(Alternate Episode Title: Ask The Answer Men!)
Lo, again it is the time! Graeme “Rio” McMillan asked our fine supporters on Patreon for questions so that he and Jeff “Union of the Snake” Lester would answer here. We got fourteen questions from our patrons, and surely—as Graeme puts it at the beginning of the episode—surely we can get through all fourteen questions in one episode, right?
Right?
Paul Spence starts us off with:
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Who do you think hates superheroes more: Pat Mills or Garth Ennis.
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If you had to chose to read either The Boys, or Marshall Law, which would you choose and why. Of course, there is a third option, which would be to read neither, but I am not going to let you off the hook that easily.
Jon Andrews has a request:
Can I get you guys to read Finder?
I can’t get anyone to read Finder.
I would settle just for issue #22 _Fight Scene_ (a replacement for Wolverine’s Origins Storyline that is 1,000 times more compeling).
I turn to you because no one hears my cries J
Tomas Syrstad Ruud wants to know:
DC has eaten many other universes over the years (Charlton, Fawcett, Wildstorm, Milestone…etc) and with varying degrees of success incorporated them into itself. Is merging universes like this inherently impossible because of slightly different underlying assumptions?
Which two superhero universes would you want to see a merger of?
Douglas O’Keefe asks:
I read mostly Marvel, mostly Silver- and Bronze-Age stuff, but I like to dip my toe in the waters of the present from time to time. I’ve heard good things about the following four series and would love to know your thoughts about them as I figure out what to read.
The series are:
Saga (Vaughan)
Ms. Marvel (Wilson)
The Silver Surfer (Slott)
The Vision (King)
Also, is there one series from the last few years other than those I just listed that you (either or both of you) would recommend above all others?
Thanks, and keep up the good podcast!
David Brown says:
In 1986, several of my favourite series, such as All-Star Squadron and Infinity Inc were ruined by the destruction of Earth 2 and the other infinite earths as they all merged into one in Crisis on Infinite Earths. The reason usually given for this was that DC continuity was too confusing and the infinite earths were too difficult for new readers to understand. My question is what exactly was so complicated and confusing about the old infinite earths that required this to be done? Especially when it is considered that most character histories (Hawkman, Legion of Superheroes etc.) only seemed to become more complicated afterwards (and much as I enjoy many books how about trying to explain current DC continuity to a new reader!) I could understand, and really liked, the alternate earths, JLA/JSA crossovers etc. and was only a boy pretty much getting random issues, as distribution to the UK was erratic before specialist comic shops were a thing – so was it really so confusing?
Adam P. Knave asks:
You are each exposed to ELEMENT-X and receive super abilities. HOWEVER according to the old fun comics rule they are powers that reflect who you are (Johnny is a hot head – human torch, etc etc etc)
What powers do you each have now?
Kevin Moreau asks:
Regarding Jeff’s assertion that Tom King doesn’t love Batman (and forgive me if my paraphrasing of Jeff’s argument inadvertently misstates said argument):
In your collective opinion, is it necessary for a writer to possess a great fondness for the character he’s writing about? As long as he displays an understanding of how that character works (even if it’s different from yours), his stories adequately lay out that understanding, and those stories provide some level of entertainment and hopefully a satisfying character arc, shouldn’t those things be what matter?
P.S. Is there a Patreon reward level I can upgrade to that would ensure that Jeff never, ever uses the phrase “dosh” ever again during his regular Patreon thank-yous? I know it’s a commonly accepted word, but for some reason it scrapes against my nerves in much the same way that King’s take on Batman seems to scrape against Jeff’s.
Brian Ruckley is curious:
Lots of questions, for you to pick and choose from (or ignore entirely if you so choose!) clustered under a single theme:
An idea that gets floated every so often, without anyone ever taking it terribly seriously I think, but I’m curious:
With sales going the way they are, can you imagine a world in which Disney or Time Warner finally licensed out their Marvel/DC IP to other comics publishers (IDW, Boom, Dark Horse, whoever) so that they didn’t have to bother with the thankless and not at all lucrative task of publishing comics themselves?
