Treasure Buried in Sturgeon's Law: Air Raid Robertson

While looking through DeviantArt today, I found an interesting, relatively new webcomic by Ryan Valentine called Air Raid Robertson. The comic is done as a spoof of the old adventure strips at the dawn of comics, back when newspapers gave comics enough space to do such things. Air Raid Robertson is the buffoonish bi-plane riding hero; his bi-plane is shared with his handlebar mustauched comrade Ridley, who has kept him from dying since childhood. They get into various wacky adventures that typically involve them being in danger of being eaten alive, and often end up bickering with the omniscient narrator ( and normally I find regular 4th-wall breaking obnoxious, but since that kind of old-time caption narration was obnoxious in and of itself by describing EXACTLY WHAT WE'RE SEEING ON THE PAGE IN FRONT OF US, it's a welcome part of the satire ).

The current storyline has Air Raid and Ridley trapped on the Island of Misfit Supervillains, the most demented parody of the old adventure strips yet-- these are all the ethnic stereotypes from the old comics, diabolical Asians and thieving Mexicans and greedy Jews. They have been exiled to this island for their offensive traits, ( their leader The Claw bemoaning the fact that being evil isn't equal opportunity ), but I can say that from what 30's and 40's comics I've seen, they are not exaggerations of those stereotypes at all, and are actually somewhat tame by contrast. Hell, Iron Man's former arch-nemesis the Mandarin is much more offensive than the Claw, and he was created in the 60's and pops up to this date!

Hilarious stuff, and well worth a look.

Norman Osborn, Pride of the Pharmaceutical Industry

“ I was suffering from a severe chemical imbalance. One I was born with. Like millions of Americans. And in my terrible state I was taken advantage of...as you can see now, I am a well man. I have signed documents by Nobel Prize-winning doctors to back that up. I am well. And really, do you think for a second that the president of the United States and the Joint Chiefs of Staff would allow a murderous costumed maniac to lead an important initiative in this, the most important time in our history? “
-- Norman Osborn in a live TV interview, Dark Avengers #5

“ Revenge doesn’t need strategic or political or military virtue...revenge is its OWN virtue! “-- Norman Osborn in private, Dark Reign-The List: X-Men #1

There’s a unusual and disturbing trend in superhero comics to reference heavy-duty psychiatric medication as a fix for troubled characters. For no super-character is this more obvious than with Norman Osborn, the former Spider-Man villain Green Goblin who has used the power of a good PR department to become a political powerhouse and patriotic hero. Norman’s past as a serial killer in a Halloween mask, if you believe the way he tells it, is the result of a chemical imbalance. Through his faith in Jesus and his heavy regimen of antipsychotics, he has become a dutiful public servant. Of course, this is all fabricated, and the medications have done nothing to keep the American people safe from him.

In the hands of writers like Warren Ellis and Brian Michael Bendis, who have moved the character from being a legitimate businessman who moonlights as a Spider-Man villain to a deeply unhinged politician with dark designs on all the heroes, Norman has reached a new high ( or low ) for cruelty. He’s not just a bad man, but an avatar of everything vile about politicians. To use Harry Potter analogies, he started out as a Voldemort, a cliche’ Dark Lord who was easy for anyone to label as a villain. Now he’s become a Y-chromosome Dolores Umbridge, who uses the systems of military, capitalism, and patriotism as implements of oppression. He even shifted his super-suit from the Halloween get-up of the Green Goblin to a stolen Iron Man suit in red-white-and-blue colors, which he calls the “ Iron Patriot “. And the psych meds he downs with Gregory House-levels of vigor are enabling his ability to maintain power.

Whatever cocktail of pharmaceuticals Norman’s been flooding his veins with has had effect-- it keeps him from being an overt super-villain who personally murders Spider-Man’s girlfriends for kicks. But they do nothing for Norman’s morals; he’s still a domineering and abusive patriarch to his son Harry ( Spider-Man’s best friend, who even became a Green Goblin himself due to Norman’s secret brainwashing ), a ruthless military general who puts the country’s safety in the hands of fellow unrepentant super-murderers like Bullseye and Venom, and a corrupt corporate executive who made his fortune designing biological weapons. Thanks to the pills, Norman can do all his evil deeds without getting himself caught through a psychotic episode; every time he starts slipping, he can drown out his Goblin impulses with pills.

