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Okay: finally some more thoughts on THE FILTH:
The important issue for me, is this obsession with duality and the attempt to dissolve the threshold between opposing viewpoints.
Positing THE FILTH as a reaction to THE INVISIBLES would seem to set up obvious dichotomies and dualities—but in fact we're seeing three sides to the story. Because while the anarchistic spirit of THE INVISIBLES argues for unity (the flattening of hierarchies, the equality of all people in conditions of absolute freedom), the controlling instinct at play in THE FILTH sets up its own dichotomy: oppressor and oppressed; master and servant; topdog and underdog. The character of Greg Feely/Ned Slade is a masterstroke—giving us both sides of the coin.
Take the issue of male-pattern baldness—an issue near and dear to The Grant (and to myself). Greg Feely's pathetic comb-over is an accommodation (making the best of what he's been given) and a self-deception: Slade's option—that of the oppressor—is the toupée, the lie outright, the attempt to deceive others: King Mob's choice—that of the free man, outside the topdog/underdog dichotomy—is a rejection. By annihilating his own hair, he rejects as a lie the societal standard of male beauty, rejects as a lie any attempt to minimize his hair loss, reclaims his own baldness, makes it empowering rather than emasculating.
Sex: Greg's furtive masturbation and his self-loathing, self-deceiving attitude towards the pornography he consumes ("It's addressed to that divorcé who lived here before us...") is contrasted with Slade's loveless ruts with Miami (described in animalistic terms: "like two sphinxes in estrus")—a mutual lie, there, and in an organization that has as its mission the policing of shame—is contrasted with King Mob's love for Robin, a love both sexual and romantic, playing by no-one's rules but their own, untouched by shame, a relationship based on truth and trust.
I'll be keeping an eye on this aspect as things develop.
Semi-Random Observations:
Interesting to see that The Grant's assertion of personhood in non-human animals is coming to its logical fruition: with Dmitri 9 and the Nazi dolphins, we're seeing animals as actual characters in a way we haven't before, even in ANIMAL MAN.
The name "Cameron Spector" made me think of Our Close Personal Friend Cameron Stewart, of course, and simultaneously of SPECTRE. And I thought: Weren't they the secret army of world-saving good guys in Gerry Anderson's UFO? But no: that was SHADO. SPECTRE, of course, were the bad guys in a number of James Bond books and films—Blofeld's organization, don'cha know.
The swift resolution of the threat of Spartacus Hughes (and the upcoming issue descriptions) make it seem as if THE FILTH is going to play out episodically. That is: I didn't expect to see a Slade/Hughes showdown until issue #11 or so. But we're dealing with a different structure here. There's no mention of Slade in the issue #5 solicitation: THE FILTH may not be the story of Slade after all...
Prediction: the I-Life critters are going to start transforming the people they've infected. Transform them into what? Superheroes. Mark my fucking words.
Responses to points raised by others:
man green/man yellow = vacillating interface between sick (yellow/jaundiced) and healthy (green/life) universes?
Maybe. Or maybe a "Filthy" version of Barbelith itself, in its traffic-light aspect.
Right from the start of the Filth ... he states explicitly that we're watching Feely's soul being consumed by the pretty Bardo-lights.
I don't know if I buy that. Long ago, towards the end of INVISIBLES v.2, I became convinced that the entire series was playing out in the mind of Bobby Murray as he lay dying on a beach in the Falklands War, and I was wrong, wrong, wrong. And anyway, he doesn't "state it explicitly": he shows Feely/Slade engaged in a rambling, confused speculation as to "what it all means." Rather like fanboys on a message-board, wot?
And this bit—
I imagine the different types of agents roughly correspond to the different elemental bla bla found in invis as well. Ned, as palm, is leader, dmitri is fist, miami is finger...
Answers this question:
Any symbolism we can take from the colors in their uniforms or wigs? They seem to be standard issue for the men, but the women's seem to vary.
Most of the men we've seen (the negotiators) have been from the Palm division, hence the identical uniforms. The vary with division, not necessarily with gender.
Thinking that the name "Ned" might ref "Ned Seagoon," Harry Secombe's alter ego in The Goon Show.
Given the hyper-powered Gerry Anderson-style trash trucks we've already seen, a "Ned's Atomic Dustbin" would not seem out of place at all.
More, maybe, as I think of it. |
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