Torturing Tolkien: The Hobbit as a Trilogy

"Art or cash?" This question confronted J.R.R. Tolkien way back when contemplating the potential for film adaptations of his works. Despite wishing to preserve his integrity, he couldn't deny the appeal of selling the film rights for a substantial fee to better provide for his family. Unfortunately, it seems like the Professor's worst fears have been realised. The Hobbit is a relatively short novel, especially as Fantasy stories go, and a year ago it was a little difficult to imagine the book as the two films it was being split into. Then came the news that much of the backstory was going to be fleshed out, that the films would effectively be a prequel to The Lord of the Rings. Here my fears were heightened. It seemed that we were going to get a fair bit of the film devoted to what Gandalf and his chums were up to while Bilbo was in the Gandalf-less parts of the adventure, and we'd see them dealing with the Necromancer, who as you hopefully know is Sauron. None of these were sections of story which the Professor described in any particularly great detail, and certainly not with any kind of immediate narrative or dialogue, so it looked like Peter Jackson and friends were getting onto the task of "fleshing out" the bits the Professor hadn't fully developed in order to make a bulkier film. It looked like, by and large, we'd be distracted from Bilbo, that the tone was going to focus much more heavily on anticipating the events of The Lord of the Rings and that overall what we were going to get wouldn't really be The Hobbit at all.

It's becoming increasingly well-known thanks to the publication of the History of the Hobbit, a compendium of the Professor's draft material and commentary edited by John D. Rateliff, that Professor Tolkien himself once sat down in the Sixties and attempted to entirely re-write The Hobbit from scratch. He was dissatisfied with its occasionally childish tone as well as its periods of inconsistency with the more rigorous geography and history he had devised for The Lord of the Rings. Ultimately, however, he gave up when a friend reading over the material told him that as good as it was, it just wasn't The Hobbit anymore.

Apparently that was enough for Professor Tolkien; The Hobbit could stand on its own, and was a success in its own way. Indeed given how successful it had been upon its original publication it was clearly independently sufficient. This is clearly however not good enough for either Peter Jackson, or for Warner Bros. who stand to make a colossal windfall from these films should they reach and maintain something equivalent to the absurd hysteria achieved by the trilogy of The Lord of the Rings adaptations. Peter Jackson I don't know about. Is he a greedy bastard or just kind of incompetent? I get the impression of a bit of a bumbling director who makes these Tolkien films with a sort of hazy, vague understanding from reading the source material once decades ago and keeping a synopsis close at hand. Boyens and Walsh, moreover, come across as just not knowing what they're talking about half the time, deriving most of their knowledge of the texts from a relatively rigorous but ultimately superficial reading of the Professor's published work, with emphasis on what bits can be teased out and made into something Hollywood-digestible and letting the more archaic elements go hang. What disturbs me the most is that people seem to think that these filmmakers are die hard Tolkien fans when by their own admission their knowledge of the books is sporadic and far from intensive.

Given that so much of Professor Tolkien's work is concerned with the futility of preservation and the inevitability of change it disturbs me that adaptations of his books are now being spun out as endlessly as possible. I think he knew as well as anyone how tempting both answers could be to the question: "Art or cash?" As much as I think Peter Jackson is happy to draw his own conclusions about the integrity of the project I think Warner Bros.' stance is obvious. It's cash for as long as possible.

Basically what I'm saying is that the people making these films are both Smaug and Sauron.

The Opinions Can Be WrongCast: The Avengers vs The Dark Knight Rises

The Opinions Can Be WrongCast - The Avengers Vs The Dark Knight Rises

In an effort to revitalise the podcast series, we present a shorter and more focused renewal comparing Marvel and DC's latest blockbusters, touching on both companies' respective cinematic futures including the recent teaser for Man of Steel.

The Dark Knight Rises

It's been six long years and Christopher Nolan's vision of Batman has finally come to an end. It all started way back in 2005 with Batman Begins, a refreshingly serious and realistic take on the Caped Crusader which was a very thorough and interesting origin story which had never before been fully explored onscreen for the character. This was of course followed with smash hit The Dark Knight, which amped up the gravitas and intellectuality of the concept to whole new levels. If I would aim any criticism at The Dark Knight, it would be that as much as I enjoy it as a film it doesn't feel like Batman. Batman Begins did a good job of blending certain more fantastic elements of the mythos like the League of Assassins (or "Shadows" in this continuity) and Ra's al Ghul, plus grotesquerie like the Scarecrow with his fear toxin into a satisfyingly gothic depiction of Gotham which nonetheless felt reasonably plausible. In The Dark Knight what we received was an excellently confronting and intense crime drama but one which felt very little like a superhero film anymore. In striving for realism and grittiness Nolan possibly began to perpetuate that issue which has always shadowed comic book superheroes since the mid-80s: an element of defensiveness about the inherently ridiculous nature of the genre, an effort to hide what is integral to the concept. You can make the Joker just a nut job in makeup and have plots about mob money and turn Two-Face into a rogue vigilante rather than a crime boss but in the end it's still a film about a billionaire who dresses in a bat costume to fight crime. There's only so realistic you can make it before it starts to feel, in my view, like it's somewhat missing the point.

Unfortunately this descent into morbidity and hyperrealism only continues in The Dark Knight Rises. Following the conclusion of the previous film, Batman has retired and Bruce Wayne has spent eight years as a recluse. The film hybridises elements of the The Dark Knight Returns, Knightfall and No Man's Land storylines into a film about Batman returning to work to fight Bane who has cut off Gotham from the outside world and placed it under mob rule. The film owes a lot, narratively, to Batman Begins more than The Dark Knight, and it's obvious that Nolan was trying to make the film feel like an effective sequel to both previous instalments simultaneously. The League of Shadows is heavily referenced, Ra's al Ghul appears in a brief cameo and Batman is returned to far-flung and exotic parts of the world but simultaneously much is made of the death of Two-Face and Commissioner Gordon's efforts to cover up his killing spree at the end of The Dark Knight. What makes this jarring is the complete absence of any mention or reference whatsoever of the Joker. It was increasingly obvious to me over the course of the film that Heath Ledger's death had thrown an even more massive spanner than was already expected in the proverbial works in terms of making an effective sequel to The Dark Knight. Nolan and co excised any account of the Joker out of respect for Heath Ledger, and while this tact is commendable it feels awkward when they reference the events of the previous film. He is, to put it simply, conspicuous by his absence.

