The Fractal Hall Journal

I think it’s probably time to take some of the assertions I’ve made in the delineations and try and explain what I mean. Gibbering about core genres and a character’s engineering can only take us so far, and I really should attempt to prove that I’m not talking completely out of my arse. Batman was the first character we looked at, and he’s as good a character as any to start with again.

In the initial post, I noted the character’s four most important factors as being his distinctive costume, fighting skills, detective skills, and gadgets. And as Friend Plok pointed out in comments, Bruce Wayne’s practically limitless fortune should also be noted. I don’t know about anyone else, but I always find it difficult to pick a ‘favourite’ of anything, be it music, film or comics. There’s just too much great stuff in the world. But if I had to pick one Batman story, it would have to be “Gothic”, Grant Morrison’s contribution to the old “Legends of the Dark Knight” title, and one of the main reasons why everyone looked forward to his run on the main book (and, unfortunately, probably one of the main reasons why everyone was disappointed when he took a different approach to his earlier one).

I suppose you could argue that the story edges too far to the horror/supernatural end of things, and too far from the crime/noir core genre. But then it is called Gothic. Plus, it’s meant to be a Year One era tale, and back during Batman’s actual first year of publication the book touched on a lot of these themes (something that Matt Wagner has more recently extrapolated to great effect in his Batman: Dark Moon Rising series). Besides, gangsters and organised crime play a large part in the story, so we’re never that far away from typical Batman territory.

There are a few other things we could poke holes in too, if we were enclined to. Bruce Wayne’s childhood connection to the bad guy is a little too coincidental, but Morrison uses it to such disturbing effect that we should probably let it slide. After all, it doesn’t break the mechanism of the story. There’s also the matter of Thomas Wayne, which we’ll look at next.

Detective skills: Essential for a Batman story, and the character’s fairly well-served here by Morrison. It’s important to note, I think, that we don’t need a carefully crafted Agatha Christie mystery every issue. A fair-play ‘tec yarn is a bit much to ask every single time out. But showing a little of Batman’s legendary powers of reason shouldn’t be. As it is, it’s enough that Batman is able to figure out that at least one murder was due to a double-crossing crook.

I may be reading more into this next bit than I should, but bear with me. At more than one point, Thomas Wayne points his son in the right direction, through dreams and the accidental use of a misfiled audio recording. This will likely annoy those who dislike supernatural overtones, and in terms of story is the second use of coincidence which is usually regarded as bad form (you can maybe get away with one bit of luck in lieu of plot progression, but no more). On the other hand, the use of the subconscious in deductive reasoning is a well-established theme, which may have guided the Batman’s hand. I suppose it is a bit of a stretch, but Morrison’s recent Batman stories show us that the operation of Batman’s subconscious is something the writer considers important to explore, and there’s no reason to think this wasn’t his first go at it. Of course, that doesn’t mean that Gothic is obscure about whether or not demons and ghosts are involved. It’s explicit that they are.

Bonus Batman cleverness:

Fighting/acrobatic skills: Well, this is Batman we’re talking about. You really need the pictures?

Gadgets:

You know, it’s the bat-gyro that recently tipped me off to something I’d never realised in god knows how many years of reading this story. Long before Wagner’s recent retelling, ‘Gothic’ was Morrison’s take on Detective Comics #31 and 32’s ‘Batman versus the Vampire’. Mad Monk: Check. Creepy European setting: Check. Improbable Bat-Gyro voyage across the Atlantic: Absolutely.

Oh, and before I forget:

Costume: Present and correct. And a good ‘un too, thanks to veteran artist Klaus Jansen.

Rich-boy Bruce Wayne: Well, the manor house, gadgets, and several mentions of attending private school takes care of that. Plus the man servant. Speaking of which-

At least one essential member of supporting cast: Ladies and gents, Alfred the Butler.

Batman as raving nutcase: As I’ve noted before, I don’t see it as essential myself, but it is a popular take and Morrison gives us plenty here. Apart from the crazy dreams and, for that matter, dressing up as a bat, here he is relaxing in a room full of stopped clocks.

What’s the importance of these elements? For it to be a Batman story, these Batman-specific elements have to be engine. They have to drive everything forward.

Let’s accept that stories, certainly superhero stories, are all about conflict. And let’s say that the conflict here is made up from two types of interaction, the first being Batman’s method of locating the villain, the second being his method of dealing with the villain. The first type requires no direct interaction, as by definition this occurs during the second of the two types of interaction.

Batman’s one of the easiest heroes to use for the first part, because he is, famously, the world’s greatest detective. I think this is why he’s one fo the most enduring of these characters. His villains are as fascinating as he is, and we learn all about them through his use of detective work. I think this may be why he’s generally more engaging than, say, Superman. He has better tools to analyse his world, and as he’s the main character with whom we identify with, by extension we as readers are better placed, too.

Magic expository Thomas Wayne dreams aside, in Gothic Batman fully explores the history and circumstance of Mr Whisper, the primary antagonist, in detail before he ever faces him. We find out Whisper’s backstory, his connection with Gotham, and eventually the ins and outs of his evil plot, all via Batman’s observations. Batman is well equipped to place Whisper into context.

