Posts Tagged dc comics
Brightest Day and Dead Baby Birds
The first page of Brightest Day #0 made me laugh out loud. It’s the first volley of a more traditionally ‘heroic’ era for DC Comics superheroes – and it opens with a baby bird falling out of its nest and striking a tombstone with a spatter of blood, dead.
I feel better already.
Admittedly, Brightest Day co-writer Geoff Johns has said that the tone of the book is “not necessarily optimistic”. It does, however, arrive as a cheerier sequel to his hearts-torn-out-and-eaten-in-front-of-their-owners storyline Blackest Night, and showcases a dozen resurrected characters suddenly pardoned from the growing bodycount of recent superhero stories.
The narrator of the parodic Ambush Bug: Year None put it like this in 2008: “Squeamish, gentle reader? Then it may be time for you to give up reading graphic literature, since we have truly now entered… the Guignol Age of Comics.” Look, you really need to see the font for the full effect:
It’s not just blood and gore that make some squeamish, but also the actions of the heroes themselves. Marvel is promoting its new Heroic Age – a “throwback to the early days of the Marvel Universe, with more of a swashbuckling feel”, according to editor in chief Joe Quesada. Have comic books become so compromised that announcing “heroes will be heroes again” deserves a headline in the mainstream media?
Many trace this grim-and-gritty superhero trend back to comics like Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns and Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ Watchmen in the mid-1980s; Moore says he suspects “that the existence of Watchmen had pretty much doomed the mainstream comic industry to about 20 years of very grim and often pretentious stories…”
Everyone would have their own list of superhero stories gone wrong. Personally, I think that Kevin Smith’s Batman series The Widening Gyre seems to have been written just to prove that Frederick Wertham was right about creepy superhero sexuality. I cocked an eyebrow when the alternate-universe Captain America purposefully used a kindergarten full of children as cover during a firefight in Ultimate Avengers #4. Hell, DC just published a story in which a hero murders a villain while quipping “For justice” – a catchphrase associated with their kid-friendly Super Friends title.
I’m torn, though, whenever I feel the urge to complain about what’s being done to these superheroes. In my last column for Bookslut, I talk about alternative superheroes and “underwear perverts”, like James Kochalka’s Superf*ckers and Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson’s The Boys. I end up saying we shouldn’t be so precious about ‘perverted’ superheroes. It’s very difficult for a single story – or even a decent-length run – to do any lasting damage. Superheroes have “existed for too many years, through too many stories, at the hands of too many writers and artists to be corrupted by swear words or a sex scandal.” That goes for Marvel and DC’s own stories, too.
I don’t want to be a they’re-raping-my-childhood! hysteric. I’m all for violence, gore, and death – I’m actually murdering someone as I type! I’m just tired of the so-called “real world” intersecting with superhero stories in the most grim and least interesting ways. This quick, lovely piece by David Uzumeri summarises it best. Comparing Naoki Urasawa’s Pluto to Grant Morrison and Frank Quietly’s All-Star Superman, he writes:
“Books like Watchmen or Identity Crisis take that tack with American superhero material; they’re both about scratching under the shiny veneer and finding the rotten underside of a metaphorical golden age, about how, in a grown-up world, pragmatism trumps idealism.”
If idealism can triumph anywhere, shouldn’t it be in superhero stories?
(Oh: the baby bird in Brightest Day #0 is magically resurrected a couple of pages later! So, uh, no harm done.)
Power Girl: “They ain’t looking at my face.”
This is a sentence I never thought I’d write: I want to talk about Power Girl’s cleavage.
A story in this month’s JSA 80 Page Giant features what seems to be a rather odd metafictional moment. Here, DC Comics’ charmingly brash superhero, Power Girl, thinks that her revealing costume is being mocked by her rookie teammate, Cyclone. When Cyclone explains that, no, no, she loves the costume, Power Girl shoots a barbed look out towards the reader. She says: “Most women don’t react quite that way.”
Some readers explained that they felt they were being lectured by the comic; reprimanded for daring to think that there’s sexism present in the way Power Girl is drawn (with her seemingly ever-increasing bust size) and the costume she’s drawn into (with its notorious cleavage-window).
The writer of the issue, Jen Van Meter – in an incredibly classy move – responded to one of her critics. She explained that Power Girl’s glance out of the page wasn’t present in the original script, before going on to say:
“Do I like the vast and very gendered disparity in costuming in conventional superhero comics? No. Do I love superhero comics despite the many flaws of the genre? Absolutely. Having chosen to write superhero comics for hire on occasion, must I work with what’s available to me? Sure.”