The main villain, therefore, takes the form of Bane. I wonder if, perhaps, given Joker's absence, it was a mistake for Nolan to have eliminated Two-Face in the same film, arguably Batman's next most dangerous villain, or to have reduced Scarecrow to such a secondary antagonist. It feels like Nolan was scrabbling around for another Batman foe who could be portrayed as realistic; obviously characters like Mr. Freeze, the Penguin, Poison Ivy and Clayface were out of the question and it would be impossible to make Riddler realistic without putting him in the position in which he so often finds himself as little more than a poor man's Joker. Personally I always thought that Black Mask would have been a good choice of enemy in Nolan's Batman-verse but perhaps having a skull-themed villain so soon after Captain America wouldn't have worked anyway. Deadshot might also have had potential as a supporting foe, or perhaps Professor Hugo Strange.

Nonetheless we get Bane, and I suppose he's one of the more plausible members of Batman's rogues' gallery. However instead of a luchadore-masked Venom addict criminal mastermind, this film portrays him in a rather more bland "realistic" style as a terrorist trying to fulfil Ra's al Ghul's legacy with the assistance of a mask which provides him with constant anaesthesia, necessary after sustaining never-fully-disclosed injuries in his past. Instead of being Hispanic he speaks with a rather bizarrely exaggerated English accent and always walks around the place clutching his lapels. At first I thought it was an interesting depiction of Bane as an affably evil monster, and satisfying to see him depicted as the genius brute portrayed in the comics. However as his aims as a boring movie terrorist were increasingly established and he developed a propensity for delivering tiresome, cliché-ridden monologues I became increasingly exhausted with his presence. Some would argue that it would be impossible to have another villain as successful as Heath Ledger's Joker but I believe they made a mistake in turning Bane into a jovial English gent. It would have been more effective, in my opinion, to have had a villain which contrasted to both the humorous insanity of the Joker and the collected self-assurance of Ra's al Ghul by depicting Bane as still calculating and intelligent but furious and raging. Sadly it was not to be, and Bane becomes increasingly tedious as the film continues. Tom Hardy does as good a job as he can in the restrictive mask to portray Bane but he's let down by a weak script which leaves the character ultimately unfulfilled.

The other classic Batman character introduced in this film is Catwoman. Never referred to as such, only on a newspaper headline as "the Cat", Selina Kyle is once again a master thief and cracksperson intent on discovering a device called the Blank Slate which can erase one's existence from all records. The film maintains the typical depiction of Catwoman as a relatively neutral and self-interested character who turns to good only in duress or out of affection for Batman but in this case she's also trying to start afresh by erasing her criminal past. Shame she's got to commit crimes to stop being a criminal! Anyway if any character felt like a forced love interest for Batman in this film it was her. As the ultmate successor to Rachel it seems as if they just wanted Batman to have someone with whom to settle down. She disappears about halfway through the film and seems to have been practically forgotten about by the writers until the end. To be honest, I've never been much of a fan of Anne Hathaway in anything I've seen her in and this didn't change my mind. The film takes the predictable route of making Catwoman into a hybrid action girl-femme fatale as usual and doesn't really achieve much with the character. She changes her mind about being completely selfish and saves Batman in the end. Whoop de do. Maybe if Bat-fans hadn't seen this exact scenario last year in Batman: Arkham City it would have seemed more original, but probably not.

We get a couple more new faces as well in the shape of Marion Cotillard's Miranda Tate and Joseph Gordon-Levitt's John Blake. To be honest at this point with these two plus Michael Caine, Tom Hardy and a small role for Cillian Murphy returning as ever as the Scarecrow the film starts to feel like Batception at times. Miranda Tate serves as an initial romantic interest for Bruce Wayne in a contrived and implausible love story as well as a protector of the Wayne Enterprises financial interest due to bizarre economic factors which are over my head. Of course, spoilers beware, she turns out to be none other than Talia al Ghul, daughter of Ra's, out to complete her father's mission. John Blake, on the other hand, is a "hot head" police officer, a straight-edged "good cop" who helps out Batman and Commissioner Gordon and, as revealed by his birth name at the end of the film, serves as Nolan's extremely realistic interpretation of the character of Robin or effectively any sidekick to Batman. It is of course heavily implied at the conclusion of the film, in a revelation as predictable as possible due to an early scene where Bruce Wayne tells Blake that "anyone could be Batman" and in a later one where Batman suggests that he wear a mask, that he will become the new Batman. Indeed Batman himself spends a good deal of the film incapacitated, imprisoned or otherwise unavailable and as our supporting protagonist Blake fills the void of a hero very well, but it only serves to compound the impression that Nolan wants to make a Batman film which is as far removed from Batman as possible. You could believe, I think, that Nolan wouldn't have objected to making a film where Blake himself was the main character without any kind of comic book elements.

This leads me into the narrative of the film. It's all rather disappointingly simple; Bane is gathering a secret army of terrorists underground. When the time is ripe he blows up all the ways into and out of the city, has a scientist turn an experimental fusion reactor into a bomb and gives the citizens of Gotham a month or so of total anarchy before the bomb blows them all to Kingdom Come. This is all revealed to be part of Talia's effort to live up to her father's plan to destroy Gotham. Ultimately it feels far, far too much like nothing more than a re-hash of the plot of Batman Begins. Terrorists appalled at the decadence of Western civilisation want to destroy the city. Both of these plots end with a vehicle chase in which the relevant weapon of mass destruction must be hunted down and eliminated before time runs out. They both have a character twist where an associate of Batman is revealed to be orchestrating the entire plot. It is of course in the serialised nature of superhero comics to repeat some of their narrative conceits from time to time but this is ludicrously overt and, in this regard, seems to detract from Nolan's efforts to divorce the series from the less realistic aspects of superhero comics.

