The Dark Tower Comics Series - General Discussion

[John_and_Yoko]

Why am I not surprised that J and Y caught this before anyone else.

"Soul", in what sense John? I'm a hardcore Aristotelian and I'd argue vehemently against the dichotomous view that the soul is a separate entity of ones physical "being." I've already expressed such ontological hesitations in embracing the idea that Roland's soul could exist in one world while his body dies of infection in another. I just don't believe that's realistic in any philosophical sense. King can take his Platonic dualisms and shove them in the same cannon that contains my copy of Song of Susannah and the revised Gunslinger.

Congratulations, you just bored me out of wanting to continue this further.

[obscurejude]

I have that effect on many and I couldn't care less. The Greek Aeropagus ain't for everyone.

[John_and_Yoko]

I have that effect on many and I couldn't care less. The Greek Aeropagus ain't for everyone.

Snob.

By the way, exactly where did we leave the topic of this thread, on the first page?

[obscurejude]

I have that effect on many and I couldn't care less. The Greek Aeropagus ain't for everyone.

Snob.

By the way, exactly where did we leave the topic of this thread, on the first page?

Easy. It was just a joke. I don't think Aristotle would have used "ain't."

All of these topics that cyberghostface killah starts dissolve into a discussion about canonicity.

[John_and_Yoko]

I have that effect on many and I couldn't care less. The Greek Aeropagus ain't for everyone.

Snob.

By the way, exactly where did we leave the topic of this thread, on the first page?

Easy. It was just a joke. I don't think Aristotle would have used "ain't."

All of these topics that cyberghostface killah starts dissolve into a discussion about canonicity.

XD Is that even a word?

Anyway, I was kidding you too, when I called you a snob. I have standards with what I like as well, but that doesn't mean that silly or dumb things don't make it past security sometimes, if there's something I like about them.

[obscurejude]

Its a word in the ol' dirty south, but not of ancient Athens.

Its good to see you more active again.

[John_and_Yoko]

Its a word in the ol' dirty south, but not of ancient Athens.

Its good to see you more active again.

It's good to be back, Lloyd, it's good to be back.

[Brice]

and i think he meant he refuses to accept the revision as a valid part of canon.

[RUBE]

Maerlyn is mentioned so much in Mid-Worlds comic backstory for one very important reason - everyone in the DT books knows about him. Everyone on Mid-world in the DT novels knows whats he's done even if it wasn't revealed to the reader at the time. Flagg even gets mistaken for him. He's infamous....he's as well known as Arthur Eld. We are only now getting to know why he's so infamous.

And Maerlyn isn't the ultimate evil in the universe - the demiurge that spawned him is (see Gunslinger Born issue 4). Maerlyn is just one cog in that beings Random influence on creation (whom Stephen King called Dis in Song of Susannah). Remember that even Maerlyn doesn't know the full consequences of his actions that aid the Outer Dark. For example, he creates the Laughing Mirror to mock the Tower unintentionally helping the Random force of the Outer Dark gain a much firmer foothold throughout creation. This in turn causes the fall of Jonas and enhances Rhea's magic powers. All this is what Dis set into motion by using Maerlyn.

Another example is Maerlyns actions causing the Crimson Queen to rape Arthur Eld and birth the Crimson King - he didn't know this would happen. Dis, however, did and set those events in motion to ensure its avatar, the Crimson King, would come to be.


Think about how Gan, the Purpose and the White is described. Dis, the Random and the Outer Dark operates in exactly the same way - everything/everyone is a cog, a part of a machine so vast we cannot comprehend it. Maerlyn may be an important cog but he is just a cog. He created the Laughing Mirror and set the events up that led to the creation of the Red King for his own ends but the Random/Outer Dark ensured he would do this for its own reasons too. Maerlyn fulfilled his task for the Random in each of these events.

So then in your opinion is Dis the Beast that King mentioned in the original Gunslinger but removed from the revised since he never actually made Roland face him? Walter said there he served Maerlyn who came to him in a dream but that Maerlyn served the Beast and refused to talk of him.

[pathoftheturtle]

...Merlin allowed Uther to kill Gorlois and rape his wife...

Not that he really wanted to, by most accounts. He was very glad to see Uther replaced, as his dream always was an advancement of civilization. We have to remember that people are often limited by the conditions they're born into; folken seem to assume so often that any given character in a primitive world could just decide to be like we are as easily as most modern Americans can. History is the struggles and hard decisions that made all of that possible.

