The trouble with the Spectre

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comic books, DC Comics, Super-heroes, The Spectre

The Spectre is one of DC Comics’ problem children.

The Spectre is an actual specter. In deathly pale flesh and ghoulish green cloak and hood, he’s a ghost whom God has granted near-infinite power to wreak vengeance on evil.

The Spectre has carried out his role by turning bad men into inanimate objects (and then destroying the objects) or simply scaring them to death; he’s also fought cosmic opponents. But he’s always had two problems from a story standpoint.

First: too much power. It’s hard to come up with challenges to create dramatic tension when the hero can do anything.

Over the years, writers have tried to limit the Spectre’s power. But his near-omnipotence is part of his attraction. A merciless spirit who can crush planets raises an exciting thrill of fear that other heroes can’t match. Weakening his abilities would weaken his appeal.

The Spectre’s second problem is insufficient depth. He’s been God’s instrument of vengeance; but the urge to vengeance is only one emotion. The Spectre’s narrow range of feeling keeps a lot of his adventures emotionally monotonous and repetitive. It’s hard to find enough variations to keep the Spectre interesting in story after story.

Writers have occasionally tried to fix this problem by giving the Spectre a love interest or other emotional connections; but those connections have pulled him from his mission. And his mission — to punish evil in the grisliest ways imaginable — pleases readers. Distracting him from it reduces their pleasure.

Thus the problems that make the Spectre appealing also force his stories into repetition and sameness. How can you fix his problems without undermining his appeal?

My answer: Satan.

The Spectre discovers that he’s unknowingly been serving the devil, not God. Whenever the Spectre thought he was hearing God’s voice or visiting heaven, he was falling for a deception that Satan had set up.

Why would Satan build such a cruel illusion? To reduce humanity’s trust in God. When the Spectre performs horrendous violence and calls it God’s will, he makes God look monstrous and unworthy of worship.

For the first time in a long career of horrifying others, the Spectre is himself horrified at what he’s done.

Not to worry, Satan says. You’ve done great work for me, so I’ll keep you on the job. But if you refuse, I’ll have my demons kill you.

Of course, the Spectre refuses, but we now have a setup for a universe of stories.

The Spectre is as powerful as ever, but Satan’s demons are nearly as mighty, and they vastly outnumber him. Some even have abilities that the Spectre has never developed. For instance, the Spectre is not especially nimble; alacrity is not his strength — but Satan has demons who come and go in an instant, harrying the Spectre into furies that could destroy continents.

And when the Spectre defeats the demons, he wreaks vengeance on them more ghastly than anything that he ever inflicted on human beings.

Why does he get so mad at them? Because they keep him from his new mission: to win God’s forgiveness for his sins.

The Spectre calls out to God, but God doesn’t answer his pleas any more than He sits down to chat with you or me. So he tries other means to reach Him. The Spectre is on the hunt for supernatural beings who’ve won God’s favor and who could intercede on his behalf. He also tries to atone by helping human beings, but his terrifying demeanor, intimidating power and deathly reputation scare them away. What’s a repentant ghost to do?

So that’s the new Spectre: as powerful and vengeful as ever, but facing formidable adversaries and a wider range of stories.

Of course, I don’t expect DC to offer me authority over its big, green ghost.

But it’d be fun to have the chance.

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Super dead girls

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comic books, novels, Super-heroes, super-heroines, superheroes, superheroines, Vagina Monologues

I just finished reading Catherynne Valente’s The Refrigerator Monologues, which the lovely Lea Seidman Hernandez recommended to me, and I recommend it to you.

In the afterlife, a bunch of super-heroines, girlfriends of super-heroes, and at least one villainess — all deceased — gather to tell each other how they lived, how they died, and what they think of the super-doings that they encountered. None of the characters is exactly Gwen Stacy or Harley Quinn or Jean Grey, but it’s not hard (or even very important) to dope out who’s supposed to be who.

The writing is sharp, the insights into character are smart, and the stories rattle along swiftly, with virtually no narrative waste. I think the book will entertain a variety of readers, even people who know about super-heroes only through movies. And for comics fans, the book provides nasty little thrills on the order of “This is what nice, sweet Gwendy would’ve really felt about Spider-Man after one of his adventures got her throat snapped.”

Buy. Read. Enjoy.

 

Weak-willed super-heroes

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DC Comics, Green Lantern, Sinestro, Super-heroes

Will power. In DC Comics, Hal Jordan and his comrades in the Green Lantern Corps focus it through a ring that can make or do nearly anything. Green Lantern stories imply that Green Lanterns have more, purer, and stronger will power than anyone.

