Written by Alan Moore
Various Artists
2006
Published by DC Comics
Although Moore and DC are no longer the closest of friends, DC has no qualms about utilizing the man's name to market a trade paperback of his pre-stardom company work. This past week has seen a massive three hardcover release of the 15 years in the making Lost Girls, a book that is so full of eroticism that it will either make for massive controversy, or be totally ignored. Reading the DC Universe trade in lights of Moore's current work makes for a strange experience--while the work is certainly intelligent stuff, it's incredibly uneven, lacking in the creative freedom Moore now enjoys writing characters he either creates out of whole cloth, or by utilizing fiction from the public domain as his starting point.
Luckily, the work doesn't suffer from the lack of completeness that the previously published Across the Universe was guilty of. Yes, The Killing Joke, Moore's terrifyingly honest depiction of The Joker is here, so is Moore's heroic salute and farewell to Superman, Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow. Both pieces are incredible works, Joke for it's two-years-in-the-making artwork courtesy of Brian Bolland and Man of Tomorrow for it's somber and loving tone. When Joke was first released, it became infamous for it's horrifying violence; sadly, little of it's meaning has seen imitation in recent years. While Joke is scary stuff, yes, Moore was able to re-create what the Joker character was to readers-a man who had been so destroyed by tragedy and insanity that it became impossible not to see why he and Batman have succeeded so well against each other; in Moore's work, they are nearly the same man. Man of Tomorrow was a commissioned work, a short two issue stint requested by the editors to salute and bid goodbye to over thirty years of continuity. With the restarting of the Superman franchise in the mid-80's, DC Comics needed a writer of intelligence and talent to satisfy a comics readership that was sure to be angry no matter who gave the message. While Man of Tomorrow was, as can be imagined, not universally well received at it's time, the work has grown in esteem over the last twenty years--after all, the Superman franchise has, by this point, seen as much embarrassment and terrible writing as it had when Moore was enlisted to close the doors. Unlike Joke, which serves as a remainder of how little the Batman and Joker relationship has been explored since it's release, Man of Tomorrow has only increased in it's brilliance, showcasing that Superman works best in a world of fantasy instead of the brutal realism he has suffered through over the last two decades.
The stories found in DC Universe are neither necessary, nor are they the best stories Moore has ever written. They are still interesting works, archaeological explorations of the finest writer working in the field today. For that, and that alone, they are worth any readers time.
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