Articles by dennis-oneil
Tue Dec 11, 2007 — by Dennis O'Neil
The Evolution of the Superhero, by Dennis O’Neil
The Four-Color Answer #44
And on we plod, continuing our seemingly interminable discussion of the evolution of superheroes. This week, let’s leave the capes and masks and other such accoutrements, and the “super” prefix, in the trunk and concentrate on the hero part.
First, a little oversimplification.
Heroes come in two models: the authority-sanctioned kind, as embodied by King Arthur’s posse, Beowulf, and James Bond, to cite just three of many possible examples, and the loners – the cowboys, the private eyes and, yes, most superdoers.
Conventional wisdom has it that the first kind were dominant throughout most storytelling history – were, in fact, integral to the “monomyth” described by Joseph Campbell. Again oversimplifying: ultimately, the result of all the hero’s roving and adventuring was benefit to his community. And, bowing once more to conventional wisdom, the second kind, the loners, became prominent after the First (don’t we wish!) World War when belief in the essential goodness and wisdom of humanity’s leaders became…well, challenging.
I dunno…the cowboy archetype was well-established before the war broke out in 1914, and it, in some ways, was the model for the private eyes and other rogue justice-dealers. I guess you could argue that the defining event of America’s nineteenth century, the Civil War, made the citizenry wary of Authority, and that wariness grew for maybe a hundred years as media technology made our immediate ancestors aware that if a person was in the market for some really ripe corruption, the statehouse was the place to look..
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Tue Dec 4, 2007 — by Dennis O'Neil
Nudity and the Editorial Process, by Dennis O’Neil
The Four-Color Answer #43
In my dotage, I’m coming to believe that a little adolescent rebellion is usually a good thing, and if the rebellion creeps a year or two into full, card-carrying adulthood, that’s okay. Much after the fact, I learned of some things my kid did in his Greenwich Village youth: I’m not sorry he did them and I’m glad I didn’t know of them until much later.
(As for myself…let me note that the principal of my high school told my mother after graduation that they never, ever wanted to see me again. I must have done something…)
Father does not always know best and either does Mother. Like generals, they’re fighting old wars and kids are caught in new wars, which means the kids have to find their own way, which is a process of experimentation, which means that Junior and Pops can’t and shouldn’t march in lock step,
We will now retire the military metaphors and explain what any of this has to do with our current topic, the evolution of superheroes.
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Tue Nov 27, 2007 — by Dennis O'Neil
Is Iron Man Mike Hammer? by Dennis O'Neil
The Four-Color Answer #42
So where we at? For the past month or so, we have, in a scattershot and disorganized way, been discussing the various elements involved in the evolution of superheroes. I don’t think we’ve come to any conclusions worthy of being preserved for the ages, nor should we: things change, darnit. But maybe a little tentative upsumming would not be inappropriate.
Upsumming:
Haberdashery: There is currently a trend away from putting superdoers in costumes, though the big bucks movie heroes are still wearing the suits and, judging from the films I know about that are in development, this will not change in the foreseeable future. But most entertainment consumers -- I’m excepting comics fans here -- get their heroism, super and otherwise, from television and maybe because of tv production hassles, costumes aren’t common.
Powers: We’ve agreed (haven’t we?) that for a long time the superbeings of mythology and folklore got their powers from some supernatural agency: they were gods, or demi-gods, or friends of ol’ Olympus, or something. Or they were agencies of darkness -- black magicians of one kind or another. Then science became the rationale, most famously with Jerry Siegel’s extraterrestrial origin of Superman. Last, and decidedly least, there was technology allowing the good guy to do his stuff. And now…well, it’s anything goes time. Look at the current television offerings: we have a superhero private eye whose abilities are due to his vampirism, which we can call magic; a technology-enabled superhero(ine); and a whole bunch of peripatetic whose gifts have “scientific” explanations, or so it currently seems.
