Geek Links of Note

[thehefner]

How the Mandarin could possibly work in IRON MAN 3, and why it's okay to hate Tony Stark. Even if you take out the Yellow Peril racefail issues, one still has to wonder how distinctly magical elements would jive after the first two IM movies.

If handled well, I could see it working. What better way to frustrate Tony Stark than with magic, something he has absolutely zero concept of understanding? It'd be like Waid's FANTASTIC FOUR Dr. Doom story, only, y'know, without ruining Dr. Doom. Of course, there's still the concerns of racefail. Which brings me to...



"Why I Won't Be Watching the THE LAST AIRBENDER movie," by Gene Luen Yang of AMERICAN BORN CHINESE. I've made it to the third season of the original Nickelodeon show, and I'm blown away by how great it is. Witty as hell, marvelously complex characters who have actual arcs, stunning action, and compelling storylines.

I haven't loved a cartoon like this since JUSTICE LEAGUE UNLIMITED, and I was already dreading to see it from the trailers, which seem to indicate that M. Night has sucked all of the fun and life out to turn it into a self-serious action epic. But that just clinches that I won't be seeing it at all.



Three Arguments We Could Be Having (about comics). Number two is most relevant to my recent post about the "Girlfriend Section" of the comic shop, but as a fan and writer, I'm most intrigued and thinky about number three: "What Are All These Superhero Comics Really Saying?" Because at their heart, you'd think the most they could be about would be the struggle of good vs. evil, but most comics don't seem to have anything to actually say about it.

It reminds me about one of the reasons Alan Moore dislikes BATMAN: THE KILLING JOKE, because he--as I understand it--thinks all the themes and character and drama amounted to saying nothing of value that applied to anyone but Batman and the Joker. Many writers seem to feel this way, that superheroes can't be used to say something of literary value.

But while I have my own problems with TKJ, I have to disagree with Moore. I think stories like that say something about the human condition, and even if it's a flawed hypothesis, it's still one that can resonate and provoke thought and discussion. I believe in the power of superhero comics to do this, but I don't know how many fans and/or writers do, or if they'd even care.

Comments

[fragmentedsky.livejournal.com]

Oh god, I'm already in mourning about what M. Night's done to that movie and it hasn't even fucking come out yet. That cartoon may well be the best animated series I've ever seen, and the friend who introduced me to it literally wouldn't let me watch it without her just so she could watch me squeal and bounce and comment. It's a thing of beauty and a joy forever and the fact that the movie is so clearly going to destroy it makes me want to hide until at least the commercials are done.

[fragmentedsky.livejournal.com]

Also, have you read American Born Chinese? I loved it.

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

I did, and I too loved it up until the point that the three stories were combined. I found it very jarring, and that the fantastical elements clashed with the real-life element. But I need to reread it, knowing now that's where it was going. Maybe it'll work better for me next time.

[box-in-the-box.livejournal.com]

This is why, in my own attempts at genre fiction, I've given each archetypical character not only a well-defined familiar role to play within the story - working-class career costumed criminal, superhuman separatist "freedom fighter," etc. - but also a PHILOSOPHY that motivates them. "Good versus evil" is admittedly pretty weak, and even many attempts at "chaos versus order" wind up being butchered in the execution, as much as I like the concept, but at heart, each superhero or supervillain should be fighting on behalf of their own ETHOS (or, failing that, at least their own AESTHETIC). Of course, part of the problem inherent in that one is that your explorations of real-world politics and segments of society have to be a few light-years more well-thought-out than those of Mark Millar, and since even critically acclaimed writers like Bendis seem offended at the idea that they should be required to think any deeper about the issues that THEY THEMSELVES ARE BRINGING UP than simply ripping off David Mamet dialogue, that's a big strike against this whole movement. It's like watching the crew behind 24 trying to write The West Wing, and getting pissed off at their own viewers for pointing out that Reality Does Not Work That Way.

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

but also a PHILOSOPHY that motivates them.

Oh, I *like* that.

[surrealname.livejournal.com]

