Of Course The Cripple Is Evil: Iron Man 26 Thoughts

In the latest volume of Iron Man written by Kieron Gillen, it was revealed that Tony Stark is actually adopted, picked up to play the public role of the Starks' child while the real son of Howard and Maria was in hiding. This is because that boy was genetically modified in vitro by an alien super-intelligence to be a super-genius behind a new intergalactic order, but resultantly ended up with an irreparably damaged respiratory system and had to be kept in seclusion. That boy grew up to be Arno Stark, who's recently come out of hiding while still requiring life support to keep his lungs working (be it a literal iron lung or an Iron Man exoskeleton).

Many readers guessed that Arno would end up evil. The name is a dead give-away for any Marvel history fans, given how the previous Arno Stark was the evil Iron Man of 2020. There's also the long tradition of villains being handicapped or otherwise deformed, because of course people who look or function differently are the Other and are cast under suspicion. There was some hope that Arno would end up being a nice guy, since he seemed pretty amiable and he even referenced the "Evil Cripple" trope when talking about his reticence over becoming a public figure like his adoptive brother.

These hopes were dashed in the latest issue, when it was revealed that Arno was working on a new serum of Extremis. Yes, Extremis, the super-deadly biotech serum that weaponizes human beings, and often makes them monsters. The kind that temporarily infected Tony's body, saving his life and boosting his performance as Iron Man (as well as giving him wacky super-powers like mind-controlling satellites and healing from injuries to the point of being able to reattach a severed heel) but also driving him mad with the traumatic flow of new information, to the point of entering fugue states where he talked to "ghosts". And the kind that Tony's tried to eradicate in this very volume, seeing its grotesque potential for misuse even by people with good intentions.

It's possible that we're meant to sympathize with Arno, because of Extremis also has potential for beneficial medical applications. But all that potential means nothing given the circumstances, such as...

1.) Arno isn't doing this to help other people. He's doing to help himself, so that his lungs can be fixed and he can live without external support. Never mind the fact that his external supports give him far more capability than most people, since he's at least as smart as Tony and builds his own powered suits. He wants to be cured, even if he has to use a super-deadly monster-serum to do it. Basically, he's using Curt Connors logic. 

2.) Arno has no real identity outside of being a genius and being disabled. We don't really get much indication of Arno's thoughts and feelings beyond what the plot demands. Even though he spent most of his life in seclusion, he could still think, feel, and dream. Even without an exoskeleton that gives him mobility, he's got all those capabilities. But we don't get to see those capabilities, because all we get from Arno is what he does with Tony Stark, and now what he's doing to undermine Tony Stark. The hints of Arno's life outside technology and envy of working lungs, such as his interview with ultra-leftist reporter Abigail Burns, are only told and not shown.

3.) "Magical" sci-fi cures tend not to end well. This may be so common it's become cliche, but there's a reason writers don't often write stories where there are pills that can fix all ailments. Fiction is the place where people, creators and audience alike, work out their anxieties and achieve a meaningful catharsis. Sometimes it's the place where people hide from reality and go straight to escapism, but certainly Kieron Gillen is a savvy enough writer that he wouldn't just go with "Arno uses serum to fix his lungs, succeeds in doing so, then uses serum to fix world, and creates a Candyland Utopia where nobody feels bad".

Some have criticized this mentality as anti-progress and anti-science. Certainly that's a result of the bizarrely static nature of the Marvel Universe, which has to remain similar to our reality and can't allow the super-scientists to radically change our infrastructure. But the implications of the alternative are much more troubling. If this form of super-science solving everything is a reflection of a desires, that means we see a world of easy answers. Where every problem has a solution, and those solutions can be universally applied across all kinds of problems. Where we get to see the happy ending while skipping past all the hard work and tough decisions needed to get there. Where we trust that we can take a pill to make ourselves happy and healthy, and not have to worry about the side-effects. And worst of all, where we see being infirm and disabled as something that has to be completely eradicated, and can't comprehend the notion of people being okay with the way they are (or at least being okay enough with their disabled lives that they wouldn't risk their lives on a potential cure. I'm not downplaying the challenges that come with physical and mental disabilities; I'm saying that they AREN'T fates worse than death, the fate that gives you absolutely no other options. They're certainly not worse than "dying" by virtue of turning yourself into a monster and losing all sense of self).

 Arno says he wants to use Extremis as a universal cure, one that can be applied to all medical problems. Arno is confident that he can work out all the bugs, even though no previous scientist has done so. Even if he does avoid that particular consequence of his hubris, Arno's still making himself the authority on what should be cured and what shouldn't. Perhaps Arno will decide that homosexuality is a disease that needs to be cured? Perhaps he'll decide that darker colors of skin should be swabbed away by Extremis? And perhaps when people such as Tony Stark, a man whose adult life has been defined by physical and mental weaknesses but hasn't let that stop him from doing the right thing and avoiding the easy way out, oppose Arno's mentality, he'll decide to use force because his will is more important than anyone else's?

I know that it's a slippery slope argument, but by all accounts Arno's slope currently is devoid of any and all friction. I sincerely hope that the next issues will prove me wrong.

Voice in the Dark, Comic of the Year!

Whatever my vote for comic of the year might have been worth in past years, it's probably lessened by the lack of blogging I've done this year. This year was the one in which I largely lost interest in American comics, to the point where I couldn't even get angry at the myriad stupid things that inevitably happen within the Marvel and DC Universes. But this was also the year in which creator-owned comics truly became a force in the industry, with countless great titles coming from smaller publishers without a franchised character in sight. Most of the comics I enjoyed were from Image, who got behind such great series as Saga, Sex Criminals, Elephantmen, Black Science, Velvet, Fatale, and most importantly, Voice in the Dark.

My vote for Voice in the Dark is partially based on the fact that its writer/artist, Larime Taylor, is disabled. I've spent a lot of time talking about disability within comic characters, but not nearly enough talking about disability within the comics' creators, who are obviously* far more important to the process. Since Larime Taylor has arthogryposis, he does not have the passing privilege that other disabled characters might use, and has been admirably frank in his criticisms of his difficulties getting around comic conventions. Even from a creative perspective this impacts his work, as he does his drawing with his mouth.

I'm trying to be very careful talking about Taylor's disability, because A.) I can only imagine as to what his life is actually like, and B.) I want to avoid the patronizing "inspiration porn" often used in describing disabled peoples' achievements. Voice in the Dark isn't good because it's by an artist who doesn't have the luxury of drawing it with his hands, though I also don't want to diminish the personal strength of character Larime shows to draw a monthly comic with his impairments. It's an admirable achievement, but that in and of itself doesn't make a good comic, and to focus solely on the author's personal handicaps ultimately diminishes their individual achievements (e.g. the condescending statement "It's good comic for an artist with...insert disability here...") No, Larime Taylor's Voice in the Dark is good because it's an objectively well-crafted comic that shows a natural grasp of characterization and visual storytelling that most cartoonists would need an entire lifetime of work to achieve.

For those who haven't read Voice in the Dark (which you should), this series chronicles the life of Zoey Aarons, a college freshman with serial killer impulses. Though it's not entirely clear how many people she's killed and under one circumstances (so far we know she killed a popular girl who romantically manipulated her sister, but Zoey's also an inherently unreliable narrator), she fights against violent, homicidal impulses that don't have a clear pathological origin. Zoey keeps this to herself for obvious reasons (including the fact that her beloved Uncle Zeke is a homicide detective), and she tries to help other people by running an anonymous radio show, where she encourages them to confess their own forbidden thoughts and feelings (while offering herself a place for "Dark Zoey" to safely speak).

Zoey is an inherently compelling character because, unlike Dexter Morgan (the most obvious comparison people have made regarding the sympathetic serial killer protagonist concept), she doesn't indulge her compulsion with an elaborate vigilante persona. She's mostly just trying to live her life, get through school, and not kill any more people. Repressing urges that society considers forbidden is something that everybody deals with, be it the urge to murder someone in cold blood or the urge to shout "This movie sucks and you suck for liking it" when watching Iron Man 3 in a theatre**. Zoey isn't devoid of empathy; far from it, as seen in the events of issue 2, when her advice to a suicidal caller is taken in a far less constructive way than she intended. Her experiences with her mental illness have made Zoey extremely contemplative and introspective for her age, and this definitely makes it harder for her to suffer the unwitting shallowness of her peers (though as far as we know, all she's done is fantasize about stabbing her roommates and classmates).

