The Fractal Hall Journal

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.

Click here for the Delineation Archive.

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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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Core Genre: Science Fiction. Because rockets, exploding planets, mad scientists. Eye laser beams. Et cetera.

The Bad: Because he’s so over-powered that no problem could be a challenzzzzzzzzzzzzz*huh?* oh sorry, I sent myself to sleep from reciting one of the same old criticisms that get pulled out of the cupboard time and again.

You don’t need me to tell you the problems with the character. We’ve heard them all before, over and over. There’s not enough Kryptonians, there’s too many Kryptonians, he’s a big wet boy scout, he’s a crypto-fascist. I could go on, all day. But I don’t have to, because:

The Good: All the character’s problems are utterly irrelevant. He’s the first superhero, the template. Want to talk about “superheroes” as an archetype? He is the archetype. If Superman is too idealistic, then superheroes as a genre are too idealistic. If he’s too far to the political left or the political right, then so is the genre. If he has too much power, then we’re criticising the very idea that our own imagination is too powerful. A need to put limits on limitlessness strikes me as nonsensical. Who on earth would want to encumber their own capacity to conceive?

To claim that Superman has neither resonance or relevance is to do the same for the concept of the ’superhero’. And this year’s box office receipts alone make a mockery of that.

None of this means that he hasn’t been handled badly in the past, mind. Give anyone a blank piece of paper and the opportunity to create whatever they want and most oftne people kind of freeze up. A lack of limits lends itself to a lack of focus. That’s why Grant Morrison suits the character; he’s the writer most likely to continue utilising wilder and more imaginative concepts. But it’s his weakness, too. How often has a Morrison story collapsed under its own weight? Let’s take a look at the breakdown:

A) Superpowers. The very minimum being super-strength and, of course, flight.
B) A cloak.

And honestly, that’s it. That’s all you need for a Superman story. Because a kid who’s sole prop is a coat with the top button done up is going to create a tale just as relevant, meaningful and important as anything written by Morrison, Schwartz, Weisinger, even Siegel and Shuster themselves.

And I think there may be an interesting consequence to this: while not every other superhero character can replace Superman in a typical Superman story, I suspect Superman can replace pretty much every other hero to a certain extent in theirs. For example, the Martian Manhunter can fit into any Superman story that’s based strictly around the cosmic end of his powers, but he couldn’t fit into Red Son. But Superman could fit into a J’onn J’onzz story easily, even one based on J’onn’s multiple secret identities. It would just involve modified Superman robots, and would probably be pretty cool. Even stories centred on a female protagonist that are predicated on gender can have their hero switched out by using Supergirl, because in terms of the mechanics of the thing, Kal-El and Kara are the same character. Even Arkham Asylum would work with Superman, although it would probably be about a page long and consist of “…and then he flew in and rounded them all up in about a minute, give or take.”

Joking aside, I’m serious about Arkham Asylum. Imagine a psychoanalytical take on Batman’s rogues, where the main character isn’t a clinically depressed rich boy but instead a brightly coloured spandex crusader with a messiah complex. More dissonance, more insight, more lunacy.

If anything, Superman as he’s commonly thought of, with the uniform and the S-shield and the mild-mannered alter-ego, isn’t so much the ‘original’ as a derivation of the original. Superman as defined by comic-book fans compared to the general public is different again. For the purpose of the exercise, let’s take current continuity Superman as a separate entity and take a look at how he works.

A) Superpowers (a combination of heat vision, vision powers, super-speed and strength, invulnerability, flight: perhaps even a certain resourcefulness)
B) Clark Kent, reporter, as an alter-ego
C) The uniform.

Factor B is specific to current-continuity Superman because the question of his identity- whether “Superman” or “Clark Kent” is the mask- has become fundamental to the character, regardless of what side of the fence the writer may come down on. I think some element of this needs to be present in the story, really. While archetype-Superman could easily have a series of stories that make no mention of Kent (seriously, remove any mention of the secret ID from almost any Golden Age Superman tale, and it probably won’t effect the Superman-ness of the story at all), I’m not even sure current-Superman could work without it, either through a humanising effect or as a reaction against it.

