blown to atoms or reshaped at will - recent books about comics

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"Blown to Atoms or Reshaped at Will": Recent Books about ComicsMatters of Gravity: Special Effects and Supermen in the 20th Century by Scott Bukatman;How to Read Superhero Comics and Why by Geoff Klock; The Language of Comics: Word andImage by Robin Varnum; Christina T. Gibbons; Comic Book Nation: The Transformation ofYouth Culture in America by Bradford W. WrightReview by: Stephen BurtCollege Literature, Vol. 32, No. 1 (Winter, 2005), pp. 166-176Published by: College Literature

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"Blown

oAtoms

or

Reshaped

t

Will":

Recent

BooksAboutComics

Stephen Burt

Stephen

Burt

teaches

at

Macalester College. He is the

author

of

Randall

Jarrell

and

His

Age

and

Popular

Music.

Bukatman,

Scott.

2003. Matters

of

Gravity:

Special Effects

and

Supermen

in

the 20th

Century.

Durham:

Duke

University

Press.

$21.95

sc.

xvi

+

279

pp.

Klock,

Geoff

2002. How

to

Read

Superhero

Comics and

Why.

New

York:

Continuum.

$19.95

sc.

204

pp.

Varnum,

Robin

and

Christina

T.

Gibbons,

eds. 2001. The

Language

of

Comics: Word and

Image.

Jackson: University

Press

of

Mississippi.

$12.55

sc.

xix

+

222

pp.

Wright,

Bradford

W 2001. Comic Book

Nation: The

Transformation of

Youth Culture

in

America.

Baltimore:

Johns Hopkins

University.

$34.95

he.

xix

+

336

pp.

Critics

who

cover

established

literary

forms

have

spent

much of

the

last

twen

ty

years

in

flight

from

formalist

and

eval

This content downloaded from 196.21.233.64 on Fri, 12 Sep 2014 06:01:04 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions







Stephen

Burt

167

uative

analyses;

Comics critics

have

spent

much ofthose

years

developing just

such

analyses

for their

medium.

Mike

Catron

and

Gary

Groth co-founded

The Comics

Journal

in

1976

to

"cover

the

comics

medium from

an

arts-first

perspective"

(the

cantankerous Groth remains its

editor);

the

long-revered

comics writer

and

artist

Will

Eisner

opened

the field

to

book-length

criti

cism with

his

Comics &

Sequential

Art

(1985).

Scott

McCloud

s

Understanding

Comics

(1993)

described itself

as

"a

comic

book about

comics,"

"an examina

tion

of the

art-form";

McCloud advanced

hypotheses

about "how

. . .

we

define

comics,

what

are

the basic

elements of

comics,"

and

"how

time

flows

through

comics,"

among

other

topics

(vii).

Because

McCloud

cast

his work

in

comics

form,

his claims could

often

provide

their

own

illustrations.

"To

define comics," McCloud explained, "we must first do a little aesthetic sur

gery

and

separate

form

from

content"

(5). (The

panel

showed

him

lifting

a

gleaming

axe.)

McCloud

sought

to

see

the

medium

as a

medium,

rather than

as a

genre

or a

set

of

already-extant

examples:

he tried

to

describe

not

just

its

past

but

its

potential

and

to

establish

a

flexible

language

for future

criticism,

and he

succeeded.

(His

more

recent

work

involves

comics

on

the

Worldwide

Web.)

After

McCloud,

comics criticism

found itself with three

available

paths.

One

path

led

deeper

into

form,

examining

comics

less

as a

literary

or

narrative

mode than

as a

mode

of visual

art.

Another

path

eschewed

aesthetic evalua

tion and

downplayed

formal

analysis, looking

at

comics

as

part

of

United

States

(or

Japanese

or

Mexican)

history,

and

looking

not at

a

few

best

(or

most

innovative)

comics but

at

what

most

consumers

actually

read.

A

third

path

focused

on

genre,

performing

not

art-historical

but

literary

interpreta

tions focused

on

characters and narrative.

The first three

of

these four informative books

demonstrate,

respective

ly,

those three

approaches.Varnum

and

Gibbons

s

anthology

of

essays

consid

ers comics artists' formal accomplishments (sometimes within heavy theoret

ical

frames),

from

nineteenth-century

French

magazine

strips

to

contempo

rary

United

States

graphic

novels.

(Superheroes

are

pointedly

not

represent

ed,

perhaps

because

their commercial dominance

in

English-speaking

coun

tries

can

obscure the

range

of

styles

and ideas other

genres

contain.)

