Tagged: climate change

Dennis O’Neil: Weather Woes

Hurricane Irma is pretty much done wreaking havoc, but the worst of it is very bad. And it’s not over. Much of the hurricane season is yet to come and the weather might still have some nasty surprises for us.

And, of course, there’s always next year.

So let’s have a show of hands (lots and lots of hands): all who agree that Superman be confirmed as our official patron superhero? The more recollective among you may remember that I have mentioned this patron superhero stuff earlier: I can’t say exactly when, but sometime. If you are a practicing pagan, please pause on your way to hell while I define “patron saint.” According to the ever-reliable Wikipedia, a patron saint is a person, having already transcended to the metaphysical, (is) able to intercede for the needs of their special charges.

Now, I don’t have a formal definition for “patron superhero,” but there’s no reason not to make one up if we have a mind to. After all, we can always change it later. Okay, a patron superhero is one whose life, persona and/or deeds can be identified with certain sort of problems and dangers to the common good. So maybe Captain Marvel – the one who changes from an overachieving youngster to a big dude in a red suit when he says “Shazam!” is the patron superhero of storms because a lightning bolt and a thunderclap accompanies the transformation. (The details of that transformation raise more questions than they answer. But back in his heyday, the post-war 40s, apparently nobody asked questions like that. At least nobody I knew.)

My suggestion that Superman be pronounced our patron superhero is not prompted by what Supes does – bend steel in his bare hands, change the course of mighty rivers, those riffs – but his identity. His true identity.

Surely you know the story. Kal-El is a scientist who insists that his home planet, Krypton, is about to blow up. Nobody believes him, and that nobody includes the savants and solons – the local authorities. Kal-El just manages to get his infant son into a spacecraft and into the sky when ka-BLOOEY! No more Krypton! But the kid makes it to Earth where he crash lands in the American Midwest, where the virtuous folk live. Stuff happens and eventually, the kid goes to a big city where he falls in with the executive of a printing company ad becomes a brand.

Here and now: we have had two category five hurricanes in the last month. Every weather-related catastrophe that has happened recently was predicted by scientists who warned us about Global Warming. And still, we hear from those who refuse to believe the evidence.

They should shut up.

John Ostrander: Holding Out For A Hero

Bill Maher, noted iconoclastic and increasingly misanthropic host of Real Time on HBO, announced about ten days ago that he was taking July off because, after six months of President Trump, he really needed it. I sympathize. Not before he took what I regard as some ill-informed and gratuitous swipes at comics, comic book movies, sci-fi/fantasy books, movies and TV and anything else I assume that he considers intellectually lowbrow.

Among his gripes that the stupid summer movies were increasingly infiltrating into fall, the time for more serious, adult movies. His biggest gripe is that they make us, the unwashed public, stupider because it makes us want a savior, someone who will descend from on high and rescue us instead of getting off our duffs and doing what needs to be done (i.e. deal with Trump) ourselves.

Except they’re not.

What bothers me about Maher’s criticisms is that he really doesn’t know what he’s talking about. I have severe doubts Mr. Maher has seen any of the superhero films, let alone read a comic book. It reminds me of the people who used to criticize Harry Potter films and books (which Maher also dislikes) as Satanic without ever having seen a film or read a word of the books. Somebody told them they were Satanic and that’s all they needed.

I can’t entirely blame Maher for thinking that films such as Man of Steel present the superhero as a godlike being descending to save the masses. The director, Zack Snyder, appeared to make the same mistake, presenting Supes in various Jesus like images. However, Superman is more like Moses than Jesus. Moses comes as a baby in a basket floating down the Nile to the Egyptian princess; baby Kal-El comes to Earth in a small rocket to the Kents in Kansas. Moses grows up as an Egyptian; Kal-El grows up as part of the Midwestern farming community.

However, Superman is neither. One of the key moments in the first Christopher Reeve Superman movie is the first time he takes off his glasses and opens his shirt to reveal the iconic S.

Not only does he become Superman: we become Superman.

That’s one of the big keys to the success of Superman over the decades. It’s part of the myth. Yes, we may seem meek and mild-mannered like Clark Kent but, if we took off our glasses and opened our shirts, people would see we were Superman.