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Tue Nov 20, 2007 — by Dennis O'Neil
King Arthur, Iron Man, and Brooks Brothers, by Dennis O'Neil
The Four-Color Answer #41
To…oh, say, King Arthur, if he ever existed, you would have superpowers. I mean, look at you. You can travel 100 miles an hour (but that red light flashing in your rearview mirror can’t be good) and you can cause a blank pane of glass to light up and show you what’s happening on he other side of the world, or what happened last week, or both, and you can twist your wrist and cause flame to appear atop that table-thing in the kitchen, with no protracted fussing with flint and stone… To Arthur, it would appear that you’re employing magic.
Living when he did, Art never read another Arthur’s observation that any form of technology sufficiently advanced would appear to be magic, at least to lumps like us. (I refer to Arthur C. Clarke, but you knew that…) So Arthur, (the king, not the science fiction writer) might watch you doing your stuff and conclude that you must be magic and because you’re magic you must be special. He wouldn’t know that you bought your powers, at a discount, at that big, ugly mall about a mile west on the freeway.
Remember, he had a special sword, Excalibur, and he had it because he deserved to have it. And so it was with other talismans, amulets, and assorted weapons and mystic hoo-haws that super good guys got hold of during their adventures down through the ages.
Which brings us to Tony Stark.
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Tue Nov 13, 2007 — by Dennis O'Neil
Power!, by Dennis O'Neil
The Four-Color Answer #40
So you wanna be a superhero. Okay, where are your powers going to come from?
For years – nay, hundreds of years; nay, thousands of years – the brief answer was: From out there. Somewhere. The first superbeings in popular culture (the only kind there was, back then) were either gods, or pals of gods, or imbued with magical abilities, the origins of which weren’t necessarily clear or important. What was important was…wow! – look at what he/she/it can do! And so much the better if it, whatever spectacular thing it is, is being done for reasons I approve of.
That’s still what’s important. But our minds seem to be wired to want reasons for what we see, which is certainly why there’s science and may be why there’s art and civilization. But, oddly, once a reason is supplied, many of seem to be satisfied and require nothing further. The great cosmic snortlefish created the oceans? Swell, now I know why there’s all that water and what’s for dinner?
By the time Jerry Siegel got around to thinking up Superman in the summer of 1934, magic wasn’t terribly fashionable and it had long since become divorced from religion. But science…ah, science was going to deliver us and besides, it was real. And Jerry was a reader of science fiction, which, in those happy days, at least claimed to be rooted in physics and chemistry and astronomy and stuff like that. So it was natural, maybe inevitable, that he would give his übermensch a science rationale. Guy comes from another planet, sure – that’d be why he could be so powerful. Makes sense. Made sense to Jerry in 1934, probably would have made sense to me when I was the age Jerry was when he created Superman, if I’d thought about it.
Tue Nov 6, 2007 — by Dennis O'Neil
Ontogeny Recapitulates Phylogeny, by Dennis O’Neil
The Four-Color Answer #39
Before we get to this week’s official topic, a continuation of our discussion of how superheroes have been evolving, I’d like to remind you all that ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny. I’m sure all you fans of the late 19th century biologist Ernst Haeckel – and I know you’re legion – remember that this means that the development of an organism exactly mirrors the evolutionary development of the species.
Okay, now that that’s settled…consider any given story genre the organism and storytelling as a whole the species. The first stories, maybe told around campfires, were not long on characterization. According to some anthropologists, they were basically religious, an effort to give an identity to the forces that shaped people’s lives, the forces they were already acknowledging, maybe, with rituals. Not much characterization in these yarns. They were more about what happened – some deity decides to create the world – than the nuances of the protagonists’ personalities. As storytelling evolved, from an element of religion to entertainment, the characters began to have personalities, sort of, until by the time Homer smote ‘is bloomin’ lyre the good guys and bad guys were acting for reasons peculiar to who they were. And by the time of Greek drama, which, again, was part of religious festivals, they were pretty individualized.
Shoot forward about 2,500 years…Along came comic book superheroes (as opposed to all the other kinds of superdoers, who are a bit outside our boundaries, though I’m sure they’re very nice) and…well, they weren’t quite as uncharacterized as those campfire deities. But we do find ontogeny-recapitulating phylogeny, sort of. Clark Kent was, after all, “mild mannered” and Lois Lane was ambitious, but the stories were plot driven – the stuff was more about what the heroes did rather than why they did it. (Batman comes close to being an exception; a few issues into his initial run in Detective Comics, writer Bill Finger actually motivated him. But unless there are a lot of stories I haven’t read, the emphasis on what makes Bruce Wayne tick came later.)
