“Sometimes, it's necessary to fight back.”
-Andrew Cartmel, 1992
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| 1/8: The revolution will not be televised. |
When I was a boy, my aunt would get
me Christmas presents. Some years it would be video games, others it would be
Hot Wheels. Nowadays, it’s cash (which is increasingly the present I get from
that side of the family. Then again, I don’t have the closeness to them that I
do with the other side, mostly due to distance). But the last year I remember
getting an actual present was when I was just exiting middle school. I got a
phone call from my aunt and she asked what I wanted for Christmas. At the time,
I had begun reading comics in earnest again, and so I asked for some.
Or rather, just one: Spider-Man The
Other. While I was getting into comics, one of the trades I would always return
to was “Back in Black,” which featured a story with a character from The Other.
I was intrigued by the oddness of such a character in a Spider-Man comic and I
wanted to learn more about them. So I asked my aunt for the comic and she sent
it to me. The Other was a storyline from a few years back wherein Peter dies at
the hands of a vampire and comes back from the dead through mystical means.
Looking back, I don’t think either was as good as I remembered it being when I
was 13.
But that wasn’t the only comic I
got that Christmas. There were two others: Fallen Son (which looked at the
Marvel Universe’s reaction to the Death of Captain America) and Spider-Man
Reign: One of the greatest Spider-Man comic of the 21st Century.
There are many negative things one could say about Reign: The art is a bit crap
at times (especially the backgrounds, which don’t seem to even try at points), some
of the plot details are left to the side when they should have been somewhat
explained (how did Jonah learn about Peter’s secret identity), the story
probably needed another issue of space, and a couple of panels are
counterintuitive to the themes and ideas the story is invested in (specifically,
in the final issue, one of the minor characters inexplicably says, “I believe”
and that works against the rest of the comic’s suspicion of the previous
generation).
But when people talk about
Spider-Man Reign in a negative light, what they focus on aren’t those aspects
of the text but rather the text’s approach to sexuality and how it flagrantly
nicks ideas from the Dark Knight Returns. In regards to sexuality, this comes
from two moments. Firstly, in the initial printing of the story, Kaare Andrews
drew a picture of Peter Parker completely naked. Which is to say we see his
cock. On the one hand, this is a very embarrassing miss on the part of Marvel
editorial. But at the same time, it’s not all that detailed in the panel it
appears in (indeed, it’s even less so than Dr. Manhattan’s infamously tiny
penis), so it’s understandable that Andrews was briefly able to get away with
that.
The other piece of sexuality
requires a bit more work. In the penultimate issue, it’s revealed that the
cause of Mary Jane’s death was being in a relationship with Peter. (The fact
that Mary Jane Watson died at all was something that was suggested by both the
covers and the fact that her ghost literally haunts Peter, but not something
that was explicitly stated until the second issue.) Now the decision to kill
off Mary Jane as a means to get Peter to stop being a superhero is problematic
to say the least, but the contention most critics of this story have with this
isn’t that she was killed off but rather how she was killed off. Though not
explicitly stated in the text, one can infer (both from the dialogue of “I am
filled with radioactive blood. And
not just blood. Every fluid. Touching me… Loving
me… Loving me killed you!!” and
the fact that Andrews decided to draw Spidey’s penis) that Mary Jane was killed
by Peter’s Spider-Sperm.
If one is to make the argument that
Spider-Man Reign is one of the greatest Spider-Man comics ever made, this is
certainly a moment for redemptive reading. In many regards, this is a
literalization of what Harry was talking about in Best of Enemies: “…We leave
nothing but pain in our wake. We’re toxic, Peter-- anyone comes near us…
and their lives become radioactive.”
(For all that I’ll get into the influence of Frank Miller, perhaps the biggest
influence on this story is that of JM DeMatteis from the invocation of Kraven’s
Last Hunt [indeed, Reign was the story that introduced me to that one] to the
investment in masks and performance to the contrast between toxic masculinity
and healthy masculinity. Also, note the lack of appearance of Gwen Stacy and
Harry Osborn. While most likely done to give the story the ability to somewhat
stand on its own, it also has the implication that Peter was able to make peace
with those deaths as he was with Ned Leeds and Charlamange, connecting the
story with another theme of the DeMatteis era: the ability to cope with trauma.)
