Jun 26, 2009
Reveiw of Batman and Robin #1
From Comic Book Resources, this review says all the things I wish I'd said about that comic.
Up In The Sky: Moses, Jesus, and Superman
This is an essay I wrote for my Biblical Traditions in Literature course this summer. It appears with many thanks to Jeffery Donaldson, my professor, who introduced me to the writings of Northrop Frye.
Up In The Sky: Moses, Jesus, and Superman
In The Great Code Northrop Frye states that “[f]or Judaism [one of] the chief antitypes of Old Testament prophecy [is], as in Christianity, the coming of the Messiah” (Great Code 83). Of course, for Judaism, the first coming is still being awaited, while the Christians await the second coming. From outside of these two viewpoints, one might be inclined to pose the question of how long these two faiths will wait for a saviour or, perhaps, has a saviour come already? In typology, a “type” prophesies and an “antitype” fulfills. Biblically, the best example is that of Moses and Christ. Where Moses is a saviour figure for Israel, Christ is a saviour figure for all of humanity. The promise of Moses is borne out by the actions of Christ. The awaiting of the second coming by Christians supposes that Christ is the type, and that the coming saviour will be the antitype. What one must bear in mind, however, is that these types and antitypes are illustrated through stories. While there are some who take the Bible as literal truth, there are many who take it as metaphor, as teachings and morals written as fiction, myths that concentrate “on the primary concerns that human beings share” (Frye, Words with Power 136). And if this is the case, does the next Messiah (or the first one, depending on your faith) necessarily have to be real, or can he or she be fictional? Further, are the distinctions between a fictional and a real Messiah necessarily mutually exclusive? As a test case, we will consider the recent series All-Star Superman. A comparison of Superman to both Moses and Christ, and a consideration of his qualities as fiction teaching primary concerns, will show that he is an antitype of the Biblical saviour, perhaps only one of many.
D.C. Comics' “All-Star” line debuted in 2005 with All-Star Batman & Robin. The “All-Star” moniker serves two functions, highlighting both the featured characters and the well-known creators producing the series. The mandate of the series is to tell iconic stories of the greatest superheroes without being constrained by the volumes of history and continuity those heroes carry with them. As such, All-Star Superman kicks off with a one-page synopsis of Superman's origin, a story firmly entrenched in the Western imagination, and drops the reader in media res, with Lex Luthor having finally succeeded in his plan to destroy Superman. The series itself, which ran from 2005 to 2008 and lasted 12 issues, chronicles Superman's final weeks as he sets his affairs in order and takes care of last-minute tasks. Of course, for Superman, those last minute tasks involve renegade Kryptonians, dinosaur invasions from the center of the Earth, and living planets from the “Underverse.” The stripping away, or rather the subsuming, of the previous seventy years of Superman's history allows the story told in All-Star Superman to achieve a more mythological tone. What is important in the stories is left in, that Superman never kills, that he cares about each and every person on the planet, regardless of colour or creed, and that he will always do his best to help when it is required. While the bulk of the series deals with super-powered adversaries, there are interspersed amongst these titanic tales brief glimpses of everyday people, of commuters and suicides, of reporters and cancer victims, all of whom Superman goes out of his way to help. He is here to save us.
In establishing Superman's credentials as an antitype of Moses, one need look no further than the birth stories (or “origin stories” in comic book parlance) of the two characters. The correlation, as Northrop Frye states about typological interpretation of the Christian Testament, “conforms to the intentionality of the book itself” (Great Code 80); the parallel is so obvious that to ignore it would be to ignore a fundamental part of the story. Faced with the destruction of all male Hebrew children, Moses' mother makes an “ark of bulrushes...daubed with slime and pitch” (Holy Bible, Exod. 1.3), and sets it adrift. It is eventually discovered by the Pharaoh's daughter. Moses, then, who becomes leader and saviour of the nation of Israel, begins life escaping a destructive force and being raised by foster parents. In Superman's case, the same story is rather beautifully summarized on the first page of All-Star Superman #1 (see Appendix Fig. 1). “[A]s the doomed planet shuddered and rumbled in its dying moments....Jor-El and...Lara placed their infant son in an experimental rocket ship and launched him into the void” (Fleisher 130). While the rocketship is hardly held together by “slime and pitch,” the imagery of an infant being placed in a small craft in order to escape death draws a definite parallel between Moses and Superman. That both men go on to be leaders and teachers (Moses of Israel, Superman of the human race) strengthens the bond. The ends of their stories are also close parallels. Moses, once shown the Promised Land, is told “I have caused thee to see it with thine eyes, but thou shalt not go over thither” (Holy Bible, Deut. 34:4). Moses has led his people to their new home, but cannot enter it. Similarly, by the end of All-Star Superman, having defeated Luthor, and delivering humankind to its “promised land” (discussed below), Superman is exiled to the center of the sun in order to keep it running properly, never being able to see the future he has worked all his life to create.
A typological link between Superman and Christ is revealed, ironically, by Lex Luthor (whose identity as an Antichrist antitype is fodder for a whole other essay) in the final climactic moments of All-Star Superman #12. Luthor takes on Superman's powers, assuming the totalitarian aspect of the royal metaphor, the individual who forces his identity on his society. He fulfills his earlier claim that “[i]f it wasn't for Superman, [he]'d be in charge on this planet” (Morrison, “The Gospel According to Lex Luthor” 22). What Lex fails to realize is the extent of Superman's powers, an extent that bears out Frye's assertion that, when the royal metaphor is applied to a saviour figure, “the notion of a socially detached individual is an illusion” (The Great Code 100). Frye says that the reformulation of the royal metaphor into the Christian metaphor “unites without subordinating,” that it “achieves identity with and identity as on equal terms” (The Great Code 101) (emphasis in original). This idea is borne out by Paul's words “not I, but Christ liveth within me” (Holy Bible Gal. 2.20), and also affirmed by the ritual of the Eucharist. This is the saviour whose individuality teaches unity, whose personality helps a community become compassionate persons. And so Lex realizes this about Superman: “It's all just us, in here, together” he cries. “This is how he sees all the time, every day” (Morrison, “Superman in Excelsis” 15). Much like Christ, when Superman realizes he is dying, he finds a way to impart this knowledge of unity to humankind before he departs. This knowledge takes the form of a serum that can “combine Human and Kryptonian [DNA] strands” (Morrison, “Neverending” 19), fulfilling the type of the Eucharist with a super-powered antitype. Similarly, after the Last Supper and his resurrection, Christ tells his disciples that those who believe in what he preached will be able to “cast out devils” (Holy Bible, Mark 16:17) and “drink any deadly thing [and], it shall not hurt them” (Mark 16:18). Believers will even be able to “lay hands on the sick and they shall recover” (Mark 16:18). These amazing feats, if put into contemporary language, could easily be called super powers, making both Christ's and Superman's legacies amazing abilities that will foster peace amongst humankind.
Having, if somewhat briefly, established Superman as an antitype of both Moses and Jesus, one must consider why this is significant. The beginning of an answer presents itself once again in the pages of All-Star Superman. In issue #10, the typological reading takes on an aspect much like Frye's pronouncement about the Hebrew Testament, that “[t]here are...events in the Old Testament that are types of later events recorded also within the Old Testament” (The Great Code 83). In seeking to find what will happen to the world once he is gone, Superman institutes a minute creation that he dubs “Earth-Q” (perhaps here becoming an antitype for the J Creation “Lord God”), in which there is an Earth that evolves without his presence. This world, of course, is revealed to be our own, and its historical development is chronicled in brief views, from Australian aboriginals making cave paintings (Morrison, “Neverending” 14) to Nietzsche's composition of Thus Spoke Zarathustra (“Neverending” 19). Significantly, the glimpses revealed of the so-called “Earth-Q” all show varying stages of humankind's spiritual and philosophical development. The importance of this comes in the last scene from Earth-Q to be revealed, an old-time apartment building in an unnamed city. The view closes in until a drawing on a table is revealed, a drawing of Superman in his earliest incarnation (“Neverending” 21). Here, then, is a world without the super-powered saviour, one that goes through all the revolutions of thought that Superman's world did, but was left without the benefit of a benign alien crashing to the planet and saving everyone. This world, our world, created a saviour, a Superman, through fiction.
So comes the crux of the matter: the Bible, both Hebrew and Christian Testaments, teach moral lessons, lessons of the primary human concerns, through stories of individuals with remarkable powers. Moses wields a rod that, when dipped into the waters of the Nile, turns the river to blood (Holy Bible, Exodus 7:20). Christ demonstrates his unearthly power by reviving the four-days dead Lazarus (John 12:43-44) in front of a crowd of people. Neither man is shy of using his gifts in public and in service of the greater good. For Moses, the greater good is primarily the welfare of the nation of Israel; for Christ, it is the welfare of humankind's immortal souls. How, then, is the case of Superman any different from these stories? He demonstrates remarkable powers of flight and strength, but also acts of wisdom and compassion. Where an everyday person might turn from suffering (and how many of us flip quickly past the channel that is showing famine victims in Africa?), Superman uses all the gifts at his disposal for its alleviation. The question then becomes, does it matter that Superman is fictional? For all intents and purposes, the Bible is a fictional work. Regardless of whether the events within the Bible actually happened, they are so far removed temporally for them to be nothing more than stories to contemporary audiences. This is not to say that they are not important, even necessary, stories, but they are stories nonetheless. So is it reasonable to say that, seventy years ago, when Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster created the “Man of Steel”, they created a saviour? Is Superman a saviour whose deeds and words can be read as teachings on the proper behaviour of a human society? Is he the fulfillment of the Christian metaphor, the individual who enriches and teaches the community, who embodies the primary concerns that join all humans? And is this all significant, even though he is “just a story”?