Spend any time online and you’ll witness the argument usually used to shut down talk of this ‘very gendered disparity’. It goes like this: hey, all superhero costumes are skintight and ridiculous! Shut up!
And while that misses the point entirely, it’s true that superhero costumes are inherently ridiculous. More and more, supermen and superwomen seem a little embarrassed by their outfits. (This is made even worse when they’re translated into non-animated films. Real actors, real physics, and real fabrics just make the problem that much worse.) Comic books have struggled to find logical ways to explain these bizarre spandex fashions.
(My favourite justification comes from writer Grant Morrison. He suggested the X-Men originally dressed like superheroes because the public already trusted superheroes, and therefore they’d be more willing to accept mutants with strange powers within that preexisting heroic framework. That kind of conceptual möbius strip isn’t for amateurs!)
Power Girl’s costume, however, is seen as so uniquely provocative that her writers constantly have to address the issue. Sometimes it’s taking the reader by the hand for a guided interpretive tour, like Cyclone’s subsequent pro-costume speech, above:
“’Cause from a theatrical point of view, it’s perfect for who you are and what you do. It’s all about contradictions. The hole draws the eye precisely where everyone knows they’re not supposed to look – putting anyone you’re dealing with off-balance. The name says girl, but the costume says woman… and not just woman, I mean. It says, “I’m tough enough to handle everything I am. Are you?’”
Sometimes it’s a quick gag, as in JSA Classified #1: “Green Lantern used to ask me why I never wore a mask. It’s because most of the time… they ain’t looking at my face.”
The oddest explanation for Power Girl’s outfit comes out in a heartfelt, tears-in-her-eyes conversation with Superman in JSA Classified #2:
“People always ask me why I have this hole right here. They think I’m showing off… or just being lewd. But the first time I made this costume, I wanted to have a symbol like you. I just… couldn’t think of anything. I thought, eventually, I’d figure it out. And close the hole. But I haven’t.”
Remember that tragic justification for why Batman constantly disappears on a mid-sentence Commissioner Gordon? This scene attempts the same retroactive poetry, but fumbles badly.
Years ago, I interviewed DC Comics’ writer Gail Simone for a feature in Yen Magazine. (How long ago? Joss Whedon was still directing the Wonder Woman movie, that’s how long ago.) She said that she might be considered a “contrarian” in the debate over gendered fashions of superhero outfits. She said:
“I think it’s fine if most of the male and female characters look fabulous, even if the outfits are impractical. I owned a beauty salon before I became a writer and I know there’s a power in glamour. That said, sometimes the outfits betray the nature of the character, and that’s unforgiveable.”
You could easily argue that trying to make Power Girl’s cleavage an empty symbol of angst is a betrayal of her character; it certainly seems more cynical than depicting her as owning her costume-choice with a shrug or wink or smile.
But here’s the final chicken-or-egg riddle: how much of her tough-talking, fun-loving personality has been slowly developed to justify her costume – and not the other way round?
Batman Hates Goodbyes
There’s a gag that’s been running through Batman comics for as long as I can remember. Batman and Commissioner Gordon are engaged in a terse discussion over Gotham’s latest batch of murders. Batman then disappears mid-conversation, leaving poor Gordon talking to himself by the light of the Bat-Signal.
Every writer seems to have provided their own variation on this same vanishing act, but only one I know of explains why Batman does it.
Before I get to that, though, a little more on my last mention of the “tangle of personal tragedies and pointless minutia” of some comic book continuity. Company-wide reboots like Crisis On Infinite Earths are one way to fix these snags, but more common is to perform on-the-fly ‘battlefield surgery’ on continuity hiccups. Writers create new justifications for odd notions from previous issues as they go – or, at worst, they find new excuses to ignore the weirder or dumber elements of their characters.
Geoff Johns’ work on Green Lantern is dedicated to this conceptual surgery. He took the fact that Green Lantern’s ring originally didn’t work against the colour yellow – a random weakness introduced to give villains a shot at winning – and transmuted it into an all-encompassing, world-building logic for his corner of the DC Universe.
He’s created a sci-fi “emotional spectrum” of warring colours that explains early Green Lantern stories while also providing endless fodder for later ones. Admittedly, I’m still waiting for him to tackle the time Green Lantern fought The Shark despite his invisible yellow forcefield. (Yes. You heard me. Invisible and yellow.)
