Introductory Comics: A Comparative Study

I’m going to try something a little different with this entry. I was reading the comics for this week, including two new books that struck my eye: X-23 #1 and Captain America: Patriot #1. As I read them, I saw a very different approach to craft in each of them and how they introduced their lead characters. This leads into the following question: “How can a writer best introduce a lead character to the audience?”

No, this is not going to be a case of “this comic good, this one bad”. I won’t hate on anything I’ve read here. Because, honestly, I didn’t hate either of them. I wasn’t as fond of X-23, admittedly, but that’s more because I don’t think that Marjorie Liu’s approach worked as well as it should have. Because while it works for what it is, it just is not a good introductory issue into X-23. Allow me to explain.

X-23 works, but only if you treat it as a special issue of the ongoing X-Men series. It’s an issue where X-23 is brought into the spotlight, and you see some of her world. Laura interacts with various X-Men. We see Laura’s extensive backstory and how the X-Men and their students react to it. We see Laura play a game of chess with Storm (which, to be absolutely honest, was the best Storm scene I’ve read in years). We see that Laura has a boyfriend that can’t touch her, and that because of other events in the X-titles, her friends have problems with her. All well and good… mutant books love to wallow in their angst. We see character interactions, ongoing soap opera drama, and teenagers dealing with life and growing up. These are all things that make for a perfectly fine X-Men comic.

The problem is that X-23 is not supposed to be just a “day in the spotlight” issue of X-Men. This is the first issue of an ongoing solo title, starring X-23. It’s not enough to simply stick Laura amongst her schoolmates and watch them bicker, gossip, and do what teens do. That would work for an issue of New X-Men, but a solo book works differently. There are different priorities that should generally be adhered to.

The main thing I need to see in the first issue of a solo comic is a clear picture of who the main character is. This comic, regrettably, doesn’t accomplish that. Yes, I know that X-23 focuses extensively on Laura’s backstory. That’s not what I’m talking about. Sure, we know that Laura is a modified Wolverine clone who was developed as a killing weapon, but that’s not who she is. I’m talking about the soul of this character.

There’s too much this comic doesn’t address. What do we know about her personality from this issue? What are her hopes and aspirations? What does she hope to gain from staying with the X-Men? What does she like and dislike? What personality flaws does she suffer from, other than being stoic and secretive? What does she do when she’s not fighting people and suffering in silence? That kind of thing. I’m obviously not saying that the story has to answer all of this, but it does need to give me a clear sense of who this character is. X-23 comes across as a stoic cipher thus far. Now, to be fair, it’s possible that Liu will address all of this down the road, but it’s not apparent in the first issue.

There’s also a lot of telling in this comic, but very little showing. The other characters in this comic say she’s an unstable weapon, but we never see Laura actually use her claws on anyone. Even after being provoked by Surge, Laura never even pops her claws once. That’s far more restraint that Logan has ever shown, and he’s not an emotionally damaged teenager. Now, this actually should be presented as a compelling character trait;  it’s pretty darn cool that the ultimate weapon chooses not to react with violence like her “father” does. That sets her apart from Wolverine quite well. Except it’s not presented that way, and we never quite see why the distrust of Laura is justified except for the fact that she’s mentioned as having killed people in her convoluted backstory.

At the end of the issue, we don’t really get a sense of what this comic wants to accomplish. There’s a hint that X-23 is about a damaged teenager trying to connect with the humanity that’s been denied her. If that’s what Liu is trying to do, that’s fine. But it’s not even mentioned until very late in the book, and the concept isn’t explored because of the “Wolverine In Hell” business. So ultimately, while there are good scenes and some nice ideas being presented, it’s not effective as an introduction to the character.

All this is, of course, leaving out the morass of a backstory that’s not really clearly presented in the story itself. The recap at the end is nice, but would have helped before reading the main story. I can’t say that most of the characters are really needed to tell X-23′s story at all, in fact. I never really followed the New X-Men series that she appeared in, so the inclusion of most of them just comes across as needlessly intrusive. That said, Hellion and Surge could be useful as a supporting cast, since they serve useful roles in defining who Laura is through interaction. But overall, we didn’t need most of the random X-cameos that we see here.

Patriot, on the other hand, serves as a classic introductory issue. Karl Kesel and Mitch Breitweiser effectively recap the origin story of Jeff Mace in the first few pages. After that, it’s very clear who this man is. The Patriot is an ordinary young reporter who isn’t satisfied with being an objective observer when he can make a difference by helping others. He doesn’t think very much of himself, probably because he’s from a working-class background and wasn’t greatly educated. Jeff’s not stupid, but he’s not a strategist like Steve Rogers is; his first instinct is to jump into the fray and punch his way through his problems. We also see that Jeff’s not inclined to make speeches like Steve Rogers does either, and he expresses himself in only two ways: his fists and the written word.

Kesel does an excellent job in showing us the character of Jeff Mace. We see Jeff struggle silently with self-doubt. He knows he’s not the Captain America that Steve Rogers is, no matter how much he’s been inspired by Cap. He sees himself as a regular guy who is struggling to keep up with super-powered beings. He wants more out of life than what he’s been given, but he can’t back away from what he believes he has to do. He has a clear mission: his role is to fight the good fight at home while the Invaders are fighting overseas.

Patriot offers the reader a very simple story: a normal man who becomes a hero, and then the replacement for a legend. Jeff Mace has a small supporting cast, and the story only features those characters that move things forward. We’re not given the details for how Steve Rogers disappeared. We’re not told very much about the Spirit of ’76, who was the second guy to act as Captain America. We don’t see anything that went on with the Invaders, and very little of the Liberty Legion except for what advances the story. It’s a simple, accessible comic that introduces the main character and tells the reader only what’s needed to make the story clear.

And that, in the end, is all that’s needed to start a new series. Just introduce the character and tell the story as clearly as possible. While X-23 is a not a bad comic by any stretch, I can’t help but think that it could have been far better if the storytelling were more focused on introducing the character and her mission.

Blitz: The Accidental Heroine

Since this was a question raised elsewhere, I think I’ll recap and explain just how I created Blitz in more detail. It actually is a more complicated story than it looks, and it may help readers with more context.

If you’ve not read any of the Blitz stories yet, feel free to ignore this, as it may involve some small spoilers.

Although it might not look that way, Blitz was not originally meant to be the main character. In fact, this wasn’t even originally intended to be a series, much less a whole universe. It just gradually evolved over time until it reached its current shape.

Roughly five years ago, I agreed to take part in a play-by-post role-playing game set in a superhero universe. (I’m pretty sure that the site in question no longer exists, so no point in digging around for it.) It sounded interesting, and I liked the challenge of creating new characters, so I was up for it.

True confession, and one that shouldn’t come as any kind of surprise: I wasn’t anywhere near the writer I am today. I had aspirations of writing back then, but I was doing mediocre Marvel Universe fanfic, and hadn’t yet branched out into doing my own stuff. It took Blitz for all that to change.

So, anyway, the RPG. That game pretty much was responsible for creating all the core formative elements of what would become the Blitz series. I initially created two characters for the game: Night Spider and Miranda Mason (aka Spectra). When the game started, Night Spider was the character I most focused on, since he interested me most and I’d done the most work on his backstory. (You’ll see more of this in an upcoming story arc.) Miranda began as my reserve character, though I honestly never really thought I would even use her, much less that she’d be an important character.

Everything changed over the course of gameplay. Events conspired against the story, and the GM allowed me to use Miranda as a second character. It turned out that the GM had plotted the story as a high-powered campaign. The problem was that most of the group were street-level heroes, including Night Spider. Miranda was brought in to maintain game balance. So I agreed, since I wanted to try this character out.

As the campaign went on, Miranda ended up growing in importance until she became one of the main characters in the game. It then struck me that I needed to polish off her backstory, and give her a supporting cast. This was easy enough, and from there, I began to add details around her.

Before I started playing Miranda, I had the idea that she would have a kid sister for some reason. I never put much thought into who she was before the game. At that point, I only knew that Miranda was a career woman with family concerns, and a kid sister she was helping out. I never thought seriously about her personality, who she was, what role she would play, or any of that stuff.

