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| JJJ was right. Who knew? |
The following is from the comments box at Newsarama - Here - under where Graeme McMillan had kindly posted a quote from Thursday's piece here at TooBusyThinking about Spider-Man's torture of the Sandman. My apologies to the Mr Wacker of Marvel if the following is somehow from another Steve Wacker, though it does seem to be the editor of the Spider-Man line who's contributing to the predominantly one-sided debate there. (*1) If it isn't, I'll obviously make my sincere apologies and remove this. Still, those who wonder how seriously certain quarters at Marvel take the ethical content of the company's publications, and who also wonder how we can end up with so many super-heroic torturers, may find some clues in the following, should it be the genuine article;
"I remember when Spidey captured Sandman In a vacuum or dispersed his sand over the city. Clearly Marvel hates the Geneva Conventions. I’ll never understand why these exaggerated fantasy super hero comics have so much fantasy and exaggeration!"
*1:- It seems it is Wacker, since he's responded via his Twitter account. You can find them at his account & mine for the night of 2/6/12, including his belief that "These are fantasy stories to entertain. Adults just tend to overthink them to find enemies".)
Strange how ethical issues are something which representatives at Marvel are happy to shout about when it fills out the column inches and boosts the sales figures, as with the gay marriage issue of the X-Men, and yet morality becomes something which is relatively irrelevant to other employees when it comes to the likes of Captain America and Spider-Man enabling torture. I'm extremely pleased to see Marvel paying more attention to positive representations of the LGBT community, but I can't say I share this Steve Wacker's belief that stories told in the form of "exaggerated fantasy" don't have to pay attention to ethical concerns.
Everything I have to say is in the original post - here - and that includes my thoughts and feelings about folks who carelessly or deliberately peddle tales of noble, heroic torturers, whether in "exaggerated fantasy super hero comics" or not.
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"I’ll never understand why these exaggerated fantasy super hero comics have so much fantasy and exaggeration!"
ReplyDeleteTorturing a guy with acid and threatened death isn't exaggerated fantasy. If he was threatened with soapy water or something (cos he's made of sand, yo), that would be an exaggerated fantasy version of torture - it'd still be torture but you could claim "it's fantasy". Scene as done, it's going for semi-realism and that brings a different set of rules (which is how Cerebus the Aardvark gets away, to readers, with all the black-comedy tyranny and murders in Church & State but not when he commits rape)
- Charles RB
Hello Charles:- Thank you! That's exactly what I needed to hear when waking up to similar such statements from Mr Wacker on Twitter on this subject. He can't be thinking clearly, because he seems to have no grasp of the very basics of a host of disciplines from English to Media to the Social Sciences. He seems to quite literally not understand how fiction works, both in its own terms and in the terms of how it's read. I mean we've got decades and decades of writing and data on this stuff.
DeleteIs Mr Wacker really saying that whatever he chooses to believe goes? Crikey.
Ah, okay, I'm glad that exaggerated fantasy versus what was actually portrayed in the comic was brought up, that's exactly what I just now tried to say in a comment on the previous post, but I took way longer to say it.
DeleteHello Isaac:- I really enjoyed your comments. And I'm writing this as I catch up on comments at 1.56 am now, so if it read well when I should be fast asleep, it was genuinely interesting.
DeleteWacker brings up an interesting point: DO people made of sand hold any rights under national law or international provisions? If Sandman were to travel from one country to another, would the person that owns the vehicle that Sandman was on be taxed for exporting/importing goods or materials? What IS Sandman's (and other people turn living contructs's) legal status?
ReplyDeleteLike you said, Colin, Marvel does seem to be a publisher that cares about being politically and culturally relevant, so they MUST have these sort of things figured out.
Hmmm... I had a point, but I think I lost it somewhere along the lines for the sake of the joke.
Hello Joe:- These things do tend to attack the mind's capacity to function, don't they? "Torture is fun". "It's only a comic". "Ethics and fantastical fiction have nothing to do with each other". It's impossible to stare at the litany of points made or implied by Mr Wacker and not start to feel that the world's been turned upside down.
DeleteSandman's legal status? I assume he has a different status as a citizen and a fictional character depending on the story he's in. At the moment, he's classified in the Spider-books as "torture fodder who doesn't matter". Then, when they want us to feel some sense of pathos while reading his adventures, he miraculously becomes "a human being", by a process even more strange and unexplainable than the one by which he became a sand creature in the first place.
I know in Ultimate Marvel, they said that there weren't any laws yet on deliberately-created supervillains, except that to make one was illegal - so Spider-Man's villians were in a legal grey area that allowed Fury to lock them away without constitutional rights and do what he wanted.
DeleteWithout telling the US President, who was absolutely livid and said the US people wouldn't stand for it. (Of course, SHIELD saves the day and in public the President says how great Fury was, but it was nice to briefly see someone had thought about this and had a character take a moral stand on it)
- Charles RB
"I assume he has a different status as a citizen and a fictional character depending on the story he's in. At the moment, he's classified in the Spider-books as "torture fodder who doesn't matter". Then, when they want us to feel some sense of pathos while reading his adventures, he miraculously becomes "a human being", by a process even more strange and unexplainable than the one by which he became a sand creature in the first place."
DeleteI think that may have been my point. Or at least it's good enough that I don't mind making it so after the fact. I guess I took the long-about way of saying that Wacker, and Marvel, wants to have their cake and eat it too. "Hey, look at us, we're relevant! But don't get too bent out of shape, it's only fiction!"
Bah.
Hello Joe:- Of course, the torture scene doesn't work unless the reader does invest that "sand" with personality and regard it as a person. Similarly, Spidey's threats have no meaning unless we regard him as a person. Wacker seems to, as you say, want a character to be one we can empathise with when it suits him and cannon fodder when it doesn't.
DeleteThat's not how fiction works. You're quite right to emphasise that.
