You Can (Not) Undo (Steins;Gate)

 A Commission for Hunter O’Connell

A lot of conversations I've had involve awkwardly standing
and hoping the other person would speak first.

You ever watch something and realize very quickly that you watched it too late.

This isn’t just me bemoaning the fact that it took me roughly five years to actually watch Steins;Gate, between the time I was commissioned to watch it and when I actually started the damn show. But rather, it’s the sort of show that I would’ve absolutely loved if I watched it back when it came out in 2011, when I was sixteen years old.

 

It’s a good show, don’t get me wrong. The plot is well structured, the character work is charming (if problematically so), and the animation works for what the show is going for. But it’s also not a show for me. There are a number of reasons for this.

 

The most obvious being the gender shit. One of the supporting characters, Urushibara, is very flagrantly a trans woman, such that it’s a major plot point that Urushibara uses time travel to speed up her gender affirmation via ensuring that she was AFAB. There are many works of fiction I love that have problematic relations with trans people (the Morrison/Chase Doom Patrol being an obvious example). But where those works had moments of transcendence and/or were experienced at a point in time where I could overlook the flaw, Steins;Gate is a well-made show that doesn’t transcend in ways that appeal to me now. And, well, they don’t involve plotlines wherein the crux of saving the universe is forcing someone to detransition.

 

The other obvious aspect being the show’s approach sexuality. More specifically, there’s a scene midway through the show where the main character, Okarin, puts himself into a position where it looks like he’s trying to rape an antagonistic figure, Moeka. There is also a running gag that runs out its welcome a bit too quickly in which another supporting character, Daru, asks the various female characters to repeat what they just said in tones of voices that highlight their sexual undercurrent.

 

There’s a degree to which this is to be expected from both an otaku and tech bro landscape. Indeed “Mad science losers try to make their mad science actually work” is a pretty good description of Urbit. And considering the show’s extremely deep state approach to the semi-fictional SERN, the heroic actions of a bunch of conspiracy minded tech nerds has some implications it didn’t in 2011.

 

But, if I’m being honest with myself, I just wasn’t grabbed by the show. There are moments that I liked, scenes where the character dynamics charmed me. I liked the card game that Okarin loses because he only had to play the game. I liked the adversarial romance between Okarin and Kurisu. Mayushii is a delight. And I do rather like the ending, bar the OVA which felt a bit too complete to fully work for me. But for most of the show, I kept asking myself if I could be doing something else.

 

Sorry it took so long to write, and I only had so little to say.

Kaio-What? (DBDC: The Entity Saga)

Commissioned by Angie Frey and Alfie Taylor 

Like a Kit-Kat bar!

It’s worth noting that fan productions often have their limits. Be they audio discrepancies, amateur acting, images incongruous with what’s being depicted, or an over reliance on an assumed familiarity with the source material (be it how much of a shit one gives for Johns’ Rainbow of Lanterns or significant disagreements over the nature of the New Gods and their relationship to the wider DC Universe that would derail this article). It’s worth putting these things in context when discussing a fan production. Normally, I wouldn’t tackle such a subject because of these issues. Rarely are fan productions the best work of anyone involved. However, Alfie Taylor, one of the writers on the series, has asked me to do an article on the series, noting that I could, and I quote, “tear into it if you want.” So… you asked.

 

Dragon Ball DC (DBDC for short), as the name suggests, is a podcast series wherein the Dragon Ball and DC universes are merged together. The Entity Saga acts as the second arc for that series, riffing on a “collect the Dragon Balls” style arc with said balls being replaced by the entities that represent the various lantern corps from the Green Lantern mythos. In many regards, this highlights one of the fundamental failings of the series. As with many a crossover, there must be a balancing act between the two stories being explored. It is tempting to have one universe overwhelm the other. And, rather unfortunately, DBDC opts to ultimately align itself with the sensibilities of the DC Universe.

 

Sure, species like the Tuffles or the Saiyans appear within the narrative, but they ultimately function like any other alien race within the DC Universe. You wouldn’t expect, say, the Prime Minister of England to be a humanoid dog person. Or for there to be a communist movement led by a talking pig. Or for the moon to be secretly controlled by a Bunny Gangster. And sure, these are elements from the original Dragon Ball series and DBDC ultimately draws more from Dragon Ball Z than anything else. But it nevertheless highlights a degree of unwillingness to radically alter the DC Universe through to its merge with Dragon Ball.

 

But perhaps the core issue of the series is with regards to pacing. The Entity Saga runs at slightly under two hours and utilizes the narration format to deliver its story telling. However, the narrative being presented rarely, if ever, allows for things to slow down. Indeed, moments where the narrative could, in theory, slow down are glossed over in favor of getting to the next fight scene. I mean, they literally present us with the golden opportunity to have Wonder Woman debate Lex Luthor about the nature of humanity and where we should end up, and the writers regulate it to just two sentences.

 

The focus of the series, from this single arc, is largely on the fight scenes. A pity, then, that the prose utilized in the narration doesn’t fully express the sheer impact of the fights. More often than not, it feels like a Wiki article describing the moments (with occasional samplings of dialogue) than a depiction of the fights themselves in prose. One notable example comes from the confrontation with the Butcher, an entity that symbolizes rage. Over the course of two minutes, we have one of our lead characters possessed by the entity, fight the various people in the area, and be calmed down so as to no longer want to kill everyone in the room, friend and foe alike. In terms of prose, that’s roughly a single paragraph for what should be at least four or five (a failing that the satirical A Trekkie’s Tale ruthlessly mocked).

 

In the arc’s defense, it does get better by the climactic fight. The prose actually feels like that of a short story rather than a Wiki article. However, even there the emphasis on fighting ultimately consumes anything else, leaving the viewer more exhausted listening to the events unfold than anything else. It slowly becomes more and more tedious as the details focus upon the various punches, kicks, and ki blasts used against the baddie. What little character work done is lost to the sheer magnitude of this 30 minute fight scene with only one brief pause.

 

I’d be lying if I said I watched this in a single sitting. The story felt rather boring, even though it should be a rip roaring adventure story. The choices made feel like the most obvious ones possible. Of course the rage spirit is on the same world as Broly. Of course Batman gets possessed by Parallax, the fear bug that is STRONGER THAN GOD BUT NOT HAL JORDAN. Of course someone dies to inspire Super Saiyan (though the choice of who that is could lead to some interesting stories down the road). It feels like I’ve heard this story before, which is a major failing with a crossover narrative.

