100+ Definitions 9

Invincible #9

Low-Frequency Listener (L-FL): The issue opens with the alien from issue 5 rescuing the crew of the Starship Enterprise (The Next Generation cast) and the shows Mark’s father on a mountain top trying to decide how to talk to his son while Mark has a sleepover for his birthday. Auditions are held for the new Guardians of the Globe. Two clone villains resurrect The Immortal who immediately upon revival flies off to seek revenge against Omni-Man. 

Invincible #9 (I#9):  Thanks for that introduction L-FL.  From my experience, I would define a superhero as an individual in possession of extraordinary powers, even though those powers don’t instantly result in camaraderie and support. Super powers often expand instead of contract ego which gives more interest (and disagreements) to teams.

L-FL:  An interesting point.  John Jennings (co-Author of the comic The Hole: Consumer Culture) exerts in his essay “Superheroes By Design” that “a superhero is one of the most effective visual communication vehicles ever designed.”

Jennings goes on to elaborate on this claim and writes that “…the superhero is a compelling visual communication vehicle that utilizes tried and true design elements coupled with powerful social connotations in order to convey specific ideologies connected to our society’s beliefs and cultural practices. The visual signifiers of the superhero resonate with us—the physical performance of the powers, the superhero costume (which highlights the design element of color and principle of symmetry), and the display of the physically fit body….Superheroes represent what we want to be, either physically or spiritually.  As long as there is evil to conquer and injustices to make right, the superhero will be there to symbolize the struggles we all must endure in our personal journeys to vanquish the foes within ourselves."

I#9:  Damn.

100+ Definitions 8

Invincible #8

Low-Frequency Listener (L-FL): Clinical psychologist Robin Rosenberg  joins us today via her list for the typology of supervillains in “Sorting Out Villainy: A Typology of Villains and Their Effects on Superheroes.”  Rosenberg classifies the types of villains as:

The Straightforward Criminal

The Vengeful Villain

The Heroic Villain

The Sadistic Supervillain

Facing different villains, Rosenberg asserts, “reveals a different aspect of the superhero.  In doing so, each aspect that comes to the fore provides an added dimension to the definition of the superhero.”

Invincible #8 (I#8):  In my story, Invincible encounters a heroic villain, but the story begins as Mark comforts the superhero Eve after her boyfriend cheats on her. Mark and his father go to the funeral for the Guardians of the Globe. A supervillian attacks the funeral and two groups return to the graveyard to try to achieve immortality by disinterring the body of the Immortal.

The “added dimension to the definition of the superhero” caused by a sadistic supervillain is that even heroes must deal with death. A panel depicting a superhero woman holding her daughter’s hand reinforces the idea that superheroes are still humans in confronting mortality, if super humans.

L-FL: Indeed.

100+ Definitions 7

Invincible #7

Low-Frequency Listener (L-FL):  Welcome to the seventh issue of Robert Kirkman’s and Cory Walker’s Invincible superhero comic.  The story takes a perplexing dark turn, and conveys a unique aspect of superhero tales not present in previous issues.  Here’s issue seven to summarize the plot.

Invincible #7 (I#7):  The tale opens with Mark Grayson catching up on sleep.  The seven members of the Guardians of the Globe (versions of the Justice League members Batman, Flash, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Green Lantern, Martian Manhunter, and Superman) are portrayed going about their day before each receives a summons to report to their headquarters. Once assembled, all the Guardians are murdered. The murder is revealed on the last page to be Mark’s father, Omni-Man.

L-FL:  Is the slaughter of The Guardians of the Globe a comment on DC comics and DC heroes?

I#7: I’ll dodge that question and instead give this superhero definition: The call is always answered when the call arrives, no matter what other works the individual may be doing.

