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2006
Tolkien Conference
2004
Summer Conference
Second
Spring |
THE
RISE OF THE SILVER SURFER
Stratford
Caldecott
Stand up and keep your childishness:
Read all the pedants’ screeds and strictures;
But don’t believe in anything
That can’t be told in coloured pictures.
These words by G.K. Chesterton were inscribed by him in a book
illustrated by Randolph Caldecott (a distant relative of your humble
servant). To get from there
to American superhero comics in one mighty bound is my intention, though
one that I feel needs some justification.
What is the fascination of the superheroes?
Those who don’t feel it will never know.
Of course, once can give the obvious explanation: many adolescent
boys (or permanently adolescent boys) like to fantasize about
having big muscles and beating up bad guys.
The comics I used to read always had advertisements for
body-building regimes and high-protein supplements designed to prevent
bullies kicking sand in your face on the beach.
The typical superhero costume, male or female, leaves very little
to the imagination. In
recent decades the violence and eroticism of the comics has increased
and intensified, until many of them are virtually pornographic.
So, yes, there is that.
But there are some other, less disreputable reasons for getting hooked
on comics. The artwork is
actually, in many cases, extremely good.
This is a genuine art form, and many people collect comics almost
entirely by artist (in my case I was particularly interested in Jack
Kirby, Neal Adams, Johnny Romita, John Buscema, John Byrne).
Roy Lichtenstein lifted some (not very good) frames from comic
books and turned them into fine art, but any real comics fan could have
pointed to a hundred better examples.
I remember that the draftsmanship of Neal Adams on Batman and
Green Lantern helped me see the world, its light and shadows, in
quite a new way. Of course,
whole decades of comic art have passed me by entirely, but I still have
boxes full of my favourite examples tucked away somewhere.
It is worth mentioning that there is a long tradition of American comic
art that has nothing at all to do with muscles or superheroic powers
(from Little Nemo through Peanuts to a personal favourite, Calvin and
Hobbes). Let me put in a
plug, also, for a hero completely lacking in magical superpowers and who
seemed to do very well without a tight-fitting costume. Dan Dare was a
British space pilot modelled on the fighter aces of the RAF in World War
II, who appeared in the Eagle in the 1950s and 60s from the
brilliantly imaginative pen of Frank Hampson, voted many times the best
comic-book artist of all time. Graphic novels of all sorts have recently
exploded as a genre, cross-fertilizing in some cases with Japanese manga,
and these deserve serious critical attention. But not here, not now.
A
Modern Mythology?
Another
big reason for liking the superhero comics goes back to ancient
mythology. Indeed Superman,
the primordial hero of this type, created by Jerry Siegel and Joe
Schuster in the 1930s (just on the eve of the War), was consciously
modelled on Hercules and Samson. Whereas
the Nietzschean ubermensch put morality behind him as something
for weaklings, Superman demonstrated that the perfect human being would
be more rather than less moral than everyone else.
Although Supes never darkened the doors of any church, Christians
might recognize in his abilities (of which he had a fairly full deck:
superspeed, flying, strength, invulnerability, x-ray vision, heat
vision, etc.) a faint image of the impassibility, subtlety, agility, and
beatific vision of the resurrected.
It was consoling to think that, if Aquinas was right, we would
one day be able to beat even Superman at his own game.
All through the second half of the twentieth century, Superman remained
an emblem for “Truth, Justice and the American Way”, an incarnation
of the values of the West. Only
towards the end of that period did the moral conflicts and compromises
that had already begun to afflict his proliferating superhero progeny in
other comic books start to tarnish the purity of the Man of Steel.
The recent TV retelling of his early years as a farm boy and
college student, Smallville, managed to keep the theme of purity
going for quite a while, despite a few sleazy moments. (Interestingly,
the series turned out to be largely about the moral ambiguity of Clark
Kent’s seemingly necessary decision to preserve his secret identity by
lying, even to his best friend. The lie corrupts his friendship with the
young Lex Luthor, turning Lex by gradual stages into his arch enemy and
nemesis.)
Superman aside, the mythological component of the comics remained rather
thin until the advent of the publisher Marvel (or rather its relaunch)
in the 1960s under the leadership of master storyteller Stan Lee,
inventor among others of The Fantastic Four, the Hulk and Spider-Man.
