It’s easy to knock corporate super-hero comics. There’s the relentless, unthinking sexism; the apparent paucity of fresh concepts; the tendency to confuse horrific violence with thematic sophistication (and the related inability or unwillingness to address younger readers); the summer crossovers that so often and so transparently put sales figures ahead of internal coherence or aesthetic quality; and the frequent reboots, which may once have been justified as a way of shedding the weight of unwieldy continuity, but now smack of greed, desperation, and cluelessness in about equal measure.
These various problems can be diagnosed as symptoms of a fundamental disrespect for the comic book audience at the corporate level. But creators, too, are often subjected to this same disrespect, even as they continue to labor within the constraints of the current system. Probably no one reading this needs to be told about the historic injustices that have arisen out of the “work-for-hire” production model; nor is it hard to imagine the chilling effect that this model must have over time for even the most successful practitioners of the genre. (Indeed, it’s probably no coincidence that many of my personal favorite writers and artists often seem to do their best work when engaged with creator-owned projects; by comparison, producing comics under a “work-for-hire” contract must feel like swimming with weights.)
The writers and artists who do manage to produce work of consistent quality within the corporate system, on a monthly basis, sometimes for years on end, have therefore beaten some long odds, in my opinion. And perhaps in such circumstances it is all the more important to offer commendations when commendations are due.
I am here, then, to sing the praises of Brian Michael Bendis and his various co-conspirators for their work on Marvel’s Ultimate Spider-Man.
First, and for the tiny handful of you who might not know this (“Hi, Mum!”): Marvel’s so-called Ultimate universe was initially conceived back in 2001 or so, as a way of re-starting the adventures of the most well-established Marvel characters from their origin stories — with a clean-slate, as it were. The official reasoning was that creators would no longer be tied to decades of prior continuity, and that this would also encourage new readers to jump on board. Less often acknowledged, but probably equally important was the opportunity to jettison aspects of the older narratives that had simply dated. For example, in the 1960s, Stan Lee’s default “origin story” involved some sort of inadvertent exposure to radioactivity. But radioactivity is a less mysterious concept today than it was sixty years ago. We don’t expect it to give us superpowers; we do expect it to give us cancer. Consequently, in the Ultimate universe, corporate and government sponsored experiments in genetic mutation — almost always carried out at the behest of the military — have taken up the plot function that was once fulfilled by radioactive “isotopes.” (And there’s probably a whole essay of the cultural studies type that could be written about the political and cultural implications of this particular shift of emphasis within the superheroic fantasy, but I’m not going to write it.)
Within the current continuity of this Ultimate universe, a teenager named Miles Morales has recently taken up the webbed mantle and power-and-responsibility mantra of Spider-Man. Miles resembles his predecessor, Peter Parker, in many ways — he’s intellectually gifted, ethically centered, and terribly young to be a hero — just thirteen years old, in fact. But unlike Peter Parker, who was obviously Caucasian, Miles is the child of an African-American father and a Hispanic mother. Marvel’s decision to re-boot one of their flagship characters as a person of color has generated a fair degree of media interest, and even seems to have ruffled the feathers of a few right-wingers and white-supremacist types. I’ll say a bit more about that, but for now I just want to note that this is just one of the reasons that I like the comic. Here are some others.
1) It is a great “all-ages” book — or a great 10-years-old-and-up book, at least. This is important, because there are just not that many quality genre comics that can engage both younger readers and adults out there these days. In fact, most of my favorite current genre titles (Casanova, Criminal, The Sixth Gun, Scalped) are not appropriate for kids at all.
It is ironic that great comic books for younger readers should nowadays be so very hard to find, given the original target audience for the medium; but perhaps it should not be much cause for surprise. Quality children’s literature has always been unusual, after all — which is partly why works like Alice In Wonderland or the Oz books or Where The Wild Things Are become objects of veneration. The really good stuff is rare as hens’ teeth.
I’m not saying that Bendis’s work on Ultimate Spider-Man is an achievement to be ranked alongside Carroll’s or Baum’s or Sendak’s. That would hardly be comparing like-with-like, after all. I’m simply saying that there are only a tiny handful of quality monthly genre titles that can engage an adult audience while remaining appropriate for younger readers — and Ultimate Spider-Man is one of them. (If you are looking for others, Atomic-Robo and Princeless are also pure, joyous fun, but of course neither of them are superhero books. In fact, it really would be hard for me to name another superhero title with the “all-ages” appeal of USM right now.)
