Though I am a beast
do not think that
I am stupid

I know that I am hideous
and hateful. I am not
loved, nor ever
hope to be.

Nor am I fool
enough to think that
what I feel for you
is love

But in this
world alone
I do not hate
you...

... And Alone
in this world,
you do not hate me.

I...

I would be
grateful if
you left me
now

Go quickly
woman. Go
before I break
your jaw.

Well it's time to get this blog of mine back on track. I want to spend the next few days taking a look at some interesting characters. Characters that I've always been fascinated by all my life. Right now I'm mostly fascinated with Mr. Edward Hyde. Not so much as Stevenson originally created him, but instead on how Alan Moore adapted this character for his amazing comic book The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. For those of you out there who've never read this, please do not see the movie with the same title. It's just god awful and has practically nothing to do with the book.

Alan Moore has the talent to take a pre-existing story or concept and adapt it in a way that really draws out a deeper understanding. In the case of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Moore gives a nod to Marvel Comics’ "Incredible Hulk" concept of man-to-beast transformation rather than the drug induced change originally created by Robert Louis Stevenson. In Moore’s “League of Extraordinary Gentlemen,” the character Henry Jekyll does indeed create a drug that causes him to separate into two parts. One part of Jekyll is pure and innocent, while the other full of his un-pure urges. All his unrequited feelings stuck into one form. What makes this particular version of the character similar to Marvel Comics’ "Incredible Hulk," is the process in which Jekyll transforms into Hyde. Whenever Henry Jekyll is hurt or made angry, he begins to transform into a giant raging ape that tears men’s limbs out and scrapes children off his boots.

In the second volume of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, it is without a doubt that Hyde is the main focus of the story. In the fifth issue it is revealed to us that Jekyll was actually a large man before the taking of the drug that would separate himself with Hyde. When this occurred, Hyde was only the size of a very short and small man, but still evil. As time rolled on Jekyll began to diminish and whither away while Hyde grew larger and more powerful. In the story, there's a point where Jekyll makes a final transformation into Hyde and never returns to his original state. At this point the character of Dr. Henry Jekyll dies and all that remains is the evil that he kept suppressed for so long.

It was this concept of one part growing stronger while the other withering away and dying that fascinated me. Do all people who try so hard to be good and moral follow down this path? Do they give up too much to stay pure only to find out later in life that all they wanted was the opposite? It's an experience I imagine everyone goes through. Spending a lifetime of being good and trying not to hurt anyone, only to later find that all the things you want in life are passing you by.

That little bit of evil inside of you starts to fizzle up like rancid grape soda in the pit of your stomach. An intense stinging sensation flows along with the blood in your veins throughout the body. Every muscle in the body is being eaten up and dissolved by the acid of rage. The inside tissues of the body becomes so dissolved that the skin is just a very thin bag holding back the acidic evil that will eventually burn it’s way through. All it takes is one little poke, one little prod, and the vile mess inside of the body bursts forth onto the world. When this happens, a true form is seen by all. Even worse, the true form is seen by the people you care about and love. You are no longer that good person you strived to be. Instead, you are a monster that will destroy anything it touches. You are the acid that will burn a hole through the world.

At the end of the second volume of the book, Hyde actually redeems himself. He gives his life to save the one person he cares about. It's that part of the story that really got to me. No matter how evil and rotten he became through his transformation, there was still some good he held onto at the very end of his life.


You are right Mr. Hyde. Heaven is the cruelest of places.