While the popularity of the the Bible as a moral text can in part be attributed to its treatment of primary human concerns, one must also consider that it was also one of the first books to be printed in a popular edition. As such, it was a work that could be read over and over, and did not suffer from the kind of competition that modern works do. In considering All-Star Superman as a moral text, perhaps even a kerygmatic one, the argument can be made that the second coming, the new Messiah, comes again and again in our fiction. This goes against Frye's assertion that “the doctrines of Christian theology form the antitypes of which the stories and maxims in the Bible...are types” (The Great Code 85), and claims that fictions, most especially moralistic ones, provide new saviours all the time. The stumbling block for these saviours is that there are so many to choose from in our media-saturated environment that no one saviour gets the same kind of attention that the Bible and it's attendant saviours did when Gutenberg began printing. In order to assess the power, and the potential, of these saviours, one must look to their longevity and continued fictional treatment. Superman debuted in Action Comics #1 in 1938, and has been continuously in print for the last seventy years. He has become one of the most popular characters in Western popular culture. All-Star Superman has taken that seventy years of history and turned it into mythology, into a text by which lessons may be taught and, more importantly, learned. It is unlikely that the same can be said of many other popular characters of the last 100 years or so. For this reason Superman deserves a far closer look, and his attributes and teachings a far closer consideration, than just a brightly coloured costume in the pages of a disposable periodical.
Is Superman the new Messiah? He certainly evokes the qualities of the saviour types chronicled in both the Hebrew and Christian Testaments. He has also, through the volumes of his stories distilled down to their essence in All-Star Superman, taught moral lessons through the tool of fiction. One can easily imagine that, had his stories somehow been the first to roll from Gutenberg's press, that there might be temples in some corners of the world flying the iconic “S” shield that he proudly bears upon his chest. The teachings of Moses and Christ come down through the ages to contemporary times as a series of stories, stories that are given great importance by virtue of the lessons they teach. Superman hasn't been around quite as long as Moses or Christ, but to have survived seventy years in a culture that embraces new fads seemingly every few seconds speaks of the power and significance of the character, of the lessons he teaches, and of fiction itself.
Appendix: Selected Images
Up In The Sky: Moses, Jesus, and Superman
In The Great Code Northrop Frye states that “[f]or Judaism [one of] the chief antitypes of Old Testament prophecy [is], as in Christianity, the coming of the Messiah” (Great Code 83). Of course, for Judaism, the first coming is still being awaited, while the Christians await the second coming. From outside of these two viewpoints, one might be inclined to pose the question of how long these two faiths will wait for a saviour or, perhaps, has a saviour come already? In typology, a “type” prophesies and an “antitype” fulfills. Biblically, the best example is that of Moses and Christ. Where Moses is a saviour figure for Israel, Christ is a saviour figure for all of humanity. The promise of Moses is borne out by the actions of Christ. The awaiting of the second coming by Christians supposes that Christ is the type, and that the coming saviour will be the antitype. What one must bear in mind, however, is that these types and antitypes are illustrated through stories. While there are some who take the Bible as literal truth, there are many who take it as metaphor, as teachings and morals written as fiction, myths that concentrate “on the primary concerns that human beings share” (Frye, Words with Power 136). And if this is the case, does the next Messiah (or the first one, depending on your faith) necessarily have to be real, or can he or she be fictional? Further, are the distinctions between a fictional and a real Messiah necessarily mutually exclusive? As a test case, we will consider the recent series All-Star Superman. A comparison of Superman to both Moses and Christ, and a consideration of his qualities as fiction teaching primary concerns, will show that he is an antitype of the Biblical saviour, perhaps only one of many.
D.C. Comics' “All-Star” line debuted in 2005 with All-Star Batman & Robin. The “All-Star” moniker serves two functions, highlighting both the featured characters and the well-known creators producing the series. The mandate of the series is to tell iconic stories of the greatest superheroes without being constrained by the volumes of history and continuity those heroes carry with them. As such, All-Star Superman kicks off with a one-page synopsis of Superman's origin, a story firmly entrenched in the Western imagination, and drops the reader in media res, with Lex Luthor having finally succeeded in his plan to destroy Superman. The series itself, which ran from 2005 to 2008 and lasted 12 issues, chronicles Superman's final weeks as he sets his affairs in order and takes care of last-minute tasks. Of course, for Superman, those last minute tasks involve renegade Kryptonians, dinosaur invasions from the center of the Earth, and living planets from the “Underverse.” The stripping away, or rather the subsuming, of the previous seventy years of Superman's history allows the story told in All-Star Superman to achieve a more mythological tone. What is important in the stories is left in, that Superman never kills, that he cares about each and every person on the planet, regardless of colour or creed, and that he will always do his best to help when it is required. While the bulk of the series deals with super-powered adversaries, there are interspersed amongst these titanic tales brief glimpses of everyday people, of commuters and suicides, of reporters and cancer victims, all of whom Superman goes out of his way to help. He is here to save us.
In establishing Superman's credentials as an antitype of Moses, one need look no further than the birth stories (or “origin stories” in comic book parlance) of the two characters. The correlation, as Northrop Frye states about typological interpretation of the Christian Testament, “conforms to the intentionality of the book itself” (Great Code 80); the parallel is so obvious that to ignore it would be to ignore a fundamental part of the story. Faced with the destruction of all male Hebrew children, Moses' mother makes an “ark of bulrushes...daubed with slime and pitch” (Holy Bible, Exod. 1.3), and sets it adrift. It is eventually discovered by the Pharaoh's daughter. Moses, then, who becomes leader and saviour of the nation of Israel, begins life escaping a destructive force and being raised by foster parents. In Superman's case, the same story is rather beautifully summarized on the first page of All-Star Superman #1 (see Appendix Fig. 1). “[A]s the doomed planet shuddered and rumbled in its dying moments....Jor-El and...Lara placed their infant son in an experimental rocket ship and launched him into the void” (Fleisher 130). While the rocketship is hardly held together by “slime and pitch,” the imagery of an infant being placed in a small craft in order to escape death draws a definite parallel between Moses and Superman. That both men go on to be leaders and teachers (Moses of Israel, Superman of the human race) strengthens the bond. The ends of their stories are also close parallels. Moses, once shown the Promised Land, is told “I have caused thee to see it with thine eyes, but thou shalt not go over thither” (Holy Bible, Deut. 34:4). Moses has led his people to their new home, but cannot enter it. Similarly, by the end of All-Star Superman, having defeated Luthor, and delivering humankind to its “promised land” (discussed below), Superman is exiled to the center of the sun in order to keep it running properly, never being able to see the future he has worked all his life to create.
A typological link between Superman and Christ is revealed, ironically, by Lex Luthor (whose identity as an Antichrist antitype is fodder for a whole other essay) in the final climactic moments of All-Star Superman #12. Luthor takes on Superman's powers, assuming the totalitarian aspect of the royal metaphor, the individual who forces his identity on his society. He fulfills his earlier claim that “[i]f it wasn't for Superman, [he]'d be in charge on this planet” (Morrison, “The Gospel According to Lex Luthor” 22). What Lex fails to realize is the extent of Superman's powers, an extent that bears out Frye's assertion that, when the royal metaphor is applied to a saviour figure, “the notion of a socially detached individual is an illusion” (The Great Code 100). Frye says that the reformulation of the royal metaphor into the Christian metaphor “unites without subordinating,” that it “achieves identity with and identity as on equal terms” (The Great Code 101) (emphasis in original). This idea is borne out by Paul's words “not I, but Christ liveth within me” (Holy Bible Gal. 2.20), and also affirmed by the ritual of the Eucharist. This is the saviour whose individuality teaches unity, whose personality helps a community become compassionate persons. And so Lex realizes this about Superman: “It's all just us, in here, together” he cries. “This is how he sees all the time, every day” (Morrison, “Superman in Excelsis” 15). Much like Christ, when Superman realizes he is dying, he finds a way to impart this knowledge of unity to humankind before he departs. This knowledge takes the form of a serum that can “combine Human and Kryptonian [DNA] strands” (Morrison, “Neverending” 19), fulfilling the type of the Eucharist with a super-powered antitype. Similarly, after the Last Supper and his resurrection, Christ tells his disciples that those who believe in what he preached will be able to “cast out devils” (Holy Bible, Mark 16:17) and “drink any deadly thing [and], it shall not hurt them” (Mark 16:18). Believers will even be able to “lay hands on the sick and they shall recover” (Mark 16:18). These amazing feats, if put into contemporary language, could easily be called super powers, making both Christ's and Superman's legacies amazing abilities that will foster peace amongst humankind.
Having, if somewhat briefly, established Superman as an antitype of both Moses and Jesus, one must consider why this is significant. The beginning of an answer presents itself once again in the pages of All-Star Superman. In issue #10, the typological reading takes on an aspect much like Frye's pronouncement about the Hebrew Testament, that “[t]here are...events in the Old Testament that are types of later events recorded also within the Old Testament” (The Great Code 83). In seeking to find what will happen to the world once he is gone, Superman institutes a minute creation that he dubs “Earth-Q” (perhaps here becoming an antitype for the J Creation “Lord God”), in which there is an Earth that evolves without his presence. This world, of course, is revealed to be our own, and its historical development is chronicled in brief views, from Australian aboriginals making cave paintings (Morrison, “Neverending” 14) to Nietzsche's composition of Thus Spoke Zarathustra (“Neverending” 19). Significantly, the glimpses revealed of the so-called “Earth-Q” all show varying stages of humankind's spiritual and philosophical development. The importance of this comes in the last scene from Earth-Q to be revealed, an old-time apartment building in an unnamed city. The view closes in until a drawing on a table is revealed, a drawing of Superman in his earliest incarnation (“Neverending” 21). Here, then, is a world without the super-powered saviour, one that goes through all the revolutions of thought that Superman's world did, but was left without the benefit of a benign alien crashing to the planet and saving everyone. This world, our world, created a saviour, a Superman, through fiction.
