July 14, 1999...September 1999
(24 pgs.)
COVER:
JDC thinks that JHW3 says somewhere
that this cover is a tribute to a noir movie poster (possibly The Big Sleep),
although Jeromy Cox thinks it was from The Public Enemy.
However rather than
being modelled on a specific movie poster I suspect it is intended to evoke any
film noir poster of the '40's and '50's. Here is a good selection of Film Noir Posters
and here is a list of the Top 25
Films Noir (1941-1956)
Note that this is a TEXTureTM Digital
Production
From out of the darkness we see a purplish spiral galaxy under
which Andras and Marchosias can be glimpsed in both their real form and looking
like earthly human gangsters with guns. Promethea seems caught by surprise. This
image would occur in the story on pgs 14-15.
The designs for the looks for the two demons, "Andras" and "Marchosias", both come from Colin de Plancy's Dictionnaire Infernal, published in 1863. I believe Alan Moore sometimes provides copies of the drawings of demons in that book to the artists he collaborates with, when he wants them to portray demons. One of the designs of a demon from de Plancy's book was also used in the Swamp Thing Annual which Alan Moore wrote (the demon with three heads). From http://www.library.usyd.edu.au/libraries/rare/witchcraft/demonology/demonology.html: Collin de Plancy's celebrated dictionary was first published in 1818, and a second edition was issued in 1825 and the third in 1832. This edition added more than 250 new entries. A rare and uncommon reference book on the occult, this important work has never been translated into English. The book contains around 550 engravings with portraits of 72 demons.
A hit from hell is sometimes used
to refer to a drug hit but in this case hit has the more usual meaning of
murder.
TITLE:
The title comes from the Biblical story found in the first
book of Kings 3:16-28.
Here is the story and here is a painting by
Raphael illustrating the story
See also Issue #25 where
another Judgement of Solomon occurs
SYNOPSIS
Promethea takes the wounded Barbara to the South Tower
Hospital. Meanwhile Benny Solomon hires two demons to try and kill Promethea.
They attempt to do so at a rock concert but Promethea proves to be too strong
for them and they open up a portal into the Immateria to escape accidentally
dragging Sophie's friend Stacia along too.
QUOTES
"The archetype of wisdom is eternal" - Promethea,
pg2
"There's worse things than Smees" - Barbara, pg 3
"You could have made
the friggin' triangle bigger" - Marchosias, pg 4
"She made me feel a total
failure
Her boyfriend stepped on my inhaler" - Montelimar Sykes (lead singer
of The Limp), pg. 8
"This band sucks worse than gravity" - Stacia, pg.
8
"I'm Promethea" - Promethea (of course)
"And this is a problem how
exactly? I mean, you've finally got boobs and you're all special effects..."-
Stacia, pg. 9
"Yes, we're underworld types. From out of town" - Marchosias,
pg. 11
"Everybody's going to think you're a drug side effect or maybe some
new fad" - Stacia, pg. 13
"Uh oh. Caduceus. She's packing heat" - Marchosias,
pg. 16
"I am Promethea. There's nothing else like me. I am the holy splendor
of the imagination. I cannot be destroyed - Promethea, pgs 19-20
"Mortal.
Moi?" - Stacia, pg. 21
"Maybe you got the worms on a stick and that stupid
hat, but you're not the boss of me" - Stacia, pg. 22
"'Promethea'. I'll makes
sure I carve that name in food-deep letters on the diamond gateposts of hell.
We'll meet again" - Marchosias (or is it Andras) pg. 23
NOTES & ANNOTATIONS Page 2: Andras:
Andras The Goetia is only the first part of the Lemegeton, the Lesser Key of
Solomon, which is one of the more famous grimoires. The other three parts in
order are Theurgia Goetia, the Pauline Art and the Almadel.
Page 1, Panel 1: Thanks to The
Despoiler and Johan Kaikkonen for pointing out what Sterotica refers
to
Judging from the picture of the muscle bound honey, Sterotica is likely
erotica about pumped up steroid users - TD
and
sterotica
means erotica on steroids, look at the picture of the girl, she's very muscular
- JK
Note the smiley yellow face on the T-shirt. Any time you see
a smiley yellow face you are reminded of what many people consider to be Alan
Moore's best work The Watchmen. There will be another Watchmen reference later
on in this issue.
