DC versus Marvel: The War That Isn't

     I'm going to wade into this topic, for the first time, but probably not the last, and take a look at the great big "versus" in the comics industry - the false premise that the comics-loving world must be divided into "DC vs. Marvel", or "Marvel vs. DC", if you prefer.

     This is, to my eyes, a non-issue.

   First of all, while DC Comics and Marvel Comics are the 'Big Two' of the comic industry, they're not the only games in town.  There are plenty of folks who cotton to the other publishers, who don't love those properties any less.  And of course, when I discuss comics, unless otherwise specified, I'm pretty much confining myself to the discussion of superhero comics, with perhaps a splash of fantasy/sci-fi thrown in.  For the purposes of this blog, then, I'd just like it understood that I am neither dismissing nor criticizing other publishers or genres, but rather focusing on the traditional superhero mainstream.

   Part of me would like to say that I don't understand the invective, the antagonism, the bitterness, etc., but that's not true.  I do understand where it comes from, but that doesn't make it acceptable, or even sane.  It's neither helpful nor logical.  Of course the two companies are, and have been, rivals and competitors, but for many, many years, it was a friendly rivalry (including annual baseball games), with much of the talent being shared between the two companies...Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, Frank Miller, etc. have all done work for both houses, and hell, even Stan Lee did a stint re-imaging the major DC heroes (which was a fun and underestimated project, by the way.)  Lee used to refer to DC as the 'Distinguished Competition', and classic comics are rife with allusions to the other's universes.  Take a look at concepts like the Squadron Supreme, the Praetorian Guard, the Champions of Angor, the Extremists, etc, and you'll see clear homages back and forth.  And of course, there were cross-overs, including my personal favorite (and the source of several of the images in this post), the DC vs. Marvel/Marvel vs. DC/Amalgam showdown of the mid-'90s.

    All that changed about a dozen years ago, and under the tenor of the newer editors at the Big Two, the climate of friendly rivalry started to turn petty and nasty, with potshots made in print and in public, and some very unpleasant developments, culminating in Marvel's repeated offers to reward comic retailers for destroying some of DC's books.  And this was mostly before the big movie explosion...now that both companies have their properties rolling out on the big screen, the comics rivalry has spilled into a broader pop-culture one, with people actively rooting for or against the Avengers or Justice League characters.   Lately,  it feels like the intellectual wasteland known as the internet has turned both sides into squabbling occupants of a soiled sandbox.  It's not uncommon to hear phrases like "It's not a competition because they've got nothing to compete with", and things like that, from people who are - well, let's be honest - morons.

     I'm not going to get into the whys and wherefores of all this, but ultimately, I think it comes down to two things - an 'us vs. them' mentality,  and sales.  The sales aspect is easy to explain - whip up your own fans' loyalty and vilify the other guy so that they vociferously support your product.  Makes sense, even if it feels a little smarmy.  But the fans that lap this up - doing what a suit tells them to do, hating that which is 'other', appealing to their basic tribal instincts and playing to innate insecurities and fear of inferiority, making bizarrely ignorant or incorrect allegations, participating in smear campaigns - you know who those fans remind me of?

   That's right: Donald Trump's supporters.

    While comic book loyalties are about as far as you can get from issues as important as race relations, immigration, foreign policy, or economic divides, the underlying logic is the same:  build up the 'us' at the expense of the 'them'.  It happens all the time, in politics, religion, localities - hell, look at the irrationality of sports fans.  ("These overpaid athletes in the employ of my city's franchise threw a little ball better than the overpaid athletes in your city, so therefore I'm better and you suck".)  It's a weird kind of tribal herd mentality, and as we see almost daily in the media, it's a problem that's become a pandemic over the last decade.  So in that respect, it's not hard to understand how something as trivial as comic book fandom could become so toxic.  (See also: Star Wars vs. Star Trek)

    It's hard not to get sucked in sometimes, and I freely admit that I can be defensive, especially when I feel like someone's taking potshots at something I care about.   But the whole idea that you have to be 'for' or 'against, or to have to pick a side is ridiculous.

