Episode 330: Kurt Vonnegut Roundtable!

01 Saturday Sep 2018

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Craft of Fiction Writing, Episode, War

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A Man Without a Country, Breakfast of Champions, Cat's Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five, The Sirens of Titan

Episode 330 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

In this week’s episode, I am joined by Chris Lafave, Erik Deckers, and David James Poissant for a discussion of Kurt Vonnegut.

Vonnegut 2

TEXTS DISCUSSED

NOTES

When in Indianapolis, visit the Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library.

Vonnegut Library

If you are in Orlando, that is, the City Beautiful, this Wednesday, come celebrate the 60th anniversary of The Dharma Bums at the house where Jack wrote it.

Dharma Bums Celebration

Here is our On the Road show from last year.

Episode 330 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

The Curator of Schlock #187: First Blood

07 Friday Jul 2017

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Film, The Curator of Schlock, War

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The Curator of Schlock #187 by Jeff Shuster

First Blood

They’re not hunting him. He’s hunting them!

Sorry if I freaked out a bit last week. Maybe it’s my delicate sensibilities, but a movie where a ten-year-old boy gets shot and killed because of the decision of some old guys in a board room meeting really ground my gears. My introduction to poliziottesco left me confused and bewildered, questioning the morality of this cruel world, where cops and criminals are no better than each other and the innocent are made to suffer. But then I then celebrated Independence Day, remembered what it is to be an American, where the distinctions between right and wrong are as clear as crystal. I know who the good guys are. I know who the bad guys are. It’s time for another Patriot’s Month, and to celebrate, we’re going through the Rambo series!

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Tonight’s entry is 1982’s First Blood from director Ted Kotcheff and starring Sylvester Stallone. I’m ashamed to admit this, but I am largely unfamiliar with the Rambo series. It must have been an HBO exclusive back in the day. So who will Rambo fight in this debut? The Viet Cong? The Soviets? Nope. He’s up against one jerk of small town sheriff and his band of sadistic deputies. The sheriff’s name is Will Teasle (Brian Dennehy) and he doesn’t like the looks of this drifter that’s passing through his neck of the woods.

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Teasle tells this drifter that he needs a shave and a haircut. The drifter wants to get a bite to eat in the town. Teasle drives him to the city limits, tells the drifter he doesn’t want his kind in his town. As Sherriff Teasle drives away, the drifter starts walking back into town. Teasle arrests him for vagrancy. One of his men snatches the dog tags from around the drifter’s neck. The drifter’s name is John Rambo.

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The deputies begin their abuse on John Rambo. The nastiest is Art Galt (Jack Starrett) who beats Rambo with a baton before turning a hose on him to get him nice and clean. Deputy Galt wants to give Rambo a shave. The razor triggers a Vietnam flashback, making Rambo snap. He breaks a out of the police station, steals a motorcycle and is on the lamb. Teasle follows in close pursuit, but overturns his car as he follows Rambo into the mountains. Things escalate from there. Dobermans are unleashed. Deputy Galt tries shooting Rambo with a sniper rifle from a helicopter only to fall out and die after Rambo throws a rock at the helicopter pilot. Galt was Teasle’s best friend so the sheriff now wants Rambo dead.

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Things keep escalating. The Washington State Police are brought in. The National Guard is brought in. It turns out Rambo is a Green Beret with an expertise guerilla warfare. He received the Congressional Medal of Honor. Woah.

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At some point Rambo blows up half the town. I think a Dairy Queen catches on fire. Rambo cries to his commanding officer about how his best friend in Nam blew up and got his guts all over him. Oh, and Rambo can’t hold down a job at a car wash. I think he gets arrested at the end. This movie is one of the great ones. Plus, the score is Jerry Goldsmith. You can’t go wrong with First Blood.

Jeffrey Shuster 3 Jeffrey Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, and episode 131) is an MFA graduate from the University of Central Florida.