Wright

chronicles

only

United

States

comics

and

only

commercially

dominant

gen

res?superheroes,

mostly,

but also

the

crime,

detective

and

romance

comics

popular

from

the

late 1940s

through

1954;

he

reads them

all

as

clues

to

his

tory

and reads

them

well. Of

the

three,

Klock

covers

the

narrowest

range,

with

the

greatest

originality. Examining

superhero

titles from

the

past

two

decades,

Klock

tries

to

show how

literary

ambitions

can

operate

in,

and

on,

superhero

comics

as a

genre.

Each of

these three

approaches

bears

attractive

results:

Klock's should stimulate

(or

provoke)

much

more.

Each, however,









168

College

Literature

2.1

[Winter

005]

seems

on

its

own

insufficient

to a

medium

defined

by

its

combination

of

sto

ries and

pictures,

typified

by

certain

characters,

and

most

visible

(in

the

United States

at

least)

through

some

of

its

least

sophisticated

examples.

Bukatman devotes

just

a

couple

of

chapters

to comics. Yet those

chapters

make

for

ideal

models?they

acknowledge

both the

exceptional

and

the

typ

ical,

exploring

both

writers'

choices

and

commercial

or

cultural

meanings,

without

neglecting

comics

form.

The

University

Press

of

Mississippi

has taken the lead

for

years

in

pub

lishing

comics

scholarship generally;

Varnum

and

Gibbons'

The

Language

of

Comics

represents

its

most

ambitious,

and

least

unified,

offering.

Most

of

its

essays

apply,

extend,

or

claim

to

quarrel

with

McCloud's

formal

ideas;

some

combine those ideas with comics history. Formalist critics sometimes take a

special

interest

in

wordless

comics;

David Kunzle

appreciates

Adolph

Willette's

early

wordless

strip

Chat

Noir

(1884-1885),

with

its

"symbolist

world,"

while David Beron?

analyzes

four wordless

graphic

novels

(2001,10).

Gene

Kannenberg expertly explores

the

many

"visual elements"

in

the work

of Chris

Ware,

from

panel-to-panel

transitions

to

"text

design

on

the

level of

the

book-object"

(176).

Frank

Cioffi's

chapter

on

modern

graphic

novels

does

particularly

well

in

reading

Ben

Katchor,

whose

gloomy cityscapes

both

show

"the

illusory

nature

of

any

world

in which

images

and

words

match

up

exactly"

and

suggest

"that

everyone

carries

within them

a

great

and

silent

. . .

tragedy"

(108-09).

One

strength

ofVarnum

and Gibbons

s

volume

lies

in

the

diversity

of its

contributors'

fields;

these

include

art

history,

the

history

of

journalism,

rhet

oric

and

communications,

and

a

kind of visual

theory

which

appears

to

exist

only

on

the

Continent,

where

(Jan

Baetens tells

us)

"comics

theory

is

often

much

more

abstract"

(2001,

147).

Objects

of

attention

span

just

as

wide

a

range:

they

include

comic

strips,

comic

books,

graphic

novels,

animated

car

toons, and even the New Yorker gag strip, the subject of Robert C. Harvey's

detailed

history.

Denying

that wordless

comics

present

the medium's ideal

typical examples,

Harvey

shows

us

how

"in

the best

examples

of the

art

form,

words

and

pictures

blend

to

achieve

a

meaning

that neither

conveys

alone"

(76-77).

Some

essays

use

much

space

stating

the

obvious:"Graphic

represen

tation is

a

socialized

act

involving

many

codes

and

constraints"

(Baetens);

"by

being

drawn

a

certain

way,

the

text

is

laden

with

symbolic

meaning"

(Catherine

Khordoc)

(152, 165).The

editors

might

have used

a

far

stronger

hand,

or

a

more

vigorous

red

pencil. (They might

also

have

sought

an

essay

on

comics

from

Japan:

Sharon

Kinsella's Adult

Manga

(2000)

appears

to

be

the first

English-language

academic

book about that

enormous

body

of

nar

rative

work.)

Varnum

and

Gibbons's volume

certainly

does

not

present

an

overall

advance

on

McCloud's

theories,

but there

are

few

reasons

now to









Stephen

Burt

169

think

one

is

needed:

more

valuable

are

thoughtful

appreciations

(most

notably Kannenberg's)

of

particular

works and

careers.

The

Language

of

Comics

arrives

at

a

time

when

many

readers

already

know that comics, as a medium, can

produce

very

complicated

art:Ware's

graphic

novel

Jimmy

Corrigan (2000)

won

Britain's Guardian

prize

for first

book

of

the

year,

and Art

Spiegelman's

Pulitzer

Prize-winning

MAUS

(1986)

appears

regularly

on

college syllabi.