Where Superman is something of a one-note character is in the application of the above factors to the bad guys. He locates and interacts with his antagonists via his superpowers, almost exclusively. Clark Kent as a mechanism is important for the way he interacts with Superman, not with the villains. Sure, there’s the odd time where an investigation leads to a story, or Kent faces Luthor for whatever reason, but the presence of these elements isn’t essential for it to be a Superman tale.

And this is the heart of the character as we know him, and what makes him unique. A few days ago, as a preface to these posts, I posited that superhero stories are ultimately interactions between heroes and their villains. I still think this holds for every superhero- but only partially for Superman. Factor A controls his interaction with the villains. Factor B controls his interaction with himself. And Factor C primarily controls his interaction with us. Sure, the act of reading any superhero tale sets up an interaction with the audience, but with Superman that interaction is vital. The symbolism of the uniform is as important to the audience, if not more so, as it is to characters within the work. Here’s a couple of illustrations.

Firstly, I’m not going to do a post on Spider-man. Of all superheroes, his mechanics are the most obvious. In fact, Marvel have gone to great lengths recently to restore Quesada’s take on what’s vital to a Spider-man story to continuity (incidentally, while I don’t like the disappearing marriage at all, these posts should illustrate why I understand where he’s coming from). One element I do want to bring up, though, is Peter Parker’s own internal life; in essence, how he interacts with himself. What makes this different from Superman’s apparently identical interaction is that Peter Parker is in fact one of Spider-man’s villains. Not so Clark Kent.

Secondly, we can illustrate the three factors through Superman stories that don’t work. Let’s take the infamous Superman Returns (and once again, I stress that I do really like the film. I just don’t necessarily think that it’s a wholly compelling Superman story). Factor B: Clark Kent’s barely in the film, and when he is he tells us almost nothing about Superman. Factor C: The Superman uniform is a representative shorthand for the character himself. You see the S-shield and the cloak, and you’re reminded instantly of what the character represents (truth, justice- all that stuff). If the film played to that, there’d be no dissonance. Instead, we get Big Blue as an absent father who’s abandoned all his various responsibilities for selfish reasons, and there’s not a single audience member who won’t feel the wrongness of that, even at a subliminal level.

Finally, there’s a failure in Factor A: the major interaction with the primary villain being a shard of kryptonite in the back while weakened. Even poisoned and powerless, Superman would have pulped Luthor. Just think about it; the most effective scenes of the movie (the plane crash, the incidents in Metropolis, lifting LuthorLand) had Superman using his powers to interact with villains (because accidents and natural disasters are villains in this context).

Other factors: I’ve gone on long enough already, but obviously Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen are, with Robin, perhaps the most historically important supporting cast members of any superhero. And if we’re talking about nemeses, Luthor is the Big One. So much so, that I suspect he’s maybe the only supervillain who merits a delineation of his own, because the central argument can be reversed for him. Luthor’s story is very much about how he places Superman into context, and how he deals with him. Without Superman, Luthor doesn’t have a story. Villains like the Joker, or Doctor Octopus, could function perfectly well with any other hero as a nemesis. Heck, a villain doesn’t need to interact with a hero. An unobstructive story arc relating to Norman Osborne doesn’t ever need a superpowered antagonist to turn up. But without Superman, Luthor’s nothing.

In conclusion: Superman as a character has a multitude of interpretations, and a limitless potential. The engine that drives this is the unique way he interacts with his villains, with himself, and with his audience.

Click here for the Delineation Archive.

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Holy crap do I want to own an Alien/Predator chessboard. I have no idea where this sudden need for overpriced AVP tat is coming from, but boy is it intense.

I also notice io9 reporting an American live-action remake of Akira. Oh no oh no oh no. Is not going to work. Whinge whinge whinge.

