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101000: EDDIES IN THE MAINSTREAM: VIRTUES AND VICES OF SCIENCE FICTION By Pindaros. Last month in EDDIES IN THE MAINSTREAM, I proposed that the pulps and the genres that developed in them could offer new directions that could rejuvenate comics. The genre I want to start with, science fiction, seems like possibly the worst example imaginable to prove my point with, since such moribund segments of the mainstream as SUPERMAN and X-MEN are crawling with science fiction imagery. Furthermore, every attempt to present literary science fiction in comics has had little success in attracting an audience, from EC's WEIRD SCIENCE in the 50's to DC's recent Helix imprint. The problem, however, is not with science fiction itself, but with the relatively cliched ways that mainstream comics have found to exploit it. In this article I will offer a number of examples where the intelligent use of features developed in literary science fiction has transformed mainstream comics in remarkable ways. I will also point out some features of literary science fiction that could be of use to comic creators, but are currently used very rarely. But first, we need a sense of the general shape of science fiction as a genre. Figuring out how to define science fiction and when it first began is a difficult task, but for the English-speaking world, a critical development occurred with the works of H.G. Wells. In such novels as WAR OF THE WORLDS and THE TIME MACHINE, Wells used elements that have provided the benchmarks for fans and writers in their evaluations of the genre ever since:
Wells was a serious intellectual who wrote novels to support his political views as well as to make money. As his storytelling techniques were adapted to the far more commercial atmosphere of the pulps, naturally the first element (aliens, other planets, other eras) was the most popular with writers. The works of Edgar Rice Burroughs, A. Merritt and H.P. Lovecraft are all difficult to imagine without the storytelling resources that Wells' expanded notions of space and time offered. This first element has become one of the basic features of mainstream comics. Without aliens, time travel and nearly instantaneous movement through outer space (ATT&NIMTOS), we would not have Superman, the JLA, the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, the Silver-Age Green Lantern, the Avengers, Thor, the Wildcats, the Authority, Youngblood, Fathom, . . . One could realistically say that ATT&NIMTOS is the defining feature of mainstream comic book reality. Certainly, during the universe-building frenzy of the early '90's, every comic company was careful to establish ATT&NIMTOS in their universes. TV shows and movies with ATT&NIMTOS are far more likely to be of interest to mainstream comic fans, the notable exceptions being shows like BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER which make up for it by replacing ATT&NIMTOS with supernatural equivalents like demons, visions and astral planes. While the pulp writers mentioned above showed comparatively little interest in moral issues, the comics mainstream has, with the figure of the superhero, focussed readers' attention on moral choices to a much higher degree than Wells did. While I don't have time to address this in detail, this obsession with morality is a major factor dividing comics fans from their peers. In other media, moral choices continue to be of interest and audiences appreciate a certain sense that their prejudices are moral ones, but in general, recent American audiences have shown far less interest in having characters whose moral consistency is assured. Thus, while movies like AMERICAN BEAUTY and BEING JOHN MALKOVITCH, which largely lack a moral center, are remarkably popular for their striking imagery and eccentric characterizations, comic fans from adolescent letter writers to Gary Groth demand that comic creators put greater emphasis on traditional psychology and moral self-examination. In recent years, the world of literary science fiction has also faced possible domination by fans who are interested solely in the exoticism of ATT&NIMTOS and the clarity of simple moral dilemmas. The popularity of novels based on STAR TREK, STAR WARS and other favorite sf franchises continually threaten to turn science fiction publishing into a field as drab as mainstream comics at their worst. In contrast to the comic mainstream, however, literary sf has some significant aesthetic resources to draw on in its defense, most notably its long tradition of play with the findings of science. Two figures were particularly important in bringing this element to the fore in written sf. Hugo Gernsback, publisher and editor of the first purely sf pulp, AMAZING STORIES, was an engineer who believed strongly in the ability of scientific knowledge to bring about a paradise on earth for mankind. Even more important was John D. Campbell, who took over the editing of ASTOUNDING STORIES in 1940. Campbell, who was a physicist by education, demanded that his writers aim for the highest possible degree of scientific plausibility in their writing. His tenure at ASTOUNDING is generally counted as sf's Golden Age, and the three most celebrated American sf writers, Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein were all strongly encouraged by Campbell's patronage. In its first quarter century, comic books took advantage of this aesthetic of play with science in the sf pulps. In many cases this was the result of the number of sf writers and fans in the new field of comic books. Otto Binder, a writer for CAPTAIN MARVEL and later SUPERMAN, and Gardner Fox, who wrote FLASH, GREEN LANTERN and HAWKMAN, in both the Golden and Silver Age, and the JLA, had published science fiction stories in the pulps. Julius Schwartz and Mort Weisinger, both important editors at DC, had met and began working together by putting together an sf fanzine, later serving as agents for pulp sf writers. Most famously, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, the creators of Superman, began by writing and drawing an sf fanzine, and first used the name Superman in a science fiction story. One can get an especially good view of how close the worlds of pulp sf and comic books were by reading Schwartz' recent memoir, MAN OF TWO WORLDS. Schwartz confesses that he initially had little interest in comic books and only entered the field because he needed the money. In his first years as an editor, he edited two figures known today mainly for their (classic) sf writing: Alfred Bester and Henry