1. "Oh, God, Tony! Don't!"I. It might be thought that spicing up the personality of a superhero with a touch of mental illness, and even madness, might be an interesting and game-changing proposition. And indeed, such a strategy has so often been the choice of the writer seeking to place their stamp on a cape'n'costumed character that it's now a commonplace. Sending Hal Jordan mad so that he might wipe out the Green Lantern Corps, and the Guardians, and whatever else the creative team thought might sell more copies, is but one of many examples of such an approach. Give the superhero a serious mental disorder, so the theory seems to read, and anything at all can be done with that character.
II. And yet, where the vast majority of these cases are concerned, creators have in truth given their characters caricatures of mental illnesses which, at second glance, bear no more relation to real-world psychological problems than Spider-Man's leaping athleticism does to the mechanics of the high jump.
Still, what could wrong with that?
2. "What Else Matters?"
We've recently been discussing some of the strategies used by comic book writers to increase the appeal of the characters they're responsible for. In particular, we've abused the dubious technique of "reverse-engineering" some of Gail Simone's "Secret Six" tales in an attempt to grasp something of how she develops the appeal of well-established characters such as Deadshot. And though my methodology may have been rather questionable, the conclusion that Ms Simone tends to focus on changing her more well-known characters situationally rather than dispositionally does seems to hold some water. (A situational change would be one in which the character remained largely the same while the circumstances they were placed within were changed. A dispositional one is where the character themselves is altered.) In essence, the result of such a situational technique is that Deadshot, for example, can be made to change over time in terms of his relations to his fellow mercenaries. However, should the wider DCU need their masked super-villain back in recognisable shape for the general audience, all that would be needed to re-set Floyd Lawton would be to remove him from the Six.
But that kind of careful situational approach to developing, and yet not developing, a character is of course far more rare than might be expected in the world of serial superhero fiction. Many other creative teams prefer revolutionary rather than evolutionary change, feeling that the blowing up of things might generate both more light and more heat where press attention and sales figures are concerned. And of these radical and dramatic new starts in the lives of established properties, a worrying number are achieved through the dispositional method of adding a touch, and often rather more than a touch, of madness to the lead character at hand.
This is very, very rarely a good thing, for readers or for the long-term well-being of the superhero property concerned.
3. "What Happens To Us If You Get Sucked Back Into That Bottle?"
I. I can only think of one attempt to add interest and depth to the character of a superhero through the imposition of a serious psychological problem that's been overwhelmingly successful, both in terms of enriching that character's appeal and in somewhat-accurately portraying the debilitating condition itself, and that's the decision by David Michelinie and Bob Layton to out Tony Stark as an alcoholic.
II. In a sense, afflicting Tony Stark with alcoholism was simply another spin on Stan Lee's tradition of hamstringing his heroes with simple and empathetically-engaging disadvantages. And of all Marvel's leads, Tony Stark was by 1979 in serious need of an Achilles heel to ground him as an endearing character. Whatever sympathy his wounded-in-Vietnam heart could lend him was wearing thin with familiarity and the inability of its fluttering to make his millionaires' life seem anything other than very attractive indeed. (Rich, famous, brilliant, a superhero and a renowned inventor:- what's to pity if his old ticker gives out every now and then since he always sorts the problem out anyway? On a facile level, ruined heart or not, some more callow readers might consider the fates to have reached a fair deal with Anthony there.)
But showing how the man-who-apparently-had-everything had become addicted to alcohol removed a considerable degree of the glamour from Stark's so-very-privileged lifestyle, and lent him a sense of self-denial, of sacrifice and stoical self-control that hadn't ever been so explicit and convincing in the character before. It was in truth a brilliant idea, and remains a corner-stone of the character's appeal today, referenced whenever the property is redeveloped outside the vanilla Marvel Universe with the exception, of course, of children's cartoons.III. It might be noted, however, that the label "recovering alcoholic" follows Tony Stark where he goes, in whatever medium he's shown, despite the fact the last long-running story largely focused on his addiction was printed more than a quarter of a century ago.
Where psychological problems are concerned, in the real-world and the Marvel Universe alike, labels stick.
4. "I'm Going To Win"
I. What a counter-intuitive idea, to effect an increase in the appeal of both a superhero and its alter-ego by bringing the curse of alcoholism into play. It certainly is, as mentioned above, a rare example of success where the use of psychological problems to spruce up a property is concerned. And it's worth pausing for a moment and considering why it is that Tony Stark became more attractive and involving as a long-term recovering alcoholic than he ever was without that particular monkey on his back.
How can it help the appeal of Iron Man for Tony Stark to be outed as an alcoholic?