But when Miranda grew in importance, the kid sister character jumped back out at me. Because I had some success in establishing Night Spider and Miranda as foils, I decided to keep doing that because it seemed to be working. So looking at Miranda Mason, who is a cynical, mature, and responsible heroine, I knew her sister should be a more innocent, fun-loving, and reckless character. Amy evolved from that initial idea.

My initial thought was that Amy would be Dawn to Miranda’s Buffy. That’s actually rather a simplistic version, as more actually went into it, but that was the story role I needed her to play.

I won’t deny that Dawn was an important influence on this series. At the time, I was heavily into Buffy the Vampire Slayer, as I’d only finally watched the DVD sets not long before I played the RPG. Dawn was a character that I enjoyed, but she really wasn’t being written to potential. She’s a powerful cosmic artifact with the false identity of an ordinary girl. She is, even if by plot-driven artifice, the sister of the Slayer. She studied magic with Willow, and was even a candidate for Watcher training. Any of these elements could have been used to further Dawn’s growth and give her a direction. Instead we have plots where Dawn becomes a kleptomaniac, tries to raise her dead mother from the grave, and that’s when she was used at all. To be fair, “Potential” would have been a promising start to address her character had it been developed more, but then the Slayer Army showed up, and Dawn became an afterthought.

In my mind, something had to be done about this.

Just as Joss Whedon created Buffy to give the blonde cheerleader the power to fight off the creatures of the night, I wanted Amy to show what could be possible with a character like Dawn. I believed that she could be more than the annoying or reckless sidekick that the hero has to rescue every other mission. That was the goal, at least.

Other influences crept their way in as well over time. Kitty Pryde and Impulse are the main ones as far as comics go. It might also be that Elsa Bloodstone worked her way in a little bit… she and Amy have the same knack for improvising. I’d also not be surprised if a little bit of Spider-Man influence crept in as well, given that we’re talking about an impulsive young heroine who is learning about responsibility.

But I get ahead of myself.

Amy did not initially have super-powers, nor was that necessarily the plan. I’d just trot her out, have her interact with the cast members from time to time, then file her away. Except a curious thing happened. Amy kept having memorable scenes, sometimes stealing the spotlight away from the other characters she interacted with. I never intended that to happen at all.

Finally, the GM suggested giving Amy a hero origin, giving her powers, and bringing her in as a third and final character. I went mainly with powers I considered defensive, which is why she has the abilities she does. Amy has been Blitz ever since. Once the origin happened, Amy pretty much became my dominant character pretty soon after, and remained so until the game ended.

When the game was over, I realized that I had stories I still wanted to tell with these characters. They were, by then, too compelling for me to just let die. I’d invested too much into Amy, Miranda, and Night Spider, and wanted to do more with them. That led to the creation of the Blitz series, Centennial City, and the wider universe that came after.

Without giving anything away here, the origin for Amy in “Borrowed Time” is very loosely based on what we did in the RPG. Most of the RPG version of the origin was my idea, though not all of it was. That said, I changed a few details for “Borrowed Time” out of practical necessity, so what you’ll find there is mostly my invention. A few characters were changed, some of the hows and whys of it changed, but the basics are still there. I wanted to keep was the emotional core of the original origin, which seems to be intact.

Amy is probably my favorite character that I’ve written to date. She’s virtually unique among all my characters in that she established herself as a central character through stubbornness, improvisation, and sheer dumb luck. Which, come to think of it, is definitely an Amy thing to do.

Troping With Blitz…

From the outset, I’ll admit that I’m a fan of TV Tropes. I’m impressed with the sheer amount of writing tropes these people have been able to log and categorize. The one downside of the place, aside from the fact that TV Tropes Will Ruin Your Life and Your Vocabulary, is that it’s very easy to get sucked into reading this stuff for long stretches of time.

For me, this site is valuable because, in addition to noting how the writing conventions works, it helps me notice what is a trope or a cliche. Note that I’m not saying run away from tropes, exactly… “After Last Season” was a drearily awful film of epic proportions and it doesn’t have very many tropes to speak of. On the other hand, there are many good stories that play tropes straight. For me, the trick to using tropes is to be conscious of the tropes you’re employing, as well as how to use them to interest the audience.

Just on a lark, I’ve looked back on my own work to see what tropes I’ve actually been using. I’m not ashamed to admit that I’ve played some of them straight (okay, sometimes painfully straight). I may, every so often, post examples of tropes that I’ve used in the Blitzverse for the sheer fun of it.

This is one of those occasions. I’ll try to stick to tropes that are fairly clear from the stuff I’ve already posted here, and leave out anything that comes across as spoilerish. This is only a partial list, mind, and it’s not in a particular order. Enjoy.

The Blitzverse illustrates these following tropes…

Alliterative Name: Miranda Mason. I intentionally played this one straight. Won’t be the last time I’ll pull this one either, as you’ll eventually see.

The Cape: Meta Man, who Blitz readers will meet later on in “Borrowed Time”.

Comes Great Responsibility: Blitz, of course. But really, what series centered on a young superhero doesn’t invoke this to some extent?

Cool Big Sis: Miranda tries to be this, with varying degrees of success.

The Cowl: The Wraith is very admittedly a twist on this. This is probably one of my favorite archetypes, and this is coming from a guy who didn’t used to be much of a Batman fan.

Deus Ex Machina: If I’ve done my job right, heavily averted. This is one of my most hated tropes of all time, and it annoys me to no end whenever I see it. I firmly believe that my heroes should solve their own problems without relying on something else to come in and save them at the last minute.

Fiery Redhead: Amy. And then some. Especially when she’s in a nasty mood.

Foil: I designed the core cast members to be this to each other.

Good Thing You Can Heal: Amy and Night Spider. More than once.

I Just Want To Be Normal: Badly averted. Amy loves having her powers. Her sister Miranda, on the other hand…

Personality Powers: To some extent. Blitz is the impulsive speedster who wants the world to go faster. Miranda is the reporter who wants to shine a light of truth in the dark corners of the city. Surprisingly, I didn’t plan it like that, but hey, it fits.

Reckless Sidekick: Miranda believes Amy to be this. She’s wrong. (In fact, Amy is a twist on this trope.)

Red Headed Heroine: Amy Mason, aka Blitz. I mainly established her as a redhead to contrast Amy from the rest of my cast visually.

Super Hero Origin: What “Borrowed Time” is intended to be.

Super Registration Act: Believe it or not, a few years ago I had toyed with the idea of Licensed super-heroes, and even introduced it briefly in a Blitz story. My idea was that Licensing should be voluntary, because I knew that an actual government mandate would take the Blitzverse too far from the illusion of the real world. I mistakenly thought the Big Two would never do this because it would make their world unrelatable. Was I ever wrong. Naturally, I’ve distanced myself from this concept since to avoid comparisons with Civil War (and not just because I hated it, though that by itself would be a good reason).

Thou Shalt Not Kill: Played straight with Blitz and her supporting cast, but definitely averted with The Wraith and the Masked Marshal. I like my heroes to be heroes, but every once in a while it’s fun to write the occasional anti-hero…

I’ll leave this here for the time being. Maybe I’ll do more rounds of Troping With Blitz in future installments. I know there are quite a few I could mention that I missed before, so we’ll see.

Blitz: Borrowed Time, Chapter 5

Chapter Five

Wanna know where I live? Cool. Neither do I.

Eisner Falls is this sleepy suburb district on the outer side of town. Kinda your basic normal neighborhood. Most of the people here are sorta the well-off types, y’know? Not as ritzy as all those mansions in Baron Heights, but we get by. The folks here still got enough money to afford the police protection, which is why it’s still mostly quiet `round here. That, and the people here are this huge voting block. Not like I care about local politics or whatever, but Sis kinda gets paid to keep up.

Welcome to Yuppieville, private paradise for anybody who can pay the rent. The place still got that peaceful look, and the locals pay tons to keep it that way. Rows of trees lining up around houses kinda like toy soldiers. Course it helps that we got the Moore River streaming across. Some weird poet from the Village once said that the river flowed like ideas. Which I guess I can kinda see. The banks of the Moore are postcard scenic. Especially at sunrise. It’s the cool romantic place to be.

