The Fractal Hall Journal

Wolverine gets a lot of stick, some of it deserved. Though I’ve never been much of a fan, there’s obviously something going on there because there aren’t many characters created specifically to fill a team role who go on to sustain not only their own books, but who can be deployed as a guaranteed sales-raising guest star. Whether or not this is a good thing is, as always, open to conjecture.

Core Genre: Wolverine is the super-hero version of the Man With No Name, an outlaw with a violent, uncertain past in line with the darker, more ambiguous post-Leone kind of cowboy. So I’m enclined to place him under Western, although considering his nationality that’s more of a North Western. The Frontier Fiction of Jack London, maybe.

Before the Jemas/Quesada/Jenkins/Kubert Origin, it was accepted that to give Wolverine a definitive backstory would kill the mystery of the character, and take the character with it. I’ve seen the series criticised by some for doing exactly that. I disagree.

First of all, the idea that Wolverine’s backstory is in anyway mysterious is wrong. From the very beginning his creator Len Wein intended for him to be a mutated wolverine, though thank fuck they didn’t follow through on that. Claremont and Byrne, the creators most responsible for shaping the character’s early days, also intended for the character to be old enough to have fought in the Second World War.

Of course, the readers didn’t know all this yet, but it wasn’t long before the gaps started to get filled in. Alpha Flight, Weapon X, a long history with Sabretooth, fighting alongside Captain America in the ’40s; not a definitive timeline, perhaps, but plenty of things to delineate his history. Heavy hints of wetwork for intelligence agencies. And as soon as we get into his solo series we have the Japan stuff, a bizarre story about a boy raised by actual wolverines, life with Silver Fox and her subsequent murder, and so on. Although how much of this come under the ‘implanted memory’ get-out clause is anyone’s guess.

Regardless of how much of this is later retconned or proven false, it shows how his writers have been playing around with his origins for a long time. Considering how much fans and creators protest that his backstory should be hidden, they’ve certainly engaged with a lot of books over time that deal with possible origins. Ditto for the ‘angry loner who hunts alone’ thing. Guy’s supporting cast is bigger than the Batman Family.

A) Healing factor
B) Animal senses
C) Claws
D) Adamantium-laced skeleton
E) Berserker rage
F) Is (sigh) the best there is at what he does, and what he does isn’t pretty.

If nothing else, Wolverine is a survivor. His healing factor is the centre of his character, survival as mutant power. I like the idea that the reason for his memory issues is the healing factor crudely patching up a damaged psychology.

Who are Wolverine’s villains? Every damn thing. Everyone he’s ever met, every situation he’s ever been in. He’s his own worst enemy, and that doesn’t just mean the character as he’s defined in his present, but also the person he used to be. Every different aspect of his past, whether nobleman, frontiersman, assassin or samurai, becomes a different enemy, and creates a new conflict that Wolverine has to survive. Wolverine never triumphs. The best he can hope for is that he sees another day.

Actually, considering everything he’s been through, maybe that’s wrong. He can’t really be killed, not considering his core power, so he can’t escape any of his actions. He won’t even get the peace of the grave. Even survival itself becomes his enemy, because the best he can hope for is achieving a measure of peace.

There’s some depressing stuff behind that yellow spandex.

But it’s not really the nihilism people come for. Everyone likes a rogue, and if we think of the action movie culture that brought characters like Wolverine and the Punisher to prominence in the 80s we can see that the attraction was mostly a surface one. Blood, rage and Rambo. Luckily for Logan, there was still enough to him that he stayed popular after circumstances changed.

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Comics writers are fond of bringing in Z-list heroes without their own titles into their team books. There’s more than one reason for this. Dan Didio, referring to the new Teen Titans line up, is right in saying that this is a way to keep telling stories with characters that have potential, but can’t sustain their own books. Other writers continually site the difficulties with progressing character when progress is only allowed to happen in the home title, with a completely different set of editors and writers.

All true, of course. But you have to ask yourself whether your readers want to read a book about Blue Beetle, or Huntress, or fucking Geo-Force. The realities of day-to-day publishing may get in the way, but if people want to read about the Magnificent Seven then maybe that’s who should be in the JLA.

Sorry, got a bit distracted there.

The point is, the practicalities of juggling characters spread over various titles make Big Gun team books difficult to handle, making runs like Morrison’s JLA even more impressive. This isn’t a new problem, and is the main reason why Avengers isn’t really expected to be a Big Gun title in the same way Justice League is. Hawkeye and Wonder Man and whoever allow the team book writer to own some characters.

The best execution of this kind of team book has to be the X-Men. The mutants are so successful, in fact, that they’ve been able to spin off several characters that can stand on their own feet, although Wolverine’s probably the only really successful one (and more on him next week). But most of the X-Men are resolutely one-note, in both power-gimmick and character, and this is very deliberate.