A

later Pulitzer

winner,

Michael

Chabon's novel The

Amazing

Adventures

of

Kavalier

and

Clay

(2000),

drew

much of

its

plot

from the

early

days

of the

United

States comic

book indus

try.

The

Comics

Journal,

and those

who follow its

lead,

takes

pains

to

differen

tiate

superhero

comics

from

comics

in

general,

and

from

the

particular,

more

sophisticated comics they admire. Superheroes have, however, had academic

defenders.

Richard

Reynolds's Superheroes

(1992)

appreciated

the

genre

in

Jungian

terms;

Will Brooker's

Batman Unmasked

(2000)

offered

a

cultural

studies

approach

to

Bruce

Wayne

on

page

and

screen.

William

Savage's

Comic

Books and

America 1946-1954

(1990)

used

popular

serials

to

show

how

young

people

viewed?or

were

encouraged

to

view?the

early

Cold

War.

Both

Wright

and

Klock follow earlier

critics'

leads.

Wright expands

and

extends

Savage's

historical

approach;

Klock

(following,

and

improving

on,

Reynolds)

argues

that

some

superhero

comics reward

specifically

literary

readings,

focusing

on

individual

texts,

and

deploying

intellectual

tools

developed

for

use on

poems.

Both

Wright

and Klock

provide?as

their

arguments

require?some

knowledge

of United

States

comic

books'

history.

That

history begins

with

a

"Golden

Age"

of

simple popular

stories,

inaugurated

by Superman

in

1939.

(Comic

strips

such

as

"Krazy

Kat"

or

"Doonesbury"?as

distinguished

from

comic

books?have

a

distinct

and

a

longer history,

which

several

of

Varnum

and Gibbons'

contributors

sketch.)

World

War

II

led

to

a

comic

book

boom,

followed by a decline. Publishers made up for superheroes' sales collapse with

crime,

horror,

and

romance

titles,

aimed

at

slightly

older

readers,

until the

mid-1950s

Comics Code

(analogous

to

Hollywood's

Code,

but

far

stricter)

made

most

of those

genres

untenable.

During

the

early

1960s

Marvel Comics

under

Stan

Lee,

Jack Kirby

and

Steve

Ditko

began

a

"Silver

Age"

of

heroes

with

emotions

and

private

lives,

most

of all

Lee

and

Ditko

s

teenage

Spider

Man.

Marvel also created

a

shared

"universe":

events

in

one

superhero's

life

affected others'

(requiring

one

hero's fans

to

buy

other

heroes'

titles).

Marvel's

fan base extended

to

college students,

who

helped

create

by

the

late

1960s

the

first

comics

"fan culture"

with

newsletters and conventions.

The

same

years

saw

the

rise of

alternative

"comix,"

taboo-breaking

titles

aimed

at

(and

produced

within)

the

new

counterculture,

by

such artists

as

Robert

Crumb.

Those

titles would

eventually inspire

an

international

network of

small-press









170

College

iterature

2.1

Winter

005]

and creator-owned

comics,

which

thrives

to

this

day,

and

from

which

Spiegelman

and

Ware

emerged.

After

1969,

attempts

at

social

relevance

failed

to stem

mainstream

comics'

declining

readership;

financial

help

came in the

early

1980s with

licensing

money

from

TV

and

movies and

then with the

teenage

mutants,

intricate

plots

and

strong

young

women

of Marvel's

X-Men. As

drugstores

and

newsstands

cut

back

on

their

comics

shelf

space,

specialty

stores

began

to

take their

place;

these

stores

suited

more

devoted

(and

somewhat

older)

read

ers,

who

responded

not

only

to

X-Men

but

to

the

more

complicated

and

pes

simistic

creations

of Frank

Miller,

Neil

Gaiman,

Howard

Chaykin

and Alan

Moore.

Incorporating

science

fiction

and

film

noir

elements,

Miller's

Batman:

The Dark Knight Returns (1986) is probably the first superhero comic that

consistently

rewards

the

methods

of

reading

associated

with

literary

mod

ernism;

imitators

copied

its

grim

violence,

often

without its

psychological

sophistication.

Even

more

complex

(and

with

a

much

larger

cast)

Moore's

Watchmen

(1986)

is

widely

regarded

as

the best

superhero

comic

so

far:

it

also

positions

itself

as

the

last,

pursuing

the

most

disturbing

implications

of

the

"power

fantasies"

(McCloud's

term)

on

which

the

genre

depends.

