Is This The De-AlanMooreification Of The DC Universe?

http://www.bleedingcool.com/2011/06/07/is-this-the-de-alanmoore-ification-of-the-dc-universe/

Is This The De-AlanMooreification Of The DC Universe?
Submitted by Rich Johnston on June 7, 2011 – 7:04 am


It wasn’t that long ago that Alan Moore declared that DC’s current work was based on his own stuff for them years ago, and he wished they’d come up with something new.

Well, it’s tempting to think that people at DC, especially Geoff Johns, whose Blackest Night was singled out by Moore, might have taken this to heart. And why?

Well, at the end of Brightest Day, Swamp Thing – who Alan Moore famously revealed had never been Alec Holland, just a plant elemental with his memories – is now, most definitely Alec Holland.

The sentient planetary -sized Green Lantern, Mogo, created by Moore and Dave Gibbons in a Green Lantern back up strip, was blown up.

And now Barbara Gordon as Batgirl appears to be walking again, possibly as the Batgirl 2.0 avatar suggested by Grant Morrison. Moore and Brian Bolland crippled her in Batman: A Killing Joke.

It’s the last one that’s weird, the reaction has been how dare DC retcon Killing Joke when a) that’s not what’s happening and b) Killing Joke was never meant to be in continuity in the first place. Batmite was in it for goodness sake.

So is this the de-AlanMoore-ification of the DC Universe as some have suggested? Well not quite.

For a start John Constantine is back in the DC Universe up front, with a high profile than for many a year. The upcoming Multiversity book from Grant Morrison is meant to include Watchmen analogue characters. And of course the Twilight Of The Superheroes proposal is still reflected all over the place.

It will be quite some time until all such direct influence is gone…

I caught that article myself earlier. An interesting article. I don't know much to say about it. I don't know all the issues moore and dc have had in the past.

webhead2006 wrote:I caught that article myself earlier. An interesting article. I don't know much to say about it. I don't know all the issues moore and dc have had in the past.

Ain't Alan Moore now though supposed to be some kind of NUT?! Some really weird type? And I found it very interesting that his name was deliberately missing from the opening credits of THE WATCHMEN. So is he even relevant anymore himself? Or is he heading some cult or something?

I don't know man, maybe ap or colors have some info on matter to help us out

He's been alienated by DC. Or perhaps he alienated himself. Pick one. Basically he feels he got screwed out of ownership of Watchmen. His original idea was to maybe do a prequel miniseries starring the Golden Age characters, maybe an ongoing series centering on the Comedian in Vietnam and other stuff. All those things went out the window when he vowed to never work for DC again.

And just between us, I'm not at all upset about losing out on those things. To me, Watchmen works as an immaculate, standalone work. More pages doesn't necessarily result in a better book. Watchmen is fine as it is. I just can't envision a follow up doing the original any level of justice.

Oh yeah, and don't read too much into Alan Moore removing his name from the movie version of Watchmen. He pulled the same shit with V For Vendetta (although it may have been justified here) and, I think, Constantine. He said he'll do likewise for any other adaptations of his work-for-hire stuff. As I gushed in some other thread, Watchmen is a magnificent film achievement and it's a crying shame he doesn't get the official credit in the movie. This attitude of his usually seems kind of petulant to me but, hey, nobody asked, right?

As to his weirdness... yeah, dude's got his own point of view on things, no doubts there. He practices magic of some description. I don't know anything about that stuff so I can't say what exactly his deal is but last year he released a... I don't know even know what to call it. The thing itself is called "Unearthing".

Ultimately, I do think he's a real talent in comics. When you come down to it, Alan Moore is everything Grant Morrison wants to be but isn't. What I've read his run on Supreme is awesome. I've been wanting to check out 1963 for a while now. TKJ is pretty overrated (although I think even Moore himself cops to that much) and Whatever Happened To The Man Of Tomorrow suffers from being only two issues (I think it could've survived being decompressed to three or four and been the better for it).

The thing to remember is that few creators ever leave permanence in their wake (although Miller's Daredevil tells a different story). If DC wanted to de-Moore their universe, fuck it, they've had decades to do that. So why now? Fact is that Birthright and, later, Sucky Origin could be seen as DC's attempt to de-Byrne Superman. You could as easily argue (and several have) that a lot of Grant Morrison's Batman stuff from the past couple of years has been DC de-Millering that character. Or that Geoff Johns resurrection of Barry Allen de-Waids the Flash (specifically Wally).

End of the day, it's not anything personal. In most of the above cases (except maybe Byrne and Superman), I really doubt anybody walked in with a bucket list of items from a particular creator with a clear agenda to remove those items from continuity out of pure malice. It may have happened through sheer incompetence (that I could easily believe) but it's just business.

It's not personal. It's business.