Even from two issues in, the characters are strongly defined and visually distinct. Despite being a grayscale comic without any fantastical elements, virtually everyone is recognizable as a unique character. Characters come from a variety of different cultural backgrounds within the Seattle, WA setting, and while you can understand why Zoey wants to kill some of them just for the sake of shutting up, nobody comes across as a one-dimensional stereotype. I definitely recognized some of the personality types from my own undergraduate experience (where I was similarly withdrawn and resentful thanks to my own illnesses, albeit not in a way that involved wanting others to bleed out), and the dialogue was realistic enough to make it a smooth read. This is a book that's mostly talking heads, but the character designs, expressions, and movements feel accurate and emotionally resonant.

This is a comic that virtually came out of nowhere*** and offered me a better reading experience than anything else I'd picked up in comic stores this year, and I strongly look forward to successive issues. In the end, if there's one thing I can say about Larime Taylor's Voice in the Dark, it's that you should buy it. Now.

* (Christian Weston Chandler of Sonichu fame doesn't count, as all he's created is a reason for aliens to destroy our planet, Alderaan-style).
** Thankfully I have a blog for that. 
*** It didn't come out of nowhere in a literal sense, but it did come from a successful Kickstarter.

Wolverine By Paul Cornell and Alan Davis, Superhero Comic of the Year

This is the year where I finally put my money where my mouth is and drifted away from mainstream superhero comics. It wasn't because the books were offensively bad, just that most of them weren't really going anywhere that wasn't permitted by the dual demands of movie licensing and comics continuity. One of the comics that got around those and remained consistently memorable, however, was the new Wolverine book by Paul Cornell and artist Alan Davis.

On the surface, one could say that this was another case of a comic being an adaptation of its own adaptation, since the big hook for Cornell's story is Logan losing his healing factor and becoming Killable-- the thing that happened in the Wolverine movie, which I still have yet to see. However, Cornell has done exemplary work showing us how Wolverine is adapting-- or not adapting, rather-- with his newfound mortality. Without a mutant regeneration ability that can cure him of every ailment conceivable, from being drunk to being hit with Little Boy *, the list of new problems that Logan must face are endless. In the very first issue after a sentient virus burns out his healing factor, Logan realizes that he has to be careful with EVERYTHING-- he even considers buying a practice shaving razor, as his previous shaving techniques were much rougher. Logan is unparalleled at ignoring pain, but that's because pain is the body's signal that something is wrong, and there used to be nothing that Logan's magic healing flesh couldn't fix. Now he has to worry about not only normal human injuries, ailments, intoxications, and all-around mortality, but he also has to deal with the added disabilities of his other powers.

 Immediately after Logan is diagnosed as "mortal" by Hank McCoy, he's prescribed a drug to counteract the heavy metal poisoning of his adamantium skeleton, which would otherwise kill him rather quickly. The metal skeleton may be unbreakable, but it also makes him vulnerable to electro-magnetic attacks, and early issues imply that Logan's torn up his own ligaments against his metal bones in past berserker rages (just that he didn't notice because he immediately healed up). He can't use his claws without bleeding a lot, making his primary weapon a double-edged sword. And his heightened senses also make him more vulnerable to sensory attacks-- as seen when he's drugged by some ninja enemies, and starts tripping even harder than an ordinary man.

This is why the book has become so intense, even if Logan gets his healing factor back-- we finally see the character as VULNERABLE. There have been other stories where Wolverine has lost his powers**, but they haven't been nearly as brutal in showing Logan's emotional responses. Even his legendary stoicism is challenged, as everything Logan used to rely on to do his job is compromised, and he has to live his life with caution. If that weren't enough, his enemies are aware of his newfound mortality, and are using it to toy with Logan's emotional weaknesses as well as his physical ones. Mystique slips into his bedroom unnoticed to steal an heirloom sword, making it clear that she could kill him any time she wanted, but is just toying with him. Sure, Wolverine can put on a brave face and fight back, but it's becoming increasingly clear that his ability to overcome weakness with a manly man attitude has its limits. A lot of his actions now seem motivated by a desire to compensate for this and prove to others that he's still got it, such as picking a fight with the Black Panther (ex-husband of Wolverine's friend-with-benefits Storm), or going off on a quest in search of his stolen sword despite knowing it's an obvious trap.

Marvel seems to have realized how good this book is, and has heavily promoted the series' relaunch, which implies that Wolverine will become a super-villain, retraining himself by working alongside the super-powered crooks he used to turn into sashimi. The new costume is inspired by samurai armor, not just to protect Logan's weakened body, but to reflect his new mood. In this series, Logan has made several references to samurai culture, but with a more cynical edge than before; though he admires the ideal of bushido, he's sickened by the reality of the samurai culture, as mercenary dogs of the aristocracy. But that's what Logan might have to do now, if he wants to get his edge back. He could only fight his arch-enemies like Sabretooth to a standstill even when he had his healing factor, and now that he's lost such an advantage, he's got to find another way to stand up to the most despicable mass-murderers on Marvel's Earth.

The Nietzche line of "he who fights monsters" has always been a theme in Wolverine comics, as his innate brutality proves necessary to protect the innocent, but keeps him on the edge of becoming as bad as his foes. Now that Logan's lost his X-Gene crutch, he's much less stable, and may well fall off that edge. And even if he gets his healing factor back at some point, he may never atone for what he'll have to do to reclaim the level of viciousness needed to defeat Sabretooth.

This has been an excellent comic, and everything I look for in a Marvel book. Paul Cornell is superb at making Wolverine a sympathetic character, and the story is gripping from issue to issue. The art by Alan Davis needs to introduction, as Davis is unquestionably one of comics' legends. But the fill-in issues by Mirco Pierfederici were surprisingly good, even under Davis' shadow; he did a great job selling Wolverine's newfound vulnerability, as he finally is able to get drunk and ends up in a disarmingly weepy state. And new artist Ryan Stegman looks like he'll do another great job, fresh off his "Superior"*** work on Superior Spider-Man. I actually look forward to where this book goes next. You should too.

* From the Marvel Knights Logan series, by Brian K. Vaughan and Eduardo Risso. Wolverine was apparently at ground zero when Hiroshima was bombed, fighting against Imperial Japan and getting laid for the first time. Logan explicitly mentions the parallels between losing his virginity and entering the atomic age. I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP.
** Most notably in Larry Hama's epic run on Wolverine, in which his healing factor is burnt out by the strain of Magneto tearing out all the adamantium. This is unfortunately undercut by the fact that, after a year of being vulnerable and having to rely on bone claws, Logan's healing factor overclocks and turns him into a feral brute whose noseless face is covered by a pirate mask and has huge wads of forearm hair. Again, I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP.
*** Too easy, I know

That Time The Beast Lost His Brains

I do strongly recommend this as an enjoyable superhero story, my kvetching about the disability representation notwithstanding.

Finding disability studies-themed readings of comics is difficult, so if I'm to keep this blog around (and I want to do so), that's what I'll focus on. So without further adieu;

It's a common plot in any series where the hero has a superhuman ability, to take away that superhuman ability and force the hero to cope with being brought down to a normal level. For the superhero themselves, that's a disability (as disability itself is a social construct; the one-eyed man being king in the land of the blind, to use an old cliche), because their normal involves having that superhuman ability. Of course, the writers usually aren't aware that they're touching on any disability themes when they do these stories, even when they take the story to such extremes that it rings painfully true for some members of the audience with similar kinds of experience. Case in point: Hank "the Beast" McCoy's loss of intelligence in the late 80's X-Factor (original X-Men team) comics.

I'll keep the continuity mentions to the foot notes so that the meat of the essay will be as readily understandable as possible, even for non-comic readers. All you need to know about the story is a basic run-down of the Beast's history. He was born Hank McCoy, a mutant with superhuman strength, agility, and prehensile toes, as well as a super-genius intellect that contrasted his animalistic powers. In his adolescence Hank started his superhero career as an original X-Man, and later launched a solo career with a new, blue fur-covered look he acquired from foolishly testing a mutant extract potion on himself. After joining various superhero teams (including a few reunions with the X-Men), he eventually rejoined the original X-Men when they formed X-Factor*. In what appeared to be an effort to court original X-Men fans' nostalgia, Hank was kidnapped in the second issue by a mad scientist who tested an anti-mutant drug on him, which caused him to lose the fur (but not his strength).

