Promethea

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Promethea (1999-2005) was an award-winning comic book series by Alan Moore. Sorry, we're probably going to have to be more specific, huh?

The protagonist, student Sophie Bangs, while researching a college paper discovers several references to a character named Promethea. These references are in a variety of literary works including epic poetry and comic books. Curious Sophie investigates and eventually finds Barbara Shelley, the wife of the now-deceased author of the latest incarnation of the character. Her attempt to interview Ms. Shelley is unsuccessful.

Her investigation has been noticed, and she is warned by Barbara Shelley. On her way home she's attacked by a Living Shadow, but is rescued by a curious figure - Barbara, dressed as the latest incarnation of the Promethea character.

After they escape, Barbara tells Sophie how her husband's imagination made it possible for her to become Promethea. She explains to Sophie that in ancient Egypt a magician tried to save his daughter from the religious persecution that would kill him by getting his gods to preserve her forever as a story. Barbara further explains that some authors including her husband enabled her to cross back into the material world through the power of imagination as the superhero Promethea. Barbara warns Sophie that they have only managed to slow the Living Shadow down. She suggests that Sophie try and use her creativity to summon Promethea or they are both doomed. Sophie retreats and writes about the character, imagining herself as Promethea, and succeeds in fully embodying her. She manages to fight back the creature as it returns, but her troubles have only just begun.

Now Sophie has to figure out how to be Promethea and herself. She has to learn to identify and deal with Promethea's enemies, and for that she seeks guidance from the former incarnations of Promethea. This involves journeys into the Immateria, where individual imagination and a more universal plane of ideas meet.

The series has a heavy focus on the occult, and its related spiritual and psychological questions.

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This series provides examples of:

• Action Girl: Most, but not all, incarnations of Promethea.
• All Myths Are True
• Agent Mulder: Agent Brueghel, and most people on the planet, eventually
• Agent Scully: Ball and Hansard.
• Aside Glance
  • As Hermes explains to Sophie and Barbara that some gods who appear in stories may be real, he smiles at the reader.
  • Aleister Crowley smiles and makes an "oh well, I tried" gesture at the reader after Sophie rejects his lewd proposition.
• Attractive Bent Gender: Roger and Bill
• Author Appeal: Alan Moore pretty much used the series to write about one of his favorite subjects, the western magic tradition.
• Author Catchphrase: An implausible number of characters use the term "incidentally", all the time.
• After the End
• Bad Boss: Mayor Sonny Baskerville, when possessed by the Howling.

"THE ONLY PURPOSE OF YOUR MILDEW-LIKE EXISTENCE IS TO DO MY BIDDING!"

