Serendipity and Comics: Teen Titans Lost Annual #1, A New Historicist Perspective

"[T]he great justification for a historical approach to literature and criticism is that we must know everything--the life, the times, the intricate internal argument, the shape of the language. When a subject truly engages us, every detail is precious, every shred of evidence is worth considering"- Morris Dickstein (as cited in Latrobe and Drury, 2009). 


Sometimes it is strange how the universe is serendipitous when your mind has become pre-occupied with other things. In the last few weeks, I had become a bit bummed because of the continued failure of the American government to work things out with the debt ceiling and....well about a million other things. While I have no political party allegiance ( I prefer to always listen to the candidates and do my homework before voting), I can honestly say that recent events has made me reflect a bit on the years between 2000-2008, when the country was not exactly running as quite I hoped as a citizen and voter. It was a bad time to be a mid-twenties, educated, lower middle class public school teacher (and comics fan) trying to make a difference. Cynicism was in the air and it was blossoming in many arms of the arts, more so than it had seemed previously (for example, No Country For Old Men and  There Will Be Blood were two of the most popular films at the end of the middle point of the decade! Talk about a darkness).

Even my cherished comic book heroes and heroines were struggling to re-connect to a former glimmer of the idealism and heroics I had fallen in love with as a youngster. DC comics, whom I have always had the strongest allegiance to, was mired for most of the decade in a cycle of crisis (Identity Crisis, Infinite Crisis, Final Crisis), and the whole comics industry seemed to still be in the shadow of the realistic, violent, and gritty stories and characterizations that had emerged almost twenty years previously.  With all that, however, there were some glimmering moments that I was aware of for DC Comics (and yes, I am aware of Johnny DC and the all ages tag, but I want to focus on my age demographic) in the darkness of the first decade of a new century; one major one and one minor one (that I had not been aware of) I just recently came across. The major one was  Darwyn Cooke's 2003-2004 The New Frontier, a story about the dawn of our superheroes at the cusp of a new age (the comics categorized Silver Age ), that Cooke parallels to the cold war and optimism of the John F. Kennedy presidential administration.

The second moment came as I was going through my LCS pull box this past week and I found DC Comics Presents: Teen Titans 100-Page Spectacular was sitting at the very bottom. It was odd because I didn't order it, and I was just about to tell the owner to put it on the rack until I looked closer at it. There, on the cover, was the name of Michael Allred. This was enough for me to not only buy it, but to start reading it as soon as I got home, bumping back the more high profile Daredevil and Flashpoint titles. (Later, I would look up Jay Stephens, who is the actual artist on the book, and my jaw dropped at how I didn't realize who he was!). Coming to the end of the story (this particular issue includes some other work than just the Titans story I am examining) my mind started to do that magic work of moving the furniture around upstairs in that way in which one notices a change within themselves or ones thinking/perceptions (thank you Neil Gaiman) as it came apparent to me that this story, this particular work of art was a wonderful example of how the comics medium explores, in some stories, our own constructed history and alters it just slightly in a positive, inventive, and optimistic way to make one feel...well... better. So off my mind went, as it so often will in such situations, and it led me to historical criticism that is often utilized in literary studies.

Applying New Historicism To Comics
So having decided that historical criticism would do the job, I went back and looked at Teen Titans Lost Annual #1 through my own interpretation of a branch of that type of criticism, specifically New Historical criticism. There are two things I decided to focus on. First, using the definition of new historicism put forth by Murfin and Ray (2003) , I looked at the story as both having "[...]influence and [being] influenced by historical reality"(p. 295). Basically, I think that Haney, Stephens and Allred are creating what the comics industry excels at like no other medium of communication- a hybrid intertextuality that co-mingles word, image, idea, and discourse on a multiplicity of levels (in this case a specific historical persona and time period) to be interpreted and understood by a wide demographic range. But that was a bit too broad you see, so I needed to whittle it down some more, so,  to further investigate my ideas I sent my brain off to those other places and it came back with a specific analytic tool associated with new historicism-- evaluating a text through the context and milieu.

The Context and Milieu
For this I used Latrobe and Drury (2009), who suggest when examining work through a historical criticism lens, one should consider the context and milieu by asking: "What is the setting; what are the principle characteristics of time/place/circumstance?; What historical aspects (e.g., political, social, cultural, economic) does the work portray?; Verisimilitude: In considering elements of the work's context, did the author take liberties (e.g., omitting the impact of significant historical events)? If so, why might the author have taken such liberties?" (p. 174). These questions felt satisfactory in my need to dig a bit deeper at why an artifact like Teen Titans Lost Annual #1 had me feeling better, and moreover, why I feel like such a title can contribute to a larger discussion about comics from a different perspective (which, if you read this blog often, you know I am always digging at).

