Author: Mindy Newell

Mindy Newell: Occam’s Razor

Yesterday – well, two days ago, since you’re reading this on Monday – I was listening to Ira Glass and “This American Life” on NPR. The subject? Superpowers.

Mr. Glass interviewed Chris Ware, cartoonist and author of the graphic novel Jimmy Corrigan, The Smartest Kid On Earth, beginning with the start of Mr. Ware’s fascination with superpowers and his quest for obtaining them:

Chris Ware: “I mean, unquestionably, I was by far the most loathed member of my class, I think, being a pasty, unathletic kid who was weird looking and probably seemed overly eager. And I had friends that would come over on the weekends to play. But then at school, they would ignore me and pretend like they didn’t know me.”

While it’s true that very few adults look back on their school years with love and affection – especially the high school years – I do think that most of us who were geeks before it was cool can entirely empathize with Mr. Ware and his escape into the world of wonder and four-colors. And I wouldn’t be surprised if, before this modern era of easily accessible fanfic on the web, many of us wrote stories that we didn’t show to anyone, hiding them under our beds or deep in the darkness of our desk drawers. Or, like Mr. Ware, spent hours drawing the superheroes and adventurers of science fiction and fantasy.

And didn’t we all dream of actually having ultra-human capabilities – of finding a hammer in a cave that transformed us into a Norse god of legend, of discovering that we were actually the last survivor of a long-gone planet in another star system so that we had abilities far beyond those of mortal men, of being the inheritor of a mutant gene that enabled us to read other people’s minds? Didn’t we think that if we jumped high enough and hard enough we would never come down?

Like us, Mr. Ware wondered if he could find a radioactive spider like the one that bit Peter Parker. Like us, Mr. Ware spent hours drawing superheroes. And then there was Mr. Ware’s experience in the shower:

“There was one morning where I was standing under the shower. And of course when you get in, immediately, because you’re so cold, the water is extremely hot by contrast. So you have the cold water turned up. And as you stand in there, you get used to it. And you turn the cold water down.

“And I was in there for a very long time. And I remember turning the cold, and it wouldn’t go any farther. And I thought, that’s weird. It must be stuck. And I turned it more. And it wouldn’t go any farther.

“And I realized I was standing under completely hot water. But it felt fine to me. It actually felt warm, almost cool. And the longer I stood there, it felt cooler and cooler.

“And the only explanation I could come up with is that I had developed the ability to withstand extraordinary heat.

“Of course, we’d just run out of hot water. But at that time, I didn’t know that that happened. I thought hot water was an endless commodity.”

As a kid I used to believe that if I stared long enough at a wall I would “turn on” my secret X-ray vision; sometimes I would lay I on my back and stare up into the sky, trying with all my will to see beyond Earth’s atmosphere into outer space with my telescopic vision. And, as I talked about in a previous column, my favorite dream as a child was the one in which I went to my Aunt Ida’s toy store to pick out a costume for Halloween…and the Supergirl costume that I picked actually imbued me with the powers and abilities of my favorite Kryptonian.

But if the powers-that-be decided to grant you one super-power, and that super-power was either invisibility or flight, which would you choose?

This was the question that Mr. Glass’s colleague, John Hodgman, asked the man and woman “in the street.”

The answers were not in the least heroic:

Man: “If I could fly, the first thing I would do is fly into the bar. Check out what’s going on there. Fly back home. I would attach my baby to me and fly to a doctor’s appointment at 11:30. Fly right back. Then I think I would fly to Atlantic City.”

Woman: “[if I had the power to be invisible] I’d go into Barneys (a very chi-chi New York clothing store with prices so high you need flight just to read them). I’d pick out the cashmere sweaters that I like. I’d go into the dressing room. The woman says, how many items? I say five. I go into the dressing room. I put those five sweaters on.

“And I summon my powers of invisibility in the dressing room. I turn invisible. I walk out, leading her to wonder why there’s a tag hanging from the door that says five and no person inside.”

John Hodgman: “So you would become a thief pretty quickly.”

“Immediately. Until I had all the sweaters that I wanted. And then I would have to think of other things to do.”

No one said that he or she would destroy the world’s nuclear arsenals, bring peace to the Middle East, or fight crime. Instead, they would use the power of flight to save on commuting costs, or use their invisibility to sneak into movies or airplanes.

It seems that the contract to obtain a superpower doesn’t include a morality clause. But before signing there is a lot of negotiation:

Man: “Now, when you’re flying, if you’re flying at 1,000 miles an hour at 100,000 feet, are you comfortable? Do you get very cold?

“[or] Let’s say I’m in this room, and I’m invisible. And I’m walking around this apartment, and I’m invisible. Do I have to be completely quiet, or you guys will like, hear my footsteps? Because that’s a pain in the ass.”

Yep, that’s the American way! Look for the loopholes!

It turns out that that in this – granted, very unscientific – survey there is gender bias to choosing, because, overall, men go for flight, women for invisibility. Is this a product of our society, in which men are taught to be bold and aggressive, and women encouraged to be not to make a scene? I don’t know. Neither Mr. Glass nor Mr. Hodgman specified the ages of the participants. My guess is that the older adults, raised in a more conservative (read: sexist) society, would follow the pattern, while the younger adults, raised in a more open culture in which they are “free to be you and me” (to quote Marlo Thomas), would be more difficult to assign an expected role.

I asked Alix and Jeff which they would choose.

Jeff: “Invisibility.”

Alix: “Invisibility.”

Well, both are way more practical than me; both immediately said that invisibility would be the more useful of the two – though Jeff added that he has a friend who would definitely choose flight.

Hodgman described what he calls “The Five Stages of Choosing Your Superpower.” The first is called the Gut Reaction:

Responder: “Initially, I would think perhaps invisibility.”

Stage II: Practical Consideration:

“Because you have the ability to walk around work, perhaps. Show up at one point and perhaps go away for a little while and turn invisible. And then come back and listen to what they say about you. You have the power to spy on your exes. And that would all be enlightening and fun and, in fact, a little bit perverted.”

