The Comics Professor

My thoughts on Spider-Man: No Way Home

SPOILERS FOR SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME BELOW! SO MANY SPOILERS!

My son and I saw the new Spider-Man film yesterday afternoon in a large theater with about twenty other people—which was a Christmas miracle, given how most showings sold out over opening weekend and our hesitation to see it amongst a large crowd in the current environment. In anticipation of this event, we rewatched all the earlier Spidey flicks over the last couple months, which really paid off, given how well No Way Home wrapped up the entire franchise to date, while setting an interesting direction for future installments.

Below I share a few of my thoughts about the movie. Before I start, I should warn you: I haven't read any other commentary or reviews yet, so it's quite likely that everything I have to say has already been said. (Still, no refunds!)

1. Generally, everyone involved with this film pulled off an incredible juggling act, balancing the core story of Spider-Man and his amazing friends MJ and Ned with the multiversal spectacle of numerous guest-stars from the pre-MCU films. I had heard the rumors and had seen the set pictures, but I successfully avoided getting confirmation of who showed up in the movie before I saw it. Perhaps the most impressive aspect of this was that, with one notable exception (see #5-7 below), none of the invited guests were mere cameos; all of them had meaningful character beats and important roles to play in the story. Specifically, I was expecting the earlier Spideys to show up at the last minute to help out with the final fight, and was pleasantly surprised that they arrived early enough for some great character work between them.
2. Continuing with that thought: The casual interactions between Tobey Maguire, Andrew Garfield, and Tom Holland, some touching and others funny, were some of my favorite moments of the movie. Tobey was the chill, elder statesman of the three, a more confident and competent version of Jake Johnson's Spidey from Into the Multiverse. In contrast, Andrew was still tormented by the death of Gwen Stacy in his second movie, now living a self-imposed life of solitude and self-loathing. Tobey sweetly tried to counter this ("You're amazing! Say it! Say you're amazing!"), but it takes the opportunity to save MJ from a similar fall that allows Andrew to start to move past his grief and guilt. And Tom took the leadership role while casually throwing out references to going into space and being an Avenger, which the others hilariously did not understand—but even better was seeing Andrew and Tom marvel at Toby being able to shoot webs out of his wrists instead of relying on homemade webshooters and webbing. (Now that's what I call fan service, given the endless debates about organic vs. mechanical webshooters on message boards.)
3. I was relieved to see that Doctor Strange was not the co-star of the movie, as the trailer suggested. (I get it: After all, they couldn't show much else). I was afraid he'd play the father figure that Tony Stark and Quentin Beck did in Holland's first two movies; instead, there was a great older hero/younger hero dynamic between them that thankfully stopped short of mentor/mentee. (And hey, was that Zelma, from the Jason Aaron and Chris Bachalo run of the comics, cleaning up the snow in the Sanctum Sanctorum?)
4. Holland's dedication to trying to save.help/cure the assorted villains, as opposed to Doctor Strange's plan to return them to their home universes to face their deaths, was perhaps the most positively surprising aspect of the story. This reflected the traditional Spider-Man idealism (especially during the Dan Slott "no one dies" period) and exemplified the less reactive or defensive approach to superheroing we often see these days among the younger set, such as Ms. Marvel or Squirrel Girl. (Although, to be fair, one of Batman's greatest regrets is not being able to help or redeem his worst villains, especially those like Two-Face who were once on the side of good, as I discuss in Batman and Ethics.) It was also nice to see that, other than Norman Osborn, the villains weren't truly evil; rather, each had been "turned" in his own way, which the Spideys were able to reverse, setting them back on the righteous path.
5. MATT MURDOCK!
6. CHARLIE COX AS MATT MURDOCK!
7. "I'm a very good lawyer." Fantastic line at the perfect time. (But I'm sad they missed the chance to have Matt turn in Happy's direction, take a sniff or listen intently for a second, and say "Foggy?")
8. Most important, this movie fixed what I've regarded as the biggest flaw of the first two MCU Spider-Man films: the absence of a motivating tragedy that serves to convince Peter to dedicate himself to helping people and doing what's right, regardless of the personal cost (which is consistently high). In the comics and the last two iterations in the movies, this crucial event has always been the death of Uncle Ben, which Tobey references as his greatest loss, while Andrew understandably focuses on Gwen. But the MCU movies chose for some reason to neglect Uncle Ben altogether (other than occasional suggestions of his past existence in this universe), leaving Peter to be a more carefree, happy-go-lucky wallcrawler, reveling in playing dress-up with Iron Man and the Avengers but not really motivated to be a hero for its own sake. But with this movie, Aunt May takes Uncle Ben's place, and her death becomes the horrible tragedy that Peter feels responsible for and will spend the rest of his life trying to rise up from. To paraphrase a popular political saying, with this movie Peter Parker became Spider-Man...
9. ...and he proves this by making a tremendous sacrifice at the end to save the multiverse, asking Doctor Strange to erase all memory of Peter Parker's existence, including MJ and Ned, the two closest people to him left in the world. (It will be very interesting to see how Peter goes about rebuilding these relationships in the upcoming "college trilogy.") The fact that he did so without hesitation and with full awareness of the incredible personal cost shows that this Peter Parker has become the Spider-Man we know and love.

