The following continues a close-reading of Grant Morrison's New X-Men. Issue 115 was written by Morrison and illustrated by Frank Quitely, with inks by Tim Townsend. It was published and is owned by Marvel Comics.
115.01.01 The Master Mold Sentinel whose head is seen here is processing skeletons, as well as the inorganic materials they traditionally use to make killer robots.
115.04.02 Another example of something more efficient being constructed out of something larger and potentially unnecessary now.
115.05.02 The subject of the finances of the X-lifestyle rears its head, once more.
115.06.02 Codenames, mutant names, superhero names, are forms of self-identifying as seen in practice here. Business calls for business names.
115.09.02 Wolverine will recover from taking those hits, but it’s still rather decent of him to play human shield.
115.09.04 This run is the first time blood in X-Men appears as fully-saturated bright reds, so a little goes a much better way to representing bleeding violence than seventeen gallons more of black splashes. That Ugly John lacks a noticeably useful mutation is nice.
115.10.05 The only other time I can remember seeing Cyclops lose his visor and the visual effect including Kirby Dots, was X-Men Unlimited #1, pencils by Chris Bachalo.
115.11.01 Beast doubts himself too much, and tries too hard. And, scene.
115.11.02 That spilled drink suggests another difficulty re manual dexterity, with Beast’s new body.
115.12.04 Jean knows she’s an equal of her former professor’s, a contemporary, and she also understands that her husband probably does not feel that way, and can be bossed, still.
115.12.05 … As can Beast, apparently.
115.13.01 More skeletons being processed. And, of course, what Cassandra is describing here, as far as the decimation of a virus, is very similar to what will happen when the Phoenix destroys Sublime.
115.14.03 Cassandra Nova is such an optimist, but, of course, as with many of her predictions, this one is likely to come true, as well, given the right perspective.
115.16.01 Cassandra is infecting herself with nanosentinels here.
115.17.04 This mercy killing slash assisted suicide is an incredibly mature and intense decision, but does the heroic Cyclops hesitate even for a second?
115.18.03 The contact lenses are new, though they had actually been dismissed before, for reasons of the eyes needed to breathe. As a temporary emergency measure, this seems less an issue, however.
115.19.02 Dialogue and visuals cue the reader in on location, as they did last issue.
115.19.03 Doop shirt! Mutant culture is a marketable commodity.
115.20.04 This is Magneto, President for life of Genosha, and lifetime enemy and ally of the X-Men.
115.21.01 This Sentinel, as a fist made of airplanes, will reappear later, with subtle differences. Of course, loads of people called out the absurdity, at the time of publication, of Magneto being killed by a giant hunk of metal, but they were silenced by a bigger mass of people coming up with excuses it could be plausible.
115.21.03 The signs and ads, from She-Mail to Mute Eight, GM Liquor, all add up to, well, the kind of morass of meaning and meaning-leading meaninglessness that any mass of billboards and advertisements do.
115.22.01 The Wild Sentinels, looking like giant bugs here, reiterate the infestation and biological-class-reversal motifs. Captions appear here, for the first time in this story, accompanied by a dehumanizing inevitability.
115.22.03 The decimation of Genosha is actually part of the psychic condensation while Xavier is thinking/working in Cerebra. How much of life is actually Xavier thinking? Plus, he apparently thinks himself as a giant overseer witnessing tragedy.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Nothing Butt the Truth
Some years ago, a guy told me (unsolicited) why we could never date. I was, in his opinion, “going around living like life is the last twenty minutes of Benny & Joon.” A few years before that, someone else – I think it was Chris Mitchell – mapped my life in a way not contradictory, as “the first five minutes of a porno scene.” And, while I dismissed them actively at the time, these labels do demonstrate some value in sorting the aspects of my daily and continual existence. A sense of perpetual closure and easy transition between scenes and solutions? Sure. What about, a frisson of knowing excitement in close variations on generic scenarios? Or, played dialogue with oblique subtexts, inevitabilities foreseen but kept just out of reach by that five-minute rule?
Sure. I’ll buy that, and why not? It would not be surprising to discover that my life is unnecessary except for a narrative to achieve it’s point that has a point, that my life is the building of familiar, learned veracity. Do I not feel the weight of a greater audience than myself, in all doings, at all moments, just as surely as characters in a porn scene would, had they the necessary level of self-awareness?