Stage III: Philosophical Reconsideration.

“That would – I believe it would immediately turn into a life of complete depression. You wouldn’t be able to really share with anyone. And I know there’d be some problems with, like, the perversion thing.”

Stage IV: Self-Recrimination:

“Invisibility leads you– leads me, as an invisible person, down a dark path. Because you’re not going to want to miss out when you’re invisible. No matter how many times you’ve seen a woman naked in the shower, you’re going to want to see it again. Because there’s always a different woman. Right? And there’s, like, a lifetime of that. And that’s not acceptable behavior, no matter whether you’re invisible or not.”

Stage V: Acceptance.

“Yeah, I’d have to go with flight.”

As Mr. Hodgman pointed out, and I agree with him, the choice indicates the dichotomy of our inner selves. We all want to be heroes, we all want to be gallant and overt and looked up to, we all want to fly. But down here on the ground, we are all secretly afraid and covert and selfish, we all want to those “bad” parts of us to be invisible.

As one respondent said:

“Flying is for people who want to let it all hang out. Invisibility is for fearful, crouching masturbators.”

Hey, almost everybody masturbates.

But I want to fly, as well.

Up, up, and awaaaaaaay!

 

Mindy Newell: Look! Up In The Sky!

I am so very tired of it.

Last week fellow ComicMix columnist Molly Jackson wrote about the sexual harassment of cosplayer Mindy Marzac at the most recent Star Wars Celebration in Anaheim, California. Separately, Frank Cho drew a riff of the “infamous” Milo Manara cover and all hell broke loose.

Separately, country music icon Tim McGraw decided to do a benefit concert for the Sandy Hook Promise charity and suddenly he became persona non grata to the gun lobby while others call for his records to be banned.

Separately, political hack Peter Schweizer was a consultant for Sarah Palin when she was John McCain’s running mate in the 2008 Presidential election, and we’re supposed to take seriously his allegations that Hillary Clinton, as Secretary of State, okayed the sale of Uranium One, a Canadian company with uranium mining claims in the U.S., to Rosatom, a Russian atomic energy agency.

Aside: On April 24, NBC News released a statement, after doing its own research into what, I admit, could be a very serious matter, saying that these allegations “don’t hold up so well.” Here is their report:

  • Ian Telfer, who was Uranium One’s chairman at the time it was being taken over by Rosatom, did donate money to the Clinton Foundation. However, he told the Financial Post  that he committed those funds to the Foundation in 2008, “before Uranium One had any negotiations with the Russians, and the donations he has made since then were part of that initial pledge.” Hillary Clinton also did not become secretary of state until 2009.
  • Frank Giustra, a Canadian businessman who the New York Times noted also donated to the Clinton Foundation and who owned the predecessor to Uranium One before its sale to the Russians, sold his personal stake in the company in 2007. The proposed sale of Uranium One occurred in 2010. Giustra himself released a statement criticizing the Times’ reporting, calling it “wildly speculative, innuendo-laced,” and inaccurate, and noting that contrary to the Times’ claim that Bill Clinton had flown with him to conclude a stage in the Uranium deal, “Bill Clinton had nothing to do with” that purchase.
  • The State Department only had one vote on the nine-member Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) that approved the deal. Other agencies, including the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security, Energy, Commerce, and Justice, also weighed in.
  • The chairman of the CFIUS is the TreasurySecretary, not Secretary of State.
  • Rosatom hadto get approval from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which is an independent agency outside of the secretary of state’s influence.
  • Utah’s local nuclear regulator also had to sign off on the deal, as it involved mills in the state.
  • Former Assistant Secretary of State Jose Fernandez, who was the State Department’s principal representative on CFIUS, said, “Secretary Clinton never intervened with me on any CFIUS matter.”

Yeah, I’m tired of it. “It” meaning all the bullshit that’s out there.

  •    •    •     •     •

Last week I wrote about the second season of Outlander, mentioning how the truly erotic and openly sexual scenes between heroine Claire Randal and her 18th century lover/husband are breaking down the barriers of what is shown on television shows these days.

Well, score another smashing down of said barrier. Last night’s episode, in which the dastardly Captain Jonathan “Black Jack” attempted to rape Jamie Fraser’s sister, not only gave us the full Monty of Jonathan’s jack, but also gave us the delightful (not!) view of the Captain fruitlessly masturbating as he endeavored to get himself hard enough to penetrate the woman. And what did Jamie’s sister do while this was going on? Laughed at him! (You go, Jamie’s sister!) Kudos to the historical accuracy once again. “Black Jack” is not circumcised, a procedure which in the 18th century was only carried out only by Jews and Muslims as part of a religious ritual. No word, however, on whether or not there was digital manipulation of the actor’s penis. Is he or isn’t he? Only his intimates know for sure.

  •    •    •     •     •

DC Comics, a subsidiary of DC Entertainment, a subsidiary of Warner Bros Inc., officially closed its New York City doors at 1700 Broadway, across the street from The Ed Sullivan Theater, on Friday, April 10, moving out to Burbank, California and Warner Bros. corporate home and studios.

How does that affect me?

Practically speaking, not at all. I haven’t been to DC’s NY offices since November 2001, and I don’t expect to be visiting their shiny new environs any time soon.

My professional days at DC weren’t at 1700 Broadway anyway. They took place at 666 Fifth Avenue, a landmark Manhattan skyscraper built in 1957, which is also known as the Tishman Building, and was home to the Top of the Sixes restaurant – it’s since closed. Dick Giordano once took me to lunch there. I had an enormous shrimp cocktail and an absolutely mouth-watering Scottish barley soup. Also two glasses of a very fine Merlot. It was a very good meeting.

