"If she did not exist, we would have to invent her."

College student Sophie Bangs has settled on the subject of her folklore term paper: Promethea, a character who evolved across poetry, cartoons, and comic books, from faerie lover to warrior queen to comic-book heroine. When she goes to visit Barbara Shelley, the widow of the last Promethea's creator, Sophie embroils herself in a battle between the real Promethea and the censorious magicians who would destroy her. It seems the only way Sophie can protect the intangibles that Promethea embodies is to embody Promethea herself.

Alan Moore, lauded as one of the greats of comics, graphic novels, or whatever you want to call them, has created several worlds for us to travel with Promethea. Sophie lives in a glittering, shallow alternative world bursting with nifty sci-fi gadgets--yet not terribly different from our own. The original Promethea, and every subsequent one, hails from her own place and time. As a living incarnation of myth, Promethea can also walk in the Immateria, the land of pure imagination. Artists J.H. Williams III, Mick Gray, and a parade of talented colorists portray these diverse and vast canvases and the people and creatures who populate them with boggling vividness. Charles Vess, who provided the art for the World-Fantasy-Award-winning "Midsummer Night's Dream" issue of Sandman, draws the story within a story of "A Faerie Romance." From the surreal props of the Immateria to the neon neologisms of Sophie's alternate world, Promethea is one heck of an eyeball-kick.

Sophie comes across as a nice, somewhat confused college kid--and one really does think "kid," not "woman," at her first appearance--who lives more or less comfortably in the shadow of her more assertive friend, Stacia Van der Veer. Although Sophie still sleeps in her mother's apartment, so do a series of men known to her mother, Trish, only biblically and to Sophie not at all; this may be why Sophie and Trish aren't terribly close. Initially unwilling to channel Promethea, Sophie takes on the new incarnation only to help someone in need.

This is not to say that Promethea is a standard superhero. She's more like a goddess. As a living myth, she battles magicians and other myths, and she evolves with every invocation. She has been a little girl, a warrior, an object of lust, and an inspiration. Her myth changes as imaginations shape her, and she becomes what that person--perhaps even that person's time and place--needs. As the cover of the first issue says, "If she did not exist, we would have to invent her." I think Joseph Campbell and Claude Levi-Strauss would approve.

The hardcover edition collects the first several issues. It's certainly enough to get a reader hooked, but I wish there were more in it. Two major plotlines--the battle against the Goetic magicians of the Temple and the new Promethea's introduction to the elements that are the building blocks of life and story--still hang unfinished at the end of this collection. Both of these wrap up beautifully in later issues that are as yet uncollected.

Speaking of wrapping up, the Promethea hardcover--with its dark-green cover, metallic stamping, and place-marker ribbon--has all the hallmarks as a gift book. The gallery at the end shows Williams' original designs and notes for Promethea. Alan Moore's scholarly essay (could it be Sophie's?) on the Prometheas of art and print serves as an introduction, and has fooled more than one reader into believing that the fictional Promethea works and creators were real. I've yet to give Promethea to someone who isn't a funny-book reader, but I suspect that its classy presentation might convert even those who normally turn up their noses at books that contain word balloons.

Promethea explores not just the realm of myth, but the reality of myth in our world, of what people and society must invent to survive. I recommend it for the art, the story, the wordplay, and the timeless quality of the folkloric and legendary. I do not speak lightly when I say that this may be Alan Moore's best and most significant work to date. This is fine stuff indeed.