MYTHCOMICS: "ANIMAL CRACKERS" (ARCHIE GIANT SERIES #196, 1972)

 

I didn't have too much luck this month looking for my annual "Xmythcomic" until I just randomly decided to look through some online Archie Giants. I don't usually expect much if any mythicity in Archie stories, having said here that "I might not allow that the characters of ARCHIE function on any conceptual level, that they remain staunchly lateral and thus non-vertical in most of their adventures." Still, since I have found myth-stuff in other teen humor comics, so I thought an Archie mythcomic a mild possibility. I just wouldn't have thought it would be a Christmas comic.

It's also from Al Hartley, an ARCHIE artist who became a born-again Christian in the late 1960s. Supposedly he got into his religious crusade so much that his editors had to tell him to tamp it down. I'd seen a few stories into which Hartley worked Christian polemics, but I wasn't sure if he had the artistic ability to emphasize vision over dogma. Yet I was slightly impressed by a 1972 "near myth" in which Hartley tried to communicate a sacral attitude toward nature and American history.

"Animal Crackers" was printed the same year as the "Bus Fuss" story, and it draws upon a few aspects of Christian faith that I suppose a Christian might not consider "mythic" (except maybe for Jordan Peterson). There's a slight irony that the story is introduced by the character of Sabrina the Teenage Witch. The character debuted in 1962 but only became part of the Archieverse seven years later, first by dint of getting an animated cartoon in 1969 and then graduating to her own title in 1971. This led to Sabrina getting a "giant" collection of stories like this one, though "Crackers" only gives her two panels of a "half-frame" story. Clad in a Santa-outfit, she gives the reader a quickie intro to the idea that animals also celebrate Christmas, and then promptly does a fast fade.  

So here begins the main conceit: it's the regular Archie characters, as animals. Archie, though not exactly a commanding presence in the comics, gets to be the Lion because he's the King of the Archie Universe. Jughead is a kangaroo who envies a pelican for his food storage capacity but doesn't appreciate being able to use his pouch for Xmas presents-- though this really doesn't have anything to do with the main point of the story.

So in quick succession most of the Archie characters get their beasts on: Moose the Gorilla, Reggie the Tiger (because the tiger is the lion's "rival"), Big Ethel the Giraffe, Dilton the Owl, and Veronica the Peacock. Strangely, Hartley leaves out any iteration of Veronica's rival Betty. Maybe it was a bit of conceptual strain to animal-ize any other females, since he doesn't draw Veronica as a female critter, but as a humanoid with a peacock-tail and bird-feet. But aside from some minor sex-jokes-- Big Ethel turns off all the boys while Veronica only has to "flutter her tail" to mesmerize the males-- nobody's doing much of anything, good or bad. So is Dilton going to excoriate the gamboling beast-people for not going to church?

  Yes-- and no. Lion Archie defends whatever games they've all supposedly been playing at the "Christmas party," because "Christmas is a sort of make-believe time." This ought to sound logical to most readers, juvenile and otherwise: isn't Xmas a festive time, to gambol about with friends and family?

However, Dilton does have a point beyond being a spoilsport. In the remaining two pages of the story, he sketches out a time before Christmas, when animals-- and, by extension, the humans they represent-- were ruled by "the law of the jungle." People ruled by that law fought all the time, governed only by the "survival of the fittest." (Not much love for Darwin here...) However, though without explicitly mentioning the birth of Christ, Dilton states that Christmas was responsible for introducing the current state of all creatures, able to appreciate one another despite any differences that might divide them. I hypothesize, though, that since Hartley's editors didn't want him proselytizing in the Archieverse, the artist chose not to invoke "the Prince of Peace" as such. Instead, he employed a cognate principle: that of Isaiah 11:6, in which "the wolf shall dwell with the lamb" (as opposed to the popular "lion and lamb" misquote). And though I'm agnostic (albeit with a Christian background), I have to appreciate the skillful way Hartley managed to communicate his feelings on the millennial nature of his faith with Aesopian version of the Archie cast and a fusion of the Christmas holiday with the vision of Isaiah.

I have to admit, though, that I still haven't found a myth-tale for those immortal kids of Riverdale in their own personas. But if I never find one, this is an adequate substitute.                 