In this story, Whisper’s context is, in escalating levels of importance, Plague-era Austria, Gotham Town, Gotham City, the Gotham criminal underworld, and finally Bruce Wayne/Batman himself (we could also, I suppose, throw in the Devil). Batman uses his detective skills to reason all of this out, with help from his gadgets (Bat-Gyro transport is apparently a lot more efficient that you’d likely believe) and, in the strongest twist of all, his own wealthy background. Had he not been rich, he likely would not have gone to private school, and his past connection with Mr Whisper would not have existed.

Finally, the culmination of all of this how Batman deals with his villain. And Batman deals with all his villains pretty much the same way. By beating the shit out of them.

I mean, he intimidates them first; this is where the costume, of course, plays its part. The panel I use above, from when Batman goes after Whisper, is a real fuck yeah moment. But essentially, he gives them a kicking.

Whisper is immortal, so Batman doesn’t take him out, or even get to send him to Arkham, but I think that’s ok within the context of this story. He saves Gotham (er, spoiler), and in doing so ensures that Whisper’s soul is forfeit. It’s implied that Whisper is finally dealt with by the spirit of an abused woman who cannot rest until he’s been taken care of, and really that’s a good enough resolution for me.

Click here for the Delineation Archive.

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Frank Miller’s Daredevil run is a classic work, defining the character so well that creators still follow his lead almost 30 years after his debut on the title. This isn’t a bad thing, at all, because Miller crafted one of the most efficient storytelling engines ever with his take on Matt Murdock. Daredevil as initially conceived had some great hooks; a blind lawyer with every other sense enhanced, with the background of a street fighter and the skill of an acrobat. But the character was unfairly considered a Spider-Man take off, and never made the A-list until Miller. As I mentioned earlier this week, it wouldn’t be that difficult to define the character differently pre- and post-1980.

Core genre: Now this is interesting, because here we see a way to reconcile both eras, in a way. Miller places the character very clearly within “crime”. That’s where his interest was, that’s the direction he wanted to take the character in. It’s probably fair to say he was more interested in the Kingpin and his henchfolks that in Murdock. The earlier Daredevil was more of a swashbuckler and adventurer. And as with Green Arrow, it’s easy to see the overlap between pulp-adventurers and noir-type crime stories. I think Daredevil lies somewhere within that overlap.

A) A blind man with super-senses
B) Radar sense
C) The skills of a street brawler and an acrobat
D) A devil costume
E) Lawyer alter-ego.
F) A contradictory inner-conflict

It’s a fairly long list of factors, all essential. It’s a testament both to his creators and to Miller that Daredevil’s engineering is so simple, obvious and elegant, yet is the foundation of so much conflict and complexity.

I’ll get the psychology out of the way first. This is maybe Miller’s most important addition, a recognition of contradiction in a Catholic who dresses as a devil while engaged in good works. He’s a blind man who’s more aware than any around him, a wealthy man in a white-collar job with working class origins in a dangerous neighbourhood, a lawyer who breaks the law every single night.

From a pulp-adventurer standpoint, it doesn’t matter that Daredevil hasn’t got particularly supervillainy bad guys. A largely faceless set of common crooks, organised criminals and ninjas are in keeping with a protagonist who needs a lot of cannon-fodder to prove his mettle. Personally, I’m not keep on Daredevil’s ninja stuff, but it’s in keeping with his genre. I suppose the reason I question it is that I prefer Daredevil to be more of a brawling street fighter than a Batman-type martial artist, Murdock being the son of his father, a working class boxer. And I think Daredevil would be comfortable with playing dirty if he had to. Again, we see another contrast within the character: a graceful acrobat but a brutal fighter.

Because of his enhanced senses, he’s one of the characters who can locate and contextualise his villains most easily. One perspective the film took that I thought was quite interesting was the way he fought one battle in the courtroom every day, and continued it at night if justice wasn’t done. Of course, he’s not really meant to be a prosecutor, so it doesn’t quite work as a status quo, but it’s an interesting take. It’s better in the comics, I think, because as a defender, it gives him the chance to rehabilitate these villains, to mitigate their circumstances. There’s the good works again, and yet another contradiction: the very same man who hunts and maims them so brutally is responsible for dusting them off the next day. His day job becomes essental as a way of placing his villains, of understanding his villains, in a context beyond the hunt/fight/tie them up for the police pattern of most heroes.

The radar sense is an important element, mostly because it’s really cool. Seriously, it’s one of the all-time great powers. I can see why it’s sometimes played down, in particular when writers want to make him more of a skilled ninja who senses his environment via sound and the movement of air (see Miller and JR Jr’s Man Without Fear miniseries), but I think it serves a good purpose as part of Murdock’s power set and his story themes. It means he sees nothing, and everything.

Addendum: After writing the above, plok mentioned a few things in regard to Daredevil in the comments of another post. There are a few things in there that made me think (and if you’ve been following these delineation posts without taking a look at the comments, you’re missing some excellent points and counter-points from plok, Will and Will). One thing that is obvious is that this post has been almost entirely about post-Miller DD, unavoidable generally because his take has become the dominant one, and specifically because I haven’t read that much of the 70s Daredevil. That’s something I need to remedy, and I suspect will lead to a post in the near future that addresses this.

