The Inverted Island of Oz

The Enchanted Island of Yew is a geographical reversal of Oz. Oz is an endorheic basin bounded by desert, but Yew is an island with central mountains. The central kingdom of Oz has an allegedly good ruler, who leaves the other realms alone for the most part. The Kingdom of Spor, in contrast, is feared among the inhabitants of the Island of Yew, and it is a good year when the locals are robbed only once by King Terribus and his Grey Men. Of the other four kingdoms, the western Kingdom of Auriel has a pleasant fairytale name, but the eastern Kingdom of Dawna and the southern kingdom of Plenta sound like matriarchal realms from a Golden Age Wonder Woman comic. The southern kingdom of Plenta naturally has another wise and beautiful sorceress. Then there is the northern Kingdom of Heg, which seems to be in a war between barons. The kingdom has names such as Baron Neggar of Merd which suggests a much more adult version later watered down for the consumption of children; whether this adult version originated with Baum or was adapted by him is not clear. The northern barons do not control the entire northern kingdom because there are at least two other rivals in the northern kingdom, unless Wul-Takim’s bandits control lands of King Terribus the way Lake Quad is in Emerald City territory rather than Quadling Country. The western kingdom is ruled by a sorcerer, Kwytoffle, while the eastern kingdom is dominated by the Red Rogue of Dawna. There is at least one other Kingdom within the western kingdom, the Kingdom of Twi, surrounded by a magical hedge – it isn’t called magical, but the kingdom seems much bigger on the inside. The only reason their neighbors have not invaded a land in such disarray is the fearsome reputation of the sorcerers of the Enchanted Isle of Yew. The residents of the island make no effort to disabuse their neighbors of this notion.

The portion of the northern kingdom where the book begins is the baronial territory that borders the northern coast. The castle of Baron Merd is set back from the water, while the Forest of Lurla where fairies live is behind the castle. The barony is sufficiently secure that the Baron’s daughter, Sesely, and her two attendants, Berna and Helda, can safely picnic in the forest. The three girls encounter a fairy, who has grown bored with immortality. Rather than spending a period doing good, a period doing mischief, and a period doing evil, this fairy, who avoids giving her fairy name, decides to spend a year as a mortal – with severe qualifications on the “mortal” designation. In this world, fairies can grant the wishes of mortals, but cannot make them fairies, nor can fairies make themselves mortal. The surprising reversal here is the reveal that mortals can wish for fairies to become mortal. Instead of the fairy granting the three girls their wishes, the girls can grant the fairy her wish. The fairy is fully aware of the foolishness of a woman who looks like a girl wandering a bandit-infested island, so she disguises herself as a male knight – a petite one, to be sure, but it is still a safer option. She dubs this persona Prince Marvel.

Prince Marvel’s first adventure takes him toward the center of the island, much like all adventures in Oz that don’t start in the Emerald City lead to it. The first challenge for Prince Marvel is the bandits of Wul-Takim. The bandits are so well known that they label their entrance without fear of reprisal. The child-sized Prince Marvel ignores the warnings and enters the cave, where he meets Nerle, the son of a local lord whom the bandits are holding for ransom.  Nerle, unlike many Baum characters, is not brimming with optimism; he is the sole character who is seeking misfortune and misery to the point that he does not care if he is impaled on the bandits’ swords. Prince Marvel is a hero and cannot allow this, so Nerle agrees to be rescued and accompany Prince Marvel as his squire so long as he can complain. When the bandits show up, Prince Marvel not only vanquishes them but turns them into his personal army. Although bandits are the bad guys in most tales, their moral compass operates more on might than dichotomous morality.

At this point, the name of Nerle’s father must be addressed. Nerle is Nerle, son of Neggar, the richest baron in the land. This wealth explains both the ability to survive the bandits’ depredations and the utility of Nerle as a hostage, even if Nerle himself has doubts about his rescue. Although the name could appear to be a joke in poor taste, especially with the previous Duke of Merd, one pronunciation of the name is close to Nagus, a title of exotic (to American) princes with fabulous wealth, while an alternate pronounciation suggests a connection with ‘negative’ and ‘nag’, the combination of which epitomizes Nerle’s terrible relationship with his dad (who, ironically, is not the one being negative). The name Nerle itself sounds like both a playground insult and a mispronunciation of ‘null’; neither of these associations improve the quality of this father-and-son relationship.

