The Shocker: Legit by Max Landis

Okay, before I start this review, I'd like to share an anecdote from my own writing, because it goes into my own philosophy of writing and I want you the reader to figure if my issues with Legit stem from legitimate criticism or "that's not how I would've written it." Not that the second one's illegitimate criticism, I guess, but it's a little bullshit if you didn't write it. If a rom-com comes out and I say "That's not how I would've written it," of course not, I don't write rom-coms. But I guess it'd be valid if Joss Whedon called out the Star Wars prequels on those grounds, since Serenity was a much better space opera than any of them.

So as long-time readers of this blog will know, I have this big Scott Free AU planned for if DC ever happens to be passing out series. It's set in a universe where God likes minorities and women more than the Silver Age, so instead of being "We're in Gotham, let's say hi to Batman and ogle Catwoman!" it's "We're in Gotham, let's say hi to Cassandra Cain Batgirl and ogle both Catwoman and Nightwing."

And of course, you've got the will-they-or-won't-they between Barda and Scott. So I thought in one issue, it'd be fun for them to be in a love triangle and have Barda fighting with another woman over Scott. But, y'know, that's a little sexist. It's not the worst thing ever, like Scott Lobdell, but in a comic specifically oriented to include all genders, it'd be inappropriate.

So this other thought I had was of making Scott and Barda childhood friends on Apokolips, to justify their relationship, but nah… that'd be just too "epic" for a romance that's fun because it's so weird and unexpected. I guess I just have a thing about the "epicness" of "oh, you played with a toy sword when you were a kid, YOU'RE THE MESSIAH!" Like none of the intervening years between then and adulthood defined you at all, you were right on course since before puberty. This is still relevant, I swear.

So make Knockout, everyone's other favorite Female Fury, Scott's childhood friend so they grow up to be platonic BFFs. Then Barda makes the mistake of assuming they're involved, because she's seeing Scott through her own can't-admit-it prism of "Scott is the most sexually desirable to me, thus Scott is the most sexually desirable to everyone because I'M NOT IN LOVE WITH HIM FEMALE FURY APOKOLIPS GREAT DARKSEID, thus Knockout is screwing Scott. That hussy!" And you get the comedic aspect of Barda and Knockout "fighting" over Scott without the offensive aspects of it.

I'm picturing an ending where Knockout kisses Barda, thinking this was all some crazy Apokolips flirting, and Barda is all "0_0… wait, you're gay? YES! …no, I don't want to go out with you. But it's awesome that you're… out of the… space closet." Yeah, I might've turned this all into an episode of Hey Arnold, so what? That show is awesome.

So as these five long-ass paragraphs have indicated, one of the things I'm cautious about in my writing is avoiding… touch-the-dick writing. You know, how when Geoff Johns writes Hal Jordan, you can clearly tell he wants to touch Hal's dick? "Oh, Hal Jordan is the best Green Lantern ever, all the ladies love him and he loves all the ladies, he can punch out Batman and have threesomes with previously strong female characters whose individual characterizations don't matter as much as painting my favorite character as a stud OH! OH! GREEN LANTERN! Uhh, I need a tissue."

Now, this is a particular problem in superhero comics, because of the Bildungsuperman subgenre. "What is that?" you may ask, since you already know where the Back button is if you're not interested. Well, if Bildungsroman is the literary genre which focuses on the psychological and moral growth of the protagonist from youth to adulthood (thanks Wikipedia!), Bildungsuperman is the same applied to the superhero power fantasy.

Now, I'm sure we all have a favorite character and stories we might want to see that character in. Everyone wants their fave to punch out Galactus instead of getting shot off-panel by the Punisher during Civil Invasion Time Fall of Sieging. If your favorite character is Superman, this'll be pretty believable. If your favorite character is Lady Blackhawk, not so much.

Bildungsuperman is the story that takes Lady Blackhawk from flying the Birds of Prey around to her "proper place" in the author's eyes of being a mover and shaker in her universe. When it's done right, this can be a very involving story, since it involves definite character growth and "leveling up". I mean, wouldn't you be kinda interested if I said "oh, I wrote this epic story that ends with Lady Blackhawk punching out Galactus"?

The problem being that if this transition feels unearned, it comes off as "the Owl could beat up Wolverine!" fan-wanking. And since you're writing about your favorite character and you have some blind spot there about how powerful he really is, you might end up writing "and then Lady Blackhawk wins by authorial fiat because she's the coolest!" instead of "and then Lady Blackhawk wins by hard work and determination, which is why I see her as the coolest."

Case in point: Brian Michael Bendis' writing of Luke Cage. Geoff Johns' writing of Hal Jordan. Just about everyone's writing of Batman ("Hey, Bruce, wanna stop beating up purse snatchers for a minute to help us stop this invasion of extra-galactic soul suckers? Your beating-up-purse-snatcher expertise would really come in handy there!")

