Somnopolis

Misfits

Channel 4’s late 2009 yoof show Misfits arrived on screens in November under a hail of publicity. Twitter channels were created for five of the characters on the show. There were also Facebook profile pages and video blogs on youtube delivered by the respective actors. Produced by Clerkenwell Films, Misfits was said to be the new Skins, another show courting controversy by featuring teenage sex and  substance abuse. Oh, but with superpowers.

It’s so much more than that though. Howard Overman’s scripts (in keeping with the American television writing tradition, he is the lead writer for the show) do not fall into the trap of slavishly imitating yoof argot. The premise of young offenders on ASBOs gaining superpowers due to a freak storm, manages to combine the best traditions of classic comic book origins (cosmic rays, radioactive spiders, spaceships landing in Kansas) with a sharp comment on how teenagers are treated by British society today. Superhero comics once played with popular fears regarding the effects of radiation, or the dangers of the atomic bomb. Now teenagers themselves are treated like some dangerous element. Adolescent foul mouthed polonium.

Our ‘heroes’ are Simon (an introvert who gains the ability to turn invisible); Alisha (’gifted’, with the ability to make anyone desire her simply by touching their skin); Kelly (the stereotypical chav who can hear what people are thinking); and Curtis (an aspiring Olympian whose sporting career is in ruins and has the ability to turn back time).

You may have noticed that’s only four out of the five. There’s also gabby Irish lad Nathan, whose power is left unrevealed, much to his annoyance.

Every superhero origin needs a dose of tragedy thrown into the mix. The Misfits (as good a team name as we’re going to get, although thankfully never used in the show) are forced to kill their probation officer when the effects of the storm transform him into a rage-fuelled monster. The first six episodes of the show (with a second season promised in May 2010) deal with the consequences of the group’s decision to cover up the death. It soon becomes clear, however, that they were not the only ones changed by the storm.

Thankfully Misfits avoids the cliches of ‘freak of the week’, shows like The X-Files, or Smallville. Each episode is focused on a different member of the cast and while the script does sparkle with great one-liners (especially where Nathan is concerned), it also succeeds thanks to the talent of the actors featured. Antonia Thomas as Alisha has perhaps the most difficult character, given that her character’s ‘ability’, inevitably raises the issues of rape and the sexualisation of women in popular culture. Her relationship with Curtis evolves due to their coming to an arrangement that allows them to both equally express their desire for one another, without coercion (and isn’t it nice to have a teenage show that promotes mutual masturbation, instead of the be-all and end-all of genital sex?). As for the failed Olympian, because he is a young black male caught on a minor drugs charge, he is unfairly been made an example of. Curtis (Nathan Stewart Jarrett) has the weight of a whole community sitting on his young shoulders. His feelings of powerlessness in the face of this pressure even extend to his own ability, which can only be activated unconsciously when he is feeling deep emotional stress. This gives Overman something of a neat out, as otherwise Curtis would have become somewhat godlike. Much like Hiro in Heroes. Kelly ‘the chav’, presents an overly aggressive front, but her power forces her to hear what people really think. Even her dog has an inner monologue, supplied by Phil Daniels in a brief cameo. Finally Simon the true outcast realizes his greatest fear – he becomes truly invisible to the people in his life. His habit of filming everything on his camera phone allows him to distance himself (but also incriminate the gang in their crime).

While Nathan’s power is not revealed until late in the series, he presents as an almost meta-character, commenting on the action as it happens. In the final episode he insists on finding the right kind of music track to ‘tool up to’, when the group are about to march into danger. His romantic advice to Curtis turns out to be a quote from Spider-Man. Even when burying the corpses of their probation officer, and one of his axe-murder victims, Nathan feels he has to quip: ‘I’m pretty sure this breaches the terms of my Asbo’.

But the coup de grace is his true ‘origin’, the much hinted at theft of Pick ‘n’ Mix which landed him with an ASBO. It starts with a parody of The Big Lebowski, escalates into a riot and then features a cameo from British actor Dexter Fletcher as his estranged dad (who does uncannily resemble Sheehan).

Nathan is also refreshingly unsympathetic. He is aware that the ’script’, calls for him to find some kind of Breakfast Club-style redemption in his community service, but he refuses to bow to the John Hughesian logic of the situation. “This is a chance to network with other young offenders, we should be swapping tips, brainstorming!”

