Atomsk

Paul Linebarger is one of my favourite ever authors. I discovered the science fiction he wrote under the name Cordwainer Smith when I was at school, and his lyrical prose informed my daydreams from an early age. I could never understand why his work was not more popular, why it had never been made into movies, why so few people had heard of him. But at least his science fiction remained in print (in fact I happened to notice yesterday that it's just been republished again in a two volume collection with different titles and the stories in a different order from the previous two volume collection, just to confuse you). Atomsk, written under the name of Carmichael Smith has been out of print for fifty years.

This does not mean that it is unregarded. It's not too hard to find as a collectable if you have a couple of hundred dollars to spare. But Rosana Hart, Paul Lineberger's daughter recognises that there are plenty of people who don't want to collect it, they just want to read it, and so she has made it available as a PDF. Which is how I got to see it.

It is 1949. Scraps of intelligence taken together hint at a secret underground russian city where research is being done into atomic weapons. It is known as Atomsk. Major Michael Dugan is given the task of infiltrating Atomsk, finding out what is going on there, and then leaving enough of a mark behind him so that the russians know they have been infiltrated and Atomsk is no longer an ace up their sleeve.

We follow Dugan as he slips through Russia, assuming and dropping identities as required. Unlike so many fictional spies, Dugan has to work his way to the secret city one step at a time, using skill and cunning. What would be an afternoon jaunt for Sydney Bristow is a journey that takes weeks for Dugan.

The weakest point to me was when we finally reach Atomsk and don't get to see much of it. It's not necessary to the plot, but after the big buildup I would have liked a little more sightseeing of the big mysterious place we've heard so much about.

The book is clearly an earlier work than Lineberger's science fiction. The lyrical writing is there, but it is not as developed as his work as Cordwainer Smith. The really striking thing about Atomsk is how optimistic it is. Dugan is such a good spy because he empathises with the people he encounters. He believes that the work he is doing is not just for the good of his own country, but for its enemies too. During World War 2 he works undercover in Japan as an incompetent officer gently fouling up every major project that comes through his department, saving lives not just of Americans, but Japanese too.

The book has also aged remarkably well. I mean obviously it is now a period piece, where it was "present day" when it was published, but there is nothing out of place or jarring to the modern reader, which suggests how far ahead of his time Linebarger was in his attitudes.

Atomsk is not the great american novel, but it's a fun spy story that proves that realism and optimism can exist together. There are a lot of writers today who could learn from this.

License to Kill

When you are reading a spy novel set during the cold war, it's impossible not to think of James Bond, whose books were originally published between 1953 and 1966. Most striking is the difference between Fleming's smug dilettante and any story that deals with a more realistic take on the subject.

The problem is that James Bond doesn't actually do much spying. No spending months infiltrating an enemy country under a false identity; he's always quick in there, steal the plans, sabotage the death ray, kill the bad guy, get the girl, and out before a real spy had reached the outer perimeter in the guise of a nondescript worker. And he's always so flashy and high profile where a real spy is the exact opposite.

And then there's the whole "license to kill" business. He's a spy. It's a very dangerous business. Any spy undercover in hostile territory surely has the authority to protect themself by whatever means necessary, up to and including killing people, so why does 007 get a special certificate for it?

And then it struck me, that's not an extra qualification, that's his job description. It makes sense that they'd want the enemy to know he was responsible, that he'd be sent in for quick jobs, that so many people die when he's around. Of course it would be terribly unbritish to admit what he was really up to, so it's always couched in euphamism and the pretense that he is a regular member of the department, but it's obvious when you think about it. James Bond isn't so much a spy as an assassin.

I'd rather be writing about Superman

It gets harder and harder to avoid politics. All week I've been trying to avoid writing about hot topics and controvertial issues; partly because plenty of other feminist comics bloggers have most of the things covered that I want to address, and partly because I want to just write about lighter stuff for a bit.

So I didn't say anything about Joe Quesada's asinine response to criticism of the Heroes for Hire cover that has been in the news lately, even though a lot of it seems to be "it was drawn by a woman so it's not sexist" and "It's not a tentacle porn image because I am ignorant of tentacle porn", and entirely fails to address the problem that Misty Knight has been transformed from an african american into a Barbie doll with a tan.