Hank kept his passable-as-human look for a while, but encountered a cruel twist of fate when he was infected by a villain named Pestilence. Pestilence's plagues interacted with the earlier anti-mutant drugs to overactivate his immune system, causing his physical strength to increase exponentially with each exertion. However, every time Hank used his mighty muscles, he not only became stronger, but also stupider-- apparently his power was "drained from his mind", or some other such pseudo-scientific explanation, as though he were an RPG character who sacrificed the INT stat to boost the STR stat. Over the course of a single battle Hank went from a PHD bio-chemist with the strength of a gorilla to...effectively the Incredible Hulk, a brutish man-child with the strength to lift buildings but with a sub-normal level of cognition.

From a Fantastic Four tie-in issue, where Hank's brain damage was used to remind the deformed Sharon Ventura that she shouldn't complain because she still had her mind. The "Inspirationally Disadvantaged" trope, I suppose.

This kind of degenerative neurological condition would normally raise a lot of different questions. For example, what parts of Hank's brain were damaged by his over-active immune system? Was he losing basic cognitive processing power? Was he losing memories? Were his motor skills affected? Was the damage in terms of the "data" inscribed upon his grey matter, or was he actually causing physical injury to his head? And how far would Hank's intellectual deterioration progress? Would he end up in an animalistic state, or would he just become completely vegetative?

I had all these questions when I read these old issues for the first time. Unfortunately, none of them were answered. Instead, we got nearly a year's worth of comics where Hank was a bumbling dolt, while his teammates gave only token attempts to discourage him from further exerting himself. While the rest of the cast was in the midst of their own typical X-Drama, Bobby "Iceman" Drake made the only overt attempts to help Hank navigate the world, such as covering for him during TV interviews. Apparently nobody bothered to take Hank to a doctor, especially not a superhuman doctor like Reed Richards or Hank Pym (the kind of people who could actually do something).

Ultimately this strangely overlooked sub-plot was resolved in the most convenient way possible, when Hank was infected for a third time-- this time by a villainess named (appropriately) Infectia, who'd been dating Bobby so she could make him her super-powered love slave. When Bobby ignored Hank's warnings over Infectia's true agenda (thinking that Hank was too stupid to know anything about anything, even though anyone not thinking exclusively with their dick could've seen that a woman named INFECTIA was bad news), Hank jumped in and took a kiss from her meant for Bobby, which wreaked havoc with his physiology, but ultimately caused him to revert to his pre-X-Factor blue form, regain all his lost intelligence, and keep all the strength he'd gained**. (Somehow).

This story occurred during the critically acclaimed run of Louise Simonson and her husband Walt Simonson, on script and art respectively. Presumably the whole physiological rigamarole was a convoluted means to make the Beast blue and furry again. Unfortunately, it fell into the trope of the temporary disability-- the impairment that only lasts an episode/issue or two so the hero can learn a lesson. And even then, it's not clear that Hank really needed to learn anything. Was losing his intellect a punishment for the sin of pride in returning to his more attractive human form? Because other than appreciating the fact that he didn't look like the Cookie Monster with a Flock of Seagulls haircut anymore, Hank never showed any arrogance over his transformation-- largely because he was barely passable as human to begin with, forced to wear special footwear to suppress his huge, prehensile feet. Was this meant to show off his heroism, proving that Hank would sacrifice anything to do the right thing? I can buy that explanation, because it is a tremendous loss-- even though superheroes risk their lives on a daily basis, lives mean less to most people than their reputations and their legacies. Especially for one of the world's sharpest minds, and one of the few mutants to enjoy public celebrity not tied into international terrorism, to be reduced to Benjy from the Sound and the Fury.

Hank inelegantly blubbering to reporter Trish Tilby, who actually started to become romantically interested in Hank here-- to the point where she was alarmed when he returned to being a hyper-intellectual blue ape. They still dated for years, until Hank further mutated into a giant blue lion in Grant Morrison's run. Being a giant cat seems an arbitrary place for her to draw the line.

It's genuinely heart-wrenching to see how hard Hank has it with such limited brain power, especially in a scenario where the villain Apocalypse tricks Hank into sending a giant spaceship crashing into New York. And it's moving to hear Hank say that he'll do whatever he can to put things right, even if he loses what little mind he has remaining. But ultimately the story ignores the intellectual disability and all the loaded implications therein, because Hank's intellectual degradation is immediate, plateaus at the level of the Savage Green Hulk, and mostly just keeps him in the background of the main storylines. The Fall of the Mutants is considered a seminal work in the X-Canon, but how many people remember it for the master plans of Apocalypse and the rebirth of Angel as the brainwashed, metal-winged Archangel? And how many remember it for Poor Dumb Hank? Besides me, of course.

*(The original X-Factor consisted of the original X-Men pretending to be a human anti-mutant agency, promising to "control" the mutant threat while secretly rescuing and training young mutants. As many noted before me, this was the stupidest fucking premise ever for an X-Book, because the anti-mutant PR did so much harm that the few mutants X-Factor helped under their cover didn't begin to make up for it. Thankfully, the Simonsons gradually did away with this premise, and by the end of this particular storyline, X-Factor outed themselves to the public-- with surprising and well-deserved public adulation for saving the city from Apocalypse.)
** (Of course, it was soon forgotten that Hank still had that boosted strength, probably because he was really damned strong already).

And More Of Why I Hated Iron Man 3

(Reposted from my comic blog, which you should be reading. My feelings a week later have only gotten harsher.)

Some days I am very grateful for the fact that I do an independent webcomic, with no content beyond what I create, no editing beyond what I choose, and no readers beyond a small few devoted and cherished fans. Yesterday was one of those days, because it was the day I finally saw Iron Man 3.

Iron Man 3, directed by Shane Black (replacing Jon Faverau), is not a bad movie. It has the same cast of the previous Iron Man movies (which I really enjoyed, albeit with reservations), and it had a few new characters who were played effectively. It even had some good ideas, such as Tony Stark's anxiety attacks following the events of the Avengers. However, none of those ideas got any space to breathe, and the Hollywood formula smothered the movie so that everything potentially interesting about it was diluted in a stream of explosions and one-liners.

If Iron Man 3 were played as a completely straightforward superhero movie, such as Captain America, it could've excelled at that. But the more thoughtful bits raise important questions and take them absolutely nowhere. Tony's anxiety attacks begin as a serious issue, showing a tortured mind whose view of a rational universe has been shattered in the wake of discovering gods and aliens, and who builds armor after armor in a compulsive attempt to regain his security. This is in the first act; in the second act, Tony's anxiety attacks are just reduced to comic relief as he flips out in front of a little kid, and by the third act, he's completely "overcome" them (as if you can just punch emotional problems into oblivion). 

(NOTE: EXPLICIT SPOILERS FOLLOW)

The intriguing start and piss-poor payoff continues through the rest of the movie. For example, the Mandarin is brought in as a Bin Laden-style terrorist, releasing viral videos of his deeds with messages about America's sins (SUCH AS A REFERENCE TO THE SAND CREEK MASSACRE, as an allegory for the casualties of America's nation-building in Iraq). In the second act, we see that this new interpretation of the Mandarin is just a smokescreen, as he's really just an actor hired by the main villain to distract from his real activities. This is a clever twist that plays on Orientalist fears, but it's ruined by some painfully extended comic relief sequences with actor Mandarin, and then it's completely dropped when the real villain turns out to be just another monologuing jackass, whose speech about the power of anonymity is completely ruined by the fact that he's GIVING A FUCKING SPEECH. What's more, the present-day implications of the genocide against the indigenous Americans are completely dropped, even when there's plenty of appropriate subtext (such as Jim Rhodes/War Machine going on a wild goose chase for the Mandarin while in his new Iron Patriot suit, giving third-world citizens the sight of a red-white-and-blue death machine breaking into their homes and threatening them without warning).

Everything in the movie follows this pattern. The Extremis formula, used in the comics for an interesting exploration of transhumanism (as well as its inventor Maya Hansen, a great example of a once-idealistic scientist corrupted by the military-industrial complex), just serves to make flaming villains here. Tony's compulsive armor-building, a sign of emotional turmoil, turns out to be just the thing needed to save the day in the Obligatory Climax Explosion Orgy. Even the humor scenes fail, because of how scripted they feel. Where Jon Favreau made even the weaker parts of his Iron Man movies entertaining thanks to all the ad-libs, you can tell here that there's a heavier directorial hand, and the situations (such as all the time where Tony fixes his armor with the help of the little kid) show us just how tightly they're sticking to the script and telling us THIS IS FUNNY.