In the end Overman is not looking to ape Skins or Heroes as some of the press have tried to suggest. The failure of New Labour haunts the show, with the next generation being frog-marched into a right-wing future that will accept nothing less than complete obediance to the state. If anything Misfits is more reminiscent of early 2000AD, railing against the rise of Thatcherism and the government sanctioned attack on working class Britain, attracting the likes of Pat Mills, Robert Wagner, Alan Moore and Garth Ennis. This show is a call to arms if you like, eschewing yoof voyeurism in favour of genuine anger against a generation disenfranchised and abandoned on the shores of the 21c.

Oh it is something special.

The debut novel of Austin Grossman is a strange beast. It’s a novel that at its heart is a love letter to comic books, the bastard cousin of the more refined print-based artform, criticised in the past as a childish interest suitable only for illiterates. Grossman himself is feted as a newcomer to genre fiction, although a quick wiki reveals his father is a poet, his mother a novelist, his twin brother also a writer, his sister a scultor – and Grossman himself well-known in the computer game industry for his involvement in

• Ultima Underworld II
• System Shock
• Deus Ex
• Thief: Deadly Shadows
• Tomb Raider: Legend

Plot based Role-Playing Games for the most part, hardly the usual first-time author juvenalia. He’s even written for the New York Times! Then there’s the promotional artwork of Bryan Hitch that features in the book, the comic-book artist credited with inventing the ‘widescreen’, aesthetic that has allowed comics to further ape the visual excesses of big budget summer blockbuster movies. Not the typical amateur cover art then.

Thankfully Soon I Will Be Invincible carries the weight of expectation ably. Its knowing title is a clue to the awareness Grossman brings to the comic book tropes on show. The story focuses on two first-person narratives. Doctor Impossible, a twelve-time imprisoned supervillain who has a horrible habit of blurting his secret plans and blames his villainous behaviour on a personality disorder; and Fatale, a new superheroine plagued by self-doubt in the typical Modern Age fashion, whose tragic origin allows for that other great trope of contemporary comics, the fetishizing of the female body courtesy of her cybernetic implants. Star Trek: Voyager’s Seven-of-Nine meets Brian Michael Bendis’ Alias.

Doctor Impossible, the arch supervillain who just will not quit trying to take over the world, is the stronger character of the two. Given the title I suspect the original draft may have solely focused on his attempts to defeat the hero team The Champions. Perhaps Grossman felt this was too narrow. In any case courtesy of the two POV characters we follow the progression of the plot, with the heroes attempting to stop Doctor Impossible following his latest jailbreak and solve the mystery of their colleague CoreFire’s disappearance.

We are invited to sympathize with the villainous Doc, despite his continued efforts to takeover the world. Even he is unable to explain exactly why he acts as he does. He appears to be of the opinion that his vast intellect actually drives him to be evil, that to see the world as he does predestines supervillainy. In that he follows the Stan Lee tradition of villains who are at times misunderstood, occasionally even noble. Doctor Doom may be a totalitarian dictator whose hatred of Reed Richards is spurred on by vanity – but he also is a bereft son, whose study of the occult was undertaken to rescue his gypsy mother from demons. In Kevin Smith’s Mallrats Lee makes a cameo appearance and delivers dialogue he wrote for the Spider-Man villain the Vulture, which revealed a vulnerable side to the costumed criminal another writer may have ignored.

Grossman’s Doctor Impossible is also not a world away from Joss Whedon’s Dr Horrible, or The Venture Brothers’  The Monarch – both ultimately delusional romantics who have been left disillusioned by the world. The heroes to them are merely the next stage in development of the schoolyard bullies they grew up with. CoreFire’s invulnerability lends him a smugness that’s similar to Whedon’s Captain Hammer: Everyone’s a hero in their own way / Everyone’s got villains they must face / They’re not as cool as mine / But folks you know it’s fine to know your place

The post-Marvel Age, post-Watchmen deconstruction trend allowed writers to re-examine superheroes with regard to their motivations and true intent. Batman became a psychopath, the X-Men child soldiers in a battle of ideologies, Superman a fascist boyscout and the Incredible Hulk a victim of abuse. Grossman plays with this exaggerated comic book ‘realism’, but undercuts it with genuine affection for supers.

