Let me start by saying, “All hail Paul Cornell.”  Between Action Comics and Knight and Squire he is rocking books set on both sides of the pond.  Each book takes an unconventional look at superhero comics.  Knight and Squire looks at a superhero team set in the English country side.  Things are incredibly civil.  The heroes and villains hang out together at a bar protected by a kind of truce magic, and both sides enjoy it.  Everyone in town knows who Knight and Squire are, but no one says anything because that would be rude.  It’s a relaxed look at an adventuring team. 

Action Comics, which chronicle’s Lex Luthor’s quest to get the black lantern ring, is definitely not relaxed.  It follows the most brilliant, driven man in the world, and that man has a chip on his shoulder.  It’s a great read because Lex Luthor achieves real grandeur in his quest.  His intelligence shines through, as does his moral code, which is a very primitive and appealing one; he has to be in control, and he won’t ever stop fighting to get control.  He won’t back down.  While it’s clear he’s not actually a good person, he has a greatness that lets you understand why people would follow him.

I just wish he’d stop killing people.

But he won’t, because he’s Lex Luthor.

Don’t get me wrong, I think that the character could be spun so enough that there is a comics series about how he’s just trying to do good and the conflict with Superman is a grudge match fueled by unfortunate misunderstandings.  It’s just that stringing those misunderstandings together will result in making this character – the embodiment of strength of will – look ineffectual, and Superman – the embodiment of kindness – look petty.

I mean, I’ll still buy it.  For crying out loud, I’m still checking out Green Arrow solicits trying to see some sign that they’ll bring Conner and Mia and Dinah and even Lian and Roy back.  I buy comics long after they make me miserable.  Pretty much every fan does.  It’s just that sometimes we’re the cause of our own misery.

Deadpool started small and climbed up to multiple titles per month.  People noticed a quality drop and didn’t like it.  So Marvel started a poll to cut a Deadpool title and people didn’t like that either.

Batman was the lone vigilante in the night.  Unwavering and infallible, he was a solitary soldier.  But people liked that solitary soldier, and so he was put on team, in charge of teams, as an adversary or backer to teams.  His world was crowded with followers and sidekicks and lovers and old friends, because people wanted to see more of him.  And through it all, the writers struggled for that same, solitary, infallible persona.  Eventually it got ridiculous, and it’s a good thing that Grant Morrison is ushering a Batman who embraces the group dynamic, because that “I am the night” thing wasn’t cutting it any more.

Comic mentality is often junkie mentality.  People want more, faster, more intense.  And then when they get a steady stream of stories artificially twisted around a marketable concept instead of one or two new takes, it’s never as satisfying as it should be.  Everyone ends up frustrated.  Fans because they aren’t getting what they want, and creators because they’re giving people exactly what they always said they wanted.

Sometimes we’re our own worst enemy.

The DCU blog has a preview of Teen Titans #89, when Damian joins the team. 

Here is some sample dialog:

“The only joke that I see is Beast Boy.  My first order of business will be kicking him to the curb.  We’ll call him if we ever need a talking chipmunk.”

“Should have left it alone, One-Eyed Jackie.”

“You’re funny.  Look even funnier when I take out your other eye.”

List of things Damian should not be saying:

1.  Nicknames.  This is a kid who calls Alfred ‘Pennyworth.’

2.  Sentences with dropped articles.  This is a kid who calls his dad, ‘Father.’

3.  Contractions.  I don’t think Morrison’s Damian ever really used them.

4.  The phrase ‘kick him to the curb’ or any slang that would be seen before the turn of the last century.

Renting Damian out to various titles is good.  He’s a funny character and an obnoxious little snot.  They’ve got that part down.

One of the main reasons he’s funny, though, is the fact that he’s a child who speaks like an 18th century vampire.  The kid was raised by a family of functionally immortal aristocratic ninjas.  Having him talk like that smart-ass kid from around the corner doesn’t work on any level.  This character has one of the most recognizable ways of speaking in the DCU.  The only character easier to single out through speech alone would be Bizarro.  A few obnoxious remarks just don’t cut it.

Superman/Batman is a spotty book.  It veers in and out of continuity in the most over-the-top ways possible.  It pairs up two characters based pretty much entirely on their selling power.  It incorporates elseworlds, dreams, hallucinations, and retcons.  It hasn’t had a steady creative team in years.

