[TL;DR: I have not edited this document in 5 years. I'm in the process. But it handily discusses the Doom Patrol and also the mechanisms (Inflection Theory) behind the kind of cinematic universes we see more and more now. For context, [Captain Marvel spoiler] think about the fact that every time you see Nick Fury at the end of the first Iron Man movie, you'll see those three scratches and know that Goose, the alien cat, did that. Except that at the time that Iron Man came out there's slim to no chance that even the slightest thought of a Captain Marvel movie was in anyone's head, since Carol Danvers didn't exist in that particular form that long ago. A later writer has come and fundamentally altered the fabric of those films, even if in minor ways. This kind of historical inflection is relatively easy to demonstrate. The essay talks about generic inflection, using Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol as its primary text.]
[Okay, okay, I had to go over it a bit. Some of the language was just painful.]
“Those guys give me the creeps:”
Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol and Satire in the Shared-Narrative Universe
by Tom Miller
Introduction: Down Paradise Way
Graphic novels, and the superhero genre, if they are ever to be taken as serious literary works, must be read and situated within the bounds of literary theory. There are frameworks in place with which we might consider such aspects as the symbols utilized in a story, the historical precedents of a character or situation, or the cultural forces at work in a particular tale. However, sequential art [i] is as different from a novel or poem as those forms are from each other. That is to say, there are similarities between prose and poetry, but there are also distinct differences that are addressed in the critical thought that surrounds them. The same is true for graphic narratives. There are ways in which they can be analyzed and understood using traditional literary theory, but there are also ways in which that literary theory must be adapted specifically for the task of analyzing the comic book. A partial foundation of such an adaptation can be realized with an analysis of, and extrapolation from, Grant Morrison's six-volume superhero work Doom Patrol.
Two ways of considering sequential narratives, specifically superhero narratives, that are different from the consideration of other literary forms, are the use of the shared-narrative universe, and the theory of inflection. Doom Patrol is a comic book series that takes place in a shared-narrative universe. It exists in the same realm as stories of Batman and Superman. The stories are not produced by the same creators, but coexist in the same fictional spatial and temporal realm. While the adventures of the Doom Patrol are taking place in Paris, Batman is fighting crime in Gotham and Clark Kent is changing into Superman in the Daily Planet's janitorial closet. The ramification of this coexistence is the theory of inflection. To inflect one's voice is to “vary the intonation or pitch...especially to express mood or feeling” (“inflect,” def. 2). If we consider that works in a shared-narrative universe are implicitly linked spatially and temporally, then one story can vary the “intonation or pitch” of the entire fictional universe to change the “mood or feeling” of other stories. The outcome of such inflection is that meaning and interpretation can then be gleaned from, or applied to, a work in which that meaning was not already implicit.
In the introduction to Doom Patrol: Crawling From the Wreckage, the first book of Morrison's tale, Tom Peyer explains “Why this isn't a super-hero [sic] comic, and why that's good” (Peyer, 2004:5). Peyer's contention is that the Doom Patrol subverts the usual wish-fulfillment aspect of the super-hero comic. In comparison to a hero like The Flash or Superman, a normal, everyday human being looks mundane, even boring, but “[c]ompared to the omniplegic Cliff [Steele, Robotman] and the infected Larry [Trainor, Negative Man], normal people [are] to be envied, not pitied” (Peyer 2004:6). This reading of the series is substantially rewarding. Despite the, in some cases, grotesquely inhuman appearance of some of the Doom Patrol's members and acquaintances, it is a very human story, one that addresses such issues as disability and social ostracism in clever and humane ways. The narrative arc of the relationship between Cliff Steele and Crazy Jane is a touching, if perhaps somewhat touched, love story. So, yes, in some ways Peyer is correct. Doom Patrol is not a super-hero comic. And that is a good thing.
On the other hand, the Doom Patrol exists in a universe populated by some of the most iconic characters that modern Western mythology has produced. “Few fictional characters of any kind have enjoyed the kind of hold over their readers that the great comic book heroes have...[a]nd Superman is the king and father of them all” (Fleisher, 2007:n.p.). Fleisher's glowing appraisal of Superman also applies to the other characters in this universe. Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman, some of the oldest and most continuously-published superheroes, form a trinity that sits at the head of a modern mythology. Lesser super-heroes, The Flash, or Green Lantern, or Aquaman, occupy the lesser roles in this pantheon. And thanks to varied cartoons and movies and lunchboxes and toys and, of course, comic books, these heroes are known by vast numbers of readers, young and old, the world over. So, although Peyer makes a good case for the Doom Patrol not to be considered super-heroes, they do exist in a universe populated by some of the most famous, mythic super-heroes ever imagined. What, then, are the Doom Patrol?
This paper is an attempt to answer that question. I contend that the Doom Patrol are superheroes and important ones at that. They are not important in the same way that Superman is, in the way that, in hundreds of years – hopefully - his stories will still be read and studied. The Doom Patrol are not mythic forces clad in form-fitting spandex. They are a satire. The problematic definition of that term forms a significant portion of the following argument, so suffice to say for now that Doom Patrol is a satiric work, and the team itself a satiric team. And if the team is not mythic, what possible function can they serve, aside from momentary escapism from the tedium of everyday life? Indeed, if Peyer is to be believed, we would not want to escape into the Doom Patrol's shoes. To trouble out what the Doom Patrol are doing in the same world as Batman or Superman, we must consider the shared-narrative universe and the unique ways in which stories set there interact. We must hold bizarre characters such as Mr. Nobody and the Brotherhood of Dada up against the somber Batman and accept that these characters are produced not from the same creative mind, but, fictionally, from the same world. The satire of Doom Patrol, both Grant Morrison's six-volume run on the title and the team itself, produces a window through which other works and other heroes, ones linked only by the slender thread of the shared universe, can be viewed differently. In order that a mythology [ii] endure past the lifespan of its creator(s), there must be an inherent ability for self-reference and self-examination. Satire, in the shared-narrative universe, inflects every other story ever produced in that universe with a particular point of view that was not intrinsic to the creation of those stories. Not only this, but it also provides a building block upon which the future of that universe can be set. The shared-narrative satire rewrites fully the past, present, and future, of the universe within which it occurs. In doing so, it alters both the perceptions of the reader of this shared universe, and the meanings of stories set within it.