It's all smothered by cliches, robbing it the opportunity to be even an interesting failure. It's not a bad movie, and I don't hold anything against its cast and crew. It's just a mediocre movie clearly ruined by the process of executive meddling, and again, it makes me very grateful I don't have to deal with that shit.

Solestar: Support The Greatest Comic Of 2013!

Go Here To Support Solestar

If there's one comic I'm most excited for in the coming year, it's Solestar. It's currently in the Kickstarter phase, but it deserves your attention and your support.

Writer/creator Siike Donnelly is a friend of mine, who I met first on Facebook and later in person at Golden Apple Comics in Los Angeles. Siike is a survivor of a brain aneurysm, a cerebral eruption that left him severely debilitated. Despite this, he's managed to relearn basic functions that most of us take for granted, such as walking and talking. He's also kept very active in the comics community, having written a few novels, doing a regular Nerd Nation podcast with Gene Hoyle , adopting an adorable stray dog named Echo, and even doing some real-life superheroing.

Usually discussions of people "overcoming" disability are incredibly patronizing, treating the disabled subject as an object of pity, and using the narrative to shame able-bodied/minded people in a way that has the opposite effect (i.e. "this person can't walk but has done so much with their life, therefore you should be able to do even better than this cripple"). They also tend to gloss over the actual challenges of disability by treating them like a super-villain that can be conquered. I'm trying to avoid that here, because I know that Siike struggles on a daily basis, and lives with a lot of pain. His many achievements do not lessen what I know he has to endure, but they do show a man who's become much stronger than most for his hardships. I believe the two defining characteristics of any person are their compassion and their willpower, both of which transcend any physical or cognitive difficulties. Siike has plenty of both.

And Solestar is the culmination of Siike's achievements, a story about a superhero's final days. It's a charity project for the Brain Aneurysm foundation, with all proceeds helping that organization and by extension the people who have suffered that insidious condition. It started as a pitch for a Superman story, but was later reworked into an original character's saga, and came out even stronger for it. And it's got artwork by over 60 people, including yours truly. (Siike gave me a script for a page that was written to my talents, so expect to see a lot of kitties doing kitty things). The artist roster has a wide array of men and women, all of them with unique abilities but each bringing their own voice to the project. There are even some big names in the mix, such as Bill Morrison of Bongo Comics, Sean "Cheeks" Galloway, and Ninja Turtles co-creator Kevin Eastman.

I've read part of the script for this and really want Solestar to be published. Solestar is co-titled "the Naive Project", due to the inherent naiveté of trying to change the world with art and comics. But it's only naive if we let it be naive. Please consider adding some funds to the Kickstarter to bring Siike's story to the entire world.

Here's the link once again.

You're Not Adam Lanza's Mother, You're Just Awful

The entire nation is having difficulties fathoming the events at Sandy Hook Elementary, where a man murdered 27 people (several of whom were little children) with semi-automatic and automatic weapons.  Many are simply speechless, unable to fathom such an insidious act against innocents. Many are very vocal, saying "never again" to a culture who worships guns and makes them so accessible despite all the casualties they facilitate. And, inevitably, some people are using this opportunity to draw attention to themselves. In the case of the so-called "Anarchist Soccer Mom", it's at the expense of her child.

Like too many blogs of mothers who have special needs children, ASM goes on about how hard her life is and how horrible her mentally disabled child is, taking her entire experience and distilling it into a sob story. A critical reader might see two sides to this story, because even if ASM's child is prone to violent outbursts, he's also the victim of a mother who tries to control every aspect of his life down to the color of pants he wears. (She doesn't believe her son belongs in jail, but constant meetings with social workers, an admitted slew of heavy duty medications, and an accelerated school with a heavily restrictive focus are all okay?). However, her position is sympathetic under the circumstances-- or would be, were it not for this line...

"I am sharing this story because I am Adam Lanza’s mother. I am Dylan Klebold’s and Eric Harris’s mother. I am James Holmes’s mother. I am Jared Loughner’s mother. I am Seung-Hui Cho’s mother. And these boys—and their mothers—need help. In the wake of another horrific national tragedy, it’s easy to talk about guns. But it’s time to talk about mental illness."

This woman, on a public forum where her real name isn't entirely concealed, compared her child to various mass-murderers who launched pre-meditated plans to murder scores of innocents. Never mind the fact that she admits her son is very personable when he's not in a meltdown state. Or that his worst actions are entirely irrational-- violent kicking and screaming, without the intellectual clarity one would need to successfully aim a firearm. No, her child's pathological defiance makes him the same as the kind of truly evil person who would go through with such a plan.

Her idea of talking about mental illness means stigmatizing everyone who looks like they could be dangerous (whether they are or not), putting them under constant surveillance, and prohibiting them from stepping out of line even slightly-- even if stepping out of line raises a reasonable objection. ASM says she wants God to help us all, especially her son. It seems more likely she wants God to strip her child of his free will, so he cannot object to her-- violently or otherwise. 

It may be easy to talk about guns (getting the small men in power to let go of their large assault weapons being another story), but guns are inanimate objects that can be subject to stringent regulation. Human beings can't be controlled so easily, nor should they. And if you compare your child to a violent killer, you're giving him reasons to actually become a violent killer-- if even his own family won't treat him like a human being.

Fuck you, Anarchist Soccer Mom.

The Goldfish's 10 Things Fiction Writers Need To Remember About Disability: The Spider-Man Movie People Should've Read This

One of the greatest essays I've read in the past few weeks online the Goldfish's 10 Things Fiction Writers Need to Remember About Disability. It's been broken up into Part One and Part Two, and both are well worth considering for any writer.

It's especially relevant to me because I read the first part the same week I saw the new Spider-Man movie, and while I liked that movie a lot, many of these things were ignored in regards to the film's antagonist. Of all the characters they could've picked, they chose Dr. Curt Connors, a.k.a. the Lizard. This character, who thought his amputated arm was such a disgrace that he would risk his own life to cure it (and, in doing so, turn himself into a giant reptile monster), represents several things on the Goldfish's list;

3. People with long-term impairments or chronic illness are not fascinated by their own condition or their own symptoms. While Connors doesn't natter on about statistics regarding amputated or malformed limbs, he is obsessed with curing his ailment, right down to his "World Without Weakness" rhetoric. Whatever sympathy he would've gotten for his handicap and his daily accessibility issues is lost when he starts using Eugenic language, and "weakness" is a term with further reaching connotations. Note that Connors is not dying, nor is his life completely ruined due to the lack of his arm. It's understandable that he would be frustrate with his limitation and admirable that he'd go into medical science, but using himself as a test subject shows a deeply internalized self-hating ableism. (And I get that he was feeling awful at the time, looking at being fired or even disappeared by Norman Osborn, but he'd been spouting the World Without Weakness rhetoric since his first scene.)


4. Disabled people are not all young, white, straight, affluent men. Connors is an older gentleman, so he at least beats the ageist part of that majority formula, but he's male, white, (presumably) straight, and lives comfortably. Then again, the Amazing Spider-Man movie only has a few female characters (albeit in important roles; Gwen Stacy is used superbly here as Peter's confidante as well as his girlfriend, and Emma Stone does a great job with the character. Aunt May is also used effectively, albeit with less screen time). It also has only one remotely significant character of color, that being Norman's henchman. And there are no gay, bi, or transgendered/intersexed characters. Not a surprise, and I can't hold it against this movie specifically, but it does illustrate the problem; young, white, straight, affluent, and abled men still control all the most visible narratives. 


Again, I liked Amazing Spider-Man a lot as a movie, and it's definitely in my top 5 of superhero films. But it's still a reminder that big budgets and blockbuster sales are rarely given to stories outside that very limited Hollywood narrative.


5. Disabled people go bad for a reason. There is a reason, but it's not a good one; surely Connors would've known that jamming himself full of reptile DNA wouldn't go well, either killing himself (a true act of weakness, regardless of physical or intellectual challenge) or turning himself into a monster. Since it's the latter, Connors is responsible for everyone the Lizard killed, in the same way that a drunk driver is accountable for the people they run over. Worse yet, even after Connors reverts back after his initial transformation, he's clearly gone evil by this point, addicted to the power of being the Lizard and chewing every inch of scenery.


6. There aren't many reasons for disabled people not to have sex. In the comics, Connors is (or was) married with a kid, so this was averted. Here, he seems to live alone and doesn't show any evidence of a romantic life. He's portrayed as completely sexless, though at least without a family, Connors doesn't betray those responsibilities. (And that might make the comic version worse, because in one of his most recent transformations, Connors ATE his son. Surely he'd rather have had a living son than a regrown arm, had he known what the Lizard serum would do?)