Is that how Joon – not Mary Stuart Masterson, but Joon – works out the climax and denouement of Benny & Joon, perhaps? A small glimpse of awareness, a grander perspective for just long enough to realize she has to play crazy but not so crazy she can’t get together with Johnny Depp in Buster Keaton drag and have that keen apartment. It’d work. It would. But, maybe that is a little too close to freewill.
An approximation to freewill is the only reason I can think of, that approaches remotely rational, for our recurrent cross-cultural concern with preserving a veil of irony to fictions. Fictions must not be knowing, authors should be discouraged from being sardonic, and we must clap for Tinkerbell, that is our role.
Let’s go back to porn for a moment. A frequent trope of contemporary porno, a quick google around makes it clear, is the playacting of a hire. Sexy youths of all walks require money and in these scenarios, they will be promised such – though not always given it, in the end – in exchange for sex, degradation, and their time. They need money to support drug habits, to buy shoes at the mall; they’ll even bang for books for school. Now, step back and remember, if we’re talking video porn, this is a set of actors going through the motions of a scripted story. These are professional actors, in other words, people who are being paid money to do this. But that reality, it seems, in ill-fitted, it is not part of the story no matter how true, and we need our true stories.
Walter Allen, a rather educated, knowledgeable man, spends much of his The English Novel discounting or belittling any novel that happens to acknowledge its untruthfulness, its artifice. Vanity Fair is a weak work, apparently, because its nearly-omniscient, and opinionated, narrator shares a joke with the reader every so often, and on occasion, actively disagrees with the author. It is important, for Allen, that the novel stand apart from its author, in terms of perspective and politics, but it is not the thing to make a production out of it.
By and large, we traditionally, and consistently, do not wish our fictions to be spelled out as such for us. We want to pretend from beginning through ending, forever and ever, that there is not a semblance of actuality, but truth and history, in there. Authors cannot pause the narrative to interject; no, that is bad form. Plot cannot reveal itself as a series of engineered and overlapping contrivances. Characters should never understand their characterness, their existence as roles and agglomerations of aspects and tics. Why else, would Shakespeare’s divine As You Like It so frequently be maligned as a jest in bad taste, a work designed to appease the ignorant or the unhealthily minded populace, because its narrative and its principle role acknowledge their artifact nature? Why does the novel, at least in English, run screaming with its fingers in its ears, from the developments of Tristram Shandy? Or, the Realism come to mean, by way of Balzac, a conglomeration of stereotypes, learned tropes, and anticipated superstitions?
Well, for one thing, it is often apparent that arguing with superstitions is futile, so what better mode of communication, what better strings to pull to get those marionettes up and dancing so realistically, than tethers that cannot be cut? We all know what they say about redheads, and why, there must be some reason behind it, if everyone says it and everyone knows what is said.
We retreat, not more deeply, perhaps, but certainly with repetition, to familiarities, to fairytale existences where existentialism and ennui are unacknowledged with a severity that may as well erase them. It is the short-term memory required of happy pioneering, that act of aggressive homesteading that is, by alternate perspective, theft and active displacement of whatever and whomever previously occupied this new comfortable space. Stories that blatantly cannot have happened, or that are incredibly unlikely, become uncomfortable, so that, no matter how entertaining, no matter how often we revisit, say, the story of the Trojan War or the Time Machine, the cheating of the Devil or a contract with God, we maintain a civilized pretense that these entertainments mean less than the very serious entertainments of how our social politics are reflective of innate truths and doing as Momma and Poppa taught you will be a yardstick of mores good enough for thriving in any decent society.
Nonsense, spontaneity, speculation or reexamination, these come too close to producing self-awareness, self-acknowledgement of the artifice that so many layers of practiced, and forever taught, veracity are meant to obscure, put down like golden fleece over the audience’s eyes, not only, then, to obscure, but to lull the audience in forgetting to even be concerned with what may be hidden. The authenticity of our fairy stories is a set of blinders that make us forget we ever saw what they hide.
It is this room for an anamnesis that allowed Post Modernism to appear, yes, Post Modern. It let Modernism seem tethered to a time. It permits us to think of our own culture and locale as contemporary, while some other corner of the globe is considered older, younger, futuristic or historic. How, we can speak of pre-Columbian for virtually everywhere but where Columbus came from. What gives life to recurrent stereotypes, creating neighborhoods out of social stories and imaginary nations from rampant orientalism.