 

In the best of crossovers, the texts being crossed over highlight aspects of the other that wouldn’t be apparent on their own. They bring about the best within each other or work to contrast and critique the other. But most of all, they are stories that could not be told without the other. For all that it builds itself as a merging between these two worlds, not much needs to be done to make this a simple expy of the Saiyans within the DC Universe. There’s nothing inherently about this story that makes it need to be one with Saiyans other than the glee of getting to play with these toys. Though, such pleasures are often permissible within fan productions.

 

But as with many fan productions, it’s very much an amateur work. You can see the craft growing as the podcast progresses. Some of the actors get slightly better over time while others remain at a passable or mediocre. Fine tune the pacing (maybe restructure it a bit so we can get some character work interspersed with the more action heavy aspects of the plot), work on the descriptions, and for God’s sake, keep the visual component of the series consistent, and you could have something worthwhile.

Git Good (The King of Fighters: A New Beginning vol. 1)

 A Commission for David Shevlin

…Shit.

The King of Fighters anime
was so much better.

This article was commissioned as part of a Kickstarter campaign for my upcoming book The Tower Through The Trees. This specific article was asking for a 2,000 word look at the manga The King of Fighters: A New Beginning vol. 1 from the perspective of an outsider. However, the problem with such an article is that, to put it bluntly, the manga doesn’t have enough in it to make it possible to write more than 500 words without filler paragraphs such as this.

The main issue with the manga is that it is very much one that is based on the assumption that the reader has already familiarized themselves with The King of Fighters franchise. As such, it doesn’t feel the need to introduce any of its cavalcade of characters beyond broad strokes and archetypes. The rival, the hero, the amoral assholes, Mr. Satan. There’s no sense of progression to the point where everything fits into place. There’s no build up to the fighting the way you would see in most sports manga (of which this could arguably be placed in, if you ignore all the Ka-Me-Ha-Me-Has and Sure-You-Cans). It’s just twenty pages of character names and archetypes, then fight scene. The volume doesn’t even end with the fight resolving, simply putting a “To Be Continued” at the exact moment when the “main event” is supposed to take place.

The art style utilized for the manga is reminiscent of the art style of the video game’s cover art. And while that is admirable in regard to sticking to an aesthetic vision, that vision is a bit… uninteresting. It’s the sort of art style you would expect from someone who had only read 90s shonen manga and nothing else. In terms of American comics, think not of Todd McFarlane or Rob Liefeld, but of their knock offs. A sort of generic version of an aesthetically arresting (if, at times, simplistic) art style that lacks the flare and attitude to get away with the worst excesses.

And therein lies the core issue with this manga: it lacks ambition. It doesn’t see itself as anything more than a mere throwaway comic tie-in to a fighting series that has a very paper thin plot as it is. It’s very much of the sort that thinks what makes a good story is the fight scenes. The sort of mentality that goes “I’m just here for Godzilla, can we fast forward through the human bits.” Now, there is an appeal to wrestling fiction where the plots are often paper thin and the fights are more important than anything else. But with wrestling, there’s at least some measure of set up. It’s a multi-decade story about a group of weirdos, bastards, and heroes fighting not only their opponents, but their image. Imagine watching The Reunion of The Golden Lovers or Childe Cena to the Firefly Fun House Came without the years of buildup, context, and so much more.

The King of Fighters: A New Beginning vol 1, ultimately, expects me to either already care about these characters or roll with the punches and enjoy the fighting. However, the fights are too uninteresting to fully invest in without those years’ worth of character development. I think I’ll watch Dirty Pair instead.

And Once Again, We Return to This (Grendel: Devil Child)

Commissioned by a Kickstarter Backer

Nothing ever ends.

I should begin by noting that I am unfamiliar with Grendel. This is the first Grendel comic I ever read. As such, there may be things I am missing out because of this. For example, throughout the story, there’s reference to a character named Argent who is depicted as a big bad wolf. Now, it’s quite possible that this is a metaphorical representation of the character (someone who should not be trusted, even if they seem friendly), a fabrication on the part of our unreliable narrator, Stacy Palumbo, or a literal, actual Big Bad Wolf. I do not know.

What I do know is that this is a hell of a comic. It’s certainly not for the feint of heart. It deals in various touchy subjects matter including rape, mental illness, suicide, and child murderers. It tells of the life of Stacy Palumbo in the years following her murder of the first Grendel. In these years, she’s confined to a mental hospital where she does not get the help she needs. Her first therapist, a man named Erik, physically and mentally abuses her up until the point where she murders him shortly after he rapes her. It’s not a pleasant sight, to say the least.

Grendel: Devil Child is the story of what happens to people who are treated as mere objects of use. Not in the sense of, say, the horde. But rather as a thing to be flaunted to other people. Not someone to be cared for, raised, treated as a person. Stacy was raised by men who couldn’t tell her basic things like what periods are or what it means to grow up. They just left her alone with other people, never giving her the attention she needed. They didn’t notice she was coming undone until it was far too late.

 

In many regards, it’s fitting that Stacy is, time and time again, referred to as the Devil’s child. There’s an air of cyclicality to the stories of the Antichrist. The same players of God, the Devil, and those in-between is played out on a different landscape. The most interesting of Antichrist stories tend to be the ones where the child of the Devil attempts to prevent the apocalypse. But here, the apocalypse has already happened. The wolf and the devil are dead, the antichrist locked in a cell, never to be freed.

And when Stacy talks to her daughter, Christine, for the second and final time in her life, she understands that the cycle has come again. There will be another Grendel in the form of Christine. Another war between the Devil and the Wolf (who is shown to be alive and well, witnessing Stacy’s funeral). Another child to be left aside in the name of cruel intentions that care little for them. The circle closes and once more we begin again. There is no escape.

The art by Tim Sale is some of his best work. While not to the degree of his work on Spider-Man Blue or The Long Halloween, each page is nevertheless filled with the melancholy flatness one expects from his work, especially with the help of Teddy Kristiansen’s colors. But it’s Diana Schutz’s script that really takes center stage. She paints for us a picture of isolation, depression, and inevitability that few writers can. It’s an absolutely miserable story to read and one that isn’t going to be for everyone. I’m sure I’d get more out of it if and when I actually read more Grendel than this.