A

boom,

and

then

bust,

in

collectible

comics

during

the

early

1990s

left Marvel

strug

gling

until

movies

revived

its

finances; meanwhile,

smaller

companies

and

creators

gained

increasing

attention,

and

sometimes

sales,

via

autobiography

(Harvey

Pekar's

American

Splendor),

science

fiction

(Carla

McNeill's

Filnder),

reportage

(Joe

Saceos

Palestine)

or

realistic

tales of

teen

woe

(Adrian

Tomine,

Dan

Clowes).

As

"one of the first entertainment

products

marketed

directly

to

children

and

adolescents,"

Bradford

Wright

declares,

mainstream

comic

books

can

say

a

lot about how

youth

in

the United States

saw

their

culture

and themselves

(2001, xvi).

His

methods

are

those of

previous

historians

who

have focused

on popular texts: he makes no aesthetic claim for (nor against) them, taking

texts

instead

as

symptomatic

or

diagnostic.

Often

Wright

simply

gives,

in reli

able

detail,

the

consensus

history

of the comics

industry

(Superman,

Golden

Age,

slump;

Silver

Age,

older

readers;

X-Men, boom,

bust).

Yet

his research

makes

for

some

surprising readings.

Early

superheroes (Superman

included)

"repeatedly

sounded the

warning

that business

dealings

free of

public

scruti

ny

and

government

regulation

.

. .

led

to

. . .

crime"

(24).

"By pointing

out

the

failings

of

local

government

and

the

dangers

of

provincial

demagogues,"

Wright argues,

"these

comics

books

.

.

.

tacitly

stressed

a

common

interest

between

public

welfare and

a

strong

federal

government"; "superheroes

assumed

the role of

super-New

Dealers"

(24).

Most comics

creators

(and

companies)

worked

in

New

York,

and

many

were

Jewish; superhero

comics

flaunted

anti-Nazi themes

even

before

Pearl Harbor.

(Chabon

describes

these









Stephen

Burt

171

works

in

great

detail.)

During

the

war,Wright

confirms,

superheroes

pursued

patriotic

fights

on

all

fronts,

while

"paternalistic, imperialist

and racist"

"jun

gle"

comics

showed

savages

in

need of

Anglo-American

rule

(42).

After the war,

Wright

notes, "adolescents constituted an

emerging

con

sumer

group

with

tastes

that

ran

more

to

the

adult,"

and

publishers

served

them

with the

new

genres?romance,

horror,

war

("adventures

of

regular

American

servicemen"),

and

especially

true

crime

(2001,58,114).

Romance

comics

"encouraged

women

to

marry

young

and

grow

up

quickly

from

schoolgirl

to

housewife"

(132).

Neither

the

A-Bomb

nor

the Korean

War

lent

themselves

to

simple patriotic

themes

(publishers

tried

them,

but read

ers

stayed

away);

superhero

comics

championed

containment

abroad

and

tol

erance at

home. William Gaines'

EC

comics

offered

both

the

most

ambitious

stories,

(depicting,

Wright

says,

evil "without

.

. .

resolution"

and

attacking

"established

authority")

and the

most

grisly, shocking

images:

a

moral

panic

ensued,

led

by

the

otherwise

liberal

psychiatrist

Fredric

Wertham. Senate

hearings

in

1954 vilified

Gaines,

destroyed

the EC line

(and

crime

and hor

ror

comics

generally),

and

led

to

the

"extremely

restrictive"

Comics

Code,

the

industry's

effort

at

self-censorship:

"Never

again

would the

comic

book

industry

enjoy

the

. . .

mass

circulation

and

readership

that

it

had"

(179).

Wright

sees

Silver

Age

comics

partly

as

a

response

to

changing

youth

culture,

in

which adults

gave

more

credit

to

"teenage

rebellion,"

and

partly

through

the lens

of

his

own

interest in

politics

(2001, 200).

Creators

initial

ly

supported

the

Vietnam War

and then turned

against

it,

as

their readers did:

Marvel's Iron

Man,

once an

ardent

anti-Communist,

"underwent

a

dramatic

political

conversion

after

1968"

(241).

Despite

their

own

tendency

to

solve

problems

with

punches,

"superheroes

. . .

endorsed liberal

solutions

to

social

problems

while

rejecting

the

extreme

and violent

responses

of

both the left

and the

right"

(235).

Some

creators

showed

more

interest in

social

issues

than

young readers did (or perhaps could): Neal Adams' and Denny O'Neill's

Green Lantern/ Green Arrow

(1970-71)

tackled

"racism,

poverty,

political

cor

ruption,"

"pollution, overpopulation

and

religious

cults" with

didactic

vigor,

and "mainstream media"

celebrated,

but

the title sold

poorly

(227).