Visible on this panel are signs for
Drive thru fast
flesh for those looking for a quickie
Holo Ho Irv Pinsky guesses
that this stands for Holographic Whore as Ho is American Street vernacular for
prostitute
Panel 3:
Synapti-Cola promises Einstein in a
bottle
Club Smak with lips
Pluc(...)L52
Thermo Cookies :
Remember the Taste
Page 3, Panel 1: "Kyre Aesclepius"
See also
Asklepios
Kyre might
be a misspelling of Kyrie
A brief petition and response used in various
liturgies of several Christian churches, beginning with or composed of the words
“Lord, have mercy.”
Together they comprise the first item of the Ordinary of
the Roman Catholic Mass.
[Late Latin Krie (eleison), from Greek Krie eleson,
Lord, have mercy : Krie, vocative of krios, lord, master; see keu- in
Indo-European Roots + eleson, aorist imperative of elein, to show mercy (from
eleos, mercy).]
from Dictionary.com
Here's
the "Kyrie" from the old Roman-catholic mass:
Kyrie Kyrie
P. Kyrie
eleison. P: Lord, have mercy.
S. Kyrie eleison. S: Lord, have mercy.
P.
Kyrie eleison. P: Lord, have mercy.
S. Christe eleison. S: Christ, have
mercy.
P. Christe eleison. P: Christ, have mercy
S. Christe eleison. S:
Christ, have mercy.
P. Kyrie eleison. P: Lord, have mercy.
S. Kyrie
eleison. S: Lord, have mercy.
P. Kyrie eleison. P: Lord, have
mercy.
(From: Paul Halsall HALSALL@MURRAY.FORDHAM.EDU, Latin English Mass
[Old Rite], Ordinary of the Tridentine Mass 1962 Edition ,Missale Romanum - An
English Translation of the Missale Romanum)
C.A.R.E. pod - "CARE" means
"Cooperative for American Remittances to Europe". It was an organisation of the
Quakers distributing parcels with food to the people in Europa after the Second
World War
Thanks to TL for that information
Pages 4-5:
Panels on the right and left hand side show Andras and Marchosias in their true
form
According to this Seals
of Goetia webpage Marchosias is the demons who assists in self-defense, while Andras causes
confusion to enemies.
Panel 2: On the carpet on the
floor we can read (A)donai...Ihuh.
Also around the small triangle that the
demons complain about Anaphax...Prim...Te...n. There is an eye in the
triangle
The pattern on the carpet is probably from a grimoire of Abramelin
but I haven't been able to find it yet.
A collection of grimoires and magical
texts is available here, Texts
in German and English
On the desk to Benny Solomon's left are a modern day
PC, mouse & pad, keyboard and modem. To his right a pen in a holder, a cup,
a pan-like statue and a candle
The viewpoint of this panel is what I like to
refer to as a Hitchcock shot (although there is probably a proper technical name
for it, does anyone know?) as it can be seen in various Alfred Hitchcock films
such as Psycho and North by Northwest and more recently in Brian de Palma’s
Snake Eyes where it is combined with a panning shot.
We see everything from
overhead looking almost straight down at the scene
Panel 3: Note that
Benny Solomon looks slightly distored. We are seeing him from the Demons' point
of view and whenever this happens the image is slightly distorted
Panel
4: Marchosias: Marchosias
Here is the
seal of Marchosias found by Thomas Lautwein at German Satanists Home Page:
Marchosias: Marchiosias
How to
summon Marchosias
Page 4, Panel 4: the black silhouette makes
Benny Solomon look like a Smee. Note the upturned faces in the
foreground.
Page 5, Panel 4: The statue on the desk looks like a
female version of Pan
Does anyone recognize the portrait on the wall?
It
seems that Benny's assistant is unable to see any of the demons when they are
summoned
Page 6: First appearance of TEXTure. We will learn more about
the Firefight on 5th Avenue between the 5 Swell Guys and the Painted Doll in issue
#6
omnipath: appears to be a word coined by Alan Moore. I couldn't
find it in the Oxford English Dictionary but it could be a combination of two
words the Latin omnis meaning 'all' and the Greek pathos meaning
"suffering'.
I asked Paul McFedries
who runs the wordspy website about
omnipath and his reply was as follows :
My guess is that, in this
case, the author is trying to let us know that the character is a psychopath, a
sociopath, and whatever other -path you can think of that implies deviancy, a
twisted mind, and extreme antisocial behaviour.
PATHOGEN : a disease
producing organism. Hey I didn't know that
TROTSKY'S : No doubt named after
Leon
Trotsky.