It impractically behooves an author, an actor, a painter or poet, then, to assault this veneer in violent or teasing ways, however can be managed, without losing the audience altogether, for the betterment of our maturation as a whole. No, seriously. It is one thing to grow into perspective, see that Santa Claus is a learning tool about the exchange of goods as an act of goodwill (cookies and milk for presents, natch) not necessarily a requirement, certain behavioral codes and records of good and criminal acts; that he is an inspirational figure, and also, an entertainment. So we perpetuate the myth with another generation who have not achieved the metatextual awareness we now possess. It is something else, something that can only be considered a detriment, if our playacted acknowledgement of Santa Claus remains so entrenched, so seriously lain out, that we cannot ever vocalize, nor even intimate minutely, the fictive nature of the construct.
This is the defective thinking that leads people to actively preserve the myths of a historic figure over an accurate portrayal of them, because they don’t want to lose a hero, even if that hero never existed, or is simply the lionizing of a horrible moral mutant. The need for the fairytales to be treated as truth grows so intense, so all-consuming, that accuracy must bend to their truth. Christopher Columbus cannot be a genocidal gold-chasing thief with messianic pretensions! The Pilgrims, those Puritans, cannot have traveled to North America and perpetrated acts of aggression, cruelty, repression and, again, genocide; the third graders have to play dress up as those people and the Indians! And why can’t it be a nice happy meal together with centuries of friendliness to follow, instead of death and displacement, if that makes for a happier grade school reenactment? Why can’t the little mermaid have a happy ending? What’s this about changing meanings? Why shouldn’t fairies be small and powerless? Who cares if it comes out of a racist tradition? It’s not sexist, it’s just in fun, and anyway, those are real differences!
This Summer, I listened to a little girl tell her mother, both in black slacks and flowery shirts, about an exercise in school, where the boys dressed like girls and the girls, like boys. “The boys all wore dresses, Mama,” she said, “and we, well, I wore pants.”
Sure. I’ll buy that, and why not? It would not be surprising to discover that my life is unnecessary except for a narrative to achieve it’s point that has a point, that my life is the building of familiar, learned veracity. Do I not feel the weight of a greater audience than myself, in all doings, at all moments, just as surely as characters in a porn scene would, had they the necessary level of self-awareness?
Is that how Joon – not Mary Stuart Masterson, but Joon – works out the climax and denouement of Benny & Joon, perhaps? A small glimpse of awareness, a grander perspective for just long enough to realize she has to play crazy but not so crazy she can’t get together with Johnny Depp in Buster Keaton drag and have that keen apartment. It’d work. It would. But, maybe that is a little too close to freewill.
An approximation to freewill is the only reason I can think of, that approaches remotely rational, for our recurrent cross-cultural concern with preserving a veil of irony to fictions. Fictions must not be knowing, authors should be discouraged from being sardonic, and we must clap for Tinkerbell, that is our role.
Let’s go back to porn for a moment. A frequent trope of contemporary porno, a quick google around makes it clear, is the playacting of a hire. Sexy youths of all walks require money and in these scenarios, they will be promised such – though not always given it, in the end – in exchange for sex, degradation, and their time. They need money to support drug habits, to buy shoes at the mall; they’ll even bang for books for school. Now, step back and remember, if we’re talking video porn, this is a set of actors going through the motions of a scripted story. These are professional actors, in other words, people who are being paid money to do this. But that reality, it seems, in ill-fitted, it is not part of the story no matter how true, and we need our true stories.
Walter Allen, a rather educated, knowledgeable man, spends much of his The English Novel discounting or belittling any novel that happens to acknowledge its untruthfulness, its artifice. Vanity Fair is a weak work, apparently, because its nearly-omniscient, and opinionated, narrator shares a joke with the reader every so often, and on occasion, actively disagrees with the author. It is important, for Allen, that the novel stand apart from its author, in terms of perspective and politics, but it is not the thing to make a production out of it.
By and large, we traditionally, and consistently, do not wish our fictions to be spelled out as such for us. We want to pretend from beginning through ending, forever and ever, that there is not a semblance of actuality, but truth and history, in there. Authors cannot pause the narrative to interject; no, that is bad form. Plot cannot reveal itself as a series of engineered and overlapping contrivances. Characters should never understand their characterness, their existence as roles and agglomerations of aspects and tics. Why else, would Shakespeare’s divine As You Like It so frequently be maligned as a jest in bad taste, a work designed to appease the ignorant or the unhealthily minded populace, because its narrative and its principle role acknowledge their artifact nature? Why does the novel, at least in English, run screaming with its fingers in its ears, from the developments of Tristram Shandy? Or, the Realism come to mean, by way of Balzac, a conglomeration of stereotypes, learned tropes, and anticipated superstitions?