9. Disabled people know other disabled people. Connors is the only disabled character in the movie. Then again, if he'd talked to disabled people about his "World Without Weakness" nonsense, they might've been offended. I wish someone had asked him which is worse; not having an arm, or living in a world that makes you feel like a pariah without two arms? (this was done very well in X-Men First Class, when Mystique told off Xavier for trying to fit in with a bigoted world. By coincidence, that movie also had a major character try to cure his disability with science and fail miserably, with Hank McCoy's faulty mutant cure. That was even more foolish on Hank's part, because he wasn't physically limited beyond being forced to hide his simian feet, which was society's fault and not his own. Though he got off easier, because while the cure made him blue-furred, he did keep his mind, unlike Connors).


10. Disability is not a conflict that has to be resolved. Perhaps this is subverted because Connors is punished for trying to resolve that conflict, being sent to prison and not even keeping his regrown arm once he reverts to his human form. But the audience is supposed to sympathize with Connors for being an apparent "cripple", and for trying to cure his condition. And ideally, that sympathy would vanish once he acted on the feeling that he'd rather be dead or a monster than alive with one less arm than most. 


Again, thanks to The Goldfish for these great discussions!

Metal Gear Solid: Guns of the Patriots Novel Review: A Labor of La Li Lu Le Love

As anyone who's known me in the past two years can attest, I love Metal Gear. It's been the subject of my literal autistic obsession ever since I played the original PS1 game as a digital download. Since then, I've played through every game, beat all of the games in the Solid series multiple times, collected the various merchandise (including those beautiful but expensive Play Arts figures), and worked references into several aspects of my life (including my comics). Metal Gear has all the things I look for in a story; complex and sympathetic characters, a sophisticated (if often arcane and absurd) narrative, an ability to switch between wacky humor and tear-jerking drama, and a complex metatextual understanding of its own nature as a story. The best of the series, IMO, was Metal Gear Solid 4, the canonical ending of hero Solid Snake's story as he pulls his his dying, prematurely aged body together for one big final mission.

When I heard there was a novelization of MGS4, I was initially blasé about it; novelizations are usually mediocre to poor, as cheap cash-ins haphazardly trying to shoehorn a story into a different medium. The more appropriate piece of evidence for this case is Raymond Benson's novelization of the PS1 game, which treated the story as though it were a straightforward, cheesy James Bond epic, even giving Snake several lame one-liners (such as saying "Merry Christmas" to an enemy Genome Soldier, then choking him to death and saying "Christmas came early this year!"), which didn't fit at all with his usual warrior-poet personality. But this novelization has a much greater pedigree; it was written by the late Project Itoh (real name Satoshi Ito), a Japanese novelist and a personal friend of Metal Gear creator Hideo Kojima. Itoh was diagnosed with cancer in 2001, and fought a long, hard battle that tragically ended with his death in 2009. Kojima even writes the afterward of this novel, praising Itoh's work here and on his original stories (many of which were originally fan fiction of Kojima games like Snatcher), and saying that his "genes" are now infused into the Metal Gear mythology. Given how the series is all about genes and memes passing from generation to generation, this is lofty and touching praise.

But how is the novel itself? First of all, I should say that if you're a Metal Gear fan who's played MGS4, you absolutely have to read this book. The narrator is Hal "Otacon" Emmerich, who recounts the final days of his hetero life-mate's life (as he promised at the end of the game, bearing witness to everything the legendary hero was). This is a unique and more somber account of the events, leaving out the action scenes that wouldn't have contributed to the plot (such as the Beauty and the Beast Corps battles, grotesque parodies of Kojima's own wacky mini-bosses), and adding some background detail that fills in the gaps and revises the sillier elements of the story. For example, there's a section on the villainous Liquid Snake's history, which removes all the "recessive/dominant gene" nonsense of his backstory and instead tells about how he spent many of his formative years as a POW during the Gulf War, being degraded and tortured and left out to dry by his own government, while his twin-brother Solid Snake became the glorious hero of Outer Heaven and Zanzibar Land. There's also some interesting sci-fi explanations of elements that might have confused you, such as all the bar codes on Raiden's cyborg exoskeleton, or the full extent of Snake's illness. It may not have occurred to gamers that flying from Morroco to Peru to Czechlosovakia to Alaska to a floating ocean fortress was very hard on Snake's lungs, given all the wild differences in atmospheric pressure.

And if you haven't played any of the Metal Gear games? To be honest, that's a bit of a harder sell. MGS4 was a game with an extremely complex plot that invoked story threads from throughout Metal Gear history. The game worked because there were playable segments that didn't need such complex understanding, as well as an easily understandable and sympathetic main story of Old Snake's final mission. Here, a lot of it is left to exposition, including details that tell what characters feel instead of showing. It was written to be accessible to a wider audience, but in the end there's a bit too much hand-holding with the dialogue, especially when it comes to Solid Snake's motivations. Then again, that may be justified by the fact that this is written from Otacon's perspective, and it seems within his character to mix long technical pieces with blubbering histrionics. Especially when it comes to Snake, since Otacon lived and worked closely with the man for nine years, and saw more of Snake's tender core, rather than his tough super-soldier exterior.

But though the writing can be overwrought, I'd still recommend this as a piece of science fiction. For all its warts, including a convoluted narrative, a generous amount of Narm, and a villain who is possessed by the transplanted right hand of another villain, MGS4 is still a heartfelt story with a beautiful message. By this point, the series had evolved from being an anti-war narrative to an anti-digital-control-narrative to an ANTI-NARRATIVE NARRATIVE. The dystopian future of MGS4, where mercenary companies have dominated the world, war exists as the impetus for the global economy (how very far-fetched, he says with a roll of the eyes), and almost everyone has their senses monitored and influenced by nano machines, is the grim result of a power struggle between men trying to enforce their own ideal narratives upon the world. The utopian obsessions, spawned by different misinterpretations of a heroic idol, have led to a struggle of liberty vs. security with a result that satisfies neither. And Solid Snake, an artificially created man manipulated by both sides, has to put things right, motivated by no ideology but the desire to keep the world afloat so future generations can make their own decisions. The kanji character on Snake's uniform/powered armor in MGS4 stands for "To Let The World Be"*, and while this may at first sound like cowardice, it's actually a strong endorsement of volunteerism. If people do not make their decisions of their own free will, as opposed to subscribing to a systemic master narrative (be it religion, nationality, or the idolatry of a hero like the Boss from Metal Gear Solid 3), then there can be no progress.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to check out some of Project Itoh's original works, right after removing the tears from my eyes after experiencing the Microwave Hallway scene AGAIN.

* You can even use this for a disability rights reading, since it endorses acceptance of differences and individual perspectives over master narratives, including ableist ones like enforcing that people try to be "fixed". 

5 Ways to Magically Cure a Disabled Character, Part 1: Conspicuous Assistive Technology

In the comments section of my Batgirl review, it was asked why Barbara never used the DC Universe's supertech or magic to fix her spine. This is a question that comes up often around this issue, and is valid. Granted, it's a slippery slope towards removing any sense of dramatic urgency from the world, when you can just Phlebotnium any infirmity away, but it stretches disbelief a bit too far when characters bemoan their tragedies but don't go for the genre solutions right in front of them.

Of course, as another comment noted, supernatural injuries would be treated by supernatural medicines, and every medicine has its side-effects. So I'm doing this series of blogs to examine the ways in which these magic cures can be used to further the story and explore issues of disability, rather than simply swipe them under the rug and pretend they don't exist.

NUMBER FIVE: THE CURE IS DEFORMING (I.E. CYBORG PARTS)

This might stretch disbelief as well, because if the universe has technology sophisticated enough to replace a lost limb with a superhumanly strong prosthesis, it could go just a little further and replace it with one that looks human as well. However, it's a good symbolic way to show that even though the character has regained their mobility, they remain affected by the experience. It also makes the notion of "fixing" a disability less appealing, because disability is a social construct. This is a reason given for why Barbara Gordon never asked her pals in the Justice League to make her a walking exoskeleton; a wheelchair is hardly as conspicuous as a clunky robot suit that gives the wearer enough strength to crush a man like a paper cup.

BEST EXAMPLE: Cyborg of the Teen Titans. Victor Stone's life was saved from a life-threatening injury by replacing most of his body with metal parts. However, Vic wasn't very happy about this, and the fact that his father did the operation further intensified his daddy issues. He was kicked off of his high school football team, was abandoned by his girlfriend, and basically got cut off from society. It wasn't until he met the Teen Titans that he found a purpose to live again, fighting alongside other outsiders, saving lives, and taking out his anger on people who had it coming. But he was still mostly robotic, his human parts limited to half his face and bits of his torso.

