Sherlock Holmes is a character whose fame far outstrips the source material that birthed him. People seem to absorb Holmes lore via a sort of pop-cultural osmosis. You don’t have to read a word of Conan Doyle or even watch the movie adaptations to have Holmes’ indelibly etched on at least a tiny space in your brain. Like Tarzan, or even Superman and Batman, Sherlock Holmes is probably in your head whether you’ve made a conscious effort to put him there or not.
Holmes already prodigious profile is definitely on the ascendant these days. He’s featured in a comic series by Dynamite, TV hit House is, if not a straight adaptation, a definite riff on Holmes, and Holmes will even go head to head with zombies in the upcoming VICTORIAN UNDEAD. Most prominently in the zeitgeist, is second string Tarantino Guy Ritchie’s upcoming Sherlock Holmes film adaptation, a buddy action movie that threatens to bend the character out of all recognizable shape. With all of this Buzz floating around one of literature’s most enduring creations, it’s a good time to go back and look at the original legacy of a man who has a legitimate claim on the title world’s first Superhero.
Holmes influence on pop culture, especially comic book culture is enormous and obvious. Holmes didn’t drive around in a horse-drawn Holmesmobile, or wack his enemies with Holmesarangs, but he was a definite early prototype of the obsessive crimefighter, the consummate figure of esoteric skill, dedicated to a life of fighting evil. Batman is basically Holmes with a mask, a utility belt, and a ludicrous fortune. And, Although Dr. Watson never capered about in tights and short-pants, he’s a pretty obvious antecedent of the comic book sidekicks of modern times. In fact, if you look at the original Holmes canon in the context of the superhero, all sorts of parallels pop up.
THE ORIGINAL OBSESSIVE: Like Bruce Wayne or Frank castle, Holmes was pathologically focused on vanquishing crime. He had no personal life to speak of and When Holmes’ didn’t have a case to crack, he fell into deep melancholia. His crime fighting skill set, which included knowledge of everything from advanced chemistry to the properties of cigar-ash, was ludicrously exhaustive, his ability to deduce complex and specific truths from minutiae, nearly superhuman. For all his obscure knowledge, Holmes’ intellect was laser focused on crime fighting, often to the detriment of his basic social skills. As Watson puts it: “His ignorance was as remarkable as his knowledge”. In A Study In Scarlet, Watson is flabbergasted that Holmes does not know that the earth revolves around the sun. Holmes’ answer, in a nutshell, is that knowing celestial mechanics won’t help him catch crooks, so why waste the brainspace? Holmes is also constantly ruffling the feathers of the high-society types he mingles with, and although he’s certainly charismatic, he’d never be described as long on charm. Like Batman or the Punisher, Holmes is the kind of guy you want at your side when criminals are about, but not necessarily one you’d invite to your next dinner party.
Not Just Evil… EEEEEEEvil: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle can’t really claim to have invented the detective story (Edgar Allan Poe, J.S. LeFanu, and Willkie Collins have better claims) but he might have invented the first full blown super villain. In 1893’s “The Final Problem” Conan Doyle introduced the world to the diabolical Professor Moriarty, a man Holmes calls “The Napoleon of crime”, a mastermind whose brilliance made him almost untouchable.
In “The Final Problem” Moriarty bursts into the Holmes canon fully formed, emerging from a flurry of sudden exposition. Its pretty obvious that he was conceived on the fly by Conan Doyle for the sole purpose of introducing an arch-villain capable of offing Holmes. For all of Holmes’ talk of Moriarty’s spider like dominance of London’s underworld, Moriarty is never mentioned in any stories before “The final Problem”. Admittedly, the abrupt intro makes for pretty poor storytelling. Even Doomsday got a few lead-in issues to show how bad he was before he wacked superman. Nevertheless, Moriarty still leaves an inordinately large footprint on the Holmes legend, not just because he’s the man who “killed” Sherlock Holmes (more on that later) but because he fills a primal role. The concept of an anti-Holmes is so alluring, that, despite figuring in only 3 Holmes stories, and appearing directly only in one, Moriarty is almost as ubiquitous and influential in pop culture as Holmes himself and Conan doyle’s evocative descriptions of the evil professor still resonate today. Take this passage form “The Final Problem”:
He is the organizer of half that is evil and of nearly all that is undetected in this great city. He is a genius, a philosopher, an abstract thinker. He has a brain o fthe first order. He sits motionless, like a spider in the center of its web, but that web has a thousand radiations, and he knows well every quiver of each of them. He does little himself. He only plans, but his agents are numerous and splendidly organized…
He’s the template for Lex Luthor, Wilson Fisk, Dr. Doom and countless others, but Moriarty isn’t the only foe who, in the words of Mr. Smithers: “threatened to cross the line between everyday villainy and cartoonish super-villainy”. Holmes cases brought him in conflict with a rogues gallery that would be equally at home in Gotham City or Victorian London.
