Oh, Dios Mio!

Well, shit.

Without meaning to, I seem to have riled up the ol’ interweb hornets again. You see, I wasn’t trying to be controversial, I was just trying to find something interesting to write. Seriously, I promise.

It’s taking a lot of self-control to keep from getting cranky about the whole thing. Everyone else seems to be getting cranky, but I will try to keep a civil tongue about me. I won’t make any comments like “have fun at Wizard World,” or “make sure to double bag your Youngblood back issues,” or even “dude, sounds to me like someone’s spider-sense woke up on the wrong side of the bed.” No, that would just be an asshole thing to do, and I’m hardly an asshole, now am I?

I’m just a floating nimbus of freelance love.

Anyway, on with the show.

Kudos to Dave Fiore for keeping a civil tongue and not dismissing my arguments out of hand simply because I disagree with him. As always, he writes some of the most cogent and interesting stuff around, such as this:

. . . here's my question: what intelligent adult accepts anything they read at face value? That's why I would say that the only people who shouldn't read superhero comics are kids who haven't developed a critical perspective yet! Look at Tim--he's a smart guy, but he seems unable to entertain the notion that these heroes are just textual elements in a swirl of narrative. Why? By his own admission, it's because he read too many superhero comics as a young child . . . (Emphasis Mine>

The answer to your question is painfully simple. Given the state of the world today, when you ask “what intelligent adult accepts anything they read at face value?” I have a hard time not laughing. I’m sorry, perhaps I am cynical. But people are gullible. People are willing to believe anything, and the percentage of the population who practice the kind of critical thinking and examination you and I obviously take for granted is miniscule (and no, for all you smartasses out there, I don’t have any exact figures). It’s just damned naïve on the face of it, and I hate to say this because I respect your intelligence, but you’re giving the average Joe way too much credit. Even the average intelligent Joe doesn’t read everything with that kind of critical eye, and especially not escapist literature like superhero comics.

I would ask you, in all seriousness, if you’ve ever read an issue of Wizard from cover to cover. I have. I used to subscribe to the damn thing, “a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away” (as they say). That’s the mentality of the average reader of superhero comics. And by average, I mean the vast majority.

Fiore points out, correctly, that I “[seem] unable to entertain the notion that these heroes are just textual elements in a swirl of narrative.” Well, yes, that’s true. For an Alan Moore or Grant Morrison story, yes, I’ll definitely buy that. But for the most part . . . the kind of structuralist and post-structuralist lit critique you’re applying to the average superhero book is patently absurd.

You want to know what I think about the Gwen Stacy Clone Saga? Well, buddy, with all due respect to someone who seems to spend quite a bit of time thinking deep thoughts on stories like this: the Gwen Stacy Clone Saga is quite possibly one of the stupidest stories every written. It’s a bad soap opera with outlandish sci-fi elements that break the suspension of disbelief in a premise already filled to the brim with bad sci-fi elements. It wasn’t written with any sort of systematic literary ideation in mind, it was written with the hopes of entertaining 8-12 year olds and hopefully getting them to spend cold hard cash on thirty-two pages of garishly printed newspaper.

Of course, it wouldn’t be the first time that something written for a pop audience as disposable escapism was later revealed to have deep and fathomless depths of which the masses were unaware. But considering the circumstances, an infatuation with 70’s Spider-Man seems masturbatory at best, downright inane at worst. I may be proven wrong by the cascading tide of history, but I doubt it.

Why are we even talking about these books? The superhero genre is such a tiny, insignificant corner of the comics medium that it is simply galling on the face of it that so much literal and digital ink is wasted on the subject. Yes, wasted . . . because I’ll be damned if I think that bad 70’s Spider-Man comics deserve this kind of rigorous explication while Louis Riel or Quimby the Mouse or even The Boondocks are never discussed. Love & Rockets makes 99% of even the best superhero books look like dog puke, and I never see anyone discussing it. I’d love to see Fiore tackle a book like that, something I think could actually reward such a deep examination.

