Tuesday, June 25, 2019

The Bomb Was an Idea (DC The New Frontier + JSA The Golden Age)

Commissioned by Clarence Drilling

“Before the bomb was a bomb, the bomb was an idea. Superman, however, was a faster, stronger, better idea.”
-Grant Morrison

Things The Golden Age isn't
interested in: People of Color.
Also silence.
Even if the commission wasn’t for me to contrast these two works, reading The Golden Age brings up so many parallels with The New Frontier. Mainly, that one wishes they were reading Darwin Cooke’s seminal comic book instead. For those who haven’t read either book, a brief explanation: James Robinson and Paul Smith’s The Golden Age tells of an alternate past of the DC universe where Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman never existed and instead focused on the superhero team the JSA in a political thriller whose main politics are “McCarthyism is kin to Hitler.” Indeed, there’s not much interest in exploring the implications of “So HUAC was actually part of a secret ploy by the Ultra-Humanite and the brain of Adolf Hitler to take over the world” in the story. The politics are largely background noise that isn’t as developed as it could have been.

Conversely, The New Frontier has Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman in the mud of the 50’s. It’s about the softening of the Superhero in the face of the silver age, yes. But there’s also an edge to the story. There’s the famous Wonder Woman leading a group of Vietnamese women to slaughter the men who had enslaved them, but less talked about is Superman’s ultimate character arc of rejecting being an agent of the American government on the grounds that the philosophy of “My country no matter what” is complete bunk. And that’s not even getting into the John Henry subplot.

All of which to say is that The New Frontier is ultimately a better text that The Golden Age because it has a modicum of ambition. Of course, you’d probably expect something more out of a comparison between the two than less than 300 words, and as such let’s look at the most interesting idea The Golden Age has: The connection between the atom bomb and the superhero. Many a writer has discussed the connection between the two, most recently Al Ewing in The Immortal Hulk. But where Ewing ties the bomb specifically to the Hulk due to the nature of his origin, Robinson takes it one step further by claiming the bomb is the natural extension of the superhero.

There is an argument to be made for this. The bomb, much like the superhero, changed the world forever by its mere presence. As David Lynch and Mark Frost argue in the eighth episode of Twin Peaks The Return, dropping the bomb solely as a test to see its capabilities is enough to change the world for the worse. Because the reality of the bomb is such an existential horror of mass genocide sped up to mere seconds that only a monster would think lightly on dropping it once, let alone twice. The bomb is a coercive presence in the American psyche, one that has its tendrils in practically every aspect of the American imagination.

Though the bomb isn’t as prominent in The New Frontier as it is in The Golden Age, its impact certainly is. The obvious one to look at would be McCarthyism. While Superman and Batman aren’t taken to speak at HUAC, the vibe of that era’s paranoia (which The Golden Age apes over all else) is felt throughout the series. It’s in the racist shitheels lynching John Henry and the President advocating Wonder Woman not preach her revolutionary beliefs and the government bringing nukes into space in case the Martians want to start a war.

On that note, the very presence of aliens is another impact of the bomb. While there were cases of alien abductions prior to the bomb, the “threat” of some alien kidnapping you for nefarious purposes increased tenfold after the bomb exploded. In the past, such experiences would be considered contact with a higher power, but the genre shifted after the bomb. Science fiction had a boom in the wake of the bomb, focusing on stories that talk of real science that doesn’t believe in the unknown. Where rationality devoid of “feelings” can defeat any obstacle. Truly, it was a golden age of science fiction, when men were allowed to be men and women were seen, but not heard.

But at the same time as exploring these lurking ideas birthed by the bomb, The New Frontier doesn’t provide a solution to these problems. As with The Golden Age, whose musings on the bomb’s relationship with the superhero are ultimately underdeveloped as the rest of its ideas, The New Frontier lobs solutions to the next age of superheroes, the Silver Age as it were. Superman may not be an agent of the US government, but that doesn’t mean he’s actually going to fight against it in this softer age of camp villains and starfish aliens.

That’s not to say the comic is blind to such problems. Indeed, the ending montage works against the teleological read of “everything is better now” by contrasting the JFK speech that gives the book its title, specifically “Today some would say that those struggles are over—that all the horizons have been explored—that all the battles have been won—that there is no longer an American frontier,” with an image of a black child walking away from a guarded water fountain that says “White Only.” But that still leaves us with the void of a solution. The void of the path forward.

Superhero utopianism is a nice idea. It’s one that more writers should explore. Both The Golden Age and The New Frontier ultimately gesture towards this direction, but their failures ultimately come from assuming the superhero is inherently a good idea. Sure, Superman is a better idea than the bomb, but at the same time all ideas have their limits. Many have made the case for the superhero being a terrible idea that does more harm than good. Some of them have even been good cases that don’t fit into the typical strawman argument that the comics fandom has fashioned out of Seduction of the Innocent.