Here's a suggestion for those who think the scenes in Spider-Man 685 do not represent torture:
ReplyDeleteHave someone you know (preferably someone who doesn't like you) turn the stove on high. Let that person tie you up and put your head close to the flame. Have him threaten to put your face in the fire. Make sure the person does not actually burn you. Now, see how your body and brain react. Record the subsequent nightmares and other PTSD symptoms. See how long it takes for the experience to fade, if ever.
Writing the above made me kind of sick, much like reading the ignOrant responses of both random posters and Mr. Wacker. Colin, it's unfortunate that you have to endure such vitriol. On the plus side, you're absolutely right to point out how disgusting this whole business is.
-Mike Loughlin
Hello Mike:- It's so strange to be discussing how fiction works in its most basic sense in 2012, when you'd think all those decades of study and debate would have created a common grasp of the basics. Sadly not. Despite what has been said by Mr Wacker this afternoon, I have no desire to censor comics and be a new Wertham. An irony, that, given that I've spent 2 years and more arguing for comics from the Big Two to deal with broader and more complex issues. But I would like it if we could agree that having a figure who's been constructed to fit the protagonist role torturing someone and then being proclaimed a hero is a dodgy business.
DeleteApparently Mr Wacker feels I'm over-thinking. Well, his opinion and mine are of equal value, and we happen to disagree. I think he's under-thinking and under-feeling. There's no objective answer, so it's out to the trenches and hope the bombardment doesn't do too much damage.
I felt quesy reading your "suggestion", Mike, just as you did when writing it. But it did its job. Thank you, and thanks for the kind words :)
To be fair to Stephen Wacker, he may be responding in a manner befitting the boards it has been posted on - Newsarama is not exactly Comics Journal or Hooded Utilitarian (for all the other problems I have with those boards, they tend to demand a more in depth response and are less enanmoured just because somebody in the industry is posting there). That said, I have posted there myself in direct response to Mr. Wacker, simply because Dan Slott and Stephen Wacker have never displayed any sort of the extreme right-wing preferences that seem to be prevalent in super-hero fandom, at least looking at some of the posts on mainstream comic forums. It would be nice to get a decent, balanced argument, but then again he does have a load of comics to get out so maybe he barely has time to look at these things and really think through a response. It seemed his responses were aimed more at regular posters on those forums who seem to target him, rather than Colin's post here which he may well never have read.
DeleteAnyway, thanks for listening and such interesting reading.
Hello Marcus:- I'm finding myself coming to terms with the force of nature that is Mr Wacker after he referred to me in many uncomplimentary ways this afternoon on Twitter. Well, I've always thought that if you dish it out, you should be able to take it, and I did dish it out, so I shut up as I'd promised and didn't leap in as instinct was demanding. Unfortunately this was interpreted as my trying to remain above it all, but there we go, good intentions don't always travel or convince.
DeleteI would hasten to say just as a general point that I have never accused either Mr Slott or Mr Wacker of any specific politics. Well, actually I suggested that Mr Slott showed socially liberal attitudes re: his laudable stand on positive representations of the gay community in his books, although in retrospect that could've represented a host of other approaches. What I have tried to say is that the book transmits a reactionary agenda when it comes to torture whether it was designed to or not, and I've mentioned that whether that comes from carelessness or an expression of a personal belief, I think it's inappropriate to link torture to heroism.
Mr Wacker did say that he had read my piece on Twitter today. A touch confusing that, since he accused me of being a Frederick Wertham rather than a Jon Stewart, which means he might well have dashed through the piece rather than taking care. Why should he? As you say, he's busy. Yet, I have never and will never suggest censorship of comics and I never mentioned any possible corruption of the young by this issue. It's all abit of a mess. Still, my post is there, and the debate has been a touch more lively, and having dished it out, I can - I hope - take it :)
Hmmm...capturing Sandman in a hoover and dispersing the sand all over the city are exaggerated fantasy in a silly but fun super-hero style. As soon as your character makes mention of actual real world torture techniques, such as water boarding, you are unable to use that argument to defend yourself.
ReplyDeleteThanks for bringing this issue to our attention. It seems like yet another thing that is stopping me from reading these comics. This most definitely is not my Spider-Man.
Hello Marcus:- You say it so well that I can't even find a way of answering your point. That real world reference did kind of ground the fantasy in a quite horrible real-world issue, didn't it?
DeleteI must say what I've always said about Dan Slott's Spider-Man, which is that it's appeared to me to be well-crafted work. Obviously I got real problems with this. But Slott and Templeton's Spider-Man/Human Torch series, for example, is one of my favourite series ever. And by that I mean, top ten choice. So I can understand this particular matter looking really bad, and I won't be going back myself, for at least a while. And yet I should say, the issues are generally good and it's the first acid-boarding I've ever seen.
Like many others, I am growing very tired of the attempts of Big 2 comic publishers to have their cake and eat it too. Either these stories are taking place in "the world outside your window" and are, therefore, subject to the same moral assumptions or they aren't. Either comics "aren't for kids anymore" and are subject to mature perspectives on their content, or they aren't.
ReplyDeleteOf course, it is not acceptable in either scenario to depict Spider-Man as a torturer and expect him to remain a sympathetic protagonist, but let's leave that aside for the moment.
What strikes me as remarkable is that the current stewards of Marvel Comics seem to have no idea what Stan Lee, Steve Ditko and Jack Kirby were actually saying in the sixties. A huge part of my fondness for those characters come from the humanistic warmth in their conception and original depiction. Those early Spidey stories were about a boy becoming a man, but in a very particular way. Lee seemed to define adulthood as the ability to bear up under life's misfortunes and set-backs. Ditko depicted an adult world as almost monstrous. The text was about the challenge of remaining decent in the face of monsters.
The monsters of the 20th century were uniformly people who believed that they had the special ability to decide which of their fellows could (or should) be deprived of their life, or liberty, or property. Lee, Kirby and Ditko were well aware of those facts. They baked that ethos into their tales. It was the special sauce of Marvel Revolution and why their tales have proven so easy to update for the modern mass audience.
The current regime at Marvel has managed to invert that message to a shocking degree. Suddenly, Spidey is himself a member of a privileged class. That class alone has the ability to see who is bad and, therefore, what rights of which they can be deprived.