I still love it, and issue #78 is the exact reason why I love it.  It’s written by Joe and Jack Kelly, and it’s about two little boys spinning out that old chestnut, “Who would win in a fight?”  That hasn’t been original in decades.  And the execution?  Deliberately juvenile, with Batman and Superman spouting words that only kids would say.

I love that, too.  The comic is just plain fun.  It’s entertaining.  It doesn’t throw in any misery.  And there’s a Kirby-writing-the-hairies feel to the way the Kellys write the kid’s dialog.  The comic is more fun than Batman Inc.  It’s much more fun than Batman: The Return.  It’s more fun than Power Girl.  And in the end, when the kids go home and it pans up to show the heroes listening in on them, you get the feeling that the heroes were having fun, too. 

And Superman would totally win.  Come on, people.

In late October, Vertigo published Vertigo Resurrected, a collection of rare stories.  One of them was Shoot, a story about schoolyard shootings in America by Warren Ellis.  Before it was published, the Columbine shooting happened.  According to Ellis, DC wanted to change the story, he refused, they refused to publish, and that was that. 

The new people at DC had a different take, and obviously it’s been a while since Columbine, and so the story came out.  I don’t have any problem with Ellis refusing to change his story.  That’s his decision.  I have to say, though, that I think not publishing it, especially at the time, was the right call.  That’s a debate for another time. 

For now, I’m looking at the content of the story.  Reading Shoot left me feeling acutely annoyed.  On his blog, Warren Ellis says that he intended the story to be horror, not social commentary.  Reading the story, I’m not sure that’s true.  It’s a Hellblazer story, so it has John Constantine swaggering across the page, saything pithy and clear-sighted things.  In the last few pages, he gives a long speech about what prompted the shooting.  I can’t say the speech wrong.  What I can say, is the speech is completely off the mark.

Let’s see what we have in the paragraphs above.  The first two panels are Constantine ridiculing the woman for thinking there is any one thing that made the kid do it.  It wasn’t violent video games, or movies or music.  Those ideas are stupid and simplistic.

So what’s his take?

Second scan, second bubble:  “These are the end times.”

Second scan, fourth, fifth and sixth bubble:  “The sins of the father are visited on the son.”

Third scan, first bubble:  “Television is taking over.”

Third scan, second bubble: “Think of the children.”

Although the ‘raised by television’ argument is a new one, it harkens back to boarding schools, nannies, the modern novel, the internet, pacifiers, and any other invention that lets parents forget they’re parents every once in a while.  The rest are biblically old.  They were trotted out to explain everything from plagues to fires to pre-marital sex.  They’re not useful advice.  They’re not insight.  They’re not even observations.  They’re slogans.

And they’re slogans that can be used for anything.  I’m willing to bet the people Constantine ridicules used the same lines he does.  ‘Our society is crumbling’ is a set up used for any argument, from lowering taxes to distributing condoms in schools.  And  I know that the ‘raised by television’ bit and ‘parents asleep at the wheel’ bit were trotted out by people wanting to ban graphic video games and violent music.

To be honest, if asked to side with a person making Constantine’s speech or someone who wanted to start a campaign to tone down video game violence, I’d go with the latter.  Not because I think it would work, but because it’s something.  It’s some concrete step.  It’s some way to engage with kids.  And if it doesn’t work, it can be changed.

What Constantine is offering is a four word explanation for everything.  “Society is to blame.”  Well, okay.  Thanks for letting us in on that. 

Now what?

I’m back, and I’m still recapping.  Join me for spoilers below the cut.

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Recently a friend of mine got into a conversation about how to get more women into comics. I’m beginning to wonder if such conversations are necessary, considering the plethora of women into comics right now. From the moment I got into comics, I went online and was neck deep in female and feminist comics discussion. It was everywhere. With the overall superhero comics market shrinking, though, I guess everyone is looking for a potentially untapped market.

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If you have seen a little too much scary this Halloween, take a gander at this.

If this does not make you feel better, you have no heart.  At all.