All in all, Spider-Man: No Way Home was a stunning achievement by all involved, and it only heighten my excitement for what director Jon Watts does with the upcoming Fantastic Four film.

New interviews and articles about Captain America: Civil War and my book, A Philosopher Reads Marvel Comics' Civil War

It's been an exciting couple of weeks around the release of Captain America: Civil War, with several articles, interviews, and a review of my book A Philosopher Reads... Marvel Comics' Civil War appearing online. I collect them all on the dedicated page for the book at profmdwhite.com, but I thought a Comics Professor blog update was called for as well.

1. I did two interviews about the movie, its relation to the comics, and the ethics and politics behind both:

"A Philosopher Watches... Captain America: Civil War," interview with Skye Cleary for the Blog of the APA (American Philosophical Association), May 10, 2016

"The Post-9/11 Ethics of Captain America: Civil War," interview with Katie Kilkenny for Pacific Standard, May 9, 2016

2. Michael Dudley of the University of Winnipeg reviewed my book for the Winnipeg Free Press on May 7, 2016 in "Civil discourse: Comics book series says plenty on liberty, security and morals," containing the immortal attribution, "something of a rock star in the world of comics." (I wish!)

3. Finally, I wrote two pieces based on my book and the Civil War comics (before the movie came out):

"What Can We Learn from Watching a Superhero Civil War?" Psychology Today blog, May 3, 2016

"Captain America: Civil War -- conflicted heroes and a clash of philosophies," The Guardian, April 21, 2016

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Even though it's "old news" by now, I'm also very happy with my chat with Scott Niswander for his Nerdsync podcast:

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As always, if you like any of this stuff, let me know on Twitter and check out my book, A Philosopher Reads... Marvel Comics' Civil War, available now!

My thoughts on Captain America: Civil War (No spoilers!)

OK, no surprise... I loved Captain America: Civil War. I was fairly certain I'd like it, of course, but it surpassed my expectations, which were well heightened by all the positive  comments from everyone who saw it before me. (And that seems to be everyone I know. I will have my revenge, mark my words.)

So here are some scatted thoughts, as usual... (If I had no shame I would title this post "7 Things I Loved about Captain America: Civil War... and 1 I Didn't," but with any luck Google will pick up on that anyway.)

1. The movie was very well paced, and I was never tempted to check the time, which is impressive for a 147-minute movie. There was a point at which I thought the movie could have been essentially finished, except there was a scene from the trailers that hadn't come up yet, but this was a minor lull.

2. Despite the inclusion of a dozen heroes, several of them appearing throughout the film, the Russo brothers did a great job keeping the focus most of the time on Cap and the main secondary characters, Falcon, Bucky, and Iron Man. There were times that it did feel like an Avengers movie—especially during the fight scene between the two teams, which was much longer (and better) than I expected—but these spots were occasional enough that the movie still felt like a Cap movie. (Although, to be fair, there was enough substantial Iron Man content that it almost could have been titled something stupid like Captain America v Iron Man. Like anyone would do that.)

3. The story itself was not as close to the comics version as I expected—and I didn't expect it to be very close at all—but I think the changes worked well within the context of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. For instance, as many people noted ahead of the film, not many of the heroes we've seen in the films have secret identities, so that aspect of the comics story wouldn't translate well to the film, and it was wisely left out. Nonetheless, the movie did touch of several iconic images and lines from the comics, which I found enormously gratifying (being rather fond of the comics, as you may have heard). Would I have loved more explicit discussion of the issues underlying the conflict? Of course, but I was satisfied with how much there was, and the dialogue on this front was concise and on target, hitting the most important points of the debate. (I expect to be talking more about that aspect of the film in the near future.)

4. The action scenes were simply incredible, both those with two characters as well as a dozen, and felt more visceral than Whedon's in the two Avengers films, even when all the heroes were onscreen at the same time. Maybe it was the Russo brothers' more subdued color palette, or the slight jerkiness of the camera (which, to be honest, became somewhat tiresome), but these scenes were more reminiscent of a war movie (appropriately enough) than a traditional superhero film. Kudos to everyone involved in these scenes, most of all the sound people—every time one of the heroes got hit, was thrown in a wall, or fell 50 feet to the ground, I flinched thanks to the combination of performance, cinematography, and especially the sound effects. (But at the same time, even when Cap and Iron Man went all out on each other, there was none of the senseless brutality we saw in that other superhero battle movie this year.)

5. Black Panther... ah, my king! He could have easily been the star of this movie if any of the other characters had let me down, and I am looking forward even more (if that were possible) to his solo film. Chadwick Boseman gave T'Challa a thoroughly regal demeanor, with the perfect combination of determination, class, and fierceness. The Panther's movements were magnificently graceful, especially the way he would land after a jump or being thrown. And even with his short time in the film, we saw his character experience growth.

