The End League by Rick Remender
Mar. 22nd, 2012 11:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seriousficI have a question. How come in the cottage industry of comics about expies of the Justice League and Avengers, the white guys are always white guys? You know how it is. Instead of the Incredible Hulk, they'll have the Unphasable Bulk, and he'll say "Bulk hit!" instead of "Hulk smash!" But when his gamma (delta) radiation wears off, he'll still be a white dude. How come they never change the race or gender of these characters when trying to set them apart from the originals? I mean, it seems obvious, right? And as long as you're using expies for social commentary, this is practically an Easy button for that. How would Gotham feel if it were a black man dressing up like a bat and beating up bad guys? Would Wonder Woman be called the most beautiful woman in the world if she were black?
In fact, isn't this the origin of Ultimate Captain America? They thought about giving him the "Truth" origin...
Some guy invented for the purposes of this dialogue: Hey, Mark Millar, I was thinking, what if Captain America were a black man who'd been experimented on a la the Tuskagee Syphilis case? It'd be a clever way of subverting the nationalist origin of the character, while still supporting social justice and creating a heroic character!
Mark Millar: Nah. It isn't true to the spirit of the character.
Some guy invented for the purposes of this dialogue: What if he were a violent, jingoistic idiot?
Mark Millar: Now you're talking!
I ask this because, in The End League, there's a black character and a Wonder Woman expy. The black character spends most of the series getting tortured in hell. The Wonder Woman character spends most of the series in Olympus, getting... well, she doesn't get any panel-time there, so who knows. Which means most of the series is about Batman. Since we don't have enough Batman comics.
I guess I'm just down on the entire concept of these "the Just Legion of Amsterdam" stories. What's the point? The Big Two already publish tons of alternate universe stories. You want to read about Superman being a samurai and falling in love with a female Batman? Canon. You want to read about Batman being a pirate, who fights the Joker who is also a pirate? Canon. And as for "R-rated" versions of popular characters, I'm not sure it's possible to be more rapey and violent than mainstream comics already are. I mean, Wonder Woman is now canonically the product of a culture of rape-murder slave-owners. What could you do to be more quote-unquote "mature" than that? Have them smoke weed during the rape-murder slave-owning?
I mean, Dan Harmon making Community, he's clearly following in the footsteps of other sitcoms, but he does more than just say "what if we put together not!Frasier with Not!thecastofSeinfeld?" He invented new characters based on archetypes, group dynamics, and people we'd honest-to-god not seen before (unless I've missed all the shows about possibly autistic Muslims obsessed with pop culture). That seems to me a lot more interesting than "What if Batman were the Joker's brother?" fan-wanking.
I should probably talk about the comic while I'm reviewing it, right?
Okay. The End League is about Superman and the Justice League (hey, if they're not going to put any effort in, why should I?), along with a few Marvel characters, after the end. You know. The end. Billions dead, fire and brimstone, dogs and cats living together... now supervillains rule the world, having divided up the countries and now jockeying with themselves for power or living lives of hedonistic excess. The End League tries to stop them, albeit with the obligatory post-9/11 angst of whether there's any point to any of it.
Already, there's some problems. The premise of superheroes in a post-apocalyptic world is one we've actually seen a few times; even an ultra-violent, rapey one in Old Man Logan. First rule of comics: You can't out-rapey Mark Millar. Second, the conceit is that the apocalypse gives out a ton of superpowers and, because mankind is a bunch of bastards, most of the new metahumans (sorry, "Magnificents." One of these days we're going to run out of cool words for superhuman and just call them "Bad enough dudes to rescue the President.") are villains. Okay, but wouldn't the freaking apocalypse cause a shift in thinking? Maybe it would make people pull together, maybe it would make them descend into anarchy, but you can't tell me that someone who'd lived through such a cataclysm and someone who hadn't would use superpowers the exact same way.