There's also a subplot where Bane injures Batman's back and leaves him in a prison in what appears to be the Middle East somewhere from which he must escape by mastering himself in some fashion. It's all awfully similar again to bits from the first half of Batman Begins. Once he's out he heads off to Gotham, there's a big battle and he apparently sacrifices his life flying the bomb out over the bay to save the innocents. Of course it turned out in reality he survived and is off living a wonderful old life with Catwoman in Europe. How lovely.

My point is that really it feels like a whole lot of nothing. The film drags on and on, going for nearly three hours, and at no point, in contrast to its title, does it really rise above its precursors and deliver something new to the plate. We are beaten over the head with neon signs advertising hard-edged psychological realism and character trauma but none of it feels especially profound or moving. Batman needs to recover value in life; that's about it. I realise that Nolan wanted to provide closure to his take on Batman and it's satisfying to at least see the property treated with that kind of literary seriousness; we don't end with alarm bells and someone shouting out that Killer Moth has just robbed the bank as Batman swoops back into action or anything. This feels conclusive and final, but it doesn't change the fact that it's long-winded, dull, and takes itself way too seriously. Batman Begins had, as I've said, elements of the fantastic and gothic, and while The Dark Knight moved perhaps a little too closely to the real the Joker's unique worldview was another important intrusion of the outlandish. The Dark Knight Rises lacks these elements in anything beyong a reprisal of what has gone before. The ticking time-bomb plot is devastatingly unimaginative and stale, Batman's inner journey takes him nowhere special and the other characters are underdeveloped and underused. The mere fact that Batman spends so long locked in a prison rather than out fighting crime as Batman, which is what we all want to see, is teeth-gnashingly frustrating. Perhaps Nolan understands this and wants me to be frustrated; perhaps in wanting to bring the normally endless world of a comic book hero to absolute closure he knew that we had to want it to end. Maybe in that regard the film is a success; it's an ending that left me not wanting any more, and I guess that's the best kind of ending.

Technically it's all very good and the direction is up to Nolan's usual high standard. The action set pieces and effects are all well done and the horrific unpleasantness of anarchy in Gotham is impossible to ignore. It is, perhaps, as good an end as could be expected while bringing the series to a realistic conclusion, but in this way it again reinforces the notion I can't shake that trying to make superheroes realistic is an interesting experiment but ultimately misses the point. There are a number of funny moments, although perhaps not enough, but the script is inconsistent overall and even in the time it takes it tries to do too much. It is, in my view, definitely the weakest instalment in an otherwise very good series, and feels too much like Batman-minus-Batman. If it taught me anything, it's that superheroes shouldn't be realistic - because they're not.

"The Death of Captain America" Omnibus by Ed Brubaker et al

The title of this second collection of Ed Brubaker's already-legendary run writing Captain America is something of a misnomer. Having already killed off Steve Rogers in issue #25, concluding the first omnibus but reprinted in this one for our convenience, Brubaker now sets about addressing the consequences of the death of the Sentinel of Liberty and establishing his replacement. What makes this sequence interesting is that for nearly ten issues we have no Captain America whatsoever. Brubaker instead explores the ramifications of the death of such a figure by diffracting the storyline across Steve's bereaved supporting cast in a series of related plot threads which are weaved together in a way which answers questions as much as it asks them. Sharon Carter, the Falcon and the recently-resurrected Bucky, with the later addition of the Black Widow, all have their roles in pursuing the story beyond the inconveniencing of the series' regular protagonist. The point is that while Steve Rogers is dead Captain America must live on, especially since the nefarious schemes of the diabolical Red Skull are still very much in motion.

Brubaker does a very good job of thoroughly developing this supporting cast into a leading ensemble so that despite the absence of Steve Rogers and indeed any kind of "Captain America" for many issues there's no sense of alienation from the actual substance of the story. Indeed despite the obvious triviality of comic book death and the inevitability of Steve's return it's a refreshingly mature style of storytelling in an inconsistent genre. While the characters are important it prevents the story from being excessively character-focused to the detriment of dramatic integrity. Steve is gone, but the fight must go on, and Brubaker pulls this off with his usual competence. Naturalistic dialogue peppered with useful but not condescending explanations and reminders of certain elements of Cap lore give the story a strong sense of continuity with the ever-ongoing Cap mythos but in a way that is digestible for those unfamiliar with every adventure in Cap's sixty-plus-year history. Some elements, like the reintroduction of William Burnside, aka "the Captain America of the Nineteen-Fifties" are done in a concise yet compelling manner, especially through his interactions with Sharon. Other aspects of the storyline, like Sharon's brainwashing, are less explained than they could be and seem to spring into being without a great deal of explanation beyond some undisclosed talent of Faustus. Sin and Crossbones, with the assistance of a new Serpent Society, continue to be annoying but Brubaker's writing makes these absurdist elements increasingly plausible.

A great deal of this is contributed to by the artwork. Pencils from Steve Epting, Butch Guice and Mike Perkins are all fairly consistent and layer a healthy dose of realism over the whole business which makes any potential silliness fairly easy to swallow. Someone I failed to credit when reviewing the previous Brubaker omnibus is colourist Frank D'Armata, whose colours, occurring in every issue in this collection, tie the entire series together in ways that I hadn't appreciated at first. His soft palette and painterly style are an essential component of the way in which these stories implore our suspension of disbelief. This is what I like about this series, and it's something I think benefits Captain America and Brubaker's style of storytelling in particular but could apply to many comics: a sense of solidity and rationality which makes the stories feel plausible and flow naturally. The writing and artwork are all very proficient individually, but the value of their application in this medium is how they come together to form such a complete whole. My one criticism in this regard in the art department would be Roberto De La Torre's artwork for issue #39: it's a somewhat more exaggerated and certainly more heavily inked issue which feels out of sync with all the other issues around it. It's a more impressionistic style which I feel conflicts somewhat with the tone and aims of the rest of the comic, although given the appearance of crazy Burnside-Cap in this issue maybe that's appropriate. In that regard I might also mention that I'm not sure Burnside's monologue is always written that well; he seems to think in the second person, which I suppose is interesting, but which I feel comes across as too much "tell" and not enough "show", as Burnside seems to be having a rather heavily character-expository discussion with himself for our benefit. It could be subtler.

