Invisibles 1,6
From Barbelith
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Credits
Grant Morrison (Writer) Jill Thompson (Pencils) Dennis Cramer (Inks) Daniel Vozzo (Colors) Clem Robins (Letters) Julie Rottenberg (Asst. Editor) Stuart Moore (Editor)
The Invisibles created by Grant Morrison
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Summary
Back in the French Revolution, the cell is looking for the Marquis DeSade. They realise that Cyphermen are in the past too. They burst in upon the Cyphermen where the Marquis is, explain the situation to him and attempt to duck back. But their re-entry gate has been shut down so they concentrate on a postcard they have and travel. The team is split up in transit however. Back at the windmill, Orlando has arrived - and starts to prune the team by cutting off Jack's fingertip.
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Characters
King Mob The Blind Chessman George Byron Percy Shelley Mary Shelley Jack Frost Boy Orlando Ragged Robin Lord Fanny The Cyphermen
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Analysis
Marquis de Sade
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Annotations
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PAGE 1-2
Where do these quotes come from?
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PAGE 3
Panel 4 Marquis Donatien Alphonse Francois de Sade (Paris 1740 - Charenton 1814). This French writer saw eroticism/sado-masochism as a way to oppose society's norms and religious commands. He exalted the erotic pleasure originating in the physical suffering inflicted on others in his most famous novels: Justine ou les malheurs de la virtue (1791), La philosophie dans le boudoir (1795), Nouvelle Justine suivie de l'Histoire de Juliette sa soeur (1797). Followed by scandals, he escaped in Italy and then he was imprisoned in the Bastille. He died in an asylum in Charenton (France). The "Arcadia" arc focuses specifically on DeSade's "Les 120 Journees de Sodome" ["120 days of Sodom"; adapted into film in the 1970s by controversial Italian director/poet Pier Pasolini].
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PAGE 6
Panel 4 Who is this mysterious man? According to someone, he could be the hitchhiker in Invisibles 1,14. Another appearance in Invisibles 2,6, page 6: He's in the background, playing chess. My theory is that he is the devil, in some form. Offering the apple, going back to the garden of Eden. Notice the apple... Same as in Invisibles 1,1, page 27; Invisibles 1,13, page 20, panels 7-9.
Panel 5 Members of the Pythagorean Brotherhood (from whom the Freemasons and Rosicrucians draw a lot of symbolism) would offer an apple to a suspected fellow member as a secret sign of their membership in the order. The Pythagorean apple as a secret sign of membership is briefly discussed in "The Mars Mystery" by Graham Hancock, pages 107-108. If you haven't read Hancock before, "The Mars Mystery" is by no means his best book, but it's a worthwhile read anyway... If you haven't read his "Fingerprints of the Gods" you should definitely check that one out; most highly recommended!
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PAGE 7
Panel 1 According to Etienne, the French Revolution was a very complicated power-game between very different forces. "Alessandro Cagliostro" was a nickname for a man called Giuseppe Balsamo (1743, Palermo-1795, Italy). Cagliostro was the most famous occultist in the second half of the 18th century, very influential in UK and Germany. Famous for his dinners with the dead (one evening he organized a dinner and all the guests saw the ghosts of their dead relatives near them), for his many magical filters and potions (like the one to change the dimension of diamonds or the eternal youth filter). He was damned for a scam regarding the queen Mary d'Antoinette's collier. He was innocent but his fame worked against him, going free due to the French people's will. He died after a years in prison because the Inquisition declared him culprit of sorcery. St. Germain (Paris 1758 - ???). Claude Louis, count of St. Germain was an adventurer, occultist and alchemist. He found the secret potion that granted him the eternal life. Among his work there are the "industrial processes" to wash the paper and to better the quality of the silk. Due to his immortality, he often changed his identity from Count Weldonne to the Italian alchemist Fulcanelli.
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PAGE 9
The song is 'Pop goes the weasel', an English nursey rhyme.
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PAGE 11
Panel 3 "Cyphermen": What does this word mean? "Cypher" means "a person or thing of no important or value; nonentity." The "Cybermen" in Dr. Who have cybernetic enhancements and de/reprogramming, rendering them emotionless. In motivation, origin and speech style, though not in appearance, very much, as many people have commented, like the Borg. They look more like the Cyphermen. GM wrote a DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE story called "The World Shapers" [DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE #127 through 129].
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PAGE 15
Panel 3 Rosicrucians, according to Benet's, were "a mystical society of
religious reformers, who first appeared in Germany in the early 17th century
and who were said to have knowledge of magical secrets. Their symbol was a red
rose upon a cross. "Illuminism" (again, according to Benet's) was "a
pseudoscientific movement of mystics and visionaries in the 18th century which
influenced literature in the 19th century. At first inspired by Christian
doctrines, illuminists sought to live according to the Gospel and to
regenerate their souls by direct contact with the divine. They also, however,
believed in spiritism, magnetism, alchemy and magic and professed to invoke
the invisible and the arcane. Among the most famous illuminists were
Swedenborg, who conversed with the dead; Lavater, a believer in black magic,
who thought to contact God by magnetism; Claude de Saint-Martin ("the unknown
philosopher"), who sought to hasten the coming of Christ by meditation and
prayer; Mesmer; the Comte de Saint-Germain, who [claimed] to be several
hundred years old and to possess the elixir of eternal life; Gall; and famous
Cagliostro, who evoked spirits. An almost instinctive reaction against
18th-century rational philosophies, illuminism under many names (e.g.
millenarianism, syncretism, neopaganism, pythagorism, thosopophy, etc.)
influenced some writers of the romantic period. It revived a sense of
religious exaltation and mystery and created, or recreated, a need for the
infinite, a belief in man's inner nature and a feeling for the mysteries of
nature and of love."
Panel 5 Like the hitchhiker, he doesn't share his name.
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PAGE 17
Panel 1 Does this panel--and the last one on the previous page--contain a quotation from a de Sade book?
Panel 4 "Jiminy Cricket" is the character representing one's conscience in "Pinnochio."
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PAGE 24
Panels 4 and 6 As a young man, William Burroughs cut off the tip of his pinky with garden shears in a (horribly failed) attempt to impress a potential lover.
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