EMINENT ICONS AND PROPOSITIONS PT. 3

 

So if centric icons within a narrative are "organizational matrices," is there a better term to assign to the organizing principle? Astute readers of this blog (are there any other kind?) will guess that the previously unused term of "eminence" will now assume that position...-- EMINENT ICONS AND PROPOSITIONS.

Looking over this essay and its companion from last July, I don't think I adequately defined the organizational interactions of icons and propositions, which takes place through the agency of a master trope, rather than just tropes in general, as I said here.

I offered a definition of tropes long ago, back in 2018, but the best breakdown is that tropes describe actions: "orphan must learn the secret of his birth," "hero may refuse the call to adventure but must in time answer said call and do heroic things." In contrast, icons are like "solidified" tropes, concretized into particular entities, forces, or settings in order to invite the identification of a work's audience. --MY SHORTEST POST YET. 

The one thing I left out in the above formulation is that any professional author decides in advance what sort of proposition will govern his narrative, and this means becoming more specific as to what sort of icons will work best for his master trope. Charles Dickens can't just put "orphan must learn the secret of his birth" out there; he must decide who the orphan is-- Oliver Twist-- and what the secret is; that Oliver still has a living relative from whom he and his mother got separated. 

Thus, there's an operative difference between a "generalized trope," which can be applied to many works, and a "specialized trope," which applies only to a particular work, or a particular linked set of works. Other aspects of the work will include "bachelor tropes" that are not nearly as important as the master trope. Oliver must meet some opposition so that his discovery of his secret heritage doesn't seem to be too easy. That opposition doesn't have to be Fagin and his faux-family of thieves, so that part of the proposition comprises a bachelor trope in relation to the master trope.  

OLIVER TWIST is a monadic work with no further iterations, so its proposition is unitary. Serial works are cumulative, given that even the most stereotypical serial-- I might cite my earlier example of the Golden Age BLUE BEETLE from a related essay-- may have a specialized trope (Blue Beetle protects his city from crime) that is barely distinguishable from a generalized trope ("hero protects his city from crime.") 

However, in cases where the cumulative narratives of the series are not broadly stereotypical, the specialized trope must be refined. Will Eisner's SPIRIT varies between direct confrontations with evildoers and indirect encounters with either human error or simple fallibility. In the cover Will Eisner prepared for a Kitchen Sink reprint of the 1940s SPIRIT stories, the artist depicts a scene that doesn't literally transpire in the story "Gerhard Shnobble," but one which symbolizes a key moment in the tale. The Spirit's crimefighting activities take second place in "Shnobble" to the tragic end of the title character, which the Spirit doesn't even personally witness. Nevertheless, even in stories where the dominant action takes place in the life of a one-shot character, the Spirit still provides a moral compass for Eisner's implied reader, even when he has no impact upon the one-shot character's life. So even though the SPIRIT series started out with a specialized trope like "The Spirit protects his city from crime," that master trope became in time inaccurate because of changes in the propositional priorities. Thus a more appropriate specialized trope, capable of taking in all of the propositions Eisner offered to readers, would be something more like, "The Spirit bears witness to the many manifestations of human fallibility."  

 

EMINENCE AND DURABILITY

 Following up on my observations in the essays of EMINENT ICONS AND PROPOSITIONS, I'm moved to observe that eminence should be deemed a *structural metaphor* for the authorial process by which an icon or proposition assumes centricity. I also want to distinguish between eminence and the not dissimilar structural metaphor of "escalation," which serves to illustrate how durability operates for both stature-bearing and charisma-bearing icons. To do so I first have to revive my term for "stand-alone works" from this earlier essay-- that of "monads"-- as a counterpoint to the more familiar concept of "serials."

All monad-works have eminence, for regardless of how famous or obscure they may be, they all possess eminent icons that determine the centricity of the narrative's overall structure. But monads cannot benefit from Quantitative Escalation, since they only have one iteration. A monad can benefit from Qualitative Escalation, as with my frequent example of Scott's IVANHOE, which therefore possesses a concomitant durability. But this escalation comes about through social consensus, not through the formal properties of the monad. I can argue that a forgotten monad story-- such as the obscure 1951 horror-story "Death by Witchcraft"-- possesses some formal properties that prove rewarding. But only a social consensus, even within some specialized community like that of horror-comics fandom, could bestow Qualitative Escalation upon that story.

Serial works can be subject to either Quantitative or Qualitative Escalation, as I've already established, and so can possess either kind of durability. Most, though, become famous from the Quantitative form only. The Golden Age hero "Blue Beetle" lasted from 1939 to 1948, but even I, a defender of mythopoeic motifs in obscure superheroes, could never argue Qualitative Escalation took place within this series. The specialized community of Golden Age comics patrons liked something about the original Beetle, but didn't like another azure avenger, The Blue Diamond, who only enjoyed two adventures. There's no way that the Diamond could exceed the Beetle in terms of durability based on quantity, and, as I've read the former's two adventures, there's no chance that the former possessed any durability based on quality either.    

