Back for another week of panels that give you a vague essence of the comics we have read this week without any real context. Let the non-reviews begin!
Amazing Spider-Man #607
Joe Kelly, Mike McKone and Adriana Melo
The Boys: Herogasm #5
Garth Ennis, John McCrea and Keith Burns
After sixteen issues, Luke Cage had come to realize that with a title like Hero for Hire, nobody would ever take him seriously. He was rarely mentioned in the press due to the feeling that he was just a mercenary. He took that to mean that he needed a new name and stat. He considered calling himself “Ace of Spades”, but decided it was too ethnic. During a team-up with Iron Man, a villain asked Cage, “But how? This ship’s construction makes what you’ve done impossible!”
“Just chalk it up to black power, man.”
Then he got distracted so much by how right on track he was with a new nickname that he got punched in the ribs by a villain in a robot suit.
As of that issue, the title changed to reflect his newfound name. It also led to a fantastic issue where the villain named Power Man (currently Atlas) took exception to this infringement and fought Cage in a movie theater. This ranks up there with #9, the Cage vs. Dr. Doom issue, as one of the best pieces of the series.
STEEPLEJACK
First Appearance: Luke Cage, Power Man #18
Threat Level: 2
Bizarreness: 4
Lasting Ability: 1
Jake Mallard and his two brothers were construction workers working for Maxwell Plumm. Plumm liked to cut corners whenever possible and the shoddy materials led to the deaths of Jake’s brothers. Jake swore vengeance and spent the next few years building some construction-based weaponry for his own construction-based villain gimmick of Steeplejack.
So, back from Orlando. I’ll write up the trip report on that in the next day or so.
As I returned to the land of Jersey, I was introduced to this cover image for Anti-Venom: New Ways to Live #3.
Yes. Many times, yes.
Comic books have been very, very good to me.
In the end, Garth Ennis’s Punisher was about both the best and the worst of humanity. The worst, in that he represents just how thoroughly a human being can be broken by the unthinking and inhuman actions of others. The best, in that he looks at the terrible things that the best of us tolerate and says, “No more.”
Ennis’s Punisher isn’t a hero. He may do heroic things, and he may save lives, but he’s no hero. He is, at best, a murderer whose goals happen to coincide with those of many members of society. Punisher MAX really works for two reasons. Ennis treats the series as a war comic, making sure to show the effects of the violence on society and the characters. He writes Frank Castle not as the Punisher, a costumed mental case with a mad-on for criminals, but as a soldier using the things he learned in Vietnam to put the screws to the people he hates.
Frank Castle is no one to look up to, but he exists as the ultimate “If I could…” character. A social worker partway through the series, in the phenomenal The Slavers arc, gives Castle information on his targets, against her better judgment, because she wanted them to pay for what they’d done. She knew the law would never be able to touch them and that they would skate through life, and she hated them for it. They were trash, less than human, and the only person who could do what needed to be done was a man wiling to be inhuman to them right back.
And he does so, if not admirably, then with a certain amount of skill. He makes a child of a hard man with ease, before he finds the woman who helped mastermind the entire scheme. When she begs for her life, explaining that they just wanted to be in America and do business, he coldly tells her, “All that counts is you can’t stop me. I’m stronger than you, so I can do anything I want.” There’s a beat, as time passes and the panel switches, and he asks her, “Isn’t that the way it works?”
And it’s wrong, he’s beating this woman to death, and it’s terrible… but she’s the one who came up with the “rape them to break them” plan. She was willing to use other people as cattle to make sure that she lived a life of luxury. You’re appalled, and it’s ugly, but deep down, you understand that she’s getting exactly what she deserves. Getting to be a monster with no repercussions is unthinkable. It makes for some uneasy feelings. So, you don’t cheer, exactly, but there’s a quiet understanding, the feeling you get when you squash a bug that might have, or did, sting you. It is ugly, but it needed to be done. It is not a good thing that it was done, exactly, but it was necessary.
Frank Castle is a monster, but he’s also a representative of our gut instinct when confronted with some fresh horror. He does what a lot of wish we could, or, failing that, wish would happen, but make no mistake: he is only better than those he kills by comparison. He is a monster, and when confronted with this fact, he agrees. He cannot bring anyone into his life, because at some point, no matter how happy his life is, he is going to turn on the news and see someone that must be punished. He’s damned, he knows it, and he accepts that it is what it is.