My Greatest Adventure: The History of the Doom Patrol
The fictional history of the Doom Patrol, or of any character or team in their shared universe, is one of the pivotal characteristics that is affected by the inflection of satire within the shared-narrative universe. Inflection works not only spatially, but historically, affecting stories published, in some cases, before the inflecting creators were born. The Doom Patrol's first adventure appeared in My Greatest Adventure #80, cover-dated June 1963. After five issues under that title, the comic was renamed The Doom Patrol, and continued until issue #121, the last issue of the series. The team was basically dormant until the mid-eighties when a new Doom Patrol series began, under the direction of writer Paul Kupperberg. After eighteen issues, writer Grant Morrison and artist Richard Case took the reins and started the book down a path that would become infamous. Morrison's run on the title, mostly illustrated by Case, ran from issue nineteen to issue sixty-three. The final issue of this run brings the story of these characters to a satisfactory conclusion, something very few other series can boast. The problem of the shared universe, however, is that the characters are also shared, and if a market still exists for the comic, the comic will continue. This particular volume of Doom Patrol continued under DC's “Vertigo” comic line, an imprint aimed at mature readers, written by Rachel Pollack, until issue number eighty-seven. In 2001, a third volume of the title appeared. This series took elements of all the previous series, teaming Cliff Steele with a new team of younger heroes, while still preserving the off-kilter nature of the stories. It was not a commercial success and ended after less than two years. About a year later, in the pages of the flagship title JLA, the Doom Patrol reappeared, featuring the original line-up from 1963, seemingly back from the dead and updated for contemporary times. This new Doom Patrol, created by writer/artist John Byrne, was what is referred to in the comic book community as a “retcon”. The retcon is short for “retroactive continuity,” and is a tool for writers to be able to tell stories using an established character, or team, without having to remain faithful to (or burdened by, depending on one's point of view) the history of that character. The activities of Orwell's totalitarian regime in 1984 in the Ministry of Truth are an example of retconning long before the term was created [iii]. The new Doom Patrol were, for all intents and purposes, the first Doom Patrol, regardless of the forty year publication history that preceded them. Though the new series ran for eighteen issues, it was a critical disaster, and a further retcon replaced the team's history shortly thereafter. As of this writing, the team is now on the fifth volume of its title, and the current one is, thematically and spiritually, the closest yet to both the original and Morrison-era volumes. Though the stories under consideration are solely the ones from Grant Morrison's run, both the history of the team, and the retconning it underwent are important in considering the nature of the shared-narrative universe and the role that satire has to play in that universe.
Publication history aside, there are a few basic details about the fictional history of the team that are crucial to the argument of this paper. In the beginning, Cliff Steele, Robotman, Larry Trainor, Negative Man, and Rita Farr, Elasti-Girl (and later -Woman) are gathered by Niles Caulder, The Chief. Each member of the team has suffered an accident that has made him or her a social outcast, while at the same time granting powers that might help society. Already the difference of this team is established, in that, unlike the tragedy that makes Bruce Wayne into Batman, or the accident that turns Barry Allen into The Flash, the Doom Patrol's powers are seen as disabilities. Rather than becoming god-like super-beings, the Doom Patrol, as Morrison wrote in his opening epistle to the series, “slouched into town like a pack of junkyard dogs with a grudge against mankind” (Morrison, Crawling, 2004:186). An argument can be made that the satiric vein runs through the team right from the very beginning. The adventures of the original incarnation of the Doom Patrol happened, as much of their history would, on the fringes of the DC universe. While Superman, Batman, the Justice League, and others were teaming up on a monthly basis, building the framework of the shared universe, the Doom Patrol fought bizarre menaces from space, or the machinations of the Brotherhood of Evil, and interacted only fleetingly with the greater world they inhabited. A final plot of the Brotherhood ended with the Doom Patrol heroically sacrificing themselves to save a small fishing village. Ostensibly, this was the end of the Doom Patrol. It turns out, however, that, aside from Rita Farr, each member of the team somehow survived. Cliff, Larry, and Caulder were eventually reunited in a new incarnation of the Doom Patrol. The team took on some younger members and played the traditional super-hero roles, actually interacting with the shared universe. Bearing out their prophetic name once again, numerous members of the new team gave their lives during an alien invasion of the Earth. The remaining members were either hospitalized, or left with the job of cleaning up, or, as the first story of Morrison's run was entitled, of crawling from the wreckage. When this next incarnation is introduced, Cliff Steele is institutionalized, Larry Trainor is hospitalized, and the Chief, in his cold and inimitable way, is trying to figure out how to rebuild the Doom Patrol.
This, then, is where the team stands when Grant Morrison takes over and transforms a B-grade super-hero comic into an acclaimed super-hero satire.
Crawling from the Wreckage: The Traditional Satire
Leon Guilhamet summarizes the problem of “traditional satire” by asserting that “despite some very good work on the subject over the last thirty years” “[h]ow to tell a satire remains a problem” (Guilhamet, 1987:1). He goes on to quote Alvin Kernan's pronouncement of an “'accepted view of satire'” (Guilhamet, 1987:1), but qualifies this view as an “acceptance of satire as a major form rather than [as] widespread agreement about how it works and what exactly it is” (Guilhamet, 1987:1). Guilhamet's book, published in 1987, is echoed in more recent scholarship, where Menippean satire is posited to be “less a clearly defined genre than a set of variable but compatible devices whose traits support an authorial theme” (Weinbrot, 2005:4). The questions of the “cloudy” “status of satire” (Guilhamet, 1987:ix), whether it is genre or mode, and what the exact qualifiers of said genre or mode might be, must be considered as background noise for the current argument. There are certain attributes that traditional satire – genre or mode, verse or prose – exhibits, the “variable but compatible devices,” and it is these criteria that will illuminate Doom Patrol's satirical pedigree. In Anatomy of Criticism, his monumental attempt to “make sense of” “such words as 'myth,' 'symbol,' 'ritual,' and 'archetype'” (Frye, 2006:3), Northrop Frye describes irony and satire as “a parody of romance: the application of romantic mythical forms to a more realistic content which fits them in unexpected ways” (Frye, 2006:208). A central tenet of the romance, that the “essential element of plot...is adventure” in which “virtuous heroes and beautiful heroines represent the ideals and the villains the threats to their ascendancy” (Frye, 2006:173). This is an apt description of the traditional superhero story. Superman, as archetype for most, if not all, superheroes, is virtuous and lives a life of adventure. Though Frye describes the comic book character as one “who never develops or ages” (Frye, 2006:173), whether or not this is the case is a question we will investigate, and may well be one of the ways in which shared-narrative satire works upon its more serious counterparts.
