In this post: why superhero comics deserve to be studied
There's nothing worse than trying to write an essay when really, you want to be writing an essay on something else.
Essay I am writing: women in early Greek myth
Essay I want to be writing: why comic books are the modern myth.
Well they are. Just as the ancient Greeks could, out of the blue, decide "we need a new hero, lets invent a new nymph and have her cop it with Zeus", so Marvel can decide "What would it be like if Jean Gray was a guy" - and invent the New Exiles team to showcase "John Gray" instead. Want to find out what it'd be like if all the X-men were zombies? What about reading "Marvel Zombies"?
As a stickler for canon, I can barely comprehend the make it up as you go along attitude that comic books take. Not fond of established Batman continuity? Why don't you read the one where Bruce Wayne is in the police force, and Barbara Gordon is Batgirl? There's another alternate universe where little Bruce was adopted by the famille Kent early on in his life; and anotherone where Batman is an evil vampire who is eventually killed by Gordon and Alfred; and another one, where magic exists, the Batmage. My favourite discovery of the day is DC's Earth-D, which features a more ethnically pleasing selection of heroes, including a black Superman and Native American Green Arrow.
It's the combination of the experimental with the strangely pointless which always amuses me. I'd ask "who wakes up in the morning and things "I wonder what it would be like if Batman was actually a transexual in a wheelchair?*", but I suspect the answer would be "because it's really cool".
*I was joking when I wrote this, but it turns out there really is a wheelchair storyline...
But more to the point - the flexibility is exactly that of myth. Lets look at Catwoman:
"Batman #62 revealed that Catwoman (after a blow to the head jogged her memory) is an amnesiac flight attendant, who had turned to crime after suffering a prior blow to the head during a plane crash she survived
In the 1970s comics, a series of stories taking place on Earth-Two reveal that on that world, Selina reformed in the 1950s (after the events of Batman #69) and had married Bruce Wayne; soon afterwards, she gave birth to the couple's only child, Helena Wayne
The Brave and the Bold #197 reveals that she never actually had amnesia. It is revealed that Selina Kyle had been in an abusive marriage, and eventually decides to leave her husband.
Several stories in the 1970s featured Catwoman committing murder, something that neither the Earth-One nor Earth-Two versions of her would ever do; this version of Catwoman was assigned to the alternate world of Earth-B, an alternate Earth that included stories that couldn't be considered canonical on Earth-One or Earth-Two.
(sourced from Wikipedia)
So which is it? Amnesiac flight attendant, abused wife, muderess or Mrs Wayne? Some modern comics, naturally, have her as a prostitute dominatrix, but I believe that's been retconned too: she was only pretending!
And how is that any different from the arguments over whether Pandora had a box and a jar, and whether it contained blessings which she lost by opening it, or curses which she released? Just like Pandora, Catwoman is revisted by different generations, with different ideas about what is exceptable or interesting.
Here's something you probably don't know - Bruce Wayne's parents were killed by Joe Chill. Well I always thought he was a random guy in the street, and for me the power in the story always came by the cruel, unsolved randomness of it. Two separate traditions! The dedicated comic book fans - lets liken them to the people in the cities - who know Joe Chill did the deed. And then the story of Batman filters out into the provinces - to us, to the less dedicated - by which time the story has changed. Which makes the Joe Chill people the comic book equivalent of those who insist baby Jesus ended up in Cornwall.
When a character like Batman has been revised so many times, it's hard to pluck out a canonical truth. Comic book afficianados, naturally, do have the upper hand - but some of the general public will have discovered him in any of the films or any of the TV shows. The original Harvey Dent had acid thrown in his face by Moroni in a courtroom - but there's a whole new generation now convinced that the Joker had something to do with it, and as it's all fiction, nothing makes one version intrinsically more valid than another.
But conscious reinvention was known to the ancients too. For example, Medea is infamous for killing her own children. Actually, this was a completely new addition by Euripides in his play - Medea had never done that before or since. Several versions, she and the children escaped entirely. Yet say "Medea", and she's the one who killed her kids.
It's not just the developement of comics which are the same. Superman is Heracles - like a man, only better, and someone to live up to. The didactic value of ancient myth (i.e. don't marry your mother) is clearly reflected in early comics, where the bad guys get their comeuppance and good guys defeat them in a way the Doctor would be proud of. During the war, the superheroes were defending the side of right too
Yes sir, I could get way more than 2500 words out of that, with a bit of time and a lot of research.