6. I am a big fan of both Tobey Maguire's and Andrew Garfield's portrayals of Peter Parker/Spider-Man (though not necessarily of every film they were in), and Tom Holland's version adds yet another unique take on the character. He played a relatively small role in the movie, and didn't have much to do with the Civil War storyline itself (unlike in the comics, where he was a major player), but we see much more of him than I expected, in and out of costume.

7. The Stan Lee cameo was perfect. 'Nuff said.

If I have one criticism with the film, it's with the ending. I can't say much more without giving anything away, so I'll just say that I thought some things were left unresolved, but I trust the Russo brothers to be setting up their first Avengers film (which cannot come soon enough).

The ending notwithstanding, I thought the movie was exceptional. It was more of an action movie than a political one, but there was enough of the latter to make this fan of the comics story happy.

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As I mentioned, I have a number of interviews planned over the next week in which I'll speak to the ideological debates in the movie and the comics, so stay tuned, both here and on Twitter. And don't forget to check out my book, A Philosopher Reads...Marvel Comics' Civil War: Exploring the Moral Judgment of Captain America, Iron Man, and Spider-Man, available now!

Now available, in print and ebook: A Philosopher Reads Marvel Comics' Civil War

At long last, today is the release day for A Philosopher Reads... Marvel Comics' Civil War: Exploring the Moral Judgment of Captain America, Iron Man, and Spider-Man, published by Ockham Publishing in both paperback and ebook.

Comic book readers and moviegoers love to see superheroes fight, whether to protect innocent people from supervillains or to save the world from invaders from outer space. But superheroes also fight each other, and if we can look past the energy blasts and earth-shattering punches, we can find serious disagreements over principles and ethics. This was certainly the case when Captain America and Iron Man went head-to-head over liberty and security in Marvel Comics’ epic Civil War storyline, a fictional allegory to post-9/11 America (as well as the basis for the third Captain America film).

In his latest book, Mark D. White, author of The Virtues of Captain America and editor of Iron Man and Philosophy, carefully leads you through the ethical thinking of the three characters on the front lines of the Civil War:

Iron Man, who has taken charge of the US government’s efforts to register and train superheroes to enhance safety and security

Captain America, who leads the resistance against registration in the name of individual liberty and privacy

Spider-Man, who is torn between his two mentors and has a uniquely personal stake in the battle

In his characteristically light and humorous tone, White lays out the basic ethical foundations of each hero’s thinking and highlights the moral judgment each must use to put his ethics into action. He also explains how the Civil War affected the three heroes after the battle ended and how the experience continued to test them in very different ways as events in the Marvel Universe continued to unfold. Finally, he uses examples from Civil War to show how conflicting principles such as liberty and security must be balanced in the real world, lest both be lost.

Written in a style that will be easily accessible to those new to philosophy or superhero comics, A Philosopher Reads... Marvel Comics’ Civil War will be a fascinating read for diehard comics fans and philosophy buffs as well.

If you want to find out more about the book, there are several places to look (and listen):

• My podcast with Nerdsync, in which Scott Niswander and I covered many of the topics and issues in my book, the Civil War comics, and what we could surmise about the upcoming movie, and still only seemed to scratch the surface!

• The lectures I gave at Northwood University on the topic of superheroes, liberty, and security, the video of which can be found here (although the player can be very touchy with respect to browsers, with Internet Explorer and Edge working the best, and Firefox sometimes).
• Comics Worth Reading generously ran a brief excerpt from the book on their website (and The Philosopher's Magazine is planning on doing the same in an upcoming issue).
• Finally, Troy Powell (a contributor to The Avengers and Philosophy) interviewed me about the book for Graphic Policy.

I am available for interviews, podcasts, signings, or lectures—just contact me at [email protected].

If you read the book, please let me know what you think, either in the comments here; on Amazon, Goodreads, or elsewhere; or on Twitter (@profmdwhite) or email ([email protected]).

Announcing my first self-published book: A Philosopher Reads Marvel Comics' Civil War

UPDATE: See new publication and ordering details—new post coming soon with new cover!

It's finally here, my long-promised book on Marvel Comics' Civil War storyline and my initial foray into self-publishing with Amazon's Kindle Direct, publishing on February 3 and available now for pre-order: is now being published by Ockham Publishing in print and ebook formats and is available for pre-order on Amazon:

A Philosopher Reads Marvel Comics' Civil War: Exploring the Moral Judgments of Captain America, Iron Man, and Spider-Man

From the promotional copy that someone other than me definitely wrote:

Comic book readers and moviegoers love to see superheroes fight, whether to protect innocent people from supervillains or to save the world from invaders from outer space. But superheroes also fight each other, and if we can look past the energy blasts and earth-shattering punches, we can find serious disagreements over principles and ethics. This was certainly the case when Captain America and Iron Man went head-to-head over liberty and security in Marvel Comics’ epic Civil War storyline, a fictional allegory to post-9/11 America (as well as the basis for the third Captain America film).