   As anyone who knows me even a little can attest, Batman is my thing.  He always has been, going back to childhood, so I've always gravitated to his world, which has meant a greater familiarity with the DC Universe.   But I've loved Spider-Man for almost as long - anyone else remember looking forward to those segments on the Electric Company, a billion years ago? - and I never made a distinction as a child that one belonged to one side or the other.  Similarly, I love Superman's world, and that of the X-Men.   So I've grown up reading as much on one side of the fence as I have on the other, and that interest has spread across the two yards, with the JLA, the Avengers, Green Lantern, Captain America, etc.

    If push comes to shove, yes, I'd have to say I love the DC Universe more...it's more 'home' to me, but that in no way diminishes the Marvel Universe.    In terms of the big picture,  DC's more of where I'm from, whereas Marvel's been more of an education...think of it as loving the place where you live, but having a favorite vacation destination in which you get to spend a lot of time.  There are parts of each I'm not as gung-ho about; for example, I've never been particularly passionate about the Legion of Super-Heroes or the Fantastic Four, but both places have their selling points.  DC's a world of mythology and gods and monsters, and Marvel's a world of intimate realities and personal gravity.  I love them both.

     That applies to the adaptations as well.  The Dark Knight is probably the best superhero movie ever made; the Avengers is probably the most fun.  I've had a lot of frustrations with both sides, as I'd kind of like a middle ground, and there's a kind of irony to my irritation with the franchises: I want the Marvel movies to stop being frivolous, and I want the DC movies to have more fun with themselves.  This is, surprisingly, a flip from the traditional tenor of their respective comics.   

     I run hot and cold on projects from both sides of the fence, and I find myself completely flummoxed by people who will love only one companies' properties and run the other side down.  The impetus for this whole blog has been the weird streak of negativity directed toward the upcoming Batman v Superman, as though a certain contingent is determined to see it fail, regardless of its quality.   Despite this, I remain very excited.  (And deeply suspicious of anyone who says to me anything along the lines of "Hey, you know that thing you really love?  I think it sucks.  I hope it bombs.  Just sayin'.")  There's a part of me that wants to identify what sports team these people like best just so I can root against them, but that would be futile and rather undignified.

   At the end of the day, I can't really control what people are going to do or think, though I admit I'd dearly love to Force-Lightning many of them.  (Or Vulcan nerve-grip them?)   The best I can do is reject the wholesale negativity outright, and not participate.   I'll be there opening nights for Batman V Superman, X-Men Apocalypse, Suicide Squad and Captain America: Civil War.  And you know what else?  I'm also going to go see Ninja Turtles 2 and the Ghostbusters reboot, despite anyone else's scorn.    Why?  Because I want to.  Because I find stuff like this fun.  I have plenty of 'adult' interests.   I watch all the Oscar contenders, I read Russian novels and Shakespeare, so I have no problem indulging myself on the cape & tights category.  

   Because it's positive, and uplifting, and fun.  They're 'my' guys and gals, DC *AND* Marvel.    So if anyone tells you one or the other sucks, or is worthless, or they hope one tanks...

    ...ask them how the Trump rally went.

On War and Peace and the Whole Damn Thing

 In something of a different vein, but being in the spirit of all things winter...which is to say, long, deep and snowy...today we're taking a look at War & Peace, specifically the mini-series which just concluded.

You could be forgiven for thinking she's playing the Snow Queen.

   Adapated from Leo Tolstoy's famous novel, the War & Peace series aired over several weeks in four installments across three networks: A&E, History, and Lifetime.  It was originally a BBC production, having begun airing in England a few weeks prior to commencing over here, but both concluded at the same time.  Clocking in at eight hours air time...though, with commercials, the actual production likely runs about six...it stars Paul Dano, Lily James, James Norton, Jessie Buckley, Jack Lowden, Aisling Loftus, Tuppence Middleton, Tom Burke, Callum Turner, and features appearances by Stephen Rea, Brian Cox, Jim Broadbent, and Gillian Anderson.

   War & Peace is well-known as one of the most famous (and longest) works in literature, and has something of a frightening reputation due to said length and the rather large number of characters it contains.  It's a tale of historical fiction, set against the backdrop of the Napoleonic Wars...indeed, Napoleon himself is a character...and specifically focuses on the 1812 invasion of Russia by the Grande Armee, from the Russian perspective.  It's an incredibly rich and complex work, but ultimately an enjoyable read.  I didn't find it quite as daunting as I'd feared; the opening chapters, in which the reader is introduced to several dozen characters, many of whom have four or five names, is somewhat overwhelming, but once I got a handle on who everyone was - and what their various surnames and diminutives were - I found it fairly straightforward to follow the main plots without getting bogged down.  Yes, there are hundred of characters in the book, but a huge percentage of them are incidental.

