Klarion 4
From Barbelith
"Burn, Witchboy! Burn!"
Barbelith thread: Brother Klarion? I smell blood. (http://www.barbelith.com/topic/20837/from/175#post489788)
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Background and General Commentary
Synopsis:
Klarion's friends and family want to burn him for his heretical ways, but they won't have time, because Mister Melmoth has come to Limbo Town! It seems he's the great-granddaddy of all Witch-Men and he wants to enslave the town's women to use as breeding stock. In order to save the Town, Klarion and Teekl must learn the secrets of the Submissionaries and summon Horigal ...One ...Last ...Time! When the battle is won and the town is safe, Klarion's mother begs him to settle down and take a steady job as Limbo Town's new Submissionary, but Klarion has many more lives he wants to live before he dies: Today he'll be a Soldier!
Annotations
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Page 7
PANEL 2: “I had Spider-Sex with all your ancestors, you know. All those hot Puritan girls. They thought I was the Devil and they crawled underground to have our babies.”
Finally, we learn the origin of Limbo Town. This is the old sin and ancient taint that drove the Limbo-Townies underground. The Witch-Folk are half-human, half-Sheeda hybrids, and also slightly inbred.
Page 8
PANEL 2: “The Royal Blue Blood of the Sheeda Court is mingled with the human strain in your veins.”
Here, we learn that Melmoth is full-blood Sheeda, and royalty also (as mentioned in Shining Knight 4). Melmoth’s treatment of the Puritan girls and his plans for the Witch-Girls seems to parallel the ordeal of Olwen in Shining Knight #1, who was “passed around Gloriana’s court” until she was corrupted and became a changeling.
PANEL 2: “I heard most of the adult males are dead, so don’t expect much trouble.”
Many of the Witch-Men accompanied Ezekiel on his last, ill-fated expedition beyond Wicket Gate to trade the Town’s stone harvest. Horigal slaughtered the caravan for opposing the Submissionaries’ decree. In their zeal to preserve Limbo Town’s purity and isolation, the Submissionaries left their town defenseless against outside assault.
Page 10
PANEL 1: “Nine bells to welcome home the long-lost King of Summer’s End, I hope.”
Summer’s End on Sheeda-Side is the land where the Sheeda come from. It is also known as the Land of the Vampire Sun. Melmoth claims the title of King, because he was once married to Gloriana Tenebrae, the Queen of the Sheeda.
Page 12
PANEL 5: “Wud- Wuh- Would ye be Submissionary? Would ye bear burdens of knowledge heavier than the rock of mountains?”
This echoes a line from Issue #1. The question here is spoken with sincerity, whereas before it was a rhetorical dismissal.
Page 14
PANEL 1: “Croatoan is a sophisticated artificial intelligence system and it comes in the form of a pair of dice, so keep those eyes peeled, lads, hmmm?”
One of the dice is currently located in Klarion’s pocket. He picked it up back in Croatoan’s cathedral in Issue #2. The other die is in the possession of Misty Kilgore, Zatanna’s young apprentice.
When two six-sided dice are rolled, the most frequent result is seven. Also, compare with the reality-calculating cube in Zatanna 1.
Page 15
PANEL 2: “I remember you Submissionary units, all black and white and gleaming in my Toyshop like three huge magpies…”
Several times before, we have seen evidence that the Sheeda employ robots so sophisticated that they resemble living creatures. In Seven Soldiers 0, Boy Blue observed that their spider-mounts were actually machines. Don Vincenzo made a similar observation in Shining Knight. Misty said that they reminded her of toys.
This raises a couple of thorny issues. Are (were) the Submissionaries immortal and nobody noticed or cared for 400 years? Do they have any actual differences from the 'regular' Limbo Town citizens aside from that and their off-switches?
Page 18
PANEL 3: “I should have packed him off to the Red Place when I had the chance.”
For more on the Red Place, see Issue #3 and all of Frankenstein 2.
Page 19
PANEL 2: “The Waters Cauldron of Rebirth run through me. So try all you want, I’ll never die.”
The Cauldon of which Melmoth speaks is the Undry Cauldron , one of the treasures stolen by the Sheeda when they sacked Avalon 10,000 years ago. It can bring the dead back to life and heal all wounds. In Frankenstein #2, we learn that Melmoth retrieved the Cauldron from Slaughter Swamp, which is where it landed after Ystin chucked it into the time-stream in Shining Knight 1.
Melmoth looks a lot like Gwydion from Zatanna here: However, Gwydion had 100% more arms than Melmoth does now.
Page 20
PANEL 2: “The Witch-Women know secrets the men never learn.”
This echoes a line from Issue #1.
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