Heroes Never Rust #77: “Down” Time

21 Wednesday Jan 2015

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Heroes Never Rust, War

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Heroes Never Rust #77 by Sean Ironman

“Down” Time

The war in Europe winds down. Germans surrender. U.S. soldiers wait on the decision of whether they are heading home or heading to the war in the Pacific. Sergeant Brewer should be happy. He survived. As a soldier in the Hundred and First Airborne Division, he parachuted in the night before D-Day. He fought his way through the whole western front of the war and came out on the other side. But, he’s haunted, not by what he has done to survive but by the deaths of the soldiers around him. His last mission is to take three others who were with him on the night before D-Day, the last three left alive and uninjured, and check out a nearby mansion for when the general comes the next week. Brewer takes the opportunity, destroys his radio equipment, and allows his men a few days of relaxation (and enjoying the company of a few female locals happy to have the Americans arrive). But, he can’t relax, not completely. He’s tired, not physically—mentally. As he tells one of his men, “I ain’t stupid. I know men have to die. It’s the goddamn waste of it that pisses me off.”

He hates the army. He hates regulations. He hates how no one knows what they are doing and soldiers die because of it. And he remembers every man who died under his command.

Most of the comic is laid out like one thinks a comic should be laid out—multiple panels with a thin, white gutter between them. A small amount of time passes between panels so that whole conversations take place in a page and characters interact with one another. But, between scenes, are one-page shots of an earlier moment in war, a moment of destruction and death. The reader is in the middle of a conversation and when he or she turns the page, there is an image of a soldier being blown apart with his intestines hanging out. No dialogue or sound effects are used on these pages. Silent images of soldiers, who were once under Brewer’s command, dying awful deaths. This is something that only comics can do.

I think it’s important for a writer (or in this case a writer and an artist) to use everything at his or her disposal for the genre or medium they are working in. A good comic should be a good comic, not a good screenplay that was drawn. A good short story should be a good short story, not a smaller section of a novel. Because comics are a visual medium, a strong image can create a faster impact than a paragraph of text. The reader doesn’t get a section break, and then a paragraph describing a soldier being blown apart or being crushed by a tank. The single comic book page can show it, can show the horrified faces of the soldiers left standing.

The images come quick, sporadically. Sometimes, the reader has a few pages of the storyline’s present day before being shocked back to death. Sometimes it’s only a page. The present-day story is light and fun. A German soldier hangs himself, but it’s not shown, only briefly mentioned. Even in Eden—a mansion, wine, women—Brewer can’t escape what he has seen, what he has been apart of. Men gunned down. Dismembered. Shot through the head. Impaled by a piece of a building while parachuting. Bleeding out and reaching for help as a city explodes around them.

By having these images appear out of nowhere with no dialogue or sound, the comic recreates the experience for the reader. The reader is placed in Brewer’s mind. This is how he experiences these memories, these flashes. He’s taking a bath and getting a blowjob from a local beauty, and when he closes his eyes he sees Doyle, Fisher, Marks, Linehan, and man whose name is long forgotten being shot to death by enemy planes, not standing a change out in the open. He opens the doors to the mansion and tells his men to check the place out, and then he flashes to Normandy and Little Benny, Murtagh, Grier, and a few others being stabbed and shot in close combat with Nazis.

Nothing happens to stop these images. Nothing can stop them. Brewer will live with them forever. He gives his men a few days of fun, perhaps in an effort to give them something good about the war to remember. But to him, he lives with it. Of course, in the end, the general arrives, sees Brewer and his men and the fun they have been having. And in a repeat of the first panel of the comic, we are given a close-up of Brewer’s face as he responds to the general’s complaints. Unlike the beginning, his face is no longer presented in shadow. We can see every detail of his face, of his tired eyes, of his stubble. And he tells the general, “So why don’t you stick your authority up your ass?” What else is he going to do? He’s damned for the rest of his life. At least, he doesn’t back down from his superior officer. He’s done with the army, at least as done as one can be. He’ll be stuck with the past, but he won’t be creating any new memories, won’t be watching any more men die for nothing.

