Superheroes and "realism"

[zuludelta]

I've been working on an article/essay on and off the past few months on the concept of quasi-realism in the art and writing of American superhero comics, referencing the articles, essays, interviews, and work of guys like Steven Grant, Scott McCloud, Kyle Baker, and others while pointing to some notable and well-known examples of the "mature and realistic treatment" of superheroes (ranging from critical successes like Alan Moore's Watchmen, Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns and his run on Daredevil, and Garth Ennis' mature-readers Punisher to slightly more forgettable fare such as the first wave of Image Comics titles and a good portion of Marvel's Ultimate Marvel line of books).

Anyways, I borrowed my brother's new copy of Batman: Year One, which was a bit out of character for me, since I don't really go out of my way to read Batman material unless it's the occasional "essential" graphic novel by a big name artist and/or writer (I prefer the Batman: The Animated Series depiction of the character to any recent comic book portrayals), but this was a new edition, with digitally restored colours and a new afterword by artist David Mazzucchelli (whose early work on Daredevil I absolutely loved). The restored colours were great, but the absolute best addition to the book was Mazzucchelli's illustrated afterword. In two brief pages, he had managed to say everything I had wanted to say in my gestating article, in the clearest and simplest terms, and without resorting to the self-serving, pseudo-intellectual "superheroes are the new mythology" amateur philosophy babble that one often encounters in these discussions.

So, in lieu of posting the essay I was working on (it's unfinished anyway), I'll instead be reproducing Mazzucchelli's extremely insightful afterword:



     

My favourite part of the afterword is when he writes

"once a depiction veers toward realism, each new details releases a torrent of questions that exposes the absurdity of the genre"

I find that to be true not only in the writing, but in the art as well (remember the internet-wide giggling and sniggering that was set off by Alex Ross' anatomically correct drawing of Commander Steel?). Alan Moore got to the heart of this absurdity with Watchmen, taking the "realistic depiction" approach to the logical extreme, and showing us that if we view superheroes with the unfiltered eye of the jaded and cynical adult, we will end up seeing superheroes the way Frederick Wertham did: as repressed adolescent sexual and power fantasies disguised as a moralistic struggle between good and evil. Unfortunately, it seems like many then-aspiring writers missed the point of Moore's less-than-flattering depiction of superheroes, instead coming away with the misguided message that the "grim-and-gritty" superhero was the new "in" thing.   

As Mazzucchelli states, achieving the balance of having enough "realism" such that stories are credible and hold up to the standards of older readers while not losing the sense of wonder and of the fantastic that superheroes inspire is difficult. I remember reading Bendis' recent work on Daredevil and coming away confused and bewildered. Bendis had done such an excellent job grounding the stories and dialogue in reality that the idea of a blind lawyer circumventing the legal system by punching criminals while dressed in red tights became so discordant with the more serious and realistic tone of the book. In effect, Bendis had written a decent crime drama that was ultimately ruined by the inclusion of a blind man with "radar vision" as the protagonist (conversely, you could look at it as a decent superhero story starring a blind man with superpowers ruined by the shoe-horning of too many real-world elements that detract from the sense of fantasy). I came away with a similar feeling after reading the conclusion to Millar and Hitch's otherwise-excellent Ultimates. Up until the last four or five issues of the second mini-series, they had done a good job of maintaining that balance of "realism" and the fantastic, partially because they had left many of the decisions concerning the role of certain fantastical elements, particularly the status of Thor's "god-hood," up to the reader by not saying outright whether Thor was indeed a god in the mystical sense of the word, or simply a non-mystical being of great power who had come across his abilities via some relatively less fantastical means. By going with the decision to reveal Thor categorically and in no uncertain terms as a true god, much of the internal logic and framework that they had built in the previous issues (based on the premise that the setting was a more "realistically-grounded" version of Marvel's superhero universe) were suddenly undermined and made largely irrelevant. I felt like I had been caught in a bait-and-switch, the balance that they had so carefully maintained suddenly swung to one end. In a certain sense, I took it to be Millar's way of reaffirming the Ultimates classic superhero roots in The Avengers, but the execution of it made the internal logic of the preceding issues questionable, he had done an excellent job of building logically on plot point after plot point, only to break it all down by eschewing the implicit rules he had written for himself in the previous issues of the series.

The best superhero comics these days, I find, are those that don't overtly concern themselves with issues of "realism" or "relevance" but simply focus on maintaining internal consistency while exuding a genuine sense of wonder, excitement, and exploration (Kirkman's Invincible, some of Mike Carey's work on Ultimate Fantastic Four). Alternatively, there also good current books out there that are "superhero comics" only in name but are probably more similar to the last century's pulp fiction (Ennis' Punisher, Fraction & Brubaker's Immortal Iron Fist).         

31-12-07 Edited for: punctuation and spellling

[Epimethee]

Excellent points, Zuludelta. Thanks for the Mazzucchelli Year One addendum (Year One is among my very favorite works).

I fully agree with you (hard not to, as you've solidly nailed your points). On the mythical aspect, though, my pet theory (patent pending) is that superheroes represent not so much modern mythology as proto-mythology. These colorful skin-tight costumes and fistfight duels obviously make no sense in a modern, adult context. They do in an infantile one, as stated above. But more than that, they can be viewed through the eye of the ethologist, as a sublimation of the innate "human as animal". Keeping in mind the very short length of History vs. Prehistory, let's look at the superhero in the prehistoric context.

We've got clans of hunter/gatherers going after prey for food or fighting among themselves to establish the pecking order/protect the clan; these fights would not usually be to the death. Hunter/warriors would paint their bodies, wear charms and get a totemic name for shamanic help/ supernatural powers. In superhero terms, this translates to superbeings with frequent infighting between the "heroes" (our clan) and "baddies" (other clans), monsters (hunting preys) or among the heroes to establish the pecking order/protect the city/state/world/universe; these fights would not usually be to the death. Superheroes use colorful skin-tight costumes, wear special gadgets or paraphilia and get a code name representing their superpowers. This super-identity is often related to animals, elements or other animistic concepts. Et cetera.

