Bang! Pow! Zwounds!: Richard III as "Graphic Novel"

Editor's Note: Once again, I'm adapting personal email into 'blog posts. I shall mutlti-task, and you shall dig it. This comes out of a discussion with a director friend of mine who was tasked with considering a production of Richard III based on a graphic-novel approach.

So: "a pre-1700's graphic novel story," eh? First of all: Do we mean a graphic novel written and drawn in the "pre-1700s"? A graphic novel setin the "pre-1700s"? And why the "pre-1700s"? Do we set Richard the Three in 1699, or Roman-occupied Ireland, or dare we make it 1485? {Ed.: I've since learned that the particular audience in discussion rejects any Shakespeare set later than that as being too much a departure from historical accuracy. Hilarious.} But my greater confusion here is what on earth we mean by "graphic novel." That's a little bit like saying, "Let's produce a Richard the Third like a pre-1700s movie story." Graphic novels are a medium about as varied as cinema.

But not everyone knows that, and were I to assume (thereby making an ass out of you and ume) a thing or two, I might assume we mean a sort of highbrow comicbook approach. Somehow. Which is still about as clear as the mud from which one might need a horse in order to extricate oneself.

My assumption however is based on the following facts:

  • The most commercially viable and well-known printed graphical storytelling of the prior and current centuries has been "comic books"; and
  • "Graphic novels" is a popular term for comic books when you're trying to lend them prestige, or raise people's opinions of them from out of the pulp.

The term "graphic novels" also frequently refers to works that have a little more length or over-arcing story to them than some, but that usage is a little reductive as it implies all "graphic novels" were written in one go (like a novel) when in fact the majority were originally published in a serial manner. Comic books, in other words, then collected into the so-called graphic novel.

So what are we to do with a concept based on highbrow comicbooks? In short (HA HA HA) there are too many different kinds of graphic novels to know what we mean when we use that ill-defined term, and the differences traverse everything from art to layout to content. A few varietals:

  • Maus - seminal in raising the reputation of comicbooks; it casts mice as Jews and cats as Nazis in a true story of one family's experience of the Holocaust
  • The Dark Knight Returnsand Watchmen - in a fit of zeitgeist, Frank Miller and Alan Moore both eschew/satirize the bubblegum aesthetic of superhero comics; Miller by taking a classic hero and giving him hard-boiled moral ambiguity, and Moore by taking superhero archetypes and subjecting them to a dystopian environment and socio-political realities
  • From Hell - Alan Moore here again, this time writing an exhaustively long "graphic novel" that delves into one possible explanation for the identity of Jack the Ripper
  • Sandman - what began as a pitch by Neil Gaiman to revitalize some of DC Comics' forgotten characters evolved into an epic story with a beginning, middle and end that chronicles the king of dreams (and his family: Death, Desire, Despair, Destiny, Destruction and Delirium [formerly Delight]) whilst tying in extensive details from the world's mythology, literature and religion

And those are fairly conventional examples, as far as just form goes.

I suppose the thing I can't quite wrap my mind around yet is why exactly to apply this concept to this particular work of Shakespeare's. As I see it, there are other plays of his - even other Histories - that might be better fits.

Henry V is a pretty good Superman/superhero analogue. Hell, the Henry VIs have those constant turn-overs that would make pretty interesting structure for exploring "serialized" storytelling on stage. Richard III may be episodic enough for serialized storytelling, if that's the angle, but I can't quite make it work without adding layers.

Recently it has been tremendously popular to adapt graphic novels into movies and, even more recently, television. The Walking Dead, for example, is an on-going serialized story that's perfect for television. But they also adapted Watchmen into a film, which tried to do too much and with so much flash that the vital humanity of the story was lost. Even Ang Lee made a superhero movie with the first Hulk Hollywood blockbuster, which in my opinion is practically a lesson in what elements NOT to take from graphic storytelling when adapting from it.

