Posthuman Superheroes Part 3: Shapeshifters, Cyborgs, and Embodied Superheroes

This is the third part of a four part essay dealing with posthuman superheroes. The superhero universe is full of characters that exhibit a wide range of posthuman features. With their abilities of shapeshifting and embodiment they are forms without form; characters which exhibit endless possibility and multiplicity. Using the work of Ihab Hassan, and the idea of embodiment as defined by Robert Pepperell, and Katherine Hayles, part one provides an overview of posthuman theory which include evolution of the human through mutation; and the idea of embodiment which theorises that the mind, body, and environment are a continuous entity. It then identifies a number of superheroes as having posthuman bodies and genders.

Part One: Posthuman Bodies and Genders provides an overview of posthuman theory which include evolution of the human through mutation; and the idea of embodiment which theorises that the mind, body, and environment are a continuous entity.  It then identifies a number of superheroes as having posthuman bodies and genders

Part two ‘Performing Gender’ theorises Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs as a negative ideal of a posthuman subject and analyses Martian Manhunter performing gender in two issues of Justice League Task Force.

Part four ‘Coming Off The Page’ investigates the growing real world emergence of the posthuman and the possibility of fostering a real world 'heroic imagination'.

Comic writers Mark Millar, Grant Morrison and Warren Ellis have explored the concept of the Posthuman in the titles The Authority, Ultimate X-Men, The Invisibles, New X-Men, The Ultimates, and Stormwatch. Geoff Klock in his article ‘X-Men, Emerson, Gnosticism’ characterises Millar’s run on The Ultimates as exhibiting a ‘pessimistic post-humanism’ (2004). As a term in superhero narratives, posthuman is used in a straight forward evolutionary sense. The villain, Sabretooth, sums this up:

We’re monsters… I don’t dress it up with fancy names like mutant or post-human. Man was born crueller than apes and we we’re born crueller than men. It’s just the natural order of things (Millar, Kubert, Raney & Derenick, and Thibert et al, 2006:305, emphasis in original).

The X-Men villain, Magneto, pushes the point further in his rant against humans:

Man is a parasite upon mutant resources. He eats our food, breathes our air and occupies land which evolution intended Homo Superior to inherit. Naturally, our attacks upon your power bases will continue until you deliver this world to its rightful owners. But your replacements grow impatient (Millar, Adam Kubert & Andy Kubert, and Thibert with Miki, 2006:10, emphasis in original).

In Ultimate X-Men naming is a factor in becoming, or being represented as, posthuman, providing a new way of differentiating the posthuman from the human. As Professor Xavier explains to Storm of their monikers: ‘You’ve just been rebaptized as a post-human being… a name which describes your own skill and personality as opposed to those of a long dead ancestor’ (Millar, Adam Kubert & Andy Kubert, and Thibert with Miki, 2006:24, emphasis in original).

The DC Comics shapeshifter, Shift, also exhibits posthuman qualities. Shift is, for want of a better word, the son of the DC hero Metamorpho. Shift is a more evolved version of Metamorpho because he has the ability to absorb elements from outside himself, bypassing Metamorpho’s restrictions of only being able to use the elements contained in the human body. Naming himself “Shift” mirrors the naming of the X-Men in that, as Shift’s love interest Indigo says: ‘it complements your new persona as a shape-shifter’ (Winick et al, 2004b:108). Shift also uses his shape to express mood, feelings, and opinions, ostensibly exhibiting a body language.

Mystique: Shapeshifting Mutant

‘She, in fact, may no longer be a she, but the subject of quite another story: a subject in process, a mutant, the other of the Other, a post-Woman embodied subject cast in female morphology who has already undergone an essential metamorphosis’ (Braidotti, 2002:11).

The posthuman is enmeshed in notions of the body and the shapeshifter is defined by notions of what the body can do. Yet in the same instance the shapeshifter’s body subverts its own definition by continually doing what a common body cannot. The shapeshifter necessarily exhibits, represents, and makes clear, Judith Butler’s theory of gender performance. The shapeshifter as representative of posthuman gender also plays into Halberstam and Livingstone’s idea of someness, with some number of genders being available to assume. This virtually, though not necessarily dictates, that performance accompany the shapeshifting.

The shapeshifting mutant, Mystique, can also be described as being of posthuman gender. Her shape shifting ability raises questions about her original gender which has never been positively established. Whether Mystique only outwardly appears as the gender she exhibits or actually changes her body completely, i.e.: also her internal organs, is not known although she is able to move organs around her body. Her most common form with which she is associated is female, and she exhibits more female capabilities than male, not the least being childbirth, although in X-Men: True Friends #3 (Nov. 1999) she appears as a man named Mr Raven, raising the idea that perhaps at the onset of her mutation she was male.

When a shapeshifter changes bodies do they change gender? Do they change sex? Do their sexual organs only change on the surface of the body? The answer I would posit to all the questions above is, yes. How many sexes, genders, and therefore roles, can a shapeshifter occupy? Some. The potentiality of their form gives them the ability to be any gender/sex. They are engaged in a discourse with limits that can never be reached.

Rosi Braidotti writes that the body ‘is an interface, a threshold, a field of intersecting material and symbolic forces… a surface where multiple codes (race, sex, class, age) are inscribed’ (2002:25). Braidotti’s quote describes Mystique’s body as it represents a perfect interface; a surface of codes; a unique character able to assume a multiplicity – some number – of intersecting forms, roles, genders, sexes, races, classes, and ultimately identities. The role of the shapeshifter is dangerous to occupy as they disturb the familiar and the known. Barkan writes that ‘a subject whose essence is instability and mysterious change does not lend itself to classical orderliness’ (1986: xiii).

Mystique is one character, if not the only character, whose origin story while being hinted at, has not been fully revealed. In an industry where origin stories are continually revealed and rewritten Mystique's missing origin story is an anomaly. A character’s origin is seen and read at the same time, thus becoming known to the reader/viewer. Without a known origin Mystique has no fixed point of reference. She is a character built upon a non-existent place and story. The comfort of knowing how she “came to be” is removed. She simply independently exists. With an identity built on instability, a missing origin, Mystique is able to become other yet remains Mystique

Ontologically the shapeshifter promotes the idea of an unstable definition of the self, the idea of multiple selves, and thus the endless possibility of other ways of being. The shapeshifter’s performance of multiple roles, and as a metaphor, spreads further than just form. Mystique’s shapeshifting ability facilitates her to occupy a range of subject positions in her thirty plus years of comic existence. She is, and has been at one time or another, a mother, a lover, a wife, a stepmother, a step-grandmother, a detective, a model, a widow, a spy, a government operative, and an outlaw. Her allegiances are never completely known or stable, aligning herself with ‘good’ or ‘evil’ as it suits her or as circumstances dictate. She has been punished for not declaring her allegiance to patriarchy, or a defining sexuality, which also makes her posthuman. Mystique will never become a hero in the traditional sense until she renounces her queerness. Defying traditional hero and villain stereotypes, neither heterosexual nor good mother, she spurns hetero-normative relationships, adopts children, and is a leader. In contrast, the subject positions the classic heroes such as Superman, Batman, or indeed the Martian Manhunter, occupy are narrow to say the least. Mystique is:

capable of defeating the notion of fixed bodily form, of visible, recognizable, clear, and distinct shapes as that which marks the contour of the body. She is morphologically dubious (Braidotti, 2002:80).

Mystique’s unlimited potentiality threatens everything that is controlled, stable, and individual; the idea of the human itself.

Not an industry to rest on its laurels, the figure of the shapeshifter has itself evolved in superhero comics to become, what I believe, is the ideal posthuman subject: the shapeshifting cyborg – embodied by The Authority’s, The Engineer.

