Setting the Time

On Lorendiac's LiveJournal, he lists the nine categories of continuity for an ongoing superhero story. It's an excellent list and very useful for understanding the context in which most stories are written.

If I may be so bold, I'd like to add an addendum to Category #3, "Continuity of Environment", which basically states that stories about particular characters need to take place in specific locations. I.e., Batman stories are set in Gotham, a major city located somewhere in the northeast United States. If Batman is out of Gotham in any particular story, you almost have to explain why he's not in Gotham.

My addendum is that, on top to continuity of a physical environment, there is also a continuity of temporal environment. Stories about a particular character are also set in a particular era, and for superheroes, that era is always "the present."

And anyone who has ever used the phrase "sliding timeline" in casual conversation immediately sees what the problem with that is.

To maintain continuity of personality (Category #2), to say that Batman is Bruce Wayne, the original Bruce Wayne who personally witnessed his parents' death and not someone else who happens to have the same name, we have to say that it's been only 12 or 13 years since he first put on the cape, instead of the 70 plus it's actually been in the real world. But to maintain continuity of setting, Batman has be operating in 2007, not 1952! But writers want their cake and eat it too, so time does pass but the character don't age, and if they won't push back the "current" date, they'll push forward the original one, indefinitely.*

Please understand that this is unusual. In any other genre or medium, the setting is either set by the original author as a specific point in the past, or at least remains the period in which it was originally written, because it is in their original setting that the characters make the most sense, and by maintaining continuity of setting we understand this to be the same character we've read about before.

For the most part, Sherlock Holmes stories are set in Victorian London, no matter when there were actually written. Tarzan stories are set in the turn of the century. Sgt. Rock stories are in World War II, Jonah Hex in the post-Civil War west. There are counter-examples to all of those cases but in every case you can feel it is the exception not of the rule. If a Sherlock Holmes movie were set in 2007, it would be called a bold updating. If a Batman story were set in 1939, it would be called an Elseworlds!

This works better for some characters than for others. Spider-Man, so far, is pretty timeless. The basics of his character, setting, and origin aren't particularly linked to the 1960s. And, sadly, the metaphors of prejudice and alienation are always going to be relevant for the X-Men.

But the Fantastic Four got their powers racing Communists into space, and the Incredible Hulk is the product of an nuclear bomb test in the Arizona desert. These are characters of their time, and to take them out of their time is to make them, to some degree, different characters! Frank Castle, Vietnam veteran, is a different character than Frank Castle, Gulf War veteran. (Or Iraq War, in a couple of years).

Maybe that's why Darwyn Cooke's New Frontier worked so well. Re-contextualizing Green Lantern, the Flash, and the Martian Manhunter as products of the late 1950s brings them to life as airmen ready to go to the stars, police using new science to make modern life better, and immigrants fearful of Red Scare xenophobia. And the Golden Age heroes, (Superman, Wonder Woman and Batman) look and act like relics of an earlier time, trying to redefine themselves for a new era.

In short, automatically setting your new story featuring an old character in "the present" without thinking of the consequences is dangerous. Some characters are going to fly through the years no problem. But, for the most part, characters just don't time travel that easy.

*An odd corollary of this is DC 1,000,000, the conceit of the crossover is we get to see the millionth issue of Detective Comics, starring a prison warden inspired by the legend of the Batman of the 20th Century. But this rings false because we know that if, miracle of miracles, DC Comics is still publishing one million months from now, the star of Detective Comics is still going to be Bruce Wayne!

"Stop Me If You've Heard This One... A Superhero Walks Into a Trap..."

I want to like Dwayne McDuffie's run on Justice League of America.

I really do.

But something just isn't clicking. I mean, the first issue of his run, the JLA Wedding Special, was really good: strong characterization, a good sense of humor, and action and the sense of a moving plot.

But three issues in and, while the humor and characters are still there, the plot has totally stalled.

The Injustice League's whole plan seems to be bait the heroes into a trap, wait for them to arrive in two and threes, beat the crap out of them quickly and then disappear with as many of them as possible. And they've successfully done this FIVE TIMES!

It makes the story repetitive and the Justice League look like morons. Which is only made worse by Superman shooting down Black Lightning's suggestion that after Batman AND Wonder Woman have been captured, it's time to call in some reinforcements, before rushing off to get captured like everyone else.

