Conan the Barbarian #13: The Woman on the Wall:Part One

Bêlit of Ramah En Ram

Each issue of Brian Wood’s Conan the Barbarian seems to function as an allegory. Readers are reading a story about Conan, but not really, there is something larger going on…like watching The Birds, or reading Moby Dick or some other well wrought piece of literature.  Issue 13’s idea behind the McGuffin holds, if not a set of instructions, at least some considerations for responding to a loved one anchored in anguish.

The opening to “The Woman on the Wall” hits the reader with confusing crush of en media res.  The situation is even more disconcerting since the last time the readers were shown Conan, he was aboard the Tigress, talking at Bêlit, and attempting to aid her. Wood provides readers enough information to clarify Conan’s presence in the large mercenary force besieging the city but it is not until later in the issue. This hesitancy in fully orienting the reader not only serves as an entertaining shift in narrative, but also serves as an apt allegory for Conan’s efforts to succor Bêlit.

The well-walled fortress of Ramah En Ram sits isolated upon a desert plain. The range of tans and yellows used by Dave Stewart in this issue add a layer of heat and oppression and dusty itchiness that leaks discomfort from the page, and makes a reader feel as if they’ve sweated and had it burned away and evaporated from the heat seeping out of the panels. The confusion at the opening of the issue and the dead solitary dry setting serves as a metaphor for the main point of the issue—the mindset of Bêlit.

Bêlit appears in seven panels in this comic, yet she doesn’t speak a single word throughout the issue. In fact, Bêlit spoke only one word in issue 12, “Conan.” These seven panels of silence in issue 13 are the allegorical axis about which the book revolves.

The first of Bêlit’s seven panels is set in the present time of the story. It depicts her standing silhouetted against a rising desert sun standing, alone, upon the ramparts of the fortress wall with her hair blowing in the dry desert wind. The text in the panel reads “As a ghost is wont to do.” No surprise, the “ghost” here is in reference to Bêlit. The image of Bêlit is ghost-like, a silhouette, all details obliterated as she stands in darkness…a cut-out from reality and the rest of life. Bêlit stands apart, alone, an outsider, removed from life, isolated, dead in a certain sense. Yet she’s dead only in a sense, certainly not she’s not bereft of mental or physical power.

The next panel maintains the same setting and provides a close-up of Bêlit with the viewer looking up at her, her right arm stretched forward and her gaze straight ahead, locked and confronting the reader. Pain and loss may exist here, but no weakness, no confusion about the situation which she is undergoing. The divine essence that accompanied Bêlit from when she first appeared in Conan’s dream, and masterfully depicted by Becky Cloonan, still accompanies her in this panel. Mirko Colak, in the positioning of Bêlit in the center of the panel and the orientation of the viewer’s gaze, captures the expression on her face that conveys both the sorrow and power of knowing some divine truth. The text written in this panel is “Every day at dawn, this rose of Ramah En Ram appears, the ghost of the fortress. Is she yearning to see my face, the Cimmerian wonders miserably, or merely scanning the field in hopes of seeing my corpse?” Wood gives the reader two points of view in this narrator’s box. The first sentence comes from the narrator and contains a mere statement of fact. Yet it compares Bêlit to both a rose and ghost, and it situates her appearances at dawn, a time of new beginnings, when the day is full of potential when anything can happen, growth, life, beauty (the rose) or endings, death, despair (ghost). The later half of the text shifts the point of view to Conan who instantly assumes that he is the cause Bêlit’s isolation and the cause of Bêlit’s joy or sorrow. A solipsistic young barbarian male, Conan assumes this situation is all about him and he can’t see, or perhaps doesn’t want to consider the possibility, that he is peripheral to Bêlit’s actions.

In later panels N’Yaga tells Conan “Crom would laugh at you right now. Again, leave her be.” “She is our Queen; we dare not question her. She does as she feels she needs to, and she has and likely always will.” N’Yaga recognizes and respects the power and choice and autonomy of Bêlit and as such lets her live her own life and honors her choices. Conan, for whatever reasons…selfishness, good intentions, most likely some odd tangle of the two, doesn’t or can’t accept this laissez faire approach and sets out on his own to exert his power upon Bêlit. Wood’s script raises the question of what action is best for responding to a loved one’s suffering. Does one step back and let them work it out on their own, or does one step forward and actively offer assistance? Who can know for sure? No wonder Crom laughs.

The third panel in which Bêlit appears shifts the setting to a time in the present story’s past. It shows the bare feet of Bêlit (and some of the best rendered toes every appearing in a comic book) walking away from the Tigress over the wooden pier in the port of Asgalun Shem. The text in the panel reads, “Above all else, Shem is rich, and men are ever fighting over it. This is the land of Bêlit’s birth.” These words, juxtaposed with Bêlit’s steps, show her leaving her crew and career for her home and land, yet violence and fighting still accompany her. The steps from an active roll of dolling out death and violence upon the seas to defending against the violence exerted upon her homeland.

Perhaps the invading army, or at least Conan’s part in the army, represents the good wishes of loved ones trying to reach out and aid those in the midst of suffering? Too often the desire to help and good-intentioned actions are perceived as an attack, a violent exertion of power and control over another person’s life…a control and theft of power for the individual to make her own choices…yet, what happens when the person isn’t in their right mind and isn’t capable of making decisions…and how is an outside party to know that this is the case for the individual? And in the context of our story, how can Conan know? Surely, Crom must be laughing again.