Of the Horse, We Know Nothing (The Turin Horse)

Commissioned by Patrick DeVita-Dillon

I’ve never read a single thing by Nietzsche. Sure, I’ve read the famous quotes by him. “God is Dead.” “Behold I teach the Superman.” “OH GOD, WHY ARE YOU HURTING THIS MAGESTIC CREATURE???” (It’s the cause of the final quote that The Turin Horse exists. It’s a good movie, perhaps even a great one. It’s stark black and white add to the bleak, hopeless world it’s set in, the framing is what you’d expect from someone with two installations at St. John’s Cathedral: fucking beautiful. And it knows just how long to linger to make the scenes hit just right. But it’s a neorealist film about the misery of poverty, so it’s very hard to write about unless it’s either three sentences long or five hundred pages long.) But reading quotes by a famous author is not the same thing as reading their books.

I’m surprised I never considered writing about the German philosopher for any part of the book One Must Imagine Scott Free Happy (of which this essay was commissioned because of). I think it’s because I ultimately decided to write about the works of EM Cioran instead. That’s what happens when you write a book about Mister Miracle killing himself and you find a book about the benefits of Suicide called The New Gods. (No, I didn’t know about his fascist phase until… 13 days before I wrote this essay [so a good couple of months after I wrote the chapter of One Must Imagine Scott Free Happy that focused on his work]. In my defense, I was so focused on the singular work that I didn’t look into his other texts as deeply. Also, at the time he wrote that work, he apparently moved away from fascism.)

Perhaps the best work the compares to Nietzsche is that of The Princess Bride. Both are things I’m aware existed and have at times crossed paths with. But not until it was past the sell by date did I actively engage with them (though looking back, The Princess Bride was quite delightful). Nietzsche is in many ways the gateway drug of philosophy. His work is quite good, and indeed insightful. But the full effect is lost when you come at him after reading Ligotti or Sandifer or Sugar among all the other authors and creators inspired by him (be it in defense or opposition of). It’s been almost 150 years. All popular authors inevitably get examined, reevaluated, and recontextualized heavily in that time. It’s hard to read them with naked eyes.

Sure, I can respect Nietzsche, for as much as one can respect a major influence on the Nazis (though allegedly an inadvertent one). But I don’t think I’m ever going to have the eureka moment a lot of college freshmen have when reading Beyond Good and Evil or Twilight of the Gods for the first time. There’s an analogy that perhaps best sums up what I mean. (I think I heard it in a podcast, though I forget which one.) A guy who grew up on Spaceballs watches Star Wars for the first time. He doesn’t like the film because “It’s just Spaceballs, but without the jokes.” I feel if I were to approach Nietzsche, it would come across as lacking an essential element that’s key to the parodies and reactions.

Then again, maybe I should read Nietzsche before I run my mouth about him.

The Part Where We Talk About Star Wars (Kerblam!)

Commissioned by Friendly Neighborhood Comics, who just asked for “!” and this is what I interpreted that to mean.

Note: In the original article, I conflated Richard Spencer with Milo Yiannopoulos. This has since been rectified.

With thanks to Clara Laherty.

A few months back, I pitched a series of articles on the Eruditorum Press Discord wherein the episodes of Series 11 of Doctor Who would be contrasted with works created the same year (examples include (but don’t have to be) Rosa/BlackkKlansman, Demons of the Punjab/Ghoul, and Resolution/Watchmen (2019)). It was meant to be a multi author project akin to Shelfdust’s analysis of Watchmen or the Outside In book line, and this would be mine. If anyone else would like to write something in this structure, by all means do as thou wilt. And don’t be restricted by my recommendations. If you find a better fit than Demons/Ghoul, do so. Or, for that matter, how I approach Kerblam!

Even though you're fakin' it, nobody's gonna know.

There are many things wrong with Lily Orchard’s Steven Universe is Garbage, and Here’s Why, most of them rather banal. Some range from general misunderstandings of how the animation industry works (assuming the definition of filler used in the video [episodes that aren’t directly tied to the plot of the show and focus on more periphery characters that are used to give Rebecca Sugar {and Rebecca Sugar alone, which is a whole rabbit hole in and of itself} time to rush out animating the next “plot” episode] is correct, 1. Structuring an arc such that you open with three “plot” episodes and then have the “filler” follow after it is a terrible way to structure an arc, 2. The nature of some of the arcs are more character based than plot based, such that the cluster arc wasn’t so much about the cluster, but of Peridot’s development as a character, and 3. In the words of Sam Keeper, “YOU STILL HAVE TO ANIMATE THE FUCKING "FILLER" EPISODES YOU JACKASS”) to mistaking aesthetic disagreements for objective issues (Steven Universe is a first person narrative or, as many a critic of the show has put it, is shackled by the Steven only perspective) to flat out lies (there’s no way in hell the Homeworld Arc doesn’t end with the episode where Steven leaves Homeworld or, for that matter, “Reunited” is by any definition a filler episode). But the most interesting and wrongly discussed is that of Orchard’s 11-minute tangent about why she loves the Sith Campaign of Star Wars: The Old Republic.

It’s certainly easy to see why many would disregard this aspect of Orchard’s critique. It is, after all, a long digression that could have been said in a more succinct manner. Additionally, it’s a tangent that exists near the end of the video and is the sole tangent of its kind. There are points within it where Orchard makes the common mistake many a video essayist makes in repeating information with voiceover/captions and clips rather than using the clips to speak for themselves. And, of course, there’s the fact that she blatantly contradicts her point of the value of the light side Sith (hereon referred to as “The Good Sith”) by having her character flagrantly choose two dark side choices in a row that allow her character to punch and extrajudicially murder a dictator and not showing the light side choice as a contrast. One could easily make the point of the tangent (i.e. Rose Quartz would’ve been a better character if she was a neoliberal) without invoking Star Wars: The Old Republic. But she did, so we have to deal with the implications.

Let’s start with that pithy parenthetical. Though the phrase “neoliberal” has been tossed around a lot to the point of meaninglessness, there is still some value to it. For the purposes of this article, the term neoliberal will refer to one who will work to defend the system of late stage capitalism. In practice, the term is usually applied to those who align with nominally liberal/leftist organizations, but still believe in the benefits of the system, still wish to see it upholded, albeit running more smoothly and with the premises smelling sweet (see: Hillary Clinton). Likewise, the Good Sith sees and exists within the fascist system of the Sith Empire and finds it wanting. There’s too much obsession with blood purity and racial intolerance. The actions of racist Sith are ultimately harming the Empire and its goals because of their desire for power. The problem for the Good Sith is… individual actors within the system.

