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So a long time ago (the mid-1990s), the greatest writer in comics agreed to take over the writing duties for Image Comics' Supreme. He would radically reshape the character, the book, and due to forces beyond his control, a whole comic book universe. And it led to an award-winning run of comics, three additional titles (among several proposed) and ultimately led to the genesis of Moore's much better known America's Best Comics. And then it all went out of print and was forgotten by way too many.

Having gathered quite a bit of information about Moore's Supreme and Awesome runs, I decided to create a home for the forgotten Awesome. Over the course of a year, I put it all together here.

Each week I did a main "Weekly Reading" post that was a read-through of that issue. I followed that up with a couple of other posts about topics from that Weekly Reading or whatever else I came up with to talk about. You'll find the lost Youngbloods in the Youngblood section and the fan-edit of the last Supreme in After Awesome.

Below is the archive of posts broken up by book. Thanks for checking the site out!

Book 1: Supreme: The Story of the Year

Book 1: Judgment Day

Book 3: Supreme: The Return

Book 4: Youngblood

Book 5: Glory

Book 6: After Awesome

Book 7: 1963

Book 8: Night Raven

Book 9: A Small Killing

Friday, August 18, 2023

The chronological Judgment Day, Part 1: Before Time

Judgment Day is a fun miniseries and I love the way Moore was integrating all the different eras of comics heroes. But it's also a bit confusing the way it all fits together. So I thought it'd be fun to look at Judgment Day from a chronological point of view. 
 
The story really begins outside of time, for in Idea Space or the realm of the gods (to Moore, they're the same), there is no time. Or there is all time. But for the purposes of Judgment Day, this occurs before human time begins.
 
It really starts with Hermes, in his royal chamber, talking about story (which is the same as magic) and the consequences it can have (the first page is spliced together to avoid the other eras we'll see in a bit):
 



Hermes leaves and then goes to see Demeter, who has just created the material world (that she's the goddess of):





And thus the book of fate, which foretells everything that will happen in the material world until the end of time was introduced into the material world at the very beginning of it.
 
Here's a question for those of you interested in Moore's metaphysical magical thoughts. Did time as we know it exist in the world of matter until Hermes created this book that had past and future or did the invention of story create it?
 
My friend Jason Powell, who is also a lot smarter about some of the metaphysical implications, brings up the following in a conversation about how the book of fate is such an interesting McGuffin for this story:
 
[That third] page is definitely plugged in to the core of Moore's magical thinking, for sure. He has likened existence to a book before: the idea that past, present and future all exists, and the illusion of linear time is created by us moving through the book a page at a time ("a most timely gift!"). Due to our perceptions, we think the book is being written as we go, when in fact the entire book exists. And in Moore's Jerusalem, we see how some people's consciousness is able to move forward or backward in order to relive different parts of the "book" after their mortal existence ends.

Moore has also talked about the idea that while this notions suggests a deterministic outlook wherein we can't control what happens, our consciousness is completely free to *interpret* these happenings, in the same way that one can't change what one reads in a book, but one can interpret the content of the book in a million different ways ("it shall have meaning!")
For the potboiler purposes of Judgment Day, Moore creates an iteration of this book of existence where people can cross things out and rewrite them, and that of course goes against Moore's worldview ... but apart from that, this whole idea is really core to Moore's thinking. And that's not even getting into Mercury's "like me, it's made of language." Which gets back into what you and others have mentioned before, Moore's notion that the gods only exist in our minds, and our minds create thoughts in language. Therefore, the gods are "made of language," and books are also made of language, ergo ... books are like gods. Which also speaks to what Moore has said before about the idea that mortal existence (or the book of mortal existence, as the case may be) IS god, experienced at a different level of perception. (In qabbalistic terms, mortal existence being at level 10, and god being at level 1.)

Also, what you say about the macguffin being a book instead of a weapon is a fascinating point, and reminds me of an observation in Geoff Klock's book, "How to Read Superhero Comics and Why." In contrasting Moore with the other great comic-book maestro of the '80s, Frank Miller, Klock notes that Miller's metaphors and imagery are always violent, while Moore's are literary. Even a shockingly violent moment like the Joker shooting Barbara Gordon in the stomach and crippling her is described in literary terms, the Joker speaking of her as though she were a book. ("There's a hole in the jacket and the spine appears to be damaged ... but then, that's always a problem with softbacks. God, these literary discussions are so dry!")

That last page shows Moore's magic trick. Hermes gave Demeter the book and asked her to put it in the material world, but there's no way to force Demeter to do it. She's a god in her own right. But she reads the book and now she's trapped by it. Because the book says that she does put it in the material world. And it's the book of fate, so now she has to. She's been trapped by the magic spell, bound by the story she now realizes she's in.

For me, this section gets at the heart of what Moore was doing with Judgment Day and with his concepts of magic. It would come back in a big way in Promethea, but it’s impossible to say that the seeds weren’t planted starting in Judgment Day and Glory.
 
Anyway, Demeter leaves the book in the cave and we'll see what happens next...

3 comments:

  1. 안녕하세요. 저는 앨런 무어를 좋아하는 한국의 미국 만화 팬입니다.
    최근 앨런 무어의 작품 슈프림에 관심이 가서 정보를 찾던 중 당신의 사이트에 당도하게 되었습니다.
    한국의 주요한 메이저 위키 사이트에 슈프림 항목을 작성하고 있습니다.
    https://namu.wiki/w/%EC%8A%88%ED%94%84%EB%A6%BC(%EC%9D%B4%EB%AF%B8%EC%A7%80%20%EC%BD%94%EB%AF%B9%EC%8A%A4)
    궁금한게 있어서 질문 드리고자 합니다.
    한국에는 현재 앨런 무어의 주요 작품, 미라클맨과 탑텐, 젠틀맨 리그 시리즈, 킬링 조크, 프롬헬, 왓치맨, 브이 포 벤데타가 정식으로 번역 출판되었습니다. 혹시 슈프림이 해외에, 한국에 번역 출판될 수가 있을까요? 롭 라이펠드 스튜디오의 파산 이후 혹시나 어떠한 판권 문제로 최근 슈프림의 출판은 불가능해진건가요? 1963의 경우 판권 문제로 재출판이 불가능해졌다는 얘기를 봤습니다.

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    1. Hi, I'm a fan of American comics in Korea who likes Alan Moore.
      Recently, I was interested in Alan Moore's Supreme, so I came to your site while looking for information.
      We are writing Supreme items on major wiki sites in Korea.
      https://namu.wiki/w/%EC%8A%88%ED%94%84%EB%A6%BC(%EC%9D%B4%EB%AF%B8%EC%A7%80%20%EC%BD%94%EB%AF%B9%EC%8A%A4)
      I'd like to ask you a question.
      In Korea, Alan Moore's major works, Miracle Man and Top Ten, Gentlemen League Series, Killing Joke, Promhell, Watchman, and V for Vendetta, have been officially translated and published. Can Supreme be translated and published overseas and in Korea? After the bankruptcy of Rob Reifeld Studios, did any copyright issues make Supreme impossible to publish recently? In 1963, I saw that it was impossible to republish due to copyright issues.

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    2. Yes, there copyright issues to republishing Supreme. Currently, Rob Liefled owns rights to some of the characters and another entity owns the other characters. While they currently do not get along, there's a chance they might make an agreement. But even when Rob Liefeld had all the rights, he was bad about reprinting the work in other countries like Korea.

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