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Wednesday, 2:50 pm in Books & Comics

Turns out I rocked up an hour early for physio¹ on Monday, which was the sark, but luckily the medical centre is in the same street as House of Heroes.  So I went in and picked up a copy of something that caught my eye the other day; The Authority: Under New Managerment.

Now, semi-regular readers will probably be aware of the fact that if there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s superhero comics.  Don’t get me wrong; I fuckin’ love comics.  But superheroes?  Fuck ‘em.  American 1950s anti-communist propaganda masquerading as escapism, and birthed from the moral hysteria of the Comics Code Authority.  However, while I was browsing around journals last week I came across this post in which someone talks about a comic written by Warren Ellis and featuring what I think must probably be about the only gay superhero couple in a mainstream comic²… and are pastiches of Batman and Superman respectively.  I thought this was just about the most hilarious thing in the universe, so decided to break my Comic Covenant³ slightly and grab a TPB the next time I was near a comic shop.

Now, while I probably don’t talk about him as much as some other comic writers, I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with the works of Warren Ellis.  I loved Lazarus Churchyard – which I picked up in a discount bin for $10 – and he was the guy who gave us the term ‘mek’, but on the other hand he’s got a kind of… I dunno, I’d be tempted to call it ‘militant liberal’ political view which sometimes I agree with and sometimes I don’t.  It comes through pretty strongly in some parts of Transmetropolitan, and it’s been too long since I’ve read the damn thing to pinpoint exactly what about it puts me off, but there’s definitely something.  Ellis also occasionally slips into that trap of being a bit too clever for his own good, without quite having the talent to pull it off; though to be fair, it’s possibly the fact that he’s occasionally trying to convey some pretty big ideas in a medium that’s traditionally more suited to ‘biff!’ and ‘bam!’.  On the other hand, he is credited with introducing what he calls ‘widescreen comics’ to the mainstream US market.  Manga fans – and anyone who’s done storyboarding for film – will recognise the technique; lots of panels in which nothing much happens in order to show character development or emotion or whatever (the classic is Character X sitting in a still position, looking left slightly, looking back straight ahead, and finally saying “… shit.” in the last panel).

So what did I think of The Authority?  I have to admit, for someone who hates superhero comics… I loved it.  Not for the story arcs, not for the writing, not for the dubious vigilante ‘morality’ it was pushing and certainly not for the art.  I love it for the characters; for the aforementioned lovers, but mostly for the women.

Ah, the women.  I remember quite a few years ago now, I came across this article at Heartless Bitches International.  For those of you who are already boggling with tl;dr, it’s essentially a rant from a female comic book author about the portrayal of women in mainstream (specifically superhero) comics.  In a nutshell, she’s not so concerned by their physical portrayal (though it does get a mentioned), so much as the fact that even when they are supposedly ‘empowered’, women in comic books are still seen through the eyes of men; they are portrayed as the objects of male lust, male fear and male obsession.  They are not allowed to be their own characters.

The girls are always dependent on the men in some way. Even if the girls are amazingly strong and wonderful, their positive attributes are what the male characters see in them and deem wonderful. It is all seen through the male perspective, and women are something alien.

Quoted From: Nancy Lopez

Just in case you’re thinking that this is the ranting of one mad bint reading too much into the X-Men, I should point out that a manifestation of the same mindset has gained a bit of notice elsewhere as Women in Refrigerators.  WiR emerged when a female comic fan noticed that there was a trend in comic books for female characters to be killed off, tortured or disempowered in order that they be ‘avenged’ or ‘saved’ by male leads.  Probably the best example of this – and from an author who really should know better – is Batgirl’s fate in Moore’s Killing Joke, where her spine is broken and she is sexually degraded⁴ by the Joker in order to extract vicarious revenge on her police-chief father, and for her fate to be eventually semi-avenged by Batman.  Batgirl’s eventual resurrection as the wheelchair-bound Oracle aside, it’s worth pointing out at this point that Batman has also has his spine broken; though one assumes he was spared both sexual molestation and the indignity of having to be ‘avenged’ by another.  Male heroes avenge themselves.  Oh, and he made a full recovery, too.  Lucky Bruce.

