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All posts tagged "comics"
The X-Men vs Immanuel Kant.
You’re right: I haven’t produced new content in ages, so here’s a few unproof-read, uncited, pretty much unsubstantiated snippets from a very, very early draft of a huge paper I’m currently writing. It’s supposed to be a jurisprudential study of ethics and morality in comic books, but like I said to my lecturer in a moment of panic, “OMG, IT HAS LIKE, NO LAW IN IT!!!”
Apparently, that’s not such a big deal! And though I risk annihilating what little dignity I currently cling to, I have to say: this is the most fun I’ve ever had writing an essay.
Now, how do I turn this kind of wankery into a full-time job like these good folks?
[…]
Generally, superheroes can be seen as classically utilitarian: despite being violent, brutal and at times even criminal, arguably even their most immoral actions can be substantiated as being for the greater good. That the theme of outlawed superheroes continuing their crusades against evil, despite being vilified as wicked themselves, recurs across comics of different eras, genres and publishers underlines the fact that for superheroes and morality, the ends generally justifies the means.
Moreover, the worlds presented within comics tend to be imbued with an acutely-developed sense of rights and wrongs, of good and evil, and — perhaps most importantly — an ever-pervasive sense of justice. It is for this reason that the most resonant stories present an injustice — ethical, if not legal, in nature.
Take, for example, the character of Charles Xavier from Marvel’s X-Men series. As the founder of a school for young mutants, Professor X has traditionally been presented in canon as having a deeply-ingrained deontological ethical stratagem: for Charles, the ends never justify the means. In building an elite task-force of mutants to promote inter-human relations and the general welfare of the world, Charles has generally been fundamentally opposed to killing and the use of excessive force, and treats his capacity as a telepath with supposed ethical acuity. That’s not to suggest that he shies away from conflict; rather, he grapples with these opportunities to denigrate immorality. His teaching methods are founded upon the desire to propagate moral absolutism as an ideology. […]
Charles […] arguably becomes a more compelling character when his dealings in morally ambiguous areas come to the fore. Eventually, his deontological facade gives way to an unmistakeably utilitarian core, and this is presented as a kind of fall from grace. […]
His actions in themselves are not necessarily wicked — in erasing others’ painful memories, in using his power to fetter the undeveloped powers of others, in lying and falsifying, his intention to do good is ever-pervasive. However, it his deception in hiding these actions that gives rise to a duality of character, which seems inherently wrong — even evil: Charles has treated the people around him as a means to an ends, and not as ends in themselves. Though his actions may not constitute wrongdoing when seen through the filter of consequential ethics, his downfall — or wickedness — is compounded because of his misleading self-representations of moral absolutism.
With his mind rebuilt and the majority of his memories lost after a near-death experience, Charles is forced to reflect on his ethical practice. […]
Clearly, Xavier has become a utilitarian, and for fans of the series, it comes as a strange kind of tragic loss. Indeed, in the Legacy storyline, Scott Summers’ initial reluctance to allow Xavier a modicum of trust stems from this duality of the character: Summers can no longer act in reliance of Charles’ representations, and his motivations and justifications cannot be substantiated from Summers’ perspective, which is paradoxically a deonotological one acquired through habituation at Xavier’s school. (As a side-note, fuck Scott Summers.)
[…]
No, the fuck Scott Summers part didn’t stay in the essay… THOUGH IT SHOULD.
What is waiting for me on the other side of exams?
KILLER FUCKIN’ COCKROACHES.
Vertigo’s The Exterminators has issued its final tradie in a 30-issue series. After waiting nearly two years to close this story, I’m saving it as my post-exam reward.
I’m not sure how I feel about this final cover by Tony Moore; it feels a little too rendered, and not entirely representative of some of his more amazing pieces. But how could I not love a guy who lists his hobbies as “watching horror movies, getting fat, sleeping, and “maintaining” this crappy website”? We have way too much in common.
In other awesome news, apparently the production team behind Dexter, the show about a serial killer with a heart of gold, is going to bring The Exterminators to the small screen. Like the comic, the television series will “revolve around the Bug-Be-Gone crew, an extended dysfunctional family of exterminators whose greatest enemies aren’t the insects and rodents they meet and kill on a daily basis but rather their own self doubts, vices and inner demons.”
