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James Howlett: Cowboy Superhero
I had a thought. Indulge me.
Mark Millar has a new project coming soon in Wolverine. It's called Old Man Logan. It's a future tale, about what Logan looks like, in a post-superhero world. Millar says that he was initially inspired by the superlative Unforgiven. At first that got me crazy excited, because Unforgiven is one of my all-time favourite Westerns. I thought I might be reading a Wolverine comic for the first time in years.
Then I read on. Millar cites his other influences as Mad Max and The Hills Have Eyes - the story takes place in a ravaged, post-war ex-America, now split into small, barely governed units, and populated by gangs of mutated freaks. There's a Hulk Gang, made up of Bruce Banner's freak progeny, and a Spider-Bitch, descendant of, you guessed it, Spider-Man.
Now, I'm not one to call for fewer mutated freaks in my superhero comics, particularly in my X-comics, but let's face it, this can only end in tears. All criticisms of Millar aside, he's got too many disparate ideas in there to explore in the short time he's alotted - he's too ambitious, and when compressed into a short story arc, it's going to be complete and utter crack. And probably not the good kind.
Still, the idea of doing Logan's Unforgiven is imho fantastic, and it's what I want to talk about today. Unforgiven is an old story. Like A History of Violence, it tracks a criminal who's gone straight, found a family and a normal life. All is well, until some outside force invades their little slice of paradise, and starts to tear it all down. In A History of Violence, it's a chance encounter with two criminals on the run. In Unforgiven it's nature itself - the farm is failing, the children are sick, and when an offer of one last job comes along, it's too necessary (not too good) to refuse. Both movies are about how you can't outrun your past, and you can't outwit fate.
There's also the non-criminal version of the story, which you can find in 3:10 To Yuma and so many other movies. Really, it's one of THE Western stories. It's a story about masculinity, humanity, duty and loss. And if you hadn't guessed, it's a story I'll never get tired of.
Now imagine a many years post-superhero world. Logan has turned his swords into ploughshares and for a time he's happy, until something goes wrong. Something forces him back into the world he chose to leave behind, too tired, too exhausted morally, spiritually and physically to keep on saving the day.
Break him down, and what Logan is, is a cowboy. He's a character type that's very much at home in Westerns.
Logan's abilities, both natural and acquired, are all of the body, they're all very human - the character is the antithesis of everything technological. So many of his stories have him outwitting technological solutions to the special problem he poses, or having his enhanced senses turn out to be superior to some new gadget. His eternal dilemma is controlling those pesky berserker rages he's plagued with - the monkey on his back is his own animal nature, which constantly threatens to overtake his human reason.
And then there's his character - his affinity for dying traditional cultures, particularly that of Japan; his contradictory needs for solitude, and then human society, just to keep him sane; his personal code of honor, that he's willing to overlook, if the need is great enough; his love of the simple pleasures; his willingness to be talked into sacrificing it all for the greater good, even when he doubts the existence of a greater good.
He's nostalgia, pure and simple. *** Everything about the character recalls to us a bygone era that never was. A time when men were men, and life was nasty, brutish and short. But sometimes, if only briefly, beautiful.
What got me thinking about this, was something Kalinara said:
Sorry, I know it's a huge part of his character, but if there's ever been a personality LESS suited for Japanese culture and society than Wolverine as he's generally characterized, I'm hard pressed to think of one.
Well, actually that's not true. I do think that Wolverine at his best does have a sort of Toshiro Mifune-esque quality that would suit perhaps the Sengoku or Edo periods. Samurai code and all that. Weird then that they established his birth as being so close to the Meiji Restoration period. By the time he's an adult, they'd be well into the rapid modernization/industrialization/growing nationalistic point of Japanese history, which I really don't see appealing to Wolverine at ALL. He's really not, I think, suited for modern Japan. Too bad they didn't set his birthdate a couple decades earlier, then he might have had the chance to slip in during the tail end of the bakufu days. It probably would have suited him more.