The fourth panel shows Bêlit from behind, wrapped in a faded red cloak with a hood, her hair blowing forward from the wind pushing her from behind. Seagulls soar in the sky on her left, she moves towards a walled city upon a hill which also has gulls hovering above it. Bêlit pauses here, on the threshold of the pier. The next panel (the fifth in which Bêlit appears) has the Pirate Queen turning her head to look back, her hair blowing about her sad eyes. The sixth panel of Bêlit continues the turn of her head to a 7/8’s gaze where she almost gazes full on at the reader. Wood provides no text, and the expression Colak draws for Bêlit’s face holds a host of possibilities: regret, sorrow, a final farewell, disbelief at her past life, a promise to return, a plea for help? The gaze would perplex even Crom. The lack of text in these three panels lets Bêlit serve as a mirror to the reader, letting readers determine what Bêlit shows and feels and how Conan, or any loved one, should respond to a suffering loved one who is walking away from their choices and returning home.

The final panel directs the reader’s gaze so that Bêlit is walking towards the viewer. Conan is silhouetted (just as Bêlit was in her first appearance…here he is the ghost). Two gulls in flight flank Bêlit on both sides and she raises her hood, her back to Conan and the Tigress, with her head tilted down and to the right (towards the direction of Conan). The text: “And so she returns to it. As Conan watches her walk away, he half expects her to fade from view, to be swallowed up into the city, as if she were a ghost. A dream, perhaps. That might be a relief to the Cimmerian. It might spare him a great deal of pain.” Again, Conan sees imagines, even hopes, Bêlit to be a fantasy, a ghost, a vivid dream now ending. He knows that Bêlit’s suffering will cause him anguish too. The final words in this panel, spoken by N’Yaga, offer advice to Conan, “Leave her be, barbarian.”

Conan, in fairness, tries, but he’s never been one for too much inaction. Like Oedipus, he jumps forward and prefers swinging a sword to sitting despite the added trouble and suffering that may accompany it. As for Bêlit and her motivations and intentions and the way in which she came to be in the fortress, they remain an enigma to both readers and Conan. The barbarian has made his choice though, and believes he is acting to the advantage of Bêlit. Whether such belief holds true, who can say? What action best fits how to respond to an anguished loved one? Surely Crom must be laughing still.

Kill Shakespeare: The Tide of Blood 1

 Tempest

One of the measures for great literature is its endurance of time…a text that remains supple enough to adapt to an unknown future bolsters its chance at enduring and remaining relevant to some fundamental element of humanity that it reaches and can touch past its age of origin. Shakespeare is really good at touching. 

The current story arc in Kill Shakespeare takes the characters Romeo, Hamlet, Juliet, Othello, Miranda, and others and launches them on new adventures.  Telling new adventures with old characters is nothing new, especially in comics. New adventures of Spider-Man, Batman, the Avengers, and the myriad incarnations of the X-Men have been entertaining readers for over 40 years, so it seems about time that Juliet, Hamlet, and friends cavort in some new tales.

Idolizing great literature as a “hands off” artifact ensures its death faster than instant viewing on Netflix. These adaptations, along with entertaining, serve as fresh corridors for readers to find their way to the plots, scope, and dirty jokes of Shakespeare’s original dramas. Likewise, they serve as fresh lens for those comfortable with plays and poems to consider the works from a different perspective.

The opening four panels mimic the readers’ experience of progressing into a world of fiction. The first panel is a square of black with what looks to be the edge of a leaf of grass cutting into the square from the upper right hand corner with a dew drop hanging from the edge (and another drop following close behind. The tension of the hanging drop mimics the anticipation of the reader at the beginning of the book; where a read still holds onto reality, but gets ready to fall into the story. The second panel has the water drop fall, springing the leaf the up amidst a “V” of tan cuts into the black square, similar to the jolt readers sometimes experience when dropping into the story. The third panel has the drop bursting on the sleeping temple of Romeo with the text of “Bestir…” at the cusp of awakening into a dream of a fresh story and vibrant fictional world. The fourth panel has a wide open eye that looks like Sauron’s eye after a Visine treatment. The text reads “…Bestir, Romeo.” The fully open eye mimics the reader awakening fully into the story, completely absorbed in the tale that unfolds on the page and imagination. Here the reader falls into the tale, fully awakening into the dream world of the story just as Romeo awakens into his own dream within the dream of McCreery, Del Col, and Belanger.

For first time-readers dropping into the third installment of Kill Shakespeare, the creative team supplies them with the needed information to drift into the story. The basic plot of this issue involves a drunken Romeo trying to come to terms with Hamlet having stolen his girlfriend, and an odd set of dreams involving Prospero’s daughter Miranda. When Miranda appears in person, Romeo tosses aside his flask (although one suspects he has a spare) and sets sail with Hamlet, Juliet, Othello, and Miranda to Prospero’s island.

The story is fanciful and fun and there are no pretensions or obscure Shakespeare scholarship that readers need acquire to enjoy this tale.

Visually, Belanger’s inks hold and fascinate the eye. His lines in the panels remain dynamic, but are at their best when chubby and broad in demarcating boundaries.  On page 21, the central panel of nine panels depicts Miranda stating “I come to beg for thy assistance.”  The up-tilt of Miranda’s head, the thick line of her lower-right eyelid and the lower line on her lower lip convey a subtle lushness to the character that simultaneously anchors her in the panel and contributes to her pleading, adding a subtle mark of attraction and beauty to her request for aid.