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Tue Oct 30, 2007 — by Dennis O'Neil
Fear Factor, by Dennis O’Neil
The Four-Color Answer #39
Boo.
Did I scare you?
About that boo…Frankly, it’s a sleazy and probably ineffective way to get your attention. But it is sort of appropriate because it’s a word often encountered in late October and I’m perpetrating this opus a few nights before Halloween, which seems like an appropriate time to be both booing and writing about comics. Because, you know, comics and Halloween are kissing cousins.
Comics, like Halloween, often deal with unearthly phenomena and unlikely characters and, yes, costumes. Both comics and Halloween offer reassurance that after sojourn spent confronting ghouls, goblins, ghosts, vice-presidents and assorted other hellish manifestations of ghastliness, you can retire to someplace comfy and safe.
Fairy tales do that, too, and despite people, including me, frequently comparing comics to mythology, they’re at least as much fairy tale as myth. They don’t, after all, offer cosmic explanations of why we’re here and where we come from, as myths are wont to do, and they almost always end happily. According to a psychologist named Bruno Bettelheim, those happy endings are what make fairy tales useful to little kids. The message is, you can confront ghouls, goblins, ghosts and even vice presidents and you can prevail – you can go home again and maybe score some hot chocolate.
Tue Oct 23, 2007 — by Dennis O'Neil
Costumes Revealed, by Dennis O'Neil
The Four-Color Answer #37
There may be some practical reasons why the grown-for-television superheroes dress in plain clothes rather than the colorful garb of their comic book and movie counterparts.
(For those of you who came in late: we’re continuing last week’s discussion of superhero costumes.)
I remember visiting the set of one of Joel Schumacher’s Batman flicks and watching costumers take a long, long time – 15 minutes? More? – just to fit Batman’s mask on a stunt man, a process that involved putting plastic wrap on the guy’s head and then trimming it after the mask was in place. And that was just the mask. Imagine what efforts went into getting tights, cape, boots and all to fit properly. Dash into a closet – a phone booth? – for a quick change? Maybe not.
Though I have no firsthand knowledge of this, I understand that there is actually a closetful of batsuits for the actor and his various doubles; which one gets worn in a particular scene depends on the scene’s content. Are we fighting? Running? Driving our spiffy car? Standing dramatically silhouetted against the skyline? We must wear the appropriate outfit!
Subtract all this time, effort and expense from the task of garbing your good guy and you have…what? Well, have a look at either of the Batman movie serials made in the 40s for your answer. The Superman and Captain Marvel suits from that era are better, but they don’t approach the panache of the average Curt Swan or Jack Kirby drawing.
Tue Oct 16, 2007 — by Dennis O'Neil
Costumes, by Dennis O'Neil
The Four-Color Answer #36
My beloved has just been pushed out of a fourteenth story window and is plummeting toward certain doom. I must rescue her and I will – as soon as I change clothes…
We were discussing, last week, how superheroes are evolving and we agreed – didn’t we? – that, on the whole, with a few notable exceptions, they’re getting grimmer.
They also seem to be changing their taste in wardrobes. None of the current television superdoers wear anything more than normal clothing, albeit sometimes very spiffy normal clothing. Time was, and not so long ago, when…shall we call it unconventional garb was an indispensable part of the superhero thing. Capes, masks, tights, all kinds of bizarre raiment, often in the primary hues that were friendly to the aniline dyes and rather primitive printing presses used to color them.
It began, as did so much superheroish stuff, with Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster’s Superman. To the best of my knowledge, these pioneers never went on record regarding exactly why they chose this particular visual strategy, but it was a good idea. It gave the their character and immediate and utterly unmistakable image and it separated him from his ordinary brethren as a police uniform or priestly vestments separate the wearers from plain joes and janes, at least when performing unique services. As Peter Coogan wrote, Superman’s outfit “does proclaim his identity.” The costume was obviously a part of Superman’s appeal, and immediate success, and, being no fools, Siegel and Shuster’s army of imitators copied it.
