Divergence and Daredevil at Primary Ignition!

Today's post is mostly a plug, as I haven't written a new post in a couple of weeks, and those of you who follow me on Twitter already know about the news I have to present here. Simply put, primaryignition.com is up and running again, with Rob Siebert at the helm once more, and I've returned with him.

Two new reviews with my name in the byline have been published, with more to come. The first such review was on Divergence #1, a Free Comic Book Day issue that DC Comics put out for the occasion, featuring new happenings with Batman, Superman, and the Justice League.

The second such review was on Marvel's Daredevil, a new Netflix original series based on the comic book property of the same name. It's pretty much what I always wanted from a live-action treatment of Batman, but just wasn't possible even in the Nolan films.

In sum, go read these reviews and get my rambling opinions on this stuff, straight from the horse's mouth. I assure you, gentle readers, new blog posts are on the way!

Also, happy Mother's Day to all of you mothers out there. Hi, mum.

Superman: Birthright and Superman for All Seasons: A Tale of Two Takes on an Icon

Author's Note: I am holding off on my long-promised post on the Air Nomads and Religious Vegetarianism, for the sake of obtaining more in-depth information about the subject. Until then, please enjoy this post about Superman.

I've written about Superman movies before, but I've never really written about Superman himself, let alone Superman comics. But over the last week or so, I've finally gotten around to reading Superman: Birthright and Superman for All Seasons, a pair of pretty notable Superman stories. The former was written by the esteemed Mark Waid, while the latter was written and illustrated by the equally esteemed team of Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale, respectively. This latter pair was also behind Batman: The Long Halloween and Batman: Dark Victory, the former being one of my favorite Batman stories. Meanwhile, Waid has written or co-written such great stories as Kingdom Come and 52, as well as acclaimed runs on The Flash, JLA, and also Daredevil over at Marvel.

Getting back to Superman, these two stories both helped to define Superman in comics in ways that were both hugely significant and hugely differing. Today, we will examine the differences between Birthright and Seasons as stories, as well as their respective takes on the world's most iconic superhero.

Right off the bat, Superman: Birthright is very different from Superman for all Seasons. Birthright was spawned in the early 2000's and ran for 12 issues. It was, at the time, meant to be the definitive superhero origin story for Superman, a concept which even then had been done literally dozens of time. Comics scholar Chris Sims notes that even before Birthright, Superman: Secret Origin, and Superman: Earth One all came about, both he and a friend agreed that the last thing they wanted to see in comics was yet another Superman origin story. Exactly why he believes this is beyond the scope of this post, but you can read all about it here. (A word of warning: I'll be citing Mr. Sims a lot in this article.)

Birthright's take on Superman's origin story seeks to capture the feel of Superman is a more "toned-down" and "realistic" way, which is generally code for our hero constantly expressing angst at his predicament. The edition I read stated that Birthright was specifically designed to mirror the approach that the odious Smallville was taking, which is never a good sign. Even the art has that weird, edgy, penciled look that was common in its day, leftover from the exaggeratedly grim and gritty feel that nearly all 90s comics had.

In the hands of a lesser talent, this might lead to what happened with Man of Steel. Not Mark Waid though, oh no. He manages to successfully present a version of Superman that is largely true to the character, yet at the same time mess it up just enough to make is significantly imperfect. Birthright's main problem in this regard is that it keeps looking for explanations and justifications for details that don't or shouldn't need to be explained or justified. The classic example, as indicated by Sims, is the rationale behind putting a giant red "S" on Superman's costume. There's a lot of ballyhoo about it being some kind of Kryptonian crest or a symbol of hope or whatever stupid crud they routinely pull out of their butts at the DC editorial offices, but Sims has a simpler explanation: He wears an "S" on his chest because "S" stands for Superman. There. Done. Mystery solved.