Miranda stands before a collapsed Romeo who, at the end of his dream, states “I am banished, alone.” One can imagine Caliban echoing this phrase upon Prospero’s island. Yet Miranda’s reply is kinder than the words Caliban would receive from Sycorax, “You are not. I shall come to thee…I promise.” This statement gains gravity with Miranda’s looming stance over Romeo, the hood covering a third of her face gives her the power and presence of one of the Fates, the clutched grimoire and flowing hair express the knowledge and active intention that physically supports her uttered words of support.

Scenes such as these permeate the pages of Kill Shakespeare and reward those willing to read new adventures of some venerable characters in English literature. While reading Hamlet never gets old, and holds rewards and surprises upon rereading; it’s still refreshing to read him in some radically new adventures.

Captain Marvel 9 & 10

 Visions of Captain Marvel 10…9…

Revealed through Jack Kerouac’s Essentials of Spontaneous Prose

Captain Marvel Captain Marvel Captain Marvel—Carol Danvers now the Marvel paragon of the sky—the bad-ass kind-hearted boot-wearin’ kicker of the Marvel sky of New York—what is this hold—this captivation—this mesmerism your story contains that escapes other hero books—especially ones with female protagonists—Because the double x chromosomes are integral to Captain Marvel being a great book—She is a super hero but not super in the sense of being too far beyond mundane humanity—Her powers and heroics give her extra abilities yet her mindset stands rooted in the everyday rather than saving the universe or waging Kree or Skrull wars or whatever other matter may occupy the minds of Medusa Sue Richards or Thor—Captain Marvel is one of us—If given super powers a normal human’s thought process and focus would proceed in a manner very similar to Carl Danvers—Yes YES YES this a core part to her appeal! She’s like the reader or rather the reader feels that he is like her in ways that don’t feel possible with the Hulk or Superman or John Prophet—She has a regular apartment neighbors friends appointments to-do lists and a job (flying an airplane…or all things for a superhero with flight powers to do…this one baffles me the most…why Kelly Sue WHY???!).

And what of the art? Artwork on Captain Marvel has always both attracts and deters (but man those covers by Terry Dodson and Rachel Dodson are attractive) and yet the lines and panels of Filipe Andrade have a very nontraditional superhero feel to them—Yet heroics lurk in his lines—When sitting at her table for breakfast the way Carol’s head is propped in her hand—the tightness of the kitchen—the sparseness and tininess of the table makes the whole second panel of the first page seethes with tension—even the cat crouching on the counter looking ready to jump what appears to be a very long distance adds to the tension—and the paradox because at the right end of the panel everything (Carol—the table—the pictures on the wall—the chairs—the vase—coffee—plate and phone on the table seem cramped—yet the left side of the panel seems incredibly open and spacious and accommodating—This juxtaposition in the creation of the paradox holds throughout the book—This paradox (AHH this is the reason Carol flies planes AND can fly with her powers!?) holds part of that fascination—Aspects that shouldn’t go together—and yet they do—and they work (cosmic powers—regular mindset—superhero Avenger—has a job flying airplane—these  things should not be working together and yet they are—Kudos to Kelly Sue for pulling this one off.

Dinosaurs running amok in New York (more paradox and odd juxtapositions…the Jurassic world occurring in the modern world) adds to this fascination—Plus dinosaurs are simply just cool.

Yet the artwork of Andrade seems such an odd fit—Looking at the work with expectations of realism—the proportions of the figures are wrong…legs far too skinny to support the body weight—the space between the eyes seems wide enough that you could land a plane between the sockets—stretching bodies are elongated far past the stretching point of the spine—yet realistic expectations are the WRONG sort of expectations to bring to this book—all expectations are the WRONG expectations to bring to this book—or any book—as a reader just relax and take the art and the story for what they are—Andrade doesn’t put realistic expectations in his panels but the impression—feeling—sense—aura—that does fill the panels  fits with the story and tale and character of Captain Marvel herself—Andrade’s lines MOVE—They move faster than Jack Kerouac on the road with Neal Cassady—Andrade’s stances give the figures an aura of confidence of power of immediacy of AUTHORITY that lends a swiftness and fascination to even some of the more mundane scenes (like when Captain Marvel stands around and talks with Jessica Drew) The hard extreme foreshortened views from a worm’s view visually and instantly depict the grandeur that Kelly Sue has written into this character—A grandeur that is respected—admired—and relateable—The loose lively free suggestive lines of Andrade stimulate rather than stifle the scene—These suggestions—these imperfections I originally called them when taking my numbskull prejudice expecting-realism first glances at the pages—are the very factors that add to the energy and fascination of this book—Andrade’s  style—I’m not sure what you’d call it—impressionistic—European—loose—modern—take whatever label you want—but it doesn’t seem to fit with photographic realism—and yet this none realistic style conveys the realism that can’t be captured with realism—that paradox that haunts the character of Captain Marvel and the tales in this book also haunt the lines and panels and layouts in the artwork—I can’t say as if I understand Captain Marvel or the character or the story or what’s going to happen any better since the beginning of this review—but as far as what hooks and fascinates me with the book—what factor keeps me mesmerized as I gaze and gaze and gaze through the pages wondering why do I like this——lies within the harmony of the paradoxes that spill out upon the page.

 

Keep me perplexed, keep it paradoxical and I’ll keep holding and following the sash of Captain Marvel.