My emotional reaction is a bit more difficult to define. End of an era, rose-colored nostalgia, of course. Some “what could have been” meanderings. A little anger at what part of me sees as a general dissing of New York City’s grand history as the publishing mecca of the world, and a more personal dissing of DC itself as a New York City historical landmark of pop culture by Warner Bros., which now so overtly sees DC and its comics only as product.

I wonder what they will do in a few years when the superhero movies craze goes away, as all crazes do. Will they continue to support DC, or will they sell it off as “non-profitable?” I personally opt for the later, which will leave only Marvel Studios – if they survive – as the premier comic book movie producer. And if Warners sells DC to Disney/Marvel, will a Supreme Court fight over “entertainment monopolies” ensue?

green lantern oathBut, as Mike Gold so fittingly described it, I do have a lot for which to be thankful regarding DC; first and foremost the many friends and good people I met, and the feeling they gave me that, yes, you weird woman, you, you weren’t that weird after all – there were others out there just like you who loved comics and science fiction and could recite Green Lantern’s oath, and dug Doctor Who and grokked Spock. And I would have never traveled around the States and across the Atlantic to participate in conventions, and I would have never spent a day in Marvel’s Bullpen.

And I sure as hell wouldn’t be here now, trying to inform and entertain you with my love of comics and pop culture, with my opinions, with my attitudes, with my political stances …

… and just generally trying to raise your hackles.

 

Mindy Newell: Of Corsets And Kilts

Jamie Frasier (Sam Heughan): This will go faster if ye just yield, woman!

Claire Randall Frasier (Caitriona Balfe): I’m going to make you suffer!

Jamie: Ye already have! 

Jamie: I am your master and you’re mine. It seems I canna possess your soul without losing my own.

Jamie: Sassenach…


Claire: Yes, master?

Jamie: What does fucking mean?

Outlander • Ronald D. Moore, Producer. Based on the novel by Diana Gabaldon

Question 1: Has there ever been a show on television, network or cable – not counting the porn channels – in which the camera stays focused on the action as the man sucks on his lover’s nipple?

Question 2: Have you been watching the second half of the first season of Outlander on the Starz network?

And you thought the sex scenes in the first half were hot? Whoa!

Well, just in case you’re thinking that this old bag is only watching this genre-mixing series (part historical, part adventure, and part romance, and based on Diana Gabaldon’s best-selling novel) only to get her rocks off, I want you to know that, im-not-so-ho, the intimate scenes between the “time-crossed” lovers Claire Randall and Jamie Frasier aren’t in the least bit gratuitous.

Claire and Jamie, two strangers divided by 200 years of societal, political and technological upheavals, were married last season not for love, but for political circumstance and to protect Claire from the British captain who believes she is a spy; there has been some very ugly words between them, as well as some 21st century “politically incorrect” physical abuse that lit up Outlander message boards across the web. And so their relationship seesaws between love and hate, need and independence, conflict and harmony, competition and accord.

None of this should be surprising; Outlander is produced – with some episodes directed and written – by Ronald D. Moore, who has never shied away from the realities of relationships and the forces that work upon them, making those relationships a basic element of all his work, most famously in his reboot of Battlestar: Galactica.

Aside: Mr. Moore has stated that he left Star Trek: The Next Generation because he became frustrated with Gene Roddenberry’s dictum that everyone on the U.S. S. Enterprise NCC 1701-C got along like stoned-out-of-their-minds hippies at Woodstock or a conclave of Scientologists slobbering at the foot of Tom Cruise. A few minor skirmishes were allowed, hints of romance every so often, but no any real character growth and development between crewmembers. “Conflict is the heart of drama,” Moore has said. “No conflict, no drama.”

But Outlander is also richly detailed in its historical facts – the Jacobite movement to restore “Bonnie Prince Charlie” Stuart to the throne of England – and 18th century Scottish creeds, customs and mores, including its costume design. Speaking of which, today’s New York Times includes a piece on Mr. Moore and his wife, Terry Dresbach, who is Outlander’s costume designer. According to the New York Times, “The couple share a similar philosophy when it comes to period costumes: Make them as authentic as possible. ‘I want them to look lived-in, beaten-up and home-repaired,’ Mr. Moore said. To that end, his wife assembled a 15-person aging and dyeing department, whose primary objective is to weather the costumes and ‘make them look real,’ he explained.

“Occasionally they clash when the needs of the story and the reality of costumes collide,” the NYT continued. “For instance, when the villainous redcoat Capt. Black Jack Randall rips Claire’s bodice, Mr. Moore said, ‘Terry tells me in excruciating detail how impossible it is to rip open these dresses unless you’re the Hulk, because there are many layers of thick fabric’…[they] settled on having Black Jack slice open Claire’s dress with a knife.”

Like most actors and actresses the cast of Outlander says that wearing appropriate to the era costumes only increases their ability to “step inside” their characters’ minds and lives. However, the wearing corsets can be, well, inhibiting. Caitrona Balfe, who plays Claire, said, “Once you’re sucked into these corsets, you realize just how repressed women were.” And her co-star, Lotte Verbeek, who also starred in HBO’s The Borgias, says, “The costumes help, but they also kind of hurt.” As for the men, well, they have fewer complaints in their kilts. “There’s something very freeing about wearing [it],” said Graham McTavish, who plays Dougal MacKenzie, the war chief of Clan MacKenzie, and Jamie’s uncle. “It represents something from the past that has style and elegance – you’re not going out dressed in sweatpants, sneakers, and a baseball cap.” Though Tobias Menzies, who plays the aforementioned British Royal Army Captain Jonathan “Black Jack” Randall, doesn’t like them. “Put some trousers on,” he says. Well, he does, for Menzies also plays Frank Randall, Claire’s 20th century husband and a descendant of Black Jack.

I don’t know if the men wear underwear under the kilts, though that is truly the way kilts are worn. I know, because my ex-husband wore a kilt to our wedding….

Um, ‘nuff said!

