He’s Not Dead! (Diane)

1/8: I believe in a thing called love!

The song opens with an acoustic guitar and a choir going “oooOOOooo” four times. It feels meditative, or rather akin to what one would listen to while meditating. And yet, there’s a twinge of melancholy to the guitar. Not in the Johnny Cash sense wherein you can feel the anger and depression in the song, but rather the melancholy of nostalgia for a somewhere (or, more accurately, someone) you haven’t seen in a long time.

Diane.

Diane,

How can I ever

Make you

Understand?

To be perfectly honest, this isn’t my kind of music. The lyrics are a bit too straightforward and simplistic, the instrumentals are too soft for my tastes, and I find John Marc De Matteis’ voice to be a bit too wobbly. But don’t confuse my aesthetic for a judgment of quality. Looking up the background of the song, De Matteis wrote the piece for his wife, Diane Epstein on their honeymoon, so it would make sense for him to write a piece that straightforwardly expressed how he feels towards her. Indeed, the wobbliness of De Matteis’ voice is best read as a bit of nervousness towards his new wife and the feelings she is causing him to have.

Words can’t

Explain

The way that your eyes have

Washed away

My pain.

In terms of the themes and ideas of the blog, this is one of the more interesting stanzas. Kraven’s Last Hunt, among being about other things, is about how one can cope with the way the world is. For some, like Kraven, coping is too difficult to bear and they sadly decide to commit suicide to get away from the madness and pain that forms their life. Others, like Vermin, cope by lashing out at the world, being as cruel to it as it was to them. But that path is also self-defeating as it leaves you alone and miserable. But for people like Peter, the way to cope is by finding other people who are also hurting, conversing with them, and helping each other through the darkness. There’s a line from Soul of the Hunter (the coda to Kraven’s Last Hunt released five years later, which this blog will sadly not be covering) that’s telling: “…But we can make a choice to listen hard for a song of hope; a song of belief in something bigger: that every heart can touch when it opens in love.”

Diane,

My wife,

You are a gift from God,

My light,

My life.

This bit straightforwardly expresses the relationship between singer and the object of his affection. Religion is an interesting subject within the work of De Matteis. As noted by Grant Morrison in his psychochronography “Supergods,” De Matteis is “a devotee of Indian mystic Meher Baba.” Baba’s influence within the work of De Matteis can perhaps be best seen within Seekers into the Mystery (another book this project won’t be covering), as he is clearly the inspiration for The Magician, a spiritual figure who brings enlightenment to the lead character as well as several others within the world.

But since Baba seems to be a rabbit hole that I am ill equipped to go into, and I want to cover something with a bit more of a personal connection, I’m instead going to talk about De Matteis’ elseworlds story: Supergirl Wings. Apart from possibly Dr. Strange Into Shamballa (which I can’t find a copy of) and maybe his Phantom Stranger run (which, while focusing on Judas Iscariot, is diluted by the positionality of his co-writer, Dan Didio), this is perhaps the most religious of his superhero works. It takes Peter David’s concept of an angelic Supergirl and pushes it even further, combining it with Grant Morrison’s Hawkman replacement, Zauriel, as well as a few reinterpretations of other superheroes to fit within this fantastical system such as Superman being an angel who decided to become human, Aquaman being the guide from non-existence to existence, and Batman being literal, actual Satan (though in this context, more akin to Satan’s original role within the Bible as being a tester rather than as a straightforwardly malevolent force). It’s a psychogeographic look at a mythological system in the vein of Alice in Wonderland that isn’t a one-to-one allegory for any known religion, but rather invokes several belief systems to create something unexpected yet fitting. Much like Kraven’s Last Hunt, it too deals with a depressed person on the verge of suicide, though her ending is more akin to Peter’s than the titular character.