Superman, and his adventures, give us a suitable referent for the romance, especially as we consider Doom Patrol. Even Superman's epithet, the Man of Steel, a marker of his noble and virtuous (and indestructible) nature, is applied more realistically in Doom Patrol, as the ostensible main character, Cliff Steele, is both in name and nature a literal man of steel. Here is but one example of the satire displaying “romantic mythical forms” in “unexpected ways.” Aside from parodying the characters in a superheroic romance, Doom Patrol also parodies the narrative form. Frye breaks the “complete form of the romance” into three stages: “the stage of the perilous journey and...minor adventures,” “the crucial struggle,” “and the exaltation of the hero” (Frye, 2006:174). While the Doom Patrol certainly experience many “minor adventures,” the key parody of the first stage is that the perilous journey takes place almost without moving. The team does indeed travel, quite extensively, for their adventures, but always ends up returning to the Happy Harbour base of operations, significant in that it was formerly occupied by “serious” superheroes the Justice League of America. Early in the story Caulder states that the team will “be moving out of [the] headquarters shortly,” the Chief having “grown tired of the place” (Morrison, Painting, 2004:209), but the climactic battle, Frye's “crucial struggle,” has its beginning in Caulder's lab in this very same headquarters. The Doom Patrol's romantic arc is circular, its journey and minor adventures leading to the very place from which they started. While this can be considered parodic of the romance journey, the circular nature of the ironic journey does not necessarily mean that it is fruitless. All it demonstrates is another of the “unexpected ways” in which the satire subverts the romance.
Aside from the subversion of the romance, there are “[t]wo things,” Frye writes, that “are essential to satire; one is wit or humour founded on fantasy or a sense of the grotesque or absurd, the other is an object of attack” (Frye, 2006:209). The first few adventures of the Doom Patrol, the conflicts with Orqwith, Red Jack, and Dorothy's imaginary friends, are, if a little stranger than the norm, still straightforward, serious superhero stories. However, with the arrival of Mr. Nobody and the Brotherhood of Dada, wit and humour become weapons of the antagonists. The tone of the series changes and takes on this wit and humour, even after the Brotherhood vanish from its pages. Danny the Street's “Perpetual Cabaret” (Morrison, Paradise, 2005:29 – 30), in which defeated antagonists are dressed in humorous costumes and made to perform outrageous musical numbers, or the Brain and Cliff Steele's (disembodied brain's) “face-to-face...open combat” (Morrison, Painting, 2004:222), consisting of the two brains-in-jars sitting on a table next to each other, demonstrate the continued thread of satire through the series. The “object of attack” presents a far more complex reading. Ostensibly, the traditional object of attack of a satire is either another work or the creator of a work. By way of example, the “ongoing rivalry with [a] fellow author...prompted...satirical invective” (“John Dryden,” 2006:70) in Dryden's “Mac Flecknoe,” a work that attacks both the poet Thomas Shadwell, and his writings, neither of which “deviates into sense” (Dryden, 2006:87). Dryden uses what most critics would term “good poetry” to defame and ridicule Shadwell's “bad poetry.” Thus, in this verse satire example, the object of attack is the poet and his poetry, and the vehicle of attack is the form itself. To consider Doom Patrol “good comics” is a difficult pronouncement to make. One marker of pedigree in the comic book publishing world is the reprinting of a series as trade paperback collections. There are, quite literally, tens of thousands of comics that will never be reprinted in this way. The vast majority are those whose literary pedigree within the comic community has been relegated to such low status that, from the publisher's perspective, no one would bother buying such a reprint. There are a few of these un-reprinted thousands that are considered to have a high pedigree and go uncollected for other reasons,[iv] but the vast majority are simply “bad comics.” Thus, with the reprint of the full run of Morrison's Doom Patrol, one can, at least through the lens of capital and publishing, label them “good comics.” Further proof of the quality of a work is its ability to stand up to critical analysis. Of course, such a quality in Doom Patrol is the contention of this paper. Following, then, the example of Dryden's piece, Doom Patrol, as “good comics,” attacks both the writers and the stories of the “bad comics” that share its genre, that is, the other comics that shared (and, indeed, continue to share) shelf space with it at the comic book store. To carry the comparison to a more definite conclusion, in much the same way that Morrison's Doom Patrol, as “good comics” has been reprinted while much of the contemporary work has not, in the Broadview anthology of eighteenth-century literature, Dryden's poetry, “good poetry,” is reprinted, while neither Shadwell's, his object of attack, nor Richard Flecknoe's, for which the poem is partially named, are collected, being, editorially, at least, understood as “bad poetry.”
The comparison of a graphic novel series to a mock-heroic verse satire helps establish satirical pedigree and elucidates one of the essentials of satire. However, the two share few, if any, other structural similarities[v]. More fruitful is a correlation of the graphic novel with the loose tenets of Menippean satire. The Menippean satire “mix[es] genres...often verse and prose...leaves quotidian confines to go...above or below...normal decency...[and] may be either tightly plotted...or loosely plotted” (Weinbrot, 2005:5). It is hardly difficult to see why the definition of satire remains problematic. Doom Patrol, however, fits this description of chaos very well. Over the course of the novels we see the story slip beneath “normal” decency during the “Sex Men” adventure, in which “a sex dream,” has “subordinated and perverted” “all the other dreams and desires of the citizens of Happy Harbour” (Morrison, Musclebound, 2006:168). The loose plotting of the Menippean satire is evident in the introduction in volume two of “the legendary Flex Mentallo. Man of Muscle Mystery!” (Morrison, Paradise, 2005:57). His introduction appears to set-up the team's next adventure, but he is then set aside for the balance of the volume in favour of the team's journey into space. Flex's story is picked up in earnest only in the subsequent volume. This lack of linear plotting is one criteria of satire that Doom Patrol uses to “oppose a dangerous, false, or specious and threatening orthodoxy” (Weinbrot, 2005:6), which in this case consists of the conventions of the superheroic genre, or the shared-narrative world. Weinbrot makes liberal use of Bakhtin's work on satire, outlining the “fourteen 'basic characteristics'” of the “Menippean carnival air” (Weinbrot, 2005:12). Numerous of these characteristics are suitable to Doom Patrol, including the “'extraordinary freedom of plot and philosophical invention” (Bakhtin, qtd. in Weinbrot, 2005:12, emphasis in original), or the “bold unrestraint in its 'use of the fantastic'” (Weinbrot, 2005:12). The whole story could be said to be a work of “'moral-psychological experimentation: a representation of the unusual, abnormal, moral and psychic states of man'” (Bakhtin, qtd. in Weinbrot, 2005:12). The character of Crazy Jane fulfills this criterion all by herself. Frye, Bakhtin, and Weinbrot offer a useful set of criteria for satire by which the Doom Patrol fall squarely within its realm. The series demonstrates formal characteristics of satire, and, as the comparison to Dryden asserts, is used for the same purposes, namely to mock and decry “bad comics” through the voice of “good comics.” By co-opting the tenets of the idealized, of the romance, a satire “give[s] form to the shifting ambiguities and complexities of unidealized existence” (Frye, 2006:208). Where Superman stands apart, messianic and all-powerful, demonstrating an idealized way to live, the Doom Patrol recasts those ideals through the lens of the bizarre. In doing so, the team and the series posit the ridiculousness of high ideals and allow for the adaptation of such ideals to the realm of the mundane. Rather than swooping in and solving everything with fists, the Doom Patrol (and Doom Patrol) ask whether or not their ideals are any more valid than those of their supposed antagonists. They are often left confused in the face of characters whose ideals are of a romantic cast. This reminds the reader, as Dryden does of Shadwell, that not everything that claims to be ideal actually is. Were this an argument that the series is a satire, we could rest here. But the satiric effect of Doom Patrol goes much deeper than solely generic critique. In order to take this foundation of satire further, it must be placed in the narrative structure of the comic book world, the shared-narrative universe.