The entire series is like that: intriguing ideas, coupled with half-assed execution so we can get back to standard superhero kickpunchery like Batman trying to save the Joker's hostages in a giant amusement park. At one point, Lois Lane decides to give people hope by starting a religion based around Superman (although wouldn't it make more sense to just have Superman endorse a pre-existing religion? What if he believed in something like Islam that might damage his popularity with the hoi polloi?). Wow! That sounds like it could be really interesting! How much time does the series spend on this? Five pages, tops. According to Wikipedia, the series is trying to be Lord of the Rings meets Watchmen, but those stories weren't afraid to go for long periods without action so that they could focus on ideas and characterization. Most of these characters, I had no idea who they were or what they were doing. I just had no time to get to know them beyond "oh, she's supposed to be Green Lantern." And I don't mean to brag, but I could follow The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo fine (all the rapists were evil, correct?).
What's especially wince-inducing is when the comic decides to be a parody. In the second issue, they have Thor (no, really, the literal Thor. God bless the public domain) show up. But an arch-villain has lobotomized him, causing him to attack our heroes in a battle with tragic collateral damage. Innocents are killed, orphans are made! And he talks like the Hulk. "Thor is the mightiest one there is!" Because he has brain damage. Get it? One, that's not a very good joke to start out with. Two, dramatically speaking, it's shooting yourself in the foot.
If you think the hi-larious lobotomies aren't bad enough, there's a scene later on where Nazi experiments are forced at gunpoint to test their powers on a concentration camp. Halfway through, American soldiers save them--and the rescuers turn out to be a Howling Commandoes parody, saying stuff like "Do it for Momma's apple pie!" As they're rescuing children who were being forced to kill Jews. Look, comic, if you're not going to take this stuff seriously, why should I?
Oh, and there's a long soapbox moment in the last issue where the author has Superman talk about how the root of all conflict in humanity is religion, which goes on for several pages. And who could disagree, considering strife-free atheist utopias like North Korea, China, and the Soviet Union? The bigger problem is that of all the villains, who are causing all the conflict and suffering, not one of them espouses any religious belief. It's called theme, jockass. The villains in a "man, religion sucks" story AREN'T RELIGIOUS. Well, of course not. Can you imagine Lex Luthor or the Joker as religious extremists? And since they aren't, their expies can't very well be either. See how the uncreativity comes around to bite you in the ass?
Moving on to the art, I don't really have an eye for such things, I'll admit, but a lot of the time what could've been powerful moments seemed to be reduced to speeches filled with flailing and gesticulating. Maybe the writing's to blame, since I can't imagine it's easy to make several panels of a character talking into camera dramatic without some cutaways to liven things up, but still. And why would you make an expy of a comic book character who looks even sillier than the grandfathered-in costume already does?
See that Emma Frost-themed stripper in the top panel there? That's supposed to be Wonder Woman. Why is she wearing a bra and a miniskirt that juuuuuust covers her crack? No idea. Also, check out the very optimistic assessment of Rebecca's spinal flexibility in the second panel. I just cropped those; that's how they show up on the page. Upskirt!Wondy and No-Spine Girl, back to broken back. The art gets better halfway through the series, with a new artist who gives Wonder Woman an actual shirt, but still. This is supposed to be a mature, thoughtful epic?
I don't mean to come down too hard on The End League. Once you've figured out who most of the dramatis personae are, there's some pretty good superhero plotting in the second half. It's just... two of the characters are lesbians in a romantic relationship. They're separated for most of the series, with one of them (natch) being teamed up with a straight man who's in love with her. At the very end of the comic, they're reunited. So that's it? They get a happily ever after ending to cork off a mostly positive depiction of homosexuality? Nope! In literally the last ten pages, one of them dies in the other's arms. The last we see of her is her saying "I don't want to live without her," then the hero picking her up and carrying her to safety, saying "But you will." Now, would it have made any difference to the plot if we avoided Dead Lesbian Syndrome? This is 2012! (Okay, it was published in 2008.)
I know it's nine issues, but this series isn't worth your time.
In fact, isn't this the origin of Ultimate Captain America? They thought about giving him the "Truth" origin...