_______

Photo by John King

Sean Ironman (Episode 102) earned his MFA at the University of Central Florida. Currently, he teaches creative nonfiction and digital media at the University of Central Arkansas as a visiting professor. His work can be read in The Writer’s Chronicle, Redivider, and Breakers: A Comics Anthology, among others.

Heroes Never Rust #76: Dodgin’ D-Day

14 Wednesday Jan 2015

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Heroes Never Rust, Violence, War

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Garth Ennis, War Story: D-Day Dodgers

Heroes Never Rust #76 by Sean Ironman

Dodgin’ D-Day

Garth Ennis’s and John Higgins’s War Story: D-Day Dodgers follows Second Lieutenant Ross, a British soldier joining up with B Company in Italy. The Western Front has begun with Normandy and the Allied Forces are gaining ground in France. The Russians are driving Germans back to Germany. But, the war in Italy is slow and tedious. They are the forgotten soldiers. Newspaper headlines back home talk about the Western Front, and most of the supplies and soldiers are given to that effort. The leaders in the Italy campaign need men, need supplies, so they come up with a dangerous mission to earn headlines, a suicide mission. The men know the mission is a suicide run, but they do it anyway. This being a Garth Ennis comic, the brutality of war is on full display as everyone is killed. The target is barely discussed, only that it’s a daylight attack. The target doesn’t matter. The army wants the headlines back home, so, impatiently, they make a crazy move.

These soldiers are called D-Day Dodgers because public perception at home is that the war in Italy is a cake walk and that the war in France is the tough front. Lady Astor, the first woman to sit as a Member of Parliament in the House of Commons, supposedly called the men in Italy D-Day Dodgers because they were avoiding the “real war.” A song called “The Ballad of the D-Day Dodgers” was composed as a response to Lady Astor’s remarks. This song is given in the comic in the final section as the corpses of the men readers have grown attached to are shown.

How much of our actions are controlled by what we want versus what others think?

These soldiers know they are marching toward their death. They discuss it. The idea isn’t buried deep down and they are trying to fool themselves. In the mission’s planning meeting, the lieutenant is told after the mission he will be promoted to Major. When Ross congratulates him, he says, “I’m going to be a corpse.” The lieutenant explains to Ross that everyone will die because they have to advance across open ground in broad daylight. They’ll be killed before they’ve gone ten yards. On the day of battle, they arm themselves and they set out. The lieutenant gives Ross his Thompson because Ross forgot to request one. When Ross goes to say what will he do without his Thompson, the lieutenant responds, “For Christ’s sake, David, it doesn’t matter now! It doesn’t matter, can’t you see that?” On one hand, I want to say that these men are brave. They are given an impossible job, and they still try. They still go out there knowing it will be the last thing they ever do. Another part of me thinks they are cowards. They know it’s not the right thing to do, but they stay within the confines of their job duties and they march. Sometimes, when a person breaks orders and defies the institution, that person is considered brave, considered a hero. Yet, sometimes, when someone understands their responsibilities and goes to their death, that act is considered brave. Where’s the line?

Is it suicide? They know this act will kill them and they still perform the act. Or do they need to pull the trigger on their own gun, their own bullet needing to tear through their brain? And if it is suicide, is it wrong? Suicide can be a heroic act, can it not? Or do they have a responsibility to live? Do they have a responsibility to fight back against an institution trying to control them, an institution that thinks so little of them?