Well, for one thing, it is often apparent that arguing with superstitions is futile, so what better mode of communication, what better strings to pull to get those marionettes up and dancing so realistically, than tethers that cannot be cut? We all know what they say about redheads, and why, there must be some reason behind it, if everyone says it and everyone knows what is said.
We retreat, not more deeply, perhaps, but certainly with repetition, to familiarities, to fairytale existences where existentialism and ennui are unacknowledged with a severity that may as well erase them. It is the short-term memory required of happy pioneering, that act of aggressive homesteading that is, by alternate perspective, theft and active displacement of whatever and whomever previously occupied this new comfortable space. Stories that blatantly cannot have happened, or that are incredibly unlikely, become uncomfortable, so that, no matter how entertaining, no matter how often we revisit, say, the story of the Trojan War or the Time Machine, the cheating of the Devil or a contract with God, we maintain a civilized pretense that these entertainments mean less than the very serious entertainments of how our social politics are reflective of innate truths and doing as Momma and Poppa taught you will be a yardstick of mores good enough for thriving in any decent society.
Nonsense, spontaneity, speculation or reexamination, these come too close to producing self-awareness, self-acknowledgement of the artifice that so many layers of practiced, and forever taught, veracity are meant to obscure, put down like golden fleece over the audience’s eyes, not only, then, to obscure, but to lull the audience in forgetting to even be concerned with what may be hidden. The authenticity of our fairy stories is a set of blinders that make us forget we ever saw what they hide.
It is this room for an anamnesis that allowed Post Modernism to appear, yes, Post Modern. It let Modernism seem tethered to a time. It permits us to think of our own culture and locale as contemporary, while some other corner of the globe is considered older, younger, futuristic or historic. How, we can speak of pre-Columbian for virtually everywhere but where Columbus came from. What gives life to recurrent stereotypes, creating neighborhoods out of social stories and imaginary nations from rampant orientalism.
It impractically behooves an author, an actor, a painter or poet, then, to assault this veneer in violent or teasing ways, however can be managed, without losing the audience altogether, for the betterment of our maturation as a whole. No, seriously. It is one thing to grow into perspective, see that Santa Claus is a learning tool about the exchange of goods as an act of goodwill (cookies and milk for presents, natch) not necessarily a requirement, certain behavioral codes and records of good and criminal acts; that he is an inspirational figure, and also, an entertainment. So we perpetuate the myth with another generation who have not achieved the metatextual awareness we now possess. It is something else, something that can only be considered a detriment, if our playacted acknowledgement of Santa Claus remains so entrenched, so seriously lain out, that we cannot ever vocalize, nor even intimate minutely, the fictive nature of the construct.
This is the defective thinking that leads people to actively preserve the myths of a historic figure over an accurate portrayal of them, because they don’t want to lose a hero, even if that hero never existed, or is simply the lionizing of a horrible moral mutant. The need for the fairytales to be treated as truth grows so intense, so all-consuming, that accuracy must bend to their truth. Christopher Columbus cannot be a genocidal gold-chasing thief with messianic pretensions! The Pilgrims, those Puritans, cannot have traveled to North America and perpetrated acts of aggression, cruelty, repression and, again, genocide; the third graders have to play dress up as those people and the Indians! And why can’t it be a nice happy meal together with centuries of friendliness to follow, instead of death and displacement, if that makes for a happier grade school reenactment? Why can’t the little mermaid have a happy ending? What’s this about changing meanings? Why shouldn’t fairies be small and powerless? Who cares if it comes out of a racist tradition? It’s not sexist, it’s just in fun, and anyway, those are real differences!
This Summer, I listened to a little girl tell her mother, both in black slacks and flowery shirts, about an exercise in school, where the boys dressed like girls and the girls, like boys. “The boys all wore dresses, Mama,” she said, “and we, well, I wore pants.”
Thursday, July 22, 2010
New X-Men 114 - Close Reading and Thoughts
The following begins a close-reading of Grant Morrison's New X-Men. Issue 114 was written by Morrison and illustrated by Frank Quitely, with inks by Tim Townsend. It was published and is owned by Marvel Comics.