The story is basically in the same place it was at the end of the Wedding Special, in that I have no further insight into what the villains' ultimate plan is nor have the heroes done anything to reverse their misfortunes. And it's never a good feeling when you have to ask yourself why did you have to read the previous two issues.

The art's also been off. Mike McKone on the Wedding Special was alright, if not spectacular. And Ed Benes in issue #14 comes through with his usual flaws (all the men have the same over-muscled body, all the women have the same over-sexualized body, and if he can slip in an ass or panty shot, he will). But Joe Benitez on issue #13 was just awful. The women aren't just over-sexualized, they looked like poorly constructed Barbie dolls and the men, particularly back in the spotlight John Stewart (Green Lantern), had teeny tiny heads on huge bodies.

I mean, there still is a lot of stuff to like. Black Lightning, at least, is being portrayed as a competent hero and GeoForce's best feature (according to Gorilla Grodd) is a hoot, as is most of the interaction of the Injustice League. So I'll stick it out to the end of the first storyline (as I did for Meltzer) to see if he can turn it around...

But seriously, if one more supposedly brilliant hero walks willingly into an obvious trap only to get sucker punched, I quit.

On Secret Identities

Ah, the secret identity, the classic troupe of superhero stories that falls apart the moment you think too hard about it.

I mean, it's hardly going over new ground to point out that a pair of glasses is hardly a disguise, but as John Byrne and Howard Mackie pointed out in an issue of Star Brand, even with a full mask it shouldn't be THAT hard for any motivated person to figure out the identity of any sufficiently public hero.

Add to that the fact that justifications for a duel identity are often weak and maintaining a secret life leads to some pretty irresponsible behavior, and it seems like a story idea that's not worth keeping.

And yet it persists. In fact, it's one of the things almost all superheroes have in common, from Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne to Harry Potter and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And while it makes no sense in terms of "realism," as power fantasy it's almost necessary.

It's what allows us to both empathize with a superhero ("Hey! I'm a mild-mannered schlub who awkwardly hits on my hot co-worker!") and imagine what it's like to have inhuman abilities ("Ooh, if only she knew that I could fly in my underwear!"). It brings the fantastic into the mundane world, and lets us imagine that anyone could really be a secret superhero, they just are hiding it, for some reason.

Perhaps the purest example of this fantasy is Captain Marvel. I mean, it doesn't get any more pathetic than Billy Batson, orphaned AND homeless eight year old, but with just a magic word he can become the most powerful superhero on the earth! And not just a kid superhero, either, like Robin or Kid Flash, but an adult, sidekick to no one! There, the secret identity works perfectly. One, it's a disguise no one is just going to see through, because he actually looks different in his different identities. Two, it makes perfect sense for him to hide the fact that he's actually eight. No one would take him seriously if they knew he was just a kid, but as Captain Marvel he gets the respect reserved for adults.

And, in a way, every superhero has elements of that escapism, even for the characters themselves: their superhero identities are where they are loved, respected, and feared, no matter how mundane their "real" lives are. That if their superhero life became their ordinary life, along with the ordinary problems of paying bills, maintaining relationships, just being human, then being a superhero becomes less special.

It's interesting how, on the whole, the Marvel heroes subverted the secret identity troupe, where people are burdened by their superpowers and secret lives. Either their abilities are feared by the general public, even when used for good, like the X-Men, or their abilities out and out prevent them from having a normal life, like the Thing.

Most interesting of all in this respect is the Incredible Hulk, who is the negative side of the superhero power fantasy, the dark incarnation of Captain Marvel. Like Billy Batson, Dr. Bruce Banner becomes a physically different being when he becomes the Hulk. But, instead of just being freed from the bounds of human ability, the Hulk is also freed from the bounds of human behavior.

Captain Marvel still feels bound to protect the city and save lives. The Hulk, on the other hand, does whatever the Hulk wants, which more often than not is destroying everything he comes in contact with. The Hulk is escape not just from the physical self but also the moral self, and demonstrates the usually catastrophic results of such freedom.

The secret identity is our doorway into the world of the fantastic, the device that allows us to be both ourselves the readers in the real world and our heroes flying through a world of wonder. But it's important to remember there is a risk to this escape, a danger of losing sight of consequences, and somehow seeing our own actions as the responsibility of someone else.

Forced Isolation

How many times have you heard the following line?

"We can't go to the authorities! They'll stick you in a lab and run experiments on you for the rest of your life!"?