The Engineer  

(Ellis, Hitch, and Neary, 2000a:28)

The Engineer: Shapeshifting Cyborg

The most visible and recognisable figure of posthumanism in the superhero narrative is the cyborg. Their numbers are vast in the superhero narrative and include, but are not limited to, Cyborg (Teen Titans), Midnighter (The Authority), Robotman (Doom Patrol), Wolverine (with his adamantium skeleton), Fuji (Stormwatch), Iron Man (with his artificial heart attachment), Forge, and the X-Men villains, The Marauders. At base level, with his numerous bat-gadgets, Batman can be said to be the first superhero cyborg. Frank Miller took this to extremes in The Dark Knight Returns where he depicted Batman using an armoured suit powered by Gotham City’s electricity grid to defeat Superman.

The Engineer, a.k.a. Angela Spica, is perhaps the most telling, and even primary example of the posthuman in the superhero narrative. A former physicist and technologist, The Engineer, is a shapeshifting cyborg. Instead of prosthetics being grafted or attached to her body she has ‘nine pints of liquid machinery’ for blood (Ellis, Hitch, and Neary, 2000a:84). This liquid machinery is full of intelligent microscopic nanotech devices and by no means confined to her arteries. The liquid exists both as a part of her internal and external anatomy. Through her thoughts Angie uses this liquid to create anything she can think of including full body armour and jet engines. She is able to do this, because, as she says: ‘You can fit every book on earth into a drop of my blood’ (Ellis, Hitch, and Neary, 2000b:50). She is even able to spread and transform this liquid nanotech machinery into eighty-two fully workable bodies. This however is about as much as she can manage before her ‘personality starts to disassociate’ (Millar, Weston & Quitely, and Leach & Scott, 2002:31). Capable of multiple selves who operate independently and are themselves capable of multiple shapes, she actually shifts her shape to (an)other that is still her(self). She is not only posthuman in her representation of a cyborg, she is also connected to the environment, her body (anatomy) extending further than her identifiable body. This is embodied in her ability to create multiple selves, integrate with other machines, and to perceive environmental changes around her and around the world:

The longer I wear the liquid machinery, the longer I develop an invisible web of atom-sized machine sensors around me. A sort of security perfume… I get very sensitive to environmental changes (Ellis, Hitch, and Neary, 2000b:14).

She’s so sensitive to environmental changes in fact that they cause her to feel ill, not surprising considering the sensors are a part of her physiology, while also existing apart from her. The Engineer’s abilities recall Pepperell’s second and third points of his Posthuman Concept of Consciousness, those being: ‘The human body is not separate from its environment’ and ‘Consciousness, body and environment are all continuous’. Thus The Engineer is the synthesis of several strands of posthuman theory. The Engineer is also becoming the more she finds out about her abilities, and it the more she finds out, the more she is able to become, in a continual evolution. As a cyborg shapeshifter, The Engineer allows linkages and identifications as woman/other/animal/hybrid, and presents a posthuman ideal where she has evolved enough to decide how to evolve. When reminiscing about her former life, how chaotic and banal, though attractive it was, she comes to the conclusion that: ‘I’m not Angie anymore. I’m The Engineer’ (Ellis, Hitch, and Neary, 2000a:104). In renaming herself in the same manner as the X-Men characters in New X-Men, she confirms her posthuman identity.

Embodied Superheroes: Jack Hawksmoor, Jean Grey, Shift

The characters Jack Hawksmoor, Shift, Jean Grey, and characters of The Invisibles, also exhibit posthuman qualities. Jack Hawksmoor from The Authority (and previously Stormwatch), has been surgically enhanced by aliens, becoming ‘homo urbanus, one of a kind: city human. Human designed specifically to live in cities’ (Ellis, Hamner, and Story, 2002:148). Hawksmoor can communicate with cities as sentient beings and get them to help him in his superheroic endeavours, while also providing him with superhuman strength. He can also disperse his body into the urban environs, effectively becoming continuous with his body, consciousness, and the environment. In this sense he is also a shape-shifter.

The telekinetic X-Men member, Jean Grey (a.k.a. Marvel Girl and Phoenix), is another posthuman subject. In New X-Men #128 (2005) Professor Xavier and Jean experiment with her growing telekinetic power. Jean explains that all her senses seem to be melting together:

Jean:       It’s like I’m feeling more of everything… but it all melts together. It’s not just sight or sound… it’s all of my senses at once, sort of rippling out through my surroundings…

Professor Xavier: Your mind’s ability to precisely operate matter extends far beyond your physical body and deeply into your environment. But… I think there could be more to it…

(Morrison, and Kordey, 2005:39-40).

Indeed there is more to it. When Xavier touches a fork Jean is levitating with her mind in mid-air, Jean can feel Xavier’s pulse through the fork. Again in a posthuman idea, Jean’s consciousness extends beyond her body into the fork and surrounding environment, effectively exemplifying that she is embedded as part of that environment.

Read Part One: Posthuman Bodies and Genders

Read Part Two: Performing Gender

Read Part Four: Coming Off the Page

Reference

Babcock, J. (02/01/2007) ‘An Interview with Grant Morrison, from the pages of Arthur Magazine’, www.arthurmag.com/magpie/?p=1644 (Accessed 11 Oct 2007).

Barkan, L. (1986) The Gods Made Flesh: Metamorphosis and the Pursuit of Paganism, New Haven: Yale University Press.

Braidotti, R. (2002) Metamorphoses: Towards a Materialist Theory of Becoming, Malden Blackwell Publishers: MA.

Ellis, W. (w), Hamner, C. (p) and Story, K. (i) ‘Orbital’ in Millar, M. (w), Weston, C. & Quitely, F. (p) and Leach, G. & Scott, T. (i) (2002) The Authority: Earth Inferno and Other Stories, [Collecting 2000, 2001 The Authority v1#17-20, 2000 The Authority Annual, and 2001 Wildstorm Summer Special] New York: Wildstorm Productions.

Ellis, W. (w), Hitch, B. (p) and Neary, P. (i) (2000a) The Authority: Relentless, [Collecting 1999 The Authority v1 #1-8] New York: Wildstorm Productions.

Ellis, W. (w), Hitch, B. (p) and Neary, P. (i) ‘Outer Dark’ in Ellis, W. & Millar, M (w), Hitch, B. & Quitely, F. (p) and Neary, P. & Scott, T. with Williams, S. et al (i) (2000b) The Authority: Under New Management, [Collecting 2000 The Authority v1 #9-16] New York: Wildstorm Productions.

Millar, M. (w), Kubert, A., with Raney, T. & Derenick, T. (p), and Thibert, A. et al (i) ‘Return to Weapon X, Part Six of Six’ Ultimate X-Men #12, in Millar, M (w), Kubert, A., et al (p), and Thibert, A. et al (2006) Ultimate X-Men: Ultimate Collection Vol. 1, [Collecting 2001, 2002, 2006 Ultimate X-Men #1-12, Ultimate X-Men #1/2], New York: Marvel Publishing.

Millar, M. (w), Kubert, Adam & Kubert, Andy, (p), and Thibert, A. with Miki, D. (i) ‘The Tomorrow People’ Ultimate X-Men #1, in Millar, M (w), Kubert, A., et al (p), and Thibert, A. et al (2006) Ultimate X-Men: Ultimate Collection Vol. 1, [Collecting 2001, 2002, 2006 Ultimate X-Men #1-12, Ultimate X-Men #1/2], New York: Marvel Publishing.

Millar, M. (w), Weston, C. & Quitely, F. (p) and Leach, G. & Scott, T. (i) (2002) The Authority: Earth Inferno and Other Stories, [Collecting 2000, 2001 The Authority #17-20, 2000 The Authority Annual, and 2001 Wildstorm Summer Special], California: Wildstorm Productions.

Morrison, G. (w), Kordey, I. (art) ‘New Worlds’ New X-Men #128 in Morrison, G. (w), Kordey, I. et al (p), and Kordey, I. et al (i) (2005) New X-Men Vol. 3: New Worlds, [Collecting 2002 New X-Men #127-133] New York: Marvel Publishing pp. 27-50.