(The personal connection comes from the fact that for a long period of time, I wasn’t actively reading comics. They were just something that existed that I didn’t need to explore further. But at that time, I had a small obsession with the character of Death brought about by my childhood love of The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy and Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey. As such, I surfed the web looking for appearances of the character. When I heard that Death was going to pop up in an issue of Action Comics on IGN, I went surfing to find out more. It was then that I came across this blog called Supergirl Comic Box Commentary. While going through the backlog, I discovered the work of Grant Morrison, John Marc De Matteis [whose work I was nostalgic for, but never had any reason to go back to before this blog], among countless others. Through those works, I exploded into the comics’ scene and haven’t looked back. I owe a debt to that blog, which I hope I’ll someday be able to pay back.)

To add to the sense of melancholy, a violin is added to the song. It is the only other noticeable instrument in the piece.

Another set of four “oooOOOooo”s comes after this stanza.

Dreams come true,

And miracles happen.

            As a chorus, these lines repeat four times. It’s a mantra for most writers, and indeed most people, meaning we can achieve whatever we want. At the same time, it subconsciously acknowledges that just because you work hard and try your best, it doesn’t mean your dreams will come true. Life tends to deal odd hands that could prevent your goals from coming into fruition, be it through an interviewer having a bad day, an interviewee saying the wrong thing without realizing it, or the fact that there’s just someone better than you for the position. That’s where miracles come in: those moments of grace that you don’t think are possible until they actually happen.

Diane,

Sweet bride,

You’ve walked into the door

Into the other side.

This most likely refers to the wedding that has just occurred. Doors are a form of passage, to represent the move from one stage of life to another. This is made more explicit within the next stanza, which is far more interesting than this one.

The past

Is dead.

And joy is the only road that lies ahead.

This isn’t completely true. In terms of being a thing that can be experienced, yes the past is dead. And yet, dead things can still have an impact on the world. We are living within the consequences of the 1980’s, be it the rise of Trump, the impact of Ronald Regan’s presidency, or even the culture we consume. The past haunts the present like a ghost whose business will never be completed, who keeps finding reasons to stick around even after it’s become abundantly clear that they’re only hurting those around them with their presence (insert Twin Peaks The Return joke here).

That also doesn’t mean that the only possible path forward is joy. Yes, this is clearly referring to the relationship between De Matteis and Diane, but everything has implications and meaning to it in the wider context of the world. (Even then, to assume that a relationship can’t fall apart is naïvely optimistic, though understandably so.) As 2017 has shown, there are many paths the future can take. But in the end, I tend to see that the path by which the future goes through ultimately as one of social improvement. A path of caring for others and wishing the best for everyone. Be it the recent surge in support of LGBT people, the push of Generation Z for gun laws, or even the countless people in the entertainment industry coming out in regards to being sexually abused by people in power and said people being torn down.

Dreams come true.

            The line repeats four times before transitioning into the chorus.

Diane.

Diane,

No need to explain

Because you understand:

Now dreams come true.

Dreams come true.

Dreams come true.

Dreams come true.

Miracles too.

At this point, I should probably talk about the twinge of melancholy that I’ve noted throughout the song. For all that De Matties clearly cares for and loves his wife, for all that he is astonished that he’s with such a wonderful person, this is nonetheless an ending. And endings by their very nature are sad. Because they’re the moment where nothing can follow from it. It’s a stop gate of the things that have come before, the culmination of all that you’ve been building towards.

And yet, like most ongoing fiction, we tend to not notice this because it doesn’t feel like an ending in the moment. It feels like another part of life. Life is being in perpetual middle. There’s no climax that everything build towards, no Aristotelian unity that connects every little detail in one perfectly created package. To claim otherwise would be to fall into the trap of conspiracy theories. I know I said that life is going in a specific direction, but that’s only right now. That’s only how it feels as I’m typing it. For all I know, the world could feel vastly different on June 26^th, 2018 when this uploads on my blog or on May 29^th, 2525 (if man is still alive).

The world is constantly changing, becoming something new in every instant. Because that’s the nature of life: change. We all change, when you get down to it. We fall in love, fall out of love, have kids, get jobs we hate, and yes, die. We begin projects that feel too big for use and, when they’re done, find that you could have done so much more. We become new people every single day of our lives.

Yes, someday humanity will become extinct. Maybe even all sentient life or even all life period. The universe itself will collapse into entropy and decay, only to birth itself anew. The story of life is perpetual “To Be Continued,” there is no one singular ending, but a vast multitude of endings for every single being, be it man, deer, or plant. Life has no coherent thesis, no true ending or culmination of themes. It just keeps going on and on forever.