On her salary, Miranda could afford to live pretty much anywhere. Not that she’s super-rich or anything, but we’re kinda well off. I figure we coulda lived in Baron Heights, even, just cause Sis got the reputation. But don’t tell anybody this, but Sis can be a bit of the sentimental type. She wanted to live here cause she didn’t wanna forget where she came from. Which is guess is cool, if the place wasn’t so dull.

Anyway, the people are lots nicer in Eisner Falls. Least on the surface. Not like they got any lives to speak of. It’s pretty much all soccer moms, SUVs, and baseball practice down at the Falls. Okay to grow up in, I guess, but the Falls are so not where the action happens.

Not like it’s all garage sales and hot dogs `round here. What they don’t tell ya is that the locals here get real strict about property values and stuff. The whole place is real estate central. Take it from me. Don’t do anything to screw up the neighborhood’s market value in the Falls. The neighborhood groups bite like a rabid dog. Or worse, a hockey player.

Can’t complain too much, though. We got a pretty cool house outta the deal. Miranda and I live kinda on the edge of a lonely street. We got some neighbors, but we’re mostly hidden behind these huge tree clusters. Sis kinda likes it this way, cause she’s big on the whole privacy deal. Home is where Miranda goes not to be seen.

Our house is a big two-story deal way out in suburbia. Dunno how old the place is, but it’s older than Miranda, even. Not like you’d know to look at the place. The whole place is patented colonial. The foundation is layered on thick with red brick, and topped off with these white panels. We got these dark green shuttered windows that look out on the street. We even got this small greenhouse in the back yard, which would be cool if either of us actually had a green thumb.

Not really big on the taste, but the neighborhood has a bunch of dumb rules about upkeep. Pretty much all the houses in Eisner Falls kinda look like this. Ours is just bigger than most, y’know? The folks in Yuppieville aren’t huge on the originality.

Not like we use it all or anything. These days, it’s pretty much just Sis and me living in the place. You ask me? I figure Sis got a big place cause she wants kids. As if that’s happening anytime soon, on account that Miranda doesn’t exactly date much. Or at all. Sis doesn’t even have time for me. She’s way into her career. You figure her making time for family hour? I so doubt it.

The answering machine was blinking when Sis and I finally got home. Like that was news. `Kay, maybe it was. The paper called a lot when Sis kept her cell phone off. And no way was Sis gonna keep the cell on down in Lower Ferris. I hopped over to the machine, trying to dial down the speed, and pressed the button.

“Mason!” a gruff voice rumbled over the line. “Where the hell are you? We’ve had another Meta Man sighting over at Metrobank. A story, might I add, that you begged me to let you cover. So where’s my star reporter? Off chasing damn daisies! I need you to cover this now, damn it. Preferably before the World or those network idiots get wind of it. Publish or perish, Mason. Get on it now!” The machine beeped to a stop.

Barton Price was my sister’s boss. He had one of those cool fancy titles at the Centennial Times, like managing editor or whatever. Kinda shorthand for verbal abuse for fun an’ profit, y’know? But don’t let the potty mouth fool ya. Barton was kinda cool, least for an old guy. He loved Sis like a daughter, but didn’t stop him raggin’ on her when she was off deadline. He was also one of the few guys Sis respected. `Kay, so he wasn’t nice about his job, but he got it done. Totally about the deadline.

“Meta Man?” I turned to Sis with a blank stare. “Way news to me. Lemme guess. You got another big case?”

“That’s why I needed the armor fixed,” Miranda said, opening her faceplate. “Meta Man is a huge story waiting to happen. He arrived in Centennial last week or so, and has been on a non-stop crusade ever since. Stopping criminals, fighting fires, there’s no good deed Meta Man won’t do. He even stops to save cats from trees, if you can believe it. I don’t know where he finds the time. It’s like he doesn’t have a day job.”

“Sounds like your kinda guy.” I grinned widely at her. “So when I do I meet him, huh?”

“Funny. There’s so much about Meta Man that’s a complete mystery. The problem is that nobody can seem to get an interview with him. Best as I can tell, he can manipulate light and fly at super-speed. By the time he’s done saving the day, Meta Man flies off to save someone else. He’s too fast for any reporter to catch up with, much less get a word in.”

My eyes brightened at this. I betcha I could’ve caught him, but I wasn’t gonna tell Sis that. I was almost tempted to spill the whole deal, but I shut up. If I told Sis what I could do, she’d be all over me. Like I was gonna let go of a cool thing like this. Least for now. Maybe if I helped with the Meta Guy case, Sis would finally stop acting like I was some kinda invalid or something.

“Gotcha. So you’re gonna catch up with him as Spectra and chat him up.”

“That was the plan,” Miranda told me. “Until my baby sister slowed me down by tagging along on my trip to the Machinist’s. Now I’m probably going to miss him. Again.”

Hmph. I just crossed my arms, stuck my tongue out and gave her pout face. This was so typical. There’s just no way I was ever gonna win with Sis. If I played along, she was off playing hero for hours without me. If I tried to tag along, Sis blamed me for screwing up her dumb timetable. Total Catch-22.

“So no double latte?” I asked, annoyed. “C’mon, you promised.”

“I’m sorry, Amy,” she replied, flashing me the regret. “I’ll take you when I can. But I can’t miss this. If I don’t have a story on Barton’s desk fast, it’s my head on the chopping block. Look, why don’t you bring something back for me?”

“Or you could take me with you. C’mon, Sis. I’m not gonna get in trouble, `kay? Lemme help.”

“Absolutely not,” Miranda said, putting her foot down. “It’s dangerous, and I don’t want you there. There might be shooting. Besides, how do I explain why I’m carrying you along with me? No way.”

“But Miranda…”

Miranda cut me off with a glare. She pointed at me. For a moment, I kinda figured she’d trap me in one of her light cages or something. Thinking `bout it now, I was real lucky she didn’t. I was fast and all, but I can’t dodge light.

“Don’t you give me any buts, young lady. There is no but when it comes to your safety. The ground rules are for your protection. It’s not safe, you’re not coming, and that’s final. Deal with it.”

I was so mad I barely caught my foot tapping at super-speed. I so could not believe it. First she broke her promise, and now she was ditching me again! All so she could be Miss Social Climber and grab all the credit. Sides, I was probably the only way to get near Meta Dude. Not like she knew, but c’mon. Sis wasn’t gonna let me go even if she knew. She was gonna shield me from my whole life, and that was so not cool.

“Fine,” I growled, tears welling in my eyes. “Ignore the only sister you’ve got. Go and save the world. See if I care. You want me gone? You don’t need me anymore? Cool by me. I’m outta here. And Sis? You can get your own stupid latte.”

“Amy!” Miranda called, but I had the door open before she could stop me.

I ran out the front door and slammed it, tears streaming down my face. I shifted to full zoom mode. I knew she was gonna open the door again, yell at me an’ make me apologize. No way. I was so beyond caring. I sped out into a full run. Like I knew what I could do, but I didn’t care. I totally needed the space from Sis.

I was somebody different now. I was in her cool little world, whether Sis liked it or not. No way was I out now. Not with these funky speed powers I got. All I wanted was to help, be part of the world. No way could I do that when Miranda was always slowing me down. She never had enough time to be part of my world, and no way was she gonna let me join hers.

It so was not right. No way was I gonna let this stand. I was gonna make Sis respect me for once. I wasn’t some dumb little kid. I had powers now. I could do something good for people! If my jerk of a big sister ever let me out the door once in my life.

I was gonna do something about it. Even if I didn’t know what.

Various Blitzverse Notes…

Just posted Chapters 3 and 4 of Borrowed Time, which was the first major story I wrote starring this character. I wrote all this in 2006, so there’s been a fair amount of evolution since then.

I’m keeping all the chapters sorted in the “Story Posts” tab as I go, so hopefully there shouldn’t be any trouble in keeping it all straight. If there is, drop a line and I’ll see what I can do.