Conan the Barbarian #12: The Death: Part 3

Conan faces foes like he’s never faced in the past 100 issues of Dark Horse’s Conan. Given the barbarian’s rogue gallery, such sinister villainy would seem to strain imaginations, yet Brian Wood takes familiar material in the barbarian's mythos and bends it in a new ways. He makes it look obvious and easy. This current issue evokes “I could have thought of and done that” from readers; except we can’t. Only Wood’s unique voice can sing this song of Conan; which is fine, because the rest of us get to listen.

Conan’s new challengers still lurk in the technological laden 21^st century; self-doubt, illness, helplessness at watching the suffering of a loved one. The creative team (Brian Wood, Declan Shalvey, and Dave Stewart on script, art, and colors, respectively) depicts this helpless inaction with some tension and spear throwing to propel the action of the issue.

The pace Wood sets in the 12^th issue of his 25 issue run in the port of Bakal sine curves from inaction, to violent action, to debilitated inaction again. In parts one and two of “The Death,” the crew of the Tigress contracted a deadly fever and Conan set out to find a cure. Bêlit numbered among the ill and instructed Conan to leave them while he still possessed his health. Issue 11 ended with Conan trying to decide whether he’d follow Bêlit’s orders. Issue 12 opens with Conan in a tavern, having decided to stay, drinking breakfast and finding some medical help for the crew.

Conan’s immobile brooding drinking soon leads to violent action that raises the apex of the sine curve with some distracting bloodletting as Conan and N’Gora defend their ship against a meager mob.

After the fight, N’gora informs Conan that Bêlit’s screams have been continuous throughout their entire battle on the dock. These howls Wood describes as “It was not the scream of a dying person, but rather the agonized despair of someone in pain with no hope of the release of death.” And having run to the threshold of Bêlit’s room, the narrator says of Conan “He would follow Bêlit to the ends of the earth…but he could not will himself to enter that room.”

This immobility of Conan depicts the helplessness one experiences during the suffering of loved ones. No matter the amount of love, skills, power, and prowess one possesses, it’s useless to the suffering one. Physical pain, perhaps all the more terrible for it, isolates and ultimately must be endured alone.

Wood and Shalvey’s tale captures and heightens this helplessness and isolation with the two-page spread of Conan sitting against Bêlit’s cabin door—all of the space and Conan is alone (except for a dead rat in the lover left hand corner) impotent and waiting. His sword is discarded, tossed on the deck for the useless item it is in this situation. The point of the bloodied blade (symbolic of the dire future for Bêlit?) points at the She-pirate’s door. Conan remains a diminutive slumped figure against a large background, again sitting immobile, waiting amidst Bêlit’s pain-filled shrieks.  No words are given—none are needed here. Both speech and action remain useless as balms for Bêlit.

Bêlit lives, but that doesn’t end the helplessness of Conan. After learning that Bêlit was two months pregnant and that she lost the baby, the captain of the Tigress doesn’t speak. Conan is unsure of the cause, and is again at a loss for how to aid and comfort his companion.

The final three pages of this issue greatly enhance the mood of helplessness. The colors are muted grays and oranges and blacks in depicting a lone ship upon the sea. In the seven panels on pages 20 and 21 where Conan sits in Bêlit’s bed chamber, four of the panels show only one of the couple, alone, which adds to the isolation. Conan’s head always tilts down, and contains heavy shadows. In the three panels where Conan and Bêlit share the space, they are not looking at one another. Bêlit has her head turned away from the barbarian, and after Conan speaks the words, “…Bêlit. Why will you not speak to me?,” Bêlit turns her back to the barbarian. Conan is left helpless and at a loss of how to remedy the situation. The suffering aftermath of the pain Bêlit endures alone, leaving Conan to battle silence, speculation, and doubt alone upon the deck of the Tigress.

Wood’s Conan continues as a fresh and inventive exploration of new possibilities of Conan’s character. While Conan’s adventures still contain high body counts, reading the confrontation of Conan considering the futility of the sword in various situations enlarges the scope and power contained within the character of a young man from harsh northern isolation exploring what the world and life offers.  

Age of Bronze 32

 Mythic Manipulations

Readers waited two years between issue 31 and 32. That’s an impressive wait for what once was a monthly comic. Thankfully, it was worth the wait, and there were some good comics to read during the 2010-2012 interim.

  

Age of Bronze is a black and white comic written and drawn by Eric Shanower. It tells the story of the  Trojan War starting from the abduction of Helen to the sacrifice of Iphigenia, to the Achaean landing at Troy and the ensuing siege. In the current story arc, Shanower incorporated the story of Troilus and Cressida.

Age of Bronze 32 continues the story of Troilus and Cressida, lovers foiled by the draconian political demands of war. The story is old, but not quite as old as the Trojan War. The resolution to Troilus and Cressida’s romance is far from secret and can be found in Chaucer, Boccocio, Shakespeare, Dryden , and others, so suspense of how this love story ends (the affair goes badly for  Troilus, prince of Troy) remain dim factors (most likely) for spurring readers to read this story to which they already know the ending.

So why bother reading it at all?

And what of superheroes? Just like readers know how this resolution of this ancient romance, so, too, do we know the origin of Spider-Man , Superman, Magneto, and a host of other characters. So, too, do we know that nothing ever ultimately changes in superhero comics.

Yet this permanence harbors a strength for the story. With the plot and the main details of the story already familiar to the audience (superheroes fight bad guys…Greeks invade the Trojans…Good guys and Greeks win), the variations on the tale (which can theoretically be infinite) accommodate imagination and creativity, yet the ending spot of the story takes the reader and character back to the familiar, to the known.

