The Comics Professor

Putting law, corruption, and power into context in Devil's Reign #1

SPOILERS FOR DEVIL'S REIGN #1 BELOW!

In last week's Devil's Reign #1, the first installment in the Daredevil-centered Marvel Comics event by writer Chip Zdarsky, artist Marco Checchetto, and colorist Marcio Menyz, Wilson Fisk—better known as the Kingpin, and currently the Mayor of New York—has enacted a citywide ban on superheroes to get revenge on Daredevil for erasing his secret identity from Fisk's files (as explained in Daredevil, vol. 5, #20, July 2017).

In effect, it's Civil War and the Superhero Registration Act (SHRA) all over again, but with less nuance. There's no pretense this time toward registering heroes and holding them accountable, although Fisk does argue for his law on the basis of public safety and respecting public servants. Also, no heroes are supporting it this time around (otherwise than a few, such as USAgent, who are working for him as an enforcer). Hence, there's no juicy ideological conflict here—just an example of the nakedly corrupt exercise of power and the imperative of good people to stand up and resist it.

And, knowing Fisk as they do, the (real) heroes are resisting. As detailed in my books on him as well as Civil War, Captain America opposed the SHRA, even though it was legitimately passed by Congress in response to a series of disasters related to superhero activity, because he felt it violated the liberty and privacy of people trying to save lives. So naturally, he finds the current law, with the same effects, even less acceptable, given the source.

We see just how unacceptable he finds it after Spider-Man (Miles Morales) saves a child from a burning building and Fisk's shock troops try to arrest him... until a higher authority steps in (while also saving lives).

When Fisk's officer asserts that the heroes are actually criminals now, Cap explains (with undue respect) that if he has to make a choice between following the law and saving lives, he will always choose the latter.

This doesn't mean that Cap is dismissing the importance of law in general, much less placing himself above it. He's merely recognizing that law is not an intrinsic good in and of itself, but rather a means to the end of ensuring social order, at the least, as well as protecting lives and promoting broader well-being. Heroes pursue those same ends, as do public servants and first responders, all of whom are justified in making judgment calls in emergency situations to set the law aside for the greater good (such as saving lives). Ideally, they will be held accountable for those choices after the fact if there is any doubt to their propriety, and sometimes those choices will be found improper (if not egregiously wrong). But it does not serve society's interest to set the law above the goals the law is meant to promote.

Of course, this is all the more apparent when a particular law is the expression of the vendetta of a corrupt public official rather than a response to valid democratic concerns. Cap makes this clear to several fellow heroes afterwards when Daredevil claims responsibility for Fisk's actions, explaining how Fisk lost the knowledge of his secret identity. Knowing all too well what it means to take on too much responsibility, Cap tries to tell Matt that it's not his fault, and then reasserts his commitment to doing what's right, regardless of any counterproductive law that Fisk chooses to put in his way.

In the end, though, it's Luke Cage who gets to the heart of Fisk's actions, as he explains to a group of gawking New Yorkers assembled around him and his family what the mayor's true plan is: to manufacture a crisis and then claim to be the only one who can prevent it from getting worse (like a mobster selling "protection" against his own threats of violence).

Even Tony Stark, poster boy and point man for the SHRA during the Civil War, sees through Fisk, suggesting a novel way to work the system against him: He's running for mayor. (Can Luke run instead?)

Before I sign off, I have to share this fantastic scene (sorry) featuring the ever-lovin' Thing as Fisk's stormtroopers break into the Fantastic Four's home:

If there's one thing that will get gentle Ben mad, it's someone threatening children, especially his family—just look at his face in the bottom panel.

Needless to say, it is clobberin' time indeed.

Daredevil nails a crucial difference between utilitarianism and deontology in Daredevil #36

SPOILERS FOR THE CURRENT RUN OF DAREDEVIL BELOW!

For the last year, Daredevil has been in prison, where he was sentenced in Daredevil #24 for second-degree manslaughter, resulting from the eventual death of a burglar he beat up in the first issue of the current run. Since he's been incarcerated—as Daredevil, mind you, avec mask but sans costume—Elektra has been protecting Hell's Kitchen as the new Daredevil (as seen on the cover to the right), and his twin brother Mike has been posing as Matt Murdock to preserve his secret identity. (If you think Mike Murdock was simply a farcical disguise Matt used in the past to do this, you obviously haven't read 2020's Daredevil Annual #1.)

