I like my stories to be, like, interesting, which is why I'm not into DC Comics.
I grew up watching classic comic movies, like Batman and Superman, but even then I was disappointed in the static characterizations they tended to have. Also, really lame "secret" identities. Bruce Wayne's chiseled jaw was pretty distinct, even under a cowl, but a pair of glasses? Really? That's all you could come up with? And then you're photographed all the time in the newspaper you work for and they STILL don't know it's you? Are they putting stupid in the Metropolis water supply? And these guys are totally badass, why are they keeping it a secret? Bruce is a billionaire; if he came out, he'd just be seen as eccentric and he'd be asked to throw benefit parties in costume. Superman is freaking SUPERMAN. What's the point of hiding?
I used to watch the X-Men after school and I really dug it. For one thing, it was easier to play on the playground - you got your Cyclops (the bossy kid) and your Jean Grey (the prissy girl) and your Wolverine (the slightly aggressive kid who grinned a lot) and your Jubilee (whoever was wearing a yellow raincoat that day). Seriously, try to play Superman and you get a lot of fights over who's Clark and who's Lois and everyone else sort of stands around shouting for help and then you get in trouble with the teachers. For another thing, they were a family. Not just a team or an ensemble, but they had relationships like we understood - Scott and Jean were a couple, Logan and Jubilee had this parent/kid thing going on, it wasn't the vague unresolved tension between Clark and Lois. And they weren't really hiding who they were. They were mutants, and sometimes they got crap for it, but everyone knew that they were different.
But it was Spider-Man (JC forced me to correct this from "Spiderman," which is WHAT STAN LEE CALLED HIM I HAVE SEEN THE PAGE SCANS) who got me into real comics, because Bendis, as previously stated, rocks. I read Ultimate Spidey #1 through #115 in three days as JC bagged and alphabetized his collection last spring break. Peter is, above all else, a relationships man - and Bendis makes that very personal. Then I had to read some New Avengers, some Ultimate X-Men, Pulse, Runaways, Y the Last Man, Power Pack, Buffy season 8... yeah.
I haven't bothered to get into the subtleties of recent DC canon, though JC assures me they've gotten more complex, because I can't shake that childhood impression of super powers in the form of men. I like to read about men who just so happen to be super.
- RD
Showing posts with label ultimates. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ultimates. Show all posts
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Ultimate Origins
The story of Captain America is that he was a scrawny kid with a gimpy leg who desperately wanted to enlist during WWII, but couldn't, so they let him test a super soldier serum so he could get big and buff and go kick Nazi ass.
In Ultimate Origins #2 (Brian Michael Bendis) there's a scene right after Steve Rogers has become Captain America where FDR comes to him and says something like, "We need you. It's not just about kicking Nazi ass; if we don't have you, we're going to have to use a bomb, a really big bomb, and cause genocide." And then Cap gets frozen in ice and even in the Marvel universe they end up using the bomb anyway.
Superheros first appeared in the 1930s, as the Nazis were coming to power. Bendis exposes the entire genre as an imaginary solution to the world wars - powerful men with moral judgment and discernment who could kick bad guy ass without damaging civilians. And he puts them in that context by comparing them to the bomb we got instead.
It's indicative of why we still find superheros important today. We see it in in Iron Man when his targeting scope picks out the bad guys so he can blast them with pinpoint shots. He's actually able to separate the terrorists from the civilians, which is something we struggle with. We want Superman rather than a smart bomb, because the smart bombs aren't smart enough.
I haven't read it, but I've been spoiled on the latest issue of Final Crisis, where Batman, the well-known hater of guns, shoots Darkseid with a gun. This seems to relate to the same idea, in that the purpose for superheros is to stand in contrast to our real-world methods of crime-fighting and war. Grant Morrison may be trying to tap into the War on Terror zeitgeist, in which people want their heroes to be willing to put personal qualms aside and pick up a gun, but it's more likely that the writer missed that essential element of superheros - they are meant to have better ways of dealing with issues. We want to see Batman winning with his wits, his batarangs, and possibly the awesome power of Legos.
- JC
In Ultimate Origins #2 (Brian Michael Bendis) there's a scene right after Steve Rogers has become Captain America where FDR comes to him and says something like, "We need you. It's not just about kicking Nazi ass; if we don't have you, we're going to have to use a bomb, a really big bomb, and cause genocide." And then Cap gets frozen in ice and even in the Marvel universe they end up using the bomb anyway.
Superheros first appeared in the 1930s, as the Nazis were coming to power. Bendis exposes the entire genre as an imaginary solution to the world wars - powerful men with moral judgment and discernment who could kick bad guy ass without damaging civilians. And he puts them in that context by comparing them to the bomb we got instead.
It's indicative of why we still find superheros important today. We see it in in Iron Man when his targeting scope picks out the bad guys so he can blast them with pinpoint shots. He's actually able to separate the terrorists from the civilians, which is something we struggle with. We want Superman rather than a smart bomb, because the smart bombs aren't smart enough.
I haven't read it, but I've been spoiled on the latest issue of Final Crisis, where Batman, the well-known hater of guns, shoots Darkseid with a gun. This seems to relate to the same idea, in that the purpose for superheros is to stand in contrast to our real-world methods of crime-fighting and war. Grant Morrison may be trying to tap into the War on Terror zeitgeist, in which people want their heroes to be willing to put personal qualms aside and pick up a gun, but it's more likely that the writer missed that essential element of superheros - they are meant to have better ways of dealing with issues. We want to see Batman winning with his wits, his batarangs, and possibly the awesome power of Legos.
- JC
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