What's also worth noting is that even though Victor's new body let him be a superhero, it also had a spectacular downside; it ruined his ability to be an athlete. When Vic was human, he loved football, and trained intensively so he could get stronger and stronger. But his cyborg body was not only superhumanly strong, but limits were built into his mechanical muscles. Several stories touched on the fact that he didn't like how he was robbed of the ability to improve himself with exercise. An episode of the cartoon even had this as the central conflict (though it ended with Cyborg beating the villain through the power of determination, presumably because his meaty bits gave him a boost of strength....somehow).

Other Sci-Fi/Fantasy Examples:

Raiden from Metal Gear Solid 4; The much-loathed replacement Snake from MGS2 got a major upgrade in MGS4, becoming a Cyborg Ninja. But he looked even less human than any of the other cyborgs, with claw-like hands, cloven feet, and the lower half of his head replaced by metal. At the ending he gets his combat limbs replaced with more realistic prostheses, but you can see all the seams. Raiden's most human appearance since his cyborganization still makes him look like a Ken doll.

Robotman from Doom Patrol: Poor Cliff Steele is an even greater extreme of the "disfiguring prostheses" trope; he's a brain in a jar, attached to a robotic body. Not only is he treated as a freak (even despite his heroic exploits; the Doom Patrol are some of the most Marvel-like characters in DC), but the amount of everyday human sensations that he's lost is profound. Cliff's described his predicament as phantom pain for his entire body.

Barret from Final Fantasy VII: The JRPG analogue to Mr. T lost his hand when being shot at by Shinra goons, the same goons who destroyed his hometown and killed his wife. The replacement for his hand was a huge cannon he used in vengeance. This is an odd version because Barret intentionally chose an intimidating weapon instead of a prosthetic hand, not caring about much beyond killing all of Shinra. In the Advent Children animated movie, he mellows out and gets a regular prosthetic, a metal hand that's conspicuous but actually functions like the original limb.

And again, you could just invent perfect replacements, but if it's a perfect transition, where's the story? An amputee might be pitied, but a cyborg is more likely to be feared and hated. It's a good metaphor for the way the experience of such trauma changes a person; once it's there, you can't be the same person you were, and others will pick on that.

Newsarama on Batgirl: Excerpts from Yours Truly!

A few weeks ago I was interviewed by Vaneta Rogers of Newsarama regarding the Batgirl fiasco. I have hardly been quiet about this series of unfortunate events, but I was honored by the request. Vaneta's piece is up, which also includes quotes from Denny O'Neil, John Ostrander, and Professor James B. South.

It is a high honor to be quoted alongside these industry legends. :)

Dan DiDio Talks Accessibility and Diversity at SDCC 2011

In Response To A Very Valid Point

This is a really feeble attempt to justify the return to Barbara Gordon Batgirl. As for the attempts to diversify... I will quote a great Master Jedi and let him respond...

" DO OR DO NOT. THERE IS NO TRY."

Oh, and the comment about "accessibility" just ground salt into the wound.

Cripz the Webcomic: A Bullet in the Spine of Bigotry

Cripz, a webcomic written by Jeff Preston and illustrated by Clara Madrenas, is to disability rights what the Boondocks was to issues of race-- a wonderful comic strip that not only takes a stand against the negative stereotypes, but takes them into the basement, chains them to a plastic chair, and works them over with power tools. It's not subtle about the way it addresses ableist inequities, and probably not for the easily offended. But some points need to be made with sledgehammer force, and Cripz obliges with the might of Mjolnir's uru head.

The comic follows two high school boys in wheelchairs; Rhett, a sensitive hyper-intellectual whose idealistic discourses tend to fly straight over peoples' heads, and Griff, a hyper-masculine rap enthusiast who milks his disabled status for all it's worth. They're eventually joined by a third character, an able-bodied girl named Katie who likes Rhett (though probably not to the same extent that he likes her) but finds Griff an obnoxious tool and doesn't take his handicap as an excuse. Griff is easily the funniest of the three, and flies in the face of the "inspirationally disadvantaged" stereotype. His innocuous look belies a wildly manipulative and borderline sociopathic mind, and were he not pitied for his disability, he would likely end up in juvenile hall. At times he seems like a male, paralyzed Sarah Silverman.

The art style seems very crude, as it has the characters as sketches on lined notebook paper pasted onto colored backgrounds. However, it works for the strip. It helps establish the otherness of the protagonists, and draws immediate attention to them. This is a talking-heads social commentary strip, so the cinematographic perspective derring-do of adventure strips isn't necessary. It works especially well in the "At the Movies" strips, where Rhett and Griff imagine themselves in movies that typically eschew the handicapped. (The Captain America spoof is especially funny, as Griff imagines that the super-soldier serum leaves Steve Rogers permanently crippled by accident, but allows him to stay out of the draft, so he can fuck all the women at home while the other men go overseas to die in battle. Yes, really.)

If I had a complaint about the strip, it would be the somewhat narrow way disability is perceived. Preston and Madrenas address the issues faced by the wheelchair-bound first and foremost, and they do touch on blindness and deafness. However, mental disabilities are not addressed, despite presenting very similar challenges. This is especially bothersome when the school janitor appears, who embodies most of the delusional deranged veteran cliches. It could easily be extrapolated that he qualifies as disabled via PTSD, yet he remains a subject for the main characters to mock. This is disappointing when you consider that Rhett and Griff are just as limited as him, even if it's their bodies and not their minds that give them the societal stigma.

But I hope that the creators will address this, because if they do, this will be one of the greatest humor comic strips ever made. Early on it captured my heart with its parody of Glee, specifically the horrid stereotype Artie's dreams of walking. Rhett's fantasy is not the ability to walk, but the possession of a pimped-out multi-story wheelchair stacked with hot chicks. Given my somewhat partisan opinion about Glee (i.e. that it's a horrible show that sits at the peak of self-aggrandizing Hollywood leftism, preaching equality but never actually taking any risks with its Benneton ad stereotypes), I immediately bookmarked the comic.

You can read all of Cripz Here.

TVTropes Gives Me Bigoted Backhanded 'Praise'

Every day I go to TV Tropes, and every day I look to see if there've been edits to the Ruby's World page. Usually there aren't, so I was excited to see that somebody had catalogued some new tropes in relation to my comic. However, some of the the tropes added were offensive, and not for their dismissal of my talents. I quote directly from the YMMV section;

"Better Than It Sounds: Anybody who's trolled around the internet for long enough is no stranger to mentally handicapped people doing stories revolving around their aspie fixations with art that looks like it was done by somebody in grade school. That such a thing could be well-written, even thought-provoking and emotionally moving, is something else altogether."

Putting aside the insult towards my art (which I don't think is fair, because unlike Chandler I don't plagiarize and actively work to improve my draughtsmanship and my visual repertoire), I find the comparison between me and Christian Weston Chandler to be appalling PERIOD. This is the webcomics equivalent of Godwin's Law. And I've been compared to the being of unfathomable patheticness because A.) I am also on the autism spectrum and B.) also do a webcomic. The praise at the end is a backhanded compliment, because it suggests that I shouldn't be able to write anything good because of my apparent mental handicaps.

Given how much of Ruby's World is about the value of the individual experience due to the way the individual uses the hand life deals them (no matter how crappy), and given the explicit anti-ableist references I've made in the comic, it seems the person who added that trope didn't glean anything from my work. Apparently the value to my comic is in spite of my neurology, and is not informed by it.

Jesus, people, if you want to say "Your Webcomic Is Bad and You Should Feel Bad" to me, say it. Don't insult everyone on the spectrum in doing so, and FOR GOD'S SAKES DON'T USE CHRIS-CHAN AS YOUR STEREOTYPE OF AUTISM.

Learning Social Skills with Solid Snake

Metal Gear Solid is infamous for its many repeated quirks, including rampant fourth wall breakage, high proportions of cutscenes, rampant homo-eroticism, and coaxing tears out of even the most masculine gamers' eyes. One of the most prominent quirks is protagonist Solid Snake's tendency to echo whatever is being said to him, repeating the most significant proper noun of the previous statement as a question. The most obvious example occurs whenever the titular Metal Gear robot is mentioned, in which Snake will say, "Metal Gear?!"

