The Character of New York City

One of the tropes of superhero comics is that the hero and his city reflect each other.

Scipio Garling at the Absorbascon has written extensively about the fictionopolises of the DC Comics world, the imaginary cities that, over time, have established themselves as architectural echoes of their protectors: the neo-futurist Metropolis is home to the Man of Tomorrow; cloud enshrouded gothic Gotham is haunted by Dark Knight; Central City has the wide open spaces needed for a hero who can encircle the Earth in under a second; even the quiet and pastoral Smallville reflects the hopeful and nostalgic Adventures of Superman when he was a Boy.

This theme is an updating of the more classic trope that the king embodied the country he ruled, and as he faired, so faired the kingdom. L'État, c'est moi, as King Louis once said.

But what of the Marvel heroes, the ones who work a) in real places and b) almost entirely in New York. How can New York BE Spider-Man AND Iron Man, Daredevil AND Dr. Strange, and each member of the Fantastic Four as well?

Well, Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, and Steve Ditko did something very clever: they carved up New York and placed their heroes in the neighborhoods that fit best:

Industrialist Iron Man is a leader of Wall Street;

Dr. Strange has the sweetest Greenwich Village bachelor pad and lifestyle ever;

Daredevil fights on the side of the angels in Hell’s Kitchen;

And Spider-Man’s at his very best as the hero of Queens.

And the Fantastic Four, well that’s extra clever. While the Baxter Building fits neatly into the Mid-Town collection of art deco skyscrapers, the members of the team reflect New York's four boroughs.* Ben Grimm is Brooklyn-born and bred; hot-head Johnny Storm is a Yankees fan and ladies man like any Bronx boy aspires to be, motherly Sue Storm fits into the more residential Queens (and I'm guessing is a Mets fan, just to annoy her brother), and is there a better name for a Manhattan-ite than “Mr. Fantastic”?

Later writers would add Luke Cage, Hero for Hire of Harlem, and the Punisher, scourge of Sheepshead Bay. And with each story, with each issue, the city would gain more and more personality, more and more character, until it seemed to breathe.

Which is why I think it’s kind of silly when fans and Joe Quesada insist Marvel Comics take place in “the real world.” The Marvel Universe just isn’t real. Not just that super-powered soldiers and alien invasions would warp the course of history, but by their very legendary nature, superheroes imbue any city they exist in with mythic qualities.

When seen through the mask of Spider-Man, New York becomes a fictionopolis, a place as alive, as full of personality and absurdity and horror and hope as any Metropolis, as any Gotham.

When Spider-Man swings through Manhattan, New York lives!


* “Jon, everyone knows Staten Island doesn’t count.”

My Justice League

Or, Why the Justice League Isn't the Fantastic Four.

With the release of Justice League of America #1, or more accurately, with the release of the variant cover to Justice League #1, there's been a lot of talk about Brad Meltzer's chosen line-up, who belongs in the League, and who doesn't. But I think that's missing the point. Because you know who I think should be in the League?

EVERYONE

See, to me, the Justice League is what makes the DC Universe a universe, one world where all these separate stories take place (and you know how much I love having one universe). The fun of a Justice League story is that anyone could show up and fight or team up or just eat Thanksgiving dinner. In that way, the Justice League is a crossover event as ongoing series. In fact, its predecessor the Justice Society was the first inter-company crossover!

And unlike the Fantastic Four or the X-Men, there is no set line up or other common factor uniting the members. ANYONE could reasonably be in the League, from Dr. Fate to Robin, Superman to Odd Man, as long as they were committed to saving people. I mean, we all know who founded the League, but the League has grown and changed and completely turned over its membership in past 46 years. So why limit the team to just "big guns" or, in the opposite direction, just people who don't have their own book? Why limit the League at all?

Not only does a larger team give a writer the full gamut of characters to play with, it makes good internal logic as well. A bigger Justice League is better equipped and better organized to handle the big threats that come up. Really, why have only one Green Lantern or one Flash on the team, when you can three or four? Does it HURT to have Captain Marvel, Superman, and Wonder Woman on the same team? If Aquaman can help at all, who cares if his powers are lame?