Core Genre: Science Fiction, with the usual Marvel mixture of everything else.

The X-Men should be taken as a single character, a plural protagonist in the nomenclature of screenwriting. Their conflict occurs on two levels; drama between the various X-Men themselves, and the external conflict with their villains. The operatics of the X-Soap has always been the most-discussed element of the book, and it probably goes without saying by now that the psychology of the thing isn’t what I’m going to concentrate on, so as usual I’ll skip over that in favour of the mechanics of the thing.

A) A team
B) of mutant
C) students
D) with distinct powers
E) and access to advanced technology
F) defend a world that fears and hates them

Considering the complexity of its implications, that’s one of the most elegant concepts you’re going to find in comics. Stan Lee and his various colleagues really were that good.

What’s interesting here is that every element here is the root of both internal and external conflict. Hmm, it looks like I will be talking psychology after all. Well, it’s the X-Men. You just can’t avoid it. Their personal conflict stems from their powers, or their race, or their relationship with non-mutants. They argue with each other as well as the outside world. And this is mirrored in their conflict with their antagonists.

Factor A tells us their mode of interaction, a gestalt identity. B is the source of their abilities, and also the inciting element of their conflict, either with other mutants or with non-mutants. B leads to both D (how they interact with antagonists) and F (which gives context to the interaction). Personally, I could live without the advanced technology of factor E, but the jets and the danger rooms and Cerebro/Cerebra have been integral from the start, shaping how the villains are located and put into context.

And their villains are very interesting. Intolerant Homo Sapiens, and intolerant Homo Superior. Peaceful integration is the ultimate goal, even if it has to be fought for. It’s easy to cast a cynical eye over superheroes and their drive to solve problems with their fists, but I’m reminded of a quote from author (and daughter of the Fair Country) Jo Walton, as found in the sidebar of Making Light: “Peace means something different from ‘not fighting’… Peace is an active and complex thing and sometimes fighting is part of what it takes to get it.”

Factor C is the controlling element of the stories. The adventures are all centred round a school or academy, a place of learning. It gives the team its character. It’s also the thing that gives the book a sinister edge.

The idea that a trusted teacher of children sends them out to war is unavoidably creepy. It’s a concept that’s been played with many times since Claremont. I don’t know if this odd vibe was deliberate on the part of Lee and Kirby or just another oddity of 60s Marvel, but it plays to other themes present since the beginning. I’m not sure it can all be considered coincidental, though it may be subconscious rather than conscious.

Student unrest tied in with movements wanting to change the status quo is one of the primary images we have of the Sixties, not only in America but across the world. Stan Lee explicitly wrote this into Spider-man, so it wasn’t something he was oblivious too. I wonder how much this informed the structure of the X-Men. The radicalisation of the young by influential figures is a perennial concern to the Daily Mail crowd, something that can be found in modern hysteria regarding Islamic university organisations, Victorian political concerns, right back to Socrates and Plato.

I’m probably reading too much into it, but the X-Men concept does play into anti-intellectual fears of an educated populace, with university education seen as a threat. Like I say, it’s nothing new but there’s been a lot of it in recent years (and if I was feeling particularly tin-hattish, I’d say it’s yet another tactic to discourage the masses from bettering themselves and to keep education strictly for the privileged few, but that’s just crazy talk isn’t it now.)

Also, the world is run by lizards.

Conclusion: If we dig around there’s some ugly things lurking in the X-Men concept. Of course, that can only help in terms of drama, action and conflict. It shouldn’t be a surprise that, when handled properly, the books are amongst the most popular ever made.

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Of all the different kinds of guitar music I like, prog rock’s probably my least favourite. It’s a bit of a surprise that I’ve been listening to quite a bit of it over the past year, and that I’ve mentioned it a few times here.

There was a video not that long ago on YouTube of a school band doing a Yes track with Jon Anderson (I think) singing with them. I don’t have the link, and I don’t recall where I saw the video (either via Making Light or the Whatever), but it was a little piece of genius. As one commentator put it, the pomposity of prog meant it was never able to engage with the one thing it lacked; the enthusiasm of a group of teenagers thumping away at their instruments. That was probably why I ended up revisiting the world of unfeasably long album tracks.

That’s the thing that always comes up about prog. The overblown campness of it all. In the Blu-Ray/HD-DVD war of rock, punk came out on top and that was the end of that. And I can’t help feeling a little sad at that, not least because punk has long outlived its usefulness, its iconography dug up, reanimated and repackaged as just about the least offensive musical opiate ever conceived.

Regardless of the merits or otherwise of the movement they came from, Pink Floyd are inarguably a legendary band. Wish You Were Here has been on the car for ages, and it’s one of the classics. There’s a reason it always turns up in those annual Bestest Ever charts.