What meanings we do find within life are ones we put in there ourselves. We create meaning through our experiences and the experiences of those close to us, be it physically or emotionally. And through our meanings and interpretations, we find reasons to keep moving forward, to see new things and old ones as well, until that day it all ends for us. And what happens next, I cannot say. But it has been said that miracles happen. Maybe, despite everything, there’s something after this. Something we haven’t considered yet is staring us right in the face. Maybe the story of our lives doesn’t have an ending either. After all, who can actually remember coming out of their parent’s womb? And without that beginning, to paraphrase my favorite book, there can be no ending to the story of our lives. It just stops.

The song closes with a cacophony of lyrics including the chorus, the word “Diane” repeated over and over again, and a few “oOOoOOO”s. The violins are the loudest here.

“Some people want to fill the world with silly love songs. And what’s wrong with that?”
-Paul and Linda McCartney, 1976

The End.

07/13/2017-03/20/2018

[Photo: Both the Immortals and Those Who Aren’t Sing the Praises of Life Equally Directed by Takahiro Omori Script by Noboru Takagi]

Long ago in an American autumn.

Aunt May? Mary Jane? (Die I)

1/8: You're gonna carry that weight.

Sadly, You Died.

“The Universe is Change; every Change is the effect of an Act of Love; all Acts of Love contain Pure Joy. Die Daily. Death is the apex of one curve of the snake Life: behold all opposites as necessary complements, and rejoice.”
-Aleister Crowley, 1944

The End.

07/13/2017-03/19/2018

[Photo: The Real Folk Blues Part 2 Directed by Yoshiyuki Takei Script by Keiko Nobumoto]

Long ago in an American autumn.

An Open Letter to Wes Anderson

Dear Wes Anderson,

I would like to open this letter with a bit of flattery. In the wake of the release of Isle of Dogs (which I needed to be pointed out was an obvious pun), I watched and rewatched a large selection of your filmography. By now, I have seen all of your films bar Rushmore and Bottle Rocket, and I have liked most of them (as many people pointed out, Darjeeling Limited was perhaps a bad move). Out of the ones I’ve seen, I’d probably say the Grand Budapest Hotel is my hotel (yes, I am a boring person), though I my second favorite, oddly enough, is Life Aquatic. Overall, I would say you’re one of the best working filmmakers of the 21^stcentury. That isn’t to say you’re without critique (which I won’t get into so as to avoid losing you before I get to the reason why I wrote this letter), but I think striking you from the “list of quality filmmakers” would be a terrible loss in the way losing John Ford or Peter Jackson wouldn’t.

Now that I’ve gotten the flattery out of the way, I need your help. Before I get to what I need you to do, I first need to set up some context. Said context being the fact that The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is the greatest superhero movie ever made. Now there are some people out there (including Aleph Null, who commissioned this piece) who would wish this film to be stricken from the record of the Superhero Film Canon. However, this is impossible both because Canon is a bullshit concept that has stagnated many a story (Grant Morrison’s Batman post New 52) and limited what one can and can’t do with a character (Dr. Light: Rape Fetishist) and because of the fact that, within the first act of the film, Spider-Man is revealed to have access to hammerspace.

Now, in case you’re not aware (or, rather, the people reading this who aren’t you aren’t aware [I’m sure you’re aware of what hammerspace is, Mr. Anderson]), hammerspace is a concept derived from Looney Tunes cartoons wherein a character is capable of pulling objects of varying sizes from seemingly nowhere. (In Spider-Man’s case, a simple cell phone.) By doing this, the filmmakers not only connect Spidey to a legacy of trickster characters (see also the various homages to silent comedy and slapstick romances), but they also reveal what Spider-Man looks like from outside of his own head. From our perspective, we see Spidey as this down on his luck jerk who breaks down at the sign of pressure. But this is due to having access to his interior monologue. He doesn’t, contrary to the amazing work in Chip Zdarsky’s Howard the Duck, crawl into a ball to cry about Uncle Ben for two weeks. Instead, he keeps his feelings bottled up until they explode into giving up all together or deciding that it’s a good idea to murder Norman Osborn instead of helping Harry out as he’s going through a bad trip. Not the typical day-to-day superheroing, is what I’m saying.

