Heroes Never Rust #76: Dodgin’ D-Day

14 Wednesday Jan 2015

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Heroes Never Rust, Violence, War

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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

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 #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.

_______

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 #64: Surrender in Vietnam and the Loss of the Real America

22 Wednesday Oct 2014

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Heroes Never Rust

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Born, Garth Ennis, The Punisher, Vietnam War

Heroes Never Rust #64 by Sean Ironman

Surrender in Vietnam and the Loss of the Real America

The beginning of issue three of Born shows various images from the Vietnam War: bombs falling from planes, a bridge filled with pedestrians blown sky high, American soldiers setting a Vietnamese village on fire, Vietnamese men and women dead in a ditch, and children burning at planes drop napalm. An unseen narrator comments on America being unable to give up just because America must show the world that they can’t be messed with. “Though we make the world despise us…Though we do things that will stain our souls forever…Though America eats its own intestines over this, cities riven with unrest, leaders inspiring loathing and distrust…We cannot lose.”

The war has been lost. Readers have seen that in the previous two issues. Frank Castle is the only one left at Valley Forge who cares to strike out at the enemy. The other soldiers wait out whatever days they have left getting high. It’s unclear who is speaking in the opening. It could be Castle, but it could be Goodwin or just a nameless narrator. I don’t think it matters. The opening does a its job—it presents the idea that there really is no reason why America doesn’t just call it quits. It’s all chest pounding. Just a bunch of men refusing to give up to show their strength, even though they no longer know why they are fighting.

Both of the main characters of Born, Goodwin and Castle, are forced to challenge their reasons for their actions. The first line of dialogue in the issue belongs to Goodwin. “Why can’t we stay out of the rest of the world?” Goodwin wants to keep his head low and get home. He doesn’t care for the war, but understands a man like Castle is needed. He spends most of this issue with his friend, Angel, who has given in and is constantly found in the drug den of Valley Forge. An hour before dawn, the two friends watch the rain. Goodwin lays into Angel about getting high. Goodwin tells him, “We shouldn’t have gotten involved here; all we’re doing is making an even bigger mess of the place than it was already. And we’re screwing up our own country. We’ve been tearing ourselves apart over this for the last five years.” Goodwin wants to focus on what he calls “the real America.”

This isolationist idea has been around forever. I hear it from time to time in today’s world when U.S. soldiers are sent overseas. Recently, I watched HBO’s John Adams miniseries and the same idea was discussed when England and France were at war. In Born, Angel shuts Goodwin up. “I keep hearin’ you talkin’ ‘bout this idea you got—this real America? It’s a fuckin’ dream, man. It belongs in the thirties. The twenties. Fuck, the Wild muthafuckin’ West. That’s the real America right there: back when you was shootin’ each other, rapin’ red Indians an’ callin’ me nigga…”

I wrote about this idea recently in a post about Captain America. The past is viewed as a simpler time. It seems like everyone throughout history is trying to make things like they were in the past, even if the past wasn’t so great. Maybe as children we see the love and goodness the world has to offer, and then we become adults and have to make concessions to our beliefs. The past, then, is viewed as pure and wholesome, but as children, we only see one side. Angel wants Goodwin to wake up, not to accept the reality of their situation in Vietnam, but to accept that this perfect America Goodwin dreamed up never existed.

Castle is in a similar situation. He comes close to tossing a grenade into a latrine that his commanding officer is using. The officer had just told Castle that he stopped requesting supplies and just wants to wait out the rest of the war and not draw anyone’s attention. He stops himself, but later he questions that decision. Castle has been changed by his three tours in Vietnam. Some readers have raised the idea that the voice talking to Castle is supernatural, like Satan, but I don’t buy it. There’s no other supernatural element. I believe it’s his conscience. He questions how he could “kill at the drop of a hat.” At first, he tells himself that it’s about the other men at the base. But he throws that idea away. The war has made him a killing machine. “That’s what’s got you worried? That urge you have, to give every motherfucker in the world exactly what they deserve?”

