Best comics of 2010: No. 14: Ex Machina No. 50

With just an hour an a half left to 2010, I think I'm on safe ground beginning my best of the year posts now.
I know many of my readers may be out reveling, but I never got into New Year's that way very much. So more power to you. Party on. I'll write. Nice glass of wine, relaxed cats, a fire, and writing about comics. That's a good celebration!
I'll do two weeks' worth of bests. No less arbitrary a number than ten, and there was some good stuff this year.
First up, the final issue of Brian K. Vaughan's Ex Machina.

The writing remained taut to the end, and the art maintained its effective combination of photo-realism and ornate decorative elements.
But I was let down by the ending.
When you have a superhero who's a politician, both roles carry expectations on the part of the constituents. I had a preconceived notion of who Mitchell Hundred was, and the character presented in the denouement did not reflect that preconception, quite specifically, did not reflect MY preconception. I don't know if that's a failing in the writing or in the reading, but it did leave me rather nonplussed. I saw him as a pragmatic idealist, and the latter sort of- eroded.
I'd like to be more specific about the big thing that left me with this sense, but I don't want to give too much away. It's still a book well worth reading, and we're about to enter spoiler territory anyway.
You've been warned. Spoilers in your immediate future.
Here we go....
As Mitchell Hundred ascends the political ladder, the two people closest to him are consumed by that ascension.
First, his friend Bradbury resurfaces. After declaring his love for Mitch, he wanders into oblivion.
Now, this plays into the subplot about Hundred's sexuality, which was never resolved directly in the storyline, though we were given ample plot points indicating he was gay. That makes his shocked response to Bradbury's declaration tough to cipher. Is he jarred by the prospect of loving a friend, or is he really not gay? In either case, his less than noble response to Bradbury says it all- he'll sacrifice the friendship for ambition if he must.
Then Mitchell encounters his friend, mentor and oftimes adversary, Kremlin, who had a very different vision of how Hundred should best use his miraculous curse of conversing with machines.

I can't decide if this is as simple as power corrupts, or if this is the inevitable path of political ambition, or simply the culmination of these two people being who they are in relation to one another. In any event, it has a moral ambiguity that left me feeling, well, disappointed.
Now understand. I'm not one of those people who has to have chipper stories all the time. Far from it. But I was left with a sense of uncertainty. A book that offered shining possibility turns out to be a tragedy.
Hundred becomes UN Ambassador and declares that the fallen tower (only one fell due to his intervention- how's that for heroism?) will be rebuilt exactly as it was.
We are privy to this intimate moment of remorse.

Brings to mind the moment in Unbreakable when Elijah says "real life doesn't fit into little boxes that are drawn for it."



His political path takes him in other directions as well.
Again, I won't reveal the ultimate spoiler, though others have done so online. Suffice to say that the issue's title, VICE, has more than one meaning.
I still recommend the whole series wholeheartedly. But I feel about Mitch Hundred much like I felt about the main character in Samuel Delaney's TRITON: after going through all that, I so wanted them to have happy endings.
Jan. 2: Best Comic of 2010, no. 13.

I really want this to be good, but the odds are against us.

Why do they do stuff like this?



The Phantom is one of the first superheroes, a sort of jungle Zorro/Batman type character. The suit is a bit busy, to say the least, but as his best The Phantom drips atmosphere and adventure.

This cover is by the late great Don Newton, for my money the best Phantom artist ever, as is this one:

The story in this issue is a wonderful pastiche of the Maltese Falcon, as evidenced by the Sydney Greenstreet character.

See, they don't need to fix or retro-fit The Phantom. He already has it all- legacy, wolves, pirates, jungles, all the stuff of adventure and legend. The Ghost Who Walks, the Man Who Cannot Die.

So why do this?

I get it that every creator wants to make a work or story their own. But these don't feel like creator driven decisions. The secret society training the reluctant hero. Vengenance for slain parents. The wisecracking girlfriend. From Batman Begins to The Hulk the studio cut of Daredevil (the director's cut is wonderful), these things have become so formulaic that I could write one without trying, as I suspect could many other people.

Anybody want to place money on the archenemy being responsible for the death of the parents? They use that one a lot, too.

Formulas often come from corporations and a perception of what's salable, as opposed to what makes a good story. While it's possible to create a good story that's salable, bear in mind that formula is something you feed babies until they're ready for soemthing more substantial.

The Phantom has been filmed numerous times. There was the 40s serial, a cameo in Yellow Submarine, the Defenders of the Earth cartoon, and the 1996 Billy Zane film, featuring the late great Patrick McGoohan as The Phantom's predecessor and father. Flawed as well, but a much better film than is often acknowledged. For one thing, it was a period piece, which added to its charm. For another, it was tightly written, smart and fun to watch. The creators managed to be faithful to their source text and still tell a good story.

So as we face yet another round of superhero remakes and sequels, beginning with Iron Man II (in fairness, the first Iron Man film was much better than it should have been, much like Twain's comment that Wagner's music is better than it sounds), let's hope for true creativity.
Ars long, vita bevis and all that.
As a case in point, here's a scene from what I still consider the best superhero film ever made.