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Clark, Bruce, Diana, and Rory: Thoughts on JLA #0

As much as I enjoy making fun of Identity Crisis and its big noses, I’m a relative apologist for Brad Meltzer and Rag Morales’ earnest portrayal of DC’s heroes as a Ya-Ya Sisterhood. In Identity Crisis – even though the point of the story was to drive home the importance of secret identities – all our usually stuffy heroes run around calling each other by their real first names. Clark, Bruce, Ollie, Diana. Everyone is everyone else’s BFF. Sure, this happens in other titles as well, but the amount of namedropping that Meltzer peppered his script with was enough to make even Jayceon Terell Taylor shake his head in embarrassment.

It was a little grating sometimes, but it worked perfectly for the story. Driving home the fact that these caped and cowled titans were actual people - with names, feelings, families, insecurities and life-histories with each other - made the tragedy of death within their ranks all the more tragic. Meltzer’s interior writing style was so successful it was later used by other writers in the fantastic Countdown to Infinite Crisis #0, which as a result was chock full of insightful intimate reflections such as when we learned that everyone is in love with Diana, and also when we learned that everyone thinks Koriand'r is really fucking hot. Man, these heroes felt so damn real. *I* think Kory is really fucking hot too!

Meltzer is back now, penning the new Justice League re-launch. Post-Crisis, Meltzer’s League feels a lot like Gilmore Girls. Yeah. Justice League. It’s Gilmore Girls with less dialogue, really. It has that small-town everybody-knows-everybody sensibility, and people talk over each other and complete each other’s thoughts and sentences. Clark and Diana are Gilmore and Gilmore Girl, and Bruce is that cranky dude who runs the diner. Why Alan Heinberg isn’t on this title, I have no idea.

As I said, I dug this approach in Identity Crisis. In the new JLA book, however, I don’t think I’ll be able to stand it for very long. Now, I’m not really up to date on the inner-workings of the JLA…but a yearly meeting between Clark, Bruce and Diana? Does this exist? Because don’t they see each other all the fucking time? I guess it’s just pencilled in as guaranteed bonding time, where they can playfully swing sticks at each other and swap novels. For real, I’m all for portraying the softer side of the Big 3 and their relationships, and I guess it’s only normal for them to have inside jokes and stuff like that…but in scenes like the one where they make fun of Guy Gardner, I just don’t feel it. It feels forced, and it reaches the point where the camaraderie between the heroes doesn’t just feel awkward, it feels downright phony. Which I’m guessing is the opposite of what Meltzer is trying to accomplish here.

And don’t get me started on this, after Clark realizes Bruce and Diana stood him up:



I’m willing to write this book off as a weightless issue #0, not a part of the series and therefore not indicative of where the book is headed quality wise. But in the preview pages of issue #1(***), the cheese continues. I couldn’t tell if the Big 3 were choosing a new JLA or America’s Next Top Model.

Not to mention all the (hopefully) unintentionally funny close-ups of Diana’s breasts. Oh, and issue #0 had the funniest out-of-context comic quote I’ve come across in awhile: “he’ll be great. really great. like dick.”

I think the problem is that while even though Infinite Crisis made way for less brooding, less angry, depressed, dysfunctional heroes, we’re nonetheless left with an approach that still takes itself extremely seriously. And frankly, the earnest bastardry reads a lot better than the earnest we-are-one-big-happy-family stuff. At least when it’s written by Brad Meltzer, it does. Maybe Meltzer - who was so good at raping, murdering, and emotionally torturing DC’s characters - shouldn’t be the same guy to remake them into shiny happy people?

(***)
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peace.

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Slanted Perspectives

Hello, True Believers. Come join me in a tour of recent Asian representations in the Big Two, yes?

DC

Week 6 of the highly enjoyable 52 series brought on "China Syndrome", an introduction to Grant Morrison's new team of Chinese superheroes, The Great Ten. My initial reaction wasn't very enthusiastic, though hopefully that will be assuaged as the team is fleshed out more (I believe they're playing a sizable role over in Greg Rucka's Checkmate?)

For now though, I'm giving the screwface to a dude whose superpower is...well, being a Tibetan buddhist...a Tibetan buddhist who incongruously works for "the preservation of China", and also to a woman whose power is to...well, give birth to a lot of babies and send them off to fight for the country (and I'm assuming die for it as well, since she still has an active function on the team). "Mother of Champions" is a kickass name though, I'll give them that.