1) What is the setting; what are the principle characteristics of time/place/circumstance? The story is a reflection of silver age optimism and, in the resolution, ultimate fantasy for an entire baby-boomer generation. The story is about Robin, the Boy Wonder (Dick Grayson), witnessing President Kennedy being abducted by ultra-mod looking aliens known as Ullustrians, who replace him with a look-a-like clone (fig. 1).

(fig.1)

Robin alerts the Titans to the situation and they soon are teleported off to the planet of Ullustro, where President Kennedy has been brainwashed to command the armies of the Ullustrians in an ongoing war with eerie similarities to all conflict that has occurred within the timeframe of the 20th century. There were times while reading, I must confess,  that these artists attempts at creating a sense of time and place with a real historical figure (Kennedy), mixed with the fictional Teen Titans, felt like an overwhelmingly surreal experience (which in some cases is not always a bad thing). To add to the illusion of reality within the time period of a mixed reality 60's with the silver age, dialogue is peppered with slang and (now) anachronisms being spoken by our young heroes and heroine: Using the term "twist" to describe girls; "blowing ones stack" to describe losing ones mind; "Lover" as a term of affection; and even "Ka-Powing" as a verb!

2)What historical aspects (e.g., political, social, cultural, economic) does the work portray? As discussed above, the artists here use a mix of allegory (war ,conflict, tragedy), historical record (Kennedy), and pop culture (comic book characters in silver age guise) to tell a story that has an appeal that perhaps is due to a mix of modern and postmodern artistic sensibility. What gives comics that extra something is of course the use of the art! Jay Stephens (and Mike Allred, when not inking) have been described as using pop art sensibilities and the utilization of mid-60's futuristic modernism in the work they produce (see fig.2 and fig. 3). To tell a silver age tale, this type of art makes the most sense. Darwyn Cooke's line work can also be considered pop art or even retro, but his style seems to be much closer to golden age than mod-60's sensibility (however, it is all beautiful to me).

(fig. 2)

(fig. 3)

3) Verisimilitude. It is hard to discuss this without giving away the ending, but it is the lynchpin to the story so....Upon rescuing President Kennedy, the Titans return to Earth only to find out that Kennedy's clone has been assassinated. Kennedy, realizing that he can still make a difference on Ullustro, opts to return there and makes the Titans swear to never reveal the truth to the world. This means that somewhere in the universe, Kennedy is still alive and helping cultures to see his vision of what is just and right (fig. 4).

(fig. 4)

This is a lovely sentiment , and one that is often avoided in tales of the future, as it is easy to dismiss it as a narrative choice that is to close to sappy sentimentalism. The ending though, and the story as a whole, is open, as it will effect the reader depending upon the age of the reader or the knowledge they possess of history, both not only in terms of our own recorded textbook history, but the history of the  fictional characters (DC Comics is over 75 years old), the art style (how many people stop to think about pop art vs. modern?), and so forth. The openness in this instance is the beauty for the medium of comics...it is as deep and multi-layered as our own knowledge can allow it to be. That alone makes me happy...the idea that a story, a small story, has such a toolbox full of possible uses attached to it and it is just waiting for people to pick it up.

I'm not a baby boomer, nor a Gen X'er, nor a Millennial. I'm the one in-between the cracks, culturally and politically. Somehow, the lows have been incredibly low in my demographic. But coming across this story by these artists this week and applying the above critical analysis, I found myself smiling again, reminding myself and remembering that our stories, our dreams, have so many avenues that are still open to go down, even if we have to go backwards to do so. That kind of optimism, the openness, is the one that comics constantly gives me. Also, I invite anyone who reads this to explore historical, or new historical, criticism in evaluating comics (especially the things I didn't get to in this story alone, and there are loads I am sure!). By applying avenues of criticism usually reserved for other disciplines, you will be surprised how well they translate. As always, please share your thoughts, opinions, questions and ideas in the comments section.

All images are copyright DC Comics, 2011, and were purchased by the author. These images are intended for scholarly use and debate only. 

References
Latrobe, K.H., Drury, J. (2009). Critical Approaches to Young Adult Literature. New York: Neal-Schuman Publishers. 
Murfin, R., Suprya, R.M. (2003). The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms, 2nd ed. New York: Bedford St. Martins.