So what does all this have to do with The Authority?  Well, actually now that I’ve written it out, more than I originally realised.  Firstly, like I mentioned before, I think Ellis needs to be commended for creating a set of female comic books characters who are not defined by the fact that they are female.  Swift and Jenny Sparks and the Engineer are all women, but they just as easily could not be; they are not the kind of male-conceived feminine caricatures we’re used to seeing.  Sparks especially originally really irked me; I didn’t like her character at all and it took me a few pages to work out why.  When I finally figured it out, I was shocked; she’s aggressive.  For those who’ve not read the series (which I assume is most of you), Sparks is the leader of the Authority and the embodied spirit of the Twentieth Century.  With that kind of description it’s easy to imagine her falling back into that kind of soft, maternal role.  You know, like Gaia from Captain Planet; wise and mothering but ultimately there really only to be threatened and saved by the men (with maybe some girls thrown in as support roles).  But Sparks is no Gaia; she leads the Authority with the kind of rough, egotistical aggressiveness that’s rarely evident in female characters, even so-called ‘empowered’ female characters like Buffy.  So while personally I don’t like Sparks’ attitude, I love what she is.  I also love the fact that, in a boldfaced rejection of WiR Syndrome, she dies only to come back as an even more powerful incarnation, Jenny Quantum.

Swift and the Engineer, too, are powerful characters.  The Engineer is easily not only the most intelligent but the most intrinsically versatile character in the entire team; she is brains, brawn and sex appeal (she either walks around totally naked or completely covered head to foot, depending on your view) rolled into one.  Swift has a disposable, toyboy boyfriend.  This might seem to be an odd thing to be applauding, but as far as I’m concerned it goes directly against the grain of the comic book virgin/whore complex (that is; superheroines are chaste, even asexual, while supervillainesses are teasing sluts… though both camps invariably wear skin-tight thongs and sport gravity-defying breasts).  It’s not so much the fact that these characters are represented in this way, so much as that the portrayal is done so… casually.  No-one’s making a big song and dance, cheering with the self-satisfaction of a small child, “Look what we did!  Women can be tough and smart and vulgar and sexy and obnoxious too!  See, we showed it!”⁵

It’s exactly the same sort of thing that I found impressive about the portrayal of Midnighter and Apollo; because while, yeah, the concept is extremely camp, the actual execution of it is not.  Neither character is particularly defined by their sexual orientation to the point where it’s completely irrelevant what sexuality these guys have.  And, lack of fanservice aside (there’s one scene with some kissing, one with some casual, domestic affection and a third featuring a quite harrowing depiction of loss), ultimately that’s a lot more healthy.  You don’t have to be Michael to work out that, well, superhero comics – along with certain full-body contact sports – are probably just about the most homoerotic things in popular culture.  And yet, weirdly, the genre has decried this tendency with an almost manic fervour, to the point that it was actually a breach of the Code to depict any kind of homosexual relationship at all until the policy was softened slightly in 1989.  Superhero sexuality – when it comes up – is almost always ominously puritan, with the exception of the original Wonder Woman’s predilection towards bondage (her creators, feminist husband-and-wife team William and Elizabeth Marston, argued – probably rightly – that a little bit of lesbian hanky-panky was ultimately less socially harmful than the usual comic book depictions of bloodless hyper-violence).  And not being a gay man myself I’m kinda guessing here, but it always struck me that it must be hard for young men, struggling with sexual identity, to live in a culture where homosexuality is still really only accepted so long as it is recognisable.  It’s okay to be gay… but only so long as you act it.  Seeing a literary depiction of two very traditionally masculine characters who also just so happen to be in what appears to be a stable and loving relationship is refreshingly subversive.  There’s actually a scene in the second story arc, “The Nativity”, where Midnighter ‘defeats’ an antagonistic character by essentially implying that there is nothing wrong with his desire for affection and comfort, thus causing him to question his training and abandon his ‘black ops’ superhero unit.  Even this notion – that it’s okay for men to want comfort as well as give comfort – is also fairly subversive, especially when discussed between men.