Morrison's shown a strong interest in Eastern philosophy and mysticism and all that jazz, and I'm a big fan of Vimanarama, but I'm reticent to let him off the hook on hokey racial/cultural representations just because, well, he's Grant Morrison. The Great Ten might end up falling on the wrong side of hokey for me, but as I said, I'll give DC some time to hopefully flesh out the characters and develop them further from the cheesy communist-border-patrol-against-American-heroes they've been portrayed as so far.

Also from the brain of Grant Morrison comes the All New Atom, a book I've been anticipating for a long time. There's been quite a few Asian female characters in the mainstream comicverse, but, as in other forms of media, the Asian male is usually relegated to stereotypical side roles at best. The All New Atom, along with Firestorm and Batwoman, is one of DC's attempts to diversify their universe by taking less-popular characters and turning them into minorities.

Judging a book by its cover could prove disastrous in this case, as I'd say the cover for The All New Atom #1 is a failure on several fronts. Firstly, the Atom doesn't look Chinese to me, but that's highly subjective and nitpicky on my part, so I'll let that slide. Secondly, on the cover the new Atom looks damn near forty-years old, with a receding hairline, body rippling with muscles. No such character appears anywhere in the book. It's as if the cover artist had no more info other than "draw an Asian dude. Shrinking. Yeah. No. More Asian-ish. Yeah."



The tagline reads "Size Isn't Matter!" I'm not well-versed in all-things-Atom, so if this phrase existed before this issue as some sort of catch phrase please let me know. As it stands, the phrase sticks out to me for two offensive reasons: 1) The play on the phrase "size doesn't matter", usually used in reference to men with small dicks, a nod towards a stereotype that has played a big role in the effeminization of the Asian male in pop culture; and 2) The play on words - "size" and "matter" being terms of physics - is unsuccessful, which leaves me wondering what the punchline is supposed to be about. I'm left feeling that it's not a pun or a joke, but merely a purposeful mangling of language in the vein of bad Asian "engrish". I don't see how else that phrase could be thought of as clever.

So what you end up with is an Asian dude using poor English to defend his small size. That sucks. Plus, Atom is only flexing his right arm. It just looks weird, like he's trying to take a shit but his left arm fell asleep so he can't flex it (I hate when that happens!) and he can't undo his belt because it's too high up on his chest.

The interior of the book is much better fare. John Byrne's rendition of Ryan Choi is much younger and less earnest. While I'm not a huge fan of John Byrne's recent work, it's not bad per se. As for the story, I won't get too much into plot recaps, but Simone does well; it's quirky and fast and establishes character quickly. Random quotes pop out of nowhere in relation to what Ryan is thinking, showcasing his geekiness and wealth of knowledge. I dig it.

It's the first issue so there's the requisite "first-shrink" scene. We've seen it a million times before but it's not bad. The important thing is that it's out of the way, plus it's only the first issue and Ryan has already told everyone he found Palmer's belt. It's onwards and upwards from here. I'm not quite digging the Foggy Nelson-fat-jokey-sidekick thing, but I can live with it, especially knowing that Simone is good with the quips.

There's an obvious effort to address the Asian-guys-aren't-sexual thing, with a bunch of female students following Ryan around and making ga-ga eyes at him. The problem is that so far Ryan seems pretty oblivious to the opposite sex. Even if the girls think he is hot shit, if Ryan shows no particular interest then we still have a desexualization problem. It's only the first issue though. I'll give him a couple issues of prep time, but eventually he better start getting some and not in any tee-hee passive way either.



In other Gail Simone Asian goodness, Birds of Prey #95 saw Black Canary ending her little sabbatical in SE Asia. I love this book to death, but I'm glad that story is (more or less) done with. With Batman Begins, I got my final fill of white people going to Asia to train in mysterious fighting arts, only to then reject their inscrutable Asian masters and their unscrupulous Asian ways (kicking a bunch of Asian asses in the process). By the book's end, Black Canary pulls an Angelina Jolie on an Asian kid. Could be interesting, but child characters have the potential to get real cloying real fast. Simone does a great job of writing believable adult females, let's see how she does with little girls.

Marvel

In one of the more bizarre Asian spottings in comics, Civil War Frontline #1 had a short sidestory of Spiderman reflecting on the Japanese internment camps. I have to say, I stood this story a lot more before Spiderman unmasked.