In his latest book, Mark D. White, author of The Virtues of Captain America and editor of Iron Man and Philosophy, carefully leads you through the ethical thinking of the three characters on the front lines of the Civil War:

Iron Man, who has taken charge of the US government’s efforts to register and train superheroes to enhance safety and security

Captain America, who leads the resistance against registration in the name of individual liberty and privacy

Spider-Man, who is torn between his two mentors and has a uniquely personal stake in the battle

In his characteristically light and humorous tone, White lays out the basic ethical foundations of each hero’s thinking and highlights the moral judgment each must use to put his ethics into action. He also explains how the Civil War affected the three heroes after the battle ended and how the experience continued to test them in very different ways as events in the Marvel Universe continued to unfold. Finally, he uses examples from Civil War to show how conflicting principles such as liberty and security must be balanced in the real world, lest both be lost.

Written in a style that will be easily accessible to those new to philosophy or superhero comics, A Philosopher Reads Marvel Comics’ Civil War will be a fascinating read for diehard comics fans and philosophy buffs as well.

Although I've wanted to write about Civil War for a long time, and touched on it in The Virtues of Captain America as well as essays for Iron Man and Philosophy and Spider-Man and Philosophy, the late October 2014 announcement of Captain America: Civil War kicked plans for a full-length treatment into gear.

I originally planned to focus on the larger political issues in the book, but then decided to change the focus to what I really enjoy writing about: the characters themselves. This allowed me to explore the three heroes' different ethical frameworks, the way each used his judgment to put their ethics into action, and how their choices affected them during the Civil War as well as afterwards. Iron Man had the longest arc, which carried him through World War Hulk, the Secret Invasion, Norman Osborn's "Dark Reign," and the Siege of Asgard. Cap's and Spidey's arcs following the Civil War were shorter, for different reasons, but are just as fascinating, with Cap's nicely dovetailing with Iron Man's during the Siege.

As you might guess from the title—and especially from the banner atop the marvelous cover designed by the incomparable S.L. Johnson, a wonderful collaborator and adviser on this project whose work you can see here—I have a mind to publish more A Philosopher Reads... ebooks on various superhero characters and storylines in the future. (The title was inspired by books like this and is meant to suggest that this is only one philosopher's reading of Civil War, and is in no way definitive, much less comprehensive.) I will continue to publish superhero-related books with traditional publishers when our interests coincide; I'm working on one at the moment and in discussions to do another. But the self-published ebook format allows me the freedom to write on whatever I want, regardless of the availability of "promotional moments" like films or TV series, and at whatever length I choose; A Philosopher Reads Marvel Comics' Civil War is the same length as The Virtues of Captain America, but future ones may be shorter if appropriate. (But my epic treatment of Green Arrow's classic Van Dyke will naturally be a three-volume set.)

The other person without whom I could never have done this is my intrepid copyeditor Louise Spencely, who also worked on The Virtues of Captain America and Superman and Philosophy. Not only does she find all of my embarrassing typos and unforgivable offenses to grammar, logic, and common sense, she also "gets" my style and voice and helps it come out more clearly. On the top of all this, she was invaluable to helping me format the manuscript for Kindle, not only on technical matters but also finding the most attractive font and layout. (You can learn more about her here.)

If you liked The Virtues of Captain America or my essays in various books in the Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture series, or if you love Civil War and these characters as much as I do, or even if you just like a little philosophy with your superheroes (or vice versa), please check out A Philosopher Reads Marvel Comics' Civil War: Exploring the Moral Judgment of Captain America, Iron Man, and Spider-Man and let me know what you think!

The end of an era (for now): Thoughts on Amazing Spider-Man #700 and Avenging Spider-Man #15.1

HUGE SPOILERS BELOW—if you don't want to know that Mary Jane Watson is the new Spider-Man, read no further!

As everyone in the comics community knows, Amazing Spider-Man #700 and Avenging Spider-Man #15.1 come out today, and the transformation revealed in Amazing Spider-Man #698 is confirmed: Otto Octavius, aka Doc Ock, is now aka Spider-Man, having successfully switched minds with Peter Parker in a well laid-out plan over the last year (in our time). Peter made a valiant effort to reverse the switch, but Doc Ock anticipated his every move, and at the end of the main story in ASM #700, Peter (in Doc Ock’s body) breathes his last breath.

I was both impressed and disappointed by the way ASM #700 played out. I thought Dan Slott’s script was very well written and paced, with more than a few moments where I thought Peter would pull it off… but then Doc Ock would one-up him. But I was disappointed that the story ended with little more than a confirmation of what we learned in ASM #698. In ASM #699, we saw Peter, trapped in Doc Ock’s failing body, being the brilliant Peter we know and love, crafting a plan and setting up his return. Since we were promised an ever bigger surprise in #700 than we got in #698, I expected Peter to defeat Doc Ock and reverse the switch, only to have something else—or someone else—step in at the last moment and foil things up, and then that person would be the Superior Spider-Man starting next year. For me, the surprise ending was that there was no surprise: Doc Ock is (still) the new Spider-Man (for now).