They are men caught between larger forces. The British military cares little for their lives. The Italian and German forces want their blood to soak into soil. The public back home, their neighbors, coworkers, friends, think they are sitting out the war in paradise. Like the lieutenant said, it doesn’t matter now. Nothing matters. Perhaps there’s a comfort they find in marching toward their death. At least, they know when they will die, how they will die. It’s the easy battle. They know what they have to do. Maybe it doesn’t matter if the British military is wrong, or that the public is wrong, or that the soldiers should stand up for their lives. Perhaps the soldiers marching to Hell is their fuck you to the public back home. They fought the hard fight and they lost. They didn’t have it easy. They had a job to do and they put their lives on the line. What could the public say then?

That brings me back to my earlier question: How much of our actions are controlled by what we want versus what others think? How much of me is me and how much of me is what you think of me? The older I get the less I think of the idea of individualism. I don’t think it exists. I am what society has made me. I am not independent or self-reliant. Perhaps some people would say that of course I am because I moved out to Arkansas from Florida alone, that I live alone. But, that’s not really independent, isn’t it? I moved from one community to another. The community affects me, shapes me. And the community of these men, these soldiers, these D-Day Dodgers, shaped them. Would they have died without the actions and thoughts of their community? Well, yes, just not there in Italy. As I revise what I hope to be my first book, I keep coming back to a line I wrote, that sometimes it seems that we are affected more by what we don’t have control over than by what we do. That life is a series of reactions, instead of actions. The more I read, the more I live, the more I come to believe what I wrote.

_______

Photo by John King

Heroes Never Rust #75: None of Us Angels

07 Wednesday Jan 2015

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Heroes Never Rust, War

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Chris Weston, Garth Ennis, War Stories, War Story: Johann’s Tiger, Winston Churchill, World War II

Heroes Never Rust #75 by Sean Ironman

None of Us Angels

Garth Ennis loves to write about war. His comics are filled with violence—Preacher, The Punisher, The Boys, etc. A few years back, he created a collection of war stories, two volumes featuring four standalone stories with different artists. The first, War Story: Johann’s Tiger, was drawn by Chris Weston (Ministry of Space). Toward the end of World War II, Johann, a Nazi soldier, leads four men in their Tiger tank. Johann knows the war is lost and makes it his mission to deliver his men to safety. However, Johann doesn’t want to be saved. Throughout the war, he has performed horrors—burning towns to the ground, shooting prisoners. After his men are safe, he will do his best to die in combat. “I cannot imagine it proving difficult. Thousands do it every day. I know I have forfeited my right to live, but I am still too much the coward for suicide.” Of course, his plan fails. His men die in combat, their last act being throwing Johann out of the tank and to safety. In the end, Johann is taken captive.

There needs to be more stories told from the point of view of Nazis, from the losing side of any war. Winston Churchill said, “History is written by the victors.” How many stories from the Americans side can we have? There is, in a way, a bit of propaganda in a story told from the viewpoint of the victors. If Johann was John, an American solider, no matter what horrors he committed during war, the reader could fall back on the idea that America had to enter the war to save lives. Johann’s actions are, in a way, more complicated and interesting because no good came from them.

Interestingly, even though the storyline follows a Nazi soldier who has performed horrors while at war, concentration camps are never mentioned. The Holocaust is never referenced. Johann, as bad as this sounds, could have fought on either side of the war, for any country. Some may say that ignoring the worst of the war is copout, but I prefer it. A lot happened during the war. We should remember all of it.

At one point, Johann asks himself, “Did I believe in Hitler’s War of racial purity? Did I think those people less than human? No, that was the problem: I didn’t think at all. I did whatever I needed to at any given time. No notion of morality constrained me.” That line really hit me. I think when people discuss why others have done such horrible things, people tend to try to figure out how someone thought that the action performed was the right thing to do. But, I don’t think that’s the case most times. I can look at my own life and see the bad that I’ve done, and even when I went through with it, I didn’t think those things were right. I can’t think of anything that I’ve done that I realized later was wrong. I knew it then, and I still did it. To me, that’s worse. We don’t act even for our own sense of morality. We do bad things not because we think they’re good, but because we convince ourselves that we have to do bad. We rationalize.