Once

tacit

New

Dealers,

caped

heroes

now

arguably

represented

the

Great

Society,

and

ran

into

trouble

as

it

did:

after

Watergate,

Captain

America for

a

time

"dropped

his

patriotic

name

and called

himself'Nomad,

the

man

without

a

country'"

(245).

Wright stops

almost

exactly

where Klock

begins,

with Miller

and

Moore's

Reagan-era

disillusion,

and the boom and bust that followed. After

Watchmen

and Dark

Knight, superhero

comics had

ambitious,

and

clearly

self

conscious,

precedents

in

their

own

genre,

to

which

later

creators

might

(mar

kets

permitting)

respond.

Klock

examines,

and

appreciates,

those

responses

in









172

College

Literature2.1

[Winter005]

a

vocabulary

drawn

from

Harold Bloom's

1970s

poetry

criticism,

with its val

orization of

"misreading,"

its

struggles

for

poetic "priority,"

and its revision

ary

ratios.

"Superhero

comics,"

Klock

suggests,

"are

an

especially

good

place

to witness the structure of

misprision,"

being

"serial narrative

[s]

...

running

for

more

than

sixty years"

(2002, 13).

Like

literary

history

generally,

but

unlike

individual novels

and

poems,

"comic

books

are

open-ended

and

can

never

be

definitively

completed";

even

the

strongest

writer

assigned

to

Batman "cannot

come to

the

character

fresh"

(27,

28).

Each

new

creative

team

on

Batman?or

on a

book

or

hero

indebted

to

Batman?must

create

its

own

Batman-figure,

at

once

unlike

and

compatible

with

readers'

sense

of

the

already-extant

hero;

the

"strongest"

creators'

version

of

Batman "is

retroactively constituted" by fans "as always already true" (31). (In the same

sense,

according

to

Bloom,

Wallace

Stevens

s

reading

of

John

Keats,

or

John

Ashbery's

reading

of

Wallace

Stevens,

become

our

Keats

and

our

Stevens

in

proportion

as

Stevens

and

Ashbery

subject

us

to

their

respective

strong

visions.)

Klock

sees

in Dark

Knight

and

Watchmen

"the

birth

of

self-consciousness

in

the

superhero

narrative,"

when

"tradition becomes

anxiety"

and "the

superhero

narrative

becomes

literature"

(2002, 3).

Because

superheroes

very

literally

struggle

over

who has

more

power,

and because their

writers

inher

it

not

only

ideas

but

characters

in

a

shared

"universe,"

superheroes

and

the

comics

which

feature

them

not

only

exemplify

Bloomian

literary

relations

(as

any

literary

genre

might)

but

also

show

a

unique

capacity

to

allegorize

those

relations,

depicting

them

through struggles

within their

stories.

"Revisionary"

comics

become

literary

when

they

take

self-conscious advan

tage

of

this

always-available

allegory:

their

choices about

character and

nar

rative

are

always

also

readings

of the

medium

(comics),

genre

(superhero

comics),

predecessors,

and

characters

involved.

Even readers who cannot

accept

self-consciousness and

"power"

as the

defining

features

of

"the

literary"

will

benefit from

Klock's

demonstration

that

superhero

comics reward

such

a

reading.

(So,

by

the

way,

do

the

tales

of

premodern

heroes that

have

been told and

retold?King

Arthur,

King

David.)

That

reading,

in

turn,

provides

context

and

impetus

for

Klock's

other

observations

about the

genre's

conventions,

which

gifted

writers

can

high

light

or

break.

"Large-scale

social

changes,"

for

example,

"are

a

supervillain

signature":

revisionary

narratives

therefore

ask

what

would

happen

if

super

heroes tried

to

govern the

world

(2002,39).Where "earlier superheroes

were

an

ethical

power

fantasy

that concealed

[readers']

fear

of

powerlessness,"

Miller's

Batman,

Moore's

Watchmen,

and

Warren

Ellis' later

superheroes

dis

cover

"no

stable

point

from

which

to

pass

judgment,

no

standard

other

than

the

strength

of

the vision"

by

which

a

hero

(or

author)

can

know

what

to

do









Stephen

Burt

173

(138,

49).

Grant

Morrison

takes

this conundrum

even

farther,

as

his heroes

reject

"traditional moral constraints"

altogether

in

favor of "the

'enjoyment

of

power'";

citing

Slavoj

Zizek,

Klock

suggests

that

Morrison's The

Authority

(2002)

"exposes

unconstrained

enjoyment

to conceal the true horror that

unconstrained

enjoyment

exists nowhere"

(138-39).