If there was a surprise ending to #700, it was the transformation of character Doc Ock goes through, first by instinctively protecting Aunt May from the Scorpion, and then after Peter uses the weak mindlink that he was able to establish with the gold octobot to force certain key memories into Otto’s conscious mind. After this, Octavius comes to realize why Peter used his powers for good and how precious life is, and at the end of ASM #700 he vows to become a hero himself. (Literally.)

Farewell, Peter Parker. Know this, I will carry on in your name. You may be leaving this world, but you are not leaving it to a villain. I swear. I will be Spider-Man. Better yet, with my unparalleled genius--and my boundless ambition--I'll be a better Spider-Man than you ever were. From this day forth, I shall become... the Superior Spider-Man!

He decides to be the Spider-Man the world deserves, not what he comes to see in Avenging Spider-Man #15.1 as the scatterbrained Spidey that Peter Parker was while trying to balance a personal life with superheroics. This is where Avenging #15.1 fleshes out Amazing Spider-Man #700, laying out more of Doc Ock’s thinking going forward after he comes to the realization of his heroic destiny. In that book, written by Chris Yost, we see Otto sizing up all the aspects of Peter’s life, from his costume and equipment, his relationship with MJ, his work at Horizon, and most importantly how he fought against Spidey time and time again—and how Spidey always won. It is then that Otto realizes that Doc Ock, for all his genius, was a “pontificating, weak-chinned fool,” and that he will not only be a better Spider-Man than Peter Parker was, but he will also be a better man than Doctor Octopus was.

It’s this transformation of Otto Octavius, with overlapping themes of responsibility, redemption, and renewal, that will have me buying Superior Spider-Man when it launches in 2013. I was planning to dropping Spidey after #700 and picking it up again after the inevitable Peter Parker Reborn event in 2014. But the premise that Slott has set up interests me, so I’ll see where he goes with it. (Hey, I’m as surprised as anyone!)

Some random thoughts:

1. The Superior Spider-Man is also the Brutal Spider-Man, as shown by how he takes the Scorpion’s jaw off while defending Aunt May, which adds a bit of Knightfall flavor to the proceedings. (The fact that J. Jonah Jameson takes a liking to this new Spidey is a bad sign in and of itself.) I imagine we'll see this impulse be tempered by friends like Daredevil (in whose book he'll appear soon) and various memories of Peter's as well (though certainly not this one).

2. I’m no neuroscientist, but as I understand it, intelligence has more to do with physical brain architecture than personality and memories do. Just in terms of the overly simplistic “software/hardware” analogy to mind and brain, switching personalities and memories between the two men would entail swapping “programs,” while swapping their respective “geniuses” would require more extensive rewiring of neurons and whatnot. (Note the subtle use of vernacular to distract from my whopping ignorance.) Of course, mental swaps are de rigeur in comics, so we shouldn’t nitpick, but since Otto makes such a big deal about how his genius surpasses Peter’s—although his personality resides in Peter’s physical brain—it raises the question anew.

3. Of course, we all know that we haven’t seen the last of Peter—the obvious way to bring him back is for his brain patterns to have been stored in the gold octobot when Peter tried to return things to normal at the end of ASM #700. (Hey, it worked for Tony Stark after his protracted self-lobotomy, right?) Any other ideas?

4. Doc Ock and MJ—eww.

But seriously, the first time he calls her “woman,” she should’ve known something was up, not to mention all his other odd behavior. It would have been appropriate if MJ could have saved Peter from Doc Ock at after realizing that something was amiss—but she'll have her chance once “Just One More Day, We Promise” happens.

On Spider-Man, torture, and character in comics

Inspired by my friend Colin Smith's post on his blog, Too Busy Thinking about My Comics, regarding our friendly neighborhood Spider-Man's questionable actions in Amazing Spider-Man #685, and then further spurred on by a vigorous debate with Spidey editor Stephen Wacker on Twitter this morning (joined by Colin and several other stalwart discussants), I need to put my thoughts on this matter down for whatever counts as posterity these days.

Although my comments will much be broader than this specific instance, here is the page-of-interest:

While Colin was firmly against what Spidey did in this issue, his larger concern (as I understand it) is with the lack of context and discussion of what Spidey did. No more reflection, no consideration of the principles or consequences involved--he just "did what he had to do." (Another concern of his was with the increasing proliferation of acts like this, one of which I mentioned in an earlier post, and is also related an another post on DC Comics' devolving views on killing.)

One issue that arose in the Twitter discussion this morning was selectivity when applying moral standards to characters. I was accused of sanctioning Batman's practice of child endangerment over the last 70 years, but not Spidey's recent transgression. I replied first that I wasn't sanctioning or condemning either hero's actions, and then elaborated on two points:

1) Batman's actions towards his various Robins have been discussed extensively in the comics--for instance, in Devin Grayson's wonderful Gotham Knights run, as well as Peter Tomasi's current Batman and Robin, which also deal with Damian's penchant for killing. (There is also a chapter titled "Is It Right to Make a Robin?" in Batman and Philosophy.) It is not the controversial nature of Spidey's actions, so much as lack of recognition of any controversy, that is distressing to me.