Morrison, G. (w), Quitely, F. with Grant, K. (p) and Avalon Studios (i) ‘Kid Ω’ New X-Men #134 in Morrison, G. (w), Quitely, F. with Grant, K. (p) and Avalon Studios (i) (2005) New X-Men Vol. 4: Riot at Xavier’s, [Collecting 2003 New X-Men #134-138] New York: Marvel Publishing.

Winick, J. (w), McDaniel, S. (p) and Owens, A. (i) ‘Pay As You Go, Part Four: The Wrong to do the Right’ Outsiders #46, in Winick, J. (w), Mhan, P. et al (p), and Thibert, A., Bird, S. & Owens, A. (i) (2007) Outsiders: Pay As You Go, [Collecting 2007 Outsiders #42-6, Outsiders Annual #1], New York: DC Comics pp. 120-59.

Winick, J. (w), Raney, T., Chriscross, & Reis, I. (p), and Hanna, S., Parsons, S. & Campos, M. (i) (2004b) Outsiders: Sum of All Evil, [Collecting 2004 Outsiders #8-15] New York: DC Comics.

3 Short Reviews- Li'l Depressed Boy #2, Captain America and the First Thirteen, Fear Itself: Prologue - Book of the Skull

Li'l Depressed Boy #2 by S. Steven Struble and Sina Grace

Having been slightly intrigued by LDB #1 I returned for a second helping hoping for something to keep me interested, but alas...

Having met a girl in the in issue #1, issue #2 deals with the major point of finding out what her name is. Well, we're moving into Seinfeld territory here (and her name's not Mulva if you're wondering but it certainly would've been better if it was or the story at least made some reference to it). It's also quite clear that Li'l Depressed Boy isn't a boy, he's at least a late teens teenager. If he is an actual boy then the relationship between him and the girl, whose equipped with suitably "alternative" tattoos and nose ring, is a bit creepy because all that suggests she's definitely in her 20s. Which still makes it a bit creepy if LDB is only a teenager... but then he also seems to be living in his own place.. okay so he's definitely not a boy... so... that definitely makes... me confused...

From other reviews this seems to be hitting a chord with other readers, but it's just not doing it for me.

This: Still no conflict.
Forthcoming: Sorry, I'm done.

Read the short review of LDB #1

Captain America and the First Thirteen by Kathryn Immonen and Ramon Perez

With the Captain America movie due in theatres soon, Marvel's taking the opportunity to milk the character for all he's worth. Captain America and the First Thirteen is set during World War 2 recounting an episode with one of Cap's love interests, Margaret "Peggy" Carter, an American agent working with the French resistance. Peggy enlists Cap's help to retrieve a vital piece of equipment from the Nazis.

Confession: This is the first Captain America story I've ever read (or at least can remember reading) so the little 'dossier' giving me a bcakground (which in part I've just  recounted to you) was very helpful.
Cap doesn't really do much here, or isn't shown doing too much. What the story is more interested is Cap's portrayal as a bit of a "ladies man". Immonen generates a nice, playful, sexual tension in the dialogue between Peggy and Cap which Perez's art adds to nicely with some well produced facial gestures. It's a "small" story in the fact that it provides no massive fights between villains or wild superheroics. It's a minor footnote in Captain America's career but no less an important and, indeed, even slightly touching.

This: For diehard Captain America fans or if you're got some lazy spare change.
Forthcoming: N/A. It's a one shot

Fear Itself - Prologue: Book of the Skull by Ed Brubaker, Scot Eaton, and Mark Morales

The latest Marvel Event starts here with Ed Brubaker giving a nice taster of the major story to come. The Red Skull's daughter, Sin is delving into her father's past to complete his greatest failure. Back during World War  2 and working for the Nazis (more nazis!) the Red Skull's occult ministrations calls down a weapon 'from beyond' only to find that he can't actually use it! Ain't it always the way? Those occult caveats... But apparently Sin has found a way where her father couldn't. Captain America, Bucky, and Namor also feature to throw a spanner into the Red Skull's works.

Comic writer heavyweight Ed Brubaker provides this Prologue to Matt Fraction's full-blown Fear Itself story arc, which going on this "teaser" should be a rollicking good time. While the book doesn't provide anything major, Brubaker deftly places a number of plot points that will no doubt develop into full blown conflicts as the story progresses. Eaton's pencils are sharp and ably abet the narrative.

This: Worth it to get a taste.
Forthcoming: Yes, I'll certainly have a look.

Element Woman - Updated! - 5 April 2011

I'm usually not one for re-broadcasting what comes out on other sites or blogs, but I think I'll be following the course of the new Elemental Woman who looks like she'll be appearing in DC's major event 'Flashpoint'. Designed by Jim Lee, I don't mind the look of her.

The artwork appeared on DC's The Source blog.

It will be interesting to see what they do with her.

UPDATE (5 April 2011)

In an interview over at Newsarama, Flashpoint writer Geoff Johns had this to say-

Johns: There's another character that's very obscure who is going to have a bigger role in the Flashpoint mini-series than she's ever had in the DC Universe. That was one of my goals. I think it makes it more fun to read. I think it's fun to introduce some of these characters to people who don't really know them. I think it's fun to explore them in totally different way. And it also just shows how capable and powerful these other characters are. Look at Mera, before Blackest Night and after. She's in a totally different place.

Nrama: Just to clarify, you did say "she" when you referred to the obscure character you're giving more attention in Flashpoint?

Johns: Yes. But you know, it isn't just attention. What I mean is, you can't force people to like characters by just throwing them in the spotlight. You see people try to do that and it just doesn't work. What I like to do is take characters that I love, characters that I already have a passion for, and concentrate my effort there. Whenever I wrote my top favorite characters down, on the list was some of the top characters, but there were a lot of obscure characters too. I want to share the passion I have for these characters. And I think the only way to elevate characters is to pick the ones you love. Pick the ones you have ideas for, that you have stories for, that you know and have an emotional core for.'

With the new character design out and Johns referring to an obscure character - and Element Woman is that - it can only be her.

The original Element Girl (aka Urania Blackwell) appeared as a love interest of Metamorpho in his first series back in the 1960s and was subsequently killed off by Neil Gaiman in Sandman #20. You can read about my thoughts on that in my essay 'It's Elemental: Portrayals of Metamorpho and Element Girl'.

So where did this new Element Woman come from? Did she get exposed to the Orb of Ra like Rex (Metamorpho) and Element Girl before her? Or did she, like Shift, spontaneously generate from a piece of Metamorpho whose body was scattered over America when saving the Justice League after their headquarters crashed from orbit to earth? Something else?

Now I'm more likely to follow Flashpoint more closely... How will Rex react? More importantly, how will Sapphire react? Will this new Element Woman vie for Rex's affections? The original Element Girl looked like she had won Rex over when the series ceased. I'd certainly like to see  return to that story. I've never liked that whiny princess Sapphire. Element Girl was ahead of her time, a real outsider. Even though she was weak when it came to Rex, she still had a strong nature. She actually revelled in her otherness, and accepted her 'freakiness', unlike Metamorpho who constantly sooked about losing his good looks.

As we can see by the comparing the two characters that Jim Lee has kept the segmented body parts look. Don't worry about the tentacle hair, Element Girl had normal hair, she's metamorphing in this picture. Looks like Lee has used the rocky look on the left shoulder, something which Metamorpho displayed for a while when he was in the Justice League. Is that a hint?

Viva la Element Woman!

Review - Ultimate Avengers vs. New Ultimates #2 by Mark Millar and Leinil Yu

Ultimate Avengers vs. New Ultimates issue two is basically a re-run of issue one, this time following The Avengers.