1. I hate liberal panty waists. Talking about the problem of race rather than doing something about it only perpetuates the fucking problem. OH NO! AN ASIAN SUPERVILLAIN! AAAAAAAH! HOW ARE WE TO DEAL WITH AN ASIAN SUPERVILLAIN! OH NO!
says the Irish American who had to use all of his strength stifle the urge to smack a girl in the mouth for saying "oliver cromwell gets a bad rep, even if he did sort of commit genocide against the Irish." Ugh. As long as you treated the Mandarin like a person first and foremost and then built a character of crazed nationalism and ethnic pride off of that, I don't see a god damn problem. Hell, we love Tony for being a shit any way, use Tony as a way to comment on the potential racial/ethnic insensitivity by making Tony racially/ethnically insensitive. It's not like it would be a stretch to do that with him. The guy is pure Jingoism. Don't tell me for one second that the guy we met at the beginning of Iron Man one didn't at some point, off screen, tell Rhodey that he hates going to "these god damn towel-head countries." (the character's possible words, not mine.) One the other hand, my skin is white, and even if other white people did try to kill my ancestors off and repress and mistreat them for hundreds of years because of their religion, and we're the only ethnicity left in America that it's still okay for everyone to mock and denigrate without even realizing that that's what they're doing (think about it: Paddy-wagon. Paddy fucking Wagon. How about Nigger-Truck or Dago-Mobile. You'd be shot. But Paddy Wagon's fine. Don't even fucking get me started on St. Patrick's day). None of that matters because all anyone sees is that I'm white and male and therefore I am the grand Satan directly responsible for all the evil in the world, so I'm not even allowed to comment on anything that has to do with race or ethnicity in any way shape or form because, I, apparently, am simply incapable of knowing what it feels like to be put down, beat up, spit on and shit on by other people because of how I look or what I think. (yeah, I sure didn't spend the first 10 years of my education having all of that done to me by people of all colors, creeds, and religions on a daily basis because I was fat. Nope. I have no idea what being mistreated on the basis of my appearance is like)

2. The reason not to go see The Last Air Bender movie is that it was directed by that monsterous hack, M. Night Shamalamadingdong. I am to this day still shocked that any one, ever, has been stupid enough to fall for that guy's cinematic snake oil. Then again, Avatar is the number one movie of all time, so, well, I guess it's just more evidence for my theory that the Majority is usually DEAD MOTHER FUCKING WRONG. I digress. Mr. Tweest has only ever made one movie that even remotely resembles something that I could understand a person finding enjoyable, and even then, that movie only works because 1. Bruce Willis is the best everyman who can kick your ass in the history of film and 2. Samuel L. Jackson actually decided to, you know, act and play a Character in it with pathos who isn't just some variation on his "BAD MUTHA FUCKA" shtick (and god has THAT gotten FUCKING OLD!). Without those 2 to make it watchable, Unbreakable would be just as awful as every other bowel of cinematic diarhea that Shamalama has served to the American public, claiming that it is gourmet snapper soup. Yeah, it's fucked up that He cast whitey to play asians, but what do you expect? THIS GUY IS A HACK! HE MAKES BAD MOVIES! IF HIS NAME IS CONNECTED TO THE MOVIE, YOU SHOULD NOT SEE IT!
Or, as I said at the end of the first seen of the sixth sense "Oh, okay. I get it. He shot Bruce Willis. Bruce Willis is a ghost. Can we turn this piece of shit off now, please, John?"

[pure-doxyk.livejournal.com]

Ever since marrying a scotch-irish guy, I see that weird entrenched racism everywhere, too. It's creepy how pervasive it is, and how almost no-one even seems to link it to the anti-Irish craziness of 1-2 generations ago; how we've gotten quite sensitive to making fun of blacks as a way of consciously atoning for our past behavior, but with the Irish it's like ::shrug:: they're white anyhow, so it didn't count, and therefore things like St. Drunkard's Day aren't really racist.

'Course, I'm of German descent and white as a lily, so I'm just pure evil any fucking way you cut it. *sigh* Ah, well. Somebody's gotta be!

[surrealname.livejournal.com]

It's really completely fucked.

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

I got nothing to add to this epic pair of rants, other than to say I really dug 'em both.

[surrealname.livejournal.com]

I'm just glad that you used that icon.

and remember, Klaus Kinski is just a little black rain cloud, hovering under the honey tree.

[pure-doxyk.livejournal.com]

The superhero has been a literary concept ever since the first fiction writer understood Nietzsche a little bit (or thought he did); but it's been since before the time of the Buddha that the "super-human" has been a compelling philosophical concept. I think it still is. I also think that many superhero stories are penned by people who wouldn't know this concept if it crawled into bed with them, and that a little research and some digestion of the classics would do these men (almost exclusively men, anyway) a shitload of good.

Superheroes aren't just compelling because we all wanted to be one as kids, darnit. They're compelling because just about every one of us carries an insistent little blinking light in our mental motherboards that really WANTS an upgrade; that insists that we can and should evolve, be more, and learn things about this world that no mere naked monkey could ever comprehend. (Yes, magic is attractive as a concept for almost the exact same reason; hence why Dr. Strange makes such a natural and obvious superhero.)

Yet I can go to a comic shop and get written off as a crazy nerd for talking about it. By the same nerds who can't get enough of these stories, even if they have no idea why. I'm not sure if they don't like hearing that massively old-school logic and literary concepts are in fact in play in the superhero genre, and that they have something to say about what's "good" superhero fare and what isn't; or maybe they don't like the whiff of reality -- of necessity to DO something with that inner blinking light -- on their precious escapist fluff.