Some guy invented for the purposes of this dialogue: Hey, Mark Millar, I was thinking, what if Captain America were a black man who'd been experimented on a la the Tuskagee Syphilis case? It'd be a clever way of subverting the nationalist origin of the character, while still supporting social justice and creating a heroic character!
Mark Millar: Nah. It isn't true to the spirit of the character.
Some guy invented for the purposes of this dialogue: What if he were a violent, jingoistic idiot?
Mark Millar: Now you're talking!
I ask this because, in The End League, there's a black character and a Wonder Woman expy. The black character spends most of the series getting tortured in hell. The Wonder Woman character spends most of the series in Olympus, getting... well, she doesn't get any panel-time there, so who knows. Which means most of the series is about Batman. Since we don't have enough Batman comics.
I guess I'm just down on the entire concept of these "the Just Legion of Amsterdam" stories. What's the point? The Big Two already publish tons of alternate universe stories. You want to read about Superman being a samurai and falling in love with a female Batman? Canon. You want to read about Batman being a pirate, who fights the Joker who is also a pirate? Canon. And as for "R-rated" versions of popular characters, I'm not sure it's possible to be more rapey and violent than mainstream comics already are. I mean, Wonder Woman is now canonically the product of a culture of rape-murder slave-owners. What could you do to be more quote-unquote "mature" than that? Have them smoke weed during the rape-murder slave-owning?
I mean, Dan Harmon making Community, he's clearly following in the footsteps of other sitcoms, but he does more than just say "what if we put together not!Frasier with Not!thecastofSeinfeld?" He invented new characters based on archetypes, group dynamics, and people we'd honest-to-god not seen before (unless I've missed all the shows about possibly autistic Muslims obsessed with pop culture). That seems to me a lot more interesting than "What if Batman were the Joker's brother?" fan-wanking.
I should probably talk about the comic while I'm reviewing it, right?
Okay. The End League is about Superman and the Justice League (hey, if they're not going to put any effort in, why should I?), along with a few Marvel characters, after the end. You know. The end. Billions dead, fire and brimstone, dogs and cats living together... now supervillains rule the world, having divided up the countries and now jockeying with themselves for power or living lives of hedonistic excess. The End League tries to stop them, albeit with the obligatory post-9/11 angst of whether there's any point to any of it.
Already, there's some problems. The premise of superheroes in a post-apocalyptic world is one we've actually seen a few times; even an ultra-violent, rapey one in Old Man Logan. First rule of comics: You can't out-rapey Mark Millar. Second, the conceit is that the apocalypse gives out a ton of superpowers and, because mankind is a bunch of bastards, most of the new metahumans (sorry, "Magnificents." One of these days we're going to run out of cool words for superhuman and just call them "Bad enough dudes to rescue the President.") are villains. Okay, but wouldn't the freaking apocalypse cause a shift in thinking? Maybe it would make people pull together, maybe it would make them descend into anarchy, but you can't tell me that someone who'd lived through such a cataclysm and someone who hadn't would use superpowers the exact same way.
The entire series is like that: intriguing ideas, coupled with half-assed execution so we can get back to standard superhero kickpunchery like Batman trying to save the Joker's hostages in a giant amusement park. At one point, Lois Lane decides to give people hope by starting a religion based around Superman (although wouldn't it make more sense to just have Superman endorse a pre-existing religion? What if he believed in something like Islam that might damage his popularity with the hoi polloi?). Wow! That sounds like it could be really interesting! How much time does the series spend on this? Five pages, tops. According to Wikipedia, the series is trying to be Lord of the Rings meets Watchmen, but those stories weren't afraid to go for long periods without action so that they could focus on ideas and characterization. Most of these characters, I had no idea who they were or what they were doing. I just had no time to get to know them beyond "oh, she's supposed to be Green Lantern." And I don't mean to brag, but I could follow The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo fine (all the rapists were evil, correct?).
What's especially wince-inducing is when the comic decides to be a parody. In the second issue, they have Thor (no, really, the literal Thor. God bless the public domain) show up. But an arch-villain has lobotomized him, causing him to attack our heroes in a battle with tragic collateral damage. Innocents are killed, orphans are made! And he talks like the Hulk. "Thor is the mightiest one there is!" Because he has brain damage. Get it? One, that's not a very good joke to start out with. Two, dramatically speaking, it's shooting yourself in the foot.