Elsewhere, Fiore states:

My own hypergeneralized tag for the genre was "the literature of moral and epistemological inquiry". Of course, in order to entertain this notion, you have to accept my contention that superhero comics have been progressing toward the work of Gruenwald (Squadron Supreme, Quasar and Captain America) and Morrison (Animal Man, Doom Patrol, and, most recently, and perhaps most spectacularly, The Filth) since the beginning (or, at least, since 1961). There's no reason you ought to accept this. But there's no reason to dismiss my statement simply because most superhero comics have fallen far short of these exalted heights either.

I think that’s a pretty fair and pretty reasoned idea. But I just don’t think it holds water, because the only trends that have any meaningful relevance on mainstream comics history are marketing trends. Now, of course, marketing is a part of every art medium, however much one may try to deny it, but there’s also no separating the fact that editorial decisions in mainstream comics are made solely on the basis of what sells. Manga is popular, so what does Marvel do? They produce numerous books that copy the superficial qualities of manga. Watchmen and Dark Knight were popular in the late 80s, so what did they do? Produce a series of books that questioned the moral and epistemological underpinnings of the genre in a formalistically experimental manner? No, they made their heroes “grim & gritty” and used a lot of spotted blacks to make the heroes look all tortured and dangerous.

So that’s why I think looking for literary trends in commercial comics is ultimately futile, because the trends in commercial comics are fueled by what fifty-year old men in bad suits think twentysomethings in soiled WCW T-Shirts will buy. The percentage of the audience who read mainstream comics in as critical and involved a matter as you people do is statistically negligible, so they just don’t make the comics with these ideas in mind. If they do come out like that every now and again, it’s surely a mistake.

Moving on to the less kind members of our blogosphere, Steven at Peiratikos takes less-nuanced umbrage with my statement that “there is no examination of ethical dilemma in 99.9% of all superhero books.” He sees this as a “cop out generalization,” which is, I suppose, fair. I’m not going to go over every spandex book ever published in order to back that kind of a statistic up. I’ve read a shit-load of the things, both good and bad, and whatever their various strengths or weaknesses may be, they are just not very ambiguous in terms of moral examination.

He finishes up his rather curt arguments with the galling assumption that “[his] real point seems to be that he prefers to read superhero comics in a childlike (uncritical) manner, rather than an adult (critical) matter, and his elaborate justifications merely obfuscate this. Which would be a nice way to win the argument, if it wasn’t a gross misstatement.

This whole argument reminds me, in a roundabout way, of a book that was published a few years back which caused quite a bit of uproar in the scholarly community. It was called The Bible Code and it was written by a man named Michael Drosnin. This book claimed that there was a secret code hidden in the first five books of the Bible by God as it was dictated to Moses, and that this code revealed all sorts of magical secrets of prophecy.

Of course, this is poppycock of the stinkiest kind. The point is, you can find anything if you look for it hard enough. People have been finding explanations for the wackiest behavior in the books of the Bible for some 1,800 years by now, and it doesn’t look like its going to stop anytime soon. Likewise, I think people who insist on reading you average, garden variety superhero book and seeking out deep and subtle meanings are just looking too hard for something that isn’t there. Stan Lee wasn’t trying to undertake any sort of secret philosophical dialectic in the pages of the early Marvels, he was just writing some cheap entertainment, and doing his best to keep Ditko and Kirby’s philosophies (overt and covert, respectively) out of the books as best he could.

I think most superhero books should be read on an uncritical basis because that is how they were intended to be absorbed. I guarantee you that if they had thought people would have any interest in debating these things all these years later, they wouldn’t have made such a botch-up of Wonder Girl’s origin, for one. That’s a cheap joke but it’s basically the truth: for most of these books, if you go looking for deeper meaning, you’re going to end up grafting your own prejudices and conceptions onto the text, because, with some exceptions, the deeper meaning just isn’t there to be found.