In “The Adventure of The Empty House”, Holmes squares off against Col. Sebastian Moran: “the 2nd most dangerous man in London”. Once Moriarty’s right hand, Moran is a prototypical mastermind’s henchman. A big game hunter, crooked gambler and all around cad, Moran does his dirty work with a silent-firing air rifle that shoots “soft revolver bullets.” Sure, it’s not an ice gun or a trick umbrella, but its pretty close to gimmick weapon territory, especially for the 1890’s.
The pulpier Holmes tales feature enough criminals with oblique M.O.s to fill a whole wing of Arkham Asylum. There’s Culverton Smith, the diabolical virologist in “The Adventure of The Dying Detective” who kills with germs, “The Adventure of The Devil’s Foot” features a series of murders that would do The Scarecrow proud, and “The Adventure of The Creeping Man”, one of the silliest Holmes tales, focuses on a gentleman whose biochemical experiences veer into some literal monkey business.
Unfortunately, Conan Doyle never got around to writing a story where all of these ne’er do wells team up to form The Legion of Dastardly Cads. Despite their often flamboyant methodologies, Holmes’s adversaries were never supernatural. If there was a hellhound menacing a rich lord, Holmes inevitably revealed that it was just a pooch in a costume, even when vampirism seems to rear its pale head in “The Adventure of The Sussex Vampire”, Holmes finds a rational explanation for the blood-drinking shenanigans in a mere 15 pages.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, King of The Shameless Retcon: If Conan Doyle was a pioneer of the beloved super-villain convention, he was also the trailblazer of two of comicdoms more irksome clichés: the phony death and the forced retcon.
When Holmes took his seemingly fatal header of Reichenbach Falls in “The Final Problem” the world mourned. Magazine subscriptions were cancelled, Londoners wore black armbands, and the world clamored for the return of literatures greatest crime fighter. Like the Hal Jordans and Steve Rogers’ of today, Sherlock Holmes eventually conquered death itself at the behest of fanboy angst. Luckily, Conan Doyle (who, to his credit, sincerely intended for Holmes to stay dead) knew a secret that hack comic writers have depended on ever since: if there’s no body, there’s no death.
When Holmes returns in “The Adventure of the Empty House”, Holmes reveals to an aghast Dr. Watson that he was never dead at all. Holmes, like Will Eisner’s Spirit, had just been using his newfound anonymity to more effectively fight crime. Yes, the old gimmick of the mysterious death followed by convoluted reveal, that venerable resurrection method favored by the likes of Baron Zemo and Victor Von doom, may just have been invented by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, leaving hundreds of future comics creators deeply in his debt.
Conan Doyle also performed some first-rate continuity repair on Professor Moriarty. As previously mentioned, it was always a bit troublesome that Moriarty never got mentioned by Holmes before “The Final Problem”. Professor Moriarty, however, plays a role in the case depicted in In The Valley of Fear, a short novel penned several years after Moriarty’s intro in “The Final Problem”, yet set before the events of “Problem”. Savvy comic book readers will recognize this move for what it is: a plot-spackling, continuity detangling Victorian flashback retcon that would make Geoff johns proud.
So, the parallels between Holmes and the garish crime fighters of today are there if you look for them. They certainly weren’t lost on Alan Moore when he created The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, a series that integrates large chunks of Holmes lore into its milieu. You can’t take the concept too far though. There are no slugfests in Sherlock Holmes. Holmes’ whole shtick was that he was too smart to condescend to mere fisticuffs. When it was time to take the villains down, Holmes either tricked them into incriminating themselves, or marched into their hideouts with Scotland Yard as back-up. Gunfights are rare in the stories. There are no slow motion retreats from gigantic explosions, and, although there is a fair share of quipping, it’s not usually the kind that cane be boiled down into Hollywood catch phrases.