It’s Have A Cigar I wanted to bring up. It starts off a straightforward rock track, with a funky bass line and Dave Gilmour doing a bluesier thing than on the rest of the album. It’s not obvious from the kind of thing Pink Floyd are remembered for, but Gilmour’s a hell of a blues player, even if it is the white boy 60s English blues thing of Keith Richards, Clapton and Peter Green (probably shouldn’t lump Green in there, actually, because if BB King says he’s the real thing then that’s good enough for me).

And then we hit 0:25 with a synthy SPOING and it all gets a bit odd.

I imagine that small bit is the musical equivalent of finding out Watchmen isn’t really a formulaic murder investigation. You’re pootering along as normal and suddenly WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT FUCKING SQUID THING. Maybe Watchmen would have been better without the psychic mollusc. Maybe the Floyd track would have been better without the psychadelic assault. But I don’t think so.

Have A Cigar sums up prog to me, and a lot of rock music in a way. The SPOING of the synths is going to turn a lot of people off as being, well, silly at best. And it is deeply, deeply silly. Even so, I can’t help think that when the band first put it together, they thought it was the most edgy, sophisticated thing they could have done. Rugged, fearless experimentation that can’t have the same effect on us after the 80s showed how commonplace electronica would become. That day in the studio, I bet they were as excited as fuck.

Maybe the only people who can really appreciate it are the kids like those teenagers covering Yes, who haven’t got to the point where they only way they can enjoy something like that is in an ironic fashion. Even the irony isn’t a problem, though. Even if the only way you can enjoy it is by rolling your eyes at your dad as he warbles along to something he loved when he was young, and accepting the silliness of those crazy old hippies, than it’s all good. It doesn’t matter what path you have to take before you like something, it only matters that you’re having fun.

Because you know who else lives in that SPOING? Jack Kirby. The guy was an extraordinary talent, an artistic visionary, and deeply silly all at the same time. Something like the original OMAC is, in most ways, fucking stupid, but exactly as fucking stupid as Pink Floyd. Just about everything you could use to defend the King you could use to defend prog, via childlike enthusiasm or ironic detachment, though I suspect the most effect argument is always a matter of craft. You’d have to be an idiot to argue that Kirby didn’t have an incredible technical talent, or that the guys who wrote Shine On You Crazy Diamond weren’t exceptional musicians.

Jack Kirby Lives In The SPOING. Tell me you don’t want that on a t-shirt.

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I’ve said before that I’m not likely to be doing a delineation on Spider-Man. The character’s one of the most over-examined in comics, and writing a breakdown of the basics doesn’t strike me as worthwhile. Spider-Man seems to be forever getting back to basics, most recently during the notorious Brand New Day thing. Add in the discussions about the roots of the character that have been occuring over the past few years outside of the comics “community” due to the popularity of the films, then I’d guess another go around by me wouldn’t interesting to read, or all that interesting to write.

There is one thing I do fancy a crack at, though. Let’s posit, as I have been doing, that Spider-Man is Peter Parker’s arch-enemy, and vice versa. What does this tell us about what villains are for, and what does it tell us about their purpose in superhero stories in particular?

Let’s accept the truism that the mechanism of story is conflict. The primary conflict in superhero stories is between the heroes and the villains, obviously. And what is Spider-Man, as a character, always praised for, ad nauseum? Peter Parker’s real life (ho ho) problems. Can’t pay bills, can’t look after his aunt, can’t bring assault charges against Flash Thompson. The reason these problems are compelling in a superhero story, as opposed to being seen as an annoying tangent, is because they are Spider-Man’s difficulties. By a similar token, Spider-Man’s actions have repercussions for Parker. I’m not saying we’re dealing with separate personalities here; I think of all the superhero identity dichotomies, Spider-Man has probably the most integrated personality consistant across both identities. I’m saying that the two identities, while the same person, are in conflict with each other. And conflict in a superhero story means conflict between heroes and villains.

So, how do we define what a villain, or a hero, is? Not exactly an easy question. Maybe back in the day we could identify the two according to the colour of their hats, but it didn’t take long for ambiguity about even that to creep into popular culture. There’s plenty of things about modern culture that we can moan about, but one thing we have got right is that, regardless of our tendency to label anything we’re broadly unfamiliar with as strange, unnatural, even sinister, it doesn’t take that much time for a vocal opposition to that standpoint to spring up. I suspect that we’re good at pre-judgement, but we’re better at picking a fight. I suppose both things rise from the same instinct.

Why have superheroes, or supervillains, at all? At the most simple level, they were created to make money, obviously. They were successful- hugely successful, by any metric, and continue to be- because they’re a relatively simple way to show the extraordinary. Even today, the cinema fulfils the same purpose. We could argue that there’s nothing simple about the lengths a production goes to to film something that costs over a hundred million dollars, but I’d wager it’s a hell of a lot simpler than figuring out how to actually make someone fly.