Hello Dean:- It is hard to grasp what we're being told about the ethical content of comics, isn't it? Today it's been suggested, for example, that adults with ethical concerns have over-grown comics, so that raises the oddest idea that those who might have moral worries are automatically disqualifying themselves from the comics audience just because of that. So who are these super-books for? Obviously this Spider-Man comic isn't for young people, because the waterboarding comment isn't for the nippers is it? It's getting hard to work out who can read the books and what right they have to an opinion of them.
DeleteThat's me being to a degree frivolous at 3am in the morning. But there's nothing frivolous about the way your discussion of the humanism of the Marvel of the High Sixties function has touched me. Because everything you've said is true and I struggle to understand why there are folks who have chosen to disassociate much of Marvel's product from the spirit of that age. Even up to Shooter taking charge as EIC, Marvel was knee-deep in writers with explicit and daring attitudes to politics and storytelling. That's something which declined as time past, but it never disappeared. Yet you'd struggle to identify Marvel as a company with that same commitment today, or indeed DC. Yes, all the usual and wonderful exceptions, all the terrific creators, can stand as exceptions to that rule. But that mixture of storytelling and political ambition is gone as a general truth. (I'm not suggesting a company line on politics. I was aware even in the late seventies that Roy Thomas was far more conservative than Steve Englehart. It's the absence of that interest in politics which I regret, rather than a unified political tone.)
"The monsters of the 20th century were uniformly people who believed that they had the special ability to decide which of their fellows could (or should) be deprived of their life, or liberty, or property. Lee, Kirby and Ditko were well aware of those facts. They baked that ethos into their tales. It was the special sauce of Marvel Revolution and why their tales have proven so easy to update for the modern mass audience. The current regime at Marvel has managed to invert that message to a shocking degree. Suddenly, Spidey is himself a member of a privileged class. That class alone has the ability to see who is bad and, therefore, what rights of which they can be deprived."
I wish I could add something to the passage above, lifted of course from your comment. But I agree with every word, and I share your concern. But then, you know that. It's been four days since I wrote that post on Spidey and torture and I'm still shocked when I recall the "waterboarding" rant. Just as I'm shocked that somebody who is responsible for the legacy of the Marvel Revolution should regard that as "fun", as a few drops of acid on a few grains of sand.
No, something's gone very wrong there ...
"The current regime at Marvel has managed to invert that message to a shocking degree. Suddenly, Spidey is himself a member of a privileged class. That class alone has the ability to see who is bad and, therefore, what rights of which they can be deprived."
DeleteDean, I couldn't have said it better. I honestly believe that, civil rights issues aside, the current Marvel hues closer to regressive neocon politics than the political daring of Lee, Kirby, Ditko, and many others from the 60s-70s. Even the civil rights stuff (Northstar's marriage, for example) has that safe, superficial sheen that reflects 21st century political correctness than a legitimate belief in the liberties of all mankind.
Hello Andrew:- Dean is a genuine wonder, isn't he? He's always interesting, always succinct, and usually right too.
DeleteI do of course understand your concerns, and I think it ultimately has to come from creators and editors who don't seem to care about how their work will be read in ethical terms. That's not every editor and creators, and even for the more careless ones, it's rarely true all the time. There are extreme examples; Greg Land never seems to abandon the porn-face routine. And the fact that Greg Land has been doing that for years and years alone tells me that there are folks in that organisation who don't care.
Those who see raising such concerns as political correctness and thought policing will see that as a pernicious claim. But I see Greg Land's work and I see a company that doesn't care enough.
I wonder if they realize that characters like Rorsach, V, and the Punisher work best as CONTRAST with other, "purer" heroes. Gah.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I'm glad you're getting a lot of response on these posts, but I want to reiterate that I love your "boring" posts on the nuts and bolts of storytelling, panels, etc, too. The balance is what makes your blog yours.
Hello Historyman:- I'm with you about a range of characters being surely a better idea than today's mass of macho, often-torturing, militaristic super-people. Though I fully accept that today's books need to be more complex and nuanced compared to, say, the Seventies, I do recall how well Wolverine and The Punisher worked when they weren't surrounded by a cast of characters who were so strangely similar to them.
DeleteThanks for the kind words! I'll be struggling to make sense of nuts'n'bolts in the near future if you'd care to pop over and be similarly perplexed.
I just spent too much time "debating" with Mr. Wacker about this on Twitter. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, but still I am conditioned by the academic environment and the people I surround myself with to take words seriously, and to understand that language shapes a discourse that influences attitudes towards the normativity of actions.
ReplyDeleteThe thing busts my hump is how people like Mr. Wacker are the first to extoll the mythic properties of comic book superheroes as important cultural icons (something you hear people in the industry go on about any time there is an anniversary or retrospective or documentary about comics), but when that comes with any kind of serious examinaion or criticism suddenly they are just "fantasy stories" that don't mean anything.
Le sigh.
Hello Osvaldo:- I must have missed your extended exchange of ideas. I do understand what you mean about how difficult it is to get to grips with the idea that "entertainment" is just "fun" and transmits no cultural values at all. I too struggle to understand why that process is somehow different when Marvel is proud of the values in its work, such as the laudable positive representations expressed by the coming X-Marriage. Either stories express values or they don't. If they do, then the argument is about the degree to which that happpens. If they don't, then there shouldn't be any cheering about social issues in comics which Marvel is proud of.
DeleteThe thing is that I still associate Marvel with the company of my youth when writers such as Steve Gerber were producing highly political stories. Marvel was such a radical company in so many ways, from the Black Panther to the drug issues of Spidey and onwards. Those were issues which Marvel took pride in representing. I find it hard to grasp why the same social issues are now seen as an example of "over-thinking" by folks who have "out-grown comics" and are looking for "enemies". Now, honestly, what's that about? I've been deeply moved by a host of stories from Marvel in the past year; Generation Hope, Journey Into Mystery, Daredevil. But the idea that I ought to give up those books because I've "out-grown" them, and that engaging critically with a comic is the evidence for that? This is all very odd.