Too bad that’s not true.

When we call people strong-willed, we mean that they obey no one’s will but their own. The most famous film about Adolf Hitler is titled Triumph of the Will, hinting that Hitler rose to conquer Germany by applying tenacity and determination; and the movie got that part right. In The Godfather, Mario Puzo described mafia bosses as men whose will was so strong that they refused to knuckle under to any authority, even the cops and the courts. A person with more will than anyone else — that is, more drive, desire, and ambition — isn’t going to take orders.

But the Green Lanterns have usually obeyed the orders of little blue men half a universe away, the self-appointed Guardians of the Universe.

If the Green Lanterns did have truly supreme will, then they wouldn’t work for the Guardians. Can you imagine Hitler or a mafia kingpin saying, “Yes, sir, right away, sir” if he didn’t have to?

When Green Lanterns do prove themselves supremely strong-willed, the Guardians don’t like it. All the way back in Green Lantern #7, by John Broome, Gil Kane, and Joe Giella, the Green Lantern Sinestro proved too willful for the Guardians to control. He says it himself: “I am Green Lantern — no one can tell me what to do!”

So the Guardians kicked him out of the Corps.

(Source: https://static.comicvine.com/uploads/original/0/40/1858495-sinestro2.png)

They’ve even punished Hal Jordan for being too willful. In Green Lantern #76, by Denny O’Neil, Neal Adams, and Frank Giacoia, an enraged Hal was about to slug a slumlord when the Guardians ordered him to leave, chewed him out, and told him to go away and cool off until they called him. When he defied them and returned to Earth — that is, when he asserted his own will — they got even madder.

(Source: http://www.dialbforblog.com/archives/435/g176d.jpg)

You can do a lot of things in the Green Lantern Corps — but don’t demonstrate too much will.

(P.S. DC has shown at least one character with more will power than a Green Lantern.  In Justice League International #18, by Keith Giffen, J.M DeMatteis, Kevin Maguire, and Al Gordon, the interstellar badass Lobo walked right through a barrier that the Green Lantern G’Nort constructed. G’Nort’s a comedy-relief character, so maybe he doesn’t represent the bulk of the Green Lantern Corps. But he’s still one of them.)

Captain America’s big A

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Captain America, costumes, Super-heroes

Captain America’s costume is so perfectly expressive that no one has changed it — or, it seems, even tried to change it — since its creation in 1940. As Cap co-creator Jack Kirby said in Jim Steranko’s history of comics, “Drape the flag on anything, and it looks good.”

So what’s with the non-flag elements?

Take the big A on Cap’s forehead. The flag has no A, and the one on Cap’s head has always seemed unnecessary and out of place to me. The A, a white arrowhead on a field of blue, looks to me like it’s saying, “Shoot me here, right between the eyes!”

The flag has no wings like the ones on Cap’s cowl, either. And they’re silly, because they have no purpose. Cap’s shield is a weapon and the chain-mail of his shirt protects his torso, but the wings do nothing. (You may have noticed that Cap’s movies de-emphasize the wings by just drawing or stamping them onto Cap’s helmet rather than building them as objects sticking out from his head.)

The wings don’t bother me as much as the A, because a long tradition — in art, if not reality — puts wings on the helmets of northern European warriors and other legendary heroes. But they’re still silly.

Cap’s buccaneer boots are just as silly. Cap is a soldier, and soldiers don’t usually wear anything so flamboyant — at least, not when they’re going into combat.

But the buccaneer boots suggest swashbuckling, which suggests derring-do and heroics. So I can live with the boots.

But the A on Cap’s head?

Sorry, but it’s ridiculous.

Writing super-villains

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Batman, comic books, Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, Super-heroes, Super-villains, Superman

With super-heroes enjoying rebirths and reboots and new movies and renewed TV shows, I’ve been thinking about super-villains.

Take the Fantastic Four. The team’s most prominent opponents work on an epic scale. Doctor Doom is lord of Latveria, Namor is emperor of the oceans, the Mole Man sees himself as the enemy of the surface world, Galactus consumes planets, Annihilus has ruled the Negative Zone, the Super-Skrull has been the vanguard of interplanetary war.

To these overlords and would-be overlords, the Fantastic Four — a small handful of humans — is just something gumming up the bad guys’ grandiose ambitions and world-wrecking plots. The FF isn’t an enemy to grapple with as much as it’s an obstacle to kick away.