Bear in mind however that these are minor quibbles. Brubaker's primary achievement in this storyline is the establishment of Bucky as the new Captain America. It would of course be impossible for anyone else to replace Cap and really feel "right" in the role, and Brubaker makes sure that we know it. Despite obvious misgivings, Bucky works as the new Captain America and he is well-established as a fitting bearer of Steve's legacy. Putting a character on a path to redemption is a tried and tested way of making them sympathetic and believable and Bucky's efforts to make up for the deeds of the Winter Soldier by becoming the new Star-Spangled Man provide some healthy if not entirely original character development. Giving Bucky an altered costume and a plainly different attitude and style means that we can read this series as Captain America without having to pretend that Steve is still around , although he of course haunts the storyline immensely. Steve Rogers as Captain America and "Bucky Cap" are two related but different entities, and it works as such. Bringing Bucky back and making him into Captain America also ensures that the sense of continuity is absolute: one of the two members of the original Captain America team is still very much the hero of the book.

Overall I'd recommend this second omnibus as a valuable follow-up to its previous instalment. If you just want lots of sequences of Cap beating guys up (although there is a fair bit of that) you're probably not going to get as much out of this story, especially if you only want Steve, but if you want a mature storyline with a healthy dose of intrigue and a strong cast then it's definitely worth continuing the adventure beyond Steve's apparent demise. If you want to see Tony Stark repeatedly looking like a complete moron this is also worth checking out, coming as it does right after the events of the Civil War crossover. As our eventual protagonist Bucky is likeable and vulnerable in different ways to Steve Rogers and is a worthy bearer of the shield. Brubaker plays to his strengths of fusing superheroic derring-do seamlessly with spy-fiction and political drama and the fulfilment of this with satisfying artwork is an encouraging continuation of a robust series.

Fantastic Four #605.1 by Jonathan Hickman and Mike Choi

As much as I enjoy superhero comics, I don't always fully understand the impulse towards them. Similarly, I don't always understand why comic readers should stick with the world of comics where maintaining a status quo often hinders the kind of plot progression, thematic exploration and character development which would be considered essential in other genres and other media. This is one of those comics which helps me understand that relationship.

Jonathan Hickman's run on Fantastic Four is well-regarded but one I haven't fully explored. He's made a lot of interesting moves, like killing off the Human Torch (as temporarily as can be in comics), replacing him with Spider-Man, changing the team and the comic itself into something different in the form of FF, the Future Foundation, and having Doctor Doom ally himself more permanently with his erstwhile foes by actually joining their organisation. None of these are particularly original concepts as far as Fantastic Four and comics in general go, I believe, but they've been combined and spun in such a way as to be a reinvigorating take on Marvel's First Family.

Fantastic Four #605.1 is the first single issue of Fantastic Four I've purchased, trade paperbacks and the now spin-off FF series aside, and I was surprised and intrigued by its contents. Marvel's "Point One" initiative has been an effort to bring new readers up to speed by giving a one-shot insight into the relevant backstory of their characters before the series embark upon new storylines. It's a good idea in the world of Marvel which, having never been totally rebooted like DC's Universe, now has some astoundingly complex continuity. Hickman, however, takes this concept in a whole new direction. This "Point One" is an Origin Story for the Fantastic Four, but not the Fantastic Four we may know.

Put simply, this is the Fantastic Four in a world where the Axis Powers won in the Second World War. Once again Hickman reveals his aplomb for reinvigorating old clichés with New York as a "Province of New Berlin" and Doktor Reed Richards as a ruthless Nazi scientist seeking to push the Reich towards new frontiers. Add the impulse towards a world of Axis victory as another fascinating yet inexplicable narrative convention. Why are we so intrigued by a world under Nazi domination? Of course it's an interesting idea to explore, but why do we come back to it time and time again? Maybe it's that morbid human tendency towards examining things which repulse us. The fetishisation of the Nazi aesthetic in art must certainly derive from the sense of unease and lurking horror which is an inevitable atmosphere in a world of fascist dominion. The Nazis are a disturbing item of history in themselves, yes, but they are also a regime which was utterly defeated and destroyed. The thought of a Nazi world at peace and operational is one which cannot sit well with us; it conveys a sense of wrongness beyond that of either a generic dystopia or a flashback to real Nazi history. We see this world's Invisible Woman and Human Torch, the "Sturm" siblings, brutalising competitors in a New Berlin gymnasium for their places in Reed's mission, and worst of all Ben Grimm being escorted from a Boston concentration camp in shackles, and it really hits home: the perverse, backwards ideology of an unjust regime applied sickeningly to a world which normally seems so wholesome by comparison.

Hickman achieves a master stroke in the next section by delving back into this Nazi Mr Fantastic, and what better way than by confronting him with the fifth person who is inextricably tied to the Four? Viktor von Doom has a brilliant but unconventional mind, so what does our pragmatic Nazi Reed do? He removes part of his brain and surgically adds it to his own. This is a strong method of realising the psyche of this Reed Richards, so far seen only as desiring the future achievements of the Reich, as more ruthless and horrific than his regular foe. Introducing Doom, who would seem like the perfect candidate for success in a fascist world, only to have his character immediately murdered a page later by Nazi Reed, is a disturbing revelation of just how wrong this world is. Not sure how Doom got even that far given his Romani heritage but there you go. Combine this unsettling role-reversal with Nazi Reed's intention to deliberately be bombarded with cosmic rays as opposed to the accident of the traditional origin and we have the whole drama of the Fantastic Four turned on its head.

