Ten Great Comic Books! Being Generally Positive As A Balance (Part 1 of 3)

Jennifer left a comment. She wrote "I hope you'll do a series on another work that you find generally positive soon as a balance, you know? For your own mental health". I thought it was a kind and generous thing to say, and read onwards.

And then, a few days later, after wrapping up the pieces on "Kingdom Come", I remembered, for no apparent reason at all, Jennifer's comment. Now, my mental health is fine, as far as I can tell. (The Splendid Wife tells me that I'm no worse than normal, which is something at least.) But Jennifer wasn't thinking, I'm sure, of the psychological extremes so much as the everyday business of being happy. And I realised that I did indeed want to be "generally positive". I've had so much fun and I've learned so much - not least from the comments folks have left - from writing about "Superman: Earth One" and "Kingdom Come", but it has become obvious that Jennifer had a point. There is indeed a "balance" that needs to be re-established. I find myself wanting to say good things for awhile!


Now, I'm not the world's best at sitting down and writing purely positive pieces. I think it's my Scots working class background. Happiness is an indulgence, while critical analysis is all part and parcel of avoiding Godless complacencies.

But while I may be a dour old fundamentalist by inclination, I'm a cheerful pragmatist by training, and there are slight and idle temptations which can always assist me in short-circuiting my gloomily well-intentioned self-control. One of them is chocolate, which unfortunately helps little here. Another is a less-enticing and even less-substantial compulsion, a shamefully egotistical compulsion, for I find it hard to resist imagining what my own answers would be to any list of questions I chance upon. At times this leaves me struggling to respond with single word answers to queries posed to horticulturalists in the Splendid Wife's gardening magazines, but the effort apparently has to be made. And if there ever was a way to outsmart my own dour self where the matter of writing cheerful pieces is concerned, it would be for me to pose a simple supposedly character-revealing question or two that demands, demands, to be answered.

Such as, for example; "Name ten superhero comic books that you feel extremely positive about, and give a single reason why you feel that way about each example."


Oh. Well, I can do that. It's not exactly a celebrity questionnaire, but you just try to stop me, me.

Now should you at any point want to try this imaginary exercise at home, here's the imaginary procedure to go with the imaginary questions;

• You have 6o seconds to write a list of 10 excellent superhero stories.
• They must be stories that you think positively of, but they can be about serious and unhappy matters.
  
• You're not to add or subtract a choice from your list after the 60 seconds is up.
  
• You're not allowed to leave a story out from your list because you believe anyone else might snigger or roll their eyes if they saw what you'd written.
  
• You mustn't add a story because you feel you ought to. This is your list, not a nomination for a superhero story hall of fame.
• You must have at least one good reason for each choice, and it has to be more substantial one than "I think it's great because it's great".
  
• You don't need to explain anything about the comic except the point you're making, otherwise you'll be there forever!
  
• Your mood must be celebratory!
  

How could I resist that then?


1. The Golden Age, book 3; "We Had Prosperity", writer, James Robinson, artist, Paul Smith

"The Golden Age" is a tense book. Re-reading it again, it's astonishing how long it takes before the reader is told exactly what it is that's threatening the post-war America depicted in its pages. The skillfully managed drip-feed of enigmas and partial reveals creates a constantly intensifying sense of anxiety and menace. By the end of book three, many readers are surely bending back page-corners with apprehension. That this doesn't undercut anticipation with frustration is a reflection of how very cleverly the book is structured. Every threatening and darkening twist in the plot brings with it the compensation of seeing another few superheroes gather closer together into what is in effect an uncomprehending but valiant resistance. This provides an emotional sense that something heartwarmingly important is being achieved even as the story itself points the reader in a far less optimistic direction.

And then things keep getting worse.

"The Golden Age" is a tense book.


2. "Dr Strange: The Hunter & The Hunted" (Strange Tales # 131) writer, Stan Lee, artist, Steve Ditko

In "The Hunter & The Hunted", a disguised and clearly anxious Dr Strange is pursued through Hong Kong by both the human and inhuman servants of Baron Mordo. The typical folk of the island are shown to be utterly unaware of the desperate events occurring in their midst, a fact that's the source of much of the tale's fiercely claustrophobic power. What Mr Lee and Mr Ditko depict here is an everyday world that co-exists unknowingly with a fearsomely threatening magical realm. In doing so, they provide us with the fascinating proposition that Stephen Strange's responsibility isn't to keep mystical powers from invading our world so much as to make sure that the likes of you and I never have to notice that they're here already.


The scene in which Strange's astral form rises from his body during a plane flight to fight one of Mordo's spirits above the heads of his oblivious fellow passengers is the most remarkable sequence in a remarkable tale. This Dr Strange has all of the sense of purpose which later incarnations of the character have so often lacked. And as the reader watches the typical women and men of Ditko's Hong Kong walk through intangible furies and magical bolts without so much as a single hair being disturbed, an unsettling question is constantly being prompted; what's going on around us here in our "real-world" that we can't see, and who's fighting for us there, unnoticed and unthanked?

I'm never so convinced that Dr Strange possesses a clearly defined role and an admirable heroic responsibility as I am when I'm re-reading "The Hunter & The Hunted".


3. "Animal Man # 26: "Deus Ex Machina", writer, Grant Morrison, artist Charles Truog

The oddest thing about "Deus Ex Machina" is that it's not about Animal Man at all, despite it being the final and concluding chapter of a very long run on the character by Mr Morrison and Mr Truog. Instead, of course, it's a story concerned with the gods of Animal Man's universe, the writers of superhero comics. In that, it's a still all-too rare example of the superhero comic as an example of the literature of ideas. Why, Morrison asks, do writers who live in an undeniably cruel world so often create brutal and meaningless lives for the characters they're responsible for? Strip away the charm and eccentricities of characters such as Animal Man in the name of realism and maturity, Morrison is arguing, and all you're left with are flat, bleak and purposeless plot-devices fit only to express violence and despair. "Maybe for once we should try being kind." suggests the comic-book version of Morrison in the tale, before he restores Buddy Baker's family and home to their previous mundane glories, suggesting that even the script-writing gods can choose to learn from their mistakes and serve the imaginary communities that rely upon them, even as a superhero might.


That the fictional "Grant Morrison" misses much of the point of his own tale is the closing irony which leaves the story feeling far less smug and self-glorifying than it might otherwise have seemed. Despite the fact that "Deus Ex Machina" is something of a plea for creators to look beyond their prejudices in order to discover the lost virtues of the characters they write, "Grant Morrison" abandons his search for an imaginary childhood companion before "Foxy" can signal that he still exists. There may be some small signs of kindness in the genre, the story suggests, but there's a lot more staring out into the darkness to be done before all the wondrous potential of the superhero can be rediscovered.


Coming soon; numbers 4 to 7, and the review of USM volume II, number II as promised. I'm as always grateful for your visiting, and I wish you a splendid day and a most productive sticking together!

nb: those who enjoy reading such lists, and I do, might care to know that the estimable Brigonos has begun his own list of 10. Until he did, I didn't even KNOW Grant Morrison had written the Zoids. A link to Mr B's blog "Take Comfort In Silence" can be found in the Comic Book Role Of Honour: UK box to the right of this page.

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