Marvel, 1962

Yup, it's another geek blog. Sorry; these'll pop up every so often.

First off, let me say this: I lied. Sort of. After reading (the first half of) Marvel Saga, I thought to myself, wouldn't it be fun to read the first issues of Marvel Comics, in chronological order, to see how the superhero evolved? I had, at the time, all the books I needed to get through, save two -- and on the first of the month, I found an excuse to get them (Free Comic Book Day). I thought, why not? Marvel Saga had done its job well, all right. I was hooked.

To read through the first year of Marvel Comics, I obtained six volumes of Marvel Essential comics, which give you somewhere between 20 and 25 full comics' worth of material, in black and white, for a pretty low cost. The volumes I got were the first each of Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, Incredible Hulk, Thor, and the only volumes of Ant-Man and Human Torch.

The 1960's were very much a transition period for Marvel. The company was beginning to ease out of the easy sell genres of fantasy, horror, and mystery, and into the newly-revived-by-DC-comics genre of superheroes. The show began with Fantastic Four #1; it continued with 8 more issues of that title, 4 issues of Hulk, and 14 fantasy anthology titles that contained new superhero stories.

This early stage is two things for Marvel: an experimental stage, and also a time where "safety" is rampant. Of the first 9 issues of Fantastic Four, four issues -- nearly half -- star Sub-Mariner, Doctor Doom, or a combination. Three more introduce other villains, mostly monster-related (which makes sense, since that was Marvel's specialty at the time), and two others are cosmic stories, which I think is what the FF are most known for now. In short, it feels like Stan Lee and company are still trying to figure out what makes the FF tick, in order to give them good villains.

You could say the same thing about the other characters. The new heroes are often visited by Communist spies, because that's the easiest villain route to take. Some foes, like Loki for Thor or aliens for the Fantastic Four, really do fit. Also, the Ant-Man seems to focus on street crime. But other times, like when the Hulk eliminates an invasive alien threat, don't fit, and the creators have to come up with contrived ways to defeat them.

I think the main problem is that Marvel is more concerned, at this early stage, with providing villains for the heroes than they are with character development. The most notable exception is The Incredible Hulk, by far the best comic so far. It was released bimonthly, and cancelled after six issues (soon into the next year of my reading). Unlike in other comics, Hulk and his alter-ego, Bruce Banner, have an interesting relationship, and the stories are driven more by the characters than by the villains. Sure, Hulk happens to meet the Ringmaster and the invading Toad-Men, but the main conflict so early in these books is on how to keep the Hulk contained, and separate from the personality of Bruce Banner. That's why General Ross is so present in these issues -- the nature of the character himself is a major plot point.

And, surprise! One of the folks sometimes working on this comic is Steve Ditko, co-creator of Spider-Man. I wonder if he had any say in the script.

Spider-Man, by the way, is relegated to his one origin issue in this year -- Amazing Fantasy introduced him, was cancelled, and then revived as The Amazing Spider-Man the following year. It's a pity, because those comics were pretty good when I read them.

Fantastic Four conflict is okay; the best bit is the Thing's existential wonderings, which were capitalized on in Hulk. Ant-Man is a mad scientist, Dr. Donald Blake (Thor's alter-ego) is a one-dimensional doctor with a crush, and the Human Torch... is just cool. I don't know why, but his stories really work. I think they gave Torch his own stories because most of the people reading these comics are teens, and the Torch is the only teen on the Fantastic Four. And the Torch is neat -- his powers are neat, his villains are neat... I'm just, somehow, impressed.

In summary: good first effort, Marvel. Now let's see where you go with it.

NEXT: Marvel 1963 brings Spider-Man into the fore at the same time as it cancels Hulk. Meanwhile, Iron Man and Dr. Strange join the fray, and the Avengers and X-Men teams form. Lots to look forward to -- if I can afford it.

Innocence is complicated

If you're a kid, there are a few authors you need to quickly acquaint yourself with, because you will be tested on them when you're older. Lois Lowry, Elizabeth George Speare, Laura Ingalls Wilder... the list goes on. But if there's one author every kid growing up now should know, it's Avi.

Owner of a peculiar one-word penname, Avi has written around ninety books to date, on a vast variety of genres. There's mystery (Who Stole the Wizard of Oz?), American historical fiction (Nothing But The Truth, Don't You Know There's A War On?), animal novels in the style of Watership Down (Poppy), psychological thrillers (Never Mind)... and so on, and so on. And then there's the one that made Avi a Newbery winner -- Crispin: The Cross of Lead.

(By the way, it's not like an author to write a subtitle under a book without plans for a sequel, but it took Avi several years to get around to crafting another Crispin story. This book was, as most good kids' books are, intended to be read as a stand-alone piece.)