At one point Fatale even wonders self-consciously if we have entered a ‘Rust Age’, in keeping with the classifying of different comic book periods as Golden Age, Silver Age etc. The general rule of thumb is that the earlier comic books represent a more hopeful era. Comic book historians have to turn a blind eye to the prevalent racism and misogyny to maintain such a claim, but it’s one that still holds some currency. Fatale herself, with her badgirl look and militarised powers is firmly in keeping with the modern era’s blending of sex and violence. Grossman has her repeatedly question her origins though, obscured by a convenient bout of amnesia and in that query the treatment of characters like Fatale, who are oftentimes designed to titillate rather than exist as independent female superheroes. That this all becomes a function of the plot itself displays just how much Grossman intended the book to be both a critique and a homage to the comics he loves.

Soon I Will Be Invincible I was gratified to discover is much more than a printed version of some gamer’s Champion’s campaign. It’s quite possibly the most entertaining book about comics since Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay.

This is an unusually long clip to post I realize, however Cast a Deadly Spell mixes the detective novels of Raymond Chandler with the weird excesses of H. P. Lovecraft, an idea that I have always enjoyed. Sadly no concise trailers for the HBO film were available on youtube. While this might sound unusual, the detective genre owes quite a lot to the supernatural.

For one there is Arthur Conan Doyle’s own fascination with things that go bump in the night. It’s an often observed irony that while the myth-making Lovecraft was an arch materialist who insisted upon his own status as an amateur enthusiast of fantasy, the creator of Holmes with his promotion of deductive reasoning was a little too fond of fairies and ghosts.

The ‘occult detective’, sub-genre is now associated with the work of Jim Butcher. His Harry Dresden novels ape the style of Sam Spade hi-jinks, with a wizard taking the place of the traditional shamus. However, I see Harry as just another in a long list of paranormal investigators.

William Hope Hodgson’s creation Thomas Carnacki is less well-known, but was a fictional contemporary of Holmes’, tortured by his desire to learn more about the supernatural. His adventures are recorded at strained meetings with ‘friends’, who come and go at his invitation. More often than not Carnacki exposes evil plots to take advantage of gullible supernaturalists, but he also is privy to arcane knowledge sets him apart from normal society. Under Hodgson’s pen these serialised encounters become increasingly fraught. Holmes’ methods might be unusual – particularly his attraction to dressing in women’s clothing – but he still has the respect of polite society. Carnacki is doomed to be half-believed even by his closest friends, which lends Hodgson’s stories a certain tragic tone.

Arthur Machen and Algernon Blackwood also explored these ideas, playing off the public’s enthusiasm for the supernatural (not to mention the increasing awareness of Hermetic orders such as the Golden Dawn, or indeed the Masons). The latter’s John Silence is yet another uncanny detective, still of the Holmesian school, but also mentioned approvingly by Lovecraft in his article on horror fantasy. I feel British writers have maintained this sub-genre’s consistency more successfully than Americans. As I have said before, it would appear Stephen King with his ordinary heroes has redirected the tropes that Lovecraft sought to promote. Harry Dresden has more of King about him than Doyle. He’s a normal guy who just happens to have magical powers. He takes the time to observe his romantic interest’s ass in a pant-suit, behaves like a bit of a slob and falls into adventures rather than pursuing cases out of a professional interest.

Whereas when Alan Moore introduced the comic world to John Constantine in the pages of Swamp Thing, it was clear that a new synthesis of the occult detective had occured. Constantine is amoral, smug, calculating and in possession of a wicked sense of humour. He’s also dangerous to know, with friends and family dying as collateral damage. Like Carnacki he is ultimately alone, the last defence in unknowable conflicts that occur on this plane of existence.

He, however, has dropped the pretence of detective. In effect his real drive is that he has to know. He’s the man with the knowledge, his defining vanity and greatest weapon. It consumes him this desire to see the full picture and gives him no pleasure, or comfort of belief in an afterlife. JC is a fascinating character and in addition to a movie adap, has attracted the attention of Ian Rankin, author of the Edinburgh-based detective Rebus. He  recently wrote a graphic novel pitting Constantine against demonic reality television producers.