*

In other news, I’ve been reading a superhero fiction anthology called “Masked”. I normally am not an anthology person, since many of them tend not to have a lineup of writers that interest me. No offense to any of the talent there is intended; I just don’t want to have to pay full book price for an anthology with one or two short stories by authors that I want to follow.

“Masked” is the exception. This is a good roster of writers, including some of the very best that have written superhero comics, and a few from other media. Let me read off a partial list: Paul Cornell, Gail Simone, Mike Carey, Peter David (accompanied by his wife Kathleen), Mike Baron, Chris Roberson, Bill Willingham, and more. So naturally, I had to pick this up, just to see how they would approach a book like this.

So I read the Chris Roberson story, “Knight of Ghosts and Shadows”, and it really is enjoyable. I recommend it. The interesting thing is that the story features a pulp-inspired character called the Wraith, who is a mysterious masked avenger with mystical abilities who fights the supernatural, and…

Oh, dear. This sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

And no, lest you get the wrong idea, I don’t think that the similarities are intentional even for a moment. Probably we were inspired in a similar direction, and hit on eerily similar ideas. It happens. I’ll admit that it makes me cringe a little when it does happen, of course.

Does it affect plans for my own version of The Wraith? Without spoiling anything from my own work… no, not really. Roberson’s Wraith is distinct from mine in quite a few aspects. He has a different origin, different powers, a different background, a different personality, a different purpose, and so on. It isn’t apparent now, but it should be somewhere down the road once I return to my version of the Wraith. All this means is that in the future, I’ll try to avoid any further similarities now that I’m aware of them.

I actually like the version Roberson came up with, tell the truth. He does things in “Masked” I wish I’d thought of when I created my version of the character. I’d actually like to see more of that Wraith. Roberson told a good story, and that’s really what matters in the scheme of things.

Blitz: Borrowed Time, Chapter 4

Chapter Four

When I came to, I kinda felt tingly all over.

I dunno exactly what hit me. I mean, I’m not real big on looking back. I’m the sorta girl that’s gotta live in the now, `kay? Cause that’s when life happens. I don’t go much for the whole regret and angst deal. That is so Lifetime movie of the week. Not me.

All I knew was I felt weird. I’m not real great on the diagnosis stuff. I kinda slept through dissecting frogs. I dunno. My muscles were kinda sore all over. I felt this crackling sensation in my legs, like they were gonna burst. There was this jolt blasting down my spine. Kinda like being hit by lightning, except without all the burns and the lame static hair.

A whiff of compost and muck perked me right up. I could almost taste the dirt in the air. Not like I know how anybody could live out here. So not prime real estate.

First thing I noticed was the quiet. There was all this noise and clanging of steel and stuff in the background before. Now I got nothing. Like whatever whammy I got hit with took all the sound away.

For a moment, I kinda almost panicked. See, I gotta have sound. It’s my whole world, y’know? It’s so not enough to just see what’s out there. I gotta hear what life’s like. I soak up sounds and make new ones. ‘Kay, so maybe Beethoven can be a bigshot songwriter without ears, but I am so not that good. What if I was deaf? That would just completely kill my career, right?

I kinda felt relieved when I heard this slow clanging behind me. There was this dripping sound, too, kinda like tap water drops with the faucet off. I dunno why, but the whole place sounded like it was on slo-mo.

I looked up, noticed a pigeon frozen in midair. It was so cute, you just had to be there. Just this gray-white thing, with the wings out, doing the slow flap. You ever see one of those cartoons? Where the coyote’s off the cliff, trying to stay up by running in place? Kinda like that, except way slower. It was just too weird. I had this case of the giggles just looking at the whole deal.

Right then, I had this way bad thought. What if Miranda was looking for me? I didn’t know how long I’d been out. If she was done with her whole Spectra thing and didn’t find me, I was gonna be in trouble. You ever been grounded by a superhero? Lemme tell ya, no fun. And you just don’t wanna sit through a Miranda lecture. I dunno where she comes up with all the new material to say the same ol’ thing.

Whatever. I had to run. I stuffed the disco ball thingy in my jacket pocket. Not like I knew what this thing did to me. But whatever it was, I wasn’t gonna leave without it. Not like I had a clue what I was gonna do with it. But losing the ball? Seriously bad idea.

When I got back to my feet, that’s when I started feeling this cool rush. Like I had to keep moving. I took a couple of steps and rocketed forward. I crashed into a huge pile of junk, face-first.

“`Kay, so not big on the style points,” I grumbled, picking myself off the floor. But I had this huge grin. I gotta admit, the ride was way cool.

Dunno when I put it all together. But this idea hit like this huge strobe light. At first, I kinda thought the world got slower. But that was so off track. Slow world doesn’t make a girl an overnight track star. Not like I was ever athletic girl, y’know? I was cool with the dance routines, and I’m so into ballet, but running? Not my deal at all.

But really not the point. The world wasn’t slower. I was just way faster.

But even cooler. I had powers now! Whatever the disco thingy did to me, I wasn’t the helpless baby sister anymore. Like I ever was, but you try telling Miranda that! And I wasn’t gonna be anymore, ever. Sis so had to respect me now.

Anyway, this completely ruled. I got something Sis was never gonna take away. Miranda couldn’t play the big hero without the Spectra suit. Her powers came off wires and the whole super-tech deal. Sure, the whole lightshow thing looked cool. But pull the plug? Miranda was just a regular girl. I mean, if you call being scorching hot reporter babe regular. Which I so don’t.

`Kay, so maybe I’m a touch jealous. Oh, like you could totally blame me. C’mon already. Miranda had the whole deal. She got the perfect body, the cool career, and the super-suit. Everybody, an’ I mean everybody, in Centennial at leasts respects Sis, y’know? The ones who weren’t too busy drooling over her. Now look at me. I’m not gonna scare any lepers, but I don’t have the Hollywood gorgeous look. Most of the city didn’t have clue one who I was, and didn’t care I existed. Even Sis treated me like I didn’t belong in her cool fast-paced world. Far as the world cared, I was just Miranda’s annoying brat sister. I was just a total case of who cares.

The powers were gonna change all that. I wasn’t gonna just be a sidekick anymore. I was gonna be something now. This was my big chance. Like I wasn’t gonna make the most of that.

Then a bad thought hit me. If I knew my sis, she wasn’t gonna want me to keep the powers. Like Miranda would trust her clueless kid sister with something this cool. You ask her, trusting me with cool powers is like trusting Lindsay Lohan behind the wheel of a car, y’know? I so saw this coming. Sis was so gonna play the “too dangerous” card. Like she did with everything. As usual. She’d probably take me back to the Machinist’s to have the speed removed.

Way to go, Sis. Protect me from the big bad world again. Not happening. I wasn’t gonna play that game this time. No way you’re hogging the spotlight now. That meant Sis not finding out. Not `til I was ready to do the big reveal.

I started back toward the street with kind of a brisk trot. I didn’t want to do the full run deal yet. I still wasn’t sure how the whole power set worked yet, and I kinda had my fill of icky trash for one day. Even if I felt this way cool rush every time I worked up the speed. Everything felt so slow whenever I dialed it down.

I crawled outta the junkyard just in time. I saw this flashy light blast outta the Machinist’s shop. Nothing like Spectra to make the big entrance, y’know? She was flying in this aura of golden light, heading right my way. It’s like the whole parental radar she’s got.

I don’t usually see Spectra in action much. Sis is big on the whole secret identity deal. I’m one of maybe a few people who know that Miranda likes to dress up in tinfoil and beat on cheap thugs. I always know Miranda’s off playing Spectra when I hear motors buzzing around.

Spectra kinda looks like a cross between an astronaut and a fashion disaster on a Paris runway. The armor is bright blue plating framed with silver circuits. Miranda wears this big ol’ fishbowl on her head with this blue-tinted glass covering her face. It’s like Buzz Lightyear got a sex change or something. I’m not into the tech stuff, so I dunno how it all works. But Miranda still looks hotter than me even in the suit. I tell ya, there is so not any justice.

“Hiya, Sis,” I waved cheerily, trying not to move around too fast. “How’d it go at Nerds R Us?”

I kept a happy grin on my face, but not too wide. This was gonna be my secret. Sis is suspicious of everything, lemme tell ya.