 So what?

Why bother?

These twice-told tales remain essential. Such adaptations or new versions of the same old stories (like super-hero origin stories) explore the power and possibility contained within the story.  Retellings allow the story to grow, to regenerate, to adapt to needs of both the teller and audience, and still provide familiarity and constant elements that comfort readers and allow a greater chance for the story to endure.

Shanower simplifies this tale of Troilus and Cressida into beginning, middle, and end, with a clear narrative, characters, and setting. An X-Men story, or an issue of  Justice League Dark  imposes a narrative structure within each issue.  Order exists in 20 pages of stapled and folded papers.

 

Shanower’s lines possess preciseness that suggests an architect’s renderings.  These formal sharp lines fit the epic mood of the tale and the place of honor the tale of the Trojan War occupies in western culture.

This rendering of the story draws out the exact treatment of Cressida, the daughter of a traitor, who is delivered from Troy to her father who resides in the Greek camp. How would the Greek soldiers and kings treat this beautiful Trojan woman? Roughly, according to Shanower.

 

How should a reader respond to these adaptations of “Troilus and Cressida”— as escapism, entertainment, a focus for purging discontent, literary analysis, or a jumping off point for philosophical considerations for a point in the story?  The choice rests with the reader. These multiple retellings and versions of a story, along with contradictory interpretations, can exist simultaneously. A new version of the tale (for example, the Fantastic Four defeating Galactus) can add new twists, details and understanding given the artistic variations and the events going on in the world at the time the work is published.

Superhero comics contain a mythic aspect in the sense that the same stories are relayed, with variations, even though the larger plot remains the same.  This narrative aspect mirrors humanity in that ultimately all of us are born, live, and die. All eat, drink, breathe, learn, love, lose, etc. But even though the lengths and experiences of the lives differ, the beginning and ending remain the same. Nothing ultimately changes with humanity, just like nothing ultimately changes with superhero comics.

 Potential comfort and inspiration await within each variation of the story. So go ahead, grab a book retelling an ancient story, or a book where characters in brightly colored tights and capes and enjoy the variations of a tale to which you already know the ending. 

Crisis on Infinite Earths

The Crisis struck me 26 years late; it existed as one of those grand events (like the Great Depression, or World War Two, or the Cuban Missile Crisis) that people I knew experienced, but I did not. Yet I knew Crisis was big not just in its own story, but also with the other stories it inspired (like Secret Wars, Infinity Gauntlet, Civil War, etc.) and reading these later event books seemed to me like reading the Aeniad without having read either the Iliad or Odyssey.  For a first time reader[1] of Crisis on Infinite Earths, the story withstands two and dash of a decade as a great event book because it touches upon and fulfills many traits of a literary epic.

Penguin’s Dictionary of Literary Terms & Literary Theories provides an appropriate working definition of “epic” that works well to illuminate some successful machinations of DC’s 80’s super hero opera:

“A lengthy narrative in which the action, characters, and language are on a heroic level and the style is exalted and even majestic,” some major characteristics of epic are:

1. a  setting remote in time and place
2. an objective, lofty, dignified style
3. a central incident or series of incidents dealing with legendary or traditional material
4. a  theme involving universal human problems
5. a towering hero of great stature
6. super human strength of body, character, mind
7. superhuman forces entering the action

Superhero comics share a procrustean bed with ancient heroic myths, the kind conveyed through epics (in the literary sense of the word). For the superhero comic book, crossovers are the medium’s adaptation of epics.

Crisis is epic.

Setting

Crisis stretches its tale across a variety of environments, not only with geographic locations but also through multiple times, and various dimensions. Within these times and dimensions characters struggle in space, mountains, cities, jungles, laboratories, space ships, etc. These settings not only cover the remoteness of time and place, but they link this distance to current times and dimensions.

Incident

The main focus for Crisis on Infinite Earths involves the Anti-Monitor attempting to replace our multiverse with his antimatter multiverse. Conceiving a larger event for an epic taxes even the neural workings of Brainiac.

Along with this main incident in the plot, the inspiration for this story lends its strength to increasing the power of this epic event at DC comics. The introduction Marv Wolfman included to the softcover collection of Crisis cites the impetus for the story coming from reading comics in the 60’s and his desire “to see a single story featuring all the DC super-heroes from the past, present, and future.” This desire, carried around for 25 years and undergoing plenty of permutations, became Crisis on Infinite Earths.  

Any literary epic worth its meter includes an invocation to the Muse (Homer did it, Apollonius did it, as did Ovid, Virgil, and even Milton). While Crisis doesn’t contain a call to pagan gods, it does carry an idea which accompanied a writer for over two decades. While the actual workings and implements of the Muse’s assistance continues to be argued, the interest Wolfman possessed to read a tale of all the DC heroes seems to equate (at least in some ways) to having the Muse breathe heavy into an ear.

Crisis happened to be the first grand scale publishing event that showed the way to the following events. This originality, this attempt to “make it new!”, gives an assessment of the work a power boost.  

Theme

One of the questions the Iliad attempts to address is why people do the things they do. Crisis uses an answer to this question as its theme, namely, to save the multiverse, cooperation is needed. 

Characters, both villains and heroes, set aside, some eagerly and others reluctantly, differences in an attempt to halt the Anti-Monitor’s plans. Cooperation for mutual benefit runs through the panels and pages that allows characters to remain true to their ideas, yet knowing what and when to compromise and relax those ideas. This reluctant teamwork stood as a welcome change to current stories where even members of the X-Men and Avengers can’t set aside differences with one another.