Just the other day, I told a friend, “Let me be the asshole.” I’ve said that a lot over the years. I find, I believe, some sense of sacrifice in it—to do something bad because I tell myself it’s the only way. The world isn’t perfect and we’re all fucked anyway, so I’ll damn myself to perhaps help someone else. What an awful thought. Johann kills Americans. He killed Russians. He killed innocents. He killed the wounded. But, he will help his men get to safety. His men, soldiers like him, must be helped, for some reason. Who knows the horrors they have done throughout the war? Maybe Johann, even though he doesn’t admit it, feels like one last act of redemption before death might help him out in the afterlife.

Recently, I was telling a woman that instead of fight or flight, I’ll just sit there and take the beating. I truly believe that a person should know how to take a beating. I’m tired. I’m so fucking tired. If I go to the bar tonight and a man wants to fight (not that this has ever happened before), I’ll probably just let him beat me until he tires or I die. I was small growing up, always the smallest boy in class. But I fought when kids tried to pick on me. Running never helps. Running makes you a coward, gives the opponent power over you. They know you are afraid. But, fighting doesn’t do anything either. It’s not like in those sitcoms where the kid stands up to the bully and the bully respects them or some shit. No, you just get the crap beat out of you. I think taking the beating is the way to go. Make it seem like it ain’t no thing. That’s the only power I think you have—it’s the only way to make them seem powerless over you.

War. What the fuck? Let’s say, like Johann, you fight, you kill, you beat, you survive. Let’s say, I stand up to that guy at the bar and I win. I beat the living shit out of him. Years ago, my puppy, Hankelford, ate some comics of mine. Went right to one of my shelves and picked them out one by one. And I hit him. I was angry. Some of those comics were out of print and I still haven’t replaced them all these years later. I hit him and I stood over him, and he looked at me. And I felt worse than I had when I saw my comics torn. To realize that inside you is the power to hurt and kill is a sobering moment. Or it should be at least. I wouldn’t make a good soldier. I guess I’m not manly to many of you.

Maybe I should care. But, I’m just too fucking tired of this world to care. Johann even rationalizes that he doesn’t kill in his tank. The tank is it’s own entity. “Big Max protects us. Kills to save us.” This is what bad men do—take themselves out of the equation. They separate themselves from the action. They create passive language. Right and wrong, good and bad, have nothing to do with it. Just a man choosing the easiest way for himself. But, it builds up. It did for Johann, at least. All that shit. It builds. But, perhaps others have a higher tolerance. Perhaps that’s why war will happen again and again, and comics like War Stories can fit in with any generation. Perhaps that’s why we still tell stories from a war that ended sixty years ago. It’s still relatable today—one of the worst wars in the history of mankind.

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Photo by John King

Heroes Never Rust #65: Feed the Beast

29 Wednesday Oct 2014

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Comic Books, Heroes Never Rust, War

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Born #4, Darick Robertson, Frank Castle, Garth Ennis, sean ironman, The Punisher, Tom Palmer

Heroes Never Rust #65 by Sean Ironman

Feed the Beast: What a Man Must Become to Survive Vietnam

Many of the Marvel Comics characters created in the 1960s have their origin tied to war. The Fantastic Four tried to beat the Russians to Mars during the Cold War. The Incredible Hulk was born during a gamma bomb test. The Punisher didn’t make his first appearance until 1974, but maybe he’s lasted so long because his origin is tied to war, like the others. Characters like the Fantastic Four and the Hulk were created, were scarred, because of some deeply human trait. They are parables to show us mankind’s flaws. They are comics that want peace, not warmongering—no matter how many battles those heroes find themselves in. The Punisher fits into that idea. Some readers prefer stories where the protagonist is a good person. I am not one of those readers. I don’t have to agree with the protagonist’s actions. I don’t agree with what the Punisher does, but I can understand it. That’s enough for me. In the final issue of Born, Frank Castle gets the closest he will get to becoming the Punisher until his family dies. And it’s in the midst of battle.