He seeks out Goodwin, and their talk quickly becomes personal. Castle tells Goodwin about his family. He has a four-year-old daughter and son on the way. “I sometimes think they might be my last chance.” Castle is afraid of himself. This scene comes directly after he questions his motivations for wanting to frag his commanding officer. I spoke in my first post about Born that this comic is supposed to be the real origin of the Punisher. That he was the Punisher long before his family was killed in a gangwar. But maybe Castle was always the Punisher. Maybe he just never had the means to kill. Just going to Vietnam doesn’t make a person the Punisher. We’d have a lot of Punishers on the street if that were true. Maybe Vietnam is just one of many events in his life that pushed Castle over the top. Maybe like Angel tells Goodwin, there never was this perfect time in Castle’s life. Vietnam didn’t destroy the good America, and it didn’t turn Castle into the Punisher. Do we really change so much from one event? Or do we just reveal more of ourselves? I believe that one event is not enough to completely change who a person is, but a series of events can. Like waves splashing against rock will, over time, corrode the rock. The issue ends with a Vietnamese army attacking Valley Forge. One more event they have to survive, and if they do, will they think one day that everything was so perfect before this battle, that they had no problems? I think they’d just be lying to themselves.

_______

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 #54: Introductions

13 Wednesday Aug 2014

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Comic Books, Heroes Never Rust

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Darick Robertson, Garth Ennis, Heroes Never Rust, sean ironman, The Boys

Heroes Never Rust #54 by Sean Ironman

Introductions

Now that the tone and racy content has been set, issue two of The Boys sets up the characters. In the premiere issue, readers were shown two of the main characters (Billy Butcher and Wee Hughie), but now the rest of the team comes out to play. There are twenty-two pages of content, three characters to introduce, two main characters whose stories must be furthered, and there’s still world-building that needs to be done. There’s not much room to spend on each character of the team. Plus, introductions shouldn’t feel like exposition. It’s a lot of work for Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson, but they solve any problems with a strong structure.

The issue opens with Rayner (the CIA contact for The Boys) looking through files of past cases of The Boys. She gave Butcher the go ahead to start up again and seems to have doubts. Other than Butcher making superheroes pay for being dicks, readers haven’t been given much about what Butcher and his team actually does. In two pages, Ennis and Robertson set up just how devastating Butcher’s team can be, while still keeping a mystery element in play. Readers aren’t shown much, but they are given hints with excerpts from the files.

“Brutal beating unlike anything on record at this hospital”
“Prisoner demanded, then begged not be released”
“Extremely ragged decapitation, followed by”

It’s enough to set up the team and show that Rayner is not fully on board with Butcher. Most importantly, the plot doesn’t stop to tell the reader what happened in the past. It uses past events to complicate Rayner’s relationship with Butcher and gives the reader a peek at the team, which Ennis and Robertson then go into.

The rest of the issue jumps back and forth between a conversation between Butcher and Hughie as Butcher attempts to make Hughie a part of the team, and Butcher collecting the other three team members (The Frenchman, The Female, and Mother’s Milk). We all know Hughie will eventually join the team so I won’t waste time here discussing Butcher talking with Hughie. Now, I like Butcher and Hughie, but a conversation could be awfully boring to read. So Ennis and Robertson break up the issue so that it’s not shown in chronological order. At points in the conversation, the story jumps to Butcher approaching another member of the team.

The first is The Frenchman. He’s drinking espresso at a coffee shop and talking to himself. Some assholes in suits make fun of him. “Fuckin’ French faggot.” “Goddamn surrender monkey.” He stares at the suits cool and calm. Then, quickly, he puts goggles on and beats the shit out of them. Butcher walks in, and The Frenchman calms down, runs up to Butcher, and hugs him, happy to see his friend again. Then, they walk off, leaving the suits bloody and either dead or unconscious. The action scene does a good job breaking up the conversation between Butcher and Hughie, but it does so to show The Frenchman’s character. It’s not just random action scene. The reader sees that The Frenchman is dangerous but not wild. While he shows a range of emotions in the short scene, he’s not emotional. He’s in control and can go from sitting with a nice espresso into killing somebody within a second.