(And I’m hardly encouraging children to read pro-Fascist literature. I think kids should read all the wonderful fantastic literature they can find, be it C.S. Lewis or Tolkein or Harry Potter or Captain America. Subtext is something you, hopefully, discover when you’re grown up. When you’re young, its good enough to understand that Cap tries to do the right things for the right reason, and the question of how and why can wait until you’re older . . . or, at least, I hope they can. Likewise, I wouldn’t care about my kid reading The Chronicles of Narnia either, despite the overt Christian subtext. They’ll figure it out later - if they care to - when they’re old enough to make their own decisions about these things. Likewise with Cap.)

Marc Singer over at I Am Not The Beastmaster says some interesting things too, which I would recommend you read, even if I don’t quite agree with him. I’ve already spent enough time defending myself from Peiratikos’ slings and arrows, and I’m getting tired – if I had known I’d be writing about this subject again, I’d have just kept my trap shut – but there is one point where he chimes in with Steven’s argument to add that “he [me] prefers to read superhero comics in a childlike manner and then criticize them for being childlike”.

Which is not the case. I prefer to read them in an uncritical manner, yes, because otherwise (if you’re not going for a formalistic reading of the storytelling geniuses involved in some of the books) they fall apart like the cheaply-printed tissue paper they are. I’m not criticizing the books for being childlike, I am merely pointing out a fact, just as the sun rises in the east and Marmite tastes like ass. I am criticizing otherwise healthy, sane, rational adults for taking such limited, stunted, and downright silly literature so damned seriously. It’s not a criticism to say that the Clone Saga was intended to be read by children and young adults, it’s merely a statement of fact. It’s almost a tautology: children’s books are meant to be read by children, and therefore most of them are childlike.

What a freakin’ concept, Vern.

Sorry if that offends you. It just seems pointless to spend so much time thinking about such damn trivial pieces of art. I mean, I can talk about bad old comics all day long, I love it. But I think it’s a grievous error to accept the vast majority of them as anything more than what they are and were always intended to be: fastly produced, cheaply made escapism.

There is so much good stuff out there that is absolutely ignored, and seeing the heartfelt attention that is paid to the crappiest of the crap breaks my heart.



"This subject of discussion is hereby declared illegal. It is stupid and must be destoyed!"

the Secret Origin of Il Duce

Sean T. Collins recently threw out this little bon mot on the Comics Journal. Basically, in a nutshell, I get the idea that Collins doesn't quite agree with the notion that superheroes are an essentially fascistic idea.

In my life, I have spent some time thinking about just this concept. As I see it, it's pretty cut-and-dried. Superhero stories, at their heart, were created to appeal to children. As such, they make great childrens stories, and can even have some appeal to non-children when done well enough. But the same attributes that make them marvelous vehicles for entertaining children make them absolutely poisonous - ideologically speaking - for grown adults to take too seriously.

In a lot of ways, this hearkens back to the "literature of ethics" conversation of a few months back. As we discussed then, the "literature of ethics" concept was good except for one teeny-tiny fact: there is no examination of ethical dilemma in 99.9% of all superhero books. Black and white, good and evil, are pretty much accepted as is, and any shades of grey are presented as mere obstacles to be overcome. So, when you pick up The Avengers or Superman, the unspoken assumption is that the powerful superbeings whose adventures take place therein are morally infallible creatures whose strange abilities give them the obligation to combat "evil" outside of the traditional constraints of our legal system.

If you're eight or twelve, its an attractive and enjoyable fantasy. But if you grow older and never at some point examine the deeper ethical questions of obligation, responsibility, and corruption that would inevitably follow if superheroes really existed, you are ignoring the facts of reality and history.

Namely, the fact that power corrupts, and even if absolute power could theoretically be wielded by an incorruptible superman (like, say, Superman), it would still be intrinsically dangerous simply because the potential exists for abuse.