Mike Carey, a former Hellblazer writer (the comic featuring John’s escapades) is the author of a series of novels featuring his own occult detective, Felix Castor. Set in a Britain where ghosts and zombies are everyday post-Millenium realities, I find his world-weary exorcist superior to Laurell K. Hamilton’s necrophiliac heroine, or Jim Butcher’s lovable schlub.

My only caveat to this UK vs. US back and forth would be Joe Pitt, the irascible vampire detective created by Charlie Huston. In a sense he is evidence that someone was listening when Raymond Chandler defined Philip Marlowe as the would-be ‘knight in armour’, who does what’s right even when it’s wrong, who is set apart from the world, not just ‘one of the guys’.

Empire Online Review here.

It’s a troubling thought this. Troubling because I will admit to rampant, bigoted fanboyism when it comes to Alan Moore’s Watchmen. Some consider it the best comic book ever. I would add the caveat that it’s the best superhero comic book ever, which is something quite different.

So mea culpa. Criticism of Watchmen is something I take very seriously. Fanboys are known for their inability to engage in debate, their passion for their chosen topic excluding any possibility of argument. I will try to tread carefully here. For me Watchmen is an extremely well-written work. It takes as its central theme the idea of absolute power and how it relates to morality. If you could save the world at the expense of a few, could you do it? The plot is concerned with the death of a morally questionable superhero. Those other ‘heroes’ that survive him (the sociopathic Rorschach; defeated Night-Owl; reluctant Silk Spectre; calculating Ozymandias; and omnipotent Dr. Manhattan) each react differently to the demise of The Comedian, with only Rorschach immediately assuming that there is potential threat to them all. Who would want to kill a superhero and a patriot?

The story takes in an overarching conspiracy that seems to confirm Rorschach’s fears. Many readers assume that he is actually the main character of the book. However, Rorschach it is made clear is also mentally disturbed and violent, an unredeemed version of the Batman archetypal ‘vigilante’. With heroes like these, who needs enemies? Indeed each of the titular Watchmen (a term which is never applied within the story itself) fail to live up to the heroic ideal established by American superhero comic books. They are psychologically disturbed, alienated and/or disenchanted with their ‘mission’. This is Moore’s vision of the superhero as related to the ‘real world’, more a Weapon of Mass Destruction than a fighter for justice and truth. America’s political history takes a different turn. Richard Nixon holds on to power by successfully winning the Vietnam War thanks to the godlike Dr. Manhattan. The Watergate Scandal never occurs – it is implied that The Comedian had a role in the assassination of Woodward and Bernstein. The Cold War is escalating, with an immanent conflict between Soviet and US forces in Afghanistan.  There are hints that techonological advances have also been made, evidenced by everyday items like bulbs at the end of smoking implements that circulate air, or clean energy station pumps on the sidewalk.

Reading the book one is reminded on its themes at every point. Background details reinforce some of the central ideas and spring out upon repeated readings (look out for references to Alexander’s ’Gordian Knot’). There is an interesting use of repetitious symbolic images, that frequently take on the appearance of an atomic Doomsday Clock counting down to annhilation. The title refers to a translation of the classical aphorism ‘Who watches the watchmen’ and time becomes a measure of power. Dr. Manhattan exists partially outside of time, but cannot influence the course of events beyond their predetermined nature. Ozymandias has a plan for how to avert the end of time, but none as to what he will do next. Rorschach sees history through a narrow prism, as black and white as his shifting mask (Moore attaches a psychological report from the childhood of the character, wherein he describes the bombing of Hiroshima as necessary to end the war). Time is edging the world ever closer to atomic destruction and Einstein’s regret that he would have rather been a watchmaker is quoted to express the guilty conscience of the 20th century.

Phew. Bearing all that in mind – why make a film of this book? Watchmen was released as a limited series comic book that serves as a self-contained story. The book itself contains appendixes in the form of biographical extracts, scientific journal essays, celebrity interviews, psychological reports, a recurring pirate comic book (the play within the play) and even an ornithological article – all serving to deepen our understanding of this alternate world burdened with real-life superheroes.  How can all of that content be summarised by a film? Indeed why should it? The book is enough. Hollywood does not agree and for 23 years has tried to turn Watchmen into a ‘real’ commercial concern. Wired has an interesting potted history of this project’s duration. The worth of the book itself, it’s success as a brilliantly produced comic book, is not enough. That prestige can be capitalised upon by fashioning it into a mainstream movie, which would presumably make more money for Warner Brothers than the minuscule comic book readership could ever do. Is there a need to make a movie about Watchmen because a director has a vision that he or she feels could improve upon the text? No. The only ‘need’, is to sell a lot of tickets and here’s the most important point. Watchmen is not for everyone. It’s a difficult read, very dense and also carries with it a sense of its own importance. Comic fans who have enjoyed it often describe a sense of being unable to read superhero comics in the same way again. The word ‘deconstruction’, gets thrown around a lot. There is also, however, a strong feeling of resentment by certain ‘fans’, towards the book for the same reason. Watchmen ruined superhero comics.