The second is The Female She’s on a doorstep, small and thin, with a jacket that’s three times too large. She knocks quietly, and the bad guys inside argue and then try to get rid of her. She grabs the man at the door and shuts the door behind her. Butcher watches the house from across the street. Readers only get the screams of those inside. Then, a face, not the skull, just the face, ripped from a man hits a window and slides off. That’s all readers get from The Female. She never speaks. But, readers can see that she might be more dangerous than The Frenchman. She uses her looks to her advantage, but in a different way than many comic book female characters. She doesn’t have huge breasts, long legs, and wavy hair. She looks sad. People drop their guard, and then she tears them apart.

A couple of summers ago, I took a poetry class and the professor said that poetry is about creating a pattern and then breaking that pattern. This is done by creating a structure to stanzas and lines, and, at the end, changing it up. It creates a tension in the structure. That’s what Ennis and Robertson do here. We get two introductions with violent action scenes. These scenes show the capabilities of The Frenchman and The Female. But, with the third member, Mother’s Milk, the pattern changes. Mother’s Milk, a large black man, is shown in his dining room drinking coffee from a mug that has “Bad ass” on the side. His first line of dialogue is “Butcher, man…I dunno.” He’s calm and seems tired of it all. He only gets a little worked up when Butcher puts his mug down on the counter without using a coaster. The first two introductions are three pages each, while Mother’s Milk’s intro is four pages. He seems more important than the other two because of the change in pattern.

Mother’s Milk’s daughter comes in dressed in a small tank top that shows off her breasts, and when he tries to talk to her about it, she yells at him and leaves. This guy can’t even control his own household. He’s a far cry from the other two, but I get the feeling he’s got something brewing inside. Butcher gets the action here. He goes outside and yells at the daughter and crushes the gun from two guys she’s hanging with. This introduction gives more color to the issue—it complicates the structure, making Mother’s Milk stand out and making the issue more than just the other teammates killing a bunch of people. Changing that pattern helps save the issue from a bunch of boring exposition and setup.

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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 inThe Writer’s Chronicle, Redivider, and Breakers: A Comics Anthology, among others.

Heroes Never Rust #53: Censorship

06 Wednesday Aug 2014

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Heroes Never Rust

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censorship, Darick Robertson, Garth Ennis, Megan Kelso, sean ironman

Heroes Never Rust #53 by Sean Ironman

Censorship

A couple of years ago, I went to a cartoonist residency at the Atlantic Center for the Arts in New Smyrna, Florida. One afternoon, I sat on the porch with the master artist for my group, Megan Kelso, creator of Queen of the Black Black and Squirrel Mother. We spoke about my work, both past and future. She said she chose me for the residency because my work was confident, that I was going to tell the story I wanted to tell and it didn’t matter if the reader was on board or not. At the time, I thought it was a weird comment, but I kept returning to Kelso’s words when I read new work.

Nothing is made for everyone. Whatever comic, essay, story, poem, movie, music, or anything else is for every person in the world. Your favorite story is another person’s most hated story. I’ve come to think of creating art as something like this: I sit down at my desk in the morning and I have the whole world as my audience. Once I decide to write, I’ve lost like half the world. Once I decide to make a comic, I’ve lost like 80% of the world. Once I decide to make a comic about a dog and a T-rex travelling through time together, I’ve lost another 10%. The goal isn’t to finish with the most audience. Well, maybe if you’re a salesperson. My goal is to make sure whatever audience I have left is truly affected by my work. Part of creating a work of art is that you just have to go for it. It doesn’t matter if someone doesn’t like it or thinks it’s stupid, you just do it the best you can and go all the way with the concept. There will be others out there.

I love a lot of comic book writers. Way too many to list here. But usually, no matter how much I love one comic that a certain writer has done, he or she has written another that I don’t care for. Except for Garth Ennis. Everything I’ve read from Garth Ennis has ranged from good to fantastic, with Preacher being my favorite comic. One of the main reasons I love his work is because he just goes for things, regardless of whether a lot of people will love it. He’s confident in his work. Over the next few weeks, I’m going to take a look at volume one of his series The Boys, drawn by Darick Robertson, another one of my favorite creators.