So, after a fashion, superheroes are intrinsically "realistic"... in a prehistoric context. ;)

[lugaru]

For me the thing on superheroes and realism is that people who try to be 'realistic' always miss by a mile. DKR is in no way realistic, it is CYNICAL. Same goes for a bunch of other series. Watchmen is realistic to me in that everyone falls out of being superheroes, they realize that being superheroes just dosent make any sense unless your in it for the thrils, and that you could do in a basement.

Also that panel on catwoman nails my main pet peeve when it comes to comics, this strange and distant treatment of women. The fact that nobody knows how to write a relationship. I dont picture every single comic book writer as a giggling 40 y/o virgin, but instead somebody who learned how to write from reading comics instead of more versatile material.

[weird rant mode]

So far as superheroes representing some major pre-historic warrior and protector, well... I like to see them more as an X in a philosofical argument. I've been working on a bit of a philosofical thesis myself (even though I'm not in college, go figure) about how the human though process is highly randomized, capable of generating extremely far flung conclusions based on our limited knowledge.

In science, this is the scientific method. You decide that the world is round based on the little bit of evidence you have (from watching the sky) and then you spend a lifetime trying to prove it. Now not all conclusions are accurate, that's how people end up with worlds on the back of a turtle or fire gods or whatnot. As you learn more you disprove these things. Still they serve as placeholder, something to explain what you dont understand while you figure out other stuff related to it. An unknown X in an equation that you can save for latter.

Superheroes are a perfect X in that sense, using their maleability you can tell any story and ask any question. "What if people could come back to life?" "What if somebody could fly?" "what if a man held the power of a god?" "what if a new race emerged in the middle of our racist society"...

So yeah, the reason that comic book movies are sometimes seen as a mind blowing experience (together with stuff like the matrix) is that they exist in this sci-fi genre of total freedom where any question can be asked. And this is where realism comes in, the more realism you pour on top of the convoluted question, the more you know it to be false but at the same time the more answers you get. There is a certain pleasure in pouring realism into Batman and watch it fall apart and disolve, not stand up. It's a clinical, analytical, scientific pleasure, to go "wow, so if this happened then this would happen, not that it ever will".

[/weird rant mode]

[zuludelta]

Interesting points Ep, Lu...

My negative attitude towards the "superheroes as modern mythology" argument stems mostly from two things: (a) As a theory that basically analogizes elements of superheroic fiction with hallmarks of pre-industrial folklore/myth, it totally fails any tests of falsifiability; any number of things that can be said to be similar between superhero comics and mythological tales (such as the totemic associations, the idol/hero worship, the vicarious fulfillment of hopes and wishes, just to name a few) can also be said to exist for non-superhero comics, popular sports figures and sports teams, the practice of following and thrilling to the exploits of celebrities, Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books, role playing games, video games, movies, television, popular music, and virtually every other form of escapist entertainment. In that context, it's probably more appropriate to say that entertainment-enabled-by-mass-media in general has taken the role once reserved for mythology and folklore, and it's not the sole province of superhero genre fiction.

The other primary reason I take issue with the "superheroes as modern mythology" stand is on a less formal basis. (b)To me, it sounds very much like a reactionary response by some comics creators and adult readers, who, for one reason or another, feel the need to justify and legitimize the fact that they like superhero comics. Many attempts to contextualize superheroes and make them "relevant" to a non-superhero comics reading world just come off as absurd in the worst cases, and condescending and trivializing of "more real" issues in the less offensive cases. On the other hand, other creators' efforts at obsessively building themes and writing stories around the circumstantial artifacts unique to the serial comic book medium (the built-up continuity, the shared universes) simply ghettoizes the superhero genre further and reinforces the notion that superhero comics are the red-headed step-children of the escapist literature family, fit only to play with the undersexed, unwashed, parents' basement-dwelling Comic Book Guy stereotypes.       

[Verfall]

To this day I've never understood why people persist on bringing "realism" into fictional realms. There's always that one voice in the background who has to say "this is fake, or that shouldn't have happened, or why did they do that when he can only do this" and whatever else you can come up with.

Perhaps what bugs me the most is the fact you can go and be educated and receive a degree based on arguing pointless pop culture facts such as "realism in comics". Has the education system in North America fallen so far that we'll hand out diplomas based on Spider-Man knowledge? Again, it is just a pet peeve of mine, and I'd still rather see funds wasted on guys studying comic books if it meant some of the funds being wasted on various sports teams were being redirected, but now I'm just getting off topic.

As a comic reader I prefer not to over analyze the subject. When you start asking yourself questions about "quasi-realism" and mentioning "the scientific method" when discussing things like comics, video games and television shows, those things, from my perspective, have ceased to become fun and entertaining. You've essentially graduated yourself to "working" with the things you should be using to your enjoyment. You may as well use that time to file some more reports at the office or whatever else your job entails.

Life is short, and spending hours pondering over why Batman keeps Robin hanging around is just not something that sounds very entertaining from my side of the coin.