“I’m not sure, Amy,” Miranda said, landing at my side. The helmet had this creepy voice modulator that hid her voice. It was so weird hearing her voice as a distorted crackle. “Everything seemed normal enough, and the suit is done. But the Machinist seemed almost distracted, somehow. Like he was concerned about something else.”

I tried not to sweat too much. Did he know about the powers? He couldn’t have, right? He was working on the Spectra suit. And I was so not anywhere near the shop. I just found a creepy thing in a junkyard.

“You’ll find out,” I told her. “I mean, you’re the big ace reporter. It’s not like some used machine guy is gonna hold out on ya for long.”

“I suppose not,” she said, but I so knew her too well. “So, how was everything while I was in? You didn’t get into trouble?”

“Oh, that’s such a first,” I replied, rolling my eyes. “I spend like five minutes alone, it’s always about how much trouble I’m in. Gimme some proper credit, `kay? I can look around the street without it being a big family crisis.”

“I only ask because I care,” Miranda reminded me. I saw a hint of a smile behind the tinted glass. “So I guess you went bust on the stereo equipment?”

“Total bust. You ever seen miles and miles of nothing? That’s Lower Ferris for ya. So, we bailing from this place or what?”

Not really so much a lie. I wasn’t gonna do that to my Sis. No matter how big a pain Miranda was sometimes. Just a kinda sort of dodge. If Miranda wanted to know my deal for the first time in her life, she was gonna have to work it out on her lonesome. Cause she was so not gonna find it out from me.

“The sooner the better,” Miranda said, wrapping me in a light bubble. “I don’t want you out here any longer. Besides, I don’t want any connection between you and Spectra. So first, I fly us home, and then we go and have that sisterly outing. I think we’ve both earned it.”

“Cool by me,” I agreed, trying to keep my foot from tapping too fast. “I got a double latte callin’ my name.”

“Just keep off the sugar. You’re bouncing off the walls as it is.”

Sis just had no idea. Not like I was gonna clue her in. I just nodded, just to humor her. Last thing I wanted was her asking all the wrong questions. I had a lot I wanted to do. Stuff I was gonna do without Sis holding me back.

My life was on the way up.

Blitz: Borrowed Time, Chapter 3

Chapter Three

One thing you gotta know about me. Standing still? Not my deal at all.

Case in point: the trip to the Machinist’s. I was tapping my feet `bout a minute after Sis took off. I get bored too fast. It’s like I’m too fast for the world t’keep up with. I gotta do something. Miranda thinks I’m too impatient. You ask me? She’s just slow.

`Kay, I admit it. I still had issues with my sis. “Rushing into adulthood.” Hmph. C’mon here. I got my own pace in life. So what? Maybe I wanna live life faster than Miranda. So that’s crime now? Sis gets to live like a grown woman. She wasn’t gonna slow me down cause of her malfunction. I gotta live life now, y’know?

I plugged in the ol’ headphones and checked out the junkyard. The whole place was fenced off by this rickety iron curtain. The whole fence was frosted with this icky layer of brown rust. There was this busted-up sign reading “Do Not Disturb”. Like anybody was gonna bother with a place this gross.

A piece of fence was cut open some ways off to the right. Want my guess? Some dork sliced the thing up with wire cutters or something. Some strands of fence twisted out like metal thorns. Kinda like barbed wire, just less inviting. What a way to bring up property values, lemme tell ya.

I’m not really that big of a girl. Kinda tall for my age, but real slim. Not anorexic slim or anything, just healthy. My sis tells me I got a good metabolism, whatever that is. Point is, I was just small enough to slip through the hole. Not a scratch on my jacket, even. Way cool. Let’s see Sis try that one with her waist size.

Once I slipped inside, I turned my head. I so had to get a good look at this place. Maybe they had cool stereo stuff or something. You gotta know my crew. They’re always into the sound quality. Not like I figured this dump had squat, but ya never know.

The whole place was, like, mountains of junk. Tons of scrap metal and broken glass spiraling up like skyscrapers. Parked around the piles of junk were some big dump trucks. Y’know, the huge ones that roll at a crawl? No way I was gonna be caught dead driving one of those things. Even if I could drive a stick, which I so can’t.

At first, I took the place for a total drag. I kinda figured this was where the factories dropped off their used junk. Outta sight, outta mind and all that. Still no sign of any cool stuff, and Sis would probably be in there a while.

Not like I cared. She wanted me so bad, she got my number. Right. As if. With Miranda, career girl’s gotta come first. She’s gonna make me wait for nothing, she was gonna come looking for me. I mean, I got a life, `kay? I was so gonna show Sis I could deal on my own.

I stepped across to the other side, away from the huge mounds of crap. Mostly I was trying not to think about Sis. She was part of this real cool deal. I got the whole helping people thing. I got that Sis had this job to do. But I had a thing too, and it was keeping ahead of the trend curve. I had this huge chance to be part of this huge thing, and Sis was treating it like a no deal. So not right to me.

I kinda got lost in my thoughts, rocking out. Don’t even remember what I was humming now. I just know that I got thrown for a major loop after I reached the other side of the dump. Just no way was I expecting this.

The junk looked way different on this side of the dump. It wasn’t just steel and used crud over here. There was this one pile of stuff that actually looked kinda cool. I slowly stepped forward. Like I wasn’t gonna get a good look at this.

The pile was made of used superhero stuff. I was so sure of it. There was this torn flak vest I was so sure was made by the Inventor. Some broken rod that was used by one of those cosmic nutjobs. This tattered red cape that fluttered in the wind. I tried out this cool metal glove, but it just flashed a few sparks when I slid it on. I mean, sure, it was total junk, but it was cool-looking junk. Sis just had to get a load of this.

Guess it made sense, y’know? Even the heroes gotta throw their trash somewhere. I mean, it’s so not like you see Virtue’s shopping list on the internet. That means they gotta be dumping their junk somewhere secret.

I bounced happily with a smile. I was way loving this. I found this cool deal even Sis didn’t know about. It was gonna rock when I broke it to Miranda. The look on her face? Gonna be so priceless. I was so not the clueless kid Sis thought I was. I was gonna show her.

Wait a minute. A grin spread on my face as I stared at all the super-junk. I had a better idea. Maybe there was some cool stuff in the stash I could use! If Sis could put on a rockin’ tin suit and play hero, why couldn’t I?

This was such a cool plan. Why should Sis hog all the fun, `kay? She wasn’t gonna shut me out of her life now. If she was gonna spend her life chasing down bad guys and doing good, that rocks. But I was gonna do it with her. No way was I `bout to stay home and wait for Sis to get herself beat up. Sis needed somebody she could trust to watch her back. That was so my job. I mean, what were sisters for, y’know?

Miranda didn’t have time? Cool by me. I was gonna make time.

Anyway, here I was, digging through this mound of hero trash. (And if my friends find out about this, my social life is so dead.) I pulled on a pair of gloves and mowed into the pile of junk. The cool-looking stuff? Didn’t work at all. Guess I found out why the super-types tossed all this stuff.

And lemme tell ya… the smell? Not inviting. We’re talking pungent here. You think the guys’ locker room reeks? Trust me, you have no idea. Just total ick, not to mention ew. A shower was gonna look real good after digging through all the muck. Make that three. I just kinda held my nose and rummaged, tellin’ myself it was all gonna be worth it.

I was just `bout to pack it in when I found the weirdest thing.

I kinda noticed a flicker of light, down at the bottom of the pile. Almost didn’t notice it at first. Like it was a trick of the light or something. I turned, dug a deeper hole down in the junk. C’mon, don’t look at me like that. I was kinda desperate at that point, `kay?

I reached down in the hole and pulled this weird thing out. It kinda looked like one of those old disco balls. Y’know, the totally retro look that’s only cool if you’re the Bee Gees? Like that. I figure it was `bout the size of a softball. `Cept it was lined all the place by these creepy green glowing circuits. This one light burned red on the top of the thing.

How was I supposed t’know what it was? Science Girl? So not me. I’m cool with the modern tech, long as I don’t look under the hood. I slept through advanced exposition. I’m okayish with science grades, but I dunno about junkyard tech. Way beyond me, lemme tell ya. Leave the hard stuff to the genius types, that’s me.