The Boys is about a CIA squad who monitors the superhero community and makes sure no one is causing trouble. For decades comics have attempted to bring superheroes down to the level of humanity. Instead of the god-like Superman, Marvel Comics brought in the Fantastic Four, Spider-man, Daredevil, and the X-Men. More humanity was brought to superheroes. Regular people were superheroes. In the 1980s, the deconstruction of the superhero came around. What if superheroes were in the real world? Many of these comics had superheroes taking control of the world or these comics pointed out how superheroes couldn’t really exist. In The Boys, Ennis and Robertson take the reality of superheroes in a different direction. Superheroes aren’t conquering the world or deciding what is best for the world—Superheroes are dicks, at least many of them. They are incredibly powerful and popular. They walk around like frat boys who think they own the place. They are sexual deviants and care more about public perception, money, and status than saving the world. In a way, I think The Boys is closer to what superheroes would really be like than Watchmen or other comics. The Boys is a dark comedy, but sometimes comedies can get closer to a serious subject than a straight drama. This comic has a lot of sexual content, violence and profanity. So much so, in fact, that it was dropped by its original publisher, Wildstorm, an imprint of DC Comics. Luckily, Dynamite Entertainment picked up the series. In an interview with Comic Book Resources, Ennis said, “We’d have died on the vine [at DC]. The book would have been chipped and chipped away at until writing it was pure frustration.”

The first issue focuses on two characters: Butcher, the leader of the Boys, and Hughie, who will become the newest recruit. The comic opens with a full page shot—a close-up of a superhero’s head being crushed by a boot. With Robertson on art, the image is incredibly detailed. The superhero has no teeth. His nose is crushed. One eye is swollen shut. Blood sprays. The ground is cracked. Underneath comes the title for the individual issue, “The Name of the Game.” Some readers don’t like violence. I don’t get it, but okay. People like what they like. I saw Steven Spielberg’s film, Munich, with a girlfriend and her parents. I loved it. They hated it. They said it was too violent. I don’t know what they expected from a film about the Israeli government’s secret response to the Munich massacre at the 1972 Summer Olympics. But, oh well. That didn’t make it a bad movie. Those people just weren’t into what the filmmakers were going for. Same thing with The Boys. If the reader doesn’t want to read a very violent comic, they know on page one what they’re getting into. They can stop right there. Dr. David James Poissant, author of The Heaven of Animals, taught me that the job of a writer at the introduction of his or her story is to let the reader know what they are in for. It’s up to the reader to decide if they want to keep reading. Ennis does just that.

By page four, we’re introduced to Wee Hughie, who is on a date with his girlfriend. They say they love each other and they kiss. Oh, how cute. Then out of nowhere, a superhero knocks a supervillain right into Hughie’s girlfriend and crushes her against a brick wall. Hughie is left holding her arms, ripped off her body just below the elbow. The superhero doesn’t care. He beats the villain and then runs off to the next adventure. What a dick.

This sequence is shocking not just because of what happens, but because of how Ennis and Robertson break the page. On one page is Hughie and his girlfriend all happy and lovey. The next page’s first panel is Hughie holding his girlfriend’s severed arms, and she’s already been crushed into the brick wall. Her death happens between panels. In comics, time passes between panels. Static images come to life in the gutters, the gaps between the panels. Here, Ennis and Robertson give the reader, and Hughie, a shock by having such a huge moment happen in the gutters. She’s dead and gone before we even realize what’s going on.

Something similar occurs on pages seven and eight. Butcher goes to see a woman at the CIA. He walks into the room. She looks at him. Then, the next page opens with Butcher having sex with her doggystyle. It gives the scene a much larger effect and allows Ennis and Robertson to quicken the pace. The boring stuff is skipped. Also, by page eight, we’ve had a superhero’s head being crushed, a woman crushed into a wall, her boyfriend holding her severed arms, and Butcher fucking a woman and saying, “Wait’ll you see where I wipe my dick.”

Obviously, this comic isn’t for everyone. This is the first third of the first issue. There are seventy-two issues. If you don’t like it by page eight, you should read something else. It’s not Ennis and Robertson’s job to give the reader something they like. It’s their job to create what they set out to create. Hopefully, enough people like it and read it so Ennis and Robertson can eat and pay their bills. But that’s it. They’re going to do what they want, regardless of readers thinking the comics is too filthy or violent. They get my respect for that, and my money because I happen to love what they do.

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