The most important of the 5,000,000 characters in the book.

   First and foremost, I should mention that the series is largely very faithful to the novel - all of the principal characters are present, and the primary plotlines emerge more or less intact.  Yes, the production is explicitly steamier than the novel, but there's no whole-cloth manufacture of new characters, and nothing of major plot-related impact is lost.  Like most of the BBC adaptations, War & Peace is true to the original source as far as story and character goes.

   The miniseries does opt to take a more intimate focus, following the major characters and allowing their stories to drive the action, while cutting or reducing most of the minor characters and playing down much of the broad historical tableau.  While I understand the need to do this, and grant that it works rather well, I can't help but feel that an opportunity was lost.  Tolstoy has a fantastic pattern, in which he starts sections of the novel on the grand scale, and discusses 'big picture' topics, before gradually boiling down from the philosophical to the regional, down to the specific character he's following in that section.  It functions very much akin to a wide zoom effect.  The miniseries foregoes this, with the result that we don't get a lot of explanation of the context of what's happening, and see very little of the larger world, or cultural and historical flavor of the work.  Also, the sets are usually small and contained, so the sense of the vastness of Russia is somewhat lost.  Add that to the focus on character, and it does feel like the mini-series is cropping the book in scope.

   That's not entirely a criticism, though, as it brings the characters and the performances to the forefront.  War & Peace is full of rich, multi-faceted personalities, few of whom are entirely good or bad, and most of whom are truly engaging.  Tolstoy presents them without narrative criticism, and the miniseries manages to duplicate that feat.   Paul Dano, fresh off his turn as a young Brian Wilson, plays the principle protagonist Pierre Bezukhov, a wealthy, awkward young man who seeks to live a good meaningful life in a materialistic society of shallow aristocrats.  Dano is fantastic here, in probably his best performance to date, with hopeful optimism tempered by uncertainty, frustration and anger.  Lily James, perhaps best known as Lady Rose on Downton Abbey, is a beautiful, vulnerable Natasha Rostov; James plays the sheltered, sweet Natasha with a wonderful mixture of restraint and elan.  She avoids the trap of making Natasha too beatific, allowing the audience to see the character is deeper than most of the other characters allow.

Wait, you're not Mr. Carson...

    The rest of the cast is extremely solid.  James Norton is sympathetic and compelling as the stoic, bored, and somewhat emotionally repressed and fatalistic Andrei Bolkonsky, torn by guilt and 'seeking the bubble reputation even in the cannon's mouth'.   Tuppence Middleton plays Helene Kuragin, Pierre's duplicitous wife, with an odd charm that belies her hedonistic, incestuous nature.  Jack Lowden is Nikolai Rostov, Natasha's arrogant, foolish brother, a character who is rather difficult to like, and yet Lowden manages to allow the audience to pity Nikolai even as it wants to condemn him.  Jessie Buckley, who plays Andrei's sister Marya, takes what could have been a thankless part and empowers the character, giving her more warmth and depth than the script really fleshes out.  Overall, there are no bad or even mediocre performances here; perhaps the worst I could say is that Jim Broadbent, as Andrei & Marya's father, comes across as somewhat cartoonish at points, rather than eccentric.

    The costumes are lovely - rich gowns and detailed uniforms, golds and greens and blues that are striking, ornate and eye-catching.  The sets, while on the smaller scale, are well shot; there is some fascinating camera work playing on light and shadow on the interiors, and the exterior shots show a surprisingly lush and beautiful Russia (or Lithuania or Latvia - the production was filmed on location.)  The battle scenes are a bit erratic; because of the narrower focus of the series, the full scope of the action seems lost, and it's hard to grasp the impact of what's happening.  Because of the focus - or perhaps the budget - these scenes which are epic in the novel feel truncated and smaller than they should.

