More Comics Crap
Two blog posts that I'd like to link to today - one new, one not so much.
First is this entry from Gone & Forgotten about the overabundance, and ultimate pointlessness, of carnage in DC's comics. Some of it, in fine Gone & Forgotten tradition, is borderline-incoherent (" ...if comics in 2001 were exactly like the comics of 1981, I might walk into DC’s Countdown:Arena and let two bigger, meaner versions of me from some grim alternate universes slaughter me off-handed - what would be the point?"), but there is one statement made in a caption that says, I think, all that need be said about the subject. You'll know it when you see it, I'm sure.
Oh, and I do have one other thing to say about the post: "I don’t want to read comics which are exactly like the ones I read when I was a kid. For one thing, I’ve already read those, I want something new. For another, I’m an adult now and I’m looking for more emotionally and structurally complex comics." Then, quite honestly, you probably shouldn't be reading superhero comics. You should be reading things like The Unwritten or Will Eisner's Contract With God trilogy. I think that, in part, the problem being discussed in this article is a symptom of this assumption on the part of American comics readers that Action Comics and The Avengers are the only options we have for comics, when in fact, there's a great deal more to choose from; this assumption leads people who grow up reading superhero comics, but want more mature material as they get older, to assume that that means the superhero genre needs to grow up with them - it doesn't. The superhero genre is, as its heart, still a genre for kids, and really, that's more or less how it should stay. Part of the problem with superhero books now is that they're trying to have this maturity that the cornerstones of the genre just can't sustain. There's plenty more out there if you want structural and emotional complexity - you just need to look for things that don't have Batman on the cover.
(And since I'm sick and thus not really making my points very well, I should point out that the above paragraph isn't claiming that superhero comics should be completely juvenile and just stay that way forever; I think what the genre really needs right now is to take some pointers from Pixar, who undeniably makes kids' movies - or, I guess, family movies - but makes them from a place of maturity. Wall-E is undeniably a movie for kids, but it's as much an art film as anything else; and its philosophical questionability aside, The Incredibles is one of the best entries into the constantly-growing catalog of superhero movies. If we could get someone like Brad Bird writing, say, Captain America, that would be a definite step in the right direction.) (Also, Captain America is just an example; I'm not saying Ed Brubaker should be removed from the book, because I actually quite like what I've read of his stuff thusfar.)
The second is an entry on Lewis Smith's Witless Prattle, which discusses the idea of "the superhero class." And once this idea was introduced to me, I had the exact same reaction that Smith had when it was introduced to him: "Holy shit. He's absolutely right." For those who may not want to read the article (and even though I'm basically just repeating what Smith said, I recommend you do), the superhero class is something that's come about in the last...oh, ten years or so, when the universes of the Big Two companies started getting increasingly cannibalistic. Superheroes stopped hanging out with ordinary people, and started hanging out pretty much only with other superheroes. This is encapsulated somewhat by the last two or three years of Superman comics, which have featured almost exclusively story arcs where Superman is off in space with the Kandorians or walking across the country like fucking Forrest Gump or whatever, and leaving his supporting cast of ordinary people (one of whom, remember, is his wife) behind to rot. And while on the one hand, I can see the logic behind this decision - the superhero stuff is, obviously, the most interesting part of a superhero comic, and the reason you're putting your money down in the first place - it comes at a pretty serious cost: it prevents us from really being able to connect with the characters. Instead of being mostly ordinary people who happen to have a special ability and become driven to make the world a better place, all superheroes are now basically just gods sitting up on Mount Olympus pissing and moaning to other gods about how much it sucks being a god.
