Because I think Being Human may have leapt over it.
Over the course of the third season, the king of London's vampires has been stuck in the main characters' attic, left in a daze, not able to remember who he was. There was a general agreement that he deserved to die, but between Mitchell needing to know the secret of vampire resurrection and Nina's unflagging belief in second chances, he was left alive.
This was the result:
If that seemed at all familiar to you, it's because you were lucky enough to have read this, despite the endless copyright problems that have long kept it out of the public eye:
There are certain similarities in the plotlines that got us to these points. In each case the villain's powers and person have been neutered, with Herrick seeming like a doddering old relative, and Johnny reduced to a near-comatose state in a ward for troubled children - Herrick winds up in a hospital ward as well, but only for a brief interlude.
Each of the men also has a devil on their shoulder, urging them to go back to their old, evil selves. Herrick has Mitchell demanding answers and tempting him with blood, while Johnny has the part of his mind that remembers being Kid Marvelman suggesting that every problem in Johnny's life can be solved by saying one little word...
If these parallel character arcs and storylines were all the similarities we were dealing with, I wouldn't throw around words like 'theft', but when Being Human goes so far as to recreate an actual scene, complete with swiped dialogue, I think we've officially reached the point where it's fair to call this scene 'stolen' from Marvelman. I even checked the credits, hoping that Alan Moore would have been in some way thanked or acknowledged - some small mesaure of recognition in lieu of payment. There wasn't any, though, and since the level of specificity in the recreation is so high this can't have been a case of accidental plagiarism, that seems profoundly underhanded. People might well walk turn off that episode thinking that Toby Whithouse is a stellar writer, but that's not the case - he just has excellent taste in comics.
The fact that Being Human executed the scene poorly and to lesser effect, well that's just adding insult to injury.
Over the course of the third season, the king of London's vampires has been stuck in the main characters' attic, left in a daze, not able to remember who he was. There was a general agreement that he deserved to die, but between Mitchell needing to know the secret of vampire resurrection and Nina's unflagging belief in second chances, he was left alive.
This was the result:
If that seemed at all familiar to you, it's because you were lucky enough to have read this, despite the endless copyright problems that have long kept it out of the public eye:
(I insist you click to bigify the page)
Which brings me to the question posed in the title: Homage or theft?There are certain similarities in the plotlines that got us to these points. In each case the villain's powers and person have been neutered, with Herrick seeming like a doddering old relative, and Johnny reduced to a near-comatose state in a ward for troubled children - Herrick winds up in a hospital ward as well, but only for a brief interlude.
Each of the men also has a devil on their shoulder, urging them to go back to their old, evil selves. Herrick has Mitchell demanding answers and tempting him with blood, while Johnny has the part of his mind that remembers being Kid Marvelman suggesting that every problem in Johnny's life can be solved by saying one little word...
If these parallel character arcs and storylines were all the similarities we were dealing with, I wouldn't throw around words like 'theft', but when Being Human goes so far as to recreate an actual scene, complete with swiped dialogue, I think we've officially reached the point where it's fair to call this scene 'stolen' from Marvelman. I even checked the credits, hoping that Alan Moore would have been in some way thanked or acknowledged - some small mesaure of recognition in lieu of payment. There wasn't any, though, and since the level of specificity in the recreation is so high this can't have been a case of accidental plagiarism, that seems profoundly underhanded. People might well walk turn off that episode thinking that Toby Whithouse is a stellar writer, but that's not the case - he just has excellent taste in comics.
The fact that Being Human executed the scene poorly and to lesser effect, well that's just adding insult to injury.
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