PHASED AND INTERFUSED PT. 4

 Here I'll discuss an "alignment-inversion" like the one primarily addressed in Part 3, where the main topic was the alteration that took place when Lois Lane, a Sub to Superman's Prime in the SUPERMAN titles, assumed the Prime posture in the LOIS LANE feature. I said that despite being in the position of a Prime for some years, Lois Lane's status is dominantly that of a Sub-- just like another subordinate-ensemble member who never had Prime status (Perry White) -- because she owes her existence to Superman.  

A similar situation pertains with the cast of the long-lived ARCHIE franchise. Because the titular character makes his first appearance alongside the equally durable characters of Betty Cooper and Jughead Jones, I gave some consideration as to whether Archie was the series' only Prime, or if he, Betty, Jughead, and the slightly later additions of Veronica and Reggie were all Primes within a superordinate ensemble. But it seems to me that the main focus is upon the simple ordinariness of Archie Andrews, "America's Typical Teenager," and that thus the other four are meant to play off him in one way or another. That makes the other four Archie's primary subordinary ensemble, who are the ones who appear most of the time in any ARCHIE story, while a secondary Sub ensemble is formed by other teens (Dilton Doily, Moose and his girl) and various teachers and parents, whose usage is more occasional. 

Thus when in the late forties-early fifties MLJ bestowed ongoing titles for all four Subs, their situation was the same as that of Lois Lane, for no matter how long their individual titles persisted, they were always determined as Charisma Dominant Subs. For the record, the title devoted only to Jughead (ARCHIE'S PAL JUGHEAD), and the one to both Betty and Veronica (BETTY AND VERONICA), lasted into the 1980s. The first title devoted to the acerbic Reggie only lasted five years, 1949-1954, but the concept was revived under a new name (REGGIE AND ME) in 1966 and then lasted until 1980.    

  

However, the setup changes somewhat for a group of phase-shifted variations on the originary characters. The first full wave of Silver Age superheroes had swelled forth at least by 1958, meaning that in 1966 the wave had persisted in the comics for roughly seven years before people began hearing about ABC'S new BATMAN series. Said news began the second wave, in, which many comics companies joined the spandex parade, and MLJ decided to produce spoofy superheroic versions of four of the firm's five best-known characters. Archie was the first, transforming into the noble Pureheart (who sometimes lost his powers if a girl kissed him, implicitly threatening his super-purity). Jughead became Captain Hero and Betty became Superteen, and all three had separate as well as crossover adventures, though it would take a fan more dogged than I to sort out the "continuity" of these haphazard stories.  Still, not even the naivest fan of the time would have believed that all three super-teens were continuous with their absolutely ordinary identities as middle-class/upper-class adolescents. So the whole "super-Archieverse" can't be judged on the same terms as the originary proposition. In essence, all of these superheroes have phase-shifted away from their models. In these stories, it's possible for Betty and Jughead to be Primes in their superhero personas, as much as Archie.   

But there was also-- EVILHEART, the costumed persona of nasty Reggie Mantle. He didn't tend to have separate adventures as did Super-Betty and Super-Jughead. Usually if not always, Pureheart was in those adventures too, because the whole point of Reggie Mantle was that he existed to rag on Archie Andrews, so that's what Evilheart did to Pureheart. So it might sound like Evilheart might be dominantly a Sub antagonist, and his independent adventures would be in the mold of, say, The Joker having his own feature in which he fought with villains and heroes, triumphing over the former and losing to the latter. Evilheart for his part enjoys his first supervillain team-up with none other than Mad Doctor Doom, who was first introduced in the pages of LITTLE ARCHIE in 1962.      

And yet, the Mad Doctor Doom episode loosely anticipates the pattern of all the later Evilheart stories, where he more often ends up making common cause with Pureheart against some third menace, even if Super-Reggie is primarily motivated by the desire to one-up Super-Archie. So for that reason I do regard Evilheart as being just as much a Prime as the other three, because all four super-spoofs exist in their own cosmos and are, to use my new term again, "discontinuous variations."    

NEAR-MYTHS: "IN THE GALLOWS OF THE GHOUL" (HANGMAN #8, 1943)

Many superhero comics of the Golden Age possess the extravagant and horrific elements of Gothic prose fiction, and a fair number of them use an expressionist style that's sometimes labeled "Gothic." The series I'm considering here, THE HANGMAN from MLJ, is one with such an artstyle.