Can’t imagine it’s on the horizon yet but there must be a sales level below which it makes more sense, isn’t there? Or is the direct market toast by then anyway so who cares?
Or perhaps it would make even more sense without the direct market and single issues to worry about: if comics move toward a digital then graphic novel format, or graphic novels only, maybe it makes even more sense to sub-contract the actual publishing business?
Would it make any difference to you – if the only Batman comics were coming from IDW, the only Avengers from Boom, would it change how you felt about them at all?
And there you have it. Join us in a week for Part 2, when we will (hopefully) finish the rest of the questions. Place your bets now!
And if you want to cut and paste this ep into the player of your choice:
http://theworkingdraft.com/media/podcasts2/WaitWhat236.mp3
Jeff’s superhero self should clearly be The Elliptical, who can find a way around all barriers that takes him to totally unexpected places and with uncontrollable speed (and occasional shifts backward and forward in time). :)
This is…pretty accurate!
I think it’s OK for Jeff to use “dosh” he reads British comics, he deserves it. But US lexicon would indicate ‘doe’ as the closest equivalent.
I read Finder a while back – both volumes of the Library edition – because Wait, What? told me I should, and it went straight into my top ten or so comics ever. You do not labor in vain! Well, not entirely anyway …
Jeff, I agree with your overall assessment that King’s run on Batman has been frustrating to read and that Batman seems like a recurring guest in his own book. However, I disagree with your premise that King DOESN’T LIKE Batman. I’m more of the opinion that King simply DOESN’T UNDERSTAND Batman and doesn’t know what to do with him, because it’s all been done before. I watched an interview with King where he essentially admitted that he missed the mark on “I am Gotham” and blamed it on being new to the character. (When Batman gets on a plane, he gets ON a plane). King basically confessed that everything you can do with Batman has been done and that he has struggled with trying to define the character and presenting his own unique version. He’s killing it on Mister Miracle, and clearly enjoys what he’s doing there. I sense he sees Batman as more of a chore. So maybe in that sense, he hates the character, but I doubt he’s intentionally trying to dump on Batman.
I think he understands Batman, or at least Batman fandom. I can’t say whether he likes Batman or not from what I’ve read so far, but I at least think I understand what Jeff means when he says he thinks that King “doesn’t like Batman”.
My take on King’s Batman (and, frankly, all of his work to date) is that Tom King is either incapable of writing power fantasy or isn’t interested in writing it. At all. And historically speaking Batman has a healthy dose of power fantasy in him. Even looking at so-called “realistic” takes on Batman – they’re undergirded with a dose of power fantasy. No matter who’s writing him, you kinda want to be Batman. Even when Grant Morrison was putting him through the wringer, I at least would think “Batman is pretty cool” and not “wow, it would suck to be Batman”.
But with King, there have been multiple times when I’ve thought “wow – it would suck to be Batman”. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a version of Batman that is so psychologically grounded in “if Batman were a real person, he’d be this kind of sad sack” as King’s Batman is. He’s writing him as a man who has woken up one day to realize he’s actually just a sad little boy who fights not because of some noble cause but because he’s trying to put some meaning on the meaningless death of his parents. A death that he hasn’t been able to put behind him to the point that he has trouble forming any kind of real emotional relationships with other people.
It’s the culmination of every terrible trope about wanting to write Batman as a “real” person that has been out there in Batman fandom for freaking ever. In a monkey’s paw “be careful what you wish for” sort of way.
My hope is that King is actually aware that this is what he’s doing, that he’s doing it on purpose, and that he’s building to make some kind of point about this take on the character where it can be put to bed once and for all by having Batman shed this baggage and move on in a healthier relationship with his mission as Batman. My fear is that this is actually all subtext, King doesn’t realize that’s what he’s putting onto the page, and he really thinks “emotionally broken man-child” is what Batman is. I’m at about 40/60 right now between those two choices,
Just wait until Brian Michael Bendis gets his little paws on Batman, because you just know that’s gonna happen sooner than later. Which, by he way, would make a great topic of conversation on the next podcast: Which DC characters is Bendis best suited for and which characters would you like to see Bendis write?(The answers to those may be different).
“So, the Bat-Signal.”
“What do you mean, the Bat-Signal?”
