Joss Whedon's The Avengers Review

Who woulda thought they'd be able to pull this off?

The Avengers is a summer blockbuster unlike anything we've ever seen. Featuring an all-star ensemble cast, the movie is the cumulative product of five films worth of world-building and ground-laying. Over the course of the two Iron Man flicks, The Incredible Hulk, Captain America: The First Avenger, and Thor, Marvel Studios has effectively crafted an onscreen comic book universe in which four larger-than-life heroes can believably join forces to save mankind. They've been doing this stuff since the '60s in comic books but never before has such a monumental task been attempted in film. With that in mind, it's more than a little reliving to say that The Avengers succeeds, thanks in no small part to the brilliant mind of Joss Whedon.

When Iron Man came out in 2008 I was pleasantly surprised to find it was an enjoyable super hero origin story. The movie played to its main strength in Robert Downey Jr. and presented a funny and charismatic hero that was fun to watch and easy to root for. And in the end it made us a promise: that Marvel would give us something more, something bigger than we'd ever seen. Based on how great Iron Man turned out to be I was excited, but after Iron Man 2 and The Incredible Hulk ended up being mediocre at best, I worried that The Avengers would prove to be a disappointment. My fears were abated somewhat when Marvel brought Joss Whedon on board in April 2010, but then last summer's Captain America ended up being kind of shitty despite Whedon's additions to the film's script. As much as I adored Whedon's prior work (particularly the short-lived Firefly and the troubled Dollhouse), I wasn't sure he could pull together something as big as The Avengers, especially given Marvel's heavy-handed approach to the franchise with Iron Man 2. My fear was that Marvel would restrict Whedon to the film's detriment, and force him to make their movie as opposed to his.

And they sort of did.

The first half of The Avengers is a mess. Seriously, it barely makes sense. The villain is sort of established, the heroes assemble, they fight amongst themselves, the villain attacks, etc., but it doesn't really seem to go anywhere. Each of the major characters is expertly acted and written, and their developing relationships are enjoyable to watch. It's clear that Whedon's at the helm because the movie gets by solely on how the heroes interact with one another, which has always been Joss's forté. However the larger story seems aimless, and nothing that occurs seems to be clearly building towards, well, anything. Don't get me wrong, I was never bored in the theatre, but for the first hour and a bit I was underwhelmed.

But then something happens. I won't spoil it here but one character's dialogue identifies an event as a clear "deus-ex machina" type moment where the writer (Whedon) gives the heroes a reason to unite. It's heavy-handed and a more than a little cliché, but somehow it's brilliantly effective and everything that comes after is a pure joy to watch. I can't really explain it without giving away too much but trust me that you'll know the event when it happens, if only because the movie suddenly becomes awesome.

The movie's trailers have made no secret of the fact that The Avengers concludes with an epic battle sequence that literally takes up almost half the movie. However, in a rare example of restraint in Hollywood marketing, the trailers don't give away the scene's most incredible moments. All of the heroes come together for an epic battle for Earth against an (admittedly underdeveloped) alien enemy, and it ranks among the most rewarding action sequences ever put on film. Not only are the action shots effective and awe-inspiring, there is also a character-driven sense of humour to the scene that was unlike anything I have ever seen. It's strange to say but there were moments during the battle where I laughed as hard as I can ever remember laughing in a theatre. It's a rare and wonderful thing for a fight sequence to succeed so brilliantly in this kind of way.

The Avengers is a unique and worthwhile experience, almost solely on the merits of the final battle sequence, and I wholeheartedly attribute it to the talent of Joss Whedon. What probably happened with the movie is that Whedon came onboard after the overall premise of the film (ie the villain, the basic plot, etc) had already been set by Marvel and the original script writer, Zak Penn. The fact that Penn was ultimately only credited with the story backs this theory up, and indicates that Whedon was probably only able to flesh out the characters, dialogue, and minor happenings within the film's larger preset framework. It makes sense then that although the characters are strong throughout, the film stumbles through its own plot until the final battle. At that point Whedon undoubtedly had a lot more room to stretch in terms of his contributions to the script, so long as the heroes still had an epic concluding fight.