But without that interior monologue, the average New York citizen sees Spidey as this witty chaotic trickster. A slim fool who outwits his opponents while making jokes about the situation they both find themselves in. One who frequently dons disguises to trick his opponents (typically an extremely easily to anger white guy) into falling into their own traps. In short, most people see Spider-Man as Bugs Bunny. By making this connection literal via the introduction of hammerspace into Spider-Man’s powers, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 not only justifies its own existence, but it also puts to shame every single other Spider-Man story after it that refuses to acknowledge this ability of Peter’

But this isn’t enough to make the film the greatest superhero movie ever made. Indeed, there’s a stronger case to be made that it’s one of the worst, though not the reasons most give for it. The main arguments from most of the critiques of the film that I’ve seen range from “This is a film that exists solely to keep Spider-Man from being in the MCU” (one could make a sensible argument that’s actually a virtue of the film, given who owns the MCU) to “They should have let Sam Rami make Spider-Man 4” (No, no they should not). The actual vices people bring up tend to be the decision to uncritically kill off Gwen Stacy (and indeed not give the character or any female characters within the film much to do on screen [they tend to spend most of their time in the margins of the film doing interesting things, which is a complaint that could be raised at every single Spider-Man film]), the plotline involving Peter’s Dad is a bit shit with its “proper” conclusion being left on the cutting room floor, and the fact that the film is structurally convoluted, juggling 4-7 different plotlines at a time and not always making them work.

(One point of ambiguity that I noted at the time was the decision to have Electro in a hoodie when he’s confronted by a cop who believes him to be a threat and is prepared to fire on him. In case you’ve forgotten about this film [and apologies about assuming you have memories of the Amazing Spider-Man 2], Electro is played by noted African American actor Jamie Foxx. The implications of this are not ones I am prepared to tackle. I can see the argument that this is a critique of the police, but it’s slim enough that I don’t feel comfortable making the argument, even if I wasn’t a white guy. I would be interested in someone else making an analysis of that scene, be it positive or otherwise. It’s an implication that no one was prepared for.)

At the same time though, the plotlines never collapse into incoherence and indeed feature some amazing character work. Off the top of my head there’s the scene where Peter tries to talk down Electro before he accidentally kills some people, the bit on the bridge that’s easily the most romantic comedy moment of the two films (indeed, for good and for ill, the films fit nicely within the romantic comedy genre), and the moment where Aunt May calls Peter out for obsessing over the “Peter’s Dad did some BAD THINGS” plotline. The action is a marked improvement over the previous film, with the lighting and cinematography making for some terrific shots. And there are some fascinating implications that are left unspoken (If one were inclined to make a redemptive read out of the film instead of an argument on why it’s the greatest superhero film ever made, one would note the first film’s thematic interests in the duality between love and horror and the metafictional critique of Nolan’s Batman [which made being the first superhero film to come out after The Avengers hurt it even more], the flagrantly obvious identity of Mr. Fears [and the subsequent implications], the way the film empathizes with the plight of Harry Osborn even when treating him as a figure of ambiguity, and how there is no good capitalist to balance out the realistically cartoonish villainy of Oscorp, and one can make the read that the Amazing Spider-Man films are part of a trilogy about how capitalism is a system that hurts everyone within it, even those who allegedly benefit from it. And it is the Amazing Spider-Man 2 that does the majority of the legwork. Of course, were the Amazing Spider-Man 3 to be made by some mad fanboy as part of a comic adaptation [since it’s reasonable to assume the Amazing Spider-Man 2’s production burnt a lot of bridges], it would end with the Marvel Cinematic Universe literally eating the universe as if it was Galactus, ending with the bleak note that capitalism ultimately consumes everything it touches).