In nicer news, getting through the latter half of Series 3 of Battlestar Galactica. It’s been awesome to see Dean Stockwell, Al Calavicci from Quantum Leap, turn up again, this time as a bad guy. Reminds me of how creepy he was as Devil-Al in that QL episode with Stephen King in it. Damn, I loved that show, and damn the show’s final episode was shitty. I really hope Galactica doesn’t screw the pooch when it comes to an end, because the rest of it’s been so very good.

With all the other superhero films doing so well, it’s going to be interesting to see how the X-Men franchise pans out in the next couple of years. It’s really the series that proved the viability of a new approach to rubber-trouser characters, in terms of faithfulness to the themes and stories of the original material, and a way of taking the best bits of what went before. Sure, Blade is technically the first of the successful comic book adaptations, but that really is in spite of the original rather than because. And I like the Tomb Of Dracula stuff.

If I were being pessimistic, I’d say I don’t have a whole lot of hope with the Magneto prequel. First of all, you’re not likely to find a young actor as good as Ian McKellan to take over the role, and someone of the calibre of, say, Hayden Christensen isn’t going to be able to handle what will inevitably be a pretty dark film. It was never going to be all bright pink flower-bunnies, but after The Dark Knight you can bet the message Hollywood will be taking from the public reaction is nightmarish, unrelenting grim is what’s required. There’s too much scope to mishandle this one.

Wolverine, on the other hand, had got Hugh Jackman going for it. The stupidest thing about X-Men 3 was the way Cyclops was killed off for essentially being a boring goody-goody leader type, only to be immediately replaced by a neutered Logan in the exact same role. A prequel means angry loner Logan, hopefully with a dollop of the sinister slaughter from X-Men 2. Also, Deadpool, and who doesn’t want to see a cinematic Deadpool? I just hope they use some of Grant Morrison’s take on the Weapon X programme; after all, there was a split-second shot of a “Weapon Plus” vial in The Incredible Hulk. Also, I don’t notice any stinkers on director Gavin Hood’s IMDB page, in the way that Brett Ratner’s previous convictions correctly indicated a screw-up.

Negatives? Well, Morrison aside I’ve never liked the Weapon X stuff. Gambit’s in it. The last X-Men film was poor and allegedly plagued with studio meddling, so is that going to play out this time too?

Wolverine’s a funny old character. First time I saw him was in Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends when I was but a lad. He used his claws to make an impromptu kebab. So I kind of missed out on the edgy killer persona that so captivated a generation. Then he turned up in a few places- a Hulk comic, Spider-Man, a few other things- and he was, frankly, a bit of a dickhead. I must have missed out on the nuance of his mysterious loner thing, but then he was a short-arse in yellow lycra with a daft haircut who was being a twat to Peter Parker. I couldn’t really see the attraction, and to make it worse he turned up in every fucking issue of every fucking comic during the 90s.

I wouldn’t say I ever really warmed to the character, but he certainly bugged me less as time went on. And thanks to Jackman’s performance in the first film, I finally understood where the character was coming from. It was properly surprising, really, but I ended up rooting for him, in particular during the aforementioned rampage in the mansion in the second film. Funny how things change, but that really goes to show how good Jackman did at grounding the character, leaving me more optimistic than not for the solo film.

Still prefer Cyclops, though.

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Kick-Ass #2

Like I’ve said before, I really like the concept here and I think this series is exactly what Millar claimed it would be. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but it really doesn’t have to be. The only thing I’m a little cynical about is the speed at which it’s being made into a film. I mean, we haven’t really had a chance to see where Millar’s going with the book yet. Also, while Romita, Jr’s artwork is as brilliant as ever, already the series is running late.

In the mainstream DC/Marvel titles, delays have been fatal to my interest in a lot of titles, the most significant being the ones that have ruined Morrison’s Batman run (more on that tomorrow). And if the big guns can’t afford to have late shipping titles, then creator-owned stuff like this really can’t. It’s one more thing that I think makes monthly 22-page comics less and less viable, and makes me that much more certain I’d rather wait for something to be published in trade format. Seriously, what’s going on with artists these days? Are expectations really far too high? Or are the critics right when they claim that freelancers (either writers or artists) are spending more time on Grand Theft Auto than with the thing that gets them money?