 

Mindy Newell: Defining Oneself

I have been engrossed for the last week in Infidel, an autobiography that chronicles the life and times of political activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali and how she became who and what she is. Ms. Ali will be familiar to those readers of this column, who, like me, strive to never miss an episode of HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher and MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews. She has also appeared on FOX News, CNN, and just about every news organization around the world – though I don’t know if she has ever been invited onto Al-Jazeera, even here on the U.S. version.

But if not, here’s a short version of Ms. Ali’s biography. Born into a traditional Muslim family in Somalia in 1969, her father was Hirsi Magan Isse, a leader of the Somali Salvation Democratic Front and who was actively involved in the Somalian Revolution against the Siad Barre government. Although Mr. Isse had been educated in the West and had a more “relaxed” view of Islam, while he was in prison for his opposition Ms. Ali’s grandmother, against both parents’ wishes (her mother followed her husband’s views at the time, becoming more rigid as the years went by), arranged for the traditional female genital mutilation of Ms. Ali and her younger sister.

Background: Female genital mutilation is the circumcision of the clitoris and the removal of the inner, or minor, labia; the entire vulva is then sewn shut, and a small hole is lanced into the skin to allow the flow of urine.

After her father’s escape from prison, the family moved three times, first to Saudi Arabia, then to Ethiopia, and finally settling in Nairobi, Kenya. There Ms. Ali attended the Muslim Girls’ Secondary School, which was funded by Saudi Arabia, and where she was inspired by a teacher to adhere to the strict Wahhabism interpretation of Islam that the Saudis practice – which is interesting, because Ms. Ali was, shall I say, not impressed with the practice of Islam she saw as a young girl while living in Mecca. She does speak of the peace she found within the Great Mosque itself.

Turning her back on the more relaxed version of Islam practiced in Somalia and Kenya, Ms. Ali became immersed in the religion, donning the hijab, sympathizing with the Muslim Brotherhood, and agreeing with the fatwa against Salmon Rushdie for his portrayal of the Prophet in his The Satanic Verses.

At the same time, she was reading Nancy Drew stories, romance novels by Danielle Steele and Barbara Cartland, and Jacqueline Susann’s Valley of the Dolls. She also read the great classics of Western literature, including Wuthering Heights, 1984, Huckleberry Finn, and Alan Paton’s Cry, The Beloved Country, the South African writers polemic about racism and apartheid in his country.

So Ms. Hirsi Ali was a study in diametrically opposed forces: the Islamic subjugation and degradation of women, to which she clung for many years, and the Western beliefs of freedom and equality between the sexes. However, when a marriage was arranged for her, she sought and gained political asylum in the Netherlands in 1992. There she obtained a graduate degree and began to speak out against the Muslim abuse of women. Ms. Hirsi Ali was elected to the Dutch Parliament in 2003, representing the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy. When her Dutch citizenship was questioned in 2006, she resigned her seat – this action is believed to help lead to the fall of the Dutch administration in 2006.

In 2002 Ayaan Hirsi Ali renounced Islam and all religions, announcing her atheism, and attributing it to her personal “multi-year journey.” Time Magazine named Ayaan Hirsi Ali one of the “100 Most Influential People in the World” in 2006; she continues to be an advocate for Muslim women, for free speech, and Islam itself. She believes the religion is in desperate need for a “Reformation,” similar to what occurred in the Middle Ages when Martin hung “The Ninety-Five Theses on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences” on the door of All Saints’ Church in Wittenberg, Germany, on (according to custom) October 31, 1517. Because of this, Ms. Hirsi Ali lives with continuous death threat hanging over her like the sword of Damocles.

I became aware of Ms. Hirsi Ali when she worked with Danish writer and filmmaker Theo Van Gogh, scripting his film, Submission (2004), which criticized the Islamic treatment of women; in one scene an actress, dressed in a see-through burqa, is nude, and the viewer can easily see texts from the Koran (or Qur’an) validating the religion’s subjugation and abuse of women. Outrage ensued among Dutch Muslims, and one young man, Mohammed Bouyeri (allegedly a member of the terrorist Hofstad Group), violently killed Van Gogh, shooting him eight times, slitting his throat, and then attempting to decapitate him. The killer left a letter, a death threat against Ms. Hirsi Ali, pinned to Van Gogh’s chest with a knife.

Now, as to comics…

I don’t really know of many Muslims in American comics, at least historically, although I do know of The 99, created by Dr. Naif Al-Mutawa, a Columbia Business School graduate, and published by his Kuwait-bashed Teshkeel Comics. They were distributed all over the Middle East, India, and Indonesia, and reprinted here in the States via Marvel. Still, though the beliefs and creeds of Islam forms the basis of the book’s themes, none of the characters were specifically Muslim, and the marketing of the book “promoted universal virtues” such as cooperation, wisdom, and generosity. The 99 themselves were an international group of teenagers and adults who are empowered individually by each of the mystical Noor Stones. By working together and combining their specific gifts, the 99 overcame all problems and foes.

But the comic was not received well in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait because the 99’s “super-powers” were based on the 99 attributes of Allah as described in the Qur’an, The Grand Mufti, Abdulaziz al-Sheikh, head of the Permanent Committee for Islamic Research and Issuing Fatwas, said “The 99 is a work of the devil that should be condemned and forbidden in respect to Allah’s names and attributes.” On July 2, 2014, ISIS issued death threats and offered rewards for the assassination of Dr. Al-Mutawa.

I read and have copies of the graphic novels Persepolis (2003) and Persepolis 2 (2004), the English translations of the autobiographical work of Marjane Satrapi, an Iranian-born French citizen who is also Muslim. (I also went to see the animated Persepolis with Alixandra in 2007.) It is the story of a rebellious young girl, named Marjane, who comes of age during the Iranian Revolution of 1979.