1) “The very most topmost important thing about DD is that he’s blind.” Absolutely. Not least because it drains colour from Murdock’s viewpoint, setting up yet another contrast. The Marvel U is a colourful world, even in the noir-corner Daredevil inhabits. The use of colour (red in particular, of course) is very important in Miller’s run, and even in the blurry murk of the Bendis/Maleev stories (I really need to start introducing examples to back some of this up. Bear with me, these follow-ups are coming). But colour, and light, are things Murdock hasn’t seen since he was a child.

2) “I maintain the difference between him and Batman is… he enjoys his crimefighting life.” I haven’t touched on this, but I certainly should underline that just because I think Matt Murdock is contradictory and conflicted, it doesn’t mean I think he has to be particularly grim. To play him straight down the line miserable is a mistake, I think, and something that takes subtlety from the character. I think it’s interesting that even though he gets shat on more than almost any other hero, the writers still aren’t able to go all the way and portray him as bloody and merciless. He isn’t, after all, the Punisher.

3) “DD isn’t driven (he caught his Joe Chill in issue #1).” Which ties in to the above. If he’s at all compelled in his adventuring, it’s because he loves to do it. This character loves conflict, thrives on it. He has to, considering what the writers usually inflict on him. Murdock takes pleasure in these contradictions.

Lawyer and criminal, hunter and defender, grinning adventurer and tortured Catholic. Matt Murdock and Daredevil.

Click here for the Delineation Archive.

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I’ve avoided the psychology of superheroes up until now, for a couple of reasons. The biggest one is that different writers will have vastly different views regarding a character’s motivations, and it’s pretty unlikely that, with the exception of particularly radical interpretations, an editor will question differing psychological approaches. Which is fine, really, as every writer brings their own perspective to their work. I’ve concentrated instead on the elements that can, or should, be consistant across the board. We may argue about whether Batman is a Republican, Democrat, or utterly uninterested in politics, and back it up with an analysis of his personality, but whether or not he drives around in a black car with a fin on it somewhere isn’t really up for grabs.

In doing so, I have skipped over a few things, one of which occurred to me while reading Will Shetterly’s comments on the Batman delineation. His assertion that Batman is a “mystery” character gave me pause for thought.

Let’s me put it like this: Batman and Daredevil are not the same character. We can list the similarities between them (and there are many), and just as easily list the disparities (one has superpowers and a working-class origin, the other hasn’t, etc.) Sooner or later, we fixate on the psychological reasons why they’re different, and I think we’ve got to a point in comics writing where psychological reasons have become the single most important factor that writers think about. It’s only a small step to reason that Batman and Daredevil react to different situations because Batman’s outlook is shaped by an affluent upbringing and the loss of his parents at an early age, while Daredevil’s motivations are controlled by an inner conflict between different drives (how very Catholic; indeed, how very Frank Miller) set up by the contradictory things he learned from his father.

The psychology aside, we ask, are Batman and Daredevil that different? No, is the answer we’re given. Miller worked on Daredevil, therefore he’s the perfect writer for Batman. Brubaker broke through on Batman, let’s get him on Daredevil. Why oh why can’t Bendis get his hands on Gotham?

I think what causes the confusion is that there are two different types of “crime” story in play here. I don’t want to get too tied up in semantics, and forgive me if I’m using the incorrect terminology, but I’m essentially referring to “mystery” and “hard-boiled” fiction. The former tends towards an external intellectual challenge for the protagonist, while the latter is concerned with a character’s inner conflict as well as any conflict with other characters.

Miller’s stroke of genius was in realising that as a Catholic dressed as the Devil, as a man who’s father indirectly taught him to fight, while simultaneously teaching him that fighting was the one thing he should never do, Matt Murdock’s inner life would be a fucking battlefield. It made him the perfect character for Miller to use to explore hard-boiled pulp fiction in the Marvel U. It also created the situation where I could write a delineation for pre-Miller Daredevil and post-Miller Daredevil seperately. It’s a situation that may well be repeated over at DC, as I suspect “Green Lantern” and “Geoff Johns’ Green Lantern” are two separate entities.

The problem is, Batman isn’t conflicted, at least, not where his various identities are concerned. In fact, in order to conceive of a situation where Batman was conflicted about his identity, Miller had to go to two different extremes; the very beginning of his career, and the very end. The problem lies in the middle bit.

You see, all too often we’re led to believe that there’s a conflict between Bruce Wayne and Batman, a tension between what either identity desires. This just isn’t true. Playboy Wayne and Batman are just two different masks, two different sets of tools, that are utilised by a third personality; rather, the only personality. This Bruce Wayne doesn’t necessarily want to live in Batman’s world, but he doesn’t necessarily want to live in the playboy’s world either. He wants nothing more that to finally be able to hang up these different disguises. But that’s not going to happen until he can be sure that his city is safe, and that no child will ever have to go through what he had to. This is Bruce Wayne as the obsessive master strategist, but also an altruist who spends his fortune almost recklessly, not on wine and women but on his mission. This is the man who raised his sons to be heroes. That’s not Daredevil. That’s not anything like Daredevil.

