Across the Alan Mooreniverse: The early works of a comic book genius

Alan Moore, as I’m sure I’ve remarked before, is the ultimate comic book writer. Across the universe is a collection of Moore’s DC stories from a brief period in the 1980’s when he had already established himself as a brilliant writer on the how-the-hell-did-he-make-it-popular Swamp Thing, but had yet to leave his mark as comic book god through such works as Watchmen. If that means nothing to you, then I’m afraid there’s nothing more I can do for you except to advise you to go out and read them right now.

Done? Good.

Anyway, first things first. There’s a nice little introduction by Dave Gibbons (the artist on Watchmen, and an industry veteran) that tells us why he thinks Moore’s da world’s greatest. I tend to agree with him, and it’s always nice when great minds think alike…

Moore’s grasp of what makes the comic book format a truly interesting artform is unmatched. Even in the early work showcased in this book, he displays an incredible visual imagination, with the use of many techniques that are far more common in film than in comic books, and far harder to pull off well in the latter. He also has a great grasp of dialogue, and a feel for the right words to convey the tone a situation.

Okay, enough Moore-worship. Let me tell you a bit about this book.


Top Three Stories
Okay, so here are some of the more memorable stories, at least as I see it. And I freely admit that that’s mostly because they deal with traditional superheroes and I’ve been feeling like I really don’t need heavy stuff right now, but anyway…

For the man who has everything (pencils and inks by Dave Gibbons): an excellent story with just the right balance between action and character development. But it’s appeared in a DC collection before ( The Greatest Superman Stories Ever Told), so I’ll let it pass without much comment this time.

The Jungle Line (pencils by Rick Veitch, inks by Al Williamson): In this story, Superman is exposed to a fungal infection from his native planet Krypton that robs him of his powers and is slowly killing him. Feverish and hallucinating, he heads out into the bayou so he can die alone, without burdening his friends (both super and otherwise), where he encounters the Swamp Thing, who may be the only thing standing between the Man of Steel and the grave. This tale provides an amazing amount of insight into the character of DC’s greatest hero, and into the difference between Clark Kent and Superman. It raises the question – which is the secret identity, and which is the real one? It allows us to see what he’s like when he’s nothing more than a man, facing his mortality like any other.

The Night Olympics (pencils and ink by Klaus Janson): One of the few tales from back in the day where Green Arrow (you know, the other guy with the green tights, strong social conscience, bow-and-arrow and goatee) is actually kewl. This story is concerned with a kind of evolution amongst criminals – the heroes weed out the weak and the breed slowly becomes more ruthless. This is illustrated vividly by the shooting of Black Canary (GA’s superheroic girlfriend) by an archer-type bad guy, forcing GA to lay the slap-down bigtime. Fun and at times funny, and did I mention it actually makes this Robin Hood rip-off seem cool?


Other Stories
There are eleven stories in this collection, mostly only a handful of pages long. By far the longest is a two-part Vigilante tale that deals with child molestation and the complexity of justice and revenge that’s rarely dealt with in the simple comicbook world. It’s grim stuff, but it’s good, and it has its fun moments.

There are also a couple of little Tales of the Green Lantern Corps, which, as the name implies, are tales of the exploits of members of the heroic intergalactic police force who have a real thing for green (they aren’t very fond of yellow, though). The best of these is Tyger, where a very famous Green Lantern visits an ancient evil and learns things about the future that it might really have been better for him not to know. The art is weird and disturbing, and the story has a sense of menace about it that it’s really quite hard to evoke in a comic. Just came short of making my top three, and probably would’ve made it if I had written this review at any other time.

Then there’s a Batman story featuring a version of Clayface I know nothing about, but who seems to be more than a little disturbed and very dangerous. Excellent storytelling by Moore gets us to see the world through Clayface’s eyes even as we look on from the outside. Good work.

There are also a couple of sci-fi tales, set somewhere in the vicinity of Vega. They’re basically just short surprise-twist tales, though one, Brief Lives, featuring a confrontation between beings whose lives are lived on very different timescales, is really quite fun, and the last line of the story is perfect.


I like it, but…
While these stories are good, especially for their time, they just aren’t really great. I’m a big fan of Alan Moore (as you might have gathered), but this just isn’t the best way to get to know him. Rather check out Watchmen, Top Ten, Promethea, From Hell or any of a bunch of other great stuff he's done.

Also, the stories assume a good degree of experience with the DCU (the sum total of all the stories published by DC, complicated by the fans-only-know factor known as continuity). They originally appeared in monthly comics, so Moore could be pretty certain that anybody reading a particular comic was familiar with the main characters ad the general dynamic of the book. But if you don’t know who the Vigilante is (I still don’t, really), or why the name Abin Sur holds a special meaning for all true fans, then maybe you should give this collection a miss.