114.01.01 The first of many critiques of (potentially) outmoded technology and techniques. And, having the Opera House in the background allows for a more naturalistic cueing of locale, than a caption.
114.02.01 First introduction to Cassandra Nova, biological twin and mystical mummudrai of Charles Xavier. Also, she’s lying a whole lot here in the next pages, and even Mr. Trask, there can intimate the untruth.
114.02.04 A fairly accurate description, not of mutants, but of herself.
114.04.02 Psychokinesis can take apart a timepiece. Can it take apart time?
114.04.020-03 Why don’t’ Jean and Emma have codenames listed? “White Queen” and “Phoenix” probably conjure some bad memories, both for the women, themselves, and for everyone else.
114.04.05 The blood on Wolverine’s claws seems to be coming from him, not someone else. Larry Hama established, some years ago, that Wolverine cut himself open from the inside every time his claws come out, but this is a rare deomonstration of a detail of that fact, and subtly done, too.
114.06.01 Beast’s words carry a double-meaning, obviously, and the shot of the school’s sign settles the location, again, without a need for a caption.
114.06.02 First appearance of the rose motif, mostly connected to Beast. Beast’s difficulty adjusting to his new hands is also the first of many references to detriment as well as benefit from change.
114.06.03 Well, earlobes are a bit of essentially decorative biology at this point in human existence.
114.07.01 The feminisation of Cerebro to Cerebra is the first of many references to gender bias/valorization. As may be Beast’s sounds-like-a-jest-but-isn’t about being “hormonally imbalanced.” It’s also another example of outdated tech and technique being replaced with new stuff that essentially does the same as the old.
114.07.02 “Beauty and the Beast” call out is what you’d call hanging a lampshade on it, drawing attention to the new look, which is inspired by the Cocteau film, while Beast’s request for a diet soda demonstrates the absurdity of some of his concerns.
114.08.06 Beast’s line here demonstrates again that he’s a little too worried some days.
114.10.04 Wolverine’s too hard for Dos Equis, apparently, he needs Cuatro Equis.
114.11.01 The blood and spent rounds are a nice way to illustrate that gravity isn’t really pulling down on them so much.
114.11.05 The plane and X-Men here are part of the condensation coming out of Xavier’s thoughts.
114.12.02 “Only a simulation of the sickening reality.” Except it may not be reality at all, it just seems real. Seems possible.
114.14.01 The panel contains other panels, but it also contains two different time periods in it; Xavier at the top and the X-Men answering with a panel between them. The change in costumes to another set of uniforms is acknowledged as cosmetic, and of course, Beast would know the difference between what the X-Men are and do and superheroes, being a former Defender, Avenger, and probably other stuff. Beast as lectured on superheroes at universities, for further he knows what he’s talking about.
114.15.01 New school term hints at the fact the school will soon be full of mutant students, as opposed to the norm of post grads and combat vets.
114.15.02- Scott and Jean’s relationship troubles are going to fuel this whole story, as will Wolverine and Cyclops’ inability to help each other without needling the whole time.
114.15.04 Another criticism of the wealth that goes into this X-lifestyle and opposing it.
114.16.01-02 Beast really is a sensualist from the smells comment to the getting right down into a DNA sample.
114.16.03 More finances criticism.
114.18.01 She doesn’t eat his mind, here. We do, however, see something else with similar speech patterns that is thought to eat minds, so maybe she could.
114.18.04-05 This is Cassie’s plan, or at least, a stage of it, completely spelled out.
114.18.01- The nine panel grid really does slow down the elements of this scene, also making them seem small, contained, allusive of the pressure that must have ruptured that can and is giving Xavier a nosebleed.
114.19.03 Morrison really loves his “AAAUUUU…”
114.19.05 “Are these words from the future?” is a phrase we’ll be seeing again.
114.22.01 Wild Sentinels. More varied in shape, willing cannibals of mechanical and biological components, and just as, if not more, effective than their predecessors.
114.01.01 The first of many critiques of (potentially) outmoded technology and techniques. And, having the Opera House in the background allows for a more naturalistic cueing of locale, than a caption.
114.02.01 First introduction to Cassandra Nova, biological twin and mystical mummudrai of Charles Xavier. Also, she’s lying a whole lot here in the next pages, and even Mr. Trask, there can intimate the untruth.
114.02.04 A fairly accurate description, not of mutants, but of herself.
114.04.02 Psychokinesis can take apart a timepiece. Can it take apart time?
114.04.020-03 Why don’t’ Jean and Emma have codenames listed? “White Queen” and “Phoenix” probably conjure some bad memories, both for the women, themselves, and for everyone else.
