Alan Moore Finds Success of The Avengers "Alarming"

[jimmy olsen]

Astounding!

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Alan Moore Finds Success of The Avengers "Alarming"
The Watchmen writer isn't impressed with modern superheroes.
by Chris Tilly

November 25, 2013
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Alan Moore has been talking about the state of superhero comics and films in the 21st century, stating that he no longer likes the genre, and saying that he finds audiences going to see The Avengers in their droves "alarming."

"I haven't read any superhero comics since I finished with Watchmen," the writer told The Guardian while promoting his latest work, Fashion Beast. "I hate superheroes. I think they're abominations. They don't mean what they used to mean. They were originally in the hands of writers who would actively expand the imagination of their nine-to-13-year-old audience. That was completely what they were meant to do and they were doing it excellently.

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"These days, superhero comics think the audience is certainly not nine to 13, it's nothing to do with them. It's an audience largely of 30-, 40-, 50-, 60-year old men, usually men. Someone came up with the term graphic novel. These readers latched on to it; they were simply interested in a way that could validate their continued love of Green Lantern or Spider-Man without appearing in some way emotionally subnormal.

"This is a significant rump of the superhero-addicted, mainstream-addicted audience. I don't think the superhero stands for anything good. I think it's a rather alarming sign if we've got audiences of adults going to see the Avengers movie and delighting in concepts and characters meant to entertain the 12-year-old boys of the 1950s."

[Ideologue]

I haven't read any superhero comics since I finished with Watchmen

That's just factually inaccurate.

Alan Moore's been saying the same shit for about twenty years, including while he was still writing superhero comics.  He's almost without a doubt the medium's (and the superhero genre's) greatest talent, but he's also a real asshole.

[DontSayBanana]

I haven't read any superhero comics since I finished with Watchmen

That's just factually inaccurate.

Alan Moore's been saying the same shit for about twenty years, including while he was still writing superhero comics.  He's almost without a doubt the medium's (and the superhero genre's) greatest talent, but he's also a real asshole.

Lock Moore and Byrne in a room together: Asshole Blackhole.

[Neil]

I haven't read any superhero comics since I finished with Watchmen

That's just factually inaccurate.

Alan Moore's been saying the same shit for about twenty years, including while he was still writing superhero comics.  He's almost without a doubt the medium's (and the superhero genre's) greatest talent, but he's also a real asshole.

No kidding.  Although I'd say that there are some writers in Moore's class for superhero writing.

[DontSayBanana]

No kidding.  Although I'd say that there are some writers in Moore's class for superhero writing.

This.  If I didn't know better, I'd say somebody's feeling a little threatened reputation-wise by the Internet since the bullpen writers who had ideas just as good but didn't have the clout to shout down the editors have a medium to air out some of their ideas.

[Ideologue]

In terms of storytelling and character chops, there's a fair few in his league.  Morrison, obviously, particularly in his prime, from Animal Man through The Filth.  Starlin, too, in his wonder years.  Claremont... well, no one has ever really accomplished what Claremont accomplished, anyway, unless you count Dave Sim, which I wouldn't because working on your self-owned, small-press, small-sales book is totally different than shepherding an obscure corporate property into the greatest comics phenomenon of all time for like sixteen years.

Not a one in terms of pure formal mastery.

[Neil]

Dave Sim went down some weird roads over the years.  But yeah, him not going bankrupt over 25 years is a bit different from Claremont's building the X-Men into the rock that Marvel is built on.

[Ideologue]

Which is weird because Claremont is either formally brilliant or formally terrible; I still haven't decided if the insane amounts of dialogue he puts in between what must be moments is a bug or just full use of the medium.

Now--since I probably won't have another opportunity to complain about this--the same technique is a real pain in the ass when deployed in Watchmen, having Veidt narrate his Goddamned life story whilst beating the crap out of Rorschach over the course of about twenty seconds.  It's especially weird when that trick is wholly absent from the rest of the book, which is in many ways the first "cinematic" comic, with objectivity and realism approaching that of a movie camera.  It's like the one bad part in Watchmen, which is pretty much otherwise perfect from a craft perspective (I still think tricking the world with Manhattan Lite teleporters makes more plot sense than a big ol' genetically engineered squid that would be analyzed and probably traced back to the one guy on the planet that has a purple, rabbit-eared lynx).

[Viking]

I'm pretty sure that "Watchmen" not only wasn't intended for 9-13 year olds but was, with Dark Knight Returns the first Graphic Novel. So, yeah, Dr Frankenstein; this is your monster you complain about. 

[Razgovory]

I haven't read any superhero comics since I finished with Watchmen

That's just factually inaccurate.

Alan Moore's been saying the same shit for about twenty years, including while he was still writing superhero comics.  He's almost without a doubt the medium's (and the superhero genre's) greatest talent, but he's also a real asshole.

Huh.  I thought he was insane.  Is he the one who went off to worship a snake god?

[Syt]

I love Moore's work, but has he ever been positive about anything in interviews?

[celedhring]

To be honest though, The Avengers was a terrible movie. It wasn't even on par with the best of the current batch of superhero movies, yet it became the most successful. Figures...

[Scipio]

Alan Moore is a brilliantly unhappy man. The world has taken his creation, and passed him by.

His craft is impeccable, but his creativity vis a vis the form of the graphic story is petering out.

[DontSayBanana]

To be honest though, The Avengers was a terrible movie. It wasn't even on par with the best of the current batch of superhero movies, yet it became the most successful. Figures...

Because the others needed more shawarma.

Seriously, though, it passed by being action-y enough to keep children entertained while still being comedy-ish enough to keep adults entertained.

Looking at the major superhero flops, they pretty much fell too far on one side or the other.  Green Lantern and Green Hornet were both too far into comedy, Fantastic Four and Catwoman both overplayed the action, for example.

[Syt]

The Avengers movie restored my faith that silly, over the top 80s style action with a sense of humor is still possible. A lot of the CGI-action schlock is not only bad, but it takes itself way too serious and wants to be gritty and grim. Compare new Total Recall with the old one. And I expect the same with old vs. new Robocop. It's the reason why I found Nolan's Batman, on the whole, to be a glitzy soulless piece of film. The only saving grace was the Joker in The Dark Knight.