L-FL: The vicious actions of Omni-Man make Paul Levitz’s writing “Why Supervillains?” appropriate to mention here.  Levitz, a professor at Columbia and Pace Universities and Manhattanville College and author of 75 Years of DC Comics: The Art of Modern Mythmaking, writes:

“First, the supervillain provided the potential for a layered problem: rather than a simple obstacle for the hero to overcome or a puzzle for him or her to solve, the supervillain could repetitively pose difficulties of increasing scale and drama….

“Second, the supervillain provided a worthier opponent for the superhero; armed with powers equal (or even superior) to those of the superhero, the supervillain was able to engage in physical combat with the hero that was more visually interesting, as well as more dramatic….

“ Third, the introduction of personal malice increased the character’s motivations and even genuine evil in the stories, making the hero’s journey more heroic as he or she triumphed over these forces….

“The combine effect of all these elements was to make the hero greater and more interesting, and to provide readers with more tension as they read the stories….

“As a fringe benefit, supervillains provide a visual shorthand for the excitement within comics, offering the opportunity for more varied covers, as a procession of gaudily clad, stunningly powerful malefactors attracts instant attention.”

So, thank you issue seven for enhancing the story by introducing and killing an entire team of superheroes.  It was a pleasure.

I#7:  The feeling was mutual. 

100+ Definitions 6

Invincible #6

Invincible #6 (I#6):  My story tells how Mark goes off to tour a college and tries to impede a skull-faced creature in a power suit.  Robot of the Teen Team is trying out for the Guardians of the Globe and disbands the Teen Team.  Mark’s parents have sex.  Mark’s friend discovers his secret Invincible identity.

Low-Frequency Listener (L-FL):  Would it be fair to add this element to the superhero definitions: secret identities are more fragile than Fabergé eggs and are just as easily cracked?

(I#6):  Yes, that definition works.  The breaking of Fabergé eggs reminds me of Geoff Klockw, a professor at the Borough of Manhattan Community College (the name sake for Matt Fraction’s villain Dokkktor Klockhammer).  In his piece “What Is a Superhero?  No One Knows—That’s What Makes ‘em Great,” Klockw writes that “I think a good definition of ‘superhero’ would actually obscure why superheroes matter.  The consequences of the impossibility of defining “superhero” are too juicy to give up, and are at the very center of the greatness of the superhero.  If you can’t say what a superhero is, then you can’t say what characteristics do not belong in any given story….

“It is my claim that superhero comics do not have clear definitions, and it is my claim that we, as comic book academics, should keep it that way, so that we will continue to accept the kinds of stories, in all their strangeness, summarized by Comics Alliance.  Lunacy is truly what makes superhero comics great.”

Would lunacy recede with more comic book academics?  No. No. No. No. No.

100+ Definitions 5

Invincible #5

Low-Frequency Listener (L-FL):  In Invincible #5 Mark Grayson receives a message from his father asking him to defeat an alien who threatened Earth in the past.  After talking to the alien, Mark learns the alien is friendly but on the wrong route for his inter-stellar patrol.

Invincible #5 (I#5):  My events distill to a superhero definition of:  A creature that transcends the earth and can view the world in its entirety.

Clare Pitkethly, an academic in comparative literature, culture, and communication, defines “superhero” in her essay “Straddling a Boundary: The Superhero and the Incorporation of Difference” as “The superhero is, in simple terms, different—in some way other—fighting for a world that is not quite his own.  Walking the line between two different worlds, the superhero is a go-between, with one foot on either side.  In this way, the superhero straddles the boundary of a duality or an opposition ad is simultaneously on one side and the other, incorporating both opposing sides.  The superhero is split and is characterized by the tension of this contradiction: He or she is in some way paradoxical, and doesn’t quite fit in.”

“*Sigh*” Issue six will be here tomorrow. 