To discuss the practical workings of the drugs in Norman’s system would be futile-- we know that he’s altered his bio-chemistry with his company’s super soldier formulas, so he may be immune to the many side-effects of antipsychotics. To discuss the cultural meaning of Norman’s pill-popping is a bit trickier. Norman is not a commentary on the kind of person who takes medication-- the stigma attached to the drugs is something Norman avoids, because he’s upfront with the American people about his “ chemical imbalance “ and his need to correct it. He instead seems to be a commentary on the limits of such pharmaceutical influence-- his whacked-out Goblin impulses may be restrained, but his contempt for everything but the Church of Norman remains. Medication can help people change their habits, but not their nature; reforming people who make the conscious choice to hurt is harder.

My personal experience with antidepressants has given me understanding of both aspects to medication-- they can help some people reach a level of mental clarity that allows them to function, and they can plague other people with a laundry list of debilitating side-effects. The bottom line is that psych meds are a medical tool, with pros and cons like any other, that should be used responsibly and appropriately. That Norman can use them as a get out of jail free card seems to be the writers’ commentary on the overinflated cultural capital pharmaceuticals have; the public of the Marvel America trust that pills and Jesus are enough to redeem their political hero. In fact, it seems that Norman’s profoundly disingenuous faith is a mirror for his psychiatric “ condition “-- he’s using a semiotic shortcut towards reform, and nobody except the superheroes seems to question it.


The current line-wide story with Norman in charge has had its ending telegraphed from the start-- even with the pills, Norman is not a stable man. Marvel’s writers portray him as a mix of George W. Bush’s post-9/11 public persona with Richard Nixon’s paranoia and delusions of grandeur; the meds are what help him pretend to be more the Good Ol’ Boy W.-type than the enemy-list-making Tricky Dick. But he’s just delaying the inevitable breakdown. My hope is that when Norman falls, it is in part a result of his gratuitous self-medication. At some point the abilities of the pharmaceutical corporations will stop working, and we’ll see that no amount of chemical enhancements can fix a man’s morals-- or lack thereof.

Uncanny X-Men 515; What Cyclops Needs

As the X-Men emerge from the Dark Reign crossover Utopia, now as an isolationist nation with an almost entirely mutant population ( a good summary can be found in Newsarama's review here ), I continue to be baffled as to what writer Matt Fraction is trying to do with the X-Men's leadership. And this generally isn't a good sign for an ongoing superhero comic in the traditional model, when you have no idea if you're supposed to be reading the book ironically; is Scott Summers supposed to be a brave leader in charge of tough decisions, or is he a blundering fool?

The presentation of the character in the last issue makes him seem especially unclear. Mere moments after securing his borders, Cyclops is finally getting around to making the X-Men's island a place that can actually support a population. He's just getting to giving orders to set up food and water and power, and it's clear that the other X-Men are quickly losing faith in him. At the same time, he's acting as though he's in charge and knows what he's doing, requesting that the other mutants have faith in what he's doing. He even tells his old mentor Charles " You had a dream, I have a plan ". Except that he hasn't had a plan, he's just been stumbling around from crisis to crisis, barely breaking even.

We see that Scott Summers is breaking under the pressure of being the mutant messiah; his few quiet moments show the man completely wiped out, like he's a feather's tap away from a nervous breakdown. But he's still acting as though he's the strong, confident leader. He's making decisions, they're just really sloppy, spur-of-the-moment ones. It's like he went completely mad years ago and nobody told him.

Which makes sense given the character's backstory-- this is a man who constantly has to be careful of the death rays coming from his eyes, who was orphaned at a young age and taken in by a strange telepathic teacher who molded him into a soldier ( instead of a son ), who has been in love with one woman to the point of being with three alternate versions of her, and who recently betrayed that woman to give into a mistress ( Emma ) that appealed to his repressed desires. Except that the " Cyclops is too riddled with PTSD to be a credible leader " plot has been going on for years now. And the other X-Men haven't done jack or shit about it; they're clearly questioning his ability to save the mutant race, but they still follow him.