Nick Fury recruits bad-asses The Punisher and Blade with a few personal incentives and, along with Hawkeye and War Machine, heads off to Brazil to stop the illegal trade of a nascent superhuman. One of the players happens to be Tyrone Cash (the first Hulk) and an impressively brutal battle rages between him and War Machine. However, just like in issue one, we find out that the bad guys are working for someone high up in a U.S. government agency. Can't really say any more than that or I'd be giving it away.

Emblazoned with the 'Death of Spider-Man' on the front, there's still no sign of Spidey in this issue either. Adverts in the back suggest he's showing up in issue three. I'm also perturbed by the fact that the heroes on the covers of both issues so far don't reflect who's in the issue. Is that false advertising? Hmm...

The issue is co-pencilled by Leinil Yu and Stephen Segovia. The fact that I can't tell which pages are attributed to whom, I don't know whether is a good or bad thing. For continuity of the comic obviously it's good. Wildly different styles in the one issue (even in a story arc) can really spoil a comic by changing the feel and tone of the story. Just browsing through Segovia's work at DeviantArt I can see that he is technically brilliant and can cover a number of styles. That his work resembles Yu's so closely is in no way bad, it is simply very accomplished comic art  pushing towards realism in execution. Segovia's art (much like Yu's) is defined by how 'comic' it is.

Which brings me to another point. Recently I reacquainted myself with Will Eisner's Comics and Sequential Art.  In chapter five, 'Expressive Anatomy', Eisner writes that the human form and the language of its bodily movements are are one of the essential ingredients of comic strip art. Eisner goes on to say, 'The skill with which they are employed is also a measure of the author's ability to convey his idea' (p100).

What is missing in comic book art sometimes is that ability to convey emotion. In previous reviews (Superior) I've praised Yu's art but there was something about it that was bugging me and reading Eisner killed that bug with a might THWACK. There are too many flat expressions, more so in Ultimate Avengers vs. New Ultimates than Superior.

Eisner quite rightly states: 'Except for the ears and nose the surface of the face is in constant motion' (p109) which means that for every piece of dialogue, and every close up, characters should have expressions. If they don't then the wrong instant of time has been illustrated. Comic book heroes are all too regularly rendered emotionless or reduced to having only one or two emotions (such as anger or anguish). Comic art revels in stern grimaces and gritted teeth. Thus what we have in Yu and Segovia's art (which in turn is in the same style as Jim Lee) is artists with great technical ability to draw a hero but less ability to show us what is going on in the hero's mind.

I'll quote Eisner again on employing body posture and facial expression - 'Properly and skilfully done, it can carry the narrative without resorting to unnecessary props or scenery' (p111). And when I go back over Ultimate Avengers vs. New Ultimates issues one and two, unnecessary props and scenery is what I see. There's characters in shots that don't need to be there, or if they do, then how those characters are feeling isn't conveyed. Similarly there's just too much background, which while highly detailed and displays great artistic ability, is simply wasting space and could've been used to progress the story.

Now this isn't completely the artist's fault. Artists are given comic scripts to draw. If they're not getting the feeling through the script then quite likely it doesn't translate to the art. What is then needed is better writing for the artist and/or better interpretation by the artist of the script.

It's not that the story isn't engaging or the art great, it's just it could be done better in a way that takes us with the characters, rather than just having them there to be looked at.


Reference

Eisner, Will. Comics and Sequential Art. Florida: Poorhouse Press, 1985.

3 Short Reviews: Li'l Depressed Boy #1, Wolverine/Hercules #1, The Intrepids #1

The Li'l Depressed Boy #1 by S. Steven Struble (writer) and Sina Grace (pencils/inks)

Rag-doll looking young fellow Li'l Depressed Boy (yes that's actually his name) decides being depressed and alone isn't his gig anymore. He meets a friend for coffee and talks about video games. Red-headed tattoo girl interjects how video games aren't social anymore. LDB goes to friend's house and plays video games. Goes home. Does laundry at laundromat. Red-headed girl also happens to be doing laundry. Guess what? She's likes comics and cool bands too. For no good reason that I can fathom she asks LDB out to a concert. They go to the concert and dance. Then milk and cookies afterwards. She kisses him goodnight. LDB isn't so depressed now.

Well, I didn't know kicking the blues could be so easy. Hmm? There's more to the story? Like what? Hopefully a little thing called "conflict". This story is missing a whole load of it. I don't know why you'd want to keep reading. All LDB's problems are solved in this first issue.

Still there is something strangely intriguing here. Does he bleed fluffy innards? How come he's the only rag-doll person around? On the upside Sina Grace's minimal comic-cartoon style and confident linework suit well the mood of the story.

This: Scratching head...
Forthcoming: Scratching chin...

The Intrepids #1 by Kurtis J. Wiebe (writer) and Scott Kowalchuk (illustrator)

Former mechanical engineering genius Dante has taken it upon himself to give 'forgotten children' a chance to live with purpose. Part of this is providing them with 'augmentations' which heighten their natural physical and mental skills. Thus The Intrepids are born. They are Crystal (leader and most experienced), Doyle (the "muscle"), Rose (the feisty fighter), and Chester (the tech-guy), though Chester looks rather a bit older than the other three young 'uns.

Their mission is to stop the oncoming blight of Mad Scientists. In this first issue The Intrepids are after scientist's who are experimenting on animals, implanting technology into them to create violent fighting hybrids. And unlike another comic reviewed (see above) this has the conflict necessary to build good story and  relationships. Dante and Crystal's 'surrogate father/daughter' is just one of these.

While the characters are certainly archetypal each comes across as having an individual personality and there's no overblown 'superhero' statements (if sometimes a little bit of exposition). The pace is steady with good use of flashback sequences and the overall style has a 1950s feel- clothes, hairstyles, jetpacks.

The Intrepids has a sort of Doom Patrol-ish feel - a weird group of four heroes with a benevolent mentor-about it albeit without Morrison's weirdness. Still, heading into that territory certainly wouldn't do it any harm. This looks the goods.

This: Outstanding.

Forthcoming: Hanging out.

Wolverine/Hercules: Myths, Monsters and Mutants #1 (of 4) by Frank Tieri (writer) and Juan Roman Cano Santacruz (art)

Apparently Wolverine and Hercules are good ol' friends. Who'd have thunk they'd have so much in common!? They like a-good a-drink, a-good a-woman, and a-beating up the nasty bad guy.

Now that's established, it's time for a fight scene. Lucky Herc and Wolvey like fighting! Yes... good... innocuous and faceless goons dispatched!

So basically one bad guy -Achelous who's got a vendetta against Hercules- decides to team up with Matsu'o Tsurayaba -the guy who killed Wolverine's lover, Mariko. Achelous reckons if they can bring back to life 'the world's most fearsome myths' they can destroy Wolvey and Herc. Hey presto! World domination... or something. Oh, and there's Nazis too. Can't go past a Nazi when you need a quality villain... or at least a villain.

This first issue is basically laying groundwork and rehashing some info to get readers familiar with Wolverine's backstory. That the story is set 'years ago' means it's one of those lost/untold tales. For all the generic-ness of this comic there are at least a few moments and ideas that raise the narrative slightly - Wolverine's lamenting his immortality and outliving all his friends; and acknowledging that the superhero mythology has usurped the pantheon of gods of ancient times. Unfortunately these ideas, for me just don't raise the interest level enough to indulge the next three issues.

This: Strictly for Wolverine fans... and Hercules fans... wherever you are.
Forthcoming: See above.

Acting Out – Anomie and Roleplay in Mark Millar and Steve McNiven's Nemesis

Mark Mllar has become a comic writer superstar with runs on Ulitmate X-Men, The Ultimates, and Civil War. He’s also become synonymous with comic ultraviolence on the titles The Authority, Wanted, and Kick-Ass. This ultraviolence has arguably reached a peak that’s hard to top in his creator-owned title (with artist Steve McNiven) Nemesis which debuted in May 2010 and completed a four issue story arc in February 2011.