One might quibble with the use of neoliberal considering the Good Sith uses techniques of violence and coercion to get their way. However, the system of the Sith is ultimately one that, as with all systems of fascism, values action for action’s sake and the Good Sith ultimately believes in the Empire and its imperialistic ambitions, for an individual who grew up in a fascist system would ultimately still be a fascist. To claim otherwise would be to woobify the fascist. There is so much wrong with this sentiment. To start with, woobification is not simply making a fascist have a heel face turn. Rather, it involves showing the fascist as ineffectual in a way that makes them look cute. Furthermore, one could point out how people within the system of the American Slave Trade didn’t keep their slaves when they realized the system was bullshit and self-defeating and worked to fight against it. 

But perhaps the most relevant issue for the purposes of this article is the notion that the problem of the Empire is racism. While racism is ultimately a part of a fascist worldview, it’s not as key a part of the worldview as Orchard would argue. As Umberto Eco wrote in Ur-Fascism, while the Ur-fascist is by default a racist, “the first appeal of a fascist or prematurely fascist movement is an appeal against the intruders.” These intruders do not necessarily have to be people of non-Sith/impure blood. Consider the case of noted fascist Milo Yiannopoulos. Yiannopoulos is a homosexual man who fucks a black guy. Both of those qualities would get Yiannopoulos sent to Auschwitz in the age of the Nazi regime.

However, fascism has a tendency of, how should I put it… moving the goal posts when it’s convenient. As such, an individual such as Yiannopoulos is allowed an acceptance within the fascist system. The same is true of aliens within the Sith, as there’s another invader on the horizon, one that’s on the cusp of being more mainstream: The Jedi. Orchard herself makes the fascist argument against the Jedi quite clear: “When you do encounter Jedi as a Sith character, they’re really fucking snotty to you, even to the point of talking to you like you’re not even really there. The Jedi have gotten comfortable with the idea that they will always win against the Sith because Good will always triumph over Evil. But the Jedi are not the good guys in Star Wars. They never have been. They only beat the Sith so often because the Sith do most of the work for them.” The Jedi are at once powerful and weak, elitist in their view of the Good Sith because they see the system of the Sith as corrupt, inhumane, and incapable of redemption. And so, the Sith must make allies with the alien, those they once deemed “other” so that these others, the Republic and their Jedi allies, will be overthrown and exterminated. Once that is done, as Ian Danskin notes, they will turn on the alien, the homosexual fucking the black man, the new other. The problem isn’t that racism is a bug of the system of fascism that can be stamped out in order to make a stronger, better fascism. The cruelty is part of the point. And, much as neoliberalism tries to stamp out the “bugs” of capitalism to make a kinder, gentler capitalism, that cruelty will always exist within the system.

Let us now turn our gaze to Rose Quartz. Orchard’s video argues, after going through the Sith storyline at length, that Rose Quartz would have been a better character is she was more akin to the Sith, as that would mean Rebecca Sugar would recognize the sheer awfulness of Pink Diamond as a character for a reason that has, frankly, little to do with the tangent about Star Wars. Orchard’s ultimate argument that existing in a system of cruelty must make one cruel is an… interesting one. For starters, there’s a long history of people who grew up in a system of cruelty and fighting back against it without they themselves being cruel. (To give one example, Walter Morrison was a World War II veteran who served in India and, over the course of the war, realized the futility and inherent cruelty of war and opted to become a pacifist war protestor and father of a noted magician.)

Indeed, there is a trope of fictional nobles who see the cruelty of the world and seek to stop it from occurring. Characters such as Robin Hood, Batman, or Doctor Who that, much like Rose Quartz, take on different names in order to combat the cruelty of the system. For unlike the Good Sith who works within the system, they see such actions as folly. Indeed, the story of Rose Quartz explicitly has her try to deal with the issue of their system actively killing people within and beneath it through working within the system as the Good Sith does. (That the system of the Sith is one of backstabbing, betrayal, and chronic treachery is irrelevant to methodology. The system of the Diamonds is not the same as that of the Sith and would thus not produce the same normal.) However, what ultimately happens is that she is turned down with only the token amount of work done. Production will continue, but the Human Zoo will be opened to let a small smattering of humans run free. As such, Rose Quartz rebels against a system she sees as fundamentally broken and incapable of being redeemed.

Of course, this isn’t a perfect rebellion as Rose Quartz isn’t a perfect person. Despite Orchard’s claims to the contrary, Rebecca Sugar (and the subsequent other writers, artists, and creators of Steven Universe) are aware of the flaws the kind of person like Rose Quartz would have. They’re just not flaws that can be valorized in the way Orchard does with the Good Sith. They aren’t bloodthirsty, cruel, manipulative, and willing to do what needs to be done. Rather, the flaws in Rose Quartz lie in her tendency of not seeing people as people. The environment of a system that views individuals, with some exceptions, as disposable is one that does not value empathy. Empathy is the skill of seeing things from other people’s perspectives. This can be hard for people on the autism spectrum like myself, but it is ultimately antithetical to the fascist system. The system hinges on there being a person who deserves to die for no other reason than for their biology and/or their beliefs.

It is at this point that I should deconstruct the obvious rebuke that fascists make and neoliberals perpetuate: the violence perpetrated against fascists is akin to fascists because both seek to silence groups with views that disagree with theirs. The ultimate difference between the two is that one can actually stop being a fascist without dying whereas the fascist views the Jew, the Homosexual, and the Black Man as inherently defective and in need of being destroyed to keep the empire afloat. Anti-fascist action, meanwhile, does not seek to destroy the fascist physically but to take away their power.

Consider Richard Spencer. A good majority of people who are aware of Spencer first learned about him through a video such as this one. Or this one. Or this one. For those of you who didn’t click those links (and don’t know who Richard Spencer is beyond “fascist”), they present a video of Spencer being punched in the face by an anti-fascist. This has led him to go through a downward spiral where the fascists denounced him; not because he had some turn away from the fascist party because he was punched in the face, but rather because the fascist system hinges on being seen as strong. As such, a fascist can be taken down not simply by killing them (for that, ultimately fits into the fascist narrative that they, whoever “they” are, want to kill us), but by doing things that will cause the system that has the security of a Jenga tower to collapse, like throwing milkshakes at politicians or refusing to serve politicians food because they support locking children in cages.

This is, ultimately, the position Steven takes. Unlike his mother, Steven has both grown up in a world where his empathy can flourish and, perhaps more importantly, one that does not view the individual as the ultimate problem of the cruelties of the system. Rather, it is the system itself that is chaining the people. This is explicit within the text of Steven Universe as Pearl notes, “Humans just lead short, boring, insignificant lives, so they make up stories to feel like they're a part of something bigger. They want to blame all the world's problems on some single enemy they can fight, instead of a complex network of interrelated forces beyond anyone's control.”