Folks - There are a lot of different versions of the King Arthur tale. ...

Certainly, but that doesn't mean that there are no commonalities. It's a key myth of British identity, and thereby, of the general values of all Western culture. I think that each writer who expounds on it has certain responsibilities.

...Some have Merlin as... pure evil...

Very few. As the king's advisor, he stands outside of conventional morality and shapes it. He's been called half demon, but usually fights against those dark influences.

...most modern interpretations owe their existence (either directly or indirectly) to Le Morte D'Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory ...

Yes, and much of the original smearing of Merlin came in with the medieval Christian romances because he was a pagan Celt. Some redemption occurred after Mary Stewart's The Crystal Cave, the main inspiration for the 1998 TV Miniseries Merlin.
One of the more accurate tellings, BTW, leaving Malory out altogether, is the 2004 King Arthur.

Anyway, I did not originally view even the wizard's glasses as pure evil. The idea of Roland being seduced and controlled may fit with Furth's preferred interpretation of the series as a whole, but I had more of an impression that it was really the actual turtle that he saw in DT4, and his account in that novel of the number of times that he used the pink one, altogether, is flatly contradicted by the comics. Black 13 is obviously very evil, but I'm not so sure about the rest of this "new canon." I had once thought that it was the touch of the eye of the Crimson King that had corrupted the balls, and not the other way around.

[John_and_Yoko]

...Merlin allowed Uther to kill Gorlois and rape his wife...

Not that he really wanted to, by most accounts. He was very glad to see Uther replaced, as his dream always was an advancement of civilization. We have to remember that people are often limited by the conditions they're born into; folken seem to assume so often that any given character in a primitive world could just decide to be like we are as easily as most modern Americans can. History is the struggles and hard decisions that made all of that possible.

...most modern interpretations owe their existence (either directly or indirectly) to Le Morte D'Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory ...

Yes, and much of the original smearing of Merlin came in with the medieval Christian romances because he was a pagan Celt. Some redemption occurred after Mary Stewart's The Crystal Cave, the main inspiration for the 1998 TV Miniseries Merlin.
One of the more accurate tellings, BTW, leaving Malory out altogether, is the 2004 King Arthur.

"Not that he really wanted to?" He was a WIZARD, for crying out loud! Anyway, you seemed to contradict yourself there--first you say he was a victim who had no choice: "just following orders," then you say it's a values dissonance thing, that people had different concepts of right and wrong back then.... The latter seems more likely to me. Anyway, you didn't address the whole slaughtering of every baby who shared Mordred's birthday EXCEPT Mordred....

And yeah, I'm aware of that--I'm not familiar with The Crystal Cave but I've seen Merlin (the one with Sam Neill, don't know if that's the one you mean), and I didn't like it at all.

Also, King Arthur LOOKS accurate but really isn't. Lucius Artorius Castus, for example, lived way back in the second century, and the Saxons didn't enter Britain for another three hundred years--AFTER the Romans left the island. Not to mention I've never heard of Picts being called "Woads," even by foreigners.

[Wuducynn]

Wasn't impressed with the artwork. The characters look different now and not in a good way. This issue didn't seem to go anywhere and like Brain said didn't have much to do with the cover. I wish it would have. Honestly one of the worst issues in the whole DT comics.

[Empath of the White]

Maybe...just maybe...this is a subtle hint that King is going to do some revisions on the last 3 to get them to match up with his original version of The Gunslinger?

I seem to recall him saying that the 7 books were pretty much a "rough draft." I think it'd be awesome if it were. Sadly its just a guess on my part.

[jayson]

Maybe...just maybe...this is a subtle hint that King is going to do some revisions on the last 3 to get them to match up with his original version of The Gunslinger?

So the Revised Gunslinger would go with the original DT 5-7, and the Original Gunlsinger would go with the Revised DT 5-7. That would be quite odd and make little sense for King to endeavor to fulfill. Why revise the first one at all to match the books 5-7 continuity if he planned on revising 5-7 to the original continuity?

That Thing From the End of DT-7

Is King also stuck in a loop?

[jhanic]

I think King said he would like to revise books 2-4 to match those of the revised Gunslinger and books 5-7. I've heard that later he changed his mind.

John

[Brice]

You are right about him saying he wanted to revise them, John. I've never heard anything about him changing his mind though. Either way I doubt he'll ever do it...and I hope he doesn't. I'd rather he move along and write new books. Oh yeah....not to mention that I view the revisions as unnecessary and a bit contrived.