"With great power comes great responsibility" could easily have been said by Mussolini. Fascism was, above all else, a system dedicated to the destruction of the Individual by powerful forces in the State. As with Stalinism, fascism created and maintained the notion of the state as a living organism with needs and responsibilities above the petty concerns of the Individual. Unlike Communism, however, whose ultimate (stated) goal was a classless society of equals, Fascism was very much dedicated to the notion of social Darwinism. Weakness - whether in individuals, peoples or nations - was something to be eradicated and purged, so that only the strong survived. The strong were best represented by supernational entities who rose up from the faceless masses to protect the State from the hazards of mob rule (democracy and anarchy) and who were believed to embody the chosen ideals of the nation. This is the way the world works in a fascist state: the State is an organism whose cells and organs are composed of separate individuals, and whose head is ruled by the actions of preturnaturally gifted supermen such as Hitler or Mussolini. (Of course, in practice, this is also how Communism ended up working, as the high ideals of socialist revolution were uniformly replaced by the totalitarian pseudo-fascism practiced by Lenin and Stalin and later Mao and Castro. It's important to remember that despite the many similarities in the Communist and Fascist systems, the Communists and Fascists hated each other more than either of them hated the western republics, which explains why the USSR fought with the Allies. But you probably know all that, and I have digressed mightily.)

So, if you are a grown person who takes the moral underpinnings of superhero comics seriously, I don't know what to say: you would make a great fascist.

Uncritical acceptance of powerful authority figures is great when you're a kid... hell, it comes with the job description. But as you get older you need to question authority. You need to realize that power exerts a corrupting force. All the things that makes superheroes great and wonderful in the context of a kid's comic book make them deeply, powerfully impracticable in the real world. The idea of sanctioning groups of powerful supermen to watch over us - either tacitly, as with groups like the X-Men, or overtly, as with the Avengers and JLA - is damn near suicidal, and definitely fascistic.

Which is why I just don't think an intelligent, grown adult can seriously accept most superhero books on face value, because to do so is to court the worst kind of moral laziness. There have been a relative few books that have actually attacked the ethics of superbeings in one way or another, and whenever these books have tackled the notion of even semi-realistic superheroes, they have almost always touched on the fascistic elements implicit in characters who can change the course of mighty rivers with their bare hands.

I'll talk about some of these books tomorrow.

Psychology Is One Of My Subroutines

There is nothing in this world more frustrating than not being able to find something you know you own.

If you know me at all, you know I am only sporadically organized. Some things, such as my wife's records, I make a good attempt at keeping orderly (for her sake, believe me). Other things, such as my own comic books, are not even close to being slightly organized.

So one of the all-too-common recurring motifs in my life is rummaging through longboxes in search of one or two specific issues which I just can't seem to find. Of course, there are patches here and there that are organized, bunches of books that I bought many years ago and don't reference much (like, say, my complete run of Sleepwalker). But the books I like and want to find on a consistent basis are the ones that forever elude me.

Over the past week I must have spent probably four or six hours rummaging through comics in search of two (T-W-O) issues of a book which I can't find. I'm one of those people who often saves mini-series to read after they've been completely published, but sometimes this technique backfires, as when I cannot find two issues of a ten-issue series which I know I bought in its entirety as it was released. I won't give away the name of this series, save ot say it rhymes with "Louis Riel."

So, I'm a bit frustrated. Now, I don't have all my comics with me - most of them are in safe storage a good 3,000 miles across the country - but the comics I do have with me still represent an imposing pile. So, I've wasted quite a bit of time looking through these boxes, repeatedly looking for two issues which have disappeared off the face of the planet. Of course, the two issues in question can probably still be bought for around cover price, so I have spent hours and hours and hours of my life, hours which I will never regain, in a fruitless hunt for 6$ worth of lost comic books. Its the story of my life, I tell you.



Travels With Larry Part X

Scurvy Dogs

Just so you know, and in the spirit of complete candor, my favorite nautically-themed movie of any kind is Cabin Boy which I regard to be an underrated masterpiece of world cinema. I'm not joking, either.