So what we have is a mixed bag of a film elevated by the occasional clever brilliant bit. In short, it’s the perfect expression of the superhero genre. As a genre, there are some fleetingly great moments, but as a genre it is also defined by the majority of writer’s inability to write interesting stories about women and people of color outside of the margins, implications in regards to the plausibility of fascism as a read on what the superhero is, and several behind the scenes corporate stuff that makes it unethical to read any works within the genre. The genre has produced works by brilliant artists and writers like JH Williams III and Donny Cates, but it also spawned works by awful storytellers like Howard Chakyn and Chuck Dixon. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is the greatest superhero movie ever made because it is the only one capable of expressing the multitudes of the genre. It’s the greatest… because the superhero genre is shit.

Which, at long last, brings us to you, Mr. Anderson. What I want from you is simple: I don’t want the Amazing Spider-Man 2 to be the greatest superhero film ever made, PLEASE ADAPT FLEX MENTALLO: MAN OF MUSCLE MYSTERY TO THE BIG SCREEN!!!!

I should probably elaborate on that point. Flex Mentallo follows two separate plot lines. The first is a semi noir tale about a superhero, the titular Flex Mentallo, trapped in the real world discovering that one of his friends, The Fact, is working for a terrorist organization in the real world and must uncover the reason behind the plot. The second follows Flex’s creator, Wally Sage, as he talks to a suicide hotline about all those shitty amazing comics he read as a kid shortly after taking enough pills to be fatal. All the while, the apocalypse looms.

In many regards, even putting aside the quirky aesthetics of the comic, you are the perfect director to adapt the comic. As with many of your films, the light colors and oddly formal means of talking belie stories of depression, guilt, and striving to be better, which this comic likewise exemplifies. In many ways, despite coming out roughly the same time as Bottle Rocket, Flex Mentallo exemplifies the ethos and implications of your more recent career turn towards artifice as a means of expressing unspeakable honesty that you are the perfect director to adapt this comic.

And by having such a perfect director adapt a work about the comics medium, warts and all, I believe your Flex Mentallo is the only thing that can usurp the Amazing Spider-Man 2 as the greatest superhero film ever made. I mean, at this point it’s either you or Teen Titans Go! to the Movies.

Thank you for whatever time you have provided this rubbish letter,

Sean Dillon

If Anybody Can Help You- He Can. (Soul of the Hunter)

CW: Discussion of suicide.

“What is a ghost? A tragedy condemned to repeat itself time and again? An instant of pain, perhaps. Something dead which still seems to be alive. An emotion suspended in time. Like a blurred photograph. Like an insect trapped in amber.”
-Guillermo del Toro, 2001

            1/8: Touching a hand, wondering why it's time for saying goodbye.

In many ways, it’s the ending that makes a story. It reveals the intent of the storyteller, what we are meant to learn from these words, and even what the genre of the story was. For many, the end of Kraven’s Last Hunt was Spectacular Spider-Man #132, which is a sensible way of looking at the story considering it that’s how it’s usually framed (in fact, most people tend to ignore the “Spider-Man versus Wolverine” connection all together). But there’s another part of the story, one less talked about when discussing Kraven’s Last Hunt: Soul of the Hunter.

Released in 1992, Soul of the Hunter sees JM DeMatteis and Mike Zeck reunite for one more story. As DeMatteis recalls, “Tom [DeFalco] had gotten a bunch of letters from people saying, 'Oh, you’re glorifying suicide!' Normally I would dismiss that as the usual rantings, except it really disturbed me that people would think that the purpose of that story was to glorify suicide. That is something I would never do. That is not my view of life or the universe.” So naturally, he wrote a story about Peter punching the ghost of Kraven the Hunter right in his stupid face.

In many regards, it’s a restatement of thematic intent on DeMatteis’ part: compassion and empathy trump brute strength and the death drive, the ambiguity of the supernatural, superheroics as means of coping with trauma. He even gives Mary Jane more to do in this part than in the rest of Kraven’s Last Hunt. It’s not that he gives her the role she had in the rest of the DeMatteis era, but rather MJ acts as a spiritual guide to Peter, an atheist who, because of her background in acting, understands the symbolic nature of what Peter’s going through, and works to help him through it by giving him advice as to how to cope with it. (One of the things that has fascinated me about the character of Peter Parker, and indeed why I have such an affinity for him, is that for all the talk of him being a whiner, he doesn’t really whine that much. Indeed he typically copes with traumatic experiences through keeping it bottled up. The only reason we see him as a whiner is because we’re the only ones who can hear his intimate thoughts. There’s a song that I think gets at the heart of this: I know what it’s like/when your family cries/I know how it feels.)