Prince Marvel’s next adventure leads him to the center of the island, the Kingdom of Spor, the domain of King Terribus. Terribus is the most formidable ruler on the island due to his nigh-impenetrable fortress. His appearance is terrible: it combines an actual trunk for a nose and an incredibly bizarre placement of his three (yes, three) eyes. Most three eyed creatures in fiction have a third eye above the conventional pair, or maybe three in a vertical row: King Terribus has three eyes arranged vertically on his forehead, crown, and back of his head. The reaction of “normal” people to his appearance has soured Terribus, so his servants, primarily giants, dwarves, and those known only as “Gray Men”, he sends out on raids, fear him as a monster. Prince Marvel, who has not given up his fairy talents, slips through the impregnable defenses and bests the giants and dwarves, but then must face a dragon. The dragon, as it transpires, has been poorly maintained. When the dragon is (literally) relit, it refuses to fight Prince Marvel allegedly on the grounds of professional courtesy, but also because it is old and hurts. Apparently berating your underlings does not create motivated living cavalry. Prince Marvel restores Terribus to a conventional human appearance on the condition that he cease his wickedness, which he does.

Prince Marvel and his retinue of Sesely, Wul-Takim and his bandits, and the Chronic Whinger of Yew head west to the Kingdom of Auriel, where a wicked wizard dwells. The wizard, Kwytoffle, turns any dissidents into insects. Nobody has seen this occur, but all of them have heard about it from someone else. This information arouses the suspicions of Prince Marvel. When Prince Marvel confronts Kwytoffle, the wizard has an extremely limited spell book (none of which are magic missile) and no ability whatsoever to transform people. This fraudulence is like that of the more famous Wizard, but Kwytoffle is more pathetic and does not come with his own balloon.

Within the Land of Auriel there is a magical exclave containing the Kingdom of Twi. Access to the kingdom is via a hedge borrowed from Sleeping Beauty. Between the raids of King Terribus, the bandits of Wul-Takim, and the perceived wizardry of Kwartoffle, the kingdom’s decision to hide is quite sensible. Prince Marvel and select members of his company penetrate the hedge to discover the terrifying secrets of Twi – it is not terrible puns; that’s just basic Baum.

The kingdom of Twi, which seems larger on the inside, is bathed in Twilight and operates on different rules than the lands outside the hedge. It is a topsy-turvy land, but the most important aspect of the kingdom is the Twinese government. Everything is doubled and each doublet always agrees. The double executive of Twi consists of the elderly male twins the Ki of Twi and the younger male twins the Ki Ki of Twi. On the rare occasion that the Ki of Twi and the Ki Ki of Twi disagree, the High Ki of Twi, a pair of young female twins adjudicate. This is not a traditional monarchy; the people, all of whom are also twins, chose a new Ki, Ki Ki, or Hi Ki from the general population. The Mikado-esque balance is overthrown when the latest dispute between Ki and Ki Ki results in the attempted kidnapping of the High Ki; this is only partially successful because the Ki gain the support of only half of the High Ki. This physical separation of the High Ki from themselves allows each to start developing individuality; both possess the same potential but are interested in different aspects of that potential. The Twinese government, like many governments in fiction, cannot sustain any minimal damage; in this case, the High Ki resigns and each individual chooses a different path in the wider realms of the Enchanted Island.

Prince Marvel and his retinue return to the northern Kingdom of Heg, where more disorder on the island has led to the death of Neggar as well as the father of Sesely’s companions. One half of the former High Ki becomes the Bandit Queen, but most of the protagonists travel to the eastern kingdom, the Kingdom of Dawna. There the principal reaver is the Red Rogue of Dawna, so named for his russet beard, but also illustrating that red does not always have a positive association in Baumian color theory. The Red Rogue, an onomastic predecessor of Roquat the Red, has an intimidating castle, but his main internal defense is not a prosaic tight stairwell, but rather mirrors which will steal your visible form and leave you invisible. This defense works well on all but the OP fairy Prince. Prince Marvel’s appearance is already an illusion, so the mirror cannot make him invisible. This adventure of the party capture and a sole protagonist rescuing them is the plot of the second half of Ozma of Oz, but it also indicates that Marvel’s personal integration is too strong. The Red Rogue is defeated by one of his own mirrors and remains there a long time.

