We begin with a remark Alan Moore once made about the usage of Gods. If memory serves correctly (I couldn't find the exact quote), he said that it is a bad move to call upon the gods to help you woo a girl.

This is a direct invocation of Grant Morrison's Pop Magic!, where they suggest that summoning Gods is a good means of getting laid. There are other invocations to be found between Moore and Morrison throughout this season of Klaus.

But perhaps the most striking comes from the simple summary of the story. Stripped of all its genre trappings, all its delightful art and fantastic fight scenes, and you have the story of a hermetic shaman returning to the land he once knew, only to find an upstart magician...