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Saturday, June 1, 2013

LOEG: The Crossover Evangelion?

My lords, ladies, and psychos that try to steal my chainsaw and shoot me in the foot, lend me your ears as I bring up a fact that probably slipped most people's minds when on the hunt for new comics.
Now I ain't too sure how many of you've heard of Alan Moore, or his work on the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (and I don't mean the movie adaption, in fact he hates the very existence of it) but if you're reading a comic blog like this, I'll assume you've at least heard of him.
Now League (or LOEG for short) is a marvel of comic books, the beauty of it coming from its existence as "the Ultimate crossover" with virtually all fiction existing inside it as reality.
Now I love crossovers and shared universes a lot, there's just something about the idea of them that gets me all excited.

                                                                       

       Friendship isn't magic...bullets are.

Now I'm a very big fan of Moore's work (in fact it was LOEG that inspired me to become a comic writer, but lately I've noticed a couple of distressing things about Volume III, and the latest installment too.
In Volume III, Moore does a brazen parody that only the very brave, incredibly stupid or absolutely insane do...and given his track record in writing I'll put bravery as the reason he did it, in addition to probably hating Harry Potter.
You see, Volume III is about the League in modern times (having previously taken place in Victorian times, back when opium was  and muttonchop haircuts were actually popular), and their attempt to prevent the creation of the Antichrist.

   Good God! A Chester A. Arthur lookalike! Save yourselves!

Moore decided to have it turn out...that Harry Potter was the Antichrist.
That's right, you didn't hear bullshit, Moore decided to make the beloved boy wizard the agent of an onimcidal, bald-headed satanist who thinks he's Alistair Crowley.
It turned out that all his adventures were in fact arranged, and all involved were compelled by magic. Harry took the news his life was a life much worse than Truman and Neo did; and by this I mean he used to magic to murder everyone at Hogwarts.
To add further insult to injury, by the end of the story, Harry is a bald chav taking psychopathic medicene with the decapitated (yet alive) head of Lord Voldemort (the alias used by the satanist mentioned above, Oliver Haddo) for company.
But the most audicious part comes from when the League actually confronts him. Harry becomes some giant freak covered in eyeballs, and kills one of their number by ejaculating lightning from his wang.

               Not pictured: The Antichrist's dead dignity

He finally dies when Mary Poppins (heavily implied to be God) shows up and turns him into a chalk drawing...and calling down a thunderstorm.
Harsh, ain't it? And I ain't just talking about the tortured life Moore's Potter wound up with neither.
Thing is, this isn't uncommon for the series. In the Black Dossier, another installment of the story, Moore makes James Bond into a sadistic rapist who betrayed his country (though this could be explained by the fact Sean Connery took a lead role in the earlier mentioned movie adaption of the series) and in the most recent story, he portrayed Tom Swift as a sociopathic racist, yet still having some shred of ethics (which is more than I can say for "Jimmy" Bond.)
Now because Moore keeps writing around trademarks, he'll probably never get sued for this practice. Which is good for me because I still plan to read the series, yet there is something else that worries me.
Dear reader(s) I am quite honestly concerned that Moore may (intentional or otherwise) be turning this comic into the Neon Genesis Evangelion of fictional crossovers.
Now for those unfamiliar with the name (or the show itself), let me explain.
Neon Genesis Evangelion is a giant robot anime dedicated to deconstructing the genre as thoroughly as possible, involving emo teens, freaky aliens, an asshole named Gendo Ikari, and more angst than a high school drama marathon that lasts nine thousand weeks.

                  Yeah, this looks totally bright and cheery

 Now while this is brought up, allow me to bring up Gurren Lagann.
Gurren Lagann is a giant robot anime made by the same studio that did Evangelion, only they made the series to reconstruct the genre where they thoroughly dismantled it...and in doing so created the most epic anime I (and many others) have ever seen.