So comes the crux of the matter: the Bible, both Hebrew and Christian Testaments, teach moral lessons, lessons of the primary human concerns, through stories of individuals with remarkable powers. Moses wields a rod that, when dipped into the waters of the Nile, turns the river to blood (Holy Bible, Exodus 7:20). Christ demonstrates his unearthly power by reviving the four-days dead Lazarus (John 12:43-44) in front of a crowd of people. Neither man is shy of using his gifts in public and in service of the greater good. For Moses, the greater good is primarily the welfare of the nation of Israel; for Christ, it is the welfare of humankind's immortal souls. How, then, is the case of Superman any different from these stories? He demonstrates remarkable powers of flight and strength, but also acts of wisdom and compassion. Where an everyday person might turn from suffering (and how many of us flip quickly past the channel that is showing famine victims in Africa?), Superman uses all the gifts at his disposal for its alleviation. The question then becomes, does it matter that Superman is fictional? For all intents and purposes, the Bible is a fictional work. Regardless of whether the events within the Bible actually happened, they are so far removed temporally for them to be nothing more than stories to contemporary audiences. This is not to say that they are not important, even necessary, stories, but they are stories nonetheless. So is it reasonable to say that, seventy years ago, when Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster created the “Man of Steel”, they created a saviour? Is Superman a saviour whose deeds and words can be read as teachings on the proper behaviour of a human society? Is he the fulfillment of the Christian metaphor, the individual who enriches and teaches the community, who embodies the primary concerns that join all humans? And is this all significant, even though he is “just a story”?
While the popularity of the the Bible as a moral text can in part be attributed to its treatment of primary human concerns, one must also consider that it was also one of the first books to be printed in a popular edition. As such, it was a work that could be read over and over, and did not suffer from the kind of competition that modern works do. In considering All-Star Superman as a moral text, perhaps even a kerygmatic one, the argument can be made that the second coming, the new Messiah, comes again and again in our fiction. This goes against Frye's assertion that “the doctrines of Christian theology form the antitypes of which the stories and maxims in the Bible...are types” (The Great Code 85), and claims that fictions, most especially moralistic ones, provide new saviours all the time. The stumbling block for these saviours is that there are so many to choose from in our media-saturated environment that no one saviour gets the same kind of attention that the Bible and it's attendant saviours did when Gutenberg began printing. In order to assess the power, and the potential, of these saviours, one must look to their longevity and continued fictional treatment. Superman debuted in Action Comics #1 in 1938, and has been continuously in print for the last seventy years. He has become one of the most popular characters in Western popular culture. All-Star Superman has taken that seventy years of history and turned it into mythology, into a text by which lessons may be taught and, more importantly, learned. It is unlikely that the same can be said of many other popular characters of the last 100 years or so. For this reason Superman deserves a far closer look, and his attributes and teachings a far closer consideration, than just a brightly coloured costume in the pages of a disposable periodical.
Is Superman the new Messiah? He certainly evokes the qualities of the saviour types chronicled in both the Hebrew and Christian Testaments. He has also, through the volumes of his stories distilled down to their essence in All-Star Superman, taught moral lessons through the tool of fiction. One can easily imagine that, had his stories somehow been the first to roll from Gutenberg's press, that there might be temples in some corners of the world flying the iconic “S” shield that he proudly bears upon his chest. The teachings of Moses and Christ come down through the ages to contemporary times as a series of stories, stories that are given great importance by virtue of the lessons they teach. Superman hasn't been around quite as long as Moses or Christ, but to have survived seventy years in a culture that embraces new fads seemingly every few seconds speaks of the power and significance of the character, of the lessons he teaches, and of fiction itself.
Appendix: Selected Images
Fig. 1. The Origin of Superman from Morrison and Quitely, All-Star Superman #1 (DC Comics 2006)
Fig. 2. The Origin of Superman from Morrison and Quietly, All-Star Superman #10 (DC Comics 2008)
Note: The citations for comic books on this page use a format found here: http://www.comicsresearch.org/CAC/cite.html. There is no standardized MLA formatting for citing comic books.
Fleisher, Michael L. The Original Encyclopedia of Comic Book Heroes volume 3. New York: DC Comics, 2007.
Frye, Northrop. The Great Code: The Bible and Literature. Academic Press Canada, 1982.
---. Words with Power. Toronto: Penguin, 2007.
Holy Bible. New York: New York Bible Society.
Morrison, Grant (w) and Frank Quitely (a). “The Gospel According to Lex Luthor.” All-Star Superman #5 (Sept. 2006), DC Comics.
---,---. “Neverending.” All-Star Superman #10 (May 2008), DC Comics.
---,---. “Superman in Excelsis.” All-Star Superman #12 (Oct. 2008), DC Comics.
Apr 22, 2009
This Week's Picks
The New Avengers #52 - Okay, bar none, this is the best title Marvel is publishing right now. Bendis' magical grasp of dialogue is put to great use in this title. The team is great, the fugitive angle they've been playing for the last year and a bit is still working, and the stories are top notch. If you aren't reading New Avengers, go grab the "Breakout" trade and get started. This is the title that's defining what's happening in the Marvel Universe.
Batman: Battle for the Cowl - Arkham Asylum #1 - In my new quest to give the Bat-titles a try I'm starting off with the specials surrounding the search for a new Batman. This one was the creepiest, but it was a nice little stroll down memory lane. Maybe it's time to read Morrison and McKean's "Arkham Asylum" again. That book is a trip. As for this special, the new (are they new?) villains are neat. I'm excited to see where the Bat-universe is going, especially with Morrison and Quitely doing their thing in the coming months.
Skrull Kill Krew #1 - Throwback to one of the few bits of Grant Morrison's ouvre that I would label "mediocre." I probably won't pick up the second issue of this one. But with a name like "Skrull Kill Krew," I had to pick up at least the first one.
Fall of Cthulhu: Nemesis #1 - I will not be able to read this comic until I've tracked down 3 of the 20-some odd issues that preceded it. Thoroughly annoying.
The Strange Adventures of H.P. Lovecraft - When I last read a comic story about Lovecraft, it was the Necronauts. This one is somewhat different, and the story (of a young HPL haunted by dreams that seem to come true) hasn't quite grabbed me yet. However, Tony Salmons can draw a stunningly beautiful 20's flapper.
Pride & Prejudice #1 - I was so hopeful for this one. The cover by Sonny Liew is great. The source material is classic. Unfortunately, the contents don't measure up. Sure, it's a faithful adaptation, but the interior art reminds me of Grimm Fairy Tales from Zenescape. All the women are beautiful, but it's like they're wax dummies set in poses. There's no life to the art. Add to that the stilted language of the 19th century, and it spells failure. Shame.
Detective Comics #853 - Whenever Neil Gaiman ventures back into comics, it's a big deal. That said, I wasn't a big fan of "1602," and I never even looked at "The Eternals" (though I really should). So, when it was revealed that he was writing a 2-parter after the death of Batman, I had to pick it up. I just had to. It's Gaiman. And in this, I was not disappointed. I had a pretty good look at the first part here. The second part eschews the form of the Canterbury Tales, but tells a brilliant story about Batman and his death. If Gaiman came back to comics and wrote stories like this all the time, we'd have another Sandman on our hands. It's a shame he's left comics behind. We miss him.
That's it this week. One other item I have to point out is The Freedom Collective #1. I haven't read it yet, but I grabbed it last week. The premise is "What if Jack Kirby and Stan Lee were living in the Cold War-era U.S.S.R. when they decided to create The Avengers?" Inspired. I looked into Communist comics when I was researching Batman vs. Mighty Wing, but it turns out that comics were strictly forbidden under party rule. Which makes Freedom Collective that much more interesting.
Batman: Battle for the Cowl - Arkham Asylum #1 - In my new quest to give the Bat-titles a try I'm starting off with the specials surrounding the search for a new Batman. This one was the creepiest, but it was a nice little stroll down memory lane. Maybe it's time to read Morrison and McKean's "Arkham Asylum" again. That book is a trip. As for this special, the new (are they new?) villains are neat. I'm excited to see where the Bat-universe is going, especially with Morrison and Quitely doing their thing in the coming months.
Skrull Kill Krew #1 - Throwback to one of the few bits of Grant Morrison's ouvre that I would label "mediocre." I probably won't pick up the second issue of this one. But with a name like "Skrull Kill Krew," I had to pick up at least the first one.
Fall of Cthulhu: Nemesis #1 - I will not be able to read this comic until I've tracked down 3 of the 20-some odd issues that preceded it. Thoroughly annoying.
The Strange Adventures of H.P. Lovecraft - When I last read a comic story about Lovecraft, it was the Necronauts. This one is somewhat different, and the story (of a young HPL haunted by dreams that seem to come true) hasn't quite grabbed me yet. However, Tony Salmons can draw a stunningly beautiful 20's flapper.
Pride & Prejudice #1 - I was so hopeful for this one. The cover by Sonny Liew is great. The source material is classic. Unfortunately, the contents don't measure up. Sure, it's a faithful adaptation, but the interior art reminds me of Grimm Fairy Tales from Zenescape. All the women are beautiful, but it's like they're wax dummies set in poses. There's no life to the art. Add to that the stilted language of the 19th century, and it spells failure. Shame.
