Deogratias: A Tale of Rwanda (TRIGGER/CONTENT WARNING: Everything Re: Racial Genocide)

Deogratias: A Tale of Rwanda, by Jean-Philippe Stassen, is a graphic novel that deals with the genocide of my youth. Not one which I personally experienced, but one which I read about the newspapers and discussed in the library/sitting room of my private high school. I do not, however, believe that my security relieves of a duty to understand it. Sadly, there are so many wars and rumors of war that even the most conscientious cannot attend to them all; and if one could, there would be others who would find fault in attention here rather than there, where their passions were consumed.

Deogratias is set, as its subtitle indicates, in Rwanda in the nineties. The principal character, Deogratias, is a Hutu orphan in the care of French missionaries. His life experience, as well as his schooling, is warping him into a creature of hate, visually rendered as  a quasi-bestial form, a street dog. He is mistreated by the Tutsi for being a Hutu and by the Hutu for livng among the Tutsi. This establishes Deogratias as a tragic character, a view confirmed by the scenes after the genocide and return of his former protector. Already in his adolescence, he is a drunk. 

Deogratias loves, or believes he is in love with, Apollinaria, the daughter of a Tutsi sex worker Venetia and Brother Philip, one of the missionaries; Apollinaria's other sister, Benina, does not know her father due to her mother's line of work. Deogratias' impulse control has been weakened by alcoholism and abuse, so his understanding of consent is minimal. None of the three youths, whose options as an urchin, a mulatto, and a whore's daughter were already limited, have a chance; the poison of racial rhetoric has already sparked one war in Venetia's generation. The path to exile is blocked by the indifference and self-preservation of the alleged protector.

Before the genocide begins, Deogratias' unreciprocated lust for Apollinaria is sated, at least partly, by Benina's curiosity. Deogratias' interest in Apollinaria is attributed, admittedly by an unreliable character, to have a racial component, since this character calls mixed race women "the refined stuff" (p. 71), Apollinaria, as half-white and virginal, has a purity to which Deogratias cannot attain.

All the suffering and addiction of Deogratias make him an easy target for military recruitment. The war shatters what little is left of Deogratias' psyche, leaving him nothing but an agent of destruction and pain. Death is what he does, both in the war and after.

Deogratias is a grim read. If you are going to read it, I suggest you plan to journal or discuss or both. Sitting in silent contemplation may be useful, but eventually one must express the results thereof.

Andre Norton: The Gate of the Cat

Andre Norton's The Gate of the Cat is subtitled "Return to Witch World." It also serves as an entry point for new readers, such as yours truly, who picked it up off a hotel lobby shelf alongside a cruelly deceptive The Mote in God's Eye which lacked the first 162 pages (not even a chapter break!). The pace is fast, and the initial impression is that of an apocalyptic landscape akin to Return to Oz and many other iterations and adaptations of the Oz franchise. As a new reader, it is clear that the world is worse off than before, but also unknown how apocalyptic the world was prior to the witches reshaping the world. Our heroine, Kelsie MacBlair, a hunter with principles, arrives in Witch World via the standard standing stones method. Although some might find the brief inability to communicate fast tracked by telepathy cliched, the acknowledgement that the inhabitants of the world of adventure are not speaking English is welcome, It may be too much to ask for more than one language. The narrative has a quick pace and too many species to introduce, so sometimes it feels more like an "World of Witch World" encyclopedia in narrative form. Even there, a bit more exposition of the names of species and places would have helped. The conceit of Witch World is "lost knowledge of the Old Ones," so perhaps some of these lack their true names, but the books established to exist in this world must call them something! The prose is plain and economical, urging the reader on rather than encouraging lingering. The Gate of Cat is clearly the beginning of a new cycle of adventure, since it introduces a new outside protagonist while also providing a fully resolved plot in case it is the only book of the cycle, but it would be better, if this were one's first exposure to Witch World and if one liked it, to start at the beginning.

Trojan, Trojan, Trojan-cats Ho!: Potential Classical References in Cheetara #1

 Cheetara #1 is the initial issue in a prequel series to the main and heretofore only series in the reimagined Thundercats universe, one of many childhood franchises adapted, updated, and streamlined for a modern audience. The writer is Soo Lee; the artist Domenico Carbone; the letterer is Jeff Eckleberry.

Thundercats was not a childhood franchise with which I was obsessed, although of course I was aware of it, so this reimagining does not break my almost non-existent sense of canon, nor do I cry how any change has ruined my childhood. Let us ignore the Johnny Quest promotional stinger interpolated herein!

This prequel takes place on the alien planet Thundera before its destruction. The most obvious comparison would be Superman's home planet of Krypton, especially if you choose not to believe that Lion-O's original name Lionel was in reference to a train rather than the Big Blue Boy Scout. The presentation of Thundera does remind me a Silver Age Krypton or a more aggressively furry Space Wakanda. This is a bright and wonderful world, full of promise, at least from the perspective of our protagonist Cheetara. 

