Alan Moore Ruined Comics

Okay, maybe that’s a little harsh.  Alan Moore, if you do not know, is the writer of several of the most critically acclaimed comic books of all time.  This is not a hyperbolic statement.  There was only one graphic novel on Time Magazine’s 100 greatest books of the 20^th Century, and it was Watchmen.  Aside from that, he is the writer who made Swamp Thing a legitimate character, gave us the only real definitive origin for Joker in The Killing Joke, and gave us For the Man Who has Everything (which is the Superman story that all your Superman hating friends love).  He also gave us V For Vendetta, From Hell, Miracleman, and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.  So, yeah, basically everything the man has written is a classic.  But, I feel compelled to offer a contrasting view.

In the comic book world Alan Moore and Frank Miller are recognized because they represented something of a paradigm shift in comics.  What I find interesting is that while Miller is seen as something of a parody of himself nowadays, Moore is still considered a genius of the highest caliber.  This never ceases to confuse me, because every sin we condemn Miller for (and there are many), Moore has committed as well, sometimes on an even more egregious scale.  We laugh at Miller’s xenophobia in Holy Terror, and yet we overlook the fact that V for Vendetta is just as paranoid a work.  Why is one work deified and another vilified?  Well, in all honesty it probably has everything to do with the political stance espoused by V.  Moore is considered a genius by every college kid who has ever taken an intro level philosophy, psychology, or political science course.  His blatant left wing politics, and hatred of the bourgeoisie are central to his stories.  And actually, I kind of love that about him.  He is unapologetically “preachy,” and even if I disagree with his ideas, I respect his ability to incorporate those ideas into his work.  That being said, Moore’s work is sometimes overbearingly “preachy,” but I can look past that.  I mean, “With great power, comes great responsibility” is technically a “preachy” statement.  So no, I have no issues with a writer expressing his opinions.  However, my issue with Alan Moore as a writer boils down to two distinct issues.  My first issue with him is purely subjective.  My second issue is not.

Alan Moore has an extremely bad habit of writing his characters as hypocritical.  I used to think this was a stylistic choice, as if he was saying, “everyone is hypocritical.”  But now I just see it as lazy writing.  In League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, we are introduced very early on to the brutal practicality employed by Captain Nemo.  At one point, during volume II, he even states that he would be willing to collapse the London Bridge, even though it has thousands of women and children on it who are attempting to evacuate.  Exact quote: “As for the population, hopefully they can escape in time.  If not, it is hardly a major strategic loss.  They are only… English.”  Brutal, but it makes Nemo interesting right?  He is completely practical.  But then, he throws a fit after Hyde kills Griffin (the Invisible Man), even though Griffin had both betrayed humanity and sadistically beaten Mina Harker.  After that, when the English army uses a disease bomb to take out the Martians, he freaks out again.  Apparently, killing women and children was honorable, but using biological warfare was not? 

And then there is V.  V is the hero of V for Vendetta.  Most people have seen the movie, and because of that the 5th of November is now completely unbearable.  The problem is that every action taken by V is completely hypocritical.  First and foremost, it is established pretty early on that the guy is a terrorist who is almost completely unconcerned with collateral damage.  Which is fine.  That makes him a complicated protagonist.  But, then he spends the whole comic uttering inane platitudes.  The most famous being, “People shouldn’t fear the government.  The government should fear the people.”  Which people V?  Apparently not anyone who lives within 20 blocks of the House of Commons, because they are all dead!  And even if one wants to justify this mass murder by stating that all those people were rich elitists, what about the people who work in that building?  Clerks and secretaries trying to get by?  What about them?  V does not care, because ANARCHY IN THE U.K.!!!  Then there is the fact that V bases all this off of the Gunpowder Plot.  He even wears a Guy Fawkes mask.  Therefore, he is fighting Conservative Fascism, while wearing a symbol of failed Conservative Fascism.  Guy Fawkes and his conspirators were attempting to set up a Catholic Oligarchy in England.  That was the point of their plot.  And one cannot get any more Conservative in their politics than to support 17^th century Catholicism.  Finally, we learn that V is the way he is because he spent time in a concentration camp like setting.  He was abused and broken down by oppressive powers.  So when he recruits Evie to join his cause, he does it by reasoning with the proletariat mind, right?  No, he puts her in a concentration camp setting.  She is abused and broken down by oppressive forces. 