I think Frank Miller did a lot of good work at both companies, but while his take on Daredevil created a lot of potential for the character, it badly limited Batman by encouraging other writers to wander down the wrong path. They chose “hard-boiled” over “mystery”. What it comes down to, beyond the psychology of it all, is that the two characters interact with their respective villains in completely different ways, and if we accept that superhero stories are, when you get right down to it, based around these interactions then it follows that they must be two different kinds of stories. Batman is a mystery story. He finds his villains through detective work. Daredevil is a pulp adventurer, so he hits people in Josie’s Bar until they tell him where the Kingpin is. Think of any story where the Dark Knight does the same thing. Can you honestly tell me it wouldn’t have been a better Batman tale if he’d solved a puzzle or found a clue rather than duffing up a goon? Yes, Batman should duff up goons, but that should be how he deals with them, not how he puts them in context.

I haven’t done a good job of explaining what I mean when I say that. I need to do some posts where I back up some of these assertions. That’s something I’ll address shortly. In the meantime, thanks to all the new folks who’ve turned up recently, and to all the regulars who keep on coming round. It’s very much appreciated.

I think it’s time to switch companies, and have a closer look at Marvel’s take.

Click here for the Delineation Archive.

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Core Genre: Crime. Heavily influenced (or outright stolen from) pulp fiction, and as much as even the early stuff had improbable batgadgets that edged into SF and bad guys that were outright supernatural horror, crime-fighting detective work is the heart of the character.

The Bad: Easily the most-explored character in comics, with countless different versions over the years. Comedy, tragedy, dark avenger, borderline psychopath; is there a single take than hasn’t been done to death? I submit this is the biggest obstacle. There’s nothing left to do with him.

He’s a billionaire with unlimited resources. Simply put, there isn’t a single person with experience of this who’s going to be in a position to write the character, so “write what you know” goes straight out of the window. He’s the world’s greatest detective, but writing mystery fiction, in particular fiction with great twists and enthralling, fair puzzles, is incredibly difficult. Month in, month out, damn near impossible. Writers have developed plenty of tricks to sidestep this over the years, whether just ignoring detective work entirely or getting the batcomputer to do all the work, but the crime fiction roots run so deeply that I think this lack sticks out (admittedly, Dini is far better at this kind of thing than most, but this just makes any issue where he’s not writing even more noticably poor).

The Good: Nothing new to do, maybe, but this doesn’t have to be a bad thing. It gives us an opportunity to put aside a desperate need to reinvent the wheel with constant change, but instead to really get to grips with the rich history we already have. I think this is what Morrison’s been trying to do, but has gone a bit too far down the path of chucking everything against the wall without considering how the story flows. Unfortunately, if you list dozens of cool ideas, no matter how cool they are you still end up with a list. What’s needed is a writer who takes a Geoff Johns-type approach by putting a satisfying spin on everything that’s gone before.

Here’s the question: what does Batman consist of?

A) Scary costume
B) Mad Fightin’ Skillz
C) Madder Detective Skillz
D) Cool gadgets

A and B go together, because they’re his methods of directly interacting with ne’er-do-wells. C is how he locates and puts them into context, for himself (in-story) and for the audience (without). D covers both these grounds, depending on what the gadgets are being used for.

It’s tempting to put “Deep Psychological Problems” in, too, because in recent years this has become the default reading. But even so, I’m not convinced that “Mad Fucking Bastard” needs to be demonstrated in a Batman story, otherwise it’s not a Batman story. What I mean is that A-D, in one form or another, are essential, otherwise it isn’t really a Batman story. It may be good fun, but the central character becomes interchangable with almost anyone else. It may not matter in a good story whether your protagonist is Batman, the Blue Beetle, or even Sam Spade, but in a good Batman story you can’t imagine Ted Kord doing the honours.

I don’t know, maybe eventually “raving nutter” will become essential, but I don’t think we’re quite there yet. By the same token, “Sidekick” is an important element, but not essential. Plenty of good Batman stories with Robin, plenty of good ones without. In fact, Robin’s become so unnecessary that he rarely seems to have a role in a Batman story that’s deeper than showing his face around the cave.

To extrapolate, a good Batman and Robin story should have Robin actually making a difference to the plot. Or to put it in the form above, it should cover the Batman elements listed above, and Robin’s corresponding elements. Of course, that’s another post entirely.

Other factors: Batman’s supporting cast. Let’s break down the essentials:

Commissioner Gordon. He’s been there since the very start, though perhaps not properly utilised as a character in his own right until Miller’s Year One and Oldman’s performance in the two most recent films. Trying to write him out of the Batman titles is as crazy as deciding to write ongoing Sherlock Holmes series with an arbitrary character replacing Watson. Frankly, the same goes for Alfred. Neither have to be in every Batman story, but if you need to utilise their specific character type for a task within a story, it doesn’t make any sense to ignore them and use either someone else, or invent someone new.

