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
With his realistic approach to superhero comics, Moore prompted a minor revolution in the 1980s. Of late he has returned to the genre with a line of new costumed adventurers. Of them, teenager Sophie Bangs, the latest in an age-old line of embodiments of the mystical heroine Promethea, seems closest to his heart. Standard superhero fare (crime fighting, slugfests, etc.) takes a backseat to philosophical and moral issues here, but the stories most reflect Moore's long obsession with magic, mysticism, and the occult; with the Tarot, the spheres of the Kabbalah, and astrology. In this collection, Sophie follows her recently killed mentor, just-previous Promethea avatar Barbara, into the afterlife, where they visit heaven and hell and meet famous occult figures. In Sophie's absence, however, a temporary Promethea is creating problems on Earth. Artist J. H. Williams' intricate, imaginative illustrations, which veer from surrealism to psychedelia, make it all work. Although her costume suggests Wonder Woman, Promethea may appeal to the normally comics-eschewing fans of the wildly popular Sandman series. Gordon Flagg Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
The author of such landmark graphic novels as Watchmen and From Hell wraps up his most audacious recent project unorthodoxly even by his own radical standards. Promethea is about a teenager who becomes the latest incarnation of a centuries-old mystical heroine and is essentially Moore's attempt to convey his magic-based cosmology under the guise of a superhero comic. In the comic-book series' conclusion, Promethea sets out to end the world, Tom Strong and his superhero comrades from Moore's other comic books attempt to stop her, and everybody else prepares for apocalypse. The very last chapter consists entirely of full-page portraits of Promethea floating over a psychedelic background and expounding on themes suggested by the paths of the tarot and spheres of the kabbalah--a characteristically unconventional Moore ending. The ambitious project has often daunted readers with lengthy segments devoted to verbose philosophizing, and that it comes off as well as it does is due largely to artist J. H. Williams III, who has smoothly veered from superhero action to photographic realism to fine-art pastiche. Gordon Flagg Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
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