The earliest prose Gothics, such as THE MONK and CASTLE OF OTRANTO, are noted for emphasizing a particular horror-element: that of incest. Despite the fulminations of comics-haters, most comics of all genres seem innocent of this particular element, in its sexual form.

In other essays I formulated an umbrella-term, "clansgression," to include all literary effects that even suggested incestuous activity or feelings, even if actual sexual transgression did not transpire. One form that did occasionally appear was the form of violence-clansgression. This usually took the form of madness-- fathers killed daughters, or brothers sisters-- but no sexual activity was suggested; such events were mainly melodramatic excess.

On the surface, "In the Gallows of the Ghoul" seems one of these. A madman, Jed Jennings, strangles his sister Mary, and on the next page throws his nephew out a high window. But Mary's plight has come to the attention of the heroic Hangman, and he saves the boy, though he can't prevent Jed's escape. So far, just "ordinary madness."

Hangman then tells his girlfriend the tale Mary told the hero (in his other identity)-- and then the story takes an unusual turn. Jed had been the sole support of his "widowed half sister." But when Mary conceives a child-- presumably from the late, unnamed father-- Jed becomes tormented with worry about being able to provide for both of them. As rendered by artist Bob Fujitani, the uncredited writer shows Jed spiraling down into madness, feeling himself mocked by the outside world-- though it's hard to say why the impoverished fellow would think the world would mock him for being poor. Then Hangman concludes his story, speaking of a "secret" revealed to him by Mary-- only to have the last narration cut off by the madman's appearance. Jed claims that his "secret" is that he suffered from a "brain disease" that made him feel persecuted. The villain kayos the hero, and threatens to strangle the hero's girlfriend the same way Jed strangled his sister. Hangman rises. Jed runs at him with a weapon, Hangman dodges, and Jed takes the same high dive out a window that he bestowed on his nephew, but with fatal results.

Yet the unknown writer created some odd discordances in the narrative, possibly even strange enough to make young readers think twice. The first picture those readers would've got with regard to Jed during the backstory was that when his half-sister was delivering her child, he was pacing the hospital floor "as though he were her husband, instead of her half brother." Then his first words to the doctor express his wish that the child will be born dead. In adult melodrama, these two elements lead to one conclusion: Jed *is* the child's father, but he's so ashamed of his sexual congress with his half sister that he wants all evidence of the act expunged.

Possibly the writer actually played around with using this raw idea-- man wants to murder his sister and sister's child-- but the writer realized he couldn't get away with such adult material in a kid's comic, even a gory one. Thus the script claims that Jed's concern is about having enough money to feed another mouth in addition to that of his half sister. And since worries over money were not enough to motivate a murder-- particularly since Jed could have just picked up and left Mary and her son to their fate-- the writer has to add in the excuse of a "brain disease."

Admittedly neither Mary nor her kid, due to their brief appearances, provide any support for this view. But I find it odd that the writer specified that Jed and Mary were half-siblings. It would make more sense if the two had been raised together, so that Jed felt a responsibility to take care of a full sister. But if they're half-siblings, the reader has no expectation about their having been raised together. Indeed, if they were not raised together, one might expect that sexual inhibitions would not have been naturalized by the so-called "Westermarck effect,"

Is it clear that literal sexual incest occurs in "Ghoul, as it does in Matthew Lewis's MONK. No. But Jed's extreme antipathy for his sister's son would have been a trope that many adults of the period would have recognized within the framework of an adult melodrama, enough to at least suspect some forbidden hanky-panky. The kids reading HANGMAN COMICS probably did not think twice about the matter, and probably accepted the explanation given. But the writer of the story was certainly an adult in the early forties, and one can't presume that he was at all innocent of the tropes used by adult melodramas. Even calling a man a "ghoul" is suggestive, not of a victim of psychological guilt and/or brain disease, but of a being that transgresses against society. And rather that transgressing by eating the flesh of corpses, Jed Jennings seems to commit murder to cover up a very different "sin of the flesh."

NEAR MYTHS: "BUS FUSS" (ARCHIE AND ME #50, 1972)

In this essay I spoke of the ARCHIE franchise as "damn close to being anti-epistemological." I don't believe it's impossible that somewhere, someone did a story that meets my criteria for epistemological myth. But if there's even one, it's buried under thousands upon thousands of average stuff.

