Nobody Likes Strong Capable Women

[mrosa]

And don't frown at me like that... you know it's true.

From Supreme: The Return #3: Supreme brings Diana Dane to the Supremacy, the limbo dimension where all former Supremes written out of continuity live. And obviously their beloved Diana Danes live there too:







OK, actually this is just a shameless plug for my new comics blog:

http://comicswithoutfrontiers.blogspot.com/

Which has two new articles about Supreme that I wrote recently.

Comments

[ian_karkull]

Oh man.. jive talking Sister Supreme, I remember this. Fell in love with her the minute saw her.

Watchmen be damned, to my mind, Supreme is the greatest thing Alan Moore has ever written. Even All Star Superman is basically a pale imitation.
I just wish he had finished the similar treatment he started for the Wonder Woman analogy, Glory.

[darkknightjrk]

"Even All Star Superman is basically a pale imitation."

I'm sorry, but I completely disagree. Supreme's definitely one of the better things Moore's written over the years (the only one I like more and more of as I get older), but I always felt there was a twinge of pathetic cynicism in Supreme, like Moore's telling the reader that this is WAY below his level. All-Star Superman is just an unabashed superhero story at it's most beautiful.

[mrosa]

I'm not going to compare the two, but I never noticed any contempt in Supreme. Alan Moore was clearly enjoying himself and just trying to reverse the harm he had done to superheroes in the '80s; he was already doing this type of story before in 1963 and he went on to do the same in Tom Strong. Knowing his temperament, I doubt he would have devoted so much time and energy to things he felt contemptuous of.

Anyway, what's wrong with cynicism?

[darkknightjrk]

Well, the whole scene is basically Moore saying, "Look at the shitty examples of women that's been done in comics." He's creating a vaguely light tone, but I can see the contempt for miles.

And it might just be me projecting, but from the other things I've read from him, both is work and his words, it sounds like he pretty much has a solid contempt for EVERYTHING at this point.

[mrstatham]

I think it's just you projecting. Try reading any of his interviews, and it's clear there's stuff he genuinely enjoys and has a real love for.

[jkcarrier]

Well, it's both. He clearly loves the innocence and sense of wonder in the old stuff, but he also acknowledges the flaws. You see the same thing in 1963 -- the stories are pure Lee/Kirby/Ditko homage, while the text pages are more cynical, lampooning Stan Lee's self-promotion and pointing out the abuses of the work-for-hire system.

The ABC line, especially Tom Strong, can be seen as his attempt to keep the good stuff from those eras, while fixing the embarrassing bits -- better handling of women and minority characters, for instance.

[mrstatham]

Fair point, but I don't see this acknowledgement of previous flaws as Moore being overly cynical. Sometimes to make a point about your character, it's important to compare and contrast them to previous versions or similar characters from the past. Writers in interviews do this all the time, and I don't see it as being negative. Moore is emphasising the more ridiculous aspects of each era he's touching on, with these scenes, but this is often the stuff people remember anyway.

A fourth-wall breaking scene's also the perfect place to do it in-story.

[mrosa]

Well, it's both. He clearly loves the innocence and sense of wonder in the old stuff, but he also acknowledges the flaws. You see the same thing in 1963 -- the stories are pure Lee/Kirby/Ditko homage, while the text pages are more cynical, lampooning Stan Lee's self-promotion and pointing out the abuses of the work-for-hire system.

Yes. All-Star Superman is a fine superhero comic book, but Moore is writing meta-commentary on comics history. Moore loves the Silver Age but he acknowledges the fact that there was a lot of rubbish back in that age too. He doesn't paint the past as being all sunshine, like Morrison does. Morrison, of course, is the writer who in Supergods 'forgot' to mention that the reason Gardner Fox was fired from DC was not because they were looking for younger writers with cooler voices, but because he joined a writers' strike to demand better work conditions. And Moore doesn't forget these things. I respect him a lot for that.