DC Universe #0

Bit of a wet fart, to be honest. Sure, it’s cheap, but the best section was the Batman/Joker face-off that was posted for free before the issue came out. Batman aside, it’s done little more than convince me to avoid the Final Crisis hype and just get the trades. If the series really does stand on its own, then it’ll be worth getting even after all the shocks and twists have been thoroughly spoiled online. And if it doesn’t, then I’m better spending my money on other things.

Suburban Glamour by Jamie McKelvie

Art-wise, McKelvie is one of the best pros working today, his style somewhere between Dave Gibbons, Kevin Maguire and those cartoon women you always see advertising dance music nights on club flyers. In terms of writing, while this isn’t quite as strong as Phonogram, there’s enough potential here to suggest that any further volumes should let him get to grips with the characters without having to worry about all the necessary set-up and backstory.

Iron Man

Like DCU #0 above, I’m not going to say anything here that you haven’t already read loads of times everywhere else. I fucking love this film. The cast were all awesome, and they did a brilliant job of capturing all the good parts and none of the shit parts of the comic. I notice a lot of people are saying it’s overtaken Spider-Man 2 as Bestest Comic Adaptation Ever Ever Ever, which is interesting to me because I always preferred the first Spider-Man film. Sure, I would have preferred the rubber-faced Goblin to RoboWillem, and Molina was perfect as Octavius, but for reasons I don’t fancy going into right now, I was a little disappointed.

My Bestest Comic Adaptation Ever Ever Ever is Batman Begins, so I’m waiting to see The Dark Knight before deciding who’s more triumphant. To be honest, I’m leaning more towards Iron Man because while I’m glad they’ve gone dark rather than camp, the new Batman may be a little too harrowing for me. Then again, Nolan’s never set a foot wrong, so there’s everything to play for.

Two things about the Stark flick: Firstly, it’s a bit cheeky how it wants to have its cake and eat it in political terms. Plenty of evil Ay-Rabs and a Capitalist Scienti-Hero for the Right-wing, but also the evil Capitalist Scienti-Villain, a repentant arms-manufacturer and a self-sacrificing Muslim scientist (and a cameo from Tom Morello, of all people) for the Left-wing.

Secondly, the film is a huge example of why I think Marvel’s made a mistake with their current portrayal of Tony Stark. I don’t want to read about the Doctor Doom version. I want to read about the Robert Downey, Jr. version. But beyond the Favreau/Granov miniseries (which I won’t be getting until it’s good and finished), even though there’s two monthly Iron Man titles (both written by writers I like, one of which is the proverbial great jumping on point) neither of them deal with a hero who isn’t, essentially, and unlikeable super-villain. So by my reckoning, Marvel fail. I bet they’re weeping in response to my lack of interest.

Bonus Preview: The New X-Files Comic

I’ve mentioned the previous Topps comic before as being perhaps the best comic series ever based on a TV property (not saying much, I know), and I’ll be returning to it in greater detail as part of the Hall’s massive X-Files geekfest. But I just heard about DC’s new tie-in, and that it’s being written by Frank Spotnitz, one of the X-Files’ key staff writers. So I’m damned excited about this.

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I haven’t read an X-Men comic since the unintelligible mess that followed Grant Morrison’s departure from the flagship title. And that was a while ago.

It’s odd to think of the Avengers being the biggest brand Marvel currently have, considering the way their mutant line has dominated the company for twenty-odd years. With the cartoon and then the movies it seemed they were also the highest-profile property beyond the source material too.

And then came Spider-Man, and the Scotsman’s departure, and the next thing you know Brett Ratner’s cocked up the gravy train and even Captain America (Captain America?) is kicking your arse in the Diamond sales chart.

