Best. Medium. Ever.

Comic books are an interesting phenomenon aren’t they? In a way they’ve planted the seeds of storytelling (heroes, villians, romance, action, etc.) into the American subconsciousness and pop culture just as much as any thing Shakespeare or the Brothers Grimm ever wrote. Comics dazzled us visually from page to page. And eventually, page to screen.

Earlier today I had a chance to catch Green Lantern. While in my opinion it wasn’t as good as some had hoped, I didn’t think it was as terrible as most reviews had indicated.  I’m not familiar with the Green Lantern so from the opening credits it was a fairly hard sell for me.  First off, it’s the Green Lantern. His source of super-human strength and power comes from a ring whose origin is derived from an outside galaxy (still with me?).  Also, the Green Lantern is part of the Green Lantern Corps which consist of numerous Green Lanterns from numerous galaxies and solar systems throughout the universe (still there? hello?). It’s a lot to take in, I know. And there’s more to it according to the comics. A lot more.

 I grew up reading the early to mid-nineties run of X-Men and Spider-Man. I already knew who Superman was (who didn’t? This is America.) as well as Batman (probably my favorite character). And I’m sure I’m not alone. There’s a reason films like the Green Lantern were made: me. Actually, not me. In no way do I consider myself a comic book aficionado. Besides a handful of titles I read, that was it.  I couldn’t tell Hal Jordan from Guy Gardner or Kyle Rayner (thanks Wikipedia!). Rather movies like GL and countless others were made for that young boy(or girl) who walked into their first comic-book shop (A&S for me) and found a place you could spend hours upon hours looking through issues and titles, debating about who was a better Robin (whichever one’s dead), etc. Comics provided an escape for some the way sports and music do for others.

So what is it about them that  that studios are willing to shell out millions of dollars to put them on screen? Some will say it’s the following, the character’s fanbase. Put a little Wolverine on it and people will flock to the theaters. But it’s more than that.  It all begins with the story. Every film or book must have a strong story to engage their audience (every good one anyway). Comics have provided some of the strongest and most powerful stories some can ever think of. Characters created over 50 years ago still remain relevant today.  It’s more than just the cool outfits and colorful villians that are the DNA of a comic icon. It is the journey.

Without jumping rails, Quentin Tarantino’s “Kill Bill” Vol. 2 has an interesting moment in the film’s final act, a speech by the antagonist played by the late, great Keith Carradine regarding Superman. He describes Superman using the Clark Kent disguise as a way to fit in. A struggle of having to pass himself off as one of us even though he was superior to us, in a physical sense. How does one go about living their lives like that on a day to day basis? How can you go to school, study for a final exam, try to win over the girl next door, and fight crime without letting your sweet Aunt May know? How does Peter Parker do it? Why, with all the money in the world, does Bruce Wayne feel the need to don the Batman outfit and go off into the night to clean up the streets of Gotham?  And as for the X-Men, how do you live in a world where the same people you protect see you as a threat and want you wiped off the face of the earth (eerily familiar isn’t it?)? It’s those whys and hows that make the eyes go from panel to panel and keeps the pages turning. But after the rights are sold and the story moves to the big screen you will need more than just CGI and explosions to keep the audience enthralled. You need characters. Well-developed and fully fleshed out characters.

 

 As we prepare ourselves for the third incarnation of Superman to hit theaters next summer, one can’t forget Christopher Reeve’s portrayal of Superman/Clark Kent, a role very difficult to live up to let alone match. Reeves’ portrayal gave us both the heroism and integrity of Superman and matched that with the clumsy, regular Joe Clark Kent was. His performance is timeless. Putting aside the campy Adam West Batman series of the 60’s, Tim Burton breathed new life into the character with Michael Keaton donning the cowl and cape. It was darker than what we were used to and as years passed others such as Val Kilmer and George Clooney took on the mantle, eventually joined by Robin and Bat-Girl. The franchise eventually regained campy form and laid dormant until Christopher Nolan reinvigorated it with Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne/Batman in Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, the origin story depicting Wayne’s  decision to become a symbol for Gotham City and his struggle to maintain and match the criminal element that fights back. Nolan’s final installment, The Dark Knight Rises, is set to drop this summer. And I use the term “drop” because I have no doubt it will be the ultimate mic drop to end all comic film debates.

 Bryan Singer managed to bring the X-Men to life with mutants who look no different than you and I longing for acceptance and learning to use and live with their powers and the hate thrown their way. They seem stuck in a never-ending battle between Charles Xavier’s idea of co-existence with humans and Magneto’s “Us or them” mentality. This dynamic originated in the comics but is also inspired by a real-life debate between two great minds. A debate which fueled the recent X-Men: First Class, a prequel whose foundation falls on the relationship of Xavier and Magneto in their earlier years. A relationship destined to be tested as the years pass.

Over the past decade, countless other superheroes have found their way into theaters and DVD players all over. Spider-Man, Blade, Iron Man, the Hulk, Thor, Captain America, Daredevil (eh), The Punisher (why can’t they get it right?), etc. And though not all have been able to be as succesful as others, they’ve proven to studios that there is a market for these properties.