The Avengers succeeds against all odds on the strength of its director and the talented ensemble cast. It's not a perfect movie by any stretch, but it doesn't suffer from many of the problems you might expect. Each of the actors involved does a great job, their interactions are pitch-perfect, and the movie is far from a mindless action-fest. All of these are common characteristics for Whedon's work, and it's unsurprising but also a little relieving to see his talents on display. Somehow Joss's personality is able to shine through and The Avengers doesn't crumble under the weight of the five lead-up films or Marvel's franchise crafting.

I urge you to check out The Avengers while it's still in theatres. It's not intellectual, it is a super hero movie through and through, but it's some of the most fun I've had in a theatre in a long time and that's worth a lot. If anyone feels differently then I'd be happy to discuss the movie's relative merits and flaws over a shawarma.

Max Landis' The Death and Return of Superman

Max Landis, son of director John Landis, is the writer behind the recently released Chronicle, a film about three high school friends who get superpowers and "make an amazing discovery." I haven't heard anything about the movie but its synopsis isn't exactly inspiring, and when I saw the trailer I initially thought I was watching an old ad for either Hancock or Heroes. Those are both bad signs. However the movie seems to be doing relatively well critically so maybe it's better than it looks. I'll probably check it out. But none of that is what I'm posting about today.

In (what I assume is) a move to support Chronicle, the younger Landis has released a short film in which he rants about the (apparently terrible) mid-90s comic series The Death and Return of Superman. In case you need the painfully obvious pointed out to you, it's a comic wherein Superman dies and then comes back to life. Because he wasn't already being compared to Jesus enough already. Anyway, the Death and Return storyline is generally panned as being emblematic of everything that was wrong with modern comics in the 90s, namely that they relied on big crossovers/events that shocked people into buying issues that lacked actual substance. So in the video Landis breaks down how terrible this Superman storyline is, point by (hilarious) point, and also discusses the underlying comic-industry-executives rationale behind the whole event. Meanwhile various celebrities (Mandy Moore, Elijah Wood, etc) act out what Landis describes in a similar fashion to the always incredible Drunk History videos.

If you've taken the time to read this far into the post then for your own sake please take 15 more minutes to watch the video below. It's hilarious, insightful, and kinda made me want to check out Chronicle. Also I promise to make this my last post about comics for a while, it's only now dawning on me that there have been a lot of them lately.

 

(Via Topless Robot)

Ugh x 1,000,000: DC Announces 'Before Watchmen'

Today DC comics finally gave in and announced its inevitable 'Before Watchmen' line, seven mini-series that will act as prequels to Allan Moore's classic Watchmen. Each mini-series will feature one of Moore's characters/groups as its central focus, with one depicting the history of Dr. Manhattan (wait, didn't we get that in the original series?) and another featuring the tale of the Crimson Corsair...

... Seriously? For real? As if this didn't seem enough like a cash-grab already, they actually had to go and dedicate an entire mini-series to the Crimson Corsair? Sigh... Only slightly less horrifying is the promo image for Rorschach #1 (seen below) that depicts the character in a sort of goon-like pose silhouetted on his own face... Yeah...

Anyway, I would link you directly to DC's press release but as of this writing the DC website seems to be down. Perhaps Anonymous lashed out at them in response to this news. Either way, I read about this at Topless Robot and/or /Film, but the news is everywhere.

Over-thinking It: Batman's Politics

As a lifelong fan of Batman above all other superheroes, I've often been troubled by the political implications of his crusade against evil. Many times I've found myself awake late at night, tossing and turning as I struggled with the inconsistencies between my purported liberal notions and the Dark Knight's (sometimes) disturbing conservatism. It's enough make even the most strident bat-fan wonder: should I enjoy Batman so much? Can I justify my affection? As I grow older and more introspective this has become perhaps the most tumultuous ideological debate of my life, ranking alongside my choices between boxers or briefs, 7 Up or Sprite, and butter or margarine. Now more than ever - with Bruce Wayne staunchly on the side of the 1% as the heir of a billion dollar dynasty - I find myself questioning my allegiance to the Dark Knight.