But perhaps what’s most interesting about Steven’s perspective is that he views everyone as capable of being better people. Not that he views himself as the one to bring about such character arcs in people. Typically, he will only make the effort when they have something he needs (such as the ocean, a method to uncorrupt all those hurt by the war, a barn where his friends live, a bag of potato chips) or if he genuinely likes them (Lars, Lapis, Onion). (This is made explicit and responded to within “Steven Universe: The Movie,” a text that will not be discussed further due to not being within Lily Orchard’s circle of reference when making Steven Universe is Garbage and Here’s Why.) Sure, he will try to alleviate suffering in people like Jasper and, to a lesser extent, Kevin. But he doesn’t ever try to make them into better people if it’s clear they’re aren’t willing to try or are a clear and present danger to those he cares about.

What’s typically ignored in critiques of Steven’s methodology is that he does view violence as a tool. (Steven Universeis, after all, a hybrid of slice of life and action/adventure in the vein of Shortpackedor Homestuck.) The thing about Steven’s methodology, however, is that he doesn’t view it as the ultimate solution to all of life’s problems. Furthermore, Steven’s methods are shown to be harmful, even (to some extent) deadly. It’s not easy to fight against the systems of power that control you. You have to constantly check yourself and those you fight alongside from falling into the same behaviors that the systems have you trapped in.

This is the ultimate distinction between Orchard and Sugar: Orchard believes that no matter what you do, you can not escape your upbringing. You will, to some extent, be forever trapped within the worldview of your parents and, no matter your best intentions, you will bring cruelty to the world. Whereas Sugar believes we are capable of checking ourselves, of being better than the people we were when we were younger and better than our parents and the system we live in.

I would like to present a hypothetical situation and how the three characters described would react to it. Imagine, if you will, a world. It is a cruel and unjust world, one of pointless violence and cruelty. One where the workers are treated and tagged like cattle, where the world is constantly surveyed by soulless machines who kill at a moment’s notice. Imagine a girl, a poor girl whose life is so miserable that she never once even received something as small as a parcel. She works day in and day out in a soul-sucking factory with just one dream: to open a package.

One day, that dream comes true. A package comes to her from a source unknown to her. She is so happy that the day has finally come, that she could at long last receive a gift. And when she opens the box… nothing. Not a toy or a book or even hand-me-down socks. There is nothing in the box, but bubble wrap. To say such a prank is cruel and unusual would be an understatement. All her dreams turned to ash in her mouth. All she can do now is play with the bubble wrap. The first bubble she pops causes an explosion that kills her.

The package, it is later discovered, was sent by the system. A boy who was close to the girl wanted to destroy the system and everything it stood for. The boy saw the system as cruel and unjust and in need of a revolution. How, then, would our three characters respond to such a system?

Rose Quartz would most likely see the cruelty and unjustness of the system, but not necessarily those who are suffering—at first. In time, she would see them in pain and anguish like a deer trapped in a bear trap. She would seek to destroy the system through a war. She would recruit those who feel their place in the system is wrong and liberate them. She might not necessarily see them as people, even to the point of falling back into objectification, but she will fight for their beauty, their potential, their freedom. She has “a duty of care,” to use someone else’s words, ones that would fit coming out of Rose’s mouth.

Steven Universe would see those suffering within the system, those who are broken by its cruelty, those who are hurt and are hurting even if it seems like they are in a state of strength, he will try to alleviate that hurt if it means everyone else is hurt. Sometimes, that means punching a robot in the face. Sometimes, that means dismantling the system to build something better. But what’s important, what’s key in understanding Steven Universe (and, indeed, Steven Universe), is that anyone can change if they allow themselves to. “Whatever’s holding you down,” Steven could say but didn’t explicitly, “wherever you are, however hard it seems… How about you and me escape together?”

A Good Sith, one raised within the system, would do none of these things. Ultimately, for all that Orchard claims a Good Sith cares about those downtrodden by the Republic, a Good Sith does not. While the poor parents of the Jedi were ultimately given a better life in exchange for helping the Good Sith, a Good Sith typically does not care for the poor, the downtrodden. A Good Sith does not go to the cages where the slaves are kept and set them free. A Good Sith does not reject the system of the Sith in favor of something less cruel. A Good Sith is a neoliberal within the system of the Sith. And at the end of the day, a Good Sith would respond to such pointless cruelty with, “The systems aren't the problem. How people use and exploit the system, that's the problem.”

When A Good Man Goes To War: Thesis on Tom King

Commissioned by Mitchell Gosser

I'd love an essay on Tom King's shift between The Omega Men and Mister Miracle, on the consequences of these 12 issue miniseries. While Omega Men was billed that the ending would set up a huge conflict for the DCU, and The Vision teased the end of the world but shrunk in scope but increased in intimacy for the family, Mister Miracle feels like Tom finding absolution in not needing the narrative to affect the larger DC Universe. I felt Oberon's talk with Scott is the most telling about the shift of the plotting intimacy of King's books with time.

I kinda didn’t want to write about Tom King for a while. It’s not that I’ve soured on him, he’s still one of the best comics writers working today. It’s just that… look, when you write a book that’s about 125,000 words long, you really want to not write about that for some time. And it’s not like I’m never going to talk about Tom King at length ever again. I’m sure something will come out of Strange Adventures (no doubt a podcast series where I make David Mann suffer) and I’ll probably talk about him in length in an upcoming podcast on Doomsday Clock: The Official Sequel to DC Comic’s Watchmen, a DC Comics Production.

But I was requested to talk about a through line between these three works. To be fair, while I talk about all three in the book, I don’t really talk about them in context. There is, to be sure, a connective tissue between the works beyond Tom King’s presence. The Vision and Mister Miracle, for example, are about the cross section between the mundane and the weird, but the latter lacks the former’s interest in the ways in which attempting to be normal (white and straight) ultimately leads to disastrous and toxic results. Mister Miracle and The Omega Men, meanwhile, explore the ways in which war corrupts a society, but The Omega Men looks at it from the perspective of those on the front lines while Mister Miracle is focused on those who order men to their deaths (and also serve on the front lines). The Omega Men and The Vision both have an interest in the apocalyptic implications of superheroes gone horribly wrong, but the theme is very muted in the latter (until it suddenly isn’t) and the former is more interested in the subject of Sci-Fi war stories and the ways their implied utopias don’t always pan out.