Detective Comics #853 - Whenever Neil Gaiman ventures back into comics, it's a big deal. That said, I wasn't a big fan of "1602," and I never even looked at "The Eternals" (though I really should). So, when it was revealed that he was writing a 2-parter after the death of Batman, I had to pick it up. I just had to. It's Gaiman. And in this, I was not disappointed. I had a pretty good look at the first part here. The second part eschews the form of the Canterbury Tales, but tells a brilliant story about Batman and his death. If Gaiman came back to comics and wrote stories like this all the time, we'd have another Sandman on our hands. It's a shame he's left comics behind. We miss him.
That's it this week. One other item I have to point out is The Freedom Collective #1. I haven't read it yet, but I grabbed it last week. The premise is "What if Jack Kirby and Stan Lee were living in the Cold War-era U.S.S.R. when they decided to create The Avengers?" Inspired. I looked into Communist comics when I was researching Batman vs. Mighty Wing, but it turns out that comics were strictly forbidden under party rule. Which makes Freedom Collective that much more interesting.
Apr 14, 2009
Some dates for your calendar.
Some interesting comic book-related events for this year.
April 18 - 19 Toronto Comicon Fan Appreciation
May 2 Free Comic Book Day
(Seriously, this is one of my favourite days of the year. Do yourself a favour and get out to the local comic store on this day and see what's out there.)
August 28 - 30 Fan Expo Canada
September 27 Word on the Street
Not specifically a comic book event, but Drawn & Quarterly are often there, as well as some independent comic publishers.
April 18 - 19 Toronto Comicon Fan Appreciation
May 2 Free Comic Book Day
(Seriously, this is one of my favourite days of the year. Do yourself a favour and get out to the local comic store on this day and see what's out there.)
August 28 - 30 Fan Expo Canada
September 27 Word on the Street
Not specifically a comic book event, but Drawn & Quarterly are often there, as well as some independent comic publishers.
Mar 25, 2009
"...That Hates and Fears Them": The X-Men and South African Apartheid
This is another comic book-based essay I did for school this year. No word on what I got on it yet.
“...That Hates And Fears Them”: The X-Men and South African Apartheid
The X-Men are most familiar to the general public as the leather-clad freedom-fighters of the early-2000s movie trilogy. While these films undoubtedly did wonders for the franchise, they did not do justice to the important thematic elements of the comic book series. The social critique took a back seat to the action movie. Over the course of their almost 50-year history, the X-Men have been used by numerous writers and artists to discuss a variety of social woes. They have acted as black civil rights analogues in the 1960s and have been commentary on the gay rights movement of the modern era. All of this under the guise of spandex-clad superheroes fighting for a finer world. For the comic book reading community in the late 1980s, the X-Men became a symbol of a struggle that engaged the consciousness of the Western world: the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa. By examining various aspects of the comic, political, social, and personal, the X-Men of the 1980s can be read as commentary on, and explication of, the struggle of black South Africans against apartheid.
There is always a danger inherent in making a comparison such as this one. The struggle against apartheid was not just politically-charged, but emotionally-charged too. A comparison between fictional superheroes and factual freedom fighters can run the risk of being labelled with belittling a significant, and damaging, historical period. The comic book, for the longest time, has been thought of as a throw-away medium, at least by those outside the community. Such an opinion is helped by the quality of materials involved in producing the comic book, especially the ones of the era being considered. The pages are cheap newsprint, the art is slightly blurry, and the colours relatively dull. This, of course, has to be taken in the context of the time, and modern comics prove that printing technology has advanced a great deal in the last 25 years. Regardless, the average comic in the 1980s cost about 75¢, so was not a treasured repository of social commentary. However, if one looks back at the history of the medium, the comic book has always been an outlet for such commentary.
In the 1940s, not long after the first appearance of the superhero, American comics “reflected...the American public's reaction to the horrors of war in general” (Thomas 6), with figures such as Captain America and the Sub-Mariner joining the struggle against Fascism in World War II. The 1950s brought E.C. Comics with their bleak and graphically violent commentary on the hypocrisy of contemporary American society. This social criticism ended with Dr. Frederic Wertham's call for the U.S. Senate to form “a subcommittee to investigate comics and potential ties to juvenile delinquency” (Ro 52). Even into the 1960s, when the institution of the Comics Code Authority had “cleaned up” the industry, Marvel Comics introduced the X-Men, who became “a fantastical allegory to the then-growing American civil rights movement” (Mallory 47). The 1970s brought the even-more biting social satire and criticism of Steve Gerber's Man-Thing and Howard the Duck. In this light, the supposition that The Uncanny X-Men could be a commentary on the situation in South Africa seems far more plausible, and far less frivolous, than a surface reading might suggest.
Through the early Eighties the stories of the X-Men started to deal with a government that was increasingly hostile to their kind. In The Uncanny X-Men #181, a fictional U.S. Senator named Robert Kelly introduces Federal Bill “S-1 – The Mutant Affairs Control Act” (Claremont, “Tokyo Story” 22). The bill, described by detractors as not “far removed from legalized slavery” (21), sets out the mandate of “licensing [mutants] by the government” (“Dark” 5). Senator Kelly's impetus for the act, which at a later point in the comic book universe's chronology actually passes into law, is that “as a nation and, perhaps, a species -- [we have] to defend ourselves!” (“Tokyo Story” 21). This fictional bill parallels a whole slew of laws undertaken by the governing National Party of South Africa, “laws which define the population as consisting of separate 'races'” (International Defense 15). This distinction of race is interesting in considering the X-Men. While the South African government's proclamation of racial difference is patently ridiculous, such is not the case in the world of the X-Men. The mutants are a different species, one that, while descended from homo sapiens, has specific genetic differences that set them apart. To circumvent the prejudices that can be associated with this biological difference, mutants are depicted in the Marvel universe much the same way that humans are: there are good ones and bad ones, they eat, they sleep, they fall in love, they make mistakes. They are just like the humans who share their world and the people reading their adventures. If a people who are genetically different from humans can be, if not heroes, decent ordinary citizens, then it is ridiculous to separate other humans based solely on the colour of their skin. Such a notion may be obvious to the modern reader, but the point of the depiction in the X-Men comics is to highlight that ridiculousness. It must be remembered that it wasn't until 1985, the year after these stories in The Uncanny X-Men were published, that the United States government started imposing sanctions against South Africa (Thompson 234). The specific parallel for the Mutant Affairs Control Act (M.A.C.A.) are the Pass Laws. While the details of the M.A.C.A. are left nebulous, likely so as not to stifle various writers' interpretation and use of it, the Pass Laws give a chilling idea of what those specifics might be: “they show at a glance whether they [the Africans] have any right to be in a particular area; whether or where they are employed; whether they have paid their taxes” (International Defense 43). Later into the comics' history, the M.A.C.A. is renamed “The Mutant Registration Act,” echoing bluntly the “Population Registration Act” of 1950, that instituted “a register of the population and the issuing of racial identity cards” (16). There is a very specific statement being made by creating this sort of tension in the X-Men's universe. Surely it would be easier for superheroes to act in a world free of hatred and bigotry toward their kind, a world that accepts them as the decent people that they are. It would be easier to function in a society without a prejudicial government constantly checking up on, and limiting the freedoms of, its people, a statement that applies every bit as much to apartheid-era South Africa as it does to the X-Men's United States.
Four years later, in The Uncanny X-Men #235, the team and its readership are introduced to the ultra-modern island country of Genosha. “Located off the East African coast, midway between Madagascar and the Seychelles” (Claremont, “Who's Human” 6), this seemingly idyllic nation harbours the dark secret of being maintained by an oppressed class of servile mutants. At this point in the comic, the parallels between the X-Men's fiction and South Africa's reality become quite blatant. By placing the island nation geographically outside the United States, and close to South Africa, the attention of the readers is drawn away from a “what if?” scenario in their own country, to a depiction of what is happening elsewhere in the world. There is further reference to draconian law in the case of a young Genoshan human who finds out his fiancée is “gene-positive.” She is condemned as a mutant and, “know[ing] the law,” he is informed that there will be “no engagement” (“Busting Loose” 25). This references the Mixed Marriages Act and the Immorality Act in South Africa that outlawed “[m]arriage between whites and members of any of the black groups, [as well as] sexual intercourse between them” (International Defense 16). A further legal reflection is the establishment of the “Mutant Settlement Zone” (Claremont, “Revolution” 13). This mutant homeland in the barren north, an enforced geographical segregation, parallels the Group Areas Act of 1980, that forced the labouring class into a substantially smaller amount of land than the ruling whites (International Defense 18). Aside from legal analogues, there are also comparisons to the South African law-makers. Leonard Thompson describes apartheid architect Hendrik Verwoerd thus: “In private life he was charming; in public affairs, dogmatic, intolerant, domineering, and xenophobic” (189). Dr. Moreau (an ironic moniker, to say the least) is the Genegineer on Genosha. He is the man responsible for the control and maintenance of the country's apartheid-like state. When introduced, he is shown as a kind older man working in his garden, and he expresses regret for being pulled away from his son by work (Claremont, “Busting Loose” 7-8). Later, his true colours fly as he describes the oppressed mutants as “our most valuable resource, to be husbanded and utilized for the good of us all” (“Revolution” 19). The kindly facade crumbles even further as Moreau chooses the secrecy and safety of his corrupt regime over the life of his own son (20). Dogmatic, intolerant, domineering, and xenophobic indeed. The comparisons continue apace. Each mutant is forced to wear a uniform that is bonded to their skin, one that, as Rogue of the X-Men points out, “[m]akes the slaves easily identifiable, then guarantees a social environment wherein they're almost totally isolated” (14). This practice takes a society that is predominantly white and creates visual separateness that echoes the separateness of skin colour in South Africa. The marking of mutants also includes the tattooing of a number, somewhat ridiculously, emblazoned across their foreheads. This dehumanizing practice brings the commentary on South Africa in line with that most atrocious of 20th century evils: Nazi Germany. If nothing else had before, this comparison, this link of unthinkably cruel regimes, neatly sums up the opinion of apartheid expressed in the X-Men comics over the years between the introduction of the M.A.C.A. and the fall of Genosha, not long after the real-life fall of apartheid in South Africa .