• Big Badass Wolf
• Bi the Way: Grace.
• Bottle Fairy: Trish, at first.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall
  • The Painted Doll is fond of addressing the reader, particularly after a murder.
  • As The End of the World As We Know It approaches, the series writer and artist make cameo appearances, as does the reader, when Promethea, in her final revelation to humankind, acknowledges the story she's a part of, while emphasizing it's not just a story.
• Cliché Storm - The entire point of the Weeping Gorilla, an in-universe comic book character whose only function is to spout such maudlin, commonplace sayings as "Why do pets have to die?" and "I hate my body."
• Clark Kenting
• Crossover
  • An issue takes place almost entirely in Tom Strong's city.
  • As Promethea triggers The End of the World As We Know It, heroes from Moore's other ABC Comics titles team up in an attempt to avert it.
  • The final issue of Tom Strong parallels the events in the penultimate Promethea issue.
• Deadpan Snarker: Stacia, Barbara, Jack, Grace, Roger, agent Ball, the Doll, Boo-Boo, Sophie and Trish (sometimes)... actually, about half the cast.
• The End of the World As We Know It
• Ethnic Scrappy: The Little Margie strips spoof this with Chinky, a ridiculously racist Chinese caricature. The Little Margie comic started in 1901; realistically, it probably could have been much worse.
  • Although within Promethea itself Chinky only appears in Moore's prose prologue to the series, Steve Moore (no relation to Alan), in Tomorrow Stories, included him in two Spin-Off Little Margie tales in the form of Little Nemo-style Newspaper Comics. The first tale plays the trope straight; the second subverts it by having Chinky reveal himself in his true form as a non-stereotypical Chinese prince, Ching-Ki.
• Everything's Better With Monkeys (well apes, technically): The Weeping Gorilla.
• Expy - The Painted Doll inevitably reminds one of the Joker.
• Five-Man Band -
  • The Five Swell Guys, the city's resident science heroes. One of them hasn't physically qualified as a guy for quite some time though.
    • The Hero: Bob, though more officially than in practice
    • The Lancer /TheBigGuy / The Chick: Roger
    • The Smart Guy: Marv/Kenneth
    • The Big Guy / The Smart Guy: Stan
    • The Chick: technically Roger, but Kenneth fits rather better
  • The various incarnations of Promethea that are active in the story also form a pretty solid band (though there are several additional positions filled beyond the standard five):
    • The Hero: Sophie
    • The Lancer / The Smart Guy: Grace
    • The Big Guy: Barbara (Boisterous Bruiser variety)
    • The Chick: Anna
    • The Heart: Bill (really is the nicest of the Prometheas)
    • Team Mom: Margaret
    • Tagalong Kid: Little Margie
• Foe Yay - Promethea and Jack Faust.
• Friendly Enemy: Jack Faust, initially introduced as an antagonist
• Gender Bender - While Promethea is always female, one of the incarnations was actually male, and transformed when needed - the fact that he was a gay man was a factor in some unfortunate circumstances. There's also one of the Five Swell Guys, who seems to have suffered a permanent one-way transformation to female
• The Ghost: the Night Queen is referenced repeatedly, but never actually appears.
• Hello, Nurse!: Uvula Cascade, who's also the most overt Fan Service Pack. Justified in that she's a porn star.
• Hermetic Magic: it's by Alan Moore, what did you expect?
• Higher Self: Promethea herself is a higher self to the various people who embody her. The Angel Boo-Boo definitely is, being the guardian angel and divine expression of the previous Promethea, Barbara Shelley.
• Hollywood Psych
• Ho Yay (mostly Les Yay)
• I Am Legion - The Howling are a series of demons - who eventually all find an already troubled person to possess.
• I'm Mr. Future Pop Culture Reference
• Intercourse With You - There was a whole issue dedicated to this, and it got an award for how it handled the subject.
• Joker Immunity: The Doll seems to have this which becomes a plot point later
• Kangaroo Court: Played with in "A Higher Court."
• Knight Templar: The Temple, collectively.
• Laughably Evil: The Painted Doll.
• Legacy Character - There were several incarnations of the Promethea character, and the latest one seems to have had to deal with some common adversaries.
• The Legions of Hell
• Little Red Fighting Hood: A figment of Sophia's imagination that pops up when she fights the fear of wolves.
• Living Shadow - The smee.
• Loves My Alter Ego
• Meaningful Name: Sophie Bangs
• Mental World - Trips into the Immateria seem to qualify as this.
• Mr (and Ms, and Mrs.) Exposition: About half the cast.
• Noble Demon: Asmodeus, so long as one treats him with respect.
• No Sense of Humor: One of the female FBI agents, named Lucille Ball.
• Odd-Shaped Panel: Frequently used in the mystic realms.
• Painting the Fourth Wall

Hermes: How could humans perceive gods...abstract essences...without clothing them in imagery, stories, pictures...or picture-stories, for that matter. Sophie: Picture-stories? Hermes: Oh, you know. Hieroglyphics. Vase paintings. Whatever did you think I meant?

• Pieces of God
• Post Modernism
• Pygmalion Plot
• Pygmalion Snapback
• Parents As People: Trish and Juan
• Passing the Torch
• Real Person Cameo: repeatedly, especially the near-ubiquitous Aleister Crowley. Toward the end, Moore and series artist J.H. Williams III also have a one-panel cameo each.
• Rule of Symbolism
• The Scrappy: Little Margie is an in-universe example. As the fictional creation of Margaret, she's stuck hanging around for eternity in the Immateria with her and the other deceased Promethea hosts, and her Little Nemo-like exclamations get on their nerves.
• Shout-Out - Every cover pays a homage to a certain artistic style, from Andy Warhol to Van Gogh's, including a simile of mid-20th century monster movies.
  • Also references to everything from Conan the Barbarian (Stacia) to The Bible (Solomon).
• The Smart Guy: The Five Swell Guys actually have two of these, which later becomes a plot point.
• Sophisticated As Hell: The Angel Boo-Boo.
• Super Gender Bender: One of the former Prometheas was a male comic book artist called Bill Woolcott.
• Tarot Motifs
• Transparent Closet: Stacia
• Turned Against Their Masters / AI Is a Crapshoot
• Unfortunate Names: Lucille Ball. Not kooky, not a redhead, and snarking apart, generally not inclined to see the humor in anything, including her name. Also (lampshaded by the character) Trish Bangs.
• Unusual Euphemism: Chemise-lifters.
• The Verse - Shares a verse with other America's Best Comics works by Alan Moore like Tom Strong, Top Ten Splash Brannigan, Jack B. Quick, Cobweb and Greyshirt.
• Villain With Good Publicity - The Painted Doll is surprisingly popular, as some people even wear t-shorts depicting him. He's actually referred in the media as a "celebrity omnipath".
  • His publicity is too good. One of his incarnations gets mobbed to death by fans wanting to be killed by him.
  • Also the Mayor post-possession.

"'All shall kiss my smouldering hoof', said the Mayor in a statement yesterday."

• Villains Never Lie: The Goetia.
• The Watson: Sophie fills this role very heavily at first, and then goes MsExposition as she learns more to Stacia and Trish, and even to Barbara, of all people.
• Writer On Board
• Your Mind Makes It Real: This seems to define how things are handled in the Immateria.