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I'm sober now but still surprised there are two threads for comics that don't seem to be out until next week, and far fewer posts for this comic than we had for each monthly issue of Seaguy, We3 and JLA Confidential. Maybe it's because there aren't any "plot holes", lol.
I'm surprised because I keep re-testing my theory that this is one of my favourite superhero comics since Zenith phase III, and it still seems to hold.
I'm asking myself why I like this comic so much. I might have to break it down.
1. On a more superficial level, there's faultless, inspiring art:
- elegantly clear enough to allow a swift, smooth rhythm and pace as you just follow the story, the page format as a self-effacing conduit to immersion in the narrative and characters, but also
- extremely imaginative in its layout, the frame divides part of the overall image (twisty roots in Swamp Thing style page 1, interlocking primary colour puzzle page 4, Amerindian patchworks behind the panels in mesa country)
- repaying a second closer visit in its detail, perhaps inevitably reminiscent of Watchmen with all the book spines and classified ads to look at alongside the nostalgic group shots of old hero gangs; it wasn't until today that I really noticed all the cuts and scrapes on the Whip's body (wonder if the Chaykin Black Kiss porn-noir 80s' chic is intentional)
- gorgeously executed when you go back to look at an image rather than gloss over it for the plot -- that fantastic John Ford open mesa of "Big Time Country"
- intriguing, finally, in its use of ICONS, something I don't believe I've ever seen outside The Wasp Factory and Northern Lights, or of course computer software (the 80s icon-driven adventure Shadowfire) -- those recurring simplified, clickable symbols. Dynamite, whip, web. Check out that Iain Banks novel if you haven't seen it, because they really are similar. In Banks, they indicate, at the start of the chapter, the method of death that follows. They also recall the Silver Age (?) device Morrison used in JLA of introducing the team through a little oval with a cheery face: "The JLA! Batman! Martian Manhunter!" In One Million he came closest to this bold iconic design, bringing up a little MSN-style Window for each new character, with their associated symbol. It's fascinating in that the real people we meet only rarely measure up to hero status, the stylised badges those icons imply (they're like Superman's "S", sigils. Magickal mythical symbols.) There's only one point when the Whip feels she's really digging into that mythical groove, getting heavy on the magick: "dreaming piling up of weirdness and the impossible...chasing a legend."
2. For all the talk around Moore that he showed how heroes would operate in the real world, I can't think of any other comic that's come closer to making me feel "This is how it would be if I was a superhero." Because if any of us became heroes, through luck or mad dedication, this is the type we would be -- trained and athletic gimmick-mongers, jammy buggers who inherited a magic item, crazy geeks with an ebay weapon. These are fanboys out of their league. The JLA are almost as far above these guys as they are to normal civilians: Aquaman, even Booster Gold is a namedrop for life. A mention of the JLA makes the Whip feel her own insignificance; their presence in the world is monumental. I liked how "I, Spyder", fucking cool-as-ice wannabe, was reduced to a babbling naked wuss within three pages. Totally out of their depth.
From this perspective, almost the lowest-league in the pantheon, I feel we learn a lot about superheroes from a new angle. Because these characters are almost like us, it's a convincing entry point. There's something very neat about the way "golden age" is shown to be a jargon term within the real world of the DCU, incorporated into the superhero universe where the guidebooks to crimefighters are published by "DC"; even so, characters use it self-consciously, within quotation marks. There's a sense that it's all been done before, that a hero in 2005 knows she's working within cliche, with several generations having been there before her. "A veteran, some newcomers, a tough guy..." she's fully aware she's living the corny old conventions, playing a role that's been done better by previous generations (the amoral vigilante graduating to the cosmic crisis). Golden age heroes are presumably as legendary to these characters -- as remote, as godlike -- as they are to us. Someone like Alan Scott would be as inaccessible to Shelly Gaynor as Clint Eastwood is to me. I've read a lot of revisionist, "dark" superhero comics and I have very rarely got as immediately plausible a sense of what it would be really like to live in a world of metahumans.
3. Grant Morrison really can make you care about characters quickly. He can let you know them in a single line of dialogue, and he can make you love them within a few pages. The conversation is smart and knowing without being just about cleverness for the sake of it -- it's telling that Shelly rehearses her snappy rejoinders and jokes before meeting Greg.
We get a quickly-sketched but I think entirely solid idea of Jacqueline, Galt, Boy Blue and Dan, even though they barely have a few lines each. Jacqueline's diva-act is really quite subtly done considering how easy it would have been to caricature her; she's not just all talk, but swoops in to finish the job more elegantly than the rest of them. Dan seems initially like a useless buffoon, but comes out with the gentlemanly stand-back, miss heroics to impress Jacqueline.
They all seem to be trying hard to live up to the role, spouting cheesy hero lines (MY WHOLE BODY IS NOW A LIVING REACTOR / that should stop him cold) -- but they only truly believe in the act for a moment, when the strangeness of what they're doing overtakes them, draws them in. It's as though the members of the Big Brother house, because that's what their homestead most feels like, were sent out with new-found powers to destroy a giant spider. When it's over, they're breathless, wounded and even ashamed that they were too scared and useless to do anything.
4. SPOILERS!
Grant Morrison makes us care about characters very quickly, and then kills them. |
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I know we over-discuss stuff a bit sometimes even before it comes out but that's just cuz we're excited!