In this regard, recall that I argued that comic could be read as being about
the final stages of a collapsing polyamorous relationship. Given this, it could
be read that the Spider-Sperm was less of a “super cancer” than it was a
metaphor for having AIDS. Many an AIDS narrative focused on either the
experience of slowly dying of the disease or, as Spider-Man Reign does, the
guilt of the carrier for having caused the death of their lover through their
love and how they cope with outliving them. (An alternative reading would be just to point out that there's no actual proof within the text that being in a relationship with Peter caused Mary Jane to die. Literally all we have is Peter Parker's word on the matter. It could very well be that Peter just blames himself for his wife getting cancer. Indeed, the text supports this theory given the ghost of Mary Jane [because comics] responds to Peter tearfully confessing that he gave his wife cancer with "Stop being silly.")
Of course, connecting this text
with my own read of a 20 year old comic isn’t enough to actually argue that
this is a queer text (nor is it enough to save said text from the banality of
killing off a female lead solely to give the male lead some drama, but then few
things can and Spider-Man Reign is interesting enough to survive without those
factors). There has to be something within the text that alludes to queerness
in some fashion. Fortunately, this comes in the form of the story’s main
antagonist: Venom, the Black Suit made manifest. When confronting the bad guy
in the final issue, the way Venom talks to Peter has an abusive ex-boyfriend
vibe to it, in particular: “Well, well, well, look who’s come crawling back. It’s been a long time, lover. Heard
you’re single again.” Add to that the way Venom gaslights Peter about the
nature of their relationship (specifically in regards to his awareness about
the Black Suit’s nature), and it’s abundant that Venom’s relationship with
Peter (as with all his relationships really) is one founded upon abusing his
partner.
(There is of course a sensible
argument to be made in regards to implicitly queering the main antagonist of
the text. However the narrative doesn’t do so in the typical way, opting to instead
make the queerness an implication of dialogue rather than the typical
methodology of using stereotypical queer signifiers [such as a focus on fashion
and being extremely camp] to highlight the villainy. Indeed, the villainy of
Venom is less in regards to his queerness than in regards to him being a
fascist who plots to enslave and consume humanity because he was “abandoned” by
the one person who he “loved.” Even if we are to assume a sympathetic
motivation [which the text grants to some degree, but not enough to allow Peter
to be unsympathetic], the final solution Venom comes up with dashes those
arguments away for the bollocks that they are.)
Which leaves us with the Dark
Knight Returns connection. In most regards, this is a superficial read of the
text, focusing on the fact that it’s the story of old man Spidey coming out of
retirement to do battle with a dystopian future. There are some other minor details
that connect the two texts: there’s an army of young people who don masks to
combat the horrors of the dystopia, a murder occurs that everyone (including
the author) ignores, and the main character’s retirement is caused by the death
of someone close to him.
However if one were to actually
look at those moments closely, it becomes clear that Spider-Man Reign is
talking about completely different things. For starters, Peter’s reasoning for
retiring has less to do with Batman realizing that he’s pushed the game of
caped crusader too far (again, he’s blatantly Adam West Batman) but rather the
guilt caused by the death of someone he loves. (In fact, unlike Jason Todd, the death of Mary Jane is central to the text. Peter's arc within the story is making peace with her death. Batman doesn't give a shit about Jason once Carrie Kelly comes into the picture.) Indeed, when given the
opportunity to return to being a costume superhero, Batman immediately jumps at
the chance whereas Peter tries to run as far away as possible. As for the
youths, where Dark Knight Returns demonized them until they were wielded by
someone of great power and control, Spider-Man Reign views them in a more
valorizing light. (This should come as no surprise given their more recent
work: where Frank Miller went on to write a screed against Islam to such a
degree as to plausibly mortify Ben Garrison, Andrews went on to write a comic that argues
for the extrajudicial murder of the 1%.)