2) While it is easy (and often appropriate) to be cynical about any gesture made by Marvel or DC towards traditionally marginalized members of the readership, I think Bendis’s decision to take one of Marvel’s most recognizable characters and recast him as a person of color is not only entirely commendable, but has also been (thus far) very well handled. Yes, Marvel and DC can always create “new” non-Caucasian heroes, but the fact is that if the marquee, iconic figures are always white, well … the marquee, iconic figures are always white.
And yes, it is possible to belittle or undermine this move by saying it’s “only” the Spider-Man of the Ultimate universe that we are talking about — as if that makes this a less “real” change. But even leaving aside the silliness of arguing which version of Marvel universe is more “real,” I think that the people who are inclined to say this have not been following the comics for some time, and therefore don’t realize that the Ultimate universe has now been established for well over a decade. For a lot of readers, the Ultimate Marvel Universe IS the “real” Marvel universe. What’s more, the recent Marvel movies owe at least as much to the characters as they are presented in the Ultimate line as they do to the regular 616 line. So this is not the equivalent of a “what if” or “imaginary” story in which someone other than Peter Parker gets bitten by that magical spider. It’s a much bigger deal than that.
Nor can the invention of Miles Morales be written off simply as an attempt to boost flagging sales with a headline grabbing plot twist. While comic book sales in general are apparently regarded as dismal, Ultimate Spider-Man has (I believe) been the most consistently successful Ultimate title. It’s certainly the longest running — and I’ve personally enjoyed it more than almost any of the Spider-Man books published in the 616 universe for the last decade. (I’ll admit that Bagley’s art put me off for quite a while. But I gradually got over it, and eventually came to appreciate his considerable storytelling skills, even though I still generally dislike the details of his faces and figure work.) So this wasn’t a “hail Mary” pass, or a last ditch effort to save a dying title. On the contrary, it appears to have been a thoughtful, considered, and even potentially risky move, given the relatively high profile of the book in question.
When we first meet Miles and his parents it is at a “lottery” for places in an elite private school. They are surrounded by other anxious parents and children, and the importance of this lottery for these families — as a possible route for their children out of the broken public school system, and into the middle class — is made very clear. When Miles’s number comes up — in a nice touch, the same number is marked on the genetically modified spider that will later bite him, and give him powers — his mother embraces him weeps in relief: “You have a chance. You have a chance.”
By means of this “school lottery” subplot, then, larger themes of race- and poverty-based exclusion have been placed at the center of the new Spider-Man’s origin story. This doesn’t make USM a political tract. But it suggests that Bendis understands something very important. He understands that the history of racism — and the attendant problem of the representation of race in various forms of media — is not simply rectified by a change in the hero’s pigmentation. Miles Morales’s experiences also need to be different from Peter’s — and not just because he is a different person, but also because he is a person-of-color living in a culture where race relations are vexed (to put it laughably mildly).
Those who haven’t read the title, please don’t get me wrong. Miles’s race is not THE only or even the central issue in the comic; but it is part of the fabric of his experience — just as it should be.
This is tricky stuff to pull off, in any medium, in any genre. So far it seems to me Bendis is getting it absolutely right. He deserves praise for that.
4) Finally, the mere creation of Miles Morales seems to have genuinely pissed off Glenn Beck. Of course, Beck is the king of manufactured outrage — but if Bendis did manage to get under Beck’s toad-like-skin for even a minute, that only makes me want to cheer him on.
So, to come back to my initial observations: it seems to me that there’s a lot of instinctive critical hostility out there online (and also in academic circles) among comics critics when it comes to the superhero genre, and some of it — maybe even most of it — is justified.
Nevertheless, I can’t help feeling that some of this critical hostility is misplaced — almost like what some philosophers would call a category mistake. Perhaps the confusion originates in the confused status of the genre itself, as something that began as a form of children’s entertainment, and which therefore gets into all kinds of difficulties when it aspires to “adult” sophistication. But just as it makes no sense to criticize Wall-E for not being Vertigo, similarly, it makes no sense (to me) to attack superhero comics for being superhero comics. (For being badly drawn or badly written, yes; but for conforming to certain well-established genre conventions, no.)
To put it another way: I don’t expect a Bendis superhero comic to deliver the kind of introspective reflections on parenting and childhood that I expect from, say, the new Alison Bechdel book (which I recently purchased and am keen to read). I don’t expect his representation of high school to mirror that of an autobiographical cartoonist such as, say, Ariel Schrag. But within the established conventions of the superhero genre, I find his work consistently entertaining, and often brilliant. And I think he deserves the highest praise not only for his current work on Ultimate Spider-Man, but also for his previous decade of scripts for the title.