Nemesis is an extremely violent super-criminal who dresses in a completely white suit, cape and cowl. After terrorising and killing law officials in Korea, Singapore, and Japan, he turns his attention to America and supercop Blake Morrow who aspires to be head of America’s Homeland Security. Nemesis’s intentions are clear in sending Morrow a card which states precisely when Morrow will die by his hands – ‘March 12th at midnight Flatline still counts’. Nemesis’s first terrorist action in America is to hijack AirForce One and take the U.S. President hostage. He then kidnaps Morrow’s children and threatens to kill them unless Morrow reveals his three “dirty little secrets”. These secrets are Morrow’s wife had an affair with Morrow’s police partner because he was an inattentive husband and poor lover; his teenage son hid his homosexuality from him; and his daughter hid an abortion she had from him. Morrow reveals his secrets but while Nemesis keeps to his promise of not killing the children he instead artificially inseminates the daughter with the homosexual son’s sperm, and booby traps the daughter’s womb so a termination is impossible.

Finally with Nemesis’s real identity apparently deduced, Morrow closes in only to find he’s fallen in to a trap and is instead captured. Nemesis, who has now also kidnapped Morrow’s wife, then presents Morrow with an ultimatum: choose to kill either the president or his wife. If he kills neither, Nemesis will kill both. The president then sacrifices himself, which surprises Nemesis, allowing Morrow to fight and ultimately shoot him dead. However Morrow is also mortally shot and dies but is resuscitated during surgery. As the card predicted, ‘Flatline still counts’ and Nemesis’s goal of killing Morrow is achieved. With the threat over and Morrow retiring from active law enforcement, a twist is revealed. A letter is delivered to Morrow which reveals Nemesis is just an extremely rich and bored person who has paid to live out a super-criminal fantasy. Nemesis shocking actions have been years in the planning down to the finest detail.

Rich and Bored

Why does Nemesis conduct his reign of terror? What is his driving force? The Nemesis narrative provides two reasons for Nemesis’s violent actions. Initially Nemesis says he targets people who are vain. This simple explanation doesn’t hold water and, like the majority of Nemesis’s explanations, is a lie. In his crisp white suit and magnificently muscled body, Nemesis is the epitome of vanity. Indeed the catch-cry on the cover of issue two: ‘Crime is awesome and so am I’ backs this claim. Later when pushed by Morrow for an explanation of his actions, Nemesis reveals, ‘I’m rich and I’m bored. What else do you need to know?’ (Millar 2011 8). It’s my contention that Nemesis’s actions are the result of a condition called anomie. This anomie drives Nemesis’s desire for an obscene and excessive self-obliteration; an egoistic suicide. Why else would he proclaim on the cover of issue four: ‘Shoot straight @*%hole!’? Witness also the array of dangerous situations he puts himself in – jumping onto an airborne aeroplane; allowing himself to be imprisoned and then escaping by fighting nearly 100 prison guards. Investigating why being rich and bored is the reason behind Nemesis’s actions begins with an understanding of anomie and how it relates to suicide.

For sociologist Emile Durkheim, society constrains individuals through integration (being attached to socially given purposes and ideals) and regulation (moderating potentially infinite desires and aspirations) (Taylor 11). These moral rules and constraints are tantamount to an imaginary wall around an individual containing their passions. When passions are contained or limited they can be satisfied. ‘Anomie’ which Durkheim he calls a ‘malady of infiniteness’, occurs

when the moral system... is shaken, and fails to respond to new conditions of human life, without any new system having yet been formed to replace that which has disappeared’ (Durkheim 174). 

Essentially there is a breakdown, a mismatch, of social and moral norms. That is, society’s integration and regulation is weak or missing, leaving individuals with a feeling of a lack of guiding principles in their lives. When a society’s moral boundaries are weakened leaving the individual less constrained or lacking in social norms, values or ideals, the individual’s desires and wants are no longer kept in check. Weakened or non-existent barriers permit the individual to ‘devote themselves, without hope of satisfaction, to the pursuit of an end that always eludes them’ (Durkheim 173). An individual’s desires thus become limitless and unable to be satisfied. An example is the accumulation of wealth – ‘it is possible that the more wealth he accumulates, the more dissatisfied he becomes, because the horizon of his ambitions expands’ (Giddens 15). I would argue this is the precise predicament in which Nemesis has found himself. Nemesis is extremely, even obscenely, wealthy. Evidence of this is all the cars he gives to prison inmates on escape from incarceration, the huge mound of drugs he offers his henchmen, and his secret high-tech lair. He doesn’t commit crime for money, he commits crime because he has money. As Durkheim describes ‘it is because morality has the function of limiting and containing that too much wealth so easily becomes a source of immorality. Through the power wealth confers on us, it actually diminishes the power of things to oppose us’ (173). Nemesis’s horizons have become limitless due to his wealth his wants and desires are unable to be satisfied. As the quote suggests, because of his wealth Nemesis has nothing and no-one to oppose him. He may be rich and bored, but he’s bored because he’s rich.


Egoistic Behaviour, Anomie, and Suicide

Durkheim positioned anomie as explaining four kinds of suicide – egoistic, altruistic, anomic, and fatalistic. Egoistic suicide results when the individual has become detached from his community leading to an excess of individualism and this is strongly depicted in Nemesis. But you may well exclaim, “Nemesis doesn’t commit suicide! Morrow kills him!” True, but this is ‘Suicide by Cop’. Suicide by Cop describes an ‘incident whereby the suicidal subject engages in a consciously, life-threatening behaviour to the degree that it compels a police officer to respond with deadly force' (Stincelli). 

Durkheim states that “Man is the more vulnerable to self-destruction the more he is detached from any collectivity, that is to say, the more he lives as an egoist” (Durkheim 113). Egoists are more likely to commit suicide because ‘they think primarily of their own interests and desires and are not sufficiently integrated into social groups around them’ (Taylor 14). The characteristics of ‘egoistic’ or ‘excessive individualism’ are ‘hedonistic self-fulfilment instead of social solidarity; ruthless pursuit of one’s own interests while using others as a mere “means” in strategic actions’ (Mesner, Thome and Rosenfeld 172). Nemesis exhibits all the traits of an egoist. His wealth is the source of his anomie and seen him become detached from society. He has no social bonds to keep him in check– no partner (sexual or otherwise) –and no family. He doesn’t even have a permanent “gang”, employing new henchmen in every city and then murdering them once he’s finished. 

So how does Nemesis go about achieving his desire of an excessive self-obliteration? Well, Nemesis isn’t the criminal terrorist mastermind we’ve been led to believe. In a neat piece of outsourcing Nemesis buys the role of super-criminal in an elaborately designed real-life roleplaying game. Buying and “acting out” the role of super-criminal is an instance of egoistic behaviour, a ruthless pursuit of his own interests to allay his boredom. Not only is he rich and bored but he’s also devoid of ideas paying a secret organisation that has created the Nemesis super-criminal persona and meticulously planned the campaign of terror, all years in advance. As the letter which Morrow receives at the end of the story states: ‘I run a business, you see, where the rich and the bored can savor adventure for a few short weeks of every year’ (Millar 2011 6). The whole thing resembles an adventure holiday. Graham Dann writes– 

related to anomie, the fantasy world of travel seeks to overcome the humdrum, the normlessness and meaninglessness of life, with more satisfying experiences. As regards ego-enhancement, travel presents the tourist with the opportunity to boost his ego in acting out an alien personality (188).

But this isn’t any holiday­–it’s a holiday from himself (whoever that was before becoming Nemesis), acting out the alien super-criminal personality, which like a pre-rolled roleplaying game character, was ready to go!