Pre-unmasking, Peter's reflection at the end, "...with great power, huh?", seemed to me a condemnation of the US government's abuse of their power. In the same panel, a Japanese father tells his daughter that they must acquiesce to the interment camps in order to help the American war effort, "because it is our duty, because we are Americans." An image of the Statue of Liberty separates the image of the family from Spiderman, and Peter's reflection seemed at the time a sad response to the Japanese man's assertion, a reflection on when power and responsibility can go wrong.

Post-unmasking though, we know that Peter is on the side of the government, so the reflection reads differently. Instead, I see him as empathsizing with the Japanese family, doing something against his personal wishes because it is what's best for the country. It's his responsibility to give up personal freedom for his government.

That's a load of bullshit to me. Politics aside (Iron Man's team still has valid arguments on their side), to use the internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII as a parallel to Spiderman and Iron Man taking off their masks is ridiculous and trivializes what the internment camps meant.



Paul Jenkin's preamble reads:

"In the interests of fairness, it can be noted that while they provided very sparse accommodation, these relocation centres had the highest live-birth rate and the lowest deathrate in wartime United States. The Japanese in the centres received free food, lodging, medical and dental care, clothing allowance, education, hospital care, and all basic necessities. The government even paid travel expenses and assisted in cases of emergency relief".

*Italics mine

OK. If that ain't a steaming pile of white-washing bullshit I don't know what is. In the interest of fairness? Even paid for travel expenses? As if you pay the bus fare when you get shipped off to jail. And oh wow, free food. Lowest death rate? Shit, I'm starting to wish I was Japanese in 1943. Those motherfuckers had it easy.

Anyways. The preamble is followed by nice poetry captions that illustrate some of the negative aspects of the Japanese "relocations". But the whole thing is bookended by that horribly apologetic introduction and by Spiderman saluting the patriotic responsibility of the Japanese Americans. The story is unnecessary and leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

In more pleasant news, let's talk about my favourite Runaway, Nico. Runaway fans have been waiting and speculating over issue 18, when it is promised that yet another Runaway will be murked. Well, at the end of issue 17 Nico gets shot through the chest. I still don't think it's her that dies though, seeing as it's not yet issue 18, and I really don't think they'd off another minority character after the death of Alex.

I'm guessing someone sacrifices themselves to save her or some other magical business. Or who knows. She just might bleed slowly to death for the duration of the next issue.



I hope not though. Nico's grown to be not only my favourite Runaway, but one of my favourite recent characters overall. I love the way she's drawn and the complexity of her character. Lately she's been going around making out with a bunch of different people, male and female, and to writer Vaughn's credit, Nico doesn't come off as a floozy but as a girl who's going through shit. But the best part (and this goes for all the Runaways), is that even for a girl who's going through shit she doesn't read as a self-absorbed depressed emo kid. Which is more than I can say for half of the X-Men these days.

Nico's power is also one of my favourites. In order to summon her magical Staff of One, she has to cut herself and draw blood. I love the idea of a teen goth hero who has to cut herself in order to access her power. I got a little choked up during the story arc where Nico couldn't do it and yelled "I don't want to cut myself anymore!" Also, the staff shows up at inconvenient times, like during her time of the month, or when she brushes her teeth too hard. That's dope.

Let's hope that Nico makes it though the next issue, and that we see more characters like her in the near future.

peace.

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Superman Returns...To Star In A Chick Flick

I wish I knew how ta quit you

What if Jesus was a superhero? What if the devil was...um, bald? What if you combined Superman with The Notebook?

Ok, there was a lot of things to love. The special effects were great. The reverence for Richard Donner's Superman and Superman II was appreciated. But there was just something...missing.

After I got over the feeling of a watching a new Superman movie in 2006 that didn't involve Richard Pryor (R.I.P.) or Nuclear Man, I felt very detached from the movie.

I enjoyed all the scenes of Superman being...well Superman. Saving people, cheering crowds. The plane crash scene was amazing and I can't wait to see that in IMAX 3D but then it lost it's way and became a chick flick.

