Promethea
Writer: Alan Moore
Artists: J. H. Williams III and Mick Gray
Published by Wildstorm/America's Best Comics
Whew. This was one hell of a
magical comic book ride.
The whole book is set in fictional-futuristic New York City in the year 1999 and tells the story of Sophie Bangs, a young-college student who is the newest vessel of a powerful entity known as Promethea - originally a young girl whose father was slain by a Christian mob in Alexandria back in 411 B.C who became a "living story" after the god Thoth-Hermes took her into the Immateria, a different plane of existance made of pure imagination - who's purpose is to bring about the Apocalypse/Doomsday. Several human beings through time were able to "summon" themselves or others as Promethea by channeling her energy through imagination, most of them poets and playwrights (which Sophie meets as well early in the story).
At first you would think that this is an ordinary "good vs evil" kind of thing because at the start, Sophie/Promethea battles lots of demons from hell disguising as human beings while trying to figure out how to cope up with her "other identity." She continues to fight them through issue #12, using her newfound powers and magic, but that's as far as the superhero-action sequences go, because the book immediately becomes some sort of magic instruction manual, with Moore writing his own philosophic views and spiritual beliefs.
 |
| Sophie's first fight as the demi-Goddess Promethea |
It kind of gets a little bit boring with those "lecture" issues, where Sophie/Promethea just travels into the Immateria itself trying to learn magic and stuff. Alan Moore shows a completely different world, leaving the "Promethea vs demons" story line and jumps into telling his philosophical views, even telling the story of how the whole universe and life came about through tarot cards! He also talks about the afterlife, on what happens and what we would see when our souls leave our earthly bodies and so much more. A lot of those things I don't really understand, but I found out that you don't really have to dig in everything that Moore writes in order to enjoy the journey. You just have to go with the flow of his masterful storytelling as he takes you to a journey into the vast oceans of the imagination.
Good thing he immediately got back on track after more than 10 issues of Aleister Crowley 101, continuing Sophie's saga as she starts to realize that there is no escaping her destiny (as the Doombringer) even if she changed names and ran away from New York (where she is being hunted down as a terrorist at this point since her and Promethea's many battles in the city against foul demons) and even if she didn't transform into Promethea for 4 years.