II. Firstly, Tony Stark's status as a recovering alcoholic doesn't in any way impinge upon how well Iron Man can function as a superhero. Since Stark's abuse stopped short of causing permanent physiological damage, he can still bash around the Titanium Man without any of his reflexes being impeded or his concentration span collapsing. This is an absolutely key point, for virtue in the superhero narrative is, as we'll return to soon in the case of Henry Pym, largely determined by a character's ability to stand and fight, just as much of the reader's involvement is determined by their willingness to imagine themselves possessing the power-set of the heroic leads they're reading about. If alcoholism had undercut Tony Stark's capacity to take on whatever this month's super-villain is, I doubt it would have worked so well as a component of his character. Yet as it is, it actually boosts Stark's appeal, making him vulnerable as well as heroic, and yet not vulnerable in any way at all where the super-powered punch-ups are concerned. Mento, for example, may collapse in the middle of a fight, but Tony Stark is in control of his problems and we admire him for it. (*1)*1 - Superhero fans will accept just about any behaviour as long as the hero concerned can still step into a battle-winning costume and punch-out some bad guy or gal, because that's how these stories work. Even the often-wildly intoxicated Tony Stark of the Ultimate Universe retains the reader's support, because no matter how many pain-killing drinks he takes down, he can still flatten those Middle-Eastern invaders in his giant robot suit. He's a drunken tragic hero rather than a drunk. The fact that we'd not accept any professional in the real-world as competent if they were in chronic pain, carrying a brain tumour and drinking constantly to dull their suffering is irrelevant in the symbolic realm of the superhero. We'll return to this point later on.)
III. Secondly, just as being a recovering alcoholic doesn't impede Tony Stark's capacities when in armour, being in armour doesn't stimulate the stressors that might drive him back to the bottle. Whatever the cause or causes of Stark's dependency, it obviously wasn't the pressure associated with being a superhero. Most alcoholics have specific trigger situations which they have to manage their lives to avoid, for fear they'll be driven back to drinking, and these stretch from the obvious ones of avoiding bars and the company of heavy-drinking friends to ensuring that they don't leave allow their stress levels to mount by, for example, leaving their tax returns to the last 12 hours. Yet so substantial has been Stark's recovery that he can do everything that he used to do except drink; he can party with the best of them, he can sweet-talk wine-drinking women with alcohol on their breath, he can hang round with the carousing best of them and remain utterly in control.
Which means that Stark's alcoholism doesn't stop him doing a single thing that he used to do in either his private or his super-heroic identity before, except for the obvious fact that he's off the sauce. It's the psychological disability that in story terms doesn't disturb the normal scheme of things, until a touch of sympathy is required, and then it pays dividends in inspiring respect and empathy.
Brilliant.
IV. The battle against alcoholism is one which has become familiar and, in most of its fictional forms, non-threatening to us in the media-saturated West. We're all well-versed in the symbols of the alcoholics battle against the bottle from literally generations of movies and TV shows. We know what the sweat on the brow means, the narrowing eyes that flicker to and away from the bar, the frowning, the fake laughter, the seductive shimmering of the lights on the cocktail glasses on the silver tray, the laughing crowds of beautiful partying people unaware of the menace that they unwittingly symbolise. And this familiar language of symbols means that alcoholism as portrayed in the media's sanitised light feels to the reader as if it is a really big deal indeed, which it is of course, while avoiding the need to show the far less savoury and far less apparently-ennobling aspects of the process. So, the stink, the vomit, the sodden beds, the shakes, the despair, the unmitigated tedium and desperation of the constantly ruptured relationships, the life structured about what to drink and when and when to do it all again; all of these can be put to one side, meaning that alcoholism is the killer which can be represented in a far more pleasant manner than perhaps it should be without losing the audience's sympathy.(*2)
Yet try to dispositionally alter another character with a different serious psychological problem to alcoholism and it' might be very much harder to represent the awfulness of the matter without pushing audiences into places where they simply don't want to go.
*2 - Of course, some of these more unpleasant aspects were covered in Denny O'Neil's run on Iron Man, where he attended to the fact that Stark's first abandonment of the bottle had occurred in just a page and a third. But that's one slightly-more accurate portrayal of the problem in 25 years.