In fact, over the course of his long USM run, Bendis has written some of the only superhero comics that have given me the same “fall-into-the-page” experience that I used to get from the genre when I was a kid (and none of the comics that I read as a kid still work for me THAT way — even when I can find other things to appreciate about them). Inspired by the latest issues, then, I recently re-read some of those earlier comics from the run — Bendis’s version of the Peter Parker era. In all honesty, I wasn’t planning on writing critically about these comics, or even thinking too hard about them. I was too tired for anything that I felt would be more “demanding” — I was just looking for a bit of escapist fun, after a long day teaching (both Hamlet and Watchmen, as it turns out — though not in the same class, I’m sorry to say).
I picked the Venom arc — Venom being a character I never liked in the original Spider-Man universe (an antipathy apparently shared by Bendis himself), but found myself enjoying in his Ultimate incarnation. In Bendis’s revision, the Venom project is something that Peter Parker’s father was working on before he died — a piece of medical research that Richard Parker ends up not owning because (get this) he produced it under a “work for hire” contract for an evil corporation. The temptation to read this as a self-reflexive commentary on the exploitation of comic book creators is surely irresistible. The story arc ends with a sequence in which Richard Parker speaks from beyond the grave to his son, Peter, via an old VHS tape. He talks about the feelings of impatience and creative ambition that first led him to sign this flawed “work for hire” contract, and acknowledges that not owning his ideas sucks. But he also insists on the importance of taking responsibility for one’s own mistakes. He concludes by telling Peter how much he loves his family — and how having a family at all finally helps him deal with the frustrations he has encountered in the world of his work. Peter, who has just endured a particularly emotionally punishing series of adventures, is depicted listening to his father with his head bowed. It’s not the portrait of a winner. On the contrary, Peter seems utterly crushed. But as readers we cannot help but nod in assent when Richard Parker expresses hopeful pride in his young son, and faith in the kind of man that his son will become.
The emotional tone of this moment is complex. It poignantly and powerfully evokes our admiration for the hero not in his moment of triumph, but in the depths of his despair. And it moved me to reread this sequence. Indeed, it moved me as much as anything I had encountered earlier that day in the classroom, teaching the works of Shakespeare and Moore.
The critical cliché would be to claim that at moments like this in his Ultimate Spider-Man run Bendis has “transcended the genre.” But fuck that. I LIKE genre work, and I wouldn’t patronize any great genre writer with this supposed compliment. Brian Michael Bendis doesn’t need to transcend the genre to transport me.
” It is a great “all-ages” book — or a great 10-years-old-and-up book, at least. ”
It’s set in “superhero decadent” world though- the Ultimate Comics universe, where events occur from time to time where characters eat other characters, right? Not Bendis’s fault exactly.
I noticed Bendis had to do the “villain murders everyone to prove he’s badass” scene with Scorpion- that might not make it inappropriate for a 10 year old, I’m not sure- but as someone not completely emersed in superhero decadent culture I found it noticeable. (It was a pretty simple dramatic beat: Scorpian murders a bunch of rival gangsters with his Scorpion chains! SHIT JUST GOT REAL!!!!!”)
Takio, which I think is the only book Bendis claims is all ages, has not yet had a “BODY COUNT, SHIT JUST GOT REAL” moment……. then again maybe it’s just a matter of time.
“I think Bendis’s decision to take one of Marvel’s most recognizable characters and recast him as a person of color is not only entirely commendable, but has also been (thus far) very well handled.”
One complaint I saw on a comic news site was that the kid’s black father is an ex- criminal and his black uncle is a criminal. The Uncle makes story- sense, but nothing has come of the father’s past at all. It seems completely unnecessary. The complaint seemed to be that its a real failure of imagination on Bendis’ part. I thought it was an interesting complaint…
“When we first meet Miles and his parents it is at a “lottery” for places in an elite private school. ”
What you don’t mention is that the Spider that turns him into Spider-man is labeled “42” which is also Mile’s lottery number. This appears to be a reference to Jackie Robinson. I think it’s actually a pretty smug, unearned reference. Miles isn’t the first black superhero, nor is he the first black superhero to have his own book, nor is he the first black version of a white superhero. (Marvel did a high profile “Black Captain America” book a few years ago, as well “black Nick Fury”. I guess DC has “Black Green lanterns?” Not to meantion the legitimate black Milestone stuff like “Icon” and “Static” I think Marvel had a black Captain Marvel in the 80s, though she never got her own book i guess?
He is however, as far as I know, the first black Spider-man, so yay?
“The temptation to read this as a self-reflexive commentary on the exploitation of comic book creators is surely irresistible. ”
Bendis had a similar bit in the first Takio, which I just happened to flip through. The mad scientisit hates the corporation that hired him work for hire cause, he’s, y’now, crazy, and you’d have to be crazy not to want to work for Marvel, right?