The thing about Frank Castle, the thing that keeps him from becoming a generic and bloodthirsty action hero, is that he takes no joy in what he does. One-liners are rare, and stand out when they do occur. It is clear to both the reader and to Frank Castle himself that he takes no pleasure in what he does. The closest he comes is satisfaction, and even that is a vague inference. He does it because it must be done, and he does it because no one else will.
When confronted with the death of a broken and sad woman, all he thinks is, “If I could, I’d kill every single one of them. I’d wipe them out. And you’d never have had to exist at all.” It isn’t an honorable sentiment, but it is a sad one. Whenever Frank Castle meets a normal person, someone not in his line of work, he’s met with shock, scorn, and horror. They understand his appeal, and a couple characters even take him up on it, but his way is not the way life should go. There is no honor, no glory in being Frank Castle.
Garth Ennis took a derivative character, a Dirty Harry for superheroes, a character used to reiterate the ridiculous idea that heroes should never kill, and used him as a mirror for us. Our fears and our insecurities were put on display and put down over the course of the past five years.
Frank Castle didn’t die at the end of Ennis’s run on the Punisher, but I’ve read all the Punisher stories I need. I can’t read the one that fights supervillains, gets up by superheroes because he’s a loose cannon, and never seems to accomplish anything. I can’t take him seriously. It’s like going from photorealism back to stick figures, from the modern age back to the Silver Age, or aging backwards. I’ve read a Frank Castle that brought feelings and thoughts that I’d left unexamined right to the forefront of my mind. I watched him murder people, people who absolutely deserved it, and felt that that was the only way their story could have, and should have, ended. I’ve had to examine my reactions to his actions, and figure out what that means about me as a human being. And, honestly, I’m better for it.
After The Slavers, Punisher vs Kingpin is hollow. I’ve seen real villains in these pages, and that comic book nonsense is just that. The Punisher shouldn’t be a character that makes you pump your fist and go “YEAH!” At this point, that’s a take on the character I want nothing to do with. It’s boring and retrograde.
Those five hardcovers on my shelf, though? Those are five of the finest, and most thoughtful, books Marvel ever put out. It’s a poorer comics world without them. All five volumes are on Amazon. Five
Two instances of dumb ways to write “ethnic” characters, one counter-example, and a brief explanation.
The first two! On the left, we have Brother Voodoo Brudder Voodoo. On the right, we have the Shaolin Scientist Squad. From New Avengers #53 (Brian Michael Bendis and Billy Tan) and Punisher #6 (Rick Remender and Tan Eng Huat), respectively.
A counter-example for Brudder Voodoo, from Gambit #9 (John Layman and Georges Jeanty):
A brief explanation:
Brother Voodoo was needed to fill a role. As part of filling that role, he’s got to talk with a comic book Carribbean accent, I guess. Even though he hasn’t been portrayed as talking like that recently, nor originally, I believe. But, you know, he practices voodoo, and voodoo dudes need to have that authentic accent. Never mind that he’s a psychologist and Haitian ex-pat who’s been living in the States for years– he needs to be de likkle Claremontian stereotype, brudder. Just so you know he’s foreign.
The other is the Shaolin Scientist Squad, who are kind of like an evil Sons of the Tiger, I guess. My problem with them? Having Chinese villains refer to a “Great Western Satan” is like having a Jewish villain screaming about how Captain America is merely an avatar of Yacub, maker and creator of the Devil. GWS is something I’ve only ever seen in regards to Islamic extremist rhetoric, most notably courtesy of Iran a couple decades ago, not Chinese.
Nah, son. You got to do better.
I’m sure you remember yesterday… or maybe not. I mean, nothing really happened due to it being just a cover, a recap and a page of Hulk breaking stuff. At least here we’ll get somewhere.
Blame ManiacClown for the Yo Gabba Gabba thing. The dude’s a dad, so I guess that’s his excuse. Still, he showed me clips from that show of Biz Markie talking to children while being stoned out of his mind, so I can’t hate on it.
If you want some actual context on how we got from point A to point B, in the pages of Ultimate Spider-Man, Spider-Man and Hulk stumbled upon Strange’s house, where demons and stuff were being released due to the place’s structural damage. Strange was taken over by Nightmare, who attacked the heroes, only for Hulk to pound on Nightmare until that big explosion happened. I explain this because Ultimate Spider-Man is the only comic that makes the Ultimatum situation not suck.
We’ll be back tomorrow for more from Strange and the Great Pumpkin.
Day Three!
Day Four!
Day Five!
Day Six!
Day Seven!
(apologies for this post going up almost six hours late– i’d had it scheduled for tomorrow for some reason!)