Since Krypton has not been portrayed in this manner since the icy planet of the Christopher Reeve movie (the best Superman movie) usurped the utopian vision of the World of Krypton backups with their primary colors and many headbands, a more apt comparison is Troy before its fall. Thundera is prosperous and powerful due to its control of the endemic mineral power source Thundrainium. Troy is prosperous and powerful due to its control of access to the trade routes into the Black Sea; the beginning of the Iliad involves Agamemnon, king of men, who is besieging Troy, offending the priest of Apollo, "Goldman," father of "Goldie," from "Goldtown." The different Great Thunderans, Thundera's aristocrats (or Aristocats?) are based on different feline species. The original motivation for this was visual distinctiveness, a key quality in animation but also in epic, since all important Trojans and Greeks receive epithets which may not be applicable in the immediate circumstances, but nonetheless provide personal characteristics with which to imagine them. Cheetara, as one of these nobles, is an biased observer; in the Iliad, Odyssey, and Aeneid, the perspectives of the Greeks and the Trojans differ markedly. 

Both Thundera and Troy are treated not just as places, but as characters, and as characters, both are positioned as tragic heroes. According to Aristotle, a tragic hero must be at the height of their power, yet the conditions for the fall have already been set. This necessity is best illustrated in Oedipus Tyrannus, where the same qualities that made Oedipus a great king guaranteed his downfall. The causes of Thundera's future reckoning are not presented in Cheetara #1, but there is only one issue and Cheetara has a enormous privilege as a noble. Troy, on the other hand, despite being blessed by the gods, had broken its agreement with the divine builders of its current walls, as well as the laws of hospitality. Troy was the head of a Bronze Age empire, with subordinate princes such as Aeneas, Briseis' father Briseus, and Cassandra's suitor Coroebus. The Thunderan ruler is blind from the last war (details as yet unrevealed) and therefore unfit to rule, so he has selected an elite squadron of Great Thunderans to raise his only son as ruler of Thundera. Priam, king of Troy, has no such externally inflicted infirmity, but he is very old and he was the only surviving son of the last Trojan War. Perhaps one could connect king Claudius of Thundera's disability with Anchises, father of Aeneas, rather than Priam, due to the savior complex surrounding the child prince Lion-O. Priam has a squad of sons, royal cousins, and client kings on which he can rely. 

Cheetara is framed as a warrior, a priestess, and a mother figure. The gender equity of the franchise and perhaps felines in general allow Cheetara to fight alongside the male Thunderans, a true Andromache. She accompanies the Regent Jaga to the temple of the ancestors. While it is true that the temple has an aesthetic between that of the Jedi and that of Black Panther, the facelessness of the ancestors provides a point of comparison. Many of the oldest idols in the Classical and pre-Classical times were not statues as we conceive them, with carefully defined faces, but rather sacred stones to which divinity and sometimes facial features were attributed. One can still visit the Aphrodite of Paphos, a stone where the characteristics of the goddess would suggest greater detail. The Thunderan Sword of Omens, which guarantees the safety of Thundera as long as it remains in the temple, is not just a Chekhov's gun, but also an easy analogue to the Palladium, a lumpy sacred statue which Odysseus had to remove from the Temple of Athena in the citadel of Troy before Troy could fall.

Cheetara's preference is holy orders, but martial duty takes precedence. Cheetara's physical gift of suitably themed speed, "swift-footed Cheetara," overshadows her psychic gift of precognition. This precognition, which in the service of the story involves the ineluctable doom, aligns her more with Cassandra than Achilles. Cassandra was cursed to speak the truth which none would believe. This conflict is a way to build tension when the outcome is already known - as in a tragedy. Cheetara is also the replacement mother for the young prince Lion-O, whose own mother is no longer around, although once again there are no details. Since Priam's wife Hecuba and Hector's wife Andromache are prominent in the Iliad, a more apt comparison is Anchises, who begot his son Aeneas on Aphrodite, a conspicuously absent mother. Lion-O may be special, but it remains to be seen if his bloodline is what passes for divine in the Thunderan cosmos. If Cheetara's maternal role aligns her with Andromache, then Lion-O is Astyanax, the doomed son of Hector, presumptive heir of Troy. Andromache's name means "she who fights like a man," while Astyanax means "lord of the city," both of which are applicable to the Thunderans.

Cheetara's story also involves romance. Tygra, a male Thundercat not to be confused with Marvel's Avenger, the engineer and builder of the core characters, is smitten with her. His obsession with ships is not only a narrative necessity, but also provides a link with Troy and the infamous thousand ships. The reality of noble families, however, demands arranged marriages, and Tygra and Cheetara is not one such. In this aspect also, there is a comparison between Cheetara and Cassandra. Cheetara is reluctant to accept her arranged match, else there would be no story. Cassandra also had a suitor, Coroebus, a prince of the outlying territories. His tale appears in the second book of Aeneid, when Aeneas is reluctantly recounting the fall of Troy to an insistent Dido at the Carthaginian court. Coroebus visited the city and was enchanted by Cassandra. Her brothers discouraged Coroebus, but Priam, king of Troy, could not pass up an opportunity for extra military assistance and allowed it. On the final night of Troy, Coroebus joined Aeneas' suicide squad and perished as Cassandra was carried off to be Agamemnon's booty. Tygra and Cheetara survive the fall of Thundera, so the parallel is not exact, but the number of similarity between Cheetara and Cassandra, as well as other women of Troy, is suggestive, Cheetara, as the girl Thundercat, must encompass far more roles than the more abundant male characters.

Although it is not possible to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Troy has provided an inspiration for the first look at prelapsarian Thundera, the multiple parallels condensed into a smaller cast and narrative structure suggest that it is worthwhile to use such an approach. The land, the king, the heir, and the royal retinue show points of similarity, but they also reveal potential differences. The interest in both lies in the path to the inevitable.

