Change Your Tights: Comics Without Frontiers on Superheroes and Drama

While it might not exactly be praise, it was flattering to see my earlier post about superhero fans fearing bad things happening to their favorite characters referenced by Miguel of Comics Without Frontiers. Miguel's blog is always great, thought-provoking reading, but this is an especially good piece.

The just of Miguel's post is a comparison between the drama of Mutant Massacre (one of my favorite comics of all time) and the drama of Fear Itself (the absolute height of mediocrity, without even the entertaining terribleness of Ultimates 3 or Cry for Justice). THere are many great points here, especially the observation that the Avengers never remove their costumes in Fear Itself. They're in their tights the whole mission, without showing any life outside of their battles and missions. You'd figure they'd at least change clothes to ward off the inevitable jock itch of sweaty spandex/leather/latex/armor.

I remember Mark Millar, when he was doing the Ultimates, commenting how he didn't like when Iron Man attended social functions in full armor. This is clear from the Ultimates series, where Tony (and the rest of the cast for that matter) spend as much time in their civvies doing normal-person things as they do on the battlefield in their action suits. Unfortunately, Millar fell victim to the no-life-outside-tights problem in Civil War, where most of the characters just hang around in their tights the whole story, and tense meetings have their drama undercut by the fact that characters are wearing their bird/bee/banana yellow wolverine costumes.

The "Autism Cure" In Avengers Academy, and The Fascism of Utopia

(This is largely reposted from the Comic Book Resources forums, in response to an issue of Avengers Academy where the corporate sociopath genius kid Jeremy Briggs starts recruiting super-teens away from the school. Veil, formerly a student at Avengers Academy, touts Briggs' merits by mentioning how the work they're doing reforming society and attacking social problems is far more important than fighting villains and getting bloody hands. However, the example she gives of her work is a cure for autism. Since I normally like Avengers Academy, and since Marvel is one of my main hyper-focused Aspergian interests, this read like a punch to the gut).

Wether it was Gage's intent or not, Veil's line about working on a cure for autism immediately made me want the proper Avengers to take down Briggs and anyone working with him.

The kind of " utopia " Briggs is working towards, like most science fiction utopias, is the ideal of a few imposed upon everyone else. It's getting rid of things that people consider problems with easy solutions, by making a magic pill to cure any perceived imperfections, or using force to quietly subdue any dissidents. It's creating a pretty-looking, clean community by retroactively removing any evidence that it might have been dirty, working towards an ideal while forgetting the minority experiences that give humanity diversity, meaning, and narrative.

The autism line hits home for me, true, but it's a good example in microcosm of why Briggs is as insidious as any super-villain. Maybe Veil believes that autism is just a disease that abducts children from their parents and creates wall-eyed freaks who will never grow up to prosper, but that's hardly the case for all autistics, most of whom are capable of communication, thought, and contribution (even if on different terms, such as requiring facilitated communication). Worse yet, it excludes people with the condition from the discussion. If Briggs and Veil created a cure for the X-Gene, would it be treated as an altruistic afterthought? How about the gay gene? Does society really get to decide how the individual's neurology should be, and change it by force?

The job of the superhero is to save peoples' lives, not decide how their lives should or shouldn't be. That's the other side of the coin that we've seen since the genre's inception, which is fascism.

And another good quote about the dangers of imposing one's views on others, from Big Boss in the game Metal Gear Solid 4;

" It's not about changing the world. It's about doing our best to leave the world the way it is. It's about respecting the will of others, and believing in your own. "

Batgirl 5-6 Thoughts: Ableist Garbage Day!

(Now just imagine if the Joker said that when he opened the door and capped Barbara in the spine.)

Joking and memetic-mutating aside, Batgirl has gone from being a technically competent comic with a disgusting ableist message, to an amateurishly written and sappy mess (albeit with good art by Adrian Syaf) with a disgusting ableist message. Issues 5 and 6 involve Barbara teaming up with Batman to fight a new villainess, Gretel, who gained mind control powers after a traumatic brain injury by a mobster she was investigating. It also has a script that bends over backwards trying to convince the audience that Batgirl is great and we should all love her as much as Gail Simone does. To wit;

1.) Bruce Wayne spends the first half of this arc hypnotized, and bumbles around like a puppet until Barbara breaks the spell by bringing up how his parents are dead. Batman, the most insanely prepared man in the DC Universe or any other (right down to literally creating his own backup personality in case of mind control of mental breakdown), is overridden like an amateur. I could accept this were it not so obvious that it was done to make Barbara look better by comparison, as the one who keeps her wits and saves Bruce's ass.