“What do you $%^&ing mean, what do I mean, the Bat-Signal? I mean the $%^&ing Bat-Signal. The Bat-Signal (which is literally and I mean literally the thing that I mean) is what I’m talking about.”
“Don’t $%^^& with me, Robin.”
I forget where I heard about the superpower “invisibility to bartenders” but it’s a good one. Relatable.
Dynamite has a Shadow/Batman comic, so DC isn’t that tight with their IP.
I demand that Jeff begin referring to money only as “fat stacks,” effective immediately.
Man, I don’t think I’ve ever disagreed with Jeff Lester as hard as I’ve disagreed with him about the Boys. For all of Butcher’s genuine affection for Hughie, it remains a fundamentally manipulative, abusive relationship, up until the very end in my opinion. Butcher knew he was evil and had to be stopped, eventually; so he chose an almost comically pathetically “good” person to befriend and then eventually point at his head when the time came, but alas, that person was SO good that he couldn’t even get rid of Butcher unless he was tricked into it.
I found it profoundly depressing and alienating, and I really don’t think Ennis intended it, which frankly makes me hate it all the more.
There’s something really broken and rotten hearted inside the Boys. That a person as empathetic and kind as Jeff took something positive away from it is quite frankly astonishing to me.
Thanks for these thoughts, Dan!
Surprisingly, I don’t think I qualified my statements enough (which I’m sure everyone would swear is an impossible feat for me): what impressed and moved me with The Boys was how much Ennis really sat down and crafted the shit out of it.
Admittedly, I’m a sucker for works in which the writer works really hard at a thematic level to address people’s concerns with his work (e.g., Lynch in Mulholland Dr.) and I feel that’s what Ennis did with The Boys: rather than paint Butcher as a bully antihero, Butcher is a psychopath and a villain.
Whether Ennis really believes civilization is held together by violence-loving psychopaths who need the example of genuine goodness to keep them working for everyone’s better ends, or if that’s just the best way to paint a believable world for violent men’s adventure stories to take place is up for grabs. But at least Ennis makes manifest in The Boys the idea that the bullying alpha male isn’t the figure we should be identifying with, even if we want to.
But you’re right that Ennis also goes on to make Hughie so genuinely ineffectual–goodhearted but nevertheless weak–that while the argument parses at a thematic level, it can feel unsatisfying on a surface read. But I think Ennis really didn’t want to indulge the traditional “Hughie bests his mentor and becomes a man/mentor” because Ennis is trying to write about toxic masculinity (“The Boys”) and that just feeds right back into the toxic myth. (Also, I think he felt it would’ve come across like bullshit the way the whole thing was crafted, with Butcher not just being incredibly physically lethal but also whipsmart and having planned everything out so far in advance.)
Unfortunately, his alternative, in its attempt to warm and jokey (I think?), comes across as, well, mocking…and in precisely that faintly bullying mocking way Ennis uses in a lot of his humor.
Throw in that and the whole romantic subplot with Hughie right out of Chasing Amy (and they even more repulsed views on sexuality earlier in the book) and you get a lot of stuff that does indeed feel broken and rotten hearted in The Boys (and most of Ennis’s work for me, usually). The fact Ennis is more or less tackling all of that in the course of the work is astonishing to me and laudable, even if parts of it remain distressing.
Yeah, I don’t see it. The problem is, to me, that Ennis makes it very clear around issue #50 that Butcher and his tactics are the ONLY thing that can possibly defeat Vought American’s plans and the Seven. Everyone is either too weak or legal recourses too corrupt. We’re meant to see Butcher as the bad guy, but Ennis stacks the deck and creates a world where he’s not only effective, but NECESSARY.
There’s not even a HINT of Another Way Being Possible.
Plus, Ennis “Men are Boys” conceit is understandable from the sort of constant self-loathing leftie mindset, is also something I think is at this point very counterproductive and actually unhealthy. Which given the current circumstances probably makes zero sense, but think about it: “Men are Boys” is a cheap, easy solution. We’re all terrible. we can’t change. We’re children. We need the love of a woman to validate us. We need to be kept in check. Ennis doesn’t say “you can be better” his worldview is for the boys to just accept they’re terrible, This Is Simply The Way Things Are.