In Daredevil #36 (released December 1, 2021), by writer Chip Zdarsky, penciller Manuel Garcia, inkers Cam Smith, Scott Hanna, and Victor Nava, and colorists Marcio Menyz and Bryan Valenza, the Man without Fear is once again a free man, although he was preoccupied the last few weeks of his sentence with battling against both corruption inside the prison and clones of Bullseye outside of it. After wrapping up both matters in the previous issue, the authorities tried to arrest Daredevil for being a fugitive from justice; several of his fellow superheroes argued the necessity of his breakout and the good he did, and a video recording of their argument with the police soon went viral. In the end, Matt turned himself in, presumably to show, as he did when he submitted to his initial trial and accepted the prosecution's plea offer, that superheroes must be accountable to the same laws they help enforce—although, over Zdarsky's run of the book, he has become more and more skeptical of the criminal justice system that ultimately carries that responsibility.

After reconnecting with both his brother and Elektra, Matt—now very furry of face, which I hope is not a permanent state of affairs—returns to patrolling Hell's Kitchen, and comes across two young men who had just knocked over a bodega. More concerned with helping them turn their lives around then sending them to prison, especially given his recent experiences, Matt lets them go and gives the bag of stolen loot back to the store owner... which comes as a surprise to Reed Richards, who by then had also arrived on the scene.

Reed shares Matt's concerns about reassuring a worried public that they can trust superheroes, but they differ on how much deference they should show "the system" in order to do this. As he did during the fight over superhuman registration that he references—and despite the fact that his support of registration almost ended his marriage—Reed stands by the legal system, despite its flaws, and wants to devise an optimal strategy in accordance with it, as well as optics of the current situation.

In contrast, Matt asks a simple question—"What's right?"—and then draws out the difference between what philosopher W.D. Ross characterized as "the right and the good" (in his book of the same title). Effectively, Matt is contrasting Reed's utilitarianism, in which he calculates the myriad contributing factors to an issue to arrive at a conclusion regarding the best course of action to take, with Matt's own deontological approach, which dismisses empirical contingencies in favor of using principle to determine the right thing to do.

Matt drives the point home when he acknowledges Reed's brilliance, but suggests that it's distracting him from the simple moral truth.

To be fair, determining what's right is not necessarily simpler than determining what's good or best; both require the use of judgment to weigh the various moral factors that are relevant to a problematic situation. (I discuss this reference to Captain America and Iron Man's conflicting moral perspectives, very similar to Matt's and Reed's, and the different use of judgment they each require, in my book A Philosopher Reads Marvel Comics' Civil War.) But Matt obviously feels, at least in this case, that he has identified the right thing to do—showing mercy to the two young men and sparing them the "justice" of the system that Matt feels is broken—and he has decided that no other factors, including the effect of his actions on public opinion, are relevant to that decision, amounting to mere "noise" that's "drowning out what's right."

This is not to say Reed doesn't have a point as well. As we saw above, Reed recognizes the flaws in the system, which we can safely assume he has included in his determination of what is the best thing to do overall; it simply wasn't the conclusive factor in the end. For his part, Matt also showed he realizes the importance of optics when he turned himself in again after putting down the prison riot and helping to defeat the Bullseyes; nonetheless, he didn't find it relevant to his conclusion (which is a different moral logic than Reed's considering the flaws of the system but finding other factors more significant). Both heroes weighed the same options, but in different ways and with different conclusions, which shows how equally moral persons can nonetheless disagree, in good faith, on ethical problems based on their unique ethical perspectives.

Don't believe for a minute that this issue is settled, especially for Matt Murdock. After all, he has seen the criminal justice system from many sides—defense attorney, prosecutor, defendant, and incarcerated felon—and he has long had to deal with the conflict between the law he is dedicated to upholding and the ideal of justice to which the law is only an approximation, as well the conflict between the law, ideally based on justice, and the imperfections of the criminal justice system, designed and implemented by human beings to enforce that law in the real world. (And we didn't even mention the conflict presented by the dual roles he has chosen to play in this drama!)

My thoughts on the 2015 Fantastic Four movie (spoiler-free)

Why do I feel inspired to write about only the movies I'm disappointed in? Maybe I worry I'll be too fanboy-ish about the movies I love and will fail to say anything insightful about them, sounding like Chris Farley meeting his idols on Saturday Night Live ("You know that movie you were in? ... That was cooool.") Hence, I've written nothing on Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Avengers: Age of Ultron, or Ant-Man (just to name a few), but plenty about Man of Steel... and now its aesthetic cousin, Fantastic Four.

[UPDATE: As has been pointed out to me, I did in fact write about Avengers: Age of Ultron. But it is rather fanboy-ish, isn't it?]

As you may know, I love the Fantastic Four; if you don't, I gushed about them recently over at the Cultural Gutter. Even though I avoided actual reviews of this movie, there was more than enough doubt in the air to dispel any hopes I had that I would be happy with it. I had the worst of expectations. As I told a friend yesterday, I couldn't not see it; I just had to know.