I am relatively new to Twitter, so I should have used the reply function to get a chain of responses I could just link to, but alas. . .
DeleteAnyway, I tweeted:
@StephenWacker Regardless of intention, what is written resonates with a political context. An engaged reader notes these things & discusses
to which he responded:
@themiddlespaces Agreed. This is beyond that though into making assumptions about my writers.
I thought maybe I could make some headway with him through his agreement with this and thus continued with:
@StephenWacker OK, so when Spidey who is largely defined by his ethical struggles appears to condone torture, even using its terms (cont. .)
shouldn't we be concerned about what it means about our culture? what does it mean? the vigilante Q is old, this is new(er)
But he wouldn't follow me there, responding by saying it is a fascinating topic, but not a problem of comics or the people that make them and not to be so concerned with the fates of super-powered sand men.
He also accused me of just "listening" to your article, and he grew a lot more irascible when I linked to my original piece and saw where I stood.
Can you imagine this exchange occurring in the 60s?
DeleteReader: "I worry that your Sgt. Fury comic isn't engaging with our generation's fears about the nature of war, especially at a time when our young men are being drafted to serve in Vietnam."
Stan Lee: "Wow, Effendi, why so angry? Never did the hallowed halls of Marveldom intend for you to take our astonishing tales seriously! Do you also hate Dr. Strange because he promotes black magic? You know who else called for censorship? Wertham!"
Hello Osvaldo:- I think I'd find it almost impossible - no, ABSOLUTELY impossible to carry on a debate with as many as Mr W did yesterday. It must have been - quite genuinely - an incredibly taxing business. I did catch a few moments when there seemed to be a assumption that was a gang of folks who'd all somehow decided to fly the same flag rather than quite a few individuals who were just concerned about a particular matter, each to different degrees and in different ways.
DeleteBut I don't think that anyone who followed any of the too-and-fro about the issue can say that they don't know where Spider-Man's editor stands on this issue. He doesn't see that there is a moral problem, and indeed he doesn't even see that there's a possibility of values being represented in that scene to the audience unless it's to folks who are over-thinking and, in his own words, looking for "enemies". Fair enough. I honestly think that that's a good thing to know. He's not hidden from the issue, he's come right out and said "This isn't a problem, it can't be a problem, you - our customers - are the problem". And then he even suggested that anyone who is concerned should accept they've out-grown comics. Well, it's too easy to blow holes in those arguments from my perspective, just as that process of hole-blowing would be a futile business from his. What it does explain is how such problems as the torture scene develop. It also leaves me feeling that if that's how a senior editor at Marvel is going to speak to his customers .... Gosh, it doesn't bode well for the industry if that's how things are done.
But then, I'm the Thought Police, I'm Frederick Wertham. So I would say that, wouldn't I?
Hello Michael:- That's well put. Stan Lee gets a terrible press at times, and there are issues, as with anyone's life, which are a serious cause for concern. (I know I don't need to spell them out :)) But I've always expressed a great deal of respect for Lee and a great deal of his work, although I've often got it in the neck for that heresy :) And Stan knew how to talk to his readers and make them feel as if there opinions were valid and interesting. I have NO idea what he thought in private. I don't care. He inspired us and made us feel appreciated.
DeleteI think Mr Wacker is an incredibly passionate, committed bloke. He obviously loves his work, his colleagues and friends, his company. That's all laudable. But ... boy he's got a dysfunctional attitude to his customers. I can understand his not wanting to engage with folks such as myself, who he clearly feels are both quite wrong and unfair. That's one thing. But the public ear-bashing? What could make folks feel less valued, less motivated to buy Spider-Man comics short of him coming round and shouting the same stuff through the letter box while the family's asleep?
Yes, I am Wertham, it's true. I'm also Hitler, the bloke who makes sure that the pages of books arrive stuck together, and J Jonah Jameson too.
Shame really. Underneath it all, I can't help feel that Wacker is a fascinating bloke. And no, I'm not being snotty. But that's something I'll never know, so there it is ..
I have seen scant few in the creative industries who like the democratic nature of the internet, Colin. I am sure it has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that the internet cannot be filtered in the same way a letters page, a phone-in caller or a filmed interview can, and that it is sheer coincidence that the majority of derision for the web stems from the implication of those on it having lower intelligence because that would be elitism, would it not? That would imply that the default stance of creative industries and their apologists is that "some people" should not be allowed to have a voice, that because there are one or two arseholes on the web it's surely aresholes all the way down?
DeleteA lot of very interesting and creative people have disappointed me in this regard, though I have noticed quite a few who are not afraid to engage their audience directly rather than from a safe distance, and Dan Slott is one of them, so I don't think he's above engaging in this discussion if allowed to do so by his employers.
Hello Brigonos:- It's true for just about everyone in a position of power, I suspect, though nativity sometimes drives me to think that the creative industries might be different. I grew up on stories of Don McGregor mailing out issues of Jungle Action to readers who missed them and all that mind-bending stuff. But of course, that was just a few folks a day to keep in contact with, and I wonder how dear Mr McGregor would've enjoyed a hundred bloggers moaning about him over-writing? Because whatever is done, the moaning comes in.
DeleteBut I do find it hard to credit how often folks in power fail to use the resources open to them on the net. Whether it's just insulting your customers - did that really happen? - or ignoring them, failing to access their expertise or whatever, it seems to way of human beings to want to centralise power in their own hands. I suppose that's very easy to say when you have no power!
I never do imagine that anyone will ever notice what I've written, let alone care in the slightest. And that's exactly as it should be. I think there are debates and debaters that the powers that be in comics should pay attention to, though I don't include myself in that number. I think of how Gail Simone engaged The Nerdy Bird when the decision to bring back Batgirl was announced. That was a touching business which reflected well on all involved.