Political and social themes aside, it is also pertinent to consider the more personal parallels between the X-Men and the anti-apartheid movement. This connection is best explored through fictionalized reflections on apartheid, as fiction can be seen as an emotional reaction to a historical event. The comparison is less concrete, more an implicit connection, but there is a specific theme that links these two disparate fictions: enclosure. Gcina Mhlope's “The Toilet” explores the forced enclosure a black woman in South Africa must endure in order to work and support herself. To escape detection by the white ruling class, she is “locked in [her] sister's room so that the Madam” (Mhlope 117) will not discover her presence. Once employed, the narrator finds herself needing to hide out in a public toilet until she can “sneak into the house again without the white people seeing [her]” (118). This picture of enclosure and hiding has been a staple of the X-Men stories since their inception. In the 1980s, the main X-Men series had a companion comic called The New Mutants. This series traced the adventures of a teen-aged group of mutants, dealing not only with the rights issues of the elder X-Men, but also the problems of puberty and growing up. Issue #45 tells the tale of Larry Bodine who, as a result of being a mutant, ends up killing himself rather than risking discovery. Prior to his suicide, it is revealed that the boy practices his power (the ability to create sculptures out of light, a non-combative and beautiful power) only in his room, locked away from the outside world (Claremont, “Foolin'” 14). At the story's end Kitty Pryde, one of the X-Men, wonders about being accepted by humans and asks, “how can we [be accepted] if we keep hiding.../...behind masks and secret identities and the walls of our school?” (23). Both in the fictional universe and in the real one, enclosure becomes a survival mechanism, perhaps one that all oppressed peoples adopt in one way or another.
The Uncanny X-Men joins a long tradition of social commentary and protest comics with its treatment of apartheid in the 1980s. The deliberate social and political critiques, coupled with the perhaps coincidental thematic similarities with apartheid fiction, give the series a far greater depth than has historically been attributed to the mainstream comic book medium. Of course, having presented such an argument, one is always left with the question of why this reading of this text is an important one, the question of “So what?” To step briefly out of the academic tone, while I was researching this paper, I was struck by the dearth of information pertaining to the reaction of the West to the apartheid state in South Africa. At the time, it was a “cause célèbre” engendering movie star outcries and protest concerts, as well as the myriad political boycotts and sanctions levied against the government. There is certainly plenty of information about what happened, but as I stated in the previous section, fiction can be utilized to discuss how people react emotionally to what happened. Perhaps it is not only important to remember what occurred in history in order to not repeat it, but to remember how that period of history made us feel. This essay demonstrates the anger and revulsion that one small segment of the population felt over South African apartheid.
Works Cited
Note: The citations for individual comic books are based on an article online found at http://www.comicsresearch.org/CAC/cite.html. It is a work in progress, as there is no official MLA guide for citing comic books.
Claremont, Chris (w), Jackson Guice (p), and Kyle Baker (i). “We Were Only Foolin'.” The New Mutants #45 (Nov. 1986), Marvel Comics.
---, Rick Leonardi (p), and Terry Austin (i). “Who's Human?” The Uncanny X-Men #237 (Early Nov. 1988), Marvel Comics.
---, John Romita, jr. (p), and Dan Green (i). “Tokyo Story.” The Uncanny X-Men #181 (May 1984), Marvel Comics.
---, Marc Silvestri (p), and Dan Green (i). “Busting Loose!” The Uncanny X-Men #236 (Late October 1986), Marvel Comics.
---,---,---. “Gonna Be A Revolution.” The Uncanny X-Men #238 (Late Nov. 1988), Marvel Comics.
---, ---, and Bob Wiacek (i). “The Dark before the Dawn.” The Uncanny X-Men #224 ( December 1987), Marvel Comics.
International Defense and Aid Fund for Southern Africa. Apartheid: The Facts. Kent: A.G. Bishop & Sons, 1983.
Mallory, Michael. X-Men: The Characters and Their Universe. Hugh Lauter Levin Associates, 2006.
Mhlope, Gcina. “The Toilet.” Being Here: Modern Short Stories from Southern Africa. Comp. R. Malan. David Phillips Publishers, 1996. 117-23.
Ro, Ronin. Tales to Astonish. New York: Bloomsbury, 2004.
Thomas, Roy. “Marvel's Most Timely Heroes.” The Golden Age of Marvel Comics. Ed. Tom Brevoort. New York: Marvel Comics, 1997. 4-8.
Thompson, Leonard. A History of South Africa. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990.
“...That Hates And Fears Them”: The X-Men and South African Apartheid
The X-Men are most familiar to the general public as the leather-clad freedom-fighters of the early-2000s movie trilogy. While these films undoubtedly did wonders for the franchise, they did not do justice to the important thematic elements of the comic book series. The social critique took a back seat to the action movie. Over the course of their almost 50-year history, the X-Men have been used by numerous writers and artists to discuss a variety of social woes. They have acted as black civil rights analogues in the 1960s and have been commentary on the gay rights movement of the modern era. All of this under the guise of spandex-clad superheroes fighting for a finer world. For the comic book reading community in the late 1980s, the X-Men became a symbol of a struggle that engaged the consciousness of the Western world: the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa. By examining various aspects of the comic, political, social, and personal, the X-Men of the 1980s can be read as commentary on, and explication of, the struggle of black South Africans against apartheid.
There is always a danger inherent in making a comparison such as this one. The struggle against apartheid was not just politically-charged, but emotionally-charged too. A comparison between fictional superheroes and factual freedom fighters can run the risk of being labelled with belittling a significant, and damaging, historical period. The comic book, for the longest time, has been thought of as a throw-away medium, at least by those outside the community. Such an opinion is helped by the quality of materials involved in producing the comic book, especially the ones of the era being considered. The pages are cheap newsprint, the art is slightly blurry, and the colours relatively dull. This, of course, has to be taken in the context of the time, and modern comics prove that printing technology has advanced a great deal in the last 25 years. Regardless, the average comic in the 1980s cost about 75¢, so was not a treasured repository of social commentary. However, if one looks back at the history of the medium, the comic book has always been an outlet for such commentary.
In the 1940s, not long after the first appearance of the superhero, American comics “reflected...the American public's reaction to the horrors of war in general” (Thomas 6), with figures such as Captain America and the Sub-Mariner joining the struggle against Fascism in World War II. The 1950s brought E.C. Comics with their bleak and graphically violent commentary on the hypocrisy of contemporary American society. This social criticism ended with Dr. Frederic Wertham's call for the U.S. Senate to form “a subcommittee to investigate comics and potential ties to juvenile delinquency” (Ro 52). Even into the 1960s, when the institution of the Comics Code Authority had “cleaned up” the industry, Marvel Comics introduced the X-Men, who became “a fantastical allegory to the then-growing American civil rights movement” (Mallory 47). The 1970s brought the even-more biting social satire and criticism of Steve Gerber's Man-Thing and Howard the Duck. In this light, the supposition that The Uncanny X-Men could be a commentary on the situation in South Africa seems far more plausible, and far less frivolous, than a surface reading might suggest.
Through the early Eighties the stories of the X-Men started to deal with a government that was increasingly hostile to their kind. In The Uncanny X-Men #181, a fictional U.S. Senator named Robert Kelly introduces Federal Bill “S-1 – The Mutant Affairs Control Act” (Claremont, “Tokyo Story” 22). The bill, described by detractors as not “far removed from legalized slavery” (21), sets out the mandate of “licensing [mutants] by the government” (“Dark” 5). Senator Kelly's impetus for the act, which at a later point in the comic book universe's chronology actually passes into law, is that “as a nation and, perhaps, a species -- [we have] to defend ourselves!” (“Tokyo Story” 21). This fictional bill parallels a whole slew of laws undertaken by the governing National Party of South Africa, “laws which define the population as consisting of separate 'races'” (International Defense 15). This distinction of race is interesting in considering the X-Men. While the South African government's proclamation of racial difference is patently ridiculous, such is not the case in the world of the X-Men. The mutants are a different species, one that, while descended from homo sapiens, has specific genetic differences that set them apart. To circumvent the prejudices that can be associated with this biological difference, mutants are depicted in the Marvel universe much the same way that humans are: there are good ones and bad ones, they eat, they sleep, they fall in love, they make mistakes. They are just like the humans who share their world and the people reading their adventures. If a people who are genetically different from humans can be, if not heroes, decent ordinary citizens, then it is ridiculous to separate other humans based solely on the colour of their skin. Such a notion may be obvious to the modern reader, but the point of the depiction in the X-Men comics is to highlight that ridiculousness. It must be remembered that it wasn't until 1985, the year after these stories in The Uncanny X-Men were published, that the United States government started imposing sanctions against South Africa (Thompson 234). The specific parallel for the Mutant Affairs Control Act (M.A.C.A.) are the Pass Laws. While the details of the M.A.C.A. are left nebulous, likely so as not to stifle various writers' interpretation and use of it, the Pass Laws give a chilling idea of what those specifics might be: “they show at a glance whether they [the Africans] have any right to be in a particular area; whether or where they are employed; whether they have paid their taxes” (International Defense 43). Later into the comics' history, the M.A.C.A. is renamed “The Mutant Registration Act,” echoing bluntly the “Population Registration Act” of 1950, that instituted “a register of the population and the issuing of racial identity cards” (16). There is a very specific statement being made by creating this sort of tension in the X-Men's universe. Surely it would be easier for superheroes to act in a world free of hatred and bigotry toward their kind, a world that accepts them as the decent people that they are. It would be easier to function in a society without a prejudicial government constantly checking up on, and limiting the freedoms of, its people, a statement that applies every bit as much to apartheid-era South Africa as it does to the X-Men's United States.