[tommyboy]

There are so many problems and questions involved with a discussion of this topic that it's hard to know where to begin.
First, we could ask if there is really any difference between Mythology and Superhero Comics? If the protagonists in both are Thor, Hercules, Gilgamesh etc, and many of the same tales are covered, I think the overlap is such that SOME comics are clearly a subset of Mythology. This doesn't mean that ALL comics are Mythology, but I think it's also probably true that what we know of Mythology today is a  reduced form of countless tales and stories, redacted and chosen by resonance and popularity. There may be dozens, or thousands of stories about Thor or Hercules that we are unaware of, and dozens or thousands of forgotten Gods and Heroes we will never know of. So just because there are thousands of forgettable comics and heroes doesn't mean a few wont "graduate" to Mythology.
Next, we could look at what "realism" means in anything other than Reality itself. Is Batman per se less realistic than Robin Hood or King Arthur, or Tarzan, or Sherlock Holmes? Everything we see or hear or read is edited, chosen, managed. "The News" is not reality, it is a story, loosely based on the distributor's agenda, viewpoint, and prejudices. Was King Arthur "real"? Was any religious figure?(and I don't want to offend anyone here so I'll stick to Graeco-Roman Gods, but for me the Supernatural Powers of any God, Prophet etc are enough to tip us into Fiction).
What would make Batman more "real"? If he dropped the costume and gadgets and was just a guy who beat up muggers? Until he got shot/stabbed/beaten to death somewhere between one and thirty times in? What if it were based on the real exploits of a real vigilante?
For me the value of comics (or any other Non-Real thing) is the entertainment they afford, not their position on a gradient between Documentary and Completely Abstract and Incomprehensible Fantasy. It's whether the touch on the meanings of common human existence, not "could it really happen?". You get some magnificent Hyper-Realistic comics, and some magnificent Absurdly Unrealistic Comics, and lots of awful ones in both camps too.
So I really don't care if my entertainment is "realistic" or not. I love "Alec" and "Deadface" by Eddie Campbell equally. I love "From Hell" and "Promethea" equally. I love "Buffy", and "Deadwood" too, and not because of how "real" or "mythological" any are, but because they all entertain, educate, amuse or touch me in some way.
       

[Talavar]

On the comics-as-myth front, I agree with Tommyboy: some comics characters are graduating towards real myth or folklore.  Superman, Batman, Spider-man - these characters have become so well known, so entrenched in popular thought, and with so many different interpretations that they're getting there.  You could ask an ninety year old who Superman is, and a lot could tell you Clark Kent, and that he saves Lois Lane.  Their stories are approaching the popular point of critical mass where almost everyone knows the basics of the story & character, like Robin Hood or King Arthur.  Once the copyright status of those characters lapse I think this process will only speed up, and in a hundred years Superman will be a character just as well known as Sherlock Holmes, or those others that've already been mentioned.

This doesn't apply to all superhero characters by any means though - not by a long shot.

[zuludelta]

Surprised that many people actually have opinions on the mythology business.

So just because there are thousands of forgettable comics and heroes doesn't mean a few wont "graduate" to Mythology.

Mind you, I wasn't really disputing the idea that superhero comics could serve one similar to the purpose served by folklore and mythology. As I mentioned, popular entertainment seems to have filled the role of folklore in modern times and superhero comics are clearly a part of that, no matter how small their stake is relative to other media such as television. What I was disputing was the idea a number of prominent creators (Grant Morrison, Alex Ross, among others) have put forth that superhero comics somehow occupy an elevated, special place with regards to the modern folklore/storytelling tradition. It just sounds more like an idea borne out of insecurity at working in a medium normally associated with children, and that kind of self-important talk (that sometimes even veers into the pseudo-intellectual/pseudo-mystical if you've ever read a Grant Morrison interview) just reinforces the popular stereotype that adults who read superhero comics are a cult-ish lot who are more than a little divorced from reality, when in truth, superhero comics are no more "special" in a modern folklore/mythology capacity than say, popular escapist literature like novelized science-fiction and fantasy.

Next, we could look at what "realism" means in anything other than Reality itself. Is Batman per se less realistic than Robin Hood or King Arthur, or Tarzan, or Sherlock Holmes? Everything we see or hear or read is edited, chosen, managed. "The News" is not reality, it is a story, loosely based on the distributor's agenda, viewpoint, and prejudices. Was King Arthur "real"? Was any religious figure?(and I don't want to offend anyone here so I'll stick to Graeco-Roman Gods, but for me the Supernatural Powers of any God, Prophet etc are enough to tip us into Fiction).

In the afterword I posted, I think Mazzucchelli was referring to "realism" in terms of the craft of writing and drawing a superhero story (Do I draw all the seams in the costume? Will sexual undertones play a role in the plot?), and not so much realism in any deep philosophical sense.

For me the value of comics (or any other Non-Real thing) is the entertainment they afford, not their position on a gradient between Documentary and Completely Abstract and Incomprehensible Fantasy. It's whether the touch on the meanings of common human existence, not "could it really happen?".

That's actually how I feel about things myself, but it does bother me when a writer or artist's attempts at fostering realism in a superhero comic upsets a story's internal logic.

[lugaru]

As a comic reader I prefer not to over analyze the subject. When you start asking yourself questions about "quasi-realism" and mentioning "the scientific method" when discussing things like comics, video games and television shows, those things, from my perspective, have ceased to become fun and entertaining. You've essentially graduated yourself to "working" with the things you should be using to your enjoyment. You may as well use that time to file some more reports at the office or whatever else your job entails.

Here I am fortunate to have a friend with a personality that is almost oposite to me. He finds most of my favorite things to be nerdy, mean spirited and bleak, but honestly I get a major amount of joy from analyzing things and getting into philosophical arguments. It's not that I am smart and he is dumb, simply put we find different exercises pleasurable. And from the inside looking out I cant understand why somebody would want to start a fantasy sports league, make jokes about grammar, design a fantasy car or spend hours making a skin. Simply put different mental exercises excite different people and people such as myself love watching batman and going "wow, I wonder why that microwave weapon dosent harm people..." or "I wonder how long he could go in the real world without being arrested".

Going back to mythology I think that calling superheroes a new myth is inacurate, since nobody ever 'believed' in them. Thor makes a great superhero character because all but the smallest population on earth believe that he is real. To put out a comic starring Hercules is the same as putting out a comic starring Robocop, people will take them both as a modern work of escapist fiction instead of possible reality. Likewise you wont see comics about Jesus, because too many people believe in him. You need to resort to messiah style heroes such as Neo and Superman to tell those stories and not offend anyone.

Now as for the Realism that Zulu mentions (in terms of illustration) I LOVE Frank Quietly and Alex Ross but frankly given how outlandish the medium is Cartoony styles suit it best. That way you get a variety of anatomies and expresive faces that convey what words cannot. In other words I prefer a Bacchalo over a Liefield any day. As far as 'practical' looking heroes go (street clothes, lots of pockets, visible seams) I have no problem with all that and enjoy it.

