| abstract
| - I can understand the changing of the hull section between the eyes and the Rule of Cool spikey bits across the back (But the smokestacks, on a submarine? Funny Aneurysm Moment!) but the forward hull and the tentacles are confusing me; At first, I was happy that we finally found out the main use of the two that are stowed in the Hull, but the place where they are stowed has vanished, as well as the various docking apparatus and the Rule of Cool blowhole. The number of tentacles has changed (seriously, count them) and the configuration also - they used to roll up at the end and now they roll down! Soyeah. I feel robbed - I wanted * The Nautilus* to show up, but the more I look at it, the more it is apparent that something has changed. Is this an oversight on O'Neil's part, or the first stage in the "Ship of Theseus" that the Nautilus must surely undergo before the final chapter?
*
* The smokestacks, at least, are explicable. In real life, early submarines often ran on the surface and dived only to sneak up on a target or escape pursuit. That was partly because of their limited air and power supply for underwater movement, and partly because running on the surface is faster and puts less strain on the hull than running underwater. In any case, these submarines used normal fossil-fuel engines when on the surface, relying on batteries and electric motors underwater. Build a Victorian submarine with steam engines and you're going to need some kind of smokestack.
* Why does the color of Mina's eyes and hair change in every book?
* Her eyes have always been green and her hair was brown in the first two books, and dyed blonde in the Black Dossier. They looked the same in Century, as well.
* Moore Didn't put Dracula or Sherlock Holmes in the original books because he feared they'd "over shadow" the rest of the team, yet he had no problem with James Bond and Big Brother Overshadowing The Black Dossier's storyline in the slightest!
* And they didn't. But Dracula and Sherlock Holmes have been done to death in this sort of Victorian patische style. And they technically did have an effect through Moriarty's 'death' and Mina's backstory, so does it even matter? Also, Big Brother was only in the background of The Black Dossier.
* But the War of the Worlds makes up the entirety of the second volume.
* And a general Victorian fictional clusterfuck crossover with Dracula as a major player would basically be, er, Anno Dracula.
* I think the point was that they'd overshadow the main characters even as side characters. James Bond, Big Brother and the Martians were supposed to be big parts of the story.
* If this series is supposed to be a hodgepodge of western European fiction, why have I not seen a single 1950s British blue police box in an unusual place?
* You didn't look close enough.
* Look closely at all of the little details on the map of the Blazing World in Black Dossier. It's in the upper-right corner.
* Cite example or it didn't happen.
* I believe the Almanac in vol. 2 also mentions the Silurians.
* The 1960s haven't happened yet, and Dr. Who started in the '60s. If Moore writes a sequel to the Black Dossier, maybe the Doctor will make an appearance.
* The Sixties chapter of Century. Expect it.
* And true to form, while a police box doesn't appear those of us with familiarity to the classic series may recognize a certain gentleman in a black coat and bow-tie who shows up in one panel of "Century: 1969"...
* as well as a Dalek duringMina's Acid trip in Hyde Park.
* It bugs me that Mr. Hyde is illustrated as a big, brutish man. In the original material, when Dr. Jekyll became Mr. Hyde, he actually shrank, so it would follow that Mr. Hyde's transformation would still follow that. It's just weird that Alan Moore would ignore this bit, but pay close attention to everyone else in terms of their original characterization.
* Well, it shall bug you no longer- Hyde, I believe during his speech after raping Griffin to death, expands upon his origins. He indeed mentions that, at first, Jekyll was actually quite fit, and he was pratically a "dwarf"... But, as he was all jekyll's excesses, powered by all his emotional and biological drives, he quickly grew bigger and stronger as moral old Jekyll, deprived of these same motivations, withered away. Over time, he simply grew more powerful, more deviant, and generally larger.
* Jekyll also mentions in Volume 1 that Hyde was originally smaller than Jekyll, in a "can you imagine?" sense.
* Why is Campion Bond still around in Volume 2 and not in some jail cell or executed? He worked for Moriarty and betrayed Britain, and if Griffin hadn't followed and spied on him, he and Moriarty would have succeeded.
* Lampshaded by the new M on the penultimate page of Volume 1: "It is often useful to have employees one knows to be treacherous" (probably not the real reason, though, it does seem likely that Mycroft was somehow involved in Moriarty's schemes).
* In addition to the above, Bond was working for Moriarty in his official capacity as Moriarty's aide in British Intelligence; he no doubt managed to weasel out of punishment by following the "I was just obeying orders!" defence. By 1910, however, it's made very clear that he's been reduced to little more than a dogsbody who gets the tea, so presumably they decided that punishment via humiliating him and completely stymying any possible chances for career advancement was satisfactory for whatever part he played.
* In the first volume of Century, The 14th Earl of Gurney is named as a possible Jack the Ripper suspect. Century takes place in 1910. But The Ruling Class, from which the Earl of Gurney is taken, is set in the 1960s.
* I haven't read / seen the original work, but the 'Earl of Gurney' is presumably a hereditary title, so the one who appears in the 1960s is probably a later descendant (unless the later one is specifically identified as the 14th Earl, in which case we can probably chalk this one up to a continuity error).
* He is indeed specifically referred to as the 14th Earl of Gurney.
* Explained by Alan Moore thinking the movie took place in around 1910.
* So.... Didn't bother anyone else that Mina Harker, the vampiress, WATCHED A FRIGGIN SUNSET?
* So... you're unaware, then, that in the original Dracula, sunlight did not kill him?
* Sunlight killing vampires is a relatively recent take on the myth -- in most pre-twentieth century variations, it just weakens them to a degree that they can't use many / any of their powers.
* Who said she's a vampire?
* The movie is very explicit about it.
* The movie is an In Name Only adaptation. In the book, being bitten doesn't immediately make somebody a vampire. Think about it: it might be a little inconvenient if you couldn't feast on somebody's blood without turning them into an undead creature that's powerful enough to fight you on your own terms. It would be like not being able to eat a hamburger without it turning into some amorphous, blobby beef-monster that could hunt you down and murder you with a chainsaw.
* All of which is beside the point: In the movie, which this Headscratcher is about, she's definitely and explicitly a vampire, and we don't know the exact circumstances of her turning anyway.
* Whether or not she's explicitly a vampire, the fact remains: the portrayal of vampires in the book and the movie is based on Bram Stoker's Dracula, where the character Mina Harker first appeared. In Stoker's version, sunlight doesn't immediately kill vampires. Because of the nature of the League 'verse, there are probably numerous breeds of vampires, all hailing from different works of fiction. In all likelihood, many of them probably are killed by sunlight--but the one that bit Mina wasn't.
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)