However, being a super-criminal in an elaborate game is a waste of time if you have no-one to play with. Playing a game involves a goal: to win. Without competition there can be no definitive “winner”. Nemesis must have an opponent. Luckily the organisation Nemesis has paid has also handpicked his target/opponent, and that someone is Blake Morrow. Nemesis has no grudge (except spurious, invented ones for the game) against Morrow. He’s simply someone to ‘play’ with, in an elaborate, high-stakes game.[i] 

The question then must be asked – if it’s all a game, what constitutes Nemesis winning? On the surface it would appear the killing of Morrow would be the answer, but I am arguing that as a sufferer of anomie, his own death constitutes him winning. The card Nemesis sends to Morrow reads, ‘flatline still counts’. This short statement constitutes a “rule” of the game, a technicality that means ultimately it doesn’t matter if Morrow doesn’t remain dead. That Morrow dies and is resuscitated, means Nemesis still “wins” the game for which he’s paid. On the other hand because Nemesis’s real goal is pursuing an egoistic suicide, if he is killed, he also wins. When Nemesis states: ‘I’ve beaten all of my opponents...’ (Millar 2011 7) this in fact means his suicide attempt has been “defeated”. In issue four Nemesis proclaims –‘I’m too rich to fail. Don’t you understand? People like me never lose!’ (Millar 2011 16) Why? Because either way his underlying desire to die will be achieved. He’s too rich to fail because even if Nemesis had killed Morrow and survived we can safely assume he would continue his reign of terror against another hand-picked opponent, and this would continue until he was killed. Standing trial and incarceration is not an option considering the scale of carnage he has caused. However, the more he “wins” the more he loses. With limitless horizons, Nemesis is unlikely to retire, so like in his rich and bored life, his anomie can’t be excised by killing an ongoing succession of opponents, whoever they may be. If Nemesis keeps “winning” this twisted game can only regress to the level of everything else in his life–a bore. His excessive individualism due to wealth means the only limit, the only goal left, is excessive self-obliteration: death. In death Nemesis is finally “cured” of his anomie, making him eternally happy, evidenced by his grinning “death mask”. Before this he only exhibits the pretence of happiness as shown by his smearing of a massive red grin over his mouth and cheeks. Why doesn’t Nemesis just let himself be shot? The game gives his death meaning. He will be remembered. In the end he has bought himself a legacy.

So why at this particular time does Nemesis decide it’s time to go? The answer lies in the unknown mastermind’s letter to Morrow explaining: ‘my client-list has been growing healthily even in the current financial crisis’ (Millar 2011 23). This is because ‘economic booms or depressions undercut the predictable material goals from which individuals would ordinarily derive satisfaction’ (Orcutt). Thus in times of economic crises the prevalence of anomie increases and suicide rates rise (Taylor 15). In fact it is because of the financial crisis that the client list has been growing.

To a different degree Nemesis’s rampage has also taught Morrow to have limits. Morrow’s family has suffered due to his constant desire for “more”; placing career before his family. By the end of the story he no longer seeks to be the head of Homeland Security and is contented being a father and grandfather. In an ironic twist Nemesis has saved Morrow from anomie.

In conclusion, Nemesis’s excessive wealth has seen him lose sight of any horizon, any goal, and become dissatisfied suffering from anomie. His desires become limitless and thus can never be satisfied. The result of his pursuit of excessive wealth is a detachment from society, and thus Nemesis suffers from an excess of individualism. This leads him down the path of committing egoistic suicide which he achieves by buying the Nemesis character in an elaborately planned “game”. Nemesis’s personal goal is death which ultimately, is the only thing which can “cure” his anomie and make him happy.


Reference 

Dann, Graham. “Anomie, Ego-enhancement, and Fantasy.” Annals of Tourism Research 4.4 (1977): 184-94.

Durkheim, Emile. Emile Durkheim: Selected Writings. Ed. Anthony Giddens. Trans. Anthony Giddens. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972.

Giddens, Anthony. “Introduction.” Durkheim, Emile. Emile Durkheim: Selected Writings. Ed. Anthony Giddens. Trans. Anthony Giddens. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972.

Mesner, Steven F., Helmut Thome and Richard Rosenfeld. “Institutions, Anomie, and Violent Crime: Clarifying and Elaborating Institutional-Anomie Theory.” International Journal of Conflict and Violence 2.2 (2008): 163-181.

Millar, Mark (w) and McNiven, Steve (art). Nemesis. Vol. 1 #4 (Feb 2011). New York: Marvel Worldwide, 2011.

—. Nemesis. Vol. 1 #1 (May 2010). New York: Marvel Worldwide, 2010.

Orcutt, James D. “The Anomie Tradition: Explaining Rates of Deviant Behavior.” <http://deviance.socprobs.net/Unit_3/Theory/Anomie.htm>.

Stincelli, Rebecca. “Suicide by Cop Defined.” 2008. Suicide by Cop: Victims from Both Sides of the Badge. <http://www.suicidebycop.com/7922.html>.

Taylor, Steve. Durkheim and the Study of Suicide. London and Basingstoke: Macmillan Press, 1982.

Footnotes

[i] Supporting that the whole thing is a kind of game is shown in issue one where Nemesis is introduced as ‘Player one’ and Morrow as ‘Player two’.

Review - Ultimate Avengers vs. New Ultimates #1 by Mark Millar and Leinil Yu

First off let me say that I am not familiar with what's going on in the Marvel Ultimate Universe. I picked up Ultimate Avengers vs. New Ultimates because it was a first issue and figured it may well be a self-contained story. What was I thinking? Since when is any story in a major comics line a self contained story? Ultimate Avengers vs. New Ultimates #1 picks up from the end of Ultimate Avengers, a storyline involving vampires, the Triskelion ending up in the middle of the Persian Desert, and Tony Stark (Iron Man) being taken to hospital suffering from a cancerous tumour in his brain. Ultimate Avengers vs. New Ultimates #1 is also supposed to be integral to the much 'Death of Spider-Man' Ultimate Universe event although Spiderman appears nowhere in this issue.

So now that's out of the way, on with the story.

Seems there was a break in at something called an 'English Facility' and all the contents were stolen. The contents being the next generation of U.S. super soldier. Main suspects are the Russians or Chinese but looks like there's something of an inside job going on too. So Thor, Captain America, Giant Man (not Henry Pym but  Doctor Scott Lang), and Black Widow head off to Bulgaria to intercept a train carrying the missing cargo, which they do with surprising results.


(Minor Spoiler Ahead)


The heroes find the super soldier cargo not to be a lethal killer but an Afghanistan veteran inspired by Captain America to volunteer for the Super Soldier program. However instead of becoming a superhero like he'd been told, he's been turned into a pain-wracked cyborg freak, unable to see and with little control over his own body.

On first reading of this issue I was entertained and for a Millar story, at least a little impressed that he provided a bit more by the way of content than he usually does for a first issue. On going back over it there are some things that just, well, shouldn't be there.... To whit: apparently in Bulgaria they still use steam trains. Hmm... On the opening page we have the aforementioned train in a long shot on a really big bridge, and then a panel of the train's wheels. Now maybe Leinil Yu likes drawing train wheels, I don't know, but really, I know the train is moving. I don't need the wheels. Thor decides to stop the train-we'll call it stopping to make it easier overall-by leaving his hammer on the tracks. I assume he does this so when the train hits the hammer it can plunge off the rails and we can have the massive carnage and explosions that we expect from a Millar comic. Not sure why a steam train explodes, but there you go... Okay it could be a diesel train, but that still doesn't explain the explosion... Now, I'm thinking surely there must have been an easier way for The Ultimates to stop the train which wouldn't have seen it going over the edge and at least not have killed the humans on the train. They are superheroes, aren't they? Okay I know too that The Ultimates Universe is a bit harsher overall, but why make work for yourself? Huh?

I know too that Captain America is a nice guy, but do we need him telling the others that snow is 'pretty slippery'. They're superheroes for f@#)$ sake! Even if they fell over, the damage ain't gonna be that bad, y'know?!