Girl Power on Apokolips: Ngozi Ukazu's "Barda"

 The YA graphic novel Barda by Ngozi Ukazu is a solid introduction to Jack Kirby's New Gods mythos via female-centered first romance, albeit one suitably distorted for a protagonist raised on a planet suitably named Apokalips. The graphic novel, first locally promoted on Free Comic Book Day, aroused some skepticism on how such heavy matters could be adapted for a younger audience in a world of sensitivity readers. One would hope that the name of the planet, Apokolips, would be a sufficient clue to the unpleasantness to come!

The first line of the graphic novel honors the epic tradition of immediately establishing the topic of the tale; at the end, both the first and the last sentence are true, Each Female Fury, the elite force of Apokolips under Granny Goodness, herself under her lord and master Darkseid, illustrates a different aspect of the continual abuse Apokalips offers. Mad Harriet's experience in the X-Pit has broken her mind entirely; she laughs loudly and inappropriately. Stompa, the "big guy" of the group, is driven by anger and sorrow fed into anger from the loss of a sibling who did not survive the X-pit. Bernadeth, the sister of Darkseid's lieutenant Desaad, has channeled her love of learning into the service of her tyrant; she can learn new things, but only inside a narrow field. Even here, much of her love of learning must have been extinguished, since Stompa is functionally illiterate and the rest of the Furies do not read the mission papers. Lashina is not from an Apokalips, but rather from a world conquered by Darkseid; this is colonialist trauma, reflected in Lashina's non-white skin, which contrasts with Kirby's original model. Auralie, the acrobat, indulges her kinetic freedom by secretly dancing.

Barda, although the most emotionally stable of thegroup, is not free from trauma. Her upbringing on Apokalips in the orphanage of Granny Goodness, whose own traumas are not the focus of this work, has warped her understanding of the world.

This graphic novel is a tale of trauma and war, and therefore at least one of the band must die; in a world called Apokalips, it will not be a pleasant death. The doomed member perishes here in a more effective way than in her original post-mortem appearance.

Barda, the protagonist - almost entirely avoiding the epithet "Big," although there are plenty of panels contrasting her size with the diminutive Granny Goodness - undergoes substantial emotional growth as the plot continues. Since the ending point was preestablished, the starting point is different from the Kirby run; or maybe not, since Barda's point of view was not centered there and she first appeared on Earth in her beau's book. Barda is the New Gods graphic novel equivalent of the feminist updates of Classical Mythology such as Circe or Stoned, a well0written companion to the male-focused original presentation.

Wonder Woman Historia

 In anticipation of the upcoming Amazon series, I read the three volumes of Wonder Woman Historia, written by Kelly Sue DeConnick and drawn by Nicola Scott - a suitably all-woman team for Wonder Woman. The art is one notch below that of an Orthodox church. An Orthodox church is designed to blind you with splendor while you listen to the mass, whereas it is critical that one be able to read a comic. The art carries the story as much as possible, especially in the cosmic sections. This is a reversal of the epic tradition, in which evocative words, whether spoken or written, provide a text for the listener's interior visuals. The majesty and inhumanity of the gods is manifest. Scott strikes a nice balance between the complete anthropomorphism of many depictions of the Olympians and the deliberately inhuman depictions of the New 52 Olympians. 

There are a plethora of characters in Wonder Woman Historia; not just the goddesses, but also their queens among the Amazons and several followers of those queens. Even when dealing with Olympians, who some readers wiil already be familiar with, each story emphasizes particular characteristics of those gods. Both the goddesses and the queens are portrayed as slates in a vertical structure. The six queens are more akin to gods in their mortality and their creation. It is not until the introduction of Hippolyta that we get a truly mortal queen. This echoes the ages of Man in standard Greek theogony. Once all the players are available, DeConnick deftly balances a need in a prequel for Amazons to be both amazingly fierce and ultimately defeated.

There are more than enough characters for an adaptation. Most of them have distinct enough personalities that new dialogue not present in the graphic novel can be easily scripted. The splendor of the page, however, may not wholly transfer to a different medium. It is certainly worth a try.

Child Star

 The graphic novel Child Star by Brian "Box" Brown is a synthesis of traumatic tragedy of the life of a child star, especially from the '80s onwards. The art is in black and white and red only, a simplified palette to reflect the simplified view of a real human being. The focus character is a white version of Gary Coleman (or male version of Punky Brewster) called Owen Eugene. Every trauma experienced by a child star or former child star occurs, much like a media-focused version of The Handmaid's Tale. The story is largely told through posthumous interviews with his parents, his coworkers, and other barely disguised celebrities. It is a sobering work indeed, yet one worth reading.

Flamer

 This is my review of Flamer, a graphic novel by Eagle Scout Mike Curato about being a closeted gay Scout at summer camp in the '90s. What qualifies me to assess this book? I was there as a little nerdy kid. The non-spoiler part of the review - it is an accurate portrayal of one kid's experience. I recommend this book to modern middle schoolers and lowly high school freshmen.

Now for the spoiler review. Our protagonist is Aiden, a pudgy rising freshman at Scout camp whose hormones are awakening. He loves the X-Men, but especially Jean Grey, the sole girl of the original lineup who evolves from the Girl to the cosmically powerful and iconically flaming Phoenix.  Aiden's patrol is the Flaming Arrows. This is, or at least was, a fairly common name for a Scout patrol. The name matches the flame theme and the reference to the slur of the title, but that nobody in Aiden's patrol chose the name - they are, in fact, quite unhappy about it - is a telling detail. Some Troops have ever-changing patrol names; but some long-established Troops have a stock of patrol names which are recycled. The patrol name Flaming Arrows would have lacked the potentially provocative connotation of Aiden's generation's slang and serves as a callback to the heavier influence of Native American customs in the Scouting tradition.