Bendis is an extremely talented writer. He’s also a sellout who writes things based on editorial mandate. I have mixed feelings. (And they’ve already announced a black spider-man meets white Spide-man spinoff crossover, presumably because those quarterly sales numbers aren’t going to raise themselves! )
Is it selling out to write to editorial mandates? I think it’s certainly ethically dicey to write to certain editorial mandates (the obvious current example here) but I don’t know that I’d just in general say that anyone who takes editorial input into account has somehow compromised themselves….
pallas:
‘What you don’t mention is that the Spider that turns him into Spider-man is labeled “42? which is also Mile’s lottery number.’
Not true: Ben points this out specifically:
‘When Miles’s number comes up — in a nice touch, the same number is marked on the genetically modified spider that will later bite him, and give him powers’
Have you even read the article?
‘This appears to be a reference to Jackie Robinson.’
Huh?
Why can’t it be a reference to ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’? From Wikipedia:
‘In the first novel and radio series, a group of hyper-intelligent pan-dimensional beings demand to learn the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe, and Everything from the supercomputer, Deep Thought, specially built for this purpose. It takes Deep Thought 7½ million years to compute and check the answer, which turns out to be 42. The Ultimate Question itself is unknown.’
OK, maybe it is a reference to Jackie Robinson.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-3460_162-57414304/42-just-a-number-until-jackie-robinson-wore-it/
How and why do you deem that to be shameful?
I think this sort of unthinking bad-faith post will only discourage any effort on the part of mainstream writers; If I were Bendis reading pallas’ post, I’d be thinking:
‘Screw it, I give up. They’re not worth the effort if this is the best they can do.’
The insults don’t help, either: “sellout”. Classy.
I’m sure Pallas just missed that part; these things happen.
I see his point too about the Jackie Robinson example not being earned…it seems a little easy and/or presumptuous…or maybe just kind of corny to have the spider just happen to have Robinson’s number.
I’ve tried to read Bendis at various points and not been very taken with him — though Ben does make this storyline sound appealing and thoughtful. And I agree that it’s a worthwhile and laudable move to make one of the marquee heroes something other than white.
Thanks for your comments, Pallas. I do in fact mention that the lottery number is the same as the number on the spider. (It’s also the answer to the meaning of life, according to Douglas Adams. Make of that what you will.)
But the fact remains that this is the first A-list superhero to be cast as a person of color. Morales and Baker’s excellent TRUTH – which is the text I assume you mean when you speak of a “Black Captain America” – was both a mini-series and a historically situated ret-con (most of the book takes place in WW II). It’s an absolutely brilliant book – I taught it this term, and it had a great impact – but it’s not an ongoing project featuring a marquee character in the contemporary world. It’s not equivalent. (It’s also currently and frustratingly out of print, making it tough to assign in class – I hope Marvel will rectify this problem soon.) And GL is not an A-lister. (Sorry, Geoff Johns.)
Echoing and amplifying Noah’s point, it strikes me as both insulting and self-righteous to accuse a writer of being a “sellout” simply because he/she “writes to editorial mandates.” IMO, that’s an unnecessarily personal attack of a kind that is all too common in fan writing about genre comics; and in the long run I think such attacks are detrimental to our critical discourse.
It’s not just an internet thing either – I remember a reviewer at the British fanzine, Fantasy Advertiser, accusing Alan Moore and Brian Bolland of “selling out” when The Killing Joke first came out. He was disappointed by the short length of the book and the relatively high cost. He also described the story itself as a “gilded dog turd.” I suppose in a journalistic context, such comments may pass as “critical.” But if we are invested in raising the standards of comics-related analysis – and I am – then we may have to forego some of the casual snark for more considered critical responses.
It is of course possible to write critically about the content of a work of art – as you have done at other moments in your response to my ruminations – without resorting to personal attacks on the creators. I just wish more people would try to do that. But in the context of the internet, it seems increasingly rare. Adolescent sneering and self-righteous finger pointing are far more common responses.
Finally, and while I realize you are citing another source on this, I have to say that I think anyone accusing Bendis of a “lack of imagination” doesn’t know what the word “imagination” means. There may or may not be a problem with his decision to give Miles’s dad a criminal past (and I don’t see one myself), but “a lack of imagination” is definitely not Bendis’s problem.
Thanks again for taking the time to respond. It is appreciated.
Well, you may appreciate it, but I don’t.
I detest it when foolish and disingenuous commentary poisons the wells, particularly when it involves an anonymous commentator who seems more intent on puffing up his/her reputation than actually contributing to the dialogue.
pallas:
‘He is however, as far as I know, the first black Spider-man, so yay?’
YES, YAY.
Of goddam course.