I didn't say anything about the Mary Jane statue, although I have been irritated that so many people seem to have missed the point and that the issue is not about the dumb statue but the huge and vicious overreaction toward anyone that complained about it.

Right now I'd be far happier reading a fifty year old spy novel for a review I want to do (why am I wanting to review a fifty year old spy novel? Wait and see) and writing about silver age nonsense that makes me happy, and then I hear about some tiny pressure group, possibly only a couple of people, who are persuading LiveJournal to censor their users to a degree that they are throwing out baby, bathwater, and most of the bathroom plumbing in a crazed putsch that is destroying years' worth of literary criticism, fan fiction, and valid discussion entirely unrelated to the "child porn" scare card they are playing.

Always remember, "Freedom of Speech" means the freedom to voice an opinion that disagrees with you. It doesn't matter if it's wrong, or it's bad, or it's "unamerican". Once you start telling anyone they can't have a different opinion then speech is no longer free.

Sisters of Mirthy

Thanks to The Hathor Legacy I now have a new indulgence in the form of the wonderful Ask the Brontë Sisters blog.

The world needs more advice columns run by historical and fictional characters.

Light sight

What time is it, kids?

It's time to indulge my obscure fannish interest in a character nobody else particularly knows or cares about.

Kimiyo Hoshi, the good Doctor Light appeared in World War III in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo.


I'm happy to see her here for three reasons:

1) Including her in the group, even without any dialogue and at the back of the crowd establishes that she is an active character in the DC universe.

2) She fights Black Adam and doesn't die - always a risk for a female C-list character as it's contractually required that a villain in an event comic has to kill at least one less popular character to show how badass they are because killing millions of innocent bystanders clearly isn't good enough. This time it was Terra who got the bullet, but she goes through lives like a video game character, so it's hard to get too worked up about her.

3) It's the first time we have seen her in action since she was depowered and left for dead. Okay, she's been referred to elsewhere, and cameoed in Birds of Prey in civvies, but this is the first we've seen her powered up. And okay she doesn't fare well against Black Adam, but he was trashing everyone that day.

Fingers crossed, as always, that she gets a more profile gig sometime soon. Just so long as it's not in The Outsiders.

Yay Fantomah!

Long time readers may recall I am a fan of the golden age heroine Fantomah, particularly in her original incarnation by Fletcher Hanks AKA Barclay Flagg.

Fantographics have recently published a book entitled I SHALL DESTROY ALL THE CIVILIZED PLANETS, a collection of fifteen Fletcher Hanks stories, including no less than five Fantomahs! They've even set up a Fletcher Hanks website to promote the book, though it is of variable quality, even for a webvertisement. While it doesn't even include a list of the stories in the book it's promoting (I had to go to Amazon for that) it does include an online scan of a Fantomah story from Jungle Tales #13.

A little bit of politics

For the benefit of those colonials who may be unaware of it, Britain has a new Prime Minister. Not that anyone really notices or cares. In fact the two major parties are now so similar that it's hard to tell which one's in power without looking, and previous leaders are forgotten often before they've even stepped down (as was evident from a recent question on an episode of The Weakest Link I happened to see), so Gordon Brown moving around the table a bit is only of interest to the people who need to find something to fill the newspapers.

What he needs is a slogan, or possibly a theme song.

I have a proposal that with very little work could fit the bill quite nicely:

"Never a frown with Gordon Brown"

It would be worth it if only to see The Stranglers reform to sing it.

Scott Kurtz will get his dad on you

Scott Kurtz does this webcomic called PVP, which I've mentioned before. Recently he did a comic in which his characters dwell on the joy of objectifying women. Apparently he was surprised that some people were offended by it, and responded with a comic in which he depicts his own father saying to his audience words to the effect of "I think it's funny so screw you if you can't take a joke."

Now consider this is not even Kurtz's actual father defending him by dismissing any criticism, it's Scott drawing a picture of him and entirely literally (in the actual usage of the word) putting the words in his mouth. For all I know, he may have said this, but we are not told this. All we have is cartoon Kurtz senior defending cartoon Kurtz over a comic made by actual Kurtz.