But perhaps the theme connecting these three comics the most is that of masculinity. Masculinity is somewhat of a minor theme within the comics in the sense that it’s not, say, Steven Moffat writing the Doctor as unsure what makes a good man with contrasts ranging from the ideal man in the form of Rory Williams to more flawed, but still ultimately good men like Santa Claus. On the surface, the theme is nonexistent within The Omega Men, considering that’s a story of flawed, broken people working to make the universe a better place. However, one can find the theme within the character of Kyle Rayner. Kyle, in many ways, is a Good Man who’s gone to war. When he arrives in the Vega system, he rejects the worldview of the Viceroy that there is a distinction between us and them. That, ultimately, all life is valid and worth existing. The terms “savage” and “civilized” are used by those in the former to demonize the latter. (Insert clip from Pocahontas here.) Kyle’s goodness comes from his rejection of such binaries in favor of a better world.

The Vision, by contrast, is a bad man. He’s a bad man precisely because of what he thinks it takes to be a good man. Good men, The Vision’s been sold, are violent men. They fight against all odds to protect their families from those who would do them harm. They are breadwinners who rarely, if ever, actually have time to spend with their families, but will give pat answers to their issues that don’t really help them in the long run. And, if our families are hurt, men like The Vision ought to Avenge them. No matter how many bodies he will leave in his wake. All to be a good man.

Mister Miracle, ultimately (among other things discussed in my book which will come out by Christmas or I will eat a shoe), is about a man who broke and tried to build himself back together. And when that didn’t work, he realized that the best way forward was not by keeping his feelings bottled up in masculinity (like his brother, Orion, did), but by being open and honest about it even as it hurt those closest to him. Tom King understands this quite well. Though, from my knowledge, he has not experienced the childhood trauma of being thrown into a volcano, he has been traumatized by his experiences in war. These experiences are things he can’t fully express publicly, but they still linger in his mind.

And so, he writes stories that rhyme with his experiences. Stories about those who broke and lashed out at the people closest to them. Those who broke by breaking themselves. Those who tried to make the world a better place and came out the other side scarred. The secret at the heart of all of Tom King’s stories is empathy.

That is, after all, the moral heart of the flawed Heroes in Crisis: The Flash had a pervious breakdown that accidentally caused the deaths of those closest to him (sometimes metaphorically). He concluded from this that he was a monster for being unable to remain normal and sane like all his friends, to keep it together and not have a nervous break. So he tried to kill himself. Because he believed that was the right thing to do, the heroic thing. But the system that made him believe such rubbish was flawed. Broken even. Ultimately, the way forward presented was to have empathy for such people as Wally West, as The Vision and Kyle Rayner and Scott Free.

Not because they did horrible things and should get a pass for being white men. (For starters, Kyle’s Latinix.) But rather because one doesn’t fix a problem simply by acting as if it’s an outside problem, one that can be repelled, as opposed to a systemic one. Masculinity, especially in Batman where King presents the titular character in the midst of a nervous break due to his inability to accept rejection, is broken. It aligns with toxic ideals and is rewarded frequently for embracing them. There is, however, something within the male archetype worth salvaging. All it has to do is be open when it’s failing.

If You Want A Proper Article James, Release the Movie on Blu-Ray (The Abyss)

Commissioned By Patrick DeVita-Dillon. By his request, this is the Special Edition.

How does on kiss the ocean without a face?

The Abyss is perhaps the moment in James Cameron’s career where he went from “I think the military is a problematic fav due to its role as a monstrous machine that grinds good people into dust” (notably, much like comics writer Garth Ennis, Cameron views the concept of war as bad, but the soldiers who fight in it as good. This becomes quite problematic considering the long, awful history of soldiers doing awful things to the native populations they invade that Cameron’s filmography has a tendency of ignoring in favor of recontextualizing the Aliens from Alien as being a metaphor for the Viet Cong: inhuman, unfeeling, relentless, and bringer of PTSD to soldiers who were too gung-ho to notice the meatgrinder before them) to “I want to fuck the ocean.” There are certainly works postdating The Abyss where James Cameron tries to make his love of the military work (most notably, the misogynistic right wing spy thriller, True Lies [Note: while James Cameron is very much a leftie, it is nonetheless possible for a director such as him to overlook issues within his text that lean more right wing. There are certainly elements of many a director’s filmography that don’t match up with what they believe]), but those films lack the crackle of his more “I want to fuck the ocean” films, much in the same way the spark between a romantic couple isn’t there once the relationship has gone sour. (As an aside, The Abyss was produced by Gale Anne Hurd and released the same year they divorced. She would be the second of five wives.)

Perhaps the main issue with talking about The Abyss is that it’s a very visual film. As such, writing about the Special Edition means I have to watch the film in the worst possible format: Widescreen shrunk down to fit into a Full Screen format on a Widescreen TV. As such, I can’t properly write about the movie due to its lack of visual clarity, which has always been the best part of James Cameron’s films. Even when the plots boil down to “So I’m really mad about my divorce and I’m taking it out on Jamie Lee Curtis. Also, Crimson Jihad,” they find a way to look wonderful. Sadly, due to the way the DVD release of The Abyss was formatted, I can’t properly write an article on the film until the film is released on Blu-Ray or there is a screening of the Special Edition where the visuals can be seen in their full beauty. Sorry Pat.

Also, fuck you James for using that Nietzsche quote at the beginning. That was lame, thematically irrelevant, and everyone knows it.  

all heaven’s hitting high, time (Naked Lunch)

Commissioned by

Patrick

DeVita

-Dillon

They say the days on Tijuana are largely successfully. Jonathan hadn’t had the cat for all. At 2:15 in the morning, he would awanight and acted as if she was always his. He thing. Sometimes it was something as a feeling dreamed) would leave just the same. Jonathan liked the structure of it. She was his and he was hers. So he grabbed a ke to find some asshole doing some asshole her. clawed her way out of his clutches unsu a gang war. That morning, unfortunately, long. She just showed up at his bar one Jonathan could hear the yelps and howls was sure Hope (whom he named afte as suddenly as she came. But for now, gun and went after the man who stole someone was trying to steal his cat. of the man stealing the cat while Hope

he was a fast bastard. Probably high on Red hen you’re chasing someone who doesn’t as being torn asunder by the cat in his hands. when he was a young lad with dreams of Tijuana were winding and tight. It’s easy childish dreams of someone who didn’t know the to get lost on the asteroid, especially w his place. He thought he was going to be some enough to care. Jonathan had, in fact, lost his way that implies. Martin escaping this hellhole. They were interplanetary gangster with all the young lad. way the world work. Didn’t know beat those childish beliefs out of As for the junkie Jonathan was chasing Eye and too mad to care that his face Not helping matters was that the stree