The Painting That Ate Paris: The Shared-narrative Universe
The shared-narrative universe is a fictional construction in which the changes that affect one character or situation affect others in that universe. It is different from the shared narrative of a novel, or of a series of works by one author that share a world, in that it is constructed and elucidated by more than one creator. More often than not these creators tell their stories with little or no knowledge of the other stories being told in the universe. This is not to say that there is a complete lack of guidance or parameter to which the creators must adhere. A shared-narrative universe such as the one inhabited by the Doom Patrol has certain agreed upon tropes and laws, e.g. Superman lives in Metropolis, the Earth revolves around the Sun. These parameters provide a general structure for the universe, but offer no real constraint on the stories a creator can tell. The laws of the shared-narrative universe can be considered to be those laws that ensure the coherent continued existence of that fictional realm in order that creators have a place to tell their stories. The rules can be bent, and sometimes broken, but can never be completely left behind.
The lack of narrative constraint, however, is tempered by the active part of the appellation: “shared.” The stories we will be considering are what are referred to in the comic book community as “in continuity.” This phrase implies that the stories not only share a spatial location with other stories, but also share a history. “In continuity” implies that the stories acknowledge the official histories of both the character about which the story is written, and the universe in which the character lives. The opposite of “in continuity,” “non-continuity,” is generally a story that takes place in its own universe. The story is considered spatially distinct from an “in continuity” story, but can share a history, as is the case of Morrison and Quitely's All-Star Superman. This tale of Superman is not connected to the DC universe proper, but shares the basic history of Superman in order to establish a context. “Non-continuity” stories can also be tales that start out as “official” history, but, due to the universal events alluded to above, they are removed from the character's or world's history. The most significant example of this kind of retconning is DC's Crisis on Infinite Earths series from 1985. The series attempted to simplify the shared universe by paring multiple worlds down to just one. As a result, many historical stories could not be reconciled with one another, and so were considered “non-continuity,” no longer a part of the shared history. The creators of the shared universe tales agree upon what is, and what is not, a part of the shared narrative. While not a constraint on the kinds of stories that can be told, it is an agreement that a particular set of parameters, a mythology, is acknowledged and adhered to, and that anything that falls outside of those parameters cannot under any but the most extreme circumstances (the recreation of the universe, a la Crisis on Infinite Earths) have any effect upon the “in continuity” stories.
A common aspect of the shared universe is that the characters who share the universe appear in each others' narratives. In the case of Doom Patrol the romantic heroes ostensibly being satirized make appearances alongside the satiric heroes. This is a tried-and-true formula in fledgling or struggling comic books, the hope being that a guest role by a major hero, e.g. Superman and the Justice League in Doom Patrol, will boost sales of the title. More than simply economics, though, the appearance serves much the same function as, say, Milton's invocation of the Muses of antiquity in the opening of Paradise Lost. The inclusion of a hero who is not only historically relevant but also culturally relevant, both within the shared context of the universe and without, in the real world, lends an air of authenticity to a character or comic that exists on the fringes. Further, the difference between a guest appearance in Doom Patrol, as opposed to Superman's appearance in Morrison's Animal Man (Morrison, Animal Man, 1991:11-12) is that, along with the authenticity, these appearances also provide an explicit identification of Frye's requisite object of attack.
One last criterion of the shared-narrative universe, though one that does not necessarily impact the immediate shared narrative, is that a writer or artist must acknowledge, if only implicitly, that he or she is neither the first, nor likely the last, creator to tell stories of these characters. As such, there is much difficulty in establishing any sort of finality or conclusion in a story. Common conception would have it that, regardless of what has come before, and of what is currently being produced, there is an excellent chance that all the stories, and their attendant critique of, or addition to, the shared universe will be rendered moot by future events.
Crawling Into the Wreckage: Shared-Narrative Satire
To begin to parse out the way Doom Patrol functions differently from traditional satire, let us return briefly to Dryden's “Mac Flecknoe.” Thomas Shadwell, the ostensible target of the satire, “wrote some fourteen comedies, including The Squire of Alsatia (1688), The Virtuoso (1676, a satire on the Royal Society), Epsom Wells (1672), and Bury Fair (1689)” (Birch). Were one to read one of Shadwell's plays and then read “Mac Flecknoe,” the idea of the fictional characters within those works sharing a fictional world would be extremely difficult to prove, if not impossible. Indeed, while Dryden's satire might prejudice a reader of Shadwell's plays, the action of the poem in no way inflects or impacts the action of any of the plays. The two fictional realms exist quite separate of one another. This is not the case with Doom Patrol and the other stories with which it shares a universe. What follows are some examples of the way in which Doom Patrol critiques, attacks, and otherwise influences not the medium or its creators, but the very fictional universe it inhabits.
Perhaps the most useful tool that Morrison's Doom Patrol provides for investigating the way satire works in the shared-narrative universe are the series' only recurring “villains,”[v] the Brotherhood of Dada. In the original incarnation of the series, the villains were the Brotherhood of Evil, whose very name places them squarely on the wrong side of the law, be it legal or moral. The Brotherhood of Dada, by their appellation, are beyond good and evil. Dada, “[d]espite its nihilism,...was trail-blazing in its questioning and debunking of accepted norms and traditions” (Ayers, 2001). Mr. Nobody, the new Brotherhood's leader, echoes this sentiment: “'Good'!'Evil'! Outmoded concepts for an antique age. Can't you see? There is no good, there is no evil in our new world!...From this day on we will celebrate the total absurdity of life, the gigantic hocus-pocus of existence. From this day on, let unreason reign!” (Morrison, Painting, 2004:27, emphasis in original). The new Brotherhood “out-weirds” the Doom Patrol, shunning even the trappings of good and evil, right and wrong, and embracing absurdity. The satire begins to invite the reader to question the “accepted norms and traditions” of the shared-narrative universe. Why is the philosophy of Superman, or even of the Doom Patrol, preferable to that of the Brotherhood? Both are fighting for freedom for all. What makes one a villain and one a hero? The satire widens the point of view available to the reader, and begins the work of questioning that which has always stood as paradigmatic.