Oh well. Back to Hesiod...
There's nothing worse than trying to write an essay when really, you want to be writing an essay on something else.
Essay I am writing: women in early Greek myth
Essay I want to be writing: why comic books are the modern myth.
Well they are. Just as the ancient Greeks could, out of the blue, decide "we need a new hero, lets invent a new nymph and have her cop it with Zeus", so Marvel can decide "What would it be like if Jean Gray was a guy" - and invent the New Exiles team to showcase "John Gray" instead. Want to find out what it'd be like if all the X-men were zombies? What about reading "Marvel Zombies"?
As a stickler for canon, I can barely comprehend the make it up as you go along attitude that comic books take. Not fond of established Batman continuity? Why don't you read the one where Bruce Wayne is in the police force, and Barbara Gordon is Batgirl? There's another alternate universe where little Bruce was adopted by the famille Kent early on in his life; and anotherone where Batman is an evil vampire who is eventually killed by Gordon and Alfred; and another one, where magic exists, the Batmage. My favourite discovery of the day is DC's Earth-D, which features a more ethnically pleasing selection of heroes, including a black Superman and Native American Green Arrow.
It's the combination of the experimental with the strangely pointless which always amuses me. I'd ask "who wakes up in the morning and things "I wonder what it would be like if Batman was actually a transexual in a wheelchair?*", but I suspect the answer would be "because it's really cool".
*I was joking when I wrote this, but it turns out there really is a wheelchair storyline...
But more to the point - the flexibility is exactly that of myth. Lets look at Catwoman:
"Batman #62 revealed that Catwoman (after a blow to the head jogged her memory) is an amnesiac flight attendant, who had turned to crime after suffering a prior blow to the head during a plane crash she survived
In the 1970s comics, a series of stories taking place on Earth-Two reveal that on that world, Selina reformed in the 1950s (after the events of Batman #69) and had married Bruce Wayne; soon afterwards, she gave birth to the couple's only child, Helena Wayne
The Brave and the Bold #197 reveals that she never actually had amnesia. It is revealed that Selina Kyle had been in an abusive marriage, and eventually decides to leave her husband.
Several stories in the 1970s featured Catwoman committing murder, something that neither the Earth-One nor Earth-Two versions of her would ever do; this version of Catwoman was assigned to the alternate world of Earth-B, an alternate Earth that included stories that couldn't be considered canonical on Earth-One or Earth-Two.
(sourced from Wikipedia)
So which is it? Amnesiac flight attendant, abused wife, muderess or Mrs Wayne? Some modern comics, naturally, have her as a prostitute dominatrix, but I believe that's been retconned too: she was only pretending!
And how is that any different from the arguments over whether Pandora had a box and a jar, and whether it contained blessings which she lost by opening it, or curses which she released? Just like Pandora, Catwoman is revisted by different generations, with different ideas about what is exceptable or interesting.
Here's something you probably don't know - Bruce Wayne's parents were killed by Joe Chill. Well I always thought he was a random guy in the street, and for me the power in the story always came by the cruel, unsolved randomness of it. Two separate traditions! The dedicated comic book fans - lets liken them to the people in the cities - who know Joe Chill did the deed. And then the story of Batman filters out into the provinces - to us, to the less dedicated - by which time the story has changed. Which makes the Joe Chill people the comic book equivalent of those who insist baby Jesus ended up in Cornwall.
When a character like Batman has been revised so many times, it's hard to pluck out a canonical truth. Comic book afficianados, naturally, do have the upper hand - but some of the general public will have discovered him in any of the films or any of the TV shows. The original Harvey Dent had acid thrown in his face by Moroni in a courtroom - but there's a whole new generation now convinced that the Joker had something to do with it, and as it's all fiction, nothing makes one version intrinsically more valid than another.
But conscious reinvention was known to the ancients too. For example, Medea is infamous for killing her own children. Actually, this was a completely new addition by Euripides in his play - Medea had never done that before or since. Several versions, she and the children escaped entirely. Yet say "Medea", and she's the one who killed her kids.
It's not just the developement of comics which are the same. Superman is Heracles - like a man, only better, and someone to live up to. The didactic value of ancient myth (i.e. don't marry your mother) is clearly reflected in early comics, where the bad guys get their comeuppance and good guys defeat them in a way the Doctor would be proud of. During the war, the superheroes were defending the side of right too
Yes sir, I could get way more than 2500 words out of that, with a bit of time and a lot of research.
Oh well. Back to Hesiod...
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