The FF does have villains who work on a smaller scale. They often tend to be less prominent in the team’s history, though. (Really, does the Puppet Master or the Impossible Man compare with Doctor Doom?)

By contrast, Superman’s top opponents — Luthor, Brainiac, General Zod, Doomsday, the Parasite, Cyborg Superman Hank Henshaw — usually go after him directly and personally. When he first encounters them, they may have other, bigger goals; but after he defeats them a few times (or even once), their top priority becomes killing him, hurting him physically or emotionally, or simply proving their superiority to him. They hate the guy in an almost tangible way, and often focus on overpowering him face to face and body to body (rather than, say, outwitting him).

Spider-Man’s opponents take him personally, too. Doctor Octopus and Venom, for instance, often go out of their way to make Spidey’s life miserable. (By contrast, can you imagine Galactus taking time out of his planetary ravagings to seek out and beat up the Fantastic Four? He wouldn’t bother.)

The personal feeling may explain why Spidey, more than most super-heroes, has a lot of enemies with numbers after their names. His opponents hate him so much that they pass their grudges on to family members and other successors. Spidey has met multiple goblins (both Green and Hob), Kravens, Venoms, and Vultures, all devoted to destroying him. They often care about other goals, too, but ruining Spidey is number one.

Then there’s Batman. While some people have said that Batman’s disturbing persona attracts the criminally insane like paper clips to a magnet, his opponents actually work indirectly.

When opponents such as the Joker, Bane, Two-Face, the Riddler, the Penguin, the Scarecrow, Catwoman, Harley Quinn, Killer Croc, and Poison Ivy return from prison, hospital, or exile, they don’t usually head straight into the hero’s face, as the opponents of Superman or Spider-Man frequently do. No, they prefer to attack Gotham City’s other citizens.

Of course, they expect their attacks to attract Batman’s attention. Often, they even set up death traps for him. But even the craziest of them rarely gets insane enough to hunt him down. He hunts them down.

I’m not sure why the villains’ approaches to various good guys have evolved as they have. And new stories and characters don’t have to follow the established patterns.

But I think it’s a good idea for writers to know about them.

Cops in capes?

Tags

costumes, first responders, Super-heroes

Most super-hero costumes are ridiculous.

Really. Think of real-life people who have to face danger, like cops or combat soldiers or firefighters.

They generally stand covered — or to put it better, protected — from ankle to neck and wrist to shoulder. But that’s not true of Hawkman, Wonder Woman, the Hulk, the Sub-Mariner or the ever-lovin’, blue-eyed Thing.

You can say that some of these heroes are indestructible, so they don’t need to be covered. Sure, they can bounce live grenades off of their chests — but just as soldiers face enemy soldiers, super-heroes face super-powered enemies and other entities that can disintegrate them. In their realm of massive forces, super-heroes are as vulnerable as cops, soldiers and firefighters.

Virtually all of these human heroes wear a hat or helmet to protect their heads. But Superman’s head stands exposed to anything that a super-villain wants to shoot at him. It’s the same for Robin, Aquaman, Nightwing, Storm, the Black Widow, Nick Fury, the Punisher, and every member of the Fantastic Four and the Green Lantern Corps.

But enough of the clothes that real-life heroes wear and super-heroes don’t. Let’s look at what super-heroes wear that real-lifers don’t. Most super-heroes zip around in outfits that anyone who faces daily violence and death would laugh at.

Tights, for example. They’re great for ballet dancers and gymnasts, but anyone facing flames and guns wants more than a thin sheen of nothing much stretched over her skin. You can call your high-tech ultra-Spandex indestructible, Edna Mode, but Sinestro and Doctor Doom could tear through it like tinfoil.

Then there are the costume accessories, like capes. They look swashbucklery, but they drag you backwards when you run and bind your arms when you make a quick turn.

I realize, of course, that super-heroes are fantasy and that much of the appeal in their visuals is in their wild outfits. I’m not trying to take away anyone’s fun. I love the costumes, even as I realize how utterly impractical they are.

So let’s look on the nicer side. Who in comics wears a reasonable outfit?

Iron Man’s suit makes sense in that it protects his whole body — although like all complex tech, it runs the risk of system failure. Captain America’s chain-mail shirt and head-protecting cowl are just right for someone facing danger. And neither man wears a cape.

The rest of my heroes, though — God knows I love you guys, but please, put on something sensible.