Yeah, yeah, I KNOW. BUt look, from my observation, the kids of today don’t see “Men are Boys” and think “Wow, we could do better.” They think “OH, we’re all boys! Then we’ll be boys, I guess.” I know it’s not the result you want, but it’s the result I see.
finally, let me post this lengthy quote: “”total inability to learn from his mistakes and change his ways [which] will eventually stand him in good stead… No doubt Hughie’s tendency to mope and turn inwards is a source of frustration to many readers, all used to comic heroes who learn from experience and develop into fully-rounded characters ready to handle anything. In my experience this is like no one who’s ever existed in real life; even the most capable people either maintain or eventually return to their essential flaws. I doubt any twenty-something lad unused to trauma and violence could simply absorb it straightaway, and if he did become hardened or inured it would be as a different, less sensitive person. In other words, Hughie’s bizarre triumph is that he remains Hughie.””– Garth Ennis
This is what I find most troubling about Ennis and the series. As someone who loved Preacher dearly during his youth and these days wishes he had never read a Garth Ennis comic in his life, Preacher’s climax is about Jesse forgiving Cassidy with the hope that he might “Change” and grow up and be a man.
The Boys, by contrast, makes celebratory the fact that Hughie will not change. He will not get better. He will always remain a loser (that Vought-American is nonetheless afraid of) that got lucky. Butcher, also, never changed his spots– AND BOTH THOSE THINGS ARE GOOD.
The Boys is a work that is profoundly angry at the state of the world, the state of male behavior, the state of art, but at the same time it’s almost smugly proud of the inability of any of it to actually change, to get better, anything other than complete and utter destruction (before it’s inevitable replaced with something just as terrible but different) because then that might wrinkle Garth’s pose. After all, if “men” stop being “boys”- if the great revolution that Warren Ellis wanted 20 years ago ACTUALLY occurs and Superheros finally relinquish their creative death grip on the market then you’re not the most enlightened one in the room anymore, are you?
I have no idea why this series provokes the reaction within me it does. But I refuse to accept its thesis, however convincing it is. I have to believe there’s a better way.
I don’t have a better answer. I don’t have a better way. But all I know is, this series ended five years ago, and I go to the store there’s a comic called Dick Dastardly and Mutley with the name Garth Ennis on it.
When the series ended Ennis hoped he wouldn’t have to “write a book like this again.” Well, maybe next time, try a fucking mirror.
TL;DR: I agree Ennis is interrogating his issues, but I think he interrogated the wrong ones.
Much belated, but I just wanted to say that I agreed with Dan Coyle’s take on the Boys. If I could add two comparatively petty points:
–the ending was pretty much the exact same one Ennis came up with for Punisher Kills the Marvel Universe thirteen years earlier, only drawn out over months.
–I think the turning point for me was the period joke. It was just so juvenile in a “aren’t women’s bodies weird and gross” and “isn’t Hughie an idiot for caring about his girlfriend” way.
That was one of your best episodes ever, at least for me.
I’d be interested in hearing Jeff Lester expand on his argument that superhero universes wear out their welcome after so many decades, and add some thoughts about why he thinks Batman, for instance, is one of the rare exceptions. Because Batman speaks to basic fears about the city, crime, etc. that were big in the ‘30s but which go back a long way, probably to the beginnings of human civilization, and so he easily generates new versions to suit changing times?
Ref: Graeme and Shazam/Legion: It was actually a great match (and happened in the 90s!): https://static.comicvine.com/uploads/scale_small/1/13925/296762-138601-thunder.jpg
Unfortunately, she (named Thunder, which I also thought was a much better renaming than the current Cap Marvel to Shazam) was introduced near the tail end of the run right before Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning were planning their soft-reset with ‘Legion Lost’ so never really got a chance to catch on.
Yeah, I thought Thunder was a great example of why we shouldn’t try to merge the Marvel family with the Legion. Admittedly, that was a weak point in the series history and nobody came off all that well, but Thunder just seemed to lie flat on the page as if the creators didn’t have any idea what to do with her beyond the basic concept. (Also didn’t help that Thunder was brought in as one of DC’s umpteen failed attempts at a replacement Supergirl in the 90s.)