Klock

might

have

made

clearer

his

use

of the

fraught

word

"power,"

which

can

mean

superheroes'

super-powers;

social

and

political

power; power

in

the

sense

of

emotional

force;

and

aesthetic

or

creative

power.

Which rela

tions

among

these

many

senses

of

"power"

does Klock take

as

metaphorical,

which

as

causal,

and

which

as

relations

of

identity?

Like Bloom

(and

like

Clement

Greenberg)

Klock

propounds

criteria

at

once

definitional

(what

superhero comics essentially or basically are) and evaluative (the best ones

fulfill

these criteria

most

fully,

or

engage

them

most

deeply). Just

as

Bloom's

methods of

reading

prove

more

appropriate

to

Stevens than

to

Alexander

Pope,

Klock's

methods

prove

more

appropriate

to

some

comics than

to

oth

ers.

Klock,

and

Bloom,

favor

obviously

ambitious, self-conscious,

"dark"

or

"tragic"

works

with both

religious

and

Freudian

overtones,

concerned

both

with the

history

of

their

genre

and with

the

exercise

of

great

(nearly

unlim

ited)

"powers."

Trying

to

fit

Kurt

Busiek's

"more

playful"

Astro

City

(1995

present)

into

his

superhero

canon,

Klock

concentrates

on

its

intertextual

efforts,

scanting

Busiek's

attempts

at

psychological

realism and his

interest in

urban

history

(2002,

91).

He writes

provocatively,

on

the other

hand,

about

Moore's Tom

Strong,

which for

Klock

"remind[s]

even

the

most

skeptical

and

intelligent

reader

[of

superhero

comics]

how

primed

she is

for

fascist

propa

ganda"

(107).

Klock

depends

(as

he

acknowledges)

both

on

well-known

academic the

orists

and

on

the

enormous

body

of

nonacademic

criticism

by

fans

(some

of

it

increasingly

on

the

Web).

His

focus

on

how comics

depict

their

own

his

tory may seem partial, or excessive. As Douglas W?lk has also noted, con

temporary

mainstream

comics,

with their

shared

"universes"

and

overlapping

plots,

posit

a

"superreader"

who

has been

purchasing

many

titles for

years;

Klock's

"macro-reading"

assumes

such readers

as

well

(his

detailed

bibliogra

phy

may

help

create

more

of

them) (2002,

125).

One of

his favorite

recent

achievements involves

a

multi-company

crossover,

a

"story

that

can never

be

retold"

(hence

"cannot be

brought

into

the

symbolic order")

for

"reasons

of

copyright"

(150-151).

Such

a

story

may

well

be

original

in

its

particular

recuperation

of

extradiegetic

elements for artistic

purposes;

it

may

even

bear

the

Lacanian

freight

Klock

gives

it.

And

yet

that

accomplishment

seems

unlikely

to

win

superheroes

new

friends.

We

can,

moreover,

find

self-con

scious,

"revisionary"

comics,

whose

strong

stories double

as

arguments

about

comics'

history,

among

independent

comics

far from Klock's

chosen realm.









174

College

Literature2.1

[Winter005]

Dylan

Horrocks's Hicksville

(1998)

imagines

a

New

Zealand

village

where

comics have

a

power,

and

an

anticommercial

purity,

the

rest

of the world

can

not

know: it

makes

a

superb

centerpiece,

or

culmination,

for

any

college

course about comics as a

literary

art.

Nor

is

Klock's

take

on

superhero

comics

the

only

one

from which

an

interpreter might begin.

United

States

"comic books thrived"

in

the twenti

eth

century,

according

to

Wright,

"as

a

uniquely

exaggerated

.

.

.

expression

of

adolescent sensibilities"

(2001,284).

In

looking

at

superheroes'

power

fan

tasies

as a

series of

meditations about

literary

(and

sometimes

political)

power,

Klock

largely

ignores superhero

comics'

relation

to

adolescence:

his

objects

of close

analysis,

from

Moore

to

Ellis,

largely

ignore

it

too.

A

similar

book in an alternate universe?comics readers might call itKlock-2?could

see

adolescence

as

central

to

the

genre.

Klock-2 would look

at

superhero

comics

as

culturally revealing

(from

the

outset),

increasingly sophisticated

(at

their

best)

explorations

of the

risks and rewards of

adolescence,

of

the

pow

ers

young

people

assume,

and

the

dangers

they

face,

as

they

become adults.

Klock-2 could include

chapters

on

Spider-Man,

on

the

X-Men and

their

imitators,

and

on

McCloud's

own

Zotl

(1985-2001).