Dick Grayson vs. the gods

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Dick Grayson, Nightwing, Robin, Super-heroes

Dick Grayson: As Robin or Nightwing, I’ve always liked him, and one reason is that he’s often done what super-heroes don’t usually do: Punch above his weight class.

Superman most often fights opponents with super-powers or super-weapons. Batman most often fights guys like himself: brilliant, violent and relentless, but human rather than superhuman. The Flash, being a specialist — he has only one super-power — most often fights other one-power specialists, like Captain Cold or Mirror Master. And so on.

But when Dick Grayson was a kid in the Robin costume, he usually fought adults. He has no super-abilities, but with the Titans and elsewhere, he’s gone up against opponents with immense powers or devastating weapons.

I’d like to see the unequal battle return as a staple of Dick Grayson’s adventures. Nightwing versus Darkseid, Nightwing versus Larfleeze, Nightwing versus Mongul: Watching how the kid with nothing but a leotard, a stick, and his wits takes out demigods would be a lot of fun.

I’d even like to write those comics myself.

Capes, wings, and other Bat-things

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Batman, Bill Finger, Bob Kane, costumes, Pop culture, Super-heroes

Many if not most superhero costumes are silly.

The costumes of the Batman group of characters, though, come in for special attention because their adventures are supposed to be more down-to-earth than the adventures of Superman or the Fantastic Four. They hold themselves to a higher standard of credibility than other superhero adventures.

Take Batman’s cape. As I explained in the book Batman Unauthorized, a character fighting crime in a cape is visually spectacular but otherwise ridiculous. It’s hard to run and fight in something that hangs down to the ground from the back of your neck.

Oddly, the creators of Batman devised a more practical alternative in the character’s early days — and discarded it. As Bob Kane said in his autobiography, “The cape looked like two stiff bat wings attached to his arms. As [writer and co-creator Bill Finger] and I talked, we realized that these wings would get cumbersome when Bat-Man was in action.”

Kane and Finger were right. The wings would be cumbersome — if you attached them to Batman’s arms.

But let’s attach them to his back. And make them not stiff but more like a camper’s tent — or, for that matter, like bat wings: lightweight fabric stretched between strong but flexible struts.

If a Batman equipped with that kind of apparatus were to leap from a great height, he could achieve a bit of flight: a lofty, arcing drift (by letting the air make the fabric billow like a hang glider or paraglider — or, for that matter, bat wings) or a swift, skimming glide (by extending the wings to their fullest, pulling the fabric as taut and flat as an airplane’s wings). And when Batman doesn’t need the wings, they can fold up and lie flush against his back, a barrier against anyone who might attack him from behind.

But one can’t change 70 years of comics history, unless one is Dan DiDio. Too bad. I’d like to change that cape.

And then there are the changes that I’d make to Batman’s cowl . . .

 

Not so super a newsman?

Tags

Clark Kent, comic books, Journalism, Super-heroes, Superman

Is Clark Kent a good reporter?

It doesn’t seem so. Yes, he gets “exclusive” interviews with Superman (by cheating, since he is Superman.) But:

When we see Clark start to work on a story, it’s because Perry White sends him to look into it. “A scaly green monster’s tearing up Suicide Slum. Kent, go find out what’s going on.”

But any decent reporter is constantly working the phones, checking in with sources and leads, and otherwise covering his beat and hunting down his next big headline — not waiting for his boss to tell him what to do.

What’s more, Clark is meek and mild-mannered. He doesn’t display the high-achieving reporter’s hunger for the big story. Lois Lane does; the comics have always presented her as a hard-charging investigator, always nosing around for any scent of a headline-grabbing scandal. But not Clark.

And yet:

Some quiet journalists get the stories that greedier, grabbier reporters never touch. The sole surviving witness to a religious cult’s mass suicide may be so shell-shocked and fragile that he would shrivel away from an aggressive interviewer who spits out questions like gut punches. But a quiet, polite guy like Clark, who can sympathize with someone who’s lost his whole world? He’d get that interview.

He could get the bad guys, too. Slick, smug shysters or fast-talking confidence men would see Clark — the former Smallville farm boy — as a bumbling, naïve hayseed whom they can fool easily. They’d get overconfident, let their guard down and make an offhand comment that Clark would use to pop their scams wide open.

What’s more, an unflashy, plodding guy like Clark would do the dull stuff that other reporters wouldn’t. For instance, he’d pore through endless, dusty title-transfer documents in a courthouse basement — and uncover a governor’s scandalous deal to get kickbacks from crooked builders who construct shoddy schools on toxic-waste landfill.

And all without even the advantage of being Superman.