|
''Doomlord'' was a comic strip (and the shared title name of the central characters) published in the British comic book ''Eagle'' during the 1980s, from Issue 1 on March 27, 1982,until Issue 395 on 14 October 1989. Reprints of previous Doomlord stories continued until 7 April 1990. It was written by Alan Grant and John Wagner. Initially an attempt in publishing science fiction/horror in Fumetti form, ''Doomlord'' was a saga beginning with an alien judging humanity's right to exist, and failing in his attempt to execute humanity. A replacement Doomlord ruled in favour of Earth and eventually became its protector, fathering a son; the strip evolved into superheroics drawn by Eric Bradbury. ==Original photo strip== The strip originally appeared as a 13-part story in the first 13 issues of the re-launched ''Eagle'', and was science horror in tone. Like many of the strips then published in ''Eagle'', it was made up of black-and-white photographs featuring models and actors, with text boxes and speech and thought balloons. The story tells of how journalist Howard Harvey and a policeman friend, Bob Murton, witnessed an apparent meteor falling into local woods. The meteor was in fact a spaceship bringing a sinister robed alien to Earth. He described himself as "Doomlord – servant of Nox, master of life, bringer of death!" Doomlord then killed Bob by seemingly merely grasping Bob's head in his hands. He then knocked Harvey unconscious, who awoke to find himself alone. At the local police station, he discovered Bob alive, laughing at his friend's 'dream' – however, Bob was wearing the alien's "energiser ring". 'Bob' arranged a meeting with a local Member of Parliament and then disappeared. Over the next few issues, Harvey pieced together what was happening - Doomlord had the power to murder people, and absorb their memories and personality by touch. He would then disintegrate their corpse with his energiser ring, and then use another alien ability – to shapeshift his form to resemble his absorbed victim, and thus impersonate them flawlessly. In this way, he could move freely amongst human society, leaving only a trail of missing persons as he abandoned each identity for a new one. Harvey futilely attempted to stop Doomlord, but was unable to convince anyone else of the alien's existence. Doomlord also seemed invulnerable to harm. However, this did not extend to his human form and Harvey took advantage to shoot him with a gun. But Doomlord exhibited a third alien ability - to pass his "life force" to another person, and then parasitically grow inside and eventually "take over" as if he had absorbed them. Doomlord manipulated Harvey into a trap, and explained his "dread mission" as a "Servant of Nox" - he was to be sole judge, jury, and executioner on humanity's right to exist, using the identities of prominent businessmen, politicians, scientists, and other members of society's "elite" as stepping stones to gather evidence. If Doomlord judged humanity as unfit of stewardship of Earth, or to pose a potential risk to the larger interstellar community, he would destroy it – the billions of innocent human deaths being inconsequential, as "The fate of the individual is unimportant when the survival of the species is at stake." He viewed Harvey's attempts to stop him as an amusement, this was the only reason he did not kill him. Doomlord was thus established as an extremely ruthless, even fascistic, "space vigilante" who would think nothing of genocide as long as the means justified the ends. As Alan Grant put it: :"His philosophy is Platonic, socialistic and fascistic at the same time -- the fate of the individual is unimportant, only the fate of the species matters. This makes it right and inevitable that an elite will arise to supposedly safeguard the rights of the majority (and keep them in line). And you can see the logic in his conclusions--mankind is polluting Earth to death, we're slaughtering each other with ever bigger bombs, we're on the threshold of space travel with ships bearing nukes. Shit, if I was a Doomlord I'd be putting the kibosh on the species too."〔(2000 AD Review - Alan Grant Interview part 6 )〕 Doomlord delivered a verdict of guilty, and pronounced sentence of death upon humanity. He hypnotised Harvey to accompany him to a germ warfare establishment, to watch helplessly as Doomlord constructed a virus to kill humans worldwide, but leave other species unaffected. However, Harvey managed to overcome his hypnotism through strength of will, and stabbed Doomlord in human form. Doomlord infected Harvey with his life-force, so that Doomlord would once again re-incarnate and complete his dread mission. But Harvey sacrificed himself by releasing the virus within the sealed laboratory. Harvey's last act was to inform the dead Doomlord that humanity had the right to decide its own fate, no matter the consequences. From Issue 2, the strip's masthead would depict Doomlord's latest victim transforming into the alien. Like many of the early ''Eagle'' strips, the original strip appeared in photographic fumetti format, requiring an actor in a custom-made rubber mask and hands and low-budget special effects. Despite this, the strip succeeded in producing atmosphere and dealt with adult issues such as environmentalism. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「Doomlord」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|