That’s the problem with characters like Spoiler and the current Batgirl (in terms of story), and that’s why Leslie Thompkins was such a brilliant creation. Spoiler provides nothing to Batman’s story that Robin can’t. New Batgirl provides nothing that Old Batgirl couldn’t. Note, however, that this doesn’t mean that Spoiler doesn’t provide something significant to Robin’s story, or that she shouldn’t make a perfectly viable character on her own. Leslie Thompkins was brilliant because she provides a perspective on Bruce Wayne that can’t be provided by any other previously existing character. Which is incredible, if you think that in the thirty years and many different adaptations before her creation, this gap had never been addressed.

His rogues gallery is perhaps the best in comics, but at the same time, seriously over-exposed. It’s been good to see the Riddler get far better play thanks to Paul Dini, but the one guy I’d love to see done well, certainly in a form more appealing than “generic shapeshifter”, would be Clayface. Basil Karlo’s still around, right?

Conclusion: Batman’s one of the greatest characters created in the Twentieth Century. It’s just a shame that so often he can be so easily switched with other, lesser characters, in so many of his stories without any noticable effect.

Click here for the Delineation Archive.

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I notice Marvel’s got a Saxon poncing round with Excalibur in this week’s comics.

</Interminable Weekly Arthurian Snark>

In other news, modern design as applied to the humble drinks flask has brought the field of liquid containment immesurably further than it stood all those years ago when I had a plastic thing with a picture of M.A.S.K. on it. Speaking of which, stuff GI JOE, I want a motion picture event based around that 80s franchise, with Adam Baldwin as Matt Trakker, Hollywood’s All-Purpose Asian Guy John Cho as Bruce Sato and a darker, edgier T-BOB. Because I just can’t get enough of transforming vehicles.

And Spectrum’s got such sooh-per vih-hision. Muh muh muh muh, MASK.

My God, I think I may have found my life’s purpose; the pursuit of a faithful film adaptation of this lost gem, with Boulder Hill and everything.

But back to the flask. The heat retention ability of the Thermos® is nothing short of revolutionary, and it doesn’t leak. It’s what living in the 21st Century is all about, folks.

Anyway, I ended up bashing the smaller model and decide to upgrade. Only the 1L version is a hell of a lot bigger in real life than it looks in the box. Seriously, you could refuel a Boeing with the fucker. Plus, it means I’m getting through a litre of coffee a day. I’m not a hundred percent certain why I bring this whole flask thing up, except maybe to explain why posting is likely to get a little odd, then sporadic, then stop entirely when the palapatations assplode my heart.

While we’re waiting, let’s get our geek on.

• I’ve had a lot of good things to say about The Dark Knight, so here’s a bad thing. Comic book movies- well, movies period- aren’t really any good with their portrayal of women. The Dark Knight isn’t particularly exploitative, I don’t think, beyond Bruce Wayne’s dating habits as a cover for the Bat missions. The problem is how women are essentially an irrelevance in the film. Wayne’s mother is nothing more than an afterthought (hell, even Thomas Wayne got screen time in the first one), and Rachel Dawes is the definition of a pointless character. Or rather, a character who’s only point is to die and motivate the male characters. She’s subordinate to every man in the film, and only drives the plot by dying. They shove her right into the refridgerator, then nuke it, Spielberg-style. I know the problem’s caused mainly by faithfulness to almost 70 years worth of man-centric storytelling, but that’s just not a good enough excuse anymore.

• Battlestar Galactica, on the other hand, does far better gender-wise. A little shaky when it comes to race, maybe, but points for having a Latino lead character. Veeeeery heteronormative, though. I’ve finally started to catch up, finishing Series Two and starting on Series Three. Bloody hell, this is grim stuff. And incredibly close to the bone, what with its use of insurgents, bombings and prisoner torture. I’ll probably have more to say after I’ve watched a bit more.

• I’m just finishing the sixth Rebus novel, Mortal Causes. It looks like Ian Rankin’s comics writing debut will be happening at the new Vertigo Crime imprint rather than as a Hellblazer story, which may be for the best. After all, while I’ve got no idea whether the man can do horror fiction or not, he can write the shit out of crime stuff. I’ll probably do a round-up of the Rebus series once I’ve finished with them. As Rankin himself says in the foreword, Mortal Causes is certainly the first of the “grown-up” novels, in that there’s less of an emphasis on a good-gosh-whodunnit twist than on the lives and motives of the police officers and the criminals. Pretty grim, too.

• Incredibly, it’s been over two months since I picked up any comics, and over a month since I got the first JMS Thor hardcover (have I written about that yet? Can’t remember. Anyway, very good, very epic, fantastic art and bound to be cocked up once it stops being a self-contained series and starts getting all crossovery). I still need to plug a few single issue gaps, like the last issue of Casanova and the last couple of All-Star Supermen, but apart from that I think I’m pretty much dedicated to the waiting-for-the-trade thing. Thank you, Comics Companies, for being so crap over the past year with one thing or another and making the decision so easy.

• This post has turned all too negative. Let’s go look at pictures of M.A.S.K. toys instead.

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What have we got for you good folks today?

