Having just finished the recent week in Flashpoint, there were two specific scenes that stood out to me that I feel also fold in nicely with discussions concerning the recent announcements of a new Spider-Man and a resurrected Ryan Choi as The Atom over at DC comics.
Flashpoint #4
The most curious thing about the main Flashpoint title, written by Geoff Johns, is that it is really a centerpiece that focuses more on the characters than the action. This is interesting because it allows for bigger themes and ideas to emerge. One that had been sort of bubbling under the surface but came out in full this week is in a scene with the children who comprise the Shazam-tastic Captain Marvel ( aka Captain Thunder in this timeline) in a conversation with Barry Allen, Cyborg, Batman, and Element Woman. The Flashpoint world is on the brink of destruction and heroes are in short supply to go to the front lines to help. As the rambling and disjointed heroes have come to a house for help, it is Billy Batson, a mere boy granted magical powers, who has watched the world begin to disintegrate from war and hatred in front of his eyes on television, fully capable but much like everyone else scared, who has the following exchange with Barry Allen/The Flash:
Billy: We'll come with you./ We have to, guys. Even if it's only The Flash and us. We can't sit inside and watch TV and hope something good is going to happen./ We have to make it happen.
The Flash: No, No, it's too dangerous for kids.
Billy: It's dangerous for everyone, Flash.
Such discourse in comics is common, but, often it is overlooked as just another component of writing for the superhero/heroine genre: the good guys must rally and someone must give the version of the rally round the flag speech. However, let's take a moment to approach what is perhaps being said here on another level. This is the call to action-- social action and/or social justice. Here, in this "comics summer event", we have substance over style as the characters and situation being faced mirrors our own society yet again (which, I might add, all great literature does). Generations (especially young people) who read this will be faced with the question of whether they themselves are active or passive citizens within their own culture and society and what that may mean. As an adult who teaches, this is one of the most important things I try to impart to students--that transformative social change begins with questioning (born from reading and/or discussion) enough that it moves you to action of some kind.
The World of Flashpoint #3
As one of the ancillary titles, I am sure not everyone who is reading the main event book may be getting this one. While it is not a perfect side story (as some of the side ones are not), there is a very important point about cultural beliefs when the character Traci 13, in a dramatic moment of trying to find clarity for her father, thinks:
Traci: All these champions, both good and bad, are all driven by their selfish motives. Each is caught up in his or her own little drama. / And each of them wants nothing more than to mold this world into the image of what they consider right. / But who is truly right? It's all a matter of perspective...
On the next splash page, she imparts to him (along with psychic imagery):
Traci: The world can be a terrible place, dad./ But it can be a beautiful one. It's a place where people try to make it better./ Each in their own way./ Trying to solve the world's problems, one step at a time./ There are no easy solutions. Sometimes you just have to let go.../...and hope.
Traci's call for understanding perspective in a diverse world is punctuated by the two page splash image of man, woman, alien, cyborg, machine, element, meta-human etc. all wanting to make a change for "A" better. The point Tracy is making, I believe, as many philosophers, educators, anthropologists and social theorists have also discussed the last hundred years, is that the first step in understanding culture is to understand that unity can exist even when it is understood differently based on ones upbringing and moral code. With respect for another cultures perspective, respect for views can become shared via reciprocity, and suddenly light is shed upon that most of what everyone wants, regardless of place on the planet, is basically the same: To live a healthy life with opportunity and chance for themselves and those around them; To be free of war and pestilence and hunger and death; To unshackle those that are oppressed and put in danger by those that only want power; To be educated; To be heroes for one another when the time comes.
Faces of Diversity
So I found it rather wonderful that these themes emerged in a high profile series like Flashpoint as announcements concerning the new Ultimate Universe Spider-Man were made. Marvel revealed that the Spider-Man of that universe would be a young man of mixed race background. While the voices of hatred have emerged( as they always do), there was a very nice post over at DC Women Kicking Ass who gave perhaps the best perspective on why it is important that Spider-Man has changed, and also on DC comics continuing struggles towards diversity in characters with the resurrection of Ryan Choi. Just click on the linked name for DCWKA and please read, share, respond, and by all means continue the conversation.
Showing posts with label Batman. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Batman. Show all posts
Thursday, August 4, 2011
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Building Worlds and Myth Making: Magical Realism In Comics
Reality as it is often depicted in fiction can, let's be honest, tend to become a bit much. Fiction, especially comics-medium fiction, is a place for the weird, wonderful, wish-fulfilling and dream inducing tales of new and old myth. Lately I have been thinking more and more about how the comics medium has grown to create spaces that are often over-reliant upon spatial and chronological realities-- realities which are often derived from cultural norms that are not balanced in our own world. The spaces comics can create have such greater possibilities as they are born out of the ideas of dreamers who create places that can be more surreal and inspiring than the state of our own realities. What these spaces in comics can (and in many cases have) create(d) and utilize(d), I believe, are elements that are often associated with magical realism. Therefore, magical realism is a very important element in the comics medium.