When they go wrong, what many adaptions have done is adhered too closely either to the content or the form of graphic storytelling (or both). When a graphic-novel story is transported cross-media, it's an injustice not to re-conceive at least a little. Two Frank Miller comics have been adapted into what most consider to be quite successful movies - his Sin City and 300 - and both with a keen eye on staying loyal to the aesthetic of the source material. I would argue, however, that as graphically similar as these movies are to the artwork from which they came, they are in fact very thoroughly re-imagined into a cinematic landscape. Miller went on to direct his version of The Spirit, which copped Sin City's look and failed miserably, lacking the originality of the other two adaptations.

Graphic novels, or comicbooks, work because of the spaces between the panels and how our minds fill those in. They give you some of the interpretive freedom of books or radio, with more of the visual fireworks of TV or film. It takes a certain amount of mental coding to read them, but that can be learned intuitively, and when a good unity between the words, layout and illustrations can be achieved, the story-telling is enhanced.

Simply sliding that on top of a film, the languages do not converse. Movies are all about seeing change, seeing it very closely. Just because one of the steps to creating them involves story-boarding doesn't mean that a medium that utilizes frames and composition will automatically translate. You're still filling in the white spaces. You're still animating the iconic.

When it comes to adapting a live show into a "graphic novel" context, there are a few examples from which to pull, but most of them take a fairly satirical (or lightly tongue-in-cheek) slant and have more to do with traditional superhero comics than more varied graphic storytelling. I was in a production of Stand-Up Tragedy in college for which the director brought the main character's comicbook imagination somewhat to life on stage with enormous puppet cut-outs, but that was for one sequence only and functioned rather more as a simple staging element than as anything functional.

Vampire Cowboys here in New York have done many a popular show using comicbook tropes, but these are largely original productions and focus on the combat elements (not a bad notion at least by the end of Richard III). I don't know of any examples specific to only the medium itself - not the characters within them, for example.

So anyway: why Richard III in this context? Perhaps we are thinking of him as a character similar to superheroes like Marvel's X-Men mutants, who are ostracized and persecuted for being different, said difference being what makes them special and powerful? Perhaps Richard's story is episodic enough to remind of serialized story-telling - there is a strong procession of scenes of mounting ambition and stakes. Perhaps we're thinking aesthetically of something that utilizes iconography, or stained-glass windows, both of which comic books owe something to.

Yet in discussing all this, what I'm struck by is a very different idea. Richard III reminds me of nothing so much as the trend in television over the last five years or so for highly successful, critically acclaimed shows to feature a main character who is morally flawed. Don Draper of Mad Men is a philanderer, Walter White of Breaking Bad is someone we've watched become (or simply come into being) a ruthless criminal, Dexter is a fracking serial killer, and a host of other shows have followed suit - Damages, Boss, etc. In other words, tragedy makes for great television. In terms of a contemporary hook for RIII, that's where my mind goes. Those shows are incredibly effective, and we root for some of the worst characters in them the hardest. Did this begin with Tony Soprano, or Richard the III?

I have no ideas, however, about how to invite those influences on a production. That's an entirely other conversation. One we should have soon!

Gotham's Reckoning: My Own Personal "Return of the Jedi"

Editor's Note: I started this response to TDKR two months ago, and then I had a baby. So anyways...

There were two opinions from the time of my childhood that I was shocked to learn late in life: first, that not everyone loved President Reagan; second, that many people considered

Return of the Jedi

to be the worst of the Star Wars movies. Living in an affluent suburb and having (at the time) a fairly conservative father and teachers, I thought Ronald Reagan was the cat's pajamas - charismatic, reassuring, grandfatherly. I was 8 in the 80s, so political discourse was for the most part a long, long way away from me. So too was any narrative criteria from my movie-going experience. Certain facts had a stronger influence on me than the storytelling in

Return of the Jedi

. For example, that it had debuted in my accessible memory, and included such bad-assery as a black-clad Luke and enormous set pieces.