But more to the point, I want to talk about the ghost aspect. This aspect has been the thing that pushed my interpretation of Kraven’s Last Hunt towards the more Hannibal-esque margins between supernatural and mundane. And yet, despite having the living embodiment of Death themselves (yes I know Death is a lady within the context of the Marvel Universe and the story shies away from claiming the figure is Death, but the figure is literally a shadow shaped like a person in a hood with beady, hollow red eyes that they’re flagrantly meant to be Death), the ghost of Kraven the Hunter, and a sodding host of unalive people who are not allowed to pass on into the afterlife due to committing suicide, the narrative still keeps an ambiguity to it.

In one panel of Peter’s fight with Kraven the Zombie, we don’t see him fighting anyone at all, just punching the air. One could argue that this is definitive proof that all of this is in Peter’s head. Indeed, Mary Jane tries to make this argument in the coda of this coda. But I think Peter’s response is all the more telling: 

Peter: Well, some things touch us in a place that words can’t ever really reach. And what I felt there--at the end--to talk about it too much, over analyze it-- 

MJ: You don’t want to cheapen it with words? 

The point isn’t whether or not Peter actually fought a ghost or if it was just his mind using the tropes of superheroes to cope with a traumatic moment in his life that he’s just been reminded of or even whether or not Peter died at the hands of the Hunter. The point is what it felt like in the moment as he was saving Kraven’s soul. Not what it was in terms of matter and substance, but the internal stuff-- the effects it had on Peter as a person.

But then, what are those effects? Well, consider the moment Peter defeats the ghost (I’ve been using this term a bit liberally in the essay, in truth it’s less of a ghost and more of an amalgamation of all of Kraven’s [and indeed Peter’s] contemplations of suicide and death. It’s simpler to describe it as a ghost, though in terms of aesthetics, it’s more akin to a zombie. Also, since it’s going to come up, the other Kraven is his spirit/soul, not his ghost). On the surface, it appears to be a simple punching match but with more existential dread and PTSD, but in the moment before Peter can lay the finishing blow, the ghost vanishes. Why?

Consider what Peter was thinking of in the moment of victory: not of his love for Mary Jane or happy memories with Uncle Ben (indeed Ben has a more expansive role within this part of the story than all the rest, a pity as I found that to be one of Kraven’s Last Hunt’s more interesting aspects, though I can understand the decision as it’s been a few years since the death of Ned Leeds, and to have that be the aspect that drives this stand alone graphic novel would be silly), but rather of how Kraven felt in the last moments of his life. He doesn’t know what drove Kraven to the point where suicide was the right call, but he understands that life can bring pain and suffering that could push someone to that point. In short, what defeats the ghost is Peter’s ability to empathize with him.

Now, I’ve talked a lot about empathy in the preceding parts of this analysis, and at times I’ve felt like I’ve bungled it a bit. As I’ve stated previously, I am on the autism spectrum and as such have difficulties with expressing empathy towards others. I should stress that empathy is not the same thing as compassion. Nor is it an aesthetic. Unlike being a magician, you can’t just declare yourself to be empathetic and wear the aesthetics of empathy. Rather, empathy is something you do. And like any action, it can be hard or even impossible for some to do.

But that doesn’t mean that it should be looked down upon or even demonized like those who view masculinity as merely the ability to claim cruelty is the highest form of rationality do. Rather, we should guide our empathy with compassion for others. If we see someone who struggles with empathy, we should try to help as best we can. Listen to their perspectives and worldviews and act accordingly. Empathy can help us find the root problem of things, but it’s not the “be all/end all” solution.