It's a tremendous elephant in the room, and it's going from being interesting to being maddeningly frustrating. I think at this point, the other X-Men should stage an intervention for the guy, all of his closest friends confronting him on just how damaged he is. Instead of Hank being catty ( okay, pun intended ) about Scott's poor choices, or even leaving the team in a hissy fit, how about Hank telling Scott about how he hasn't dealt with his problems? Instead of Logan slapping Scott in the face every time X-Force gets another insane murder mission, how about Logan invoking Jean Grey's name to remind Scott of how far he's fallen?

It'd certainly be better to see one of the series' most important characters build back up, instead of remaining broken and pretending otherwise.

Voice Casting Your Favorite Comics

One of the reasons the comic book is my favorite artistic medium is how much more they offer the audience a chance to fill in the sequential blanks. It's common knowledge in comic theory that the action occurs in the gutters between the panels, just like music theory posits the importance of the space between the notes. Depending on how engaged you are in the reading, you can imagine massive theatrical productions between the lines, impressive animated motions with powerful voices. The voices and movements not provided for you like in TV or film; yet at the same time, you are given more to " work with " than with prose.

This is not to posit comics as the superior medium, but to emphasize the importance of voice in comics, and why it's such a useful tool for creators and audiences alike. When I read a favorite comic series, be it a gag strip like Penny Arcade, an enduring superhero comic like Iron Man, or a darkly comic satire like Preacher, I like to have clear ideas of what each character sounds like as I read. I draw upon my memory of various actor voices from animation and live-action, and try to find an appropriate voice. I also do this for my own work on Ruby's World; for example, every time I write Ruby's dialogue, I imagine her sounding like Alyson Hannigan playing Willow in the early seasons of Buffy.* The characters are different, but there's a similar vein there; Hannigan specialized in playing intelligent but socially awkward and unusual girls with strong senses of obedience to the rules. Prior to her transformation, Ruby was a pathological overachiever much like Willow, and that carries over even in her outlaw life in current strips, Hannigan's nervous, scattered energy adapted to my own work.

Of course, this isn't just a tool I use for my own stuff; it also enhances my fandoms. In the case of superhero franchise comics that have spawned countless extra-media adaptations, this task is easier; who in their right mind would NOT hearRon Perlman when they think of Hellboy's voice? Even with characters who have had multiple voices, there are still clear favorites; to me, tbere is no Wolverine but Steve Blum, and all others pale before the gravely adonis he represents. But then, there are plenty of characters who haven't appeared in other media, so how are they interpreted? What do we go on for those existing only in comics?

As much as it sometimes seems, comics do not exist in a vaccuum; they are stories connected to the rest of pop culture. For example, a character like the comic villain Herr Starr from Preacher draws upon several tropes; he's a bombastic dictator, a stereotypically evil German, a sexual deviant of increasing perversions, and a fool who's often humiliated by his own designs. So the connection I make; Kelsey Grammer, doing the voice of the Simpsons' erudite psychopath Sideshow Bob. The connection enhances the reading; Starr's lines sound much more horrific/pathetic when expressed through Grammer's voice, even if Sideshow Bob never endured nearly the same level of torment that Starr received ( getting hit in the face by a rake repeatedly still doesn't compare to being anally raped by an accidentally male prostitute in your first appearance ).

I rarely hear mention of this theory, since it requires so much internal influence; Wolverine may be Blum to me, but he could be
Cal Dodd, Scott McNeill, Hugh Jackman, or That Guy Who Made Him Sound Australian to any other reader. But they all contribute to the larger understanding of who Wolverine is, and how he goes from being lines on a paper in the form of a hairy little thug in a canary yellow clown suit to a meaningful icon. Every aspect contributes to the larger experience, even if it's just subjective interpretation of how the characters might sound.

Except for Australian Wolverine. That's just wrong.

( * Caveat; I write Ruby sounding like early Willow. Before all the Wicca crap; before the character went from a responsible, scientific mind to a magic junkie who blasts everything away when she's not pretending to be exclusively lesbian.