People respond to the demonstration of the extraordinary. That’s the key. The drama of conflict is the simplest template to use, and the almost comical simplicity of good vs. evil the most efficient engine. Using incredible powers against plain criminals soon becomes too easy, offering no challenge, so soon we have villains that mirror the heroes, less altruistic characters with fantastic abilities.

There’s an elegance in symmetry, and as we’ve already fallen hook line and sinker for a black and white world, we begin looking for characters that mirror and invert our heroes. Was the Joker ever really meant to be the Batman’s arch-enemy? Did Bill Finger sit down and decide that a dark hero needed a bright villain, a twisted inversion? I have no idea, but organically that’s what the Joker came to be, perhaps not deliberately but as the most obvious vessel for the concept.

A shortcut to giving a hero an arch-enemy is to either mirror or invert the character. I doubt this is an original observation, by the way. It strikes me as the kind of thing that would have come up over at the Absorbascon, say. I don’t recall reading it elsewhere, though apologies if I’m repeating something someone else has already talked about.

An inversion of a character is the character’s opposite. The Joker is the antithesis of the Batman, and I’m sure we don’t need to go over the whole dark/bright, order/chaos thing to prove this. A character’s mirror, on the other hand, is essentially identical, but has opposite motivations. Batman’s most direct mirror would be the Wrath, though he’s rarely used. I suspect Catwoman would be the most obvious equivalent in his classic rogue’s gallery, or maybe Simone’s take on Catman.

There are plenty of others to be found. Luthor is Superman’s inversion, a man who thinks he’s a god to Superman’s a god who thinks he’s a man, while General Zod is his mirror. Iron Man has many mirrors, from the Crimson Dynamo through the Iron Monger to the Armour Wars’ Firepower (anyone remember him?). The Mandarin is his most obvious inversion, though time has weakened this. In the past, he was a communist sorceror to Stark’s capitalist science-adventurer. These days, communism isn’t an issue and his magic is just alien technology. Here’s an idea; Stark needs an inversion, a Mephisto-like being of magic. By the same token, actually, Dr Strange could do with a technology-based nemesis (his mirrors being numerous, Baron Mordo chief amongst them). Along with, you know, an ongoing title. Actually, I can’t believe he doesn’t have one, so it’s probably just me having not read enough of his comics. Suggestions in comments, please.

Thinking about it, I think this is the very thing that Mark Waid realised when he thought up leather-clad Magical Mister Doom. Change the Fantastic Four’s nemesis from mirror to inversion, open up new avenues of conflict. I know some criticise, but I liked the leather-Doom stuff and I think a lot of Waid’s FF work was spot on, although I lost interest during the somewhat hamfisted WMD-laden invasion of Iraq Latveria.

But back to the Spider’s “real life” problems. Spider-Man and Peter Parker’s conflict is between two halves of the same person, and as such the are both mirrors and inversions of one another. Which isn’t to say we don’t see external examples of this, of course, Venom being the mirror and the Green Goblin (perhaps) being the inversion. But Spider-Man and Parker are mirrors of each other (they have the same powers in and out of costume, and the same personalities) and inversions (Parker is seen as a kind, clever but dopey and largely useless man who’s secretly a criminal and who lies to everyone who’s close to him, Spider-Man is seen as a criminal but is in fact a selfless hero, and so on) at the same time.

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Core Genre: Science Fiction. Space opera mainly though not always, and shading towards the Original Star Trek horrorish take, under Geoff Johns in particular.

As the architect of Jordan’s return from the dead, and the principle GL writer for a number of years, Johns is going to be the major influence on this post. He’s done more than pretty much any other writer to show us who Jordan is, and what makes him tick.

I’m not keen at all on the characterisation of Hal Jordan as, essentially, a thick ignorant prick. Hal Jordan Internet Joke is somewhat played out. Let’s accept he has a somewhat privileged, conservative mindset, evidenced by an alpha male jet jockey backstory and as originated during the Hard Travelling Heroes era. Is he small- or narrow-minded? Of course not. As Johns has gone to lengths to show, he’s focused. This is both a positive and a negative character trait. He’s as precise and instinctive and as you’d want in a test pilot or, indeed, a space cop, but this does lead to missing some of the surrounding detail of a given situation. It makes him stubborn, and single minded, but this is a world away from being narrow minded. Gardner, on the other hand…

There’s a recklessness about the character too. But a certain kind of recklessness, not the same as Oliver Queen’s, for example. He’s honest and fearless, as all Green Lanterns are, with the formidable will that goes along with that. Marry that to precision and focus, not to mention confidence, and you’re going to get a character who does rush in.

Funny, but some of the first posts at the Journal were about what makes a Green Lantern’s tick. At the time, I mentioned that I prefer GLs to simply not know fear, rather than to know fear but be able to overcome it. Johns has again made explicit that overcoming fear is the important thing, as seen in fearful new GL recruits who are still vulnerable to yellow. To be fair, I’ve been happy to change my viewpoint on this, as Johns has built some great work from this foundation, in particular as regards the different Corps he’s been creating.