Ultimately, despite what Grant Morrison might say, Superman isn’t enough to beat the bomb. Because, tragically, we made the bomb up, and it came true anyway. That's the funny part.

Wednesday, June 19, 2019

Print the Legend (Green Arrow Year One)

Commissioned by Michael. Happy Birthday!

Oliver Queen is a shit in the way that many argue Batman is. On the one hand, he recognizes the injustices of his privilege and how giving a little to charity isn’t the same as actually giving a shit about the less fortunate. On the other hand, he believes in the systems of power that he claims to want to rebel against. He sees the authority of the police as valid enough to send off to do the paper work while he gallivants around the city as a mysterious hero. He’s an addict to various things from death defying feats to opium. Also, Oliver’s kind of a racist in that there’s a running gag about him calling the main baddie, Chein Na-Wei, “China White.”

That isn’t to say that Green Arrow Year One is a bad comic or even unaware of these aspects. It’s good and it does. But it’s perhaps best to open with an acknowledgement that Oliver Queen is not a good person. Nor is his arc in this story that of becoming a good person thanks to the help of some dead foreigners ala Iron Man. As Oliver himself notes, he didn’t do much to stop the slavers running the opium fields. It was the slaves that revolted and did the hard work of overthrowing their masters. But his presence on the island gave them hope that they can succeed in defeating their masters.

The stories that inspire us to be better aren’t always that great. If one were to actually do a close analysis of any number of Star Trek series, one could easily find racism, sexism, homophobia, and imperialist leanings. And yet, many left leaning people have found inspiration in those series, be it to go to the moon or shape their own utopia. The story of a man who is able to rebel against the oppressors, even if his story isn’t enough, is always a useful one to tell.

But equally, it is important to remember that these are stories being told, ones with flaws and problems. If one were to buy into the legend of a mythical white man coming to a foreign land and inspiring the people to rise up, one could miss the flaws in the story. Though Diggle does a lot of work to avoid the obvious white savior pitfalls, there is still a twinge of it lurking under the surface. The Asian baddies are shown to be plotting to use the opium they enslave the villagers to grow to create new generations of addicts in America. And there are times when it’s hard to actually root for Oliver Queen because he’s such a shit.

One could read those statements and see this as destroying other people’s fun and inspiration. And while there is at times a bit of that when it comes to criticism (usually when said fun involves being evil) that is not the purpose of critiquing inspirational texts. Rather, it is to help shape better texts to come in the future, ones not defined by rich white guys who are implausibly good at taking down people who benefit from a system of cruelty without actually dealing with said system. One doesn’t want to be trapped in the utopia of the 1960’s. There weren’t that many gay people in those.

The Legend of the Auu Lanu Lau’ava will be important to the culture of those who survived the wrath of the slavers and who succeeded in overthrowing them. It will, as all legends do, change over time to reflect the time it is being told. Some elements of it may be lost while others will find new relevance. The story of revolution is always necessary in times of cruelty and distress. But the critique of the story is likewise necessary.

Green Arrow Year One is a close look at the defining moment where Oliver Queen decided to change his addiction from Alcohol to Superheroics. The art by Jock is well drawn, in particular the angular way he draws his characters to evoke the crooked nature of the world being presented. Andy Diggle does wonders with the six issues he’s provided and makes the most out of a genuinely unlikable protagonist. The colors are at once muted and poppy. And it’s a quick, well-written read.

But it’s also playing a bit too closely to the white savior tropes and themes that it almost becomes awful. It’s not really about those themes and implications in the way that Gene Luen Yang’s The Shadow Hero is about Fu Manchu. It’s not interested in examining the base assumptions of the genre beyond avoiding the obvious holes. It’s a well-written book that you’ll have a good time reading. It’s just not one with a lot of stimulating implications.

Monday, June 17, 2019

Take These Broken Wings and Learn to Fly (Tuca & Bertie)

Commisioned by Aleph Null

Trigger warning: sexual assault.

HOT FUZZ (2007)
Cinematography by Jess Hall
Directed by Edgar Wright
Tuca & Berite is a delightful throwback to the nineties animated sitcom. Specifically, the kind of animated sitcom that relied on treating the animated world as a canvas rather than a representation of the real world and also didn’t have the lesson everyone got from South Park that being a giant asshole who hates everyone (but is conveniently softer on conservatives than they are on liberals) is a good substitute for a sense of humor. Which is to say that it’s more in the mold of the rubbier episodes of The Simpsons (Sheri Bobbins, Hank Scorpio, Tomaco) than Brickleberry.