Supreme is cynical; of course it is. All great art is cynical. If we go back to the origins of Cynicism, it was a Greek philosophical system that taught people to think for themselves and to question the customs, values and traditions of society. It was an intellectual tool of inquiry which, if used, would shed new light on old ideas.

Moore analyzes the Silver Age to reveal things about it that we tend to overlook in our idealized picture of this era. How different is it from the way Gustave Fluabert mercilessly mocks romantic traditions in Madame Bovary?

Art has to be cynical, otherwise it's just regurgitating comforting myths about life. It becomes kitsch. If art weren't cynical, it'd be like those inspiring, uplifting movies with their simple morals that sweep the Oscars every year.

[icon_uk]

Art does not HAVE to be cynical, but it can be Deriding art because it is not cynical (like the movies you mention, which you may not like, but clearly millions do) seems to be a very high-handed, dismissive approach

[mrosa]

The millions love a lot of things, but throughout history the things the millions have loved haven't necessarily been good to them.

[icon_uk]

And many of them have been entirely harmless. It's also easy to over-romaticise the artist. Hardy and Dickens wrote to pay the rent as much as anything.

[mrosa]

This isn't a matter of romanticising writers. It's distinguishing great writers from bad. I have little love for Dickens and Hardy, but they were certainly not the purveyors of comforting myths that I talked about. Dickens exposed the entire hypocrisy and social failure of the Victorian Age. Hardy exposed class hypocrisy and the unfairness of the British legal system. I don't know if they paid their rents with their novels, but they certainly weren't writing Harlequin novels just to entertain readers.

[glprime]

Dickens wrote and published The Old Curiosity Shop in serialized form before it was collected into complete volumes, and was largely a commercial venture.

(Personally, I claim Dickens as the second most important author in the English language, behind the Bard, and I can't stand anything written by him except for A Christmas Carol; give me Samuel Clemens, please and thank you)

I largely don't refer to the glut of commercial film/TV successes as art because they are often copies on a theme, and yes, not challenging of social norms or romantic notions of narrative finality and closure.

However, there is something to be said for the argument that an audience identifying with an unchallenging text still has its place. The clearest example from my own experience is cartoons and video games I loved as a child and still hold with reverence in my mind, because of their early establishment of a lot of my creative influences.

Later did I pick up cynicism and deconstruction of traditional works, but now I'm leaning more towards re-evluating classics and reconstructing themes in modern contexts.

[glprime]

So, I'm mostly agreeing with you, but my current view would level the fields between Great and Poor more, because plenty of talented authors swung for the in-field, and plenty of works that were aimed at the masses or churned out for commercial ends still have artistic value.

[icon_uk]

know if they paid their rents with their novels, but they certainly weren't writing Harlequin novels just to entertain readers.

Dickens use of the serialised novel format was largely a financial decision, since the magazines paid better than a novel would earn him.

And though, yes, Dickens used his writing to highlight the wrongs he saw around him, he wrapped them in such cloyingly sugary confections of style that to suggest he wasn't doing it to increase his books popularity seems disingenuous. (Consider even Wilde's comments on the infamous death of Little Nell in "The Old Curiosity Shop"; "One would have to have a heart of stone not to laugh out loud".)

[mrosa]

You gotta love Wilde :-)

Yes, I know Dickens was quite popular; I was just being facetious.

Like I wrote before, the matter for me is not whether writers write for money or not. For me the 'milions' are hardly a criterion of quality and I think it's a lazy argument to bring them up in these discussions.

To me what matters is what art conveys. If an artist manages to get a following while transmitting harsh truths we tend to avoid, great. But don't tell me The King's Speech with its simple message is better than The Tree of Life because it was a blockbuster.

[icon_uk]

I certainly won't, but I still hold your oriignal assertion that Art must be cynical to be too much of a sweeping statement. Art is a broad brush, and whilst it CAN be cynical, it isn't a requirement that it HAS to be.