I’m still fond of the idea that GLs are honest because they have no fear of the consequences of the truth. There’s been nothing to contradict this either. In fact, I think it makes a lot of sense, with Jordan in particular. Focused, willful. Damn straight he tells the truth, and he’s not scared to do it either. Not in the slightest.

Let’s take a second here to talk about the Guardians. They work best when portrayed as grumpy space-bureaucrats. Galactic police captains who want Jordan’s god-damned badge and gun because he’s gone too damn far this time. Unfortunately, they’ve been known to drift too far into big blue sky daddy territory. This doesn’t work as well, because then they become DC’s Odin to Hal Jordan’s Thor. A conflict between child and parent, an endless cycle of replacing the father. They leave the kids to fend for themselves, then they come back, then they die, then they come back, now it looks like they’re on the way out again. Wrong way of looking at it. They shouldn’t be nurturing their adoptive children to take over after they’re gone. They should be your cosmic boss, hypertensive and pissed off that you haven’t finished the monthly spreadsheet yet.

This post’s about Hal Jordan specifically rather than Green Lanterns generally. That’s because I think there are factors that are specific to getting his character right that don’t quite transer to other Lanterns, Kyle Rayner in particular. The first two factors, however, are the classics (and due to this there’s a lot in a GL’s character that will overlap with other members of the Corps):

A) Honest.
B) Fearless.
C) Power ring that creates things willed into existence. Is green. Obviously. Need recharging.
D) Blue cosmic bosses.

D) is the primary way in which a villain is located and put into context. Clunky kind of exposition via briefing, perhaps, but if it worked for Hill Street Blues then it can’t be completely inelegant. GLs aren’t really detectives, anyhow, and a GL story is different to a Batman story for this reason. There are, of course, exceptions, and this is when the power ring comes in. GL drinking game: everytime they “scan” something with the bugger. You’ll be plastered before DC Nation.

You know, having said they’re not really detectives, I have to admit I quite like the times where we’re reminded that the Corps isn’t so much a group of superheroes as it is a group of coppers. You know,w hen they make reports, or refer to sentencing procedures and breaches of intergalactic law. I like how it grounds the incredible. Jordan using the ring at one point as a CSI-style scene of crime scanner (for an autopsy, I think) was pretty cool. I like the way it suggests GL rookies are taught specific complicated construct patterns or designs that there’s no way they could come up with themselves.

The ring, then, becomes both a tool of location and the primary means of interaction. Honesty is a mode of interacting with their world, either through action or communication. A lack of fear informs this too, as well as shaping the way a Lantern locates an antagonist.

Conclusion: There’s not much to sum up, in that the personality of a Green Lantern is clearly delineated already in the central concept, not to mention the job Geoff Johns has done in exploring what makes Jordan tick. The last thing I’ll say is that although the job requirement means a Lantern has to be a certain way, I’ve always liked the way the different characters are shown to be very different too each other. Honesty and fearlessness does not automatically make you a good person, after all. Gardner’s obnoxious as hell, and honesty and a lack of fear only exacerbates his worst tendencies. I may return to this later, as I suspect both Gardner and Kyle Rayner’s profiles would be fairly different to Jordan’s.

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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.

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Ah, the long delayed Hulk post. This was meant to be the next delineation, and then The Incident happened. So this may not be the post as it was originally envisioned.

Core Genre: SF or Horror? Bruce Banner is, next to Reed Richards, the Marvel U’s most significant scientist (if we accept that until the film, Tony Stark wasn’t as well known and besides, he’s more of an engineer), and the Hulk has very few ’supernatural’ elements seen in other titles. On the other hand, the Jekyll/Hyde character is a horror archetype. I suspect the Hulk is mostly SF; the more straightforward ‘horror’ take Bruce Jones wrote a few years ago wasn’t very well received, after all, although I thought it was an interesting premise that was worth a shot. But it’s the Original Star Trek/Forbidden Planet kind of SF, packed with sinister overtones and dangerous, alien beasts.

The Bad: Definition of a tricky character. Not in story terms, mind. Banner’s life is tailor-made for drama. The problem is that, as far as popular culture is concerned, the Hulk is one of the characters that everyone knows about. DC’s Trinity, then Spider-Man, then the Hulk, just ahead of Captain America and Aquaman. As a result, the twists and turns taken in the Hulk comic have often been completely at odds with the greater understanding of what the character is. Isn’t he a scientist, on the run with a brutish, superstrong, green alter ego? Well, sometimes his alter ego is smart, sometimes he’s a space-king, and sometimes he’s, er, grey. Or red.

