For the comic-savvy crowd I'd describe
Promethea as being like
Ghost World crossed with
The Maxx on the usual drugs. For the rest of you, this could get complicated.
Promethea is one of the more recent comics by Alan Moore, whose name alone ought to sell it. He's the author of the superhero revision
Watchmen, political thriller
V For Vendetta, and Jack the Ripper saga
From Hell, with a penchant for mysticism, humour, and cramming literary worthiness into apparently lowbrow genre work.
With Promethea he's done it again. Superficially it's the story of a girl named Sophie who becomes possessed by a fictional character, a living story and warrior-mystic named Promethea. Within this pretext it wraps Moore's entire philosophy, the idea of a separate plane made of concepts where thought is form, an exploration of the Kabbalah, ruminations on hope and the meaning of life and one-liners delivered by hiply unhip characters. Every Image comic and half the Vertigo comics wish they were like this.
The artwork is beautiful, especially the detailed and expressive faces and inventive panel layout. J.H. Williams III and Mick Gray outdo themselves, especially in the renderings of the otherworld called the Immateria, where doves fly on magician's glove wings. Some of the earlier incarnations of Promethea could do with more practical outfits though -- Wonder Woman would be ashamed to wear a couple of those toilet-paper costumes.
The first six issues of the series have been gathered in this collection which certainly looks more impressive on the bookshelf than stack of regular comics. On the downside, the ad copy on the back and inside cover is terrible, littered with exclamation marks and gosh wow simplifications, suggesting aim at a younger audience than . . . well, me.
Promethea Book 1 begins with The Promethea Puzzle, Moore's fictional essay on the character's history, through her appearances in Victorian poetry, a comic strip resembling Little Nemo In Slumberland, pulp stories and comics. Like the Tales Of The Black Freighter article in Watchmen, Moore makes all these fictional fictions and their authors seem so real it's hard not to believe that they exist.
All of the original covers are included, including two versions of the cover to issue number one, both with a subtitle rewording Voltaire: "If she did not exist, we would have to invent her."
Then the story begins.
The setting is an alternate 1999 in which cars fly, the police pilot flying saucers, a team of Marvelesque soap opera superheroes called The Five Swell Guys patrols New York, and pictures of popular comic icon Weeping Gorilla stare down from billboards. This world is infused with humorous detail, from a band called the Limp with an 'ironically non-ironic' lead singer to the eternally depressed Weeping Gorilla's morose statements; "That Tamagochi trusted me . . ."
Promethea spends most of her time fighting demons, travelling between worlds and researching her powers while juggling college and a social life. Kind of like Buffy, minus vampires. Not that I'm suggesting the comic is derivative, Promethea is a story about stories, so it makes sense that it should resemble other works. Buffy and Promethea are both exemplars of the superhero as metaphorical coming-of-age story like many other X-comics, White Wolf games and teen werewolf movies before them, only better.
The relationship between Sophie and her best friend has a ring of truth about it (despite the otherworldly events that plague them) that most representations of adolescent friendships lack, with the exception of Daniel Clowes' brilliant Ghost World. There's also an air of surreal truth to the dreamlike sequences of the Immateria which beg comparison to Sandman and The Maxx, but come off better than both.
Amongst all the action and comedy Moore's philosophy shines through, rescuing the bizarreness of the plot from becoming meandering and meaningless like a bad David Lynch movie. Promethea makes sense, it's just a weird kind of sense.
If you're an Alan Moore fan you should be reading Promethea already. If you're a comics fan, it's about time you started reading it. And if you're neither . . . well, with this collection it's a perfect time to become one.
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