100+ Definitions 4

Invincible #4

Low-Frequency Listener (L-FL):  The fourth issue of Invincible has Mark seeking help from Atom Eve and the Teen Team to discover who is responsible for turning classmates into human bombs.   Both Mark and Eve are heckled by their teacher, who turns out to be the one exploding teens in a very misguided attempt to avenge his son.  Eve and Mark, as Atom Eve and Invincible, destroy their teacher.  Omni-Man returns from the dimension in which he was held captive and the Grayson family sits down for dinner. 

Invincible #4 (I#4):  From these pages, “superhero” can be understood as a being with extraordinary powers that subverts and shifts the social order and power relations so that the powered remains at the apex of social standing.

For example, as a student in the class, Mark follows the commands and suffers humiliation from his teacher.  Yet as Invincible, Mark becomes the socially superior one who controls the situation by cutting the teacher off in the midst of his monologue and throws his body high into the atmosphere to explode.

Comic-book writer Dennis O’Neil noted some similar ideas (and many others) regarding the essence of a superhero as shown by these selections from his essay “Superheroes and Power”:

“I don’t think there’s one concise answer to the question, ‘What is a superhero?’ Hero, derived from the Greek heros, means one who protects and serves.  A superhero is that, but it is also a lot more. …And I think that then—and later—they probably highlighted the values of the society to some degree….

“I think that superheroes have to do with power—identification with power, power that you either have or believe you have, or that you might like to have.  In addition, I think they have to do with aspiration….Given the timing of the appearance of Superman and his predecessors, we can assume that superheroes also have something to do with social discontent….

“The appeal of the superhero has something to do with escape….

“There is a kind of priestly aspect to the superhero figure—the costume identifies the wearer with a ‘higher power.’  But this function of the costume as a way of marking the wearer works in more ordinary situations as well.  Almost every culture has costumes for special occasions….The superhero costume functions in a similar way.  It signifies a separate identity, one imbued with power, and the superhero figure attracts us because we similarly want to be identified with power; it’s a normal part of being human.  

            “I think for a story to count as a superhero story, it requires action, it requires the costume motif…, and it requires the ultimate triumph of the protagonist.  But mostly it requires that the protagonist do things that an ordinary person cannot do and, by doing them, solve his or her problem.”

Well, “That’s nice.  Who’s ready for dessert?”

100+ Definitions 3

Invincible #3

Low-Frequency Listener (L-FL):  Today finds us with the third issue of Robert Kirkman and Cory Walker’s Invincible.  The superhero definition of the day derives from Stan Lee’s “More than Normal, but Believable” vignette and states a superhero is “a person who des heroic deeds and has the ability to do them in a way that a normal person couldn’t.”  Lee elaborates, “So in order to be a superhero, you need a power that is more exceptional than any power a normal human being could possess, and you need to use that power to accomplish good deeds. Otherwise, a policeman or a fireman could be considered a superhero.  For instance, a good guy fighting a bad guy could be just a regular police story or detective story or human-interest story.  But if it’s a good guy with a superpower who is fighting a bad guy, it becomes a superhero story.  If the good guy is doing something that a normal human being couldn’t do, couldn’t accomplish, then I assume he becomes a superhero.”  The antics from Invincible #3 fit Stan Lee’s criteria, listen to what occurs in this story.

Invincible #3 (I#3):  My story tells how Mark Grayson quits his mundane job at Burger Mart and gains superhero instruction while on patrol with his father, the superhero Omni-Man. They fight an army of green-skin aliens from another dimension that age at an accelerated rate. One of these aliens kidnaps the Mark’s father. Kids with bombs attached to their chests (that have been present since issue 1) keep appearing and keep exploding.

These contents lead “superhero” definition of a being of extraordinary power who receives guidance from another on the application of their powers.