I don't think it IS escapist fluff. I think it's neurolinguistic programming for future humans, gradually getting more explicit about the concept of radical self-evolution as the generations go on. Sure it's fluff when it's badly done, but only because it failed to realize its lofty philosophical goals.

OMG I need to stop or I'm going to talk myself into writing comics. ;)

Thanks for another awesome post!

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

You're welcome, and thanks for more awesome comments! Say, have you seen AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER? I get the feeling you'd dig it on a whole different level than I do. Your last post made me thinking about that in particular.

[pure-doxyk.livejournal.com]

I need to watch the cartoon, yeah; I've been floating around it but haven't gotten to it yet. The movie can kiss my butt, of course. ;)

Thanks!

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

I'm also thinking about you as I reread THE QUESTION, a comic series of an Objectivist vigilante (if you don't know him, he's who Rorschach was based upon) who is remade as a Zen-based crimefighter, dispensing ass-kickings with Eastern philosophy in equal measure.

It's a mixed bag of a series, but the character is always great, and it'd be neat hearing what you'd get out of it, even if it's just to nitpick the details or complain with me about how O'Neill makes pretty much every bad guy a strawman figure.

[pure-doxyk.livejournal.com]

I will totally start picking that up, and report back... but of course, what I really want to read know is "THE QUESTION vs THE STRAWMAN!" ;)

[swimpenguin.livejournal.com]

Kudos to Gene Luen Yang-his comics rock way more than that movie is going to! (I guess I should give the series a chance at some point, every single episode I've seen just seems goofy to me)
I loved that the three arguments article rightly and carefully acknowledged that Final Crisis had its thumb up its ass creatively.

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

The series is wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, most wonderful, and yet again, wonderful. I say once more, I have not enjoyed a show like this since JUSTICE LEAGUE UNLIMITED. I urge you, check it out. I know you'd dig it.

[pokeyburro.livejournal.com]

Your comment about magic strikes me as much more relevant a problem than this racial construct the other guy devised. He's forgetting that the Iron Man franchise is more light-hearted and less brooding. RDJ's Stark is Rayne Summers. In that, he's got a point; Stark is a boor, albeit a lovable boor.

That said, it'll still be a tricky problem to make Mandarin a believable villain in a compelling story. A bit of it is already written, IIRC. Mandarin's kinda small potatoes in the Favreauverse so far. The rings serve as a deux ex machina in that regard; they can be powerful enough to make him as formidable as needed. But his origin story is kinda set at this point; he'll be some sort of local warlord with an axe to grind.

Presenting IM with a limit to his effort to "privatize world peace" would be interesting, anti-jingoism aside. If Mandarin is able to drive this point home, it would give him some moral high ground, but remember, in the end, this is a summer movie; Mandarin can't win. Better to create some Chinese good guy to put Stark in his place and at the same time serve as a partner against Mandarin.

That, or Mandarin himself becomes the good guy (Epic Twist!), helping IM against an even greater threat. Say, whatever power he stole his rings from. (Hey, if stuff can fall out of space, may as well go whole hog here.)

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

Or it could just be tech so far advanced that it just looks like magic, ala Arthur C. Clarke.

I'd say he isn't small potatoes in the Faverauverse so far, as Faverau also said that it was the Ten Rings organization that funded Whiplash's trip to Monaco in the first place. The Mandarin's behind the scenes, biding his time until Faverau can figure out what the hell he wants to do with him.

[pokeyburro.livejournal.com]

Clarke's exactly what I was thinking, yeah. I mean, Stark's armor itself is only somewhat believable magic.

Raza (I assume he'll become the man himself) sure seemed like small potatoes to me. I dunno. Maybe it'll be a different guy. Maybe there'll be lots of story revealed. And it has been years in the timeline since we've seen him. I still think wtf!magic rings will be the hardest sell, but I'm admittedly basing that on real world filmcraft concerns, rather than the lore on its own terms.

[jackolantern.livejournal.com]

I don't see a problem with either the Mandarin in general or his rings in particular; as far as the latter are concerned, they're not magic--they're extraterrestrial power sources (the Mandarin found them in the crashed starship of a dragonesque alien) that he channels towards particular effects.

And as far as his role, The Hurting eventually got around to what I would have thought was pretty obvious: the Mandarin stands against American/Western hegemony, and if he affects the style of an imperial bureaucrat, it's because he wishes to discard the vestiges of Maoism. He's no more racist than an Englishman who affects Victorian style, or anyone else from any other culture who affects the regalia of a previous era. Done right, it might be debatable as to whether he should be considered a villain at all.

[jackolantern.livejournal.com]

Also, I agree with you about TKJ. The comic is about the Joker having a theory about himself, how he came to be that way, and wanting to test it out and, possibly, even justify his worldview by breaking Jim Gordon. (Somewhere, don't ask me where, I'd gotten the impression that Moore regretted TKJ because of what he did to Barbara Gordon, but even there she's arguably a much better character because of it.)