• Brandon Routh was great...as Clark Kent. His Superman was okay. He wasn't bad but he lacked the earnest humor than Christopher Reeve brought to the role. Don't feel bad, Brandon. Reeve is an impossible act to follow - we're talking the best comic character brought to life ever. When there are enough comic book movies around that there are comic book movie awards and there is a lifetime achievement award, it will be called The Christopher Reeve Award of Excellence (or something like that). You know who would have made a great Superman...
• So there's the scene where Clark is back at the Daily Planet and Lois introduces him to her boyfriend, Richard, who was played by James Marsden (For the guys, Cyclops from the X-Men films; for the women, the guy Rachel McAdams wrongfully cheats on in The Notebook). As the camera turns to him, I was like "Wow, he should have been Superman." The right build, he's tall, he looks like Christopher Reeve so it wouldn't have been a weird transition, and he's pretty good at playing morally uptight square guys. Major blunder to cast a guy who would be better suited to play Superman, Mr. Singer.
• This is probably the best acting job I've ever seen Kate Bosworth do...but she still wasn't right as Lois Lane. I mean, she got the reporter thing down but she lacked Lois' spunk. If this is a direct sequel to the Richard Donner films, Lois was a "I don't take shit from anyone" woman and Margot Kidder played it perfectly. This is the same woman who hit the gun when her and Clark were being mugged, snuck into the Eiffel Tower to spy on terrorists by hanging on the bottom of a elevator and jumped into a river because she was so convinced that Clark was Superman. I didn't feel like Kate Bosworth's Lois would have done any of that.
• Welcome back, Kevin Spacey. How I've missed you. These are the kind of roles that we fell in love with Kevin Spacey for. Not that The Shipping News/Pay It Forward crap. I want Spacey the mean funny sardonic asshole that blew my mind in Swimming With Sharks. I hope this is a good sign for the future and not a blip in the current spiraling of your career.
• Frank Langella sucked as Perry White. He had some great lines but lacked the energy and fire an editor of the number one paper in Metropolis should have.
  
• Why cast Kal Penn (Kumar from Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle) and give him one line and just have him be a nameless henchman? What a waste. Maybe he's friends with Bryan Singer.
  
• The movie was way too long. I'm almost getting tired of saying this about movies. It was King Kong too long. It dragged like a busted muffler. Why is Hollywood afraid to make a 90-105 minute movie? Seriously. Is there some sort of research I missed that said America likes it's movies dragged out and as long as possible?
  
• I don't like this Superman as Jesus shit that seemed to be implied in the movie. The term 'savior' got thrown around too much. Superman is not Jesus. Superman, at least in my opinion, is a alien who was raised as a human with a good moral code who is just doing "the right thing" because he has the ability to. He's not here to "save us", just here to help.
• I don't think they can (or should) do a sequel. It's hard doing Superman stories (which is why the comic has sucked for quite some time). There's three types of successful Superman stories (all of which have been used in the movies): 1) Superman faces off against someone equal in strength to him (II, III, IV), 2) Superman faces off against Lex Luthor or a villain with Kryptonite (I, III, Returns) or 3) Superman is put to the limits of his power by trying to be in two places at once (I, Returns).
• I find it hard to believe that Superman would just up and leave for five years. Sorry, someone with THAT strong a moral code would not do that. Of course, he also wouldn't make a move (however slight) on a woman with a boyfriend so what do I know?
• Before I talk about the spoiler stuff, the whole Clark Kent works with a bunch of reporters and is in love with the best reporter in the city and no one can put together that Clark Kent and Superman returned on the exact same day (only Lois's kid kinda caught on). It would have been one thing if Clark came back and a couple of days later, Superman showed up or vice versa. But THE SAME DAY! C'mon.
  

Okay on to more spoiler-ish stuff.

• Ok, at the end of the movie, Superman lifts the humogous crystal city that Lex Luthor created and threw it into space. Not into the sun but into space. Um, I'm not scientist but won't that huge landmass become a meteorite that will destroy one of our neighboring planets. Way to think it through, Kal-El.
• Also, won't those remaining crystals be a problem?
  
• By giving a Superman a kid, Bryan Singer has taken the mythology of Superman and Da Vinci Code-d it.
• I'm not mad about the whole kid thing. It was a cool twist. I wish DC had the balls to do something like this in the comics. The Superman story is legendary. You have to create some twists and turns to keep it fresh. But still, Superman has x-ray vision & super hearing, he didn't know she was pregnant before he left.
• How do you end a Superman movie without him bringing Lex Luthor to justice? That was just lame.

