“The poor and wretched don't escape
If they conspire the law to break
This must be so but they endure
Those who conspire to make the law”
-The Goose and the Common
Since we’ve past the halfway point, I think it’s a good time to talk about the New Gods…
Fig. 1: As with the fourth season of Fargo, Jack Kirby’s Fourth World Saga is about capitalism in a post-World War II age. It tells of the survivors of a great and cataclysmic war between forces of cruelty and peace. Of the ideas that fostered in the wake of that dark and dreary war. Of the pacifistic hippy movement pitted against the fascistic tendrils of capitalism. Chief among these is the series Forever People, where a group of space hippies travel about confronting the various machinations of Darkseid on Earth to obtain the Anti-Life Equation, a math problem which will prove that all must be slave to Darkseid. Among his many schemes, one involves the creation of a theme park known as Happyland. A blatant Disneyland riff, Darkseid’s scheme reveals the Happiest Place on Earth to be a place of exploitation, cruelty, and horror. But what’s truly horrifying about Happyland is not that it runs exploitation, but that it exists to make us not care that it does. To prioritize riding on Splash Mountain over the historic racism of Song of the South. Or, to choose something that would have been a thing when Kirby was writing the series in the 1970’s, there’s EPCOT. The Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow was supposed to be a shining beacon for the future. It would be a utopia where the best minds could develop and exist with minimal government oversight. A city that would change with the times like a Disney theme park. A place where man was free from the ills of democracy, where lesser thinkers held sway over the all-powerful Walt Disney. Every decision for the poor, working class families expected to move into this community would be done not by some committee, but by the Genius™ behind Disneyland and the 1964 World’s Fair, Walt Disney. Everyone would work to make the shining beacon of tomorrow shine brighter. A live exhibit to be watched 24/7 by the world. Of course, this is more Seaguy territory than Fourth World, so let’s just simplify things by noting that Disney was an arch capitalist who frequently busted his unions for daring to want to be paid what they were owed based on their work. But that’s not the point. The point is that we would rather have the simple Cock and Bull stories to the complex, ugly history of what we like. It’s better to act as if the worst parts of the world aren’t there than acknowledge the ugliness of it all. However, it should be noted that of the Fourth World series, Forever People is perhaps the weakest. This is in no small part due to the core premise of the series perhaps being better served in an era predating the fall of the hippy movement towards embracing Thatcher and Regan, even as the latter famously ordered the slaughter of countless protestors, citing “If it takes a bloodshed, let’s get it over with. No appeasement.” The dream the Forever People represent was dead before ink hit paper. The Fourth World is a story built on a corpse.
Fig. 2: Race is a minor theme within the Fourth World. Historically speaking, the theme has been, at best, somewhat poorly handled by white men. Among them being Grant Morrison. In their initial foray into the Fourth World (that isn’t an arc of JLA), Morrison presents a narrative familiar to many who have born witness to the long and ugly history of the music industry. It starts with a black man, a pioneer within the field. One day, a capitalist sees this and decides to take it for his own. He “gives” the new way of creation to another artist, be it himself or someone he represents, someone who has less rough edges than the original artist, or, at the very least, rough edges that are marketable. Typically, these newer artists are white men who end up richer than god while the black artists die penniless. It’s an old story that’s so familiar, Back to the Future made an entire gag about the reverse happening. Within Fargo’s schema, this is the path the credit card is taking. As I mentioned at the start of the series, the credit card was invented by a white man after the events presented. Where the gag in Back to the Future was focused on how the artistic triumphs of black men actually came from white men, Fargo reflects the reality: the creations of black men are frequently stolen from them by white men while the black man dies alone in a gutter. Because the black man has just far too many rough edges to truly appeal to White America.
Fig. 3: Throughout Fargo’s fourth season, there’s talk of the performativity of being an American. Certainly, this is a subject of many a film by Quentin Tarantino, but within the context of capitalism, it’s a far more interesting game. As Loy Cannon and Doctor Senator note, people don’t want to be rich so much as appear rich. They want to look bigger than they actually are. This can be used to the advantage of many a cruel monster, Loy included. We all want to believe we can succeed in the American Experiment. To pass as an American. But to be an American is to be cruel. To exploit, torture, and maim. And there’s no one who does that better than a rich man.
