(recently, i wrote a few comic-booky posts for Ethos Review - a literary journal. the entire process was interesting, entertaining, and humbling, as i got to interact with a number of editors trying to tease out my geeky conjectures to suit an academic audience. and since i've not bloog-posted for a year, i shamelessly re-post the first of TWO entries below for you, the oft-neglected, but loyal reader)
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This is the first of (hopefully) many posts about comics- and their impact on culture, politics, entertainment and…oh who cares, comics are awesome and I could write about them until I’m blue in the face (not unlike Dr. Manhattan). Fair warning, you will be reading many smart-sounding, broad-based assumptions, made to sound like highbrow academic thought. Sure, we all know that correlation is not actually causation, but what the hell. Buckle your seat belts...
Part 1 (of 2):
Growing up, I read a lot (of comics). On a fall day in 1985 I picked up a bound copy of the Fantastic Four from my local library. Originally created in the 1960s, the FF (seen above) told the story of a brilliant scientist, his best friend and best girl, and her younger brother - who all decided it would be a great idea to “borrow” a rocket ship, head into space and check out some “cosmic rays” - which would endow them with powers that were…fantastic. They soon become Marvel Comic’s “First Family" - more than superheroes - explorers and adventurers. And my world would never be the same.
Actually it would. Let’s back up a bit...
In America,
comic books have been around since just before the turn ofthe 20th century.
But the “modern” idea of comics (e.g. super heroes) is a relatively new
phenomena.
Prior to WW2,
most comics were serial dramas, migrating from comic strips, to pulp magazines,
to their own dedicated books. Stories ranged from the adventures of cowboys, detectives,
space-men, and sorcerers, many in far off, exotic lands. Young boys, the
primary consumer target, were often titillated with some light S&M. Soon
popular characters - ordinary folk in extraordinary circumstances - rose to the
top of the national consciousness. Buck Rogers was just a guy transported to
the wonders of the far future. The Phantom was 21st in a long line of masked
do-gooders, whose purple costume many say was one of the first super hero costumes. Dick Tracy fought a rogues’ gallery
of mob bosses, and has often been seen as a bridge between pulp magazines and
comic books. And Conan didn’t really bother wearing much: after all, he was a
barbarian in ancient times. These stories were a way for Americans to relate to
and escape to something more grand.
Readers jumped in the front seat with grown-ups they could identify
with, seeing extraordinary things on the printed page - with colorful pictures
and outlandish stories. After all, the times were getting depressing.
Then the shit
hit the fan.
(a phrase,
conveniently enough, made popular at this particular point in
history).
By the end of
the 1930s, worldwide markets had collapsed and would take a decade (and a war)
to recover. Political extremism was taking tighter hold across Europe, still
reeling from the ramifications of the Great War. Suddenly, there were some extraordinary
things in our ordinary world that we were increasingly losing control of. By
1938, two ordinary guys in Cleveland, Siegel & Shuster, began to tell
stories of a super-man that could leap tall buildings in a single bound (some
would say he was not unlike Nietzsche’s Übermensch or Yaweh’s Moses).
There was a man dressed like a bat terrorizing criminals (1939). Soon a
man could outrace a bullet. Then a man with a magic emerald ring who could…?.
All of these men lived in cities that were familiar, yet fictional: Metropolis
and Gotham City (representing New York’s east and west side, respectively),
Keystone City (Minneapolis), Star City (Chicago), Coast City (Los Angeles).
As Americans,
we soon found ourselves drawn more directly in a worldwide conflict, fighting a
great evil to preserve our way of life. The average American could build his or
her victory garden and send Rosy to rivet, but we were collectively helpless,
while our boys fought for freedom “over there.” More of these costumed “super”
heroes started popping up to smash fascism, and we cheered them on. It was
comics’ “Golden Age.” Extraordinary heroes for our
suddenly extraordinary times.
The War ended and our boys came home. So did the
capes, fighting at first domestic crimes, but soon things just got Bizarr(o), and quickly went from ridiculous to just plain silly (Mxyzptlk? Bat-Mite?) as more colors of kryptonite were discovered. Giant fighting robots,
kooky aliens and talking apes. Although the adventures may not have been
deadly, they were, and still are, wildly entertaining. Americans were in a
strange new atomic world – with boundless possibilities, but also grave
dangers. Comics, among many other mediums, helped readers grasp the fantastic
nature of the science, escaping to its weirder corners The extraordinary
became...extraordinary-er.
By the time the Korean conflict ended, we were
racing into the sixties with a whole slew of unrest at home. The war in
Vietnam, Civil Rights, and kids with their sex, drugs, and rock & roll.
Welcome to “the Silver Age” of comics.
Two New Yorkers (Lee & Kirby) started
creating stories about heroes with human problems (and a healthy penchant for
accidents of the radioactive variety). You’ve already met the Fantastic Four,
but to their readers they were really Reed, Ben, Sue, and Jonny, living in the
Baxter Building in midtown Manhattan. Young Peter Parker from Queens struggled
to meet girls in school despite his amazing powers. Dr. Bruce Banner had an
incredible anger problem. Charles Xavier had a dream (and a giant mansion in
Westchester County, NY, with an uncanny fighter jet). Even industrialist Tony
Stark, despite his invincible American ingenuity, often let the ladies (and the
bottom of a bottle) get the better of him.
These were
extraordinary people living in our ordinary
world.
Next Week, in Part 2: While most of us would rather forget the 70s and 80s,
comics painted a compelling, ordinary reflection of time with race and drugs.
But don’t worry, as the 80s became the 90s, comics caught on and got crass,
commercial, and weird again, leaving us hollowed out and ready for a true
revival at the turn of the century.
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