Thing is, it’s easy to roll our collective eyes at some of the creative decisions made where other characters are concerned. Superman shouldn’t be blue and electric, Batman shouldn’t be anyone other than Bruce Wayne, and so on. And it’s crazy to think that these things are limitations on story. We are no where near the point where we’re out of stories to write for these characters. We don’t need to make these dramatic changes in order to create a compelling story.

The problem with the Hulk is, his status quo may well be that limiting. I think this is why so many of his stories move away from the ‘lonely man’ perspective. Unfortunately (or, perhaps, fortunately for the true-blue old-school Hulk fans), eventually we do return to that kind of story, because that’s what everyone believes Bruce Banner’s story is. He runs from those that hunt him, even as he runs from himself.

The Good: The Hulk is an absolute classic character. Hulk stories, when done well, can have both a satisfying emotional element and lots and lots of violent punchings. What I find particularly interesting is how the prevailing storytelling tendencies of the 2000s so far have served many otherwise simplistic characters well by providing a certain psychological complexity (take almost every recent depiction of super-villains at either of the Big Two as an example); and yet, the modern take has diminished the Hulk. Super-villains have been elevated, in story terms, while the Hulk has been reduced and, by the same process, become a super-villain. Simply put, Ultimate Hulk, the Hulk in JMS’s Fantastic Four run, and the Hulk that Brian Bendis shot into space are boring. A sub-par Godzilla, with nothing better to do that property damage. And property damage is interesting for about five minutes, if done prettily enough.

The idea that the Hulk has never killed anyone may be laughable and ‘unrealistic’ (unreality in a comic? Surely not), but it makes Bruce Banner more interesting. Personally, I quite like Greg Pak’s take, that because the Hulk is an aspect of Banner, on a subconscious level he was ensuring no-one got hurt. Besides, if the Hulk is going around murdering hundreds on every rampage, then Banner is a coward for not taking himself out, and who wants to follow that guy’s adventures?

Characteristics:

A) Transformation…
B) …into a big, green, superstrong invulnerable monster
C) Mad science

Is the Hulk a superhero? Well, I’ve already claimed he shouldn’t be a villain, so I have to say yes. But what kind?

If he’s not a bad guy, then within his story, who is? Can we claim that, like Spider-man and Peter Parker, the two identities are each other’s enemies?

I don’t think so. I think we can certainly take that viewpoint, and I know I’ve read more than one story that does. But I think that, really, the better take is seen in the last film. That eventually, Bruce Banner and the Hulk must accept that they aren’t separate beings, but aspects of the same one, and in doing so may be able to do some good against monsters that are far worse than they are.

These worse monsters are the Hulk’s villains, the characters he must put into context. They can be other gamma-mutants (the Leader, the Abomination, et al), or evil bug-eyed space aliens. But, as in almost every classic creature story, the arch-fiend, the greatest monster of them all, is humankind.

The Hulk is chased, harrassed, and prevented ever from finding peace or solace by us. In a reversal to the other delineations, it’s not the Hulk who locates his villains via any of the above factors. It’s these factors that allow humans to locate him. His transformation reveals himself to people otherwise unaware of his presence. His search for a cure (via factor C) puts him in a position where he can be located. And factor B ensures that when he does appear, he can’t go unnoticed. The Hulk doesn’t so much interact with his villains, than ends up in a situation where he cannot avoid interacting with them. That’s the difference between the Bendis/Millar/Ultimate type Hulk. That Hulk goes looking for trouble, as he’s nothing more than a psychopathic beast. The real Hulk wants to be left alone.

Conclusion: There’s so much more to say about Banner and the Hulk. I’ve limited myself in this post by talking about the archetypical Hulk. Needless to say, Peter David did some very, very good work during his long run, and by necessity wandered down paths that won’t match with the ‘lonely man’ take. It would take a far longer post to discuss the twists and turns of the various Hulk personalities, and I suspect we’ll be returning to this character at some point in the future.

By the way, I very much recommend Planet Hulk to almost anyone. It’s a really, really good story, and far better than I ever expected it to be.

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Halloween is finished for another year, and winter has begun. With the spirit night shenanigans done with, we’ll be returning to the delineations this week. And as you may have noticed, the site has undergone a couple of changes. Very, very purple changes.

I started this Journal in June 2007, although I suppose the real anniversary is October 15th, when regular posting began (and for those interested, we’re fast approaching the 300th post, which is hard to believe). I would have mentioned something a couple of weeks ago, but we were in the middle of the delineation posts and I was on a roll, so I forgot. I think a bit of a change after a year is a good thing, although I may get fed up of the new layout and go back. For the moment, we’ll see how this goes. Anyone spot any problems or issues, or if the new template borks things up for anyone, or if you just find it unbelievably hideous, I’d appreciate a comment or an email and I’ll see what I can do.

