Inspired by the media coverage of Marvel’s Civil War, Tom Spurgeon comments on the limited ability of superhero comics to act as social or political commentary:
“Like professional wrestling, superhero comics have at their core conflicts and identity issues; you can do a rough overlay of just about any real-world issue where ideas are in conflict or identities are in question onto any number of superhero comics runs… Now, maybe Mark Millar will be the first writer to use the specific metaphor he has at his disposal to say something insightful and constructive about those issues, but I suspect that as in the past the real world comparisons exist primarily to flatter the entertainment value of the superhero comic, not so much to say anything that isn’t, well, kind of dumbassed. The same way that the X-Men or similar series can only go so far when speaking to identity and outsider issues before people begin to realize shooting raybeams from your eyes really is different enough from sexual or racial identity to kind of limit any insight to be gained, I can’t imagine a point of view emerging from Civil War that isn’t constrained or made foolish by these characters’ very specific fantasy identities.”
Unsurprisingly, Marvel’s Aubrey Sitterson disagrees:
“I think your post this morning about Civil War takes things a too far in terms of judging the potential effectiveness of social or political commentary wrapped up in fantastical story elements. Veiling allegory with science-fiction or fantasy elements is a tactic frequently used both of those genres to imbue them with something beyond plot or character concerns… To fault the work because of the genre in which it is contained and that genre’s conventions, however, is to make a crucial mistake, albeit one that has been far too common in the history of critical theory as it relates to genre material, akin to the dismissal of literary giants such as Chandler, Howard and Lovecraft as nothing more than pulp hacks.”
June 22nd, 2006 at 12:40 pm
Howard and Lovecraft ARE pulp hacks. Great hacks, but hacks nontheless.
And I would greatly doubt either of their abilities to make a socio-political point in their work beyond their incipient “mongrel race” bashing.
So maybe you better Lewis or Huxley next time.
June 22nd, 2006 at 1:57 pm
Lovecraft, in addition, was hella racist.
However, I do agree with Sitterson- just because it’s a superhero story doesn’t mean they can’t at least try with political commentary and other things.
Can you imagine telling Tom Clancy he can’t comment on American foreign relations because he’s “just writing a techno-thriller?”
June 22nd, 2006 at 2:41 pm
I dream of it.
June 22nd, 2006 at 7:15 pm
Their rights are in question, it’s their competence.
Millar is a mostly entertaining writer, and his Civil War is, well, mostly entertaining, but as a political allegory, it’s awful. Who’s trampling on civil rights here? The government or Captain America’s private gestapo?
June 22nd, 2006 at 7:34 pm
“Lovecraft, in addition, was hella racist.”
And you’re hella stupid. Like, hella.
You’d be hard pressed to find anyone who grew up in the time and place Lovecraft did who wasn’t a racist of some kind (hella or not). And Lovecraft’s work wasn’t about race. It was about fear. Race factored very little in his all encompassing fear of everything that wasn’t himself.
It’s like dismissing the guy because he didn’t write females very well. Not the friggin’ point.
June 22nd, 2006 at 7:46 pm
I’d say that to criticize Howard and Lovecraft for racist attitudes is to miss the point by a pretty significant margin. It’s like dismissing the Declaration of Independence on account of the fact that Jefferson owned slaves. Not to mention that its a tricky thing whenever you level moral judgments on people in a social context completely different from where those judgments originated.
That being said, the question here isn’t really any individual writer’s competence, but rather the question of whether it is possible to use a genre and its specific tropes to say something interesting, maybe even profound, about the human condition.
So, whether you think Howard’s exploration of civilization and barbarism was effective or Millar’s investigation of the delicate balance between security and freedom artful is really beside the point. The question is whether it is possible for effective allegory to exist within genre, to which I give an unqualified, unmitigated “YES”.
June 22nd, 2006 at 9:03 pm
“Their rights are NOT in question,” is of course what I meant. Curse my weak, beady eyes! and poor grammar! and poor spelling! and lack of funds! and dead-end job!…and never mind.
June 22nd, 2006 at 11:18 pm
I’d say that to claim “to criticize Howard and Lovecraft for racist attitudes is to miss the point by a pretty significant margin. It’s like dismissing the Declaration of Independence on account of the fact that Jefferson owned slaves. Not to mention that its a tricky thing whenever you level moral judgments on people in a social context completely different from where those judgments originated.” is to place your straw man far wide of the actual argument.
Jefferson’s personal hypocrisy is not germane to the content of his Declaration of Independence – it’s a declaration of principles and a reason for seccession that supersedes the context of its time and writer.
Howard and Lovecraft’s racism and anti-semitism, however, infuses and suffuses their fiction with their own strange belief systems. There’s no point in denying it or claiming it’s not there. It is, in spades (sorry), and please don’t force me to start citing example after example.
This doesn’t mean that they aren’t “Important and Significant” genre writers – of course they are and the world is better for the fictions, as flawed as they may be.
The point is not whether either of them is a great writer, the point is whether their fictions are a good example of socio-political allegory in genre fiction. They are not – Howard’s “anthropological” insights are juvenile at best, and Lovecraft’s faux anglo-centric view of civilization is little more than myopic misanthropic dreaming.
(And for the record, let me state, yet again, that I really really really like both Lovecraft and Howard. What kind of adolescence would we have without them?)
However, one can find great genre fiction that does function as great socio-political allegory – Orwell, Huxley, Lewis, Tolkien, Chabon, Dickens – ad nauseuem. Heck, for that matter, please see Transmetropolitan.
So the issue isn’t genre fiction not be able to handle allegory – the issue is whether THIS kind of super v. super cross-over story is able to function at any level besides the thin and superficial.
Personally, I doubt it. It’s just a weak springboard for some strong pulp action – but hey, I like Millar alot. Even if he isn’t a New England Misanthropic Racist.
June 23rd, 2006 at 7:28 am
But Spurgeon never denied the possibility of something relevant being said (It’s possible Millar …) so the main trust of Sitterson’s reply is beside the point. Tellingly, Sitterson refuses to engage the actual argument, namely that with this creator, these chracters, this publisher, this context and market etc. the chances of those topics being more than window dressing for some big action scenes are essentially nonexistent.*
At this point Sitterson is like a guy arguing one should nonetheless jump from a window in the 10th floor because (AFAIK in good keeping with current understanding in physics) it is theoretically possible that this one time gravity might not work.
* Which IMHO is a good thing.
June 23rd, 2006 at 9:38 am
Oh, I love Lovecraft as much as the next guy. But a lot of people back then weren’t saying “By God, I LIKE the boy!” in regards to Adolf Hitler, so…
June 23rd, 2006 at 12:21 pm
Markus has my basic position vis-a-vis Sitterson’s arguments. It’s not impossible something of value will be said, but everything we know indicate it’s not likely. I think these feature writers should not only recognize this, but also recognize that nothing they’re coming up with in terms of Civil War detail to support their point seems to make the case, either.
I think the New Gods and Watchmen both have poltical ideas to them worth discussing, although Kirby may have gotten there by accident.
June 23rd, 2006 at 1:21 pm
I’d like to think The Black Racer was an accident.
June 24th, 2006 at 11:56 am
I’m probably the only person that likes The Black Racer.
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October 25th, 2011 at 8:01 am
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