Doomsday

Though not pronouncedly apocalyptic in nature, Darren Aronofsky’s film, The Fountain, focuses on collective death, in contrast to eternal (personal) life. Over the course of two lifetimes, Tommy fails to sacrifice his own ego (borders/I/self) for his loved one Izzi. In Tommy’s third and last “life,” he must choose between eternal life or letting his body melt into the cosmos to join Izzi, who had died from a brain tumor.

Rosen observes that “when Swamp Thing reads Woodrue’s report and realizes that his former human self is unattainable,” Swamp Thing is devastated and lies in the swamp and becomes rooted there (9, Rosen). This is his turning point, for when Swamp Thing sheds his single human perspective he begins to experience the whole of nature. Buddhism 101 – being one with all.

Ozymandias’ hope is that a great multinational (collective) death will unite humanity – see the last page of chapter XI, where the white newspaper salesman and young black reader fuse into a single being.

In Snyder’s Watchmen (the film adaptation), it is not an alien that wrecks havoc, but John. This was a clever way to tie up some loose ends and cut down an already beefy film (162 minutes.) I think, however, that though John is rather alien, he was still too human enough to cause a uniting of humanity. As we all know, the easiest way to make a friend is to find a common enemy. The alien, with its strange tentacles, beak and single eye was the common enemy, stranger than any variation in our human gene pool – even a blue demigod.

In Promethea, Moore writes himself into the final ending, showing a panel with his picture bleeding to white (and confirming to some extent, as I’ve been told, that he believes imagination and belief are more than mere brain stuff, but maintain tangible reality on some plane.) In keeping with the real life newspaper headlines signaling environmental catastrophes strewn between panels in Swamp Thing, Moore wants his readers to realize that they are not a passive audience, but are complicit in This reality – in its unity or downfall.