Logan is suited to modern Japan, in the same way that he is suited to modern North America, which at first glance seems to be not much at all, but characters like Logan are obviously important to us on a basic level. There's something about their refusal (to move forward, to play nicely with others, to let go of the past) that's compelling. He also seems to exist in both cultures and times without too much trouble, so he clearly isn't all an outsider to modernity.
There's a long history of cowboy/samurai crossovers, so I don't think I need to belabor the point that these character types function in similar ways; they represent similar things. What he loves about Japan isn't the cities - he loves the part of the country that's dying. Logan in Japan is no different than Logan in America or Canada. He constantly seeks out the old ways, the simpler ways. The woman he loves is herself a traditionalist, and their relationship follows a pattern of the civilizing woman, finding a kindred spirit in the brutish but decent man. Which itself is such a Western story. Such a fundamental part of the Western aesthetic.
His time in Japan is so integral to the character because he isn't suited to modern Japan, and because his every visit there is a weird mix of culture clash, and culture crossover. Logan connects with the liminal spaces in Japan, because he always, always walks in a liminal world.
He's always on the line of outsider/insider, human/animal, now/then, bad guy/good guy. He's James Howlett: Cowboy Superhero.
And visually, it's obvious. The cowboy hat. The ride that only admits one (a motorcycle not a horse).
*** He's nostalgia yeah, but interestingly he's manufactured nostalgia - his powers and much of his past were constructed by shadowy government agents. I didn't want this point getting in the way of the one I wanted to make today, but I don't think this actually works against my cowboy superhero formulation. It actually underlines the wickedness of the new, and the corruption that permeates human society. He's turned into a weapon, but he turns his back on all of that to wander the world, righting and occasionally doing wrongs, and drinking liquor. So yeah, still works as nostalgia - in a sense he's become what he needs from the world, what he finds lack in the world.
I think this, plus the claws and feral nature also connect him to the Indian in Western narratives, hence his history with First Nations cultures. Something to consider another time - racial issues in Wolverine.
Mark Millar has a new project coming soon in Wolverine. It's called Old Man Logan. It's a future tale, about what Logan looks like, in a post-superhero world. Millar says that he was initially inspired by the superlative Unforgiven. At first that got me crazy excited, because Unforgiven is one of my all-time favourite Westerns. I thought I might be reading a Wolverine comic for the first time in years.
Then I read on. Millar cites his other influences as Mad Max and The Hills Have Eyes - the story takes place in a ravaged, post-war ex-America, now split into small, barely governed units, and populated by gangs of mutated freaks. There's a Hulk Gang, made up of Bruce Banner's freak progeny, and a Spider-Bitch, descendant of, you guessed it, Spider-Man.
Now, I'm not one to call for fewer mutated freaks in my superhero comics, particularly in my X-comics, but let's face it, this can only end in tears. All criticisms of Millar aside, he's got too many disparate ideas in there to explore in the short time he's alotted - he's too ambitious, and when compressed into a short story arc, it's going to be complete and utter crack. And probably not the good kind.
Still, the idea of doing Logan's Unforgiven is imho fantastic, and it's what I want to talk about today. Unforgiven is an old story. Like A History of Violence, it tracks a criminal who's gone straight, found a family and a normal life. All is well, until some outside force invades their little slice of paradise, and starts to tear it all down. In A History of Violence, it's a chance encounter with two criminals on the run. In Unforgiven it's nature itself - the farm is failing, the children are sick, and when an offer of one last job comes along, it's too necessary (not too good) to refuse. Both movies are about how you can't outrun your past, and you can't outwit fate.
There's also the non-criminal version of the story, which you can find in 3:10 To Yuma and so many other movies. Really, it's one of THE Western stories. It's a story about masculinity, humanity, duty and loss. And if you hadn't guessed, it's a story I'll never get tired of.
