I need urgent help!

[Jen]

HI, I am a student at Winchester college and I was hoping that someone could give me a hand. I am studying English and have a presentation to give in two weeks on whether medieval heroes are still relevant in todays society; e.g. Beowulf, King Arthur and so on and so forth. We have found examples in films but would like to find other media forms that they might exist in and we then thought about comics and naturally thought of 2000AD. Any information on the original inspiration of the characters of 2000AD would be fantastic, whether someone like Dredd was inspired by a medieval myth and if so which one. Thanks very much!

[Roger Simian]

Hello, Jen,

How about the Marvel character, Thor?  I know - he's a God rather than a Hero, and it's Viking mythology rather than Anglo-Saxon.  Hmn.  That probably doesn't help much.

Judge Dredd was mostly based on Dirty Harry and Sly Stalone.  As a hero he veers more towards the Fascist end of the scale, and he'll never have a Guinevere (spl) 'cause the only thing he cares about is upholding The Law.  

The first three Star Wars stories are strongly based in mythical hero / villain types.  They even have sword battles and sorcery.  Or, what about some of the Spaghetti Westerns - don't they have some basis in Myth?  

(Was Beowulf not from before the Medieval era?)

Anyway, I hope this helps in some way.

rs

[Roger Simian]

I've just thought - if your thesis can include Greek Mythology: Wonder Woman is supposed to be an Amazon, I think she was born as the Goddess Diana.

[Matt]

Jen, your best bet would be Slaine. Pat Mills based his hero on the mythological Irish figure Cu Chulainn. The very early Slaine stories mirror those of the folk legend. A more obvious example would be Camelot 2000 which re-told the Authorian legend but set in an England of the future. It was published by DC Comics & is still available in graphic novel.

MATT

[Matt]

Whoa, Roger! Dredd based on Sly Stallone? I don't think that will go down well on the message board, just wait till Scojo sees it! Dredd was based on Dirty Harry & the film poster for the original Death Race 2000. Errr, hold on wasn't Sly in that???

Matt (better go check my facts!)

[GordonR]

It was the Death Race 2000 character of Frankenstein - helmet, balck leather costume, face-concealing mask - played by David Carradine that Dredd's visual look was partly supposed to be inspired by.

Stallone was in the movie, but he played Machine Gun Joe, Frankenstein's main rival.

[Roger Simian]

"Dredd was based on Dirty Harry & the film poster for the original Death Race 2000. Errr, hold on wasn't Sly in that?"

Nope - it was David Carradine, but go read 'Judge Dredd: The untold Story'.

Ezqquerra: "When I first started to draw Dredd's face, he was based a little bit on Sylvester Stallone..."

Ironic that he ended up being the first movie Dredd, and getting it completely wrong.  

[GordonR]

>Ezqquerra: "When I first started to draw Dredd's >face, he was based a little bit on Sylvester >Stallone..."

I don't believe that for a moment.  Carlos first came out with this at the time of the Dredd movie's release, and it sounded like a pretty obvious bit of movie PR bullshit.

"Of course, Dredd was kind of based on Sylvester Stallone all along..."

Uh-huh.  Why of course he was, Carlos...

He's backpedalled since then, and has apparently said that he just said it as a joke.

[Dominic O'Rourke]

especially the period of lancelot when he leaves G to Arthur and scoures the world for the chalice thingy, Dredd to is on a quest, and is single minded enough to see it through, aquest for justice (even if he has to use 'current' laws to carry it out.

Durham Red has a lot of Joan of Arc in her, a religious crusade in the last series.

Anderson seems to be every witch that was ever written about (especially the good witches), actually I'd like to think on this one some more.

Johnny Alpha - a bit of a robin hood/green man, Hern type character


and thats just some of the 2kad characters, I think you could have a field day picking out hero characteristics of anglo-saxon or medievel characters from the entirety of comic characters, for roman/grecian mythology check out Sandman from DC, Superman is very Arthurian, Batman is every anti-hero rolled into one, check out Marvel UK's Knights of Pendragon (from 1990/91), speaking of Bat's Robin is every knights sidekick (can't think what their called)


please get back to us with some more info on particular mythological characters your looking for

[McNulty]

I agree with Matt. Not only is Slaine a great example of the Celtic hero, he actually had many adventures with the great Celtic/British heroes on his travels - Bodicia, Arthur, William Wallace and even taking on the Robin Hood role.

[Patrick]

There isn't really that much of Slaine that's based on Cu Chulainn beyond the warp spasm and being a cocky git. The stories are very different. Slaine's stories are based on a load of Irish and general Celtic myths and history all mixed up with a bit of pure invention.

All of which is merely leading to the gratuitous plug for my website, The Ulster Cycle (see link in this message somewhere) which features a load of Cu Chulainn stories and will eventually feature them all.

Link: The Ulster Cycle