A few thoughts on superheroes, as we’ve been discussing them a fair bit recently. With the secret identities that almost always go along with them, they’re an excellent tool for examining themes of duality, dishonesty, masks, and identity itself. I think that in recent years, the superhero genre has become obsessed with these themes, and with good reason. If you want to look grown-up and artistic, you need to define a theme, and this is the easiest and most obvious one.

How many times do we need to see the concept of ‘dichotomy’ addressed in strip form? At which point can we move on from the first ‘artistic’ interpretation of superheroes creators have been eager to play with? At some point, it needs to stop being good enough to crap out something that gives lip service to psychological analysis in order to be complemented on insight. You don’t need a story that can be dissected on multiple levels, anyway (says the man who’s been dissecting away for a couple of weeks). You just need a good superhero story.

I find myself repeating this point over and over, but it is the heart of these posts: superhero stories boil down to interactions between heroes and villains. The drift towards writing stories about how superheroes interact with themselves, how they resolve inner conflicts, is the natural extension of psychological analysis. But it’s very inward-looking, and not the ideal way to tackle a set of characters who were created as a way of externalising various things. Heroes fight with themselves, heroes fight with each other, but rarely do their comics show anything meaning from their fights with supervillains.

This is a deliberate decision on the part of creators. It’s very post-modern to characterise fighting villains as pointless, as a kind of distraction. Millar’s Spider-man sees villains deliberately created by Norman Osborn to divert heroes from doing anything meaningful (oh, by the way, Geek Fail of the day: I had to check what spelling of “Osborn” the character uses. I suppose Norman Osbourne sounds more like a banker, or a dodgy MP). Joe Casey’s Iron Man miniseries The Inevitable has Stark growing ‘beyond’ old fashioned villains. Superman and Lex Luthor’s eternal cycle of battle wastes the potential of both of them.

Very modern, very self-aware, very cynical. We must only enjoy these stories ironically, or not at all. We all have to giggle at a dumb guy in a dumb goblin costume. We are all meta now.

But I tell you, the best stories are ones where Galactus is about to eat the planet, and only the Fantastic Four can save us. Where the Joker’s burning Gotham, and Batman puts out the fires. We don’t need an excuse to enjoy this, or a way to laugh at ourselves. It is more than good enough to engage with the material within its own context. This isn’t to say I don’t like a bit of Clever in my comics. I just don’t want the same fucking Clever I’ve been reading since Alan Moore thought that having Alec Holland be really dead was Clever.

Galactus is a good example, actually. He is coming to eat your world, and you’d better find a way to stop him or everyone’s dead. Conflict doesn’t have to be dumb, just two people slugging it out. Think of the mechanics of dealing with a cosmic threat. Man versus god, Mr Fantastic’s advanced intelligence versus a mind eons old. Brute force and power in play, the Thing becoming a breed of immovable object. And the Surfer: a superb villain, one that is eventually won to our side at an enormous cost to himself. And how evil is Galactus, really? Any more evil than any creature that requires sustenance? That realisation that Galactus has an important purpose comes later than in Fantastic Four #48-50, but the seeds are there. Sure, the resolution via the Ultimate Nullifier is copoutery of the highest order, but it doesn’t negate anything that comes before. There’s a lot in here, and that’s not bad for disposable kid’s entertainment.

So let’s get our superheroes out of their own heads. Let’s have some meaningful external conflict, and not worry quite so much about how our heroes war with themselves. We’ll be addressing the matter of the Hulk this week, and it will be worth bearing some of this in mind for that, because the Hulk is perfect for both these elements: at one level, he’s at war with himself, and as a creature of almost limitless strength, he’s at war with the rest of the world, too.

That reminds me: I’ve been meaning to do some posts to illustrate what I mean by some of the concepts I’ve written about here, by way of good (and bad) stories. I haven’t so far because (a) using the scanner’s a bit like hard work and (b) I don’t tend to use many images here because I like to keep the Journal optimised for sneaky reading at work. Of course, my consideration for where you good people may be reading this blog has just gone straight out the window with the big purple manor house I’m now using as a background, so, you know. Bollocks to it. Time for some pictures.

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Halloween’s a-coming, and it’s getting a little creepy here at the Hall. So today’s subject is appropriate to the season.

Core Genre: Horror

In some ways, Ghost Rider represents one part of a triumvirate that emerged from Marvel’s horror titles in the 70s. The most enduring, maybe, iconic enough to see interest in him renewed every few years before it ebbs once more. Ghost Rider’s tales were based around themes of hellfire and damnation, an overtly religious (or, perhaps, Christian mythological) approach also seen in companion titles such as Son of Satan. While still under the horror banner, Tomb of Dracula took a more classic, Gothic approach, overlapping with Werewolf by Night and other traditional monsters, while the final corner held the archetypical shambling nightmare of Man-Thing.

The hell-based Marvel titles were edgy by the standards of the time. In some ways, they’re still controversial today; after all, Essential Son of Satan was marketed as Essential Marvel Horror, presumably from fear of offending people’s delicate sensibilities with the smallest mention of Old Scratch.

