December 26 2002...February 2003
(24 pgs.)
TITLE:
As can be seen on the cover the Cross refers to Christianity
while the Star and the Moon are symbols of Islam
TL Wrote to tell me
about the title
The first part could refer to Christianism and Islam.
"shapes in the sand" reminds me of an anecdote told about the Greek philosopher
Aristippos: He was shipwrecked and landed on a solitary island. But he found
figures in the sand and concluded that there were men. The story must be in
Diogenes Laertios, Life of the
philosophers.
The only reference to shapes in the sand I could find
on the net was from Aristotle's History of
Animals Book IV Part 10 and a small mention with regards to Pythagoras
Shapes
in the sand also reminds me of
SYNOPSIS:
For the first time we learn about two other incarnations
of Promethea who existed in our world (one Christian and the other Muslim)
flourishing before the 11th Century, leaving to spend time in their respective
heavens and returning to our world still unaware of each others’ existence
eventually fighting each other to death on opposite sides at the battle of
Antioch in 1097 AD.
Juxtaposed with their story is that of Sophie and her
former best friend Stacia who fight one another in their guises as Promethea and
knock each other out.
From the Immateria the previous Prometheas Margaret,
Bill and Anna open up a doorway and take them out of our world.
QUOTES:
God fostered child made living tale that the imaginative
might put on like pearls, or armor. So the story went. – pg 1
Wind drew
serpent-trails between the dunes. In this way, many years were passed. –
pg.1
“This Promethea thing, it’s great, but it ain’t a future. You don’t want
it screwing up your grades." - Trish Bangs,. Pg 3
“So, Sophie, this Kaballah:
did you meet God? Give him any good advice?” – Stacia, pg. 5
“I’ve been
appointed Promethea by the highest power there is! And what, you think just
because you’ve got your dykey little crush on Grace, all that changes?” –
Sophie, pg. 6
And the years were like grains pouring in the Present’s
hourglass throat, down into spent, still Past out of a crumbling and uncertain
future. – pg. 9
“I am Grace #%$@ing Brannagh, Darling, and I’m the best
there’s ever been.” – Promethea(3b), pg 10
“Either we stop this now and work
things out, or it’s war between us.” – Promethea(6)
“Fair enough. Then it’s
war.” – Promethea(3b), pg 13
“Dear God. They’re fighting. This is
unprecendented.” – Promethea(2)
“I---I dunno, Margaret, honey. I’m getting
real deja-vu here…” – Promethea(4)
“Mistress Bill speaks truly. This happened
before.” – Promethea(1), pg 17
And within each of them, the spirit-child
Promethea, divided in itself, began to weep and grow afraid, and yet did not
know why. – pg. 18
At last, locked in their death-grip, two religions looked
into each other’s eyes and recognized themselves. Knew then that both were
halves of what had been one holy, undivided source. – pg. 19
And the
Promethea spirit, reunited with herself, held in her scream of horror, wiped the
schism from her mind, forgot it quite…until a great while later. – pg.
19
“Margaret sweetheart, we shouldn’t open a doorway like this. Only demons
do that stuff.” – Promethea(4)
“Bill, this is an emergency. We’ve got to
limit the damage that’s already been done.” – Promethea(2), pg 24
NOTES & ANNOTATIONS:
First the Barbelith
Underground commentary on this issue.
As TL notes
The
aesthetical principle of this issue is symmetry and correspondance, most of the
double pages are constructed like triptychs. There is a duality between East and
West, past and present, Sophie and Stacia. The dominant colours are blue, yellow
and red (blue for Islam, yellow for Christianity, maybe because the Orient is
the land of the rising sun, whereas the Occident is the land of the sundown).
The proper description of this type of image is chessecake warplane nose art.
A major exponent was Alberto
Vargas.
Note that Stacia is wearing a number 1 T shirt and showing her
belly button.
Panel 3: Does anyone recognize the Thor like figure on
the back of this student’s jacket?
Panel 4: The Blow Meez sound like
another band.
Page 5 Panel 4:
Note the reflection of Stacia's
glasses.
Pages 6-7: The school of Elevated Minds becomes the Lightning
Struck Tower. Clouds are exactly the same but it is now as dark as
night.
TL notes
The kabbalistic symbol is the Tower as in issue
15. Crowley explains in the "Book of Thoth", that the tower stands for war and
the destruction of matter by fire. Crowley also refers the "Tower" to Book of
the law I,57, where the goddess Nuith speaks of a "fortress" and mentions "the
dove and the snake" (motto of Promethea # 23). Dove and serpent stand for
Schopenhauer's "the will to life" and the "will to death" (Eros and Thanatos),
and one could speculate that these two tendencies are embodied by Sophie and
Stacia in issue # 24. Thus there would be a hidden symbolical link between issue
# 23 and # 24. The kabbalistic discourse goes on, even if the narrative shows
the usual clash of superheroes.
Pages 8-9:
Houris
definitions are:
A voluptuous, alluring woman.
One of the beautiful
virgins of the Koranic paradise.
from Dictionary.com
Elysium
definitions:
A place or condition of ideal
happiness.
A dwelling place assigned to happy souls after death; the seat of
future happiness; Paradise.
a heavenly place--peaceful and beautiful--where
those who are favored by the gods can go when they die.
also from Dictionary.com
The Story of Jesus throwing the money changers out of the Temple can be
found in:
Matthew
21:12
Mark
11:15 and
John
2:15
The last written panel seems like a send up of the old Days of Our Lives introduction
“Like grains through the hour glass these are the days of our
lives”.
