Product Description

Alan Moore, like Neil Gaiman, constantly flirts with thetoo-smart-for-his-own-good aesthetic without alienating his readers.Promethea weaves Moore's trademark scholarly mysticism with wild, fun swipes at post-everything culture in a complex tale based on the importance of story. Following a teenage girl, whose interest in an obscure and possibly real heroine leads to her assumption of the heroine's role, Promethea draws on a century of comics art to express themes of history and fiction.Action, intimacy, fantasy, and ennui all find their place, and when it's over, the reader will hunger for the next collection. --Rob Lightner

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #24090 in Books
• Published on: 2001-07-01
• Released on: 2001-07-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 160 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781563896675
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Amazon.com Review
Alan Moore, like Neil Gaiman, constantly flirts with the too-smart-for-his-own-good aesthetic without alienating his readers. Promethea weaves Moore's trademark scholarly mysticism with wild, fun swipes at post-everything culture in a complex tale based on the importance of story. Following a teenage girl, whose interest in an obscure and possibly real heroine leads to her assumption of the heroine's role, Promethea draws on a century of comics art to express themes of history and fiction. Action, intimacy, fantasy, and ennui all find their place, and when it's over, the reader will hunger for the next collection. --Rob Lightner

About the Author
Alan Moore is one of the most respected and admired writers in comics today, with a host industry awards and accolades. His credits include The Ballad of Halo Jones, Watchmen, V For Vendetta, From Hell and Swamp Thing. He is currently working on his own line of comics, including Tom Strong and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Volume 2.

Customer Reviews

Great comics from Moore (again)
Alan Moore's America's Best Comics has spawned several wonderful titles (along with the middling Tomorrow Stories), but Promethea stands out. The art is outstanding, the color perfect, the lettering spot-on for the different speech types employed, and the writing entertaining while also waxing philosophical. Sympathetically drawn characters tie up the whole package in a beautiful ribbon.

Moore dares to tackle the very nature of creativity and comes away with much more than the Wonder Woman clone some were expecting. While exploring the world of fantasy, he examines through the changing face of comics (the tribute to Little Nemo is marvelous), sexuality, religion and pure wish fulfilment. Comics are still growing up, maybe, but this may be some of the most mature work from the man who brought us The Watchmen.

Alan Moore introduces us to the mystic warrior Promethea
After reading both "From Hell," where Alan Moore detailed in endnotes where he was getting his historical facts and speculations regarding Jack the Ripper, and the original story of "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen," where he created a team of comic book superheroes out of some of the most famous literary creations of the late 19th century, it is easy to read Moore's prologue in Book 1 of "Promethea" and buy it hook, line, and sinker. Entitled "The Promethea Puzzle: An Adventure in Folklore," Moore explains how the character of Promethea has appeared in works from the epic sentimental fantasy "A Faerie Romance" by the New England poet Charlton Sennet to the comic books written by Steven Shelley. Next thing you know you are off doing a Google search to find out more about these "real" people and finding out that what you should have been thinking in reference to Moore's work is "The Watchmen" with its memorable group of faux super heroes.

Book 1 of "Promethea" collects the first six issues from America's Best Comics with the script by Moore, pencils by J. H. Williams III, inks by Mick Gray, and lettering by Todd Klein. The story begins with a prologue set in Alexandria, 411 A.D., in which a strange old man with mystical powers saves his daughter from a group of killer monks. We then jump ahead to a New York existing in the year 1999 that has cabs hovering without wheels, police in flying saucers, and a successful comic book about the "Weeping Gorilla." Here we meat Sohpie Bangs, who is writing a term paper and visits Barbara Shelley, the widow of the last guy to write the Promethea comic book. However, Sophie gets a big time brush off and the following advice from Barabara: "You don't wanna go looking for folklore. And you especially don't want folklore to come looking for you."

There is something of misdirection to this advice, not only because it is too late for Sophie, who is gong to become the new "host" for Promethea, but also because ultimately Moore is not really writing about folklore here but about the female super hero. In modern times that pretty much takes us back to the creation of Wonder Woman, but Promethea harkens back to ancient Greece and elements of Artemis, Athena, and Atalanta. However, in a similar way Moore is also dealing with the archetypal nature of comic books, which is where the folklore part really comes into play in his concept of the Immateria, a realm where stories are real. If you can believe in the power of Story, then it can transport you to the Immateria, as young Sophie finds out.

The first three stories deal with Sophie getting indoctrinated into the ways of Promethea, although there are always more questions than answers. Meanwhile the city's resident superheroes, the Five Sweel Guys, are dealing with their arch-enemy the Painted Doll. But in issue #4, "A Faerie Romance," Moore adds a great conceit to the mix, as the various incarnations of Promethea sit around in the Immateria discussing the newcomer. The idea of the archetype becomes reinforced, not by going back to the beginning, but rather by showing how each generation has had a Promethea it could call its own. This is where the series slips into the next gear and exhibits the most promise.

There is a Promethean movement, which is "dedicated to advancing human life through self-expression, augmented by authentic freedom, experimentality and individualism." Now, I am not really sure if looking at these comic books as valuing the liberated and realized person while opposing repression, orthodoxy, and collectivism is the way to go, but the important thing is that you need a foundation for approaching Moore's work. Fortunately Moore is always worth reading and you can get by the scholarly mysticism by just taking the story at face value. After all, Moore is just making this up as he goes along.

Alan Moore's female archetype
Alan Moore is, and deserves to be, a highly regarded author of what we should still call comic books (other names seem largely a reflex action hide embarrassment - which makes me annoyed to see them referred to as "the graphic story medium" in this book). He has in more recent years created a line of comics under the imprint "America's Best Comics", of which Promethea is one of those titles. This volume reprints the first five issues of that comic.

'Promethea' is an attempt to render the female super hero in an archetypical form. This book has a strong mystical or spiritual theme, with the female lead cast in a pluralistic role: she is both Sophie Bangs, student, and Promethea, imagination personified. Our Promethea is not the first, there is a whole line of Prometheas stretching back to ancient Egypt, and we get to know some of the earlier ones in this book.

What's good: as Promethea, Sophie doesn't know all the answers although, it seems, Promethea does (sounds confusing? Sophie is Promethea, but Promethea isn't Sophie). Indeed, Sophie finds herself thrust in to a broad canvas full of elements that she doesn't know about or understand. The book allows for Sophie and Promethea to be intellectual, rather than just wiping the enemies off the face of the Earth (and the Immateria) with her caduceus - even where she does that, it is thought through.

What's not so good: I gave it 5 stars, so not much. My main complaint is that it finishes at an inopportune moment. Sophie is learning about the four weapons she has, and learns about two and then it stops. The comic book has continued, so the rest will be in volume 2, but it still a bit inconsiderate.

Lots of thumbs up, and also check out Alan Moore's male archetype in 'Tom Strong'.