Well, I say edgy. They really aren’t. The liberal use of satanism and satanic imagery is perhaps a little jarring to see in a (for want of a better word) ‘mainstream’ comic book, particularly a 70s superhero title, but overall it does come across as tame after the video horror boom of the 80s. The 70s Ghost Rider really hasn’t aged well, with his origin as a daredevil biker dating him badly. There’s a lot here that’s cheesy as hell. While other comic book films can be criticised for straying too far from the original material, the biggest mistake in Nic Cage’s Ghost Rider was in staying too close to a story that just didn’t hold a lot of water.

That said, there are still some fantastic ideas here, and an iconography far stronger than the stories that initially delineated them. There’s something intriguing about supernatural Westerns (just look at Ennis and Dillon’s Preacher), in the image of a modern-day cowboy with a flaming skull and a motorbike. Or maybe I’m mixing up ’story-worthy imagery’ with ‘makes a cool belt buckle’.

Let’s not discount the elements that came later, during the 90s revamp. We can disparage the Image era for a lot (a whoooooooole lot) of crap, but the Danny Ketch Ghost Rider had a far better design than the somewhat odd jumpsuit they stuck Johnny Blaze in, even if it was a little overly spikey. And having said that, it wasn’t until Garth Ennis and Clayton Crane’s recent miniseries that they finally gave him a decent bike. Even so, we should remember that 90s Ghost Rider was hugely popular.

We can see how the Rider is a constantly updated, imperfect character. A title with a hell of a lot of unfulfilled potential, a protagonist who gets dragged to viability by a series of increments over a long period of time.

The nuts and bolts:

A) The Spirit of Vengeance
B) Supernatural powers (hellfire/chain weapon/penance stare)
C) Flaming skull
D) A bike with flaming tyres

A bit of explanation may be required here, the character’s popularity being what it is. For a character with a relatively simple initial origin (son sells his soul to save his adoptive father, father dies anyway and he’s stuck with the curse), Ghost Rider’s story arc has become enormously convoluted over the various series. The reasons for his transformation have changed, the specific demon that empowered him has changed, the specific spirit his soul was bonded to has changed; he’s even had more than one host, and seen more than one host die. And with a supporting cast that includes Johnny Blaze, Noble Kale, Crash and Roxanne Simpson, the book has some of the stupidest names devised for a Marvel comic. I hope the purists will pardon me if I generalise a little here, because while (despite everything) I’m quite a big fan of the guy I don’t quite understand all the ins and outs myself. It’s probably best to highlight all the best bits from the various incarnations.

Factor A is important to understand, in particular should we chose to differentiate between vengeance and revenge. An odd thing to do, maybe, if we consider them synonyms, but in general usage (and feel free to argue against if you think I’m barking up the wrong tree) ‘revenge’ suggests spite and vindictiveness, which isn’t quite right as applied to the Rider. By the same token, he isn’t the Spirit of Justice, either, as that suggests a more balanced approach. To see justice done does not mean someone has to be punished, and Ghost Rider is most certainly all about the punishment.

Take the penance stare, one of the best ideas to come out of the 90s run. A way of inflicting the pain of innocent victims on those who prey on them. A perfect way to contextualise villains by their own actions. The theme of fire, of burning, but also of cleansing, is obvious in Factor C and D, with C also a mark of death and mortality. As far as locating his enemies goes, it’s interesting to see in the original series how the transformation was initially governed by the arbitrary change of day into night and back, but later became triggered by the presence of evil.

Personally, I prefer Danny Ketch as the Rider’s host rather than Johnny Blaze. The teenager-with-secret-powers is a little derivative, certainly, but it’s hard to see what there is left to do with the original host. His history has become a little tangled, and God knows what’s happening in the current run. And speaking of God, while I enjoyed Ennis’ miniseries, the ongoing took its lead from his brand of Heaven-bashing, full of corrupt angels and both sides being as bad as each other. Which is all very well, but it’s a tired angle these days. It’s one thing to be a pale imitation of Ennis, another to be a pale imitation of Spawn. I don’t know, maybe I’m just a little tired with comics writers working out their Magic Invisible Sky Daddy upbringing in print.

Short version: angels are boring. If anything, Ghost Rider is more interesting in a corrupt kind of world where heaven is irrelevant if non-existent, as he’s better defined by demons and hellfire. A little bleak, perhaps, but more faithful to the few decent elements of his 70s origins. One approach he may well benefit from would be an ongoing theme to tie him to Lovecraftian horror. That was one of the best angles taken in Ennis’ series, and come on, who doesn’t want to read a story where Ghost Rider comes to Arkham? Not as a complete redefinition of the title, but certainly a limited run that owes something to Boom! Studios’ Fall of Cthulhu.

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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.

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