Funny, but I’ve never been the biggest X-Men fan. I’ve never disliked them, but I can’t say I’d rank them in the top ten, maybe even top twenty of characters or titles. But I’ve read a lot of their comics over the years, mostly thanks to dear friend Triggi and the British reprint titles he bought through the 90s.

Outside of pressed trees, I enjoyed the cartoon for what it was, and went nuts for the first two films. Thanks to a lack of reverence for the Claremont years (just never really got his work, I suppose, which so informed the X-Men’s world that it probably explains why I’ve never rated them all that highly) I wasn’t horrified by Morrison’s take. The opposite, really. So there was no way to be anything but disappointed with what followed, and after a short time I dropped the title. I wasn’t as taken by the Whedon stuff as some (although the art was very pretty), but then I don’t quite understand the Kitty Pryde fetish readers who are slightly older than me seem to have.

After spending about three hundred words telling you about why I find the X-Men a bit meh, imagine my surprise that recently I’ve been missing them. Because there really is a unique atmosphere to Xavier’s team. More often than not the soap-operatics are cringe-worthy, the dialogue (for the international characters in particular) awful, the reoccurring situations tiresome (the Savage Land again?) and worst of all, the continuity impossibly convoluted even in an industry that thrives on minutiae of detail.

Of course, you take that all together and there’s a familiarity to all of that, something that plays to the mindset of someone who, for example, spends decades reading the same damn kids’ stuff over and over. The X-Men are like super-hero comfort food (well, insofar as super-hero comics are all comfort-eating of a kind), everything you’re addicted to in one easy package.

I picked up X-Men: Deadly Genesis on impulse. I mean, the aftermath of House of M wasn’t so interesting to me that I need to know what happened next, and further twists to Summers family history isn’t exactly compulsive, but damn if Ed Brubaker hasn’t earned some credit thanks to his exceptional work on Daredevil.

Turns out, the collection is exactly what’s needed to get me back into the X-Men. Brubaker’s talented enough to sidestep the annoying pitfalls usually associated with the characters (although, great big FAIL for regional accents), writing a pretty straightforward mutant adventure. It’s far more traditional than Morrison’s take, a lot more nostalgic, but still streamlined enough for modern sensibilities. Nothing hugely consequential happens (though the marketing material wants you to think so) besides Banshee’s death (but come on, did people really freak out about that? An X-Man dying? Seriously?), and that’s OK because all we put our money down for Beast being smart, Wolverine being stealthy knife guy, and everyone else standing round looking angsty. Professor Xavier comes across as a bit of a dick, but come on, he sticks teenagers in leather and makes them fight. He is a bit of a dick.

All-in-all, a comfortable comicky read.

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Mortal Kombat vs. DC

As crazy as it sounds, of all the news to come out of the convention at the weekend this was the one I was most excited about, mostly because it was so unexpected. I had no idea there was another Mortal Kombat game in the pipeline, never mind a comic book crossover.

There’s not much to say about it at this point, but hell, I’ve only got one other post listed under “Games” over there in the right-hand column, looking all lonely. Even “Manga” has more entries.

Mortal Kombat is a fondly remembered childhood game, a remnant of a more innocent past where me and my friends would trade information on the best way to gruesomely dispatch opponents during the finishing move window at the end of a successful bout. I never really got the hang of Street Fighter, but I was always more of a Sega fan, so MK was my first choice. Like the rest of the world, I favoured the ninjas: Reptile from the sequel, Scorpion in the original. Ah, great times. The more recent entries in the franchise weren’t up to much according to the reviews, so I never bothered with them.

By the same token, while comic book computer games are usually utter pants, there have been some really good ones in the past ten years or so: X-Men Legends was good, and the Spider-Man 2 game was absolutely fantastic. So a great DC comics fighter would be awesome. So yeah, they’ve got me coming and going with this one. In fact, as long as it isn’t utterly unplayable there’s not much chance I’m not going to pick this up. I remember the Star Wars fighter (Masters of Teras-Kasi? Something like that) from years ago that most reviewers didn’t rate, but me and the posse (oh yeah, I had a posse. Believe it) lost hours on, just because we got to use a lightsabre and be Chewbacca.