114.04.05 The blood on Wolverine’s claws seems to be coming from him, not someone else. Larry Hama established, some years ago, that Wolverine cut himself open from the inside every time his claws come out, but this is a rare deomonstration of a detail of that fact, and subtly done, too.
114.06.01 Beast’s words carry a double-meaning, obviously, and the shot of the school’s sign settles the location, again, without a need for a caption.
114.06.02 First appearance of the rose motif, mostly connected to Beast. Beast’s difficulty adjusting to his new hands is also the first of many references to detriment as well as benefit from change.
114.06.03 Well, earlobes are a bit of essentially decorative biology at this point in human existence.
114.07.01 The feminisation of Cerebro to Cerebra is the first of many references to gender bias/valorization. As may be Beast’s sounds-like-a-jest-but-isn’t about being “hormonally imbalanced.” It’s also another example of outdated tech and technique being replaced with new stuff that essentially does the same as the old.
114.07.02 “Beauty and the Beast” call out is what you’d call hanging a lampshade on it, drawing attention to the new look, which is inspired by the Cocteau film, while Beast’s request for a diet soda demonstrates the absurdity of some of his concerns.
114.08.06 Beast’s line here demonstrates again that he’s a little too worried some days.
114.10.04 Wolverine’s too hard for Dos Equis, apparently, he needs Cuatro Equis.
114.11.01 The blood and spent rounds are a nice way to illustrate that gravity isn’t really pulling down on them so much.
114.11.05 The plane and X-Men here are part of the condensation coming out of Xavier’s thoughts.
114.12.02 “Only a simulation of the sickening reality.” Except it may not be reality at all, it just seems real. Seems possible.
114.14.01 The panel contains other panels, but it also contains two different time periods in it; Xavier at the top and the X-Men answering with a panel between them. The change in costumes to another set of uniforms is acknowledged as cosmetic, and of course, Beast would know the difference between what the X-Men are and do and superheroes, being a former Defender, Avenger, and probably other stuff. Beast as lectured on superheroes at universities, for further he knows what he’s talking about.
114.15.01 New school term hints at the fact the school will soon be full of mutant students, as opposed to the norm of post grads and combat vets.
114.15.02- Scott and Jean’s relationship troubles are going to fuel this whole story, as will Wolverine and Cyclops’ inability to help each other without needling the whole time.
114.15.04 Another criticism of the wealth that goes into this X-lifestyle and opposing it.
114.16.01-02 Beast really is a sensualist from the smells comment to the getting right down into a DNA sample.
114.16.03 More finances criticism.
114.18.01 She doesn’t eat his mind, here. We do, however, see something else with similar speech patterns that is thought to eat minds, so maybe she could.
114.18.04-05 This is Cassie’s plan, or at least, a stage of it, completely spelled out.
114.18.01- The nine panel grid really does slow down the elements of this scene, also making them seem small, contained, allusive of the pressure that must have ruptured that can and is giving Xavier a nosebleed.
114.19.03 Morrison really loves his “AAAUUUU…”
114.19.05 “Are these words from the future?” is a phrase we’ll be seeing again.
114.22.01 Wild Sentinels. More varied in shape, willing cannibals of mechanical and biological components, and just as, if not more, effective than their predecessors.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Thursday, July 15, 2010
"The Right Thing"
“The Right Thing”
Excavating, reappraising, and cataloging Planetary early in the 21st Century
[The fourth in what should be a comprehensive series, both these small essays and the related annotations are intended for someone who is already familiar with the series. Spoilers will be dropped as necessary, events and concepts discussed out of their order of first-appearance, and general summaries of stories will not be provided. All of these posts may be subject to severe and dramatic rewrites without notice, as new things occur to me, and of course, I welcome any further annotation suggestions or general feedback at. If I include an annotation derived from someone else, from this point on, I will gladly credit the provider. If I don’t credit an annotation, it means I derived the conclusion myself, or I simply cannot recall where I got the information first.
This project could not exist without the fine work of The Planetary Appreciation Page, the now defunct Warren Ellis Forum, the slowly-defuncting Barbelith messageboard, and the Planetary team of Warren Ellis, John Cassaday, Laura DePuy/Martin, John Layman, David Baron, Scott Dunbier, and the many letterers, designers, and other contributors.