The issue opens with the greatest panel sequence in the miniseries. A close-up of an American soldier holding his face in both hands. Blood is on his hands. It’s raining. More blood flows and drips down his hands. He removes them from his face and he has no eyes and half his nose is gone. His mouth is filled with blood. In the final panel, he falls face first into a puddle and dies. “There is a Great Beast loose in the world of men,” the narration over the first panelr reads. “It awoke in dark times, to fight a terrible enemy. It stormed through Europe, across the far Pacific, and crushed the evil that it found there underfoot.” According to the narration, this “Great Beast” came to destroy evil. It was good at one point. But now that evil has been defeated, there is no putting away the Great Beast. “So the Great Beast must be fed: and every generation, our country goes to war to do just that.” The second and third page is a shot of the Vietnamese overpowering American troops. Castle and a few others fire from behind sandbags. Grenades are thrown. Pieces of heads are blown apart. There’s a severed arm off to the side. mid-air. The narration reads, “Today is the day we feed the Beast.”

It’s not long before Castle, Goodwin, and Angel, along with many more make a run for it. Angel stops to fire at the enemy. Goodwin tries to get him to keep running. Angel manages a few words before his head is blown clear off. “There ain’t no God, fool! Look around you! there ain’t no muthafuckin’ God!”

Anti-aircraft guns are used on the Vietnamese. Some are blown away. But there are just too many enemy soldiers. American jets fly overhead and drop bombs. “I was so certain I would make it,” Goodwin says in narration. “The big freedom bird. Thirty-six and a wake-up. I am out of here. In the end I can do no more than follow on a killer’s heels, rushing with him to his Alamo.” A soldier aflame runs at Goodwin with a bayonette ready to strike. Goodwin is grabbed and pulled into a plane. Beautiful flight attendants call his name. One says, “You made it, you silly son of a bitch.” He smiles with tears in his eyes and the plane flies off into the white of the background. He’s dead.

As Castle blows away Vietnamese soldiers, and actually stabs one in the stomach with the rifle when the barrel burns out, a voice tempts him. The voice says it can help him. Castle just needs to accept the help. Like I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I don’t believe the voice to be of supernatural origin. I believe it’s inside Castle. I believe Castle accepts the beast within himself. He becomes a savage. He lets go of his humanity to fight his order. And he lives. He should have died in that battle, but against all odds, he pulled through.

Goodwin couldn’t give up his humanity. He couldn’t give up on his hope to return home to the good America. Castle gave up everything he had and he survived. He fed the Great Beast inside. He returns to America. The last shot of Vietnam is of Goodwin, blood soaking his shirt where his heart would be. His corpse is left behind. Maybe that’s what happens in war. There’s no humanity left by the end. Castle goes home, but he’ll never be the same. The Fantastic Four and the Incredible Hulk turn into something inhuman, but are still able to hold onto their humanity underneath. A lot happened in the world in the 1960s. The Punisher still looks human, but he’s not complete. Vietnam has created that hole in him.

_______

Photo by John King

Heroes Never Rust #62: Vietnam, the Good America, and the Real Origin of the Punisher

08 Wednesday Oct 2014

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Comic Books, Heroes Never Rust, War

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Garth Ennis, The Punisher

Heroes Never Rust #62 by Sean Ironman

Vietnam, the Good America, and the Real Origin of the Punisher

I’ve written about my love for the Punisher before. To me, Frank Castle is one of the most interesting fictional characters. And I do mean fictional characters, not just comic book characters. He is the only character that causes me to argue with myself every week about whether or not to write a story or a screenplay even though without the rights I’ll never be able to publish it. The greatest Punisher writer is Garth Ennis. He wrote for The Punisher Marvel Knights series, which was a dark comedy take on the character, and he wrote The Punisher Marvel Max series, which was a violent, serious drama. Both work and both are fantastic. One of his best Punisher stories is Born, a four-issue mini-series about Frank Castle before he becomes the Punisher, when Frank is a soldier on his third tour in Vietnam in 1971.