Heroes

Of all the traits of a literary epic, the presence of heroes remains the most obvious parallel with Crisis. All the main characters are super heroes.

And there are a lot of heroes. A lot. I remained totally unfamiliar with many of the characters in the DC universe, and the characters from Earth 1 or 3 or X and all the other planes of the multiverse remained elusive. Yet such ignorance on my part didn’t critically hinder the story. Like the references to Philoctetes in the Iliad, more information remains accessible if one has the desire, but not knowing this individual will not utterly destroy an understanding of the poem. The extended full cast of Crisis empowers the book and demonstrates the far reach of the Monitor’s plan.

Just as most people know the story of Odysseus without ever having read the Odyssey, so most comic book fans know Supergirl dies in Crisis. The deaths and returns of super heroes has become mundane, so not much effect was expected from Supergirl’s demise. Yet still, despite knowing what was coming, the death of Supergirl can affect readers. Wolfman’s use of this death lends it strength and purpose.

Doctor Light (a Japanese scientist whose lack of empathy would warm the core of a cyberman) witnesses Supergirl’s battle with the Anti-Monitor. Doctor Light’s character, upon witnessing the principled sacrifice and compassion of Supergirl, becomes more humane and less solipsistic. This death stood as an integral part of the story, rather than simply a death story to strengthen sales. Such moments, even if heavy handed, seem fitting events for heroes to experience and enact in an epic tale.  

Style

While lacking dactylic hexameters and unrhymed iambic pentameters, Crisis generates its lofty and dignified style through another means. The art’s depiction of cosmic events conveys the grandiose element that metered verse carried in textual works. Comic artists face a unique problem ancient rhapsodes didn’t have to consider. How best to depict events of an epic scale? How should cosmic machinations look? Perez handles his depictions masterfully. His space scenes present a sense of awe and wonder and power. Small tight panels seem the norm in the book, and the cosmic backgrounds strike with all the more power when they consume more space than the previous panels.

In the afterward to the soft cover edition, inker Dick Giorano starts off with “Whew. What a read, huh?” The large cast, the cosmic scale, the changes within characters, and the fate of not just the world, or the universe, but multiverses make Giorano’s “whew” appropriate. Crisis on Infinite Earths still stands as a great read. It’s epic.  

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[1] No expertise of Crisis is claimed here. I am a first-time reader stirred by this story and am attempting to articulate that stirring and discover the elements of the story that evoked this reaction. The devotion and accolades other readers awarded Crisis, especially Jonathan Woodward’s annotated Crisis (This guy really really likes, LOVES, Crisis on Infinite Earths… Gary Greenwoods also shares this love at The Annotated DC Project) await your discovery at the included links.

Manhattan Projects 1-7

Manhattan Projects:

Scientific Myths

Secrets for building an atom bomb in your basement, won’t be found in this comic book, nor will schematics for inter-dimensional gateways, rocket propulsion, nor do reliable biographies of scientists turn up in these pages of Jonathan Hickman and Nick Pitarra’s tales. Keep grinding through mathematics and physics textbooks if you desire such information (but read Manhattan Projects when taking a break from your studies).

Yet, a mythos of early 20^th century science ferments and is cultured in these Manhattan Projects.

Οὐκ οἶδ᾽ ὄττι θέω,

δύο μοι τὰ νοήματα.

I do not know what I think

The minds are two for me

(Sappho, my translation)

Sappho’s words isolate an element Hickman and Pitarra infused within the first seven issues of the Manhattan Projects. Dual simultaneous existence pads through this comic like Schrödinger’s live/dead kitten…a similar mental dance implicit within the above words of Sappho.

While an entertaining comic book and a great story (of which many reviewers already attest to here, here, and here amongst other places), these seven issues scratch at something beyond mere escapism and mundane entertainment. MP both inspires a study of science and horrifies the study of science; two contradictory simultaneously existing states.

Horrification first.

Destruction radiates within the panels of MP. In the first issue, the death of an Oppenheimer along with a high body count of soldiers and Japanese robots could overflow small cemeteries. The death scale increases with the construction and dropping of the atomic bomb (without the consent of the USA president in this version of the tale); an act of destruction wrought by scientists[1]. Hickman expands thanatotic fabrications to include the genocide of an alien race. The unabashed attitude with which General Leslie Groves regards this pogrom comes through a quip used to persuade the Russian scientists to join q scientific alliance, “We killed an entire race of aliens on a Wednesday…who’s going to call our bluff?”

The scientists themselves (in the story, not in “real life,”) get transformed into depraved and monstrous doppelgängers of their actual counterparts. An “evil” Oppenheimer slays his “good” brother and exponentially manifests new personalities while gaining knowledge by devouring (literally) the minds of others. Harry Daghlian metamorphoses into a fleshless radiation monster (the instrument of genocide that razed the alien race with radiation). Einstein (an evil twin from another dimension of our Einstein) devotedly imbibes alcohol with nefarious connotations, while Wernher Von Braun, (in addition to the Nazism) encamps few qualms of sacrificing others for the advancement of science[2], plus he sports a creepy robotic arm. Enrico Fermi embodies an inhuman form (with green skin, sharp teeth, and an aptitude for violence). If monsters “represent fears held by society, fears associated with danger perceived in the surrounding world[3],” then the social apprehension towards scientists and their creations and use of these creations seems difficult to miss.  If such acts and characters don’t horrify and solicit pause for contemplation about the effect of uninhibited scientific research utterly controlled[4] by uninhibited genius madmen, then the back cover of the collection conveys this message with less subtlety than Von Braun threatening to slap an atomic bomb into a Russian research laboratory through an inter-dimensional gate:

And yet, even with such horror, there is the other mind…the box where the kitten still purrs and licks its paws and disregards the flask of poison. This book rouses inspiration and awe for science and scientists.

