tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5618879740460069575.post6274613334328328858..comments2024-02-22T02:31:34.108+00:00Comments on Too Busy Thinking About My Comics: On "Captain America: Reborn!" by Ed Brubaker & Bryan Hitch - Part 3 of 3!Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5618879740460069575.post-1245178837755661672010-05-30T07:26:51.873+01:002010-05-30T07:26:51.873+01:00And so if Batman is going to be dropping into crim...And so if Batman is going to be dropping into crime scenes, the matter just needs to be thought about, as you indeed imply, and which of course it has at many key moments. The Gotham Central stories were excellent in widening the meaning of the Batman Universe, for example. Here were good and bad cops, competent and corrupt ones. The state was not incompetent/evil, but an active and organic player with strengths and (massive)weaknesses. Yes, Bruce W must in some ways be more able than the cops, but if they're all daft & evil then he becomes a right wing fantasy. If they're not, if Gotham has good men & women & institutions capable of efficient achievement, then the book becomes about pluralism, involvement. I do believe that Western society is profoundly unfair and often undemocratic in practise: I'm not for a rosy picture of things. But I am for a measured engagement, a recognition of the possibility of change & the value of involvement. I say this only because I may have given the wrong impression. I don't want a silly picture of a benign state, or pages of Bat-procedurals! But, as you say, Bucky-Cap fighting to save the world from the forces of evil subverting democracy is COOL if the text and sub-text are aligned & it's about how precious democracy is rather than how wonderful a bloke in a patriotic flag is & why don't we have him in charge rather than corrupt politicians?<br /><br />I'm very pleased that you find some small value in these pieces. It really helps me to read comments such as those from your good self, because I have yet to read such a comment and not thought "Oh! Yes!" and "I missed that!" and "I didn't come close to covering that!". Please do feel free to say "But!" and "What?" These are good words, I think. Like, "scientific method" and "democractic pluralism" and "spider-sense" and "Justice League". All grand words, I think.Colin Smithhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15246781681702128600noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5618879740460069575.post-21393525965202616842010-05-30T07:20:10.713+01:002010-05-30T07:20:10.713+01:00Good morning, Mike - What a thought-provoking comm...Good morning, Mike - What a thought-provoking comment! Having given the matter some thought, it srikes me how much we agree upon many of the most important and effective "texts" in superhero history. (The Astro City about a man who has lost his wife in a continuity rewrite, for example; to generate a moving story from THAT was remarkable. Alan Brennert also touched upon the issue of what happens to people, and their souls, caught up in reality changes with his tale of "Kara" meeting Deadman after the Crisis & in his Black Canary origin too.)Which, though to say so could be a massive assumption, may point to the fact that the same mechanisms are influencing us in a similar way, and that what we're doing here is controlling more of the confounding variables in our research! (Said, of course, with a big fat tongue in m'cheek.)<br /><br />I'm with you on much that say about Batman and the Punisher. I think that Ennis used the Punisher cleverly, if not entirely without problems - well, there's not a story in history that has NO problems, because they're stories, of course! But he wrote from an awareness of the flaws in the character and the moral pitfalls. He had CONTROL over what he was doing, some ironic distance from the material as well as intense involvement in it. And in such a way, of course, his books became more of a debate about the idea of the killer vigilante rather than a pure glorification of it. And it's that thought and control which is the key. Ostrander's Spectre is, yes, another fine control. That's what it takes. I still recall a throwaway line of Gerber's in the "Defenders", which I can't for the life of me find, where one of his costumed characters in a single comment speculates on why there are more superheroes in capitalist USA than Communist USSR. The speculation: information & technology is more available in MU USA, so more science-mutations etc occur. And in that one spark of cleverness came, even for a teenage boy, the snare to get me thinking about political systems and their virtues. Not through a lecture, or through a morality play as such. But through control and cleverness, even within Mr Gerber's then most free-wheeling approach to plot and so on.<br /><br />end of part 1 - 2 to follow!Colin Smithhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15246781681702128600noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5618879740460069575.post-64386471311788230542010-05-30T02:22:00.602+01:002010-05-30T02:22:00.602+01:00I'm all for super-hero comics engaging in the ...I'm all for super-hero comics engaging in the real world on a metaphoric level. Before I'd read the b&w New Gods reprints, I read the Jones/ Jacobs book [which you mentioned in a previous post but the name of which escapes me (The Great Comic Book Heroes?)], that posited that Kirby's 4th World comics had way more going on than the average reader may have suspected. Mr. Miracle represented the artist, breaking free of an oppressive society again and again. With that interpretation in mind, the books resonated with me quite strongly. <br /><br />I was trying to get at that in my last post- a good writer can use super-hero tropes to generate a variety of stories. Astro City 1/2, Fantastic Four 51, Ditko's work, Ostrander's Spectre, Gerber's entire output... you don't even have to go to Moore & Morrison to see people stretching the boundaries of the genre or using it to tell stories that go deeper than Captain X vs. Dr. Y in a knockdown dragout fight to the finish because YOU demanded it!!! <br /><br />As you point out, politics is a big part of it, whether the sophomoric reductionism of Civil War or Black Panther having to negotiate with Dr. Doom, Magneto, & Namor to prevent a war with Lemuria. Yes, the politics of the Punisher blowing away drug dealers is wonky, but I almost find Batman being an unauthorized secret policeman who can take evidence from a crime scene more problematic. The Punisher (pre-Ennis) is a right-wing revenge fantasy, one I've never cared for, but it's aimed toward the same audience that goes to action movies: adolescent boys. The Punisher is an outlaw who has no connection to any government agency. Batman is a private citizen who the police department farms their tough cases out to, thus admitting that they can't do their job!