When the term ”grim ‘n’ gritty” is used in relation to the comic industry, Alan Moore and Frank Miller (Dark Knight Returns) are mentioned as the responsible parties. There is another way of looking at the post-Watchmen malaise though, the sudden upsurge of extreme violence, titillating sex and moral depravity evident in the ‘funny pages’. They didn’t get it. Much like Nietzsche being accused of nihilism when he set out to decry it, Moore has been hung by his own petard. The positive Empire review above mentions the shocking violence of the film, the horrifying ending that Snyder has construed to replace the ’silly’, conclusion of the book, the kinky sex enjoyed by Silk Spectre and Night-Owl. I’m beginning to feel a strong sense of deja vu. For if the movie is unable to convey the breath of references and emotion of the book, are we not looking at a repeat of the same superficial homaging that plagued the comic book industry (and some would argue still does - Mark Millar’s scatalogogical Wanted, already adapted into a declawed movie, is yet another culprit). When I think of Rorschach, the first scene from the book I remember is not him scalding a fellow prison inmate with hot fat, but his interviews with the troubled psychologist. Quiet, measured scenes that express the lonely horror of being Rorschach.

If I had to see an adaptation of Watchmen, I would have preferred a television series, perhaps animated. In the Wired article linked above there is an interesting description of Zack Snyder as a ‘nerd-jock’. I think that is a very telling phrase. It signifies how comic culture and nerdy pursuits have been assimilated into the mainstream. That it’s ok to watch a film about men and women punching each other while wearing tights, because this is badass and hardcore! Awesome!

Except when I read it on the page, these characters were all faintly ridiculous. They were meant to be. Watchmen was a comic book that demonstrated stern and knowing tough love to the industry that spawned it. Watchmen the movie hopes to imitate the commercial success of the similarly morose Dark Knight and get lots of bums on seats. Somehow I don’t think that’s enough.

Bill Willingham, creator of Fables, has given an editorial decrying what he describes as ‘superhero decadence‘. Namely an upsurge in comic book violence and a failure to properly uphold American values. It has been suggested this is a response to the upcoming release of Zach Snyder’s Watchmen, with many seeing the book as leading to the grim ‘n’ gritty era. This was my response.

Ok lets look at this. First off there’s Moore’s Dourdevil satirising the Frank Miller era

Then we could see John Totleben’s apocalyptic depiction of Kid Marvel’s destruction of London (that link actually features Kid Marvel’s death – as well as Moore’s penned death scenes for Rorschach and Krypto).

The difference between them is stark. Moore has often spoken about Watchmen has unleashing his ‘bad dream’, on the comic industry -

Blather.net:Yeah, at the time I was thinking “Well, this is the end of the genre,” you know?

Moore: Well at the time I think I had vain thoughts, thinking “Oh well, no-one’s going to be able to follow this, they’ll all just have to stop producing superhero comics and do something more rewarding with their lives” but no, what happened was that it just started a whole genre of pretentious comics or miserable comics – or you could even see, you look at the Image comics of the early ’90s, and you could see people who were predominantly superhero artists who hadn’t got much of a grasp of writing, trying to sort of lift riffs from Watchmen, Dark Knight, you know, those mid-’80s books. It was like looking at your deformed bastard grandchildren or something like that. Yeah, I think that David Bowie once referred to himself as “The face that launched a thousand pretensions,” and you can somehow kind of feel the same way [as] when I saw the actual effect of Watchmen upon comics [which] was probably a kind of deleterious effect, which is not surprizing I guess. Often the better works in any medium have the most negative effect. It’s paradoxical but you get, say, something like Harvey Kurtzman’s MAD comics in the mid-’50s, which to my mind if I had to pick one single comic book that was the best comic book ever it would be Kurtzman’s MAD, that was the best comic book ever in my opinion but the thing is that, brilliant though it was, it doomed us to sixty years of humour comics named after some sort of mental aberration or illness.

