Before his own Watchmen, before Frank Miller’s Dark Knight Returns, there was 1982’s Marvelman, Englishman Alan Moore’s milestone deconstruction of the American superhero.
If you need an example of why real art requires an outsider’s viewpoint, this is it. Moore took his loving familiarity with American comic book conventions — the superhuman powers, the magic words, the skintight costumes, the youthful sidekicks, the secret identities, the archenemies — and juxtaposed it all in his imagination with mundane British reality. The result was not the usual parody, but aesthetic insights that cut in more than one direction.
Using this American dreamscape to expose the American collective unconscious, Moore also explored a theme that paralleled Plato, who’d suggested that with great power comes catastrophe.
When the Superman-DC lawsuit finally put Captain Marvel out of business here in 1953, his British publisher L. Miller & Son saw no reason why such a great concept should die there. Writer-artist Mick Anglo replaced “Shazam!” with “Kimota!” and created Marvelman, clearly a pastiche Captain Marvel, in 1954. The feature and spinoffs ran until 1963.
In 1982, Moore revamped the character for the British comic magazine Warrior (that version of Marvelman is now called “Miracleman” for corporate branding purposes).
The original character was juvenile even by 1950s standards, pretty thin stuff, but Moore’s reimagining was anything but.
Moore’s flair for dramatic surprises that amplify his themes is in evidence. When his wife expresses concern for his safety, Micky tells her not to worry — nothing can hurt him, he’s a superhero. Then, in an elevator, strangers hand him a baby, point out that he can’t transform without incinerating the child, and shoot him point blank. As Micky sinks into darkness, he is mocked by his own swaggering words…
The deconstruction of the superhero had begun. He’s never been the same since.
No comments:
Post a Comment