• Started Warren Ellis’s Crooked Little Vein but gave up halfway through. I thought the first chapter was great (and I think it’s free online somewhere), but it went off the rails into pointlessness after that. And the main character ends up with a superhot Gothy sexpot sidekick who contributes only the discomforting sensation that Ellis was getting his rocks off while he was writing it. I don’t know, maybe I’m just not getting it. After all, there’s a similar old-man’s-fantasy sidekick in Joe Hill’s Heart Shaped Box, and I thought that book was brilliant. Then again, the main character’s a sleazy old rock star, so it does make sense in context. In Vein, the protagonist just kind of picks her up off the street.

• Mind you, Ellis is in good company because I didn’t manage to get more than twenty or so pages into Dennis Lehane’s Shutter Island either. Which is odd, because the premise is intriguing (it’s the mid-fifties, and two US Marshalls have to locate a prisoner missing from an asylum on an island isolated by a huge storm, and the staff of the asylum are more than likely up to no good themselves) and I’ve read every other one of his books over the past couple of months and really enjoyed them. Maybe I’m just not in the right frame of mind at the moment, in that I’ve been making my way through Ian Rankin’s catalogue and I’ve probably attuned myself to a different style of crime writing for the time being. Then again, the introduction seems to be promising mind games played on the protagonists by a former-intelligence agent turned psychologist, and dear God there’s more than enough of that kind of thing in the genre already.

• Also, Leonardo DiCaprio will be starring in the upcoming Scorcese adaptation of the book, and his nauseating taint has unavoidably contaminated my enjoyment of the story. You know the taint I mean. The cheesy exudation of the terminally smug.

• I can wholly recommend the DVD Special Edition of A Fistful Of Dollars. While most commentary tracks are a bit shit, this one is provided by Sergio Leone biographer Christopher Frayling, and it’s fascinating. Incidentally, Frayling is also the chairman of the Arts Council England, and his appointment in 2004 was a little controversial because he’s, frankly, a pop culture junkie. How much of a junkie? Well, according to The Independent, when he was knighted in 2000 he took as his motto the Latin phrase “Perge, Scelus, Mihi Diem Perficias”, which translates as “Proceed, varlet, and let the day be rendered perfect for my benefit.” Or, to put another spin on it, “Go ahead, punk. Make my day.”

• More doom’n'gloom surrounding the Watchmen film. I was starting to feel a little optimistic about it after a chat with Brother Paul, who remains enthusiastic about the adaptation. Then I found out who was playing the second Silk Spectre. “Actress” Malin Akerman last appeared in otherwise-inoffensive chick flick 27 Dresses (and I bet you lot never thought that film would get a mention in the Journal), and she was absolutely fucking awful. Her skill was commesurate with a rotting, maggoty length of driftwood. Actually, that’s doing the hypothetical driftwood a disservice as the driftwood is showing signs of life. Because it’s riddled with parasitic fungus. I’ll concede that one bad performance doesn’t preclude a radical improvement, but we’re talking extremely fucking radical here; when a guitarist’s having trouble with barre chords- no, when a guitarists having trouble with open chords- actually, no, when a guitarist’s having trouble figuring out which way up the guitar goes, it’s unrealistic to expect her to be shreddin’ hot solos like Steve fucking Vai six months down the line.

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I’ve been getting through Dennis Lehane’s first four books recently, finishing the last one in time to catch the film version’s UK release this weekend (well, two weeks ago now, what with the restored post buffer).

They’re all very well-written, readable crime dramas, if not quite as good as Mystic River. Of course, he had about ten years to improve between that one and the first. In fact, it’s easy to see how the former is a culmination of all the things he learned from his previous work, as if he had to figure out what his style was before writing a whole book in that mode.

Because the Kenzie and Gennaro adventures can be summed up, in a way, like film pitches. A Drink, Before The War, with its gang storyline and shady city politics, is like The Shield set in Boston (though it predates the series by a fair bit of time). Darkness, Take My Hand is a typical serial killer whodunit, and Sacred is a Robert Mitchum-type noir. And if Gone Baby Gone is anything, it’s a Hollywood kidnapping thriller, complete with gunfights and action sequences.

Of course, it’s the only one that’s actually been adapted into a Hollywood thriller, but in such a way that it’s not a typical thriller at all.

A lot of people get shot in the book series, which isn’t unusual for the genre. What makes it a little odd is the setting. Because Lehane does a brilliant job of capturing working class life in Boston (I have no idea how accurate it is, only that it feels sufficiently realistic), it’s a bit of a jolt to get into the action sequences that are also a big part of the books. There’s one character in particular, Bubba Rogowski, a psychotic arms dealer who wires up his apartment with antipersonel mines instead of a burglar alarm, who seems completely out of place, and I wondered how they’d handle him in the film. The answer is, he’s downgraded to a minor-league drug dealer.

A lot of things get that kind of low-key downgrading in the film, whether simplifying the chaotic plot of the novel, the scope of the final conspiracy, or the shootouts. But it’s all necessary, as the tack director Ben Affleck chooses to take is more the realistic portrayal of life in Dorchester, and that’s always been the most interesting part of Lehane’s books. What he keeps in are the impossible dilemmas that face all the characters.