A few illustrative examples from Batman's history will demonstrate the kind of conservatism I'm talking about:

1) Batman is tough on crime.

Everyone knows that today's Batman is above the outright killing of criminals. The Dark Knight's compassion is so important because it's what separates him from the criminals he fights; without it, he'd just be a guy in a bat suit out beating people to death. However what a lot of non-fans don't know is that Batman was originally a pretty cold-blooded killer. There are many instances in his early days when Batman straight-up slaughtered his enemies, including his first appearance in Detective Comics #27. There Batman remorselessly punched a guy into a vat of acid, and then callously referred to it as "a fitting end for his kind." That's cold!

Batman as he was originally depicted was not above killing in any way, shape, or form; even today he sometimes play fast and loose with the no-killing rule. In particular I'm thinking of the infamous scene at the end of Batman Begins where the caped crusader leaves villain Ra's al Ghul to die on a runaway train, saying "I'm won't kill you but I don't need to save you." That's getting into a serious moral grey area there, Bats. Also, while the modern Batman tends to avoid murdering criminals outright, I've never heard of him publicly opposing the death penalty. Seems to me like the caped crusader is less anti-killing and more just doesn't want to get his hands dirty.

2) Everyone is potentially Batman's enemy.

Batman has a plan for how to take down everyone. If anything bad happens, Batman will have predicted the possibility and have a contingency plan ready. He's prepared for any scenario, up to and including bringing down any of his so-called allies should the need arise. This has been the setup for numerous stories, including Tower of Babel in which Ra's al Ghul steals Batman's contingency plans and uses them to decimate just about every other major superhero. Some choice examples of Batman's nefariousness include giving the Flash light speed seizures, making Aquaman hydrophobic (i.e. afraid of the water he needs to live the way we need oxygen to breathe), and using science to overload every organ in Superman's body simultaneously. Wow. Needless to say, the other heroes are less than impressed by Batman's, ahem, foresight.

It's more than "If you're not with us you're against us." It's "If you're not me then you're probably an enemy." I'm pretty sure the Lannisters employ a similar philosophy, and Game of Thrones fans know how well that turns out. Batman is the epitome of self-assured, paranoia-inducing isolationism, which brings me to my next point...

3) Batman knows what's best for you.

This is the "Big Brother" factor. It goes hand in hand with the whole "crazy-prepared loner" syndrom described above, in that Batman basically thinks that he knows better than everyone else in the world. Take The Dark Knight for example. First Batman uses some sort of cellphone radar system that allows him to audibly/visually spy on every person in Gotham in order to find the Joker. It's ludicrously invasive and reprehensible, but Batman's modus operandi has always been a purely Machiavellian "the ends justify the means" kind of deal. Even Lucius Fox calls out the whole operation for going too far, and this is the guy who gave Wayne (who he'd never met before) a military arsenal for basically no reason ("Spelunking"). Not exactly careful planning there.

But even the radar thing pales in comparison to when Batman decides to take the rap for Harvey "Two-Face" Dent's sudden murder spree at the end of the movie. The general idea is that the people of Gotham can't take the truth about Dent because it more or less proves the Joker's thesis on human nature; as such the best thing is apparently for Batman and Commissioner Gordon to hide the truth and pretend the caped crusader is a violent killer so the city can rest assured that good people do exist in the world.