Final Crisis

I wasn’t expecting to look forward to this at all, what with event fatigue and everything, and oh, I am conflicted. On one hand, I’ve lost all patience with DC obsessively crossing over every single title in their line with a frankly incomprehensible and (worse yet) fucking boring overarching plot. Never mind yet another Crisis.

But. But but but. Grant Morrison.

The interview with him over at Comic Book Resources last week utterly sold me on Batman RIP and this summer’s event, albeit with a few reservations. Obviously, Morrison is awesome and I check out damn near anything he writes, the epic scope of the DCU is never better than when he handles it, and the series promises (really really promises, honest this time) not to cross itself over to destruction. Heck, I’ve not got a huge interest in Darkseid or the Fourth World (one of these days I’ll get round to a post explaining why), and yet Morrison’s got me intrigued between the hints from 52 and the Mister Miracle section of Seven Soldiers.

The reservations: Will Morrison get micro-managed, especially if it looks like the series is already running late? Despite assurances, is it really going to be self-contained? If Geoff Johns and Peter Tomasi are on form with their tie-ins (both were involved in the Sinestro Corps War, remember, the best crossovery thing for many a year and a brilliant story in its own right) then I won’t mind dropping some cash on them, but I’m not a huge Greg Rucka fan and I’m not getting his issues so I’m hoping nothing important happens in them, and by important I mean “necessary for enjoyment and understanding of the greater story arc”, not “someone dies horribly”. I recall the fun of DC 1,000,000 being curtailed because of some important points that happened in fucking Resurrection Man, of all titles.

Speaking of the death thing, once again a story is being driven by someone important dying, and seriously, I don’t give a shit. Really I don’t. Used way too many times to be anything other than a cliché, so I really hope Morrison knows this and is going to go somewhere interesting and surprising with it (same goes for Batman RIP, actually). And from the interview, that looks like what he’s got planned, so I’ve got my fingers crossed that he’s going to pull it off. I have faith.

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I have no idea where the topic for today’s post has come from. It’s a little bit about the X-Files, I suppose, but it’s mostly about Jurassic Park, which I haven’t seen, read or thought about for ages and ages.

One of the episode from the fourth series of the former has Cancer Man suggesting that Mulder is doing exactly as the Syndicate have anticipated, if not actively wanted. I hate this, the idea that the protagonist of any given story isn’t actually choosing their own path, but being a tool for someone else. It violates the story principle that everything important in a story should come about by decisions and actions taken by the main character. A relation to this is the climax of a film, book or whatever where everything is either resolved by someone other than the protagonist, by chance, by something completely unexpected (deus ex machina, for example), or, worst of all, by the villain. It’s usually only a rung down from “it was all a dream” in terms of satisfaction.

There was a heeyouge buzz about Jurassic Park when it first came out, the first film I can remember staying in the cinema for months and months on end. I loved both the book and the film, and I remember being about as exited for the release as I was for Spider-Man, years later. It was a seriously big deal, and I remember Triggi and me scouring issues of Empire and SFX and even the National Frickin’ Geographic for info on the flick. And hand on heart, it didn’t disappoint. Sure, it’s easy enough to keep twelve-year-old boys happy, and dinosaurs eating people is about the definition of that, but even so I still have a great fondness for the film today. Even now the special effects look way more convincing than in most SF, which is a hell of an achievement.

Robert McKee’s Story (which I’ve mentioned here more than once before) had a section on “deus ex machina” endings, and used Jurassic Park as the best example of this. Which I didn’t quite get at the time. Well, that’s not true. McKee isn’t wrong, not from that perspective. After all, it’s not the humans that save the day but the T. Rex (oh, erm, spoiler warning). But even though I have a loathing for that kind of ending, I just never associated it with that film. Plenty of people do, mind, as it seems every conversation I’ve had about the film since reading Story has someone saying they found the ending unsatisfactory.

