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Ian M. Palmer
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Posted: 12 June 2006 at 4:08pm | IP Logged | 1  

What are his complaints?

IMP.

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Deepak Ramani
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Posted: 12 June 2006 at 4:19pm | IP Logged | 2  

 Ron Farrell wrote:
"Whatever happened to the Man of Tomorrow" gave Superman a happy ending? The Wesinger/Schwartz Superman in particular?

The story killed off Pete Ross, Jimmy Olsen, Lana Lang, and Krypto. Surprised they didn't off Batman and Mon-El to complete his friends list.

He gave up both halfs of his identity. He gives up his powers not because he's not needed anymore, but because he took a life.

I agree, for the most part.  "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tommorrow" (WHTTMOW) was simply the wrong ending for an age of wonders.  I appreciated that every important concept from the Weisinger-era Superman got trotted out for a last bow, but I pretty much despised what happened to them.  I was particularly unhappy that instead of Superman taking action to protect his loved ones, they all take action to protect him.  The only part of the story that rang true to me was Superman using the Gold kryptonite after he killed.

On the other hand, I never minded the line "This is an imaginary story, aren't they all?"  All of my friends and I always thought that referred to the fact that not only was WHTTMOW itself an imaginary story in the classic setup, but that every single Superman story published up to that time was being made an imaginary story by Crisis.  I have no idea what Moore intended with that line, but I've always read it to mean the above.

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Jim O'Neill
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Posted: 12 June 2006 at 5:02pm | IP Logged | 3  

I doubt Moore was approached for permission to use Captain Britain specifically, when it's pointed out that the secondary characters Moore created is actually the real reason. As CB had reached some popularity at the time, and a bunch of continuity was put in place, the work that Moore had done was something this editor wanted to kickstart with other creators. Going to Moore to use his "version" of the character and the universe he put together for that character makes sense to me. That's not ass-kissing, that's making sure a name brand guy (at the time) like Moore doesn't rant and rail and create bad press.

                            ********************************************

The truth is, Alan Moore and Alan Davis co-created those "secondary characters". After they'd worked together on MiracleMan, Moore managed to somehow block the reprinting of Captain Britain in the U.S., much to the chagrin of Alan Davis. Davis was naturally interested in building a rep in America, and he couldn't understand why Moore~ already well-established in the U.S.~ didn't see that. CB wasn't collected in trade form in this country until 2002, well after Alan Davis had already made it on his own. This is why they haven't worked together since.

So what standard was Alan Moore upholding here, other than raising the bar for four color prima donnas? I've enjoyed some of Moore's work in the past, but enough already, huh?

My source for this info (btw) is "The MiracleMan Companion", published by TwoMorrows. "You could look it up", as they used to say.

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Dave Phelps
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Posted: 12 June 2006 at 5:26pm | IP Logged | 4  


 QUOTE:
The truth is, Alan Moore and Alan Davis co-created those "secondary characters".

Not that many of them, really.  Merlyn and Roma came from Claremont and Trimpe (although Moore revamped them), Captain Britain's new costume came from Davis prior to Moore starting, as did the Crazy Gang, Saturyne and Jim Jaspers.  He put all of that stuff to pretty good use, IMO, but didn't originally create them.

Moore's main contribution was the idea of the Captain Britain Corps and a few of the characters who were later used in the Technet.  (The Technet name itself and other characters came from the Delano/Davis run.)  Oh yeah, and Meggan, though he only used her as a character in one story, and virtually everything we know about her came from Delano/Davis and later.


 QUOTE:
After they'd worked together on MiracleMan, Moore managed to somehow block the reprinting of Captain Britain in the U.S., much to the chagrin of Alan Davis. Davis was naturally interested in building a rep in America, and he couldn't understand why Moore~ already well-established in the U.S.~ didn't see that.

