Nothing heavy here, man. Just a couple notes on some righteous comics from the past.
Comic books have a mixed record on dealing with current events. I would argue that they did a pretty good job just before and during WWII. You may know that most of the major superheroes ended up fighting the Axis (e.g. Captain America, Sgt. Fury). In the Fifties, the DC characters were pretty fluffy, but E.C. put out some amazing books that tackled war in a realistic fashion (both past and present) and social issues like racism and crime. In the Sixties, Marvel certainly touched on current events, but much of that looks pretty dated, even though I’m sure it seemed daring at the time.
But the late Sixties provided two incredible examples of comic creators grappling with the hippie era.
Brother Power, The Geek was created, co-written and packaged by Joe Simon, the co-creator (with Jack Kirby) of Captain America. The book was edited by Joe Orlando. The comic launched in October of 1968 and only lasted two issues. Some hippie clothing is placed on a tailor’s dummy and then lightning brings it to life. Brother Power is a super-powered wandering philosopher, along the lines of the Silver Surfer. In some ways, the comic was critical of hippies (there’s a line “But the lazy ways of the hippies are not for Brother Power”), but it was sympathetic in others. Anyway, it’s a crazy concept, even crazier than Simon’s other legendary counter culture creation in 1973: Prez: First Teen President.
Read more about Brother Power here and here.
But then you get the other side…
Steve Ditko is a true legend. He’s the co-creator of Spider-Man; while Stan Lee gets the glory, eventually Ditko was writing and plotting the book himself. Ditko also co-created Dr. Strange and used a fantastic psychedelic style for his otherworldly adventures.
Ditko quit Marvel in 1965 and went on to create some characters that reflected his interest in Ayn Rand’s philosophy of objectivism. For example, he did The Question and (more famously) Mr. A.
Mr. A is a crusader who dresses all in white, in a suit and fedora. People who do wrong are punished. Some are crime stories; some are just moral tales. Mr. A has a very rigid code; his trademark is a card that is black and white — there is no grey.
Vic Sage describes the stories:
The method of storytelling also varies in various Mr. A stories — some issues are semi-straightforward plots, as were the stories of the Question; some are a long series of text balloons with Mr. A presenting ideas and allegories that relate his philosophies to humanity in general; some even begin with short essays on the subject of the black and white world as Mr. A and Ditko see it.
As Ditko himself put it in a 1968 interview:
Where other “heroes” powers are based on some accidental super element, The Question and Mr. A’s “power” is deliberately knowing what is right and acting accordingly. But it is one of choice. Of choosing to know what is right and choosing to act on that knowledge in all his thoughts and actions with everyone he deals with. No conflict or contradiction in his behavior in either identity. He isn’t afraid to know or refuse to act on what is right no matter in what situation he finds himself.
Dial B for Blog did a three-part series on the origins of Mr. A. In part one, you learn about the lives of Ditko and Ayn Rand and how their ideas meshed in Mr. A. In part two, you can see the first appearance of the character. Part three features a 1969 essay from Ditko, defending himself against his critics.
If you’ve ever read the classic Watchmen graphic novel, then you may realize that The Question and Mr. A were the inspiration for Rorschach. Alan Moore, author of Watchmen, noted the distinction with some amusement:
I did hear that someone was interviewing Steve Ditko and asked him whether he’d seen Watchmen and this character in it called Rorschach and he said “Oh yes, I know that, he’s the one who’s like Mister A, except Rorschach is insane.” [Laughs] I thought, well yeah, that’s about what I’d expect! Well, Mister A wasn’t, presumably.
In September, Jonathan Ross did a documentary for the BBC entitled In Search of Steve Ditko. Someone put it up online so that we American viewers could see it and I was able to watch most of the program one day before it was yanked off, literally in the middle of my viewing. Too bad, because it was fantastic and will hopefully be released in the U.S. some day. However, you can see a clip from the show, which features Alan Moore talking about how his old band wrote a song about Mr. A. You can also read an appreciation of Ditko from Salon.
Tags: Joe Simon, Steve Ditko, Brother Power, Mr. A
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The Pop View Says:
The introduction to the book Comic Books (part of the Examining Popular Culture series) quotes Bradford W. Wright, the author of Comic Book Nation:
In his initial episode, Superman saves a falsely accused prisoner from a lynch mob, produces evidence that frees an innocent woman on death row, and defends a woman about to be beaten by her husband.
In addition to defending the less-privileged, he also goes after the powerful.
In the second issue of Action Comics, Superman crushes a conspiracy involving a U.S. senator, a lobbyist, and a munitions manufacturer who wish to embroil the United States in a foreign war. He then ends the fraudulent Latin American war by informing the belligerents that they have been manipulated by greedy American industrialists… Superman [then] warns that moneyed self-interest remained a menace to the national welfare.