If you think the hi-larious lobotomies aren't bad enough, there's a scene later on where Nazi experiments are forced at gunpoint to test their powers on a concentration camp. Halfway through, American soldiers save them--and the rescuers turn out to be a Howling Commandoes parody, saying stuff like "Do it for Momma's apple pie!" As they're rescuing children who were being forced to kill Jews. Look, comic, if you're not going to take this stuff seriously, why should I?
Oh, and there's a long soapbox moment in the last issue where the author has Superman talk about how the root of all conflict in humanity is religion, which goes on for several pages. And who could disagree, considering strife-free atheist utopias like North Korea, China, and the Soviet Union? The bigger problem is that of all the villains, who are causing all the conflict and suffering, not one of them espouses any religious belief. It's called theme, jockass. The villains in a "man, religion sucks" story AREN'T RELIGIOUS. Well, of course not. Can you imagine Lex Luthor or the Joker as religious extremists? And since they aren't, their expies can't very well be either. See how the uncreativity comes around to bite you in the ass?
Moving on to the art, I don't really have an eye for such things, I'll admit, but a lot of the time what could've been powerful moments seemed to be reduced to speeches filled with flailing and gesticulating. Maybe the writing's to blame, since I can't imagine it's easy to make several panels of a character talking into camera dramatic without some cutaways to liven things up, but still. And why would you make an expy of a comic book character who looks even sillier than the grandfathered-in costume already does?
See that Emma Frost-themed stripper in the top panel there? That's supposed to be Wonder Woman. Why is she wearing a bra and a miniskirt that juuuuuust covers her crack? No idea. Also, check out the very optimistic assessment of Rebecca's spinal flexibility in the second panel. I just cropped those; that's how they show up on the page. Upskirt!Wondy and No-Spine Girl, back to broken back. The art gets better halfway through the series, with a new artist who gives Wonder Woman an actual shirt, but still. This is supposed to be a mature, thoughtful epic?
I don't mean to come down too hard on The End League. Once you've figured out who most of the dramatis personae are, there's some pretty good superhero plotting in the second half. It's just... two of the characters are lesbians in a romantic relationship. They're separated for most of the series, with one of them (natch) being teamed up with a straight man who's in love with her. At the very end of the comic, they're reunited. So that's it? They get a happily ever after ending to cork off a mostly positive depiction of homosexuality? Nope! In literally the last ten pages, one of them dies in the other's arms. The last we see of her is her saying "I don't want to live without her," then the hero picking her up and carrying her to safety, saying "But you will." Now, would it have made any difference to the plot if we avoided Dead Lesbian Syndrome? This is 2012! (Okay, it was published in 2008.)
I know it's nine issues, but this series isn't worth your time.
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no subject
Date: 2012-03-24 11:09 am (UTC)In The Authority, it was because Warren Ellis was trying to Make A Point about how the JL sucked and his team is much cooler and edgier.
In Stan Lee's JLA, Wonder Woman was "Maria Mendoza".
In the animated version of Crisis On Two Earths, Evil Mary Marvel (Wonder Woman's counterpart) was ambiguously brown, and voiced by Gina Torres
>How would Gotham feel if it were a black man dressing up like a bat and beating up bad guys?
Batman Inc not only had Black Batman, they had him live and work in Africa. And a Muslim guy in France.
>Some guy invented for the purposes of this dialogue: What if he were a violent, jingoistic idiot?
To be fair, he was only an idiot at anything that didn't involve smashing people in the face. Anything involving a fight, he was awesome super kewl, despite the fact that he had trouble adapting elsewhere.
>(although wouldn't it make more sense to just have Superman endorse a pre-existing religion? What if he believed in something like Islam that might damage his popularity with the hoi polloi?)
Considering that he's canonically a Christian, all he would need to do is go to church in-costume. Ta-da!