We're confronted with more disturbing imagery as the space mission takes place. With Grimm bearing the "Yellow Badge" Jewish identification mark on his space helmet and the swastika on the shuttle partially obliterated to leave only a "4" it's haunting how subjective heroism can be. Afterwards we see the space explorers honoured, with Reed and the Sturms bearing a "3" on their costumes; the Jewish Grimm only partially included, still shackled and restrained but seemingly honoured. This scene presents us with what I felt was the one piece of weak dialogue in the comic: Jonathan Sturm describing his sensations as he is transformed, this time into an ice creature rather than a human torch: "Skin... turning ice cold. Freezing." Now there's a cliché that even Hickman can't bring back to life, but it's one rather cheesy moment in a comic of otherwise strong dialogue which bears re-reading. It's astonishing how much Mike Choi's straightforward, concise art can convey with an equally concise script, and each transition of time and place is evocatively realised. The characters in particular are strikingly represented, with the monstrous unusually Thing and the strangely grandfatherly Hitler  alongside an increasingly sinister Reed, first a youthful figure, then a bald "mad scientist" type, increasingly unshaven and scruffy-looking, and finally the sagacious bearded figure he becomes, in unsettling contrast to the story of his origins.

Reed of course encourages Grimm to kill Hitler in front of the Sturms and so eliminates his teammates and political rivals in one stroke. Just to ram the point home of Nazi Reed's despotism and villainy his soldiers now bear face plates reminiscent of Doctor Doom's mask, and when he's attacked by heroes it's the traditionally super-villainous Magneto who is in the forefront of the assault - fitting, I suppose, given his history with the Nazis. Together Hickman and Choi weave an intricate symbolism both historical and internal to Marvel Comics to convey the villainy of a Nazi Mr Fantastic and explore the ramifications of how easily great intelligence can be misdirected towards power-lust and domination.

The utmost extension of this is that Nazi Reed, under attack by both the X-Men and the Avengers, opts to use the Infinity Gauntlet to destroy the world. He creates a portal to a pocket dimension and the big revelation at the end is that he is one of the founders of the "Interdimensional Council of Reeds" who served as the villains in the pages of FF. So this tale of parallel worlds and Nazis comes to its fruition - with the desire to "solve everything". Hickman's depiction of a character "bigger than Nazism" as it were yet nonetheless still over-ambitious and villainous is well constructed, although I feel that the appearance of the Infinity Gauntlet could have used some explanation. Indeed this is far from an introductory instalment to the world of the Fantastic Four no matter what the intentions of the "Point One" initiative so it may be rather confusing to someone who hasn't read Hickman's recent run or Fantastic Four in general or, like me, done a combination of some of this with a little prior research on one's own.

Yet while not necessarily being the most accessible story it's very effectively realised, and at no point between the young pipe-smoking SS Doktor Richards and the bearded Reed-Sword in the Interdimensional Council does the narrative progression not make sense. Hickman's portrayal of this cold, calculating figure is effective in how simultaneously like and yet unlike he is to our mainstream Mr Fantastic and his depiction of a world which would bear such a man to fruition is depicted with confronting clarity. Despite the fact that this was my first acquisition of a regular Fantastic Four comic and that I wasn't really expecting this counterfactual history I was deeply impressed by what a haunting tale Hickman and Choi managed to weave over the course of a few pages. It may not be your run-of-the-mill Marvel comic but it's definitely worth a look.

This is what comics need: a succinct and sensible storytelling which nonetheless possesses an eloquence and willingness to explore or reinvent existing tropes and familiarities. The impulse of superheroes is still something with which I have not yet gotten to grips, but comics like these reconfirm my impression of the validity of the comic medium, and the superhero genre within that medium. Stan Lee once considered that superhero comics were like the mythology of the modern world: tales of larger-than-life protagonists and extraordinary events embodied in some modicum of reality; this gave rise to Thor. Tom Hiddleston, who portrays Loki in the Marvel cinematic universe, recently reinforced this notion in a persuasive article for the Guardian newspaper in which he argued for the value of superheroics as a "shared, faithless, modern mythology" through which to explore "truths". This is of course a valid argument, and one equally true of many forms of art. The value I find in comics like these, however, is in their ability to compellingly question our sense of convention and the status quo, and to invert the accepted symbols and expected dialogues of the genre to expand our perceptions. To argue that intelligence will not always lend itself towards society's conventions of justice, to explore the limits of the tension between progress and morality, and to make us see how easily the symbols and images which comfort us can be turned against us and used to reinforce something we despise is the ground which comics have so much room to explore. Good stories and good art are of course good enough for a good comic, but while we cannot expect many superhero comics to be capable of much more we shouldn't make the mistake of thinking that it's all the superhero genre is capable of. Hickman's confrontation of the nature and conventions of the genre permit new insights into the purpose and value of superheroes and how the mirror of art reflects all the extremities of human nature, to press the frontiers of our self-exploration into places we may not wish to but must admit within ourselves.

On "Before Watchmen"

Hurm.

There's been a lot of back and forth lately about DC's recently announced Watchmen prequel project. Of course, the internet being what it is, which is to say the land of extremist discourse, there hasn't been a great deal of especially moderate discussion of the issue. I thought I'd try to adopt what's hopefully a not overly hyperbolic approach to the situation to see what I could make of the legitimacy of the concept and the arguments surrounding it.