Ok, sure, readers won’t learn sound scientific principles, or accurate biographies of their favorite scientists, but conveying factual historically documented information is not the strength of fiction, of stories, of myth (whose Ancient Greek cognate μuθοσ can simply mean "story"), but myths, stories, fictions do inspire and shape the events and characters that will become history.

Issue four opens with a quote from Albert Einstein, “Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution.” These stories serve as crucibles for the imagination, the imagination that, “embraces the entire world” and stimulates progress, and gives birth to evolution.”

These stories rouse the curiosity and prompt one to go beyond what rests on the page. Was Von Braun really that callous, did Einstein have a drinking problem, could Oppenheimer possess multiple personalities, was Truman a Mason?

Such questions nag readers and fictional works replete with twisted facts have fired creativity in scientists and others alike. Issue three contains the quote (attributed to Feynman by the fictional Clavis Aurea) “What am I guilty of? An intimate familiarity with the necessity of fiction. Truth is my wife, but lies are my mistress.” Such “lies,” in the guise of fiction, contain truths that influence how people live their lives and the futures they pursue. The MP, in showing the raw power and potential, and sexier possibilities of science and engineering holds such possibility. According to interviews, it wasn’t amiss at the real Los Alamos to find copies of Astounding Science Fiction amidst those working on slicing atoms and assembling rockets, stories that kept minds and dreams in the stars and hands and eyes on calculations and bolts…another dual state of the mind.

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[1] Ftting enough, this mood may be captured by the words of the real Oppenheimer upon seeing the explosion of the first atomic bomb…the words he uttered before much more eloquent ones from the Bhagavad Gita, words from the engineer who spent years constructing a project…”It worked.” Then the more poetic, “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” Oppenheimer, too, it seems possessed two minds and can relate to the sentiments of Sappho.

[2] The first issue contains the quote from (the fictional) Clavis Aurea’s The Recorded Fenyman

  “I was surrounded by those willing to sacrifice all of mankind if doing so achieved their goals. Evil deeds by evil men that only I could prevent. Mourn then the passing of the world. For when the time came, I could find no good in myself, only mischief.”

[3] As  Matt Kaplan writes on page 4 of his book Medusa’s Gaze and Vampire’s Bite: The Science of Monsters

[4] Von Braun in issue seven works at creating an agency of scientists free from all government control.
Gratitude equivalent to the half-life of Harry Daghlian goes forth to my rocket-scientist cousin for loaning me his collection of MP to read during break. May you always remain beyond the clutches of Von Braun's robotic arm. 

FF #2

Fantastic Finger-Flippin’ Good Fun

The hesitant endorsements of the initial issue of FF metamorphosed into strong confirmations with the installment. Why read comic books recurs as a query from others as well as myself with common frequency; FF #2 contains a partial answer to this question.

While different comics are read for different reasons, an aura of serious whimsical super-hero fantasy remains a realm that comic books handle better than the medium of the novel, poems, films, or television shows. FF #2 provides laughs and superhero antics that shape lips into smiles instead of sneers all while continuing an intriguing story without taking itself too seriously. It offers a fun escape that blends fantasy and laughs to relax the reader yet still excite the imagination.

Kids in comics, while more are needed, can dull a tale when handled ineptly and crash a plot faster than Icarus’s plummet. Yet in FF#2, kids know their place, or rather Fraction knows where to place the kids, and Allred how to draw them. On page two, the Mole children Mik, Korr, Turg, and Tong become the first to realize for sure (and which every reader and character in the comic [with the exception of Scott Lang] also knew) that the Fantastic Four aren’t coming back in forecasted four minutes. Perceptive, and unhesitatingly voicing the obvious, the simple “uh-oh” from Turg wilts the antennas of hope on Ant-Man’s helmet.

Page three contains the moment that confirmed my continued pulling of this issue. A six panel page shows the media reaction to the FF taking over for the Fantastic Four. Panel three depicts Onome reading a newspaper and querying “What is an ex-con?” to Scott Lang as he’s walking across the floor in the background eating cereal. Panel four gives a close up of Lang, helmet off, munching cereal attempting to explain his criminal past to a child. The halting speech; the puffed cheek full of cereal; the tousled hair; the desperate, tired, and conflicted expression of Scott Lang (wanting to be honest and not honest simultaneously) remains a great melding of art and text. The panel captures a true moment of an adult trying to explain a complex and unpleasant idea to a child, while simultaneously dealing with larger world issues. The balance between serious, true, and amusing moments, and super-heroics coalesce on this page, and Fraction and Allred maintain the precarious balance throughout the entire issue. 

Pairing adults unused to dealing with children forever promises a reservoir of laughs (unless you’re the adult). Page seven has She-Hulk giving a law lecture to children. A touching character-defining moment of Darla with Leech and Artie Maddicks follows.