This project is dedicated to mystery archeologists everywhere, of every walk and a myriad of tastes, habits, and ingenuities.]
“Strange Harbours” is layered in affections of authenticity that intrigue me because I don’t know what they add up to, if anything. The cover is designed to appear like an old comic, but no comic I know had covers like this and no American comic would have spelled the second word in the title that way back in the Thirties. It isn’t even quite a men’s or true sweat magazine cover, lacking in lushness or robustness, as it is. And, then, there is the shiftship that is uncovered, which has an implied ancientness to it, but one that is derived out of insensible affectations. The ship is made of ornate (baroque, even) worked metal and stained glass, so it feels old, seems that way, but it predates human stained glass entirely, as seen by the dinosaurs at the crash.
Maybe, it is as simple as the fact that a lot of people in this chapter are being misled or are actively misleading others. Jim Wilder does not know his boss and confidant, Anna Hark, may have directed him to the site specifically to trigger the hidden ship, via its beacon/touchstone. Snow has no idea his colleagues in Planetary are stringing him along, through his engineered amnesia. The organization taking responsibility for the destruction of a Hark Corporation building is an obvious front for somebody, with an inside joke for a name. And, of course, we will eventually discover that John Stone was in “Strange Harbours” disguised and staging the mugging that draws Wilder to the touchstone, itself.
It even feels antiquated that Wilder is so optimistic, so true and right, and goodnatured, in this world of liars and manipulation. There was never a golden era where everyone was straightforward and moral, as Wilder appears here, but it can seem that way, when we have the right rose colored glasses on. Jim is not so much an analogue of Jimmy, from the pulps-inspired group; he’s no Operator, he is earnest.
Jim Wilder is kind, responsible, and earnest, and everybody uses him! John Stone, Anna Hark, the Four, and even Planetary, until Snow comes in at the end there and offers to fund him. Actually, Snow may not be off the hook, either. Wilder is tied up in things Snow wants to know more about, after all. And, that’s a bit brutal, isn’t it?
***
[From Volume One, All Over the World and Other Stories
04.00 With all the attention to realistic representation in the cover, those stars and crescent moons are awfully abstract. Detail and the cartoon communicating simultaneously.
The cape, sash, and lightning bolt motif across the chest are all visual indicators that this is an analogue of the Fawcett (not DC) Captain Marvel.
04.01.01 It’s possible that Neumeier, here, was named for Ed Neumeier, scriptwriter of Robocop and the satirical adaptation of Starship Troopers, given his insightful (and inciting) questioning of both the event and the immediate cover up.
04.02.01 Similarly, Jim Wilder’s surname may be derived from writer/director Billy Wilder, as well as being a callback to Jimmy (Operator and James Bond analogue), and our Captain Marvel exemplar. Billy Wilder did a number of films in which “doing the right thing” comes heavily into play, as well as Double Indemnity, which starred Captain Marvel’s real life visual model, Fred MacMurray
04.02.03 Jim Wilder is a boy(ish) detective, here aged beyond the typical early teens for reasons of sheer sensibility (and believability), similar to Tintin, whose hair he seems to have appropriated.
04.03.01 Jim’s an orphan, like many a youthful adventurer, Tintin and Captain Marvel, included.
04.04.01 Like Captain Marvel (and the writer-protagonist of Flex Mentallo), Jim’s going to do a good deed for a stranger on the street…
04.08.01 And it’s going to take him to magic other-place and give him special powers.
04.09.01 Note the figures embedded in the architecture: running with lightning bolts; shooting beams from fists; flying; standing with spear; an upsidedown Communion style gray… aliens and superhumanity in museum-appropriate drag, perhaps alluding to the Flash Museum maintained in DC Comics, to honor their lightning-bolt-associated speedsters.
04.15 The ship is orphaned, too.
04.18.01 Seven people to power the ship, is an inversion of Captain Marvel (or other members of his family) deriving their individual power-sets from seven patron deities. As well as being a reason for our Marvel-reference to gather a family of his own.
[Click here to see further annotations for Planetary]
Excavating, reappraising, and cataloging Planetary early in the 21st Century
[The fourth in what should be a comprehensive series, both these small essays and the related annotations are intended for someone who is already familiar with the series. Spoilers will be dropped as necessary, events and concepts discussed out of their order of first-appearance, and general summaries of stories will not be provided. All of these posts may be subject to severe and dramatic rewrites without notice, as new things occur to me, and of course, I welcome any further annotation suggestions or general feedback at
This project could not exist without the fine work of The Planetary Appreciation Page, the now defunct Warren Ellis Forum, the slowly-defuncting Barbelith messageboard, and the Planetary team of Warren Ellis, John Cassaday, Laura DePuy/Martin, John Layman, David Baron, Scott Dunbier, and the many letterers, designers, and other contributors.
