The chronological Judgment Day, Part 5: Tarzan, Doc Savage, a noir hero and a WWI flying ace

When last we saw the book of destiny, it had been buried in the American west of the mid-1800s. But it couldn't stay buried. Edward Conqueror, a British explorer most likely based on Professor Challenger from Arthur Conan Doyle's novel The Lost World, discovered the book when excavating a Native American burial ground, as his descendant testified about at the Youngblood murder trial.

Edward Challenger and family went missing and nothing was heard of them for years.

Ten years later Prophet would bring the book with him on a Doc Savage-inspired adventure where he passed on the book to the WWI flying ace, the Phantom Aviator:

It's starting to become clear how Moore is creating a shared universe of almost every kind of boys adventure genres in comics, from lost worlds with dinosaurs to Tarzan-inspired jungles to WWI flying pilots and 1930s noir heroes, such as The Fog. Moore would go on to repeat this trick in the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, but this is a fascinating warm up.

Anyway, the Phantom Aviator would fly again in WWII, where we'll see the book next.

The chronological Judgment Day, Part 4: Pirates, Puritans and cowboys

When last we saw the book of fate, it was being guarded by the Winter Knight, from King Arthur's Camelot, and taken into his order the Knights Templar. The book would remain there until the Knights Templar started to dissolve. 

Toby, a lawyer in the Youngblood murder trial, would explain what happened next.

It's kind of surprising that Moore didn't show any adventures of the pirate Captain Compass, but I guess he may have thought his pirate comic in Watchmen was enough.

NightEagle, the Native American magus, testifies in the Youngblood murder trial about the Puritan who would obtain it next. It's clear that Deliverance Drue is based on Solomon Kane.

 

 

In a classic Alan Moore time-traveling twist, it's only after these events that NightEagle is called upon to testify in the trial itself.

 

 

 

He continued his testimony:

 

In a small postscript to the cowboys, it turns out Kid Thunder was black and there was a curse on him that his seed are going to hell. 

 

 

 Moore gets cute and has "hell" mean that Sentinel ends up in Supreme's Hell of Mirrors. {groan}

 

And so the book remained hidden, waiting to be unearthed again, not by a troll, but by an archeologist.

 

The chronological Judgment Day, Part 3: The age of wizards, berserkers, trolls and knights

When last we saw it, the book of fate was thrown down into the chasm where it remained for ages until about 500 B.C. 

(Moore returned to this story at three different points over the course of Judgment Day, so I've spliced them together as best I can.)

  

The book was unearthed by trolls serving the wizard Magnar Teufelsun, who used it as his grimoire. Eventually, along came Bram, a Conan-like berserker.

 

 

 

 

Bram held onto the book through his own rule, but ultimately gave it away to Troll.

 

 

 

It's interesting that even though Troll hinted at doing his own bit of rewriting earlier, it's Merlin who first rewrites large portions of the book of fate to change it, in this case to make Arthur king. It also suggests why Merlin would know so much about the future.

 

 

And so the book was locked away and protected by the Knights Templar as the dark ages fell over Europe.

The question that arises is, what was fated originally if Merlin (or more likely Troll before him) hadn't rewritten the book, defeating the wizard Magnar? Was Magnar fated to rule forever? Or had he done his own rewriting to put himself in charge and Troll and Bram were the timeline's way of correcting his changes?

Moore never really answers this, but I think it's a question he meant for us to wonder about.

Next time we'll see how the book first comes to America.