My core opinion regarding the "Before Watchmen" project is that it is, above anything, pointless - no more and no less. Watchmen is entirely self-contained. Everything important in the lives of the characters, in the story itself and in the themes it addressed were presented in sufficient detail. Alan Moore compared the situation to someone else writing a sequel to Moby Dick, and while that might come across as a little self-aggrandising, his point stands. Watchmen was, as Moore pointed out, an attempt to apply the rules of serious literature, such as they are, to the comic medium. It shouldn't be surprising then that much like the canon of novels Watchmen stands as part of a rather limited set of "legitimate" comics, which is to say comics which have transcended to the mainstream readership and especially to appreciation in academic and critical circles. In general this kind of literature is indeed self-contained and self-sufficient, holistic and complete. Watchmen adheres to these principles. Producing prequels to Watchmen is really no different to what happens when other authors come along and write their own unofficial prequels, sequels and re-envisionings of "legitimate" literature. Novels like Moby Dick, Gone with the Wind, Heart of Darkness and Great Expectations have had all sorts of unofficial sequels and reinterpretations composed by various authors. It does happen, but here's the rub: it's never considered to be very legitimate. While I think it's obviously potentially clever to put a new spin on an old classic or pen a sequel or prequel which explores the issues further, there's a certain question of what really is the point. Authors would really be better served by expressing their ideas and themes through their own stories, their own characters. I know some want to specifically highlight implicit ideas in the existing texts but a lot of the time it feels like piggybacking on the fame and success of something worthy in itself, and it seems in most cases to be a pointless exercise.

What else is to be achieved by writing prequels to Watchmen? What's the point? "Good stories and good art" is hardly an adequate justification, because Watchmen itself was about a good deal more than just telling a good yarn and having nice pictures. The end product, even in the unlikely event that it is stupendously intelligent and entertaining, will always be something secondary to its source material. It will forever be doomed to riding the coat tails of a more successful work. Moore again pointed out that if DC was legitimately interested in producing something to revitalise the industry they would be encouraging writers to come up with fresh, engaging and challenging works the way things happened when Watchmen was created, rather than trying to cash in on the success of something from long before.

The argument of course is also made that Watchmen is "just a comic" and that really this project is in the nature of the medium. The problem is that Watchmen is very much the exception rather than the rule. Watchmen is very far from being "just a comic" for the reasons I mentioned above. It aspires to the concerns of serious literature in the way that normal, ongoing comics don't. It contains more challenging arguments and more textual depth than whole runs of Batman or The Fantastic Four or any "just a comic" you'd care to name. It is indeed far closer to, for instance, the serialised runs of Dickens novels published chapter by chapter from beginning to end in a magazine and later collected into whole volumes than it is to the ongoing runs of DC and Marvel, and just because it's made up mostly of panels of pictures with the dialogue in white balloons doesn't change that fact. Producing prequels is again ultimately pointless - what possible role do they have? Where do they fit in beyond published fan fiction? Fan fiction is itself a dead end, recycling other people's works rather than coming up with one's own characters and storylines in order to perpetuate something rather than appreciate its wholeness. Fan fiction is probably the closest thing to which these prequels could be compared. Besides the fact that this is an obvious cash-grab on DC's part, it embodies the immature desire implicit in fan fiction: that will to inflate a work of art into a franchise, stretch it beyond its limits. It's a reluctance to let go or to accept a conclusion, an inability to move on. It is the desire to give oneself more room to hide from reality rather than contemplating a work for its arguments and ideas. This is my biggest gripe with the "Before Watchmen" project. Watchmen is a work of intellectual might and profundity, and licensing prequels only serves to de-legitimise the comic by reducing it to a franchise. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy comic franchises a lot, but I enjoy them for what they are. Watchmen is on a different level, and breaching its ambitions of literary integrity is to act in ignorance of its primary concern, which is that of a confronting intellectual work, not purely the kind of endless saga of thrill-seeking which embodies mainstream comic franchises.

Other arguments touted about "Before Watchmen" are that Watchmen itself used characters based on the Charlton Comics characters and that Alan Moore himself writes a lot of comics these days which are mostly about taking characters from classic literature and making them behave in licentious ways. I don't deny either of these things. Nonetheless, at the risk of going all "death of the author" on you, it doesn't matter one way or the other whether Alan Moore is a hypocrite. It doesn't make Watchmen itself any less self-contained, complete or legitimate, and it doesn't make the "Before Watchmen" project any more pointless. In regards to the Charlton characters I must say that the links are incredibly tenuous. Aside from a few similarities like Rorschach wearing a hat, coat and mask like The Question, Nite-Owl having a flying ship and gadgets like the Ted Kord Blue Beetle and Doctor Manhattan being an atomic-powered entity like Captain Atom the links are both limited and superficial. In terms of their backstories and personalities they're completely invented for the work, and they're much more obviously generic superhero archetypes than they are pastiches of the already little-known Charlton characters.

The problem with the project really though is what it says about DC. Not only does this decision serve to compound the reputation of the medium as limited and artistically bankrupt but it shows a disturbing lack of faith in their ability to innovate in the medium. DC is meant to be one of the two giants of the industry and they should be trailblazing new ideas, new kinds of storytelling, new experiments in comics, but instead they've regressed twenty-five years to try to resurrect their single most enormously successful property. It is worth noting that these comics are being presented as an "expansion" to "the acclaimed Watchmen universe". If it was presenting itself simply as a tribute to the existing comic then perhaps I could understand, but obviously that's impossible considering the controversy about Moore and Gibbons' original agreement with DC. Beyond this, however, what is the purpose of the expansion, what is there to expand, and since when was Watchmen a whole "universe"? It's a comic which happens to take place in an alternate timeline but DC are conveniently portraying it as an existing franchise on the scale of their own comic universe. The reason we don't need to see the details of, say, Rorschach and Nite-Owl tackling Underboss or the Minutemen taking down Moloch or the Comedian doing Nixon's dirty work is that you can pick up any of innumerable issues of Green Lantern or Wolverine or whatever you like and see just that sort of comic any time. One of the major points of Watchmen was to explore the notion that in the real world the normal adventures of superheroes, as the genre portrays them, would be trivial and irrelevant, an ineffectual struggle against the symptoms rather than the causes of society's problems. We see so little of the action of the actual crime fighting days because they were petty and unspectacular; it's part of Watchmen's extensive deconstruction of the superhero genre. It's the same reason the book is completed, not ongoing: Ozymandias' solution, regardless of its morality, is definitive and final, unlike the vain and failed efforts of the vigilantes. As a result, trying to torture the unseen adventures of the characters out into entirely new comics is not just worthless but ignorant, operating completely against important themes and issues which, outside fan culture, are far more important to the value of the book than the characters are.

