This new column is now only four installments old, and you can by now see I range very widely in subject matter. In my last two installments I was discussing the Hulk movie, and there is still plenty to say about it. The film of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen just opened today, as I write this, and I intend to compare and contrast the movie with Alan Moore’s original comic book series. And there are the Daredevil movie, just released on DVD, and X2, whose DVD release looms in the future, not to mention the August release of the movie of Harvey Pekar’s American Splendor. Moreover, when this column goes up on the website, I’ll have returned from San Diego’s Comic-Con International, the first I’ve attended in five years, and I expect to devote a number of columns to discussing the panels and films I see out there.

But, you see, this is a weekly column, and eventually I will get around to everything. It may take a while to get back to the Hulk movie, but, rest assured, its time will come again. It’s actually a pleasure to know that I have plenty of topics for the foreseeable future.

This week, though, I turn my attention to what you surely least expected, but it is something that I hope will demonstrate the scope of this column. I’m reviewing an art exhibit at a major American museum, and yes, it has to do with not just comics, but superhero comics.

The Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City every once in a long while acknowledges cartoon art as a serious subject. I first went to the Whitney over two decades ago when it staged a landmark exhibition on Disney animation from the initial Mickey Mouse cartoons through its first five animated features (Snow White, Pinocchio, Fantasia, Dumbo and Bambi), curated by animation historian Greg Ford. It was astonishing; an entire floor of the museum devoted to original animation art, identifying and spotlighting the great Disney animators of the period. Sequences of the actual drawings were often mounted alongside video screens which showed the completed, filmed sequence on a continual loop. I returned again and again, not just to see the exhibited drawings, but also to attend the accompanying screenings of Disney animated shorts from the 1930s. In those days before home video or DVDs or the Disney Channel, the Whitney in those months was one of the very few places to see these films, and there were always enormous lines to get in.

Years later, the Whitney did an exhibit on visual art chronicling New York City in the Twentieth Century, and I was surprised and delighted to see an alcove filled with original artwork for splash pages from Will Eisner’s The Spirit, on loan from the International Museum of Cartoon Art: Eisner’s Central City was, of course, a fictionalized 1940s New York.

These exhibits sound wonderful, don’t they? Do they make you wish that these sorts of shows took place more often, and more widely? Or that the International Museum of Cartoon Art, and for that matter, the Words and Pictures Museum, a comics museum I never got to visit, had not both gone under? Serious study of cartoon art is still all too rare in America.

Well, the Whitney’s new exhibition is not about comics and there is only one work in it that relates to the subject, but it is a striking one. This exhibition is titled “The American Effect,” and it consists of artworks commenting on the United States’ role in the contemporary world from 1990 onward. And the very first artwork that one sees on entering is French artist Gilles Barbier’s Nursing Home, an installation of eight statues of familiar characters from American superhero comics, all depicted as decrepit senior citizens.

There is Superman wearing glasses and using a walker. The elderly Hulk, who actually looks more like an ancient Bruce Banner with green skin, sits in a wheelchair watching television. Catwoman, wearing the Michelle Pfeiffer costume from Batman Returns, lies exhausted in another chair. A bald Reed Richards, alias Mr. Fantastic, is, appropriately enough for him, reading a book. One of his arms and one of his legs are stretched out and look quite flaccid, presumably suggesting the state of another part of his physique at his age. Wonder Woman, her skin sagging all over, stands watch over the hero in the worst state of all: Captain America himself, lying on a gurney with an IV in his arm.

This exhibit is genuinely funny and a crowd-pleaser. While I was studying the exhibit, a young woman came up to me, her friends behind her, gestured at the statue of Reed Richards, and asked me who the character was. “Mr. Fantastic,” I replied, adding, “but how you knew I would know that is beyond me.” I know I have a professorial look, demeanor, and style of dressing, but I didn’t know I look like a comic book expert. (You see, I am recognized as an authority on the subject by everyone except those who could pay me for this expertise.)