Ignoring the whole 'put the city at ease by convincing them the guy who prowls the streets at night dressed like a bat is a murderous psychopath' thing, let's consider Batman's foreboding statement that "Sometimes the truth isn't good enough." The truth is dissatisfactory and so Batman just decides to cover it up and pretend it's something more convenient? That's rewriting history, authoritarianism at its finest! Also, since the whole thing makes everyone in Gotham think that Batman's a murderer it more or less makes him the city's ruling crime lord (which is actually another one of his contingency plans in the comic Batman: War Games). And with that interpretation in mind Commissioner Gordon's involvement in the cover up starts to look a lot like a "better the devil you know than the devil you don't" type scenario. In one move Batman and Gordon position themselves the puppeteers of Gotham city's law enforcement and the de facto heads of its criminal element. It's a disturbing, artful, and an effective solution all at the same time, and it doesn't paint a pretty picture in terms of demonstrating Batman's politics.

Conclusion

So what's a liberal-minded Batman fan to do? Write to DC Comics in protest of the ideology they're exposing to impressionable young minds? Occupy my local comic shop? Or maybe I should just put less mental energy and political thought into superheroes? Chime in dear reader and let me know, because the only thing more important/worthwhile than this article is your opinion on it!

Captain America Trailer; Or, How I Learned To Stop Hating and Get Behind The Shield

I've never had particularly strong feelings about Captain America, but historically I've written him off as another 'boy scout' superhero like Superman. These two characters, symbolic of Marvel and DC comics, have always bored me because they're just so damn wholesome. They're good guys because that's the right and just, and there's not much more to their characters than that.

Superman in particular has never interested me in his pure form, although he can be interesting when you start to mess about with his origins or situation. Mark Millar's miniseries, "Red Son," for example, imagined Superman if his spaceship had crashed in Soviet Russia instead of middle America. That change made for a hugely interesting read because it explored the character as a sociological object, originally created by and emblematic of America but now stripped of that identity. It was an incredible concept but it did fall apart as a narrative, collapsing under the weight of consistency and the need to similarly reinvent every other DC superhero (the Soviet Batman was particularly far fetched, though still interesting). Likewise I felt that the much maligned Superman Returns was intriguing for how it took Lois Lane away from Superman and depicted him struggling with the loss. This put the man of steel in a distinctly human position of frailty, caught between their feelings for another person and the reality that they have moved on. The result were some truly creepy shots of Superman floating outside Lane's house and using his x-ray vision to stalk her, but that was infinitely more interesting to watch than to see him struggle against an evil enemy only to inevitably come out victorious.

I know I'm in the minority, but I'd much rather watch a super-human being struggle with being human than beat the crap out of some other equally far-fetched entity. I never enjoyed comics for the "Kapow!" fights, I loved them because they put characters I could relate to in situations that spoke to my own life metaphorically. That's why I always loved flawed characters like Batman, and was completely disinterested in characters like Superman.

I always sort of assumed that Captain America was basically the Marvel equivalent of Superman. I never really read Captain America comics, but he was always mentioned tangentially in the other Marvel titles. Spiderman, for example, was always a hugely relatable character in that he continually struggled with human issues. He dealt with school, girls, bills, etc, and on more than one occasion he dealt with guilt over his own actions. In particular I remember a few times when Parker would express his shame by referring to Captain America as the epitome of moral righteousness, saying that "Cap' would have found a better way, but I'm just a man." Spiderman coped with his guilty by recognizing his humanity in the face of Captain America, the "unstoppable force" of goodness. The Cap' was literally so good that he was beyond mere humanity, he existed as a conceptual totem of justice, and that was exactly what made him so overwhelmingly uninteresting to me.

The trailer that was released last week for the upcoming Captain America: The First Avenger, completely changed my mind. Take a look at it below and then I'll explain how and why:

I watched this trailer and I thought, "Yeah... That actually looks kinda worthwhile...," which was a complete 180 from my previous stance of "Captain America, pfft, that's just another crap flick Marvel is crapping out in order to get to The Avengers, which is only worth thinking about because of Joss Whedon." I was prepared to ignore Captain America completely and probably would have, but something in this trailer changed my mind. At first I thought it was the novelty of seeing a superhero use a Luger pistol, but it's actually more than that.