Since the quest would not be complete without visiting all quadrants of Yew, the company travels south to the Kingdom of Plenta. This is the southern kingdom in a magical land in a Baum book, so naturally it is ruled by a wise, kind, and generous ruby-themed sorceress. This land is where the final party takes place. As a wise hobbit once remarked, a long time can pass without adventure in times of peace and do not make for exciting tales. Prince Marvel returns to the wood where she first descended, changes her horse back into a stag, himself back into a fairy, and departs. Nerle and Sesely get married; Sesely’s two friends come to live with them. The Red Rogue eventually escapes his mirror prison, only to find he has been forgotten in the manner of Curdy and Irene. He tries to scrape together a “gang,” but the residents of Yew who possess negotiable morals have less murderous ways to indulge their appetites. The Island of Yew has become civilized, less magical, less chaotic.

In each stage of Prince Marvel’s adventure, the land of Yew becomes progressively more integrated. The bandits retain their identity as powerful warriors but are still proud of the name bandit. The appearance of Terribus changes to eliminate his sensitivity, but he does not have to surrender his kingdom. Kwytoffle’s illusions are shattered, but the people of Auriel learn to trust their own logical faculties. The Kingdom of Twi is brought out of its isolationism. The defeat of the Red Rogue allows the people of Dawna to no longer be invisible in decision making. The entire lsland becomes developed, civilized to the extent that the Red Rogue no longer fits in the society.

The applicability of Prince Marvel to transgenderism is easy to see, although it is not perfect. Prince Marvel is never uncomfortable in their identity as a latter-day Britomart, nor are they truly human. Even in their temporarily mortal form, they retain fairy powers which make the quest perhaps a little too easy. The primary applicability is to Baum’s feminism, in which the authoritative feminine protagonist displays qualities more commonly associated with boys in order to restore order. The one realm of Yew in which no dramatic adventure occurs is the one ruled by Baum’s archetypical Ruby Sorceress, be it Glinda, Maetta, or any other.

The Enchanted Island of Yew is also a prototype for the sequel to the Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the Marvelous Land of Oz. Tip is the inverse of Prince Marvel in his transformation. He comes from the north to the center. He is an agent of change and picks up fantastic allies in the west. He faces a challenge from the west. Each adventure has a conclusion. Although the protagonist of the Enchanted Island of Yew does not remain on the isle, it is probably no coincidence that the next Oz book, featuring gender politics as well as other inversions, was called the Marvelous Land of Oz.

The Forever People (Jack Kirby)

 

The Forever People is the last part of Jack Kirby’s quadrivium of his original Fourth World. The Forever People, whose appellation is never adequately explained, are the classic team of four guys and a girl. Mark Moonrider is the leader, and most normal, save for his “megaton touch”; Serifan is cowboy-themed, armed with “cosmic cartridges”; Big Bear is the driver and predictably the strong one; Vykin the Black is the token black-skinned character who does nothing that would scream “black (human)”; and Beautiful Dreamer is the chick with long-range rather than melee powers. When the Forever People use the Mother Box, they can summon the Infinity Man in their place, much like Rick Jones could switch places with the Kree Captain Marvel. At this point, Infinity Man has no ties to any Fourth World characters other than the Forever People.

The Forever People are a reminder that even among the New Gods of New Genesis there are degrees of power, and that not all of them are royalty like Orion and Mister Miracle or elite warriors like Big Barda. The defiance of these three is lessened without the portrayal of others who find resistance more intimidating. The Forever People’s adventures illustrate the external manifestation of human inner conflicts such as the darkness exploited by Glorious Godfrey (for Amazing Grace is not a Kirby creation) or the illusion of happiness promoted by Desaad’s Happyland. A team of heroes against a more potent evil is where Kirby’s genius sometimes shines. In the grand scheme of the Fourth World, the Forever People are the balance to the Female Furies.

