horace Rumpole is the only British fictional character that has not shown up in LoEG.

[halloweenjack]

all the fuss that Moore and his fans have made over the use of his characters in Before Watchmen

Wrong. Again, I'd like you or someone else to point me toward the place where Moore objected specifically to the continued use of the characters that he created under work-for-hire, or that he used that were created by others.

[cyberghostface]

I really don't see the correlation between Alan Moore doing pastiches or parodies of literary characters to what DC is doing with Watchmen.

An equivalent to what would happen is say hypothetically Warner Bros wanted to continue Harry Potter and they owned the rights to do so. J.K. Rowling says no, and their response is "Either you do it or we'll find someone else to do it for you!" (which is btw what happened to Thomas Harris with Hannibal). Then they hire Alan Moore and Moore writes the official sequel/prequel to Harry Potter. THEN if Moore gets angry about DC's Watchmen project, someone could point to that.

Or let's say someone decides to write an official sequel to Stephen King's Dark Tower series without his permission (and they could, legally because of a loophole in the contract King signed). Would his outcry to that be negated by the fact that A.) he wrote a short story starring Sherlock Holmes and B.) he drew influence from other works of literature in his Dark Tower series like the Wizard of Oz or Narnia?

Also, I'm just going to copy what the publisher of Image had to say:

"I'm still kind of gnashing my teeth over the "Before Watchmen" news, mainly because of how dismissive people are of Alan Moore's rights as a creator.

Historically, the comics community has been on the side of the creator in most creator vs. corporation battles. Much has been written and said about Jack Kirby's battles with Marvel Comics, for instance, and most of us tend to agree that Kirby was not treated as he should have been, when the big picture is considered.

But something else most of us can agree on when discussing Kirby vs. Marvel, is that Jack knew he was creating characters that would be owned by Marvel Comics. Did he want more credit and compensation for his part in those characters' creation than he ultimately received? Yes. Did he deserve it? A thousand times, yes: characters Fantastic Four, Thor, the Hulk, Iron Man, the X-Men, S.H.I.E.L.D., the Silver Surfer, Captain America, and the Avengers would not exist without Jack Kirby. But did he know he was creating characters that Marvel would ultimately own? Again, the answer is yes.

Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, meanwhile, created Watchmen under the impression that the rights would be returned them eventually. Within a year after it was concluded, in fact. That's not my opinion. That's a fact. It's public knowledge. Due to the nature of the deal that had been agreed upon by Moore, Gibbons and DC Comics, it was widely discussed. It was a genuine victory for creators' rights.

But then the book was kept in print forever, and the rights to Watchmen never reverted back to Moore and Gibbons.

And people wonder why Alan Moore felt betrayed.

It was a dirty deal, and the fact that there are people who want to rationalize it by saying, "Well, Alan Moore wrote League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Lost Girls, and those books used other writers's characters, so how is this any different?" just shows that truth is a sadly devalued currency. It's different because Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons negotiated, in good faith, a deal that would have allowed them to retain the rights to Watchmen.

And yes, the characters in Watchmen were inspired by characters like Peacemaker, Thunderbolt and The Question. We know that, because Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons told us as much. Had they kept that inspiration quiet – would anyone anywhere have mistaken Watchmen for something published by Charlton Comics? Dr. Manhattan is no more the same character as Captain Atom as Captain Marvel is Superman or Blue Beetle is Spider-Man.

All in all, it's a strange double standard, arbitrarily applied to an amazing writer who has done more than almost anyone else to draw serious attention to this medium. And it's one that anyone who supports creator's rights should find fairly troubling, if not outright maddening.

http://it-sparkles.blogspot.com/2012/02/no-fun.html

[bbally81]

I'm sure Moore intended Harry Potter being the antichrist as a joke at the expense of the religious extremists who called the books satanic, I can't help but feel that he's basically drawing more attetion to such a stupid issue that shouldn't even need that much attention.

[jlroberson]

But it's also a comment on franchise entertainment(of which Potter is a textbook example and one of the most successful) and, well, tell me what you get out of this line, when Mina asks what the train to the Invisible College runs on, Iain Sinclair's loaner to Moore, Andrew Norton, replies:

"Oh, I expect it runs on sloppily-defined magical principles."

Jess Nevins annonations up

[jlroberson]

...though they keep being updated:
http://jessnevins.com/annotations/2009annotations.html