Life, Art and the New 52

You can tell an awful lot about the world through comics.

Superman's formative years took place in a world suspicious of it's own institutions where only the plucky reporter could be trusted to bring low the anti trust mogul and the Washington skink. Iron man taught us that the world comes in Manichean hues, of crimson commie bashing cold war prose where only Yankee guile might prevail. The 70’s comic reflected the defiant introspection of the time, the land of the free suddenly revealed as a far from colour blind chimera. The 80’s lead us into a darker more complex world as we pondered the inevitability of Armageddon before giving way to insipid triumphalism and machismo; meanwhile makeovers, do-overs and reboots reflected both the changing pace of society and the new corporate reality of the comic book industry.

And now, the new 52.

A story can only be sustainable for decade upon decade if it remains unchanged in totality.  That’s why Tolkien works, you can read his epic once or a dozen times, the thrill of the novel will give way to the warm fuzz of the familiar or the nostalgic. To continue to tell stories indefinitely generates problems; back stories become too complex, flashbacks a nightmarish collection of half remembered back issues written years before your birth. But worst of all, especially from a publishers point of view, it requires prior knowledge of characters and plot; picking up an X- men comic book half way through Chris Claremont’s classic run would be like trying to watch the penultimate episode of Lost without asking anyone present for just a little clarification as to what the HELL was going on.  

So we reboot. I get it.

But I do not have to like it.

Much was promised; the old stories were gone, finished, the characters would be defibrillated, repackaged and renewed. Hell, you might recognise these guys if you squinted but not even that was guaranteed. Yeah man, dried pasta was out, fresh pasta in. 

Yeah right.

The New 52 is no year one,  no origin story retold. Perhaps for fear of having to rewrite a back-story in its entirety we enter our hero’s lives some time after they have adopted the alter ego persona that ultimately makes them an interesting read. Whilst the justice League’s Green Lantern seems surprised that Batman is real over in Justice League International it would seem that Bats and Guy Gardner go way back. Barbara Gordon is Batgirl and yes she can walk again but it seems was nevertheless shot by a Hawaiian shirt wearing joker meaning that… (So wait the Killing joke did happen… or what?) Green arrow is Oliver Queen the disaffected young CEO of a major corporation who fights crime with a bow, neglects his company and has a new haircut. Over in Action Comics we see an early superman sporting a home made costume of jeans and boots, his relationship with Lois is… hard to fathom (since technically we have never seen them interact before.) Over in Superman # 1 the end of an epoch is symbolically rammed down our collective throats as they destroy the familiar art deco contours of the Daily Planet and replace them with the sleek curves of hypermodernity. Whilst Perry puffs and pants his way through the struggling print format Lois our new Lois (who is nothing like the old Lois honestly,) barks orders about online feeds. It’s achingly hip agonisingly ‘now’, mentioned you tube? Check Mentioned Twitter? Check. Gratuitous shot of man using a Blackberry check! (Bleugh).

So what does New 52 tell us about the world we live in?

If there is one recognised rule to being cool and that’s that you must at no point be seen to be trying to be cool. Aquaman sans- beard( possibly because he doesn’t look old  enough to shave) remonstrates that he doesn’t talk to fish cause they don’t have very large brains and that would be stooopid (stooopid.)  The assistant director of Cadmus labs is about 20 years old because… you know all scientists reach such lofty heights early on in their career. Captain atom has something akin to a whisper of a Mohawk atop his head; the new Robin is just the old/new Robin, (Batman’s son Damian.)  and it makes sense because, hey, no-one under twenty wants to read stories about anyone over twenty and anyone over thirty wishes they were twenty. Right? The heroes are so ‘today’ that they abandon grammar in favour of street cred ‘O-M-G I’m liking these powerz!’

Don’t get me wrong, heroes always had to look the part, the sex appeal of a Greek god poured into Lycra with only the artists word that no ‘nip slips’ will ensue. I get that, we all get that. But why does Jimmy Olsen have to look like the offspring of George Clooney and Heidi Klum? The only person even wearing glasses is Clarke. And he doesn’t even need them.

And this is what the new 52 reflects; a society unashamed of it’s adoration of the superficial. Everyone’s got a cool pad; super science abounds yet exists paradoxically with familiar techno fetishism (‘Lois we’re getting flooded with cell phone video footage!’)  Everyone is young and everyone is pretty which brings with it a predictable lament; villains, ever mirrors of the heroes, are forced into the role of the grotesque. The Joker removes his own skin; Batwing’s enemy decapitates an entire police department, Dead shot is being devoured by rats and Grifter himself stabs punks in the eye with a scalpel. Hyper violence for hyper modern times because hey guys, the old world is turning to shit, the party is drawing to an ignominious end, everyone feels it, everyone is doing their best to ignore it. We’re reliving the 20’s we’re the beautiful people, looking down the barrel of the gun, lapping up the coming storm with all the augury of a ‘huh?’  

Some of the comics shine, Justice League is almost sublime, and Animal man of all titles forces the character into perhaps a new era of excellence. That’s not the point. The point is that the line itself leaves a foul taste in the mouth, the x-factor painstakingly inked and scripted by a middle aged facsimile of what the kids want to see.