Worth the risk them, but he gets oody Mary,” said the wke it a double.” Jonathan once you accept. Junkies with product urrence in his line of “And I’ll have a Bl most of the people je junkies. He didn’t trust looked at the towing from Junkies ioman. “In fact, ma more profits when buy business. In fact, be trusted. weren’t a rare occed that junkies aren’t to ought from where

he would Moore was born on Tijuana. Not that be, and a Jonathan on the Earth was to move to the other too fancy, people any desiral than was him started about Neptan with simposely than don’t get On had his bar, El Ray, hiy were just desires. pile on Tiju worlds, the gal business dump, Ma ooked that a bi his extra leg he had ana and s cat, Hopew extra simple ma treated the them to be. and worlds ones with ho matter, for the leune. Jonat more clo he’d want side. On those ofhter ame. Thet another activities would be Tijuanan everyone is

That’s why pop very easily. like he could This one looked But junkies had their uses. isn’t careful in hand. If one machine before Jonathan was setting up the

‘Junkie,’ Jonathan The man in question that the hard way unnaturally fast. side businesses thought to himself. just because he didn’t Though one of his knew, never trust a involved in the sell of the forehead. The junkie as many a drug dealer junkie. Jonathan learned when one of them was a lean man running tried to kill him for not selling him Red Eye have any money. He ‘Always a fucking junkie.’ was lucky in that he only got cut on wasn’t as lucky. drugs, Jonahtan knew,

an asked, not playody Eye?” Jonathan “Is that real Blote yet. “I’m ying his hand quive a demonstraticle proof. Let’s ha gonna need a litted the junkie the on” Jonathan toss elative ease. The Rhe caught with re machine, which into his eyes like ed Eye sprayed iced as the junkie remained stone famace. Jonathan. He focused had his last high didn’t hear the unkie, such that hintely on the jur, their guns men enter the bamping, thein intheir jackboots st clanging about, twas too focused ent malicious. He ke to notic the was about to ma on the money he next door waiting man in the room ased a junkie ad. Jonathan nev to shoot them dee drugs. Junkies where he gets thngs. Had he, he we to ask such thin are to unreliable junkie before ould have shot thkie was aware of Eye. Even the jun he took the Red on before what was going the mob really is paranoia when Jonathan. It’s not out to get you.

being poor despit their hard work. Though he tried to distract himself, Jonathan was the best one of the three. This time, they were playing poker and arguing about One such matter arrived at 10:10 AM. They were three men at the bar already. yearned for something more. couldn’t help but mildly agree with their sentiment. Sure, he knew his place in the world. He didn’t want to leave Tijuana or anything. But there was a part of him who perfectly fine to facilitate their mind numbing conversation about which of them They weren’t businessmen, just customers who needed a place to talk. Jonathan was

he pulled out a in the back room” “I’m sure there’s on can replied the man as thought Jonathan. He this time the junkie sample of Red eye. ‘Least has the product,’ the back room. The simply replied that didn’t say this, but instead he would check man followed close behind.

y preparing cars for Red Eye to the quality tests Jonathan whear the bar. If he hakie then ould have shd, he probably was too buscreech in bt the jun dutifully prng his The man enteame script, Jonat instead, h pitch as all hey would duct, how snrough nathan was fo art of a buyer Jo junkies d the quality going that change same thing es. Bu it all nly thin g to Jonathan: I’m desp

vodka, Still, Jonathan said, “I’ve I’m the juice.” sighed tomato when fresh he afraid got out I’m of but

looking into the sun so far too long. Like having a shine directly into your eyes. Like four hours, though that could have just been Hope. cat maul at your face for at least crumpled on the streets. Just another body for the Nobody minded the junkie home at 7 AM with 15 Woolongs he nicked from pile. Jonathan returned to haim more sleep than the next night, as he always did. the junkie and planed to get

The two who had entered many more. And she had the man was a junkie. The body like a masochistic wasn’t a traditional junkie blood. She was pregnant been unseen on Tijuana deserve a better life than constant need of glasses.

The man knocked on the table. “Give me a beer,”

Eternal Desperation, the belief that A junkie wouldn’t be happy in this world. it doesn’t live flaws in the world. they didn’t get names because they aren’t someone better

an earlier happy that Jonat which would be done in these hours. So it quite well. She might’ve stuPM, but bowl of peanuts or Hope was sleeping on one of the tables wegal matters. mind a desire to have better. Cats have  At 7:45 AM, Jonath open at 8:30 AM. M than understood his arrangement an with a junkie, for example, Jonathan felt it was around for another year or so. rarely feed their pets due to being too matter their circumstances in life. Living of a bar’s set up was lesser life than living with a dealer. Junkies d headed over to El Ray, for an early morning ldn’t come until after 12 were more for extralan smoked a cigarette an busy being high, though Hope wouldn’t c times ost of the customers wo Jonathan’s. When something better came a glass of better to keep it open at person. Though, she hen the two entered the bar. She wasn’t in the people came. Most onsider herself a pet. More of a guest of a natural feeling of being owed better no customers would come along, she’d run off and be with a different beer. But the mornings

Who Pulls Your Strings and Makes You Dance. (SSSS.Gridman)

Commisioned by Fidel Jiron Jr.

A few years back, when I was a freshman in college, I wrote a short story. It’s not that good, all things considered. It’s a bit too crap to actually share with you, but it’s thematically relevant. It was a second person story about someone writing a short story. They were lacking any ideas as to what they were writing, when suddenly someone came into their room. (I think I wrote the story with the assumption that the “you” was a guy, but I never actually provided any pronouns or gendered language to “you.”) After a brief conversation, they proceed to have sex. (Again, Freshman in high school.) After having non-descript sex for many hours, “you” comes to the realization that “you’re” still typing. When you read what you’ve been typing, you notice that that what you’re typing is the words being read in the short story. At first, you laugh it off. But then you look at the person (woman, let me be honest) you had sex with, only to see that you have no idea what they actually look like. Because you (I) didn’t give them any physical descriptions, not even a name. At first, you try to come up with some character designs and names, but you screwed up in the worst way possible (no, I’m not saying how. It was awful and I regret everything about it) and try to revise the description to be less horrible.

