I had a great Sunday last week. Okay, actually I was so sick that I could barely function. My headache and toothache was giving me excruciating pain but I had an entire day out with my wife. Never mind that I had to skip my lectures and cancel a class that I was supposed to teach in the afternoon. It was still a really good day. We caught a movie ("Old Dogs" starring John Travolta and Robin Williams), we had a great lunch and I picked up the "Watchmen" hardcover for the very first time - along with the Irwin paperback "Watchmen & Philosophy: A Rorschach Test" (edited by fellow geek and scholar Mark D. White). It was a restful day and a much-needed break from my endless studies. But, like the geek that I am, a mental vacation from my law-studies simply mean reading philosophical essays on Utilitarianism vs. Deontological ideals of ethics! Better still, applying those same philosophical concepts to Ozymandias and Rorschach! Overall, Alan Moore's classic work was a rich philosophical piece that deserved to be read countless times in order to mine all the deep philosophical treasures within. The only problem is that, reading that work tends to give you a prejudiced view of comicbooks - somewhat like a bitter taste afterwards because the Bearded Brit literally comes along and thrashes your favourite childhood heroes (read: toys) and exposing them to be nothing more than psychotic, twisted and fascistic megalomaniacs (or in the case of Nite-Owl II, a sexually impotent fat slob who "couldn't get it up" without being in-costume!).
The problem with the aftermath of "Watchmen" was that people really didn't know what to do with superheroes anymore (without looking silly). J. M. DeMatteis and Keith Giffen (paired with the expressive pencils of Kevin Maguire) simply celebrated the "silliness" in their Justice League relaunch in 1987 without trying to make the superheroes out to mean anything more. Other folks tried to go the "realistic" route and made their characters even grimmer, grittier and more twisted than Alan Moore's creations. It was not until the late-1990s that we finally got an answer to Alan Moore's "Watchmen". The superheroes that we grew up with need not be fascistic or megalomaniacal. In fact, when we watched "Superfriends" on TV as kids, we didn't fall in love with the characters because they ruled over us. We loved them because they stood for right-over-might and protected the common man while having a few laughs in a fraternising sort of way. In other words, they didn't have to be grim or gritty at all to appeal to the adult. More than anything, they should bring us back to a simpler and more innocent age where we didn't read our politics or philosophy in our comic books.
The said answer came in the form of Grant Morrison's JLA. As I write this, the bald Brit is celebrating his fiftieth birthday. I'm thankful that it's one Brit answering another Brit - that way, you wouldn't get the typical criticism of the work being a result of mindless American jingoism or male fantasies. In fact, Morrison wrote the title in a high-concept sci-fi manner that Brits love (as evidenced from their incessant devotion to the interminable adventures of "Dr. Who") but he did it without the anger of Frank Miller's "The Dark Knight Returns" or the psychosis of Alan Moore's "Watchmen". One of the gems in Morrison's work is that he managed to make Batman cool as hell without resorting to the deep-seated anger that Frank Miller employed - read the first story for the coolest portrayal of Batman in an edge-of-your-seat "Die-Hard" sort of situation to see what I mean. His work was pure superheroism done right - heck, it's done so intelligently that even if you're embarassed by your once-upon-a-time fixation on "Disco Dazzler", you'll still be proud to be seen in public with volumes of JLA Deluxe Edition hardcovers under your arm!
My favourite thing about JLA is that Grant Morrison managed to answer Alan Moore with one simple line from Superman - "Why should they need us at all? To catch them if they fall." Superheroes aren't supposed to rule over us - a lesson we learn from "Watchmen", "Squadron Supreme" and "Kingdom Come". More than anything, they are really fantasies that inspire us. Fantastic creations for a kid like me who grew up looking for role-models after becoming disillusioned with family, school and church. They are not supposed to be megalomaniacs like Ozymandias or distant gods like Dr. Manhattan. They are only supposed to be catching planes that fall from the sky or beat back Starro the Conqueror the next time he comes calling! In other words, superheroes aren't real. They are simply a celebration of the imagination. True celebrations should not be condescending - real comic fans are always wary of self-referential fanboy parodies pretending to be funny while hiding its own inbred cynicisms. Only a writer of the calibre of Alan Moore could adequately write them to represent deep philosophical concepts - others do so awkwardly resulting in some truly awful and ugly comicbooks (Bloodstrike or Deathblow anyone?) For the discerning reader, Grant Morrison's work is the answer to a decade of doom-and-gloom presented not just as a justification for the continued existence of superheroic-fantasies but done so intelligently with the right amount of gusto and fanboy affection.
Finally, if you're not looking for high concept and philosophy but just some mindless fun, there's always Jimmie Robinson's "Bomb Queen"! :)
[Check out this post on Comics You Should Own for an appreciation of Grant Morrison's JLA.]
