Guess Who's Back. Back Again.

My MySpace account finally pays off and I get a preview of DC's new weekly, Countdown.

And it looks like Darkseid's back, still playing with his HeroClix:


I mean, it's cool and all that Paul Dini and Co. are not being coy about who the bad guys are, and Darkseid's desire to be the architect of the new universe nicely ties this series into the underlying theme of 52, but it's hard to look at an Evil Space Tyrant looming over detailed models of his enemies and not think of this:

Nature, Nurture, Darkseid

On the surface, Jack Kirby's Fourth World saga is a simple adaptation of Manichean philosophy: there's a world of Good, New Genesis, and a world of Evil, Apokolips, and all of human existence is in the narrow strip where they overlap and conflict.

But the crucial story of the New Gods, what, if this were a "real" mythology, would be the central myth, (and incidentally, one of Jack Kirby's favorite stories of his own,) is "The Pact." The Pact is a very un-Manichean story in which Highfather (Good) makes a deal with Darkseid (Evil) in the name of peace, and seals this deal with the extreme measure of trading sons (which is a step up from just spitting in your palm, I guess).

In any morality as black and white as Manicheanism, such a pact would be doomed to failure (Mr. A would not approve!) because Evil would not honor any such contract, placing Good in the weaker position that they could only get out of by breaking the contract themselves, erasing the difference between Good and Evil. And, indeed, Darkseid intends to subvert the pact from the beginning.

But instead of leading to the downfall of New Genesis, The Pact works out in Highfather's favor! Because, despite Darkseid's plotting, the actual result of the Pact is that the traded sons--Orion, who has the nature of Apokolips and the nurturing of New Genesis, and Scott Free, who has the nature of New Genesis and the... ah, "nurturing" of Apokolips--BOTH end up fighting for the side of Good!

There are a few lessons to be drawn from that. First is that Good is not something that resides solely in one's blood or one's environment, but in both. Secondly, Good is inherently more compelling than Evil. Evil is NOT a force equal and opposite to Good. Evil may, in fact, be the mere absence of Good, a void that can be filled through whichever medium, genes or education, that is available to Good. Third, there are therefore no truly evil people, even beings that supposedly embody Evil. Any being capable of choosing, any being capable of change, has the potential to be Good!

Consider Big Barda. Unlike Scott and Orion, she is Apokolips born and bred. It is therefore neither in her nature nor her nurture to be Good. As a pure creature of Apokolips, there should be no Good in her. And yet...

And yet, by meeting and getting to know Mr. Miracle, the character who perhaps best embodies Kirby's ideas about what Good is, she falls in love with him and the idea of freedom he represents. He inspires her to be better, to treat others with respect, to demand the freedom that he himself refused to ever relinquish, and fight for the freedom of others. (Also take note that their ideal of freedom, their escape from the high fantasy drama of the Fourth World saga, is a mundane suburban existence as husband and wife. Which just goes to show you don't need to be a punk to be a rebel.)

This is a much more nuanced, much more hopeful, meditation on the struggle between Good and Evil than most superhero stories; heck, there's more depth in this story than in a lot of mythology. The idea that even demons can be redeemed, that all that separates a Fury from a Goddess is a light to show the way, shows a more sophisticated system of thought than naming the villain "Dark Side" would imply.

And, perhaps, that is Darkseid's true villainy: that he disguises the world as one of sharp divides, Us and Them, black and white, Good and Evil, in eternal conflict, never-ending battle, where causes are defended not by their inherent value but by the force of arms. It takes a (Mr.) Miracle to show the folly in this ideology, that the New Gods of both sides have more in common with each other than differences, and that the Good can trust the rightness of their cause to appeal through dialogue and contracts.

It suggests that the best way to combat true evil in the world is negotiation, compromise, listening. Because compromising your goals does not compromise the good of your cause, and somehow, in some way, Good will out!

Neo-Genesis

Nostalgia doesn't take long to set in. It seems that only ten years after anything, people forget about how terrible something is and start clamoring for more. Hence: Onlslaught Reborn.

Big fear for 2007?

THIS:



is a sequel to THIS:

By the Stones of the Infinite

Occasionally when reading fantasy, an author creates an image, an idea of such cosmic horror that the mere contemplation of which could drive men mad.

Whether it is the gruesome Grand Guignol of a Stephen King novel, the more metaphysic disorientation of H. P. Lovecraft's non-Euclidian worlds, or the stark depths of human cruelty detailed by Edgar Allan Poe, you read things that make you question the sanity, the morality, the very humanity of the author.

I came across one of those ideas today. One of the writers of 52 not only conceived this mind-killing meme, but decided to write it down and share it with over 100,000 comic book readers. Who was it? I want to know who is responsible for making me consider Darkseid's testicles.

Let me repeat that.

DARKSEID'S





TESTICLES!



And I thought "Screech Sex Tape" was going to be the scariest idea I would confront today.

The People's Superman

Matthew at the Legion Abstract has a great post about class and superheroes that you need to read right now and then come back here. This started as a response but it became very long and I remembered I have my OWN blog. (post on Detective 823 continues to be delayed).

His claim, and it's one I generally agree with, is that superheroes as a genre tends to be "classist." Heroes tend to be either actual nobility, such as Wonder Woman or Aquaman, or very rich, like Batman and Green Arrow, and they fight to save the masses from themselves rather than fighting to change the social structure that keeps the poor in poverty. There are obvious exceptions, but that seems to be true, going back to the proto-typical stages of Zorro and the Scarlet Pimpernel.

My one disagreement with Matthew is that he classifies Superman as an "aristocratic" hero, and quite frankly I feel the opposite is true. Superman did and does fight for social change. In the Superman Archive, he clearly starts out as a populist hero, a champion of the working class, taking on war profiteers, state-run orphanages, crooked boxing promoters and poor mining conditions. Watch Superman lead a party of upper class twits into a mine and then bury them alive to teach them a lesson and tell me that's not a guy who fights the power.

And today he fights against class elitists like CEO (and ex-PRESIDENT) Lex Luthor and monarchic dictators like Darkseid. Compare that to Batman's typically lower class, obviously criminal, more anarchic villains. Superman fights against those who would impose their own version of order on the world, while Batman fights those who would destroy the order HE imposes on Gotham.

And while Matthew's right, it would be morally repugnant for Superman to enforce social change, Clark Kent can and does champion those changes from his job as a reporter for the Daily Planet.

Clark, after all, had a lower middle class rural upbringing and a strictly middle class life style once he became a reporter. Sure, it's a "glamor" career that makes him somewhat famous, I'm guessing he doesn't actually make that much money (Lois might). He might not have Peter Parker's money problems, but Clark almost certainly knows what it's like to worry about the bills.

But Superman is the exception here, not the rule. By nature, a superhero is someone whose unique abilities place them apart and above, sometimes literally above, most of society. That these unique beings then go on to be vigilantes, placing their own personal definition of justice above that of the police and democratically elected government, is elitist, aristocratic, and borderline fascist (I'm looking at you, Batman).

It's something that the best superhero stories tend to examine, from Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns to Kingdom Come and The Authority (and which Civil War could have explored, but disappointingly cast aside in favor of shocking last pages and easily identified bad guys.)

And it's something the blogosphere should start discussing louder. So let's begin!