A key scene in the book and the film is the execution of a child molester by Kenzie. Even though the scene is described far more brutally in the book than is shown in the film, the latter is still more horrific. If anything, it’s easier to understand Kenzie’s motivation in the film without his inner monologue. We don’t really need to know why he did what he did, because we’ve seen it for ourselves. Put in the same position as him, it’s easy to see how anyone would do the same thing, regardless of whether the person gunned down was unarmed or harmless. Kenzie’s guilt, however understandable his actions were, effect his judgement for the rest of the film, facing another impossible decision of leaving the missing girl with her kidnappers and a happy, promising future, or returning her to a neighbourhood that has destroyed so many other lives.

The film benefits from not being one of a series, like the books are. It’s the first time we see Patrick Kenzie, so we don’t know all the other tragic things that have happened to him. We don’t know his history with his father, or that he’s had to kill before (I’d assume that, continuity wise, film-Kenzie doesn’t have the baggage of the books), so we find it that much easier to identify with him, although we do get hints of his uncontrollable anger when he pistol-whips a guy in a bar towards the beginning. And even though Casey Affleck’s accent is damn near impenetrable.

It’s a grown-up film for grown-ups, so it’s not necessarily and easy watch. The whole cast are great, and the setting seems really authentic. The only character who gets a little short-changed is Angie Gennaro. In the book she’s explicitly dangerous, not only tough on her own terms but also the grandaughter of an old Boston mob boss. In the film, she just kind of cries a lot, and moans at Kenzie. The whole cast is so brilliant, it’s a fucking shame that they decided to cast the second most important character in the film by essentially looking for the next moderately famous attractive young actress to wander along. In a film so non-Hollywood, it’s typical that the Hollywood mentality still had to piss on the chips, even a little bit.

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The Unicorn and the Wasp

The weakest episode of the current Who so far, but that isn’t to say that there wasn’t anything to enjoy in it. The Doctor’s detox scene should have been naff, but I thought Tennant overplayed it just right to make it pretty funny. Well, I laughed, anyway. The good news is that the next two episodes are written by the brilliant Steven Moffat. The bad news is we’re going to have to wait two weeks for it because of the bloody Eurovision Song Contest.

And as we’re talking about BBC Wales’ finest, I’ve been thinking about the end of the last series, and some of the criticism levelled at it. And the more I think about it, the more I like it. Thing is, I like all of the mythic, mysterious, alien qualities they give the Doctor sometimes, in particular the events that highlight not only how inhuman he is, but also suggest that he’s a power in the universe even beyond his status as a Time Lord, renegade, Last-Of or otherwise.

The Sylvester McCoy years were jammed full of this (take Curse of Fenric: a chess game with an ancient evil, with pieces carved from dried desert bone), but that kind of spin isn’t difficult to see in earlier incarnations. The Master’s speech, for example, fits this perfectly. And there’s something epic about the concept of Martha Jones travelling a conquered Earth, giving people hope by telling them tales of the Doctor, and then ensuring their faith is amplified through the Master’s psychic network and you know what, writing it out like that does make it sound kind of silly. But no more or less absurd than the pseudoscience of the rest of the series, or most of SF for that matter.

Gravity/Bloodstream by Tess Gerritsen

Gerritsen was a hugely popular crime writer while I was at Waterstones, although I never got round to reading her stuff at the time. But I’m willing to give her books a try at the bargain price of three quid for a two-book omnibus in Tesco.

Gravity is more of a Michael Crichton-type thriller, about the release of a deadly (aren’t they always?) infection on the International Space Station. And it is actually pretty thrilling. And foul, in a squishy-fleshy-autopsy kind of way. And like Crichton’s work, it’s very much science fiction, but it wouldn’t sell as many copies if that’s what it was marketed as. So it isn’t. Most gruesome bit: after a moving scene between an infected woman who knows she’s going to die and her lover, she starts to have a fit, chomping down on his hand and forcing him to, essentially, cave her face in to get his hand loose. And hello there those of you joining us from questionable Google searches. Like I said, squishy-fleshy-autopsy.

The most interesting parts involve the medical science. Gerritsen has a medical background which adds to the authenticity of those scenes, but also highlights the lack of technical detail of spaceflight. Then again, it’s not exactly her home ground. And besides, too much detail would slow the book’s brisk pace, and believe me it’s a very brisk, easy read.

I’m about halfway through Bloodstream, the second book in the omnibus. This one’s a more straightforward crime/medical drama, and is a little more pedestrian because of it. The characters seem more wooden and a lot less interesting, and some of the events that paint a few of the antagonists as pompous arrogant evildoers strain belief a little, which has to be clumsy considering I was just saying how easily I bought the whole Doctor Who psychic satellite thing.

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Sorry about the abrupt loss of inspiration last week, folks. But don’t worry, we’re back in the room.

A while ago, back when I worked at the bookshop, I read Lehane’s Mystic River. I don’t recall why I chose that particular one. I don’t think it was because I knew it was being made into a film, but not long after I finished it I heard about Clint Eastwood having a crack at directing it.

It’s a brilliant book, but I thought the film was shite. It seemed like everything I’d taken from the book was de-emphasised in the film, and I don’t know if that’s further evidence of how people can have completely different takes on something, or if I got completely the wrong end of the stick when I read it. I do know that my mates weren’t keen on the film either.