The problem is not that it's disrespectful to Alan Moore, who's disrespected the characters of a lot of other, mostly conveniently deceased, authors, but that it is treating Watchmen as something other than what it is. Watchmen is a comic but it's not a "comic franchise" or a universe or property beyond a single volume of one story; it's about superheroes but it's not in the same playing field as the ongoing adventures of Superman or the Avengers. It's the same medium but an entirely different kind of text, and this is the mistake DC and some defenders of the project are making, and it's my main problem with the idea. Sure, geeks may love Watchmen and it may be about superheroes and it's drawn panels with dialogue but it's a complete literary work. This is where people are getting confused, and the entire reason Watchmen is so sacrosanct is that its intellectuality and its composition are what has made it successful and one of DC's disturbingly large financial crutches - it transcends the normal, rather crippling limitations of the super hero comics genre exactly by subverting and averting the kinds of things which the genre normally relies upon but simultaneously hamper the industry's legitimacy: constant changes of author and artist, endless ongoing plots, floating timelines, stories composed largely of witty banter and explosive action. This is why making prequels completely misses the point.

As such the main reason I disagree with the "Before Watchmen" project is in terms of artistic principles. I can see how it might seem fun and exciting to compose new adventures of Nite-Owl and Rorschach and so on but Watchmen being what it is there's absolutely no point whatsoever, and people who can't see that are missing the point of the comic. I don't know whether "Before Watchmen" will succeed or fail and I don't begrudge the writers and artists who are working on the project but you might as well try to write and sell your own prequel to The Great Gatsby or Nineteen Eighty-Four; in artistic terms it'd be equally fatuous and an identical waste of time.

Marvel Legends: Doctor Doom

As you may know, I'm a sucker for a well-characterised villain, and when it comes to well-characterised villains, or rather super-villains, there are few better than Victor von Doom, arch enemy of the Fantastic Four and especially its leader, Reed Richards. A perfectionist with a monstrous ego, he craves power - power which he has demonstrated to be able to competently wield for the good of society in the case of his homeland of Latveria but which he believes he should wield heedless of the choice of others. Perhaps he is right, because when Latveria has been under the rule of Doom it has generally prospered, but the rest of the world isn't so willing. On the one occasion in which he did successfully conquer Doom found himself bored and frustrated by the tedium and minutiae of administration, as he constantly desires challenge and, in a sense, adventure. Hence his repeated clashes with the Fantastic Four. Much like Marvel's other great villain, Magneto, he comes from an oppressed minority, in this case the travelling Romani of Eastern Europe, and their harsh treatment has greatly motivated his desire for a just and prosperous society. Coupled with the accident which caused him to hide his body from the world and the loss of his mother to the demon Mephisto and we get a character who wants what's right but really has a bone to pick with the world. In another parallel with Magneto, he too recently found it advantageous to join his erstwhile enemies, and became a member of the Fantastic Four when they expanded into the Future Foundation. This has lately provided the opportunity for a lot of good character interaction between Doom and his opponents, although it's not the first time he's formed an alliance with the Fantastic Four in pursuit of the common good.

This brings us to the figure. Like the other Toybiz Marvel Legends figures I've encountered, this is a very detailed toy which is sure to please enthusiasts of the character. One of the fortunate things about Doom is that he wears armour over his limbs, so there's no need to disguise or worry about joints for the articulation of the figure. Nonetheless he's not quite as poseable as Magneto or the other figures I have, Captain America and Red Skull, but I can make him to an extent looking like he's haughtily crossing his arms so I think that's still pretty good. The cloth of his tunic is very detailed, as are his belt and mask. His hood and cloak are completely removeable and indeed easy to take off. His face mask is removeable too; this figure utilises Jack Kirby's original conception of the character in which he greatly exaggerates his own disfigurement; he actually only has one scar across his right cheek, which is still too much of a marring for the perfectionist Doom. I believe there's some kind of Fantastic Four combo pack in which Doom's face is completely ravaged but I kind of think I prefer this version; it's more subtle. The mask has its own set of eyes sculpted on so you don't have to worry about the face and the mask not matching up; it's maybe a bit of a cop out on ToyBiz's part but I think it works nonetheless.

The other accessories with which Doom is equipped are a Luger in a holster at his belt, which I can only really associate with the laser pistol he uses occasionally in Marvel vs Capcom 3, and a turret stand presumably from Castle Doom in Latveria. Like Magneto's stand it can be hooked onto the wall if for some reason you want your action figures to hang from the wall and it too is very nicely detailed. There's a prominent crest featuring the sombre visage of Cynthia von Doom, his mother, she of the character backstory. This way you can have Doom so that he's brooding or plotting or, depending on how you like your villain, speculating hopefully on the future of Latveria and the world, probably while concocting a zany scheme which will bring the ire of the Fantastic Four.

The paint on the figure's a game of halves. In principle, in a perfect world, the paint scheme itself is extremely impressive. The armour's given a wash so that it looks a bit battle-worn and not excessively polished and shiny. The texture on the tunic is very strong, with lighter highlights on the folds. The cape, while of course darker, has this too, along with gold on the clasps. However that being said, it's not a perfect world, and on my Doom there are a few slightly sloppy bits on the face, the pistol and in one spot on the skirt of the tunic. They're hardly dealbreakers, however. Doom's face under the mask is extremely detailed, with individual teeth and haughtily cocked eyebrows. One other nice detail is that behind his cape, on his back and sticking out from his tunic are the two little booster jets that let him fly. They really didn't miss a trick with these figures. His joints are a little stiff but he has been sitting in a plastic clamshell for ten years so I can't really begrudge him that. If I'm going to make any particular criticism it's that on his arms and legs the armour's not especially detailed. It gets the job done, but it lacks some of the ridges on the gauntlets and feet with which Doom is normally depicted.