The odd thing is how many creators have been kind and generous to get in touch even after I've written something critical about them. I've never once had a creator/editor go snotty or ballistic before now, and that's remarkable considering. I've been given some witheringly snotty looks, as it were, from a few folks, but I stay out of folk's way, I do my best to be fair and it's worked so far. What's strange is that some of the creators I most admire have been very generous, and as I say, after I may - just may - have been less than generous. I'm of course nobody's friend and nobody's confident, and I don't mean to imply that. But what I've found is that the company's keep to themselves - and that makes sense being MNCs and exceptionally busy - and when I stumble across a professional, they tend to be splendid. In fact - !!!! - the more I think about it, what a bloody wonderful profession it is in terms of being eggs to the likes of little league bloggers. Seriously. It's just clicked as I've been writing this; I'm not saying that anyone actually liked what I'd said or the way that I said it, but they've just about all been really good eggs.
Well, stone me. I knew that, but it hadn't really penetrated my thick skull. I'm feeling just a little let down by a certain big-wig because I don't think he actually read what I wrote before first sneering and then biting, but you know what? He was out there and I'm really beginning to think there's something for that. At least I know exactly what he thinks and he's told us alot about the standards which inform his editing. (I didn't mean "standards" in a snotty way. I meant just "his standards".)
I'm coming to the last 15% or so of my blogging life in this form, and it really is heartening to think how tolerant many top-notch professionals have been. Considering how out-there I've been in what I've said, I can only thank gawd for the generosity and restraint of the creators matched with the utter irrelevancy of the blog. The two things together have saved me!
I like how the replies - the ones not petulantly slinging mud at Colin or each other for past commenting offences - basically boil down to "take superhero comics seriously, but don't ask serious questions" or "these are stories for adults, but stop thinking like an adult when you read them."
ReplyDeleteI don't really blame Wacker, though, because he's stuck in the Marvel PR game and can't really just say that the dramatic language of superhero comics now includes torture and a scene like this in a book with no ambition beyond getting the IP on shelves really isn't that big a deal to those who make it, it's just part of their storytelling lexicon now, in fact, it's so old hat that the pilot episode of Young Justice - a Saturday morning cartoon show aimed at children first and foremost - featured a scene where Robin, Aqualad and Kid Flash are tortured onscreen by the villains, who state their intent to torture the (teenage) characters to death. Torture is nothing, and Spider-Man doesn't have these ethical dilemmas because they are boring to that small minority of fans who write letters or make their way to expensive conventions to make their feelings known face to face - they want team-ups with shooty-shooty Punisher or stabby-stabby Wolverine, they want murder and rape and cannibalism and they want everything to be bigger and more bad-assed than ever before.
Hello Brigonos:- You're right, the "take comics seriously but don't challenge my point of view" lobby are a problem. And I can see how professionals can get fed up both with the likes of me and the death by a thousand cuts that marks exposures to some forums and comment boxes. But the truth is, it never helps a company, or rather a senior representative of a company, to mock its customers in public with such force. Mr W said today that his... er ... less restrained and kind comments don't affect his company's sales, but I can't see how that's so. I'm certainly going to struggle to pick up a book with his name in it, or at least for a while. Mind you, I doubt he's going to buying Q to read my column, although I will say THAT I DID GIVE DAREDEVIL A FOUR STAR REVIEW IN BRITAIN'S BIGGEST MUSIC MAG!
DeleteI had no idea about the torture scene in Young Justice. Of course, I've no problem with torture appearing, but boy we're getting used to be callous with torture as a component of fiction these days. It's not the presence of torture, it's the use of it as entertainment and nothing else. But of course, it's 2.50 am and I'm saying things that OF COURSE you know. Mea culpe. So, no doubt Young Justice was investigating the effect of PTSD upon those poor threatened kids and not just delivering a nice tingly moment of junior torture-porn. I don't know, but I'll look forward to seeing it.
"they want team-ups with shooty-shooty Punisher or stabby-stabby Wolverine, they want murder and rape and cannibalism and they want everything to be bigger and more bad-assed than ever before."
I wonder what percentage of the audience is really so desensitised. You'd think it was it was a pretty big percentage over in some areas of the New 52, for example, where every other week seems to bring a shot of a superhero being stabbed through the back and out the front with a very big sword. I'd like to think it's a tiny minority for both the Big Two, and I struggle to imagine either company deliberately pandering to such things. But then the truth is that I've no idea what leads to books being commissioned, and no idea what audiences the company's are gunning for beyond the obvious.
But I'll say this. Up until this acid-boarding moment, I'd have had Spider-Man as one of the best comics out there on the market. Not to my taste, most of the time, but a dead solid book. Now? Well, I "over-think", so I struggle to know how to under-think enough to have the right point of view.
I have to say it was an enlightening discussion on all ends, even if I ended up not being certain who exactly was replied to in the chaos. I am also not sure that Mr Wacker got what the discussion was actually about, it felt as if he was defending against things nobody had accused him off. I suppose that is the peril of the internet, you can have several discussions at once, and sometimes you end up arguing the right thing with the wrong person. But I digress...
ReplyDeleteWhat I find interesting is how torture has slid into the general media as a storytelling shorthand to show that things are serious. Oh, the villains have always done it, from the days of the old western books I read, to the New Teen Titans where I still remember reading Robin getting tortured as a real 'oh shit' moment as a kid. What is different now is that it is employed (in more sanitized terms) by the heroes.
Why? 911 and the waterboarding debate I suppose. I first noticed it in 24, and it is popping up everywhere. Usually it is used to reinforce that the clock is ticking, the heroes are running out of time, and the stakes are high. This is also an easy writer shortcut because the other way to show that the stakes are high and they are running out of time would be to focus on the victims of whatever disaster has started/is coming. And that might be more controversial than having a bad guy pay for his crimes.
It's a bit of the old 'if you can't take the heat' attitude.
As someone who loves controversy, mature titles, violence and the occasional bit of torture porn my reaction of shock was not to what happened, but to who did it. Had even Spider-Man jumped on this bandwagon enough to condone this?
Apparently so.