One thing that I actually did like that Waid elaborated on more fully was his explanation of how Superman's Clark Kent disguise manages to fool his coworkers, who are all reporters. It's brilliantly done, with Clark putting a lot of effort into it and nearly blowing it more than once. However, it leads to the one thing which I really don't like about Birthright, and it's not even in the story itself, but in the afterword: Waid goes out and states flatly that Clark Kent is the "mask" and Superman is the real man.

Bullcrap.

Aside from the obvious play for the appeal of Batman, a strategy makes minimal sense for reasons that we won't go into right now, the idea of Clark Kent being the "mask" and Superman being the "real man" is plainly flawed. It all boils down to Superman and Clark Kent being two sides of the same person who acts differently around different people, ditto for Batman and everyone else. The fact that Mark Waid of all people bought into it is beyond me.

Birthright itself is workable, enjoyable even, but still flawed. It focuses on how Superman would supposedly be found scary by the denizens of our oh-so-scared-and-paranoid post-9/11 world, and ever so trusting of a bald, corporate elitist like Luthor. I quickly debunked this idea when I asked my mom, no comic book aficionado, if she would be freaked out if Superman touched down in our backyard. The answer: Not if he looked like the Christopher Reeve version. Bingo! Guess what Birthright's Superman looks like? Sure, the folks in the military might be a bit spooked, but who's going to be scared by a guy with no mask flying around wearing a big red cape helping people?

Which brings us to Superman for All Seasons.

Seasons isn't so much an origin story as it is a summation of who Superman is and how he came to be. Everything from the narrative structure to the art is focused on producing a story which does this. The logical result of this methodology is that Seasons is nothing at all like Waid's pseudo-dour Birthright. We see Superman through the eyes of his family, friends, and that one bald guy who's his biggest enemy. Loeb and Sale specifically note that they wanted the art to be reminiscent of Norman Rockwell paintings, which gives us an incredible effect. It's homely, warm, inviting, emotional, and poignant. Heck, it's even fun!

One thing that makes Seasons such a classic is that it doesn't fall prey to the trap of obsessing over details which ultimately have little relevance to the story. Instead, its story and visuals primarily focus on developing the characters, creating memorable scenes, and communicating a rich narrative. As a result, the small details that fill up the background in these 4 issues give it a richness that Birthright could barely accomplish in 12. Every character from the Man of Steel himself to Smallville's local minister all stick in your mind and are beautifully rendered. Every panel gives us something visually worthwhile to look at. The stories this four-issue series tells us are breathtakingly engaging and a pleasure to read. There's no fretting about how Clark got his journalism degree or why he decided to be a superhero. Why he did it is decided in 2 pages -heck, I doubt it was that many- more effectively than Birthright's 2 or 3 issues devoted to the subject.

Most of all, there's a sharp contrast given between Superman and Lex Luthor. We're not given a totally solid explanation about why Superman and Luthor are at odds (we rarely are), but it's made clear that Luthor's an evil bad guy who firmly believes himself to be the good guy, and there's no tragic backstory given to justify what a jerkhole he is. He's just like that, and because of him, Metropolis is initially a fairly disagreeable place to live. That is, until Superman shows up.

To be fair to Birthright, elements of that story sort of leak into Geoff Johns' Superman: Secret Origin, which I believe is the best Superman origin story which I have yet read, though there are many out there. In truth, Secret Origin combines a lot of aspects from both Birthright and Seasons, such as Clark and Luthor knowing each other as children, or Superman's behavior as Clark Kent being at least partly natural and genuine, respectively. This results is a story which is decidedly above par, but not quite on the level of a classic like Seasons.

In the end, while Birthright does have some things going for it, I'll definitely choose Seasons any day of the week as my choice interpretation of Superman. It just has so much more life and energy that Birthright only dreams of having. They're both good, but only Superman for all Seasons is a truly great interpretation of an American icon. I'm just glad that I finally read it.

Image 1 courtesy amazon.com. Image 2 courtesy samquixote.blogspot.com

Big Hero 6: The Myth of the Corporate Supervillain

Warning: Minor spoilers for Big Hero 6 lay ahead.