A dozen? A hundred? It's in Smallville, Spider-Man, Eureka, all over Heroes. It's the explanation why every superhero and pseudo-superhero throughout fiction must hide their powers and not announce to the world that "Hey, I, Clark Kent, am actually an alien and have powers above and beyond that of mortal man! Isn't that cool?"

But it's, y'know, bullshit. If you woke up one day and discovered you had mysterious, extraordinary and possibly dangerous powers, wouldn't it be a good idea to go to people who could test you, explain what's happening and then help you control or possibly remove your powers? Isn't a bad idea to let a possibly rampaging green goliath wander around the general population just because Dr. Banner's scared of needles?

The "lab rat for life" line is just as bad as the "we can't go to the cops because they'll think we did it" excuse. No, if you're a suspect for a crime you didn't commit, the last thing you should do is run from the cops. You should go TO the police and explain your story in detail, so the cops can use all the information to find the real culprit. If you're really worried, bring a lawyer.

I understand why writers want to isolate their heroes, why they limit their resources and cut them off from most of society. The whole secret identity aspect of superheroes, that the seemingly mild-mannered man next to you might be hiding fantastic abilities depends on that man having a reason for hiding his powers.

But that reason has to be something real, like a frame job that could not be beaten in court (as it was in The Fugitive) or a known societal prejudice against people with powers (as with the X-Men), not just the hero's general paranoia of authority.

It certainly doesn't help that there's plenty of examples of "the hero with bizarre powers" going public and it working out just fine. The Fantastic Four never hid what they could do and they're the best loved heroes within the Marvel Universe. (The new) Blue Beetle was terrified of the alien weapon welded to his spine, so in issue 15 he went to S.T.A.R. Labs for tests and still got to go home to fight dark gods and alien bounty hunters (and got to meet Superman for his troubles). And in the surprisingly fun Chuck, the C.I.A. and the N.S.A. know about the secrets in Chuck's brain before Chuck does, but Chuck's still working in "Buy More" in episode 2, only with two agents watching his back and trying to help him adjust to his life.

In short, if the hero refuses to ask for help because he is afraid that "they" will get him if he does, he comes across as cynical, paranoid, and in many cases, just plain dumb. On the other hand, if your hero does seek aid, and discovers that it's dangerous to do so, well then, you've done some world building, established a villain, and developed your hero all in one fell swoop! Good job!

Or if your hero has a reason to hide her powers other than paranoia... but that's a post for another time.

Support Your Local Virgin

So... on October 18th in New York City, I'll be reading from my first short story at the In The Flesh reading series, and I'd love to see you all there!

I'll be reading from my short story "Perfect Manhattan," the story of a yuppie power couple trying to have perfect children by conceiving them at exactly the right time in exactly the right place, which leads them to the Central Park Zoo, a conference room at Goldman Sachs, and (in the excerpt I'll be reading from), the A-train at rush hour.

It's a comedy.

In The Flesh is a monthly erotica reading series (yes my story is erotic, or at least dirty) run by Rachel Kramer Bussel. She was gracious enough to ask me to read because a) she's on my trivia team and b) it's Virgin Night, specifically for first time readers (like me) and first time authors (um, also like me).

So if you like my writing, or erotica, or free cupcakes (yes FREE cupcakes!), then come one down to the Happy Ending Lounge on October 18th!

I'll see you there!

Oh Snap!

For some reason, my store didn't receive Action Philosophers #9 until today, so I didn't read this gem until just now:

... I blame Leibniz. You know you have a crappy philosophy when even Hegel thinks it's stupid.

Take that, alternate inventor of calculus!

Voice Work

Chris at Mighty God King has a neat post on writing in the voice of your characters, particularly the experiment to write your character's version of the Gettysburg Address. And he does it twice, once as Brainiac 5, and another he asks us to guess.

And I am not above stealing good ideas.

So here it is, let's see if you can guess the character (It's a comics character, you know him or her).

Listen up, chumps! Years ago, the guys in charge made this country based on the idea that everyone has rights. Everyone's protected.

Now we're fighting this goddamn war to see if they were right, whether a country like ours can even survive. And we've come here to honor the boys who got killed fighting for this country and make a little monument to them. And, yeah yeah, it seems like it's the right thing to do.

But you know what? We can't do nothing these men didn't do themselves. They were the heroes, we're just jerks talking. If we really want to honor their memory, we gotta keep fighting. We gotta finish what these guys started and take the fight to those a-holes who started this. We take the fight to them and we tell 'em, "this country's going to survive, and it's going to be better than ever. And freedom, and equality, and justice? They ain't going nowhere, man. No way!"