And afterward you see attempts by Moore to break away from the previously dystopic perception of comics, namely Supreme and the ABC line.

From Hell takes the gruesome murders of the Ripper and expounds upon them to see the changes made to British society as a result (apart from the grip of Ripperology on the popular culture, one can also trace the creation of a metropolitan police force and an evolution of tabloid culture to those events). The violence and horror has a purpose, there’s meaning to it. It’s not this.

Even Watchmen describes its heroes as either fetishists, mentally deranged or utterly disinterested in human behaviour, distanced fatally from human concerns. The violence does not glorify them – nor voyeuristically us the readers – it lessens them, as they’re caught in a self-destructive loop that will potentially destroy the very world they’re trying to save.

These freakish superhumans do not preserve the status quo, they warp and change it. In the end I believe that is what Bill Willingham is really disturbed by (if Paul’s assertion that this is a response to Watchmen is correct).

With the release of the Dark Knight I thought I would revisit the idea of the Joker. So many versions of the character abound, from the 60’s television show, to Jack Nicholson’s piece of self-parody in Tim Burton’s Batman and of course there are the many different takes on the villain essayed by writers like Steve Englehart; Denny O’Neill; Doug Moench; Grant Morrison; and Alan Moore.

Bill Finger’s creation visually based on Conrad Veidt’s performance in the film The Man Who Laughed was considered too frightening to be allowed live – while also too fascinating a concept to be allowed die. This initial confusion over the Joker’s fate in his very first appearance (readers were assured that he would return despite appearing to perish) has helped define the insane antagonist as an irresolvable problem for the Batman and the citizens of Gotham city. He simply will not go away. Kill him, he survives; lock him up in Arkham Asylum and he will escape – or infect others with his madness. Frank Miller in his heyday had the Joker die on panel in The Dark Knight Returns – allowing the demise of the character to reflect how the world of Batman himself is beginning to finally decay.

Disowned after its publication as a superficial work by its own writer Alan Moore, Joker: The Killing Joke was promoted as the definitive origin of the man/monster who plagues Batman. Flashbacks reveal he was a struggling stand-up comedian unable to pay the bills and support his pregnant wife. Drifting into a life of petty crime he is horribly disfigured and goes insane as a result. This creates in him the belief that any individual, given ‘one bad day’, is capable of the most despicable acts. As the Joker he sees himself as having an almost messianic responsibility to reveal the hypocrisy of civilized society by driving its citizens to the depths of despair to provoke the animal within. In Moore’s story his attention alights on Commissioner Gordon, first crippling his daughter Barbara and then torturing Gordon himself via horrific hallucinations. Batman of course saves the day and proves the Joker wrong by letting the Commissioner show mercy to his captor. The story ends with the two back in Arkham talking together, as they finally admit that they have more in common than they let on. They even share a laugh at the end.

Seeing as this is a story from the Northampton Magus, many writers have cleaved to this depiction of the relationship between Batman and his nemesis. David Goyer’s script for the Dark Knight hints at it again with the line from the trailer “You’re just a freak – like me!” Following that line of thought leads to the conclusion that Batman is also mentally ill, but unlike the Joker remains in denial. This 20thc Pagliacci has learned to laugh at his pain and in turn finds humour in the horror of our lives. This is the secret of the Joker’s appeal. Anyone is capable of taking a life – the phrase itself seems almost euphemistic. Surely murder should be stated in a way which reflects the importance of life, but instead ‘taking a life’ is a cursory description of the act. Secretly on an unconscious level people recognize this and are numbed to news stories of destruction and death. The terror the Joker inspires is that he celebrates the randomness of his actions. He is unfathomable to us. ‘Homicidal maniac’, does not do the man justice, as even that would require some logic in what he does. Instead the unrestrained beast within him stands revealed, without any pretense of humanity. His very appearance is a ironical photo-negative image of civilized attire.