Doesn’t stop me from fiddling with stuff, though. I gotta keep moving. I don’t do the whole “sit still” thing too well. So I flipped the ball around to see what it did. Couldn’t be that bad. I mean, the thing was junked. Might not even work too well.

I knew something weird was up when I touched the blinking red thing.

The disco ball opened up in my hand. A white light flashed in my face. For a moment, I kinda felt dizzy. I rubbed my eyes, felt the ball drop on my foot. Tears welled up in my eyes as I doubled over on the floor. I felt like I was gonna hurl real bad. My last thought? I really wished Miranda was gonna show and bail me out.

Right then, I felt like I was gonna be in pain forever.

A Grounded View, Part 2: How Gods Walk Among Men

Previously, I discussed the beginnings of my analysis of the JMS run of Superman, specifically where my criticisms are. It’s not a full or complete list of them, by any means, just the inherent flaws in the premise.

Here, I want to move into exploring why “Grounded” doesn’t quite succeed in comparison to other stories that have worked better. Or, at least, stories that have been better received. This is not meant to pound on JMS or “Grounded” in any way. What I’m trying to do is illustrate examples of what improvements could be made by showing a contrast.

Let us begin.

Hard Traveling Heroes

When doing a story about traveling across the country in search of social relevance, it’s hard to escape the giant shadow of Denny O’Neil. He wrote the book on this trope during his historic run on Green Lantern/Green Arrow. Indeed, I would not be surprised if JMS has been directly influenced by this run.

If so, however, I think he failed to process why it worked for GL/GA and why it doesn’t work so well for Superman.

In both cases, the prompting for the heroes to travel the country is somewhat forced. The heroes do what they normally do, until a normal person serves as their “wake-up call”. In the case of GL/GA, it’s the old man who gives the famous speech to Hal Jordan. The bereaved widow in Superman #700 serves the same purpose: to call out the superhero and bring their attention back to the common man.

As a device, there’s nothing necessarily wrong with it, provided it’s used correctly. For a story like this, something needs to prompt the hero to make a significant change to the status quo. However, the writer should be able to make a compelling argument for why the hero should be wandering the country instead of, you know, stopping supervillains and saving the world.

I never quite felt that GL/GA made a really effective argument to Hal Jordan, who is a space cop enforcing cosmic law. His purpose is to protect the Earth from alien invasions, after all, and GL is saving everyone equally by stopping these threats. But to O’Neil’s credit, this scene works as a mission statement for his whole run. This comic is going to be about looking at the world in a different way and confronting problems that most superheroes don’t deal with, which is fair enough.

It should be noted that there are some saving graces to GL/GA. For one, it hadn’t been done before at the time O’Neil did it. It pulled comics out of the Silver Age and into the Bronze Age by raising awareness of things that weren’t in comics before. It made Green Arrow the social conscience of the series, making him a great foil against GL and giving him a distinct role in the DCU. Lastly, Hal Jordan gradually changes and grows over time as he learns from each major lesson.

None of this applies to Superman.

The bereaved widow scene in #700 doesn’t work as an effective call-out of Superman. Her argument makes very little sense, to the point where the other characters are even pointing this out. They also happen to be right– there is no way that Superman can be there for everyone at any given moment. (A point made effectively in the Samaritan stories in Astro City, in fact.) The woman also comes across as fairly selfish. Yes, of course we should feel compassion for her loss, and Superman appropriately is compassionate towards her. At the same time, she seems to act as though Superman is there to come to the aid of every single person at any given moment, and that simply is not realistic even in the context of a world with super-speed and time travel. She seems to be almost pressuring Superman to feel guilty about failing to prevent a death that no one could have foreseen or done anything about. Clark has nothing to feel guilty for, and no reason to believe that he’s lost touch with people simply because of this one woman. Grant Morrison had a better understanding of Superman’s role in his early issues of JLA: the hero’s place is “to catch them when they fall.” I can’t see how this situation really qualifies.

Originality isn’t really a factor here. You could make the case that this is different in the context of the Superman series, but walkabouts aren’t really new anymore. Captain America’s done this several times, as one offhand example. Fabian Nicieza’s run on Nomad did much the same. I can even think of recent examples. Bruce Wayne did his walkabout in 52 prior to Grant Morrison’s run, and Wonder Woman did her own attempt to “reconnect” around the same time. Almost all of these (with the exception of WW) were done better.

Does this add anything to Superman? Not so far, though to be fair, JMS could be building up to something down the road. However, unlike Hal, Clark doesn’t seem to learn anything. If anything, he seems to be the one giving all the lessons. That is, unless he’s showing off with his powers or tackling small personal crises. I also don’t get the sense that we’re learning anything about Clark we haven’t seen previously.

GL/GA was also notable for having raised awareness to important social issues of the day. O’Neil dealt with problems like environmental destruction, drug addiction, racism, and other issues not addressed before in comics. Even the first issue was hard-hitting, however arguable the plot hook was. “Grounded”, on the other hand, doesn’t really show us much that we haven’t seen before. Let’s look at what JMS has so far dealt with. Drug suppliers? He fights those on a regular basis, though usually without setting a neighborhood on fire. Suicide? Done vastly better in All-Star Superman. The rest have been minor chores done here and there, along with one basketball game. Again, it may be that JMS will address this down the line, but so far “Grounded” falls short as a social commentary.

Is JMS capable of delivering strong social commentary? Unequivocally yes. Babylon 5 was not only relevant during the time it was on the air, it was surprisingly prescient in many ways. Dr. Franklin dealt with drug addiction on a personal level and did it effectively. B5 dealt with other issues too: political corruption, terrorism and paranoia, the horrific nature of war, media bias, and much more. What makes it all the more impressive is that all of this was written in the 90′s.

I just want to know one thing. Why isn’t JMS writing social commentary like this today?

Superman: Birthright

I realized that the execution of “Grounded” was the problem after a second reading through Superman: Birthright by Mark Waid and Leinil Yu. Birthright isn’t a perfect series, but it actually attempts to do some of the things that JMS is aiming for. Except that the result works somewhat better.

I want to focus mainly on the first couple of issues of Birthright, because this is where the similarities to “Grounded” become most evident. Waid really attempts to lay on the social commentary early on, and after that settles more into a reinvented origin story. Waid also has Superman do his early traveling period prior to his debut as Superman, which is an intriguing parallel to what’s going on currently.

The upshot of Birthright is that Clark Kent starts off as a young 25-year-old reporter who is traveling the world. The first couple of issues are set in Africa, where Clark is witnessing social change in the midst of tribal warfare. Partly, Clark is establishing worldwide credentials as a reporter, or at least, that’s the story he gives. The real reason is that Clark is trying to discover his place in the world and where he belongs.

This works. Allow me to explain.

At this point in his career, Clark is a young man who is learning about the world. He has valid reasons to be here at this point in time. Moreover, he actually learns about social activism and the price of doing good through his interactions with Kobe, who is a prominent African social leader. Kobe is a credible and likable character, and we see him both teach and learn from the young American journalist who has dropped into his life. In the end, Kobe teaches Clark valuable lessons that he keeps with him after he debuts as Superman.

This is good social commentary. I’ll admit that I know little about African tribal warfare, but it’s not the kind of social awareness I’ve normally run across in a superhero comic. The situation comes across as believable, because we see the personal cost that the Ghani people in the story are suffering from. We see why Kobe wants to fight for social change, and at the end, we see in dramatic fashion how hard it is to be a social crusader. Also, nowhere in this story do we get the sense that Clark feels superior to these people or that he has all the answers. If anything, the point to this story is that Clark, for all his powers, doesn’t have all the answers to the world’s problems, but he has to try to do good anyway.

So what do we learn from this?

Let’s consider “Grounded” for a moment. Looking at the humans that Superman walks among, there’s no sense that he’s dealing with complex human beings with defined personalities. Most of them are stock characters, because none of them are on-panel long enough to take on a life of their own. They show up, Superman solves their problems, and we don’t see them or care about them afterward.