              Awesomeness and Fanservice, always a good combination

Now the relationship between fiction I dub "Evangelions" and "Gurren Laganns" is a philisopical belief I came up with for classifying fiction. An Evangelion deconstructs works and shows why certain worlds and stories wouldn't really be so good in real life, a Gurren Lagann reconstructs stories by showing instead why the idea is awesome.
While a lot of deconstruction works may or may not have a "Gurren Lagann" to match it as a funhouse mirror reflection of the Evangelion, there are some that do. Zombieland for instance, has been referred to as the Gurren Lagann of zombie films (though regretably I haven't found out where its Evangelion is, though this is a fairly recent theory of mine.)
Now while I'm on this topic, I have reason to beleive Moore's LOEG is becoming an Evangelion of fictional crossovers, evidence suggesting this is as follows.
  1. The afforementioned tendency to turn heroes into villains (though granted Tom Swift was probably a racist anyways.)
  2. The dark nature of the series, but then again pretty much everything Moore's made takes place in grim and depressing worlds, though Tom Strong and 1963 are some noted exceptions.
  3. The ludicrously overgrown government corruption. I mean seriously, I know the government (if not pretty much all of them) tends to be corrupt but in this world corruption became so widespread that in the 50s, England was ruled by Oceania from 1984 (they lied about how much land they had) and by present day it's still quite powercrazed.
  4. Incompetence. The League is pretty strong by itself but all throughout Century (plus Volume III and Heart of Ice) they don't really accomplish too much. They do some heroic acts but when you fail to prevent the Antichrist's creation TWICE, help the government use disease bombs to kill Martians...and most of London in the process (though granted they didn't have any other choice), avert the apocalypse only to a new one to possibly endanger the world (damn you Prospero!) and (in the case of Janni Nemo) cause most your crew to die while trying to prove superior to your father.
Based on these four points, I fear Moore could be making the Evangelion of crossovers. Now I don't say the story is bad (though a lot of Harry Potter fans probably think so), in fact I'm eagerly awaiting the next installment...whenever the fuck it comes out.
Though what I'm wondering is, if this is a deconstruction of fictional crossovers...where can we find its Gurren Lagann?
Moore is a terrific author but I doubt he'll reconstruct crossovers...he's likely got enough on his place as it is. Though it's not like he only deconstructs, Tom Strong and 1963 (mentioned above) are clear examples of it, with the former being a good enough comic for me to read the whole series (but regrettably I can't find the latter so I'll have to keep an eye out for it.)
Though granted a massive and LOEG esque fictional crossover running on rule of cool while reconstructing the concept would not only be great to read, but also rake in a significant share of green, problem is though not many people may have thought of this.
Not that it matters to me, I'd write it if my skills were improved enough (and it might be too, given my skill in making ideas is highly developed) but I haven't figured out how to go about it yet. For now our best hope lies in fanfiction and fanart for a crossover Gurren Lagann.
Now in closing, I gotta reassure you of something important; Moore might have turned several famous fictional characters into total bastards even if they weren't originally,  but he doesn't give all fiction the treatment. Proof of this may be verified in the stuff he just gives cameos to, such as Doctor Who, the Avengers (TV show), and a can of the Zap Apple drink from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.
Yep, not everything is targeted and since Moore has no computer I'm pretty sure this could mean he either watches the show or did research to figure out how to reference such a popular and well known cartoon.
The fact that he didn't, say, have the Mane Six turned into the Horses of the Apocalypse or be herded into a glue factory...

    ...Which this hairy bastard would love to see.

Shows he might like the show...or know that while he can avoid getting sued by whoever the Hell owns James Bond or an irate JK Rowling, he could not possibly stand against the thousand thousands of the brony community, not even with three hundred Spartans at his disposal

                           Or just him for that matter.

On the whole though, I do believe (despite some of the deconstruction tendencies mentioned above) Moore's series will still provide terrific stories for quite some time. It may be a tad dark at times, but that's his writing style and I can't argue with his genius too much (though granted I'm a tad concerned that fiction I like could get the ax in future LOEG volumes, but I'll crossover that bridge when that happens.)
Hopefully the next volume or one-shot will be out this year or the next, and I especially hope that Moore decides not to give superheroes the "Captain Hammer" treatment, because that'll be going too far.
Anyways, this is food for thought, and I hope you readers will enjoy this theory I've posted. My review on Red Lanterns: Volume 1 is nearly done, just wait a little longer...

Peace dudes.

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