So you know I'm no snob when it comes to humor. But I still find Scurvy Dogs an unsatisfying mixed bag. On the one hand, its obvious that Andrew Boyd and Ryan Yount have a lot of fun putting every issue of this series together. On the other, its just not what I would call "ready for prime time", either in the consistent level of the humor or the craftsmanship involved in the book's production.

For this type of humor, I consider Johnny Ryan's Angry Youth Comics to be the absolute gold standard. There is not an issue of AYC that does not succeed in getting a few belly-laughs out of me, despite my best intentions - it's sick, twisted, offensive and brutally, almost maliciously evil in its consistent desire to flaunt all conventions of civilized existence. But whereas AYC is Ha-Ha Funny in a big way, Scurvy Dogs is just sorta Mildly Wacky. The occasional chuckle is the most I can expect (I have to admit, "Lita Fjord" was pretty good).

If this were a folded & stapled mini-comic I think I would like this better. As it is, as a 3$ comic with card-stock covers and great production values, it is something of a baffler. Larry Young's commercial instincts seem pretty spot-on to me: even if I don't like something AiT/Planet Lar publishes, I think I have a pretty good chance of figuring out why it was published. But other than the grating "Pirates Are The New Monkeys" legend on the inside front cover, these series seems to have no overriding reason to exist other than the compromising photos Boyd & Yount took of Young with that anteater at the San Francisco Zoo.

Which is not to say that in another five years Scurvy Dogs couldn't be one of the best, funniest comics being published. But its not there yet, and I don't see how I can reccomend it until it is.

Ch-ch-check It Out

My good lord, is it actually time for a new Beastie Boys record? I didn't know that hell had frozen over.

Now don't get me wrong, I'll probably buy the damn thing (OK, probably definitely), but I'm still kinda pissed at artists who just feel like they can take 6 freakin' years off to scratch their collective asses. It's not hard people. Yes, I know you put out a DVD, it was a good DVD. But come on. Hello Nasty just wasn't that good, and that was the last we heard from you (not counting "Alive" off the boxed set). I realize you're off freeing Tibet or something but even Trent can be bothered to get off his duff and release an album every five years.

Why can't more artists be like Weezer? I'm not the biggest Weezer fan in the world, but anyone whose record company has to physically restrain them from releasing more than one record a year gets my vote. Hell, they should all aspire to be as cool as Guided By Voices. If Bjork released music at the rate Robert Pollard did, wouldn't the world be a better place? I mean, wouldn't it?

In any event, I noticed that in my absence former TCJ editor in chief Milo George has set up his very own sniper nest on the World Wide Webiverse. I'd say welcome aboard and blah blah blah happy bunnies and stuff blah blah blah but I never really went in for the whole blogoverse peace love and unity thing. See, the way I see it, everyone else is just so full of love and mutual appreciation that the injection of a Milo George into the blogoverse was almost a natural prerogative. If he hadn't done it, someone else would have. People need people to piss on their parades. Especially if you're reading this: you're probably someone who believes in the magical fairy elves of "community" and "brotherhood". Well, screw that, or go back and reference my infamous "Kill All Hippies" post of a couple months back. Fact is, I was half joking when I wrote that, but only half. People are just stupid and there's no getting around that.

But if you send me free stuff I'll be your best friend. Seriously. Or if you buy something really expensive through my Amazon.com button. I will get down on my knees and swear to God that Skate Man is the greatest achievement in the history of the four-color funnies if you buy one of these.

Makes you think, eh Larry?

Anyhoo.