These stories still depended on characters with superpowers, but
the human dimension was more interesting (Spider-Man was something of a
miserable misfit even in his superhero persona, making him easier for
most teenagers to identify with). The
mythological dimension was also considerably enriched; in fact Marvel
raided world mythologies for ideas without compunction.
Jack Kirby (d. 1994), an artist who worked with Lee, loved
pantheons, whether traditional or invented, as the names of his
characters suggest: Thor, Hercules, the Inhumans, the New Gods, the
Forever People…. The art
of superhero costume design reached new heights under Kirby. Costume
was, of course, de rigeur among superheroes, since each had to
establish a clear identity. Since most heroes tended to be of a similar
physical type (lantern-jawed, mighty-thewed) the costume was emblematic,
and a suitably evocative name helped to establish the brand.
Pre-eminent among Marvel heroes are the blue-costumed Fantastic Four.
Whether consciously or not, Lee and Kirby seem to have based the
foursome on the four traditional elements of nature: Earth, Air, Fire,
and Water. Reed Richards or “Mr Fantastic”, the leader of the team,
is both a brilliant scientist and able to stretch and flow like water.
His wife, originally Sue Storm, called “The Invisible Girl”, can
disappear into thin air and project force-fields. Her brother, Johnny,
is known as “The Human Torch”. Finally Ben Grimm is “The Thing”,
a walking pile of orange rubble with enormous strength. The Silver
Surfer, a character who originated in The Fantastic Four and
later got his own book, corresponds to the fifth and more cosmic
element, Ether.
Rider
of the Spaceways
The
Surfer was one of Kirby’s inventions, a silver-skinned alien on a
flying surfboard endowed with the “Power Cosmic” (the ability to
play around with – reshape and transform – matter and energy).
This meant he could generate really big explosions if needed, and
was basically much more powerful than most other Marvel characters, if
he used his full strength. But
what made him interesting was that he usually didn’t.
The Surfer was a victim. We’ll
come back to that.
But why a surfer? True, it
was the era of the Beachboys (the Surfer made his first appearance in
1965). It also looked very
cool when he summoned his board while jumping into the air and soared
away. The theory behind this
was that the cosmos is a great sea of energies, on which the Surfer
could skim and navigate. His
original role was that of Herald to the planet-eating predator, Galactus:
a giant in an emblematic, hi-tech purple costume who needed to consume
large amounts of life-energy to survive.
In Kirby’s mythopoetic imagination Galactus was “Power”.
Kirby saw the Surfer as a being of pure energy created by
Galactus, his task being to search out planets for his master to devour.
For the original 18-book
series devoted to the Surfer, which appeared without Kirby (who returned
only for the final episode), Lee developed the back-story of the
character further. Instead of being created by Galactus, the Surfer had
volunteered to serve Galactus in order to save his home planet Zenn-La.
The story was told in the first issue of the new comic book in 1968.
In his first appearance, the Surfer brings Galactus to earth, but out of
pity for the humans turns against his master – for which crime he is
sentenced never more to roam the spaceways, but to be confined to earth
behind an invisible barrier. His compassion, coupled with the enmity of
those he tries to save and his longing for his beloved Shalla Bal back
on Zenn-La remained consistent features of the series. Like
Spider-Man, only more so, the Surfer has few, if any friends.
His weird appearance and immense power causes him to be feared
and misunderstood. Every
superhero comic has to contain at least one battle, but most of the
fights in The Silver Surfer are due to his being attacked through
some misunderstanding, and having to defend himself.
The character of the Surfer has nobility, despite his occasional bursts
of uncontrolled anger and the frequent recourse to self-pitying
monologue. In the third issue, the spiritual dimension comes to the
fore, with the appearance of the devil himself, Mephisto, who uses
Shalla Bal as bait in a trap for the Surfer.
He gives his reasons on page 20: “SINCE THE DAWN OF TIME
– SELDOM HAVE I SENSED SUCH GOODNESS OF SOUL – SUCH
PURITY OF SPIRIT – AS I SENSE WITHIN THE SILVER
SURFER. ALL THAT YOU
ARE – ALL THAT YOU STAND FOR – IS ABHORRENT
TO THE LORD OF THE LOWER DEPTHS!