Panels 2-3 Note the upper left hand corner of the TEXTure
screen. The first image shows the sun symbol whilst the second has a square, a
triangle and then the same sun symbol all enclosed within different colored
squares
Page 7, Panel 1: Montelimar Sykes.
The most famous Sykes I
can think of is British comedian Eric Sykes. Montelimar could
be reduced to Monty as in Monty Python but this is all just speculation on my
part
Fist and Shout - obviously from Twist and Shout an early Beatles
hit
"More handsome than Jesus" - John Lennon got into a lot or trouble for
saying that the Beatles were more popular than
Jesus
Note the ABC sign for America's Best Comics
In this panel we can
also see signs bearing the surnames of three people responsible for producing
Promethea
MO(OR)E partly obscured
Dun(bier) for editor Scott Dunbier also
partly obscured
and most readable of all
KLEIN for Todd Klein who does the
letters for Promethea
The two people under the streetlight look like
Marchosias and Andras
Page 7, Panel 2: First mention of mayor Sonny
Baskerville. The most famous Baskerville I can think of is from Conan Doyles'
Sherlock Holmes novel The Hound of
the Baskervilles. Sonny might be a reference to Sonny Bono (ex Sonny and
Cher) who was a local government leader and congressman
forty-two
personalities will remind SF fans of Douglas Adams Hitchhikers Guide to the
Galaxy where the number 42 was the answer to the ultimate question of Life the
Universe and Everything
Page 7, Panels 3-4: If you ate a restaurant
called Borgia's
you would need an antidote after your 5 course meal
Goetia
Page 8, Panel 5: Another Watchmen reference. Throughout The
Watchmen graffiti would be seen on walls which almost but never quite managed to
spell out the sentence "Who Watches the Watchers". Here we have "Who's Watching
You" which will be revealed in full on pgs 12-13.
Page 9, Panel 1: She-Ra is the star of an
animated TV series.
Page 10 Panel 1: Nice reflection of the demon on
the side of the phone
Panel 2: It seems these demons haven't been
summoned by anyone since 1979
Panel 4: Note the shadow on the wall
behind Marchosias shows him in his true form.
Pages 12-13: Nice demons
skulls in the middle of the page separating the top and bottom halves
Upside
down pentagram on
right hand side to counterbalanace the sun on left
Page 12 Panel
4:
That stink of myrrh - this is the first reference to Promethea
smelling of myrrh which is often commented upon
Page 13, Panel 3: I
thought the bouncer might have been wearing a Hawkwind T-shirt but the next letter after
the second W only partly visible looks more like an "O" than an "I" so it might
be a Hawkworld
T-shirt.
Panel 4: Over One million killed T shirt
Pages
14-15: Looks like early versions of Pandeliriums at the bottom of the page.
See Issue
#5
Page 16, Panel 1: OK boys and girls. Now what word rhymes with
truck?
Page 16, Panel 2: "Brothers and sisters, why are we fighting?"
- this reminds me of Mick Jagger trying to control a Rolling Stones audience at
Altamont as seen in the fillm Gimme Shelter
Page 19,
Panel 1: Promethea begins drawing a pentagram within a circle to
banish the two demons.
Panel 2:
Cow with wings
He must
need glasses. It's actually a bull with wings although
Claire Jordan notes
that
Actually Andras looks more like a gnu with wings than a domestic
bull! [But presumably still a male gnu!]
Thanks to Miles Kurland for
pointing out that
"What do you call a cow with wings?"
("Dave, that
joke's in bad taste")
Yes, it's especially in bad taste today - because the
butt of that joke is dead.
This hails from the late 70's, and the punch-line
was "Linda McCartney" - referring, of course, to Paul's old band, "Wings", of
which she was a member. (It was also sometimes "A dog with wings")
Pages 20-21:
Underneath the "EEEEEEEEE"
Andras and
Marchosias have swapped positions
Claire Jordan writes
I don't think
Marchosias and Andras have swapped positions - I think we're seeing them from
Promethea's viewpoint, instead of from behind their own position as previously
Page 22 Panel 1: visible here are a The Limp poster, Trotsky's
matches, Head Whiskey(?) since 1890, Got Wing Super Beer
Page 23 Panel
4: Here we can see a Marlons cigarette packet, a ticket for the concert
(only $21.50), pills, 90 minute cassette tape, video camera, bottles, cans and
cigarette lighters
Page 24: Nice pullback effect on these 4 panels
with images gerring smaller.
137
Nice devils around the next title