Ancient comics edition
I've been catching up with the Lucifer TV show over the last few weeks, and having caught up, I was inspired to go read the comic series it's very loosely based on. I read the Lucifer bits in Sandman back when it first came out, but I never read the Mike Carey-written series which came out some years afterwards. There may be some general spoilers below, but nothing really specific.
I'm about two thirds of the way through, and it's an interesting contrast. The comic series is in every way a more imaginative and far-reaching story, but I find I don't enjoy it as much. Carey is one of those 'edgy' grimdark writers whose work is very casually rapey and obsessed with monstrous pregnancies resulting from those literal and/or metaphorical rapes, and it often leaves me feeling like I need brain bleach. Every single female character, even the pre-teen girl, gets referred to as a slut, a whore, or a cunt at some point. The main characters are self-centered assholes who leave trails of death and destruction behind them (I'm talking genocide on a massive scale as well as your usual ultra-dark-n-gritty supernatural noir death toll) so I find that I only really care about the minor and supporting characters. I'm not particularly invested in whether comics Lucifer achieves his goals or not; it's interesting watching him for the worldbuilding and use of mythology Carey does (which really is pretty stunning) but this version of Lucifer is so all-powerful and all-knowing (just ever so slightly less all-powerful and all-knowing than God) that there's not a lot of tension in watching him defeat his enemies. Also their regular artist's style just does not do it for me. (My memory may be failing me, but I don't remember Gaiman's version being quite so much of a dick.)
TV Lucifer, on the other hand, is a supernatural iteration of every formula "Wild and crazy male character is paired with straight-laced by the book female character, and together they fight crime and have UST!" procedural show ever made. Luckily the main character's played by a personable and talented actor who manages to make him sympathetic even when he's also being a self-centered dick. TV Lucifer has a sense of humor, which Comics Lucifer decidedly does not, and TV Lucifer does care about a few people other than himself, which Comics Lucifer also decidedly does not. (Well, maybe Mazikeen. But if Mazikeen were not useful to Comics Lucifer, I suspect he'd sacrifice or betray her in a hot second. He pays his debts, grudgingly, but not a penny more.) Plus 357000% less rape/slut/whore stuff directed at the female characters, who are varied and interesting. Also, TV Amenadiel >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Comics Amenadiel. (I think they've made TV Amenadiel a lot more like Comics Michael.) It's not as daring or innovative as the comics by a long shot, but it's a hell of a lot more fun.
Anyway, I'll probably finish the comics off by the end of the week, and I'm interested to see where the TV series goes. Somehow I have my doubts that an American series on network TV would have the balls to make God as malevolently indifferent a character as he is in the comics. But it occurred to me that as different as the two versions are, they both have something of the same limitation: they're both centered around characters who are immortal and godlike, if not outright gods (the comics much more so than the TV series.) And yet those characters are just as limited and petty and cramped in their worldview as any human. The same goes for the world they inhabit. I suppose it's an inherent limitation of the subject matter; the myths surrounding the Christian God were accreted during a time period when humanity saw the universe as a relatively tiny place. When the universe was only six thousand years old, and small enough for a man to traverse one end to the other in a year or less, gods who fling lighting bolts and destroy cities loom large. When the universe is inconceivably old and inconceivably vast, and we command city-destroying lightning ourselves, such gods as we imagined in our collective youth look much, much smaller.
Rants Talk to me
I'm about two thirds of the way through, and it's an interesting contrast. The comic series is in every way a more imaginative and far-reaching story, but I find I don't enjoy it as much. Carey is one of those 'edgy' grimdark writers whose work is very casually rapey and obsessed with monstrous pregnancies resulting from those literal and/or metaphorical rapes, and it often leaves me feeling like I need brain bleach. Every single female character, even the pre-teen girl, gets referred to as a slut, a whore, or a cunt at some point. The main characters are self-centered assholes who leave trails of death and destruction behind them (I'm talking genocide on a massive scale as well as your usual ultra-dark-n-gritty supernatural noir death toll) so I find that I only really care about the minor and supporting characters. I'm not particularly invested in whether comics Lucifer achieves his goals or not; it's interesting watching him for the worldbuilding and use of mythology Carey does (which really is pretty stunning) but this version of Lucifer is so all-powerful and all-knowing (just ever so slightly less all-powerful and all-knowing than God) that there's not a lot of tension in watching him defeat his enemies. Also their regular artist's style just does not do it for me. (My memory may be failing me, but I don't remember Gaiman's version being quite so much of a dick.)
TV Lucifer, on the other hand, is a supernatural iteration of every formula "Wild and crazy male character is paired with straight-laced by the book female character, and together they fight crime and have UST!" procedural show ever made. Luckily the main character's played by a personable and talented actor who manages to make him sympathetic even when he's also being a self-centered dick. TV Lucifer has a sense of humor, which Comics Lucifer decidedly does not, and TV Lucifer does care about a few people other than himself, which Comics Lucifer also decidedly does not. (Well, maybe Mazikeen. But if Mazikeen were not useful to Comics Lucifer, I suspect he'd sacrifice or betray her in a hot second. He pays his debts, grudgingly, but not a penny more.) Plus 357000% less rape/slut/whore stuff directed at the female characters, who are varied and interesting. Also, TV Amenadiel >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Comics Amenadiel. (I think they've made TV Amenadiel a lot more like Comics Michael.) It's not as daring or innovative as the comics by a long shot, but it's a hell of a lot more fun.
Anyway, I'll probably finish the comics off by the end of the week, and I'm interested to see where the TV series goes. Somehow I have my doubts that an American series on network TV would have the balls to make God as malevolently indifferent a character as he is in the comics. But it occurred to me that as different as the two versions are, they both have something of the same limitation: they're both centered around characters who are immortal and godlike, if not outright gods (the comics much more so than the TV series.) And yet those characters are just as limited and petty and cramped in their worldview as any human. The same goes for the world they inhabit. I suppose it's an inherent limitation of the subject matter; the myths surrounding the Christian God were accreted during a time period when humanity saw the universe as a relatively tiny place. When the universe was only six thousand years old, and small enough for a man to traverse one end to the other in a year or less, gods who fling lighting bolts and destroy cities loom large. When the universe is inconceivably old and inconceivably vast, and we command city-destroying lightning ourselves, such gods as we imagined in our collective youth look much, much smaller.
Rants Talk to me