Perenials and Outliers

It's hard to imagine a day when DC Comics doesn't publish or plan to publish the following titles:

Action Comics
Superman
Detective Comics
Batman
Wonder Woman
Green Lantern
The Flash
Aquaman
Justice League
Justice Society
Teen Titans
The Legion of Superheroes

Yes, I know Aquaman is cancelled, but I assure you DC is actively soliciting pitches for a relaunch, looking for any way to get one of the most famous superheroes in the world back on the stands. Similarly, Marvel will always publish:

The Amazing Spider-Man
Uncanny X-Men
Fantastic Four
The Incredible Hulk
Captain America
Iron Man
The Avengers
Daredevil
The Punisher
Ghost Rider
Thor

Thor is an interesting example. A few years ago, Warren Ellis rather pointedly stated that you can't keep publishing Thor just because you've always published Thor if there isn't really enough interest in the character to justify sales. (also something about a horse from space) Then the title was canceled and the titular hero literally vanished from Marvel comics.

However, in July, the number one book on the stands was, well, Thor! Over 160,000 copies sold to retailers, which beats out Marvel's own much hyped World War Hulkand Death of Captain America miniseries.

Now, there's a few factors that go into that. The return of Thor was a delayed plot point from the mega-popular Civil War and Marvel put J. Michael Straczynski, one of their absolute most popular writers, on the book, so it's unlikely the book will keep half of that initial audience, still, that's an impressive number and a lot of the book's strength was based on fond memories of the character. So you can see why Marvel keeps going back to that well, even if it often runs dry.

But look at those lists again and think about what's NOT there, the outliers, the books starring new characters like Blue Beetle, the books with more diverse characters, like Black Panther the books with quirkier tones, like She-Hulk, or books with more unusual set ups, like The Brave and the Bold. Yeah, it's some of the bestselling comics on the stands right now, but it's not necessarily the innovative books or the most critically acclaimed.

The day is coming, and coming soon, when DC and Marvel make the transition from the magazine publishers they were to the book publishers they need to be. When the majority of your illustrated superhero stories will be found in novel length forms sold more in general interest book stores than increasingly exclusionary specialty shops. And when that day comes, the question is going to be, "whither the outliers?"

Take Manhunter, for example, DC critically acclaimed, fan favorite series with truly abysmal sales. DC has managed to eek out thirty issues of the series which add some great new characters to the DC universe and add some interesting depth to some old ones. And that in turn has produced three trades now which have sold well enough to kind of sort of keep the series going.

But... could DC have published the series if they didn't introduce the character in her monthly series first? Or to turn it around, would you have bought the first trade if it was sold as an original graphic novel? Would you have spent $13 to read about a totally new character taking on the identity of an old, d-list character, written by newish writer? On the other hand, would you spend $3 to try a new character out?

Yes, the move from magazines to books will be good for comics in general, both in terms of art and business, but I'm not sure it will be good for ongoing superhero comics. It feels to me that the move will limit the ability to sell new ideas to an audience already resistant to change. More expensive books sold at higher price points might discourage publishers from taking a chance on new writers, new artists, new characters, and new formats altogether when it's easier to sell books that are just like the ones the fans have already bought.

It's not like this isn't a problem already, but I worry that without the relatively cheap format of comic pamphlets to try out new creations, nothing new will come out of the "House of Ideas" and Marvel will just be feeling Thor for a long long time.

Powers Do Not Equal Personality

There’s an old game fans love to play while sitting around, dreaming of the day they get to write the adventures of their favorite superheroes: “Who’s in your Justice League?” The rules are simple, create a list of roughly seven to twelve characters who you’d want to see month after month saving the world from, say, Despero.

You see different strategies employed, from the Big Seven (only characters capable of supporting their own book… oh, and the Martian Manhunter) to the Heavy Hitters (if you can’t bench-press a tank, you can’t join), to the Professionals (characters who don’t have their own book, who can devote their full time to the team) to the Personal Favorites (say it with me now, “Geo-Force?”). And you see some old arguments pop up, like whether Batman would join the team or if Aquaman is ever useful.

But there’s one team creation strategy that baffles me. The belief that a Justice League team needs to have a Flash, needs to have a Green Lantern. That Superman and Captain Marvel shouldn’t both be on the team because their powers are too similar, and Firestorm and Captain Atom can’t both join because they would “over lap”.