The Holmes stories are masterpieces of atmosphere and intrigue, where the action of a keen mind usually takes precedence over the action of a swung fist. Still, the original stories have a lot to offer the modern reader, especially super-hero and pulp lit fans. Sometimes the stories are dry logic puzzles, as in “The Mystery of The three students” other times, they’re full-on crime fighting adventures like the oustanding short Novel The Sign of Four. Horror fans will find tales with a twist of the Macabre like “The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax” or “The Adventure of the speckled band” appealing, and even when the tales are mediocre, (and some definitely are), the sheer iconic power of literature’s greatest sleuth shines through. That, ultimately, may be the strongest thread that connects Holmes to today’s comic book crusaders. He’s not just larger than life, he’s larger than his own legacy, even if 221b Baker street isn’t exactly The Batcave.
November 9th, 2009 at 11:25 am
The main reason Holmes himself has only shown up in LOEG in a cameo is that Moore believes him to be so powerful a character he’d overshadow the rest of the group.
Also, the Legion of Dasterdly Cads is a fantastic name.
November 9th, 2009 at 11:42 am
One parallel I forgot to mention was the issue of “The Strand” magazine where readers could vote by telegraph and decide whether professor Moriarty beats Watson to death with a crowbar
November 9th, 2009 at 11:45 am
L. Frank Baum had the same problem when he tried to stop writing Oz books. In book six, Emerald City, he brings Aunt em and Uncle Henry to Oz, casts a barrier of invisibility over it and literally says goodbye to Oz at the book’s end. His fans simply would not let it happen. Combined with his other books not exactly burning up the charts, he returned to Oz three years later, and never left it again.
Also, need I add that the picture at the top of this piece is NOT of Holmes, but of Sherlock Hemlock, the world’s greatest Muppet detective.
November 9th, 2009 at 11:49 am
Look, any excuse to get Sherlock Hemlock out into the public eye is fair game as far as I am concerned
November 9th, 2009 at 11:54 am
wonder what the Holmesmobile would look like! Great article!
November 9th, 2009 at 12:11 pm
“There are no slugfests in Sherlock Holmes.”
Not exactly… Don’t forget that Holmes was a former amateur boxer of sorts, and at least once waylaid a thug with his fists…
But, an awesome, wonderful article.
November 9th, 2009 at 2:54 pm
You cannot write an article on Sherlock Holmes, mention “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen,” and not even bring up the late P.J. Farmer’s Wold Newton Family and the expansive Wold Newton Universe created from that. Even Alan Moore referenced Farmer’s work as an influence in “League.”
November 9th, 2009 at 2:58 pm
Let’s also not forget that Sherlock Holmes’ older brother Mycroft was a recluse who could solve things even Sherlock couldn’t, and there’s your nice Oracle parallel.
November 9th, 2009 at 4:18 pm
“And, Although Dr. Watson never capered about in tights and short-pants, he’s a pretty obvious descendent of the comic book sidekicks of modern times.”
Ancestor. A “descendant” is someone who comes after a particular individual.
November 9th, 2009 at 4:35 pm
Correct me if I’m wrong — I may well be — but technically speaking, Professor Moriarty never actually appeared in any of the Sherlock Holmes stories by Conan Doyle. There is a scene in The Final Problem in which Holmes describes to Watson a meeting he had with Moriarty, but Watson never actually sees the man himself.
November 9th, 2009 at 5:04 pm
It should be noted that Moriarty is a homage to real life Victorian criminal mastermind Adam Worth, the “Napoleon of Crime”, whose theft of a famous (infamous?) painting of the Dutchess of Devonshire was only the tip of a mighty iceberg of criminal endeavours. There is an excellent book called “The Napoleon of Crime” which chronicles his amazing life, and how he is a direct inspiration for Doyle’s characterization of
Moriarty. The quote you use here, is actually a cut-n-paste of actual testimonials in reference to Worth. I can’t remember for sure, but I think Worth even acknowledged his contribution to the creation of Moriarty. I know that Doyle was friends, or associates with one of the men trying to take Worth down and gathered a lot of information about Worth in creating Moriarty.
