I picked this up on the weekend (and, frustratingly, read it instead of continuing on with
Men of Tomorrow):
http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0812695739.01._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-dp-500-arrow,TopRight,45,-64_AA240_SH20_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpgThese fellows are no Will Brooker, but I think that going into this hoping for such doomed me. This book is part of a series about Pop Culture and Philosophy that includes such volumes as (I shit you not) Monty Python and Philosophy : Nudge Nudge, Think Think, U2 and Philosophy, and More Matrix and Philosophy: Revolutions and Reloaded Decoded, and as such, is (I hope) meant to more introduce the basics of Philo to the various nerds of the world.
First of all, there's a terrible fannishness/Wizard-speak that runs through some of the essays, and much brown-nosing of Kev Smith, Jeph Loeb, and Mark Waid (the latter two, along with D. O'Neil, actually contributed essays--K.Smith just sent along a blurb). That sense of trying to be fun without actually being fun (an existential quandry in itself).
Second, it's pretty basic stuff. Matt Murdock's Catholicness, Superman as Christ Figure in Kingdom Come (which acknowledges that Superman per Siegel & Shuster ACTUALLY has much more in common with Moses, but then says that since Moses has a lot in common with Jesus, Supes is Jesus, too), Batman's Buddies per Aristotle's definition of friendship, and, um, the metaphysics of the Multiverse (which is kinda sorta fun, as its hook relies on the desire to travel back in time to 1984 to kill Marv Wolfman in order to preserve the Multiverse--which hey, mighta been a better plot for Infinite Crisis, with it's JULIE SCHWARTZ-style Earth-Primacy).
O'Neil's essay is pretty fun, too. "The Crimson Viper vs. the Maniacal Morphing Meme" basically calls on Heraclitus to tell Hal Jordan fans to get a life.
― Huk-L (Huk-L), Monday, 30 January 2006 14:46 (nineteen years ago)
That DO'N essay sounds hot! The rest, not so much.
― David R. (popshots75`), Monday, 30 January 2006 17:49 (nineteen years ago)
I'd rather read a book called "Superheroes and Sociology". The debates we've had on what sort've ideology Batman represents and what kind of society would need a Batman were kinda interesting. Was it the Batman Begins thread or somewhere where Huck made a long post on how superheroes of different decades reflect the socio-politics of the (American) society that created them? That was an interesting thought and could be developed even further.
― Tuomas (Tuomas), Monday, 30 January 2006 18:21 (nineteen years ago)
Huk, have you read
Atomsmashers? I read one or two of the essays (including Meltzer's pervy love letter to TERRA), & liked 'em, but just haven't gotten around to reading any "real" books of late.
― David R. (popshots75`), Monday, 30 January 2006 18:27 (nineteen years ago)
Yeah, I skimmed through it. It was awfully Marvelcentric (which isn't a bad thing, just, y'know, I can't get fired up about someone with big ideas about stuff I don't know anything about--might as well be talking about Lawn Bowling instead of Dr. Strange)--though Superheroes and Philosophy is pretty Marvellesque as well (and maybe the essay on the Women of the X-Men is brilliant).
I was feeling sorta shitty about not having read any book-books lately, so I've been making a bit of an effort to do so.
― Huk-L (Huk-L), Monday, 30 January 2006 18:33 (nineteen years ago)
Tuomas makes a good point - there's a lot more milage to be had examining superheroes from a sociological standpoint than a philosophical one. You've got the obvious debt to Nietzsche, the Silver Age's cod metaphysics and rather simplistic ethical dilemmas, at a push Morrison's Cartesian bent, and beyond that everything seems a little tenuous.
― chap who would dare to no longer work for the man (chap), Monday, 30 January 2006 19:17 (nineteen years ago)
I read half (half-read?) an article in an issue of the
Journal of Pop Culture about the surgical historicism inherent to comics as embodied in
From Hell.
― c(''c) (Leee), Monday, 30 January 2006 19:49 (nineteen years ago)
Looks interesting, I'll see if I can find it in Finland.
On what did you agree with me? The supeheroes and fascism debate?
― Tuomas (Tuomas), Wednesday, 1 February 2006 19:47 (nineteen years ago)
Anthony: it'd been a long time since I began the article, so my assessment upthread is quite off the mark. Rather, it's about the "violence of criticism" which
From Hell invites and comments on:
there is an open invitation to the critic to cut up, slice, and dissect the text -- IOW, to commit violence by mimicking or retracing the performance of the antagonist, Jack the Ripper.
...
Close attention is given to the violence that propels and obstructs the readability of From Hell, a text that uses violent "quotations" from other sources [...] that not only mirror the violence of JtR, but also make the quoting of history itself an act of violence.
― c(''c) (Leee), Wednesday, 1 February 2006 20:01 (nineteen years ago)