One of my favorite essays on banning books comes from Florence King. She’s a person whose writing I admire but whose politics I almost never agree with. I’m in agreement with her, though, in her opinion about banning books. In an essay called “My Savior, Fannie Hearst,” she wrote the following:

The problem with censorship is that the people who do the censoring are always so shortsighted, especially when it comes to “Our Children.” Instead of taking certain books out of school libraries, we should be putting them in.

She then goes on to describe a book, “Back Street”, by Fannie Hurst, that abandoned the trope of the glamorous mistress and made the whole thing sound like such an awful enterprise that “sex was never quite the same afterwards.”

Libraries and schools are supposed to be places that open up our worlds, and let us think about new possibilities. For many, they are also places where the joy of certain things are crushed out ruthlessly with reading lists, long discussions, and tedious essays. People who like math, usually, don’t like it quite so much when it’s presented five times a week using a structure that they’re not fond of. People become used to, and then become irritated by, things they usually like.
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To the internet.

Fuck Yeah Comics Relationships is a tumblr account that I can go to only rarely, because it would never do to build up a tolerance.  But, for when times are tough and continuity makes you want to bang your head against the pointy parts of your desk, it’s a must.

I don’t, as the kids say, ‘ship these people.

Or these people:

Or these people:

(I guess it’s Draw People Standing In Ankle High Water Day.)  But the point is, it’s a tumblr that always brightens up my day.

I read over David’s Gamble a Stamp 2 a while ago, and came across a sentence that brought me up short.  Re-reading it today, I have the same problem with the same sentence.  That sentence?

At the heart of almost every hero is that directive: “save us.”

There are a lot of different kinds of superhero comics, especially now, when everyone is looking for a fresh take on the same concept.  A lot of comics focus on a lot of things.  Reading them, however, the impression I get from the books has never been, “save us.”  That’s backwards.  The directive at the heart of every comic is this: “I can save you.”  It’s not altruism, it’s egotism.

I remember seeing a documentary about comics in which Siegel and Shuster talked about the inspiration for creating Superman.  They talked about the adventures or the heroism, but mostly they talked about how they daydreamed about how some guy who was a total loser in life turned out to secretly be the most fantastic guy ever.  The insults of everyday life didn’t matter, because they were all part of a game he was playing as one identity.  As the other, he didn’t just kick around thugs, he went after evil businessmen, crooked senators, and Hitler.  And he defeated them all.  Easily.  Superman’s entire selling point was this; “Give me enough power and put me in charge, and I will fix everything.”  Haven’t we all felt that way?

As times changed, and problems became more difficult, Superman was joined by Spider-Man.  Things weren’t as easy for him.  While Superman’s rotten civilian life was part of a game, Spider-Man’s personal defeats were real.  He suffered.  But he suffered because he chose to use his power to put things in order.  Spider-Man comics acknowledged a personal cost, but it was a personal cost which lead to victories.

The defeat of evil isn’t really a goal in superhero comics.  It’s a means to an end.  This guy is kicking and punching people.  This kid is off having adventures instead of going to school.  This woman is ditching her boyfriend to run off into the night and prowl.  Oh, they don’t want to.  Who would want to do such a thing?  They have to.  Because they must fight evil.

There are few comic books that don’t follow this principle.  Even the ‘darker’ books, which make fun of the supposed ‘supers,’ and have amoral characters, have those characters fight unsympathetic people.  Sometimes they’re anonymous annoyances, sometimes they’re evil characters with respectable faces, but almost always they have forced, *forced*, the heroes out of the peaceful life they once had and made them go on these perilous adventures.

In this way, the sexuality of comics – also discussed in the that entry – makes sense.  Oh no!  I have to go through an orgy!  Oh no!  The costume of the Pink Lanterns (come on.  they’re pink.) forces my girlfriend (or me) to show of her (or my) absolutely perfect body!  Why, oh why, is this happening?

I’m not saying this is a terrible thing.  A little ego boost, a little identification, is pretty fun.  And these concepts do allow creators to tell wonderful stories that often have intelligent points and emotional depth. 

But no one reading them needs to be saved.  If you have the time to follow the plot of these stories, the access to them, and the money to buy them, you are already saved compared to a huge chunk of the rest of the world.  You are one of the most saved people on earth.  You don’t read them to be saved.  You read them because  you want to be the saviour.