Books : Across the Universe: The DC Universe Stories of Alan Moore
Price: $36.00 Prices subject to change.
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 741
EAN: 9781840237313
ISBN: 1840237317
Label: Titan Books Ltd
Manufacturer: Titan Books Ltd
Number Of Pages: 208
Publication Date: September 19, 2003
Publisher: Titan Books Ltd
Sales Rank: 1606757
Studio: Titan Books Ltd
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
Hailed as one of the best and most influential writers in comics today, Alan Moore has penned such important and critically-acclaimed titles as Watchmen, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Batman: The Killing Joke, Swamp Thing and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Now, collected for the first time ever, Moore's rarely-seen and hard-to-find one-off stories can be enjoyed anew. Featuring such superheroes as Superman, Batman and Green Lantern, and illustrated by a host of comic luminaries including Dave Gibbons (Watchmen), Kevin O'Neill (Marshal Law), Rick Veitch (Swamp Thing) and Klaus Janson (Daredevil), these tales showcase Moore's versatile and innovative style. The perfect introduction to a master storyteller!
Average Rating: 
Rating:  -
These stories definitely work to get a reaction out of the reader, from "Interesting" to "Ewww" to "Am I supposed to be laughing?"and are worth a read.
Varying in length from full issue to back-up story, each tale makes its point in the space provided and shows you that a year long story arc is not always necessary to deliver the goods.
The often cited "For The Man Who Has Everything" deserves all the praise it has been given in the past. Both emotional and action packed as we see a world where Superman doesn't exist, but Kal-El lives happily...or does he?
Although the most interesting story has to be the Batman tale of Clayface II and his imaginary romance with a department store mannequin. From first encounter, to young romance, to jealousy and betrayal-the story really puts you inside the mind of a tragic/disturbed villain.
The Vigilante story was disturbing but ultimately fell flat, mostly because the hero was completely undeveloped and unlikeable. More a case of useless character as opposed to bad writing.
I wouldn't have paid cover price for it, but a used copy is worth the cash.
Rating: -
*V for Vendetta* and *From Hell* are two of my favorite graphic novels, due in no small part to the brilliant ideas and prose of Alan Moore. Because I first read both books in the `00s, I'd just assumed that Moore was only a contemporary comic book writer. Imagine my surprise, then, that upon picking up this volume at the local library, I discovered not one but three stories that affected me so profoundly when I read them as a kid that they still stick with me twenty-plus years later.
Two of these stories, both of which involve the Green Lantern Corps, still come up in my comparative religions class when I am reflecting on perception and frames of reference. In "Mogo Doesn't Socialize," Bolphunga the Unrelenting has come to a remote planet in search of the great Green Lantern Mogo. Suffice it to say that Bolphunga and the reader both discover precisely why Mogo can't be found anywhere *on* that remote world in a perceptual shift worthy of the *Twilight Zone." "In Blackest Night" challenges a Green Lantern to communicate with a blind being from a dark planet who knows (and, more importantly, can know) nothing of "green" or "lanterns." This story drove home the point that you need a common frame of reference in order for ideas to translate.
The third story, "Brief Lives," filled a single page spread and came from something called *Vega.* As with the latter of the GL stories, this one was all about perspective. Two giants, whose lives encompass epochs ... Read More
Rating: -
Thank the gods that Moore did not write many DC superhero stories. The DC universe is too limiting. These are all excellent stories (particularly the concepts), but the mind of Alan Moore is in a straightjacket. It's a little like watching a great pianist doing five-finger exercises: interesting and enjoyable, but not really what you want. By all means buy this book to complete your Moore collection, but buy his ABC work (especially the brilliant "Promethea") first.
Rating:  -
It's hard to overstate exactly how much fun Alan Moore's comics usually are. They're inventive, witty, even erudite on occasion. This is not one of those occasions, unfortunately. The two Superman stories in the volume are very good, and a couple of the Green Lantern Corps shorts are very clever, but the rest of the book is marred by the catch-all approach to literature, in which DC apparently looks for a by-line and reprints on reflex, never giving a thought to the quality of the stories. The Vigilante tale takes up more space than any other story in the book and is frankly no good. The same goes for the smaller Batman story (a character for whom Moore seems to have some little antipathy - according to him, his acclaimed "The Killing Joke" remains one of his least favorite works), and the book is simply not large enough to excuse the reprinting of such deliberately shoddy material. Further, DC's new printing of "The Greatest Superman Stories Ever Told" does not, in fact, include the Moore stories from previous printings. Apparently, this book is the only place you'll be able to find those stories anymore, and you'll have to drop twenty dollars on mostly inferior material to find them! Is the book worth the cover price? Grudgingly, I have to say yes, but only for "For the Man Who Has Everything," "The Jungle Line," and a couple of the eight-page GL Corps stories. The rest is that least Moore-like of vices: boring.
Rating: -
This collection has some excellent short subject work Alan Moore did for DC throughout the early '80s, before his falling out with the company over WATCHMEN. Moore tells several stories featuring prominent DC characters of the period. This includes a fantastic couple of Green Lantern Corps stories, a decent Green Lantern tale, an average Vigilante story, an Omega Men backup story with a nice twist ending, and a rather disturbing Batman/Clayface story. Of all the stories, the GLC stories got my imagination going the most, and whetted my appetite for more stories about them by Moore, which never came and most likely never will. These stories showed he had a real grasp of the Green Lantern dynamic and were wildly imaginative. I highly recommend this collection.
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