This can be annoying, but it's also a valuable conversation-maintenance tactic that can be applied to real life. By repeating the subject of the other person's conversation, Snake demonstrates that he was listening to what they were saying. He also fills in what otherwise would have been an awkward pause had he not spoken up. And by phrasing it as a question, he shows to the other person that he's interested in what they're saying and wants to hear more. Since almost everybody likes to be asked questions, they won't scrutinize the fact that Snake isn't contributing much to the conversation himself (unless he's making some poetic speech about the battlefield, in which case you listen because it's Snake).

Snake is not only a master of CQC, but he demonstrates with elegant simplicity an uncanny understanding of the dynamics of conversation.

Gail Simone Talks Batgirl, and why Able-Bodied is Better

In light of the online controversy regarding the new, seemingly able-bodied Batgirl series, Gail Simone gave an interview with Newsarama blogger Jill Pantozzi (who wrote a wonderful essay about the importance of the paraplegic Oracle's merits, as an inspiration for her own life and physical challenges). Simone was nice enough to respond to Pantozzi's article with an interview; however, while Simone was limited by her inability to divulge spoilers about the new title, she made comments that betray her responsibilities not only to represent people with disabilities, but to tell a good story respecting the intelligence of the readers.

While Simone remains civil in the Interview, her arguments for the able-bodied Barbara Gordon Batgirl use the worst tendencies of modern DC Comics as an excuse for retconning Barbara's spine back-- in other words, saying that "everyone else is jumping off a cliff, so I might as well too". She mentions various resurrections and magical "healings" as reasons why erasing the spinal damage done by the Joker's bullet should be acceptable...

"For newsworthiness, well, I just took a look the top sales charts for Marvel and DC, and it's unavoidable...the stories that the readers support in large numbers are nearly all in the middle of storylines that were considered completely unthinkable at one point; Hal Jordon replacing Kyle Rayner, Bucky returning from the dead, Jason Todd returning from the dead, Johnny Storm dying, Dick Grayson as Batman, Bruce Wayne dying, Barry Allen returning as the Flash, on and on and on. To some, these are all stunts, but they have been executed brilliantly and I strongly suspect many will be among the best-remembered stories of their respective runs.

...it's open to strong debate wether or not these are brilliant stories. Even the ones that were executed brilliantly have their problems; for example, having Batman's death be explicitly temporary from day one undermined what little drama superhero comics retain. But as Simone continues to dodge the issue, she tries to give plot-related reasons to remove Oracle that sidestep the disability issue...

"A lot of readers and a lot of editors had a story problem with Oracle, in that she made for such an easy, convenient story accelerator, that we missed the sense of having characters have to struggle to discover, to solve mysteries. Famously, it helped make Batman less of a detective and more of a monster hunter."

So don't use her as a convenient story accelerator. Just because you can use a character's skills as a deus ex machina doesn't mean you have to. And it gets especially more damning when she tries to divide the opinions of PWD advocates...

"But I want to get this out really quickly, it's about the myth of monolithic opinion. It's been sort of simply accepted that there's this block of disabled folks who are against this idea, en masse, and I do have to say quickly that that's not the case. There has always been a vocal minority of PWD [people with disabilities] who wanted to see Babs healed and out of the chair, always. It started out a tiny minority but it did get larger as the years went on. Again, I don't want those people to be forgotten. Even with some PWD advocacy groups, the response has always been mixed. I feel like I have to represent that group as well, here. It's a much smaller group, as far as I can tell, however. "

I've encountered people, even people with disabilities who want to see Babs healed and out of the chair. I tend not to see them as people whose opinions are worth acknowledging. Their opinion is rooted in escapist wish fulfillment, trying to imagine a world where disabling injuries can be magically healed. That's all well and good, but if you find your own challenges such a curse, escaping in the adventures of a character who does get her legs back isn't going to solve shit. It's just a soma that, instead of letting you contextualize your own experience through fiction and receive a greater understanding, simply gives you a brief distraction from reality.

A major reason many people (myself included) like Oracle is because she's one of the few superhero characters who is legitimately handicapped with no tie-in superpowers. She doesn't have super-compensating senses like the blind Daredevil, or super-powered artificial limbs like the disfigured Cyborg. She is in a wheelchair, and all of her activities have to be done from that chair. The way she negotiates life and ethics from a place of severe physical and societal limitations is inspiring, and as Jill Pantozzi expressed, serves as a role model in the best ways.

But then, this is the straw on my metaphorical hump...

"Role model or not, that is problematic and uncomfortable, and the excuses to not cure her, in a world of purple rays and magic and super-science, are often unconvincing or wholly meta-textual. And the longer it goes on, the more it has stretched credibility."

Of course it's meta-textual, it's a fucking story. If you take continuity literally, you can use said purple rays and magic and super-science to solve all problems. You just pull out whatever deus ex machina you want and erase the conflict, thus erasing the drama. Again, this makes fiction into an escape, not a catharsis. Instead of creating a world to reflect and better understand our own, you're just creating a virtual reality that people can cower to when actual reality is too hard.

Simone goes on to talk about how she's always loved Batgirl, and how she's always wanted to write Barbara as Batgirl, and how being shot by the Joker was her motivation for starting the Women in Refrigerators project. She also says that she was impressed by the writers who made Barbara stronger person from being in the chair, and didn't want to take away the character she became through that adversity. But that appears to be exactly what she's doing, otherwise she wouldn't need to get on the defensive. No matter how great the character became in Birds of Prey, under the hand of Simone, Dixon, and others, it means nothing because the nostalgia for the character in the less-than-serious 60's show is paramount. Yes, Barbara's transition to Oracle came from a Fridging in The Killing Joke, where she was shot by the Joker just to make him look more evil. But does that mean the 20 years of the character since then have been for nothing?

Simone has become an excellent writer not just for her skills, but for her acknowledgement that the world of superheroes is full of perspectives beyond the majority, just like our own. This feels like a betrayal, because it sure sounds like she's erasing one of those perspectives to go back to a fantasy FROM the minority.

It doesn't matter that this is Barbara's first solo ongoing series, because if her mobility is fully restored and her experiences are washed away, she's just yet another supermodel in tights, and tights borrowed from a male character at that. When you remove the adversity, you remove the conflict, and you remove the meaning gained.

DC and Batgirl Walk To The Bank?

As part of DC's latest attempt to solve their continuity problems via increasingly convoluted reboots, Batgirl returns in a new series written by Gail Simone (who handled the character for years in her excellent Birds of Prey run). It's been confirmed that the new Batgirl is Barbara Gordon, who originally had the role but gave it up after being shot by the Joker, which left her in a wheelchair (and prompted her to become Oracle, Batman's tech-guru, founding member of the Birds of Prey, and a much more interesting character).

I don't want to jump to conclusions, so I'm hoping the speculation that this is Barbara Gordon in a high-tech Batgirl armor that gives her prosthetic locomotion is correct. In that case, it's a progression of the character, putting her back on the frontlines but still making it clear that she's disabled, and still has to cope with the physical and psychological challenges posed by her handicap (especially since she'd still have the memories and associated PTSD of being gruesomely shot by the Joker, one of the most horrifyingly sadistic villains in fiction). Walking via robot suit isn't a substitute for having working legs, especially since Barbara wouldn't be in the costume 24/7. She'd lose the symbolism of being DC's full-time wheelchair character, but if there was a compelling reason for her to take up crimefighting, it could work.

However, if this is just rebooting Barbara back to being an able-bodied superheroine (albeit an inferior distaff counterpart to Batman, with the patronizing codename "BatGIRL" despite being over 18 years old), then it's incredibly insulting. It's insulting to readers with physical and/or mental handicaps who can't retcon away their challenges. It's insulting to readers who enjoyed seeing the character progress into not only a prominent disabled character, but a genuinely interesting character thanks to the way the experience shaped her (as while Barbara was a super-genius, she was also capable of manipulating her friends for the greater good, a character trait that doesn't have anything to do with her handicap). And it's insulting to fans of Gail Simone to see that she doesn't respect the meaning fans drew from her work with Barbara, such as having the character appear to be magically cured only to have it be little more than the return of feeling to her toes (which Barbara coped with marvelously, choosing to be grateful for the little message that her limbs were still there).

Please let it be the former.