Four years later, in The Uncanny X-Men #235, the team and its readership are introduced to the ultra-modern island country of Genosha. “Located off the East African coast, midway between Madagascar and the Seychelles” (Claremont, “Who's Human” 6), this seemingly idyllic nation harbours the dark secret of being maintained by an oppressed class of servile mutants. At this point in the comic, the parallels between the X-Men's fiction and South Africa's reality become quite blatant. By placing the island nation geographically outside the United States, and close to South Africa, the attention of the readers is drawn away from a “what if?” scenario in their own country, to a depiction of what is happening elsewhere in the world. There is further reference to draconian law in the case of a young Genoshan human who finds out his fiancée is “gene-positive.” She is condemned as a mutant and, “know[ing] the law,” he is informed that there will be “no engagement” (“Busting Loose” 25). This references the Mixed Marriages Act and the Immorality Act in South Africa that outlawed “[m]arriage between whites and members of any of the black groups, [as well as] sexual intercourse between them” (International Defense 16). A further legal reflection is the establishment of the “Mutant Settlement Zone” (Claremont, “Revolution” 13). This mutant homeland in the barren north, an enforced geographical segregation, parallels the Group Areas Act of 1980, that forced the labouring class into a substantially smaller amount of land than the ruling whites (International Defense 18). Aside from legal analogues, there are also comparisons to the South African law-makers. Leonard Thompson describes apartheid architect Hendrik Verwoerd thus: “In private life he was charming; in public affairs, dogmatic, intolerant, domineering, and xenophobic” (189). Dr. Moreau (an ironic moniker, to say the least) is the Genegineer on Genosha. He is the man responsible for the control and maintenance of the country's apartheid-like state. When introduced, he is shown as a kind older man working in his garden, and he expresses regret for being pulled away from his son by work (Claremont, “Busting Loose” 7-8). Later, his true colours fly as he describes the oppressed mutants as “our most valuable resource, to be husbanded and utilized for the good of us all” (“Revolution” 19). The kindly facade crumbles even further as Moreau chooses the secrecy and safety of his corrupt regime over the life of his own son (20). Dogmatic, intolerant, domineering, and xenophobic indeed. The comparisons continue apace. Each mutant is forced to wear a uniform that is bonded to their skin, one that, as Rogue of the X-Men points out, “[m]akes the slaves easily identifiable, then guarantees a social environment wherein they're almost totally isolated” (14). This practice takes a society that is predominantly white and creates visual separateness that echoes the separateness of skin colour in South Africa. The marking of mutants also includes the tattooing of a number, somewhat ridiculously, emblazoned across their foreheads. This dehumanizing practice brings the commentary on South Africa in line with that most atrocious of 20th century evils: Nazi Germany. If nothing else had before, this comparison, this link of unthinkably cruel regimes, neatly sums up the opinion of apartheid expressed in the X-Men comics over the years between the introduction of the M.A.C.A. and the fall of Genosha, not long after the real-life fall of apartheid in South Africa .
Political and social themes aside, it is also pertinent to consider the more personal parallels between the X-Men and the anti-apartheid movement. This connection is best explored through fictionalized reflections on apartheid, as fiction can be seen as an emotional reaction to a historical event. The comparison is less concrete, more an implicit connection, but there is a specific theme that links these two disparate fictions: enclosure. Gcina Mhlope's “The Toilet” explores the forced enclosure a black woman in South Africa must endure in order to work and support herself. To escape detection by the white ruling class, she is “locked in [her] sister's room so that the Madam” (Mhlope 117) will not discover her presence. Once employed, the narrator finds herself needing to hide out in a public toilet until she can “sneak into the house again without the white people seeing [her]” (118). This picture of enclosure and hiding has been a staple of the X-Men stories since their inception. In the 1980s, the main X-Men series had a companion comic called The New Mutants. This series traced the adventures of a teen-aged group of mutants, dealing not only with the rights issues of the elder X-Men, but also the problems of puberty and growing up. Issue #45 tells the tale of Larry Bodine who, as a result of being a mutant, ends up killing himself rather than risking discovery. Prior to his suicide, it is revealed that the boy practices his power (the ability to create sculptures out of light, a non-combative and beautiful power) only in his room, locked away from the outside world (Claremont, “Foolin'” 14). At the story's end Kitty Pryde, one of the X-Men, wonders about being accepted by humans and asks, “how can we [be accepted] if we keep hiding.../...behind masks and secret identities and the walls of our school?” (23). Both in the fictional universe and in the real one, enclosure becomes a survival mechanism, perhaps one that all oppressed peoples adopt in one way or another.
The Uncanny X-Men joins a long tradition of social commentary and protest comics with its treatment of apartheid in the 1980s. The deliberate social and political critiques, coupled with the perhaps coincidental thematic similarities with apartheid fiction, give the series a far greater depth than has historically been attributed to the mainstream comic book medium. Of course, having presented such an argument, one is always left with the question of why this reading of this text is an important one, the question of “So what?” To step briefly out of the academic tone, while I was researching this paper, I was struck by the dearth of information pertaining to the reaction of the West to the apartheid state in South Africa. At the time, it was a “cause célèbre” engendering movie star outcries and protest concerts, as well as the myriad political boycotts and sanctions levied against the government. There is certainly plenty of information about what happened, but as I stated in the previous section, fiction can be utilized to discuss how people react emotionally to what happened. Perhaps it is not only important to remember what occurred in history in order to not repeat it, but to remember how that period of history made us feel. This essay demonstrates the anger and revulsion that one small segment of the population felt over South African apartheid.
Works Cited
Note: The citations for individual comic books are based on an article online found at http://www.comicsresearch.org/CAC/cite.html. It is a work in progress, as there is no official MLA guide for citing comic books.
Claremont, Chris (w), Jackson Guice (p), and Kyle Baker (i). “We Were Only Foolin'.” The New Mutants #45 (Nov. 1986), Marvel Comics.
---, Rick Leonardi (p), and Terry Austin (i). “Who's Human?” The Uncanny X-Men #237 (Early Nov. 1988), Marvel Comics.
---, John Romita, jr. (p), and Dan Green (i). “Tokyo Story.” The Uncanny X-Men #181 (May 1984), Marvel Comics.
---, Marc Silvestri (p), and Dan Green (i). “Busting Loose!” The Uncanny X-Men #236 (Late October 1986), Marvel Comics.
---,---,---. “Gonna Be A Revolution.” The Uncanny X-Men #238 (Late Nov. 1988), Marvel Comics.
---, ---, and Bob Wiacek (i). “The Dark before the Dawn.” The Uncanny X-Men #224 ( December 1987), Marvel Comics.
International Defense and Aid Fund for Southern Africa. Apartheid: The Facts. Kent: A.G. Bishop & Sons, 1983.
Mallory, Michael. X-Men: The Characters and Their Universe. Hugh Lauter Levin Associates, 2006.
Mhlope, Gcina. “The Toilet.” Being Here: Modern Short Stories from Southern Africa. Comp. R. Malan. David Phillips Publishers, 1996. 117-23.
Ro, Ronin. Tales to Astonish. New York: Bloomsbury, 2004.
Thomas, Roy. “Marvel's Most Timely Heroes.” The Golden Age of Marvel Comics. Ed. Tom Brevoort. New York: Marvel Comics, 1997. 4-8.
Thompson, Leonard. A History of South Africa. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990.
Mar 10, 2009
Mar 6, 2009
Medieval Literature, Modern Comics
(Note: This piece was originally a presentation for a Medieval Literature class. After the year was over, I revised it, replacing the Middle English with a modern translation, for the sake of ease.)
Introduction
When I started thinking about this project, I was concerned that I wouldn't find
nearly enough material to make it worthwhile. There are definitely a large quantity of comics that feature knights and kings and peasants and fairies. I wondered if they would necessarily have much to do with their 12th - 14th century precedents, or would it just be a matter of a particular thing looking cool in a comic book story? Luckily, the answer fell somewhere in the middle, and the discoveries I made not only carry forward many elements from the medieval period, but they also look really cool! Some pieces I looked at were so dense that I probably could have focussed solely on them. Grant Morrison and Simone Bianchi's "Seven Soldiers: Shining Knight" is deserving of a paper all its own, but my purpose is to give a broad view of the medieval in comic books, and so a broad selection of comics is necessary. I'm going to break my discussion up into three sections: Stories, Forms, and Themes. Within each section I'll give specific visual examples, and discuss how each example is related to a text from the medieval period.
Note: All the images within the text can be enlarged by clicking on them.
1. Stories
Stories are perhaps the easiest aspect to address in adapting medieval literature to modern comics. Indeed, almost since the beginning of the form, and definitely pre-dating Superman, comics' most recognizable hero, medieval stories have figured
prominently. Hal Foster began "Prince Valiant in the Days of King Arthur" in 1937, and it has continued, in some form, right up to present day (Torregrossa 244). In the modern age of comics, the most recognizable revival of the medieval story is DC Comics' Camelot 3000, originally published between 1982 and 1985. It is an example of what Jason Tondro calls an "Arthur Transformed" tale, "stories which pick up after the death of Arthur" (170). Camelot 3000 bears out Malory's prophetic "some men say...that King Arthur is not dead...that he shall come again" (Malory 713). Arthur returns in the year 3000, as do the best of his knights, and they battle against Morgan Le Fay to 
save the Earth. The treasonous love between Guenivere and Lancelot also makes a return. There is much emphasis throughout the story on the cyclical nature of the tale. Arthur's, it seems, is a story that will go ever on.