An important detail to note is that Aiden is enjoying Scout camp. Many accounts of summer camp for graphic novels and  YA books present camp as a universally awful experience except for the supportive best friend. Aiden participates in all the expected activities of that era, both the Scouting ones and the ones which are more questionable but unsurprising among boys of that age. Aidan is good at some of them and not at others, and he enjoys the camaraderie.

This positive background, however, is just that, and the conflict of the story cannot lack challenges. Just as if this were set at CYO camp, there would be a heterosexual crush, here, in the all-male environment, there is a homosexual one. Teenage hormones are indeed merciless! Aiden develops a crush on his fellow patrol member, who handles it as poorly as one would expect in that time and place - but he does not take the opportunity to get Aiden expelled from Scouts. None of the Flaming Arrows do - and they ultimately back their fellow patrol member in his verse of Boom-Chick-A-Boom. The same cannot be said of Aiden's mentor and archery instructor, who suffers the fate of so many gay counselors closeted at camp - he is expelled after someone read his letters home.

Here is why I use the phrase "closeted at camp." At the time when this book is set, the Mormon church (their preferred name at the time) and other conservative organizations held an outsized influence on the BSA. There was also more lingering military influence than at present. The military of that time had a policy known as "don't ask, don't tell." This meant that  the authorities would only remove a member from service if they outed themselves, intentionally or accidentally. Thus there were counselors at Scout camp whom many knew were gay but said nothing. Why betray the best connselor you have? I don't know what the policy at the author's camp was, but reading somebody else's mail seems like a violation of privacy.

Flamer is one man's portrayal of this time and place but I would urge any readers to take away two lessons from this graphic novel. The first is that the change in attitude towards gay Scouts has been exponential. The second is that the program, despite its glaring flaws, had positive aspects - the author, after all, remained in the program long enough to become an Eagle Scout!

Amethyst (Amy Reeder, Wonder Comics)

        Amethyst, written and drawn by Amy Reeder under the Wonder Comics imprint, is elaboration and evolution of the reliable but basic plot of the original Amethyst Princess of Gemworld miniseries. This seems to be a good way to handle characters who cannot sustain ongoing series: the non-ubiquity of the character permits the possibility of growth, both personal and political - and politics is critical to the Gemworld saga! For such an example, one can look at the evolution of the Shazam series; unlike the Shazam series, however, the Wonder Comics series avoided the edginess of the New 52. The original Amethyst Princess of Gemworld series was a gem-themed lost princess tale, suitable for a thirteen-year-old protagonist - although Amy Winston ages up in Gemworld much like Shazam or, more contemporary, She-Ra. The protagonist of Reeder's Amethyst is sixteen, a three-year difference which marks great change in a teenager's life while still limiting the aging of comic characters.

          The inciting incident of Reeder's Amethyst is another basic idea which many fantasy sequels use: the land is in chaos or distress when the protagonist returns. Every television or movie sequel to MGM's The Wizard of Oz is an example. Another example is Stephen Donaldson's The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. Amethyst discovers her subjects missing and her alleged allies shockingly hostile. The threat is well-balanced: the subjects are not dead, but could die easily. Then Amethyst finds out that she is not as orphaned as she previously believed. This revelation and following ones connect to the title of the original maxiseries, Amethyst Princess of Gemworld: they confirm why she is a princess rather than a queen as seen in the other realms, and that the appellation "of Gemworld"  might be presumptuous in-world as ppposed to an Earthly perspective. Amethyst's journey exposes a more complex and ambiguous history of Gemworld than the Twelve Kingdoms and fantasy Travelers, along with the Good/Evil and Order/Chaos axes, might suggest. None of it, however, is presented in a gritty or "mature" manner, and the climax allows further development of Gemworld without undermining the foundational principles of this fantasy realm.

         This is a good introduction to the history and politics of Gemworld, past and present. A great aid to this introduction is the map, which provides a reference for the itinerary while still keeping some things secret. Any adults with young daughters who grew up in the eighties with She-Ra, The Never-Ending Story, and Return to Oz should consider buying this book.

Ghost Machine

 Ghost Machine is a preview anthology of multiple related series. The first character to appear is a preexisting one, Geiger, whose name evokes the post-apocalyptic setting. The Unnamed timeline, however, is expanding the Geiger universe with other immortals and rivals, most notably Redcoat. The immortals include Benedict Arnold, Albert Einstein (shown as a child), Davy Crockett, The Northerner (a Union soldier), Annie Oakley, and Simon Pure, Redcoat himself. War connects these figures and others who are committed to the Unknown War. There is a timeline which includes characters not already mentioned in Ghost Machine, such as American Widow X and the First Ghost. The immortality of the characters in the Unnamed War seems to be less than absolute, since Benedict Arnold is described as the only immortal, other than Redcoat, to survive the Revolutionary War. What litte is said about the encounter between the Northerner and Redcoat suggests that Simon Pure was a Confederate or at least a sympathizer. First Ghost is an intriguing concept: a female veteran goes to space and then becomes president of the United States. Her experience inspires her to become the First Ghost. Given the timeline, she is the last of next-to-last President before the start of the Unknown War.