On the plus side, I was of course expecting the generic massive fight between the super soldier and The Ultimates, but was surprised when he emerged from the train wreck as a pathetic and pitiful figure, not looking for a fight but meaning and understanding of his situation. In extreme pain both physically and mentally, this abject figure asks questions that The Ultimates can't answer. And here is where I think Millar missed a golden opportunity. If we didn't have so much extraneous stuff at the start, we could've had a bit more poignancy at the end which would've elevated this comic way above most superhero comics. This sequence is dominated by images of the soldier. We're not involved in how each member of The Ultimates is affected by what the soldier is saying, especially Captain America, considering he was the soldier's inspiration. A few choice close ups of The Ultimates' faces depicting the horror of the whole situation would've really given the scene more depth and shown an interesting side to each character. Maybe something on the idea of how superheroes affect other people's lives, where in this case their existence has made someone's life worse. Would Cap be ashamed at his influence on this man?

Yu's pencils are once again amazing (I especially liked Captain America's snow outfit), and Alanguilan's (with Paz and Huet) inks ably supplement Yu's art. But as with Superior, of which we have the same creative team here, I'm just not a fan of the colouring, although I will admit that I found it less jarring in this comic than in Superior. My main gripe specifically is that I just don't like the way people are coloured. It reminds me of the first digital colouring used in the 1990s which was often very harsh. Their faces are two, sometimes three-toned and it detracts from characters expressions and buries the pencilling.

Having said all that you may think that I didn't like Ultimate Avengers vs. New Ultimates, but overall I did. Millar provides us with too much filler but the thing is he also comes up with some really good stuff and that's why I keep picking up his books. With him you have to take the good with the less than good.

This: Don't think too hard about it
Forthcoming: Certainly thinking about it

Posthuman Superheroes (Part 2): Performing Gender

This is the second part of a four part essay dealing with posthuman superheroes and theorises Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs as a negative ideal of a posthuman subject and analyses Martian Manhunter performing gender in two issues of Justice League Task Force.

Part One provides an overview of posthuman theory which include evolution of the human through mutation; and the idea of embodiment which theorises that the mind, body, and environment are a continuous entity.  It then identifies a number of superheroes as having posthuman bodies and genders

Part three ‘Shapeshifters, Cyborgs, and Embodied Superheroes’ theorises the superhero characters, Mystique, Jean Grey, Apollo, Midnighter, The Engineer, Jack Hawksmoor, as posthuman subjects.

Part four ‘Coming Off The Page’ investigates the growing real world emergence of the posthuman. 

The character of Buffalo Bill in Jonathan Demme’s The Silence of the Lambs (1991) is another example of posthuman gender albeit a negative one. Halberstam notes that Buffalo Bill resembles ‘a heavy metal rocker as much as a drag queen’ (2000:60), and assumes a posthuman gender because he is: 

simply at odds with any identity whatsoever; no body, no gender will do… what he constructs is a posthuman gender; a gender beyond the body, beyond human, a carnage of identity (2000:58).

Halberstam notes Bill is ‘prey to the most virulent conditioning heterosexist culture has to offer. He believes that anatomy is destiny’ (2000:60). I would argue that the anatomic destiny to which Bill aspires is an illusion. Anatomy is more than the female skin which he violently covets. It is the illusion of femininity to which Bill is attracted as shown by the scene where he tucks his genitals between his legs, to give the viewer (and himself) the impression that his genital region, on the surface, looks like that of a woman. Combined with his awkward dancing it is clear that he is playing at being woman. Without male genitals, and of course also without those of a female, he theoretically becomes sexless. By clothing himself in the skin of a female he is clearly playing woman, yet becomes sexless. It is the appearance, the illusion of woman, which is attractive to Bill. The skin becomes a fetish – or even a kind of skin as condom. He can’t wear female skin in public (one presumes) so this pursuit is entirely of a solitary, and extremely private, nature. In a sense he is not really playing woman either. The skin he removes from his female victims can no longer be designated “woman.” Woman is the performance Bill wants to enact. The sexless female illusion he aspires to is similar to the way drag queens present a heightened version of femininity of which women provide no real counterpart. Drag queen make-up covers prominent male features or exaggerates them to something which is not recognised as male. Similarly Buffalo Bill simply uses the skins of women to cover up his maleness rather than to become a woman. Bill wants to wear the skin of women. He wants to be covered up. As noted by Lecter in the film, Buffalo Bill is not a transsexual but he thinks he is. Bill ‘hates his identity and thinks that makes him a transsexual’ (The Silence of the Lambs, 1991)[i]. Lecter is right. Bill has deluded himself. He is nothing more than an extreme cross-dresser, a drag queen who doesn’t want to dress like a woman, he wants to dress in woman. But the fact is that the skins that Bill collects to stitch together and wear will never look like him with his penis tucked between his legs, will never meet the illusion, the ideal of his aspirations. The skin becomes part of the performance. As Halberstam notes, to Bill skin is gender, all surface. This production of posthuman gender involves a process of violent transformation, one built through oppositions – Bill is completely opposed to everything. He is a gender in process, becoming something other:

he divorces once and for all sex and gender or nature and gender and remakes the human condition as a posthuman body suit. Buffalo Bill kills for his clothes and emblematises the ways in which gender is always posthuman, always a sewing job which stitches identity into a body bag (Halberstam, 2000:67).

Halberstam’s idea of the posthuman body suit is one that can be constructed and put on, taken off, and exchanged when necessary. Bill’s posthuman body suit takes dressing in drag to a violent nth degree. It is not enough for Bill to dress as a woman but he is not suitable for gender reassignment surgery, of which he has been rejected. Bill’s gender resides somewhere in-between. Though it is clear that Bill doesn’t think he, or at least his body, should suffer in his search for a clearer/individual identity/gender and it is at the cost of women that he seeks to achieve this posthuman gender agenda. Halberstam writes: ‘Buffalo Bill thinks he is not in the wrong body, but the wrong skin, an incorrect casing. He is not interested in what lies beneath the skin’ (2000:60-1). I take issue with Halberstam on this point because once Bill has his victims’ skin on, he lies beneath the skin, and he is certainly interested in himself. And if we are talking about posthumanism here then the skin cannot be separated from the body because the skin is the body. If it was simply Bill’s skin that he had the problem with, why not replace his own skin with a woman’s using skin grafts? He would then be incorporating rather than eviscerating the essence of woman which he desires. Thus it is not the wrong skin that is the problem, but the wrong appearance, and again it is not Bill who violently loses his skin to fix the problem. Of course, I realise a solution effectively cancels the premise of the film’s horror narrative but my point is made. While this incarnation of posthuman gender is achieved through violent transgression and opposition, it is not to say that it is the only way. Of course if such ideas like posthumanism are to be embraced we must accept that not all realisations/theorisations of the concept will be of a positive nature. There must be room for those which are achieved through the negative and dark. What gender is Buffalo Bill then? Some (see part one). To be clearer in this explanation I guess it is perhaps better to say that it is uncertain what gender he is, or more correctly, to which he aspires.

The idea of some and someness is frustrating. Some, is an uncertain path to an uncertain limit that can never be reached. And if we are to proscribe to Pepperell’s view (see part one), uncertainty is a frustrating yet essential staple part of the posthuman condition.