The only arguable exception to this that I’ve seen so far is the case of the young woman who is contemplating suicide. This one needs to be a bit more complex given the subject matter involved, and indeed she’s the most memorable character in the storyline. Even here, Clark learns nothing from the experience; he gives his speech, saves the girl, and life moves on. While this is the best moment that I’ve seen so far, it still doesn’t quite work, either as a social commentary or as a story.

Birthright addresses the same concerns that “Grounded” does in many ways. This becomes clear in Waid’s proposal in the back of the TPB version, where he reimagines Superman as a pro-active champion against an oppressive status quo. However, there is a distinct difference: Waid believes that Superman should be an allegory, while JMS is taking a more literal approach.

All the same, a good social commentary should involve believable people in a difficult situation. The reader needs to relate to the people involved in the social dilemma, or it won’t feel real. These people should also have lessons to offer to the hero, while also accepting the lessons that Superman has to offer. It should be a give/take relationship between the hero and the people that he serves. In this way, the hero and the common man solve their problems together, which is a point that JMS attempts to make at one point in his run. What JMS does, unfortunately, is tell this lesson instead of show it through the characters.

To give credit where it’s due, JMS is right when he says that Superman can’t punch his way out of his problems. When it involves Superman, the problem needs to be large enough that his vast powers can’t solve it in an instant. That said, he also shouldn’t be able to heat-ray his way out of them either, much less give patronizing lectures to the people that don’t have heat vision. This way leads dangerously to straw man territory, and that’s the worst outcome for a story like this.

JMS should know all this. He’s an experienced writer. He’s written social commentary before. That makes it all the more regrettable. He’s a better writer than this, and he’s shown it more than once.

The future, however, may be a brighter place. And hopefully we’ll look there next time.

A Grounded View, Part 1: Whatever Happened To The Man of Tomorrow?

Introduction

Recently, I’ve put a fair amount of thought into Superman. I’ve especially been considering what’s currently going on with the new JMS direction of Superman.

I warn you all now from the start: I have problems with “Grounded”. However, it took me quite a bit of thinking before I could effectively explain why this storyline doesn’t appeal to me.

It isn’t because I have an axe to grind against J. Michael Strazcynski, because I honestly don’t. I consider Babylon 5 to be one of the best SF shows in the 90′s. I’ll strongly defend the work he did there; it hit the core of the human condition, explored a future that was new and wondrous, while at the same time it reflected our own.

His comics work has admittedly been hit-or-miss. I was critical of certain elements of the JMS run on Spider-Man: I wasn’t too fond of Sins Past or the Spider-totem stuff. But really, JMS isn’t all bad, even if he sometimes hits the wrong notes. I liked many of his ideas on ASM: Peter Parker as a teacher, Aunt May’s development as a confidante to her nephew, and so on.  As for his other stuff… well, Strange was a decent mini. I see some promise in his Wonder Woman run, even if I dispute the concept and the costume somewhat. Heck, I’ll even stand up for The Book of Lost Souls. JMS has a strong theoretical grasp of how the craft works, at least based on all the interviews I’ve read from him.

Superman, on the other hand, I don’t think he understands. This is honestly regrettable, because he came closer to getting Superman right when he was writing Captain Sheridan on Babylon 5. So how could the creator of John Sheridan, who is just as much a Midwestern Messiah figure as Superman is, miss the mark here? I’ll explore this question in due course.

What I want to do here is a little different. I want to explore what doesn’t work for me, where others have done it better, and maybe suggest ways it could be done better. I want to establish a constructive dialogue on how to improve the series. This will take a while to explain and address, so bear with me.

The Fault Lines

My initial thought was that the problem with “Grounded” was a conceptual one. At this point, I’m not so certain that it is. I think the problem with JMS’s run is that he’s using the right concept… just on the wrong character and at the wrong point in the character’s life.

To be fair, I see what DC is trying to do here. They want to do a contrasting arc to the huge “New Krypton” event by telling a small-scale story. They may also want to start from the basics, to bring new readers in. So they keep the series fresh by sticking only with the characters and concepts that are universally recognized. I have no problem with any of that.

This leads us to the here and now, where Superman is now walking from town to town trying to “connect with the common man”. Superman has realized he’s out of touch and wants to reconnect. I do have a problem with this basic setup, which is why I originally thought the concept was the problem.

First, let’s look at why this premise bothers me. For one thing, the Superman concept already has an inherent solution to the dilemma. Superman has a secret identity as a mild-mannered reporter, where he interacts with ordinary people. He works as a journalist, where he interacts with ordinary people for a living. He is married to Lois Lane, an ordinary person. He was raised by two ordinary people, Ma and Pa Kent. How can he possibly be disconnected from ordinary people when he gets involved in their lives every single day?

Superman also has powers that allow him to connect with people quite easily. He has super-hearing, and every form of super-vision imaginable. He can see and hear what ordinary people do every day, simply because he’s Superman. In fact, it’s these very powers that often alert Superman to trouble that he must then avert. How, then, is he out of touch?

Need I also add that it wasn’t that long ago that Superman had lost his powers for an entire year? Certainly, Clark can’t have forgotten that easily what it’s like to be human. Not with his enhanced memory that he acquired during the Busiek run (which to my knowledge hasn’t been retconned out). If this story had taken place before 52, it wouldn’t be quite so problematic, but after? It just makes very little sense with current continuity.

To be fair, there’s a certain logic in wanting to bring Superman back in contact with humanity after a long storyline involving aliens, but I think there’s a point that has been missed here. New Krypton reaffirmed Clark’s humanity, not diminished it. Clark saw how truly human he really is, because he didn’t share the values of the Kryptonians. He didn’t become more Kryptonian through contact with his people; he found his humanity. This makes his current direction all the more baffling, because I don’t consider it a natural outgrowth.

The other problem I have with what JMS is doing in “Grounded” is that while it’s unusual, it doesn’t suit the tone of the series in this day and age. Yes, Superman fought social injustice and common everyday problems in the Golden Age. There’s no reason he can’t still address real-world issues. However, the character has evolved considerably in the last several decades. He has shifted into an inspirational hero as much as he is a champion of the downtrodden. JMS is, in essence, upplaying the social aspect of Superman at the expense of the inspirational mythic hero.

I think this approach fundamentally weakens Superman. Mark Waid recently remarked that “You will believe a man can walk”. I’ll admit that I chuckled at that line, but it reveals a fundamental problem with the grounded approach. A Superman who doesn’t fly feels less majestic and mythic, somehow. He feels… lesser. By walking too closely among us, he’s no longer watching above us. The sense of wonder that Superman brings us is gone. JMS wants us to see the man, but at the expense of the super. A good Superman story needs both, and that’s what I feel is missing.

We need to believe that a man like Clark Kent can exist. We also need to believe a man can fly. It’s this balance that Grant Morrison achieved to perfection in All-Star Superman. Alan Moore managed the same thing in “For The Man Who Has Everything” and later on in Whatever Happened To The Man of Tomorrow. For that matter, even Garth Ennis understood that balance when he wrote Superman in his issues of Hitman. Those writers gave me a Superman I could believe in… but with JMS, I’m just not feeling the same grandeur when I look at Superman.

I can respect where DC is coming from, but these are some serious hurdles to overcome. Of course, this direction won’t last forever, because none of them ever do. Still, unless the problems are addressed, this run has a bumpy ride going forward.

That’s not to say there isn’t hope for Superman, of course. And I’ll address all of that in a future installment. Stay tuned.

Blitz: Borrowed Time, Chapter 2

Chapter Two

You want a place with the cool nightlife? Lower Ferris is the place it’s farthest from.

Don’t get me wrong or anything. Centennial’s got much worse places to visit. Lower Ferris isn’t that bad of a district, if you like steel and smog. I’m sure some of the people are cool. I mean, I guess they’re nice enough, if you’re into steel workers and factory types. Totally not my neighborhood, but I’m good with them.

But you want cool atmosphere? Forget about it. Lower Ferris is like this dank erector set of copper pipes, decayed brick, and dirty smokestacks. There’s a lot of clanking metal and pounding in the distance. Total pain on the ears. Think of the worst Dickens novel you can imagine, and then go one worse. It’s like a black fume in the air for miles. So not the place to go if you like having a singing voice.