2.) Bruce Wayne hugs her afterwards, and whispers, " You were always meant to be Batgirl". This is an endorsement on par with the line in The Rise of Arsenal and its tie-ins, "was he not up for the task of being Red Arrow"? A sidekick's name, a weaker spin-off of an established hero, means nothing. Furthermore, it shows that Bruce, a man who's extremely guarded about his personal life and who he lets into his crime fighting circle, is perfectly fine with Barbara going into the battlefield physically and mentally unprepared after her apparent recovery. And that he doesn't particularly mind if Barbara's spinal chip gives out in the middle of a fight. Because she's more useful to him as Batgirl than Oracle, for reasons that don't exist!

3.) Barbara's narrative captions blanket the pages, with her beating us over the head with how great it is that she be Batgirl and help people. This is standard for modern superhero comics, the kind of "emo noir" that conceals perfectly good artwork behind boxes full of navel-gazing. But it's especially galling when Barbara talks about how she was never a partner to Batman, and was her own crime fighter. Who apparently took all of Batman's moves and gadgets for her great individual identity, but that doesn't really matter.

4.) Gretel is the second case in a row where the main villain of a new Batgirl story is a heavy-handed parallel to Barbara's own trauma. In the previous case, it was Mirror, who survived an accident that killed his family, and became devoted to killing everyone else who'd experienced miracles. In this case, it's a woman who was nearly killed by criminals, and is now a lethal vigilante. Batgirl makes sure we don't miss the parallels for a second, making this analogy about as subtle as a House episode where the patient's problem somehow connects to House's leg/addiction/misanthropy (re: EVERY FUCKING EPISODE). And, of course, Barbara has to be all weepy about it, telling the cops to treat Gretel well when they ship her off to Arkham.

It's also worth noting that Gretel still has clear evidence of her trauma-- her multicolored wigs disguise her bald head, which has a bullet scar where hair would've been. Further confirming that heroic characters don't have deformities, only bad guys! I can't wait to see Barbara fight a villain who's in a wheelchair, then give a speech about how she feels their pain!

In the end, what bothers me most about Batgirl is that it represents the character as "the good cripple". She was physically and mentally scarred, but she put the former behind her with a magic cure, and she's working on 'overcoming' the latter. Disability, to Barbara, was just a transitory state so she could look stronger once she emerged from it. And when she emerges, she emerges as a character who doesn't rock the boat or say anything controversial. She's just become another face in the Bat-crowd, only distinguishable by the Pollyanna-type bullshit about second chances and miracles that flows from her mouth.

Another Reason Why Before Watchmen Should NOT Exist: It'd Dated Already

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There are a hundred and one reasons why DC shouldn't go forward with Before Watchmen, the controversial series of prequels to the superhero genre's Citizen Kane. I've heard plenty of discussion about the continuing disrespect towards the original creators, the fact that few if any creators could measure up to the originals, the fact that there's no more story to tell with the characters, etc. However, one thing about which I haven't heard much discussion is the series' timeline.

Watchmen not only debuted in the 1980s, but was entirely about the 1980's. Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons created an alternate timeline leading to an alternate 1985. The plot is set against a Cold War gone hot, with the Russians poised to nuke America. The characters' origins are rooted in the Great Depression for the first generation, and the Vietnam era for the second. Rorscach's hero is Harry Truman, for God's sakes.

Most of the most successful comic book characters are from eras long past, and even further into the past than Watchmen. But those characters weren't given backstories as rooted to history, and they benefitted from regular updates and revamps (such as moving Iron Man's origin story to the war du jour, or modifying Captain America's history to make him a man out of time). Since we aren't getting an Ultimate Watchmen, we're instead getting more stories set in the deep past, exploring characters whose conclusions are foregone against a backdrop unfamiliar to a modern audience.