And now, of course, there is Ms. Marvel, written by G. Willow Wilson and drawn by Adrian Alphona. Kamala Khan is the Pakistani American teenager who discovers she has shape-shifting abilities and takes the name of “Ms. Marvel” after her hero, Carol Danvers. Ms. Wilson, a convert to Islam, said that while Kamala certainly fights her share of super bad guys, but also…”explores conflicts with Khan’s home and religious duties…[it’s] not evangelism. It was really important for me to portray Kamala as someone who is struggling with her faith.”

Editor Sara Amanat, who conceived the idea along with co-editor Stephen Wacker after a conversation about Sara’s childhood as a Muslim-American, said, “Her brother is extremely conservative, her mom is paranoid that she’s going to touch a boy and get pregnant, and her father wants her to concentrate on her studies and become a doctor.”

Most important, Ms. Amant said:

“As much as Islam is a part of Kamala’s identity, this book isn’t preaching about religion or the Islamic faith in particular. It’s about what happens when you struggle with the labels imposed on you, and how that forms your sense of self. It’s a struggle we’ve all faced in one form or another, and isn’t just particular to Kamala because she’s Muslim. Her religion is just one aspect of the many ways she defines herself.”

This American Jewish woman wholeheartedly agrees.

 

Mindy Newell: I Want To Believe

Military Comics 11Sometimes I think I’m living in a comic book world.

Comics have often reflected the events going on in the real world. During World War II, American comics vilified the Axis Triumvirate, i.e., Germany, Italy, and Japan – Superman was fighting a German paratrooper on the cover of Action Comics #43, and Marvel (then known as Timely Comics) presented the All-American hero, Captain America, who, in a story written by and drawn by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, punched out Adolf Hitler on the cover of his eponymous first issue, cover-dated March 1941. In Gleason’s Daredevil #1 (July 1941), the red-and-blue hero also took on the Führer, as did the Human Torch and The Sub-Mariner in the autumn of that same year.

The Boy Commandos, again from the team of Kirby and Simon working for DC, were four orphaned kids from the United States, England, France, and the Netherlands. They form an elite fighting unit under the command of Captain Rip Carter to fight the Nazis and appeared on the newsstands in the winter of1942. In Green Lantern #5 (May, 1945), the Emerald Crusader brings a bigoted Army private to Nazi Germany to show the private the rotten fruit of racism. Quality Comics’ Blackhawk first appeared in Military Comics #1, August 1941.

The Japanese didn’t get off easy. In The Nightmares Of Lieutenant Ichi or Juan Posong Gives Ichi The Midnight Jitters was published by U.S. Office of War Information for the Pacific Theater, and secretly circulated in the Philippines to boost morale during the Japanese occupation of country.

During the Korean War, the United States Department of State authorized the Johnstone and Cushing Company to create and publish the comic book Korea My Home, which was a true propaganda masterpiece worthy of Joseph Goebbels. In direct contrast, EC Comics debuted Frontline Combat and Two-Fisted Tales; these comics did not propagandize war as a “field of honor,” but showed the killing fields for what they were – im-not-so-ho, the real reason why EC Comics was attacked and shut down by Congress… although William Gaines, Al Feldstein, and Harvey Kurtzman, most notably, kept up the good fight by continuing to publish Mad Magazine, the “original” subversive comic magazine for us baby boomers.

But it’s all propaganda, whether you’re on the right or the left of the political 50-yard line.

During the Reagan administration (I have a picture in my mind of Ronnie in the Oval Office ignoring the beginning of the AIDS epidemic and dreaming up “trickle-down economics” and pulling the Marines out of Lebanon while giggling over the gang’s antics in Riverdale and munching on some jelly beans), the CIA got into the business of publishing comics – though it was credited to the fictional “Victims of International Communist Emissaries,” whoever the fuck they were supposed to be – in 1984 with Grenada: Rescued from Rape and Slavery.

Get this – the storyboards were delivered in a Washington, D.C. taxi, where the head of the company received a suitcase full of cash for them. Ooooh, James Bondian skullduggery! The comics were airdropped over Grenada prior to the American invasion of the island, and, according to Wikipedia, “were intended to justify the American intervention in the country by describing the rise of communist forces there and how their presence demands military intervention” and “outlines President Ronald Reagan’s justifications for the invasion: alleged oppression and torture of the local inhabitants, threats to American medical students on the island, and a potential domino effect leading to more Communist governments in the Caribbean.”

Also under Ronald Reagan – he who got away with the Iran-Contra scandal – and the CIA was the 1985 The Freedom Fighter’s Manual, distributed to the Nicaraguan Contras during the fight against the Sandinista government in that country.

This one if fucking unbelievable!

It states that its purpose is that of a “practical guide to liberating Nicaragua from oppression and misery by paralyzing the military-industrial complex of the traitorous Marxist state without having to use special tools and with minimal risk for the combatant,” and instructs the readers on all the “various techniques” the “guerilla fighter” can use to fight the oppressor, up to and including terrorism. Okay, it talked about non-violent protest (work slowdowns, wasting resources), but it also instructed the reader on “minor sabotage, how to set fires with makeshift time fuses, demonstrated the making of Molotov cocktails and using them to firebomb government buildings.”

It also is a political manifesto on the necessity and ultimate goal of guerilla warfare:

“…guerrilla warfare is essentially a political war. Therefore, its area of operations exceeds the territorial limits of conventional warfare, to penetrate the political entity itself: the political animal that Aristotle defined.”

This comic was repackaged and retitled “Afghanistan: The Mujahedeen’s Handbook for Overthrowing the Evil Empire” and redistributed to Osama Bin Laden’s team of freedom fighters in Kabul.

Only kidding!

Propaganda. It’s not just for kids anymore.

 

Mindy Newell: The Truth Is Out There

For nine years, from 1993 through 2002, Friday was the night to stay home or at the least to make sure your favorite television recorder was programmed correctly.