Another story of time-travelling knights is Morrison and Bianchi's "Seven Soldiers: Shining Knight." While the greater part of the tale is about a time-displaced knight, the opening pages give an interpretation of the fall of Camelot. The illustration to the left is an example of Tondro's "Traditional Tale," ones that are "adaptations of...tales in the Arthurian 'canon'" (171). This bloody depiction of the Camelot's defeat (the violence of which will be addressed in the "Themes" section) could easily be compared to the "[g]reat carnage...suffered on both sides, [the] countless groans issued from the dying men" (Geoffrey 155). The balance of the tale, however, falls into the "Arthurian Toybox," where a writer grounds "an original character in an Arthurian setting, from which he soon departs to carry on modern superheroic adventures" (172). This is certainly the case for Sir Justin, the hero of "Shining Knight," who finds himself in New York, 2005, very shortly into the story.
The stories of the medieval period have survived in many forms through the ages, from poem to pamphlet, song to cinema. Their use in modern comics is not unusual, and is likely only the latest iteration of the tales. It could be that soon there will be online "webisodes" on YouTube, or some other video sharing site, depicting Gawain's struggles with the Green Knight, or the ribald humour of "The Miller's Tale." These stories will continue to be told in many different media for many years to come.
2. Forms
Aside from the stories that lend themselves to the comic book, the forms those stories take also make an appearance. The use of these forms varies quite widely. An implicit reference to one form, Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales," is also the most recent example we will be looking at. Neil Gaiman's story "Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?" in "Batman" #686, published in February of 2009, and its second part in "Detective Comics" #853, as yet unpublished, tells a vaguely surreal tale of the funeral of The Batman. Various people, friends and enemies, stand to recount
their stories of his last days. Each story is sub-titled, much as each section of Chaucer's work is. The example to the right is the introduction to Alfred's (Bruce "Batman" Wayne's butler) tale. The archaic way of referring to a butler accentuates the connection to Chaucer's text. The other story sub-titled in this comic is simply called "The Catwoman's Tale." The pun is likely very intentional. Jason Tondro writes about "the depth to which Arthurian legend has permeated our culture" (174), such that elements from that legend can be used in comics without explicitly making reference to the legend. I believe that this is the case with "The Canterbury Tales," that it has become so much a part of the culture that a reference such as Gaiman's is implicit.
Where the previous example uses a form specific to one work, Grant Morrison and John J. Muth's The Mystery Play uses the literary form of the mystery play as a jumping-off point for a surreal murder mystery. The setting is a small village in England with a "tradition...of participation in the Yorkshire cycles" (Morrison 6). The Mayor of the town goes on to talk about the involvement of the whole community in the staging of the medieval plays, and in contrast the action of the graphic novel involves many members of the close-knit community. The basic premise is that the actor playing God is murdered, and the actor playing the Devil is the main suspect. Assigned to the murder is one Detective Carpenter (symbolism utterly intentional), who's investigation leads to some profound moral questions and lessons. In this manner, the graphic novel mimics not only the form of the mystery play, but its meditational purpose too. In the illustration to the left, the play is taking place on a flat-bed truck, a fair update of the "system of movable wagons that was common...in England" (Klaus, Gilbert, and Field 118), upon which the play would have taken place on in its original context.
There are other aspects of medieval form that appear in comic books. In issue #4 of "Seven Soldiers: Shining Knight," the villains, a race called the Sheeda, a fairy analogue that will be dealt with in the next section, speak in a runic script. The script is Ogham, an "Early Medieval alphabet used primarily to represent the Old Irish language" ("Ogham" Wikipedia).
These uses of medieval forms serve a number of purposes. They link the modern work with a medieval predecessor, lending an air of authenticity, especially in a medium so marginalized through its history. There is also an aspect of tribute in the works, an acknowledgement that these forms were used in some of the greatest works of English literature and that they should be respected and remembered. Building on this idea is the notion that these forms can be adapted for a modern audience, that they are not just forms that were useful in the medieval period, but ones that can be useful in our modern one.
3. Themes
Thematic elements are somewhat harder to pinpoint. The use of the Sheeda in "Shining Knight" can be interpreted as a "Toybox" approach, as Tondro suggests with Arthurian comics. The fairies are an element of medieval stories (Lanval and Sir Orpheo spring immediately to mind), but their involvement in "Shining Knight" is not specific to one particular tale. In this way they become a thematic element, specifically that of an outside presence, of a magical or unknown nature, intruding upon reality and causing chaos.
Another theme shared by the comic and medieval tales is one that has landed the comic book in trouble quite often over its history: violence. Fredric Wertham's attack on comic books in the 1950s was based almost entirely around depictions of
violence on the printed page, and it was an attack that nearly shut down the comic book industry. In the early 2000s, Steven Seagle and Kelley Jones investigated this aspect of medieval literature in their series "The Crusades." The series chronicles, as the back cover of The Crusades: Urban Decree graphic novel claims, the exploits of "an enigmatic 11th-century crusader...come to render a terrible justice on the citizens of 21st-century San Francisco". As can be seen from the picture to the right, the "terrible justice" is quite brutal. However, if we contrast this with Gawain's exploits in the wilds, where "[s]ometimes he fights dragons, and wolves as well,/Sometimes with wild men who dwelt among the crags" ("Gawain" 255;l.720-21) and on to the declaration that "fighting troubled him less than the rigorous winter" (255;l.726), we see that the violence, the terrible justice, is less troublesome to a character from the medieval period. How, then, can this attitude toward violence be reconciled in the modern day? While the man the knight attacks is a mugger, as are many of his victims throughout the series, his vigilante-style of justice does not sit well with modern people.
It is on the topic of themes that the greatest disparity between medieval literature and modern comics can be seen. The cultural norms of the two periods are so different that transposing into one what is acceptable in the other becomes problematic. However, consideration of such cultural clashes is often the point of superimposing one period over another. In examining the differences between cultural perceptions, a common point of reference can sometimes be distinguished. In such a case, lessons can be learned about both time periods.
Conclusion
The comics I've highlighted here are just a sampling. They are only indicative of medieval elements in comics that I have in my personal collection, and are therefore subject to the whims of my tastes. I have purposefully left out much of the specifics of the stories, purely in the interest of people who might be intrigued and want to go out and find these books. Some among you will perhaps want to find out how Arthur manages to defeat the alien invaders and Morgan Le Fay in Camelot 3000, or just what happens to Sir Justin after he finds himself in New York, circa 2005, in "Seven Soldiers: Shining Knight." What these glimpses may prove, or support at least, is that there is a reason that the great works of the medieval period continue to be studied and read: they are great stories, with great characters, and they deal with themes common to human experience, whether you are a peasant listening to a storyteller in the 13th century, or a person sitting on your couch reading a comic in the 21st.
Introduction
When I started thinking about this project, I was concerned that I wouldn't find
nearly enough material to make it worthwhile. There are definitely a large quantity of comics that feature knights and kings and peasants and fairies. I wondered if they would necessarily have much to do with their 12th - 14th century precedents, or would it just be a matter of a particular thing looking cool in a comic book story? Luckily, the answer fell somewhere in the middle, and the discoveries I made not only carry forward many elements from the medieval period, but they also look really cool! Some pieces I looked at were so dense that I probably could have focussed solely on them. Grant Morrison and Simone Bianchi's "Seven Soldiers: Shining Knight" is deserving of a paper all its own, but my purpose is to give a broad view of the medieval in comic books, and so a broad selection of comics is necessary. I'm going to break my discussion up into three sections: Stories, Forms, and Themes. Within each section I'll give specific visual examples, and discuss how each example is related to a text from the medieval period.
Note: All the images within the text can be enlarged by clicking on them.
1. Stories
Stories are perhaps the easiest aspect to address in adapting medieval literature to modern comics. Indeed, almost since the beginning of the form, and definitely pre-dating Superman, comics' most recognizable hero, medieval stories have figured
prominently. Hal Foster began "Prince Valiant in the Days of King Arthur" in 1937, and it has continued, in some form, right up to present day (Torregrossa 244). In the modern age of comics, the most recognizable revival of the medieval story is DC Comics' Camelot 3000, originally published between 1982 and 1985. It is an example of what Jason Tondro calls an "Arthur Transformed" tale, "stories which pick up after the death of Arthur" (170). Camelot 3000 bears out Malory's prophetic "some men say...that King Arthur is not dead...that he shall come again" (Malory 713). Arthur returns in the year 3000, as do the best of his knights, and they battle against Morgan Le Fay to 
save the Earth. The treasonous love between Guenivere and Lancelot also makes a return. There is much emphasis throughout the story on the cyclical nature of the tale. Arthur's, it seems, is a story that will go ever on.
Another story of time-travelling knights is Morrison and Bianchi's "Seven Soldiers: Shining Knight." While the greater part of the tale is about a time-displaced knight, the opening pages give an interpretation of the fall of Camelot. The illustration to the left is an example of Tondro's "Traditional Tale," ones that are "adaptations of...tales in the Arthurian 'canon'" (171). This bloody depiction of the Camelot's defeat (the violence of which will be addressed in the "Themes" section) could easily be compared to the "[g]reat carnage...suffered on both sides, [the] countless groans issued from the dying men" (Geoffrey 155). The balance of the tale, however, falls into the "Arthurian Toybox," where a writer grounds "an original character in an Arthurian setting, from which he soon departs to carry on modern superheroic adventures" (172). This is certainly the case for Sir Justin, the hero of "Shining Knight," who finds himself in New York, 2005, very shortly into the story.
The stories of the medieval period have survived in many forms through the ages, from poem to pamphlet, song to cinema. Their use in modern comics is not unusual, and is likely only the latest iteration of the tales. It could be that soon there will be online "webisodes" on YouTube, or some other video sharing site, depicting Gawain's struggles with the Green Knight, or the ribald humour of "The Miller's Tale." These stories will continue to be told in many different media for many years to come.