Sometimes a retroactive justification can be much smaller in scale. Greg Rucka wrote an idiosyncratic Batman story called “Falling Back” in Legends of the Dark Knight #125. It came towards the end of a sprawling crossover called “No Man’s Land” – a surprisingly good crossover, too. Even when it was leaking logic it was full of fascinating ideas and dark character turns.
Gordon is upset that a defeated Batman disappeared, abandoning Gotham. Now that Batman’s back, Gordon wants nothing to do with him. He’s furious that Batman left the city unprotected without even a word; furious that no one in law enforcement will take him seriously because he needs a masked vigilante to help him.
They finally meet, face to face. This issue is almost entirely dedicated to their conversation: no fight scenes, no flashbacks. Artist Rick Burchett lets whole pages sit, empty of dialogue, as these two men struggle to find the right words. Downstairs, a waiting Robin nervously says it feels like his parents are deciding if “the divorce is final”.
When Batman tells Gordon that they’re still partners, Gordon responds: “Partners are equal, Batman! When have you ever treated me like your equal? Partners, for example, tell you their plans! They keep you informed! And they sure as hell don’t walk out on you in the middle of a sentence!”
Batman slowly bows his head, and says: “I’ve never been good at saying goodbye.”
Batman’s disappearances aren’t just him being needlessly spooky; it’s that he’s still so consumed with guilt and grief over his parents’ murder that he’d rather vanish than risk another goodbye.
And, just like that, a tired gag is injected with retroactive heartbreak.
Unreal Superheroes: “The one thing I can not do…”
The thought bubbles of the Superman story “Unreal” read like poetry once you take the pictures away:
I can defy the laws of gravity.
I can ignore the principles of physics.
I can breathe in the vacuum of space.
I can alter the building blocks of chemistry.
I can fly in the face of probability.
I can bring smiles of relief to a grateful populace.
But unfortunately…
…the one thing I can not do…
…is break free from the fictional pages where I live and breathe…
…become real during times of crisis…
…and right the wrongs of an unjust word.
A world, fortunately, protected by heroes of its own.
Does this story – by Steven T. Seagle and Duncan Rouleau – sound a little too sincere something that’s only two pages long? It’s because it belongs to DC Comics’ second volume of artists’ reactions to 9-11, released in 2002. It’s a fascinating cultural document of dozens of writers and artists struggling to make sense of the attacks. Some go for grand symbolism, and others for raw, personal moments. Some are genuinely moving; some are well-meaning but wince-inducing.
Because this is DC Comics, though, superheroes necessarily wind their way through many of these stories. For example, Superman helps children to symbolically rebuild twin towers with toy blocks. A kid draws his own superhero stories while waiting for news about his father. A godlike hand plays with superhero action figures around a glowing tower. Weirdest of all: Krypto, Superman’s superpowered dog, flies in a giant water-dish for the rescue dogs who’ve been looking for survivors.
The presence of these characters creates a conflict between heroic reality and heroic fantasy, and it’s never far from the surface of the page. In Brian K. Vaughn and Pete Woods’ story, “For Art’s Sake”, it’s the actual plot. It features a comic artist who doesn’t see the point in drawing superheroes any more. “…we’re sitting here telling meaningless stories about imaginary heroes,” he says, “while, out there, hundreds of real heroes are dead.”
Steven T. Seagal has dealt with some of these same questions of pesky reality in his autobiographical graphic novel It’s A Bird. In it, he explains how difficult he finds it to write Superman. “I’ve been thinking it over and the pieces don’t add up… the costume, the secret identity, the origin…” he says. “Superman doesn’t hold water in the real world.”
(I write about this odd Superman story, as well as Doctor Doom’s less-than-villainous reaction to the 9-11 attacks, over here.)
What I love about Seagle’s story in this volume, however, is that it draws attention to Superman’s fictional status without compromising his character. Even though it shows Superman as just pencil and ink, flat on the page, he’s still allowed his thought bubbles. We see him wishing he could travel to our world and offer us help.
In fact, it’s like a mirror-image of the volume’s cover. 
There, Superman is the one who appears three-dimensional. From the safe distance of his own fictional universe, he’s looking up with admiration at a two-dimensional representation of rescue workers – peering into a flat representation of our world, just like we peer down at his heroic deeds on the comic book page.
Superman simply says: “Wow.”