Seems people are still talking about The Filth. But some of these people are missing the point. If you're getting hung up on the lack of female characters, or the preponderance of juvenile, downright offensive imagery, you need to take a step back and look at what Morrison was trying to accomplish. Everything that happens on the surface of the story is totally and completely meaningless. The point of The Filth is that there is exactly one character in the entire book who isn't just a small part in a series of dizzyingly complicated and dehumanizing patterns and systems. Just about every other character is a fake personality, co-opted and replicated by the Powers That Be as the occasion arises. I wouldn't get too upset about any misogynistic undercurrent here, because the real worrisome subcontext is the totality of the misanthropic worldview Morrison is illustrating. People, men and women alike, are basically bags of stinking, lustful meat - this is the cancerous, fascistic ideal that Greg Feely exists to combat. Women are degraded and dehumanized in The Filth, but so are men, children, dolphins and even chimpanzees. See, the whole thing is basically a big ol' middle finger aimed square at the structuralist school of literary theory. It's all in the semiotics.

So, that'll be it for today. Tune in tomorrow as I compare Scurvy Dogs to Maus.

Bullpin Bulletins

Face Front, True Believers!!! That’s right, friends and compatriots, after an extended hiatus the Hurting is once again back and broadcasting from a secret undisclosed location somewhere near the center of the Earth. I’m sure the naysayers over at our Distinguished Competition didn’t think we’d be back – that we’d be joining the ranks of Dashing Dirk Deppey and Singing Alan David Doane on the Island of Esteemed Ex-Bloggers. Well, effendi, you’re not gettin’ rid of us that easy. Who says this ain’t the age of peerless self-puffery? Pas je, croyants vrais!!!

So, as a wise man once said, don’t take any wooden buffalo nickels, and, oh yeah . . .

Excelsior!



Item!

So, Ronald Reagan is dead. Hmmm. Maybe the Bullpen will refrain from any overtly political statements on account of the still-grieving family . . . but then again, it would behoove any patriot to remember, even as we honor the office of the Presidency, that Reagan himself was an absolutely abysmal President, and responsible for a great many of the problems which our nation and our world still face to this day! Food for thought, effendi!

Item!

The Bullpen’s recent trip to California went off uneventfully, which, considering the nature of this trips, is quite the blessing. There was one question raised, however, during a brief stopover in Las Vegas, and that question was a simple one: why the hell would anyone live in Las Vegas to being with?

As seen from the air, you can definitely ascertain from a glance why Vegas is the fastest growing city in America (or at least one of them). Everything is under construction. There are empty tracts of sun bleached sand juxtaposed against budding housing developments in a checkerboard pattern throughout the area. It seems, from the air, almost a construction site in search of a community.

I grew up in Northern California and spent quite a bit of time in Nevada during my formative years. There’s an ethos in the state that I remember quite clearly from my early travels, an almost willful parochialism that sits at odds with the constantly expanding population of the region. Reno calls itself the “Biggest Little City in the World,” and I think it fair to say that that’s an accurate description of the entire state.

Wanting an answer to this urgent, burning question, I went straight to the horse’s mouth – yes, the world’s most famous Las Vegan, Mr. Steven Grant:

“I don't live in Las Vegas proper, but in one of the communities outside of it. But I like the dry heat, (and) I like the lack of winter. The people are friendly without being cloying about it. It's relatively close to Los Angeles, so I can get in there for meetings without too much cost and effort and without having to live in California. There are no state income taxes. I can get to the airport in seven minutes. Lots of people I know travel through Las Vegas, so I get to see far more people here than I ever saw in Los Angeles or Seattle. I could afford a home here, at the time I moved in. (I wouldn't be able to afford one now.) The library system's pretty good. I like the view of the mountains wherever you look, and I like the view of the Strip from pretty much anywhere in my area, including my office window. I don't spend a lot of time on the Strip but I like going there once in awhile, and I like being able to get there without much effort. I like the comics shops here. I like that pretty much anything happening culturally in America now comes through Las Vegas sooner or later. I like the sudden flood of art museums here. I like all the free movies. I like the underlying outlaw attitude that still pervades here; you can still get a whiff of the old west when you want to. The emptiness is deceptive; there are actually a ton of things to do within an hour's drive of the place. I like casino culture and I like the way casinos and the various things in them (like buffets, and the aforementioned art museums and other attractions) discount for locals to lure them in. I like the National Rodeo Finals every year. I like that, where I am, the roads are very passable, except where they're doing construction. I like the vaguely ‘evil’ air the rest of the country thinks the place has. I like that I can go get a meal at 2:30 in the morning if I want to (not that I ever have). I like seeing the world's biggest flashlight every night. I like the way the air feels in my backyard after dark. I like watching the airplanes cruise in 24 hours a day. I like the easy access to all kinds of conventions like computer shows, and TV conferences. I like that on one level it's just another American city like pretty much any of them (I like that it isn't huge) and on another there's no other place even remotely like it on Earth. I like the Bugsy Siegel myth of the place, even though that's a convenient lie.