 After the success of 300, Zack Snyder decided to tackle “Watchmen” which is a task within itself. Watchmen stands as probably the greatest comic of all time. It was a game changer for the medium. Set in a dystopian 1985 where Richard Nixon is still President of the United States and the Cold War is still a viable threat, the story starts off with the death of a superhero. From there we’re witness to a world where heroes are more human than ever. Alcoholism, rape, impotence – it opened up possibilities of where storylines can go for comics. And though the film was able to hold up (at least for me), it wasn’t able to capture the full scope of what we saw in those panels within those pages. What Watchmen did was never done in the medium, it set the bar and changed the tone for years to come.

 So yeah, these were all the thoughts that came to mind while watching Green Lantern. It’s difficult to make a summer blockbuster that isn’t a mindless, two-hour testerone-filled music video. What seperates that from a great comic book film is the character so many are familiar with and who he or she is without the cape, mask, and tights. Tony Stark is a wealthy arms manufacturer who has seen the error of his ways and vows to right the wrongs he is responsible for (did I mention he has a drinking problem?). Steve Rogers is a frail, sickly young man but a patriot with a strong heart given the chance to lead his country into victory in WWII thanks in part to an experiment that changes not only his physical appearance but his life altogether once he becomes Captain America. 

We can never lose sight of who these people are. Yes, I know they aren’t real. But whether we’re turning page after page or sitting in a movie theater for two-plus hours, geek or not, it’s real to us. We’re invested in that world because we’ve been there. We’ve felt like Bruce, Clark, Peter, Erik, Tony, Steve; all those guys. Watching them confront their insecurities and rise to the occasion on their own willpower is what will make it more than just another summer blockbuster. It will be an experience that brings us back to when we first met that masked man and caped individual.

 

#visibility

It’s okay to be upset, if not angry. We are human aren’t we? We are allowed to feel or react to certain things in a certain way whether we have control over them or not. We tell ourselves that it’s futile to let something out of your reach or power control you emotionally. But just because those things are physically out of our grasp, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t effect us.

If you’re reading this you have a computer. If you have a computer you spend eighty, scratch that, ninety percent of your time on the internet where you most recently came across this. Now, you may not have searched it out but it reached you.  It came to you through word of mouth which in computer-speak would be described as “viral”. It fell on your lap(top) through Facebook, Twitter, e-mail, etc.  the same way as that eventual Zombie plague that will force you to pack up your loved ones with fellow survivors such as a crochety old man with a stupid hat who seems to constantly complain as well as your trusty but sketchy-as-of-late best friend. But I digress. The viral phenomenom is an interesting one because it apparently seems to work more than a physical piece of paper such as a flyer would. Every single one of us is on the computer for an insane amount of time so when we see something, we’re gonna look at it. Something very few of us rarely do when that stranger on the street hands us that flyer. We either walk past them or grab it and take a quick glance before throwing it away once we cross the street. Not with something viral. It’s in front of us. Our computers have taken over our televisions in the sense that if it’s on it, we have to watch.

So needless to say the Kony2012 experiment was a success. Did we find or capture Joseph Kony? As of this blog post, not to my knowledge. But people know who he is. They’ve spent money on their advocacy kit. Someone who didn’t even know Uganda was a country has a better idea of where it is (Africa right?). It doesn’t matter that the foundation Invisible Children has been criticized or that the man behind the film itself has been the subject of his own video recently. What matters is that the film did what it set out to do, get people talking and informed.

But why was it so popular? It wasn’t exactly new. Atrocities similar to the ones Kony has committed have been taking place for years, if not centuries, all over the world. How did this blow up so quickly? Was it the film itself? Was it White Guilt? Or was it just another trend that  makes waves on social networking, splashing into the American consciousness for 15 minutes before the next big trend hashtags its way into our hearts?

The flip side to the #StopKony #Kony2012 movement is the tragedy of Trayvon Martin. In short, an unarmed African-American 17-year-old boy is shot by self-appointed Neighborhood Watch captain George Zimmerman on February 27 of this year. In recent days new information regarding the shooting has come to light including the phone call from Zimmerman to the police minutes before Martin’s shooting. Zimmerman has yet to be brought in for questioning. For anyone familiar with the names of Emmett Till, Sean Bell, Amado Diallo, Anthony Baez and countless others; we’re aware that atrocities like these occur more frequently than they should right here in our own backyard. And though most of those incidents involve similar circumstances of injustice, police brutality, and excessive use of force;  understand that is not the issue. The issue is the lack of  “noise” being made in the name of Trayvon.

The great thing about the Kony video which I mentioned earlier was the fact that everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, was talking about it.  I’ve seen postings on Facebook of people questioning the importance and relevance of the #StopKony movement. Their argument being that the focus should be on the problems we have here at home, one of them being visibility apparently. For the most part that problem was tackled when people found out who Kony was. They made him visible. And, in the process, a wanted man. Yet none of my friends or followers (whatever any of that means anymore) seem as gung-ho about the tale of Trayvon Martin. There is no short film. There are no celebrities. There are no promotional marketing materials. Just the facts and a story that’s been told countless times that still isn’t able to sell. Yes the story is a downer but it’s  relevant and American as apple pie. And though you may not wish to hear it, it doesn’t appear to be going away anytime fast. Once this tale is told, another will find itself on your lap(top) and whether you choose to read it or not it will always be there. Be it in another city or another state, it’s our backyard regardless. Wouldn’t you like to know what happens in your neighborhood?