[zuludelta]

Going back to mythology I think that calling superheroes a new myth is inacurate, since nobody ever 'believed' in them. Thor makes a great superhero character because all but the smallest population on earth believe that he is real. To put out a comic starring Hercules is the same as putting out a comic starring Robocop, people will take them both as a modern work of escapist fiction instead of possible reality. Likewise you wont see comics about Jesus, because too many people believe in him. You need to resort to messiah style heroes such as Neo and Superman to tell those stories and not offend anyone.

Great point (although I take it when you say "you wont see comics about Jesus" you mean superhero comics starring Jesus? There are tons of comics out there with Biblical stories).

I do remember Rob Liefeld marketing a "Bible superheroes" book to some Christian literature publishers a few years ago, though. It was pretty bad, Moses looked like Cable with a bushy white beard, and Noah's ark was a giant spaceship (also, Noah looked like Cable with a bushy white beard).

EDIT: Oh lord, I found those god-awful Liefeld conceptuals:

Rob Liefeld's Moses

Liefeld's David and Goliath (seriously, a snowboard!?!?! A freaking SNOWBOARD!?!?!)

Noah and his ark (I have to admit, the concept actually looks decent in this case)

Samson (the ntoes say that Liefeld used Will Smith as his inspiration for the character... could've fooled me)

[lugaru]

Wow... you've found a way to unite the subjects of theology and Rob Liefeld. I anticipate a flame war that will end up destroying the entire internet. Second... Rob think's that thing looks like Will Smith? I would love to see his sketches of Claire Danes with watermellon sized boobs and an Ewan McGregor so muscular he can crush a car.

[doctorchallenger]

Perhaps what bugs me the most is the fact you can go and be educated and receive a degree based on arguing pointless pop culture facts such as "realism in comics". Has the education system in North America fallen so far that we'll hand out diplomas based on Spider-Man knowledge? Again, it is just a pet peeve of mine, and I'd still rather see funds wasted on guys studying comic books if it meant some of the funds being wasted on various sports teams were being redirected, but now I'm just getting off topic.

...

Life is short, and spending hours pondering over why Batman keeps Robin hanging around is just not something that sounds very entertaining from my side of the coin.

Verfall, I have a question for you: have you read any papers or books written by academics on the subject of comic books? If not, you might want to read a few - I recommend checking out the Journal of Popular Culture http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0022-3840 to find some examples. You might find that these papers are about much more than "arguing pointless pop culture facts" or basing "diplomas based on Spider-Man knowledge." 

I take this personally because I am an acamemic, working on my PhD in US Cultural History.  My specific specialty is Late 20th Century American Mass Culture and Popular Culture.  My approach, like others in my field, consists of looking at cultural products, which can include laws, books, events or, in the case of my dissertation, superhero comic books, as artifacts.  For people unfamiliar with cultural history, the basic gist is that any object resonates with the values of the time in which it was created.  Addtionally, the degree to which an object succeeds or fails at capturing the attention of the public has much to with the degree to which an object resonaltes with the period's values. Furthermore, longevity of production is indicative of one of two things; the degree to which a product can adapt to changing values or the continuity of certain values in society, allowing a product to remain viable.

For purposes of full disclosure: my minor fields Comparitive Public policy (with a focus on welfare state development) and US urban development. As some might recall, in September, I passed my PhD cmprehensive examinations, a 14 hour written and oral test on 140 or so books covering a broad array of specific topics within those fields. Admittedlly, 4 or so examined the comic book industry as their subject (Gerard Jones' Men of Tomorrow, Fredric Wertham's Seduction of the Innocent, William Savage's Comic Books and America: 1945-1955 and Amy Nyberg Klieste's Seal of Approval). These account for about 3% of my reading list. 

As to my dissertation, a book length project, which I project to be nine chapters which will probably average 40 pages each, based on what I've done so far, it is onhow gender images in comic books have shifted between the beginning and end of the Cold War.  This is more than simply a case of more women in more important roles, though this is a piece of the puzzle.  Long story shortComic books are one mirror in which to look when one wants to see how American values regarding masculinity and femininity have (or haven't) changed.  As important, I have to couch thisresearch in the existing scholarship not only about comic books, but about popular culture broadly and about gender.

I hope that this demonstrates that my work is about more than producing another catalog of superhero factoids.

There are good academic works on comic books and there are bad works on the subject.  No denying that. My only request is that before you denigrate the work that people, including people here on this board, you familarize yourself with some of it and try to understand the goals that the authors are trying to achieve.

As to mythology: I believe that because the genre plays on the content of the mythological heritage of the western world, that superheroes have acquired a quasi-mythological aspect to them.  That being said, while the stories are eseentially morality plays, they are not really designed to be morally instructive. If a reader comes away from reading the genre with a changed moral code, one that more closely parallels that of the comic book universe, that should be considered, in sociological terms a latent (unintended) function.  The manifest or intended function fo thestory is to entertain.

As to realism: as much as I loved reading Miller's DKR and Daredevil when I was a kid, his later work has left me thinking he has serious hangups with regard to women.  These seriously undercut the value of his work for me.  I'm ambivolent about Moore. Many later practitioners of "realistic" storytelling, in my view, have aped the style of these two, but lack the substance, such as it is. 