[Daghain]

I have to agree with that. I miss Jae Lee's artwork the most.

[pathoftheturtle]

"Not that he really wanted to?" He was a WIZARD, for crying out loud! ...

Yes, a wizard, but not a god.

...Anyway, you seemed to contradict yourself there--first you say he was a victim who had no choice: "just following orders," then you say it's a values dissonance thing, that people had different concepts of right and wrong back then...

Most people did, and it's hard to oppose society. I'm saying that Merlin had no choice because the man giving the orders didn't have the same concept of right and wrong.

...I'm not familiar with The Crystal Cave but I've seen Merlin (the one with Sam Neill, don't know if that's the one you mean), and I didn't like it at all. ...

Well, you might still like the novels. I preferred them. To each his own, though. I'm just saying a bit about recent popular perceptions.

...Also, King Arthur LOOKS accurate but really isn't. ...

Sure. I just said that it was "more" accurate. Comparatively.

...Anyway, you didn't address the whole slaughtering of every baby who shared Mordred's birthday EXCEPT Mordred...

I'd like to, but I think it'd turn this thread into a real ethics and morality flamefest. The point is that they have taken a major literary figure with nuance and sophisticated development and, by this point, turned him into a simplistic caricature. I've never said that earlier versions of Merlin were total paragons of virtue. Still, notice that he is not used at all in the terrible film First Knight. It was much easier with no Merlin to portray their postmodern fantasy.

...I've never heard of Picts being called "Woads," even by foreigners.

Woad is the name of the face-paint. Probably just a nickname for that specific Pictish band.

[Brainslinger]

Another thing that film got wrong, the Picts fought against many of the Britons. (The people of what is now England, I mean.) There are suggestions they allied themselves with the Angles and Saxons...

To be fair I don't think the Artorius of the film was meant to be the Lucius Artorius Castus but a descendant so that at least explains the difference in time.

As for Maerlyn, I used to hope he would turn out to be a kind of 'white' alternative to Walter. I remember Song of Susannah describing

Spoiler:

the reduction of magic in the world and the departure of Maerlyn to his cave as being a bad thing. To be fair a lot of that stuff was from the point of view Mia, a succubus from the prim, so her viewpoint might have been warped. On the other hand she saw the rise of technology as a bad thing too, and Maerlyn was partly responsible for that. Then again she was rather a complex character, an anomaly amongst her own species. He certainly seems evil in the first version of the Gunslinger though, but I'm not sure whether we should count that. Ms Furth seemed to have got a lot of her ideas from that though (or maybe she got it straight from King himself, like the origins of Walter.

I guess from the little we read in the books, Maerlyn could have gone either way, good or evil, but I agree it would have been nicer if they had done more with him rather than just making him Flagg mark 1. (Mark 1 from a chronological point of view I mean.)

[pathoftheturtle]

I was actually rather impressed by Ms. Furth's second afterward to this issue. The first was just the same kind of self-congratulatory blather that she usually writes about how good the sources of her ideas are and how much she loves SK, but the second one, entitled "Matricide" was quite meaninful. I did have some problems with it, but many points seemed more insightful to me than any of the conclusions in her Concordances.
I just wonder if she really knew what she was saying.

...I have always maintained that it is not ultimately the gore of a scary story that snds us running. Instead, it is the existential horror BEHIND the face of the knife or axe-wielding psycho (or demon) that terrifies. What makes someone a murderer, a rapist, a torturer? What makes someone take pleasure in another person's pain? Are these people really like the rest of us? ...

Later, though, she says that

...ultimately, the fall we witness isn't just the fall of a city or even a land: it's the fall of an individual. ...

On the face of things, one would think that the fall of a land or even a city would be more serious a matter than the fall of an individual. Of course the story of the individual may be more interesting to us, but this is psychological horror, not existential. It seems that what she actually thinks is that the mind is "BEHIND" the demon, and that that is scarier than the demon which might be beyond the mind. I think those questions of why people do evil and what the nature of the world is are really deeper than questions of how it happens and what they go through.
Still, there is much to be said for psychological horror, and while I hate to see it overemphasized in TDT, I do believe that it has always had a vital role in it.
I haven't much loved the comics so far, but I do agree that

...Roland's matricide...is the pivotal point of his existence. ...

There could well be good reasons that that old idea that "the king is the land" went out of fashion. I'm not so sure that all the decay of Mid-World can honestly be attributed to Roland. Nevertheless, I wouldn't try to claim that he is irreproachable.