Such

a

book

might

begin

with the Golden

Age Captain

Marvel,

whose

secret

identity

was a

boy

himself,

and

whose

lighthearted exploits

made

him

seem,

Wright

says,

"like

a

bumbling

overgrown

child"

(19).Where

Klock ends

by discussing

the film

Unbreakable?which

sees

comics

history

very

much

as

he does?Klock-2

might

end

on

Chabon's

novel,

or

with the

TV

show

Buffy

the

Vampire Slayer,

already

the

subject

of

an enormous

academic literature

(see

the

bibliography

at

www.slayage.tv).

Buffy

s

creator

Joss

Whedon

has

scripted

comics

himself,

and

his

characters'

dialogue

invokes them: when

one

character

turns

evil,

another

says

she has

"gone

all

Dark

Phoenix."

Scott

Bukatman's

Matters

of

Gravity

is

not

Klock-2,

nor

does it

try

to

be?and yet it hints at what Klock-2 might do. Matters collects essays about

"bodies that

morph,

that

sing,

that

fly,"

in

movies, comics,

novels,

music

videos,

and theme

parks;

these

bodies' unusual

powers,

Bukatman

contends,

"literalize

. . .

the

American

mythology

of

remaking

the self"

(2003,

7).

He

finds

such

bodies

not

only

in

superhero

comics

but

in

Disneyworld,

in

type

writers,

in "the

cosmic

effects

of science

fiction

cinema,"

in

a

Michael

Jackson

video,

and

in

movie

musicals about

New

York.

These

chapters

show

the

strengths

and

weakness of

a

writer

whose "home

disciplines"

are

film

studies, theory (Jameson, Baudrillard)

and visual culture

(Jonathan Crary,

Susan

Buck-Morss);

the

models

can

overwhelm

the

material,

as

anxiously

abstract,

hyperprofessional

prose

alternates with

its

hypercolloquial

opposite:

"The

sublime

came to

prominence

in

response

to

the

increasing

secular

rationalization

of

modern

life

and

was

later

co-opted

as

a

mode

of

accom









Stephen

Burt

175

modation

to

the

power

of industrial

technology

....

But

there's

something

else

going

on"

(106).

Bukatman's

two

chapters

focused

on

comics

stay

clos

er

to

their

subjects;

they

include

some

of the best academic

work

so

far

on

superheroes,

even on

narrative comics

generally.

Those

chapters

sketch

separate arguments.

The first

(written

in

1994)

compares

the

hypermasculine,

combat-happy

superheroes

of the

company

Image

Comics

(then

enjoying

a

boom)

with the

X-Men

(in

their

pre-movie

heyday). "Superhero

comics,"

this

chapter

contends,

"embody

social

anxiety,

especially regarding

the

adolescent

body

and

its

status

within

adult

culture"

(2003, 49).

In

superhero

comics

bodies

can

be

"enlarged

and

diminished,

turned

invisible

or

made

of

stone,

blown

to atoms

or

reshaped

at

will";

their

changeability might represent both the physical changes of puberty and the

larger

uncertainties faced

by

adolescents,

whose

status

and futures

are

by

def

inition

unfixed.

Even

by

contrast

with

previous

superheroes,

Bukatman

argues,

the

Image

supermen?and

superwomen?"simply

incarnate

. . .

painfully

reductive

definitions

of

masculine

power,"

as

if

to

assuage

those

uncertainties

(51).

Image

artists

"turn

each

page

into

a

stiffly

posed pinup"

reminiscent of

bodybuilding magazines

and

of

the

German

soldiers'

memoirs

studied

by

Klaus

Theleweit

(59).

By

contrast,

the

X-Men

work

against

those

reductive

definitions;

endangered

because

of their

genetic

inheritance,

driv

en

to

work

together

for

self-protection,

and

constantly

embroiled

in

romance

subplots,

these "Most Unusual

Teen-Agers

of All

Time "

(as

an

early

issue

billed

them)

are

not

just

a

"battle

unit"

but

"an

idealized,

alternative

society

...

in

which all

members,

and therefore

no

members,

are

outcasts"

(69,

73).

Bukatman's

concluding

chapter?more

recent

(2000),

more

detailed,

and

more

confident?reads

superheroes

not

as

adolescents but

as

urbanit?s,

who

"encapsulated

and embodied the

same

Utopian

aspirations

of

modernity

as

the cities

themselves"

(2003, 185).

Superman,

both

"immigrant

Kryptonian

orphan

and rural American," becomes "a

skyscraper,"

"a monument," a

"per

fect citizen"

(197-198);

his nemesis

Lex

Luthor recalls

Robert

Moses,"a

cor

porate

city

planner

discontented

with this

unpredictable

individualist

sailing

through

his skies"

(202).