One thing you can’t help sometimes is looking at black characters with a critical eye. Do they measure up to whatever standard of quality that black characters have to meet? Are they stereotypes? Are they insulting? It’s not even an intentional thing, sometimes. It’s part of that same line of thinking that leads to idle thoughts like, “Man, there weren’t any black folks in that movie” or “I was surprised the black guy didn’t die first.”
Barracuda’s one of those characters that you can call “problematic.” “Stereotypical.” “Ignorant.” “Racist.” He was created by Garth Ennis in the pages of Punisher MAX in a story about corrupt businessmen. The businessmen hired him to get rid of a couple of problems before they unveiled their big scheme.
Barracuda is essentially the essence of the mandingo: hypersexed, hyperviolent, and just waiting for a chance to put his hands on everything you hold dear and taint it. He is every “black male” on your evening news, every “big black guy” your friend ever told you about fighting, every bogeyman who ever broke into your house or stole your car, and every dude that ever made your mother clutch her purse in an elevator. You remember all those stories about the Superdome after Katrina? He was behind all of it. He’s even built like a big gorilla, all muscles and glower.
The problem is that Barracuda is probably the best black villain in years. That may be damning with faint praise, since I can’t think of another single significant black villain in mainstream comics, but it’s still true. He’s appeared in a total of three stories since his inception, the last of which ended with his death.
Frank Castle’s entire gimmick, at least under Ennis (a.k.a. “The Good Stories”), is that he’s singularly focused and prepared for his war on crime. He’s using his Vietnam-era training to put criminals to bed. Barracuda is also a vet, but he’s coming from Reagan’s wars in South America, rather than Vietnam. He found a taste for money, now his skills go to the highest bidder.
At first glance, Barracuda is just another big dumb tough guy, but that isn’t correct at all. He’s extraordinarily quick-witted and resilient in addition to being one of the meanest men alive.
He got a standalone story of his own that showed what happened between his beginning and his end. It was, what, a dark comedy? It showcased a morbid sense of humor and obscene levels of violence. It also showed even more of Barracuda’s character. His lack of social graces was obvious beforehand, but the series makes it clear that he’s full of pride. Frank Castle embarrassed him and hurt him and he can’t let that stand. So, he takes a trek down to South America to stage a coup and stack cash so that he can finance his revenge. He manipulates what, three or four different factions into all-out war? All on his own? Barracuda is no joke.
Barracuda is a big ball of negative stereotypes, but, man, he’s positively a breath of fresh air. We’ve got a comics world with a squeaky clean Luke Cage, a character born out of the blaxploitation tradition. Sure, sometimes he speaks in ASCII characters, but he spends the rest of his time doing things like being faithful to his wife, worrying about his daughter, and trying to make the world a better place. What part of the game is that?
Ennis creating an unapologetically negative and vicious black villain who isn’t some super scientist or freak of nature is a brave move, since most people don’t seem to have bothered. Ennis dives in with relish and man, it pays off big time. You get an interesting and exciting villain, someone who can actually stand up to the hero of the book, and a story that, even though you know Barracuda is going to bite it because he’s going up against Frank Castle, is thrilling nonetheless. “The Long, Cold Dark” was a story that took both characters to the edge in a way that you just don’t see often enough in mainstream books. You know that it’s going to end messy, but the devil’s in the details.
So here’s to Barracuda, an excellent example that we all cannot be, and should not be, Robbie Robertson when it comes to comics. Drop the kid gloves and give me a savage every once and a while. If I can’t get a savage, at least let me get a Bodie.
Here’s a few tips if you want to write black people in comics.
1. Find a quiet place to write
2. Use a laptop– they’re easy to get comfy with and you can research and write at the same time. Also? Music.
3. Keep a hammer by your laptop
4. Hit your laptop with the hammer, and then your hands, because you’re gonna get it wrong.
Still with me?
You’re going to piss somebody off. That’s just the way love life goes. If your character is too thuggish, he’s an idiot gangbanger thug mandingo. If he’s too bookish, he’s an Uncle Tom. If he’s not black enough, he’s just a white dude with black skin. If he’s too black, you’re just reinforcing negative stereotypes.
You can’t win. This is the unspoken rule of creating or writing black characters. Someone, somewhere, is going to hate what you do and how you did it. It could be something in your approach, dialogue, or technique. It could be nothing at all, you might have just pushed someone’s buttons on accident. You’re co-opting, appropriating, and destroying.
With that said, all of that’s no reason to not do it.