I’m talking about The X-Files, created by Chris Carter and which starred then relatively unknown actors David Duchovny as FBI Special Agent Fox Mulder, an Oxford-trained behavioral psychologist, and Gillian Anderson as FBI Special Agent Dana Scully, an M.D. specializing in forensic medicine. Together they investigated the so-called “X-Files” of the FBI: cases that involved crimes on the margins of “normal,” paranormal activities, and UFO goings-on.

It became the Fox (no pun intended) network’s highest rated show and won numerous awards over its original lifetimes, including 16 Emmy Awards, five Golden Globes, and a Peabody Award over its run; it also received nominations and wins from the Directors Guild, the Writers Guild the Screen Actors Guild, the Television Critics Association, and the Saturn Awards.

A straight line can be drawn, I think, from the classic Kolchak: The Night Stalker to X-Files. But Carl Kolchak was an investigative reporter who always seemed to accidentally get involved in “out-there” stories on his beat for a Chicago newspaper; but the FBI agents purposely sought them out.

Mulder, who at the age of ten experienced what he believed to be an alien abduction – what the “authorities” said was an “ordinary” kidnapping and/or disappearance – of his younger sister Samantha, was the staunch believer. Scully, assigned to essentially spy on Mulder (who was looked upon, at best, as a brilliant eccentric who needed to be tolerated, and, at worst, as “Spooky by superiors who believed he was a danger to the FBI’s reputation) was the “cool-headed, scientifically-aimed” skeptic of the duo. Over the course of the series’ run, it soon became apparent why there were elements in the FBI and the government who wanted to get rid of Mulder: a “black ops” organization, in order to save themselves, was cooperating with aliens to first subjugate and then wipe out the human race. This storyline became the continuing mythology and underpinning of the X-Files, as the agents’ worked together in a desperate bid to bring this underground conspiracy into the light of day.

Last week, Fox announced a new X-Files six-parter starring Duchovny and Anderson, so I started watching The X-Files again on Amazon Prime– I’m still on Season 1 – and I’m remembering why I was hooked. The show’s acting, stories, music, and cinematography all combine into an eeriness that’s impossible to ignore and stays with you even in the light of day.

Another important thing I’ve realized is just how much of a “glass ceiling” smasher Anderson’s Dana Scully was in her individuality, her intelligence and competence, her ass-kicking, and her way with a gun. It’s easy to see that the character laid the groundwork for her television sisters such as Carrie Mathison (Claire Danes, Homeland), Chloe O’Brian (Mary Lynn Rajskub, 24), Fiona Glenanne (Gabriel Anwar, Burn Notice), Gwen Cooper (Eve Myles, Torchwood), and Olivia Dunham (Anna Torv, Fringe).

The show gave birth to two movies: 1998’s The X-Files: Fight the Future, which though appeared in theatres while the show was still on television and continued season 5’s ending, with season 6 beginning where the movie left off. It was also conceived by Mr. Carter to be able to attract audiences not familiar with the overall mythos and characters of X-Files and stand on its own as a complete story in itself. Ten years later, 2008’s The X-Files: I Want to Believe was an individual science fiction thriller in which both Mulder and Scully are no longer associated with the FBI; Mulder, in fact, is a fugitive from the organization living underground, and Scully is a doctor on staff at a hospital – though she secretly lives with Mulder.

Fans have clamored for years for a third movie, to tie up loose ends left in the 2002 final season.

Last week the Fox network answered them – sort of. They announced The X-Files is returning to television screens for a limited six-episode run. But will it live up to 13 years of hopes, wish, and frustrated dreams?

Trust No One.

But – whoo-hoo! oh, yeah! – it could be great!

I Want to Believe.

 

Mindy Newell: Do Not Fold, Spindle, Or Mutilate Me!

Yesterday I ran into a friend from high school as I was leaving the supermarket. He told me that he is moving to a smaller place and so he’s trying to sell off his comics collection, which runs into the thousands and thousands. He’s going to keep some of them because he loves them, and for posterity, and for hopefully great value in the future. But he hasn’t been able to offload most of them – which I said probably has something to do with the economy, because even if the Dow is over 18,000 and the unemployment rate is under 5.5%, most everyone is keeping their Washingtons and their Lincolns and their Benjamins in their wallet or under the bed. He also told me that once DC’s two-month limited series Convergence is done in April, he’s also going to be done with comics.

“Why?” I asked.

“Because all it is now is one big cataclysmic event leading into another,” he said. “It’s boring, it doesn’t mean anything, and I’m not wasting any more money on the shit.”

Yeah. I get it.

PowBack in the eighties the comics industry was experiencing a boom in great visual storytelling that was busting down all the preconceived notions about comics. No more pop-art balloons. No more women whose only aim in life was to become a Mrs. fill-in-your-favorite-single-super-guy here. No more “*choke* *gasp* *sob* How ironic!” neatly wrapped up endings. Stories became more complex; the superheroes weren’t always red-white-and-blue American good guys who always saved the day.

Yes, Marvel had been doing this since the introduction of Spider-Man in Amazing Fantasy #15, cover-dated August 1962, but across the country there was an explosion of energy in the eighties: the independent market took root and prospered, the Comics Code Authority seal vanished from covers, the Brits launched a second pop culture invasion, and people were openly reading comics on the subways, on the buses, at work, and at school. The story ruled, man!

Comic historians can tell you when it exactly happened, but I know that it was after Crisis on Infinite Earths and Secret Wars and, especially, The Death of Superman, that the story disappeared and the event took over.

Ah, The Death of Superman – everyone was buying multiple, multiple copies and stowing them away in attics and cedar chests and shoeboxes because everyone knew they would be worth $$$$$$ someday. Only of course millions of issues were printed and of course DC wasn’t going to really ice their licensing giant and of course the public’s ability to be sucker-punched was infinite (pun intended). So of course it will be about 500 million years before a mint copy of the issue will be worth gazillions. But of course DC made money, lots and lots of money, and generated lots and lots of publicity, including a Time magazine cover.

And so of course, the people at the top of the corporate DC ladder wanted to do it again. And again. And again. And again.

And so they did.

