Should superheroes be reinvented as new races/sexualities?

A common trend in superhero comics now a days is to take a famous, time tested heros such as captain america, green lantern, wolverine, or thor and making them either female, homosexual, or part of a minority group. People seem to think that minorities don’t have a big enough place in these fictional universes or aren’t represented enough, and to get that representation they need to take over the mantle of a big hero like that. But I tend to disagree. Why would one of those minorities have to take over the mantle of another hero to get big or respected? Wouldn’t it be much more respectable for them to become their own new hero and become just as big that way? That way we will have all our classic heroes people love as well as new ones to love without having to sacrifice anyone. I always thought that would be the best way to do things. For example, when John Stewart became very popular in the animated series they decided to replace Hal Jordan and put an African American in the Justice League. But the recent Green Lantern comics that include both Hal and John Stewart in my opinion are the most exciting, why do we have to sacrifice either one of them?

Turning Thor into a woman as well doesn’t really work to speak to womens strengths for me… Why does she have to take over the mantle of a man to prove herself instead of making a name for herself on her own? Doesn’t the fact that she has to take over the mantle that previously belonged to a man give a completely different message? A great example is Batwoman. Batwoman, Katy Kane, is a lesbian and became one of the greatest heroes ever, but she didn’t have to TAKE batman’s place, batman was still out there, she made a name for herself and became her own hero without ever kowtowing or playing nice with batman. If we truly want a diverse world and cast of characters,shouldn’t we let all these characters exist at the same time?

Now, if a character is truly killed off because the story requires it and its actually a good story that is completely different, to me it just often seems to be a marketing ploy to get new readers with no thought going to how to actually make it a good story. “Hey look we turned wolverine into a woman! look how edgy we are”, is what it seems like to me, like many other happenings in comics that are inspired more by the dollar sign than actually crafting an engaging story. There has to be a balance between these two extremes in order to have an engaging comic universe as well as to continue to collect the funds to keep the company going, and it is a fine line to walk.

 

 

Astonishing X-Men

When reading just about any X-Men comic or watching X-Men movies, it becomes obvious to relate the X-Men to any minority group, as that is exactly what they are in the fiction. I am not sure if this was their originally intended purpose but it certainly seems to have become ingrained in their story lines. The X-Men can represent just about any minority you want them to, such as but not limited to homosexuality, racism, or people with birth defects / mental problems. Society used to be a whole lot harsher to people like this, such as killing babies born with birth defects and what not, so perhaps this stories message is more suited for those times but we still have problems of prejudice and racism in our world today, even if it is not so prevalent, so I believe the stories and message is still relevant.

The idea of a cure brought up in Astonishing X-Men is a very interesting concept, because when you look past it and apply it to say, issues of homosexuality, it can be a very deep discussion. People who are homosexual are either proud of their sexuality, or ashamed of it. And just like Beast who considers taking the cure so as to quit being a “monster”, there might be some people out there in the world who would take such a cure to be more normal. There would of course also be groups like the X-Men who would denounce such a cure as inhumane.

Is it inhumane though? As long as they are not forcing anyone to take the cure, and it is each individuals right to choose for themselves, should it really be illegal to search for such a cure? It is a very interesting moral debate. On one hand, to look for a cure you have to admit you are looking at such issues as being defects, or bad, and that would offend many minorities. On the other hand, many people might wish for this cure such as Beast did in the X-Men. I am sure if a company announced today they had CURED homosexuality there would be outrage, protests and many other crazy events. In this matter, the X-Men stories, characters and universe definitely provide the stage for some interesting moral arguments.

The Life, Works, and Views of Grant Morrison

For my final project, I would like to explore the work of Grant Morrison, the author of Supregods, and comics such as Final Crisis, Animal Man, Multiversity, and Batman. I would like to explore how his lifestyle and views on morals and life shape how he sees and writes and talks about comics, and what his opinions are by exploring his vast back log of works as well as his Supergods book and interviews.

The audience of my paper will be people who are really into DC comics instead of Marvel, fans of Grant Morrison, and people who are into psychedelic stories and art.

I am going to explore this through the critical/theoretical option. At first I was thinking a paper, but I would like to be able to include maybe pictures or clips of him and his work so perhaps I should do a website / blog post type? If I just use pictures I suppose I will just write a magazine type article with pictures and turn in a hard copy or document file.

I want those who read my paper to get into the mind of this crazy man Grant Morrison, and leave knowing more about him and his works than before. I want my readers to understand his viewpoints on comics, reality, witchcraft, religion and morality by the time they are done. I will have succeeded if they are more interested in him as a person, and even better if they want to start getting into his works.

I will use Supergods and interviews of him and comics he has made in press releases what not that I have not found yet.