Now imagine a many years post-superhero world. Logan has turned his swords into ploughshares and for a time he's happy, until something goes wrong. Something forces him back into the world he chose to leave behind, too tired, too exhausted morally, spiritually and physically to keep on saving the day.
Break him down, and what Logan is, is a cowboy. He's a character type that's very much at home in Westerns.
Logan's abilities, both natural and acquired, are all of the body, they're all very human - the character is the antithesis of everything technological. So many of his stories have him outwitting technological solutions to the special problem he poses, or having his enhanced senses turn out to be superior to some new gadget. His eternal dilemma is controlling those pesky berserker rages he's plagued with - the monkey on his back is his own animal nature, which constantly threatens to overtake his human reason.
And then there's his character - his affinity for dying traditional cultures, particularly that of Japan; his contradictory needs for solitude, and then human society, just to keep him sane; his personal code of honor, that he's willing to overlook, if the need is great enough; his love of the simple pleasures; his willingness to be talked into sacrificing it all for the greater good, even when he doubts the existence of a greater good.
He's nostalgia, pure and simple. *** Everything about the character recalls to us a bygone era that never was. A time when men were men, and life was nasty, brutish and short. But sometimes, if only briefly, beautiful.
What got me thinking about this, was something Kalinara said:
Sorry, I know it's a huge part of his character, but if there's ever been a personality LESS suited for Japanese culture and society than Wolverine as he's generally characterized, I'm hard pressed to think of one.
Well, actually that's not true. I do think that Wolverine at his best does have a sort of Toshiro Mifune-esque quality that would suit perhaps the Sengoku or Edo periods. Samurai code and all that. Weird then that they established his birth as being so close to the Meiji Restoration period. By the time he's an adult, they'd be well into the rapid modernization/industrialization/growing nationalistic point of Japanese history, which I really don't see appealing to Wolverine at ALL. He's really not, I think, suited for modern Japan. Too bad they didn't set his birthdate a couple decades earlier, then he might have had the chance to slip in during the tail end of the bakufu days. It probably would have suited him more.
Logan is suited to modern Japan, in the same way that he is suited to modern North America, which at first glance seems to be not much at all, but characters like Logan are obviously important to us on a basic level. There's something about their refusal (to move forward, to play nicely with others, to let go of the past) that's compelling. He also seems to exist in both cultures and times without too much trouble, so he clearly isn't all an outsider to modernity.
There's a long history of cowboy/samurai crossovers, so I don't think I need to belabor the point that these character types function in similar ways; they represent similar things. What he loves about Japan isn't the cities - he loves the part of the country that's dying. Logan in Japan is no different than Logan in America or Canada. He constantly seeks out the old ways, the simpler ways. The woman he loves is herself a traditionalist, and their relationship follows a pattern of the civilizing woman, finding a kindred spirit in the brutish but decent man. Which itself is such a Western story. Such a fundamental part of the Western aesthetic.
His time in Japan is so integral to the character because he isn't suited to modern Japan, and because his every visit there is a weird mix of culture clash, and culture crossover. Logan connects with the liminal spaces in Japan, because he always, always walks in a liminal world.
He's always on the line of outsider/insider, human/animal, now/then, bad guy/good guy. He's James Howlett: Cowboy Superhero.
And visually, it's obvious. The cowboy hat. The ride that only admits one (a motorcycle not a horse).
*** He's nostalgia yeah, but interestingly he's manufactured nostalgia - his powers and much of his past were constructed by shadowy government agents. I didn't want this point getting in the way of the one I wanted to make today, but I don't think this actually works against my cowboy superhero formulation. It actually underlines the wickedness of the new, and the corruption that permeates human society. He's turned into a weapon, but he turns his back on all of that to wander the world, righting and occasionally doing wrongs, and drinking liquor. So yeah, still works as nostalgia - in a sense he's become what he needs from the world, what he finds lack in the world.