Consider that, for now, the why of superhero costumes. As to the whence…
Tue Oct 9, 2007 — by Dennis O'Neil
DENNIS O’NEIL: Darkness in Four Colors
The Four-Color Answer #35
If I want to be reminded of a very good reason for being where I am for the next six weeks or so, all I need do is look out the window. The foliage is always glorious. I wish I were a poet, or Henry David Thoreau, or James Lee Burke, so I could properly celebrate the changing of the leaves.
But I’m not. What I am is a guy who’s had a lot of reason to think about superheroes and – here comes a stretch – they’re changing, too, just like the leaves.
Well, maybe not just like. Actually, whether you think these überpowered gallants are getting glorious or dreary as dishwater is emphatically a matter of opinion. If you’ve already made up your mind about this … permission to skip to another column granted. If you haven’t … some remarks.
They’re getting darker, these superheroes. Grim, tormented, almost tragic. No doubt about that. Just read a few comics, or, if time and/or budgetary constraints don’t allow for a trek to your nearest pop art dealer, turn on the television.
Because one of the major changes in the superhero saga is that they’re no longer the exclusive property of comics (or low-budget film and video enterprises.) There are the big budget theatrical movies, of course. And television is rife with superheroes, and I’m not referring to the Saturday morning kiddie television ghetto, either; I’m talking prime-time network stuff. It’s about money, as it usually is.
Tue Oct 2, 2007 — by Dennis O'Neil
DENNIS O’NEIL: Plugging No-Face
The Four-Color Answer #34
Imagine me jumping up and down and pointing to myself and waving a book and yelling, Buy this you gotta buy this it’ll make you happy and rich and solve all your problems and give you Jessica Alba’s phone number it’s the greatest thing since similes…
Now imagine me reverently kissing the hem of George Bush’s garment.
One event is as likely to occur as the other.
I tell you this because soon I will mention a collection of stuff I wrote before some of you were born and I wouldn’t want anyone to think for a nanosecond that I was recommending you buy it. We Missourians who have attained a certain degree of maturity do not so demean ourselves. (We sip our tea and doze in the afternoon sun instead.)
With that caveat…
Yesterday a Santa’s helper from Brown dropped an early Christmas (or Halloween) present on the front stoop, a box of graphic novel-format volumes titled Zen and Violence. Now, somewhere on the space-time continuum between my typing these words and you reading them, they will be inspected by Mike Gold, who is the editor of this department and also edited the aforementioned collection of comic books. Let us pause to consider that maybe the space-time continuum is, indeed, curved, and then enter a timid demurral regarding that title, Zen and Violence.
Not mine. Not Mike’s, as far as I know. My first problem is this: there isn’t much Zen in those pages. A smidgen, maybe, but when I did the stories I may have thought I knew more about Zen than I did. I’m not sure how the series came to be identified with Eastern thought, but it did, and if it does for someone else what the works of Kerouac and Ginsberg did for me – point to the Something Else out there – then maybe I should shut up and smile and bow and retire.
My second problem: Yes, there is plenty of violence in the stories, or action, as some prefer to euphemize it. These were, after all, published as superhero comics in 1986-1987 and nobody back then was buying superhero comics to study philosophy, nor should they have been; violence…er – action was part of the package. Nor do I want to be snooty about it; violence has some valid dramatic uses (and I guess action does, too.) But I don’t want anyone to think I recommend violence as an all-purpose problem solver, and putting the word in a book title might give that impression.
Okay, okay, I’m being paranoid…
RECOMMENDED READING: You want to know something about Zen? Brad Warner’s your man. Warner is a musician, monster movie fan and Zen priest and that, my friends, is a resume a lot of us would be proud to call our own. His latest book is called Sit Down and Shut Up: Punk Rock Commentaries on Buddha, Good, Truth, Sex, Death & Dogen’s Treasury of the Right Dharma Eye. The title, for once, says it all.
Dennis O'Neil is an award-winning editor and writer of comic books like Batman, The Question, Iron Man, Green Lantern and/or Green Arrow, and The Shadow, as well as all kinds of novels, stories and articles.