Sean Penn was really good, don’t get me wrong (and by good, I mean overacted in just the right melodramatic way to be considered Good Acting), but the film was so completely grounded in his all-encompasing grief at the murder of his daughter that everything else was secondary. The other two key characters (Kevin Bacon and Tim Robbins) were hardly in it, Bacon’s role in particular not much more than a cameo. That really struck me as a mistake, because my understanding of the book was about how these three characters lives were intertwined since they were children, and changed completely after Robbins was kidnapped and abused while the other two escaped. It was broadly about a copper versus a criminal, but at the same time a whole lot more: why people end up being who they are, the inevitability of character, about all the uncontrollable things that can drag us down, and lead us to our fates.

In short, the book was structured around Penn and Bacon’s characters being two sides of the same coin, almost like two forces in inevitable opposition. The film is nothing like that, Bacon’s character coming across as a wet bit-part rather than the main protagonist. This, of course, has nothing to do with the book I’m actually meant to be reviewing here.

A Drink, Before The War was Lehane’s debut novel and the first appearance of Kenzie and Genarro, his reoccuring PI characters. I started reading it after Mystic River, but didn’t finish it. It’s not as good a book, which isn’t really a surprise. It treads a lot of the same ground as a lot of other gritty detective stories, and there’s not much subtlety to be found.

Even so, where it differs from other books is the uncompromising way Lehane deals with working class life in Boston, and the racism and violence ingrained in all the organisations of the City, from criminal gangs to state politicians. It’s strikingly similar to the themes found in The Wire, a programme that Lehane himself ended up writing for. It’s this undercurrent that’s most interesting in the book, and that raises it about the usual grim crime story.

Anyway, the reason I brought up the Eastwood film is that it’s Ben Affleck’s turn to adapt one of Lehane’s books. Gone, Baby, Gone was out in the US last year, but is only landing this side of the Pond next month. It’s got a couple of good write-ups, but if I’d seen Mystic River the film first, I wouldn’t have bothered with the book. So I need to read the book first, but it’s the fourth in the series, and thanks to nerd obsessiveness I need to get through the other ones first. They’re on order from the library, and Darkness, Take My Hand is up next.

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I tagged Siskoid, and he tagged me right back, so let’s talk about writers some more. This time, let’s take a look at people who’s work is mostly, if not entirely, outside the comics industry.

George Pelecanos on Batman.

Or Daredevil, or any crime comic. I mentioned Pelecanos as part of the original challenge as an example of switching someone in from a different media, but it didn’t occur to me that people probably won’t recognise his name. He’s a crime novelist and screenwriter who’s been involved with The Wire, and I think a couple of films.

When I worked in the bookshop way back when I ran the crime section as well as Dragons, Spaceships and Underpants Guys. Outside of the Rebus novels (and more on them shortly), I hadn’t really read that much crime fiction, so I got through a lot in a short time to avoid looking like a slack-jawed shelf-filler should someone who knew their stuff appeared, because no one wants to be that guy who works at the Local Comic Shop but isn’t aware of more than two publishing companies.

Pelecanos was one of a set of American crime writers who do a specific kind of work, not so much mysteries or serial killers as examinations of police officers and the criminals they hunt. It’s very, very good stuff, and I don’t think I’d be too far off in suggesting that Ed Brubaker’s Criminal owes a lot to that school of writing, if not Pelecanos himself. And he doesn’t deal with small issues, either. The racial politics of Washington, D.C. (the actual living city rather than the white stone buildings of the capital, mostly) feature heavily, in novels set in the present and the 60s and 70s.

Although he’s not one of the biggest sellers in the field, I think there’s an objective argument to be made that he’s the best crime writer currently working, not to mention one of the best writers, period. So, yeah. Stick him on Batman.

Ian Rankin.

While I think Pelecanos is probably the best working crime writer, my favourite is Rankin, author of the John Rebus novels. Again, he’s in the top tier of British novelists writing anything, never mind crime, concentrating more on the study of people involved in both the police and the criminal community of Edinburgh rather than straight up murder mysteries, although there’s a lot of that too. And Rebus is the classic archetype of dogged, alcoholic investigator without any self-awareness or ability to play at politics, who pisses off (sometimes deliberately, sometimes not) damn near everyone he meets and will not let anything drop when he’s got his teeth into it.

It’s hardly surprising that the one comic Rankin’s been connected with is Hellblazer, via fellow Scot Denise Mina. I’m really looking forward to the run, should it ever appear, and there’s plenty of other titles I’d like to see him take a crack at. Maybe Marvel’s horror line, actually. Hellstrom, say, certainly as the last Max series seemed to take its cue from Contantine. Maybe the Question, too: original, rather than Montoya.

Alan Heinberg.

And speaking of the Question, last year at the Bristol convention, in a panel on telly writers in comics with Paul Cornell, Alan Heinberg mentioned that he was once involved in an attempt to make a Vic Sage Question series, although it fell through. He’s obviously a big fan of the character, and it would be interesting to see what tack he’s take. Although it would never come out.

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