Rook: Exodus is an extrasolar corporate dystopia; specifically, the dystopia after the corporation's terraforming engine has failed and the corporation has abandoned the Wardens, its own employees. The Wardens are animal-themed and have helmets which control their associated animals - a reversal of the usual functions of a totemic mask. The Wardens disagree on how to handle the dwindling resources and each Warden has oversized animals at their command, so it's clear that a War of the Wardens would be ugly. What is not so clear is why the corporation chose oversized animals to colonize a partially terraformed planet.

The Family Universe is less clear as a shared universe, although Peter J Tomasi is credited on both books. That does inspire confidence. The first title, The Rocketfellers, is about a family from the Twenty-Fifth Century in a temporal witness program in the present day: the future is not secure. It seems a family-friendly series, although  it's not clear whether the movie of Junkyard Joe in the final panel is an easter egg or a connection to the timeline of the Unknown War. The other Family Universe series, Hornsby & Halo, seems to be based on the child swap of the New Gods, only set on Earth, involving Heaven & Hell rather than their cosmic analogs, and centered on Little League baseball, Both series are written by Peter J Tomasi, so that is promising on the family front. His depiction of Clark and Jon Kent's relationship was terrific.

The last shared universe, that of Hyde Street and Devour, seems more fluid and ambiguous. The third year definitely-not-Boy-Scout is well designed but almost certainly not his true form. The image on the neckerchief slide is appropriately creepy. Devour seems to be a series about eating disorders, while Hyde Street takes advantage of the repetitiveness of American street names to allow a freedom of location for terror tales.

Meditations on Mary: Marvels Updated

Doc Shaner's recent series The Champion of Shazam is a good comic which both benefits and suffers from legacy and the constraints of continuity. Mary posseses the power of Shazam, since Billy is off wizarding at the Rock of Eternity. She is ready to go to college, to start a life independent of her foster family, and obligations of heroism. Mary is a character who has retained a fan base despite her underutilization as an independent character.  Mary, however, cannot escape Billy's sphere of influence any more (and probably less) than Kara can escape Clark's. Billy, unlike the cousins from Krypton, has a challenge maintaining his own series, while Superman endures. The other (former) female Shazam, Mary's younger foster sister Darla, provides more diversity but she is too young in-world and too recently created to claim the title of Shazam on her own. She may be better suited for a YA book, perhaps one set in the world of the Vietnamese Green Lantern or a crossover with a Wonder Person. Uncle Marv, on the other hand, is an unadulterated positive addition, who does not require powers (a betrayal of his basic nature), but also provides an adult mentor for a putative Mary-centric comic just as Darla does a Jimmy Olsen type - hopefully not a Vanessa Kapatellis! The choice of Georgia Sivana as villain is appreciated, since Sivana is the rare villain that has extended family born of legitimate marriages; Georgia, moreover, is the only Sivana sibling who possesses neither a "Junior", something which Freddie's absence suggests a move away from, nor a given name which would only hold up to scrutiny in the Golden Age of Comics. Georgia's motivation for villainy are sold and tied into the continuity of Shazam. This entanglement of Mary and Georgia with their male counterparts still leaves them with a burden of legacy, although a thankfully thin one which could be overcome in an ongoing series. This, however, is a limited series with an open ending of "the adventure continues" type. Reading the miniseries along makes this ending inspirational, but its placement with universal continuity diminishes the impact, especially when it is mandatory that the mantle of Shazam return to the slightly more commercial Billy. Even the title of the series is ambiguous: does the Champion of Shazam refer to Billy, the Champion of the force of good which the wizard Mamaragan encapsulated within the Magic Word, or Billy's Champion? 

Unrestrained by the continuity outside of Shazam portion of the DCU, this would make a hell of an animated movie; within it, like so many other series, the gravity of the status quo warps it into insignificance. This is a shame for the girl hero who preceded and inspired the Girl of Steel.

Superman Space Age

 Superman Space Age, by Mark Russell and Mike and Laura Allred, is an illustration that a limited scope is not an impediment to telling a good story. The art is reminiscent of X-Statix, an unusual look for a Superman story, but this is a particular Superman on an Earth which does not have the privilege of being one which survives the Crisis on Infinite Earths. This is not a true spoiler: the first pages are set in 1985. This Superman's floruit is in the 1960s; the inciting incident, therefore, is the assassination of President Kennedy. This Earth's Clark Kent has a relation with his Earth father which is closer to that of the Man of Steel movie than any television adaptation. The assassination spurs Clark, Lois, Luthor, Bruce, and Hal into action which will lead to the conclusion. Despite the decade, Pariah, the multiverse-hopping herald of cosmic oblivion, arrives and the world does not immediately end in a wave of white blankness. Some may view this as breaking canon. This premature arrival prompts Superman to value the time left and rally the proto-league of this Earth. 

This version of the Superman story is geared for a generation who knows that disaster is coming within their lifetime and must decide how to manage both the catastrophe and their emotions. It is worth reading, and the development within the limited framework will be intriguing.

Minor Threats

 The first issue of Minor Threats, the comic by Patton Oswalt, currently engaged as Matthew the Raven on Netflix’s The Sandman, Jordan Blum, Scott Hepburn, Ian Herring, and Nate Piekos, is a promising start at examining the midlevel criminal underbelly of a superhero universe. Our protagonist is a second-generation villain with inherited gimmick powers who just wants to lead a regular life and regain custody of her daughter. The universe in which she lives has suffered event escalation to the point where gimmick villains and bank robberies are old-fashioned, but there are still rules, particularly about killing heroes. This precarious balance vanishes when a sidekick of ersatz Batman is killed. The campaign of terror from the heroes prompts the midlevel villains to hunt down the culprit themselves to demonstrate zero tolerance. I look forward to the second issue.