...as those familiar with the original Dark Tower novels know, Roland Deschain is a murderer, but he is a murderer who ultimatelly wants to atone for his sins. ...

Amen.

[Brainslinger]

There could well be good reasons that that old idea that "the king is the land" went out of fashion. I'm not so sure that all the decay of Mid-World can honestly be attributed to Roland. Nevertheless, I wouldn't try to claim that he is irreproachable.

Yes, I didn't entirely agree with what Furth said there too.

Very minor novel spoilers:


She gave the Mohain desert as an example, yet I'm sure the desert existed in the world of his childhood, although it was probably smaller. And we know from the hills at the ending of The Gunslinger right through The Wastelands (up until Ludd anyway) and the later books that there are still verdant green areas. I imagine she was just using the Mohain desert in a symbolic way rather than stating it literally passed on along with Roland. Lets face it, although he is wearing out somewhat along with the World he is still very vital.

The whole Arthurian 'King and the land' idea was very interesting though. I certainly don't seen Roland as the specific cause. More a general sense of tiredness, 'moving on' as they say, throughout the world and it's inhabitants.

[BROWNINGS CHILDE]

Nice. I'm not sure why Indianna Jones is in the second picture, but it's a great picture.

Wow, took the words right outa my mouth.

That soooo looks like Harrison Ford.

[pathoftheturtle]

Sorry about the delay.

...My basic problem with that origin is that is states that Flagg has been evil all along. Thus, the rape has NO PURPOSE WHATSOEVER to his character anymore. He's already in allegiance with his evil father. If you set up a tragic event that shapes why a villain is 'evil', making him BORN evil completely negates that. ...

I never saw the event as having been set up for that purpose. It made some sense once you described it, but it's not how I understood SK's
intent on first reading DT7. Even if the rape has no purpose to his character, it still has a purpose to the scene in which it appears. It may have been saying something different about the character, though, indicated by the title of the chapter, "The Shining Wire" in reference to Watership Down.

...let's look at Magneto, from the X-Men. His hatred for humanity is because he lost his family in the Holocaust. He's tragic because he starts out as innocent but becomes utterly warped by horrific events. Now imagine Magneto doing malicious acts because he's 'bored' before losing his family. ...

Magneto is one of Marvel's more unusual characters. Identification is their hallmark, you know, and was key to their success; before Stan Lee and company put their readers into the shoes of superheroes, the audience was expected to simply look up to Superman, or at best to imagine being Robin. Even when he was a X-Man in the '80s, though, Magneto was aloof and inscrutable... until he finally returned to outright terrorism. Always more multidimensional than that company's other "bad guys" he is indeed a complex personality, and hard to classify, which is fitting since he originally was loosely based on Malcom X.

However, let's look at another villian, of a different type: Desire from The Sandman. Desire is comparatively uni-dimensional; although its nature is identifiably human, it is only one aspect of a typical personality. Within that mythos, in fact, it is the very avatar of that dark aspect. Does this make it a lesser character, compared to Magneto? I don't think so. Just different.
If SK wanted Walter/Flagg to be an outright monster, I can dig that, but even if that is totally screwing up the character, that is his right, after all. It's his creation. I trust the author, though. Such approach opens him up to such things as...

...L. Sprague de Camp's criticism that Flagg was too evil to be taken seriously.

...but there are, of course, other ways of looking at it. There's a pretty common belief that really, everyone believes (or tries to believe) that they are good-- that everyone has or wants to have self-esteem-- and that "evil" or "bad" is an idea which we only apply to others. I myself believed this during my teens. But now, I'm not so sure. Remember that Randall Flagg was said in The Stand to have been the real leader of the Manson family. If he's more evil than Charles Manson, then he is Red indeed.

Perhaps the best tale of inside evil ever written is Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart," where murder is committed out of pure evil, with no mitigating circumstances whatever to tincture the brew. Poe suggests we will call his narrator mad because we must always believe that such perfect, motiveless evil is mad, for the sake of our own sanity.
--Stephen King,
Danse Macabre

Still, you do have a good point here:

...Plus, in Flagg's dying moments, he remembers himself as being the son of Sam the Miller, born in Delain and later raped. What reason would he have to neglect that he was in fact the son of Maerlyn? ...

