Spoiler Alert: It is both fitting and somewhat ironic that the latest installment of Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill’s League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century #3--2009, is due out during the same month that DC Comics has published the first of its Before Watchmen comics over Moore’s vehement objections.  In LOEG: 2009 Moore has apparently penned a jeremiad skewering contemporary culture and his primary vehicle for doing so in this apocalyptic vision is an Antichrist character that bears more than a passing resemblance to a certain teenage wizard.

 

Since Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling and Warner Bros., which made millions from the Harry Potter movies, are both fiercely protective of the character, it should be interesting to see what will happen on the legal front once LOEG: 2009 is published.  Moore, who is quite aware of Warner Bros. ownership of DC Comics, was careful not to use either "Harry" or "Potter" in his script, but according to Laura Sneddon’s review in The Independent, there are mentions of a magical train that is hidden between platforms at the King’s Cross station that travels to a magical school.  The teen Antichrist, who has friends resembling Ron Weasley and Hermione Grainger, also sports a hidden scar and has a mentor named Riddle.  

 

Moore’s penchant for using literary characters created by others in his own work is well-known and nowhere is it more evident than in the LOEG graphic novels, though some might think that this tendency for literary borrowing undermines and adds a bit irony to his opposition to others writing and drawing new stories featuring characters that he and Dave Gibbon’s created.

 

As for the pill-popping teenage wizard Antichrist character in LOEG: 2009, what better symbol is there for a culture that greedily obsesses over the creation of entertainment "franchises" and ignores storytelling for its own sake?