It’s only now that I kind of see why, from my perspective (or perhaps the perspective of a twelve year old dinosaur fanatic), I don’t agree with them. Firstly, and most inconsequentially, aren’t there way better examples than the dinosaur film? Lousy boring film lecturer. Secondly, Spielberg has mentioned (in the Making Of book, I think) that part of the theme of the film was nature overcoming the limits humanity places on it, and that he didn’t think having San Neill killing the Velociraptors fitted this. But I mostly don’t care because it’s only an unsatisfactory ending if you’re rooting for the humans.

Look, I didn’t want the kids to die. I certainly didn’t want Drs. Grant and Sattler to buy it. But come on, they’re not the main attraction. I was right there with the thunder-lizards, baby, and there’s no question that the character (literally) chewing up the screen was the Tyrannosaurus. I didn’t think the T Rex saving them was crap. I thought it was the awesomest thing in motion picture history.

Funnily enough, that links in to why I wasn’t as keen on Jurassic Park III. I don’t mind the film, and I might even prefer it to The Lost World, but I did have a couple of problems with it. Firstly, I didn’t like the T Rex losing in a fight with Spinosaurus and I know, I know that’s a stupid reason but, you know, you don’t pay to see Batman being bested by a johnny-come-lately superhero, do you? Do you want the cinematic equivalent of pissing Knightfall? I didn’t. In fact, Triggi will testify that in the queue to see it I said I’d walk out if the T Rex got munched and got a funny look from the other cinema goers. Why should misdirected fan rage be restricted to comics?

And if anything, the ending to the third part was way less satisfying, it being the military turn up and save everyone (oh, spoilers again). That’s a way worse deus ex machina than “a goody dinosaur eats the baddy dinosaurs”, and seriously undermines the “nature wins” theme. You shouldn’t be thinking, “Oh yay, guys with guns will mow the suckers down and keep us safe”, you should be seeing the guys with guns being munched by the big scary monsters with big scary teeth.

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Watching people shit in their pants while debating the new tack The Brave and The Bold cartoon is taking is fun, and by ‘fun’ I mean ‘like jabbing broken glass into my eyes’. The more this kind of nerd rage goes on, the more I think it has to be manufactured. Like the Alex Ross Citizen Steel JSA Cover (Knobgate, if you would). It was such an obvious thing for fanboys to do their raving nana in about I couldn’t quite believe it was genuine. Why would you want to spring such an obvious trap on yourself?

Same goes for the cartoon thing. Any critic trying to prove that comic fans suffer from severely stunted emotional development now has plenty of evidence to the fact in one handy package or, indeed, message board thread, as people lose it over a children’s cartoon aimed at children. Just seems like such an obvious trap.

I like the look of the new designs, myself. I don’t like them as much as the 90s cartoon design, or The Batman stuff, but I think it makes a nice change. If anything, I’m jealous of the cartoons kids get. As a child of the 80s I’ve got a Transformers fixation, but I’m under no illusion that the cartoon was any good. And I’ve always felt a little sorry for kids who grew up in the 90s, when it seemed that, Paul Dini stuff aside, cartoons seemed to be about kids in playgrounds living normal lives. Christ, that would have bored me to tears. Give me giant alien robots shooting each other any day.

But look at today’s cartoon list: Spectacular Spider-Man, the new Transformers, The Batman, the Legion stuff, Teen Titans, almost everything on Cartoon Network. And it’s all brilliant, way better than animation has ever been before. Sure, some of it skews young; isn’t that the point? It’s just sheer luck that I have the same taste in entertainment as a ten year old. I get to enjoy it too.

It doesn’t matter that the new Batman team-up is aimed at kid: the only important thing is that it’s sophisticated enough for the audience (and bear in mind that ’sophisticated’ is not synonymous with ‘has lots of severed heads in it’). Kids’ cartoons are smart, because kids are smart. In fact, you can do a lot worse than the current Spider-Man, actually. If it carries on the same vein as the first few episodes, it may well being just as definitive a portrayal of the character as the 90s Batman.

