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CBG SATELLITES
The ADD Blog by Alan David Doane
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On these gloomy, drizzly days, home from work with a sick kid, full of crab ‘n corn chowder, I really just feel like taking a nap. Hmm, maybe I’ll catch up on some comics. Before I start my two reviews of books that I’m surprised to see have some similarities to them as far as themes of oppression, I should announce the winner of the Strangehaven Contest: Hamburg, Germany’s favorite son (oh, why not?), Christian Straub will be receiving the collection of trade paperbacks, an original Gary Spencer Millidge sketch, and some other shwag from the Abiogenesis vaults. Congratulations, Christian! Oh, and apologies on the last column. Not the content, as I thought the reviews came out fine, but I tried to provide more art samples and was undone by my scanner. I’ll get it sorted out soon.
The art by Lloyd, and the typography, are what readers will react to first. Lloyd’s heavy line, abundance of blacks and stolid, common faces, as well as the chapter headings, done in silent movie title style, effectively recall a stranger era that hasn’t happened yet, yet is still old-fashioned and brutal. Combine this with the intentionally light coloring that robs everyone of their vigor, and you have artwork that immediately evokes a setting of oppression and hopelessness. One immediately knows that down these shadowy alleys one may find police brutality, rape, or drowned cats, but one will never see anything good or joyful. In V for Vendetta, a (then) future 90s England is controlled by a little-seen Leader and the rather literal parts of the body politic such as The Eyes and The Ears, which watch and listen to everything the citizens do and say, and The Mouth, with its constant broadcaster known as The Voice of Fate, who tells the citizens how to behave. It is explained that all the minorities and homosexuals have been removed and executed at concentration camps, leaving only the whites, and the Leader is arguably more important than the Lord in this degraded society, as he even controls the sermons delivered by the Bishop to the wooly-headed flock. Into this bleakness comes V, roguish but disturbing in dark clothes, cloak, pageboy wig and eternally smirking white Guy Fawkes mask. Moore and Lloyd use successful elements from horror films for their own ends here; what’s more unsettling than the smiling mask with no human eyes visible ? Speaking mainly in quotes, from Blake to Jagger, V has vengeance on The Voice, cruelly taunting him by using the man’s collection of porcelain dolls, suggesting V has a personal connection to the Voice. He also rescues one Evey (E-V) Hammond, a downtrodden girl just about to be killed when her first attempt at prostitution happens to be an undercover “Fingerman.” V shows her his wondrous home full of outlawed wonders such as a jukebox and thought-provoking novels, and he presses her into service to trap and kill the Bishop, who unsurprisingly has a predilection for young girls. Evey tells V after this that she will never help him kill again. If this were the work of the average writer, V would continue taking down these various sinners in roles of authority until he worked his way up to The Leader, videogame style. Maybe he would get hurt and Evey would have to kill to save him. But of course, Alan Moore is a great writer, and is at least an above-average writer here, so while Book One fits fairly standard revenge story parameters, V’s identity is revealed so early it’s kind of exhilarating, because the reader realizes the story is going to evolve into something else. The story was originally serialized in 1982-3 in the UK magazine, Warrior, with publisher Dez Skinn actually contributing the title of it before it was written, giving Moore and Lloyd a handy hook on which to hang their raw ideas. When the magazine folded, the story was left unfinished until 1988, when Moore was well-known from Swamp Thing and DC was interested in anything else he wanted to do. I’m not sure exactly where the older work leaves off and the 1988 work begins, but it is true that the story develops in some unexpected ways. For one thing, Moore slows down the “vendetta” a bit and develops his characters a bit more. And I do mean a bit more, because while the desolation of the unloved Leader, the power-hungry machinations of a senior official’s wife, Mrs. Heyer, and the griefs of widowed Rosemary and detective Finch are all interesting, they’re not particularly moving. It’s definitely a step forward for Moore from Book One, in that he finds the humanity in some of these people who had chosen the side of wrong with good intentions, or perhaps had no choice at all, but he is still unable to make us really care about them, and it’s disappointing that Evey isn’t explored in quite as much detail as she should have been. Moore relies heavily on his gifts of rich language, stinging satire and set-pieces and dazzling sequences such as V’s lair, the “This Vicious Cabaret” musical interlude, and Finch’s LSD trip. In his essay in the back of the book, written while Moore was still working on the series (disagreements with DC have led to his not participating in this or the Absolute Watchmen reprinting), he writes of how the characters started to behave in unexpected ways. This may have been true; however, the supporting characters’ actions and intrigues do not rise above clever diversion. There is never any doubt that most of these people are doomed and that this government is over. However, despite its flaws, the book ends with a wonderful, rousing climax. V’s vendetta has become more than that; it’s a rallying cry for all those oppressed to shake off their chains and tear down the government, chaos followed by anarchy followed by…hope? If V is not there to lead the people, what happens to the cause? And will Evey, who has gone from victim to accomplice, become something more? Her own person, but also, like V, a symbol of freedom? Moore began with a pretty simple revenge story fueled by a young man’s anger, layered with clever technique and motifs, and to his credit, he aimed for something more. He doesn’t entirely succeed, but it’s still a worthwhile story, and the anger becomes even stronger, but carried through in more sophisticated ways. It’s an admirable early effort that remains very readable today. Vertigo Comics. $29.99.