Now, this is something that has a strongly negative effect on a lot of aspects of comic books. One is obvious, and economic: as comics become more incestuous and Orouboros-like, their accessibility to new readers declines. But it also hurts a number of the characters; Smith discusses Iron Man, but I think the character it has possibly the strongest negative impact upon is Spider-Man. Spider-Man's gimmick was that he was always the most relatable of Marvel's heroes, all of whom strove to be relatable to the reader in some way. He was an ordinary guy who spent his time with other ordinary people because even though he had great power and shouldered the accompanying great responsibility, mostly he just wanted to be ordinary. (Even though he never said it in so many words, this is also probably why he never joined the Avengers full-time- you know, until Brian "I can only write three characters, and even them not very well" Bendis took over.) He was an outcast even as Spider-Man, kind of a loner, and kind of a loser - but he was a loser who always found a way to pull it out in the end, and that's what made him a hero. Sure, he'd hang out with Johnny Storm occasionally, because that's cool; Black Cat would show up to complicate things sometimes; and the Osbornes would fuck things up every now and then. But for the most part, Peter's supporting cast were a bunch of people who were just people. And that was good, because - as Smith discusses in his Iron Man example - those ordinary characters are what help make superheroes feel like real people, not just an untouchable bourgeoisie who stand above us rabble and our mundane problems. Then Spider-Man joined the Avengers for no real reason, and his supporting cast became Wolverine, Spider-Woman, Luke Cage, etc. (And Aunt May started hooking up with Jarvis, which is an image that no one ever needed, thank you very much Marvel Comics.) Even Flash Thompson is now Punisher-Venom. There have been attempts at alleviating this as part of the "Brand New Day" thing, but honestly, the damage has been done; Spider-Man is still an Avenger (and now a member of the Fantastic Four, as well), and thus no longer an outsider, a loner, or even a guy who's trying to be ordinary. Now he's just another member of the superhero class with whom we can no longer really connect and who holds no real interest for those readers who aren't already "in the club."
Perhaps the worst effect of this, though, is that it means there's gradually becoming less and less to mitigate the inherently fascist undertones of the genre. Superhero stories have always been about superior people enforcing, without the public's consent, their own morality (they can't enforce the law, because they place themselves outside of the law) - a concept that is, at best, dangerous. This is what leads to things like Objectivism, and we're seeing right now how well Ayn Rand's "philosophy" works in practice. But this was always softened sufficiently by the fact that most superheroes were guys like Peter Parker or Barry Allen - folks who mostly just wanted to be left alone, were happy with getting by, and were really just using the superhero thing to help out wherever they could. (It was also aided by their refusal to kill; by denying that degree of self-aggrandizement, writers kept superheroes from taking too much control over the justice system.) But as this superhero class becomes more and more of an accepted thing (both within the context of the fictional universe, and among those few who still read American comics), how much longer is it going to be until that distinction erodes completely and we really are just left with a bunch of colorful megalomaniacs who do whatever they want because, hey, who cares about ordinary people?
First is this entry from Gone & Forgotten about the overabundance, and ultimate pointlessness, of carnage in DC's comics. Some of it, in fine Gone & Forgotten tradition, is borderline-incoherent (" ...if comics in 2001 were exactly like the comics of 1981, I might walk into DC’s Countdown:Arena and let two bigger, meaner versions of me from some grim alternate universes slaughter me off-handed - what would be the point?"), but there is one statement made in a caption that says, I think, all that need be said about the subject. You'll know it when you see it, I'm sure.
Oh, and I do have one other thing to say about the post: "I don’t want to read comics which are exactly like the ones I read when I was a kid. For one thing, I’ve already read those, I want something new. For another, I’m an adult now and I’m looking for more emotionally and structurally complex comics." Then, quite honestly, you probably shouldn't be reading superhero comics. You should be reading things like The Unwritten or Will Eisner's Contract With God trilogy. I think that, in part, the problem being discussed in this article is a symptom of this assumption on the part of American comics readers that Action Comics and The Avengers are the only options we have for comics, when in fact, there's a great deal more to choose from; this assumption leads people who grow up reading superhero comics, but want more mature material as they get older, to assume that that means the superhero genre needs to grow up with them - it doesn't. The superhero genre is, as its heart, still a genre for kids, and really, that's more or less how it should stay. Part of the problem with superhero books now is that they're trying to have this maturity that the cornerstones of the genre just can't sustain. There's plenty more out there if you want structural and emotional complexity - you just need to look for things that don't have Batman on the cover.
(And since I'm sick and thus not really making my points very well, I should point out that the above paragraph isn't claiming that superhero comics should be completely juvenile and just stay that way forever; I think what the genre really needs right now is to take some pointers from Pixar, who undeniably makes kids' movies - or, I guess, family movies - but makes them from a place of maturity. Wall-E is undeniably a movie for kids, but it's as much an art film as anything else; and its philosophical questionability aside, The Incredibles is one of the best entries into the constantly-growing catalog of superhero movies. If we could get someone like Brad Bird writing, say, Captain America, that would be a definite step in the right direction.) (Also, Captain America is just an example; I'm not saying Ed Brubaker should be removed from the book, because I actually quite like what I've read of his stuff thusfar.)