Magical Realism
The greatest thing about the concept of magical realism is that it has been a struggle to actually define it. This of course is the best thing about it--malleability. However, this malleability can be built from a grounded place (as all good ideas are). The one I want to focus on discusses magical realism as "characterized by a mixture of realistic and fantastic elements" that can have "realistic details and esoteric knowledge intertwined with dreamlike sequences, abrupt chronological shifts, and complex, tangled plots", while also "frequently incorporat[ing] fairy tales and myths into [the] work" (Murfin & Ray, 2003, p.242). Comics (when not hung up on being so "real") often exhibit all of those or some of those parts all the time.
The Waking Dream
In comics (and in most fictions), there is (or should be) the absolute and unmistakably dream-like quality of real versus non-real places. Magical realism is to a large degree already apart of the DNA of comics through not only our superhero and meta-human characters, but also in the dream-scape meta-realities of say a Marvel universe inhabited New York City. For example, think about perhaps a scene in an issue of The Avengers, or Amazing Spider-Man, where that deli in the borough of queens that your family and yourself have eaten at for two generations is where Peter Parker eats lunch with Tony Stark to discuss important plot points (which can also be argued as a meta-fictive quality). That is the beauty of Marvel's NYC (sometimes)-- it is there but it is not...it's really up to you.
A System Of Cultural Layers
Magical realism allows for a broader telling of stories through metaphor and allegorical cultural layers. This one is tricky, as it is important to broaden the "cultural" in that statement, something that has, while occurring, been very slow to continue along a greater development in mainstream comics. It's a big world, with a lot of untapped writers and artists of different nationalities and cultures who can blend a unique sense of place and the fantastical into the larger web of myth that the American superhero genre has created. The future of comics rests on the abilities of allowing the broadest spectrum to be represented and to express their own magical realities, either through established characters or new ones.
The Science Of Fiction
The worlds depicted in comics have their own physics and constructed realities. People fly. Gods of mythology walk amongst us. Large cities are destroyed and re-built. People can achieve speeds so high they can vibrate molecules--this list could really go on and on ( I actually encourage you to please continue it in the comments section!). Anything is possible. But for some reason, the abilities of approaching this idea are mostly squandered due to our over-relying on some need for reality. The beauty of how magical realism is functioning is that it doesn't need to be explained. It just is. Batman does not have to explain how he created a device that emits a low-frequency sound to stop Two-Face's wireless detonation signal. It's the fact that it works--that Batman helped stop destruction and death from happening. And somewhere, maybe it inspires someone in our own world to actually try to create that device to one day save lives.
It is hard sometimes, because of the way that we attach context and meaning to our fictions, to remember one of the great big rules about comic books (and fiction in general)-- None of it is real. This diversion from reality is part of the transformative appeal of comics--the ability to do anything means that they can do what we are not capable of, and thus gives us a window to wonder how we could achieve or build such things; How we can educate, save and/or empower people who need it; How we can develop pluralistic cultural understandings; How we can work together. This is achieved on a regular basis through crazy psuedo-science in places like a quasi-New York City on an alternate reality earth that magical realism works so hard to achieve. If we are able to achieve great dreams, create our ultimate selves and unite, then I will take the crazy over the real anytime. In the comments section below, please feel free to just write about the magical realism elements of comics that have inspired you or made you wonder.
References
Murfin, R. & Ray, S.M. (2003). The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms, 2nd ed. Bedford St. Martin's: New York.
Magical Realism
The greatest thing about the concept of magical realism is that it has been a struggle to actually define it. This of course is the best thing about it--malleability. However, this malleability can be built from a grounded place (as all good ideas are). The one I want to focus on discusses magical realism as "characterized by a mixture of realistic and fantastic elements" that can have "realistic details and esoteric knowledge intertwined with dreamlike sequences, abrupt chronological shifts, and complex, tangled plots", while also "frequently incorporat[ing] fairy tales and myths into [the] work" (Murfin & Ray, 2003, p.242). Comics (when not hung up on being so "real") often exhibit all of those or some of those parts all the time.
The Waking Dream
In comics (and in most fictions), there is (or should be) the absolute and unmistakably dream-like quality of real versus non-real places. Magical realism is to a large degree already apart of the DNA of comics through not only our superhero and meta-human characters, but also in the dream-scape meta-realities of say a Marvel universe inhabited New York City. For example, think about perhaps a scene in an issue of The Avengers, or Amazing Spider-Man, where that deli in the borough of queens that your family and yourself have eaten at for two generations is where Peter Parker eats lunch with Tony Stark to discuss important plot points (which can also be argued as a meta-fictive quality). That is the beauty of Marvel's NYC (sometimes)-- it is there but it is not...it's really up to you.
A System Of Cultural Layers
Magical realism allows for a broader telling of stories through metaphor and allegorical cultural layers. This one is tricky, as it is important to broaden the "cultural" in that statement, something that has, while occurring, been very slow to continue along a greater development in mainstream comics. It's a big world, with a lot of untapped writers and artists of different nationalities and cultures who can blend a unique sense of place and the fantastical into the larger web of myth that the American superhero genre has created. The future of comics rests on the abilities of allowing the broadest spectrum to be represented and to express their own magical realities, either through established characters or new ones.