[zuludelta]

I've made no effort to hide the fact that I'm a huge fan of writer Steven Grant... he's one of those old-school cats who just has the technical aspects of writing scripts down pat. He might have worked on a property of dubious quality every now and then (especially when he's doing work-for-hire stuff) but the man's craft is as solid as they come. Anyway, he writes a weekly column called Permanent Damage, and it's consistently the most insightful, informative, and intelligent piece of comics commentary/journalism out there and is a valuable resource for anybody who wants to learn how to write for comics, or for fans who simply want to see behind the curtain of the comics-creation process. This week, he weighs in on the whole "grim and gritty" comics phenomena (of which he, Alan Moore, Frank Miller, Chaykin, and Gerber were a big part of), and the subsequent reaction to it, which he calls the "making comics fun again" movement. Some choice excerpts that I think bring up a lot of important points (emphasis in bold my own):

Had an interesting chat with a fellow comics writer a few days ago. Seems he's working on some project for one of the bigger companies, and his editor requested that he make the storyline "grim'n'gritty." That was a big editorial/marketing catchphrase of the '90s, and that's all it was, really; I never heard anyone who (originally) did what came to be called "grim'n'gritty" comics call them that, only Johnny-come-latelies out to prove how cool and "adult" they were by showing, oh, guts exposing from bellies shotgunned apart; having "heroes" willing to swear, have sex and kill bad guys while otherwise behaving as standard 1960s superheroes; and commit casual ultraviolence with a smirk and a swagger. But all that came after the original enterprise of great pith and moment had been reduced, on an editorial level, to a gimmick...

... The original "movement" wasn't really a movement (it's hard to get a real "movement" going in a business as generally dysfunctional as comics) but an attitude, imperfectly shared by a relatively small group of incoming talent and not even discussed all that much among them, that a little snappier action, a little more psychological realism, a little more moral ambiguity and doubt, a little less plot determinism, a little less certainty not only of the outcome of "the battle between good and evil" but of the exact nature of good and evil, even a little less emphasis on "good and evil" and more on variant personalities and situations, not to mention a little less reduction of everything to the lowest common denominator would be appeal to a wider variety of readers. But it wasn't a style, it was an attitude, and attitude is something you don't fake; you've either got it or you don't.

... It may sound like self-aggrandizement – hold that thought - but I always felt my PUNISHER MINI-SERIES was what really kicked open the "grim'n'gritty" floodgates. Marvel had always considered The Punisher to be a throwaway character, and as late as a couple weeks before release of #1 someone from marketing spat out fairly vehemently that Marvel's audience had no interest in the adventures of a homicidal maniac. For years I'd been trying to convince the company that, set in the right milieu (and duking it out with Spider-Man wasn't it) the character could function pretty spectacularly, and I finally got lucky – right time, right concept, right artist – but it wasn't exactly an accident. I'm not sure how many readers consciously recognized it, but my version of The Punisher didn't have a heroic bone in his body; by my reckoning, he was a coldly efficient, analytical psychopath in the clinical sense of the term: completely cut off from his own emotions. Other Marvel writers couldn't grasp the concept when I told them he should get absolutely zero personal pleasure from his killings. I didn't think my concept was especially original, since it was inherent in Gerry Conway's first portrayal of him, but I did feel Mike Zeck and I had refined him into something no one had seen in Marvel Comics before.

... The internal response to the PUNISHER MINI-SERIES wasn't to start saying "but he's Steven Grant" the way they said "but he's Frank Miller" or "but he's Alan Moore" (not that I'm saying they should have; this is just by way of illustration) they said "hell, if he can do it anyone can," and the lesson most editors and marketers took from the book was "the audience wants 'dark' heroes who kill criminals." Whatever may have happened before, I really do think that's the moment "grim'n'gritty" was born, when editors tried to boil what was essentially an attitude, a worldview, down to a formula, without quite realizing it wasn't something you can just slather atop the existing formula and still have it mean anything, or that there's a vast difference between moral ambiguity (which at least suggests there are questions still to be answered) and a moral void. The worldview isn't "grim'n'gritty," the formula is, and the formula is what took root as soon as it became generally believed there was money in it.

... Of course, every action has a reaction, and there was a vocal response to the grim'n'gritty movement. It wasn't the right response, which would have been to just point out how inane the formulization was and get on with the larger business of creating new comics with new and different points of view. But it was a response. What I call the "making comics fun again" school. By this theory, seemingly embraced by those mainly in comics to hold onto their Comics Code Authority approved childhood, "grim'n'gritty" was undermining everything good about comics, specifically superhero comics. (Which is true, just not in the way they think.) Complaints were filed that everything was so downbeat and depressing, heroes behaved in what the clique considered "unheroic" ways (damaging/obliterating their status as, heh, "role models") and villains all became homicidal maniacs.

... DC's THE FLASH ended up being the poster boy for this backlash, with the special distinction made that in 1960s FLASH comics, the villains were "fun" while in the '80s and early '90s they became cold-blooded killers. This theory ultimately cascaded into things like IDENTITY CRISIS, where the "bumbling" Dr. Light is recreated as a rapist and (at least by initial appearances) a killer, and the superheroes demonstrate their unexpectedly pragmatic view toward morality by tampering with the memories of villains, down to the final issue of last year's FLASH series, where the whole official Flash Rogues Gallery teams up to murder the third Flash, apparently to officially drive the final nail into the Silver Age.

But I grew up reading those Silver Age DC comics too, and Superman, Green Lantern, and whoever else had any means to pull it off routinely obliterating memories not only of their enemies who'd discovered some terrible secret (like a secret identity or the location of the Batcave and such) but of their friends, so why would that be a big deal to Silver Age fans? Recently I had reason to go through the John Broome/Gardner Fox/Carmine Infantino run of FLASH stories – don't ask – and know what I found?

The Flash Rogues Gallery were always homicidal maniacs.

... Read enough of these things and other DC Silver Age titles with a fresh eye, and you can recognize two trends going on: a lot of (basically silly) surrender to Code-dictated restrictions (pretty much every time Captain Cold freezes banks or cities or cops or bystanders with "absolute zero," they make a point of saying the victims will "thaw out" but science maven Julie Schwartz, not to mention the quite educated Gardner Fox and John Broome, surely understood that nothing normal could survive it) and little outbursts here and there that try to stretch the boundaries, though never to the extent that Stan Lee did at Marvel, where he only had himself and his publisher to answer to.