I think this, plus the claws and feral nature also connect him to the Indian in Western narratives, hence his history with First Nations cultures. Something to consider another time - racial issues in Wolverine.
no subject
My disappointment in the Wolverine Origins story line was enormous. He was a privileged white guy? Sheesh. I'd rather have never known his past. He was much more interesting when I thought he was born poor and possibly of mixed blood.
no subject
This way writers can indulge in two fantasies for the price of one - they get their dangerous outsider, and their poor-me, tragic nobleman.
I think that a good writer could do salvage something out of it, but they'd have to be very conscious of the hinky class and race issues that are bound to crop up in any story of falling off the privilege tree.
"So then Logan learned from the noble savages that it was better to like, live close to nature, because then you're more in touch with what man really is, and..."
Eugh.
I may be commenting simply because I have the perfect icon for this...;)
I've always found his relations to Japanese culture to be very strange since you're right, he doesn't fit modern Japan at all, but he does fit into the older, traditional nostalgia of Edo era (or before) Japan. There's a reason why the comic I took my icon from made the idea of Logan as Lone Wolf so plausible. (Incidentally, if you haven't read Lone Wolf and Cub, you'll love it.) I have a hard time reading Wolverine's Japanese scenes because part of me is always crying out that the Japan he's in is already dead. Of course, this is comics, and it's no fun to write about the fact that there are no ninja clans left or that you have to search pretty hard to find a proper tea ceremony...
Re: I may be commenting simply because I have the perfect icon for this...;)
I have a hard time reading Wolverine's Japanese scenes because part of me is always crying out that the Japan he's in is already dead.
I have the same reaction to his travels in the 'wilds' of Canada. It's just as hard to find a 'real' sweat house, or shaman in Canada, as it is to find a tea ceremony in Japan. And I'm always wondering where the cell phones, wireless connections and CBC Radio have gone to. But I guess that's the whole point of the character - he exists in all these worlds that are already gone. It's like he calls them back into being, by virtue of his sheer manliness. *g*
Of course, this is comics, and it's no fun to write about the fact that there are no ninja clans left
Where would comics be without ninjas? Perish the thought.
Re: I may be commenting simply because I have the perfect icon for this...;)
It's just as hard to find a 'real' sweat house, or shaman in Canada, as it is to find a tea ceremony in Japan.
*grin* This amuses me since the only sweat lodge I've ever been to was in Orkney, Scotland, run by a Canadian Native American...
I think I'd enjoy Daredevil a lot less if he didn't have ninjas attacking him periodically. It always makes me giggle.
Re: I may be commenting simply because I have the perfect icon for this...;)
This amuses me since the only sweat lodge I've ever been to was in Orkney, Scotland, run by a Canadian Native American...
That's awesome. The trouble is that the practice of reeducation at residential schools has disrupted the passage of traditional knowledge from one generation to another. In some areas, practices are heavily influenced by Christianity, and others are reconstructed from white people's historical treatments.
I think I'd enjoy Daredevil a lot less if he didn't have ninjas attacking him periodically. It always makes me giggle.
There's nothing like a random ninja attack to liven up a story. I always found the idea of Daredevil, scourge of NYC criminals, fighting ninjas kind of inherently hilarious. "But why-" "SHUT UP IT'S COOL!"
no subject
...this comment brought to you by the letter R, for regretting giving up caffeine.
no subject
I haven't read The Gunslinger though I've heard good things. Worth picking up? And hey, did you hear they're doing The Stand as a graphic novel?
no subject
Also, REALLY? The Stand is my all-time favorite King novel. I'll have to hunt that down.
no subject
Stephen King, write an underwhelming ending? Never! ;) I'll have to check out the first novel, though, now that you've put it that way.
Here's a link (http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=16631) to a story about the project. It's got some Randal Flagg artwork that's pretty good. I'm pretty excited about it myself.