As happens every 4 years the flag of St George is no longer considered rascist and is flying from most cars and houses,the reason? England are in the World Cup.Any other day it is seen by the P.C. brigade as a sign of racism! Can you imagine the U.S. not flying the Stars and Stripes ?  Mind you Radio 1 did have a ban on songs using the word England in case it offended the Scots and Welsh! They had no such rules when Scotland was in  previous World Cups and played their songs,not that we would be offended anyway!

Sorry,but i like most of Moore`s stuff,and when i saw the subway fight in the first Matrix movie i thought of Miracleman immediately.

Found these pages, yeah I'd say they are just a little dark and gloomy

You haven't read WATCHMEN, and you're here entering a discussion on Alan Moore...

...apologies, i just passed out momentarily. Where am i again?

My word, didn't JB say he never finished Watchmen himself? It seems to me someone who's read Moore's other works can speak up if they want to!

QUOTE: Of DC characters created around the same time as Savage, Batman probably comes closer to the model.

Very true. Whatever superficialities (no pun!) were used by Siegel/Shuster, it is the Batman who is most akin to Doc Savage.

QUOTE: Dent, who wrote most of the adventures, described his hero as a cross between “Sherlock Holmes with his deducting ability, Tarzan of the Apes with his towering physique and muscular ability, Craig Kennedy with his scientific knowledge, and Abraham Lincoln with his Christliness.”

"Christliness"? OK, maybe not....

I won't defend Moore on the level that's being discussed. And I don't have any real sense of what Moore is other than the work I've read by him. The philosophies behind good comics writing as opposed to telling a pretty intense story with typical Moore nihilism is two different things. Moore is who he is as a writer. He's interested mostly in literalizing the superhero in order to intensify the impact of the story. So you only know Superman as the Big Blue Boy Scout? Well, in Moore's eyes there cannot just be that assignation. He wants to come to a full understanding intellectually and he works his plots against what the character is supposed to do to become "real" in Moore's mind.

You can blame the industry for allowing Moore to deconstruct Charlton and Doc Savage and Swamp Thing, and the prevading impact of Moore's passions have taken over, for the worst. But really, when was the last time Moore worked on Spider-Man or the Hulk or FF or Batman or Wolverine? I don't think either of the two bigs would really want Moore to deconstruct their prime money properties. Moore did Superman work, but very little, and I don't know if his lack of exposure to the larger properties is purposeful on his part of the companies. The whole Marvelman thing is beyond me since I didn't grow up knowing the character. I only know Miracleman had some profound effect on me when I was younger, with that whole "reality" line shaking me a little. I think Moore is particularly fascinated by how frightening Superman would be as pure evil. Or how Charlton heroes would work against an alternate history of the US. What's the problem with these stories other than that they deal in characters that not many had an interest in before he took them over (Batman and Superman blips aside), and then afterward (decades later) people proclaiming he sullied those characters.

Most writing is split into two camps. There's literary writing that's character focused and usually more internalized. Think John Updike or films like THE MACHINIST. Then there's plot driven stories that use technique and formula. Think Richard Stark and films like the original ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13. Alan Moore is a literary writer writing comics. Whether he's a pompous prick who has no interest in preserving comics (plot) histories is immaterial. The companies who hire him know what they are getting, just as they know John Byrne produces generally compelling, plot-based comics designed around the history and form of the medium. Moore doesn't write comics, and Byrne doesn't write literary essays on what it is to be connected to all the plants on Earth. And yet I can still dig both of these approaches, at least until they hire Moore to write FF and he delves into the microscopic flora living in the spaces between Ben Grimm's "rocks".  Wait, they hired the knock-off, Morrison, to do something like that.

The worst thing about that line is that it became an instant mantra of the fanboys who live only to show how kewl and filled with ennui they are. I cannot count the number of times I have heard or read it since. Aren't they "all" imaginary stories? The first time you think that, it's time to find a new hobby.

I remeber catching this feeling with him in "Whatever happened to the man of tommrow?" when it said "This is an imaginary story, aren't they all?"

***

But I don't think think that Moore was being disrespectful to the genre with that line. In "Whatever happend to the Man of Tomorrow" he'd given Superman a happy ending, of sorts, and he was saying that, Ok, this story isn't part of mainstream DC continuity (or at least it won't be for much longer) - but in it's way it is as valid as any that were to come.

I agree that used by anyone outside the context of that particular story the line does seem to say "I don't take this seriously". But in context, within that particular story, it worked. For me.

Beside the point, in any case. I have heard as many justifications of that line -- including from higher ups at DC -- as there have been people who offered them. I border on being convinced that Moore could say "Superhero comics are utter shit and anyone who reads them is brain dead," and there would be people lining up to put a positive spin on it.