It’s the belief that superpowers are the definition of a superhero’s character, and that a team composed of diverse powers is interesting, and a team with similar powers is not.

That’s just ludicrous.

I mean, it certainly doesn’t make sense from a story perspective. If you’ve got four guys with omnipotent magic wishing rings, why not bring all of them? When Batman took out Brother Eye in Infinite Crisis #6, he brought Green Lantern Hal Jordan and Green Lantern John Stewart. Why? Because Batman’s not an idiot.

But more the point of literary criticism, it doesn’t make sense from a storytelling perspective either. Superheroes’ powers don’t dictate their behavior. Sure, if you’ve got claws and super healing, you’re probably cutting people and getting beat up a lot, but isn’t that why Beast is much more interesting? Because his intellectual persona runs counter to his feral appearance and abilities? So, just because two characters have the same abilities doesn’t mean they have the same personality or that they would act the same in a team dynamic.

Think how different Grant Morrison’s run on JLA would be if, instead of artist and novice superhero Kyle Rayner, Morrison had used macho jackass Guy Gardner as the Green Lantern on the team. Instead of a nice P.O.V. character in over his head and out to prove himself worthy, you’d have an argumentative jerk who’d balk at Superman’s every order and repeatedly moon Batman (I didn’t say it would be a worse book, just different).

Or take the current line-up of the Teen Titans. Supergirl, Wonder Girl, and Miss Martian have very similar powers—super strength, speed, flight—but they don’t fulfill the same function on the team. Supergirl is trying, finally, to live up to the example of her cousin and be a role model hero. Wonder Girl, on the other hand, has developed a violent rebellious streak and become a destabilizing element. And Miss Martian tries to play peacemaker but is naïve and bumbling in her attempts.

In short, they’ve become the Power Puff Girls.* And that’s a good thing, because it’s in their personality differences that the story lies.

Superpowers are not what make characters interesting. How characters react to having superpowers is what makes them interesting. A team where everyone has a different power but they all act the same (like the Silver-Age Justice League or X-Force) is boring. A team where everyone has the same power but acts completely different is fascinating.

So the next time you’re creating your fantasy team, don’t think “I need a runner, a fighter, a magician, and a flyer” like it’s a D&D game. Think “Who’s the leader, who’s the instigator, who’s the peacemaker? Who’s new? Who’s old? Who wants to do more? Who wants to do less? Who’s proud to be there? Who’s about to quit? And who’s holding it all together?” Because it’s in how these characters are different, different as characters, that makes the team worth reading about.


*Yes, Supergirl also has heat vision and Miss Martian can shapeshift, but that’s like how Blossom has ice breath and Bubbles can speak Spanish.

Multiple Choice Question

I think it's pretty clear that I loves The Question. I even like the new Question.

It's a great character design (from Steve Ditko, who made a career of great character designs) and The Question, a.k.a., Vic Sage, is a compelling personality, a crusader for absolute truth.

And it is as a fan of the character that I'm bothered by comments like this:

Poor Question. Right when Timm, Dini, and company made you popular, DC has the foresight to kill you off and replace you.

Luke's implication that there can be no more comics featuring the Vic Sage Question is patently false, because the post he's commenting on is about a comic that came out THIS WEEK. In fact, it was in Justice League Unlimited, the comic that's specifically designed to capitalize on the success of "Timm, Dini, and Company". So he's getting exactly what he wants.

But of course he's not happy getting a new Vic Sage story. He wants a new Vic Sage story "in continuity," so that it "really happens." Well, Luke, I've got some bad news for you...

It's all fictional. The Vic Sage that died in 52 is no more real than the Vic Sage fighting space yetis on comics shelves RIGHT NOW!

And that's the wonder of these characters, they're flexible and you can tell many stories with them, AT THE SAME TIME. Don't like Judd Winick's Trials of Shazam? Try Jeff Smith's Monster Society of Evil. Don't like Richard Donner and Geoff Johns' Superman? Try Busiek's. Or Morrison's. Or...

These are not real people. They're characters and it takes a lot more than death to stop them. DC can still publish a Vic Sage Question series, and he could be Bruce Timm's paranoid theorist, or Denny O'Neil's kung fu master, OR Steve Ditko's objectivist vigilante. Take your pick, it's a wide open multiverse out there. In fact, Vic Sage wouldn't even need to fit into any previous continuity. After all, continuity isn't a real "reality" for him to fit into anyway.

I think he'd kind of like that idea.