I was pretty excited when Big Hero 6 won this year's Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. Not only did it totally deserve it, but it did it while marking a significant milestone in comic book movie history: It is the first adapted superhero property to win an Oscar, the second, after Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight in 2008, to win any Oscar for anything superhero-related. And it really did deserve it. It has a compelling story, a world which was interesting to watch and beautiful to look at, a charming cast of characters to relate to, and some great emotion and deep themes. It even managed to deliver a pretty unique take on several common superhero tropes. It's the last of these that I want to talk about today, specifically concerning the character of Alistair Krei, voiced by Alan Tudyk of Firefly and Serenity fame.

In Big Hero 6, Krei is a businessman who runs the technology company Krei Tech. Krei first appears as an interested party who wants to buy the new robotics technology invented by Hiro Hamada, the film's protagonist. Hiro declines the offer on the advice of his brother Tadashi's mentor, Professor Callaghan, the scene setting up Krei as the film's obvious bad guy. But surprisingly, it turns out to be a red hearing which the  characters as well as the audience buy into. It's also a neat subversion of a trope which has been played out many times before: the Corrupt Corporate Executive.

The Corrupt Corporate Executive is often used in works of fiction as a stock character who is typically bald, fat, smoking a big cigar, or some combination thereof. Quite plainly enough, this character is a corporate executive who engages in villainous activities, which may or may not be related to their profession. Examples readily abound all across fiction, including Lex Luthor of DC Comics, Hiroshi Saito and Varrick from The Legend of Korra, Norman Osborn, Justin Hammer, Bolivar Trask, and whoever is running Roxxon at any given time over at Marvel, and even Jon Spiro from Eoin Colfer's Artemis Fowl.

Typically, corrupt corporate executives in fiction are greedy, obnoxious, dishonest, and evil. They will go to any lengths to make an extra buck, up to an including everything from cooking the books to mass murder. Some even commit the unpardonable sin of *gasp* making and selling weapons. Obviously, they are usually motivated by monetary gain, and they are typically psychopaths who routinely abuse their employees and customers, and use their vast financial resources to cover up their dirty deeds.

But I have a news flash for writers who like to write corporate bad guys this way: This is not what real corrupt corporate executives, I believe, are even remotely like.

My first objection is a matter of logic: How on earth would someone who does half the things that, say, Lex Luthor does have any hope of succeeding in business? Business is a very teamwork driven industry, and being greedy, obnoxious, dishonest, and evil is not a good way to get people to want to work for you, or for that matter, buy stuff from you. I mean, would you honestly want to do business with Justin Hammer or Jon Spiro, the latter of whom has blatant mob connections and the FBI and CIA breathing down his neck, but still somehow remains a successful businessman? I certainly wouldn't. The notion that people like them stay in business by spreading a bunch of money around is plainly laughable, as it could obviously cost more to bribe their way out of trouble than it would by simply playing by the rules. The International Chamber of Commerce, in a plain statement of the obvious, has said of corruption as related to public relations, "Enterprises seen to be doing business with integrity are more likely to attract and retain highly-principled and motivated employees as well as ethically-oriented investors. In contrast, companies confronted with corruption cases have faced reputational damage."

Secondly, even the corporate executives who are corrupt in the real world aren't out poisoning the reservoir, or knowingly selling dangerous products to the unwitting public, or hiring spandex-clad thugs to intimate business rivals, all of which are crappy business models. The ones that do do things like that get shut down fast or are fined into oblivion, and often for even smaller slights than that. Oddly enough, I can't remember the last time Pfizer poured cyanide into the reservoir for some reason. No, corporations that engage in illegal activity are a bit more mundane in their lawbreaking. The International Chamber of Commerce defines corruption as "the abuse of entrusted power for private financial or non-financial gain. It diverts resources from their proper use, distorts competition and creates gross inefficiencies in both the public and private sectors." It is furthered categorized as bribery, solicitation of bribery, or extortion.