The Forever People lack the driving character narrative which both Orion and Scott Free possess. Although Beautiful Dreamer is believed to possess a portion of the Anti-Life Equation, Sunny Sumo eventually usurps that role. Sunny Sumo is an example of a character whose external manifestation of the human spirit is diminished by Kirby’s onomastic habits wandering into accidental racism. Heroes and superheroes are not subtle in their virtues or their physical traits, but this explicitness can clash with the real world of the audience (note the current refusal of Sima Liu to autograph Seventies issues of his Marvel character). Even if this issue is set aside, the Forever People suffer from the lack of characterization which Orion and Mister Miracle (and certainly Big Barda) do not; although here it must be conceded that the human companions of Orion are even more one-dimensional than the New Gods, who are personifications of ideas important to the Fourth World mythos. The reader has a sense of who Big Bear and Serifan are, but not so much Beautiful Dreamer, Vykin the Black, and Moonrider. It is not surprising that Orion and Mister Miracle became important in the post-Crisis universe, while the Forever People did not.

The Forever People, whatever their flaws might be, do have an advantage over their nobler fellow heroes: they receive a definite ending within the Jack Kirby run; Its later overwriting is not the fault of the King. This conclusion, a concept denied many times to Kirby’s world-building endeavors, is a poor consolation prize for the lack of a Kirby Ragnarok or epic overthrow of the father by the son. Fragmentation and incompletion are features of the epic tradition, as is work thwarted by the powers that be, so in one light at least, Kirby stands proud among those creators more honored among the academic world.

Notes on an Easter Sunday

 Christ is risen! My recent immersion into meters other than epic has triggered a certain sensitivity, so the portion of the introit that caught my eye was the meter. On the surface, it was four lines of iambic trimeter, hardly unusual for a hymn in English. The ictus of the measure, however, corresponded to the first long rather than the short first syllable. This inverted the iambs (short-long) into trochees (long-short), creating three lines, of which the first was acephalous - which, contrary to intuition, here indicates an extra syllable at the beginning of the line. This short syllable was “stolen” from the final iamb. The lines, therefore, viewed from this perspective, were an acephalous trochaic trimeter, followed by three lines of trochaic trimeter, and then a cretic (long-short-long). This made it a lyric meter in stress and measure, which is suitable for a hymn, but also a reminder of how much of what we use today derives from a tradition at least twenty-six centuries old.

The Sea of Stars, Volume One (Jason Aaron)

 The Sea of Stars, by Jason Aaron and Dennis Hallum is a graphic novel based on the metaphor of space as a hostile and alien sea. It is a story of father and son, since the vastness and strangeness of the cosmos must be balanced by more familiar intimacy. Space whales are always welcome fauna. Some of the imagery could be considered problematic and appropriative, but it is difficult to gauge an appropriate response without reading subsequent volumes: sometimes the noxious elements must be established before the narrative can refute them. The plot appears to be a mix of the return of Quetzalcoatl with the colonization and Christianization of Mexico. The small boy beaming with light is definitely a Chist child figure, even if one in the mold of an apocalyptic Gospel, the kind you don't bring home to Mama Church. The space shaman raised my eyebrows, as well as an eldritch space squid, which presumably will play the part of the devil. There is a strong father-son dynamic which may redeem the problematic aspects in the eyes of some people, In the eyes of others, however, having a literally white savior may be unforgivable.

Edit: I did read Volume Two, but I did not feel the content merited a review here.