Don't get me wrong, I am intrigued by some of the 'falls from grace' that are being played out in Marvel right now (Cyclops as Magneto for example), and some of the slow 'redemptions' (Wolverine as teacher). When Big Time started in Spider-Man I kept telling my friends to hold out hope, that this was all a part of something that would make sense for the character in the end. Then I eventually dropped the title. I would love for this to have repercussions, to be shown as something that might cause Spider-Man to grow as a character and person, unfortunately I don't think it's the case.
Why? Nothing political about it at all, nor do I think Marvel condones torture or whatever. I just think this was never intended to be a plot point at all, no more than a car chase or a fist fight. It has just become so ingrained in the media of today that it is used together with all the other shorthand storytelling techniques. That, for me is where the interesting debate is, and yes, I am obviously overthinking a comic book ;P.
In my opinion this is a symptom of the same thing as the old 'women in refrigerators'. No, the writers didn't hate women and wanted to see them dead, they just ended up killing/hurting women to get a reaction from the main (male) character. A symptom of something else.
Oh well, I have ranted enough, and this is why twitter is so weird for me. A frightening challenge for the chronically long-winded.
Hello Malin:- I said something to this affect in a comment above, but I really have no idea how anybody could possibly manage to keep as many Tweets juggled as Mr W was yesterday. I certainly couldn’t keep things straight while doing so. I think it’s great that folks, including the man himself, got to express themselves, but as you suggest, I think it’s probably not a medium for clarity when such issues are flying about.
DeleteI agree with you that it’s both fascinating and depressing how the trope of heroic torture has wormed its way into the culture. It’s always been there, but never to this degree, and never in such a way that torture is seen as, for example, a quite appropriate topic for the content of a superbook in the fashion shown in the Spidey/Sandman/Sable confrontation. What I find most depressing about the whole process is not the use of torture itself, which can be used in a thousand thousand different ways from Tom & Jerry cartoons onwards, but the refusal to use it in a context which doesn’t in one way or another glorify and justify the torturers. They always get the information, they always save the day, there was always no alternative. In a world in which the United States has been involved in a terrible process of torture since 9/11 which my country Britain has seemingly collaborated with, I’d have hoped that more people realised that these are vital and live issues. Instead, it seems that its all just good fun ….
I’ve been intrigued by the stories you’ve mentioned, but also deeply worried by them. I do believe that Cyclops, for example, has been played as the big-time heroic torturer and terrorist for years now and he and his various cronies in the likes of X-Force have never received their come-uppance. I do think that the West takes matters such as human rights far, far too lightly. There are issues such as torture which should carry with them the sense of the sacred, as in “If you deal with this, you have the sacred responsibility to deal with it respectfully, carefully and well.” Whether it’s being used in comedy or tragedy, it is never just an aspect of entertainment. And when the whole line of X-Books was asking us to consider the X-Folks of Utopia as heroes when they’ve their secret prison, their assassination squad, and so on …. Well, I’m interested in stories in which those ideas are investigated. But for my money, (1) playing the folks who engage in such matters as heroes isn’t on, and (2) a character who does those things shouldn’t get to just sail on without there being real consequences. But that would end up with most of Marvel’s frontline characters in jail for a good long while, so obviously …. Not going to happen.
cont
cont
DeleteI think you’re right that there’s every chance that the torture business was an accident, but folks in positions of authority shouldn’t be making such accidents. It’s a huge great mistake to make, although Mr Wacker doesn’t think it was anything of the sort. Me, I’m with the over-thinkers. When Marvel introduced people of colour in its books in the 60s and 70s, it really did affect me as a kid. Luke Cage, Misty Knight, Shang-Chi; these characters represented values which I was inspired by. Marvel has every reason to be proud of its successes in such humane ventures. But the idea that we should pretend that comics don’t suggest values …. No, I still can’t understand the argument.
“In my opinion this is a symptom of the same thing as the old 'women in refrigerators'. No, the writers didn't hate women and wanted to see them dead, they just ended up killing/hurting women to get a reaction from the main (male) character. A symptom of something else.”
I’ve always worked on a similar principle. I’m sure the folks at Marvel and DC are tip-top people, I really am. But there’s a culture at work in the West at large which can over-ride more rational thinking, a culture of sexism and racism and homophobia and reactionary attitudes to crime and punishment. And if it isn’t challenged, it gets accepted as fact. But then, we all know that.
Thank you for your ranting, though it wasn’t ranting at all :)
Hello Colin, have you read Tom Ewing's comments on the torture trend? I think he makes some interesting points: http://tomewing.tumblr.com/post/24265880879/the-recent-capital-t-torture-vogue-in-superhero-comics
ReplyDeleteCheers,
Jody Macgregor
http://jodymacgregor.tumblr.com/
Hello Jody:- I hope you're well. I read a great deal of Tom Ewing's stuff, and you're right, his thoughts on comic book torture are typically fascinating. I think there's a great deal to what he's saying, though of course that will outrage the superhero diehards, who will cry PC and spit and rage. Thank you for posting the link here. (I've been trying to get the link to an appropriate size to Tweet a link to it. Even the simple matters of stupid-tech escape me.)
DeleteThanks for the budge! Much appreciated.
Oh Colin, you're most certainly making the cut for this week's Link-a-Lot.
ReplyDeleteDid you ever get the impression that some folks miss the point of stories like this? If you're going to 'do' a torture storyline, that's when you introduce the antihero character who can do things Spidey, or any other struggling paladin hero, is unwilling to do.
Through that contrast you can hint that our protagonist wishes it was that easy for them - just a hint of an edge to his/her personality - but then the antihero has fulfilled their narrative purpose. Hence the Punisher, Foolkiller. Hence Lobo, Nemesis, Azrael.
But if your hero engages in this act, you have fundamentally changed that character. Then - ah this is where it becomes entirely redundant - we are expected to return to that same hero and pretend none of this ever happened because 'we think too much'.
I followed the exchange last night Colin as you know, and I found the response you received following your legitimate questioning of this storytelling choice very insulting and dismissive. It's a testament to these company reps being unused to *having* to defend their choices in any kind of articulate way. See also Didio/Lee dismissing out of hand the issues surrounding Before Watchmen as well.