L-FL:  That element of learning and growth brings to mind the conclusion Stan Lee has in the same writing referenced earlier: “I think people are fascinated by superheroes because when we were young we all liked fairy tales, and fairy tales are stories of people with superpowers, people who are super in some way—giants, witches, magicians, always people who are bigger than life.  Well, as we got older, we outgrew fairy tales.  Most people don’t read fairy tales when they’re grown-ups, but I don’t think we ever outgrow our love for those kinds of stories, stories of people who are bigger and more powerful and more colorful than we are.  So superhero stores, to me, are like fairy tales for grown-ups.  I don’t know why, but the human condition is such that we love reading about people who can do things that we can’t do and who have powers that we wish we had.”

I#3:  That gives a basic reason for why some read tales of superheroics beyond childhood.  I imagine this is still small, but, “well, that’s more porkchops for us.”

100+ Definitions 2

Invincible # 2

Low-Frequency Listener (L-FL):  Welcome, with us today is the second issue of Robert Kirkman and Cory Walker’s Invincible.  Please tell readers the plot of your pages.

Invincible #2 (I#2): Okay, you may have noticed I’m a lot like other comics in that I tell an origin of Mark Grayson.  His dad’s a super-powered alien and his mom’s an Earth native.  Flying after bedtime, Mark patrols the night and encounters the Teen Team (Robot, Atom Eve, Rex Splode, and Dupli-Kate) and briefly allies with them to defeat a pair of blue clones.  The issue ends with a confused kid waking up in a mall with a bomb strapped to his chest and exploding.

L-FL:  Will Brooker, a Kingston University, London professor of film and cultural studies, started his essay “We Could Be Heroes” with the claim,

“Superheroes are about wish fulfillment.  They’re about imagining  a better world and creating an alternate version of yourself—bigger, brighter, bolder than the real thing—to patrol and protect it.  That’s the way it’s always been, right from the start.  That’s how it was for Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, misfit young men from immigrant families who dreamed up a Superman in the 1930’s; that’s how it was for Bob Kahn, a little later, sketching a Bat-Man  who could soar above the roofs of his run-down Bronx neighborhood.  Kahn even changed his own name, hiding his Jewish roots in a new brand—Bob Kane—and a carefully crafted logo; when he put his signature in Bat-Man, he also confirmed a new identity for himself, and he made sure it rhymed with Bruce Wayne.”

Based on your contents, how the events in your pages define “superhero”?

I#2: The existence of a single hero necessitates the presence of other super beings. Thus a superhero story carries the potential for other super creatures to arrive in the story to enhance the plot, as well as providing an avenue for readers to imagine themselves into a superhero role with the wish fulfillment of which Brooker spoke.  This trait of superheroes provides a democratizing element to the superhero genre.  

L-FL: Wonderful, thanks for that insight.  Do you have any parting words for readers?

I#2:  I’m happy to close with a “BOOM!”

100+ Definitions 1

Stan Lee told French film director Alain Resnais “I can’t understand people who read comics.  I wouldn’t read them if I had the time and wasn’t in the business”[1].

Superhero comics stand worthy of groans, eye rolls, and sneering disdain. Yet, despite these multiple short comings, the genre has endured for 70+ years, and given recent movie success stands scant chance of soon fading from existence.  For better or worse, superhero comics grip my interest.  Even through the endless plot repetition, the stasis of characters, and the endless teasing and jibes I collect when admitting to reading superhero tales, cowls and capes keep tugging my attention.  Stan Lee’s confession, “I can’t understand people who read comics,” contains within it the question “why do you read comics ?”. 

Like “The Man” Lee, I can’t understand why I keep returning to superhero comic books.  What do superhero comics offer a reader?

In an attempt to answer the above question, and to justify purchasing Invincible Compendium 1, each issue of Invincible will be read (an issue a day) with a concise commentary (~ ½ a page) and how that issue defines “superhero” with the hope that this range of definitions will reveal the offerings of superhero comics and clarify why I and others may read what at a cursory glance seems totally ridiculous.

Invincible #1

Low-Frequency Listener (L-FL):  We’re here with Invincible #1 originally released in January 2003.  Tell us a bit about yourself.