And speaking of which…

There’s this long-standing theory about the appeal of slash and especially yaoi that essentially states it is a way for girls and young women to explore romantic and sexual relationships outside of the cultural constraints of expected gender roles.  I think most fans of the genre recognise this subconsciously, and know that they’re not really writing stories about gay men (who have their own independent sexual identities), but rather about a kind of ‘third sex’; women in male bodies/roles, embodying concepts of both but not really belonging to either gender.  The Midnighter/Apollo relationship in The Authority is definitely not one of these – at the very least, the characters are created by a straight man – but it still does get to play around a bit with sexual gender roles.  We’re back to Women in Refrigerators, again.

There’s a scene in “The Nativity” where Apollo is essentially gang-banged by a pastiche version of the Avengers, called the Americans.  It’s implied that he is also sexually assaulted by the Captain America equivalent, Commander.  Commander is depicted earlier on as having a predilection towards rape when he’s seen fiddling with his belt buckle and jumping over a counter where two nurses are huddled fearfully; an act which is commented upon flippantly by two of his team-mates (one of whom, Tank Man, is the character who is later talked down by Midnighter).  In fact, the whole theme of the Americans is of sexual repression, helplessness and faux-machismo finding an outlet in unthinking violence.  There is a true, honest-to-gods WiR moment when Midnighter discovers Apollo’s body a few panels later.  Oh ho ho, says the audience, I know where this is going.  And yeah, there’s a revenge scene a little later on all right, except it’s Apollo who is the one left standing over an incapacitated Commander; because Apollo is a guy, right?  And guys, unlike women, are capable of meeting out their own vengeance…  until Commander turns around, and sees a wickedly grinning Midnighter standing behind him, holding a ominously phallic-looking pneumatic drill…

It’s funny that this scene really only ‘works’ in the comic because both characters involved are men (and big, powerful, masculine men, too); neither are afflicted with the baggage associated with female characters as objects needing to be saved and protected and avenged.  Midnighter is obviously devastated to discover his abused lover, but a little later on he’s shown as being perfectly accepting of Apollo’s desire to avenge himself.  Ah, if only heterosexual pairings in comic books (and, let’s face it, culture at large) were equal enough to be allowed the same luxury!

Anyway, gender politics aside, I quite liked The Authority.  Don’t let the above fool you; it can be enjoyed as a fairly brain-dead adventure-romp as well, and is good for a half hour’s mindless entertainment while sitting in a doctor’s waiting room.  In fact, I have to go back to physio on Thursday, and Heroes did have most of the rest of the series…

1. I’ve been getting minor lower back pain since the crash. ^
2. For those of you who are wondering, it’s published by Wildstorm which is a spin-off imprint of DC.  Yanno, the people who do Batman. ^
3. When I first started collecting comics I vowed I would never buy anything from a ‘mainstream’ imprint; mostly meaning DC and Marvel.  I’ve occasionally broken the vow to buy various things from Dark Horse (notably Hellboy), and am slightly undecided whether imprints like Image and Wildstorm ‘count’. ^
4. If not outright molested; it’s debated in the fandom, though less for Batgirl’s sake and more because it’s deemed “out of character” for the otherwise asexual Joker. ^
5. Incidentally, for those of you who’ve not had the pleasure of hearing this rant before, this is the main reason I don’t accept Buffy as some kind of feminist role-model.  The fact that she’s controlled by men aside, Buffy is not a feminist critique in my book purely because her concept is very explicitly a joke about (the ridiculousness of) powerful women.  The whole scenario is essentially, “Har har har!  A cheerleader in a little miniskirt beating up on bad guys?  As if that would ever happen!”  Buffy also spends a lot of time angsting over how she can’t be a “real girl”; because we all know that being a “real girl” does not involve being physically powerful, or responsible for things beyond what colour lipstick to wear.  No wonder she can’t hold down a proper relationship; a man would have to be a freak to want something like that.  Right? ^

• Tags » comics, gender politics, the authority, warren ellis, women in refrigerators