And then I came across this near-myth, probably both written and drawn by Al Hartley, whimsically titled "Bus Fuss." I gasped at the first page, in which Principal Weatherbee is seen having the seats of a bus taken out, and Jughead quips that the old fellow has "flipped his lid over the school busing thing." Gasp, thought I. Is an ARCHIE comic going to say something about desegregation?

Instead, Weatherbee has a different sort of bee in his bonnet, not political in the least. He's taking everyone on a trip into the Great Outdoors, not only the most prominent teen regulars but also three teachers, the janitor and the lunch-lady. In other words, the lesson to be imparted is not for kids only, and it begins with a prayer. "Can we do that in school?" asks Jughead in his atypical Confederate cap. "We're not in school now," responds Betty. Weatherbee's prayer contains no specific religious allusions, only invoking the protection of the creator as they journey to see "the beauty of your creation."

For the next six pages, Weatherbee gives his captive audience a Cook's tour of natural wonders, with no other religious context, beginning with the importance of trees and their wood by-products to the early American settlers. I like the fact that Hartley isn't so evangelical that he misses a chance for a covert reference to the canine love of trees. He also throws in a tiny bit of conflict at the end of page six.

The bear's advent forces everyone back into the bus while the ursine intruder eats all their food. Jughead rages about the loss of the victuals, which prompts Weatherbee to take a shot at the lunch-lady: "[the bear] will pay for it. Miss Beazley prepared that food." Nothing daunted, the next day the improvised camper travels to a local range of mountains. Though Weatherbee reductively assumes that ancient peoples revered mountains because of volcanic activity, he nevertheless draws upon the archaic sense of the numinous by mentioning their connection to deities (which of course they also have in Judeo-Christian belief).

And to top off the rambling quasi-lecture, "the Bee" then shows his charges their insignificant place in the universe by pushing them to look up at the stars, untrammeled by the interference of civilization. And with that simple but non-denominational revelation, the story ends and they descend to "find our place in the scheme of things."

I had read two or three of Al Hartley's "Archie gets religion" stories and found them heavy on Christian proselytizing. But here, even though all of the other stories in this issue are just routine teen hijinks, with Weatherbee playing the fool, this lead tale was refreshingly subtle. I'm not sure I even know why Hartley even gave this gently spiritual story a goofy title like "Bus Fuss," unless he just anticipated that his editors would expect such a title. "Fuss" is not elaborate enough to be a fully epistemological myth, but at least it has some of the right ingredients.

VERTICAL VEHICLES

I've talked a bit about early iterations of my myth-theory in various posts, such as 2021's RHETORICAL FLOURISHES PT. 2, but usually I've confined such reminiscences to the last ten to twenty years. This is the period during which I feel that I brought to bear the full focus of my readings in philosophy-- Kant, Nietzsche, Schopenhauer-- in line with the proto-theory I'd evolved in the seventies and eighties, a.k.a. "The JOURNAL years." I was by no means ill-informed in those days, having drawn a lot of my early observations from such diverse scholars as Jung, Frye, Eliade, Campbell and Fiedler. But a greater emphasis on philosophical rigor was necessary for a detailed analysis of what "myth" is in fictional narrative and how it contrasts with any and all other elements of narrative.

Yet in the early days of "Gene's Theories," I don't think I was entirely discriminating about what fictional icons did or did not possess "symbolic complexity." Case in point: while going through some old papers I found a list I'd tossed together of "mythopoeic serial concepts," by which I meant serials that showed the greatest mythopoeic values. I didn't date the list but the 2004 TV show LOST has the latest date of any of my selections. I didn't write down any criteria for inclusion, but I must not have been thinking of mythicity in terms of "epistemological patterns," since I included on that list a serial that's damn close to being anti-epistemological: that red-headed step-child of Henry Aldrich, ARCHIE.

So, assuming the near-total absence of epistemology in ARCHIE, what might have impressed me about the long-lived teen humor series? The only thing ARCHIE had going for it was that its creators cobbled together an ensemble cast made up of clearly defined "types"-- the Average Guy, the Mean Guy, the Rich Girl, the Poor Girl, and the Sardonic Cynic. (On a side note, I've sometimes thought that Jughead and his "what fools these mortals be" attitude might be the one thing that kept the Riverdale kids distinct from their many competitors.) 