Even beyond the generally listless atmosphere of pre-Abnett and Lanning Legion comics, though, Thunder never quite seemed to fit in. The Legion and the Marvels may both be optimistic but they’re slightly different flavors of optimism, and the childlike retro charms of the Fawcett characters operate on a very different frequency than the sci-fi soap opera of the Legion. On some fundamental level the Marvels are rooted in the past, not the future.
Yeah, attempts at using the Marvels seem to fall into two categories: nostalgia for the Fawcett days (the Jeff Smith mini; that Convergence two-parter) and failed attempts at modernization (everything else post-Crisis that I’ve flipped through). The first probably can’t support an ongoing series, and the second shouldn’t.
I liked the Jerry Ordway revival that embraced the retro design elements of Fawcett City (and the Fawcett characters) and never tried to modernize them, although that did seem to peter out after a while. I loved Grant Morrison and Cameron Stewart’s Thunderworld and would like to see them try that approach in a limited series (similar to All Star Superman), but I doubt that would be sustainable for an ongoing series of any length.
I think DC needs to recognize that these are kids’ characters and pitch them as such. A cartoon series or kid-friendly movie would probably help them reach an audience that doesn’t come into the comic shops.
I think the best bet for the Marvel family at this point would be to go the route of something like the DC Super Hero Girls series. Digital-first comics that get collected as digest sized tpbs and cater specifically to children and younger readers (but are still somewhat enjoyable for us… less sprightly folks).
And I too was a great fan of the Jerry Ordway series, but there came a point when it just didn’t make sense for Fawcett to actually coexist with the rest of the (frankly increasingly miserable) DCU of the time. The series kind of struggled from that point on (IIRC, there was a nuclear bomb that destroyed a neighboring city or somesuch? It’s been several years…)
Great episode, I never saw the call for questions, I still love you.
I do think Graeme is being hard on Jeff as regards his opinion of Tom King’s Batman. I don’t see this as a recursive argument, Jeff has laid out again and again that he read King’s issues and didn’t think they were all that great, This leads him to suggest King doesn’t write a good Batman because he doesn’t like Batman.
I don’t know if that last is the case, but he definitely doesn’t get Batman. It’s not Tom King’s Batman, it’s Tom King’s ‘Batman’.
Does Jeff ever feel chuffed?
Same here – I never submitted a question because I missed the call. Patreon email fills my inbox with junk, and your tweets drown in the torrent of my feed, so I often only see messages you guys post on this site.
Superhero identities for you guys: The Waffler and The Inside Man?
Perfect! The Waffler wields his self-doubt and uncertainty under a delicious waffle-textured armor, while the Inside Man has superhuman access and can exist in multiple locations at once, but can only share his insight off the record.
Boom!
Roasted!
RE: King’s Batman. First of all, I *LOVE* hearing you guys go round in circles debating semantics. I suspect that tendency is why many of us love comics and their minutiae. But just because you’re both arguing the same things differently doesn’t mean either side is invalid. Part of the problem is you’ve got multiple issues being debated simultaneously:
1) Is it valid for the beholder to assume intention on the part of the artist? We have no way of knowing exactly what King is trying to say, and furthermore we have no way of knowing what inner perspective is driving King to say those things. However, as consumers of art we *must* consider the context under which the art was created, don’t we? Art doesn’t exist in a bubble, and like any other form of communication you have to consider who the speaker is to understand the message. So for the purpose of this discussion I’ll entertain hypothesizing about another human’s inner thoughts.
2) As critics, is it valid to communicate a feeling you get from a work without having to defend why your feeling is valid? I believe firmly yes. Good critics can articulate their feelings and explore their subjectivity, but Jeff’s argument is not inherently wrong simply because he can’t convince Graeme to feel the same way.