“So, Sis, off to see the wizard?” I asked Miranda, springing into a soft step beside her. “If the Wizard is into second-hand smoke, anyway.”

Miranda cracked a smile, so I guess I must have said something right. Sis isn’t totally without a sense of humor. Just, y’know, most of the time. I danced briskly alongside her, trying to keep up.

“And you, little Miss Dorothy, should have stayed in Kansas,” Miranda told me. “I still can’t believe I let you talk me into taking you along.”

As if I was gonna stay home. Be real, Sis. Like you’d ever let me into your cool and exciting world on your own. Like you even spend more than five minutes with me anymore. Like there was another way to even be part of your life, cause you don’t have time to make for baby sis. I’m so not as delicate and fragile as I look, `kay? Gimme some credit here!

“And we were gonna do the whole family outing deal when, exactly?” I asked sweetly. “C’mon, Miranda. I just wanna see what you do. I’m not gonna get in trouble, and I’m not gonna get in the way. You’re part of something cool with the whole Spectra case. I wanna be part of it.”

“Damn right you’re not going to get in trouble,” Miranda said flatly, turning to me with a serious glance. “Because the minute I see any, you’re headed home. Amy, this is my job. You have no idea what I’m getting into. I deal with dangerous people. Do you even know what some of them would do to an eighteen-year-old girl? Especially when the girl in question just so happens to be my kid sister?”

“So tell me,” I said, crossing my arms in anticipation. “I’m not a kid anymore.”

“Yes, you are. You just think you’re not. And the question is rhetorical, Amy. You’re not ready to know.”

“What part of eighteen do you not get? I wanna help you, Sis. I think this hero thing of yours is a cool deal. You’re touching the edge of culture, doing something good for people. It’s not like anybody even knows you’re Spectra. You need somebody you can count on. Cause it’s not like you’re big on the trust.”

Putting it mildly. Miranda didn’t trust anybody. I didn’t see what her whole hangup was. She always acted like the world was out to get her or something. It’s like if she cracked a smile, the whole world was gonna end. I didn’t get Miranda’s deal sometimes. It’s not like it hurts to be nice to people once in a while, right?

“That’s why I haven’t said no outright,” Miranda said, with a weary sigh. She reached out and gently brushed a curl of my red hair. “You’re only even here because I want you to see why I think this life is bad for you. Look, sweetie, I think it’s great that you’re trying to grow up. I’m not turning away the help.”

Oh, great. Here comes the “but”, followed by the whole parental lecture. Miranda passed Mom 101 with flying colors. Been there. Done that. Heard it. I braced for impact.

“But you’re rushing into adulthood with all the speed of a bullet train,” Miranda finished, laying a firm hand on my shoulder. “You’re a young woman, Amy. You have your whole life ahead of you.”

“Aha!” I accused, flashing a happy grin. “I’m a young woman. As in, not a girl. See? Right outta the horse’s mouth.”

“Emphasis on young,” Miranda stated firmly. “Look, Amy. What I’m trying to say is, you don’t have to have it all now. You’ve got all the time in the world. Just live your life at your own pace. Your hopes and dreams… they’ll all come to you. You don’t have to force it.”

“Says the career-obsessed workaholic. Miranda, I’m not asking you to throw me straight out in the big bad world, `kay? Can’t I just, I dunno, intern or something? Y’know, work-study, just with spandex.”

Way to spaz out, girl wonder. Like that’d help. The Miranda Mason idea of an internship was locking me in an office or something and file useless paperwork. Lots of lameness and no learning. What good was that?

“I’ll think about it,” Miranda promised. She turned to a nearby factory and then looked back at me. “Okay, this is the place.”

My first thought? Ew, what a dump. In the literal sense.

The factory was this crumbling mass of white brick and towering smokestacks that clawed upward at the air. The roaring of flame and clanging of steel just grated on my ears as we got close. A layer of soot and grime turned the sidewalk around us black. I ask ya, anybody around here ever heard of sanitation? Did City Sanitation visit here, even?

And what is it with these super-tech guys that they always hide out in these beat-up ratholes? It’s so not like we see Bill Gates cooped up in the lab that time forgot. Hello? Not exactly girl-friendly, y’know?

“`Kay,” I said, turning nervously to Miranda. “Uh, Sis? Remind me why we’re here again?”

Not that I needed to know that badly. I just wanted to hear it out of her mouth. Kept my mind off the total ick factor of the place.

“Because the Machinist is the only person I know that can fix the Spectra armor,” Miranda explained, looking to the briefcase in her hand. “I need powers to do this. I couldn’t make a rep as a superhero without them. No powers, no headline. I made a deal with the devil to do good. I need the Machinist to keep Spectra in working order. I’m not proud of it, but if I’m going to cover the heroes, I have to do it up close.”

Please. I knew Miranda too well. She was trying to convince herself. Like she ever needed my approval for anything. My sis was a hero. She’d do the right thing, cause that’s what a hero does. I had no worries.

“So what kinda guy is the Machinist, anyway?” I asked. “And does he breathe through a tube? Cause that air? Not inviting.”

“The Machinist is a black market tech dealer,” Miranda admitted slowly. “There are laws against the sale of potentially dangerous super-science. I’m breaking the rules just in dealing with the Machinist. I don’t want you mixed up in this.”

“So why…”

Miranda looked back at me with a firm glance. Take it from me. You see that look, don’t even bother arguing with her. She’s not ever gonna listen. Just break the other way and run.

“Because what I’m fighting for is more important, Amy. There’s no justice without truth. People have to know what the superhumans in this city are like. They have to know who they can trust, and who they can’t. I’m the only one who can tell the public. Sometimes that means I have to make sacrifices.” Her voice softened into a whisper. “No matter how much I hate it.”

“I get that,” I told her. “I told you, I’m not gonna get in the way of your deal. So, do I get to meet the Machinist?”

“No!” Miranda stopped, took a deep breath, started again. “Look, I don’t think this trip will be dangerous for you. The Machinist usually keeps his mind on business. But I don’t want to take the chance that I might be wrong. So I want you to stay here and wait for me.”

What? You gotta be kidding me! She let me come all this way, and I didn’t even get to see anything? I just shot her a look of disbelief. No way was I gonna let my sister shut me out of her life again.

“I don’t want to hear it, Amy,” she repeated. “If we get any closer, the Machinist will probably see you in his security cameras. I have no trouble getting in. His system is set to identify me by genetic scanners. I can’t guarantee they’ll know you. Just don’t argue with me. Stay here and stay out of trouble. Call me on the cell if you run into trouble.”

I dug into my pocket and pulled out my cell phone. I shoved the phone into Miranda’s face. Like I was a complete moron or something to run into Lower Ferris without a working phone? C’mon already.

“Good,” Miranda nodded, satisfied. “I’ll try to make this up to you later, honey, all right? I’ll tell you what happened over a cup of Starbucks or something. Just stay here. I’ll be out as soon as I can.”

“`Kay,” I grumbled. Like I wanted to hear it right then. I was in a state of grouch. I just slid the phone back into my pocket without a word.

Figures. I watch Sis walk off to meet her appointment with destiny again. Me? I get to wait in some dumb street on Lower Ferris holding the bag. Same ol’ deal. Anybody who believes in equal opportunity never had an annoying older sister.

After Miranda marched her way into the Machinist’s shop, I took a look around the street. Not like I could pout forever or anything. I wasn’t gonna let Sis keep me down. So Miranda told me to stay out. Cool. Didn’t mean I couldn’t take a peek at the junk.

On the other side of the street from the Machinist’s was some kinda junkyard. Not sure what kinda stuff they were junking. Mostly just a bunch of scrap metal and used machinery. Some big crane stretched its neck out in the air. All this steel twisted around the junkyard, beckoned like a pointy finger. Kinda looked cool, in the whole zombie movie vibe. If nothing else, it’d be a neat place to do a music video.

So, what the hey. I headed toward the junkyard with a bounce in my step. Gotta be better than waiting for my sis and pouting.

As if I knew this was gonna be my last day in my life as a normal girl.