    There are a few other issues - the most obvious being some very odd transitions and cuts between scenes.  I'm not sure if this has anything to do with the insertion of commercial breaks, or if perhaps there were additional scenes removed from the American airing, but the series frequently suffers from jarring jumps between lines of narrative, and it reduces the clarity of the story.  Along the same lines, there are places where it feel like scenes end too early or abruptly, curtailing a moment that should have been allowed to develop more.   The series doesn't always flow as it should; perhaps this is just a matter of condensing a fourteen-hundred-page novel into six hours of television, but it still feels uneven.  And as might be expected, the series does play up the more salacious elements of the book...for example, Helene's affairs, including an ongoing one with her brother, are fully depicted on screen, whereas they're only obliquely alluded to on page.

Ah, the problems of the gorgeous young wealthy aristocracy...

    The score of the series doesn't quite work, either.  Most of the music is provided by a Russian chorus, a mellifluous dirge that works in some scenes but is incredibly distracting in others, and which I think represents a lost opportunity...like other great epics, War & Peace deserves orchestrations, and the simplified approach here falls short, and at times, borders on the comical.

    The ending also left me slightly dissatisfied.  Tolstoy's narrative is not what I'd call tidy at is conclusion, as the fates of several characters are left open, and the final scene among the surviving protagonists is a 'warts and all' epilogue, hinting at realistic underlying troubles and the possibility of future tumult in Russia.   The series interprets this in a more bucolic, happily-ever-after take on the epilogue, which works for the purposes of wrapping things up, but fails to convey the more nuanced meaning and impact of the novel.   It's nice, don't get me wrong, and it's not a critical flaw, but it's a little bit too neat for my tastes.

    Still, overall I quite enjoyed the series.  High production values, a faithful script, strong performances and a sense of energy make this a worthwhile adaptation.  There's never truly a substitute for the original novel, of course, in any retelling, but as versions go, this one was quite well-done, and I'd recommend it for anyone who liked the novel and would like to see it on screen, or for those who haven't challenged Tolstoy directly, but would like to know the story.

 

     Honestly, it's given me a bit of a desire to re-read the book.

FINAL RATING: 8 PAWS (OUT OF 10):

Wading In: Why You Won't See A Review of Deadpool Here

    Kicking off 2016 in this space, I bring you a review of....well, nothing.  Not yet, anyway.  No reviews this time.  And I am here to explain that.

    The first comics-based movie of the year, Deadpool, opens in a week, but I will not reviewing it.  I will not be going to see it.  This is due to a strange, anomalous and apparently inconceivable attribute of my personality, to wit:  I don't particularly care for Deadpool.

   That's not to say I dislike him - not exactly.  In very small doses, Deadpool is fine, and can even be funny.  But a little bit goes a long way.  I think I'd call myself apathetic when it comes to him... at best, I find the character amusing, but at worst I find him grating, obnoxious, and representative of the very worst things in both superhero comics and superhero fandom.  I think the best word to describe him is 'puerile'.

   For those who don't know, Deadpool is a character from the X-Men universe created by Rob Liefeld and Fabian Nicieza in 1991.  He was a villain initially, but became more of an anti-hero.  He's a mercenary martial artist with a healing factor, but he's probably best known for his tendency to break the fourth wall, talk to the audience, and play things up for comedy.  He's a fairly wacky and irreverent character who's developed his own supporting cast and enthusiastic following.  He was nominally portrayed by Ryan Reynolds in the 2009 film X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and though the casting was applauded, the character in the film was not.  Reynolds is returning to the role this month in a standalone movie - which as I understand it, ignores the first movie - in a much more authentic depiction of the character.

    My biggest problem with Deadpool really comes down to overkill, in two ways.  First of all, the character's stories have played up the ludicrously violent aspects of superhero comics.  This is ostensibly for purposes of parody, but given the overly dark and graphic flair of the grim'n'gritty era of comics from which the character came, as well as the fact that decapitations, mutilations and so forth have become so commonplace that Deadpool needs to continue to up the ante, it's less of a parody and more of a testament to just how desensitized comics have become.  Maybe it's just me, but "Hey, look, I got a sword through the face!" isn't really all that funny.  Your mileage may vary.