Changing Planes (Ursula K. LeGuin)

 

Ursula K. LeGuin’s Changing Planes is a collection and a reminder of a simpler age before 9/11, before Columbine, before COVID. The parables are framed by an airport experience no longer available: dozing off. Each parable takes place on a different plane (in the non-aeronautical sense of the word) with a different ethnic group or species; not dissimilar to the manga Kino’s Journey. It is best read slowly, and a return to a favorite parable, whether that is due to familiarity or perplexity, will reap additional rewards.

The Book of Man (Mike Resnick)

 Mike Resnick's Birthright: The Book of Man is a deeply cynical future history that will delight those who seek the scope of Foundation and amoral universe of Pegana but wish to avoid the erotic exoticism of Heinlein. Each story features a different era from the ascent of Man to the stars to his eventual extinction. Man cycles through various forms of government, but ultimately remains Himself. If you need a dose of wonder afterward, Stapledon's Star Maker (equally atheist) is recommended.

Icon and Rocket

 The latest Icon and Rocket comic series is a distillation and update of the original Milestone Comics from the ‘90s. The plotting within the Dakotaverse (the name of the continuity) is tight and displays and awareness of the limited time and space granted to comic universes which are not part of the Big Two. The only character from the Dakotaverse who can hold his own long-running series is Static, and even that is sometimes tenuous. The Rocket who appears in Young Justice: Phantoms is a significantly different character in a very different world; that version is not addressed here. The leads of this comic are the titular Icon and Rocket. Icon is an alien who crashed on Earth in the antebellum South in a field; strange visitors from another planet are required to land in a field – unless they are causing cataclysmic destruction by crashing into the city prematurely. Rocket is a teenager who breaks into Icon’s house. These versions of Icon and Rocket do not exist in some separate multiverse; rather they are part of the DC multiverse or Omniverse; the gravitational pull of DC is too strong for virtually all the copies, commentaries, and deconstructions.

This Icon has tried to change the world, which resulted in a different conclusion for the Civil War; this might be considered cheap until one recalls that in Marvel the Human Torch (the original, android version) killed Hitler and in the prime Earth of DC Hitler used the Spear of Destiny as his primary defensive weapon. Comic book universes do not, and should not, have identical histories to the real world. This variation from our history in the Dakotaverse is a secret from the public. The concealment reflects the general ignorance of important events in Black history; but the method by which it is concealed is true to comic book aesthetics. The public history of the Dakotaverse must be the same as out real world because the George Floyd protests are the setting for the Big Bang, from which most of the powered individuals (but not our leads) gain their abilities. This update is reminiscent of the sliding scale of Marvel Comics, where the failed rocket flight of the Fantastic Four is move to the closest relevant international competition.

Icon has failed to change the world; Rocket inspires him to try again. The limited run time of the series allows the characters to execute real changes in their world that do not need to be reversed to the status quo, even as that same limitation restricts the amount of detail in which the characters can discuss the issues presented. If you want a series which features black leads and supporting cast, which is well thought out, and does not raise baffling alternate history questions, this could be the series for you.

Teen Pride: Teen Justice

 The Teen Justice issue for Pride Month was not originally on the list for Wednesday, but it earned its place. Teen Justice is the youth team of DC’s Earth-11. In the DC Multiverse, Earth-11 is the genderbent universe (before gender acquired a narrower meaning); thus the Justice Guild had members such as Superwoman, Batwoman, and a male Zatanna, whose fishnets do not work. Where there is a Justice League equivalent, there is the potential for a youth team – but only one, because secondary earths must maximize impact whenever they are allowed page time. Teen Justice is the youth team to the Justice Guild. It is composed of their children, sidekicks, proteges, and whatever Donald Troy is. The team exhibits Young Justice energy more than Titans. The roster includes Supergirl (Lauren Kent), Robin (Talia al Ghul), Kid Quick, Donald Troy (Wondrous Boy), Klarienne the Witch Girl, and Aquagirl. The new kid is Gigi, a depressed runaway with dark clothing and emotional powers – no prizes in guessing who Gigi is based on. Watered-down Raven may not be a crowd-pleaser; more enjoyable is the dynamic between Lauren and Talia. Laurel Kent (Supergirl) is the daughter of Clara Kent (Superwoman). The original pre-Crisis Clara Kent was Super-Sister, a genderbent Clark Kent (Superboy), while Laurel Kent was a Kent descendant in a previous iteration of the Legion of Superheroes. Talia is a Damian clone, right down to attitude – thus your appreciation for her will vary immensely. Laurel does possess the enthusiasm of Jon Kent, and sometimes you need to take the good with the bad. If young teen Jon is gone, then Laurel will have to do.

Traditional genderbending universes can provide sharp commentary, but the temptation is to lazily transfer the concepts of the main universe without exploring the implications. Certain concepts, such as male Amazons, are awkward without further details. Donald’s mentor recently appeared in Wonder Woman’s multiversal trip, in which he was treated as temporary toxic male until Doctor Cizko (hence Psycho) could be deployed. Klarienne the Witch Girl, although a logical reversal, diminishes the impact of the apposition of ‘Witch’ and ‘Boy’; she does have Klarion’s bad attitude. Aquagirl is the distaff version of Jackson Hyde, Kaldur’ahm reskinned to avoid any royalties like Black Lightning; not a bad character, but as restrained as many leaders are. Kid Quick is just another speedster – how many are there now?