My perspective on these weighty issues changed, but not simply as a result of growing up. I also had to hear from other people, and experience other cultural influences. I didn't read Frank Miller's seminal comicbook,

The Dark Knight Returns

, until I was eighteen, and even then I was a little shocked to see someone so openly satirizing two of my long-assumed heroes: Superman and Ronald Reagan. It probably wasn't until I had worked at a few theaters that I connected the dots to realize that Reagan was a republican, and that typically I wasn't terribly aligned with that side of the aisle's perspective. Then of course I read more about his term in office, and found a better understanding of why his love of jelly beans didn't have a tremendous influence on the opinion of people who hated his civil and economic policies.

I should probably be more ashamed to admit that my grounding realization about the relative quality of the second of the Star Wars sequels took even longer. I don't think it was until on the cusp of my 30s that I managed to see those movies with a fresh pair of eyes and realize - all personal bias aside - that

Return of the Jedi

was a weak successor. I don't hate it; how could I? If there are any bitter feelings toward a film, they are 1) a result of misplaced priorities, and 2) usually a response to the supposed promise of its predecessors. And make no mistake: No one promised us as an audience anything but to do their best to entertain us for a couple of hours.

Or two hours and forty-five minutes, as the case may be.

So, I do not hate

The Dark Knight Rises

. In fact, there is much that I appreciate about it. I saw it a couple of months ago (not in IMAX, which I understand is the preferred format this time around) and, fortunately for me, with a friend. So the moments that would have been crushing were instead fun, their misery shared. Because, in confession: I believed in Harvey Dent, and I believed in the promise that I interpreted in

The Dark Knight

for its sequel.

In summary, I think the movie wanted to be big, enormous, but with too little at stake creatively to justify its excesses. The seeds of its downfall were sown in

Batman Begins

and

The Dark Knight

, but they found better balance in those movies, not blossoming fully until the budget got bigger than the impetus to make the movies. But I'll flesh out this argument after some nerdery. Skip to the final paragraph if you are of low nerd tolerance.

Some break-down, with MASSIVELY SPOILY SPOILERS. LET IT BE SPOILED THAT THE FOLLOWING WILL SPOIL ELEMENTS OF

THE DARK KNIGHT RISES

FOR YOU, BECAUSE IT CONTAINS INFORMATION THAT SPOILS THE SURPRISE OF THE STORY - INFORMATION COMMONLY DESIGNATED BY THE FORESHORTENED TERM: "SPOILERS."

Likes:

  • The acting. This may seem a silly point, but dang it if this ensemble isn't amazing. I'm not even in love with Bale's interpretation of his character(s), but I'm impressed as hell with his consistency and how well he's heeded a character arc through three epic and vastly different movies. TDKR would have been truly unbearable if it didn't have such an engaging and serious cast. Loved Hathaway's approach, and thought Hardy did all he could; and maybe then-some. I believed his unwavering love for Talia at the end - and God knows Nolan's style isn't exactly conducive to empathy.
  • The design and cinematography. I mean: Come on. That's plainly a big priority for every Nolan movie. It was visually beautiful, with some genuinely inspired moments, such as the use of a stepwell for the base of the pit (there's something about water imagery in the movie - haven't quite put my finger on it yet) or the way the camera enhanced Batman's weakness and Bane's dominance in their first fight. These movies always feel nice and tangible, thanks in no small part to a careful aesthetic balance between form and function.
  • John Blake. It might've been very easy for me to hate this character, yet I didn't. Even leaving his surprise identity aside for a moment, he functioned nicely as a person who represented the next generation of Gothamites, someone whom Batman literally inspired through his example. His arc, too, was a satisfying journey through the moral ambiguities of Batman's world. I loved watching his response to shooting a couple of baddies (insane ricochet shots aside) and thinking to myself, "Uhp. He'll never do that again."
  • The eight-year gap. This was a good - if not great - idea, in spite of what the fanboys may complain. It made complete sense for the character as the movies have developed him (even if it means he was only a fully-formed Batman for maybe six-months-to-a-year before "retiring"). I wanted to see Batman fighting cops as badly as the next guy, but this choice was dramatically interesting, bold and surprising, and in keeping with the battered, traumatized, overly-selfless man we left in TDK. Plus it has the bonus of meeting the audience halfway in our wait for the movie and our need to join with Batman on his struggle to return.
  • The grandiose civil unrest. I thought it would play out somewhat differently, but overall basing the story on A Tale of Two Cities was bold, thematically appropriate to the entire trilogy, and weirdly, wildly relevant. There's something very observant going on in these scripts, and it's important to remember that the Nolans are observing America from the outside. The panicked crowd in the narrows in Batman Begins were not unlike we terrorized, war-hungry citizens of the time, and in addition to providing a crisp clue about Harvey Dent, the ferry-boat paradox of The Dark Knight was awfully reminiscent of a country defined by intense ideological dichotomy. In addition to echoing the Occupy Movement, civil unrest was a great backdrop for a vigilante who is ostensibly trying to save the people he's fighting. Problems arise (har har) with the unrest used specifically as a backdrop, but those are for the next section.
  • Bat "EMP." How apt is it to give your billionaire creature-of-the-night vigilante a device that enshrouds him in a radial darkness? Science be damned! That was a cool idea.
  • Strategic, explosive concrete. Science be damned, I say! Effective, because it visually (and blockbusterly) echoed the notion of the rebellion coming from the very infrastructure of the city, or society. Maybe Ra's al Ghul was right. Maybe Gotham wants to be destroyed.
  • The dénouement. Yes, okay, it was the super-happy ending, with fairly predictable "twist" fodder. Still. I can pretend Alfred's encounter was a cinematic suggestion of what he wanted to see, not what happened, and if I do that the rest of it's pretty fantastic for this fan boy. Good graveside scene. Nice idea about what Bruce's legacy would be, plus I love the implication that someone else can and will take up the mantle. Even if it is ersatz Robin. I can get down with a Robin (or Nightwing?) starting as an adult. Plus, that gives us our only ultimately satisfying character story in this movie, really - Blake's whole progress leads him to belonging in the Batcave.

Gripes:

  • Disregard of Unity. Wholly insubstantial narrative, Batman. If you dislike Nolan's films in general, this is a standard reason. They very much play with the rules of narrative unity. But see, I like that. I get and dig it. I am just that meta and po-mo, and I still found this film to be a hot mess of time and space. Batman Begins was well-served in its anachronistic unrolling, keeping us off-kilter even as it laid out an insistently linear plot. The Dark Knight was all about chaos and uncontrollable momentum - what we did not know - and the editing and plotting worked together to make the whole experience herky-jerky in a synchronous way. This editing style does not translate to broad-spectrum plots such as the one in TDKR, especially when it's only being used for the purpose of cramming in as much stuff as possible. Add to that a few incomprehensible story fractures (Batman falls how many times before he learns to pick himself back up? Your constant need to remind us that five months are going to transpire doesn't give you just a little hint that maybe you need to rethink that particular choice?) and you have got one anti-Aristotelian gumbo on your hands.
  • The grandiose civil unrest...as backdrop. IF your story is going to address economic disparity and civil rebellion, it would be wise to have something to say about it. It might also be wise to clearly delineate the specifics of that something to say. It might also be wise to avoid muddying the issues so God-blessed thoroughly that at the climax we seriously have to wonder if we actually care about anyone involved. The cops, who are established to be corrupt throughout all three movies, said corruption reinforced by some callous conversation in this movie's introduction? The civilians who embrace Bane and a puppet court? The civilians who hide in their apartments and do nothing? The wealthy? The bad wealthy? Who profit from the powerless and but wait, then stick around in a building, not fleeing...because they're helping? Or they can't flee? Or, aurghh, GUHHHHHH. All that, plus it's all incidental to what is essentially just a hostage plot. Completely incidental.
  • The ol' switcheroo. Do we ever trust Miranda Tate? Certainly not. And when the protagonist hands a weapon to someone with instructions to guard his or her back, and we are not granted even a single shot of that person's face in that moment (do we even see her HAND?), do we come to expect a reversal? Why, yes. It is called the ol' switcheroo for a reason, and we are tired of it. Especially when it happens at a point at which there is no mystery, and nothing critical to the story about the impending revelation.
  • So much murder. I had enough difficulty with the line in the first film, "I won't kill you. But I don't have to save you." Yeah, OK Hollywood, we'll keep your morality tropes in place, since you gave us such a nice Batman movie this time around. But in TDKR, I lost track of how many times Batman slaps Catwoman (sorry: Selina Kyle) on the wrist for the murdering she does. But, listen: Maybe the murder thing is just not a big deal, you know? Maybe it just tends to get a little played up, what with the very genesis of Bruce Wayne's quest and fractured, obsessive personality resulting from the gun-murder of his parents in front of his little eight-year-old face. So I have to imagine that the excessively dangerous and punishing hand-to-hand combat in which he constantly engages is mostly for bravado's sake. 'Cuz he has guns on ALL his vehicles. And when Ca-, er, Selina Kyle not only straight-up cannons Bane to death with one, but is glib about it, Bruce decides he'd like to take her on a Mediterranean trip. So, to recap: Gun violence and murders - not a big deal to Batman, at all.
  • And hey, on the issue of guns: What, the trapped police officers went underground unarmed? They spent all their bullets hunting rats? They didn't want to use them on civilians, despite being faced with a couple of tanks? But logic clearly has no place in this movie, and I really do hate when people lean on that in their criticisms of superhero movies. Even if said movies are claiming to be "grounded" ones.
  • Orphans. Jeebus Cripes. Really? Okay. But really? A bit on-the-nosey, Nolan. Maybe more forgivable, had they not been used for our sole emotional hook in the climax (did not work, BTW). Oh and hey: Why were they the only people on the only bridge that wasn't blown in this epic conclusion? And why was there a bridge not blown? And if so, why hadn't the military...sorry. See above. (Sorry.)
  • Energy source "solutions." I don't care. In the movies, I really don't care. Let this hot-button issue go, Hollywood. It is terrible, and I would rather have a Maltese Falcon, please and thank you.
  • Ba-bomb.
  • Aerial shots of New York. Don't do that. Just...don't. Automatic not-Gotham.

But enough already. I have gone on too long about the details. There are more. (Oh, are there more.) But listen: I didn't hate it. It was just the

Return of the Jedi

of the series. Most well-funded and anticipated, most lacking in innovation or fulfillment.

If you'll bear with me for a very fan-boy summing up, I have an observation about how an element of these movies neatly parallels their various strengths and weaknesses. That element is the vehicles. Observe.

Batman Begins

Vehicle: Batmobile (the Tumbler)

Here is a movie that does a remarkable job revamping and intricately reconnecting us with a well-worn story. It takes identifiable elements and, with the influence of all the innovative comicbooks in recent memory, updates them with an eye on keeping them connected to tangible reality. The movie itself is good as a movie, not just a "superhero" movie, and arguably does its best work when it leaves well enough alone to focus on character and plot. When it gets into action, or set pieces, it quickly becomes overwrought. It's not excessive all the time, and you can forgive some excess because it's grounded in the character work and often for the sake of something really cool. And the Tumbler is great! It takes the tank concept from Miller's

Dark Knight Returns

, but tones it into a rather viable street vehicle. They casually justify the signature jet engine, there's a really cool yet accessible notion of the seat adjusting for combat mode, and they even own it enough to call it something unique from the comics. It just, you know, occasionally does something like driving over what looks to be century-old rooftops, off of a jump with no ramp. But, I can forgive it that, just like I can forgive the movie its overwrought elevated train climax. Because it's a good vehicle.