   Which is the other side of the overkill...it's been said that "dying is easy, comedy's hard", and Deadpool has, in my experience, proved that perfectly.   A fair amount of Deadpool's 'comedy' relies on dick-and-fart humor, graphic violence, innuendo, joking about Mexican food, and the character showing off his own butt.  He's also pretty handy at poking fun at other characters, though I'll grant he's perfectly willing to mock himself as well.  Sometimes it's funny - I've always loved the idea of a character interacting with his own thought bubbles or captions - but the problem is that just like any joke, being done over and over kills off the humor.   After seeing a hundred pictures of Deadpool in sexy pose, or making fun of Wolverine, or yelling something about tacos or chimichangas, you start to expect the joke, which robs it of all novelty.  If the audience can predict the joke before you make it, it's really not all that funny.   That's why I prefer Deadpool in small increments...well-timed cameos or guest appearances, that sort of thing...leaving before the joke gets old.  Unfortunately, what we end up getting is a variation on that irritating kid in grammar school who thought he was hilarious and kept making the same jokes over and over.  Not only is it unfunny and annoying, but it's also endlessly, mind-numbingly boring.

    Yes, I said it.  I find Deadpool boring.

   I also have a problem with a chunk of Deadpool's fans.  Ordinarily it wouldn't make a lot of sense to blame a character's writers for the actions of their fanbase, but I suspect with Deadpool there's a cycle in play that's self-sustaining, as the writers play specifically to this chunk of the fanbase.   For one thing, in the cosplay community, Deadpool is way, WAY overdone.  Anyone can cosplay whomever they choose, to be sure, but when you go to a convention and are met with literally dozens upon dozens of people doing the exact. same. thing. and each thinking they're ribald and hilarious, it's exasperating.  Again - same principle - less is more.   Forty-five men (and some women) all trying to photobomb pictures...not so funny.  One person in a random costume running up to people, breaking out a silly dance routine, and then running away without explanation?  That's usually pretty good.

   This is not a Deadpool-exclusive problem, by the way....I'm finding the Joker & Harley Quinn trend guilty of much the same thing.

   Cosplay is incidental, though.   I find it honestly disturbing how much of Deadpool's most vocal fanbase overlaps with the gatekeeping, would-be-PUA, 'douchebro' comics community of entitled, Morlockesque males.  You may know the type.  I don't for a moment suggest that anyone who likes Deadpool is automatically of this category, but I do suggest that many...most, even....members of that category who espouse an interest in comics seem to love the Merc with the Mouth.   That's not a category I particularly care to interact with, and they're far too common in the comics-loving community, giving the rest of us a bad name.    They're usually safely ignored or disregarded, but right now, they're getting on my nerves more than usual, turning up the level of volume on the same old Deadpool humor, and extolling his virtues as a Bad-Ass to a degree that's really making me look forward to this movie coming - and then going - as soon as possible.   I think a person's favorite comics character says a lot about them.  When I hear 'Deadpool', that's often the cue for the 'uh-oh' button in my head to go off.  (Though admittedly, not as much as when I hear 'Punisher').

   Again, in moderation, Deadpool's just fine.  If he's smartly written and used well, he can be really funny.  He's a useful character to have around, to make meta-observations, and keep a medium which tends to self-obsess from getting too serious.  He's got a dynamic design, and he's quite toyetic, and in the right hands, absolutely has his place.  The image above is from the first Marvel Lego game, in which he plays a recurring role overseeing side missions...some of which is really funny, but does suffer from the same problem of overkill.  I think a good comparison for Deadpool would be Johnny (Stephen Stucker) from Airplane....a goofy character who does bizarre things every so often, but doesn't take the focus of a given story, and thereby remains entertaining and funny.  (I wouldn't be surprised if somewhere in Deadpool's history, there's a "And Leon's getting laaaaarger!" joke.)
 
   All of this is why I will not be paying to see the film, nor reviewing it.  Two hours of sustained Deadpoolishness is more than I really want to deal with.  That's not to say I'm refusing to see it, or anything like that.  I have no doubt I will see it eventually.  It's part of the X-Men universe (Colossus appears in the film, albeit with a different actor), and I've enjoyed six of those seven films thus far.  To be fair, I'm going to movie theaters less and less these days...there are only about half a dozen occasions a year I feel warrant spending eighteen dollars to sit in a crowded, noisy room on, when waiting three months allows Netflix to solve the problem for me.

     If you happen to like Deadpool, more power to you, and I hope you enjoy the film.    Ultimately, though, it's not my cup of tea.   Never fear though - we've got Civil War, X-Men Apocalypse, Suicide Squad and Doctor Strange coming soon to a theater near you....oh, and I think there might be something coming out next month I might want to catch.

   Until next time....