The story appears to be combination of Raven’s entrance and the Church of Blood, although the ones behind the Church of Blood are a genuine surprise. This issue’s primary purpose is to introduce or reintroduce the relevant characters of Earth-11.

As stated above, Earth-11 began as a genderbent world in a time with a simpler understanding. Now it has become a world for genderbending and non-cis het heroes. It is not clear whether such diversity will dilute the concepts because Earth-11 is not a central earth of the DC multiverse and therefore will never (probably) receive the level of exposure central earths such as the main one and whichever of 2 and 3 is currently the evil earth do. “What if the men heroes were women and vice versa?” and “What if the heterosexual heroes were homosexual and vice versa?” are similar but separate questions best handled separately. In the spirit of concession to our reality, perhaps the writers are combining the two conscious of the limited series in which to present it. Male Amazons is still a strange concept!

Not All Women (Are Museless)

 The Legend of Wonder Woman is a 2016 series by writer/artist Renae de Liz and artist Ray Dillon which tells its own version of Diana’s entry into the world. The style is a bit too 3D for my taste, but that is now a common style and does not detract from the story. I have the issues for about half the series; unfortunately, I misestimated where it ended and at the time I did not have it on my pull list. When I saw it in the local branch, I immediately grabbed it.

In this version of Themyscira, the Amazons believe themselves to be the survivors of an apocalyptic Titanomachy, although with one “Titan”. The rest of the world is seen as barren wasteland. The majority of the Amazons are mortal. So why are there still Amazons? Some Amazons, those whom the gods deem most suitable for the task, are designated to be mothers to the souls of girls, presumably from the pool of all women. The race of Amazons is small enough to avoid psychic recycling.  These mortal Amazons live their best lives in paradise and die happy. A few Amazons, including Queen Hippolyta, are immortal, but immortality always comes with a price. In this case, the price is childlessness. The other immortal Amazons can accept this, sometimes reluctantly, but Hippolyta cannot. Hippolyta molds a statue out of the clay of Themyscira and prays to the gods to give her a daughter. The statue comes to life as Diana, an immortal child. These details are important to Diana’s childhood. Although she is not the only child, she is the only immortal one. She has a destiny, like all Amazons; hers is to become queen after Hippolyta. This destiny, unfortunately, suffers from a breakdown in logic: if Hippolyta is immortal, then Diana will never become Queen. Although Diana is referred to as a Princess, it does not have the same connotation on Themyscira, since the two functions of an only child of the monarch, succession and marriage, are not relevant. When Etta Candy later describes Diana as a princess, she must think about it for second; this would be a strange reaction from a mortal royal. Diana, the immortal child, but fortunately not in the vampire child way, is an anomaly, and her anomalous nature enables her to detect other anomalies.

Paradise never lasts, much like childhood, and disturbances begin to gnaw at the peace of Themyscira. The rot is reminiscent of that found in Disney’s Moana. The inevitable plane crash occurs with Steve Trevor as the pilot. The Amazons in charge of the defense of the island want to kill him, but Diana nurses him back to health. This recuperation, of course, means someone must pierce the veil to return him to Man’s World. There must be a contest of volunteers to determine this. The point of contention here is that passing through the veil causes amnesia for intruders and a ban on returning.  Diana wants to enter; her mother forbids it; she enters anonymously; she wins; her mother gives her the paraphernalia. This is as inevitable as Krypton exploding (since Thomas Wayne is now a Batman).

Diana passes through the veil, but she manages to lose Steve, presumed dead. Diana is now depressed because she both failed on her first mission objective and can never return home. She is, however, pleasantly surprised at the non-wasteland of the outside world. She is welcomed, despite being a stranger in wartime, by a kindly elderly couple, who may be an oblique reference to the Kents (the wife certainly exudes Ma Kent vibes), but its coastal setting suggests Aquaman. After she has recuperated, she heads into town, which includes Holliday College. Her youthfulness and Greco-roman outfit lead the college students to assume she is one of their peers (and possibly drunk, since she falls out of a tree in the make-out corner of campus). Etta Candy, in all her Forties campus gal glory, rescues Diana by claiming she is her cousin from Gargantuania; this is both a reference to the villain Gargantua and the way that Diana replaces the member of the Golden Age Holliday Girls whose personality was being very tall (the very short one is present). A reference to Gargantua and Pantagruel seems a bit deeper than this series would go.

This story is about Etta and Diana, not Steve and Diana. If they are more than friends, there is no explicit reference – but it seems less likely in the Forties (pace fans of a certain author). Etta directs her characteristic enthusiasm towards boys, and Diana would like to hook up with Steve, but the mission takes precedence. This version of Etta is an update of the comic sidekick, stripped of some of the elements that would appear mean-spirited today. Etta’s comedic plot is her life-long rivalry with her hometown nemesis, Pamela Smuthers, now expressed through musical competition; the Holliday Girls are not just sorority sisters, but a musical group (thankfully this time without the Mexican stereotypes) who are this world’s Andrews Sisters. Smuthers naturally shows up every time Etta is about to perform.