Another example, of a male playing woman which at first appears to embrace the idea of multiple posthuman gender, though ultimately radically fails, is exhibited by the DC Comics character the Martian Manhunter (aka J’onn J’onnz) in the connected stories ‘Valley of the Daals’ and ‘How Green Was My Daalie?’ in Justice League Task Force #7-8 (Dec. 1993 – Jan. 1994). J’onn shapeshifts into female form in order to lead an “all” female mission (which includes Wonder Woman) to a hidden domain populated only by women known as Daals. In the two issue story, female gender stereotypes are addressed and jokingly played around with while actually being reinforced. J’onn categorically states earlier in the story that he is male, and certainly there is no changing this [ii]. Obviously to J’onn he is donning the outward appearance of a woman. Just like Buffalo Bill, J’onn J’onnz is ‘a man imitating gender, exaggerating gender’ (Halberstam, 2000:60). When J’onn is to reveal himself in his female form to his fellow female team members, he doesn’t want to be laughed at, invoking issues of self-esteem and appearance stereotypically associated with women. When a male compliments J’onn on his appearance he is clearly flattered, again invoking that vanity is associated with women, and that women are judged, and seek approval, from men on their appearance (lower right). The comedy elements here stem from J’onn, while playing a woman, immediately assuming the stereotypical role of female by responding to comments on his appearance and worrying specifically how others will perceive him. In another stereotypical scene J’onn initially refuses to come out of his room in his female shape because he is embarrassed [iii]. J’onn is thus not playing woman, but the stereotype of woman. 

Martian Manhunter, J’onn J’onzz, steps out as Joan J’onzz 
(David, Velluto, and Albrecht & McClellan, 1993:12-3)

In the course of the mission, the leader of the Daals takes a fancy to J’onn (in his female guise, Joan) and arranges for them to be married, which J’onn plays along with in order to complete the team’s mission. Again he exhibits “female traits” – ‘this female masquerade is stressful. I’m irritable… tense… my head aches’ (David, Velluto, and Albrecht, 1994:2). Once married the leader of the Daals reveals herself to J’onn as half-male, half-female – in-between – solving the puzzle of how the Daals perpetuate their all woman society. Tellingly, the phallus still rules, signifying power, even in a women only society. If they are to consummate the marriage as the Daal leader intends, J’onn must, “go all the way” in his female performance, a step which he is not willing to take and he quickly changes back to his male form.

Seriously interrogating J’onn’s sexuality/gender is not an option even though, as team-mate, Gypsy, has stated earlier in the story: ‘We know you’re a shapeshifter. One shape should be like another to you.’ (David, Velluto, and Albrecht & McClellan, 1993:12). Indeed it should be, but it isn’t. Being serviced by the Daal leader would mark J’onn as a passive female, and with lesbian undertones. Throughout the story he has been playing the passive follower to the active Daal leader and to succumb to any other “feminised” role, especially sex, would further emasculate him. In simple and stark terms – the hero doesn’t get fucked, he fucks.

Startled and angered by J’onn’s deception, the Daal leader lashes out but is soon overpowered when J’onn grabs her hair and bends her arm up behind her back. Their mission accomplished, the heroes make their escape pursued closely by the Daals. The ensuing fight sees J’onn save the Daal leader, after which she forgives his deception. In these last scenes the lesbian connotations are deflected, J’onn only managing to kiss the Daal leader on the cheek. Indeed there is no questioning his heterosexuality at all, as evinced by the following passage:

J’onn: She told me I could come back if I ever changed my mind… But I think our physical relationship would be… strained.

Gypsy: That’s your call, wouldn’t you say, J’onn?

J’onn: Perhaps, but not a decision I choose to make.
(David, Velluto, and Albrecht, 1994:22, emphasis in original)

J’onn doesn’t want to be a woman, which isn’t surprising after all the negative connotations that have been associated with being female throughout the two issues. To cap it off, being the bride of a hermaphrodite is not the stuff of heroes, especially a male hero. J’onn becoming a woman “for real” or indeed questioning his heterosexuality in any context can only be done as an aberration to his male heroic role, and only when necessary to carry out a heroic mission. Recalling J’onn’s own fear that he would be laughed at, the narrative implies that even in a women-only population, female traits are stereotypical across age, race, and even species. It must be inherent, even if you’re a man who is only pretending to be a woman for a while. The narrative of dressing in drag, or playing opposing genders and sexualities, is one which is continually replayed in our culture. From Some Like it Hot (1959), Tootsie (1982), Mrs Doubtfire (1993), Strange Bedfellows (2004) to I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry (2007) and any other number of movies and television series, straight men have performed female and gay roles, and mainly for laughs. The same can’t be said for lesbian or gay men playing it straight, which often ends in tragic circumstances. Boys Don’t Cry (1999) and to a lesser extent the western, The Ballad of Little Jo (1993) are just two examples, which unlike the aforementioned comedies, have their basis in reality.

Read Part One: Posthuman Bodies and Genders

Read Part three ‘Shapeshifters, Cyborgs, and Embodied Superheroes

Read Part Four: Coming Off the Page

Reference

David, P. (w), Velluto, S. (p), and Albrecht, J. (i) (1994) ‘How Green Was My Daalie?’ Justice League Task Force v1 #8 (Jan. 1994), New York: DC Comics.

David, P. (w), Velluto, S. (p), and Albrecht, J. & McClellan, A. (i) (1993) ‘Valley of the Daals’ Justice League Task Force v1 #7 (Dec. 1993), New York: DC Comics.

Halberstam, J. ‘Skinflick: Posthuman Gender in Jonathan Demme’s The Silence of the Lambs’ in Badmington, N. (ed.) (2000) Posthumanism. Palgrave, pp. 56-68.

The Silence of the Lambs (1991), Orion Pictures, Demme, J. (dir.).

Footnotes
[i] Transsexual as defined by the Oxford English Dictionary is as follows: A. adj 1. Of or pertaining to transsexualism; having physical characteristics of one sex and psychological characteristics of the other 2. Of or pertaining to both sexes. B. n A transsexual person. Also, one whose sex has been changed by surgery (‘Transsexual’, n.a. 1989).

[ii] The Martian Manhunter has always been considered and represented as male. During his pre-Earth life on Mars he had a wife and son.

[iii] The idea of “coming out” is not lost on me here either.

Review - True Blood: Tainted Blood #1 by Marc Andreyko, Michael McMillian (writers) and Joe Corroney (artist)

I'm not usually one for reading comics based on material from another medium. Back in the 90s that amounted to Alien and Predator comics, but having a liking for the immensely popular True Blood television series, I thought I'd have a look at the latest comic offering from the True Blood franchise. I've also read a couple of the Charlaine Harris Sookie Stackhouse books on which True Blood is based and, well let's just say that for me, the television series did wonders with its base material.

This first issue basically revolves around red-headed vampire Jess missing a high school prom because, well, she's a vampire and her boyfriend Hoyt goes about organising one for her. The ongoing story involves someone poisoning Louisiana's True Blood supply with something that turns normally placid vampires in homicidal and suicidal freaks.

I was expecting something in-between Harris's books and True Blood and that's pretty much what I got, if a bit more skewed toward the television series. That's not surprising. When you've got characters created by the masterful Alan Ball then, why change? All the main characters from the television series make an appearance, none deviating from their television persona. Sookie is sweet; Tara quips sarcastically; Jason laments times of easy women; Bill broods. You get the picture. To their credit, writers Andreyko and McMillian capture the tone of each character very well. I'm assuming though, that as writers they don't really have too much scope with character development that would be at odds with the TV series so Tainted Blood really has to deliver story-wise. It's always hard reviewing a first issue as they generally only give hints at where the story is going, but I'm not sure that it's quite there. Turning vampires, whom are essentially killers into worse killers? If the poisoning doesn't have something to do with the anti-vampire religious nuts then, I'll be quite surprised.

Corroney's art effortlessly captures the likenesses of the actors which makes me wonder if there isn't some whiff of tracing going on. Not that I particularly care in this instance (although I'm sure some do). There's not much point in having the characters only slightly resemble the TV actors. For all intents and purposes, Anna Paquin is Sookie Stackhouse so she may as well look like Anna Paquin in the comic too, not some artist's riff on what they think Sookie looks like.

All up True Blood: Tainted Blood is a decent effort that has all the elements that makes the TV show great without quite reaching those heights. Still it should keep fans satisfied.

This: For the fans
Forthcoming: Don't know if I'm enough of a fan