Now, something seems missing from the exhibit. Shouldn’t there be DC and Marvel lawyers hovering about? Well, perhaps Nursing Home could be considered a one-time parodic use of superhero imagery, and hence legally permissible. But I confess I am confused by the legalities involved when copyrighted comic book imagery is appropriated by artists in the “fine art” world. The late Roy Lichtenstein took panels from existing comic books – notably, for example, DC war comics stories drawn by one of DC’s masters of the genre, Russ Heath – and used them as the bases of his own pop art paintings. A little over a decade ago, the Museum of Modern Art even did a show, High and Low, which identified various comic book sources for renowned Lichtenstein works. Did Lichtenstein get permission from DC or other copyright owners to use this artwork? I’ve seen a Lichtenstein at the National Gallery of Art that is apparently based on Carl Barks’ work and features Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse. Could he have really defied the famously litigious Disney company and gotten away with it? I guess so. There’s a framed poster for the High and Low show, featuring a Heath panel and the Lichtenstein based on it, hanging in the DC offices: they appear to be proud of it. Mind you, Lichtenstein did not sign his work “Roy Lichtenstein, after Russ Heath,” or anything like that. I’ve seen a Lichtenstein at the Guggenheim Museum, an extreme close-up of eyes, surrounded by the eyeslits of a familiar helmet, that looks to me as if it was inspired by a panel of Magneto from Uncanny X-Men #1. And how many people who see this painting know – or care – it was based on the work of Jack Kirby?

Yes, yes, I am well aware that Lichtenstein utilized various methods to alter and transform the original source material, to heighten various formal aspects of the imagery. And he’s not the only one who does this. Decades ago the Whitney, and later the Institute of Contemporary Art in London, did entire shows of “fine art” based on cartoon and comics imagery. But still, my reaction to such work is usually that much of the composition and a great deal of the vitality of these works comes from the original, unacknowledged comics artist who drew the source material. And I like to see credit given where credit is due (and a share of the profits, too).

Or at least not to see the artists of the source material disparaged. Some years back the Guggenheim Museum in New York did a Lichtenstein retrospective. I can’t recall the exact wording of the introductory text, mounted on the rotunda wall, but it stated that Lichtenstein is known for taking imagery from sources of no artistic value, such as comics, and transforming it into genuine art. And here’s the kicker: the sponsor of the exhibition was Marvel. This was during the days when Ron Perelman owned the company, and he was on the board of the Guggenheim and was one of Lichtenstein’s patrons. Ah yes, the corporate world’s view of comics.

This exhibition, The American Effect, as noted, consists of recent artists’ comments on America’s role in the world. It does not surprise me that superheroes are seen by a foreign artist as American icons representing the nation as a whole. I do not know if whoever it was who first dubbed the United States a “superpower” was thinking of the comic book Superman. But it seems appropriate that the word “superpower” both means one of the most powerful nations on Earth and the superhuman ability of a comic book hero. It makes sense that so many superheroes were created in the 1940s when the United States left isolationism behind and asserted itself as a world power in the Second World War. Surely one of the reasons that the superhero is a specifically American icon is that it is a metaphor for the United States’ military might as a nation.

And for this reason Nursing Home initially seems to me to be wrongheaded. In today’s world, the United States is the last remaining superpower. Terrorists wreaked havoc in American cities on Sept. 11, 2001, but neither terrorists nor other nations have any hope of conquering the United States. Indeed, this is a period when various mainstream political commentators, either disapprovingly or, astonishingly, approvingly, speak of “the American Empire.” (And it reminds me of the late Mark Gruenwald’s Squadron Supreme series, in which the Squadron – an organization of superheroes created in large part as seriocomic parodies of the Justice League – effectively rule the United States, making it the only powerful nation in a devastated world. That was published long before America became the sole super-power.)

Perhaps the artist is not commenting on America’s present but its future. A writer in The New York Times (July 13, 2003) suggested that Nursing Effect, “can also be seen as a prophecy (or perhaps an eager anticipation) of the natural decline of American power in the world.” All “empires” come to an end, though I can’t imagine what nation would eventually become more powerful than the United States, or how, or when.

But art that works as metaphor can have different interpretations, more than the one declared by the museum that exhibits it, or even by a creator. What if, for example, one sees present-day America as a negative influence, trying to dominate and control the world? Then one could argue that the United States has lost sight of its traditional ideals, its devotion to freedom for all people.