2) Batman and Spider-Man are different characters, with different moral codes, implying different limits and lines they won't cross, as well as different processes of judgment. The Punisher is different, as is Captain America, and Superman, and Daredevil. Even within the Batman family, we see Bruce, Dick, Tim, and Damian all making moral decisions differently--and the fact that we can read that in the comics, that the characters are so well-defined that these differences come out, is a testament to comics storytelling.

It is this second point about character on which I want to focus here: not only is the lack of reflection or context in Amazing Spider-Man #685 troublesome, but it seems out of character for Spidey to do what he did. (To be fair, he does acknowledge this briefly--see the panel in the lower right-hand corner in the image above--but then seems to dismiss such concerns.)

Despite this long legacy in the Marvel Universe, Spider-Man is perpetually represented as the kid among grown-ups, representing a still-developing moral idealism alongside the more solidified moral positions of Captain America and Iron Man. We see this when he sided first with Iron Man and then Cap during Civil War (which I described in my chapter "'My Name is Peter Parker': Unmasking the Right and the Good" in Spider-Man and Philosophy, edited by Jonathan J. Sanford, as well as in this blog post). He also serves as the point-of-view character for events like Civil War, and he has gained the status as the moral center of the Marvel Universe--not in the sense that he is always right, but rather that he hasn't got everything figured out, and therefore he considers his actions like a conscientious young person would. For example, he makes idealist pledges like "no one dies," which makes his all-too-easy acceptance of torture all the harder to reconcile with his character.

Torture is a hot button issue to be sure, and deservedly so. You could say it's the ultimate "trolley problem," in which grave consequences will follow if one adheres to cherished principles. Several years ago, I compared Batman's continued struggle over whether to kill the Joker to a trolley problem and to the contemporary torture debates. Among its other lessons, the trolley problem (which Spidey has also faced, of course) shows us the difficulty of adhering to moral absolutes. It is too easy to say "I will never kill" or "I will never torture," no matter how high the costs, until you're actually in a position--as a government official or superhero--to have to accept those costs on behalf of those who will bear them, in order to maintain your principles. (For a magnificant academic treatment of these issues, see Michael S. Moore's paper "Torture and the Balance of Evils" in his collection Placing Blame.)

For that reason, I am no moral absolutist when it comes to torture (or anything else). As a Kantian I am a strong devotee of moral duty and principle, but no matter how firmly we adhere to a moral principle, there can always be another moral principle can that be judged to be more important--and this importance can be based, in part, on consequences. But this is a decision that everyone has to make for himself or herself--including fictional characters like superheroes that find themselves in these situations much more often than the average Jane or Joe.

As much as I admire the character of Captain America, I find it more believable that he, compared to Spider-Man, would engage in torture, with a tremendous heavy heart, when he judged it to be necessary. Ideally, his struggle with such a decision would parellel America's struggle with it. It would rip him apart inside, representing a betrayal of his core principles of respect for human rights and dignity, and he would only do it if the costs of not doing it were unacceptably high, as in the "ticking time-bomb scenario." (He would not, however, be as flippant about it as he was in Secret Avengers #21, shown at the right.)

As I understand the character of Spider-Man, he would be far less accepting of the "inevitability" of torture in whatever few circumstances Cap would. Spidey would want to look for another way, not stopping until he found it, no matter what the costs to himself (as with his "no one dies" pledge). If anything, he may be guilty of ignoring the costs to others of sticking to his own principles in the face of the "Ends of the Earth," and a thought process like this may in fact explain why he resorted to torture in Amazing Spider-Man #685. But we don't know this, because it wasn't fleshed out (at least not yet). As it stands, it appears that Spidey adopted this morally extreme course of action too easily, and that seems out of character.

Why does this matter? (This question was at the core of much of the Twitter discussion this morning, and is a point I explored in my other chapter in Spider-Man and Philosophy, "The Sound of Fury Behind 'One More Day.'") It matters because the character of Spider-Man has been around for 50 years now, and for the most part has been defined very precisely, to the credit of the dozens of writers that have told his stories over the years. He has changed and he has grown, but organically within the stories, not suddenly or abruptly--except in cases like the deal with Mephisto in One More Day or the incident that prompted all this hubbub.

That rare cases like these stand out is because they are exceptions to the "rule," or in this case, the character that is Spider-Man. If you've read his stories long enough, you feel you know him and you come to care about him, despite his being a fictional character. (This is the problem with the ciphers walking around in familiar costumes in DC Comics' New 52.) Just as we call out our friends for doing this that are out of character ("this isn't you, Jimmy, it's not who you are!"), we can think of our fictional characters' action the same way--even moreso, actually, because fictional characters, no matter how complex, are much simpler and well-defined than people in the real world.