And Marvel did it as well. I think they started (but again, ask a comic historian for the exact stats and dates) after Secret War I with the expansion of the X-Men line, which led to crossovers, which led to X-Men crossovers, which led to Iron Man and Thor, and Punisher expansions which led to crossovers and then to across-the-line events.

Oh, and let’s not forget the variable covers with Mylar and special graphics and holograms. And there were “3-D” pop-up pages, and double-page fold-outs and…

Dig it, man. These were all events.

But what happened to the story?

It went elsewhere…to the comics that nobody really noticed (and so got cancelled), to the book publishers who started graphic novel lines, and, especially in Marvel’s case, to the movies and television. (Although, as Marc Alan Fishman recently noted in his column last week, DC’s Flash is gettin’ it.)

John Ostrander’s column yesterday reflected on the wonderful world of robotic (computer) storytelling. He noted that these stories, and I’m using shorthand here, suck big time. Grammatically correct and all that, but no heart. No soul. No emotion.

But the Cylons evolved, and I’m guessing so will these programs, John.

Maybe not in our lifetime, old friend, or yours, but one day there will be an X-Men or a Superman or a Daredevil or a Batman written by a computer.

And it will be an event.

 

Mindy Newell: Chariots Of The Gods

“Space travelers in the gray mists of time? An inadmissible question to academic scientists. Anyone who asks questions like that ought to see a psychiatrist.” • Erich von Danniken

“It’s just one more thing to remember to charge throughout our busy days.” • Joseph Volpe of Engadget.com critiquing the Apple Watch

Well, I finished rewatching Ronald D. Moore’s Battlestar Galactica.

The most popular question (dissatisfaction?) I remember floating around the message boards connected with the finale of BSG was: “What, or who, was the returned-from-the-dead Kara Thrace, a.k.a. Starbuck?” And I also remember that there was a lot of frustration and unhappy people who were really angry with Mr. Moore for not giving a black-and-white answer. I suppose these dissatisfied viewers wanted to see an extension of Kara’s final scene with Lee Adama in which, in their imagination, she would say – sort of a SPOILER AHEAD! –

“When my Viper crashed on Earth, there was a light, and as I walked towards it I saw my mother and my father and Kat and they told me that I wasn’t done yet, that I had to go back and complete my destiny. But my body was burned up so God created an avatar for my spirit, my soul, to inhabit so that my journey could be completed. Now I have. I have led you to Earth and humanity has its fresh start, but it’s time for me to leave for good, Lee. The lease on this body is up and I have to return it. Besides, Sam is waiting for me on the other side. So goodbye.”

Those of you who are BSG fans know that is not what Kara said to Lee – not in any overt way. But still, if you were paying attention, that is what she said, that is what happened to Kara Thrace. Im-not-so-ho, of course.

The other question that floated around the message boards, and one with which I agreed, was: Would the survivors of the twelve colonies really give up all their technology in their quest to start anew? I mean, not even a radio? That seemed a little “out there” to me. Wouldn’t it be important to stay in contact with the other colonists as they made “homesteads” around the globe? I mean, these were people who complained about the accommodations aboard the various ships on the fleet – were they really going to go without bathrooms?

Besides, if we are all descendents of the Cylon/Homo sapien hybrid named Hera, then an inherent need for technology is wired into our DNA – after all, anyone who is everyone is talking about that “godsdamned” Apple Watch and how they can’t wait to get it – oh, and by the way, Mike, you didn’t mention in your column that there is going to be an “upscale” model (read: diamonds and gold and sterling silver) costing around $17,000 or so, for those gazillionaires who want to play Dick Tracy.

Still, I loved the idea that the people of the colonies were the “gods” aboard the chariots of Erich von Danniken and the *ahem* Ancient Aliens of the History Channel. And it left me wanting more, more, more…

So I watched The Plan and Razor and then put the sequel/prequel, Caprica, on my Amazon “watch list.” I watched the pilot episode Saturday.

Caprica did not feature huge space battles and interstellar travel so it never had the fan base of BSG; most of the audience did not have the patience for the acorn to take root and grow into a mighty oak tree, patience being a virtue that was apparently swallowed up into a black hole at the beginning of the 21st century, and thus it was prematurely cancelled by the Sci-Fi network.

(This, I think, was the beginning of the end of the Sci-Fi Channel, which once upon a time featured shows like Stargate Sg-1 and Farscape and BSG, and then changed its name to SyFy and now airs movies about mutant sharks caught in tornados and WWE exhibitions. Well, some of those wrestlers could be classified as aliens.)

It was an example of a – dare I use the phrase – thinking man’s exploration of science and God and the intersection between both. Yes, so was BSG, but Mr. Moore sneakily slipped that in between the (admittedly terrific) special effects of nukes exploding and Cylon raiders.

Mr. Moore said that Caprica is “about a society that’s running out of control with a wild-eyed glint in its eye… meant to explore ethical implications of advances in artificial intelligence and robotics.”

Too bad Mr. Moore never got a chance to complete the series.

I could have viewed it on my Apple Watch.

 

Mindy Newell: IDIC*

“Oh, my. The simplest would be to say, ‘Languh yoren osta lebn.’ It’s a typical Yiddish expression. Parents say it to their kids. It means, ‘You should live many years’.” • On the Jewish roots of “live long and prosper”

“There was a very small crowd – miniscule compared to the crowd that he gathered later – at a private home in Los Angeles. And we were standing on the back patio, waiting for him. And he came through the house, saw me and immediately put his hand up in the Vulcan gesture. He said, ‘They told me you were here.’ We had a wonderful, brief conversation and I said, ‘It would be logical if you would become president.’“ • On meeting Senator Barak Obama during his first Presidential campaign

“I have been, and shall always be, your friend.” Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan

On the wall to the right of the corner in my bedroom where my computer is set up is a plaque given to me for my birthday by daughter Alixandra when she was in high school. It reads, in emboldened and etched script:

STAR TREK: TO BOLDLY GO WHERE NO MAN HAS GONE BEFORE

It’s a picture of Commander Spock of the U.S.S. Enterprise, NCC-1701.