Morrison, Grant. Supergods. New York: Spiegel & Grau, 2012.Print.

I plan to start doing research over Spring Break, and within 3 weeks have a rough draft.

 

 

 

 

Comics as a Commentary on Modern Issues

Comics for quite some time have not only been used as a medium to tell fantastical, super hero stories, but they also for a while have been used to explore modern controversies, issues, and thoughts on the future. For example, many comic book stories now a days involve terrorism, modern technology, and stuff like that. While back in the 1960’s, many comics explored the hippy counterculture, cold war fears, and technological breakthroughs in weapons and communication. Ant man is perhaps one of the best examples of the Silver Age of comics, just like Captain America and Superman are some of the best examples of the Golden Age.

The Cold War was a time of paranoia, where people were deathly afraid of another World War breaking out and the technological advancements of the time such as Atom Bombs. This atmosphere obviously carried over into comics, where instead of Japanese or Nazi villains we had Soviet Union baddies. Also the fear of the Atom Bombs was carried over into many characters that showed the fear of technological advancements which could wipe out humanity. For the first time, they started showing some heroes as a thing to be feared, and I believe that is where the Hulk rose out of. He was a scientific mishap (that just so happened to be created from a super bomb) and when transformed just destroyed and didn’t care about anyone at first. It was a great way to show the fears of the people of the time. Ant Man was a little different. I don’t think he represented the fear of technology as much as the Hulk did because before he became a villain he was a hero through and through and used his technology to help people. Yes, he could summon an army at a moment’s notice, and grow super small to spy (which a lot of the Cold War was about spying), and later super huge to cause destruction, but unlike the Hulk who was indiscriminate in his destruction and hence represented the fears of the advancement of technology, Ant Man was still conscience of his actions and able to use his technology for the betterment of the people he was protecting. He wasn’t knocking over buildings or throwing cars with people in them, his powers focused on the bad guys.

So in my opinion, while Hulk was more the representation of the fears of the Cold War era people of technology, people like Ant Man or the Fantastic Four represented more of the positive side of being able to use that technology for the protection of man. So there seems to be two differing viewpoints arguing against each other here, which is typical of comics. Like I said, comics have been used as a medium to comment on the feelings and issues of the day, and also to argue against them, which is what we have going on here. The prevailing issue of the day was the worry of the Cold War and technology, which was represented in these stories like The Hulk and Ant Man, and the comics creators also conveyed their personal opinions through their works.

Comic Book Crossovers

The hulk is one of the first instances ever of a comic book crossover, a process that has become so common now a days many people are put off of it. I can understand some people who aren’t that into comics being intimidated by this and having it cause them to not get into comics. I can understand being frustrated and being made to feel like they are forcing you to buy multiple books to get a full story when you just want to read about a certain character or something, but at the same time this has become such a staple of comic universes that they just wouldn’t be the same without it. For example, can you imagine a DC universe where Superman never met Batman? Or the Justice League never existed? Comics just wouldn’t be the same, and I have actually come to love the shared universe aspect of comics as it opens up for some really interesting team ups and stories. The team books also are often the best books of their line, for example Justice League or The Avengers, and then if you want to know more about a certain character and their solo story you can get into their solo books.

Sometimes the publishers do take it a bit too far with their line wide crossover events that usually take place in Summer ( Flashpoint, Crisis on Infinite Earths, Battleworld, etc)… and these events can be frustrating in that it seems like they are literally trying to empty your wallet to buy every book on the line for a few months to get one complete story, but they are getting better about this I think. For example, in Blackest Night, a green lantern crossover, you really only had to get the Blackest Night # 1- 7 books as well as the Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corps tie ins, which if you were interested in reading Blackest Night you probably were already buying Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corps. They also added in a line wide event where almost every book on the line was involved in Blackest Night, but you didn’t have to buy all of them to understand the story, I sure didn’t They were more like side stories there for people who couldn’t get enough. For people who wanted to know what Superman or Wonder Woman was doing during Blackest Night.

(Above is all the covers from Blackest Night)

The Hulk being the precursor to all this is pretty neat. I can imagine how exciting it must have been to be around for the start of this in the 60s. I am sure it all started from a debate from some comic book nerds about who would win a fight, The Hulk or The Thing, and im sure many people got excited and bought it. From this point on the idea of a shared universe, an actual living breathing universe that these comic characters lived in and interacted with each other was born, and in my opinion comics are all the better for it. The light singly book storylines can be great too, but every now and then you just want to see an epic, universe shattering, mind blowing event with 100 heroes clashing against a foe who threatens to destroy all reality.