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Dear Marvel Zombies

I despise you. No, this isn't a rant about D.C. vs. Marvel. No, this isn't about how you give Joey Q more time than you give your mother on the phone. No, this isn't a rant about how you'd pay to toss Bendis's salad. Shit, I WOULD TOSS BENDIS'S SALAD, TOO. I prefer syrup.

No, this is a rant about the shit you're giving Marvel over the Spidey unmasking. Among all of the internet crying I hear about how Spidey outing himself to the world ("OH MY GOD! Spider-man's GAY?" was my fiancee's reaction when I told her) the number one argument I hear against Spider-man putting it on himself to do the one thing he fears anyone doing to him is this:

"IT'S COMPLETELY AGAINST CHARACTER!" (c) Comic Fan Jackass

Now, anyone that as been reading Spidey in the last five years should know that this decision has been a long time coming. And let's be honest with ourselves, people. Green Goblin knows Spider-man is Peter Parker. All of Green Goblin's kids, bastard and otherwise, know that Spider-man is Peter Parker. The Scorpion (who now has the Venom symbiote) knows Spider-man is Peter Parker. One of Jerry's Kids that sits in his wheelchair on a rooftop all day until his family wheels him back inside for dinner knows who Spider-man is. Aunt May knows. Mary Jane knows. All of The Avengers know.

Mary Jane has been hinting for years that she would prefer Peter to go public. This is proof that comic fans have no long-lasting interaction with women. If we did, then we would ALL know that a broad that hot could get Dr. Strange to take up pulling Batman's giant penny from behind kid's ears at birthday parties. A broad that hot could get a Watcher to come down on the field, throw a flag, and demand an instant replay. Hell, A broad that hot could make Electro heterosexual again.

But lemme get back to the point. It's against character? I didn't hear any of you fuckers that tought Cap was acting against character by going underground complaining then. You thought it kicked ass. By the way, Cap wasn't even acting against character. Know how I know? Because Cap always kicks ass.

You guys need to draw the difference between a favorite character of yours making a decision you don't like and someone "acting against character". If you haven't noticed, Spidey has been slowly changing for a few years now. But that's a whole 'nother blog. (Editor's Note: Stay tuned for Invisiblist's blog on JMS's Spidey run coming soon!) He's a teacher. He's an active Avenger. He has fuckin spikes coming out of his arms, a robotic costume, and he's Tony Stark's fuckin doughboy. And that's just fine by me. Know why? My favorite part of how Marvel Comics has done things since I've been reading is their character development.

Ah, yes. Character development. You might define character development as "the catalyst to fanboy's anger; usually involving a character doing something that no fanboy predicted on any message board anywhere". I like to define it as "OH SHIT!" Whether I like how a character develops or not, I like to see characters I love grow. I have no desire to see any comicbook character that I mess with stay stagnant in their views or attitudes for too long. You know what my favorite parts of "The Other" were? First, when Spidey killed that robot guy in Stark Tower. (What was his name? Tracer?) Sure, the guy turned out to be a robot, but Peter didn't know that. It showed the state of mind that Peter was really in. The other was when he ATE MORLUN'S FACE. Why were they my favorite parts? Because they showed how serious the situation was.

If comic characters never "went against character" as you guys call it, they wouldn't be worth reading. Cap woulda never had one of his most important arcs ever. You know, the Nixon one. Daredevil woulda never became Kingpin. (Y'all didn't complain about that one, either.) Serious situations that showed the true nature of the characters.

I don't know what you people want. I don't envy Bendis, Millar, JMS, Quesada, Whedon or any of the other guys at Marvel that worked on Civil War. From the reactions I'm reading to Civil War #2, you guys want to be able to figure out what's gonna happen with your favorite character before all your internet buddies do. Is that what you drop three bucks every month for? To see if you're right? BOOOOOOO. I drop my three bucks every month to see what happens, to be amazed, to be surprised, to jerk off to how McNiven draws She-Hulk (and how Frank Cho draws Mary Jane and Black Cat, and how Jim Lee draws Psylocke, and how Quesada draws Black Widow.....but that's a whole 'nother blog*), and most IMPORTANTLY, to check in with my friends Peter, Steve, Tony, and Nick to see how they're doing. If they don't make a decision I like, it was their decision to make.

But hey, if you guys want predictable, you should just go read D.C. Or House of M.

(*Editor's Note: The Prep Time Posse will not be allowing a future blog on Invisiblist's masturbatory habits. It hits just a little too close to home for most of us.)

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