V. If the media's shorthand for alcoholism plays very much into the fact that Iron Man can be represented as a recovering alcoholic without the audience getting too disturbed about the facts of dependency, so too is the familiar narrative structure of the alcoholic's battle against the bottle an advantage to how we feel about Stark. For unlike many other psychological problems, alcoholism can be represented as both an affliction beyond an individuals control, meaning that alcoholics are blameless and worthy of our sympathy, while being a condition that can be overcome by an individuals will, meaning that emerging into recovery is a "heroic" act. And of course alcoholism is indeed both worthy of our sympathy while its rejection is certainly a heroic act. But what's key here is that the structure of the alcoholic's career to redemption shadows that of the heroic journey itself. The standard-model superhero adventure involves the lead character being laid low by forces largely beyond their control before a protracted test of their strength and will results in an audience-pleasing victory. In such a way can a struggle with alcohol be incorporated into the superhero comic book without any great dissonance between the topic and the genre itself. And alcohol then strangely and yet effectively operates in the same fashion as the Mandarin and Titanium Man do, as a great enemy to be overcome as all other great enemies are, a fact that Bob Layton himself throws light on in the commentary added to the DVD of the first "Iron Man" movie;
" ... alcoholism was the bad guy. Instead of Doctor Doom or somebody like that, it was the bottle. That was the villain of the month."
And yet many substantial psychological problems can't be so easily shoehorned into the structure of struggle-to-victory that alcoholism can be after all the endless movies-of-the-week and celebrity biographies. Indeed, a great host of psychological problems arrive as a unbearable burden through no blame to the sufferer at all, and in many if not most cases, victory simply cannot be achieved through will and strength, no matter how the individual tries. The battle against depression, schizophrenia, psychosis, and indeed all of the many serious disorders listed in the DSM-IV-TR, isn't often one that can be "won" and then forgotten about at all. Management is the name of the game, not victory and freedom, which places most mental disabilities at variance with the superhero narrative.But, then, for a substantial number of folks, alcoholism itself is a problem which will and perseverance won't ever conquer. For whatever reasons, the business of recovery is often too difficult for many alcoholics. And though our culture, and its comic books, is often quick to draw an easy line between those who can heroically win and those who unheroically can't, the truth is, as we all know, that the heroic narrative simply distorts how we perceive individuals striving against dependency. Addiction is an infinitely more complex situation than a question of the presence of heroism or not, and so it might be asked whether the whole matter belongs in the superhero comic at all.
But we'll be getting to that.
VI. If "dementia" had been substituted for "alcoholism", none of the advantages we've listed above would have been apparent for the character of Iron Man, and understandably so. For who'd give a superhero a mental disorder, or disorders, which couldn't be believably reversed, which was quite inappropriate to the business of super-heroing, and which would unfairly reflect poorly upon any superhero who attempted to keep battling the bad folks while suffering from it?
Ah, indeed. Who would do that?
And why do they keep doing it?
5. "Somehow, They Affected Me ... Turned Into A Man In Many Ways The Opposite Of Hank Pym..."
I. The first Marvel Universe superhero to be subjected to a serious mental illness was, of course, Henry Pym, who developed, we're told, a "king-sized dose of accident-induced schizophrenia!" in Avengers # 59. (Rarely has the ubiquitous exclamation mark of the Bronze Age been so appropriate. Not just schizophrenia, but "king-sized" schizophrenia!) Of course, the whole process all ended up for the better, and in the next issue too, with Hank being saved from the inconvenience of that king-sized schizophrenia by the two key superhero markers of virtue, namely punching bad people and the love of a good woman. Within 34 pages of rather big and exquisite panels by John Buscema, the status quo was happily restored, with the exception of Pym's married status, for his fiancee Janet van Dyne had taken advantage of his overwhelming "king-sized" problem to trick her deluded intended into wedlock. Indeed, so cold-blooded was this manipulation that the new Mrs Pym admitted to having researched whether a marriage to one personality meant all a body's personalities would be bound in holy matrimony to her.
It was, she acted, they're married!
It's a happy ending!
II. On reflection, one of the strangest aspects of the tale of Henry Pym's complete psychological collapse, and near-immediate mental restoration, is the fact that writer Roy Thomas obviously regarded the human mind as something which could be transformed by comic-book science in the same way as human bodies could be in the MU. And on the surface of things, there's no reason why Pym couldn't have his personality utterly transformed by strange unknown gases. After all, insect bites created Spider-Man, and cosmic rays the wonders of the Fantastic Four, and wasn't Bruce Banner's mind as well as his body transformed by those fiendish Gamma Rays when he became the Hulk?What's the difference between transforming a superhero's body and their mind?