This is not an indictment of historical fiction or even of prequels, but rather an indictment of the bean counters at DC for bringing this wretched project to light. They've courted a lot of hate from fans, and for what? Prequels exploring the historical minutae of a twenty-five-year-old story that really doesn't need it? Even if Watchmen is a classic known to people who don't regularly read comics, classic is inherently dated. And unless Before Watchmen includes some miraculously innovative take on the material that already exists**, it's going to be an inherently limited and superfluous exercise with little profit beyond the short-term.

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** (Grant Morrison's Multiversity would have been this, because Morrison's talent as well as his outspoken distaste for Watchmen made him one of a handful of creators who could actually make something of this doomed idea.)

Pipe Dope by Jon D Witmer, The Greatest Webcomic of 2011!

I am always looking for stories that move me to tears, even though I'm bitter enough that it rarely happens. Still, there have been works across multiple mediums that were powerful, tragic, and heartwarming enough to trigger the waterworks. For me this is particularly true for comics, where I teared up at the ending to Preacher, the World's Most Wanted arc of Matt Fraction's Invincible Iron Man run with Tony Stark's Algernon-style degeneration, the heartwarming final issue of Planetary, and now, Pipe Dope.

A recently concluded blog-comic by Jon D. Witmer, Pipe Dope is a formally innovative and emotionally profound memoir about the author's father. The comic's conclusion, like all biographies, is forgone, as David Witmer tragically died from lung cancer when his son was still a teenager. What is not forgone is the way Jon Witmer memorializes his father, with a serial comic that takes full advantage of the medium to show us just what David meant to him.

The strip is formatted as a blog, with each entry featuring a Far Side-style single panel. Each entry encapsulates a key moment in David Witmer's life, and its impact on Jon. The content is as varied as the man himself; some strips show us David's own childhood, and the lengths he took to court Jon's mother. Others show Jon's childhood memories of David, the lessons David taught him from the practical (where the title comes from) to the bizarrely profound (the axiom, "never kiss a girl who smokes"). The little mannerisms and routines of David's life are captured, as well as the struggles (particularly the haunting images of David's chemotherapy, such as a head-first view of a CT Scan machine). Most interesting, however, is the AAF-- characters who best encapsulate the influence and importance of comics upon this particular narrative.

The AAF, or Animal Air Force, are the adventures of David's stuffed animals, which were passed down to and continued by Jon. Characters like Genroo the stuffed dog and Blue Peep the stuffed chick were sent on wacky imaginary escapades that portended the future of both Witmers, all the while bickering in broken English a la characters from Pogo. The AAF went on epic air and sea missions that inspired David's later career in the Navy, showing how play, fiction, and imagination helped a child formulate a great path as an adult. They later resurfaced in young Jon's life, their stories told from one Witmer to another, and even gave a surprisingly moving wake to the departed David. The actual AAF stuffed animals were on Jon's desk during the creation of the comic, as a reminder of the shared legacy between father and son.

Stuffed animal adventures may seem like a silly way to interconnect a narrative about a man dying of cancer, but the trappings are less important than what they symbolized for both men, and how they formed a permanent and inspiring legacy. Pipe Dope is a superbly written and drawn example of the form, and one of the most moving comics I've yet read. Do yourself a favor and read it Here.

Identity Crisis Isn't Worth Fighting For: Blog Follow-Up

I posted the thing on the Atop the Fourth Wall Identity Crisis reactions on a day when I was in an extremely bad mood. I probably shouldn't have done that, because while I stand by my contempt for a large part of fandom and their fear of change or drama in their comics, I shouldn't have brought it up in response to a discussion on Identity Crisis. As such, it seemed that many of the responses assumed that I enjoyed Meltzer's story.

To be clear: I didn't. At best Identity Crisis is technically competent with some good scenes but a lot of unfortunate implications. Grant Morrison's assessment of the book in his memoir(ish-thing) SuperGods was basically that if Meltzer's goal was to put down the Silver Age brutally and definitively, he succeeded. But that's a really back-handed compliment, and I agree with Morrison. The nice little character touches like the Kents commenting to Superman that "batman doesn't treat his parents this way" are overwhelmed by the outright sadism, the contemptible treatment of women, and the many potholes within the mystery.