Oh, and just to tag on the end and in light of comments I’ve made recently about Super Friends: I notice DC’s revived the brand as a children’s title. Which is great, obviously. What’s most interesting about this, going from the house ad, is that it’s aimed very young, younger than I’ve seen any company aim for outside of British comic lines marketed towards toddlers and the first couple of years of school. Damned interesting to see if it picks up any momentum, or if it’s popular enough for DC to generate some similar titles.

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“When Thor shows up in a comic, all the other characters should go “OH FUCK IT’S THOR RUN FOR YOUR FUCKING LIVES HE’S A VIKING WAR GOD WITH A FUCKING MAGIC HAMMER” and if they don’t then that writer and artist FAIL.” – Sean T. Collins (via Journalista!).

You can’t tell me the above quote doesn’t sum up the character perfectly. Sean Collins also mentions Led Zeppelin’s Immigrant’s Song, and if Black Sabbath get an airing on the Iron Man trailer then Matthew Vaughan should keep the former in mind for his Marvel feature. Either that, or something indistinguishable from Queen.

Speaking of Queen, has there ever been a better matching of band to soundtrack than Highlander? Epic pomp covers both music and film. And damn, Highlander was a great film. I always thought the whole sword-fighting immortal thing was so mythic that it’s almost impossible to believe it wasn’t actually a pre-existing legend. I think maybe what I’m getting at is, if Thor gets his own film then they wouldn’t go far wrong with stealing vibe and atmosphere from Christopher Lambert’s finest couple of hours.

Thor’s a great character, both in myth and Marvel. Although I felt it ended up going off the rails a bit, Dan Jurgens and John Romita Jr’s first year on the Heroes Return title was absolutely awesome, the perfect mix of Kirby cosmicness and human soap opera. I haven’t picked up any of the Straczynski run but I plan to at some point. I know there’s been some negative reaction online, but when is there not? And besides, while I understand that JMS’ style isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, I’ve always really rated him.

Babylon 5 is still the best spaceship series I’ve ever seen, even beyond the mighty ST:TOS. Maybe better (and whisper it, lest Paul C’s head explodes) than Who. Sure, it has its flaws (many, many flaws), but it’s rare that any series, spaceship-based or otherwise, has engaged me as much. And part of it is due to JMS’ idiosyncratic writing style, one that’s individual enough that I can see why it rubs some people up the wrong way.

I really enjoyed his Spider-Man stuff, and despite all the controversies and the interminable Civil War/One More Day bits, he was exactly the kind of writer the title needed when he came on. Yes, I know the Gwen Stacy stuff did to the hardcore fan what my previous paragraph is currently doing to my mate Paul, but for fuck’s sake, before JMS came on the Spider titles hadn’t been any good for about fifteen years. Maybe more. They weren’t even barely competent during the 90s (then again, what at Marvel was?). Besides, no other writer (apart from Ultimate Bendis) has ever written Aunt May half as well, or the sadly-missed Spider-marriage.

And I’ve never understood the fanguish about the “mystic” spider stuff, either. Even JMS pointed out in the story that a possible “mystic” explanation doesn’t need to contradict the “scientific” (and come on, you’re telling me “bitten by a radioactive spider” isn’t a mystical explanation?) origin, any more than the scientific origin of the Sun can’t coexist with its religious significance. If anything (and I’ve touched a little on this some time ago), it offers the option of seeing how the cosmic science of the Marvel U is perhaps reflected in the Astral Plane, and how Ditko and Kirby’s vision may just be two sides of the same coin. Besides, as has been proven time and time and time again, there’s nothing one writer can do that can’t, or won’t, be changed by the next writer on the title, so everybody chill (and I guess that goes double for me, in re: Tony Stark).

Got a bit side-tracked there, actually, as this was meant to be a post about the Thunder God. But then again, there really isn’t anything to add to the initial quote, is there?

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