Toys R Us Devalues The Meaning Of Heroism

If you've been to Toys R Us in the past couple of years, as a parent getting something for your kids or as an adult collector getting toys for yourself, you've probably seen the Autism Speaks promotions they're doing. This pro-cure organization, the organization that takes money largely for abstract research and pharmaceutical studies** over helping actual people, asks TRU customers to donate to help "solve the puzzle". Thus, the experience of the autistic people themselves is marginalized, as we are just a puzzle to be solved, a weird disorder to be put before AS' metaphorical Dr. House so it may be cured and the normal person within us can be freed.

It always bugs the crap out of me when I'm asked to donate at the register, and since they've started doing their "be a hero for autism" advertising, it's especially aggravating. Because, as a fan of the superhero comics that have led me into the store even beyond the point when it was "age-appropriate", I tend to think that the hero label should be applied to those who undertake difficult tasks for a noble cause. Raising an autistic child, especially a severely handicapped one, is a difficult task, but it's how the parent copes with the task and treats their child that determines their heroism, not the simple fact that they have the burden. (Lord knows I've seen plenty of parents of autistic people who are assholes, as well as great parents like my own). And putting down a dollar when going to a toy store means absolutely nothing. You're not sacrificing anything by giving your pocket change to a faceless "nonprofit" so they can do the work for you while you hold onto a glimmer of self-aggrandization.

And the worst part is the fact that the cashiers who ask me these questions aren't to blame, because they're just doing their job. Otherwise I'd prepare for the inevitable "do you want to be a hero for autism" question by putting on my best Solid Snake voice, and growling, "I'm no hero. I'm just an old aspie brought out of retirement for some new transformers."

* Me being in the latter category, obviously.
** Yeah, I'm getting vibes from the third X-Men movie here. I SAY WE ARE THE CURE!!!!

Hal "Otacon" Emmerich, Metal Gear Solid's Autistic Hero?

Fictional characters on the autism spectrum are hard to find, and good characters in that category are almost non-existent. As autism has become more prevalent, we've seen it portrayed more often in the media, but those portrayals too often fall into the stereotypes, such as the damaged, volatile child unwittingly tearing apart his supportive family, or the emotionless polymath sociopath who can do horrible things without seeing a problem. There are very few autistic protagonists, or even supporting characters of a positive nature*.

Thus, many autistic people have found themselves speculating on which of their favorite fictional characters fit the spectrum, following the completely understandable need to see inspiring figures to fit into their own narrative world. Sometimes these fictional diagnoses are simple wish fulfillment that don't describe the diagnosed character at all, such as claiming that Severus Snape of Harry Potter has Asperger's Syndrome**. Others are much more accurate, such as Grant Morrison's in-universe speculation that Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four is autistic, and could (and should) be incorporated into canon.

An example of the latter is Hal "Otacon" Emmerich, Solid Snake's tech-guy sidekick in the Metal Gear Solid series of video games. Otacon's spectrum traits go beyond simply being a nerd, and put him squarely in the neuroatypical category. If you don't believe me, here's the evidence...

WARNING: SPOILERS FOR THE GAMES AHEAD

1.) Otacon's interests are (or were) so obsessive and insular that he missed the harsh realities attached. When he was introduced in the PSOne game, he was designing a Metal Gear unit because he wanted to make robots like he'd seen in anime. He was attached to that utopian sci-fi narrative, the kind where fantastical machines keep people safe. He was also completely oblivious to the fact that his creation was being used as a platform for nuclear missiles, until Snake bluntly spelled it out for him. Otacon's code-name is short for "Otaku Convention", and his desk is covered with little toys and posters. In another series, he might have been able to play out his fantasies and help the world with his giant robot fixation. In Metal Gear, of course, he became instrumental in the creation of the world's most devastating WMD.

2.) Otacon is extremely literal-minded. This is used with hilarious effect in the Snake campaign of Metal Gear Solid 2, where the good doctor tries to read Snake ancient words of wisdom upon saving his data (the way Mei Ling did in the previous game). Unfortunately, he completely misses the point of those famous quotes, and comes up with extremely bizarre interpretations after taking them at face value. The phrase "It's better to be first among roosters instead of last among bulls", according to Otacon, means that it's better to be a chicken because cows are subjected to alien cattle mutilations.

3.) Otacon is TERRIBLE at understanding his relationships. The extent to which he does not comprehend others' intentions (or his own, for that matter) leads to some of the most tragic scenes in a series known for its depressing tone. In MGS1, Otacon falls for Sniper Wolf, a bloodthirsty sniper and one of the terrorists holding him hostage. It is unlikely that she reciprocates beyond a show of basic decency (as he helped feed her dogs), but Otacon takes this mercy and uses it to fuel his childish crush. It's touchingly pathetic how fast-- and how hard-- he falls for Wolf, especially after her demise at the hands of Solid Snake. And we see it happen again in MGS4, when the morally ambiguous Dr. Naomi Hunter seduces Otacon so she can get data needed for a larger plan. The ease with which she manipulates him, saying all the right words about atoning for the sins of her science to create a quick emotional bond, is disturbing to watch when you know what she's up to.

The is explored in MGS2, where we learn about Otacon's past-- he was always socially isolated, and his sole companions were the family his father married-- his step-sister and step-mother. He became strongly attached to the former and even played house with her, despite the fact that she was five years old and he was a teenager (though Otacon had no salacious intentions spending so much time with the little girl-- he just wanted to experience family). Unfortunately, he was also "seduced"*** by his step-mother, which led to his father's suicide and Otacon subsequently running away from home. We don't hear much about the details other than Otacon's words (which are words of contrition, blaming himself for all of this), but it's unlikely that he understood what was going on at that point-- his inherent lack of social awareness facilitated all these tragedies.

There's also the fact that by far Otacon's strongest relationship is with Snake, as the two men work and live together, and even end up adopting a child in MGS4. The homoerotic subtext is so thick that it basically ends up as text, but it's not exactly clear if Otacon's feelings for Snake are romantic. He likely doesn't understand what he feels for Snake, other than the intensity of the connection. The sensitive nerd and the dour super-soldier end up having quite a bit in common, as seen in the "bad" ending**** of MGS1. Both are profoundly isolated human beings, even if Otacon's loneliness is more internalized than his lab-grown, shell-shocked veteran partner.

4.) Most importantly, Otacon is a complex and sympathetic character. As I said before, when autistic characters are shown in most fiction, they're shown in terms of stereotypes and plot devices. But Otacon grows and changes over the course of Metal Gear Solid, and provides a vital pillar of strength. He's the most genuinely decent character in the entire series, surpassed only by The Boss from the prequel MGS3. And The Boss is the series' messiah figure, so it's not really a contest.

When we first see Otacon, it's as a messy-haired, badly-dressed, bespectacled little dork . His first appearance is hardly auspicious, as he's wetting himself in terror when confronted by a crazed cyborg ninja. But he shows tremendous courage later in the game, taking full accountability for his part in Metal Gear's creation and risking his life to shut it down. In the second game, he's Snake's tech-guy and half of the anti-Metal Gear organization Philanthropy, working to destroy those robotic WMDs despite the risk to his personal safety. He's also become more attractive and well-dressed, though still a bit dorky looking. And by MGS4, Otacon has developed a rugged handsomeness that puts him square in Hot Scientist territory. Poor hygiene is a common trait in autistic people, but it's not an insurmountable habit-- Otacon proves this.

But most importantly, Otacon is by Snake's side during all these ordeals. Snake is the action hero of Metal Gear Solid, the one putting his life on the line at every turn. But Snake couldn't be anywhere near as successful without Otacon's support. In MGS4, Snake has prematurely aged due to his cloned physiology breaking down, and has only a few months left to live. Otacon's tech is the only thing allowing Snake to survive on the battlefield; the strength-boosting Octocamo suit was Otacon's invention, as were the vision-enhancing Solid Eye and the helper robot "Metal Gear Mark 2" (redeeming the machine's tainted name). But Otacon's greatest act comes at the end of the game, when the still-dying Snake is wondering what he has left to live for in the new world, and Otacon promises to bear witness to Snake's final days. Otacon refuses to let Snake die alone and unloved.

I doubt Hideo Kojima created Otacon with autism in mind, but if the autism label is attached to the character, it not only fits him but helps eradicate many of the negative stereotypes.

* INSERT OBLIGATORY RUBY'S WORLD LINK
** There's no evidence for this in the books, other than Snape being a thoroughly repulsive human being-- and that's just proof that he's a repulsive human being, even if he didn't prove outright evil.
*** Otacon's words. But it's a clear case of rape, and one of the few instances where female-on-male rape is shown to be just as bad.
**** In which female love interest Meryl doesn't survive, and is replaced by Otacon as Snake's symbolic reason to keep on living.