Fig. 4: A natural consequence of the credit card, as Fargo notes, is a system that feeds off of predatory loaning. Going after those who owe debts to the bank, to the landlord, to the master, will be forced to sell everything they own to pay them off. As Grant Morrison’s Final Crisis demonstrates, a world controlled by Darkseid is a world of rampant capitalism. Who cares if you have to pee in a bottle just to complete production of something you will never use. To suffer is to suffer for Darkseid! Who cares if you die from heat exhaustion? To Die on the Job is to Die for Capitalism. Fargo’s exploration of capitalism and its failings is largely through the lens of the people who try to do something other than the working class jobs they have. The criminals who, through malice, desperation, or stupidity, want something better than the life they have. In their video essay on the series, Eric Sophia McAllister notes, somewhat blithely, that you don’t have to turn to a life of crime in order to find fulfillment in your life. You could become a mailman. On the surface, this seems to be a fair reading of Fargo’s “solution” to capitalism: just be a good person. As long as you remain within the system of capitalism, the law, you can become a better person. To want more from life is, at best, pitiable and, at worst, condemnable and actively toxic. And yet, much like their claim that VM Varga (who I just co-wrote an essay about, among other devils, with fellow critic Ritesh Babu) is just “Scary Terry,” it’s lacking something. It’s not a full answer, merely the surface of one. In many regards, season four acts as a rebuke to McAllister’s claims, noting that placing the moral center of the show on the police is extremely problematic and not something that should be applied uncritically. That just because you’re good and play by the “rules” doesn’t mean the game will treat you fairly. There are those who want the crime of capitalism to keep running rather than something better to come along. The most sympathetic and best characters within the season are those who reject the system in exchange of something better.
Fig. 5: Perhaps the best of Jack Kirby’s Fourth World series is Mister Miracle. Indeed, out of all of them, it’s the one Fargo season 4 is drawing the most out of. Specifically, in regards to the core narrative of two children being swapped by the leaders of two warring factions. While the story of that swap was told in the pages of New Gods, the fallout of this was a side focus of Mister Miracle (before editorial told Jack to drop all this New Gods BS and focus on the escape artistry, leading to the weakest stretch of the whole Mister Miracle run). In the pages of Mister Miracle, we are shown the escape of Scott Free, child of Highfather traded to Darkseid for the sake of peace. Initially brought under the wing of a man by the name of Himon, Scott is shown an alternative path to the cyclical life of pain and cruelty. Where Granny Goodness, an agent of Darkseid, trained countless children to be soldiers who would die for Darkseid, Himon offered an alternative way of living. To embrace imagination, creative thinking, and escape artistry. To help your fellow man instead of torturing them. Because the world may be a hellscape from which there is little to no escape, but that doesn’t mean we can’t help one another out. In the end, Himon (among several others) help Scott Free escape from Apokolips, the aforementioned hellscape. At the precipice of his escape, Scott is offered two choices: stay on Apokolips and let the destruction of his soul be complete or escape to Earth (as opposed to New Genesis, where Scott’s people are from, but that’s a whole other conversation). In the end, Scott escapes on his own, to a world he has no knowledge of. There are a number of similarities between this story and that of Satchel Cannon. Like Scott, Satchel is not able to return to the home that was taken from him. Not for the binary choice Scott was given, but because the alternative would be to become a child solider, something Rabbi Milligan cannot abide. And yet, in many ways, Satchel is luckier than Scott. Where Scott was forced to be on his own, Rabbi escaped with him. Though underfed and mistreated by the family that’s supposed to care for him, Satchel knows love. Hell, Satchel even gets to be named by his father as opposed to being given a cruel name from an abuser. It is easy to fall into the trap of making Fargo season 4 a one to one allegory for the events of Fourth World where characters map onto one another nice and neatly. But Loy Cannon, Satchel’s father, isn’t a utopian thinker out to foster a better world. Much like Darkseid, he sold his son for power. Fourth World certainly an influence. A ghost at the table as much a member as the song choices made. But the show is far more interesting than a mere rehash of older material. It takes that material and does something new with it.
Fargo is a story of love, betrayal, rivalry, and blood spilled in the name of power. Its fourth season tells of how that story cycles again and again and again. A never ending loop of pain and misery that cannot be destroy, merely escaped.
“It’s an old song
It’s an old tale from way back when
Ans we’re gonna sing it again and again”
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