–Alex Buchet
“Echoing and amplifying Noah’s point, it strikes me as both insulting and self-righteous to accuse a writer of being a “sellout” simply because he/she “writes to editorial mandates.” IMO, that’s an unnecessarily personal attack of a kind that is all too common in fan writing about genre comics; and in the long run I think such attacks are detrimental to our critical discourse.”
That’s interesting, Ben. Earlier you criticized “the summer crossovers that so often and so transparently put sales figures ahead of internal coherence or aesthetic quality”.
I’d say maybe 30% of the things Bendis has written “transparently put sales figures ahead of internal coherence or aesthetic quality”. You may not agree obviously, but his stuff, certainly his Avengers stuff and crossover tie in stuff, I’d say, has this aspect to it. Is that polite enough for you sense of critical discourse if I phrase it in those terms? Is it fair to say it’s disappointing?
And I never said Bendis had no imagination. When I referred to a “failure of imagination” I was specifically referring to his depiction of Mile’s dad. It’s a specific complaint, about a specific character.
If you want to see the complaint I was referring to, here it is:
http://tinyurl.com/7m8kjt5
I completely reject the notion that there is such thing as an “A-list” character. I think “A-list” is a term from fandom that is pretty silly. What does that even mean? A character that sells the most? A character featured in crossovers the most?
Hudlin’s Black Panther reboot sold 50,490 for the first issue according to a quick internet search, and tied into a BET cartoon, but Miles is more “A-list” how exactly? What sales cutoff defines A list? Do we need to get out sales figures for the Jack Kirby panther series from the 70s to settle the issue? Is Spawn black enough or “A-list” enough? Do television views of the Static Shock cartoon not count?
AB, could you explain how it could possibly be interpreted as a Hitchiker’s Reference in the context of that story? That doesn’t make sense to me at all. What does that story have to do with Hitchhiker’s guide?
Noah, I don’t have a problem with the notion of someone being edited, but editing can mean a lot of different things. I don’t think Bendis is “edited” in the same way that most prose novelists or creator owned comic writers are “edited”. Of course the final quality is ultimately what matters most, but is it unfair to want writers to do the plotting and take responsibility for the writing?
You may be right, Ben–but, good lord, is that art hideous! It automatically makes it unreadable to me. I do like Bendis with good art, and when not working on pre-existing corporate characters–which, I guess, just means I like Powers. But this–ugh.
Also–sorry, but this practice of using a superhero persona but with a new secret identity has got to stop (yes, I know, that train left the station long ago). Especially in this case. Spider-Man is not a costume to be put on and off. Spider-Man IS Peter Parker, with one of the most complex and original back stories in comics. How can we be outraged about “Before Watchmen” and not see this as an utter betrayal of Ditko and Lee’s work–of one of the most innovative contributions to the superhero genre? I’m sorry, but this fungibility of a superhero persona is just another symptom of the redefinition of superheroes as nothing more than corporate properties. With the stress on “nothing more.” Otherwise empty suits–literally.
I thought those first few storylines with Ultimate Caucasian Spider-Man were okay, if you could set aside the problems of (a) let’s exploit somebody’s creation which is now corporate property, and (b) let’s take six issues to do what Ditko did in one. Bendis’ authorial voice was still fresh enough in the genre that it hadn’t yet become its own punchline, and Bagley’s art was…let’s say “adequate”, which at least clears the low bar set by today’s superhero comics.
What I liked above all was that they played up the bad-father aspect of Spider-Man’s enemies. It’s so striking how Oedipal Ditko’s original creations were, but Bendis and Bagley were the first since then to bring that out — as far as I know, but I’d be happy to be proved wrong about that.
Pallas: “but is it unfair to want writers to do the plotting and take responsibility for the writing?”
I don’t know if it’s unfair…if that’s what you want, it’s what you want. It just seems mostly irrelevant to me, personally. Films are made by lots and lots of people making lots and lots of decisions. Sometimes the results are good, sometimes not. But I don’t see why sole authorship should be better than collaboration, necessarily.
Andrei, as I said recently, I think the problem with Before Watchmen isn’t messing with the characters or the story, but the mistreatment of the creators, and the vocal request by Moore for solidarity in the face of that mistreatment. Artists always rewrite each other; there’s nothing sacrosanct about the Ditko/Lee story, or about Peter Parker as Spider-Man. If someone else has stories to tell riffing off of that, more power to them.
The thing that is disturbing is the extent to which the limitless extension of copyright and corporate marketing muscle can bury the original beneath later versions to such an extent that the original more or less disappears. But that’s a structural issue of the industry, not Bendis’ fault per se.