This reading of the Joker paints him as an expression of ultimate freedom – even the freedom from being human. Batman by contrast is trapped by his madness, hiding behind the mask of Bruce Wayne. However, I believe this to be a misinterpretation of what the Joker stands for. Too often there appears to be an almost voyeuristic excitement on the part of readers in making villains more relatable – and heroes conversely less. So Lex Luthor is seen as an overachiever slighted by Superman’s unearthly gifts placing him at an unfair disadvantage; Magneto is traumatized by the Holocaust and justifies his actions on behalf of ‘his people’, by claiming history is repeating itself. The Joker as an unrepentant madman is somehow as a result the only honest character in the Batman mythos (a cavalcade of the mentally disturbed, with Arkham Asylum rivaling Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast or Philip K. Dick’s Clans of the Alphane Moon as an innumerable collection of absurdist personas in one place).

In my opinion, much like PKD’s clans, Batman has successfully integrated his own mental condition to become an authentic individual. Not just because of his wealth, which helps, but in his ability to be his true self – the Bat – and the socially acceptable self – Bruce Wayne. He has arrived at the point were he can successfully channel his disturbed mental condition into something productive. His body is an instrument which he has refined beyond the physical norm; his intellect is equally superior, cold and calculating like a machine. Rather than serve as a hypocritical lapdog of society in a city like Gotham, populated by so many crazies – Batman is an example to them of how to be a monster and a man at once, the essential compromise which so few individuals are able to make. The Joker is the opposite extreme. So little of his humanity remains that he can not integrate himself into society as Batman has. As an affront to sanity itself, an avatar of madness, his life as a villain is possibly the only role available to him. He has become one of the most fascinating villains in our culture as a result.

Alright I realize that this blog’s reaction time to current events is similar to that of a Brontosaurus who has just stubbed its toe. So let me haul myself up here on the whole ‘Did ya see the Watchmen trailer?’ bandwagon…. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3orQKBxiEg

There ya have it. Obviously Warners decided to release this along with certain prints of Dark Knight. This is DC attempting to kick it into overdrive. Their masters at Warner Bros. are desperate to break Marvel’s chokehold on the superhero film stable (and with Dark Knight it looks like they just did) – but after the Bat hangs up his cowl, what else do they have? Wonder Woman is in development hell. Superman was just not what they expected and there appears to be a wariness in giving Singer another shot at the title. Green Lantern is nowhere on the board (a film adaptation I would dearly want to see).

So Watchmen? A critically lauded comic book released twenty years ago, re-envisioned by Zack Snyder. Dave Gibbons has been welcomed on set and from what we can see, the look of his art has been preserved for the camera. There is often an insistence on the part of publicists and film-makers in interviews that ‘their version’, supports the original, that in fact they are devoted to preserving the content and vision of the source text by….y’know doing things differently. Zach Snyder has done the same, so here we will be seeing the Black Freighter comic within a comic – flashbacks galour – perhaps even Under the Hood in one form or another. It will be set within the 80’s and will feature Moore’s alternate history (Nixon is still president, America and the USSR are preparing to go to war over Afghanistan, Vietnam was won by the States).

And that’s all great. But for all this talk I can’t help but wonder, is this the film DC really wants? Is this the big box office draw of 2009? Who the hell knows the Watchmen, aside from us deluded comic book nerds? Where’s the hook for audiences? A superhero team movie? Well what will the word of mouth be when the film is seen and it is realized there is no team called ‘Watchmen’, that in fact the title is a poetical allusion to the idea that no group of people should have ultimate power? The characters are not members of a team, rather they are the anachronisms of a former period when superheroes operated before the government shut them down.

Snyder has made two motion pictures and no one can fault his ambition. Yet Dawn of the Dead was a dreary exercise in repetition (it’s Romero meets 28 Days!) which I credit only with introducing me to the hi-lar-ious music of Richard Cheese; and then there’s 300, crystallizing all that’s juvenile and absurd about the imaginings of Frank Miller. To go from Miller to Moore is something of a leap. Perhaps something of a learning curve could be evidenced first. Y’know lock yourself up in an attic and watch nothing but Andrei Tarkovsky movies for a month….because that’s what you’re taking on, source material with intelligence and nuance, exactly what was lacking from Snyder’s last two flicks.