The Dark Knight

Vehicle: Batcycle (the Batpod)

The Dark Knight

surprised just about everyone by turning out to be a vastly superior sequel to a movie that had already been widely enjoyed and rather well reviewed. It came out of nowhere, in a  way, writing a check for its follow-up even as it played encores in the fall after its release. Gotham itself went from elaborate, ornately Gothic, to stripped-down, recognizably urban even as the story presented itself more like a Michael Mann thriller than a comicbook stock play. Everything in the movie seemed to interconnect with less effort than the first, and this included connecting the characters to the action. So when the Tumbler is seemingly destroyed, only to burst forth with a vulnerable, but fast and agile-as-hell motorcycle that the rider hugs close, similar to the posture he has in the car's combat mode...well. You may laugh at how it all goes, but you'll also cheer, and part of your laughter will come out of how complete it all is. By creating something simpler and more connected to the character, the designers made a vehicle that was in many ways more unique and self-sustaining than its source inspiration.

The Dark Knight Rises

Vehicle: Batgyro (the Bat)

Well, perhaps I've gone on enough about the problems with this movie, and I should just focus on the vehicle. The connections may be clear enough. It

should

be a fantastic creation. It's the next logical escalation of transport, pragmatically connected with Batman's return to Wayne Manor and his need for utter mobility. The designers created something technically very unique, opting for a sort of inverted, militaristic design based on one of the very earliest elaborate vehicles from the comics. It's possible that the fans (no pun intended [swear]) would have complained if they hadn't gotten what they asked for for Bat-Christmas. However: "the Bat" is emblematic of creating something huge and technically gratifying, but without any true originality or expressive urgency. Even the name - presumably aiming for simplicity - comes out simplistic instead. It's not even that the vehicle is hard to believe (it is), it's that it's unsatisfying, for all its wizardry. It creates a hero who is distant, removed, over-equipped and uninteresting in action. Someone should have the good sense to ground that bat. Perhaps, say, with a comically over-sized revolver.

My mantra with regard to the first movie of this series was that it wasn't the movie I was hoping for, but in this context few movies could have been.

The Dark Knight

was that movie, improbably, and I can not complain about having gotten what I wanted out of one in a trilogy. Plus, you know I'll be buying

The Dark Knight Rises

- but perhaps that money will go toward a return-to-form for Mr. Nolan. I hope so. I don't believe his heart was in this movie. And that's okay! That's okay.

So long as he doesn't go back and add CGI to

Memento

.

To All the Jokers Out There

I don't yet know if it was a killing in any way inspired by the content of the series. It's too early in the news cycle at this point for us to be sure of anything related to the gunning down of 12 people at a midnight premier of The Dark Knight Rises in Colorado. As of this writing, it could be religiously motivated terrorism, it could be indiscriminate or a crime of passion. What's difficult to ignore (for those of us millions who know the movies, and the tens of thousands of them who know the comicbooks that contributed to those movies) is that a man took it upon himself to murder an audience for a story that's laced with issues of copycat vigilantism, violence, morality and ethics. Not to mention: Justice.

I can't effectively weigh-in through one post on any of these topics individually (heck: I can barely suss out the distinction between morality and ethics without a self-conscious Google or two) much less the lot of them, entwined. I mean, does justice even exist? Or is it, rather like "honor," one of those old-fashioned ideals that seems a little too black-and-white to a contemporary society? Are our societal ideals rife with concepts that just appeal to our baser natures? Or are they ideals, in earnest, and we just need to keep striving to conceive of them in a truer sense?

There is one thing about which I do have something unique to contribute. Maybe it's wrong-headed, or too soon, but every so often we each and all have a reaction to something going on in our society that we need to work to process. This definitely falls under that category for me.

I was in college by the time Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold went on their spree in Colorado, but freshly so, and the crime held eerie echoes for me. In early high school, with certain friends, I planned crimes all the time. Those plans never involved murder, but were closely related to new feelings of rage that I didn't know how to handle. I played, and loved, the video game Doom. On the birthday before my freshman year of high school, my mom took me out to get me the black trench-coat I so desperately desired, and I wore it regularly - even in terribly inappropriate climates - right into college.