Crispin takes place in feudalistic England, where title character Crispin (usually known simply as "Asta's son") is given a death sentence upon the passing of his mother. Fleeing, he comes across a giant of a jester named Bear, and before you can say "MIMUS!", the two are off teaching each other about how to make one's way as a free man in such an oppressive society.

It's not really like Mimus, though (which I reviewed earlier in this blog). Crispin isn't a nobleman being brought down to earth by a common jester. Instead, we are handed a much more traditional jester in Bear: one whose purpose is to give a little more soul to every wretched thing around him. This is particularly necessary for Crispin, who, as a very devout Christian and very confused as to why he's being chased, is terrible at finding the courage to make his own decisions.

So far, so standard -- a classic tale of finding yourself. And according to my librarian, this isn't often considered Avi's best book. But hold on, here comes the good part -- Avi is a really good writer. I can't emphasize this enough. His descriptions are top-notch: here's his jester.

"Upon his head was a hat which seemed to have been split into two, like the points on a cock's comb. At the end of these points hung bells. Moreover, the flaps of his hat came own along both sides of his face, encircling it, then tied below, making his cheeks plump."

Relating to the boy's own experiences in the first line, looking at the jester's hatstraps in a new way in the third... Avi uses the material to its full advantage. There is little cliche material here.

Also, I found the jester to be infinitely quotable. "It's a thing I've noticed," he says at one point, "that the greater a man's - or boy's - ignorance of the world, the more certain he is that he sits in the center of that world."

But that's not all that makes Avi's writing so good. These stock characters we're seemingly presented with get really interesting. Crispin, so unerringly tied to his faith and so certain he doesn't have a soul, clashes against a jester whose only motive is to be free. Furthermore, these two characters grow and develop in our eyes really well over the course of the novel. We gain knowledge about their secrets as the book progresses, and at the same time, they come up with unobvious ways to get out of tricky situations, although they seem perfectly suited to their characters.

My one major complaint is that authors, including Avi, really seem to like describing 14th century England. I don't blame them - it's my favorite place to visit in books, but really, once Crispin enters the big city, he can't take his eyes, or Avi's descriptive pen, off the many things in the streets. I understand Crispin's wonder at the new world, but I would have appreciated some brevity.

So... now what? I've said all I need to say, I guess, so it's time to wrap this up. Should you read this book? Oh, absolutely, and most of the other things Avi's written (see that list I gave you above). Please don't give your kids those hundreds of Star Wars novelizations. Avi really respects the mind of a child, and gives them some complicated ideas to latch on to -- complicated enough to get older readers (like me) thinking hard about our place in society.

In which misogyny is the only logical conclusion

The binder on my library copy of Aristotle's works has been replaced. Through my experience, this is for one of two reasons. One, Aristotle is read so often that the book will necessarily be damaged, especially if the one reading it is prone to dropping things. (Cough.) Two, Aristotle's ideas are so terrible that this book has been damaged by being launched across the room at hard, stationary objects such as walls.

"WOAH, WOAH, WOAH!" you say. "You just said it was hard to critique Shakespeare, and now you dare to bash Aristotle?" Nyet, I say. Listen up, because it's much easier.

As I've mentioned, I'm reading through a list of essential Great Books of the Western World. (This list cuts out a lot of literature, such as South American and Asian and African, which is unfortunate, but one must startf somewhere.) I've read Plato, Aristophanes, and now two works by Aristotle: Book I of "Nicomachean Ethics" and Book I of "Politics". I read the first one a while back; I've just finished the second, so I'll have more to say on that. Also, the two were translated by different people (and both in the 1950's), and "Politics" had a slightly better translation than "Ethics" (which was impenetrable).

My reading of Aristotle goes something like this: if Aristotle's works were a flowchart or outline, it'd be riddled with bullets. Aristotle is thorough -- if he comes across something that must be explained, he'll take paragraphs, chapters, or even whole books to explain the details, the details of the details, the counterarguments, the rebuttals, and so on and so forth. It's very scientific, which is what the guy was known for. As Spock would say, "logical".

Oh, but do we run into problems fast. Book I of "Politics" deals very little with the workings of the state -- it's very much a prologue, in which Aristotle first examines the nature of human relationships, and why they necessitate the creation of a nation. He spends a little time on parent-children relationship (which I have little trouble with), some time on the male-female relationship (which is misogynistic, but fleetingly so), and a lot of time on the master-slave relationship.

Aristotle is very theoretical on this front. In his arguments, he tries to explain why the only viable use for some human beings is as slaves -- glorified property -- and why slaves have different virtues, uses, etc. But as logical as Aristotle's arguments are, they're very claustrophobic. He gives few theoretical examples, and no concrete ones, on why a world without slavery would fail. The reason is obvious: Aristotle's never encountered such a society. He even brings up one counterargument, in that the citizens of other nations taken over in war are made into slaves -- yet they were not born into slavery, so why should that be their new position? And I don't think that Aristotle came up with a good reason for this. He mentions that one answer is that strength, on the battlefield, is as good as virtue, and that's not an argument most people I know would accept.