Also used by So-Crates in Bill and Ted’s Excellent
Adventure
Pages 10-11: Promethea(6) now wears the red cape she acquired in her
journey through the Tree of Life.
Pages 12-13: The snakes on the
caduceus each bite one another.
I thought the whiteness of the snakes at the
bottom of the page gave it a slightly unfinished look as though the colorist
didn't have time to finish making them blue but as JHW3 notes:
the
snakes at the end of issue 24 are actually the way they look now. If you will
notice the line around them is dulled and they are putting off a white glow.
After all she has been to heaven and so have the snakes so we thought it
appropriate for them and all of her energy fx and glowing floating stars to now
be white, the dominant color of kether. I meant for it to be that way as well.
Just flat white. It has an almost clean feeling to it.
Pages
14-15:
Jihad
A Muslim holy war or spiritual struggle against
infidels.
A religious war against infidels or Mohammedan heretics; also, any
bitter war or crusade for a principle or belief.
a holy war by Muslims
against unbelievers
Definitions from Dictionary.com
1097
Antioch
One of the great cities of the Roman and Christian world, Antioch
had only been captured by the Muslims in 1085, having been retained by Byzantium
until then. It's capture was key to the success of the First Crusade - without
control of Antioch, the crusaders could not have moved on to Jerusalem. The
siege lasted for seven and a half months, and conditions for the crusaders were
often worse than those inside the city. The city was located in the valley of
the Orontes, in mountainous country. The city itself was on the valley floor,
with the citadel high on the mountains above the city, but contained within the
city walls. The crusaders put a blockade in place, building three siege towers,
and settled down for a long siege. The Syrians made two attempts to relieve the
city, defeated at the battles of Harene (1st battle 31 December 1097, 2nd battle
9 February 1098), and another large relief army under Emir Kerboga of Mosul,
some 75,000 strong, was on its way when the city was captured. The eventual
capture of the city was aided by treachery within the city. The Tower of the Two
Sisters, at the base of the mountain, was held by the Beni-Zarra family, whose
head, Firuz, who for personal reasons was willing to let the Franks in. Their
break-in was aided by a Turkish plan to kill suspect Christians on the same
night - the initial noises of the crusader break-in were mistaken for noises of
the massacre. Firuz made his offer to Bohemond, who eventually persuaded the
rest of the crusade to agree to give him Antioch as the basis of a principality.
In his defence, Bohemond was the first man up the ladder into Antioch. From the
Tower of the Two Sisters, the crusaders were able to open a postern gate, and
make their way to the Gate of the Bridge, one of the main gates into the city.
The city was soon in their hands, but the citadel on it's peak remained in
Turkish hands, and only two days later the relief army arrived, beginning
Kerboga's siege of Antioch.
Bradbury, Jim, The Medieval Siege pp.109-12
Details taken from here.
Here are
the details of the events surrounding the Battle of Antioch.
Here is an
overview of the First Crusade.
It reminds me of the imagery of Alan
Moore’s Miracleman Olympus but not with as much graphic details.
Pages
16-17:
As Grace/Stacia and Promethea/Sophie fight the circle panels
underneath them show the reactions of other characters as they learn about the
fight.
I: Jack Faust with Tarot card.
Appropriately it is the one
Crowley refers to as The Tower [or War].
II: FBI agents Breughel and Ball.
III: Trish Bangs (Sophie’s
mother) holding a Weeping Gorilla cup.
IV: The other 3 previous
Prometheas and little Margie in the Immateria.
Pages 18-19: Nice
mixing of past and present. Within the circles firstly One half Promethea(6) and
one half the Christian Promethea and secondly the Islamic Promethea and
Grace/Stacia version.
The panels also alternate between past and present on
both pages.
Note that in the Antioch segment a Christian soldier gets up on
page 18 panel 3, walks towards the two Promethea battling in panel 5, strikes
both of them through with his lance on page 19 Panel 2, leaving them to spit out
blood as they start to die in panel 4.
And the planes hit the
buildings on September 11, 2001.
And the smartbomb hits the mosque
on 25 October, 2001.
Following U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees
confirmation Tuesday that U.S. bombing struck a military hospital Monday in
Herat, UNHCR spokeswoman in Pakistan Stephanie Bunker said yesterday that U.S.
bombs also hit a mosque in the same military compound and a nearby
village.
"We take extraordinary care on the targeting process," said U.S.
Assistant Defense Secretary Victoria Clarke. "There is unintended damage. There
is collateral damage. Thus far, it has been extremely limited, from what we've
seen.
from Global
Secuirty Newswire.
The tanks roll over a demolished settlement in
lots of places but most prominently the Palestine/Israeli conflict.
The
pretty student in the shopping precinct gets exactly halfway though her last
defiant prayer I assume this is a reference to a female suicide bomber.
Page 20-21: Four different sun symbols split in half. The original
little girl Promethea cries out on top followed by the Islamic and Christian
Prometheas and finally the two present day Promehteas.
Not sure about the cat
on the left and the fish on the right. Limp concert poster torn apart at a bus
stop(?) appropriately numbered 13.
Page 22: Agent Brueghel reminds me
a bit of Trish Bangs here.
Page 23: Note the eyes behind the 3
previous Prometheas. Also the 3 leaf clover on the Clover’s store
sign.
Page 24 Panel 1: the Margaret and Bill versions of Promethea are
huge as our present day Prometheas fit like miniature dolls into the palms of
their hands
Eyes visible in panels 1 and 3.
Panel 3:
Subject
1901-1920: Margaret Taylor Case.
Subject 1941-1970: Bill
Woolcott.
Note that the caduceus flies above Promethea(6).
Ending panel
reminds me of the last page of Issue #2