If Lee and Kirby had tackled Egyptian mythology rather than Norse...

[alschroeder3]

In 1993, Alan Moore worked with several artists for Image for a project called "1963", which was both a loving tribute, a fitting homage and often a sly parody to the Silver Age/Marvel Age comics that Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, and Steve Ditko created. There was the Fury, a delightful variation of Spider-Man. There was Mystery Inc., a salute to the Fantastic Four. There were several anthology titles, with characters like USA and Johnny Beyond and N-Man--

...And then there was Horus.

A delightful re-imagining of Egyptian mythology through a Kirbyesque lens and Lee-ish hyperbole, Horus was the Egyptian god of the same name--but he also functioned as a super-hero--and he also transformed into the mortal Dr. Whittaker Falcon, a professor of Egyptology.


Janet Jones, an Egyptology student, had a thing for the "dishy" professor. Prof. Falcon went to one part of the campus, and said his Pnakotic chant...

Hawk of Heaven, now arise!
Shed the hood of mortal guise...
Foe of night and day-break's friend,
hunter of the sun...ascend!

And transformed into Horus. A minute later, he summoned a portal to Ra's Barge of a Thousand Years, and Janet Jones, spotting Horus, sneaked aboard, hiding in an empty sarcophagus. Then...

Thoth, Egyptian god of wisdom, is Horus' close friend, somewhat like Thor and Balder.

Set tries to tempt Horus into a brawl, but Set's sister, Horus' mother, Isis, breaks it up. Then...

I love how, like Lee and Kirby tried to do, there is some concession to modern science--the Boat of a Million Years steers the solar system?--while still trying to maintain some semblence of the original mythology. (Of course, Moore being Moore, he is still much more faithful to Egyptian mythology than Lee ever was to Norse mythology.)

Also, Horus' somewhat dismissive attitude towards Janet Jones is right in tune with the sometimes dismissive attitude many male protagonists had to females in sixties' comics.

I love how Ptah's "scrying" device appears to be a sixties' TV...

Well, that will give you a flavor of this loving tribute to the sense of wonder Thor comics often gave us who read it in the sixties...only with an Egyptian flavor.

If you want to read the rest, comic shops often have "1963" in the cheap bins. If you are a fan of Sixties' Marvel, of Lee and Kirby, I strongly recommend it.

Comments

[icon_uk]

It does have that genuine Lee/Kirby sense of "cosmic meets pompous meets just plain daft" to it. :)

[alschroeder3]

*Grin* Exactly! Silly, absurd, and yet with just enough spectacle to be fascinating. Just like the old Lee/Kirby take on another mythology they're making subtle and loving fun of .

[jlroberson]

With art by, if I recall correctly, Rick Veitch and the GREAT John Totleben. This must be the simplest style JT ever inked in. I recall in the text pages his eye problems were joked about; it claimed that Bissette put such deep grooves in the paper when penciling that Totleben was able to ink by touch alone. "The Inker Without Fear," they called him. Affable Al liked him the best because he could just turn out Jaunty John's lights to save electricity and he'd never know it.

It's really sad that Moore had to be so jerkish about a reprint of 1963 (basically, he refused to consent to it, thus closing off reprint royalties for Bissette, Veitch, Totleben, Don Simpson, and Jim Valentino) but I guess it's good it was so overprinted; you pretty much can find a set of these for cheap ANYWHERE.

Bissette re-acquired full rights to N-MAN and HYPERNAUT and claims he will be issuing new stuff. One day.

[silverhammerman]

1963 was a great little project, I really wish there'd been more of it, early Marvel Comics were weird and delightful and worthy of riffing on.

[jlroberson]

It was also building up to a direct comparison with 90s (Image) comics. The problem with that is that if it were concluded now by some miracle anyway the zeitgeist is gone; it'd make no sense. Moore ended up using some of those ideas later with JUDGMENT DAY and SUPREME.