“I'm sure there's more; that's just what popped into my head. Short version: what's not to like?

“Having grown up in the Midwest and lived in Manhattan, Los Angeles, Portland and Seattle areas, I've run out of other places to move to.

“I can understand what it might look like from on high; it's not what I'd call a planned community. But it doesn't look that way from street level.

“I remember a line from a Dylan song. Flip it into the reverse and it pretty much sums up my attitude:

“And you ask why I don't live there? Man, how come you don't move?”

Question asked and answered! Check out Mr. Grant’s weekly Comic Book Resources column, Permanent Damage. It’s pretty much the only comic book column I never miss.

Item!

Larry Young vs. A Grizzly Bear – coming this October from AiT/Planet Lar!

Checklist For Items Shipping The Month of June

Collect ‘Em All!

The Doofus Omnibus

Toons For A New Medium

Kaskade – In The Moment

Greyboy – Soul Mosaic

Sofa Surfers – See The Light

Squarepusher - Ultravisitor

Various Artists – Om reMixed

Chickenlips – DJ Kicks





Travels With Larry Part IX

Planet of the Capes

One of the last things I did before I got on the plane to California was to sit down and read “Planet of the Capes” in its’ entirety. It would be specious to say that I’ve been thinking about the book non-stop for the last six weeks, but it has been on my mind. At the very least, a great deal of thought has gone into the creation of this book, and it demands a great deal of thought in reciprocation.

As has already been covered all across the internet, “Planet” is a satirical allegory of the comics industry in the guise of a boilerplate superhero story. There’s a great deal of subtle criticism leveled against the mainstream publishers just in the way the story is told. The reader is dropped into the middle of the story, with strange characters doing strange things for no apparent reason and with no apparent motivation.

It’s a clever device, but I’d be willing to bet it backfires with at least half of the people who pick the book up. By replicating the experience of the prospective new reader of any superhero comic, Larry Young risks alienating the very audience he’s depending on to buy the book in the first place. There’s probably a few readers who finished the book (or at least flipped through it in the store) and asked their retailer: “I don’t read independents, where did Justice Hall first appear?” Which is, of course, one of the risks you run when your audience is also your target.

Or at least, part of the target. The fact is, the comic book consumer is only a small part, almost only by implication, of Young’s real target. There are huge letters across the back cover that read: “Nobody Learns Anything. Everybody Dies.” It’s a pretty succinct encapsulation of the story inside but it’s also Larry Young’s personal forecast for the next ten years in the mainstream American comics industry.

If you think about it, its pretty hard not to make money in comics these days. Manga sells like the proverbial hotcakes, and Shonen Jump is sold in every supermarket and gas station across the country. Collections of strips such as Get Fuzzy and Boondocks fly off the shelves, to say nothing about the The Complete Peanuts’enormous success. Even internet comics make money (Chris Onstad of Achewood fame makes enough money to live a comfortable middle-class life simply based on proceeds from Achewood merchandise). Larry Young, one dude working out of his house with his wife, is able to make a comfortable living selling black and white graphic novels. How the hell is it that everyone in the comics industry seems flush and prosperous except those companies who have put all their eggs into the direct market basket? Based on this evidence, I have to conclude that neither Marvel or DC have learned much from the success all around them, and they are in perilous danger of imminent demise – perhaps Young feels similarly.