My basic problem with the revision of his origin is that they had gone out of their way to show that the reason that the Crimson King is indestructible is that, although he had a human father, his mother was a prim demon. If o'Dim, then, has what they have made out to be the GREATEST of the prim demons for his father and a freaking goddess for his mother, how could he have been mortal?!
The only reason I can see for them to do this would be that they want to bring him back.

After all, every magical being has the ability to endlessly regenerate.
--"The Laughing Mirror, Part 1"
by Robin Furth

[Brainslinger]

My basic problem with the revision of his origin is that they had gone out of their way to show that the reason that the Crimson King is indestructible is that, although he had a human father, his mother was a prim demon. If o'Dim, then, has what they have made out to be the GREATEST of the prim demons for his father and a freaking goddess for his mother, how could he have been mortal?!
The only reason I can see for them to do this would be that they want to bring him back.

Those demons of human form, like Maerlyn are actually counted as lesser demons of the prim. (Not including the insectoids who took human form and came to Arthur's coronation as king of All-World.) That being said, he has probably caused as much if not more mischief than the others, but that's mainly because he gets around making mischief rather than the quantity of his power.

The Red Queen on the other hand was one of the Great Ones of the prim. In fact it was implied she was their leader. That probably goes a long way to explaining the Crimson King's relative invulnerability despite his human father.

As for Walter's mother... I know she's described as being a death goddess, but I wonder, is she truly a goddess* or merely another humanoid demon who was worshipped? In the same way the Can-char were actually demons who were worhipped with the old Charyou-tree rites. A 'god' is merely something that is worshipped after all.

*in race or species I mean, in the sense that the beings of Olympus were gods.

[CyberGhostface]

I never saw the event as having been set up for that purpose. It made some sense once you described it, but it's not how I understood SK's
intent on first reading DT7. Even if the rape has no purpose to his character, it still has a purpose to the scene in which it appears. It may have been saying something different about the character, though, indicated by the title of the chapter, "The Shining Wire" in reference to Watership Down.

I'm not sure what you mean here? (I haven't read Watership Down yet, unfortunately, although it's on my to-do list...)

But I do think the rape was at, the very least, to be some sort of starting point. Bev Vincent theorized that Flagg hated Delain so much because of his childhood. I don't know what King's true intent was, but I do think it showed that Flagg wasn't an inhuman manifestation of evil but rather a normal person who went down on a bad path after being struck by misfortune--and IMO the comic took that away.

However, let's look at another villian, of a different type: Desire from The Sandman. Desire is comparatively uni-dimensional; although its nature is identifiably human, it is only one aspect of a typical personality. Within that mythos, in fact, it is the very avatar of that dark aspect. Does this make it a lesser character, compared to Magneto? I don't think so. Just different.
If SK wanted Walter/Flagg to be an outright monster, I can dig that, but even if that is totally screwing up the character, that is his right, after all. It's his creation. I trust the author...

I'm only halfway through the first Sandman hardcover, so I unfortunately can't comment on Desire. But I agree that a lot of good villains are different--some are pure evil, some are complex, etc, etc. So I really don't have a good answer on that--it just depends on how its delivered from the writer, I suppose.

I wouldn't mind if Flagg was depicted as being pure evil, just not to change past mythology for the worse to do so. With Flagg, I've really grown to appreciate his human origin for four years now and dwell on it, so that's one of the reasons why the new origin bothered me. It's sort of funny, in retrospect; I remember reading Jonas's origin and I thought to myself, "They better not pull this crap with Flagg..."

..but there are, of course, other ways of looking at it. There's a pretty common belief that really, everyone believes (or tries to believe) that they are good-- that everyone has or wants to have self-esteem-- and that "evil" or "bad" is an idea which we only apply to others. I myself believed this during my teens. But now, I'm not so sure. Remember that Randall Flagg was said in The Stand to have been the real leader of the Manson family. If he's more evil than Charles Manson, then he is Red indeed.

King apparently said at a college (I wasn't there) that Flagg is his most evil villain, because whereas some of the others believe that they are doing the right thing, Flagg knows he's evil. And as much as I like to sympathize with him because of his humanity, I've never actually sympathized with the majority of his actions, because he's done some, well, pretty damn horrific stuff.

Perhaps the best tale of inside evil ever written is Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart," where murder is committed out of pure evil, with no mitigating circumstances whatever to tincture the brew. Poe suggests we will call his narrator mad because we must always believe that such perfect, motiveless evil is mad, for the sake of our own sanity.
--Stephen King,
Danse Macabre

That's interesting that King saw it that way...I saw the narrator as more pathetic and pitiable than outright evil.