As the Brotherhood embark upon their first plot, the subsumption of Paris into a “hungry painting” (Morrison, Painting, 2004:35), the “normal” superheroes are on hand, the Justice League Europe, represented by Booster Gold, Animal Man, and Blue Beetle. When the Doom Patrol arrive and embark upon their adventure into the painting, Booster Gold remarks, “Those guys give me the creeps. I mean, whose side are they on anyway?” (Morrison, Painting, 2004:57, emphasis in original). This comment demonstrates the stratification of superhero society, the irony being that, in the shared-narrative, these three serious heroes are on a tier far lower than the godlike Superman. Returning to Frye's assertion of the satire applying romance forms in a more realistic context, he claims that “attributes of divinity will cling to the hero” (Frye, 2006:174). Clearly, however, this is not the case with the Doom Patrol. Even their fellow heroes see them as “creepy.” How, then, does this inflect our reading of other stories within this universe? In theory, when a reader picks up a comic book the main character of that comic book is the sole focus of the action. When one reads a Green Lantern comic, for example, that hero is paramount. Doom Patrol reminds us, however, that such is not the case. Green Lantern, the hero, while perhaps displaying “attributes of divinity” within the context of his own story, only displays those attributes from a particular point of view. From another, perhaps from that of Superman, he is merely a man with a ring, not a divine being. What sets Doom Patrol apart from other comics in this universe is that it goes out of its way to remind the reader that these strata of heroes exist. At the end of the painting storyline, more “A-list” heroes, including the venerable Martian Manhunter and Superman, arrive, and the Doom Patrol's inferiority is implied, if only by the appearance of such iconic individuals. A reader can carry away this heightened awareness of stratification to other stories, by other writers, that do not explicitly address the levels of heroes in the universe: one might then read The Flash or Batman with this inflection of stratification, without the creators of that story having intended that perception. This is the crucial effect that a satirical work such as Doom Patrol has on the shared-narrative universe: inflected perception independent of creator intention. Some further examples will illustrate this point more eloquently.
The Brotherhood of Dada's second appearance in the series introduces a further overlay to the shared universe. Traveling in a school bus powered by a hallucination-inducing bicycle, the Brotherhood careen across the United States, on their “Nobody for President” campaign. When considering the “villain” of the piece, again Mr. Nobody, Crazy Jane, a “hero,” says “I think he's good...The whole thing's [the electoral process] a dumb circus anyway. At least he's admitting it...I'd vote for Mr. Nobody any day” (Morrison, Magic Bus, 2007:22, emphasis in original). This blurring of the definitions of hero and villain begs the question of what villainy involves. In his consideration of satire as provocation, Dustin Griffin posits that “satire often takes the form of paradox” (Griffin, 1994:53). A common contemporary conception of paradox is something drawn from time travel stories. For example, a time paradox is “an event or condition, caused by something a time traveler does while in the past, that is logically impossible based on the state of the universe in their original time” (“time paradox n”). From a more literary standpoint, Griffin terms a paradox as “an apparently self-contradictory statement that may or may not prove to be well founded” (Griffin, 1994:53). As a form of satiric provocation, however, he recasts paradox as “a challenge to 'received opinion,' as para-dox challenges ortho-dox” (Griffin, 1994:53). Further, he considers “the rhetoric of provocation and paradox...[as] the play of 'contraries'” (Griffin, 1994:59 – 60). All this is to say, when reading Doom Patrol, if the heroes themselves begin to question whether or not a villain is a villain, does not the satire ask the same of the reader? And then, what of the other stories in the shared universe? These questions are troubled further by the true (if such a claim can actually be made) villains of the piece, the forces of the shadow government of the Pentagon, and their assassin John Dandy. Dandy summarizes their position in his pronouncement that “This country made sense once” (Morrison, Magic Bus, 2007:54), casting as villains a conservative regime to counter the Brotherhood's ultra-liberal leanings. Of course, in trying to stamp out the strangeness of the Brotherhood, the bizarre and disfigured Dandy is the primary tool. So where, in this morass, is the villain? The question is unanswerable, and demonstrates another example of the satire's inflection of meaning into the shared universe. Each side believes it is right, and, from a particular point of view, the reader can easily understand why. As he lies dying, Mr. Nobody bemoans that the people “don't want strangeness and unpredictability...they never tire of tedium” (Morrison, Magic Bus, 2007:57), and indeed, his variety of novelty and strangeness is attractive. Similarly, however, in deciding to try and stop the Brotherhood, Cliff answers Jane's question of “Why should we do anything?” with “Because if we don't...then...then the Brotherhood is right and there's no point...no point to anything” (Morrison, Magic Bus, 2007:28, emphasis in original). This attitude of there having to be a point, rather than pointlessness, in life, is also attractive. Dandy's call for a country that makes sense is also attractive. Chaos can be frightening, and comfort and sense...comforting. So where is the villain? Who is in the wrong? The story plainly paints the Pentagon and John Dandy as the villains, and the Brotherhood are taken from antagonist to protagonist, with the Doom Patrol watching from the sidelines. Each viewpoint is not only valid, but attractive. Arcing this inflection of viewpoint out into the shared universe, can one ever truly oppose the plans of Lex Luthor when a story is told only from the point of view of Superman? Cliff Steele, a metonymic representation of the fixed hero (Superman, too, is called “The Man of Steel”) eventually comes over to Mr. Nobody's side, assisting him against the control of the government forces, and provides a symbolic representation of this satiric inflection. To read a Superman story is to approach that world from the point of view that Superman is in the right. In a Batman story, Batman is in the right. These heroes are rigidly defined by concepts of good and evil, but the story of the Brotherhood of Dada's presidential campaign refutes those concepts. If a story can be told, in the shared universe, in which all sides are both, or neither, good or evil, the dualistic world view of other stories, again, importantly, written and illustrated by other creators, must be called into question. Thus the satire inflects (or indeed, infects) dualistic stories with multiplicitous points of view, ones that were not implicit in the creation of those stories.
Two more brief examples will demonstrate how much satirical work is accomplished by critical inflection. Consider the following pictures:
Fig. 1. Alias, the Blur , Agent “!”, and Love Glove from Morrison, et al. Doom Patrol: Musclebound ( New York: Vertigo-DC Comics, 2006; print; 224).
Fig. 2. The Justice League from Waid and Ross' Kingdom Come (New York: DC Comics, 1997; print; 68).