It’s a totally fangirl-geek-nerd piece of cheap convention claptrap, for which she probably overpaid and with no monetary value whatsoever in the collectibles market…

And I love it.

I love it because it’s from my daughter.

I love it because it tells me every day that my daughter gets me, that she got me then and always will.

And I love it because it’s a marker that some things do cross-generational barriers, that, to paraphrase John Ostrander’s eloquent words from his column here yesterday, it helps me to remember the past, to appreciate the present, and anticipate the future.

Languh yoren osta lebn, Mr. Spock.

And may your katra be with God, Mr. Nimoy.

*Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations

 

Mindy Newell: Said The Joker To The Thief

“There are many here among us / Who feel that life is but a joke / But you and I we’ve been through that / And this is not our fate.” • Bob Dylan, All Along the Watchtower, 1967

“What’s it all about, Alfie?” • Burt Bacharach and Hal David

I’m writing this while listening to the soundtrack of the revival of South Pacific, which played at Lincoln Center here in NYC in 2008 and won eight Tony awards. It starred Kelli O’Hara as Nellie Forbush, Paulo Szot as Emile de Beque, and Matthew Morrison (Will Schuster on Glee) as Lt. Joseph Cable. The show, written by Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein II, and Joshua Logan, opened on Broadway in 1949, and is based on James Michener’s series of short stories about the Pacific theatre, Tales of the South Pacific, which was published in 1947, for which he won the Pulitzer Prize in 1948. It was only 4 years since the end of World War II, and audiences embraced the musical – many of the veterans had served in the South Pacific. (Michener served in the Navy, and the stories are based on both his own experiences, the people he met, and the “tales” other soldiers told him.)

The underlying theme in South Pacific is the battle against racism – the first musical to ever attack prejudice. It does so through the “A” and “B” stories, which run concurrently and intersect in the second act. In the “A” story, Nellie, a Navy nurse from Little Rock, Arkansas, falls in love with the French planter, Emile, who fled from his country because of a murder he committed while protecting a woman from being raped. Though Nellie forgives Emile for this, she rejects him when she learns Emile was married previously to a Polynesian woman, whom she calls “colored.” In the “B” story, Marine Lt. Joseph Cable, from Philadelphia, falls in love with the Tonkinese Bloody Mary’s daughter, Liat. (Tonkinese is an old nomenclature for Vietnamese – the Gulf of Tonkin, anyone?) But Cable refuses to marry her, despite Bloody Mary warning him that she will marry Liat to a French planter. He knows that his “Main Line” family will never accept Liat and the society into which he is expected to take his place after the war, and he cannot face the isolation and shunning that marriage to Liat will bring.

I guess I’m listening to the soundtrack because last week my mom became ill and was in the hospital for a few days. She’s now been transferred to the same nursing home facility in which my father lives – if you can call it living – these days. (When I went to see him last week, he didn’t know who I was at first…I had to tell him.) My mom has been living independently, but now we are wrestling with moving her into assisted living.

As frequent readers of this column know, my mom became a registered nurse through the Army Nurse Cadet program and my dad was a fighter pilot in the China-Burma-India (CBI) theatre – and when I went to see South Pacific with my mom seven years ago, she and I talked about what it was like when she and my dad went to see it on Broadway in 1949, in an audience made up of veterans and their husbands and wives, of how the story almost visibly reverberated in the theatre.

They, and their peers, were part of The Greatest Generation.

But sometimes I wonder…

What it’s all really about?

Well, the weather this winter has really been lousy for most of us, hasn’t it? (No snide laughter from those of you living in those few parts of the States where white is not the prevailing color on the ground and where the temperature is above 0º.) So being stuck inside when not at work, I’ve been on a new binge the past few weeks – rewatching Ronald D. Moore’s reworking of Battlestar Galactica.

Rewatching BSG (and it really should be BG, since “Battlestar” is one word) is absolutely engrossing, perhaps even more so than when it originally appeared on the Sci-Fi channel beginning with the miniseries in 2003, and then continuing as an ongoing series in 2004 through 2009. Although Mr. Moore does not exactly state that he knew what the final denouement would be in the podcasts accompanying each episode, the overarching mystical theme of BSG – “All this has happened before, and will happen again” – is repeated many times by many different characters throughout the entire storyline.

Certainly the exploration of religion, morality, intolerance, and politics is there from the very beginning; but I think the biggest question Mr. Moore is asking is “what does it mean to be human and alive?”

In fact, that is exactly what Six (Tricia Helfer) asks the Colonial representative just before “neutral meeting ground” is blown to kingdom come – “Are you alive?” she asks him, before bending and kissing him as the walls come a-tumbling down.

BSG also asks the audience “Do we truly have free will, or are our fates already determined?” I just finished watching “Maelstrom,” the episode in which Kara Thrace, a.k.a. Starbuck, seems to answer that for us, conquering her fear of death and accepting her fate as her Viper spins out of control and is destroyed. It appears to all aboard the Galactica that she committed deliberate suicide – but is there more to Kara’s fate? Was her death only one step in her real journey? (Those of us who have already seen it know the answer.)

BSG also questions technology: yes, we are capable of creating technological wonders, but can we ultimately control them? The Cylons are the most obvious examples of that question, as “man created the Cylons,” as it says in the prelude. And “they rebelled.” On a more subtle level, the only reason the Galactica wasn’t destroyed when the Cylons launched their attack on humanity was because Commander Adama (Edward James Olmos) did not connect the ship’s computers to the larger fleet network.

As the mysterious entities (angels?) that we know as Baltar and Six walk through a modern Times Square in New York City, BSG is asking us one final question before the credits roll:

“All of this has happened before. But the question remains, does all of this have to happen again?”

What’s it all really about?

 

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