I've been a fan of Mark Waid's comics for a long time now. The first thing I read of his, without realising it, was the Flash Fiftieth Anniversary Super Special, which I loved. Waid wrote the frame story that housed three different stories about all three Flashes. I think that's what got him the gig of writing for Flash permanently, and that's when he became DC's superstar of superheroes. They had Gaimen at the time, and Sandman was a hit like they'd never seen, but superheroes are still DC's bread and butter (despite the fact that they don't make any money), and Waid was the golden boy (despite the fact that he was in his late 30s at the time) of superheroes. But Waid left DC several years ago and joined with the now defunct CrossGen Comics. It seemed like such a good idea at the time. Since then, he's floated around a bit. For one reason or another, the folks at DC haven't given him any work that I know of (but I could be wrong, writers float in comics). The result is that he ended up writing Fantastic Four, and here we are.
He says he was never a fan of the FF, and frankly neither was I when he started the project, but I trust Waid to write solid, entertaining superhero stories, so I went along for the ride. What's interesting is that Waid, being obsessive compulsive about continuity, went back and reread all of Fantastic Four since the 60s, and is in the middle of a house-cleaning like you wouldn't believe.
First, he turned Dr. Doom into a wizard instead of a tech villain, a major thematic move, in comics. Then he banished Doom to Hell, theoretically never to return (though we know that's not true, don't we?).
And now, in #523, he's sent Galen (a.k.a., Galactus, Devourer of Worlds) to an alternate dimension. I don't want to go all fan-boy on you, so I'll keep the details to a minimum. Basically, Reed Richards seperated the energy that powered Galactus, the (oh, Mark, please come up with something new) "Galactus force," which left 'Galen' powerless (his real name!). He promptly turned into a middle-aged bald guy, and the FF then proceeded to lead him around New York city, trying to convince him that life is precious so that he'll never eat a planet again (What? You though "Devourer of Worlds" was metaphorical?).
The result: in, as far as I can tell, one day Galen observed 'humanity' (Manhattan) and decided that the ceaseless instinct to struggle against death, to fight for one's life, is exactly what makes Galactus what he is, and therefore he feels a kinship with humans, and voluntarily banishes himself to an alien dimension where he can't harm humans ever again.
Now, there's a couple of things going on here. First, Galactus is, theoretically, older than the universe itself. No shit. For real. Comics are hyperbolic; whaddaya want from me? So, after several billion years of literally eating entire planets and their inhabitants, one fucking day in New York convinces him to be a nice boy. Is it me, or is America a little fuckin' obsessed with New York since the two you-know-whats were destroyed? I don't mean to dismiss what happened. Thousands of people died. That's huge. More people die every month in Africa, but still. Thousands of people. But, come on! One day? What's so frickin' shit hot about NYC that it supposedly converts a galactic force of destruction? Greenwich Village? Coney Island? Spamalot? It's just a city, guys. Granted, a city I'd love to visit, even live in for a year or two, but it's still just a city. No need to turn it into some kind of divine civilising force, some City of God here on Earth. I mean, seriously. Get over it.
Second, the writer in me spots exactly what Waid's doing. He's writing fan fic. For those of you who are geekologically impaired, fan fiction is, as its name implies, fiction written by fans. It has a particular feel to it, too. The new Battlestar Galactica, for example, is fan fic. It's amazingly well written fan fic, but fan fic none the less. Why I call it that (and keep repeating the phrase 'fan fic') is because it has the feel of a bunch of writers who know and love the original (either the 70s BSG or the history of the FF), but still feel the need to 'fix' it. In both cases, I like the new version, but that desire to either correct past mistakes or write over them (superscription!) is the desire of a long-time fan, someone who grew up with these stories. It's not what a professional writer does. A pro sits down and tells the best story possible with whatever's at her disposal.
This is not to say that Waid, or the guys on BSG are 'unprofessional.' Far from it. I think the reason that they're so good at doing what they do is that the job calls for fans, not 'pros.' In both cases, and even more so with FF, we're looking at characters (both the heroes and the villains) who've been around for at least a couple of generations. The audience can't help but read 'the new adventures of' [whoever] as a reiteration of the stories they watched or read as kids. To appeal to that audience, I'm not surprised that the publishers and producers have decided to put fans in the position of creating the stories. Who better if your audience is fans?
I don't want to seem like I'm reaching, but I think there's an element of the Post-Modern, here. What we have is endless iterations, new versions, and repetitions that have, at this point, no actual original (hello Mr. Baudrillard). The closest thing we have to a 'genuine' Fantastic Four, or Battlestar Galactica, or Superman, or anyone else in comics who's been around for a while, resides within readers' heads, not on the page or the screen. We buy the comics, we turn on the TV, we pay for the movie that's the remake of something we know and love (and boy is there every a lot of that going around right now!) and we compare that new version to the one running around in our heads. We all did that with Lord of the Rings, didn't we? The highest praise I saw from those movies simply read "Ian McKellan IS Gandalf!" which means that he conformed to our vision of what Gandalf is supposed to be like.
In an entertainment industry now built on the remake, knowing as it does that remakes rely on recognition, conforming to the audience's preformed expectations, hiring the very people they seek to appeal to, is the best move. Fans pay to see the movie. Fans get paid to make the movies. It's like the circle of life, but with less Elton John.
Okay, I've been away for far too long. It's time to get this thing going again.
I have no excuse for you, dear fictitious reader. I've merely gotten out of the habit of writing in this thing. So, from now on, I'm writing a mini review of every comic book I read, just to get me off my ass (technically, onto my ass and in front of the computer, but there you go).
Before I start that, though, I'd like to tell you about the conference I went to in Louisiana. I have a few semi-humorous stories about trying to enjoy Mardi Gras, but at the conference itself I happened to present a short paper I wrote last year on Watchmen. It went over well, and the woman who presented with me, Julia Round of Bristol U., is working on many of the same texts, though with a very different focus. We exchanged ideas a little bit and I found something new that I'm all jazzed up about now.
In my long paper from last semester (I'd post it, but it's 30 pages plus images) I invented a term for characters who are deliberate pastiches, references, to other characters. The whole Watchmen cast, for example, is based on the Charlton Comics characters that Moore and Gibbons thought they were going to be allowed to use, but that they couldn't use at the last minute, hence the fact that they made a bunch of characters that feel like the Charlton heroes.
I call these kinds of characters analogues, because they are literally analogous to their originals. They call attention to themselves as copies and therefore invite comparison. The point of a good name for a literary maneouver is that the name reflects what's actually going on in the maneouver, right?
Well, Julia uses a different term for a very similar move, one that I had previously lumped in with analogues. She calls it 'superscription.' This happens when a character's personality or idiom is, almost literally, written over by a new creative team. This is how characters slowly evolve over time, having small elements of their personalities written over, superscribed, as they go; it's also how some characters go through radical changes for no reason other than a writer had a good idea. Moore did this with Supreme, and otherwise boring little Superman clone that Moore turned into something fascinating by capitalising on his Superman-ness (so to speak).
Superscription is a lot like retcon. In fact, now that I think of it, it's basically a retcon of a particular character. The interseting thing is that the superscription does or doesn't 'take' depending almost entirely on the popularity of the changes. If everyone likes Lobo without messy hair and wearing a leather jacket with a meat-hook wrapped around his arm, then that's the version that sticks around, instead of the square-haired, yellow tights that he started with. That version of the character is retroactively part of the continuity. The original has been written over.
Neat stuff.
(Some reviews to follow. Sit tight.)