Also… is everyone really that up in arms over the upcoming Sherlock film? I have some faith in Guy Ritchie, especially now that he is free of Madonna. I’ve read all of the Sherlock short stories, almost everything except “Hounds” (I know, I know) and see no reason why a flashy action movie is in anyway disgraceful to the character.
From what I’ve seen of the previews, Downey Jr, seems to have a fairly confident grasp of the character. As for the ramped up action sequences, the original material is packed with action - but let’s face it, the Victorian era was not the place for long, drawn out, heavily described action sequences… it’s concerns were for the character nuances, the clues, and the mystery, so the action is often pushed off stage, and mentioned quickly. But there’s no doubt in mind that Mr. Holmes was a rowdy, violent, gentleman.
I think the film will be a hoot. And I think people would have been twice as upset to have some slow moving, overwrought melodrama.
November 9th, 2009 at 9:59 pm
There’s a Holmes comic hitting soon, obviously unrelated to the film, from Alterna Comics (the Jesus Hates Zombies guys), which looks pretty alright.
November 9th, 2009 at 10:04 pm
“As for the ramped up action sequences, the original material is packed with action - but let’s face it, the Victorian era was not the place for long, drawn out, heavily described action sequences… it’s concerns were for the character nuances, the clues, and the mystery, so the action is often pushed off stage, and mentioned quickly. But there’s no doubt in mind that Mr. Holmes was a rowdy, violent, gentleman.”
Have you read Jon Rogers’ take on Holmes? “John Watson is a twenty-six year old combat hard-ass with mujhadeen shrapnel buried in his leg (or shoulder, depending on the story) [and a bad case of PTSD], not some foppish fuckwit with a bowler hat. Sherlock Holmes is your substance-abusing perpetual grad student solving cases for the London underworld/working class that the cops won’t touch. ”
Heh.
November 10th, 2009 at 6:35 am
Have you checked out the online game they have made to tie in with the upcoming Sherlock Holmes movie? http://www.221b.sh
It seems to be official, as both Robert Downey Jnr and Jude Law are featured in the intro.
Have actors ever been used in this way? Not sure, but it looks pretty cool.
November 10th, 2009 at 9:17 am
I was glad to see this article and am especially glad at the mini-resurgence of Holmes comic titles. The recent Moore/Reppion (sp?) mini-series was well written and illustrated.
My own interest in all things Sherlock has awakened in the last half dozen years, and that seems to be the case with many others as well. I am always curious what is going on, zeitgeist wise, when such things happen in the popular culture. Like many fictional characters, I think there tends to be a “need” for them somehow in the culture, and they tend to arise (Superman-WWII, Jack Bauer-terrorists, etc.).
Personally, I have really enjoyed watching the Jeremy Brett/Granada Television Sherlock stories, and Brett has forever cemented himself as “the” Sherlock I see in my head whenever I read a story, whether from Doyle or someone else.
Thanks for the fun article.
November 10th, 2009 at 9:17 am
HEH.
I had not read Jon Rogers take. But his summation of Watson sounds perfectly rendered. I still stand by Holmes being a violent gentleman, doesn’t talk about the blood on his knuckles, just wipes it away slyly while pontificating another theory.
November 10th, 2009 at 9:30 am
Moriarty is described struggling w/Holmes at reichenbach in Final Problem. That was the “appears directly once” I was referring too, his role as Moran’s boss makes him a significnat element in “Empty House”, and his involvement in “In the Valley Of Fear”, as an architect of the crime was the third instance I referred too.
As for the fisticuffs, i guess it comes to your definition of “slugfest”. Holmes knows his way around a fight, but I can’t think of a physical altercation involving Holmes that goes more than a couple of sentences. In “The adventure of Black Peter” he’s got to have Lestrade and Watson pull him out of a brawl w/ the title character.
November 10th, 2009 at 9:53 am
You should really read up on Adam Worth, you’d be amazed how much of Moriarty owes his character to an amazing, real, individual.