If you’ve got half a brain, you’re smart enough to write black people. You know that every black person is different, but that there are still similarities in all of us. If you’re really unsure, you’ll run it by a black friend or two. If you don’t have any black friends, go find some.
Paul Cornell is a pretty smart dude. When he created Faiza Hussein, a British Muslim, he consulted actual Muslim women. Why? Because he knows that there are intricacies or in-jokes or experiences that he may not know about. It was an amazingly respectful, honest, and (to be frank) obvious move. When you’re writing detectives, serial killers, crazy people, or scientists, you do a bit of research to make sure that your ideas are sound. Same goes for race. I respect G. Willow Wilson for similar reasons– it’s clear that she’s willing to do the research necessary to make the story real. A little research goes a long way.
Scared money don’t make money. If you’re so scared of criticism that you’re going to choke when writing black people, you shouldn’t be doing it. If you’re going to seize up at the first sign of criticism, you shouldn’t do it. You’ve got to have the smarts and guts to be able to plow on through and pray that you’re right. It’s a touchy subject, and with good reason, but if no one ever tries, it will never stop being a touchy subject.
Sometimes, creators turn out to be so great at it, no matter their race and upbringing, that I’m willing to read anything from them that involves touchy subjects. Garth Ennis is probably number one on that list for me in everything but religion. He dared to try and tackle things that other people glossed over, and turned out to be pretty great at it. The man has an honestly startling grasp of character, be it white, black, or whatever. The Slavers arc of Punisher MAX was one of the saddest things I’ve ever read, and probably one of the best stories to ever come out of Marvel. It’s something that a lesser writer would have bumbled and botched. Under Ennis, it was honestly terrifying in a very sad sort of way. It makes the stupid superhero fights the Punisher is going to be getting into for the next however many years look worthless.
And that’s how you do it. You do it right, you do it well. It doesn’t matter what the subject is. Put in some work, do some research, and get it done.
“All right. It’s conceivable you could beat me, Avenger. But it would take you a very long time. Tell me this, though – do you want to?”
“No. You’re not the enemy. We’re all just pawns, in a larger scheme.”
“Then we might be better off letting the others play out the events according to the desires of whoever’s pulling the strings – while the two of us try to find some real answers.”
“You’re on. Let’s go.”
— Batman and Captain America from JLA/Avengers #2
I remember back when Marvel and DC had their Marvel vs. DC back in the mid-90’s, it was my first real introduction to Captain America. Sure, I had seen him pop up in Maximum Carnage (wow, I read some shitty stuff when I was that age), but I didn’t understand what a big deal he was supposed to be until they said that he’s supposed to be Batman’s counterpart.
It was weird, since they didn’t seem to have much in common. When they did that Amalgam event and they merged Batman and Wolverine, it seemed to make some sense more based on the two of them being scowling badasses with kid sidekicks and psycho killer (qu’est que c’est… fa-fa-fa-fa fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-far better) bad guys. Even the idea of Batman being the counterpart of Iron Man worked out better, since their secret identities were virtually the same guy.
Yet Marvel and DC, despite all their differences, has written in stone that these two are not only counterparts, but equals. They’ve gone far enough to show Superman beating up the Hulk and Thor, but even when the fans vote on it, they refuse to show an actual winner in Batman vs. Captain America. I always found that interesting.
In the prologue, I discussed Venom: Deathtrap: The Vault, which reader Mark Cook was quick to point out was just an Avengers graphic novel that Marvel re-released with Venom’s name stamped on it. I forgot to bring up one panel that always stuck out at me featuring Iron Man. He seemed to resemble a certain cartoon talkshow host.
“Look, listen everybody… please? Listen to me. I have a hit song about a knife and, yes, I am the head of an international peacekeeping organization.”
Venom had spent several years terrorizing Spider-Man whenever he could, but Marvel deemed him popular enough to get his own series. That would be all well and good, but he’s driven by his insatiable hunger for Spider-Man’s brains. How do you cut away from that?
The answer is to get character creator David Michelinie together with Mark Bagley and write two issues of Amazing Spider-Man. Of course, Michelinie is the creator in theory. There’s a lot of debate over who truly created the concept, but at the very least, Michelinie came up with who he was as a character. Between this story and the one following, he’d lay down the groundwork for the other writers intent on writing Venom.
It takes place in Amazing Spider-Man #374 and #375. Look at that cover. People talk about how great MacFarlane’s Venom is, but I personally consider Bagley’s take to be the definitive version.