... there are always conceits we're willing to accept in the short term, if the story is worth it. It's all a balancing act of what you can and can't get readers to accept. But what the "making comics fun again" crowd generally remember is a fantasy resting more on ignorance than innocence, and the day for that has passed.

[JKCarrier]

I usually like Grant's columns, but in this case he seems to be talking in circles. First, he says that most "grim 'n gritty" comics are just lame gimmicks, except for the ones that originated the trend (like his own  :rolleyes: ). But then he says that non- grim 'n gritty comics are stupid and anyone who wants to go back to that style is delusional. He claims that Gardner Fox's Flash stories were secretly grim 'n gritty because the villains did things that would kill people in the real world (which is kind of like saying that Bugs Bunny is a psychopath because he used to drop anvils on people's heads). But then he says that it's perfectly ok for the Hulk to go on a massive rampage without killing anyone. So what exactly is he advocating? I haven't a clue.

[zuludelta]

He does ramble on a bit but I think the most significant point he raised is that much of the "innocence" we like to ascribe to older comics were an incidental side-effect of writers and artists trying to please the Comics Code Authority, and not because they were the product of more pleasant, happier times or a "more positive" worldview.

When he talks about how early "grim and gritty" comics (the ones by Moore, Miller, Gerber, and himself) were better than the later ones that came out, I think he's referring to the fact that the later comics had all of the surface features of the movement led by Moore et al - the violence, foul language, the allusions to sex - but none of the more important qualities (the move away from plot determinism, the use of psychological realism and feasible character motivations, among other things), primarily because editors then incorrectly assumed that the main selling feature of Watchmen or Miller's Daredevil or his own Punisher was the sex and violence. What Grant contends is that more than the superficially mature content of those books, readers were responding positively to the fact that those early "grim and gritty" books were telling stories that couldn't be told when the CCA had a creative stranglehold on the industry. This is why he thinks that the whole "making comics fun again" trend is something of a step backward. Instead of exploring new ways of telling superhero stories, the trend sees a lot of otherwise talented writers and artists simply re-treading ground already (and better) covered by earlier comics professionals.

[ow_tiobe_sb]

A few thoughts.

First, thanks to zuludelta for opening up the sort of discussion that I wish occurred more often on these forums (sorry, Verfall). 

(My second point may offend the sensibilities of those who do not like to analyse comics, especially when it comes to adult behaviour.  Do not read on if you are one such individual.)
[spoiler]Second, I have not read Wertham's treatise on Batman and Robin, but I am wondering if his error was in a polar model of sexuality (certainly manifest in 1954, and still popularly maintained in many circles today)--with heterosexuality occupying one pole and homosexuality occupying the other--versus a continuum, introduced later, in which one could recognise the ways in which heterosexuality and what is broadly understood as queerness (which would include homosexuality, bisexuality, exotic fetishism, anything that diverges from a heterosexual norm, whatever that may be in any given context) inform each other.  Enter the concept of "homosocial behaviour," which (without diving into the deep end of this concept) can be anything that passes between members of the same sex, whether it be considered purely friendly or something more than passionate.  Consider, for instance, the heterosexual acceptability of two uniformed, American football players patting each other vigorously on the thighs as they march onto the field to throw their bodies at other men and smother the one carrying the ball.  Off the field, out of uniform, and especially in the presence of that which is considered the effeminate, these same activities might be perceived as homosexual.  What is my point?  I would offer that Wertham might have gone too far in identifying the relationship between Batman and Robin as strictly encoded homosexuality instead of locating the relationship within a more grey area of homosociality in which elements of what might have been considered heterosexual and the homosexual in a polar model of sexuality can intermingle, modify each other, and coexist happily.  I would respond to Mazzuchelli that he is not entirely correct when he chooses to criticise Wertham for publishing this type of perspective on Batman and Robin, and I would certainly take Mazzuchelli to task for his implication that it is wrong to combine an adult perspective with matter written for children, especially where sexuality is concerned.  Despite what many would like to think, children are sexual beings, and they understand far more about adult subjects than they may be able to articulate: if Dr. Freud was correct about one thing, it is this fact.   Moreover, it is and has been the pursuit of many adults to help articulate that power-knowledge for them, for good or ill.  It is perhaps the attitude that Mazzuchelli seems to uphold--the idea that the pre-adolescent male is the model audience, not to mention the model writer, of comic books--that is accountable for the many failed attempts to include women and relationships between men and women in a convincing manner in comics.  The puerile aspect of these failed attempts may be attributable to the writer who, in trying to write for the pre-adolescent male, also writes from a part of himself that might be characterised as pre-adolescent in attitude or behaviour (and, let's face it, many, many adult men do not progress beyond this type of understanding of and stance toward women).  At the same time, the writer as pre-adolescent male is still an adult male with adult desires that cannot be checked at the door (It is this variably discernable baggage that critics such as Wertham can spot and which the average 10-year-old boy cannot.), so to speak.  Consequently, the resulting attempt at depicting heterosexual romance in comics oftentimes proves to be akin to a 10-year-old Romeo in ill-fitting, adult male tights, his feathered cap drooping over his eyes, wooing a 9-year-old Juliet buried neck-deep in a gown found in the women's section of the clothing department.

