by Lewis Lovhaug
And here's where we have that secondary source of inspiration for the Gentleman. Anyone who was a fan of the science fiction show Babylon 5 will recall the episode "Comes the Inquisitor," in which the Vorlons sent a human named Sebastian to torture Delenn in order to see if she was the chosen one. The role was done with effective creepiness and charisma by Wayne Alexander, a frequent guest star of the show. The ultimate revelation was (sorry to spoil people) that he had originally been Jack the Ripper.
While such a revelation may seem altogether campy and predictable for a science fiction series (especially one that had dealt with time travel before), there had been nothing to suggest he was the famous murderer. That was because instead of having him just be some psycho who killed people, J. Michael Straczyzinski (creator of Babylon 5) wanted to examine the MOTIVATION behind the Ripper's killings. What would drive a man to do such gruesome killings? The answer lies not only with the Gentleman's dialogue above, but in Sebastian's dialogue (the direct inspiration for the Gentleman):
"The city was drowning in decay, chaos, immorality... A message needed to be sent... a warning. In the pursuit of my... holy cause, I did things... terrible things... unspeakable things. The world condemened me, but it didn't matter, because I believed I was right and the world was wrong! I believed I was the divine messenger! I believed I was-"
"Chosen?"
Brrr. A lesson Lightbringer may someday face, himself. ^_~
NOV December 2006 JAN 26 27 28 29 30 1 2 W 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 W 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 W 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 W 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 W 31 1 2 3 4 5 6 W WEEK
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| And here's where we have that secondary source of inspiration for the Gentleman. Anyone who was a fan of the science fiction show Babylon 5 will recall the episode "Comes the Inquisitor," in which the Vorlons sent a human named Sebastian to torture Delenn in order to see if she was the chosen one. The role was done with effective creepiness and charisma by Wayne Alexander, a frequent guest star of the show. The ultimate revelation was (sorry to spoil people) that he had originally been Jack the Ripper.
While such a revelation may seem altogether campy and predictable for a science fiction series (especially one that had dealt with time travel before), there had been nothing to suggest he was the famous murderer. That was because instead of having him just be some psycho who killed people, J. Michael Straczyzinski (creator of Babylon 5) wanted to examine the MOTIVATION behind the Ripper's killings. What would drive a man to do such gruesome killings? The answer lies not only with the Gentleman's dialogue above, but in Sebastian's dialogue (the direct inspiration for the Gentleman):
"The city was drowning in decay, chaos, immorality... A message needed to be sent... a warning. In the pursuit of my... holy cause, I did things... terrible things... unspeakable things. The world condemened me, but it didn't matter, because I believed I was right and the world was wrong! I believed I was the divine messenger! I believed I was-" "Chosen?"
Brrr. A lesson Lightbringer may someday face, himself. ^_~
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Lightbringer is hosted on ComicGenesis, a free webhosting and site automation service for webcomics.