Mindless Ones

AN EVENING OF FUN IN THE METROPOLIS OF YOUR DREAM

Ninjas, ninjas, who wants ninjas? I got ninjas mate, ninjas coming out the wazzoo. Ninjas here, ninjas there, farkin’ ninjas everywhere mate. Sick o’ bleedin’ ninjas I am, tryin’ to offload the LOT of ’em…tell ya what mate, you take this lot off my ‘ands and I’ll chuck in this lovely watch. Solid adamantium that is mate, worth a flippin’ bomb. Tough as you like that is…

GETCHER NINJAS ‘ERE!

<ITEM> Welcome Dear Listeners, to the internet’s most cherished comics podcast, SILENCE! with that couple of nation’s sweethearts The Beast Must Die and Gary Lactus.

<ITEM> It’s some record level admin, with sponsorship, Arrested Development as Watchmen, Daredevil Season 2, The Phantasmacats and the Galacticats, The SILENCE! News covering Civil War 2, Donald Trump and the Mark Millar-isation of modern culture, The Edinburgh Festival, Misery, SILENCE!…Because the Film Has Started with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and unbelievably a whole lot more…while somehow there being so much less…

<ITEM> Finally the Reviewniverse coughs, splutters and belches into life, with Spiderwoman, Huck, The Vision and Turn Coat.

<ITEM> One Vision…that’s all I can say really.

Sometime in the nineties the cry rang out: Marvel was gonna put the “character back into comics”.

This was news to me.

As far as I was concerned the Marvelverse, with the possible exception of the X-Men, was still firmly rooted in a pre-Watchmen era. It was only the energizing touch of the man Miller that rescued the company from my utter contempt. DC on the other hand, was, in my rather woolly analysis, the natural home of adjectives like mature, and visionary, the only company where character was likely to flourish. My case rested upon little more than DC’s willingness to publish The Dark Knight Returns, The Killing Joke, and Arkham Asylum, and the serious moonlight cast over the DCU by Watchmen, and the Vertigo imprint.

While I’m now well versed in the legacy of Marvel’s legendary creators, if I’m honest I remain skeptical about Marvel’s claims to the concept of character. I grant that Lee and Ditko’s willingness to subordinate super to man was likely revolutionary back in the late sixties, and that they quite possibly changed the landscape of comics, but the reality is that while character is certainly the focus of many Marvel titles the characters in question have seldom been allowed much more than superficial depth – the MU as a place of histrionics rather than history. That, even as its best, seldom produces character studies with more going for them than I’d expect to see in a well realized soap opera. Don’t get me wrong, I think good soaps have their own virtues, and, and this is important, I’m not sure that I want to see rigorous character studies in (many) superhero comics, but I think it’s worth pointing out that by treating the term character as a monolith, and not admitting to its multiple meanings – the different ways in which the centrality of the concept can be approached, from Dynasty to Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolfe – Marvel, and its die hard fans, are perhaps heaping undeserved glories on themselves. I mean, we’ve all read the Ultimates, right?

Guess what? I actually talk about Born Again after the jump