If comics publishers and creators want our loyalty to their characters, they have a responsibility to portray the characters consistently--and if they choose to have a character do something surprisingly, they should deal with it in-story so it feels organic. The backlash against One More Day is a obvious example of readers' feelings of betrayal at out-of-character writing based on editorial fiat. On the other hand, the frequent back-and-forth between Cap and Iron Man since Civil War, each calling out the other's hypocrisies, is fantastic, because it deals with issues of character and consistency in-story--between the characters themselves, even!

To me, and to many other readers, Spider-Man never seemed like a character that would accept torture as an acceptable means to an end. If that is a true representation of the character as he's evolved, then I hope the creators will draw that out--that could make for some thoughtful and enjoyable superhero comics. But I also wonder what other lines he refuses to cross, and that fills me with despair.

Mourning the death of character in the DC New 52

I hadn't planned to write any more about the DC relaunch--every month I drop a couple more titles, and I fear it won't be long before I'm buying little more than the Batman and Green Lantern families of books. (Even Earth 2 is sounding more like a new Tangent Earth: the names are the same but most else is different.) But then I read something from Marvel that I truly enjoyed, and part of the reason I enjoyed it is also the reason the DC relaunch has left me flat.

The book is Avengers: The Children's Crusade, a nine-issue bimonthy series by Allan Heinberg and Jim Chueng, the creators of the Young Avengers series. It was recently collected in hardcover (very soon after the last issue hit the stands), and I spent a leisurely afternoon and evening last week reading it--with pleasure. The series recounts the efforts of Young Avengers Wiccan and Speed to find Wanda Maximoff, the Scarlet Witch, whom they believe to be their mother. They are aided in this by Magneto (Wanda's father), and along the way they have run-ins with the Avengers and the X-Men. (This series is a prelude to a certain event, Avengers vs. X-Men, that you may have heard of, despite Marvel's famous promotional subtlety.)

Besides being exceptionally well-written and superbly rendered, the series is steeped in Marvel history--much of which is succinctly recapped along the way for the benefit of the new reader. The rest is inessential to following the story, but adds immeasurably to the enjoyment of it. I don't think it's revealing too much to say the series touches on the relationship between Wanda, her brother Pietro (Quicksilver), and their father Magneto; Wanda's relationship with the Vision (which bore two sons, an epic tale in itself); the three mutants' relationships with the X-Men, the Avengers, and society in general; the Avengers Disassembled and House of M storylines, as well as more recent Avengers, X-Men, and Young Avengers stories. (And many of the Young Avengers' histories are wrapped up in Avengers lore as well, of course.)

Rather than weighing the series down, this tremendously rich and intertwined Marvel history provided essential background to the story, motivation and recognizability to all the characters involved, and emotional resonance to the events therein. These are all things that the DC Universe no longer has, since they erased most of their history, and have been evasive regarding which elements of it remain.

When I read the DC New 52 titles, even the more entertaining ones, I find myself numb to them. I don't know the characters anymore; I don't know what they've been through, how events affected them, and how it affects their behavior. The names are familiar, the costumes are similar (with a lot of redundant seams and armor-plating), and the powers are the same for the most part--but who are they? Without background and history, I have no context in which to understand their actions or care about them as characters. They're mere ciphers in familiar guises, frauds who play on our loyalties while betraying our treasured memories.

This problem is obvious in cases like Superman and Wonder Woman, who have been reinvented to a large degree. (Don't even get me started on Green Arrow.) Superman--perhaps the easiest DC superhero to define in terms of his character before the relaunch--now (ironically) seems completely alien to me. I can't say if any of his current behavior is out of character because I don't know what his character is anymore. Wonder Woman has always been harder to nail down in terms of her underlying character (an observation usually made to excuse low sales, but cause and effect are difficult to parse out), but now DC seems hellbent on upending everything we know about her origins, perhaps in the hopes that this will make her easier to define. (And that's being charitable.)

But the problem exists even for characters such as Batman and Green Lantern, who were left relatively untouched by Barry Allen's jog at the end of Flashpoint. (When I say Green Lantern I'm thinking primarily of Hal Jordan, but it applies to any of them.) We still don't know how much, or what parts, of their past history remains canon and still informs their personal character. DC dismisses these concerns, repeatedly saying that which stories remain in the New 52 continuity will be revealed as they become relevant. But they are relevant now: they are relevant to every character in every story, because they tell us who they are and what they've been through, and give us some basis to identify them as characters rather than simply talking heads in masks and capes.

To know who Batman is now, we need to know whether Jason Todd died, whether Bane broke his back, whether Darkseid "killed" him, and so on. To know who Hal Jordan is now, we need to know if he ever became Parallax, died, and became the Spectre, as well as the status of the more recent events of the Sinestro Corps War, Blackest Night, and Brightest Day. And then we have the various crises, deaths, and resurrections through the DCU, which inform the histories of all the characters in it.