All of which points to one of “Capes” weaknesses, which would be the very concept of allegory. Ever since I had to read “Gulliver’s Travels” in high school, I’ve had a deep distrust of works that present allegory as their primary purpose. Allegory can be a useful tool but I believe that it ultimately limits the impact of any narrative to have the entirety of its meaning be dependant on extra-textual insight. For instance, and to use the example of the aforementioned “Gulliver,” most filmmakers who have adapted the book have focused primarily on the fantastic elements of that story: the big people, the small people, the talking horses and the time travelers. But if you actually read the book, you will find that most copies come supplied with profuse foot- and end-notes, detailing what every piece of the story refers to on an allegorical basis. The meaning of the story is worlds removed from the fun fantasy story most kids know from the cartoon or the Ted Danson TV movie, but a series of very specific political and social critiques of 18th century England. The fact that we’re still reading the book three hundred years later is amazing, because without at least a layman’s knowledge of the events being lampooned, the book is almost meaningless.

Larry Young at least partially recognizes these weaknesses. One of his strategies is complication: I don’t think, in any event, that any of the allegorical representations are strictly 1:1. There’s a lot of wiggle room, and a lot of food for thought throughout. Again, the success of the book lies primarily in the fact that it does inspire great thought on the part of anyone who reads it. You have to do so in order to make any sense, because otherwise it makes about as much sense as your average mid-70’s issue of “The Avengers” taken out of context and read by someone whose been stuck in a sensory depravation chamber since 1938.

Worrying about the details, in any event, is unimportant. The brief alternate-history bit at the beginning of the book is ultimately as important to “Capes” as the origin of Forbush Man is to your enjoyment of the average issue of “Not Brand Ecch.” As I said earlier, “Capes” depends a lot on the multiple interpretations that a reader can bring to the ambiguous situations therein, and focusing on the actual story details is an easy way to miss the entire point of the book.

But regardless of all the smaller issues at work in “Capes,” there’s really no mistaking the book’s brutal ending. DC and Marvel are locked in a death struggle. Marvel has the same strategy it’s employed successfully for over fifty years: overwhelming force, filling up every nook of shelf space with sub-par product in order to defeat the competition through attrition. DC, while nowhere near as powerful as Marvel, is slightly smarter – just smart enough to ensure that if one of them dies, they both perish.

If there’s anything wrong with this forecast, on the face of it, it’s that it’s a bit tardy. The fact is, Manga has so totally reoriented the economies of the comics industry in just a few short years that the life and death struggle between the “Big Two” just isn’t that important. The Manga publishers have flooded the market with supreme efficiency – with more efficiency, truth be told, than Marvel could ever have hoped to muster. Perhaps “Capes”’ ending really is appropriate, then, because the “Big Two” are ultimately fighting over the bragging rights to King of the Ash-Heap. They’ve exerted every iota of their power in order to make sure that the other one can’t get a leg up, and they both suffer for their intransigence.

There’s a lot more here, and it’s a testament to Young’s skill as a writer that the book rewards so many different allegorical examinations. On the other hand, the very fact that it is so dependant on specific allegorical interpretation in order to make sense limits its appeal and, ultimately, stunts its effect. There is the feeling here that “Capes” is essentially a formal exercise on Young’s part, a challenge to himself and to his readers.

I hope that Young can find enough time in his busy schedule as publisher and raconteur to continue writing, because the evidence of “Capes,” in addition to the various “Astronauts in Trouble” volumes, reveals the outlines of a startlingly bright and perceptive writer. But in twenty years’ time, I doubt that “Capes” will be more than a footnote in Young’s career, an odd artifact dependant on too much specific historical knowledge for a meaningful interpretation when removed from its immediate context.