For those of you who don’t know who the Punisher is (and shame on you):

Frank Castle is a Vietnam vet. One day, he goes to Central Park with his wife and young daughter and son. Two rival gangs get into a gunfight, and the Castle family is killed. Frank survives. Then, he decides to wage a war on crime. He spends the rest of his life killing gangsters and other criminals. That’s basically all you need to know to enjoy Born.

Every story requires a suspension of disbelief on the reader’s end. Whether it’s a huge jump the reader has to make, or a small one. The reader may not react a certain way to an event, but they must be willing to believe the character in the story would. The writer is not totally “off the hook,” however. The writer must provide a consistent fictional world. By consistent, I mean a fictional world that may operate by its own rules but rules nonetheless. George R.R. Martin’s The Song of Ice and Fire novel series, which forms the basis of HBO’s Game of Thrones, has dragons and magic, but there are still rules for those fantasy elements.

The Punisher is no different. Even though, he exists in a world that is somewhat close to our world, he is still fictional. The problem that has always plagued the Punisher is that he continues to kill criminals long after those who killed his family were punished. Why would he continue? This question is also what separates him from other vigilantes going after bad guys who hurt or killed someone they loved. Born provides the answer.

Vietnam is especially important for the characterization of the Punisher. Captain America fought against the greatest evils of the world during World War II. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Americans came together as a country. Vietnam divided America. World War II vets were treated as heroes, while Vietnam vets neglected and resented. Regardless of facts, World War II is viewed as good men standing up to evil. Vietnam is viewed as a mistake, something America should have never gotten involved with. Good and evil, right and wrong, doesn’t seem to have a place in Vietnam. Soldiers went through hell and for what?

The Punisher, to me, is a romantic. Stevie Goodwin, one of the main characters in Born, says, “I will not fall in love with war like Captain Castle.” But, I don’t think Castle loves war. There is no joy when he’s gunning down Viet Kong. There is no joy when he allows a superior officer to go out on a hill where there is a known enemy sniper. I don’t think the Punisher feels joy. If the Punisher loved war, he would show emotion. He would show bloodlust. Stevie also states about Frank Castle that “his dedication to his men is total…Since he arrived, six months ago, not one patrol that he has led has suffered K.I.A.” Frank Castle doesn’t take risks just to fight the enemy. He is a man who refuses to accept that good and evil doesn’t exist, that there is no set right and wrong. He sees the world in black and white and will never see the grays. I believe that the Punisher believes he is sacrificing his own soul to fight for what is right. America is still good and right to him and the enemy must be stopped. After Vietnam, when his family is gunned down randomly on a picnic, he snaps. His mind can’t handle the idea of randomness. The good triumph and the bad are punished. Vietnam is the perfect backdrop for him. It’s what’s been missing from the film adaptations.

At the end of the first issue of Born, Frank Castle sits alone as the sun sets. It’s the first time we get interiority from him. “You got your war a stay of execution. But it won’t last. You know that.” Some readers have put forth the idea that these are not Castle’s thoughts, but a supernatural being such as the devil or Mephisto. I don’t buy it, though it could be interesting. There’s no other supernatural element to the series so it wouldn’t quite fit. I believe these narration boxes are Frank Castle talking to himself, being honest with himself. While I don’t think the Punisher loves war, I think he needs war. I don’t think he needs war to be happy. I don’t think he can be happy, even with his family. I think he is fulfilled by war. Vietnam has killed him. He has no purpose without war. Refusing to see the world as shades of gray, war allows him a clear enemy. As long as there is war, he can raise his rifle, he can shoot, he can stop those that would do harm to him and his men. He knows how to do those things. He can protect the American dream that no longer exists, maybe never did.