Which is pretty sad and pathetic.

It's also a typical reaction of Kurtz to any criticism: don't consider if it is valid, just put down anyone who voices it and call them names. Because how could anyone not see the good natured fun in looking at boobs.

Point 1: Yes, it's something that men do. Men do lots of stuff that even they wouldn't consider appropriate to do in public. That doesn't make it right, funny, or appropriate to put it in a comic in such a way that shows you are endorsing this behaviour if you aren't prepared to take the flack for supporting such a sexist attitude.

Point 2: Getting your father to support you on this is not helping. It's just showing that you aren't the only one in the family with a sexist attitude. At least if you drew pictures of your mother or your wife standing up and supporting you it would look as though you actually cared enough about whether the comic was offensive to women to actually ask one.

Heroes: Random Realisation

I was just watching a "Behind the scenes" thing on Heroes, and it says how Mohinder is supposed to be the character the audience identifies with, because he's the ordinary guy.

Well actually, no. My (and I'm sure the majority of genre fandom) viewpoint character is the one who is living my fantasy.

Go Hiro!!!!

Make it stop

I saw Ragnell's mention about Blog Against Sexual Violence Day. If you want to get technical, it was yesterday, but I've come out of retirement for this one post on the subject.

I'm not big on having special days to address a particular issue any more than I am in favour of having a specific day to be nice to other people. But maybe that's just my anarchist streak, and I don't like being told what to do.

Anyhow, I got to thinking about all the women in comics who had been sexually abused and realised that in real life how many close female friends I'd had who had been sexually abused in some way. Now of course there are lots of women who haven't told me that they had been abused, but I have no way of knowing whether this was because they haven't chosen to tell me, or because they haven't been abused. And then there was the one that confided in me that she had reported she had been raped to the police when she hadn't, as a way of getting attention from her boyfriend. The point is that the number who have chosen to tell me is uncomfortably high.

So when I turn to superhero comics and I see the high number of women there who have been sexually abused I find I have to consider that it's not too far from my own life experience. So why do I complain about this situation?

Because I think that life in comics should be better than it is in the real world. Because if superhero comics can't give me a glimpse into a world where the good guy/girl saves the day and the woman who is attacked is either saved by the hero/heroine, or preferably is empowered enough to do that wish fulfilment thing of kicking the crap out of her assailant herself, then what's heroic about them?

Danger! Haney at work!

There are some comics that really need to come with a warning label. Labels like "Remove brain before reading" or "Attempting to understand this comic could seriously damage your sanity".

Some of Grant Morrison's more surreal works can give you a headache if you try to make sense of them, but Morrison at his most peculiar rarely comes close to the distilled nuttiness of Roberts Kannigher and Haney. I've just started reading the Showcase Brave and the Bold collection and I'm not even to the end of the first story and I'm looking for some asprin.

The first comic in the collection is a time travel story written as stream of consciousness. Cause and effect are not only reversed and sent sideways, but retconned three pages later to be a flock of hammers. Important story elements are added as required without any effort to integrate them earlier in the story. People use ill defined powers to do unnecessary and bizarre things. And it is absolutely stuffed to the gills with sense of wonder.

It's difficult to get yourself in the right frame of mind for this kind of comic. It doesn't have the clever, sophisticated stuff we look for in the medium nowadays. It doesn't have complex motivation or political subtext. It has no repurcussions beyond the final page of the story, and nobody's world is changed forever. But if you can read it without adult preconceptions of what makes a good story, or even makes sense, you could have a really fun time.

I'm looking forward to the rest of the book.

Justice once

Showcase Presents The Justice League of America volume #1.

I wanted to compare the treatment of Aqualad and Wonder Girl in Teen Titans with their adult counterparts in early Justice League, but it took me a while to work up the energy to read the Justice League Showcase collection. Gardner Fox is not my favourite silver age writer, and if there was ever a poll of DC's all time most annoying character, you can bet that Snapper Carr would be a contender.

On the other hand I am surprised how much I warmed up to Bob Haney after a few issues of Teen Titans, and I can hardly believe I didn't like Robert Kanigher when I first encountered his work, so maybe some intense study of early JLA would help me find the fun a third time.