Batman's

Gotham

City,

of

course,

derives

its

gloomi

er

New

York from "the urban detective

story,"

with

its

"hidden

spaces,

cor

ners,

traps"

(203).

Spider-Man

(as

his

creators

certainly

intended)

becomes

a

representative

New

Yorker,

neither

flying

nor

driving,

but

crawling

and

swinging, climbing

up

walls,

"making

his

own

path

across

the

spaces

con

trolled

by

others"

(207).

Not

only

these

comics'

milieus

but their

visual ele

ments?panels

sometimes

compressed

and

rectilinear,

sometimes

opening

on

the

unexpected

freedom

of

a

full-page

spread?invoke

the

topography

of the

modern

city,

"founded

on

the

relationship

between

grids

and

grace"

(187).

Bukatman

concludes with

a

flurry

of additional

claims,

none

pursued

at









176

College

iterature2.1

Winter

005]

length,

each

plausible

enough

for

an

essay,

or even

a

book,

on

its

own.

"Superheroes

are

acrobats,"

their

powers

and

costumes

derived from

"circus

performers"

(215).

"Superheroes

are

all about

multiple

identities and

so

embody

the

slippery

sense

of

self

that

living

in

the

city

either

imposes

or

per

mits"

(211)."Superheroes

don't

wear

costumes

...

to

fight

crime;

they fight

crime in

order

to

wear

the costumes"

(216). (Some

of

the

heroes in

Watchmen

admit

just

that.)

The Comics

fournal

crowd

is

surely

right

to

insist

that

1960s

comix,

strip

comics,

and

graphic

novels

can

be

analyzed

and

appreciated

without refer

ence to

Spider-Man

and his like:

a

medium

is

not

a

genre.

At

the

same

time,

it

might

be worth

asking

(Bukatman

could

help)

why

many

graphic-novel

authors and

artists

acknowledge

the

superheroes

they

refuse

to

create:

see,

for

example,

the masks in Clowes' Ghost World, or the

pathetic

Superman

cos

tumes

and

deluded would-be

heroes

in

Ware.

Bukatman

seems aware

that

his

essays

call

for

more,

and

more

detailed,

criticism

than

we

can soon

expect:

"The

challenge

in

writing

about comic

books,"

he

concludes,

"lies

in both

the dearth

of

scholarship

and

the

inaccessibility

of

the

actual

objects"

(2003,

219).

The first

of

these

problems

is

a

challenge

for

critics,

though

(as

Klock

argues

and

Bukatman

notes),

such

writers

as

Horrocks,

Morrison

and Moore

build

criticism,

even

scholarship,

into their

imaginative

creations.The second

problem?where does

one

get the books??dogs

most

critics who write

on

contemporary

work,

or on

the

"popular

culture"

of the

past;

it

requires

insti

tutional

solutions.

Michigan

State

University

holds

a

comprehensive

comics

collection

already

(described,

with links

to

other

archives,

at

http://vvrww.lib.rnsu.edu/coll/niain/spec_col/nye/cornic/index.htni):

other

universities

and archives

(among

them

Brown,

Indiana,

Iowa

State,

and

the

National

Library

of

Australia)

have

happily

begun

to

follow

that

lead.

Works

Cited

Chabon,

Michael. 2000. The

Amazing

Adventures

of

Kavalier &

Clay.

New York:

Random House.

Clowes,

Dan. 2001. Ghost

World.

New

York:

Fantagraphics.

Eisner,Will.

1985.

Comics

and

Sequentialyir?.Tamarac,

Fla.: Poorhouse.

Horrocks,

Dylan.

2001.

Hicksville. Montreal:

Drawn

&

Quarterly.

Kinsella,

Sharon.

2000. Adult

Manga.

Manoa:

University

of Hawai'i

Press.

McCloud,

Scott.

1993.

Understanding

Comics.

New

York: Kitchen Sink/

HarperCollins.

Miller,

Frank. 1986. Batman:The

Dark

Knight

Returns.

New

York: DC Comics.

Moore,

Alan,

and

Dave

Gibbons. 1987. Watchmen.

New

York:

DC

Comics.

Reynolds,

Richard. 1992.

Superheroes:

A

Modern

Mythology.

London:

Batsford,

Savage,

William.

1990. Comic

Books and

America

?946-1954. Norman:

University

of

Oklahoma

Press.

Spiegelman,

Art. 1986. MAUS:

A Survivor's

Tale.

New York:

Pantheon,

1993.

Ware,

Chris.

2000.

fimmy

Corrigan:The

Smartest Kid

on

Earth.

New

York:

Pantheon.

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