The second is an entry on Lewis Smith's Witless Prattle, which discusses the idea of "the superhero class." And once this idea was introduced to me, I had the exact same reaction that Smith had when it was introduced to him: "Holy shit. He's absolutely right." For those who may not want to read the article (and even though I'm basically just repeating what Smith said, I recommend you do), the superhero class is something that's come about in the last...oh, ten years or so, when the universes of the Big Two companies started getting increasingly cannibalistic. Superheroes stopped hanging out with ordinary people, and started hanging out pretty much only with other superheroes. This is encapsulated somewhat by the last two or three years of Superman comics, which have featured almost exclusively story arcs where Superman is off in space with the Kandorians or walking across the country like fucking Forrest Gump or whatever, and leaving his supporting cast of ordinary people (one of whom, remember, is his wife) behind to rot. And while on the one hand, I can see the logic behind this decision - the superhero stuff is, obviously, the most interesting part of a superhero comic, and the reason you're putting your money down in the first place - it comes at a pretty serious cost: it prevents us from really being able to connect with the characters. Instead of being mostly ordinary people who happen to have a special ability and become driven to make the world a better place, all superheroes are now basically just gods sitting up on Mount Olympus pissing and moaning to other gods about how much it sucks being a god.
Now, this is something that has a strongly negative effect on a lot of aspects of comic books. One is obvious, and economic: as comics become more incestuous and Orouboros-like, their accessibility to new readers declines. But it also hurts a number of the characters; Smith discusses Iron Man, but I think the character it has possibly the strongest negative impact upon is Spider-Man. Spider-Man's gimmick was that he was always the most relatable of Marvel's heroes, all of whom strove to be relatable to the reader in some way. He was an ordinary guy who spent his time with other ordinary people because even though he had great power and shouldered the accompanying great responsibility, mostly he just wanted to be ordinary. (Even though he never said it in so many words, this is also probably why he never joined the Avengers full-time- you know, until Brian "I can only write three characters, and even them not very well" Bendis took over.) He was an outcast even as Spider-Man, kind of a loner, and kind of a loser - but he was a loser who always found a way to pull it out in the end, and that's what made him a hero. Sure, he'd hang out with Johnny Storm occasionally, because that's cool; Black Cat would show up to complicate things sometimes; and the Osbornes would fuck things up every now and then. But for the most part, Peter's supporting cast were a bunch of people who were just people. And that was good, because - as Smith discusses in his Iron Man example - those ordinary characters are what help make superheroes feel like real people, not just an untouchable bourgeoisie who stand above us rabble and our mundane problems. Then Spider-Man joined the Avengers for no real reason, and his supporting cast became Wolverine, Spider-Woman, Luke Cage, etc. (And Aunt May started hooking up with Jarvis, which is an image that no one ever needed, thank you very much Marvel Comics.) Even Flash Thompson is now Punisher-Venom. There have been attempts at alleviating this as part of the "Brand New Day" thing, but honestly, the damage has been done; Spider-Man is still an Avenger (and now a member of the Fantastic Four, as well), and thus no longer an outsider, a loner, or even a guy who's trying to be ordinary. Now he's just another member of the superhero class with whom we can no longer really connect and who holds no real interest for those readers who aren't already "in the club."
Perhaps the worst effect of this, though, is that it means there's gradually becoming less and less to mitigate the inherently fascist undertones of the genre. Superhero stories have always been about superior people enforcing, without the public's consent, their own morality (they can't enforce the law, because they place themselves outside of the law) - a concept that is, at best, dangerous. This is what leads to things like Objectivism, and we're seeing right now how well Ayn Rand's "philosophy" works in practice. But this was always softened sufficiently by the fact that most superheroes were guys like Peter Parker or Barry Allen - folks who mostly just wanted to be left alone, were happy with getting by, and were really just using the superhero thing to help out wherever they could. (It was also aided by their refusal to kill; by denying that degree of self-aggrandizement, writers kept superheroes from taking too much control over the justice system.) But as this superhero class becomes more and more of an accepted thing (both within the context of the fictional universe, and among those few who still read American comics), how much longer is it going to be until that distinction erodes completely and we really are just left with a bunch of colorful megalomaniacs who do whatever they want because, hey, who cares about ordinary people?