Kuttner. Throughout his career in comics he took his greatest pleasure in the science fictional aspects of his titles, being involved in the creation of Adam Strange and the Silver Age Flash, Green Lantern and Atom. Schwartz' taste in sf was formed before Campbell began his career at ASTOUNDING, and he tended to emphasize the more fantastic possibilities of scientific lore. While the Flash's tricks with his speed, or the Atom's modes of travel and battle called attention to ideas from the field of physics, they were hardly reasonable extensions of actual scientific phenomena. Rather, they offered a seemingly natural explanation for fantastic talents and events. This too has become a standard feature of mainstream comics, creatively degenerating in the case of Marvel Comics to the point where sf merely offers a different source for the names of objects and forces that are essentially magical. (The Marvel world is just like the real world except that radiation gives you magical powers instead of radiation sickness and cancer.) Nevertheless, in spite of the radical overuse of such concepts as human mutation and unemotional robots, comic creators continue to find useful inspiration in Arthur C. Clarke's dictum that a sufficiently complex technology is indistinguishable from magic. Innovative books such as THE AUTHORITY, DEAD ENDERS and HEAVY LIQUID use wildly implausible theories supposedly linked to physics, psychology and psychopharmacology to ground their allegories of power and desire. Joe Casey's recent run on DEATHLOK and Robert Weinberg's current work on CABLE are particularly excellent examples of how comics can also find new power in sf warhorses like the transference of consciousness and time travel. For written science fiction, however, the most radical aesthetic strategy has been to place new scientific paradigms in traditional sf plots to discover the human dimensions of scientific thought. Think of Asimov's recasting of the generational space opera as a meditation on sociological forecasting in the FOUNDATION trilogy. In the 60's Ursula LeGuin drew on anthropological theory to imagine the social lives of aliens as utopias and dystopias for a US that was in social ferment. Perhaps the most influential work of this type was William Gibson's NEUROMANCER, where he used Raymond Chandler as a template for imagining the future shape of the consensus realities appearing in early video games. Before Gibson there was technology and innumerable bland forecasts of a creative utopia. After NEUROMANCER, it was clear that staying in your room hacking or playing role-playing games made you a pioneer of 21st century culture. There have been relatively few examples of such radical imaginative activity on the part of comic creators. The most important exception has been Howard Chaykin, who enjoyed a direct as the artist who drew the graphic novel EMPIRE for Samuel Delany in the late 70's. EMPIRE shook up the basic STAR WARS plot of a young man dragged into a massive interstellar conflict by envisioning it as a quest for an object that could destroy a tyrannical government by literally unfreezing the informatin controlled by them. Chaykin went on to create AMERICAN FLAGG, which deserves recognition as a genuinely cyberpunk comic (as opposed to the all-to-common cyberpunk styled comic) for its radical portrayal of the hegemonic potential of popular culture. Later he produced the mini-series TWILIGHT, a classic sf tale that took on politics, religion and the extension of the human life span. Chaykin's work shows that the same radical energy that is available to sf can be employed in comic books. The truly radical quality of this sort of writing can be encapsulated with a seldom recognized corollary to Clarke's observation on science and magic, namely, that if one chooses to ascribe to magic phenomena that are known to be the product of a complex technology, one has handed power to the masters of that technology. While the majority of art since WWII, both escapist and serious, has been willing turn itself toward a vision of contemporary life that ignores the material foundations of that life, sf has the potential to depict human experience from within the industrial and post-industrial technologies that form those foundations. To bring this sort of intellectual power into comics is no simple task. Fortunately, sf writers have provided not only examples, but also theoretical discussions of what makes the most sophisticated sf work. There are histories such as Brian Aldiss' THREE BILLION YEAR SPREE, and essays by notables such as Delany and C.J. Cherryh, who has written on what's unwarlike about the warfare in STAR WARS. But perhaps the greatest resource of all is the notorious samizdat newsletter CHEAP TRUTH, put together in the early '80's by Bruce Sterling and other writers who would become leading lights of the cyberpunk movement. Produced anonymously and without copyright, the articles of CT espoused the radical potential of sf in a multitude of voices which disagreed on everything but the importance of intellectual seriousness and breadth of knowledge in producing great work. Interestingly, the current downturn in the popularity of comics seems to pushing a few of the most noted comics creators toward the intensity of research that CT envisions for literary sf. Kurt Busiek and George Perez have shown their seriousness and hard work on their critically acclaimed (if conservative and cliched) run on THE AVENGERS. In recent months however, the two have both started publishing series that possess the potential to be exactly this sort of radical sf. Busiek's SHOCK ROCKETS depicts a world after alien invasion where the interface between man and alien machinery has begun to have radical consequences for the organization of society. In CRIMSON PLAGUE, Perez lays out a series of interlocking conspiracies in an interplanetary society that is continually developing new ways of exploiting resources. Busiek and Perez have always been noted for their careful attention to accuracy in the depiction of human beings, so it is becoming a real treat to see them turning this attention to stories in which the nature of humanity itself is at stake. While sf is sure to be a part of mainstream comic books for as long as there is a mainstream, it seems likely that the most significant sf-flavored comic stories will come from these sorts of experiments, as writers and artists direct their energies to depicting the social and psychological dimensions of the expanding technosphere.
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