It turns out that Hudlin writes a good story. Throughout these six issues, we don’t exactly find the answer to the question in the title, but we do learn what it means to wear the garb of the Black Panther, to be an amazing physical specimen in touch with nature and ancient ritual, yet leader of Wakanda, one of the most technologically advanced nations in the world. In the overview/pitch reprinted in the back, Hudlin at one point compares T’Challa to Captain America, and that’s really how he’s portrayed. No one-liners, no suavity; just calm command and preparedness for every situation. I also liked that T’Challa never complains about his lot in life, lack of love…nothing like that. And there isn’t any possible love interest introduced, either. T’Challa represents both the ideals and the faith of his people, and such a man has to be stronger than everyone else, larger than life. Romita, Jr., who throughout his career has thrived on action-heavy superhero books, proves capable of something a little different. That is, the action stuff does occur, late in the story, but before that he does an excellent job with African-inspired clothing and headwear. Dean White, a colorist with whom I’m not familiar, also brings great skill to depicting the ambers of the Wakandan veldt and the Great Mound. This is not a flashback story, though; the main plot or plots are modern and rather involved. The Panther’s old enemy Ulysses Klaw, the Belgian mercenary who killed T’Challa’s father, T’Chaka, wants, as usual, to kill T’Challa, and so he assembles a team of other superpowered villains—some known, one new, and one a secret until later. They’ve figured out a way to destroy the Great Mound, which is the source of Wakanda’s main natural resource, vibranian, a useful and expensive element that dampens all vibrations, with countless practical uses. They will enter Wakanda through Niganda, a bordering country led by M’Butu, apparently modeled in broad strokes on the late Mobutu Sese Seko, the kleptocratic President of Zaire from 1965-1997. M’Butu hates T’Challa and would be happy to see him dead and his country destroyed by these mercenaries. The U.S. government enters the picture as well, mainly as a way for Hudlin to use exposition to establish what Wakanda is and how they are seen by other nations. Hudlin has fun with obvious jabs at Condoleeza Rice and John Ashcroft, and while it doesn’t make much sense that these Cabinet members would need to be briefed on a rich nation like Wakanda, it does make sense that the Administration would finally go about trying to take a piece of it. Hudlin writes some effective little scenes with T’Challa’s mother and sister and their complicated feelings for the man they love who is also their ruler, and also a kind of god. He also finds room to bring back Everett Ross, T’Challa’s wisecracking American advisor from the Priest-written Panther series of a couple years ago. Much of the book, though, feels a lot like the Mark Millar/Romita, Jr. Wolverine: Enemy of the State storyline from last year, an exuberant, visually exciting and sometimes audacious, sometimes silly way for Millar to work in every cool, fanboyish idea he could, and if some didn’t work, it was fun just to see him try them out. Hudlin does this, too: you don’t use Batroc the Leaper and The Rhino if you’re really going for something deep. But even goofy ideas like zombie U.S. soldiers advancing on Wakanda—and all looking like Deathlok—have a quirky kind of resonance. The whole U.S. government subplot doesn’t really go anywhere, yet, nor is it clear who this version of the Black Knight is or why he was used other than as a symbol of forcing white culture on Africans, but the misses are outweighed by one enjoyable scene after another. This isn’t deathless art, but amid all the rollercoaster action there really are some brains, some culture, and a compelling portrait of a hero of considerable dignity. Marvel Comics. $21.99 Next week: as usual, it’s hard to say. Probably some minicomics, maybe Black Hole. Thanks, as always, for reading.
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V for Vendetta by Alan Moore and David Lloyd has been collected yet again, in time for the upcoming Wachowski Siblings film and now in hardcover. I don’t read that many comics over and over, even good ones, and so I think this is probably only my third reading of this work, and my first as a legal adult. Some things don’t work quite as well as they did when I first read it, though I am now more able to believe in the premise of a fascist state that so rigidly controls the media and so severely restricts freedoms. No, we’re not living in such a nation, but I see that the current U.S. administration is closer in thought and deed to this than in the late 80s when I first read this.
Black Panther: Who Is the Black Panther? by Reginald Hudlin, John Romita, Jr. and Klaus Janson represents the latest attempt by Marvel at success with undoubtedly their most interesting black superhero character. Even more than DC, Marvel has courted writers from other media such as film and television, and Hudlin is an interesting choice, a film and television director currently in charge of programming at BET. I really had no preconceived notions about how this would go, as his career has been diverse enough—yet without anything particularly memorable or even relatable to comics—that there was really no way to predict, the way one could predict the kinds of stories The O.C.’s Allan Heinberg or Firefly’s Joss Whedon would write. I was mainly along for the Romita art.