_______

Heroes Never Rust #61: The Golden Age That Never Was

30 Tuesday Sep 2014

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Comic Books, Heroes Never Rust, War

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Captain America: Dead Men Running, Erik Larson, In the Garden of Beasts

Heroes Never Rust #61 by Sean Ironman

The Golden Age That Never Was

Last week, I finished reading Erik Larson’s In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin, which is about the U.S. ambassador to Germany and his family in the 1930s. Throughout the book, Hitler and his men beat, imprison, and kill, while Americans refuse to stand up to the madman. Germany owed the United States a lot of money following World War I so the American government couldn’t make Hitler angry. At one point, President Roosevelt and other government officials attempt to put a stop to mock trials Jewish organizations were going to hold for Hitler in New York and Chicago. They succeeded in stopping the one in Chicago. Moments like that were the most interesting parts of the book.

I’ve heard it said before (and I’ve been one to say it) that World War II is the closest to a comic book war. On one side is Hitler and his cronies, beings of pure evil, and on the other side the Allied forces, good men and women from across the world fighting for freedom. But that’s not entirely true. Hitler was appointed chancellor in 1933 and he gained full power when President Hindenburg died in August 1934. But the United States didn’t get involved until after Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. And, even then, the U.S. didn’t declare war on Germany, only Japan. Hitler had to declare was on the United States a few days later for Americans to fight in Europe. It’s a nice thought to think of America, my home country, as the defender of freedom, defender of the weak. But, at the end of the day, that’s bullshit.

It was the same in World War I. The United States fought Germany then because German submarines kept sinking cruise liners (the latest being the Lusitania) with American passengers. Although, what’s been forgotten is that the United States was selling ammunitions to the British and the RMS Lusitania was carrying small-arms ammunitions at the time it was attacked. The United States is still the same today. We have problems at home and we should concentrate on Americans. That’s what people say. I don’t know. I don’t agree with that, but that’s a topic for a different type of blog.

I don’t know what it is that makes us look back so fondly and make the past better than it was. Maybe it’s a simple case of history is written by the winners. Maybe it’s us today trying to rationalize when we mess up or fail to act. “Well, it’s not as simple as it used to be.” “We don’t know who the enemy is anymore.” “Things are more complicated today, due to…computers, or the economy, or…kids and their short attention spans.” Whatever. Let’s just accept that we’re bad people. That someone is bad, not because he or she does bad things, but because he or she doesn’t do good things.

We need someone like Captain America to remind us of that. Our man out of time. In Captain America: Dead Men Running #3, Sergeant Solo, in the ruins of an attack from the cocaine mafia, yells at the super soldier. “Take a look around, Captain! We don’t live in a black-and-white movie anymore! It might’ve been easy to do the right thing back in your times, but this is a different world! A hard one!”

Captain America can put him straight. He lived through the war. He tells the sergeant about arresting an American soldier for raping old women and about an officer who shot prisoners in the stomach to watch them die slow. It’s a choice. It doesn’t matter the time period. People can choice to be good or to be assholes.

Sergeant Solo makes the right choice in the end. Not for him or for the other soldiers. Captain America takes the kids and the remaining nuns and hits the road. The soldiers who started this mess stay behind. They’ll fight the mafia. They’ll die. But the kids and nuns will be safe.

In the second issue, Sore went on about how his grandfather beat him for not being Captain America. Here, at the end of the road, he wears Captain America’s mask as he fights the mafia. He does some damage. But, it’s not enough. The mafia cut him to pieces. And that’s the end. The other soldiers are as good as dead. But we don’t see it. Like the sergeant has been saying since the first line of the first issue, they are dead. The sergeant earlier thinks he can do bad things because it won’t matter once he’s dead. And he knows Captain America’s response. “It’s no excuse.” The soldiers finally stand up for something beyond themselves. That’s what Captain America can do. He doesn’t fight anyone this issue. There’s no need. He can get people to fight for themselves.

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