Now, because most serials need several installments to establish the perception of quality in a given audience, it's rare for a short-lived serial to demonstrate durability based on quality. One aborted serial that certainly had more potential than the Blue Diamond was Steve Gerber's 1984 VOID INDIGO, consisting of one softbound graphic novel and two "regular-sized" comic books. I must admit that INDIGO does not have a stellar reputation as a great unfinished Gerber work. But because Gerber is considered one of the important American comics-artists, an ambitious if flawed work by him will inevitably rate higher for anyone seeking to understand his creative process, in contrast to gauging the quality of a tossed-off superhero who was merely all about keeping the pot boiling. So even though BLUE DIAMOND had only two installments and VOID INDIGO had three, the latter is essentially equal to the former in terms of quantitative durability but far superior in terms of qualitative durability.      

DITKO AND FIGHTIN' FOOLS

I wrote this in response to a CHFB poster who wondered why Ditko had expressed (in a conversation) a dislike of seeing heroes fight amongst themselves, and why he liked Ayn Rand, whose "characters only cared about themselves."

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I've only read a handful of Rand works, but IMO it's not correct to say that the characters only care about themselves. They care about high ideals based in rational choices, and such rationality is conveyed even through the medium of aesthetic accomplishments, such as Howard Roark and his architectural designs. I think Ditko believed that he conveyed such rational ideals through his art as well. 

I don't think Ditko was ever that crazy about the concept of heroes fighting each other. He drew things like Spidey/Human Torch battles because Stan Lee was the editor and Stan, at that time, emphasized heroic crossovers, often with fights brought on by big misunderstandings. I don't think you'll find any such hero-fights in SPIDER-MAN when Ditko began to be credited with plotting. After Ditko left Marvel for Charlton, he created the Question and a new version of the Blue Beetle, but though the characters appear together in mufti in BLUE BEETLE #5, they never team up in costume. In the Question story for MYSTERIOUS SUSPENSE #1, an anonymous character gushes about how great it is to see "heroes with feet of clay," but Ditko frames this enthusiasm so as to make the opinion seem foolish.

Given that Ditko's history shows him to be uncompromising in his ideals-- at least, as much as he could possibly be in mainstream comics-- I would bet that at the very least he resented having to be a tool of the company, being required to hype other characters that he had nothing to do with. (Think of SPIDER-MAN ANNUAL #1, where he pretty much had to work in almost all the 20th-century Marvel characters into his story.)  Kirby, who co-created so much more of the Marvel Universe, had no problem with working in characters he didn't create, though fan-critics have opined that he never really got the Spider-Man design right. There's no way to be sure whether Lee or Kirby first came up with "quarreling heroes." Either one of them could've been inspired by the example of DOC SAVAGE, as well as remembering the fan-excitement that accompanied the battles of the Golden Age Human Torch and Sub-Mariner. But Ditko just didn't dig that sort of thing.

I am pretty surprised that he would even comment on the Avengers fighting amongst themselves. I have a dim memory that he did a few make-work AVENGERS issues, so maybe even at that late date he was rather discouraged to see that Stan Lee's meet-and-fight trope was still regnant. 

As for Hawk and Dove, Ditko could've used the same excuse he used once for Spider-Man's faux pas: that they were too immature to know better.The Atlas character you remember, the Destructor, starts out as a punk but quickly gets religion and becomes a stand-up guy.

MYTHCOMICS: "THE DESTROYER OF HEROES" (BLUE BEETLE #5, 1968)

A few years back I did an overview on all of the Charlton BLUE BEETLE stories created by Steve Ditko for the fan-magazine CHARLTON SPOTLIGHT #5, which one can order here. While all of these stories were of interest with regard to Ditko history, only issue #5-- whose full title is closer to "Blue Beetle Faces the Destroyer of Heroes"-- meets my criteria for being a "mythcomic." Specifically, "Destroyer" is a sociological myth, in that it's devoted to Ditko's attempt to analyze humanity's social contract in terms of his Objectivist philosophy.  "Destroyer" has the distinction of being one of the first comic book stories devoted more to the elucidation of a philosophy than to the more basic "good vs. evil" scenario, even if Ditko's philosophy has its problematic aspects.

As I did with my essay on FANTASTIC FOUR #13, I'm going to recycle parts of the SPOTLIGHT essay for this "mythcomics" series, albeit not without some contemporary tweaks and expansion.

I should note first that "Destroyer" is so focused upon its polemic that a contemporary reader who'd never read the BLUE BEETLE title before would just barely get any sense of the hero's identity or raison d'etre, and might not perceive that the story's guest-star Vic Sage was actually the star of BLUE BEETLE's back-up strip-- not up for discussion in this essay-- and that this may go down in history as one of the world's most low-key crossovers of all time.  The more mythic aspect of "Destroyer," though, is that it opposes its blue-clad superhero to-- the Menace of Modern Art!

On a visit to a museum with [girl Friday] Tracey, Kord [aka the Blue Beetle] listens impatiently to a snotty art-critic extolling the virtues of all modern art “symbolizing man’s inability to solve or control the illusion we call existence.”  Kord and Tracey dislike this critical cant, and so does radio-announcer Vic Sage, who is the secret ID of the Beetle’s backup strip, the Question.   Although Sage appears in the Beetle story, and certain elements of that story appear in the Question backup, neither of the costumed heroes appears in the other hero’s story, making it appear as if Ditko were determined to frustrate fannish expectations of the usual costumed-hero crossover.   Certainly the “meeting of heroes” is less important to Ditko than the theme of this story, in which Ditko examines what heroism is.