What does this mean? It means that a real life corrupt CEO isn't plunking down bags of cash to hire supervillains to scare his business rival into a buy out, or being overtly hostile during a hostile takeover, or stealing an inventor's property for sinister purposes, as the heroes in Big Hero 6 suspect Krei of doing. At least, not in America. Don't ask me what it's like in China or Venezuela or Brazil, because that's a whole different pie. No, your average corrupt corporate executive is engaging in a little "creative accounting," moving the numbers around to disguise the company's profits. Maybe he's helping the mob launder money if he's a bit more adventurous. If she's a little lower in the hierarchy, it could be embezzling. Bribing a government inspector? It happens. It all boils down to the simple fact that if you're an exec, and you do something illegal, it's not probably not going to made into an movie, and you're going to be unceremoniously carted off to a minimum security prison really, really fast. Which brings us to the next hurdle of being a corrupt corporate executive: anti-corruption programs. 

Most major, profitable companies have some kind of anti-corruption program. Whether these programs are effective or not is debated, but it's a good sign that they exist at all. Even if they aren't particularly good at detecting corruption, when the company begins to go down the tubes thanks to corrupt executives, these guys are usually there to blow the whistle. In short, if anti-corruption programs don't take down a bad exec, the company will implode on its own, kind of like what happened with Enron. The point is, bad behavior among corporate big wigs usually comes back to bite the perpetrators in the end, and as a result is plainly more trouble than it's worth. 

Which brings us back to Krei.

Krei isn't given a whole lot of analysis in the film, largely existing as the aforementioned red hearing. He's affable, ambitious, mildly smug, a little feckless and implicitly intelligent. I mean, he built up his own tech company and was involved in a teleportation project with the military, so he has to be a clever guy. But he's not the film's villain. He doesn't actually do anything illegal, or even wrong. We only know what his "bad" qualities are based on what the film's real villain says about him, and this villain isn't exactly an impartial judge of character. The closest he gets to being bad is a tragic accident in which he was only vestigially responsible for, if only because the film's real villain blames him for it. The point is that he's not a corrupt corporate executive. He's not even such a bad guy! In fact, the only reason that Hiro and his friends think Krei's a bad guy at all is because Fred, their resident comic book geek, points out the villains of a lot of comic books are actually corrupt industrialists. It's a clever and funny way of subverting a by now very tired superhero cliche.

In the end, Big Hero 6 is a fine entry into the Disney animated cannon, being a fun, rollicking, emotionally deep film that sucks you in and keeps you glued to the screen the whole way through. It's beautiful to look at, engaging to watch, and provides fun for the whole family. I wholly recommend it as entertaining, innovative, and uplifting. I'd love to see where they go with a sequel.

Fun fact: This isn't the only animated Disney flick that Alan Tudyk has lent his voice to. He also voiced the slightly more villainous Duke of Weselton in Frozen. Oddly enough, he also voiced Superman in Justice League: War.

Follow Levi on Twitter at @levi_sweeney, and submit questions and post ideas with the hashtag #QLevi

Image 1 courtesy of blogs.disney.com. Image 2 courtesy of disney.co.uk.

Ms. Marvel, Vol. 1: No Normal: A Muslim Superhero, or a Superhero Who's a Muslim?

I think that it's an established fact that these days, we view diversity as a virtue. Back in the day, diversity was nice to have, but not essential, like faith, hope, and love. I learned in my Communications Studies class that diversity is good for business, as it fosters a wide variety approaches to problem solving and so forth. But today, diversity is so important to the movers and shakers of our society that if you don't have it, you must be a racist or a bigot or a sexist or a radical right-wing haters-gotta-hate type. I mean, why wouldn't you want diversity in your workplace? Don't have any people of color? Yep, definitely racist. (Incidentally, my workplace currently employs four people, one of whom is a woman and another of whom is Vietnamese.

But once again, I'm getting off track. All that said, let's talk about Ms. Marvel.