Now, I'm also of the opinion that whenever pundits speak of a movie or a comic book as being "mythic," they're really funneling the idea that the work's characters and situations are popular with a wide audience because they're broadly conceived and probably rather simplistic next to "the fine arts." The word "types," though, is rather pejorative. The literary term "tropes" functions better to describe either characters or situations that become well-traveled for the very reason that they communicate their content quickly and efficiently, fulfilling the audience's expectations and yet allowing for a certain amount of free play.

Now I wouldn't have brought up this matter if I didn't have a way of bringing it into line with current theories, and as it happens, the aforementioned post RHETORICAL FLOURISHES 2 is also the first time I explored in detail the division of the mythopoeic trope into a "tenor" and a "vehicle," in line with the insights of I.A. Richards. I mentioned in FLOURISHES that the epistemological pattern would be the tenor, since it is a pattern partly conceived from the creator's experience in the real world, while a familiar trope used to communicate the pattern would be the vehicle.

My standard for excellence for "the tenor" is that of concrescence; the sense that an author has managed to bring several disparate elements into a whole greater than the sum of its parts. Vehicle-excellence, though, would rely more on sheer frenetic creativity, the the author's (or authors') ability to produce a fascinating variety of tropes, what Edmund Burke called "the richness and profusion of images." These days I might not allow that the characters of ARCHIE function on any conceptual level, that they remain staunchly lateral and thus non-vertical in most of their adventures. But I can think of a few comedy-romance serials that would qualify, one being Rumiko Takahashi's ONE POUND GOSPEL-- a series which, like the majority of ARCHIE stories, contains no fantasy-SF content. 

Thus I might say that from the POV of "tenor-excellence" alone, the Lee-Kirby FANTASTIC FOUR excels the Lee-Ditko SPIDER-MAN, because I've detected more concrescent stories in the former than in the latter. But in terms of "vehicle-excellence," they are equals. for both generated an impressive array of icons fraught with mythopoeic POTENTIAL, even if the FF is somewhat ahead in terms of mythopoeic ACTUALITY.

NEAR MYTHS: [WOLF-MAN JIMMY], (1960/1961)

In this post I wrote:

As a matter of critical process I want to specify that I'm not simply critiquing this story's presentation of Jimmy Olsen in terms of the character's verisimilitude. If it were simply a matter of the character acting atypically in different sections of the same story, that would be simply a failure of the dramatic potentiality, which deals with the interactions of conscious personalities. What I'm critiquing is the degree to which Olsen's character is put into a mythopoeic situation-- that of transgressing on the sexual hunting-grounds of a friend / father-figure-- and then fails to follow through on that mythic potential. 

I happened to re-read a couple of JIMMY OLSEN stories published about three years after "Wedding of Jimmy Olsen," and it seemed to me that these stories came closer to "following through" on what little potential one might find in the trope of a simple character like Jimmy Olsen macking on his best friend's girl (or girls).

To be sure, Jimmy-- in contrast to Lois Lane, whom I view as a character of greater mythicity-- displays a pretty low amplitude in this regard. Jimmy was introduced by name in the SUPERMAN radio show, whose basic pattern was largely imitated by the successful 1952-58 teleseries. Prior to the major film adaptations of Superman, American audiences largely knew Jimmy, if they knew him at all, from the TV show, except for kids who read the JIMMY OLSEN comic, which indubitably came about in reaction to the show.

It's important to note that the dominant image of Jimmy from the show was that of a lovable goof, and for the most part this is the image that has remained ingrained in the minds of comic-book fans. The first three issues of the character's solo feature actually started out making him fairly competent, but I would guess that some editor clamped down on that, declaring that Olsen of the comics must be just as dorky as Olsen on TV. For most of his run-- which I discussed in this essay-- Jimmy remained a lovable goof, although with an important difference from the TV version: the character had a lot more romantic encounters in his own comic book.

I don't plan to sit down and hash over Jimmy's assorted love-connections, but I do think that cumulatively they contributed to his overall personality as a story-character. Thus, by 1960, the same fellow who wrote "The Wedding of Jimmy Olsen," Otto Binder, puts Jimmy in the position of a junior-level lothario, albeit for humorous effects.