I also possessed an obsessive love of Batman, the character. I described him as my idol. That may seem unconnected, especially when you hear my rationale for this idolization: That he represents someone who not only survived trauma, but turned it into powerful motivation to excel and strive to make things right. That was an earnest rationale. It just leaves out that I also idolized the character because he could and did powerfully destroy other human beings with his bare (all right: gloved) hands. Is Batman's moral (or ideal) that he take no human life justification enough for his methods of achieving "justice"?

One thing I greatly appreciate about the recent trilogy of Batman movies is that the writers and director seem to be aware of the moral ambiguity of one person deciding what is right, and using violence to achieve that determination. They utilize and glorify that for our entertainment, but I appreciate the awareness nonetheless. After the first film, the media was already drawing comparisons between this Batman and American foreign policy in general, George W. Bush in particular - "You tried to kill my daddy, I'ma come out there with all my wealth and might and end your reign. Means and United Nations be damned." And in The Dark Knight, Batman literally eschews international extradition law. The writers then up the ante in the film's climax, showing our hero as a hunter willing to massively violate the rights of citizens in order to catch his prey. It seems to me they know that this is what they are doing, and that they want us to experience ambiguous feelings about it.

I suppose the great dichotomy between the iconic hero and villain of these stories - Batman and the Joker - can be a confusing one. Both are vigilantes, both rely on fear to achieve their ends, and both are flamboyant as all get-out. One is supposedly moral, the other amoral, but I've already pointed out that their ethics are not nearly as easily distinguished from one another. That leaves us with order versus chaos.

Who doesn't love a little chaos? I suppose for me it's been something of an acquired taste, but it's one I've definitely acquired as a performer and an audience member. Chaos can seem more sincere, frankly. Life does not readily present us with reasons - much less reason - and particularly in the contemporary age there seems little justification for a belief in a greater purpose, much less power. Purpose itself seems a hollow construction, under these circumstances. So, there are those of us who embrace a character bold enough to take that notion to the logical absurdity. There are some who just want to watch the world burn.

I'm not implying that the man who committed these murders was in any way inspired by the character of the Joker. Lord knows, we're likely to have more than one piece of unoriginal news coverage in the coming weeks that points out connections between this criminal and Joker's callousness, or Bane's paraphernalia (never mind that the cosplay an opening night inspires is a perfect cover for someone who already has destructive designs). What I am saying is that these characters have come to represent certain perspectives and behaviors of contemporary Americans, the same way the character of Batman has, or any ongoing archetype. The causation of it can not be sussed out with a few Googles, and odds are that culture in general exists as it has for all of human history: a sort of feedback loop between how we are, and how we portray ourselves in media.

So, causation aside, who has the right idea? Are human beings meant more for order, or chaos? Is it all so meaningless that the only true justification for action is how it affects the individual, the self? I acknowledge the possibility. Maybe we're all just too frightened of it to face it.

Maybe. But I'm disgusted, both by the incident early this morning, and the notion in the abstract. What utter selfishness. What a nauseating disregard for or ignorance of anything outside of one's own perception. Little wonder that we are eager to ascribe part of the cause for such actions to youth and/or mental illness - these are the two handiest explanations for such inward-obsessed, disconnected personalities. Regardless of the cause, and even regardless of the question of chaos versus order, even the Jokers of the world must admit that theirs are essentially selfish acts.

I have one argument to make to such people in such a debate, one thing to suggest that they're fools beyond even the kind of fool their worldview suggests they ought to be. If none of it matters, if life is indeed as meaningless and people as insignificant as in your philosophy, why do you have a purpose? Why must you do what you do, be it for personal gratification or illuminating the rest of us to your perspective?

You might just consider the possibility that your commitment to nihilism is best expressed in the same direction as your attention is. On yourself.

Detecting that Marvelous Difference

What advice would you give Warner Brothers on getting their Justice League movie going?

"Call me. No, seriously, it's enormously difficult to take very disparate characters and make them work. And DC has a harder time of it than Marvel because their characters are from a bygone era where characters were bigger than we were. Marvel really cracked the code in terms of them being just like us. I think you need to use that as your base."


-Joss Whedon, director of The Avengers, speaking with Dark Horizons