The Science Of Fiction
The worlds depicted in comics have their own physics and constructed realities. People fly. Gods of mythology walk amongst us. Large cities are destroyed and re-built. People can achieve speeds so high they can vibrate molecules--this list could really go on and on ( I actually encourage you to please continue it in the comments section!). Anything is possible. But for some reason, the abilities of approaching this idea are mostly squandered due to our over-relying on some need for reality. The beauty of how magical realism is functioning is that it doesn't need to be explained. It just is. Batman does not have to explain how he created a device that emits a low-frequency sound to stop Two-Face's wireless detonation signal. It's the fact that it works--that Batman helped stop destruction and death from happening. And somewhere, maybe it inspires someone in our own world to actually try to create that device to one day save lives.
It is hard sometimes, because of the way that we attach context and meaning to our fictions, to remember one of the great big rules about comic books (and fiction in general)-- None of it is real. This diversion from reality is part of the transformative appeal of comics--the ability to do anything means that they can do what we are not capable of, and thus gives us a window to wonder how we could achieve or build such things; How we can educate, save and/or empower people who need it; How we can develop pluralistic cultural understandings; How we can work together. This is achieved on a regular basis through crazy psuedo-science in places like a quasi-New York City on an alternate reality earth that magical realism works so hard to achieve. If we are able to achieve great dreams, create our ultimate selves and unite, then I will take the crazy over the real anytime. In the comments section below, please feel free to just write about the magical realism elements of comics that have inspired you or made you wonder.
References
Murfin, R. & Ray, S.M. (2003). The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms, 2nd ed. Bedford St. Martin's: New York.
Sunday, May 8, 2011
New blog, but not new ideas
Well, I procrastinated about this, mainly because I did not really want to do it, but the continued issues at my old blog/journal/ranting space with outside attacks and hijinks sealed the deal. Now with that said.....
Hackers suck. This week, I followed the news about the Playstation Network and its 77 million user accounts being completely hacked, i.e. 77 million people had all personal information (credit card numbers, phone numbers, addresses, passwords, etc.) seen and at this point has probably been sold to various black market folks. Think about that number for a number....77 million. And what did these people do, what was the crime these anti heroes wanted to expose? They just wanted to play games. That's it, play fucking games. So thanks hackers for using social subversion to expose those damn gamers. Big high five. I hope that wolverines eat your toes. Slowly. ( And in case you are wondering, no, I do not have a PS3, nor an online gaming account. And now I won't.)
On happier shores, Saturday was Free Comic Book Day (FCBD) round the world, and the ole twitter feed was alive with happiness and joy and great photos. Regardless of my stance as a geek and outright nerd, FCBD was a relief with recent bad events here in my corner of the world. I thought it was weird though that as I went out Saturday night and heard not one, not two, but three awful college rock cover bands (another long story), regaled in my Batman tee and jeans with canvas shoes, I was constantly asked what was up with the shirt? (Sigh), I just smiled and said "da-na-na-na-na-na" and laughed and shrugged. I'm 34 years old and I will never ever apologize again for being the geek I am. So for those that say I need to grow up or think it strange I say: When you are finished with your doctoral degree, come talk to me. (grinning like a madman).
Oh, I am building this site ( and one other) slowly as I am trying to really learn about it, so apologies about the look. It will probably be under construction (much like its omniscient narrator) for some time.
Hackers suck. This week, I followed the news about the Playstation Network and its 77 million user accounts being completely hacked, i.e. 77 million people had all personal information (credit card numbers, phone numbers, addresses, passwords, etc.) seen and at this point has probably been sold to various black market folks. Think about that number for a number....77 million. And what did these people do, what was the crime these anti heroes wanted to expose? They just wanted to play games. That's it, play fucking games. So thanks hackers for using social subversion to expose those damn gamers. Big high five. I hope that wolverines eat your toes. Slowly. ( And in case you are wondering, no, I do not have a PS3, nor an online gaming account. And now I won't.)
On happier shores, Saturday was Free Comic Book Day (FCBD) round the world, and the ole twitter feed was alive with happiness and joy and great photos. Regardless of my stance as a geek and outright nerd, FCBD was a relief with recent bad events here in my corner of the world. I thought it was weird though that as I went out Saturday night and heard not one, not two, but three awful college rock cover bands (another long story), regaled in my Batman tee and jeans with canvas shoes, I was constantly asked what was up with the shirt? (Sigh), I just smiled and said "da-na-na-na-na-na" and laughed and shrugged. I'm 34 years old and I will never ever apologize again for being the geek I am. So for those that say I need to grow up or think it strange I say: When you are finished with your doctoral degree, come talk to me. (grinning like a madman).
Oh, I am building this site ( and one other) slowly as I am trying to really learn about it, so apologies about the look. It will probably be under construction (much like its omniscient narrator) for some time.
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