Thus in the first of the two stories, "The Wolf-Man of Metropolis," his girlfriend Lucy gives him static about his amorousness:

Later, yielding to his tendency to do stupid things like drink untested magic potions, Jimmy becomes afflicted by a curse, causing him to change into a wolf-man at night, though unlike most fictional lycanthropes, Jimmy possesses no beastly urges. In fact, he can't even take advantage of Lucy when she obligingly dresses up like Red Riding Hood.

The second Curt Swan panel is refreshingly grim given the overall light tone of the story, though of course it's very politically incorrect today for him to muse about the unattractiveness of any woman. He does have a particular reason for so doing, though, since the curse can only be reversed by the kiss of a pretty woman. (Binder was perhaps conflating his werewolf tale with both "Beauty and the Beast" and "The Frog Prince.") Still, humor takes precedence over potential tragedy, particularly when Wolf-Man Jimmy tries to proposition a hot number to kiss him-- in the park, of course.

Superman eventually solves his buddy's problem, arranging for the cursed reporter to meet an unnamed (but presumably comely) woman in a dark room and receive her kiss. The reader later learns the female is Superman's cousin Supergirl, who alone possesses enough intestinal fortitude to suck a hairy face. At this point in time, Supergirl is unknown to the public, still being kept under cover by her avunucular cousin. A few stories, particularly this one, suggest a buried incestuous vibe between the two Kryptonians. If so, then Superman is being extraordinarily generous in pimping out his cousin in this manner. As icing on the clansgressive cake, the cover above shows two women fleeing from the Wolf-Man, who are probably supposed to be Superman's regular romantic interests Lois Lane and Lana Lang: however, Lana isn't in the actual story and Lois, who is, never sees the Wolf-Boy, though she does aggravate Lucy's suspicions about Jimmy's secret shame.

The second and last story of the reporter's adventures in lycanthropy-- scripted this time by Jerry Siegel-- doesn't seem to be as popular as the first on the Internet. It's significant that again, Wolf-Jimmy is presented on the cover as scaring the bejeezus out of a group of female characters-- respectively, Lucy, Lois, and Lana-- who are all in the story this time.

This time, though, Jimmy's not to blame for his curse. Mischievous Mister Mxyzptlk pops into Metropolis, spots Jimmy squiring around Lucy, and promptly falls in love with Lucy, just as the imp had previously gone gaga over her sister. Lucy rejects Mxyzptlk's suit by protesting that she has a boyfriend. Mxyzptlk decides to get rid of the competition in the usual roudabout way of all Superman stories from this period: he inflicts the curse on Jimmy with his magic but makes him think that he's imbibed the magic potion again.

In some ways Siegel ratchets up the comic absurdity of the "Frog Prince" trope. Again Jimmy seeks his Kryptonian pal's help. But though Supergirl imparts to Jimmy the same secretive smooch she did before, the affliction doesn't go away. In short order nearly every female character of the Superman universe at the time finds out about Jimmy's hairy problem. The result that he not only gets liplocked by his girlfriend, but also by Superman's inamoratas Lois and Lana, AND by the hero's former squeeze, the mermaid Lori Lemaris. Mxyzptlk watches them all fail, confident that Lucy will desert Jimmy in due time.

Then a strange woman appears, kisses Jimmy, and instantly reverses the curse. It turns out to be Mxyptlk's own inamorata, Miss Gsptlsnz, another magical imp from the Fifth Dimension, making her first comic-book appearance. Jimmy, having been bussed by so many hot girls in the last few days, can't help thinking a rather uncomplimentary thought about his savior.

However, this touch is also a neat reversal of the original curse's parameters, since the reversal of the pesky imp's magic doesn't depend on matching the curse-victim up with a hot girl. Everything goes back to normal and the story ends with Lucy calling Jimmy a "wolf" again, this time because he got a lot of smooches from other women.

Again I'll repeat that I'm not endowing these stories with anything more than minor mythicity, the result of some clever mucking-about with fairy-tale tropes. But to the extent that Jimmy Olsen the Character possesses even a minor penchant for mythicity-- that of the young rival to his older buddy-- these stories come closer to the mark than "Wedding." I'll also observe that I wouldn't have a problem with the earlier story if I thought that the dominant character of Jimmy was that of an unromantic klutz, like say, Dilton Doiley of the ARCHIE universe, seen here in all his glory: