Final Thoughts...

To end the semester I wanted to share this clip from one of my favorite TV shows, The Big Bang Theory. It's a humorous look at what happens when you start to take comic book superheroes WAY to seriously:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1tGMlsoWgQ

Encyclopedia of Super-beings: MASQUE

Real Name: Jen Armour

Ability: shape shifting

Alter-ego: Jason Ax

Current whereabouts: unconfirmed

Story: Falsely convicted of killing her husband, Masque was on death row, about to be executed, when her transformation occurred. An unknown person switched the lethal injection with a serum that gave her the power to change her shape (she later searched for her mysterious benefactor, to no avail). While the serum was altering her DNA she appeared to be dead and was taken to the prison mortuary. Upon waking, she took the form of a bird and flew to freedom. Her first act was to track down her husband’s real killer. With the help of her ability she was able to find out that her husband was killed by a gang for failing to pay protection money on his restaurant. Masque infiltrated the gang by impersonating one of their recruits and took them down from the inside. After the success of this first mission she became enamored of the idea of using her skills to rid L.A. of the menace of gangs. As a former probation officer, Masque knew that the organization with the information she needed was the Major Gang Task Force of the LAPD, run by notorious misogynist Mack Lee. To get on the force, Masque created the hyper-masculine alter-ego Jason Ax. A few years later, during a routine gang infiltration, Masque found herself falling in love with a gang leader; through her intimacy with him she realized that her war on gangs was only treating a symptom, not the cause. That same month, Jason Ax was killed in a raid and dumped in a river. No body was ever found. The gang leader in question, “D,” is believed to be the media mogul and philanthropist Don Delano, who currently lives in Malibu with his life partner Jed Abel.

The Escapist

These are a few covers for issues of The Escapist that were created based on Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. They were written by Brian K. Vaughn and published by Dark Horse Comics.

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay

This 636 page novel by Michael Chabon is an epic tale of two teenage boys, Samuel Klayman and Josef Kavalier, who create a comic book superhero, The Escapist. It is very clear from the beginning that Chabon has done his research. The story of The Escapist’s creation very closely resembles that of Superman’s (as told by Tom De Haven in Our Hero). Two Jewish boys with something to prove create a superhero in the hopes of making a fortune and naively sign away their rights to the character. Chabon takes the outline of Siegel and Schuster’s story and enhances it with a rich and compelling plot that gives the reader a better sense of the development of the comic book industry and the people in it than any collection of historical facts. This book explores the superhero genre by means of the real people behind it; their desires, anxieties and preoccupations become the fuel for this costumed crusader. The Escapist is wish fulfillment at its best.

Sammy Clay (he changed his name to something “less Jewish”) is the driving force behind The Escapist. When he discovers that his cousin Joe is an artist he sees his chance to impress his boss, Sheldon Anapol, and get a better job than writing advertisements for novelty items. Superman has just become a raging success, and Sammy thinks that he and Joe can create the next big superhero. Growing up in Brooklyn, Sammy was struck with polio which left him physically weak. He was also abandoned by his father; a circus strongman nicknamed The Mighty Molecule. For Sammy, The Escapist is a way of overcompensating for his physicality and of creating a father-figure whom he can idolize. Creating the comic provides an escape (pun intended) from the poverty and depression of his family life. He has the gift of an overactive imagination, which allows him to write tons of stories, issue after issue. Later in life he becomes disillusioned with the industry but no matter how hard he tries, he cannot make the transition to becoming “a real writer.”

Joe Kavalier, Sammy’s artist cousin, is perhaps the most complex and interesting character in the novel. He arrives in Brooklyn after a long and arduous journey in which he was snuck out of Prague in the coffin of a golem (a creature of Jewish folklore; generally made of clay and believed to come alive with the carving of a word on its forehead). The Escapist is based on his experiences as an apprentice to a renowned escape artist, Bernard Kornblum, from whom he learned the tricks of the trade. It is important to Joe that the character be involved in the struggle against Hitler and the Nazis, and as such The Escapist’s motivation is the need “to procure the freedom of others, whether physical or metaphysical, emotional or economic” (133). With his golden key, The Escapist (a.k.a. Tom Mayflower) frees people from the evil organization known as the Iron Chain. As a result, The Escapist is fighting Nazis before WWII has even started, which makes a lot of people nervous. For Joe, The Escapist is a way of venting his anger at the people who are oppressing his Jewish family back in Prague. When fighting fictional battles ceases to be enough, Joe takes to assaulting random Germans he encounters around New York, one of whom later tried to blow him up. After his brother, the last surviving member of his family, dies in a submarine attack on a refugee boat Joe enlists in the U.S. army in a misguided attempt to destroy the Nazi regime.

As I mentioned previously, the co-creators of The Escapist are cheated of their full pay-out by their naïve eagerness to have their comic books published. That’s not to say that they were poor, by the standards of the 1930s and 40s they did quite well for themselves. Once The Escapist became popular, the character was developed into a radio show, and eventually into a TV series (much like Superman). The hero was portrayed in both mediums by Tracy Bacon, an attractive, charismatic man who sparks a tentative relationship with Sammy. Chabon deals sensitively with Sammy’s exploration of his sexuality, which is a driving force in Sammy’s life. He rejects Bacon’s invitation to move with him to California after a horrific sexual experience leaves him ashamed and disgusted with himself. During the Senate hearings that follow the publication of Wertham’s book (Seduction of the Innocent) he is “outed” on national television after the portrayal of superhero/sidekick relationships in his comics is questioned. This experience leads him to accept the parts of himself which he had suppressed (in an act at self-denial he had married Joe’s sweetheart after his cousin joined the army and raised their kid as his own). Over the years The Escapist is written and drawn by a number of different people, and like Superman, the character is quite different in each person’s interpretation. Even under Sammy and Joe’s direction, the stories and art change based on influences from their lives; seeing Citizen Kane was a particularly profound experience for them in terms of aesthetics and storytelling. These are just a few examples of how Chabon weaves historical fact with the lives of his fictional characters.

The idea of the golem is an important one to the story, since that’s essentially what The Escapist is for Sammy and Joe. They pour all of their frustrations and longings into him and he fights their battles for them. In this way The Escapist is also their means of escape, of detaching from the uncomfortable reality of their powerlessness. As Joe discovers when he finally kills a German soldier, reality is not that simple. He thought that the act would be cathartic for him, but instead he is filled only with revulsion. For most of his adult life Sammy longs to escape from the comics industry and pursue his writing dreams, and yet it’s not until the end of the novel that he finally runs away to California, as he had planned many years prior. By the end of the novel, both Joe and Sammy have escaped the things that have tormented them throughout their lives (guilt and cowardice, respectively). That is the power of The Escapist.

Chabon’s writing is lush and his characters so well developed that they could walk right off the page. The chapters that provide the origin stories of Joe and Sammy’s leading characters, The Escapist and Luna Moth, are perhaps the best segments of the book. And then there are the tales with the tale, like the story of how Joe saved Salvador Dali from drowning inside an undersea diver’s suit in the middle of a living room in Greenwich Village. It’s elements like this that really make the novel. Although the novel is dense and sometimes the plot falters under the massive force of Chabon’s vision, I would definitely recommend this novel for anyone interested in learning about the Golden Age of comics without cracking open a history book.

X23: Lots of Mutant Angst

“The mutant body is explicitly traumatic, armored against the world outside yet racked and torn apart by complex forces within” writes Scott Bukatman in “X-Bodies: The Torment of the Mutant Superhero.” He adds, “The mutant body is oxymoronic: rigidly protected but dangerously unstable.” A perfect illustration of this is X23, the angst-ridden female clone of Wolverine. Her Adamantium coated claws and healing powers shield her from physical harm, but inside she is tormented by her killer instincts and deep set fears about the state of her soul. The first issue proves that she is “dangerously unstable” when she goes berserk and slaughters the inhabitants of a mutant halfway house. In this second issue, much like the first, the panels are overwhelmingly dark, not only in content but in color as well.

Although I don’t think that the art of this comic is particularly well done, I do like the fact that the visuals are used to tell the story, instead of having a ton of explanatory text (as was the case in The Dark Phoenix Saga, among others). In this way the dialogue is able to more closely replicate actual speech while the plot action is transmitted via the visual art. For instance, instead of having a thought bubble to explain to the reader that X23 is feeling panicked and anxious, the artist provides us with a close up panel of her hand clenching. In fact, throughout this issue X23’s mental state is conveyed through her facial expressions and body language rather than through cumbersome text (see above).

The plot of this issue focuses on X23’s relationship with Wolverine, whose soul (as a part of a story arc within his own comic) has been sent to hell and his body left behind to be inhabited by a demon. Not only is she being tormented by her inner demons, there is literally a demon trying to ruin her life (just in case she didn’t already have enough problems…). Bukatman also writes that “The bodily torment of the mutant superhero expresses a desire, a need, to transcend the confines of the body.” This is a key aspect of X23’s character, since her main concern is separating/differentiating her soul from the killing machine that is her body. At the end of this issue she makes a deal with Wolverine that if she can prove the existence of her soul then he will save the life of her mutant friend Julian (who had just moments before been gored by Wolverine’s claws).

As a female character, X23 is surprisingly not that problematic. Bukatman comments on the “spectacle” of the female body in comics, saying that “the fetishism of breasts, thighs and hair is…complete.” However, X23’s body has not been an object of focus in either of the two issues so far. She wears combat boots (sensible) and is frequently depicted wearing pants and a jacket. The second issue depicts her body more provocatively in a short, form-fitting hospital gown, but even this is nowhere near as bad as some other female characters out there. While X23 may not be a spectacle for the male eye, the older X-women certainly are. In the few panels where Storm and the White Queen appear, they are scantily clad and their breasts are the inescapable focal point of the image. Perhaps it is X23’s youth that gives the artists pause when deciding how to present her body.

Even X23’s powers break the mold of female superheroes. Bukatman points out that traditionally these characters have had “such wimpy powers as invisibility or telekinesis.” As a clone, X23 has appropriated the uber-masculine powers of Wolverine, and I believe that such physical prowess is highly uncommon among super-powered females. In another interesting role reversal, her male friend Julian is telekinetic. However, her powers could also be seen as problematic because X23 has essentially been turned into a man. Masculine abilities are still positioned as the ideal in this instance. What superhero comics really need is a female character with powers that are somewhere in-between wimpy and hyper-masculine. But what is that power? I have no idea. Anyway, the third issue of X23 comes out pretty soon and I’m looking forward to seeing what’s next for this character…

Jekyll/Hyde Syndrome: Examining the relationship between heroes and villains

The element of superhero comics that has captured my interest as a topic for the final paper is the relationship between hero and villain. I have frequently noticed in my reading of comic books both in and out of class that superheroes have a tendency to create their own villains (or in some cases to be their own villains). In order to explore this phenomenon I will write a paper using Hegel’s theory of the master-slave dialectic, along with scholarly publications on similar topics. My paper will examine the symbiotic relationship between hero and villain as seen in The Dark Knight Returns, Promethea, Fantastic Four, etc. I will discuss the need for a hero to have a counterpart villain of near equal strength and ability in order to add interest to their continual struggle against the forces of evil (because thwarting bank robberies all the time gets a little dull). I will alter Frank Miller’s notion that the city has to be bad enough to justify the hero and say instead that there must be a villain evil enough to justify the hero (and usually such a being must be created, since super villains are not naturally occurring). I will consider the possibility that villains represent something besides themselves; that they are a figurehead for greater societal problems that have no body to be attacked. I will discuss how superheroes that fight against themselves are just internalizing this classic angst. I will talk about the physical differences between heroes and villains, costumes, dialogue, etc. I may conclude that the world might actually be safer if superheroes didn’t exist, since there would be no super villains. As you can see I still have a bit of work to do as far as honing the topic, but this should give you a pretty good idea of what I’m aiming for. I appreciate any and all feedback!

Iron Man

Unlike the plethora of other superhero movies out there, Jon Favreau’s Iron Man (2008) takes a “B-list” Marvel superhero and creates a thoroughly enjoyable two hour spectacle, complete with all the elements an audience expects from the genre, plus some much needed charisma. Regardless of how they feel about the movie as a whole, most critics agree that the casting of Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark was a stroke of genius. “Oceans of soul rage and roil behind those melted-chocolate eyes, and perhaps no actor alive better conveys arrogance, weakness, humor and self-awareness by simply being. One of the twists of ‘Iron Man’ is that, unlike comic books in which insecure adolescents come to terms with their burgeoning physical powers, here a powerful, middle-aged man finds strength in vulnerability,” writes Ann Hornaday of The Washington Post. Christopher Orr of The New Republic adds, “[I]t’s Downey’s vibe--the mordant wit, the boyish enthusiasm, the careful balance of self-love and self-loathing--that gives the film its sharp, comic sensibility and elevates it near the top of what was beginning to seem an exhausted genre.”

Hallmarks of the “exhausted genre” that Orr refers to are inescapably present in the film, which exhibits the issues that trouble most, if not all, superhero comics. Modern readers are generally offended or appalled by stereotypical portrayals of Germans, Japanese and Russians in old comic books, yet this movie offers us an unflinching caricature of Middle Eastern terrorists hiding in caves. To my surprise, none of the reviews I read mentioned any sense of outrage or consternation at these portrayals. The fact that Stark befriends the lightest skinned man, who coincidentally is wearing a suit instead of traditional garb, (his fellow captive Yelsin) does nothing to alleviate concerns about ethnic profiling. As we have seen, superhero stories frequently reflect social, political and economic milieu; thus Iron Man is simply a projection of the public concern with military action in Iraq and Afghanistan, just as the other superheroes were in their respective times. We seem to need these limited representations of our enemies (in this case they are either terrorists or frightened villagers) in order to justify making them “the other” and using force against them. Comic book superheroes appear to serve as the id of society, letting us exercise our repressed desires and unconscious preoccupations in a “safe” environment. But where’s the line between healthy expression and promoting damaging attitudes and stereotypes?

In true vigilante fashion, Iron Man takes it upon himself to do the job the U.S. government is incapable of doing, although it is Tony Stark’s company who created the problem in the first place. This raises the same issue as Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns, which is the tendency of superheroes to beget their own villains. Without Stark Industries the terrorists would not be armed, and without the original Iron Man suit Obadiah Stain would not have created his monstrous variation of it. We applaud Iron Man’s ability to liberate the oppressed townspeople of Golmira, yet the implications of his interference are not fully explored. Surely the notion of one man imposing his self-righteous agenda on the world reeks of fascism? Gershom Legman writes in “Love and Death: A Study in Censorship” that the so called “justice” provided by superheroes is simply a glorified version of lynching in which the hero acts as judge, jury and executioner. Superheroes “[are] really peddling a philosophy of ‘hooded justice’ in no way distinguishable from Hitler and the Ku Klux Klan.” A whole lot of power in the hands of one individual is widely regarded as a bad thing (“absolute power corrupts absolutely”), and yet this film would have us forget what we know and believe that such concentrated power could potentially be a good thing. [This issue is further addressed in the sequel, in which Tony Stark refuses to hand over the suit to the government, exclaiming “I did you a favor. I have successfully privatized world peace!”]

Roger Ebert praises the film for showing “the reality in our own world today: Armaments are escalating beyond the ability to control them. In most movies in this genre, the goal would be to create bigger and better weapons. How unique that Tony Stark wants to disarm. It makes him a superhero who can think, reason and draw moral conclusions, instead of one who recites platitudes.” I disagree. What else is the Iron Man suit but a “bigger and better weapon?” One that allows him, through the use of fear, to control the world’s population: “I haven’t come across anyone man enough to go toe to toe with me on my best day!” (Iron Man 2). On the surface, this film is a well-acted and engaging saga of personal redemption, but underneath lies a more insidious narrative about the fine line between the use and abuse of power.