Invincible #1 (I#1): “Sorry I’m late. There was an enchanted flood in Egypt I had to deal with on the way over.”  I’m here now though, and I introduce readers to Mark Grayson and his family.  Mark’s father is a superhero (disguised as an author). Mark’s powers manifest (flight, strength, invulnerability) and Mark obtains a costume and a mission (fight crime) with some tutelage from his father. Mark’s in high school and has his name, Invincible, bestowed upon him by the school principle.

L-FL: According to Peter Coogan (director of the Institute for Comics Studies and an instructor at Washington University) gave the following definition of “superhero” in his essay “The Hero Defines the Genre, the Genre Defines the Hero”:

Superhero – A heroic character with a universal selfless prosocial mission; who possesses superpowers—extraordinary abilities, advanced technology, or highly developed physical and/or mental skills (including mystical abilities); who has a superhero identity embodied in a code name and iconic costume, which typically express his biography or character, powers, and origin (transformation from ordinary person to superhero); and is generically distinct, i.e. can be distinguished from characters of related genres (fantasy, science fiction, detective, etc.) by a preponderance of generic conventions.  Often superheroes have dual identities, the ordinary one of which is usually a closely guarded secret.

From your contents, how do you define “superhero”?

I #1: To me “superhero” is an extraordinary person whose society contributes to and forms the identity and mission of this public figure.

L-FL: Thank you for your words.  We’ll return you to a poly bag and backing board.

I #1: “I wouldn’t try that…I’m Invincible.”

---

[1]  This quote can be found on page 103 of Sean Howe’s Marvel Comics: The Untold Story.

The Aardvark-Vanaheim Pilgrimage: Cerebus 10: Mothers & Daughters 4: Minds

Oh, Neverminds

Cerebus: Minds

Issues 187-200

October 1994-November 1995

286 pages

Although Pluto has been kicked out of the solar system’s exclusive Planet Club, it still serves as a great locale for sorting out one’s thoughts.  Minds continues exploring dichotomies (actions and consequences) and maintains the mythic grandeur present in the previous Cerebus volumes.  Throughout this reading, surprise arose by the discovery that Minds fits the footsteps of a hero’s journey, and fulfills a role of myths according to Joseph Campbell in The Hero with a Thousand Faces where myths can “touch and inspire deep creative centers dwells in the smallest nursery fairy tale –as the flavor of the ocean is contained in a droplet or the whole mystery of life within the egg of a flea” (4).

 

Summary: In this final installment of Mothers & Daughters, many of the lingering secrets about Cerebus receive explanation. It concludes one aspect of the aardvark’s life and sets him up for a new direction. 

Readers meet Cerebus and Cirin floating in space on a small chunk of rock.  They argue until the chunk of rock splits in two and sends each aardvark floating in opposite directions.

Readers follow Cerebus who engages his creator, Dave, in conversation. Dave answers Cerebus’s questions about his medallions and destiny to rule world (the earth-pig missed his chance).  The origins of Cirin and the Motherhood is explained (a sibling betrayal, a co-opting of identity and unhealthy heaps of denial resulted in the intolerant viciousness of the current Motherhood).  Jaka is revealed to Cerebus to be living and Dave shows that every possibility of Cerebus and Jaka getting together ends in disaster.  Such knowledge depresses Cerebus and, after some eye surgery, he ends up stranded on Pluto until Dave returns and transports Cerebus to a tavern at the Wall of Tsi. 

Response: Reading Minds feels like unleashing the two streams Heracles rerouted to sluice through Augeas’ stables.  This volume cleansed the muck of questions and massive supporting story elements that gathered around Cerebus in his previous186 issues. This refreshing narrative simultaneously gave the larger Cerebus arc a sense of enlarged possibility and imparted a sense of excitement and a strong dose of the unknown about the future narrative.