500 pages later I am still not much of a fan of Gardner Fox, but the volume wasn't quite the chore I had expected, and Snapper Carr doesn't appear enough to be more than an irritant. The plots are formulaic and dumb, but provide enough entertainment, often for the wrong reasons, that you don't completely glaze over.

As with the Batman volume, the stories often suffer from the "Schwartz cover" effect. That is, editor Julius Schwartz commissions an exciting cover and then hands it to the writer to tell a story around, but then doesn't seem to care how the cover image is shoehorned in. The result often being that the cover scene is a ludicrously contrived moment in an otherwise unrelated plot. Which is disappointing, as the covers, often very intruiging or exciting, promise so much, but deliver so little.

The cover to JLA #1, for example: an alien plays a strange boardgame against the Flash, with the rest of the team at stake. Except that in the story the entire thing is fixed and it's just an excuse for the alien to transport them all away which he could have done anyway as they were already within his power.

But back to my original motivation for reading the book. How does Gardner Fox's treatment of Wonder Woman and Aquaman compare to Bob Haney's use of their counterparts in Teen Titans?

Aquaman is less obviously useless because of the nature of the stories. Where Teen Titans is given a realistic setting, the JLA are usually thrown into a fantasy landscape, so tailoring part of it to suit Fishguy is less blatant. Plus the formula plot usually involves each member of the team being transported to an environment designed specifically for them, either on another planet or an alternate dimension.

Wonder Woman is not singled out in any way. There is even less characterisation in JLA than there is in Teen Titans, which hardly seems possible, but it's true. There are no distinguishing voices, and many of the team are differentiated by a single ability: Aquaman talks to fish, Wonder Woman has a rope, Flash runs fast, Green Arrow shoots stuff. These characteristics are applied to every possible situation. Green Arrow can't put handcuffs on a subdued villain without using a handcuff arrow, Aquaman can't make a cup of tea without the assistance of his fishy friends. Beyond that their abilities are a bit vague.

In Post-Crisis/Pre-Infinite Crisis Wonder Woman was retconned out of being a founder member of the JLA, which is little ironic when you read the original comics, where you find that she was the only one of the big three who put in serious time on the team. On the occasions when Superman and Batman actually do show up, they often find excuses to disappear for the bulk of the story.

It gets so bad that even the villains start to notice.

Go Go Gail!

In a recent interview, Gail Simone said:

Are you doing anything involving Dr.Light II (Kimiyo Hoshi) either in BOP or in something else?

A: Not right away, but I do have some ideas for how to renovate her character a little…

Which suggests to me that nobody else has called dibs on Kimiyo in the near future, or has any plans to tell the great story of her comeback.

That's okay. I'd rather wait a year for Gail Simone than get Judd Winick now.

Dear Kara....

I saw this and thought of you.


From Millie the Model #26 (1951)

Misogynist advertising again

First I couldn't drink Coca Cola, and now I can't eat burgers.

The Burger King ad for their double whopper has been around for a few months, but after disappearing for a while it's back on british TV. This involves a parody of the feminist anthem I am Woman sung by a lot of men who are so pissed off at having to do girly things like eat in civilised restaurants that they band together and run riot in the streets, smashing up cars and stuffing their faces with 990 calorie burgers.

Now microwave burger merchants Rustlers have jumped on the bandwagon with straplines that sound like leftovers from the Coke Zero ads in a new TV advert that involves a guy bringing a girl home. The clearly uncomfortable girl says she can only stay for a coffee. He goes into the kitchen and taps on a keypad next to a hatch that opens onto the other room, creating a frame that makes it look as though the girl is in a microwave. The couch on which the girl is sitting then revolves like a microwave plate and she transforms into a seductive lingerie model. The slogan being something along the lines of "If only women could go from not interested to hot to trot in 70 seconds without you making any effort, just like our tacky burgers."

Edit: While I was looking for the ad on Youtube I found another version where the revolving girl is replaced by a inflateable sex doll. Otherwise it is identical to the original. I have no idea where this comes from, but if it was a self-parody by the original ad makers intended to undercut the misogyny of the original it might work better if they ever actually showed it.