For that matter, who needs powers at all? One of the most brilliant additions that Justice League Unlimited introduced to the League, the element that MOST needs to be added to the comics, is the large support staff of "civilians." Why should the League be exclusive to meta-humans and boy billionaires? If Oracle as character has any message, it's that one can save the world without necessarily being able to punch Despero in the face. The Justice League could be a giant volunteer organization devoted to saving lives all over the world, like the Red Cross with superior fire power. (How'd you like that on your resumé? "2004-2006, Saved world. Often.")

In contrast, any Justice League that has less than twelve members seems needlessly exclusionary and self-defeatingly handicapped. Not only is the League not as capable of doing good as it could be with more members, story opportunities get cut off as well. Isn't the fun of a superhero universe watching Metamorpho and Wildcat banter with each other? Or seeing Captain Atom fall before the might of Neron, only to have Zatanna pull a magic save out of her, um, hat? Or read about Superman giving his annual St Crispin's Day speech before an assembled crowd of gods, robots, knights and madmen, before they go off to fight yet another all consuming evil?


Isn't that what having a superhero universe is all about?

Tuesday Night Recommendation #7

Wow, double plugged by Ragnell and Kalinara (by way of Blog at Newsarama). My hit count went high tonight.

So I thought I'd try to restart a feature: THE TUESDAY NIGHT RECOMMENDATION. This is where I suggest to you, my (faithful? new?) readers a title you can pick up tomorrow that may take you a bit off the beaten path and save comics that need to be talked up.

Previous recommendations include:

FELL

SHE-HULK

JONAH HEX

JLA CLASSIFIED

MANHUNTER

and

NEXTWAVE

SO... looking at the Diamond Distributor list (via Kevin), I see that two of my previous recommendations are coming out tomorrow, Manhunter and NextWave, and of course you are instructed to buy both. But tomorrow's recommendation is something else, something new for me too:

CASANOVA #3

Why should you buy it?

1. It's cheap. Only 2 bucks!

2. Great reviews from reviewers you trust

3. It's DENSE! Like Essential Fantastic Four dense! And when you're getting it in 16 page chunks, instead of 500 page chunks, it's a little easier to digest.

4. It's ONLY two bucks!

5. Because I said so.

And somedays, you CAN get rid of a bomb!

(If I had a scanner, I'd scanner in the evening...)

Thanks to the suggestion of Philip Looney, I picked up the Essential Fantastic Four, v. 3 last Thursday at my regular stop to Midtown Comics.

I'm having a blast, but it's slow going. They wrote 'em dense in the old days. Not a lot actually happens (the Inhumans plot, which I'm still in the middle of, moves at an Ellis-ian pace,) but it's still a slog to get through all that verbiage. Everybody talks. And talks. And talks.

But when the action kicks in, hoo boy! It's not like I'm the first person to say this, but wow, Kirby is just awesome. The wedding issue (which I now see as the proto-type for EVERY superhero slugfest) is just a bacchanalia of absurdity, villain beaten by hero beaten by new villain beaten by new hero beaten by new new villain.

The best moment, BY FAR, is the rise of Attuma from the depths, complete with an entire Atlantean fleet. Kirby takes an entire page to ratchet up the dread, making sure you, the reader, know that these guys mean business, and Stan, the Man, Lee's over-over the top narration tells you that it... IS... ON!

Turn the page.

The entire fleet is wiped out in three panels when Daredevil drives an armed ATOMIC BOMB into the ocean. The best part about it is that it's a COMPLETE ACCIDENT. He didn't even SEE the fleet (of course), he was just trying to get rid of the bomb!.

I couldn't go on. I was laughing too hard. I literally dropped the book (on to my foot, which hurt cause it's a thick tome, but I didn't stop laughing.)

When was the last time you saw an entire invading army wiped out because a blind man carelessly threw an atomic bomb into the ocean?

I tell you, it's GLORIOUS.