If DC wants to leave all these details vague, or let them slip out little by little to tease the readers, that's their choice. But as long as we don't know what these characters have gone through, other than the broadest details, we don't know them as characters--we can't sympathize with them, we can't understand their behavior, and we have no connection to them. We will come to know them over time, as we do any new characters, and there's nothing wrong with that--unless we're supposed to retain our old loyalties and keep buying the books based on the "0ld" characters we used to know but who are now so much flotsam in the time stream.

Contrast this with Marvel, whose characters are more precisely defined than most of DC's (even before the relaunch). Captain America is noble, Iron Man is cocky and brilliant, Thor is chivalrous, Namor is regal and pompous, Daredevil is idealistic and compassionate, Spider-Man is naively pure, Hank Pym is insecure, and so on. We know who these people are, and when they say or do anything that seems "not like them," fan cry out--and justifiably so! Through decades of stories, even though crafted by a series of writers, these heroes' basic character traits have been defined so well (though not with perfect consistency) that any thing said or done out of the ordinary is immediately called out as out-of-character. Take Thor's calling the Hulk a "pain in the ass" in Fear Itself #5, for instance, which was widely derided by fans as something Thor simply would not say. The Thor they know, the Thor that has been written for so long even by so many, is so consistent in his speech, mannerisms, and behavior that this one phrase seemed horribly out of place. Could anyone justifiably call anything Superman says in the New DC Universe out of place? On what grounds could they say it?

Some may argue that Marvel's characters are too simplistic--especially compared to someone like Batman--but any such "simplicity" is based on well-established regularities of behavior that give them their stable, underlying character traits and that make them familiar to us. We know Spidey, we know Cap, we know Iron Man--and we know when they do something out of character. This is true of all serial fiction--ongoing TV series, movie franchises, book series--in which characters develop over time and establish clearly defined traits. New writers in these media have a responsibility to the fans to maintain the basic elements of the characters by writing them consistently with their past characterizations. And if they want the characters to change and grow--as they should, to an extent--they must do so organically and in a way that makes sense in the story, not present abrupt changes in character that make the fans doubt the writer knows about the character at all. (My chapter on "Brand New Day" in the forthcoming book Spider-Man and Philosophy presents this argument in the context of Peter Parker's deal with Mephisto, which was widely regarded as a bow to editorial fiat that flew in the face of Peter's basic goodness.)

I don't know the new Superman, the new Wonder Woman--or even the "new" Batman, even though he seems little changed from before the relaunch. There's no way I can know them. These "characters" have no definite history yet, and therefore no character to recognize. I suspect the powers-that-be at DC thought they could have their cake and eat it too, relying (as I said above) on longtime readers' loyalty to the characters they loved to keep them tethered to the books, while the creators crafted new characters beneath the surface to try to draw in the mythical "new reader." But speaking as a longtime fan, I don't think it's working on either front; and in the words of a fellow mourner, "I have no interest in the Emperor's new clothes when I can clearly see the Emperor's mucky behind."

New chapters on Captain America and Thor exclusive to free "Superheroes" Kindle book

Wiley just released their free Kindle book, Superheroes: The Best of Philosophy and Pop Culture, featuring one chapter from each of the superhero-themed books in the Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture series, including the forthcoming titles on Superman and the Avengers, as well as two new and exclusive chapters, written by yours truly, on Captain America and Thor.

Here are the contents:

PART ONE: Superheroes Exclusives

1: Lord Odin Have Mercy: Justice and Punishment in Asgard—Mark D. White

2: Captain America and the Virtue of Modesty—Mark D. White

PART TWO: DC Superheroes

3: Is Superman an American Icon?—Andrew Terjesen (from Superman and Philosophy—edited by Mark D. White)

4: The Blackest Night for Aristotle’s Account of Emotions—Jason Southworth (from Green Lantern and Philosophy— edited by Jane Dryden and Mark D. White)

5: Why Doesn’t Batman Kill the Joker? —Mark D. White (from Batman and Philosophy, edited by Mark D. White and Robert Arp)

6: Can We Steer This Rudderless World? Kant, Rorschach, Retributivism, and Honor—Jacob M. Held (from Watchmen and Philosophy, edited by Mark D. White)

PART THREE: Marvel Superheroes

7: Forgivers Assemble! —Daniel P. Malloy (from Avengers and Philosophy, edited by Mark D. White)

8: Does Peter Parker Have a Good Life? —Neil Mussett (from Spider-Man and Philosophy, edited by Jonathan J. Sanford)

9: The Stark Madness of Technology—George A. Dunn (from Iron Man and Philosophy, edited by Mark D. White)

10: Amnesia, Personal Identity, and the Many Lives of Wolverine—Jason Southworth (from X-Men and Philosophy, edited by Rebecca Housel and J. Jeremy Wisnewski)

Spidey and J. Jonah go to extremes in Amazing Spider-Man #655-656

Wow, Dan Slott knows how to make you think. In his current arc on Amazing Spider-Man, both Spider-Man and J. Jonah Jameson make some extreme pledges. Are they reasonable? Are they noble? Or are they just spinning webs in the wind?

SPOILERS BELOW THE FOLD...