January 8, 2007
Section II: Chapter Breakdown, Chapter 4
Retcons and Analogues
Chapter 4 examines a collection of examples of the two major metacomical techniques, retroactive continuity ('retcon'), and analogue characters. Retcon, as I have already defined it (under Chapter 1) is a pre-Revisionist device that is also used extensively in Revisionist metacomics. Revisionist work quite literally revises a character, a narrative, or a set of genre expectations, therefore retcon, changing events that have already happened, is an extremely convenient narrative tool; however, it is not an inherently Revisionist tool, as I have already noted. Retcon can be used to preserve the integrity of the fictional space just as much as it can be used to question or even destroy that integrity. Metacomics tend to use it to do the latter, but they also often point out when it has been used previously to do the former. The first section of Chapter 4 will trace the gradual shift in retcon techniques from early memory/amnesia devices in Moore’s Marvelman, Batman: The Killing Joke, and Saga of the Swamp Thing, through to ‘cosmic’ retcons that actually change history or invest incidental imagery with mythic significance, as is particularly strong in Gaiman's retellings of superhero stories, like Sandman: Mystery Theatre, The Books of Magic: The Prequel, 1602, and The Eternals. Special attention must also go here to Planetary for constructing an entirely new history out of existing literary narratives, a device akin to retcon but also to analoguing.[1]
Analogues are very clearly defined in Wolf-Meyer’s otherwise problematic paper "The World Ozymandias Made." He calls them 'clones,' but he nevertheless identifies exactly the facet that makes analogues work:
"Clones" are characters that [sic] resemble other established superheroes, both in costuming and abilities, […] The Clones have their own lives, their own continuity, and their own costumes […], but in their presence they make reference to the original[s …]. This process of cloning allows the authors to partake of a particular aspect of the discourse of superhero comics, providing their readers with familiar iconography… (Wolf-Meyer 504)
Though the idea of literary analogues is not new, the word itself is significant and bears a closer look. Wolf-Meyer's definition concentrates on similarity, which is not surprising because he calls the phenomenon 'cloning,' a word that implies identical copies. Ellis's brief definition (quoted above) is similar, in that it draws attention to the pre-existing emotional relationship between audiences and characters, emotions that the analogue capitalises on from its position between the original[2] and the audience; however, the relationship between the analogue and the original is not just one of similarity. If it were, then the analogues would be mere copies, allegorical rather than analogous. Supreme is a commentary on Superman precisely because he acts differently. If he displayed no different behaviour, he would be a mere copy. Metacomics also use analogues as an extremely efficient way to create an immediate relationship with the audience; therefore, when those characters enact commentaries on their originals, the commentaries are more powerful by virtue of the illusion of a pre-existing relationship. This device requires a dual reading. The audience must know the analogue as both an individual character and as a gesture toward the character(s) to which it is analogous; the audience must perceive the analogue as both located in its internally consistent narrative and as a signifier of another narrative, or even an entire literary tradition. Logically, analogue characters cannot be both at once, but by the logic of metacomics, they must be read as both in order to make coherent sense. Analogues, to borrow Mitchell's term, are multistable characters.
Gaiman rarely employs analogues, and instead, when given the chance, makes side-long references to comicbook continuity, as in Dream’s story in Sandman: Endless Nights, which uses the back story of the Green Lantern Corps to flesh out a key moment in Dream’s relationship with his sibling, Desire. These characters are not analogues, however, so Gaiman will feature little in this chapter. The second section of Chapter 4 will, therefore, focus on Moore’s shifts from analogue characters to direct intertextual or historical references and back, and Ellis’s seemingly reluctant but complex use of analogues to create a fictional space that encompasses all the fictional spaces of 20th-century fantasy and science fiction. Moore employs analogues frequently, but seemingly out of necessity. For Watchmen, he and Dave Gibbons are forced, through circumstances that would take too long to explain in this document, to create a cast patterned on the Charlton Comics superheroes, an unexpected necessity that nevertheless grants them the power of the analogue: emotional resonance coupled with complete freedom to alter the characters’ back stories and irrevocably alter them by the end of the story, which is a freedom that most comics creators do not have when working with corporate-owned characters. On the other hand, for League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Lost Girls (with Melinda Gebbie), as well as the pseudo-historical From Hell (with Eddie Campbell), Moore uses the actual characters and historical figures, evidently because they are all in the public domain. When Moore returns to superhero comics in the mid-90s, however, he returns to analogues, as in 1963 (with Rick Veitch), Supreme (with Jon Bennet, et al), and Judgement Day (with Rob Liefeld). Promethea is Moore’s most powerful recent series, but its title character is only a Wonder Woman analogue on the most superficial level, so it will not figure prominently in this chapter.
Ellis does not seem to like using analogues, if his comments from Bad Signal can be taken as genuine, but instead employs them out of convenience; they create an immediate relationship between audience and text, as we have already seen, but he, like Moore and Gibbons, makes virtue of necessity in Planetary (with John Cassaday), which amalgamates pulp magazines (crime, detective, the pulp supermen), early 20th-century science fiction, Asian cinema (monster, wuxia, hard-boiled), superhero comics, and some historical figures (e.g., Thomas Edison as a pulp superman). Planetary is a complex of analogues, all of which bring entire literary and/or visual styles with them, a mixture that is symbolised by ‘The Snowflake’ (Planetary 1.17) the tangible structure of Planetary’s reality (and briefly, a McGuffin),
and ‘The Bleed’ (Planetary 6.12.3), the space between dimensions in the shared Wildstorm universe.
The former implies complex structure, but is drawn as a if it were half-melted, whereas the latter visually embraces the textual metaphor of fluids "bleeding" into each other, and these visual signifiers play directly into the most extreme form of metacomics, the erosion and eventual destruction of the barrier between fiction and reality.
Posted by orion at January 8, 2007 6:08 PM