Sounds like a “What If…?” concept, especially if you read Christ-like allegories into Harry Potter’s biography, but it seems that in the latest installment of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen series, Century 2009, includes a reference to The Boy Who Lived, and in true League style, turns the character on his head.

Century 2009 will be released this week, and Independent critic Laura Sneddon has given details on why and how the Potter pastiche turned up in the story:

At no point does Moore use the words “Harry” or “Potter”, but a magical train hidden between platforms at King’s Cross station, leading to a magical school where there are flashbacks of psychotic adolescent rage and whimpering children pleading for their life, all strewn with molten corpses, does rather suggest a link to the Boy Who Lived. A hidden scar and a mentor named Riddle, though possessed as he is by the real villain, completes the picture.

So Antichrist Potter goes to Bizarro Hogwarts where Voldemort is his mentor? That’s messed up, Alan Moore. According to Sneddon, the depiction is “a commentary on a perceived degradation of society, both in our world and the fictional … originality is visibly dwindling, while major franchises and celebrity biographies are relentlessly pushed upon us.”

So what’s Moore trying to say here? If we’re to reach for some trivia, Comics Beat reminds us that Moore featured an original character named “Harold Potter” in his 1991 book Lost Girls, a full six years before the first Harry Potter novel was published.

But could there be something more cynical afoot? The movie rights to Harry Potter are owned by Warner Bros, who also owns DC Comics, home of Moore’s Watchmen and its hated new prequel Before Watchmen. Could Moore be taking a swipe at his old boss? That maybe stretching.

Still, this affair probably won’t do much to quell calls of hypocrisy against Moore since he’s more than happy to use and abuse (maybe?) other people’s characters for his benefit.

Let the debate begin! Tell us what you guys think below.

Source: Blastr

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Many us may only be familiar with H. Rider Haggard’s Victorian literary hero Allan Quatermain through the 2003 movie version of the Alan Moore graphic novel The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. He may have been played by Sean Connery, but that didn’t stop the character from being featured in a movie with a high degree of suckage.

Quatermain’s been the subject of nearly a dozen film projects since 1919, and now Sonar Entertainment and Ecosse Films (the folks behind Camelot) are looking to create a 10-episode series based on King Solomon’s Mines and the 13 other works about Quatermain, an English-born hunter and trader based in Africa. They’re looking at a budget of $30 million for the series.

Better still, according to Stewart Till of Sonar, the series will also take the unique step of actually shooting in Africa:

“I read all the books as a child and it is something that many Brits have grown up with. It’s also the kind of high-concept adventure that broadcasters are looking for. … There are many British male actors in their early 30s who could play this rugged adventurer. … It is in exotic settings with lost tribes and treasures and African superstitions and big adventures, so it’s got everything.”

So what do you think? Is a Quatermain series something you’d be interested in tuning into?

Source: Blastr

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Editors Note: This list comes from nerdbastards fan, and all around groovy dude Joe Field. You can follow Joe on his Twitter page and also check out his glorious ramblings on The Agoraphobic Reviewer. If you have a list of your own that you would like to submit, please contact our senior editor Luke Gallagher via email: lukeg37@gmail.com.

Comic book lists are a strange beast. Fan’s opinions are usually varied, polarised and set in stone. Comics themselves cover a range of genres, themes and styles. This list hopefully reflects a varied diet of classic Marvel and DC characters, indie favourites like Preacher and Robert Kirkman’s long-running ‘soap opera with zombies’ The Walking Dead. The scenes I’ve picked are the ones that genuinely amaze me, but it was a hard list to compile. There were a few from my collection that only narrowly missed out, but once you start thinking about great comic books you could spend days arguing the toss. My criteria for this list were simple: great writing, great art, nailing the characters and the sheer spectacle of it all. These are the comics I love and these scenes are some of the reasons why.

Click after the jump for The Top 10 Most Jaw-Dropping Moments In Comics

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