Rob Bricken over at Topless Robot puts it best:

But the thing I like most of all is that line "Because a weak man knows the value of strength." That's something I never considered about Captain America before, something I never saw or realized reading all those Avengers comics in the '80s. The reason he's so compassionate and determined to help the weak and powerless is because he was weak and powerless himself.

The fact that Captain America was once weak makes him more than just righteousness incarnate, it makes him human. As soon as I heard that line Cap' stopped being a concept and started being a character. Moreover he suddenly started to be one that made sense in a way that was separable from his overt Americanness. Let me try to explain that last bit...

Captain America is known for his shield. That's his symbol, his "totem," if you'll excuse the reference. There's a meaning to that object that I never realized before but makes total sense in light of the fantastic line about weakness and strength. At one point in the trailer the pre-super Captain America is shown trying to defend himself from a bully in an alleyway, and he grabs a trashcan lid to shield himself. I initially thought the scene was just a throwaway reference to the Cap's eventual transformation, but the more I thought about it the more I like the scene for how well it establishes his character.

Captain America never forgets about what it means to be weak, which is why he tirelessly uses his strength to defend those around him. That trashcan lid Cap' grabs in the alleyway, and to a greater extent the famous shield he eventually holds, act as symbols of Captain America himself: they are objects of strength that protect the weak from those who prey upon them. That is exactly what Captain America does, that is his very reason for being a superhero: he stands in front of the weak and protects them. That idea is elegantly conveyed by the image of him as a weakling using a trashcan lid as a shield, and then brilliantly summarized by the line explaining why he of all people ends up being chosen to become the ultimate hero.

I still don't know very much about Captain America, but at least now I know he's worthwhile. Apparently he's also got some sort of "hero out of time" angle to his character that I am aware of but haven't rationalized conceptually, but frankly that doesn't much matter. I once thought Captain America was nothing more than a boy scout who symbolized American righteousness in the abstract, and to a certain extent I still do think that. But now I see that the Cap' is actually quite well fleshed out in terms of his design and character. He is a guardian of the weak, literally embodied by the shield he carries. The trailer has made me respect the character conceptually, and has gotten me excited to see the movie.

If that's not effective marketing then I don't know what is.

Heroes in Law: Judge Barbara Crabb

It's not often that you can hold up someone in the legal system as a shining example of awesomeness, but today I have the pleasure of doing just that. This post is about U.S. District Court Judge Barbara Crabb (on a side note how amazing is it that there's such a thing as Judgepedia?!). Last week Judge Crabb ruled that three characters "created" by Todd McFarlane were actually derived from characters previously created by Neil Gaiman.

The dispute originates with issue #9 of McFarlane's Spawn comic book series. Released in 1993, the issue was guest written by Gaiman and introduced a set of "Medieval Spawn" characters into McFarlane's universe. In 2002 a US federal court found that Gaiman was a co-copyright holder of three of these characters, namely Medieval Spawn, Angela the angel bounty hunter, and Count Nicholas Cogliostro.

Spawn #9, featuring Angela

Gaiman further questioned the origins of three characters in the 1999 series Spawn: The Dark Ages, believing them to be imitations of his Medieval Spawn characters. Judge Crabb ruled in favour of Gaiman, determining that Dark Ages Spawn and a pair of female angels, Domina and Tiffany, were derived from the characters the Gaiman created.

Judge Crabb made it awesomely clear that she had taken the case seriously, describing and utilizing the official mythology and logic of the Spawn universe in her ruling. The decision is available in full here, and is totally read-worthy, but here are the some of the more relevant passages:

Much as defendant tries to distinguish the two knight Hellspawn, he never explains why, of all the universe of possible Hellspawn incarnations, he introduced two knights from the same century. Not only does this break the Hellspawn “rule” that Malebolgia never returns a Hellspawns to Earth more than once every 400 years (or possibly every 100 years, as suggested in Spawn, No. 9, exh. #1, at 4), it suggests that what defendant really wanted to do was exploit the possibilities of the knight introduced in issue no. 9. 

...