IIRC, this was the time Moore got ticked off at Marvel for blocking the use of the "Marvelman" name for his Marvelman series because they wanted to protect the "Marvel" trademark.  Coulda gone the DC route and called it "Kimota," but they opted for "Miracleman" instead.  Since in Britain, writers keep the copyrights for their stories, which I guess is how he was able to block the reprints.  (And yeah, Alan Davis got ticked off about that.)  Joe Quesada made nice with him to get the trade paperback out.  Don't know how the "X-Men Archives Presents Captain Britain" series came about.  Either they caught him in a good mood or opted to do it without his approval and found a loophole.  I dunno.

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Jim O'Neill
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Posted: 12 June 2006 at 6:40pm | IP Logged | 5  

Thanks for the clarification, Dave. It reminded me of something, though. According to Moore, back in his Swamp Thing days he realized how shabbily DC was treating their artists (in this case, Bissettte & Totleben). He made a big point of this, and yet when it came time to lend a hand to Alan Davis, he literally kept Davis' work out of print. 

Evidently, what's unacceptable coming from the Big Two is a completely different matter when it's coming from Alan Moore and his perceived Artistic Integrity.

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Floyd Kermode
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Posted: 12 June 2006 at 7:08pm | IP Logged | 6  

there was a kind of sequel to Casablanca, a tv show with (shudder) David Soul as Rick. I never saw it but suspect it was awful.

It doesn't matter wether Moore likes Killing Joke or not. I just picked that moment as an example of what I like about Moore's writing. Curiously, it was a non-Moore Superman comic which made me think about the way Moore gives his characters real reasons for doing things. The comic was the Death of Superman and it was awful. A huge thing which everyone calls 'Doomsday' (for no particular reason, except that it had to have a name) arrives and starts kicking the crap out of a bunch of second-string super types. Superman fights it. Finally he beats it but dies. That's it. Perhaps it seems better to people who are really into Superman but I found it a bit depressing that such an allegedly important story was rattled out like that and thought of Moore and Tom Strong.


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Jim O'Neill
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Posted: 12 June 2006 at 7:45pm | IP Logged | 7  

It was awful for several reasons, Floyd; IMO the death of Superman is not only the point at which the speculator bubble burst, it was also what shifted Event-driven comics into overdrive. Suddenly, telling a good story was low on the priority list.

IMO.

 

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Bill Collins
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Posted: 13 June 2006 at 2:14am | IP Logged | 8  

Ian,Moore`s complaints were the stuff about how the big companies didn`t respect him and the movie treatment of his work,which i expected,but he seemed to be on a downer about the state of the country(I can relate to that!) and had a general air of being a grumpy old man.He really seemed to be a `Glass is half empty` person. One of my friends who is not a comic reader saw the prog and got the same impression.One would have thought that being as well off as he is,and being free to write whatever he likes,he would at least be reasonably happy,instead of the miserable git he seemed.He talked of leaving the country for good,but i got the impression he would be unhappy wherever he went.
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Ian M. Palmer
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Posted: 13 June 2006 at 2:49am | IP Logged | 9  

He wrote about leaving the country for good when V For Vendetta was reprinted by DC, twenty years ago.

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Greg McPhee
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Posted: 13 June 2006 at 3:44am | IP Logged | 10  

Couldn't stand the way "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?" finished off the pre-Crisis Superman. All that death, destruction and just a general air of nastiness was not what the the Earth-1/Mort Weisinger Superman was about.

It was not the end Superman, his supporting cast and his villains deserved when you look back at the tone and style of the pre-Crisis Superman.

I would have much rather have seen Cary Bates, Elliott S! Maggin and Julius Schwartz' original choice, Jerry Siegel, finish the story off.



Edited by Greg McPhee on 13 June 2006 at 3:45am
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Bill Collins
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Posted: 13 June 2006 at 4:38am | IP Logged | 11  

Ian,yes he talked of leaving the country under Thatcher,but he still talks of leaving under a Labour government,he just seemed to be  very unhappy,tortured genius syndrome?
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David Brunt
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Posted: 13 June 2006 at 6:16am | IP Logged | 12  

Funny, I. watched that Culture Show profile and Alan didn't seem angry at all. Prepared to express his feelings where he was anoyed or didn't like the way he'd been treated but why shouldn't he. But that doesn't make for an angry person. Far from it, to me it presented an amiable man with a sense of humour.
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