3) If I’m listening correctly, I hear Jeff’s entire argument rest on whether the writer is presenting a character in a favorable light. King is not presenting Batman favorably. Batman has issues. But can we assume a creator doesn’t like a character because they’re being presented unfavorably? I don’t think so. Some of my favorite characters are deeply flawed. There’s a difference between loathing (how Ennis might write Green Lantern) and criticism (what I believe King is doing with Batman). Sign me up for an interesting criticism any day of the week. Sometimes. I don’t want a criticism of Squirrel Girl, Booster Gold, Ghost Rider, or the Metal Men — I often want fun, stupid comics. But if I want to invest my time in a hundred issues of long-form, mature storytelling, then yes – I want it to say more than Batman likes punching the Joker.
My theory, based on his other works, is that King’s whole mega-arc is going to involve working Batman through his issues to shine a better, more heroic light on him. I hope. Much like the Punisher, these revenge fantasies fall apart once the character has many years of revenge under their utility belt. Sure, I love a simple Batman story where he simply needs to beat up bad guys because he hates bad guys. But that doesn’t work as a long form mature story. Ennis concluded that Frank Castle must have other issues driving him to do what he does, and honestly I’ve never found the Punisher interesting until Ennis started exploring this facet of the character. I hope King’s mega-arc is going to strip away the dark revenge fantasy (easy to do once Thomas Wayne begs Bruce to choose a brighter path) and replace it with something else. I’m intrigued by the thought of a Batman who longs for a better world and a better life for himself, but fights bad guys because he has the ways and the means, and is willing to sacrifice his own happiness for fulfilling his duty to save the world. That’s much more heroic (in my mind) than Barry Allen only being a hero because his mom was murdered. You do it because it’s the right thing to do. That’s a much better story than privileged elite uses vast resources to strike down everything that doesn’t fit his world view because some deplorable hurt his rich parents when he was a kid.
I’m cringing at my use of “mature.” Liking fun isn’t immature. Should’ve left “long-form” as my qualifier. Once I’ve read 50 straight issues of Two-Face kidnapping twins unless his $2M is paid by 2pm, the 51st issue is unlikely to hold any real interest for me.
But the inverse is also true — without the occasional Tweedledee & Tweedledum story, it doesn’t feel like “Batman” and I walk away for something else.
Unrelated to anything in this fine episode, but as a fan of hearing Jeff talk about manga I wanted to recommend “I Want To Hold Aono-kun So Badly I Could Die”, which is like a Junji Ito version of a rom-com and hooked me right from the first chapter.
I’m less well-versed with the DC side of things (and I was born in 1987), so I could be completely off base here, but my take on Crisis on Infinite Earths was not that it was too complicated, it’s that they wanted to move things towards a Marvel-style single universe. DC obviously had a shared universe, but the separate Earths allowed them to be much more loose with continuity. But, by that point, Marvel had demonstrated that a closely connected universe sold well.
Like I said, I’m aware of Silver Age DC and I’m aware of post-Crisis DC, but I could be completely off with what was going on before. But, to me, it was more about appealing to the older, long-term comic fan that gravitated towards Marvel.
I think I understand Jeff’s comments about King ‘hating’ Batman. There are a lot of writers who write Batman as a flawed and damaged character, but King’s the first one (that I’m familiar with) who treat him as an entirely broken character. His mission is a joke and his costumed identity is presented as a juvenile coping mechanism. There are hints of this in Morrison’s Batman (that became explicit towards the end of his run), but his Batman was still timeless and cool. There’s nothing cool about King’s Batman.
This is almost more a confessional than a comment, but I bounced off the first volume of Finder because, bluntly, I wasn’t at a point of my life where I could appreciate what Speed MacNeil was doing in terms of exploring gender roles. Jaeger seemed like a sort of wish fulfillment character that everyone fell in love with, and I wasn’t very patient for that. The portrayal was more complicated than that, of course, and got even more nuanced as the series went on, but that was my initial experience. (Although I do remember liking everything else about the series, in terms of other characters and world-building, that happened around Jaeger.) I came back to it a few years ago, and was amazed by how much I missed.
Saga. by comparison, is pretty straightforward, and even somewhat normative, in a very queer-friendly way, in its portrayal of family and relationships. It’s probably presumptuous to extend my lack of understanding to comic fans at large, but maybe that’s part of why one’s enjoyed more mainstream success than the other.
Spondulies, Jeff, spondulies.