There Are No Windows And I Must Scream

             A book which has haunted to me to this day is The World Inside, by Robert Silverberg. Written in the heyday of awareness of overpopulation and the illusory promise of urban high rises, it combines the two in a nightmarish future. In the future, everyone lives in Urbmons, gargantuan megabuildings that stretch from city to city of our time. The name Urbmon derives from “Urban Monad,’ indicating the intention of unity or conformity, but the second syllable is far too close to “monster” to be a coincidence. Within the Urbmons humanity breeds without constraint; birth control and chastity are sins. The fecund are valorized and those who fail to reproduce sufficiently are suspected of shirking their duty. Each Urbmon is encouraged to out-reproduce other Urbmons. None of this is due to a lack of population anywhere; the outsider in the story comes from Venus, where new Urbmons are being established. The origin of this book in the seventies is apparent through its addition of “night crawling” to the other dystopic elements. 

           Our protagonist is Siegmund Kluver, a character with a not-at-all conspicuous name and an age that would make Maplethorpe pull out his pencil. Siegmund’s prowess, at least that which gets him noticed, is distinctly heterosexual. The management of the Urbmon promote Siegmund, so he and his wife are going on up to a much better apartment in the sky. When he gets there, he is a hit with the ladies, especially the wife of Jason Quevedo, who has fallen short of her pupping potential. Jason is likely to be transferred to a newer Urbmon due to insufficient offspring; worse yet, his job is historian, this exposes him to how mad the world truly is. The elite of the Urbmon have no plan beyond maintaining the Urbmon out of self-interest; there is no coherent political ideology beyond accelerated reproduction. Nobody in the Urbmon starves, but not all prosper; intercourse (both literal and verbal) is limited between the forty-level “cities” of the Urbmon. This nightmare is the one in which you are trapped in a technically functioning society; the nightmare after is encapsulated in J G Ballard’s High-Rise.

The Tempest (Alan Moore)

 

Among the practitioners of constructed languages, there is a concept of “kitchen-sinking,” in which too many details are added to a project that is otherwise complicated but carefully balanced. This tendency is a stereotypical feature of novitiates, but (much like the blissful second childhood under the western waves of Kauai) it can manifest at the other end of life. The novice has not yet learned how to balance the elements; the elder has removed the restraints due to the new restraint of encroaching time.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen series is predicated on continuity and reference, but The Tempest, the last entry in the series, suffers from a surfeit of those tragic flaws; the less said about Miss Upton’s creation and Moore’s “improvement” of him, the better. The anger displayed throughout this volume is nothing new for Moore, whose bitterness over Marvelman knows no bounds. The story involves multiple time periods, although a minimum of time travel. The League in this case is Mina, Orlando (currently a woman), and Emma Knight, fresh from saving the world from the 2010 apocalypse, while the new characters are various heroes from British comics, however minimal their original appearances were, as well as an actual advertising mascot. The primary antagonist is MI6, run by “Jimmy” and his clones. The passage of time has led to many of the league’s allies who do not have the advantage of immortality being replaced by their descendants. The violence reaches an atomic crescendo, which is surprisingly and slowly reversed by the true villain, who unleashes a worse catastrophe upon the mortal plane. There is a happy ending for some protagonists, but the Tempest suffers all at once from the self-loathing and negation of wonder of Albion, the apocalypticism of Promethea, and the misogynist violence of From Hell. The lesbian eroticism of Lost Girls and the cosmic contemplation of Swamp Thing do not contribute sufficiently to make up the loss. A complicated tale cannot accommodate every story. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen series would have been better served if it had ended with the death of the pop culture Anti-Christ and the cosmic nanny, if not the retreat to the Blazing World in the second volume. The Tempest is a final volume which weakens the effect of the series.

Now For An Epenthetic Remark ...

 As much as I love terminology, there are times when I feel that perhaps, just perhaps, scholars have gone overboard with splitting hairs (that metaphor was a malaphor with intent). Such is the case of the terminology around epenthesis. When two consonants or vowels love each other very much, but it would not be appropriate for them to conjugate, they must make room for the holy spirit, and this process is called epenthesis. Epenthesis applies to the insertion of the consonant or vowel between the sounds, but there is the possibility of being more specific, or perhaps pedantic. If it is a vowel, it is anaptyxis (Gesundheit!); if it is a consonant, it is excrescence (gross!). 