Comic Remix

When deciding what I wanted to do for my comic remix, I immediately thought of doing something from Grant Morrison’s Supergods. The reason being for this is that he is absolutely one of my favorite authors and I thought Supergods was a very interesting book. One reason was because we got to hear his opinions on the characters in these comic books that he has personally worked with as well as his opinions on the creators, the characters origins, and the comic book industry as a whole. I particularly liked the parts on Superman and Batman so I mainly focused on that. This being a project about Grant Morrison, the ideas I wanted to toy with were his really psychedelic, surreal ideas/stories as well as his habit of breaking the 4^th wall and commenting on heroes and the comic industry in general.

I decided to start off with some trippy images of Grant Morrison himself that I have seen before. Him being who he is, an advocate of psychedelic drugs and hippy type character, there are plenty of them out there. So I found some images of him looking like a super dimensional God or like he is meditating. The first thing I commented on was his comments from the book about what drew him into comics. He loved the fact that it was like a separate universe in a book, and that these stories had histories dating back decades and through different dimensions and universes. And That kind of set the tone for what I did throughout the rest of the comic remix as well. Next I decided to include a quote from the book about how we love superheroes because they never give up, even if written out of existence or killed they always come back in a different fashion better than ever. I also used that as a springboard to show some of the work Grant Morrison himself has done in that nature. For example, making an alternate universe version of Superman who is pretty much Barack Obama (the American President, African American, AND Superman!). Also I decided to show his creations of a hippy version of the Justice League (very Grant Morrison like).

On the next page I decided to use some of his comments to explore some of his ideas and work on Superman. On his action comics run he went back to the origins. Kind of how he talked about in the book everything evolves but it also comes back full circle. He went back to the origins of Superman and made it so Superman was just starting out in his career. He was super strong, could fight super strong robots, lift impossible things, and jump over buildings but he couldn’t do all these god like things he can do today. So I included the quote about that and some images from his Action Comics run. Next I tried to show how comics evolve. Because his Action Comics run went from its humble beginnings that I just talked about, into one of the most trippiest, mind blowing endings ever. So I included some panels from that ending and talked about his comments where he said Superman being set free from his creators allow superheroes to infinitely be innovated on.

Next in the book he talks about Batman, so that’s where I went with it next. Grant Morrison’s run on Batman happens to be one of my favorite comic books ever so that was no problem for me. It’s got some of the best artwork I have seen as well as a crazy story. I included in this part some of the craziest artwork from this arc, when Batman is overdosed on drugs, and in his deranged mental state thinks he is the “Batman of Zurr en Arrh” and makes a red, purple, and yellow batsuit out of garbage and garbage bags, and finally confronts the Joker. To transition between Batman and Superman, I included summaries of his lines about how Superman and Batman differed. How Superman was more thedaylight, and Batman from the shadows. Also, since Joker is there in all his deranged glory, I talked about how Batman’s enemies were different than Superman’s. He specifically calls them chemically deranged, and out of a bad trip.

This leads right into my final page where I discuss some of Grant Morrisons innovations. As he talked about the characters being freed from their creators leading to innovation, I talked about how Morrison completely flipped the script by making Batman chemically deranged ,and actually having a bad trip in this story arc. Morrison also talks a lot about how comics span vast universes and dimensions, and in this arc he took it one step further. The 5^th dimension was always something of a mystery in DC comics. Mr. Mxzylptk came from there and had God Like powers but then he would vanish without explanation. Morrisons idea was that the 5^th dimension actually was imagination, which gives you a lot to think about if you really get into it. I end on the note that what Grant Morrison thinks are great about comics, besides their long legacy, is basically the fact that anything can happen, and with all these different artists and writers with different opinions and viewpoints, you can never get bored!

Close Reading Issue Four

Right from the very cover we see a deranged Nazi scientist experimenting on people or animals and about to do the very same to Cap’s Sidekick Bucky! Will we have to worry for Bucky? Or is this another case of comic covers having absolutely nothing to do with what happens in the story?! Time to find out… The title is “Unholy Legion”… what are those dastardly Hitler lovers up to now. Next we have a scene of two extremely hideous Nazi’s taking out some “Democratic Dog’s” with some interesting weapons, one with a very clever weapon of a gun hidden inside his crutch another with a poison apple. We also see a body fished out of a river and learn there have been a range of cop and detective slayings recently, apparently by a dastardly group called the Unholy Legion. Cap and Bucky in Military garb kindly give a begger some money then follow some other suspicious beggars to a suspicious hideout. Bucky throws on his disguise to infiltrate, and what do you know, the password is “Down with Democracy!”.. All the people drawn in this group are really ugly while Cap and Buck are classic all American men. I guess this is a matter of you can read a book by its cover. Bucky declares the password but mentally tells himself “Never!”.