And Alex, I welcome anonymous commenters for various reasons which I doubt people necessarily care to hear. Suffice it to say, Pallas has been Pallas on this site for a long time, and has even written for us on occasion. If you disagree with him you disagree, but he’s not trolling. Assume good faith and all that.
Yeah, Ben, Brian still sends me, too. I haven’t missed any of his creator-owned comics in a dozen years, and though I confess I haven’t kept up with all his Marvel work-for-hire, Brian is one of a very few writers whose work in the superhero genre I will still take precious time to read, precisely because of that fall-into-the-page thing you describe. And contrary to the claims of one of your respondents here, I believe the reason we fall so hard is that Brian is anything but cynical or mercenary in his approach to those characters; in fact, Brian has set his own standards impossibly high BECAUSE of his great respect for Ditko’s original run on Spider-Man, as well as for the entire pantheon of Lee/Kirby creations.
Someone might choose to argue that he hasn’t achieved those standards, but to claim that Brian puts sales figures ahead of authorial integrity is not only an ad hominem attack, but to compound the fallacy, indicates just how little the respondent even knows Brian.
Suffice to say, no mercenary would take the time away from his very well-paying scripting gigs to teach the Comics Writing courses that Brian has taken on these last couple years at Portland State University—not to mention the countless guest lectures he’s given and continues to give for free, like just last night in my own Comics Art & Lit class at PCC. More to the point, anyone who thinks Brian Fucking Bendis is at the mercy of ANY kind of editorial mandate simply does not understand this industry or Brian’s position in it. “Sellout”? This is why I hate the internet.
Noah: “there’s nothing sacrosanct about the Ditko/Lee story, or about Peter Parker as Spider-Man. If someone else has stories to tell riffing off of that, more power to them.”
The question is: what is a character? Is it just an empty suit, a trademark, a logo (the Spider-Man costume) to be filled with the narrative content du jour? Or is the secret identity, the back story an organic part of the character identified as Spider-Man? Riff all you will, but we’re not talking about fanfic here, we’re talking about a corporation deciding to reduce its characters to logos and make them essentially fungible. (I know I’m repeating myself, but I thought I was pretty clear in the first place.) At that point, any aesthetically defensible conception of “character” breaks down. Intra-diegetic developments (the passing on of the costume from one secret identity to another) are nothing but intra-textual repercussions of marketing decisions, rationalizations for the purpose of an illusion of continuity. They are artistically bankrupt. You may disagree–fine, enjoy your corporate product. But it is a defensible critical stance that a personage called “Spider-Man” which has only the name and costume in common with the original holder of that designation is a different character altogether–and that its sharing the same name is, at least partially, aesthetically fraudulent.
“The thing that is disturbing is the extent to which the limitless extension of copyright and corporate marketing muscle can bury the original beneath later versions to such an extent that the original more or less disappears. But that’s a structural issue of the industry, not Bendis’ fault per se.”
I thought it was pretty clear my comment addressed specifically “structural issues of the industry,” and not Bendis himself.
“More to the point, anyone who thinks Brian Fucking Bendis is at the mercy of ANY kind of editorial mandate”
His Avengers stuff is a thinly veiled collection of crossovers designed to force people to buy dozens of other Marvel comics to follow the story.
His Avengers stuff lacks coherent long term plotting because the crossover committee will establish a new premise every half year, and everyones character motivation and behavior and personality needs to shift to match the new premise. (At least, back when I read it, which was when he was just writing one Avengers book, now it’s, what three?)
The many, many spinoffs, (Avengers, Dark Avengers, New Avengers) are books he’s asked to write by his editors under the principle of more product- more sales.
He’ll do something like delays stories for a year and tread water to meet the crossover schedule.
It’s an extremely cynical approach to commercial art (namely put out as much product as possible as quickly as possible and force the fans to buy as much as possible to feel like they can follow the story) but he is by all accounts a nice guy.
Hey Andrei. It’s not aesthetically fraudulent when Chris Ware names a different character Superman though, right? (I actually don’t think it is; I love his use of Superman.)
There seems like there’s some slippage from the first part of your comment (where you say it’s about the corporate milieu) and the ending (where it sounds like an absolute interdiction about using the name with a different conception.) I agree with the first part but think the second is problematic.
I do enjoy some corporate product. Not really many Spider-Man comics, though…including the Ditko/Lee version, which I never liked that much, honestly. I did quite like J.M. DeMatteis’ Kraven the Hunter series, though I’m not sure it would hold up in retrospect (it’s been decades since I read it). And I like Spider-Man’s characterization in the all ages Marvel Avengers comics that Jeff Parker wrote. And the Electric Company version was pretty entertaining, though I don’t think he had a secret identity really (I don’t remember him out of costume….) So it all depends….