If we set aside for now the minor sin of mixing Latin and Greek terminology, an examination of the etymology of each term reveals different conceptions of the process. Epenthesis is the insertion (note the -en- of epenthesis) of a sound, and therefore a letter (in this context). Anaptyxis is the opening of a space for that sound. Excrescence is the growth of a sound between the adjacent sounds. Thus the process as viewed from anaptyxis and epenthesis is a process of forcible opening and insertion, but process as seen from excrescence is a natural growth in a space which must be occupied. All three terms are useful, but in a practical context of finishing one's assigned reading for the week, epenthesis suffices.

Red One (Xavier Dorison and Terry Dodson)

 Red One, by Xavier Dorison and Terry Dodson, is a series of large size European graphic novels which answers an important question: what if there were a real Wonder Woman and she was a Communist creation? Unlike many of my fellow citizens, when I say Communist, I mean Communist. 

In the Seventies, the Soviets looked on America and saw naught but corruption. They did notice, however, that Americans loved their action heroes and their superheroe. They therefore created a perfect woman, a combination of Diana Prince, the Six Million Dollar Man, and Captain America (but not the Seventies television Captain America). They called her Red One. If they could persuade Americans to love Red One (nee Vera Yelnikov), then perhaps they could persuade Americans to love life, industrial progress, and the Soviet Way. As usual with such projects,  Yelnikov was considerably more idealistic than her handlers/ Her American handler was a diminutive horny Russian plant reminiscent of Doctor Sivana crossed with the more cynical and potentially abusive interpretation of Billy Batson's trip across America with Mentor. Red One's headquarters are naturally the nadir of American depravity, the place where dreams are made and fade, Hollywood. Her signature weapon was a device which can only be described as a cyber-sickle, farcical to Red One. Her handler, however, assured her that it was the ideal prop for the right propaganda.

Red One's primary opponent was a Puritan-themed serial killer called the Carpenter (because subtlety was lost long one). The Carpenter represented the fundamentalist basis of a portion of American society. 

The comparison of Red One to Wonder Woman is particularly strong in her initial misadventures in a New World, although I suspect theat the authors are exaggerating how sexually conservative Hollywood was behind the scenes - too much has been revealed since that decade.

If you like Yelena Belova in the MCU, this might be a book for you.

Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz

             The journey in Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz is a reversal of the katabasis of the adventure of Princess Truella in the Ninth Surprise of The Magical Monarch of Mo, which now focuses on the redemption of the Wizard and mixes in elements of Duchess Breadenbutta’s adventures in Turvyland in the Tenth Surprise. But the Wizard still needs the aid of Princess Dorothy to escape (Ozma is a Princess, but she is primarily a Sorceress in this book).

            In the Ninth Surprise, the Wicked Wizard lives deep underground and can only depart via the summit of a mountain. He steals Princess Truella’s big toe using transformation magic. Princess Truella must seek the help of the sorceress Maetta and use her magic items to descend into the Wizard’s domain. The challenges Truella faces in her descent are similar to the challenges the Wizard and his party face while trying to travel to the surface.

            In Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz, the Wizard is the character who undergoes character development, what is called these days a “redemption arc”.  In the Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the Wizard presents himself as a fraud who was merely taking advantage of a chaotic situation, but in the Marvelous Land of Oz, the Wizard conspired to hide the Rightful Heir after overthrowing Pastoria. This makes him a Wicked Wizard, like the Wicked Wizard of the mountains east of Mo. His redemption arc, therefore, fittingly starts deep underground and ascends – but this time the Princess is his ally and the Wizard is the principal. Since Dorothy and the Wizard have been to Oz, some other human must be the newcomer. This is Zeb’s role. This time around, each human receives an animal companion – Eureka for Dorothy, the Nine Tiny Piglets for the Wizard, and Jim for Zeb. Eureka may be an animal version of Princess Pattycake made sufficiently cute to be tolerable; she also serves as a contrast to the invisible people of the Valley of Voe (yet another valley, with one sound away from Mo). Since Dorothy and the Wizard are eager to get to Oz, Zeb and Jim must be ambivalent about Oz. And the end of Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz makes it clear that boys’ adventure stereotypes don’t belong in Oz if they can’t accept female leadership. This may also be a metajoke about Baum’s extant boys’ adventure series.