Inside we learn the crux of this scheme. All the beggars take off disguises and drop their earnings into a “Donate to Hitler” box. Unfortunately for Bucky he is the only missing the Swastika tattoo..”Heil Hitler!” they announce, but when they see Bucky they say “A spy!”… Bucky cleverly retorts with “No you rat a Patriot!”… what a guy. Bucky winds back and gets ready to deliver his “donation to the Fuhrer”, a sock to the jaw that knocks the Nazi in front of him out! But not even Bucky can take down that many men with weapons and he is captured in a hail of punches and bodies. The evil Nazis bring in another patriot and brand him with a hot iron shaped as a swastika. Just before Bucky gets his due… Captain America to the rescue! In a rush of dynamic action and color Captain America takes the Nazis by surprise. Bucky also breaks free and saves Cap from being strangled and beaten by superior numbers. Before he has to spray the nazis full of lead from a machine gun Cap stops him as they have won. However, the Nazi Leader escapes into the Ocean! Captain America thinks him foolish, as he thinks he has got away.

Cap and Bucky follow him to an enemy submarine where he is meeting with his commander. Is this man Himmel? I couldn’t understand the German but I believe he is.Cap and Bucky bust in the submarine and must face a fleet of murderous Nazi sailors! This page is full of psychedelic looking art and panels and colors. Bucky takes out the last sailor in a jump rocket punch and they go after the leader of the Unholy Legion again. He escapes out a door, and Bucky leaves a bomb in the engine room of the sub before they leave to stall the sub for the police. However, when they leave it seems the whole submarine blows up. Following the leader, he unleashes a bunch of deranged homeless nazi experimental creatures or something from a cage to attack Cap and Bucky! They are no match for this dynamic duo though. The leader tries to shoot Cap but he blocks it with his red white and blue shield, and then rams the guy in the face. A job well done. Cap and Bucky have dismantled the “Unholy Legion”, and go for a good nights sleep.

What I don’t get is what was the Unholy Legion anyway? A group of homeless deranged nazi supporters? I guess the guys were kept in a cage at the end because they were experimented on? Either way, I don’t find it too offensive even with all the blatant german racism and Nazi Propaganda. To me it just seems like good old mindless fun that people of the time could use to blow off some steam.

Comics as Transmedia

I definitely agree with W.T.J. Mitchell when he says that comics should be regarded as transmedia, and bridge the gap between screen and page. This is totally true, especially in our world today. How many TV shows and Movies got their start in comic books now a days? At the same time though, they go beyond that with a huge history that only the most dedicated of comics followers can fully be immersed in. You can get as deep into comics as you want, or you can just experience them on the screen. I do feel like comics go beyond cinema a bit as a form of media. It might sound strange to say this but cinema is more limited in what it can do as a medium because of the transmediatic nature of comics. As he says, comics have links to the very beginning of human nature (cave paintings, etc) and when writing a comic you can portray anything that you can imagine and incorporate crazy elements such as breaking the 4th wall that just aren’t possible in movies. So it seems to me that in our current world cinema and TV take from comics what they can and comics definitely sit on top of them as a medium because of all you can express in a comic. There is the added layer of being able to add true artwork into it and show scenes/ideas in ways that would never be possible on screen. Multiverses, anti matter realities, all kinds of bizarre reality shattering events are possible in comics, and that is why I love them as a medium. Cinema and Television can approach that vastness but never fully capture it. Also, because of the simple fact they are in live action they can never truly replicate or convey the artwork of the comics. For example, the venom symbiote in spider man is drawn as being completely liquid like and constantly shifting / morphing, and with our current technology there is just no way to render that right.

Also, in regards to McLuhan’ comment that “The medium is the message.”, I don’t think this applies better to anywhere than the world of film and comics. In comics, the medium IS the message. It is a medium and art form with a lot of history, and a lot of the works in this medium build on and incorporate that history. For example, the comic and film adaption of Watchmen. The Watchmen comic was designed to emulate classic comic book elements, everything from the artwork to the way the story unfolded, and this is something that just can’t be emulated on screen. Watchmen and Sin City are known as the two movies who emulate their comic books the best, and they really do, but even in Watchmen, they had to change the ending because the director felt mainstream audiences wouldn’t be able to accept the craziness of the comic book ending. I also find it interesting how cultures look at things differently. If you look at anime in japan, much of it is adapted scene for scene from manga comics much like Sin City and Watchmen, where you can hold up any screen next to a panel of the comic and they will look alike. The difference is in Japan they often use the medium of cartoons, or anime, which is much closer a medium to comics than live action. Hence, they can emulate the artwork of the original comic and just give it motion, as well as display things that wouldn’t be possible in live action. They also often follow the storylines to a T. This is why I think it is sad that cartoons as a medium in America are supposed to only be “for kids”. Comics are becoming so popular and mainstream and I really believe the art and the way the story unfolds would be much better conveyed in animation.