Furthermore, there’s the people who
brought the youths together in the end. For the Dark Knight Returns, it’s
Batman who whips these criminal youths into his own militia. His indomitable
will pushes their criminality towards his own ends. Conversely, Spider-Man
Reign initially has this role be played by J Jonah Jameson. Jameson has an
interesting role within the narrative. He’s a sympathetic character, and yet
he’s consistently viewed as being in the wrong about just everything. He’s
wrong about Peter’s willingness to be the great superhero who will destroy the
dystopia, he’s wrong about the people being inspired to fight once they see the
superhero in action, and he was wrong about who Venom was possessing (he
thought it was George W. Bush whereas it was really Dick Cheney). (This has an
interesting impact on his final benediction where he thanks god for the return
of the Superhero as opposed to the collapse of the fascist state. Indeed, it’s
ambiguous as to whether Spider-Man is now a traditional superhero or if he’s
become something else entirely.)
Midway through though, he’s
arrested for starting a riot and the young people are scattered without a leader.
And so the person who brings them together is not Spider-Man, but the text’s
deturagonist (who remains nameless within the text, which doesn’t work at all).
She proclaims to the crowd of fellow teenagers and kids “We can’t rely on them
anymore. The old men. They can’t show us how to live. They took our city and
made it a cage. They only hurt us. Stop running. Stop hiding. It’s time we
became something more than what we are.“ This reads a lot differently in 2018
than it did 10 years ago, especially given the gun debate going on right now.
(In many ways, this prescience is what makes Spider-Man Reign one of the best
Spider-Man comics of the 21st century.) (Another interesting note is
that she’s reacting against, of all things, a Doctor Who reference. In the
episode Survival, a joke is made about two men being chased by a tiger, and one
of the men claims he’ll survive because he’s faster than the other. Spider-Man
Reign tells the joke verbatim, save for changing the tiger to a bear.)
At the same time though, Andrews is
aware enough of these small connections to the Dark Knight Returns to play with
them in his narrative, which really hurts the story overall. While some, such
as the televisions (and, subsequently, the journalist Miller Janson), add to
the theme of watching the world as a method to bringing about social change
(for one cannot change the world if one looks away from their child of Omelas),
the decision to confine the story within four issues hurts the flow and impact
of the narrative. In retrospect the story should have either had the issues
extended as Dark Knight Returns were or had an additional issue added to expand
on things. Also the decision to toy with some plot beats of the Dark Knight
Returns (the superhero returns for a one off mission, which is successful so he
goes after a bigger target, which proves to be too much for him and he’s saved
by his girl sidekick [the subversion comes from that last part, where instead
of a last minute rescue, the girl flees because “he’s just an old man. Weak.
Like the rest of us”]) should have stopped in the first issue in favor of doing
its own thing.
And yet, I can’t help but love this
story. There are so many things that I haven’t brought up that are absolutely
fantastic (the use of Deus Ex Machina, the Mary Jane scenes, the two instances
of the nine panel grid, etc.). But more than that, this is one of the texts
that actually got me invested in literary criticism. One of the first comics
blogs I ever followed was 4thletter, which is sadly no longer active. One of
the posts I read on that site was
David Brothers’ take on Spider-Man Reign in a
series on the influence of the Dark Knight Returns. It’s a spectacular piece
that highlights why this comic is great to such a degree that if I was to make
my argument, I’d just be ripping off his work entirely. Brothers, along with
Gavok, Andrew Hickey and the rest of the Mindless Ones, and Dr. Anj, were among
the earliest of my influences and guides to comics. Without them and so many others, this blog
wouldn’t exist. Thank you.
The End.
07/13/2017-03/21/2018
[Photo: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys #5 by Gerard
Way, Shaun Simon, and Becky Cloonan]
Long ago in an American autumn.
