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PERMANENT_EDIFICE


                                             November 15, 2008

If you grew up reading comic-books,
their absurdities recede into the
background -- you know that they're
there, and sometimes you might joke
about them, but they don't really
have any effect while you're reading
them.

  You know that "Daredevil" has the
  full title "Daredevil, the Man
  Without Fear", but you don't pay
  any conscious attention to the        The fact that the "Spider-Man" comic is
  dorky (or rather, even dorkier)       really titled "The Amazing Spider-Man"
  sub-title.                            and that there was a spin-off comic
                                        titled "The Spectacular Spider-Man" is
    But in the hands of a writer        a piece of nerd trivia that's not
    like Frank Miller, determined       obscure enough to interesting.
    to take these characters
    seriously (as opposed to                  "Amazing", "Spectacular",
    treating them as camp                     whatever.  That's just the
    figures), these sort of                   Superlative Stan at work.
    little details become
    challenges, raw material...               In a recent (as of late 2008)
                                              issue of Iron-Man, Spider-Man/
      There's a Frank Miller                  Peter Parker is a featured
      "Daredevil" story where                 character.  Someone asks Peter
      the villain has                         Parker:
      completely trashed the
      life of the hero's                         "What did you *do* while
      "secret identity", but                     you were working for Stark
      at the close of the                        Industries?"
      story, the villain is
      left pondering what the                 And he responds quietly:
      possible reaction might be:
                                                 "Oh, this or that, odds and
        "... and I have shown him,                ends.  Nothing spectacular
         that a man without hope,                 or amazing."
         is a man without fear."
                                              There's this weird kick in
     The old familiar (in fact,               that line, creeping up from
     over-familiar) line comes                an unexpected direction.
     back, with more force than
     you thought possible.                        It invokes names of
                                                  power that I had no
         *Without fear*                           idea had any power.

          What would that mean?
          What kind of madman would
          really be "without fear"?                             DHALGREN

                                             It's easy enough to describe:
  An even earlier example:                   "making a reference to a
  the DC hero "Green Lantern"                shared cultural/literary
  has this super-powered                     backround."
  ring that he recharges from
  a "lantern", and while he                          It's not at all
  does it, he recites the oath                       easy to get across
  of the "Green Lantern Corps".                      the effect if
                                                     you're not also
  It goes something like:                            someone who shares
                                                     that background.
    "In brightest day,
     in darkest night,  SUNDAY_CONVENTION
     no evil shall                              Throughout this Iron-Man story,
     escape my sight."                          the author continually works
                                                with what the reader already
When Dennis O'Neill and Neil Adams              knows (e.g. the Peter Parker who
took over that comic in the early               walks in the door is the "secret
70s, they were determined to work it            identity" of Spiderman, and the
over with 60s-style "relevance".                lame excuses he's making about
That silly rhyme came back: "no                 being late are rather obvious
evil shall escape my sight"?  Can               hints that he's been at work in
you really recognize evil just on               his other identity).
sight?  What exactly *is* "evil"?
                                                There's no need to hit the
                                                reader over the head with
                                                phone-booth scenes-- we've
                                                all been through all that.

                                                     Arguably, this is
                                                     weak writing in
                                                     some respects:
                                                     there's a third
                                                     viewpoint here
                                                     that's not
                                                     reflected in the
                                                     characters in the
                                                     story...

                                                     Or maybe, more
                                                     precisely, the
                                                     viewpoint hops
                                                     around,
                                                     beginning with
                Ben Urich was a character            the reporter
                originally written by                character Ben
                Frank Miller, to bring us            Urich, and
                back to the beginning, if            veering into
                not quite to a point of              Peter Parker's.
                closure.
                                                              POV


                Reference to a shared
                background:

                When this is done well,
                when this takes on
                power, we call it "myth".



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