Tue Sep 25, 2007 — by Dennis O'Neil
DENNIS O'NEIL: On Writing Comics, Part Two
The Four-Color Answer #33
Last week, before I so rudely interrupted us, we were discussing the merits of writing comic books using the “full script” method, in which the writer produces a first cousin to a movie script, with visual directions as well as dialogue and other verbal stuff. Now, we should examine he advantages of working in what has come to be called the “Marvel style.” With this method, you will remember, the writer first does a plot and the penciller renders this into a visual narrative. That’s conveyed to the writer who then adds dialogue and captions and, often, indicates where the balloons and captions should be placed by drawing them onto copies of the artwork.
The main one is that, if the penciller is a good storyteller, he can do the writer’s work for him by figuring out pacing and kinds of shots. When Marvel’s Stan Lee adopted this way of operating, he was working with such as Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, men who were already masters of their craft. Stan didn’t have to worry about such bothers as a boring but vital plot element being eliminated or the pacing of the story being off so that a lot if crammed into the last pages, maybe not leaving enough room for copy. And – when you work with really good artists there’s always the possibility that they’ll improve on your visual storytelling. They will, in other words, make you look good and who doesn’t like that?
When I first worked for Stan in the 60s, our plots were pretty terse, a couple-three paragraphs or even less. But remember, we were usually collaborating with highly experienced artists. When I last left Marvel, in 1986, the plots were generally much longer and closely detailed.
Then there’s Doug Moench, whose plots for 22-page comic books might run 25 pages and include swatches of dialogue. I once asked Doug why he didn’t just do full scripts and save himself some hassle. His reply was that sometimes art inspired him, gave him a character twist or bit of dialogue he would not have thought of otherwise. And this procedure also functions as a fail-safe mechanism – if something isn’t in the art that needs to be there, or if something is unclear, Doug can write to remedy the problem.
Here, my friends, we have a man who is both conscientious and a complete pro.
For a while some years ago, the Marvel style ruled – or at least would have won popularity contests. Now, I’m told by working comic bookers, the full-plot method is much the favored. I don’t know why. It might have something to do with the fact that now, as in the past, deadlines are a major editorial hair-grayer and the full script method is a tiny bit easier to manage because it involves fewer exchanges of material and maybe a little less paperwork. Or maybe, like so much else, these things are determined by evolutionary cycles I can’t quite wrap my brain around.
RECOMMENDED READING: Beowulf, translated by Seamus Heaney
Dennis O'Neil is an award-winning editor and writer of comic books like Batman, The Question, Iron Man, Green Lantern and/or Green Arrow, and The Shadow, as well as all kinds of novels, stories and articles.
Tue Sep 18, 2007 — by Dennis O'Neil
DENNIS O’NEIL: On Writing Comics
The Four-Color Answer #32
I don’t remember a lot about the first time I ever did a cable TV show. It must have been in the 1980s because I know I was working for Marvel, and it was probably on one of those public access channels which still exist but never seem to have anything on them. The evening’s host might have been Carl Gafford. I do recall, to a certainty, that my co-guest was Jo Duffy and we were debating a topic with, surely, international if not cosmic consequence. To wit: which is the better technique for producing comic book scripts, the so-called Marvel method or the full-script method.
Why the networks, or at least the New York Times, did not report this momentous colloquy I know not. Just another example of the ineptitude of American journalism, I suppose.
Jo had the Marvel side of the dialogue and I championed the full-script side. I have no idea what either of us said or did, but it’s now years later and we’re both still alive, so it couldn’t have been too bloody.
Which brings us, via a prolix pre-digression, to this week’s topic. I put it to you, my friend: which is better, Marvel style or full script?
But before you answer, let’s be sure we’re all talking about the same things and that’ll require some definitions. Here we go.
Tue Sep 11, 2007 — by Dennis O'Neil
DENNIS O'NEIL: Comics Education
The four-Color Answer #31
If you’re a dedicated reader of movie end credits, the name Michael Uslan might be familiar to you. If it isn’t…let’s remedy that.