The structure of Minds occupies itself with images (compared to the Reads’s, the previous volume, preference to words).  Metacommentary again works its way, to the advantage of the story, into the narrative.  There are stunning celestial renderings of space, Jupiter, Saturn, and the surface of Pluto sprawl across pages and convey the mythic element of Cerebus better than any paragraph.  Joseph Campbell’s hero cycle provides a clarification that enlarges the purpose and setting for the celestial environment of Minds. 

After a prolonged study of mythology, Carl Jung, and many others the scholar of comparative myth and religion Joseph Campbell, derived a pattern for the trials and situations through which a protagonist progressed in mythology.  Campbell framed it as a hero on a quest.  Applying Campbell’s vague definition of “hero” (“the man [to be understood as human being] of self-achieved submission” on page 16) to Cerebus and looking more closely at a trial of a hero,  Cerebus’s environment in Minds acquires greater significance.

Of a trial endured by a hero, Campbell writes “And so it happens

that if anyone—in whatever society—undertakes for himself the perilous journey into the darkness by descending, either intentionally or unintentionally, into the crooked lanes of his own spiritual labyrinth, he soon finds himself in a landscape of symbolic figures (any one of which may swallow him) which is no less marvelous than the wild Siberian world of the pudak [differing obstacles] and sacred mountains. …this is the process of dissolving, transcending, or transmuting the infantile images of our personal past…forms we may see reflect[] not only the whole picture of our present case, but also the clue to what we must do to be saved” (on page 101).

Space is Cerebus’s spiritual labyrinth, a symbolic landscape (and what better than the cold vacuum of space to represent Cerebus’s current ethical and moral state).  His journey through space and time on Pluto stands for his reflection and metamorphosis. 

In space and on Pluto Cerebus confronts his distasteful self and recognizes a change is needed in his actions. He resolves to make an effort at change, and he is whisked from the planet named after the Roman ruler of the dead “to  the little tavern at the Wall of Tsi—just below Castle Wallis” (Minds 282).  The voice of Dave gives clues to what Cerebus must do to be saved.

Though hesitant to suggest the idea, Cerebus’s eye patch could read as a parallel to Odin trading his eye for wisdom; perhaps this momentary loss of the eye and self-assessment give Cerebus, and readers, the sense that things are going to change around here, in the pages of Cerebus.

The choice of situating Cerebus’s spiritual trial on Pluto (named after the Roman god of the underworld) is a masterful stroke that reinvigorates a conventional trope.  The journeys to the underworld by Gilgamesh, Orpheus, Odysseus, and Aeneas, and even Percy Jackson are repeated when Cerebus gets a clue about what to do with his life on the surface of a dead planet.  Cold, dark,

and silent and far removed from the warmth of the sun, Pluto mirrors the sensations and perceptions experienced by the self examination Cerebus undertakes to discover that many many MANY abhorrent aspects of his personality.  Cerebus himself is like a ghost in that he is immune to any physical discomfort and is alone aside from his thoughts and a single psychic phone call to Aardvark-Vanaheim Publishing. 

The setting also clarifies the plethora of panels and pages bereft of words.  Space is vast, silent, and replete with solitude, in space, no one can hear you soliloquize.  Outer space is a perfect setting for self reflection, or intense intimate one-on-one conversation for those who don’t want to be interrupted or distracted from this thinking process.

While Reads promoted readers to think and examine their reads to arrive at their own conclusions, Minds gives another example of a locale and method on how to set about thinking and arriving at conclusions.

Minds ends with Cerebus jumping to his selected destination and with an amused Dave viewing the comic book page where his aardvark protagonist falls to his fate. Dave’s classification as Cerebus as an “ultra-maroon” promises the presence of future hijinks before concluding with a full page heralding the next story arc of Guys.  With the promise of free alcohol, and no last call, readers can mirror Cerebus in following the final imperative Dave gives Cerebus, “So jump already” to arrive at the next tale.  Cerebus falls into the next step of his hero’s journey.