Mole-Man’s attack (just like in Fantastic Four #1) provides some Marvel comics continuity, or at least a reverential homage to Kirby and Lee and we get to  see the FF in action for the first time in the series, complete with fisticuffs and witty banter (“This was supposed to be my day off!” the giant green monster says (the editor kindly translates the “NYARGH*” for readers who haven’t kept their studies of Gigantes) while having Ant-Man knock about in his eye socket and getting strangled by Medusa in a negligee. The only other place (I imagine) one can find such combinations are in magazines better left hidden under the mattress.

All these antics conclude with a genre-demanding cliff hanger ending…some dark form of Johnny Storm flying through a space warp declaring “The Fantastic Four are DEAD! And no one can ever go through that gateway again…”

Fraction and Allred created and delivered a fun comic, a welcome edition to a host of books that are good in a different way (more serious, more experimental, more satirical ) than FF, but FF#2 generates and holds and offers an amusing light-hearted competent romp through the world of super- heroics.

Conan the Barbarian #11: The Death Part 2

Conan the Barbarian #11

The Death: Part 2

Script: Brian Wood

Art: Declan Shalvey

Colors: Dave Stewart

Letters: Richard Starkings & Comicraft

The story so far: Controlling an enriching oceanic campaign of plunder ad terror, Bêlit and Conan enjoy a piratical life with their crew aboard the Tigress. Their reputation conveys such power that the mere sight of the Tigress causes other ships to instantly surrender and transfer their cargo to the raiders. A prisoner secured by the Tigress spreads a life-sapping fever amongst the crew. All aboard the Tigress suffer, with the exception of Conan. In issue 11, Conan attempts to find a healer for the crew, experiences a dream vision, and wrestles with the moral choice of whether he should abandon Bêlit.

Barbarian Ethics

Conan has always been a love ‘em and leave ‘em type of guy. A profession of “sword-wielding barbarian mercenary/adventurer” lifestyle doesn’t offer much stability or  promise for an exclusive and devoted domestic life. Conan never pretends otherwise, and at least from the Conan stories I’ve read, his paramours understand the situation and willing lock arms around the barbarian.

Bêlit changes the situation.

While Dave Stewart’s need for blood-red ink remains minimal (which is good since Luther Strode has returned to the shelves and Tradd Moore will monopolize the crimson solution for each page of each issue…) yet Conan’s ethical battle proves greater and far more interesting than any physical foes he’s faced so far in Brian Wood’s manipulation of the barbarian’s tale.

Fever flaunts the question of whether Conan should jettison Bêlit or remain by her side and accept whatever consequences this attachment churns forth. Normally, such a situation would carry a simple answer if some formal ceremony of bonding was present (“in sickness and in health” for “richer or poorer” and so forth) yet, Wood makes Conan’s choice more complex by never having Conan and Bêlit formally and ceremoniously setting forth the conditions of their relationship, and Bêlit states (after saving Conan from a tavern tussle by her mere appearance)

“Conan, my love…carry me back to the ship, back to my Tigress. Make me my tea, and put me to bed. And then you should go.” Bêlit clarifies when Conan asks if he should return to the healer, “No. Go. Leave, leave us. This is a dead end for you. By morning we will all be dead, no doubt.”

Conan’s initial responds by accusing Bêlit of fever madness and exclaims “I cannot. I won’t. I won’t!”

But he can.

Bêlit’s words spiral into Conan’s conscience where he ponders the validity of her predicted demise and command to go, to leave. He struggles with his choice, a choice not based on duty, or obligation, but what seems a pure choice revelatory of Conan’s character and his values and ideals and the man he is and will be.

If ever a Socratic dialogue could take place within a Conan comic, this moment seems an appropriate place to debate and churn the mind for the meaning of “love” and “commitment,” “devotion,” “freedom.”

Robert E. Howard frequently used Conan (as well as other characters) to examine the dark side of civilization and contrast it with a natural state of existence that remains superior to civilization.

This natural state versus civilization works with Conan’s current choice.  When considering whether to return to the Tigress and her ill captain and crew, Conan thinks “What of his promise to Bêlit? For whatever reason, he cannot recall ever making any.” A promise, some vow, some ritual, would obligate Conan and have him shackled to duty to return to Bêlit. Such a move, a binding of words, contains the stain of civilization; a human-crafted device to clarify a desired course of action, a set of choices made in advance. When thinking at night while overlooking the harbor where the Tigress rests at anchor, Conan continues to consider his relation to Bêlit, “Theirs was—is—a romance very much about the present, the simple pleasure of the day to day.” While reveling in each moment, Conan and Bêlit’s romance supersedes a mere groin-grinding dalliance. The first issue makes clear some powerful and unknown might has united Conan and Bêlit.

Neither can clarify the reason for their unification, but neither denies the connection. Some power of nature (always powerful and unknowable despite the best attempts of meteorologists) has united these two humans. Issue five revealed Conan’s prison-bound contemplations of Bêlit’s care and commitment for him (It’s interesting Wood keeps Conan’s mind away from this “debt”;  it certainly makes Conan’s moral conundrum far more fascinating). Conan stands at a threshold as difficult and influential as any hero has faced. The issue ends with Conan stating “I could run. I could be free of all of this. I could have a long life and see the world. It is what Bêlit asked of me. And who am I to refuse a Queen?”

Alas, readers are left to ponder whether the great melancholy expression adorning Conan’s face sprouts from his abandoning Bêlit or from his distaste at returning to the fever-filled hull of the Tigress. Wood masterfully has framed this situation in such a way that the reader’s interpretation of Conan’s expression reveals just as much (probably more) about the reader as it reveals about Conan.