As I watched last night, in a local theater with about a dozen teenagers with nothing better to do on a Thursday evening—what a difference from early showings of other recent superhero flicks, which were packed with diehard fans—I couldn't help but think about Man of Steel. If it had been about any other superpowered person, Man of Steel would have been an interesting and entertaining movie—my problem with it was that the Superman it showed bore little resemblance to the Superman I believe in.

Fantastic Four, on the other hand, did no particular disservice to its characters, if only because they had very little character at all, and faced no tragic dilemma that would have revealed something about their heroic dispositions. This is no fault of the four lead actors, all of whom did the best they could with what they were given. What a horrible waste of talent this was, especially that of Miles Teller and Michael B. Jordan, who have both shone in other work. (And the less said about Doctor Doom, the better. At least he wasn't a blogger, as widely reported earlier.)

My issue with Fantastic Four wasn't the portrayal of the lead characters. It was simply a bad movie. Utterly lifeless, it had no discernible plot, and no drama or suspense—only when the denouement came did you know that the climax had passed. The dialogue was bland and cliched (and not even based on comic book cliches, beyond the awkward insertion of several beloved catchphrases, one introduced in a particularly depressing way).

Visually, it made Man of Steel look like Pee Wee's Playhouse—I don't think the color blue appeared once, much less any other primary colors. Even the other dimension they travel to was disappointing, a slight improvement on the alien sets from the original Star Trek series. (On a brighter note, the flame effect on Johnny Storm was very well done, and the Thing's appearance works better than I imagined, and for the first time in a movie you can see how he would inspire true fear and not just disgust or discomfort.)

As a concept, the Fantastic Four is supposed to be about wonder, adventure, and exploration, but there was none of that in this movie. It's also supposed to be about the relationships between the four members, but there was very little of that in this movie. And it is supposed to be fantastic—and there was definitely none of that in this movie.

P.S. Maybe this will lead people to reconsider the first two Fantastic Four movies, which were far from perfect but captured very well the playful and optimistic spirit of the comic (as well as simply being more entertaining.)

Two new Fantastic Four-related posts, and a pitch for Thor #5

Hard to believe this is my first post here in 2015... sad but true...

Nonetheless, just a quick post to point your swiping or clicking finger toward several items of potential interest:

1. I have a guest post at The Cultural Gutter, one of my favorite websites, recounting my experiences and impressions reading the entire run of Fantastic Four over the last year or so, along with some of my favorite panels from over 50 years of their comics (most of them seen on my Twitter feed over the past year—occasionally with snarky commentary, although mostly at Reed's expense).
2. Speaking of the Fantastic Four and Sue in particular, my latest post at Psychology Today deals with invisibility—mostly in a social, metaphorical sense, but I draw ties to the Invisible Woman, as well as a little-known hero with a modest cult following in some parts, Batman.
3. Finally, I want to recommend Jason Aaron and Jorge Medina's Thor #5 to anyone not currently following the adventures of the latest person worthy to wield the mighty Mjolnir. This is a quick one-shot between longer arcs that both refreshes the status quo for new readers, as well as, for longtime readers, establishes the various other characters' opinions regarding the new Thor, including Odin, Freyja, and, most entertainingly, the Absorbing Man and Titania, with whom Aaron and Medina indulge in a bit of metacommentary about fan reaction to our new Goddess of Thunder, both positive and negative. (See below.) Buy this issue now, or thou wilst be sorry --  I promise thee that.

A heartwarming scene of acceptance in FF #6

Just a quick post to share a page from Matt Fraction and Joe Quinones' FF #6, featuring the Moloids (Mik, Korr, Turg, and Tong), which seems not to gotten the widespread attention it deserves:

Both in this volume of FF as well as Hickman's that came before, the Moloids are usually adorable comic relief, often seen worshiping the Thing ("The Ben") or She-Hulk ("The Jen"). But on this page, their quirkiness is combined with a simple but touching message of acceptance for one of their own who is realizing who she really is. Kudos to all involved.

Reed Richards gives his wife the ultimate valentine in Fantastic Four #4

Reed Richards (aka Mr. Fantastic) is often portrayed as clueless when it comes to the more romantic and emotional aspects of his marriage to his wife Susan (aka the Invisible Woman), but once in a while he shows his feelings as only one of the smartest people in the Marvel Universe can. In yesterday's Fantastic Four #4, Matt Fraction and Mark Bagley devote an issue to showing us just how romantic Mr. Fantastic can be. (Spoilers after the fold.)