If defendant really wanted to differentiate the new Hellspawn, why not make him a Portuguese explorer in the 16th century; an officer of the Royal Navy in the 18th century, an idealistic recruit of Simon Bolivar in the 19th century, a companion of Odysseus on his voyages, a Roman gladiator, a younger brother of Emperor Nakamikado in the early 18th century, a Spanish conquistador, an aristocrat in the Qing dynasty, an American Indian warrior or a member of the court of Queen Elizabeth I? It seems far more than coincidence that Dark Ages (McFarlane) Spawn is a knight from the same century as Medieval (Gaiman) Spawn.

McFarlane has been instructed to provide Gaiman an accounting of money earned from any comic books and other merchandising in which Dark Ages Spawn, Domina, and Tiffany appeared. He has until Setpember 1st to comply.

Spawn: The Dark Ages

It's unfortunate to see artistic disputes like this, especially from people as talented and passionate as Gaiman and McFarlane. McFarlane has tweeted "COMMENT: Neil Gaiman has the absolute right to defend his position. That’s one of the great privileges we all have in this country. TODD." Gaiman described his reaction to the victory on his blog:

I wish I took some kind of joy in this, but I don't.

At this point all I hope is that Todd can do an accounting for all the comics I wrote for which he paid no royalties, and the rest of it; and that he'll settle up and I will make some comics charities very happy; that his comics company will finally come out of bankruptcy; and that I can forget this forever.

Gaiman also provides further reading about the case via Maggie Thompson's blog and his own archives.

Bringing this post back to the positive angle, Judge Crabb clearly did her homework and then some. She dove head first into the incredible universe that McFarlane (and Gaiman) created and took it seriously. More so, it seems, than some of the series' authors. She used logic, evidence, and critical thinking to elucidate exactly why Gaiman deserved copyright interest in the Dark Ages Spawn characters, and even stated it in the terms of the Spawn lore. As someone who is seriously considering a career in law, I can say that Judge Crabb is the kind of legal practitioner that I would hope to be. She made the right call for the right reasons, and what's more she made it awesomely. A true hero in law.

(Via Geekosystem, where you can see some side-by-side character comparisons to judge for yourself)

LOL: The Motherfucking Pterodactyl

I don't typically use the internet-speak term "lol," but this comic made me laugh out loud repeatedly. Like, a real guttural chuckle that rose up into and out of my throat and nearly shook me from my chair. I couldn't not share this hilarious Pterodactyl comic from TheOatMeal.com, a site I've recently become aware and a fan of. I strongly suggest you check it out, if only to discover the meaning of the ridiculous image above. Their semicolon use comic is worth a look too.

Superheroes, Conservatism, and the Failure of Iron Man 2

I was going to write a general review of Iron Man 2 but I don't think I'm up to it, I just don't care enough about the movie. It's not anywhere near as good as it's predecessor, but at the same time it's not offensively bad like Transformers 2 or Spiderman 3. I don't have anything positive to say about it but there's no room to really have fun ripping into it. Iron Man 2 is just a painfully average mess of a movie that suffers from the same narcissism and self-indulgence that it portrays in its hero. The film has many interesting elements that unfortunately don't work as a final product, and it left me feeling... meh. Go see it, chances are that if you're reading this you either already have or will no matter what I say. If you're looking for a decent review check out the one at io9, it's the best I've read. This one over at The Washington Post isn't bad either.

All that said, while Iron Man 2 fails to inspire either awe or vitriol, it does provide the perfect context with which to bring up something I've been thinking a lot about lately: conservatism in superhero movies.

The Dark Knight is one of my favourite films, but I also think it's an incredibly right-wing movie. It's portrayal of Batman identifies superheroes as necessarily conservative and even fascistic entities, benevolent overseers that know best and act accordingly. In the movie Bruce Wayne takes the law into his own hands and goes to whatever lengths he deems necessary to impose his personal concept of justice on the inhabitants of Gotham city. While The Dark Knight explores the idea of superheros with a liberal sensibility, it eventually directs the audience to accept and even feel good about Batman's role. Don't get me wrong, I cheer right along with the crowd each time I watch the cinematic masterpiece, but the greater implications of its politics leave me vaguely unsettled. The fact that it ultimately justifies Batman's actions is particularly disturbing as a case-study in effective propaganda.