III. The possible explanations in Mr Thomas's script to explain Hank Pym's "schizophrenia" involve three prospective triggers. The first was that Pym had been working himself to a frazzle. (The Wasp observes at the beginning of the tale that he's "reinventing the 25-hour day".) The second possiblity, we later learn, is that Pym was suffering from the strain of repressing his desire to marry his fiancee, but in some way didn't think himself good enough for her. (This led to his creating a violent, callous, rude and egocentric alternate personality while schizophrenic under the name of "Yellowjacket"; what did he think his wife-to-probably-be wanted from him?) And the third, and most outstanding candidate for a causal variable, is that Pym suffered from the inhalation of "various untested gases" while suffering from carelessness apparently caused by his lack of rest.
So, there we have a set of hypotheses for the causes of "king-sized schizophrenia": (a) excessive weariness combined with excessive ambition, (b) emotional insecurity to the point of emotional repression, and (c) the effects of those many and untested gases.
And strangely enough, the one hypothesis that fits with what we know of real-world psychology, which would disqualify the first 2 options, and Marvel-Earth science, which postulates that just about anything can cause just about anything else, is (c), though that's the least-referred-to explanation whenever the reasons for Pym's various mental problems are discussed.
It's as if suffering from the effects of a massive dose of unknown chemicals isn't tragic enough for some comic book writers, as if they want to be able to play around with the consequences of psychological disorders which can't be explained away with a single physical cause.
IV. 29 years later, Jo Casey tried to put a more convincing spin on these events in the second volume of "Earth's Mightiest Heroes". In this version, Pym is diagnosed by one Agent Carver of S.H.I.E.L.D. as being;
"An individual suffering from such a fully-formed schizophrenic episode that he could be on the brink of a complete psychotic breakdown."
It's an example of psycho-babble well-worth respecting, too. For example, it's clever how Mr Casey tells us that Pym is said to be undergoing an "episode", meaning that it's perfectly understandable that he'll soon get better. But in the end, it's a futile attempt to make something ridiculous appear more feasible, because simply discussing in pseudo-scientific terms that business of "king-size" schizophrenia means that the reader notices even more how daft the whole business is in the first place. Better to have ignored it all, perhaps, to chalk it down as unexplainable and picked another period to re-cast, because comic-book psychology only becomes all the less convincing when an attempt to legitimise it in serious terms is made. (*3)
After all, Agent Carver's forcible recommendation to the Avengers that the schizoid Pym in his violent Yellowjacket identity should be permitted to serve on active duty with them is obviously the stupidest advice anyone has ever given regarding schizophrenia. That's because the advice exists not to describe what supposedly is happening to Pym, but to cover up some massive holes in the plot. And so we're faced with the idea that a trained psychiatrist would issue a complex diagnosis and treatment recommendations without any kind of therapeutic conversation at all, with no study of secondary records in the light of this specific case, and with no specialist care, supervision, administering of drugs or, indeed, anything at all being on the table beyond "Let him wear that costume and kick folks. Oh, and don't tell him you know he's mad either."
And here we start to see several of the problems of embedding psychological problems into the characters of superheroes . For ignoring, or even creatively faking, a knowledge of psychological problems creates ridiculous scenarios that inevitably need clearing up later. And even in the short-term, the lobbing around of "schizophrenia" and "psychosis" can actually undermine the reality of the world that those technical terms are supposed to shore up. (*4) Without the knowledge of what these mental disorders actually are, writers can send characters such as Pym pinwheeling across the Marvel Universe, now a hero, now a villain, now brave, now pathetic, but nearly always eating away at the reader's willingness to care or even believe in him. And since very few writers or editors seem to know what could ever be the problem with Pym, or any other person with a psychological disorder, and since his problems were so poorly defined to begin with, everybody can extrapolate whatever they want and add whatever commonsense or comic-book knowledge they like, and so even initially one-dimensional characters become progressively less convincing and less involving as time passes.*3 - Or at least it does if it's not grounded in real-world psychology. Gail Simone's "Secret Six" is an example of how to do this properly, or as "properly" as I can discern.
*4 - Pym's "epsiode" rather reminds me of Thigpen and Cleckley's case-study of a -supposed- sufferer of Multiple Personality Disorder, which I taught for about 700 years, though there's some problems with applying MPD / DID to Henry Pym too. Still, it'd make more sense than schizophrenia. If you're going to psycho-babble, start where there's less work to do, I say.
To be continued in a very short amount of time, where we'll be talking about Henry Pym's disgraces, and Dan Slott's "Mighty Avengers", and the role of trauma in the reader's fondness for Superman, Batman and Spider-Man. There'll be chats about when and when-not mental disorders might be used where superheroes are concerned, and a promise about a future piece on super-villains might be issued. Hal Jordan and madness? Quite probably. Matt Murdock too? Conditionally. I hope that you might consider being here.
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