The anti-heroic stance of the art-critic has its admirers: a bunch of scruffy beatniks who patently favor the idea that man is incapable of meaningful action because they themselves are lazy no-goods.   In particular, one beatnik named Hugo, himself an artist, identifies with the centerpiece of the modern-art exhibit, a lumpy, ill-proportioned human figure titled “Our Man.”  One presumes that the name signifies for Ditko the evils of collectivism, of failing to be a self-sufficient individual.   Tracey, Kord and Sage all turn their backs on the self-conscious hideousness of modern art and its demeaning message regarding human achievement, and move to the part of the museum which displays proper art: dominantly, heroic Greek sculpture, incarnating man’s ability to achieve great goals.  

Predictably, the beats abhor “this pretty stuff,” and Hugo makes an abortive attempt to destroy one of the statues, because “anything that shows [man] being better than he really is—is evil!”   Hugo then becomes obsessed with the “Our Man” statue, goes home to his own art-studio (naturally filled with grotesques), and constructs for himself an armored costume based on the “Our Man” image, in which he will attempt again to destroy the life-affirming art.  

Unlike most super-villains, Hugo cares nothing about looting banks or conquering the world.   He is in essence a reverse-image of the hero, single-mindedly dedicated to overthrowing what he perceives as “evil.”   This is not to say that Ditko approves of Hugo. For Ditko the beatnik’s belief in the purposelessness of life proceeds from a failure of nerve and an acceptance of mediocrity. Even so, these are comparatively “idealistic” motives compared to the common venality of most Ditko villains.

Kord, having briefly skirmished with Hugo when the beatnik tried to destroy a statue, intuits that the museum will be in danger that night. The Beetle happens across “Our Man” and fights him. The villain’s armor gives him a slight edge, but he’s still forced to flee to the neighboring park, where he comes across another heroic statue, and tries to destroy it.   The Beetle thwarts him again, though Hugo escapes.  But now his act of attempted destruction has been witnessed by his beatnik buddies, who immediately turn the grotesque vandal into their personal hero.  This clash of fundamental principles represented by hero and villain sparks a citywide debate on the virtues of life-affirmation versus life-denial.   Ditko certainly loads the dice toward his viewpoint, making most of the pessimists sound rather stupid, and at least one comment—“I dig a guy that makes mistakes; you know he’s human”—sounds like a dig at Marvel’s conception of “heroes with feet of clay.”

One final time Our Man appears, making another attempt on the museum.   Vic Sage is on the scene and makes an attempt to stop Hugo even before the Beetle arrives; later, when the Beetle is battling Our Man, Sage prevents a demented beatnik from shooting the Beetle (which is the closest one gets to a “teamup” here).   Our Man’s lack of belief in achievement works against him, for he quickly loses heart against the hero’s dogged opposition.    Only the gunfire from the beatnik saves Hugo’s hide, allowing him to escape once more, and this time he divests himself of the armor and leaves it behind.   It’s surprising on one level that Ditko allows Hugo to escape justice. But this was probably for the purpose of having one last laugh on the decadent beats, for they find the armor and fetishize it, looking forward to the day when Our Man will return to lead them.   Hugo, for his part, privately swears that he will never reclaim the armor, and the issue ends with what might be called a re-affirmation of affirmation.

In comparison to many similar Objectivist tracts in the Ditko oeuvre, the artist displays genuine imagination in his symbolic representation of collectivism, pessimism, and life-denial. I said in this essay that Ditko was one of the first three artists I think of who was guilty of letting his didactic tendencies overwhelm his art, but "Destroyer" is not one of those cases. While I doubt that many people would want to actually live in a world governed by Ditko's super-righteous Objectivist principles, the artist does strike a chord when he champions the desire to excel over the tendency toward mediocrity. At the same time "Our Man" remains one of the best villains Ditko ever created sans collaborators, precisely because even though Hugo is dominated by Nietzsche's "will to nothingness," even a negative form of will throws light on what Ditko considers will's positive form. Most of the Beetle's villains are simply unabashed self-seekers, but Hugo is a believer, devoted to his obsessive pessimism.

I would also note that the author's determination to create an "opposite number" for his heroic protagonist, much as Dave Sim did with his villain Cirin speaks to what I have called "the ethic of the combative." I won't attempt to summarize the full argument of the two ETHIC essays, seen here and here, but I will reprint a selected section of the concluding paragraph as an attempt to draw some possibly useful parallels.

The shaman deriving power from his numinous presences, the warrior gaining supernatural presents or guidance from his patron god, the bondsman studying the ways of the mortal lord in order to overthrow him-- all of these participate in the ethical dimensions of the combative mode.  Thus "might" exists to continually challenge others to partake of its nature...This potency, to challenge one's own will to greater acts of agency, is the essence of the ethic that springs from the combative mode.