As I mentioned earlier he's pretty poseable. The cape and tunic skirt obstruct some potentially wilder positions but he's advertised as having twenty-seven points of articulation, which isn't too bad. He's got ball jointed shoulders, hips and neck, swivelling upper arms, wrists, waist and upper legs and hinged fingers, toes, knees, elbows and feet. He's not quite at the level of Magneto because he doesn't have the hinged chest, double-jointed elbows, knees and shoulders, swivel ankles or hinged wrists which are kind of commonplace, but this is due to his unique design with the tunic and armour. It's not really a great loss. You can still pose him pretty well; some of the articulation on the really heavily jointed ToyBiz figures is kind of extraneous to be honest. He's certainly not up there with the insane levels of a toy like Face-Off Cap, who has individually poseable fingers. As I say, it's more than compensated for by the wealth of accessories and the level of detail.

It's also worth noting that like all ToyBiz figures from this era Doom comes with a complementary comic showcasing the character at his finest. In this case it's a reprint of Fantastic Four Vol 1 #247, written and illustrated by John Byrne and originally published in 1982. In support of my brief discussion of the character above it's a famous story in which Doom enlists the help of the Fantastic Four to assist him in overthrowing Zorba, the very monarch the Fantastic Four helped into power to replace the apparently-tyrannical Doom. Upon arrival they discover that Zorba's actually a good deal more unpleasant in power than Doom ever was. It marks the first appearance also of Kristoff Vernard, Doom's ward and heir apparent. I think the ending's a bit rushed but it has some interesting character moments, such as when Sue Storm the Invisible Woman notices what a dangerously competent and charismatic natural leader Doom is when he's put in charge, and when Doom remarks that the only freedom he denied his subjects is "the freedom to commit evil." It really colours Doom in an ambiguous way, culminating in his murder of the defeated tyrant Zorba.
In case you're wondering, the chase figure for this is a Doombot. As far as I'm aware the only difference is that under the mask it has a metallic, mechanical robot face rather than Von Doom's own appearance. I've heard from a couple of places that ToyBiz's original plan was to release the figure with the mask on, so that you wouldn't be able to tell if you were getting Von Doom himself or a Doombot. This was meant to mimic the recurring situation in the comics in which the Fantastic Four or whichever heroes are present, thinking they have defeated Von Doom himself, discover that it was only a robot duplicate: it was often difficult to discover which armoured, green-clothed baddie in the area was the real Doctor Doom. The Doombots were therefore going to be the main production and Von Doom would be the rare chase variant. One source I've read claim that the complaints of overly-entitled fans dashed this plan. Personally I think I'm more willing to believe another account I've heard, which was that simply common sense ruled the day - people want Von Doom himself, not a robot duplicate, and making it impossible to tell was either cruel or a money-grubbing endeavour in itself: how many figures would you have to buy until you found a real Von Doom? I know I'm the kind of slightly obsessive-compulsive person who wouldn't have been satisfied with a Doombot even though they look identical with the mask on. As intellectually clever as I think the idea is of emulating the comic scenario with the distribution of the figures, it makes no business sense. You'd either be seen as greedy, encouraging multiple purchases of the same toy, or it would backfire and people would stay away for fear of getting the one they didn't want. Buying an action figure shouldn't be a gamble, and it makes sense to me that his face is visible.
It's probably worth mentioning that once Hasbro took over the Marvel Legends franchise they produced their own version of Doom which a quick Google Image Search will swiftly reveal. While this certainly has some better or at least more accurate detailing around the legs and feet and has a perhaps slightly more standard face plate design (without attached eyes) the level of detail on the tunic and cape is significantly less and compared to this Doom the cloth looks overly smooth, shiny, plastic-like and ultimate cheap. I've avoided Hasbro Marvel Legends because their paint jobs and level of detailing are simply not up to the standard of the earlier ToyBiz figures. Despite lacking a torso hinge the ToyBiz figure is also superior in terms of articulation to the Hasbro Doom. The addition of the cracking Latveria turret stand and a nice showcase comic compared to getting a build-a-figure piece for some guy I've never heard of means that this figure, the ToyBiz one, peps the Hasbro Doom to the post completely. The thing I like about the good ToyBiz Marvel Legends, and this Doctor Doom figure in particular, is that the level of detailing in both the sculpting and the paint are combined with good accessories and articulation to produce figures which comfortably exist in the worlds of both collectable statue and toy. I see that a lot of people online think the Hasbro Doom is better but I can honestly say that when it comes to ToyBiz Doom vs Hasbro Doom, unless you like cheap-looking stuff the ToyBiz Doom has got to win the day. Maybe some kind of hybrid of the articulation and paintwork of ToyBiz Doom with some of the better details and design choices of Hasbro Doom would create some kind of ultimate Doctor Doom figure but until that day comes this one is my pick.

One last remark I'll make about the figure is that it has some very nice detailing on his head, especially the rivets of the mask and the many layers of the neck armour. Overall, like all the Toybiz figures I've encountered, I must say I'm impressed with this figure. There are quite a few floating around on eBay and they're not too expensive, all things considered. I'd definitely recommend this to anyone who's a fan of the monarch of Latveria. Your shelf will assuredly look a bit more snazzy with a touch of Doom.

UPDATE in 2015
This is really late but I've meant to write this down for ages and I only just got around to thinking this would be the best way to do it. You see how up there I said that a Doom figure with the paintwork of ToyBiz plus the design of Hasbro would be good? Well in 2013 Hasbro released a re-issue of their 2007 Doom figure (the one I didn't have and thought looked cheap) with an updated paint job closer to that of ToyBiz Doom. This solved the main problem with the Hasbro figure and I bought it. It's a good one, and a fitting take on the character in my opinion. It's probably not too hard to find these days so if you want Doom, get the 2013 re-issue with the better paintwork from Hasbro if you can't find or don't want the ToyBiz one. There was a variant in Doom's white Future Foundation outfit from the Hickman run on FF but I could never find it in Australia and it's incredibly expensive online. Nonetheless, Hasbro did well by Doom in the 2013 re-issue so I guess that proves I have the power of accidental prophecy.