The point of my above rant was that we value diversity very highly in today's society. Some opinionated but grossly misinformed persons believe that institutionalized racism is still a problem, but really, who honestly believes that? Walk into any Wal-Mart, Starbucks, school, gym, or government building, and you'll see people of all colors, creeds, and walks of life living, working, and playing together in peace. The very existence of the comic book Ms. Marvel is yet another nail in the coffin of the theory that institutionalized racism still exists to a large degree in this nation, even if the comic book itself doesn't seem to have gotten the message.

Under the pen of G. Willow Wilson, this new incarnation of Ms. Marvel has a 16 year old girl named Kamala Khan living a normal life in Jersey City. She's a huge Avengers fan-girl who weirdly reminds me of my sister, writing fan-fiction in her spare time, chafing at her parents' authority, and dying to eat bacon. Oh, and I forgot to mention this, but she's a Muslim, ethnically Pakistani. Anyway, on her way home one night, she gets caught up in a mysterious cloud of mist, which, after a brief hallucination, gives her superpowers. Inspired by selected quotes from what I believe is the Koran, she decides to fight crime as Ms. Marvel!

Let me tell you, I really like this book. Kamala is a likable character with a fun supporting cast. You've got her parents, her brother, her friends Bruno and Nakia, and the beginnings of her very own archvillian. The book mainly goes for the humorous side of being a superhero, such as when Kamala fails spectacularly at foiling a convenience store hold up, avoiding serious harm due to sheer luck and an incompetent robber. It's very Spider-Man-esque, sort of like Brian Bendis' Ultimate Spider-Man. It also reminds me somewhat of Chuck Dixon's run on Robin when Tim Drake was in the suit back in the '90s. And considering that Tim Drake's Robin and Spider-Man are some of my favorite comic book characters of all time, that's a huge compliment coming from me. This book is more quirky than either Ultimate Spider-Man or Robin, kind of reminding me of Brian Q. Miller's Batgirl in that regard, but with a stronger emphasis on social media technology, with Kamala's unique background giving the story extra flavor.

Speaking of which, that brings us to the central point espoused in the title of this post: Is Kamala a Muslim superhero, or a superhero who's a Muslim? A similar question was addressed by Ben Stone to Paul Robinette on Law and Order. What I mean to ask is if Kamala is a superhero who is defined by her identity as a Muslim, or a superhero who just so happens to be a Muslim? Happily for the story, it so far seems to be the latter. However, it makes me wonder if the writers would be gutsy enough to address the philosophical consequences of a Muslim superhero in post-9/11 world. It would be an awfully profound story to tell if done well, but so far the closest we've seen to such questions being addressed are not-Liz-Allen's mildly offensive and ludicrously vacuous asides. And seriously, this girl, I think her name is Zoe Zimmer, is totally Liz Allen, and her boyfriend is obviously a stand-in for Flash Thompson, right down to the letterman jacket. 

It doesn't help that Kamala herself seems to buy into the presumption that a large percentage of white people are racist bigots, when this is simply not true. I mean, it's just silly to believe that in a world where people are constantly tripping over themselves to avoid being seen as racist, the currently fashionable cause of today's elite is a crusade against racism. Does racism still exist in the hearts of some people? Absolutely. I'm sure there are plenty of people, whether they're white, black, Arab, Asian, Hispanic, or polka-dot, who are racists. Is institutionalized racism a problem in this country anymore? No. You're not going to be denied entry into a hotel if you're black and the proprietor is white, nor will you be denied a BLT at Wendy's if you're Hispanic. In fact, if this did happen, you could probably sue and win.

I don't know if Kamala or her writers will come to understand this, but I do know that I will continue to follow this new Marvel comic because its a good, fun story which makes me laugh and smile. And mind you, the last Marvel comic I read was Marvel's Road to the Avengers, a terrible collection if there ever was one, which nearly drove me away from reading Marvel's stuff forever. But now, I'm willing to expand my horizons. Maybe Marvel is getting better. Maybe. I'm willing to give it chance now.

Image courtesy of goodreads.com