I’m pretty sure that there is no possible way this combination will be anything less than radical, but I can’t help but wonder if this blurb means that the show won’t incorporate the book’s more wildly sci-fi/fantasy tangents. It would definitely be a neater, tighter story better-suited to television without the weirder elements; the grimy depiction of the depths of the human condition set against the death throes of urban living would make for compelling viewing. Indeed, the storyline’s heavy reliance on the occult has the potential to translate into a ridiculously cheesy TV show — although without it, it just won’t be the same. But I should probably reserve judgement ‘til I get my grubby little hands on the final bit of the story.
One of the only times “Oh, snap!” is a tolerable reaction.
Remember Emma Frost in Grant Morrison’s run on the New X-Men? Before she turned soft and somehow fell for the foppish, whinging bag of snot that is Cyclops? Remember? When she was awesome?
Image scanned by me, because yes, I am that lame. From Grant Morrison & Frank Quitely’s E is for Extinction.
Because I don’t know how I ever forgot. Flipping through the newly-released collated omnibus of this series at the book shop (because I’m on a budget, okay?), I realised that Morrison’s run on the New X-Men was one of the first comic books I ever read in earnest. Through the nostalgia, I remembered that Emma Frost was a cornerstone for the beginnings of my fascination: a smart, “sexy”, multi-dimensional female character who used humour to mask her overriding desire for self-preservation and who could figuratively and physically throw punches with the toughest dudes. Plus, she could turn into diamond — awesome.
Who will watch the Watchmen? Me, for sure.
Fact: if you say ‘I read graphic novels,’ you sound way wankier than if you just say ‘I read comic books.’ Surely, the phrase ‘graphic novel’ is just a desperate attempt to legitimise the art form, to bring comic books into a more literary, intellectually acceptable realm by sluicing away the negative connotations that imply light, pulpy reading.
At least that’s how I felt until I read Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. There is just no other way to describe it than as a novel that is executed primarily in graphic form. A graphic novel, if you will.
Ironically, Moore himself as been quoted as saying: “My book is a comic book. Not a movie, not a novel. A comic book.” But there is just something intangible about the multilayered work that transcends the implications of those words.
Since its first publication as a 12-issue series in 1986, it has remained a strong critics’ favourite, and featured in Time magazine’s list of the top 100 books of all time. Even Stan Lee – the industry’s demi-god creator of classic characters like Spiderman, the X-Men, the Incredible Hulk and Iron Man – called Watchmen his “all-time favourite comic book outside of Marvel.” Generally speaking, Watchmen is the comic book you recommend to the jerks who hate comic books.
And it’s the latest in a slew to get the Hollywood treatment, with the movie due to launch in February 2009.
It’s hard to not feel conflicted. Moore himself eschews the movie studios; he’s notoriously protective of the integrity of his work. Following a legal wrangle over Twentieth Century Fox’s adaption of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, as well as Warner Brothers’ atrocious excuse for V for Vendetta, the writer has asked that his name be removed from those titles, and receives no royalties. To add insult to injury, Warner Brothers is also behind the Watchmen film. But holy shit, this trailer looks SO FUCKING AWESOME:
Written as the Cold War was winding down, Watchmen is a cautionary political commentary on the global insecurity caused by nuclear arms. Within an alternate history, Moore creates epically detailed characters who seem superhuman, and yet are all too susceptible to human foibles and failures. Through amazingly detailed vignettes, and intricately laced parallel stories, Moore touchingly tells of their personal crises in a time of crisis on a world-scale. Underpinning the tale is Plato’s haunting question, as relevant now as it was thousands of years ago: who will watch the watchmen? Nevertheless, Moore stops short of grandiose posturing. Shit, the dude even quotes Bob Dylan.
I’m by no means a purist; I like popcorn-bustin’, no-brainer comic movies as much as the next slavering tight-arse Tuesday-goer. I even own the X-Men film trilogy on special edition DVD, although I do enjoy smugly pointing out the inaccuracies. But for every exceptional comic-to-film adaption (300, Iron Man, Sin City, The Dark Knight, Ed Norton’s Hulk), there are at least two that make nerds around the world run home from the cinema to urgently register their distaste on internet forums (Wanted, Ghost Rider, Constantine, Batman & Robin, Eric Bana’s Hulk, Wanted, Wanted… Did I mention Wanted?)
And with a work as complex as Watchmen, it would be next to impossible to translate the subtle nuances of the writing, the innovative use of metafiction, and the excruciatingly detailed visual clues into film.
But having seen the trailer, I sure as shit can’t wait to see them try.