I guess Holmes is loosely based on Sir Bernard Spilsbury, though I’ve never read anything concrete on that, only light suggestions.
As to the fisticuffs, I will submit that Holmes topless in a boxing match seems a little much, but I will give the film a leeway there, I think Downey has the attitude right. But as to the original materials, it’s in those few sentences that you see there is a lot more going on physically. Doyle takes major fight scenes and compounds them into a few short phrases, which is pretty typical of action sequences written at that time. I just always saw them being grandiose in my mind, but only alluded to on the page.
Err, now I sound like I’m fighting with your opinion, but really I thought this write up was amazing.
I’m a bigger fan of Raffles and Bunny, the gentleman thief and his cowardly companion, written like Holmes, but not as popular. Though I think Raffles was in the latest League book…
November 10th, 2009 at 11:17 am
Also fun is ‘Sherlock Holmes: My Life and Crimes’ where Moriarty and Holmes team up.
November 10th, 2009 at 11:39 am
The media presentation that came closest to a good portrayal of Dr. Watson is the series starring Jeremy Brett; the Watson in that series was not a doddering old idiot, but a fairly dashing middle-aged man who could take action. I’ve loved the Holmes stories since I was 10 (it’s been a LOOOONG time), but always disappointed in the movies and other adaptations until the Granada series that aired on PBS years ago. I’ll most likely see the new movie; it can’t be worse than the old Basil Rathbone movies (I HATED the way they made Watson a fool!).
November 10th, 2009 at 3:04 pm
Yeah…Brett is THE Holmes, I’m hoping to do another Holmes primer on the movies closer to the new film coming out. MURDER BY DECREE is a pretty awesome Holmes film, although my personal fave is the Hammer films HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES. Peter Cushing, Chris Lee…what could be better?
November 10th, 2009 at 7:27 pm
“Also, need I add that the picture at the top of this piece is NOT of Holmes, but of Sherlock Hemlock, the world’s greatest Muppet detective.”
Yeah, but Sherlock Hemlock rocks too… Happy 40th birthday Sesame Street! Now if they’d just bring back Hemlock, Mumford the Magician, Guy Smiley, Don Music (the guy who pounded his head on the piano keys), and Roosevelt Franklin. But I digress.
November 10th, 2009 at 7:28 pm
>> “There are no slugfests in Sherlock Holmes.”
> “Not exactly… Don’t forget that Holmes was a former amateur boxer of sorts, and at least once waylaid a thug with his fists…”
That’s correct… It’s also clear, having seen a trailer for the upcoming movie with Robert Downey, that they’re not forgetting that bit of Holmes lore either.
November 11th, 2009 at 5:40 am
Great article! We’re inde UK graphic novel publishers SelfMadeHero and we work in a Georgian townhouse a stone’s throw from 221b Baker Street in London.
Conan Doyle’s former medical consulting rooms are next door but two and we started publishing a series of Sherlock Holmes graphic novels art: (I.N.J Culbard, adaptation: Ian Edginton)
Culbard and Edginton are currently working on Conan Doyle’s The Sign of The Four, but A Study in Scarlet will be out next Feb 2010. It joins The Hound of the Baskervilles which we published this year.
We have a mini-site where you can find out more about the series.
The books are published in the States by Sterling.
November 11th, 2009 at 2:27 pm
Nice article. Personally, I’m excited that the new Guy Ritchie movie is finally going to show us what happened to Dr. Watson’s bull pup (He’s mentioned in Study in Scarlet when Holmes & Watson are first discussing sharing rooms in Baker Street, and he’s never mentioned again).
November 11th, 2009 at 5:08 pm
I always thought Watson’s pup branched out on his own to become a canine crimefighter, solving pet-related crimes and opposing the bovine archcriminal professor Mooriarty, wait a sec…get hollywood on the phone…
November 12th, 2009 at 2:59 am
nice recap…though “hack comic book writers”? a bit harsh there since there are plenty of resurrection stories that not only work but are actually quite excellent.
thoroughly looking forward to the movie and hopefully pulling out my old Holmes paperbacks to catch up beforehand. though personally, my favorite Holmes story is probably Neil Gaiman’s “A Study in Emerald,” crossing Conan Doyle’s mythos over with HP Lovecraft’s.