Aristotle's ideas of society, in short, are close-minded, and about as helpful as the average teenager's angst. I appreciate that Aristotle is so deliberate and thorough, but it bothers me that people accepted his ideas for years -- YEARS! -- before someone in the Renaissance decided they could make their own science. This is the sort of thinking that gets people into trouble today, when toleration is given a miss. It's a little bit dangerous.

Now, briefly, for the good -- I was thinking while I was reading this, which is the point of philosophy anyway. I was considering, for example, the relationship between a film director and his actors and crewmembers. At other points, I considered the fallout of the women's revolution, because misogyny did come up a lot near the end of my reading. At still other points, I thought about the relationship between children and parents, or students and teachers, and how much trust each should give the other -- or if, as Aristotle posited, there really are different sets of virtues that must be applied to each. And in the end, I think I disagree with a lot of what Aristotle says. We are moving towards a very international, unified world, where everyone is given the chance to become exactly who s/he wants to be. We're not there yet, but we're coming closer -- and Aristotle's works are one of those examples where looking into history can equate to a step backwards.

Crazy Good

First, let me tell you how really, really difficult it is to criticize Shakespeare. (You may now pause to pity my sad condition.) We're talking about Shakespeare here -- it doesn't get much better than him. Literary references, beautiful prose and poetry, stories that influenced generations of writers... and let me add that I'm reading a Folger's Library version, which is brilliant at providing just the right amount of notes on the side, so I can read without breaking my stride too much but also know what's going on. This is extremely high quality literature.

Which is why I'm so grateful for those people who claimed to me before I read Hamlet, "It's better than Macbeth."

Macbeth, as I've noted, is my favorite Shakespeare play by a mile. Studying it in-depth probably helped, but in addition to that, the action is exciting, the characters are complex, and the story is a timeless story of self-fulfilling prophecy, which is subject to constant reinterpretation. Banquo and Macduff are probably more cemented in my imagination than the cast of supporting characters in Romeo and Juliet.

Can Hamlet measure up to this? Actually, almost.

I'll be reading the play again soon, I can tell you that. (I'll also see a performance this spring.) I need to experience it again because my first impression of Hamlet is that it's confusing. Hamlet might or might not be mad; Claudius (Hamlet's uncle, who according to a maybe-really-there Ghost, killed Hamlet's father) might or might not harbor genuine concern for Hamlet's well-being. The love of Hamlet and Ophelia might be real, and it might be incest, and it might be fake. The ambiguities stack up, and it's quite delicious; these roles must be fun to play onstage, I can tell.

However, as a reader, I'm keeping those ambiguities in place in the back of my head, so when some action takes place (like, say, the first big murder of the play -- or even the final scene) it comes out of nowhere, because suddenly instead of talking, planning, and plotting, the characters are dropping like flies. This suddenness of happenings even inspired a very weird play, entitled "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead", after an offhand line spoken by one of the characters in the last scene.

So the play is more confusing than Macbeth. How else can I compare the two? Well, the scenes are longer, but that allows for more interesting character development -- well, and for longer speeches. There are a lot of now-lost references in Hamlet, and the play is pieced together from several disparate versions, meaning that even in this, one of the most prestigious Shakespeare editions, the monologues are occasionally incomplete.

On the other hand, there are a tremendous number of classic lines and moments in here. "Speak the speech, I pray you." "Sweets for the sweet." "Alas, poor Yorick!" "To be, or not to be." I even got to one scene (2.2) and realized I'd performed it as Claudius in a summer camp. Good moments. Oh, and of course the opening Ghostly scenes are not to be forgotten.

As I said -- how can I criticize Shakespeare? He knew what he was doing; if there is something wrong with the play, that's because time has lost the stories he based it off of. This play seems a little bit haphazard, but it provides for a very interesting backdrop for the not-quite-mentally-stable title character. For literature scholars, this play is an absolute must-read. For the rest of us, it'll mess with your mind a bit, but sometimes crazy is good.

NOTE 1: I haven't yet read the "Modern Perspective" at the end of the book, but I plan to do that.

NOTE 2: The library list I posted previously is now defunct. I had to return them. I was not quite so invested in them as to want to go and get them again. Don't worry, though -- I have a long list of books on my shelf still to read, as well as some Great Books.

NOTE 3: I'm reviewing the first year or so of Marvel Comics chronologically! Follow me on twitter at twitter.com/EssentialMarvel for comic reviews in 140 characters or less.