Glory was the result of an alliance between the Lady Demeter of the Amazonians and the demon Lord Silverfall of the Underworld. Raised in her mother's world and trained by the Amazonians, she emerged as their finest warrior. However, she also struggled to control the savagery which was her paternal gift/curse.
Not at home in either Amazonia or the Underworld, Glorianna went to the world of man. During World War II, Glorianna fought for the Allied forces against the Nazis, alongside Supreme. For a time she worked with Die-Hard and SuperPatriot as the team called 'Allies'. She was part of the second and third Brigade teams with other superheroes.
I've read most of her series and it is forgettable. They even skipped issue #16 when the series went from Image to Maximum and no one seemed to care. But they did give us this cover...
...so clearly they were an example of high art.
Moore's Glory would only see two short previews appear in print for Awesome before Liefeld licensed the series out to Avatar. When Avatar started publishing their run, they included this handy illustrated history (written by Robert Lugibihl, who wrote Avatar's versions of Coven and Avengelyn) to help people catch up. It also includes a bit about where Moore was planning to go with it, but we'll talk more about that below when we get into Moore's fascinating proposal for Glory.
If you read Moore's Youngblood proposal, you can easily see the comic
that it would become. Moore's Glory proposal is a horse of a different
color. He's more interested in talking about tangential aspects, like
how the magic in the Awesome universe operates and how he wants to
handle topics of sex. It's brilliant, even if it doesn't tell you what
Glory would be.
Awesome published this proposal before Glory came out in the Alan Moore's Awesome Universe Handbook in April 1999. Have a read:
Awesome published this proposal before Glory came out in the Alan Moore's Awesome Universe Handbook in April 1999. Have a read:
I'm not going to go over it word for word, but let's touch on some points:
- The idea of taking Glory's Isle of Paradise and turning it into another realm was a good one and opened the door to explore the Kabbalah "Tree of Life" idea that is clearly important to Moore.
- It would have been cool to see Ceres and the Egyptian Geb hanging out with Demeter, but unfortunately, Moore never got that far.
- The map Moore is drawing up for the world tree should sound familiar considering he replicated it in Promethea.
- The idea of a Christian God co-existing with the Greek pantheon is an interesting idea, and it fits into Moore's view of the gods as representing ideas. Because the most important thing to remember is that this world tree is just an extension of Idea Space.
- I regret that we never got to see the Chromocean, as that sounds trippy. But it also sounds a lot like the barrier Gil Kane traveled through in Judgment Day: Aftermath. Again, it's all Idea Space.
- The references to outgrown boyfriend Howard Henry are interesting, and I would have liked to see the elder family man, but when Glory referenced a love interest in Judgment Day: Aftermath, she pictured '40s reporter Trevor Tracy. Maybe this was an idea he had already abandoned or changed.
- The diamond chariot, especially as it was conceived and drawn by Brandon Peterson, was an especially cool idea. In a way, it was like the singing sword in Top Ten/Smax.
- I love that Moore calls Wonder Woman creator Dr. Charles Moulton a
"barely-suppressed psycho-sexual lunatic who [wrote] Wonder Woman with
one hand in his pocket." Ha!
That said, that Moore would decide to bring this into Glory as an element to play with has always made me a little queasy. - The Danger Damsels, as an idea, seems like it couldn't miss. But Avatar managed to screw it up, as we'll see in Glory #2.
- Dr. Clock turned up (kind of) in Youngblood #3.
- Lilith seems like a perfect villain for Glory and it's a real shame Moore never got to explore it more, as it would have been cool to see how she embodies the evil side of the material world while also having a demonic force in the idea one.
- Real Man sounds awful.
- Glory as a waitress is interesting. It grounded Glory in a world that you don't often see in superhero secret identities.
- Interesting idea for the headpiece/lie detector, but Moore never used it.
- Notice that Moore's story ideas really aren't fleshed out in the slightest: Glory in space, an adventure in the world tree, etc.
- "As to how this should be structured, that's largely up to you, I guess." Does anyone else read this as though he wasn't actually planning on writing Glory, but was turning it over to another writer?
