Karnak #1

The superhero comic-book medium derives its name from an inept English translation and popularization of Nietzsche's "Übermensch." From Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Übermensch means not so much Superman, as Over-Man or Beyond-Man; a man who has left Man behind, overcome him, surpassed him, in a constant act of self-overcoming, not a physically intimidating, athletically superior cop on the beat.

Despite the mistranslation, the fact that the superhero comic-book medium derives its name from the work of the father of philosophical nihilism is something we must always keep in mind. The superhero is a nihilist construct -- Man's attempt to project beyond himself; hence, a rejection of Man itself.

Today the preeminent writer of philosophically articulate yet hard-boiled comic books is Warren Ellis. He has his finger on the pulse of the nihilism that pumps through superheroism. In Karnak #1 he works with the tremendous Argentinian artist Jorge Zaffino to tell the story of the risen-from-the-dead Inhuman Karnak. Karnak is working with S.H.I.E.L.D. to reclaim NuHumans who have been abducted for nefarious purposes by A.I.M., Advanced Idea Mechanics.

In the first two scans Karnak promises to return an abducted son, who has metamorphosed into a NuHuman after exposure to the Terrigen Mists, to his distraught parents. But Karnak's price for such a service is that the parents let go of their attachment to the son. S.H.I.E.L.D. Special Agent Phil Coulson pulls Karnak out of the room in order to dress him down for his insensitivity, but ends up getting an earful of nihilism from Karnak instead:

Coulson: Why did you do that? 

Karnak: A lesson. I am teacher. 

Coulson: And what's the lesson you are teaching by hurting and humiliating those people? 

Karnak: That humans are no more important than objects, and that both humans and objects are meaningless. They may lose their son. They may lose their favorite object. They will still be alive tomorrow. Neither thing matters to the universe. 

Never forget who I am. 

I am Karnak of the Inhumans. I am Magister of the Tower of Wisdom.

Love is for the less disciplined minds that need to believe in a softer world.

In the scans that follow the first two, Karnak takes out an A.I.M. double-agent. Zaffino shows off his chops.

Fury: S.H.I.E.L.D. 50th Anniversary #1

A very troubling sign greets us with the roll out of the many issues commemorating the 50th anniversary of S.H.I.E.L.D., Marvel's fictional representation of the overarching, suffocating U.S. national security state military industrial complex.

First off, as mentioned in a recent post devoted to Fantastic Four #600, I find it bizarre how little fuss Marvel made of the golden anniversaries of its seminal, industry-defining characters -- Spider-Man, Thor, Fantastic Four. I made sense of this bizarreness by explaining it as a marketing decision. Marvel's characters now principally toil for the profit of Walt Disney Studios. Seating movie-going youth in front of the big cinema screen is not achieved by accentuating the rich heritage of your fictional property.

But the opulent celebration of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s fiftieth cuts against this grain. Why? S.H.I.E.L.D. back in the day -- meaning, back in the Silver and Bronze Age of comic books when Marvel replaced D.C. as king of the hill -- was never more than background noise, set dressing, Stan Lee's fictive recasting of the Cold War, CIA vs. KGB, as S.H.I.E.L.D. vs. Hydra; it provided a platform on which the superheroes could perform their derring-do. But S.H.I.E.L.D. and its agent Nick Fury, outside of an influential -- influential among industry aficionados -- 20-issue run by graphic pioneer Jim Steranko in the 1960s, was never front and center. So why now?

My suspicion is base commercialism. Disney wants to emphasize characters that can be easily and lucratively translated into television and film. S.H.I.E.L.D. is the anchor.

This bodes ill for the creative potential of Marvel going forward. I think the recent iteration of Secret Wars, Marvel's latest crossover reboot, was a confusing dud. And having recently watched Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), I can say the same thing about it. It was horrible. I had to struggle to sit through it.

But the heavy promotion of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s fiftieth also has a political component as the presidential election years approaches. The message is don't fret about our old buddy the intrusive national security state; see, he has been with us for a half century, and that whole time he has been keeping us safe from hatred and Hydra.

An example of this noxious message is on full display in Fury: S.H.I.E.L.D. 50th Anniversary #1, written by David Walker with art by Scott Hepburn. Here the black son of Fury, the present Nick Fury, travels back in time to Watts during the rebellion of the summer of 1965 where he encounters his father, the original Nick Fury, who, hagiographically, is actively sympathizing with blacks and trying to keep the Los Angeles Police from overindulging in a murderous rampage.

For the sake of verisimilitude, representatives of the national security state would be actively engaged in the "turkey shoot" alongside L.A.'s Finest, not trying to tamp it down. Proof of this is the political tsunami that Watts, along with Berkeley's Free Speech Movement, brought about -- white backlash. It elected Reagan in a landslide over Pat Brown, probably the greatest liberal governor in the history of the United States.

Absurdly the story concludes with Nick Fury rescuing the tot Obama from assassination by a time-displaced Hate-Monger. But Obama has transformed nothing about our system of predatory capitalism, war-mongery and institutional racism. So the contemplation of his possible death at an early age really represents nothing in terms of a meaning counterfactual.

Below you will find eight scans from Fury: S.H.I.E.L.D. 50th Anniversary #1.

Agent Carter #1

The first noble truth of the comic-book industry is that the cover sells the book. That is certainly the case with Agent Carter #1. When I walked into my neighborhood comic shop Wednesday night my eyes were immediately drawn to Declan Shalvey's art. I pulled it off the shelf and purchased it.

Sadly, the story inside does not live up to Shalvey's cover. Kathryn Immonen, who scripted some interesting material for Journey Into Mystery, teams up her star from that title, Lady Sif, with Margaret "Peggy" Carter, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., for a completely uninspired tale of suspense set aboard a S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier in the north Atlantic.

I'm not a fan of Rich Ellis' art; it gives me at times a Frank Robbins flashback. In my youth there was no greater disappointment than to discover that Frank Robbins had taken over the penciling duties on a comic-book title I was following.

One good thing about Agent Carter #1 is that it continues to paint S.H.I.E.L.D., an obvious stand-in for the gargantuan U.S. national security state, as an amoral, destructive force.

Where would the Marvel Universe be without the calculating, malign Nick Fury?

Also, based on a reading of this comic book, I might give the ABC series, Marvel's Agent Carter a try.

Below are six "action-packed" interior pages. Fury, having recruited Lady Sif as a co-conspirator, has surreptitiously booby-trapped a S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier headed for decommissioning in order to test Agent Carter's crisis-management skills.

Ultimate Comics: The Ultimates #3

For many months I have been accumulating issues of Marvel's Ultimate Comics: The Ultimates. I finally had the chance to dig in the weekend before last. So far -- I have just finished #8 -- I can report that writer Jonathan Hickman and artists Esad Ribic and Brandon Peterson deliver a complex, satisfying narrative that is simultaneously futuristic and thoroughly grounded in time present. Here is a synopsis of the plot lifted from issue #6 when Nick Fury travels to the New Mexico desert to try to recruit a disillusioned Steve Rogers, a.k.a, Captain America:

Our old friend Reed Richards created a Darwin bubble. He accelerated the evolution of generations of humans and brought a future city back to the past -- to the here and now . . . 

They destroyed Western Europe and we lost almost half of our fleet in an engagement with them. 

It's as bad as it gets. We have . . . no solutions.

Here are five scanned pages from Ultimate Comics: The Ultimates #3 that illustrate the Nick Fury quote regarding the defeat of S.H.I.E.L.D. and The Ultimates at the hands of Reed Richards and his Children of Tomorrow in The City. Note Thor's Kamikaze assault in the last two pages.