Iron Man 2's greatest flaw is that it asks whether or not superheroes should be allowed to act the way they do but then fails to explore the question in any meaningful way. The film opens with Tony Stark at his most narcissistic and flamboyantly right-wing: he talks about how he's "tired of the liberal agenda" while hanging an Obama "Hope" styled portrait of himself; later he refuses to turn the Iron Man technology over to the US government and flippantly tells the nation to trust him because he has "privatized peace." Stark cartoonishly symbolizes American conservatism with his brash self-confidence and determination to bear arms and be in charge. Just as Batman's selflessness and good intentions make it easy to accept his crusade in The Dark Knight, Robert Downey Jr.'s unbelievable charisma makes it's easy to buy into his rhetoric in Iron Man 2. At least until things start to go wrong.

Stark quickly succumbs to alcoholism, his god-complex, and unexpected adversaries. In Iron Man 2 the hero reaches his darkest hour, and the problem is that he never really comes back from it. The characters and the filmmakers certainly pretend that he makes a triumphant third-act return to form, but there's nothing to substantiate it; Stark is still the same old narcissist with little to no appreciation of the consequences of his actions, only by then it doesn't seem so forgivable in the context of his heroics. While the US government does attain his technology in the form of War Machine, Stark continues to do as he wishes using the Iron Man suit. By the time the movie wraps up the negative aspects of Stark being a superhero outweigh the benefits, and it's hard to stomach the idea of trusting him with such a potent weapon. In the end Mickey Rourke's prophecy rings truer than anything else in the movie: "If you could make God bleed then people will cease to believe in him."

The Dark Knight explicitly questions Batman's actions through the character of Lucius Fox, but ultimately all is forgiven because the end justifies the means. Iron Man 2 strives to achieve this sense of righteous balance but fails, leaving us with an overpowered egomaniac on the loose. Their relative merits aside, both films raise interesting questions about the very notion of super-human individuals. Can a liberal democratic society accept superheroes? Is there a way to rationalize their unique actions and freedoms? Is there room for democracy in the world(s) of superheroes or are the concepts antithetical? These are not new issues in the superhero genre, but the sudden popularity it has been given via film invites a reexamination. Never before have comic book heroes seemed to exist so tangibly within our contemporary reality, and so we are forced to ask: would we really want them to?

A Lesson Is Learned But The Damage Is Irreversible

I'm a fan of webcomics, and one of my all-time favourites is A Lesson Is Learned But The Damage Is Irreversible. It was written by Dale Beran and illustrated by David Hellman (later of Braid fame) and between 2004 and 2006 they published over 40 strips before going on hiatus. The comic used surreal imagery, a wry sense of humour, and an existential attitude to explore subjects like relationships, depression, consumerism, and accomplishment. If you follow those links they'll take you to strips that I think correspond with each concept, though that is by no means the last word on their potential meanings. Beran and Hellman used the comic to reflect upon the nature of human life from various angles, and each piece incorporates vast amounts of emotional and psychological content. The strips are more akin to paintings, and each one is beautiful and elegantly conceived.

If you've never heard of A Lesson Is Learned But The Damage Is Irreversible then I strongly recommend taking a look through their archives. Even if you don't like comics it's still easy to appreciate the complexity and depth of Beran and Hellman's work. Each script is written with a poetic sensibility, and the illustrations display a wide breadth of styles and techniques; the resulting images are some of the finest artistic works I've seen. I'll leave you with my favourite A Lesson Is Learned stip: the sprawling and medium-challenging Christmas Disaster Special from 2005. I would absolutely love to get a print of this one for my wall, if only to see it fully realized instead of constrained by the limits of my computer monitor.

Click the image to see it in full