After the domestic comedy, including Diana’s poor taste in clothes while shopping, her unfamiliarity with the concept of movies, and her anger at the misrepresentation of her mother in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, it is time for Etta and Diana to go to Europe. This is not easy in the middle of a war. Etta’s impetus to leave for the front is an unflattering ad from the Candy family business featuring Etta; she hopes that she can both avoid the embarrassment at home and make her name as a singer on the front. Diana’s impetus is to find the Duke of Deception, whose jewel she recognizes and whose existence is guaranteed by a news reporter named Perry. Diana signs up solely as a nurse so that she can have access to the news from the front. Steve is around and teaches Diana important Chekov’s skills, but Etta is still more important.

The treatment of race in this book is interesting. The appalling excesses of the Golden Age comics are thankfully absent, but the presence of an integrated campus and military with the absence of any comment on race is a bit odd. It is true that later war stories projected integration back on World War Two, and Etta’s libido is as outsized as any of her other appetites, but the only reasonable conclusion is that focusing on race would be a different Wonder Woman story with a different villain.

When the Duke of Deception starts raising the dead, which itself could be a reference to a real incident on the Eastern Front, Diana springs into action as Wonder Woman. This heroism leads to the troops regarding her as their hero. Although this is a Wonder Woman story, superheroes do exist – enough that there is a JSA, which includes at least Hourman; thus she is not the lone hero of this earth. Why the other heroes are not in Europe is not answered; but perhaps the sole mention of Hourman suggests no mystical or mythical heroes, and Clark Kent failed his eye exam.

Wonder Woman is on an upward track until Zeus, who has apparently finally noticed Diana using Hippolyta’s paraphernalia, summons Diana before him. Zeus offers to make her his champion against the Titan, whom Ares is attempting to raise using the Duke of Deception’s campaign of death and misery. Zeus is best known for being a lecher, but his most relevant quality here is his unbending authoritarianism. If Diana agrees to be his champion, she will receive greater power than she already possesses, but she must abide by Zeus’ rules. Since this is a duel, if the Titan wins, Diana’s friends are fair game for the Titan. Diana does not mind dying for her friends, but she is not willing to abandon them and the rest of the world to destruction. Zeus, who is petty in all the ways that a being of immense power can get away with, strips Diana of all her powers save natural Amazonian athleticism.

The Titan rises. The air corps flies off to meet their doom. Diana steals the invisible jet on which Steve trained her in one lesson, with the Holliday Girls as her crew. This chutzpah is true to the spirit of the Golden Age Holliday Girls. Diana confronts the Titan without her powers but is summoned again before a god. This time Gaia, the Earth, reveals that Diana is the last child of Gaia and bestows upon her the powers which Zeus had removed. This reveal is interesting because in Classical Greek mythology Gaia was the mother of monsters rather than the mother of the champion against monsters. Gaia was the mother of the Classical Titans, but this Titan is not the child of Gaia, but rather a being from the stars, a robotic Manhunter. These Manhunters began as just, but they became corrupted over time and more dogmatic. The Manhunter that fell to Earth tried to purge it, but Zeus’ attempt to destroy the Titan through control of his champion decimated Earth almost as much as a Titan victory would have done. The Amazons’ isolation preserved a piece of paradise, but stagnation was the price of immortality. Redemption required a mortal impulse from an immortal made immortal rather than a natural immortal; this mortal impulse produced a member of the immortal society who could not fit in, and therefore would experience both worlds in the way that Zeus could not and Hippolyta would not. The champion of both worlds needed to care about both portions to defend the entire Earth from a threat beyond the stars.

On a more personal level, the Duke of Deception turns out to be a regular human, Thomas Byde, who sent his little brother away from present danger. He dies in a bombing anyway. Thomas feels guilt over this, and Ares exploits this guilt to manipulate him. Thomas flies to Mars and lives there alone in the former habitation of his master; a cruel fate, but one that contrasts with the communal life on Themyscira.

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.

Kino's Journey (manga), Volume One

             There is a limit to how much television is endurable, no matter what the quality; but that limit is more flexible for books. Manga has a reputation for interminable plot that can scare off readers unwilling to commit. Kino’s Journey is not such a manga and therefore features here. Kino’s Journey, written by Iruka Shiomiya and drawn by Kouhaku Kuraboshi, is derived from the light novel by Keiichi Sigsawa (that missing vowel is intriguing for a Japanese name).

            Volume One of the English translation features three episodes of Kino’s journey – an origin, a dystopia, and a parable. The first episode is in the Land of Adults and provides an origin for Kino and their talking motorbike Hermes. Too much information here would be spoilers for the other adaptations, but the Land of Adults is reminiscent of the world of “Number 12 Looks Just Like You,” except that the Transformation is at an earlier age and the Carousel is much franker. Kino escapes on Hermes the talking motorcycle. The next land is the Land of Understanding Each Other’s Pain, a land which appears empty. The inhabitants of this land were once normal but they overdosed on an empathy drug to bring society closer together, with the result that now they are all even more isolated and their society will soon be extinct. The reaction of isolation to the negative thoughts revealed by the empathy drug is understandable but one would have thought that the society would have a plan for dealing with the negative thoughts they knew existed in humans. Perhaps this is overthinking, and one reason that Kino and Hermes remain only three days in each Land; but surely there must be a fiction where the sudden telepathy is addressed in a productive manner. The third episode is a parable in which there are only three men: an old man who is replacing the torn-up railway tracks; a middle-aged man who is tearing up the tracks, and a young man who is laying down the tracks. This is obviously a metaphor for stages of life.

            The strength of an episodic format is the minimization of consistent characters. The weakness, however, is that those few characters must be compelling enough to draw a return. Kino and Hermes are successful in this task.