It’s the same thing in the Wonder Woman movie, the first time Princess Diana shows up in the Wonder Woman regalia. [SPOILER ALERT!] It’s a great moment as she climbs out of the trench and starts determinedly to stride across No-Man’s Land. She deflects the murderous gunfire of the Germans. She has been outraged by the suffering of innocents and she’s going to do something about it. The Allied troops, inspired, join her and drive the Germans from the suffering village.

At that moment, Wonder Woman is us. Male and female, we identify with her. We become her. That’s the power, not only of the movies but of the story in general. We identify with that hero. They can inspire us to become our best selves.

That is what Bill Maher doesn’t get.

I don’t dislike Maher. He speaks up on topics and takes positions with which I agree – such as climate change. In doing that, he speaks for many people. It’s why I listen; to hear what I think and feel put into words. That’s why it’s frustrating to hear Maher denigrate the field in which I work and that so many worldwide really enjoy. The global revenues on these films are greater than the U.S. take. This suggests that the films speak to people outside our shores and, I suspect, for much the same reasons. It’s not simply the special effects; it’s how they make us feel.

It does make me question. If Maher is so blind on this, how much else is he blind about and that I ignore because they fall into my own prejudices and beliefs.

I hope Maher comes back from his time off refreshed and ready to do battle again. I don’t expect him to backtrack from his previous statements. I’d just like to see him leave comics alone.

Because, Bill, you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.

Martha Thomases: Look Out, Here Comes Tomorrow

Tomorrowland didn’t do as well as expected this weekend in theaters.  Some people celebrated this fact, apparently believing that the movie was the brainchild of George Clooney and that it was a propaganda film about climate change.

They must have seen a different movie than I did.

I’ll admit that, like the Big Hollywood website, I went to the theater with my own set of assumptions and biases.  Tomorrowland is my favorite area in the Disney parks, the first place I wanted to go the first time I went (in 1979).  I love the work of director Brad Bird, and have since The Family Dogperro-de-familia

And, yeah, I have the hots for George Clooney and I think climate change is an issue deserving action.  Only the first of those affects my ticket-buying decisions.

So, the Disney nerd in me loved the movie.  But, more important to this column, so did the comics fan.

Because I love the future.  I remember when everybody did.

You see, one of the themes of Tomorrowland is that we, as a society, have become too enthralled with pessimistic stories and fleeting fads.  Instead of wallowing in disaster movies (like this) or dystopian dramas (like this), we should work together to make the future better.

Look, it’s really normal for adolescents to be drawn to the “grim’n’gritty” dystopias.  And, by “normal,” I mean that I did it.  For me, devastated that I was not only the center of the universe but my parents weren’t all-powerful and my body was doing strange things that involved icky fluids, it seemed that pessimism was the more sophisticated viewpoint.  I wasn’t a little kid anymore, with bright colors and flowers and candy.  No, I wore black and I was sullen.  If the cool kids (the jocks and the cheerleaders) wouldn’t have me as one of their own, I was going to act as if I rejected them first.

And then I grew up.

Look, I still like a lot of things that can seem pessimistic.  Blade Runner remains one of my favorite movies, based on the work of Philip K. Dick, a rather depressing writer whom like a lot.  I like punk rock and Lou Reed and Leonard Cohen.  I like Transmetropolitan and The Dark Knight Returns.

The older I get, however, the more I want hope.  And that hope lies in the future.alanna-and-adam-strange

Comics helped me with this.  Adam Strange not only engaged with an alien world, but fell in love and married an alien.  The Legion of Super-Heroes posited a time when the whole universe would band together to make life better.

A lot of today’s best comics come from a hopeful place.  I’d include Saga  and Sex Criminals and even Bitch Planet as works that rouse the spirit.

Another science fiction writer I enjoy, William Gibson, is sometimes credited as one of the founders of the cyberpunk movement, which often painted a bleak future.  His most recent book, The Peripheral, has it’s share of dystopian prophecy, but ends up (SPOILER, maybe?) making the case that we can change the future.  We can make the world better.

A better world is worth the effort.  Especially if it includes George Clooney.aa19ac627923e9f171a6e379af4c6c36