SO LONG AS YOU EXIST, MEPHISTO’S SCHEME
SUPREME WILL EVER BE IN JEOPARDY!”
It seems that mankind is near to complete submission to the
devil’s will, and the Surfer stands in the way as a beacon of
uncorrupted moral goodness.
The Surfer descends into hell, unafraid of anything Mephisto can do to
him (“YOU CAN DO NO MORE THAN SLAY ME!”), and unmoved
by the temptations he offers (wealth, women and power).
Implanted in Mephisto’s brain for a battle of wills, the Surfer
is victorious. Even the
temptation of being reunited with Shalla Bal is ineffective, since as
they both know, “HOW CAN LOVE HAVE MEANING IF IT COSTS
YOUR VERY SOUL??” Separated
by a universe, they will belong to each other forever, and this bond
Mephisto cannot destroy.
The Surfer thus has saintly attributes, but he is far from perfect. In
issue 15, after jumping too quickly to the conclusion that the Fantastic
Four have betrayed his trust, the Surfer muses: “WAS I TOO HUMAN…OR…NOT
HUMAN ENOUGH?” The
story and dialogue of the classic Surfer comics were always concerned
with the ambiguity of human nature and existence: a humanity that tears
itself apart with war and greed, that fears the stranger and inflicts
pain without thinking, yet rises to great heights of virtue and wisdom,
as though yet to “come of age” as a species.
What is of interest about the comic is not just the artistry of
the pages, and certainly not the quality of the writing, but the Big
Questions raised about our existence in a majestic, unpredictable,
beautiful cosmos. Despite
all the alien species encountered, somehow humanity always remains
special, our freedom and our inviolable conscience the pivot of every
story.
I have been writing only of the classic Surfer.
Of his more recent appearances I know much less.
The 18 issues I referred to have become collectibles.
In 1987 he was given a new series, presaged in 1978 by a
Kirby-Lee graphic novel in which he regains the freedom of space in the
service of Galactus. For
this novel, the whole story was revised somewhat, but the great Surfer
themes remain. As Lee
explained in his Preface, “Ever since I first saw our gleaming
sky-rider, when Jack placed the initial drawing on my desk, I felt he
had to represent more than the typical comicbook hero.
Somehow or other, Jack had imbued this new, unique, totally
arresting fictional figure with a spiritual quality, a sense of
nobility, a feeling of almost religious fervor in his attitude and his
demeanor.” The closing
words of the comic are these: “ONLY TRUTH IS CONSTANT!
ONLY FAITH ENDURES!
AND ONLY LOVE CAN SAVE THEM – BUT WHERE
CAN LOVE BE FOUND?” “FOR ONE SHINING SECOND OF ETERNITY, THE WORLD KNEW
SUCH A LOVE! BUT WHAT A PRICE
WAS PAID!”
Conclusion
I
wonder if anyone has written a thesis on Stan Lee as a moral influence
on our times. His perennial
themes are the goodness and uniqueness of the human person, the supreme
importance of self-giving love, the challenge of making moral choices in
a fallen world. In the
recent spate of comic-book movies based on some of his most popular
characters he appears in a series of cameos.
For example, in Spider-Man 3, the immensely successful
conclusion of this trio of films about the battle between good and evil
(finally in the soul of the hero himself), he appears alongside
Spider-Man’s alter ego Peter Parker looking up at a billboard praising
Spidey’s achievements and comments, “You see, one man can make
a difference.” It is the
message he wants to get across in all his work, a message he managed to
convey in coloured pictures. We
don’t have to despair in the face of overwhelming evil or the
impersonal scale of modern society.
Life will be a struggle, but it is worth fighting for purity, for
nobility of soul, for justice, for kindness.
Chivalry lives. The
greatest heroes are ordinary people like us.
Grace can strike anyone, like a gift of superpowers from the bite
of a spider or a burst of radiation; the question is how we will respond
to it. Will we become a hero or a villain?
In the words of Spider-Man, “You always have a
choice.”
Kids
around the world have received a moral education from Lee’s comics.
It is just a pity they often haven’t had it from anyone else.
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