While this paper is, for the greater part, a literary paper, one can never discount the effect of the artwork in graphic literature. To consider the words and the pictures separately is to miss the point that the medium is communicating on numerous levels of iconic abstraction (McCloud, 2000:48 – 50), from the pictorial to the linguistic. Both pictures, barring retcons of course, take place in the same shared universe. One, that of the Brotherhood, verges on caricature, appropriate for a satiric comic, while the other, of the Justice League, is photo-realistic almost to a fault. How does one reconcile the existence of both in the same world? One, of course, does not. To try and argue that the cartoon-like Brotherhood and the portrait-like Justice League could share a comic panel would be foolish. Artistic style brings a very specific flavour to a story. Kingdom Come treats on issues of power and faith and the place of heroes in the world – serious issues. As such, it has a “serious” artistic style. If the Brotherhood or the Doom Patrol were to be encountered in this story, they would be portrayed in a way that keeps with the serious themes, and serious look, of the book. However, the opposite is also true, and again this inflection of self-consciousness assaults works with no implicit self-consciousness attached. If a character can be portrayed in the serious, portrait-style of Alex Ross, he or she can also be, and probably has been, portrayed in the Mad-magazine-esque caricature style. Bearing in mind the possible artistic interpretations of character inflects any single portrayal with all possible portrayals. The serious Justice League can, of course, be taken seriously, but not quite completely when considering they can be portrayed satirically.
The final example encompasses two small words, and the effect they have on an entire genre of comic books. The last panel of the third chapter of volume three features a reaction of Cliff Steele and Crazy Jane to two bizarre aliens who appear out of nowhere and blurt out the words “Don't panic.” Cliff's robotic jaw opens (we imagine, as, of course, this is a comic) and out pops the phrase that, chances are, every single one of us would utter in a similar situation (barring, of course, a long, terrified scream): “Holy shit” (Morrison, Paradise, 2005:86). Superheroes, in general, are dignified and polite individuals. Contemporary comics are rife with “...”'s and “Oh my God”'s when a hero is faced with something nefarious, terrifying, or just plain bizarre. This must be attributed to the assumption that comics are going to be read mainly by younger readers, or at least that a comic must be suitable for a younger reader, and therefore free of expletives. Doom Patrol, in the incarnation under consideration, was labeled a “mature readers” comic, which granted some leeway in both dialogue and thematic content. The argument here is certainly not that all superheroes should be letting loose with swear words every time something incredible happens. But the knowledge that there are superheroes who do so makes reading “...” when faced with an alien invasion far more visceral, for lack of a better term. Maybe the hero is thinking “Holy shit” inside, but not verbalizing that sentiment; maybe “Holy shit” never entered the hero's head, but having seen it coming from Cliff Steele's mouth, a reader is more inclined to superimpose that phrase over the more conventional “Oh my God.” Again, the inflection of something not implicit in one work is achieved by another work, one attached only by the shared universe.
There are many other inflective satiric examples in Doom Patrol. The bizarre Agent “!”, whose super-power is that he comes as no surprise, offers commentary on a world where the strange and miraculous are so common that one ought never be surprised to witness such a thing. The story of the Sex Men in volume four critiques the way in which traditional superheroes are both hyper-sexualized and asexual, and delves deeply into the idea of sex and the super-hero. Both of these satirical viewpoints offer inflection a reader can take from Doom Patrol and apply to other works, not purely by dint of the fact that the comic is satirizing the genre, but because the stories take place in the same universe as other, more traditional, works.
Climbing from the Wreckage: So What?
What, then, does all this prove? We have witnessed Doom Patrol performing satirical work. The series subverts the tropes of the romance, ostensibly the backbone of traditional superhero stories, reconfiguring them into stranger permutations. Such sequences as “Romulus and Remus, the Siamese Aerialists,” whose concentration is “so perfect...that their act has been refined down to an essence...that their performance is now entirely conceptual” (Morrison, Paradise, 2005:76) mock the seriousness of artists both within and without the comic industry. Though this particular satirical analysis of Morrison's Doom Patrol focuses on the superheroic elements, the scope of the series' traditional satire is wide. The Cult of the Unwritten Book, and its deity the Anti-God (Morrison, Painting, 2004:129 - 204), poke perilous fun at the Catholic church. Niles “The Chief” Caulder demonstrates the danger of science left unchecked by morality. To claim that the satirical focus of the Doom Patrol is solely the superheroic is to do the work a grave injustice. The work that the satire achieves in the shared-narrative universe, however, must focus on the superheroic, as that is the sole common denominator of all of the stories being told in the shared-narrative universe. Religious, philosophical, or moral dogma aside, the factor that unites these comics into a shared narrative is the acceptance of the fact of the existence of the superhero. As such, the series' true focus is a team of posthumans whose powers do not make them media darlings or self-confident do-gooders. Since its inception, the Doom Patrol, in its truest incarnations[vi], has been a haven for the disabled, for the human whose powers are a disability. Through this lens one can now view the heroes who populate the DC universe, the likes of Superman, Batman, or Wonder Woman, from a very different perspective, that of the individual not celebrated as a result of his or her difference, but one who is shunned for it.
The satire of Doom Patrol in the shared-narrative sense can be approached from various trajectories. Let us first consider the application of the satire historically, not only to the prior incarnations of the series, but to the fictional world itself. The effect of Mr. Nobody and the Brotherhood of Dada, and their very existence in the shared world, has ramifications even for such seminal titles as Action Comics #1, the world's introduction to Superman. As has been previously stated, the original version of the team always stood apart from the rest of the fictional universe, and while not outwardly comedic, their pessimistic view of the life of a superhero satirized their whitewashed contemporaries. Unfortunately, interviews with the original creators are few and far between, if any exist at all, so the authorial intent with the original series must remain unknown. However, the ironic detachment of the Morrison-era can certainly inflect the detachment of the original era, and strengthen a reading of those early stories through a satiric lens. One must bear in mind that the satiric elements of the fictional universe cannot be said to have been created during the satiric era of the team, but must have existed prior to their being primary elements of the story. As such, these satiric elements must, fictionally, have existed in the backgrounds of not only My Greatest Adventure #80 (the Doom Patrol's first appearance), but also in the backgrounds of Detective Comics #27 (the first Batman story) and Action Comics #1 (the first Superman). Again, there is no explicit connection between these stories and the satire of Morrison's nineties Doom Patrol, but, by dint of their existing in the same fictional universe, that satire must be implicitly understood to be present. The important concept, and one that will continue in the contemporary trajectory, is the influence of one creator's (or creative team's) vision upon another's based solely on the story content and literary mode, the inflection of meaning that was, or is, not implicit in the affected story.