EDIT 2: I also found an Australian Coke Zero ad that has the same message as the UK version but without the misogynistic aspects. In fact it makes an effort to be female-inclusive.

EDIT 3: Huh?

Continuity Spaggetti

I realise that the absurd lateness of Wonder Woman means that all the questions of identity in the current storyline are old news in every other comic where she appears, but I'm curious where Atom fits in, since Dr Zeul (Giganta) appears to have a legitimate career in Ivytown, which must predate her being a known villain in Wonder Woman, which (initially) was published first. Either it's another multiverse thing (an all purpose excuse for continuity screwups right now, which is just as well given how many there are at the moment), or it's a symptom of Ivytown weirdness. Either way I'd like even a bad explanation somewhere.

And no, DC, the answer is not to have yet another fucking 'event' to explain it all away.

Since the writers appear to be incapable of this stuff, how about you hire someone to oversee each comic and check that if they are using characters that also appear in other titles that the various appearances fit together. This person could also be given the responsibility of ensuring that the comic was completed on schedule. You could even fire the current editor on most comics and give them the same office. I don't think anyone would notice the loss.

Supergirl/Batgirl

I tried to like Kara 2.0, I really did.

But the suckyness wore me down. Every time I was on the point of giving it up as a bad job, I'd hear that the current writer or artist was going to be replaced and I gave it one more go. I did actually quit after #12 when it became apparent that Joe Kelly was too little, too late, and we were stuck with Ian Churchill. I only read #14 because it featured Batgirl.

This was a mistake. The in-joke of having Kara dress in Linda/animated Supergirl's white costume was painfully unfunny, and simply served to remind long time readers how this previous wearer of the cape had been quietly erased from continuity - even Pantha went out fighting. Ian Churchill's big chin/snap like a twig ankles style seemed worse than ever, but maybe it's just because I've been reading too many comics where the characters have less ludicrous proportions.

But Batgirl?

Wait, I think I've got it. It's that multiverse thing again, isn't it. I mean I totally called the two Luthors before it was revealed, so maybe they are doing the same trick again. Originally there was good Batgirl. Then we were told that she went bad (Robin #151) to lead the League of Assassins and get revenge on her father because she found she had a sister (no, it doesn't make any sense), and stopped wearing the costume. But in Teen Titans #43 we are given a whole different explanation about her being mind controlled by Deathstroke. No mention of the League, and she's in costume. In Supergirl #14 she's back to running the League but she is wearing her costume. There's at least two different Batgirls here. Possibly three.

Oh, and there's apparently a story running in one of the Batman titles where the League is being run by someone else. Does anyone at DC talk to anyone else at all?

Random manga

A few years ago, when I was into manga and there wasn't much of it about, I'd pick up a few random collections from the Japan Centre when I was in London, purely because the art styles interested me. I hadn't thought about them in years, but I ran across a couple of the volumes today and thought I'd share.

Balancer is an action adventure story, with the twist that the beautiful heroine is in fact a little old lady who is able to transform into a supermodel. It looks like great fun.



Karuizawa Syndrome is altogether stranger. Even with so much manga now under the bridge it still looks odd. The art style varies from realistic to chibi so much the characters bounce up and down like yoyos, sometimes even in the same panel. It appears to follow a group of characters who are possibly early twenties, though they spend so much time in chibi mode it's hard to tell. They drive hyper realistic cars and motorbikes, have chibi sex, and a couple of them seem to be nazis.

As far as I know neither of these series have ever been translated. But I guess neither exactly fit into what american publishers look for in a manga.

Robin's gang

I haven't been a big follower of Teen Titans in its various incarnations, but the team has always seemed like Robin's gang. Doesn't matter who is Robin, it's his team.

So I'm just a little sad that Steph didn't get to be Robin long enough to get that issue of Teen Titans where she's in charge.

Teamups we'd like to see for the sheer silliness #2

All irregularities will be handled by the forces controlling each dimension. Transuranic, heavy elements may not be used where there is life. Medium atomic weights are available: Gold, Lead, Copper, Jet, Diamond, Radium, Sapphire, Silver and Steel.


Sapphire and Steel have been assigned.