<br /><br />But I like Batman comics, because the Batman universe *has* to have him be better than the police, able to operate outside the laws and avoid due process, Miranda Rights, etc. so that he can stop the Joker from poisoning the reservoir. Who wants to read about the snarl of red tape his existence would create? One or two stories every few years dealing with the problems Batman creates is fine, but I want my heroes to succeed, not be hampered by rules.<br /><br />Captain America has to be better than me. He carries the weight of expectation on his back along with his shield. If someone's going to wrap himself in the flag, I'm going to question his motives and deeds at all times... unless he fights the unquestionably good fight, always wins, is always right, and reinforces everything I believe is great or could be great about my country. As a kid, that's all fine, I didn't think about the why of super-heroes (beyond "... because a radioactive spider bit him"). As an adolescent, I could revel in the violence and one-liner, and follow the soap operatics. As an adult, I wonder why I read this stuff, and have to come up with an answer because I still read it. I mean, he's dressed in the freakin' flag and throws a shield at a Nazi with a red skull face! That's so stupid! So why do I buy his adventures every few months? <br /><br />Part of it is Brubaker's text, and part of it is the subtext. Bucky Cap works better, and you nailed why. He doesn't have the weight of expectations. He can screw up! Steve Rogers can't screw up, or we lose faith in the American dream! Bucky can still be a hero, though, and still show me that a guy in tights can try his damnedest to make the world better, to stop the forces of evil from subverting democracy. It's corny, but Bru & Co. sell it. <br /><br />You know, I could keep going on and on. I'll stop for now, but I must6 say I'm continually impressed by how you see this stuff, and where you go with it. Enjoy your day (or is it night?), and thank you for letting me ramble.<br /><br />- Mike LoughlinAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5618879740460069575.post-76937710524454661852010-05-29T09:22:44.924+01:002010-05-29T09:22:44.924+01:00Hi Mike - I'm really glad you enjoyed the Cap ...Hi Mike - I'm really glad you enjoyed the Cap pieces. I had fully intended just writing the one piece and it quite got away from me; I published every piece with something close to shame, actually. It felt like a huge indulgence, to post that much, but by the same token, I did believe in what I wrote. Strange, this pressure to be brief in the modern world. Thank you very much for taking a look at what I wrote and commenting too.<br /><br />Your point about a theme really did make me think. In fact, I did what I rarely do when I receive a comment, which is to go off for a good while, down to the gym, and think about it. (I like to reply quickly normally just because folks have been kind enough to leave some words.) And, on reflection, I think I'd agree almost entirely with you on superheroes and realism, so boo! to "relevancy". But I think the problem is on a deeper level, in that all stories have politics encoded into them, whether such was intended or not. And comics carry much if not most of their meaning in the sub-text. So superheroes do talk about the real-world, but on symbolic, metaphorical level. And that's where the "realism" needs to be approached more deliberately. I do believe that Cap stories have over the years put forward some elements of an extreme right wing message, as I've argued, even as lots of stories by very humane writers have fought consciously or not against that proces. So, I guess that "relevancy" in stories since GL/GA is a problem for me, but accidental moral disengagement is a worse one. I've no argument, with say, a Steve Ditko "Mr A", which is explicit, where the sub-text and text match. I do have a problem with comics about psychopaths who serve as wish-fulfilment for alienated adolescents, or, more perniciously, comics about guardians of law of order who neither obey the law nor preserve order without that contradiction being directly and deliberately attended to.<br /><br />I am largely convinced by your argument that the superhero universe as fundamentally different places and must be seen as a different place. And yet strangely enough the same political issues - if not the same priniciples or conclusions - that we laugh and shiver at in Euripdes and Aristophanes operate in Metropolis too. And that's where I'd love to see more attention paid to what's going on; on the metaphorical, political level. (And I'm sure there are cool "relevant" stories too. I can think of some Peter Gillis ones that Harvey J here and British writer Al Ewings evoked on a podcast elsewhere recently, for example. But few people can pull off that relevancy trick without preaching or seeming dull, so, yes, on the whole I'd agree on avoiding what too often becomes a straight lecture book.)<br /><br />Thank you for again helping me to put more clearly into words what I'm stuggling to. I hope you're having a fine day.Colin Smithhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15246781681702128600noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5618879740460069575.post-58529720164438430172010-05-28T23:37:23.431+01:002010-05-28T23:37:23.431+01:00I think one of your main themes is "Realism &...I think one of your main themes is "Realism & superheroes don't mix, nor should they." Trying to apply real-world standards to super-hero universes has never worked for me. Between the physics ("... mass from an extra dimensional source") to the laws (how many crooks dropped off at police hq with a note from you friendly neighborhood Spider-Man ever get convicted?) to the politics, which you covered nicely, it just doesn't add up. One has to assume the Marvel & DC universes operate on physical laws far different from ours, and that the pressence of superhumans has warped society to the point where vigilatism is seen as a positive thing.<br /><br />I say just roll with it. Enjoy the stories for what they are, pure fantasy. One can write anything they want to with these characters (which has been unfortunate for those of us who've struggled through bad comics). Trying to put realism into these stories is awkward at best (see: relevant comics) and terrible at worst (see: relevant comics not drawn by Neal Adams). <br /><br />I've been enjoying the Captain America series, and I look forward to reading the eventual fairy tale post. <br /><br />-Mike LoughlinAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com