The second trajectory of this satirical view is to the present, to the shared-narrative universe as it stands both when Morrison was writing the title, and in current times. This contemporary perspective shares much with the historical one, in that the satiric viewpoint of Doom Patrol inflects meaning upon stories that are not inherently satiric, nor that acknowledge the satiric viewpoint in the shared universe. The differing element of the contemporary shared-narrative universe, in comparison to the historical one, is that comics and stories within this universe are far more intertwined than in the past. The seminal series Crisis on Infinite Earths, while purporting to streamline the shared universe, started a trend of complex and interlocking stories that spanned numerous comic titles and characters. As such, it became less and less easy to separate the events of one character's series from others. While this does the work of building a cohesive and vibrant fictional world, it also requires creators and editors to acknowledge the events of other stories in their own, even if those events have little, or nothing, to do with their tales. The effect of this greater intertextuality in the fictional world is not solely influence of story upon story, character upon character, but also genre upon genre. Neil Gaiman's Sandman series bridges both romance and tragedy, and is a contemporary of Morrison's Doom Patrol. While Doom Patrol inflects, as we have seen, the serious with the satiric, Sandman must have the opposite effect, inflecting, by the fact of its existence in the same world, the Doom Patrol's bizarre adventures with a sense of the tragic happening elsewhere in their universe. Again, as with the historical view, neither creator intended for this reading, but by virtue of their sharing a fictional world, the two must acknowledge each others' genres as being implicit in their world, and in their works.
The final story in Morrison's Doom Patrol presents a problem in the satiric reading of the series. Nile's Caulder's revelation at the end of volume five provides a microscopic example of how the satire of The Doom Patrol functions on the macroscopic scale. Caulder's effect on the shared narrative of the Doom Patrol's fictional history functions more through the tragic mode than the ironic one, but the example is still a valid one. The fictional history of the team outlined earlier is a history of the underdog superheroes and their misfortunes. It is precisely this history that Morrison's tale of Caulder's engineering of the accidents that gave rise to the Doom Patrol subverts. Now, rather than chance having brought these injured people together in order that they might cope with their problems, we understand that there has been a nefarious presence behind the scenes all along, masquerading as a friend. This nefarious presence, however, was not in the minds of Arnold Drake and Bruno Premiani when they created the Doom Patrol and wrote their first adventures. Now, however, through the lens of Morrison's tale, those earlier stories take on a darker cast. Richard Case ably reminds the reader of the earlier adventures, actually depicting panels from the original series overlaid with captions of Caulder's story of betrayal. The reader is made to reconsider these stories from this new, tragic, and somewhat ironized point of view. Indeed, Morrison's retcon has introduced into the work of a writer and artist who were producing Doom Patrol stories when Morrison was three years old a structural irony that they never (one assumes) intended. The Doom Patrol of old are now naive heroes, “whose invincible simplicity...leads [them] to persist in...an interpretation of affairs which the knowing reader...just as persistently is called on to alter and correct” (Abrams, 1993:98). The satire, or perhaps in this particular case, the tragedy, of Morrison's Doom Patrol has irrevocably altered the way in which an earlier work is viewed, even though that earlier work was conceived of and written before Morrison's work was even a glimmer of an idea. And this is just the effect that the work has on it's direct predecessors. The Doom Patrol, in their original incarnation, guest-starred in numerous other books, in which Niles Caulder, the heroic Chief who led the Doom Patrol, interacted with Superman and the Justice League, with the Teen Titans, with Batman. These stories, too, are now cast in that ironized point of view. Morrison's turn to the tragic at the end of the Doom Patrols writes small what the larger satiric vision in the book writes large.
Satire in the shared-narrative universe serves to remind both writers and readers that nothing is above reproach, that nothing is written that cannot be ironized, re-envisioned, or even completely undone. The narrow-minded reliance upon tradition and history, at least in the case of comic book universes, has led to either chaos or monotony. Crisis on Infinite Earths was an attempt to make sense of a universe that had become mired in continuity and history that could not be resolved. Consideration of the dangers of this reliance, of the possibility for corruption of an idea by refusal to see the varying potentials of that idea, sheds light on shared-narrative universes outside of the realm of the comic book. A shared narrative, compiled by diverse hands, and treated as a most serious, traditional, and historical document sounds suspiciously like a very famous and influential text in the history of modern Western thought. If something as ephemeral as a comic book universe can become so bogged down in history and commentary that, barely fifty years after its creation, it requires an almost complete overhaul, surely texts, or collections of texts, that are thousands of years old are due for some kind of re-evaluation. If, as a culture, we can begin to approach both contemporary and historic mythologies from an ironic perspective, even if we need to create that perspective ourselves, then perhaps the lessons of those mythologies can be wrested from the heights, and be embraced and reordered for those on the lower strata, like kind-hearted and confused Cliff Steele, and like us.
Conclusion: Planet Love
Using the metaphor of the Delirium Box[vii] (Morrison, Paradise, 2005:37, see Fig. 3 in Appendix), the satire of Doom Patrol, both of the traditional and shared-narrative varieties, provides us with either a cube, a block upon which to build, or a corner, in which we become trapped, unable to progress. In facing it's darker, sillier self, the “serious” superhero can either stand on the shoulders of the Doom Patrol, rising to new heights, or it can, by the very nature that is being satirized, become stuck in a pedantic corner, unaware that all he or she needs to do is turn around, find a new direction, or acknowledge an implied influence, to escape the trap.
At numerous points in the narrative, the Doom Patrol, and its audience, are exposed to deities, whether they be God and Satan in the forms of Redjack and the Shadowy Mr. Evans, or the hive consciousness of the Insect Mesh. These depictions of god-like figures, whether or not they actually are deities, mingles the divine with the ridiculous. Cliff asks the question after Redjack dissipates, “You d-d-don't really think he was...God?” (Morrison, Crawling, 2004:156, emphasis in original), and it is a question posed to both his teammates, and to the audience. If we are to take this psychopathic dandy as God, if we are to take the periscope-headed sex-maniac Mr. Evans as the devil, are we to understand the ridiculous and the sublime as being synonymous? Serious characters in the DC universe are often said to be god-like, or are somehow descended from gods. The evidence for Superman as a messianic figure can be gleaned simply from his origin story and its similarity to the origin of Moses. In order to escape disaster, Jor-El places his infant son in a small rocket that carries the baby out into the stars. Similarly, Moses' parents, to avoid his death, place the baby in a basket and float him out into a river. This is a purely surface, textual reading and already there is similarity. Wonder Woman was fashioned by the Greek gods from clay and imbued with life, connecting her to both Greek and Christian mythologies. Captain Marvel (Shazam) takes at least part of his power from both Zeus and Mercury. What then is to be done with these god-like, or god-powered, characters in a universe where Satan apparently has a poetry-spouting fetus hanging from his nether regions, and who is served by a small, crippled English school boy named “Clanky?”