If these individuals wish to engage the public, for goodness sake let a PR person do it instead, one who is mindful of stakeholder issues etc. Cos these guys - they don't make the grade.
Hello Emmet:- It's astonishing how this topic has taken off. And it shows how little I know about blogging and attracting readers that I honestly believed that this would be one of the least visited posts this year. It's a topic that's been discussed before by good writers, I wrote in something of a speedy funk, and I had no idea that anyone would be interested. In fact, as you can see from the blurb at the top of the page, I'm actually apologizing for the piece and quite genuinely suggesting folks don't read on. Now, I'm not suggesting that the post is actually any good, but I was quite wrong about whether anyone would be interested. And the visitor numbers were ridiculously high before he-that-shall-not-be-debated-with weighed in.
DeleteAll of which is to say, that's an example of why I said to you that I admired how you've a clear idea of how to direct your talent. I just muddle around and every once in a while I irritate someone.
Your point about using a secondary character to fill that torturer role is of course a fine one. And that immediately opens up the debate, because not only is the protagonist saved from being toxic, but there's conflict driving a discussion of the issues. It's not that Spidey can't be tempted and panicking, it might be that he even involves himself in preparations and so on. But the minute he knows it's happening and let's it happen, even if he hadn't enabled the process, then he's guilty. And he stays that way.
I have, as I've said in the above, come to value Mr Wacker's honesty if not those other less civil aspects of his response. Because he has told us so much about how his very important office in Marvel works. It's been incredibly illuminating. It would have been better for all concerned if we might have debated things in a way that helped folks understand each other without all that rudeness and misrepresentation being hurled around. As with the Before Watchman issue, as as you quite rightly say, it's best either not to talk or get a professional PR bod in to talk for you if you can't really deal with the situation in a way that controls rather than explodes the issues. Transparency and honesty and calm would be best from our points of view - of course! - but that may not always be best for the big beasts. So, yes, get a professional in and keep out of the way.
But I'm glad he didn't. Learned alot, may have got a touch "I'm-being-misrepresented" sniffy, remembered he felt the same, decided to grow up, watched the rope being shoveled in.
Something else just occurred to me, Colin, about all of this. The scene of Spidey allowing Silver Sable to pour acid on the Sandman is also completely unnecessary even from a storytelling standpoint. In the very next issue, Spider-Man is able to convince Mysterio to switch sides, not through force, but through simple logic--that if Spidey is right about Doc Ock's plan, then Mysterio will die along with everyone else, meaning he won't get to enjoy the full pardon and the two billion dollars that Doc Ock was able to get for all the members of the Sinister Six. This is important because because this story shows, as have subsequent issues, that the reason why Sandman is going along with Doc Ock's plan is because he wants to get his daughter back (yes, Marvel made that plot point from Spider-Man 3 canon somewhat during The Gauntlet storyline from a couple of years back).
ReplyDeleteSo in light of this, are Dan Slott and Steve Wacker saying that, in terms of the story, there was no other way for Spider-Man to get the Sandman to cooperate other than letting Silver Sable "acidboard" him? He couldn't have pointed out to him the simple truth that if Doc Ock's plan could potentially kill billions of people, including Sandman's daughter, and that by telling them what he knew, he would also be helping to save her? After all, Dan Slott has been underscoring the point that it's Spider-Man's intelligence that's his greatest strength and one would think the alternative scenario would have fit in perfectly with that idea.
Hello Mike:- I didn't manage to force myself to read the next issue, but your summary makes for fascinating, and telling, reading. So, it wasn't necessary to have the scene, it made the character toxic, and even in its own terms there were alternatives?
DeletePerhaps Mr Slott is going to show Spidey crippled by shame at how he's treated the Sandman?
The whole torture business is so inexplicable, so reprehensible, that it's impossible NOT to speculate on why it was done? Mr W was saying that it was a perfectly legitimate form of storytelling, so perhaps it just seemed like a good and exciting way to ramp up a summer blockbuster popcorn story? Perhaps the torture trope is just regarded as being part of that?
I so agree with you about how preferable it would have been to have Peter use his intelligence, and his moral principles, to solve the problem. As you say, that's something that DS has attended to. Perhaps the idea was to take away his greatest strength in order to emphasise the jeopardy?
Or perhaps no-one gave a damn.
The worst part is how easy it would have been to avoid this situation: Spider-Man sees what Silver Sable & co. are planning, thinks how easy it would be to allow the torture as emmetocuana suggested, realizes how wrong it would be, puts a stop to it, and finds another way. Maybe by promising to help Sandman reintegrate himself after pushing his powers too far or something. Hell, I'm no writer and it took me 30 seconds to think of that. The point is, there are always alternatives to torture, and Slott & Wacker could have found one without too much effort.
ReplyDelete-Mike Loughlin
Hello Mike:- Yes, you're entirely right. The fact is, Mr Slott while on Mr Wacker's watch decided to create a situation where torture might seem to be a necessary act, and then they added to that the heroic, noble sheen. I've read folks writing elsewhere saying things like "Well what else was he supposed to do?" To borrow a word from both my younger and older pals; DUDE!!!! It's not real! There wasn't really a situation such as that which demanded that Parker behaved as he did. It was a story, a set up. (This does seem to escape some folks.) The situation was created so that torture would be thrill and ennobling. The character wasn't tossed into the situation and left to get on with it!
DeleteOh, if only that sentient Spider-Man cartoon could have thought of another way out of this crisis .... Fer gawds sik.
Hi Colin,
ReplyDeleteThe article dealing with the issue was great, I'm baffled as to how Dan Slott (who I normally credit with being my favorite Marvel writer) and the editors decided that of all the characters in the world, it was SPIDER-MAN(!) who would stand by and let ANYONE be tortured. He's the last person who'd just stand there. Even in a blind rage he couldn't kill the man WHO HAD JUST MURDERED THE WOMAN HE LOVED. I agreed with single thing you said.