Another problem that can crop up is jobbing. Think of it this way. If the President of the US, the Prime Minister of Britain, and the Secretary General of the UN all got together to discuss a world crisis, you wouldn't be surprised. If the mayor of a city in Brazil showed up, you might be wondering why he's there. The movers and shakers in the DC and Marvel universes tend to be well-established, veteran heroes. Mr. Fantastic and Iron Man have been around for many years, both in Marvel-time and in the real world, so it makes sense that they'd have the most wisdom and experience. Suggesting that a hero who showed up in the 90s has the same quality is hard to pull off.

(In fact, the opposite of this is the case for Spider-Man, who at this point you'd think would be a battle-scarred badass, but he keeps getting written as the annoying rookie of the superhero world in an effort to keep his "everyman" status. Screw Marvel and all that)

So it's easy to, instead of saying "this guy has pulled himself up to the level of Mr. Fantastic and Iron Man," to lower the two to our hero's level or lower. In fact, that's part of the genre by definition. If the accepted wisdom has Stephanie Brown as a class-C fighter and Lady Shiva as the best fighter in the world, then you show Steph holding her own in a sparring match with Shiva, you're effectively jobbing Shiva. When done well, it's at least mostly invisible. When it's done poorly….

Well, we'll get into that.

As you may have guessed, this is also related to Mary Sueness, which only makes sense. Superhero comics are power fantasies, so by writing a power fantasy, you're sorta writing a Sue by proxy. In fact, the difference between good Bildungsuperman and bad could come down to how Sueish the protagonist is.

Okay, we've gone a thousand words into this critique, just identifying the tropes we're dealing with, but I believe it's important. Since just about all of the Big Two comics at this point are just officially-sanctioned fanfic, it's important that we discuss these tropes and how their misuse can negatively impact a work, even one that's objectively well-written. Which brings us, at long last, to The Shocker: Legit, by JohnLandisson Max Landis.

Is anyone else ever surprised that John Landis has an adult son? I mean, who knew John Landis would so good at keeping children alive?

Anyway, you probably know Landis from writing Chronicle—this he did before he was famous—well, he's a writer, so less-not-famous. Hmm. I wonder what fanfics of mine people would go over if I got published?

She kissed Claire, her lips wandering over the other woman's face and throat. And Rain buried her face between Alice's shoulder blades, making her way downward, feeling Alice through the dress and enjoying the artistic swirls of dirt that her hands left. When she reached the hem, she pushed the dress up Alice's body and kissed her way back.

Kissing Alice's hip, she smelled the arousal welling in Alice's sex. She ran a short fingernail from Alice's clit to her asshole, watching a tremble shake Alice harder and harder. Then she bit down on the goose-pimpled skin of Alice's ass, slowly, but tighter, tighter, until her teeth were bruising the creamy flesh. It just made Alice moan louder into Claire's hair as the redhead sucked at her ear.

Rain let go, giving Alice a half-minute of peace before blowing on the indentation she'd left, licking at it, electrifying the engorged nerves she'd left. With the arm behind Claire's back, Alice beat the soil, the sound like a racing heartbeat as the three lost themselves in each other.

Note to self: Delete everything the moment you get an acceptance letter.

Alright, so Legit is sort of half-character piece and half epic. Herman Schultz, aka the Shocker, a perennial low-class Spider-Man villain, has the half-hearted notion to go legit after a string of unsuccessful robberies/run-ins with Spider-Man. It's when he stumbles across a supervillain rampage and intervenes that he both winds up pitted against a big-time criminal conspiracy and earning New York's respect as an actual superhero in fits and starts.

The story is told from the first-person, with a kind of Jim Butcher snark as Herman gripes about his lot in life, rants about the costumed superhuman scene, and gradually builds up some self-esteem. There are some impressive action scenes and Herman's a well-spoken narrator who's interesting to hear from, if not always pleasant. He's best friends with Rhino, who here is quasi-autistic in his intelligence; Herman's affection for Rhino is sometimes played for heart-warmth.

There's a definite alternate-continuity cast to the story, like it's a Marvel Knights or MAX title, if that makes any sense. Although it takes place around The Other story arc, it sticks to an old-school characterization of Spidey's classic rogue's gallery as crooks and thugs rather than cold-blooded killers and the occasional rapist. And yet fights involve grisly bodily damage, Herman pops some colorful language, and the Black Cat has a bit less of an objection to casual nudity than her canon characterization has. There's also a serious "retcon" that's revealed, reminding me of a plot device in a big Spider-Man comic from a few years back—I'm not sure if they're meant to be related or if it's just a coincidence. Either way, fanfic is a better venue to explore that kind of retcon than "EARTH-SHAKING REVELATION THAT CHANGES EVERYTHING ABOUT THE MARVEL UNIVERSE—let's forget all about it and go back to fighting the Red Skull."

All in all, it's well-told enough that I'll try to avoid spoilers in case you want to read the thing yourself, which I'd recommend. But from hereon out, I will be discussing some of the later plot elements, which might ruin some of the mystery. So first off, here's a link to the story as hosted on a charmingly-Geocities-era website: Story!

( And now, on we go. )