This project is dedicated to mystery archeologists everywhere, of every walk and a myriad of tastes, habits, and ingenuities.]
“Strange Harbours” is layered in affections of authenticity that intrigue me because I don’t know what they add up to, if anything. The cover is designed to appear like an old comic, but no comic I know had covers like this and no American comic would have spelled the second word in the title that way back in the Thirties. It isn’t even quite a men’s or true sweat magazine cover, lacking in lushness or robustness, as it is. And, then, there is the shiftship that is uncovered, which has an implied ancientness to it, but one that is derived out of insensible affectations. The ship is made of ornate (baroque, even) worked metal and stained glass, so it feels old, seems that way, but it predates human stained glass entirely, as seen by the dinosaurs at the crash.
Maybe, it is as simple as the fact that a lot of people in this chapter are being misled or are actively misleading others. Jim Wilder does not know his boss and confidant, Anna Hark, may have directed him to the site specifically to trigger the hidden ship, via its beacon/touchstone. Snow has no idea his colleagues in Planetary are stringing him along, through his engineered amnesia. The organization taking responsibility for the destruction of a Hark Corporation building is an obvious front for somebody, with an inside joke for a name. And, of course, we will eventually discover that John Stone was in “Strange Harbours” disguised and staging the mugging that draws Wilder to the touchstone, itself.
It even feels antiquated that Wilder is so optimistic, so true and right, and goodnatured, in this world of liars and manipulation. There was never a golden era where everyone was straightforward and moral, as Wilder appears here, but it can seem that way, when we have the right rose colored glasses on. Jim is not so much an analogue of Jimmy, from the pulps-inspired group; he’s no Operator, he is earnest.
Jim Wilder is kind, responsible, and earnest, and everybody uses him! John Stone, Anna Hark, the Four, and even Planetary, until Snow comes in at the end there and offers to fund him. Actually, Snow may not be off the hook, either. Wilder is tied up in things Snow wants to know more about, after all. And, that’s a bit brutal, isn’t it?
***
[From Volume One, All Over the World and Other Stories
04.00 With all the attention to realistic representation in the cover, those stars and crescent moons are awfully abstract. Detail and the cartoon communicating simultaneously.
The cape, sash, and lightning bolt motif across the chest are all visual indicators that this is an analogue of the Fawcett (not DC) Captain Marvel.
04.01.01 It’s possible that Neumeier, here, was named for Ed Neumeier, scriptwriter of Robocop and the satirical adaptation of Starship Troopers, given his insightful (and inciting) questioning of both the event and the immediate cover up.
04.02.01 Similarly, Jim Wilder’s surname may be derived from writer/director Billy Wilder, as well as being a callback to Jimmy (Operator and James Bond analogue), and our Captain Marvel exemplar. Billy Wilder did a number of films in which “doing the right thing” comes heavily into play, as well as Double Indemnity, which starred Captain Marvel’s real life visual model, Fred MacMurray
04.02.03 Jim Wilder is a boy(ish) detective, here aged beyond the typical early teens for reasons of sheer sensibility (and believability), similar to Tintin, whose hair he seems to have appropriated.
04.03.01 Jim’s an orphan, like many a youthful adventurer, Tintin and Captain Marvel, included.
04.04.01 Like Captain Marvel (and the writer-protagonist of Flex Mentallo), Jim’s going to do a good deed for a stranger on the street…
04.08.01 And it’s going to take him to magic other-place and give him special powers.
04.09.01 Note the figures embedded in the architecture: running with lightning bolts; shooting beams from fists; flying; standing with spear; an upsidedown Communion style gray… aliens and superhumanity in museum-appropriate drag, perhaps alluding to the Flash Museum maintained in DC Comics, to honor their lightning-bolt-associated speedsters.
04.15 The ship is orphaned, too.
04.18.01 Seven people to power the ship, is an inversion of Captain Marvel (or other members of his family) deriving their individual power-sets from seven patron deities. As well as being a reason for our Marvel-reference to gather a family of his own.
[Click here to see further annotations for Planetary]
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