Bizarrely though, just before I had read it I had read the post here:
http://douglasernstblog.com/2012/05/20/spider-man-wont-kill-n-korean-soldiers-or-waterboard-a-man-to-save-6b-loser/
Read it please, I laughed so hard at this twerp. I know it's not really funny considering, but the post was so idiotic I couldn't help but laugh. I hope it gives you a giggle too, before you cry for the fate of our species.
Hello Ejaz:- I hope you don't mind, but I Tweeted this, with a "Thanks Ejaz" of course. It's a fascinating piece, an absolutely out-there piece. But at least the guy is absolutely transparent and out there. He's not hiding his agenda in any way. (I don't mean anyone else is. I really don't. I mean HE isn't.) So it makes it a perfect comparison piece. Not because there's only two positions on this affair, but because his argument is so diametrically opposed to the one being pushed here.
DeleteWhat do I think of it? Dangerous stuff, to say the least. But then the blogger wants to challenge liberal and humanist views, so he intends it to be dangerous. But it's not something to debate. The difference between his POV and, say, mine is so extreme that the only option is to respect difference. No amount of conversation could close the gap twist there and here.
Hi Colin,
ReplyDeleteI don't do the tweeting myself (I'm far too lazy) so I'm sure no-one at all will know who you're referring to! It really was a bizarre coincidence that I read that post and then thought to myself 'I haven't popped by Colin's site for a while' and your article was right there.
The strange thing about the writer is that he has his opinions - fine, but he feels so mortally offended that today's Liberal Nazi's are forcing Spider-Man into pansy-ass wimpery. Not only does it misread the scene completely, but the insane notion that normally Spider-Man would be doing all this stuff himself and be fine about it!
The commenters on his site seem to have it covered regarding the stupid reasoning behind his argument. But as you said, with views like this, reasonable argument isn't going to do much.
With regards to the scene in question, it would have been so easy to have an out. Just have Spider-Man be tied up and yell and scream and stuff while it happens. Then he can have a moral quandary as to whether he should use information gathered through torture to save the world or not (IF information is gathered and is accurate, this could also have been a plot point). Same moral conundrum, Spider-Man doesn't look on approvingly at torture.
Hello Ejaz:- They may not know who you are, but it was your find and you deserve credit. I think, wearing my best cub scout's hat, that's right.
DeleteThe chap writing that post is either the most brilliant satirist or he's carrying a load of terror in his soul. He's obviously never read up on torture and how the data on its efficiency works either. Similarly, he seems to have sidestepped the effect that indiscriminate killing has on international relations, and his comment about the ozone layer being so 1989 shows a disengagement from the science of the environment to. But at least he's out there, speaking honestly and forcibly. He's not the enemy - because as Pogo said that's us - but his values and policies are those which I stand contrary to. (I'm not presuming to speak for you or anyone else there, Mr E.) And it's good to have a clear statement which illuminates why these debates are important.
You've suggested a fine way to generate conflict and illuminate the issue of torture. Of course, no-one EVER uses torture in this way and trusts the result. As studies have revealed, and this includes the interviews with US military personable which Harvey referred to in the comments to the last piece, torture is only trusted even by torturers as a way of producing info which confirms existing data. Even then, its value is dubious.
There's been a huge increase in the information available to people about this subject over the 20th and into the 21st century. But all that knowledge is of no use at all if folks don't read it rather than dismissing it as propaganda.
Oops somehow missed this post until now.
ReplyDeleteWhat really got to me was your bit near the end to do with marvel hyping their commitment to the liberty and kindness and such of gay marriage, while approving(?) of the most pure-ethically supers turning torturer, but doing it in such a way as if to even comment on the questionable ethics is to brand the complainer as a whinging pc-er.
At first this marvel stance struck me as some sort of inexplicable abberation, a real head-scratcher. Then it occurred to me all it is, is just super hero ethics mimicking the ethics of war-mongering polititions and deranged, unbalanced media. The ethical abberations as status quo.
All in all, this really saddens me towards "big 2" comics in general.
Hello James:- I've been trying not to see things that way, James, for exactly the reasons you give. Ah, well. In Wacker's refusal to engage with the issue while throwing up a huge degree of rudeness and stupidity, there is a suggestion of the behaviour of those who believe they can protect themselves from criticism through flakking. After all, it is impossible to believe Wakker actually believes what he said. That would make him a profoundly ignorant individual, and every indication is that he's ANYTHING but.
DeleteAs such, it has to be assumed that it's not his intellect which has gone AWOL in this situation so much as his good manners and common humanity.
It was a miserable business. To find a man associated so positively with books from 52 to Daredevil in such a way was hugely disappointing. Still, it does tell the reader where their place is in the scheme of things where one office in Marvel is concerned at least
"It was a miserable business. To find a man associated so positively with books from 52 to Daredevil in such a way was hugely disappointing. Still, it does tell the reader where their place is in the scheme of things where one office in Marvel is concerned at least"
DeleteSo I'm reading that and nodding my head. Thinking I'm a long way from the care-free Marvel zombie I was in my youth. Wondering now if things have gotten worse for my hobby of choice in the last 10-15 years or my standards have gotten vastly better in my not-so-old age?
Hello James:- I think the disappointments which the industry on occasion dishes out now hurt a touch more because there's no excuse for them. Well, there's no excuse for Wakker the Flakker when he's in his insult-the-customer mood at all, but generally, there's no excuse from not learning from the past when it comes to the most obvious mistakes in storytelling.
DeleteYet there's also a great deal of very good stuff in the "mainstream", and of course yet more beyond it. It's not that a great number of individuals haven't learned and indeed added to what came before. Heck, Mr Wakker himself has contributed to a great many fine books. But overall, the industry is still disappointing a great many people who'd prefer to be cheering rather than groaning about its overall achievements in 2012.
"The chap writing that post is either the most brilliant satirist or he's carrying a load of terror in his soul."
ReplyDeleteI just checked Colin and ... nope, no "terror" in my soul.
Best,
Doug
Hello Doug:- Fair point, given that no-one else can know about your soul. I tend to assume that the words "I think" stand in front of everything that gets said in the comments to this blog, but even on that level, my thoughts and yours here don't carry equal weight.
Delete