The abuse of Evie leads me to my next point, which is not opinion, but fact: There is consistent abuse and degradation of women in Alan Moore’s work.  Now, let me head off a complaint at the pass; I have not read everything by Alan Moore.  I have read: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Watchmen, V for Vendetta, From Hell, The Killing Joke, and For the Man Who Has Everything.  With the exception of For the Man Who Has Everything, the abuse of women is pervasive in what I have read of Moore’s work.  In order to prove this:

In The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, the League is able to find Hawley Griffin, the Invisible Man, at an all-girls orphanage.  Several of the girls have turned up pregnant, but they are really being raped (no other way to put it) by Griffin.  The whole sequence is weirdly sexual, with the person who is the head of the orphanage being a Dominatrix like figure.  Then, in the second volume, Mina Harker is brutally beaten and humiliated by Griffin.  We see everything that happens, as she is even hit in the stomach so hard she vomits. 

In Watchmen, Silk Spectre I is brutally raped by the Comedian.  We see just about everything that happens over a two page spread.  Silk Spectre II is conceived by this, and when she is told this information, Silk Spectre II rages at her mother and asks why she never reported him and why she continued to work with him.  Silk Spectre I replies, “It was a different time.”

In V for Vendetta, Evie is almost raped by two cops.  She is saved by V, who takes her in.  He then proceeds to torment and abuse her mentally until she is completely broken down into something that V can train (I guess)?

From Hell is a horror comic about Jack the Ripper, so… yeah.

In The Killing Joke, Barbara Gordon is shot and paralyzed by the Joker.  The Joker then proceeds to strip Barbara and take pictures of her, which he then shows to her father in an attempt to break his spirit.

Now here’s the thing; I know that the argument is going to be that these are all “adult comics” with adult themes.  That is perfectly fine.  But why does the degradation of women have to be such a prevalent occurrence?  Why are women plot devices, or things that need to be broken down?  And more than that, in the 21^st Century, where we are trying to be more inclusive in the comic book world, why would we canonize works that consistently degrade women?  The answer is that Alan Moore is accepted by the mainstream as art.  He pushed the medium into a more adult capacity.  He proved that comics are for more than just kids.  And once again, that is all well and good.  But did we not realize there would be consequences for putting these works on a pedestal.  See, ever since Iron Man and The Dark Knight, more and more women and children have become interested in comic book characters.  In response, there has been quite a bit of push back against women by men who feel… I honestly don’t know what the argument is.  All I know is that many women within the comic book community have been threatened on message boards, groped at conventions, and in general made to feel like they are not welcome (this is not hyperbole; look up Janelle Asselin and the studies she has done after someone threatened to rape her).  What is interesting to me is that people have blamed events like the death of Kyle Rayner’s girlfriend, or Terra in Judas Contract on how women have been received in the comic industry, but no one ever blames Alan Moore.  Hear me out; could it not be possible that one of the reasons there is so much push back against women in this community be that the millennial generation has been told consistently that the works of Alan Moore are genius?  There are few comic book fans my age who have not read his works.  Is it not possible that his works have influenced how males in my generation see women?  His female characters are consistently mistreated, and are never written with any type of power (don’t argue that Silk Spectre is.  All she does is whine, then she gets Dr. Manhattan to intervene by crying).  And yet he is lifted up as the Poet Laureate of comic books.  In my opinion, our deification of Alan Moore is somewhat responsible for the problems that women face in this industry.

A lot of comics nowadays are concerned with killing gods, like The Wicked and the Divine or Wonder Woman, or even concerned with killing God, like The Preacher.  But in my opinion, if there is one god we need to remove divinity from it is Alan Moore.  I do not understand why I am the only one who sees it, but in my opinion his comics have hurt the comic book community and we need to place him in his proper place in history.  Alan Moore might be a genius, but he is also incredibly misogynistic, and in this day and age we as community do not need to be approving of that.