And finally, I think it’s actually an interesting question as to why, or whether, fanfic is different from what DC and Marvel are doing. I’ve poked around a little, but fandom studies don’t really seem to address the question….
Writers like Bendis, Johns and Morrison aren’t sellouts, it’s just that their artistic visions happen to line up with corporate agendas. I think Pallas is pretty much right in his summations of Bendis’ recent superhero work. It’s better written than Secret Wars, but it is what it is.
I’m not sure Spider-Man’s origin story is any more complex than most superheroes’, but at this point, that story is not much more than one of a few commercial parameters on the brandname. There were years of character development, but when the company decided it needed to reboot, all of it was erased and what was left was the costume, the name, the secret identity and that origin story.
I agree, Charles — but in the context of the article, I’d also have to ask: “So what?”
Ben’s point is that a minority “race” Spider-Man is an absolute good, and I would agree.
other notes:
–The 42 on the Spider most probably refers to Robinson. But in an absolutely positive way, not “unearned” (a silly and fashionable piece of jargon that’s sprung up in the lzast 2 or 3 years.)
Just as Robinson broke the color barrier that banned Black athletes from competing in major league teams, so a Black youth breaks the barriers to joining the A-list superheroes.
It’s a witty and generous Easter egg.
One quibble to Ben: is that lottery for an “élite private school” or for a public Charter School, for which lotteries are regularly held, as seen in the recent documentary ‘Waiting for Superman’?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charter_school
Waiting for Superman was an inspiration for the school’s depiction in the Spider-man comic. I recall that it was Joe Quesada that got Bendis to watch the documentary.
“I did quite like J.M. DeMatteis’ Kraven the Hunter series, though I’m not sure it would hold up in retrospect”
It doesn’t.
The Mike Zeck et al. art is nice enough, though
i’m ambivalent about changing who a major fifty year old character is, partially for the very motivation–i.e. social justice rather than narrative. and by ambivalent, i mean it seems both laudable and annoying.
the thing i find strange and sad, is how calcified superheroes are. phrases like “marquee hero”, “first tier”, “a-list” that are only attainable by assimilation suggest that it is impossible to generate a hero or story that could become this (regardless of issues of ethnicity) that this rank is only available as part of first generation creations. when superman or spiderman were created, they weren’t a-list; comics creators were just trying things out. the material itself eventually created this notion of a-list. it spoke to readers and stuck with them. the idea that the only way to make an a-list hero of colour is to give him the name of a previously existing a-list hero is sad.
if i take the charged issue of colour out of the equation for a moment, and think simply about the idea that the a-list was written generations ago, never to be modified, and make an analogy, it is like a harry potter series could not be written, but instead, frodo would need to be rewritten as a young student wizard for a new take on the lord of the rings. Or if there could have been no U2, the musicians would have needed to join the rolling stones or “rebooted” the Beatles.
I enjoyed superhero comics as a kid(obsessively), and (at the time) newer creations like Alpha Flight, New Mutants, and Power Pack were just as engaging and valuable to me as a-list titles like x-men and spiderman. I just wonder why there is so little sticking power for anything other than the pioneer creations. It makes it seem like a dead medium (maybe it is, that’s often the take i get on this site from the constant onslaught of caustic derision)
I still read lots of comics, just not superhero comics, so I am very unfamiliar with what they are like now. The kinds of things people complain about–editorial decisions that are about sales entirely and content not at all, weird continuity neurosis coupled with unwieldy patchwork history, tiring repetitive melodrama and leaving behind the children as an audience–turned me off superhero comics in my mid adolescence (mid 80’s) when those things all seemed to be new erosional trends to what had been a joyous and wondrous form of entertainment. I don’t think it was simply that I was growing up; I occasionally pick up a TPB of older hero comics (60’s-80’s) and enjoy their simple charms(say Kirby era FF) and their coming of age resonance(say, New Mutants).
to return to ethnicity, if any children still read comic books, i do like anything that changes the incidental mission statement that power and motivation to do good equals only white, i just think it’s too bad that the only way to achieve that is to (as someone above said) reduce a character to a logo.
Also, the article praises the social commentary embedded in the characters poverty. this almost feels like a stereotype to me, like powerman being from the ghetto, Cloak(from cloak and dagger) being from the ghetto, etc. I understand their are systemic correlations between disadvantage and ethnicity, but creating a fictional universe where colour absolutely equals poverty and/or crime seems and odd way to go about being socially progressive.
I am not a student of identity politics or social justice, so if my thoughts or phrasing is muddled or naive, its because I am a layman–many of the writers and commenters here seem steeped in discourses I have only a passing superficial familiarity with. I hope at least the gist of what i am saying comes across.