Mazzuchelli is entirely correct, however, in criticising Wertham for taking a humourless approach to analysing Batman and Robin.[/spoiler]

Finally, I thought I would like to stir the pot by inviting Mr. Wallace Stevens to the table.  Let us bear in mind that realism (not to mention reality itself) must be imagined and that the imagination must be real.  Some may take delight in finding the mundane brought into a world of bright spandex (realism), while others may be turned on by the flights of fancy that comic books afford the visually-engaged masses (anything from magical realism to surrealism).  Both stimuli are circumscribed by fantasy, who is the strange bedfellow of the real.  Realism might then be conceptualised as the work of a minimalist imagination, not straying too far from the structures that give shape and stability to so-called real life, which are themselves imagined, expressed, agreed upon by like minds and bodies, and adhered to via a subtler flight of fancy (perhaps flying below that radar that registers the presence of "the fanciful").  In  response to Mazzuchelli, once again, I would posit that his "too many questions" objection to too much realism exposing "the absurdity at the heart of the genre" and precluding believability exposes a strict either/or dichotomy in reader response that, coincidentally, strikes me as too "humorless."  For those of us raised on artists such as Samuel Beckett, James Joyce, and Flann O'Brien (all authors capable of intense realism as well as copious amounts of absurdity), the presence of the absurd does not hinder a reader's willingness to believe in the characters who amuse us by their rough treatment of reason or even by their disregard for the ground rules of narrative.  The same can be true for a writer (and his or her ideal reader) who does not place much stock in dragons and finds much more excitement in the minutiae of a slightly cracked "#1 Dad" coffee mug.  What becomes crucial in this debate is the clarity of the measuring lines that appear on one's reason stick (and, I might add, the imagination is responsible for the lines, the stick, and the reason).  Stark lines--which uphold the myth (hey, I'm talking about myths too!) that the real/istic is something distinct from the imaginary, something that could be injected or "shoe-horn[ed]" into itself--might lead to the problem of believability that Mazzuchelli indicates.  However, this problem seems to speak more to a particular audience's capacity to accommodate the fact-like (whose process of fabrication is not so unlike the production of fiction as one might like to believe; cf. the etymology of "fact" in the Latin "facere," "to make") within the fictional than to a limitation of the genre, a problem of the exercise of the imagination rather than, perhaps, a fault of the writer/artist's work within a literary genus.  We would also need to take into consideration the history of this "delicate balance" between realism and fantasy and its current milieu before passing judgment on a particular realistic work of fiction from an ahistorical perspective.  Certainly, comic books owe a great deal to classical conceptions of the hero and the heroine, but their characters are often placed in contemporaneous or near-contemporaneous settings (and, even if they are not, their settings are quasi-historical/futuristic settings seen through the lens of the contemporary or near-contemporary).  The demands of the hero in 1954 are not the expectations of 2008, and we need to allow for the shifts in the collective imagination toward or away from realism and fantasy at different points in time.

I wholeheartedly agree with Mazzuchelli's final assertion: "Superheroes are real when they are drawn in ink."  This artistic medium, which allows the imagination to stride forth for a time from the veil that reality pretends to cloak its bedfellow in, could be nothing less than real because it is imagined.

ow_tiobe_sb
Phantom Bunburyist and A Tiresome Poster

[zuludelta]

Excellent points ow_tiobe_sb. Some of my own thoughts on your response:

I would offer that Wertham might have gone too far in identifying the relationship between Batman and Robin as strictly encoded homosexuality instead of locating the relationship within a more grey area of homosociality in which elements of what might have been considered heterosexual and the homosexual in a polar model of sexuality can intermingle, modify each other, and coexist happily.

Well, Wertham came from a Freudian background as far as his psychology/psychiatry training is concerned, so I'm really all not that surprised that he saw comics in the limited homosexuality/heterosexuality spectrum. Within the Freudian framework, he really has nothing else to hang his own experiences with and observations of superhero comics onto.

I would respond to Mazzuchelli that he is not entirely correct when he chooses to criticise Wertham for publishing this type of perspective on Batman and Robin, and I would certainly take Mazzuchelli to task for his implication that it is wrong to combine an adult perspective with matter written for children, especially where sexuality is concerned. Despite what many would like to think, children are sexual beings, and they understand far more about adult subjects than they may be able to articulate

I agree that sexuality (or any other "adult" subject matter, such as, say a starker depiction of death and violence) shouldn't be automatically excluded from the list of topics that can be tackled in literature geared towards younger readers. I personally believe that children's literature helps to equip kids with the psychological metaphors they need to make a healthy transition to adolescence and eventual adulthood, so the greater the breadth of subjects tackled, the better. However, the caveat here is that these topics should be handled intelligently and appropriately when being presented to pre-adolescent and adolescent readers, and I'm not sure if I can trust the superhero comic book industry to do that on a consistent basis. Charles Schultz, in his early Peanuts work, was better able to tackle adult topics such as depression and his own romantic-sexual inadequacies while at the same time framing the narrative in terms even children could relate to than any superhero comic book writer that I've read.   

The demands of the hero in 1954 are not the expectations of 2008, and we need to allow for the shifts in the collective imagination toward or away from realism and fantasy at different points in time.

That seems to be a point many long-time comic book readers are missing these days. I don't mean to diminish the importance of the classic comics of the Silver Age (I'm a fan of them myself), but part of the reason they worked so well back then is tied in with the context of the times. Trying to recreate the Silver Age aesthetic and atmosphere, unmindful of the characteristics of the potential contemporary reader demographic (a market with more female readers, for one), seems to me to be a step backwards for the industry and the artform.

[zuludelta]

Read Keith Giffen's new column today where he goes on a bit of a rant about continuity. Pretty funny stuff. Read the whole thing here

For those of you who can't be buggered to click on the link, here are some choice quotes (emphasis in bold my own):

Consistency dictates that a character behave in a manner consistent with his or her history, personality, whatever as established. Superman doesn't act like Batman doesn't act like the Hulk and so on and so forth.

Continuity dictates that a character come equipped with a datebook so his or her whereabouts on any given day can be determined then doggedly adhered to, that any and all events told must be aligned just so. If "Action Comics" Superman was shown to be in Metropolis on Wednesday, then how is it he's show to be on Rann in the "Superman" book? Continuity demands that be dealt with.

Consistency dictates that a character's previous appearances be acknowledged within the context of the individual title. Mirror Master was turned to glass? Pick him up from there and run with it.

Continuity demands that a character's previous appearances fit into an overall, rigid timeline. How long was Mirror Master glass? What events passed during that period? How can he appear in the Flash after being glass for a month when Green Lantern's had only a week's worth of adventures during the same period? Continuity demands I read every DC book that arrives in my comp package (even the Rucka stuff! ) because God forbid I set a story in Cleveland and not acknowledge the fact that Geoff's got the JSA tearing up a section of the city that month...