My complaints were entirely with fandom, and how they often seem to equate status quo changes of any kind with being a bad story. There are plenty of cases where I could legitimately defend a great work within a superhero universe against the petty, atavistic nature of fandom. Grant Morrison's X-Men, Matt Fraction's Iron Man, Brubaker's Captain America, etc. This isn't one of them.

However, I would like to thank many of the people who responded for their thoughtful critiques and nuanced assessments of the situation. Jay Boaz, Omar Karindu, E. Wilson, and others made very good responses that expressed how the real problem isn't with drama itself, but with the half-assed notion that something like Identity Crisis is drama.

Why Do Superhero Fans Fear Drama?

I've been simmering on this topic for a long time, but a recent video by Linkara (15 Things Wrong With Identity Crisis) took this frustration to a boiling point. The video itself wasn't so bad, as while I disagreed with Linkara on several points, I respect the thought and effort he puts into his critiques. What really bugged me was (with some exceptions) the circle jerk of fan reactions that followed, which tended to coalesce on the same theme; " Dark is bad, make superhero comics fun again", followed by the usual whining and crying about the state of modern comics.

Far be it for me to defend Identity Crisis, as I didn't like the book myself for several reasons covered in Linkara's review (most notably the rape). But the reasons people don't like it seem to revolve around the fact that certain characters were killed off and removed from the status quo, and certain characters were changed. The moaning is often associated with the loss of more light-hearted incarnations of the characters, such as Tim Drake when his dad was alive, or Ralph and Sue Dibny as a couple. This then goes into whining and crying about a lot of post-Identity Crisis comics like Countdown and Cry for Justice, using Brad Meltzer as the scapegoat for these comics (despite the fact that he didn't write them). Occasionally someone will try to say that dark isn't necessarily bad, but they'll follow it with a "but it doesn't make a story good", then point to examples of where a story is good without being dark. And you'll often see citations of the All Ages titles as examples of how to do these characters right, the titles that are meant for very young children and tend not to have much development or moral complexity.

If dark just means gratuitous, then I'm more sympathetic to this perspective. However, the critiques aren't just with the gore (which I agree is off-putting in most modern DC comics), but with the notion that these bad things happen. The cry is for "fun", and by "fun", they mean a specific status quo, a specific story structure (usually single issues with a happy resolution at the end), and a specific interpretation of characters. "Fun" is what they know and what they're comfortable with; the complaints tend not to come from people trying to broaden their horizons and challenge their expectations.

In one sense, I'm trying to show that it cuts both ways, this battle of light vs. dark. If stories can be told without mature content, they can also be told with mature content. If some superhero creators are obsessed with making the characters grow up with them, others perseverate over keeping them at the idealized status quo. But ultimately, the dark stories-- or, more precisely, the stories with substantial drama and risk for the characters-- are the ones that really succeed. The greatest stories for each character, the ones that are part of their canon, are the ones that really pushed them-- Frank Miller's run for Daredevil, Chris Claremont's run on the X-Men, etc. Without struggle the hero cannot show his or her heroism; if it's just a fight of the week, the ending is never in doubt, and there's no reason to care, other than as a brief escape from reality. Of course, these stories were printed before the internet, so their reputations escaped the constant bitching of fans with computers.

Unfortunately, a lot of superhero fandom seems to cling to the escape hatch, to hide from reality within their Silver Agey security bubble. Even creators will end up pandering to them, including creators like Darwyn Cooke and Greg Rucka who have done excellent dark stuff in the genre. But they still get on the "fun" bandwagon, as if disavowing their work in order to capture for themselves this pleasant navel-gazing. The meaning possible for the superhero is thus pissed away, leaving the result as a pleasant but unattainable ideal rather than a figure whose struggles inspire people to attain the ideals in their own lives.

In the end, while I still don't like Identity Crisis, I find it more favorable based on the fact that it prodded at people who need prodding out of their bubble. If people suffer so much from drama and tragedy in superhero comics, either their lives are very good and their only real problems are with their fiction, or they put a disproportionate need upon fiction as a coping mechanism. Fun is part of life; it is not all of life.