The show focuses on a pair of anthropomorphic birds named Tuca and Bertie who fit into the archetypes of “free spirited party girl” and “repressed career girl.” Together, we see them explore the various highs and lows of friendship, love, and workplace drama. But unlike many a throwback series that’s banking on people knowing what the 90’s felt like, Tuca & Bertie takes the lessons learned since the 90’s and applies them to their new series. Specifically, in regards to serialization and the politics of the show.

Throughout the series, Bertie takes on an apprenticeship with a very famous chef whose training style is very… hands on, a phrase which here means “#MeToo.” While not going as far as depicting an actual rape, the imagery of and framing fits within many a narrative of a sexual assault survivor, specifically one in denial of what has happened to them. It’s sympathetic to Bertie’s situation, exploring the ways in which denial and self loathing made her think such things as sexual assault were ok to happen to her.

Equally, Tuca is dealing with having to live on her own as a disaster who can’t keep a job and is estranged from her family for various sad reasons that involve a history of alcoholism, a feeling that everyone who loves you will just abandon you, and dependency on a rich aunt signing checks. Ultimately, Tucan & Bertie help each other through their various issues and grow as people, a rarity for a sitcom.

Indeed, the show is very much a rarity in the sitcom genre as it’s written from a perspective of women. The head writer and creator of the series, Bojack Horseman alumni Lisa Hanawait, brings a sweetness and humanity to the series’ general rubberiness and cartoony charm that one typically doesn’t see in even modern sitcoms. You wouldn’t think 2 Broke Girls would have a cutaway to the two having a heart to heart about an old flame in the midst of a heated argument.

Overall, Tuca & Bertie is a delightful show that’s worth the five hours it takes to watch. Also it has Steven Yeun, easily the best part of most things he’s in, as the put upon boyfriend who has a picture of his own face and had to eat his own grandmother because she was baked into a cake. That’s just delightfully weird in a way you don’t see in modern sitcoms.

Saturday, June 15, 2019

Calvinball: A Guide for Sane People

Originally posted 4/26/15

Portrait of a normal game of Calvinball
Calvinball is a game in which there is a ball. From there things get interesting. For starters, in the infamous game of 2001, the Gophers beat Team Grasshopper by using the penalty stick of doom on the thirtieth ball hole, thereby wining the game and receiving the hockey puck of shame. Conversely, in the game of 1987, the luddites used the same maneuver on the the church of scientology, only to be disqualified for the exact same reason. And then there was that infamous game where there was no ball, so the team had to play with a kettle and some string.

What I'm trying to get at is that Calvinball is a unique game wherein there is no structured set of rules to play it with. Much like Mao, you just make them up as you go along. The experience is... interesting to say the least. For example, unlike in Mao wherein the lack of explanation of the rules can be used for bullying purposes (i.e. to exclude those who don't know what's going on in the simplest of terms), Calvinball seems to be more within a postmodernist view rejecting a singular truth (and newtons sleep, if Blake's your fancy) in favor of multiple contradictory truths that are all fun to play with (which is really why #gamergate is so evil: they have a singular vision of what their culture and the products and influences of it are and (much like any culture dominated by straight white men) will fight any attempt at disproving any contradictory notions like "Women, LGBTQIA, and people of other skin tones have always been playing video games" (even when facts back these contradictory notions) through cruel and violent means. And, much like Thatcher and Whitehouse before them, they're no fun).


Frankly, the only sensible response.
As such, there really isn't any way to cheat the game, so much as alter the shape of the game. But how does one do that? Simple: you just tell the other player that there's a new rule which allows you to win easier and pray they don't come up with a rule that makes your attempts harder (really, the only constant rule in the game is that you can't just say "Behold! I have the Stick of Truth! Therefore, I! AM! VICTORIOUS! MUHAHAHAHAHAHA!" Because, that's just a dull way of playing the game and goes against everything Calvinball and Postmodernism stand for and you should be ashamed of yourself Steve. What? You thought we forgot about you Steve Carlsberg? We'll never forget. NEVER!). In short, after playing the game for a long period of time, I have come to realize that, inna final analysis, the most important part of any game is that you get something out of it. Whether it's the melancholy of The Walking Dead, the philosophical nirvana brought about by The Stanley Parable, the catharsis of Depression Quest, or even the joy of Super Mario World, we all get need something out of the stories we experience.

Also do not make the tiger angry, he will eat you.

(Thank you for joining us for this semester long look at video games and the culture that surrounds them. One of my regrets is that I never talked about any of the blatantly video game inspired shows released over the years. Ah well, c'est la vie. Regardless, I hope you've had as much fun as I've had and wish you all Many Happy Returns.)

(This post was brought to you by The Super Nintendo Project, an analytical look at a selection of video games released on the Super Nintendo. The creator of the series claims it to be a magical ritual to banish #GamerGate out of existence, so you know, business as usual in our mad little world. The first post, on Super Mario World, can be found here.)