In many ways, empathy is like literary criticism. We look at a text we call a person and based on what we see within the text we judge and critique the text accordingly. We can even redemptively read a text to see its best self, the best of which require a thorough examination of its flaws. But at the same time, our biases and worldviews can make us miss aspects of the text. Indeed, the entire narrative of Kraven’s Last Hunt is based around this concept. Consider Kraven for a moment. Give the whole of the story, it’s apparent that he is capable of empathizing with Peter. In his final moments, he realizes what kind of man Peter was: a good one. One who compassionate with others, willing to push those around him to be better. Sure, he has the world on the back of his shoulders, he blames himself for far too much, but he is self aware of it (or, at the very least surrounds himself with people who will point out when he needs to stop brooding) and tries to push himself past it. (I should note that Soul of the Hunter is one of many, many, many Spider-Man stories that explicitly state he is Jewish.)

But prior to that, Kraven was reading Peter as being this monstrosity that lurks within the annals of history, corrupting and destroying civilization after civilization. Not a man so much as a man possessed by a demon. In the end though, he realizes that it wasn’t so much a being he was fighting, but rather a symbol. As he puts it, “Every man… every woman… every nation… every Age has its spider: You have been mine.”

Everyone has something they react against. Something that makes them want to get up in the morning and live. And when that thing is gone, no matter how monsterous or cruel or wrong headed it was, it can make them… us feel like there’s no point to doing anything else anymore. That we’ve reached the highest point in our lives and we should just end it all before the fall becomes too much. For some of us it’s a television show we watch, for others it’s a project they’ve spent years working on in one form or another. It could even be a relationship. But when it’s done, some of us want to end as well.

…I have this idea for a Star Trek story. I’m not sure if I’m ever going to write it, but I might as well express it here. It’s called The End of a Generation, and perhaps obviously it focuses on the TNG era. It stars Geordi La Forge, last surviving member of the USS Enterprise-D. There isn’t some vast conspiracy at work here. No Romulan invaders or Dominion hold outs plotting some dastardly scheme that requires the Enterprise crew to be dead or some other nonsense. Life just happened. They died of old age or by accident or on the fields of battle. Someone has to be the last one out, and I’ve always had a fondness for Geordi.

Sure, most people view him as this tech person who wants to have sex with the Enterprise and/or his robot pal, but I never saw him that way. Even before reading Vaka Rangi, there was always this air of friendliness to Geordi, as if he just wanted what was best for everyone. Indeed, the first episode of TNG I ever saw was "Elementary, Dear Data," and he came off as a personable kind of guy. Later viewings showed he was mostly there to ask questions for Data to answer for the sake of the audience, but that first viewing where I focused on him standing up to Dr. Pulaski because she's being unempathetic and cruel towards Data or being nostalgic with Picard for a time he never lived in, that viewing is forever etched in my brain. In many ways, Geordi was the heart and soul of the series and it feels fitting to close the story of that generation with him as the lead.

The story itself concerned him being called off for one last adventure: the Enterprise-D has been spotted cursing in the Gamma quadrant when it’s also in a Federation Museum. Geordi is brought on as a consultant and gets on quite well with the next generation, even if there’s a bit of push back and growing pains. The adventure gets Geordi nostalgic for the days when he was a member of the Enterprise, and yet there’s a sadness to this nostalgia. Not that he doesn’t have a good life right now, but rather he misses those who are now gone. I don’t think he’s suicidal, just keenly aware that his time is coming close to an end.

But ultimately, Geordi ends up making some form of peace with the past. He’s always acknowledged that the past isn’t always perfect (indeed, contrary to popular belief, early TNG does not view its present as perfect). Indeed, I think somewhere at the middle I have a character ask him about it (probably Sela, perhaps as the captain of the ship), about how he coped with living with being the last. I don’t know the exact words I’d use, but I think it would involve the nature of change. We all change. We grow old, we fall in and out of love, we make and lose friends, and yes, we die. But when everything seems like it’s coming to an end, we can still grow as people and better ourselves. After all, isn’t that what it’s all about?

The End.

07/13/2017-03/19/2018

[Photo: Meanwhile Directed by Peter Avanzino Script by Ken Keeler]

Long ago in an American autumn.