If you know of Mike, it’s probably because he was executive producer of all the recent Batman flicks, including Catwoman and The Dark Knight, coming to a theater near you next June. He’s also been involved in producing a lot of other stuff for screens both large and small. And he’s done considerable writing, some of which was for comic books. I first met him when he was a law student at Indiana State University in Bloomington, where he was teaching the first accredited college course in comics and a related correspondence course; he was nice enough to invite me to meet his class.
Mike’s latest project – and here we come to this week’s real subject – is a documentary movie on comics super heroes to have its world premiere on September 15 at the Montclair Art Museum which is located, no surprise, in a town called Montclair in a state called New Jersey, a short drive or train ride from New York City. The movie screening is part of a much bigger deal, an exhibit of about 150 examples of comics art and related stuff at the museum that is currently there and is not leaving until January 13th of next year. The screening is scheduled for 4:30 in the afternoon.
And if you’re still not satisfied, if that isn’t enough…On October 13th the museum will shelter a panel discussion on comics which will put Mr. Uslan, Danny Fingeroth, Tom DeFalco, and me in front of anyone who cares to show up, listen, ask questions. Genuflecting and flinging rose blossoms at us are optional.
I haven’t visited the exhibit yet, but everything I know about it indicates that it’s worth going a bit out of your way to see. If you do – go out of your way to see it, that is, or even if you plan to see it without going out of your way – you might want some info. You can get it by visiting www.montclairartmuseum.org or phoning (973) 746-5555. And while I’m in reporter mode, one final thing, the museum’s address is 3 South Mountain Avenue, Montclair, NJ 07042
I believe that at one time it would have been customary to, at this point, urge you to “be there or be square.” Aren’t we glad that time is past!
And aren’t we glad that comics have come to a place where respectable institutions promote and host educational efforts on their behalf? Well, yes, with some qualification. Producing comics isn’t the informal, loosey-goosey business it once was, and so maybe a little less fun. And I, for one, am not entirely comfortable with all this respectability. I’m not happy that pretty young women behind checkout counters call me sir, either. But better respectability than oblivion and, come to think of it, better being called sir than oblivion, too.
RECOMMENDED READING: Walden and Civil Disobedience, both by Henry David Thoreau.
Dennis O'Neil is an award-winning editor and writer of comic books like Batman, The Question, Iron Man, Green Lantern and/or Green Arrow, and The Shadow, as well as all kinds of novels, stories and articles.
Tue Sep 4, 2007 — by Dennis O'Neil
DENNIS O’NEIL: The Missouri Mafia
The Four-Color Answer #30
There we were, in Cape Girardeau, Mo. at a convention chatting with fans and signing autographs – yes, the Missouri Mafia together again.
There is an element in the preceding sentence that’s wrong. It’s the word “again.”
Before I explain, a warning: the subject of this week’s blather is so trivial, so insignificant that it does not merit a footnote in the most comprehensive of comics histories, even if that footnote is in a type font so tiny one could use it to put the whole of next year’s New York Times on the head of a pin, presumably near the dancing angels.
Where was I? Oh yeah, in southeast Missouri with Roy Thomas and Gary Friedrich, being very well treated by the convention sponsor, Ken Murphy. The occasion was a reunion of the aforementioned Missouri Mafia – i.e., the three of us. I don’t know who first used the term Missouri Mafia, which Roy, in a recent email called “a dumb phrase,” or why. It was probably because we three, in the late 60s and early 70s, were working as writers at Marvel Comics (and Gary and I also wrote for Charlton) and we were not only from Missouri, we all had a connection to a particular parcel of the state. I was working as a reporter for the Cape Girardeau newspaper; Gary and Roy were childhood friends who lived in Jackson, about eight miles from Cape.
To make a story I’ve told probably hundreds of times as short as possible: Roy was editor of what was unquestionably the best comics fanzine, Alter Ego, and had just accepted a comic book job in New York. I did a story on him for the paper, a month later he sent me Stan Lee’s writer’s test, I did it and then Roy and Stan offered me a job, which I accepted. A year or two later, Roy recruited Gary and…voila! The Missouri Mafia.
The Mafia’s ranks were augmented by the eventual arrival on the scene of Steve Gerber, who, coincidentally, graduated from my alma mater.