America’s involvement in World War II was a noble effort to stop the atrocities and tyranny and aggression of the Axis powers. And, of course, World War II is the heart of the Golden Age of Comics, the period in which Superman, Captain America, and Wonder Woman originated. Superman has come to embody “truth, justice and the American way.” Wonder Woman wore the colors of the American flag and the nation’s symbol, an eagle, on her costume. (Indeed, in her secret identity, she was even a member of the American military.) And Captain America, of course, is symbolically the spirit of America in human form. His costume resembles the American flag, and in a sense Captain America is the flag come to life.

The museum label accompanying Nursing Home asserts that the artist shows all the characters as if they had aged in real time since they first appeared in print. Well, that may imply that the museum thinks all these characters were created at about the same time; in fact, Mr. Fantastic and the Hulk first appeared in the 1960s, though I suppose that Reed Richards, who was originally presented as a World war II veteran, could be said to be the same age as the Golden Age heroes.

But still, even if we see Mr. Fantastic and the Hulk as figures representing the 1960s, that still works in this interpretation of Nursing Home. The 1960s is also remembered as a period of moral and political idealism, and that was the decade in which Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and others created most of the classic Marvel heroes, including Mr. Fantastic and the Hulk. Mister Fantastic strikes me as being very much a Kennedy-era figure. Like JFK, Reed Richards came of age as a soldier in World War II. By 1961 Richards had become a pioneer in a program that was one of the Kennedy Administration’s top priorities, the space race. In the Fantastic Four’s origin story, Reed and company are determined to beat the “Commies” in reaching not the moon (as in the real space program) but to the stars. And the Hulk’s origin is tied in with the nuclear weapons program of the Cold War of the 1960s.

So, what if one admires the America of the 1940s – the Golden Age of Comics – and the 1960s – the Silver Age – and condemns the United States’ current foreign exploits? Then it would make sense to show these comic book icons, who embody the spirit of those decades, in physical decline, aging, approaching death. Now personally, I don’t take such a critical view of contemporary America, but I can see how these statues could serve to express such a position.

Were I disposed to dislike all superhero stories on principle, I could also interpret Nursing Home as a critique of the whole genre: it’s worn out, it’s dying, it’s practically dead. Actually, this line of interpretation might work better for someone who thought superhero comics used to have vitality, especially in the Golden Age and Silver Age, but have lost their way.

But the installation need not be limited to these interpretations. Why not look upon it as a metaphor for the fate of all people: condemned to age, decline and death? How appropriate, then, to use iconic figures whom we first encounter in our youth, superheroes? They incarnate youthful idealism and the passion to strive to achieve noble goals. They represent the ideals of physical beauty and strength associated with youth. These characters – most of them, anyway – never age into midlife, never die (or if they do, like Superman in the 1990s, they inevitably are resurrected), and seemingly are eternal, unchanging, and effectively immortal.

And, of course, real people aren’t. John Byrne has observed (and I hope I’m paraphrasing him correctly) that one starts out reading Spider-Man when one is younger than Peter Parker, or perhaps (in the 1960s) the same age, and eventually, as a comics pro, finds himself approaching the age of J. Jonah Jameson. Frank Miller has said in interviews that he made the Batman of The Dark Knight Returns a man in his fifties because he wanted Batman, whom he sees as a “father figure,” to still be older than he was!

So an installation of statues of elderly, decrepit comic book characters aptly captures the pathos of mortality: the passage from the child or youth who sees unlimited potential in life and acts as if he has limitless time, to the elder whose best days are behind him, whose body is failing him, and whose time is now short indeed.

Now, I am more disposed to take iconic comics characters seriously than many other critics. But if one sees superhero costumes as ludicrous, well, that works in interpreting this installation, too. The optimism of youth, or its unconscious assumption of its own immortality, may seem ludicrous from the perspective of those who are extremely old. I suppose you could even see an Absolutely Fabulous motif here. Here are these superheroes, at the ends of their lives, still wearing the costumes they sported in their younger days. However, Patsy and Edina on Absolutely Fabulous, middle-aged women still pursuing a youthful lifestyle, are both foolish and strangely heroic. They are too old to be acting so immaturely, but their refusals to lead dully respectable middle-aged lives compares favorably with the Puritanical existence of Edina’s straight-laced daughter. But there’s nothing: the costumes merely make these heroes’ fates both absurdly and darkly and ironic.