Instead, Doom Patrol and its satirical take on the superhero (and super-team) asks us to turn the Delirium Box upside down, so that it is still both a cube (or partial cube) and a corner, but one that lends itself more to utility. The pedantic superhero is still trapped, but is now underneath the platform of the cube, stuck in the structure upon which the new, self-aware superhero stands. Doom Patrol's satire draws attention, and a certain gently-mocking fondness, to the foundation of the new structure. That the structure is not a closed cube, but one open on many sides, draws attention to two important ideas: first, that the hero trapped in the corner, given the right treatment, or direction, can escape its myopic nature, much as Morrison's Doom Patrol escaped theirs (see note vii), and second, that the structure upon which these self-aware heroes stand is neither complete nor unshakably stable. It calls for future writers to take care of their shared-narrative universe, lest the whole structure collapse once more into chaos or monotony.
Finally, a third trajectory of shared-narrative satire can be plotted, perhaps the most important one. In acknowledging how this satiric view affects both the historical and contemporaneous shared-narrative universe, one must also acknowledge that other literary modes or genres also have such an effect, as the brief mention Gaiman's Sandman demonstrates. This third trajectory is where the greater relevance of considering genres and modes in shared universes reveals itself. While the application of such theory to graphic literature is indeed vital to this emerging area of literary studies, we can begin to apply such theory back out toward more traditional literary forms. Two examples of shared-narrative universes, outside of the comic book medium, give fodder for further examination of the influence of genres and modes, of critical inflection, on creatively unattached works. American pulp fiction author H.P. Lovecraft developed, along with a group of pulp colleagues, a mythical framework which has been utilized by numerous authors for almost 70 years. Stories set within this framework range from the brutally violent, to the chillingly creepy, to the satiric and humorous. Stories written in the twenty-first century retroactively affect the stories upon which they are founded. The early stories are read in the new light of the later stories. More controversially, the Bible also fits the definition of shared-narrative universe, having been compiled, ostensibly, by diverse authors but set in a (relatively) coherent fictional[viii] universe. How, then, do such things as the apocryphal gospels, such as that of Enoch, inflect the commonly accepted “official” Biblical history? The argument can be made that those gospels are made apocryphal solely because they will inflect the traditional Bible with meaning other than what is desired. We can consider Doom Patrol as an apocryphal gospel of the DC universe, one whose satiric point of view may be uncomfortable for more traditional readers of superhero comics. Given that the acknowledgment of such a point of view enriches both the historic and present views of that fictional universe, can the argument be made that acknowledgment of the apocryphal gospels would enrich the historic and present views of the Bible stories? It is questions like this that show the direction that further inquiry into literary theory in shared-narrative universes must explore. In order that a mythological framework, whether the foundational ones of the Greeks or Hebrews or the contemporary ones of Superman and his ilk, be useful it must be elastic. In a society that is increasingly disparaging of the old and embracing of the new, it is essential that a mythology be self-reflexive, that it allow for re-interpretation, adaptation, and re-invention. This is vital both in order that it be able to suit the needs of those who look to it for guidance and in order that it be able to maintain its relevance and, indeed, its very existence.
Appendix: The Delirium Box
Fig. 3. The Delirium Box, a necker cube from Morrison et al. Doom Patrol: Down Paradise Way
(New York: Vertigo-DC Comics, 2004; print; 37).
Notes
[i] The term “sequential art” is the preferred theoretical term for talking about graphic narratives, as elucidated by Will Eisner in Comics and Sequential Art and Scott McCloud in Understanding Comics. Throughout this paper, however, I will be various terms as befits the context of the discussion.
[ii] Grant and Hazel have this to say of mythology: “What they tell us, of course, is not historical truth. It is truth of another kind” and that they “originated not according to some single, all-explaining pattern...but in a wide variety of different ways and in response to a great many different social and psychological needs” (Grant and Hazel, 1999: vii). To categorically prove the shared-narrative as mythology is the purview of another essay, but the similarities between current comic books and ancient myths is enough to go forward with.
[iii] From Orwell: “The Party said that Oceania had never been in alliance with Eurasia. He, Winston Smith, knew that Oceania had been in alliance with Eurasia as short a time as four years ago...if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed...then the lie passed into history and became truth” (Orwell, 1992: 37). This, then, is the pessimistic view of the retcon. The gist of the theory is that if something historical does not fit with the needs of the present narrative, it should be set aside, left only to exist in the minds of either a citizen like Winston Smith, or the reader of the superhero comic.
[iv] Alan Moore and Alan Davis' “Miracleman” is the paradigmatic example, lauded since it's original publication in the nineteen-eighties as one of the greatest superhero stories ever told, but uncollected due to bitter legal battles.
[v] There is, however, an argument to be made (perhaps in another essay) that there are indeed rhymes and rhythms to the comic book format. Early in Doom Patrol there is a recurring motif of a small black ball to which background characters are drawn (no pun intended). This “rhyme” appears over the course of three issues, then disappears, leaving amateur scholars of the series baffled. What it does accomplish is to link the particular sequences formally, much as a rhyme does in a poem. There is also the rhythm of a story to be considered, the action, then the rest, then the recovery, then the action. This rhythm of graphic literature is complex, and requires far more elucidation than this mere endnote can provide. (Note 2019: Much as Groensteen does in The System of Comics)
[vi] Calling the Brotherhood villains is problematic, hence the quotation marks. In their own way they are trying to make the world a better place, much as Superman and the rest of the pantheon are. It is their methods that cast them as villains, but only because in the shared universe “order” is correlated with good, and “chaos,” the prime mover of Dada, is equated with evil. As the “news commentator” at the beginning of Magic Bus notes, “In some areas...Mr. Nobody's campaign broadcasts...are proving more popular than MTV. America, it seems, just can't get enough of these zany pranksters” (Morrison, Magic Bus, 2007: 9).
[vii] There have been numerous incarnations of the Doom Patrol since the team's debut in 1963. As with the vast majority of superheroes, they have been written and illustrated by diverse hands. Some creators have taken the team down the path of the mainstream, serving the public good and embracing the spotlight of superherodom. It is generally agreed, though, that these iterations “took the team...farther from it's original conception and turned it into a silly, punchline-laden atrocity” (Callahan, 2007: 139).
[viii] The delirium box is an optical illusion known as a “Necker Cube”, that appears to be both cube and corner.
[ix] Used here to connote a universe in which stories are set. The truth or falsity of those stories is not something this author wishes to engage with.
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