Just curious. I know Superman has appeared as guest in Swamp Thing, but I don’t recall Moore actually doing a Superman comic.
If he hasn’t, what do you imagine Moore’s Superman would be like?
Something like this
Moore has written a few other stories that feature Superman, in addition to the Annual summarized in the link. The TPB ‘Across the Universe : The DCU Stories of Alan Moore’ includes at least one other, a crossover with Swamp Thing.
Alan Moore’s Whatever happened to the man of tomorrow? is widely considered one of the best Superman stories of all time.
Moore also had a long run on Rob Liefeld’s Supreme, who was a very close Superman analogue. I haven’t read that Supreme run, but it’s well regarded.
–Cliffy
The Supreme run is fantastic. It is Moore’s love-letter to Silver Age Superman comics, with plenty of flashbacks to different eras and beautiful Rick Veitch art that pays homage to the styles of the day. As a result, it is one of Moore’s more “metafictional” works, with many references to the history of comics and the state of the industry itself. At one point, Supreme navigates through a pastiche of Jack Kirbyesque artwork to meet a God-like analogue, who happens to be Kirby himself. There is also melodramatic space opera a la Jim Starlin, and wry commentary on how Golden Age superheroes were supplanted by EC horror comics and Mad Magazine in the '50s.
I believe Moore once said in an interview that he blames himself for ushering in the “grim ‘n’ gritty” era of late '80s/early '90s comics with his seminal work Watchmen (which inspired legions of less-talented imitators), so shiny, happy, genre-analyzing works like Supreme and his later America’s Best Comics were his penance, in a way.
A note: Whatever Happened To The Man Of Tomorrow is, literally, the last pre-crisis Superman story.
Say what you will about the Pre-Crisis universe, there it all ended. And the story that ended it was written as well as any possible story with all that weight on its shoulders could be.
It does, of course, have the greatest opening of any comic.
Whatever Happened To the Man of Tomorrow is one of my all-time faves. Ironically, I read part one in 1986 and part two in 1996 when the two parter was reprinted in TPB form.
I got the first part at the 7/11 and couldn’t find the second part the next month (there were pluses and minuses to the convenient store comic collecting). Over the years, the comic proved too difficult and expensive to track down.
When I finally read the conclusion, I realized just how good Alan Moore was at writing superheroes or anything else.
That’s why you need to read Supreme, Cliffy. I think you’d REALLY enjoy it. It is very much an commentary on the history of comic books. It combines the charm of the silver age with the sophistication of the post-Watchman age.
(Lou, did they ever collect volume three?)
There were never any more comics after the ones they already collected. The series Supreme: The Return was supposed to continue past #6, but in typical Rob Liefeld fashion, I think Awesome Comics lost its funding. So what you have in the two trades is the extent of Moore’s Supreme run, but I think it ends in a decent place.
I’m think of the Judgement Day miniseries. It has now been released in TPB.
“thinking”
Oh, OK. I have the single issues of Judgment Day, and I have to recommend it, even though the art is very uneven. I almost got a headache jumping between the styles of Gil Kane, Keith Giffen (doing his best Kirby impression), Dan Jurgens, and Rob Liefeld, among others. But it’s a superhero courtroom drama and muder mystery (with more of that metafictional Moore goodness), long before Bendis and Meltzer were exploring similar ideas in Daredevil and Identity Crisis.
It does sound like something I’d really enjoy, and it’s on the list, but recently I tried to do a census of all the comics I own but have not yet read and I stopped counting at 300. :o
–Cliffy
Dude, I’d send you my TPBs to read if you really promise to take good care of them and mail them back in a reasonable time frame.
I may take you up on that offer sometime, but I’ve got enough juggling going on that I can make no guarantees. Plus I just got a bunch of books for my birthday that I want to read soonest.
–Cliffy
I have Whatever Happened To The Man Of Tomorrow in an honored place on my Graphic Novel shelf.
A fond farewell to an era.