2. Forms
Aside from the stories that lend themselves to the comic book, the forms those stories take also make an appearance. The use of these forms varies quite widely. An implicit reference to one form, Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales," is also the most recent example we will be looking at. Neil Gaiman's story "Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?" in "Batman" #686, published in February of 2009, and its second part in "Detective Comics" #853, as yet unpublished, tells a vaguely surreal tale of the funeral of The Batman. Various people, friends and enemies, stand to recount
their stories of his last days. Each story is sub-titled, much as each section of Chaucer's work is. The example to the right is the introduction to Alfred's (Bruce "Batman" Wayne's butler) tale. The archaic way of referring to a butler accentuates the connection to Chaucer's text. The other story sub-titled in this comic is simply called "The Catwoman's Tale." The pun is likely very intentional. Jason Tondro writes about "the depth to which Arthurian legend has permeated our culture" (174), such that elements from that legend can be used in comics without explicitly making reference to the legend. I believe that this is the case with "The Canterbury Tales," that it has become so much a part of the culture that a reference such as Gaiman's is implicit.
Where the previous example uses a form specific to one work, Grant Morrison and John J. Muth's The Mystery Play uses the literary form of the mystery play as a jumping-off point for a surreal murder mystery. The setting is a small village in England with a "tradition...of participation in the Yorkshire cycles" (Morrison 6). The Mayor of the town goes on to talk about the involvement of the whole community in the staging of the medieval plays, and in contrast the action of the graphic novel involves many members of the close-knit community. The basic premise is that the actor playing God is murdered, and the actor playing the Devil is the main suspect. Assigned to the murder is one Detective Carpenter (symbolism utterly intentional), who's investigation leads to some profound moral questions and lessons. In this manner, the graphic novel mimics not only the form of the mystery play, but its meditational purpose too. In the illustration to the left, the play is taking place on a flat-bed truck, a fair update of the "system of movable wagons that was common...in England" (Klaus, Gilbert, and Field 118), upon which the play would have taken place on in its original context.
There are other aspects of medieval form that appear in comic books. In issue #4 of "Seven Soldiers: Shining Knight," the villains, a race called the Sheeda, a fairy analogue that will be dealt with in the next section, speak in a runic script. The script is Ogham, an "Early Medieval alphabet used primarily to represent the Old Irish language" ("Ogham" Wikipedia).
These uses of medieval forms serve a number of purposes. They link the modern work with a medieval predecessor, lending an air of authenticity, especially in a medium so marginalized through its history. There is also an aspect of tribute in the works, an acknowledgement that these forms were used in some of the greatest works of English literature and that they should be respected and remembered. Building on this idea is the notion that these forms can be adapted for a modern audience, that they are not just forms that were useful in the medieval period, but ones that can be useful in our modern one.
3. Themes
Thematic elements are somewhat harder to pinpoint. The use of the Sheeda in "Shining Knight" can be interpreted as a "Toybox" approach, as Tondro suggests with Arthurian comics. The fairies are an element of medieval stories (Lanval and Sir Orpheo spring immediately to mind), but their involvement in "Shining Knight" is not specific to one particular tale. In this way they become a thematic element, specifically that of an outside presence, of a magical or unknown nature, intruding upon reality and causing chaos.
Another theme shared by the comic and medieval tales is one that has landed the comic book in trouble quite often over its history: violence. Fredric Wertham's attack on comic books in the 1950s was based almost entirely around depictions of
violence on the printed page, and it was an attack that nearly shut down the comic book industry. In the early 2000s, Steven Seagle and Kelley Jones investigated this aspect of medieval literature in their series "The Crusades." The series chronicles, as the back cover of The Crusades: Urban Decree graphic novel claims, the exploits of "an enigmatic 11th-century crusader...come to render a terrible justice on the citizens of 21st-century San Francisco". As can be seen from the picture to the right, the "terrible justice" is quite brutal. However, if we contrast this with Gawain's exploits in the wilds, where "[s]ometimes he fights dragons, and wolves as well,/Sometimes with wild men who dwelt among the crags" ("Gawain" 255;l.720-21) and on to the declaration that "fighting troubled him less than the rigorous winter" (255;l.726), we see that the violence, the terrible justice, is less troublesome to a character from the medieval period. How, then, can this attitude toward violence be reconciled in the modern day? While the man the knight attacks is a mugger, as are many of his victims throughout the series, his vigilante-style of justice does not sit well with modern people.
It is on the topic of themes that the greatest disparity between medieval literature and modern comics can be seen. The cultural norms of the two periods are so different that transposing into one what is acceptable in the other becomes problematic. However, consideration of such cultural clashes is often the point of superimposing one period over another. In examining the differences between cultural perceptions, a common point of reference can sometimes be distinguished. In such a case, lessons can be learned about both time periods.
Conclusion
The comics I've highlighted here are just a sampling. They are only indicative of medieval elements in comics that I have in my personal collection, and are therefore subject to the whims of my tastes. I have purposefully left out much of the specifics of the stories, purely in the interest of people who might be intrigued and want to go out and find these books. Some among you will perhaps want to find out how Arthur manages to defeat the alien invaders and Morgan Le Fay in Camelot 3000, or just what happens to Sir Justin after he finds himself in New York, circa 2005, in "Seven Soldiers: Shining Knight." What these glimpses may prove, or support at least, is that there is a reason that the great works of the medieval period continue to be studied and read: they are great stories, with great characters, and they deal with themes common to human experience, whether you are a peasant listening to a storyteller in the 13th century, or a person sitting on your couch reading a comic in the 21st.
Works Cited
Barr, Mike W. (w), and Brian Bolland (a). Camelot 3000. New York: DC Comics, 1988.
Gaiman, Neil (w), Andy Kubert (p), and Scott Williams (i). "Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader part 1 of 2: The Beginning of the End." Batman #686 (April 2009), DC Comics.
Geoffrey of Monmouth. "A History of the Kings of Britain." The Broadview Anthology of British Literature volume 1: The Medieval Period. Ed. Joseph Black, et al. Peterborough: Broadview Press, 2006. 136-57.
Klaus, Carl H., Miriam Gilbert, and Bradford S. Field, Jr. "Medieval Theater." Stages of Drama. Ed. Carl H. Klaus, Miriam Gilbert, and Bradford S. Field, Jr. 2nd Ed. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1991. 117-121.
Malory, Sir Thomas. "Morte Darthur." The Broadview Anthology of British Literature volume 1: The Medieval Period. Ed. Joseph Black, et al. Peterborough: Broadview Press, 2006. 679-719.
Morrison, Grant (w), and John J. Muth (a). The Mystery Play. New York: DC Comics, 1994.
Morrison, Grant (w), and Simone Bianchi (a). "The Last of Lancelot." Seven Soldiers: Shining Knight #1 (May 2005), DC Comics.
---. "The Last Stand of Don Vincenzo." Seven Soldiers: Shining Knight #4 (October 2005), DC Comics.
"Ogham." Wikipedia. 28 February 2009.
Seagle, Steven T. (w), Kelley Jones (p), and Jason Moore (i). "The First Crusade A.D. 2001." The
Crusades #1 (May 2001), DC Comics.
---. The Crusades: Urban Decree. New York: DC Comics, 2001.
Torregrossa, Michael A. "Once and Future Kings: The Return of King Arthur in the Comics." Adapting the Arthurian Legends for Children. Ed. Barbara Tepa Lupack. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. 243-62.
Tondro, Jason. "Camelot in Comics." King Arthur in Popular Culture. Ed. Elizabeth S. Sklar and Donald L. Hoffman. Jefferson: McFarland & Company, 2002. 169-81.
Barr, Mike W. (w), and Brian Bolland (a). Camelot 3000. New York: DC Comics, 1988.
Gaiman, Neil (w), Andy Kubert (p), and Scott Williams (i). "Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader part 1 of 2: The Beginning of the End." Batman #686 (April 2009), DC Comics.
Geoffrey of Monmouth. "A History of the Kings of Britain." The Broadview Anthology of British Literature volume 1: The Medieval Period. Ed. Joseph Black, et al. Peterborough: Broadview Press, 2006. 136-57.
Klaus, Carl H., Miriam Gilbert, and Bradford S. Field, Jr. "Medieval Theater." Stages of Drama. Ed. Carl H. Klaus, Miriam Gilbert, and Bradford S. Field, Jr. 2nd Ed. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1991. 117-121.
Malory, Sir Thomas. "Morte Darthur." The Broadview Anthology of British Literature volume 1: The Medieval Period. Ed. Joseph Black, et al. Peterborough: Broadview Press, 2006. 679-719.
Morrison, Grant (w), and John J. Muth (a). The Mystery Play. New York: DC Comics, 1994.
Morrison, Grant (w), and Simone Bianchi (a). "The Last of Lancelot." Seven Soldiers: Shining Knight #1 (May 2005), DC Comics.
---. "The Last Stand of Don Vincenzo." Seven Soldiers: Shining Knight #4 (October 2005), DC Comics.
"Ogham." Wikipedia. 28 February 2009
Seagle, Steven T. (w), Kelley Jones (p), and Jason Moore (i). "The First Crusade A.D. 2001." The
Crusades #1 (May 2001), DC Comics.
---. The Crusades: Urban Decree. New York: DC Comics, 2001.
Torregrossa, Michael A. "Once and Future Kings: The Return of King Arthur in the Comics." Adapting the Arthurian Legends for Children. Ed. Barbara Tepa Lupack. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. 243-62.
Tondro, Jason. "Camelot in Comics." King Arthur in Popular Culture. Ed. Elizabeth S. Sklar and Donald L. Hoffman. Jefferson: McFarland & Company, 2002. 169-81.
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