Yet we do not have to look to commentators from outside, like artist, to critique human mortality through comics imagery. Comics can do just as well themselves. In effect, with his 1960s work at Marvel, Stan Lee was transposing superheroes into a more adult world and showing what might happen. Terry Gilliam, who once planned to direct a film version of Alan Moore’s Watchmen, pointed out that it could serve as a metaphor for the fate of 1960s political activists in middle-age in the 1980s.

And then sometimes one can find a surprising treatment of a serious issue in a very unexpected place. One of the earliest superhero comics I read was an old Superman Annual that reprinted “The Old Man of Metropolis!” first published in Action #270 (Nov. 1960). Superman editor Mort Weisinger became rather infamous for doing stories in which some horrible fate befell his characters that was revealed to be “a dream, a hoax, or an imaginary story,” as the slogan ran. The best of these stories, however, enabled Weisinger and his writers to create scenarios that enabled them to delve into their characters’ emotions for impressive dramatic effects without actually altering the ongoing status quo. This was, after all, a period before mainstream comics would throw Spider-Man’s leading lady Gwen Stacy to her death or slaughter high profile superheroes in Crisis on Infinite Earths.

“The Old Man of Metropolis!” is an example of Weisinger’s “dream” stories at their best and most disturbing, a work of children’s literature with resonance for adults. In this story Clark Kent dreams that as Superman he travels through time into the future and finds himself trapped in the body of his future self, an old man who has lost his super-powers due to his exposures to Kryptonite over the decades, and is now physically enfeebled. Worse, he is a “has-been,” supplanted by a new generation in the form of Superwoman, the adult Supergirl who has taken over his role as superhero, and in her secret identity, has even replaced him as a reporter on the Daily Planet. Not only that, but she has taken over the Fortress of Solitude, shunting Superman’s own memorabilia into a storeroom. Superman finds the world has changed around him, unrecognizably: his own father figure, Perry White, is deceased, Jimmy Olsen is now a stout middle-aged dad, and Lex Luthor has reformed and become mayor of Metropolis. Superman learns that he never married Lois, and she never married anyone else: both their lives seem emotional wastes.

Superman witnesses the sad fates of characters who can be seen as his counterparts. His distorted double Bizarro has likewise lost his powers and ended up jailed as a vagrant. Particularly disturbing to me at the time was the fate of Krypto the Superdog, who has also lost his powers, is homeless and elderly (in human years, not dog years!), and is carted off to the pound, presumably to be killed: Krypto seems a surrogate for Superman himself, reduced to similar degradation and facing mortality.

Mort Weisinger, the Superman editor of the early 1960s, stated that his audience was made up of children, whereas his fellow DC editor Julius Schwartz seemed to be aiming at young teenagers and Stan Lee, of course, found himself attracting college-age readers. And yet whom was this story aimed at? I read it as a kid, when old age seems an eternity away, yet it startled me with its dramatic power. Perhaps Weisinger and his writer, whoever that was (Jerry Siegel? Edmond Hamilton? Who?), perceived that even for children there may be something intimidating about watching their grandparents go into physical decline, and knowing that old age awaits them, too, someday. Or perhaps Weisinger and the writer were addressing their own concerns in a format that made it comprehensible to their younger readers. Though later fans and comics writers and editors reacted strongly against the Weisinger-era Superman stories: as the comics audience grew older and more sophisticated, much of what children found entertaining about the Weisinger stories – ranging from Beppo the Super-Monkey to Lois Lane’s I Love Lucy-style antics trying to expose Superman’s secret identity – no longer passed muster, however inventive it was.

Still, in the early 1960s, there were a number of strangely haunting and dark stories in the Weisinger books – Clark Kent fearing his life as Superman is a delusion (a motif used more recently on Buffy), Superman repeatedly stripped of his powers, Superman dying of an incurable disease. It was in large part stories like these that interested me in superhero comics in the first place. Whether in strangely dark stories meant for children or in satiric statues in art museums, the American superhero can prove to be an iconic image of surprising metaphorical power.

-Copyright 2003 Peter Sanderson

Comments: None