Hey idle. I think part of the reason that there’s little incentive to create new character for Marvel and DC is just that if you do that, the companies own your creations. If you have a new idea, it’s a lot more appealing to go out and try it in some venue where we won’t lose all the rights to it.
oh i get that, Noah, absolutely. I just think its strange that comic heroes became frozen in time from the minute they were born. the only characters i can think of that became big/iconic/marquee (and i never understand why) since the creation of the originals are the teenage mutant ninja turtles. Superman became iconic almost overnight, becoming a household word, having animated films in the cinemas; same thing the first marvel heroes were on tv within years of being created. In terms of popularity or relevance, it’s been a steep downhill decline ever since, with that one blip of the turtles exploding into cultural relevance.
Putting it another way, are superhero comics culturally relevant? does is matter if they become more ethnically diverse? Does anyone read superhero comics other than a small cohort of aging collectors?
I’d say making one of the Asgardians black in the Thor movie was magnitudes more relevant than anything going on in the forgotten dying medium of comics. (i’m not bashing superhero comics–i think they are/were fun and at one point were quite meaningful to young people and many adults, i do think it is sad that they were hijacked from kids and have since whithered away)
Well, I think you sort of answer this yourself; superhero comics are just way less popular than they used to be, so it’s hard for them to have as much effect as they once did.
There *have* been superheroes who have been massively popular/successful in recent memory, but you have to shift your focus a little. Sailor Moon was a massive, massive hit; Ben Ten is very successful; Buffy the Vampire Slayer…there are definitely new superhero type characters in mediums not far removed from comics who are a big deal. Western comics just don’t’t have the audience to make that happen anymore, though.
That comment seems about ten years removed to me. It’s the kind of opinion you heard people expressing before the wave of superhero films hit, when nerd court pundits were opining about the cultural marginality of the superhero as expressed in Marvel/DC forms and how the culturally current versions could be found in anime and shows like Xena or Buffy.
That’s not the situation we’re in. For the majority of the public, Iron Man, for example, is a new character. He has an existing core fanbase but no previous popular iteration along the lines the the Hulk or Batman. A combination of a charismatic actor and the intrinsic attraction of the concept (I’d say a technologically plausible superhero whose exploits fancifully surmounted the actual uses of new military technology) was a hit among the public, in a way that the mediocre Iron Man comics themselves could never be.
The comics won’t be anywhere near as big because they’re unreadable and stylistically retarded. But unfortunately, we live in a cultural landscape that the Marvel superheroes and so far one DC character are dominating. These characters have been adopted by the big media players (hello, the new Disney movie is The Avengers), mostly with success. You can acknowledge that situation without treating it as positive.
I don’t mind anonymous comments, but I’d really much prefer if you would pick a name that allows folks to talk to you and stick with it. Thanks.
I see what you’re saying…but I don’t think it’s exactly true to say that Iron Man was effectively new. Certainly he’s a b-lister…but he does have some cultural profile, which I think tends to make studios a lot more comfortable green-lighting a project. Same with Thor. Same but moreso for Captain America and the Hulk, who are significantly better known.
In any case, the main point on which everyone pretty much seems to agree is that DC and Marvel appear to be incapable of creating popular new superhero characters. Because they suck.
I wouldn’t have thought Iron-Man to be unknown, or thought of as “new”. He’s had an ongoing comic series for longer than i have been around, as well as being a member on various teams, and been in cartoons, older and contemporary. when i was a kid, i would have thought of him as a b-lister, until i chanced on a complete run of something like the first 175 issues and got sucked in. I’m nowhere near as in love with the film version as most people seem to be.
my handle is always idleprimate, anywhere on the internet I go.
My point had been to question whether the goal of becoming more culturally diverse was worth writing off a character and history to give the suit and name to a new one when comics are not a big cultural force anyway. I’m not terribly invested one way or the other as I haven’t been reading superheroes for about 25 years, and if i had the urge to read spiderman, i would lean toward vintage collections.
oh yeah, and i agree television and movies have largely filled the niche that comics used to fill. anime, and tv shows that are heroes/sci-fi/fantasy/supernatural have expanded exponentially, the way the comics market once did. I can’t complain, i enjoy many of them even when they are bad. I particularly liked “The Cape” which i thought pitch perfectly captured the tone and feeling of a golden age comic book, and I thought that was its intention. I just think no one wanted that as it was universally despised.
I believe there is a value in hero stories, and i also believe there is a value in fantasy and in escape, so maybe the medium isn’t that important. at the risk of sounding saccharine, television just seems less intimate and visceral than curling up with a comic book and pouring over the pages.
Idleprimate is fine! I was talking to the other poster. Sorry about the confusion.