But then, the implications dawn on you about creating a fictional real person who exists just to have sex with you. Who has no choice but to have sex with you. Who is forced to have sex with you. And then, all the other implications hit me: what about all the other people in the world? Who are they and what lives do they live? What right did I have to dictate their lives, their stories? So, I broke down and called for my mother. Suddenly, your mother appeared as a comfort to you. And then, a dreadful thought came into our minds: what is our mother’s name? All she says of herself is that she’s our mother, but we can call her mommy. Mortified by the lack of imagination on the part of the writer, you try to figure a way out (just as you look at a conveniently placed mirror and realize that you don’t look like anything at all. Just a vague set of body parts). The ultimate solution I came up to escape: “And then, you woke up from this weird dream.”

SSSS.Gridman is, in many ways, a better expression of this existential dread. If one finds oneself the god of a fictional world, the writer to use the honest phrase, why make nothing bad happen? After all, stories tend to involve some conflict, be it friends moving, people you love dying, or giant monsters attacking the city. If nothing bad happened to people, then the story would be boring. But you’re the writer, so if people actually died, if there was actual damage, then you could simply reset the world and move those deaths to a point prior to the story so none of the characters feel bad. The horror of a monster of the week show with negative continuity writ large.

For that matter, why have empathy for characters who don’t work within the narrative? Those Scrappy Doos, those Wesley Crushers, those bad characters whose stories just aren’t working. Or, for that matter, the characters whose stories feel like they need to end in their deaths. Not because you hate them or anything, but because it’s the right way to go for the story. This isn’t a concern of SSSS.Gridman, but it is on my mind since I read Satoshi Kon’s Opus recently, which also deals in these themes. The point is, aren’t fictional characters, especially the ones we interact with, real. Not in the sense of you or I, but they still have an impact on lives, on other people’s stories. More people know who Spider-Man or Scott Free are than they will Sean Dillon.

SSSS.Gridman is about growing a sense of empathy towards the characters we create. Even the Scrappies. It might seem better to have a story without the characters we don’t like, but it wouldn’t be the story we liked if they weren’t there at all. They’re as much a part of the story as the ones we do like, the quiet scenes of character drama, and the rip-roaring action of Kaiju fights. The world would be something different without the queers, the weirdoes, and me. After all, though it may be a dream to Akane Shinjō, but it’s real to everyone else.

Many writers, myself included, come to the dilemma of what to do when we have empathy for our characters. It becomes hard to do horrible, awful things to them. To have them fight monsters or even create monsters. Of course, what does that say about the writer of our world. Our evil mastermind behind the scenes, the wicked puppeteer who pulls our strings and makes us dance. Who can live with all the horrible things that happen in our world.

The answer, of course is that it’s not real for them. It’s just a story. More than likely, I’m some minor character in the background of someone else’s story. But when Akane was in the dream, they were real in the sense of you or I and not fictional like she is to us. Writers forget that detail when we write ourselves into the narrative. We can forget to have empathy for the people around us and think them as much fictional characters with ticks and repeated tropes as the characters we create.

That’s the metaphor for being a writer in one’s own story after all: how do we treat other people, even the ones we don’t like? Do we see them as not being people, thus acceptable to murder? Do we see them as tools, as a means to an end? Or do we see them as people? Broken people, angry people, cruel people, kind people, happy people, but people nonetheless. We are full of multitudes, even the worst of us. And we can’t stop those who don’t see others as people if we don’t see them as people in the first place. (I mean, you can, but you'd just be treating symptoms rather than the disease.)

I’m Sorry; I Just Don’t Have Much to Say About (True Romance)

Commissioned by Ted Adams

A few months back, I caught some flack by noted critic who’s better than me at literary criticism, Will Brooker, over a political compass I made based on the films of Quentin Tarantino by saying that True Romance was a Quentin Tarantino film. In my defense, True Romance is the only work by Tarantino out at the time that would be considered purely “Authoritarian Right” (other than Kill Bill Vol. 1, but I had to stick the two Kill Bills together) and I was quite cross at Tarantino at the time.

At the time, another critic who’s much better at this than me, Scout Tafoya, did a video examining the film and found it… wanting for a lot of obvious reasons, not the least of which being “it has one of Quentin Tarantino’s most racist monologues in it and it’s extremely uncritical of the guy who’s blatantly supposed to be Quentin Tarantino.” That’s not to say that people haven’t made the case for it. I’m sure another critic better at this than me, like Lindsey Romain, could make the case for it. But I just don’t have the energy to do so.

So instead, let’s talk, briefly, about a song from the Estelle album True Romance: All That Matters. Normally when I talk about music, I take a lyric by lyric analysis of the song with occasional noting of the more musical aspects of it, but the beauty of All That Matters is more in how the song is performed than in its lyrics. Not that the lyrical component isn’t important, but rather that one can’t quite capture the soulful longing of Estelle’s voice through simply talking about the symbolism of the music.

Every aspect of the song goes into the core theme of All That Matters: that of a love that was true and honest, but now is no longer. The instruments low tones and slow beat give the song an air of melancholy and distance. Estelle’s singing is beautiful as ever, but also aches with the absence of her true love. That’s ultimately the sign of a True Romance: the hole it leaves behind when it’s gone. The original ending of the film had the blatant Tarantino stand in die and Alabama, the female lead, reveal that she didn’t actually love him. She was in a bad place and needed a way out. Theirs was not a True Romance.

But then, lies are part of the point for Tarantino. His films, after all, largely deal with the stories we tell ourselves to keep us going, to protect us from those who would do us harm, the lies that shape the world. But there’s a truth lying underneath the lies, the stories, the movies we watch. The Tarantino stand in, in the original script, thought that one date was enough to create a True Romance. But, as Estelle notes, it’s the moments together that make up a True Romance. But, as she also notes, all that matters is the time we’ve spent together. Sometimes, you only get the length of a movie.

What is your favorite Tarantino film?
Reservoir Dogs (Libertarian Left)

True Romance (Authoritarian Right)

Natural Born Killers (Right Axis)

Pulp Fiction (Libertarian Axis)

From Dusk ‘till Dawn (Authoritarian Axis)

Jackie Brown (Libertarian Left)

Kill Bill (Libertarian Right) [Vol. 1- Authoritarian Right; Vol. 2- Libertarian Axis]

Death Proof (Libertarian Left) [Me]

Inglorious Bastards (Left Axis)

Django Unchained (Authoritarian Left)

The Hateful Eight (Authoritarian Left)

Once Upon A Time… in Hollywood (All Four Quadrants)

I don’t like Quentin Tarantino films at all (Libertarian Left or Authoritarian Right)

I think Pulp Fiction is his best, while Jackie Brown, Death Proof, and at least one Kill Bill are his worst (Authoritarian Right)

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.