Oh my. It has been a while.
So I dropped out of my PhD program a little while back. It's been a strange kind of Summer, in that it's the first one in 9 years that I haven't been thinking about academia. And it's been a relief. As such, I'm going to try to pick up on my project here. I've been reading GNs, but just never getting around to blogging them. Let's see about getting things back on track.
Prophet has to rank as one of my favourite superhero comics. And, like many great superhero comics, it's not really a superhero comic. It's science fiction in a dense, early Heavy Metal-style vibe. Science fiction that demands that you pay attention, because things are going to move fast. They always do in the future, and this is the far, far future.
I read up a bit on the character of John Prophet a bit before jumping back into this series. He strikes me as a take on Captain America, though in a very Liefeldian move, he's also made quite Christian. And violent. I'm still not sure how one reconciles those two. As with many of Liefeld's creations, Prophet never did too well, and tapered off as a Liefeld comic is wont to do. Until someone else came along and got to do whatever the hell they wanted with this defunct character.
Sounds familiar, right? I reviewed a few of the early issues of Alan Moore's spectacular reinvention of Supreme. (And having just looked back at that, I realize I was in the middle of a comparison reading of Supreme and Miracleman until I had to stop buying Miracleman, but now I've got some more issues, and I should get back to that!) Supreme is one of the best comics I've ever read. And what happened was that Moore was given free reign with the character, no holds barred. It's brilliant. And the same can be said for this new vision of Prophet. Still violent, still driven, the placement of this character in so alien and unforgiving a universe manages to realize the mythic weight a name like "Prophet" carries. It is one man fighting against himself, both literally and figuratively. And if that "literally" puzzles you, read the series and see for yourself.
What this raises for me is the question of why this is something that happens with Liefeld's characters? The reimagined Glory series by Joe Keatinge and Ross Campbell is equally brilliant. Perhaps once I'm done the Prophet GNs I'll get on to that. In fact, the only one of the recent Extreme Studios reboots that I read and didn't enjoy so much was Erik Larsen's continuation of the Moore Supreme run. He finishes off the storyline well-enough, but where he heads from that point was quite disappointing - a return of the original, hyper-violent Supreme. The title tanked.
So how about this? Liefeld's characters are themselves thinly-veiled pastiches/parodies of more well-known characters. Supreme is Superman. Glory is Wonder Woman. So does this mean that when another writer takes over the character, they're in essence taking over the more iconically-charged character from which Liefeld took inspiration? And without the weight of a corporately-enforced set of entrenched rules, creators are able to show us some of the best stories of these contemporary myths. If the Greek myths have taught us anything, it's that mythic characters cannot be confined to a particular set of narrative rules or media. Each iteration is another story added to that myth, another expression of something that that mythic structure has to tell us. And such a thing cannot be reigned in by the forces of Capital. So by utilizing this Superman that is not Superman to tell stories, we can add new iterations to the myths, rather than retreading the same boards over and over.
Another volume next week! Onward!
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