[mrosa]

Art being cynical is only a problem if we continue to see cynicism in the negative way it's portrayed today. People today confused cynicism with pessimism, indifference and nihilism, and that's not what cynicism is. Like I wrote before, it's an ancient Greek philosophical system that taught people to reflect about commonly held ideas around them. In simple terms, it taught people to be critical.

For me that's what art must be: critical. If it's just popularizing and reinforcing all the media lies, simplistic morals and advertisement jingles that manipulate our existences, then art isn't worth anything to me.

[mrosa]

Well, this is satire, so I prefer a light tone; a heavy-handed tone would read like a preachy sermon.

As for contempt, why shouldn't he be contemptuous of the way women often are treated in comics?

[shadowpsykie]

i'm... not sure how to feel... its soooooo much meta..... soooo much....

i think i will go w ith liking it... i hate to admit this but "Grim 80's Diane" made me laugh... then punch myself in the nads for laughing....

[shadowpsykie]

oh god i didn't even notice all the pill bottles....

[glprime]

She's a recovering heroin addict, gotta have her methadone, hyuk hyuk :P

(I'm amazed she isn't in a Liefeld costume with spiked bra and a dozen pouches on her bare thighs.)

[mrosa]

I don't think Moore was making fun of Liefeld here. Moore was clearly channeling Karen Page from Frank Miller's Born Again storyline.

[glprime]

Right, but Karen Page isn't the only image of women in the 80s. There was also the hyper-violent, posing model variant. But I take your point.

[mrosa]

hyper-violent, posing model variant.

That's a great description of the type :-)

All decades had several types of women. That's why although I love Moore's humor here, I think it's not very useful trying to compare his categories to actual comics history. For instance, I'm sure there was no such thing as 'Grim '80s Lois Lane.' She wasn't grim before the Crisis, and John Byrne didn't make her grim either. The '80s were actually the start of the independent and plucky phase, which lasts today.

They're funny but they're not real categories.

[mrosa]

The one that gets me is the 'be independent and plucky but moronic and out of character' advice; that's sooooooooooo '90s Lois Lane. I just love Moore's keen eyes.

[shadowpsykie]

90's Lois was Cartoony Lois right? the one post Death around... Energy Superman?

[icon_uk]

Surely that's more 1950's and 60's Lois. 90's Lois wasn't given to moronic acts too often was she?

[shadowpsykie]

yeah thats what i thought. 90's Lois was Death of Superman Lois right?

[mrosa]

No, you see, Lois in the '90s was plucky and independent, but she was also stupid in that journalist sort of way of always infiltrating a villain's lair by herself and getting in trouble and having to be saved by Superman. Because she's not a strong capable woman :-)

The '50s and '60s is the one who was always prying on his secret identity, or worse trying to corner Superman into marriage.

[jlbarnett]

the defination of moronic in comics depends entirely on how appropriate you consider going into sure danger is. In my opinion at least.

[icon_uk]

She's a successful investigative journalist, along with the likes of soliders and emergency response teams, I think that their actions show courage, not stupidity.

[bruinsfan]

Plus, there's the factor that unlike real world investigative journalists digging up dirt on the mob or gangs or whatever, experience bore out that if she could keep the bad guy who was menacing her talking for a minute or so, help would likely come crashing through the nearest wall. I can see how someone might get used to taking extra risks after a while in that sor tof situation.

[mrosa]

Naomi Klein is a successful investigative journalist too, but I'm sure she wouldn't infiltrate a Taliban training camp for a scoop :-)

[icon_uk]

And how much more aware of the threat of the Taliban might the world have been if someone HAD?

[mrosa]

I don't think the world can only learn about Taliban training camps by having a lone journalist infiltrate it and come back to tell the tale. I admire investigative journalists, but let's not be so romantic about them. They're just people, at the end of the day.

[icon_uk]

I don't think the world can only learn about Taliban training camps by having a lone journalist infiltrate it and come back to tell the tale.

Never suggested that they would, I commented how it might have been useful if it had happened.

[whitesycamore]

Wear a big hair-bow and no pants...

THEORY: Diana Duck is secretly Lady Gaga.