Defenders of the film are quick to point out ‘haters’ and ‘nit-picking’, but I wonder if the problem is less that (oh wow the new trailer for a live action Cowboy Bebop is out) – I mean fanboys get in a tissy about the stupidest things. I wonder if it’s the case the comic book community cannot allow themselves to be proud of a genuine work of art, because it’s a comic book. Watchmen deserves a proper audience. If it has to be done at all, it should be done right. There’s nothing wrong with saying that.

All I’m seeing here is fisticuffs and CGI explosions. Waiting for the Watchmen.

I trace it all back to Time Out”s film review guide. Years ago, in the run-up to my Junior Cert, I buried all my comics/fantasy novels etc. in a box in the garage so as to remove any distractions. Very serious, the Junior Cert, y”see. Very serious indeed and I was a serious young man.

Anyway it was unfortunate that my father chose to buy me a copy of Time Out”s annual list of film reviews. I devoured the entire thing, cover to cover, while I should have been studying for my exams in Tir Eolaiocht and Staideir Gno.

Set the way-back machine for four years ago.

Seeing as I had absorbed an almost alphabetic listing of film reviews dating from before 1994, I was always a little curious about “Q – The Winged Serpent“. In fact upon its initial release in 1982, the film was simply known as “Q“. It starred Richard Roundtree, still struggling after Shaft, David Carradine (remember Bill from..er..Kill Bill? Yeah him), Candy Clark (who just about stole my heart in The Man Who Fell To Earth) and Michael Moriarty – who has apparently gone nuts recently. Not in the crazyperson sense, more the “I am the person to save America”, sense. A latterday Emperor Norton.

Ah Goodbye Stranger by Supertramp is playing. Strangely appropriate.

One happy day I happened upon a dusty VHS copy. Now I own a brand spanking new release of the flick on dvd. As it happens, I quite like it.

Q was a Larry Cohen film. Cohen is known today as a director of b-movies. By the time of the film”s release it’s day was already done. Star Wars and a host of imitators was marching across the world (ever hear of Gremloids?). The film looks like it belongs in the 70″s. It somehow slipped into the SFX heavy 80’s with things like economy of direction, character beats and colourful dialogue intact. Like the mutated “other child”, locked up in the shed out back, it had escaped into cinemas only to be unfairly ignored.

The film gets stuck in straight away. Flying monster swooping down on nude sunbathers and construction workers all across Manhattan, its movements protected by flying in line with the sun. David Carradine”s character Shepherd is assigned. Hilariously he doesn”t even bat an eye at the notion of a flying lizard. It’s just another day on the job to him.

Which may be in keeping with the poor special effects. The creature is obviously part matt-painting, part play-do. Yet the people interacting with it are real and our attention is drawn to them. The director wisely only allows for brief shots of the creature”s descending maw, trusting to the character work that is driving along the plot.

And a lot of the burden for that is left with Michael Moriarty. His ex-junkie getaway driver cum piano player is the rotten heart of this picture. Accidentally discovering the lair of the flying serpent, he immediately tries to figure out how this benefits him. David Carradine’s job then is to get the information off him, while trying to con him at the same time and avoid giving into his demands. There”s a coffee-house scene between the two of them that for some reason reminded me of Robert De Niro and Al Pacino meeting in Heat.

What”s so endearing to me about this film is that it doesn”t call attention to itself. That for it – these aspects that would appear almost unusual in many films today, are simply matter-of-fact, much like Shepherd”s reaction to flying decapitating monsters.

For me Q is a bench-mark of sorts. The point were the b-movies of yesterday eclipsed the A-List movies of today, the box-office driven behemoths of Lucas and Spielberg. Name a contemporary film-maker that has half or their power? The system collapsed around them, inanity upon inanity piling up, but they retained control over their anaemic product.

Larry Cohen would merely have been a foot-note, were it not for a film some years ago called Phone Booth. That was a script of his that got dusted down by Joel Schumacher (pfft “spit”). A second film, Cellular, is also credited to him. He also took Warners to court over their version of Alan Moore”s “League of Extraordinary Gentlemen“. He claimed they were trying to slip in concepts of his into an already owned product – Moore”s book. This further estranged Moore from DC – he resented being called to testify on a book he wrote – and Cohen received a settlement. The result being that now no film adapted from an Alan Moore comic can bear his name.

After his many years of free-wheeling, non-studio film-making, Cohen it would appear has decided to receive his due.