... And didn't continuity used to be the stuff of fandom? Wasn't it originally a creative exercise by hardcore fans to see it events could or couldn't be aligned, done solely for entertainment purposes? How'd it bleed over to the actual product? Was it fans turned pro showing up for work with the accumulated luggage of their individual obsessions? An aging reader base that insisted the characters grow old with them? The kind of professional laziness that plunders the past instead of enriching the future?

[steamteck]

The problem is that "realism" in comics is most often what in art is called "naturalism" Emphasizing the ugly and mundane and ignoring or downplaying anything uplifting or beautiful. Really works poorly with a genre built on larger than life characters.
       Also often they use such slippery or "hole you could drive a truck through" science in their rational explanations for super powers  they would have been better just leaving it alone and going with the flow of the genre as it was originally envisioned. As mentioned earlier it most often creates more problems than it solves.

[zuludelta]

The problem is that "realism" in comics is most often what in art is called "naturalism" Emphasizing the ugly and mundane and ignoring or downplaying anything uplifting or beautiful. Really works poorly with a genre built on larger than life characters.

I think that's the common mistake many of the later "grim and gritty" and "realistic" creators made after the initial wave of more grounded superhero comics written by the likes of Alan Moore and Steve Gerber in the late 1970s and early/mid 1980s. The "superhero realism" (how's that for an oxymoron) that I'm a fan of isn't so much what you call literary naturalism, it's realism in the psychological and motivational sense: I want characters that have personalities and tendencies that I can relate to, framed in the shifting, constantly adapting, and ambiguous morality of "the real world." Now don't get me wrong, I enjoy the simplistic, black & white (in a literal and figurative sense) narratives of classic comics as much as the next comic book lifer, and I still get my jollies from reading my old X-Men and Fantastic Four. But as I've grown older, I find that I've been looking for more realistically motivated and psychologically-grounded depictions of superheroes (and seeing a paucity of that, accordingly changed my reading habits).

To give you a sense of what I mean by psychological/motivational realism in comics, I point you to Charles Schultz' Peanuts (well, the early stuff at least, before the strip turned into a long-running Hallmark card) and Bill Watterson's Calvin and Hobbes. Sure, they're strips that feature ridiculously precocious children as protagonists, but both Watterson and Schultz were able to write characters whose actions stemmed from behaviours and motivations that many of us can identify in ourselves. In many instances, Shultz's Charlie Brown and Watterson's Calvin were at once the "hero" and the "villain" of their respective strips, but readers were okay with the dichotomy because it's a moral ambiguity that they could relate to. That's part of the reason why those strips and characters continue to be so popular across such a wide readership that crosses age, gender, and even language barriers. The moral and psychological reductionism in many superhero comics (both new and old, and both "classic fun" and allegedly "mature"), on the other hand, just stopped having a particular appeal to me after a certain age. The real contribution of Alan Moore's Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? or Miller's Dark Knight Returns or even Steven Grant's Punisher and what makes those books "mature" (to an extent) isn't that they gave us superheroes who were willing to kill, it's that they gave us superheroes who wrestled with the same moral dilemmas adults do, and in that sense, these books and that particular kind of superhero comics-writing can just be as inspirational and uplifting as classic comics.     

Also often they use such slippery or "hole you could drive a truck through" science in their rational explanations for super powers  they would have been better just leaving it alone and going with the flow of the genre as it was originally envisioned. As mentioned earlier it most often creates more problems than it solves.

I agree with this point. Many attempts to ground "superhero science" in real world science just come off either as poorly done science-fiction dressed up in spandex or superheroics with a weakened sense of fantasy and wonder. It's rare to see a writer succeed at balancing those elements... Ellis did a good job of it in the Extremis storyline in Iron Man, but I'm hard-pressed to come up with others. For the most part, though, I like my science-fiction and superhero fiction kept separate... it's hard enough to write a decent sci-fi tale or superhero story, mixing genres just multiplies the potential for a steaming turd significantly. If you're a masochist and want to read some really bad hybrid sci-fi/superhero fiction, I recommend looking for the F.R.E.E.lancers and F.R.E.E.fall books written by Mel Odom and published by TSR several years back, they're pretty much a case study of why genre-mixing is almost always a precarious endeavour (although they can almost fall into the "so bad they're good" category).

[zuludelta]

I know this thread was originally about superheroes and realism, but today's Permanent Damage article (on thought balloons and how they're best utilized) touches on a lot of the things I've brought up over the past few weeks regarding character motivations and such. No matter your opinions on realism in comics, it's a very instructional article on the craft of writing for comics.

[tommyboy]

I know this thread was originally about superheroes and realism, but today's Permanent Damage article (on thought balloons and how they're best utilized) touches on a lot of the things I've brought up over the past few weeks regarding character motivations and such. No matter your opinions on realism in comics, it's a very instructional article on the craft of writing for comics.

An interesting read.
He's right, of course, that the kind of expository thought balloons often seen were clumsy, but sort of neglects to mention that much of the spoken dialogue and art was clumsy and expository, as well.
He's also right about the exposition being a necessity of the brevity of comics, and, (as people like me ceaselessly complain), that pendulum has swung the other way now. So instead of the "unsophisticated" expository thought, dialogue, or narrative caption, we get the allegedly sophisticated summary page. Me, I'd rather have a few clunky thought balloons and an extra page of story and art, but lots of people prefer the current arrangement, which reads better in the all-important TPB. Neither are perfect.
The thought balloon also runs counter to the naturalistic/realistic/faux cinema trend. We don't get to be privy to others thoughts in real life, or film, so for some it jars, and takes them out of the immersion of "the moment".
Even though I don't much care for Bendis' writing, I sort of half-heartedly applaud his use of thought balloons in Mighty Avengers. I find his use to be a one-note type thing, extremely limited compared to what he could do, but still gives some extra insight and expression.