Say it isn't so - Secret Invasion #3 (SPOILERS)

Just one comment on Secret Invasion #3 (SPOILERS AHEAD): Bendis did a fantastic job with the Spider-Woman/Iron Man scene, as far as leaving it open whether Tony is or is not a Skrull.

Let me throw in my two cents - please, PLEASE don't reveal "our" Tony Stark to have been a Skrull all this time. Since Civil War, the character of Iron Man has acquired tremendous depth (in addition to what he already had). I realize many longtime Shellhead fans want the "classic" Tony Stark back, but I am of the opinion that his recent actions are well in line with his overall character and motivation. To reverse all of his growth and development at this stage would be tragic - and far too easy an "out" for the creators involved.

Please don't pull a Brand New Day on Tony!

(See here for a great scene-by-scene breakdown of Secret Invasion #3 with Bendis.)

News and reviews (Detective #845, Trinity #1 - SPOILERS)

It seems all I've done with this blog lately is post news about my edited books - nothing wrong about that - but that's really not how I wanted it to end up. I barely have time to read my comics nowadays, much less write about them, but I'm going to try...

(By the way, Batman and Philosophy: The Dark Knight of the Soul comes out soon - make sure to check it out, and let me know what you think!)

I did want to mention two releases this week (SPOILER ALERT):

Detective Comics #845 - Another great entry from Paul Dini, but this one was special for several reasons. First and foremost, there was some much-needed catching up between Bruce and Selina (both in costume), with Selina commenting on the other women in Bruce's life, namely Jezebel Jet (from Batman) and Zatanna (from Detective). (Frankly, I was really pulling for Bruce to spend more time with Zee - he needs to date outside his inner circle or Gotham socialites.) Second, it showed Batman relying on an amateur detective chat room to generate ideas about a murder case - a nice way to tap into the collective knowledge of his community - open source crime-solving, if you will. (And it was even cooler to have some familiar faces among the other chatters.) Third, Dustin Nguyen fits this title more each month, and his varying styles to show flashbacks is fantastic. I wasn't crazy about his Superman/Batman arc, and was skeptical about his Detective run - but I have been proven wrong, and happily so.

Trinity #1 - Now this is how a weekly should be done! (I don't see why this even has to be limited to 52 issues - 52 and Countdown both had reasons to be a year long, but unless there's something we don't know, Trinity has the potential to be ongoing.) In contrast to the Big Three's conference in an other-dimensional cubbyhole in the JLA HQ in the last issue of Justice Leage of America, here they simply meet for coffee on a pier, and the way they order drinks from the waitress tells us as much about their personalities as anything has to this point. Kurt Busiek nails their voices perfectly (and Wally West, to boot), and the issue sets up the nature of the threat very well. Mark Bagley's fairly new to me, not having read Ultimate Spider-Man, but he does a great job - if he can keep this up for the next 51 weeks, I'll be more than happy.

But that's only half the issue - the second half, written by Fabian Nicieza with Busiek, didn't thrill me as much, consisting of the introduction of several baddies (one new, one generic) with way too much exposition. Scott Daniel's pencils looked fine, but he needed more to do (check out his old issues of Nightwing, recent Green Arrow, or the short-lived Richard Dragon series, to see what he can do). The "back-up," for lack of a better term ("parallel storyline"?) didn't get off to as rousing a start as the main story, but I'm sure it will pick up with time.

Iron Man and Philosophy: Call for Abstracts

Call for Abstracts

Iron Man and Philosophy

Edited by Robert Arp and Mark D. White

The Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture Series

Please circulate and post widely.
Apologies for Cross-posting.

To propose ideas for future volumes in the Blackwell series please contact the Series Editor,
William Irwin, at wtirwin@kings.edu.

Abstracts and subsequent essays should be philosophically substantial but accessible, written to engage the intelligent lay reader. Contributors of accepted essays will receive an honorarium.

Possible themes and topics might include, but are not limited to, the following:
Virtue ethics, Iron Man, and the superhero as moral inspiration; Communism vs. capitalism in Iron Man stories; S.H.I.E.L.D. and the justification of counter-terrorist rights infringement; Iron Man’s revelation of his identities, contractual agreements, and contractual loopholes; The Illuminati, paternalism, and liberalism; The Superhuman Registration Act and the limits of privacy; Iron Man, Plato’s Philosopher King, and the Noble Lie; Genius, invention, and creativity; Role/responsibility of a futurist; If science can do it, should science do it? Weapons of mass destruction and the ethics of technology; Vengeance on my kidnappers: Is revenge ever justified?; Time travel in Iron Man stories, the Butterfly Effect, and determinism; God is dead: Iron Man as the replacement god; Human suffering, the Problem of Evil, and Iron Man as savior; Merging the two Starks (Pocket and Marvel universes) and the question of what counts as personal identity; Iron Man’s “living armor” and the possibility of artificial intelligence; Depictions of Masculinity: Iron Man and Iron John; Robotics, Heidegger, and technology; Capturing consciousness in computer: Mind as computer (Hypervelocity); Iron Man and Captain America: The pragmatist and the idealist; Stark’s alcoholism and the possibility of freedom for the addict; Social pressure and self-deception in Iron Man stories; Civil War: Are (bad) decisions judged by their intentions or consequences?

Submission Guidelines:
1. Submission deadline for abstracts (100-500 words) and CV(s): August 15, 2008.
2. Submission deadline for first drafts of accepted papers: February 1, 2009.

Kindly submit by e-mail (with or without Word attachment) to:
Robert Arp: rarp@buffalo.edu

Watchmen and Philosophy: Call for Abstracts

Call for Abstracts
Watchmen and Philosophy

Edited by Mark D. White

The Blackwell Philosophy and PopCulture Series


Please circulate and post widely.
Apologies for Cross-posting.


To propose ideas for future volumes in the Blackwell series please contact the Series Editor, William Irwin at wtirwin@kings.edu .


Abstracts and subsequent essays should be philosophically substantial but accessible, written to engage the intelligent lay reader. Contributors of accepted essays will receive an honorarium.

Possible themes and topics might include, but are not limited to, the following:
How Watchmen Revolutionized Comics; The Graphic Novel as Serious Literature; Superheroes and the State: The Keene Act and the legal suppression of superheroes; The Amorality of the Comedian; A Man without a Face: Rorschach and Identity; Superheroes and Warfare: Dr. Manhattan and the Comedian in Vietnam; The Comedian and “Protecting People from Themselves”: Should We Cede Responsibility to Authority?; Superheroes and Capitalism: The Branding of Ozymandias; The Silk Spectre: Woman as Sexualized and Peripheralized in the Hero Narrative; Legacy Heroes and Identity: Will the Real Silk Spectre Please Step Forward?; Homosexuality and Superheroes: Should Hooded Justice and Captain Metropolis Have Been Out?; Is There a God?: Is the world really “a clock without a craftsman?”; Determinism and Dr. Manhattan’s Knowledge of the Future; Kitty Genovese and Good Samaritan laws; Dr. Manhattan and the Philosophy of Time Travel; Responsibility for Character: Rorschach’s childhood; Watchmen and Deconstruction of the Superhero; Rorschach and the Ethics of Vigilantism; The Ring of Gyges and the Responsible Use of Superpowers; Rorschach and Rand: Objectivism, Individualism and Sacrifice; Veidt and the Will to Power; Dr. Manhattan, Veidt, and the Übermensch; Camus, Dr. Manhattan and the Absurd; “Existence is random, has no pattern”: So what’s the meaning of life? Tales of the Black Freighter: Metafiction in the Watchmen

Submission guidelines:

1. Submission deadline for abstracts (100-500 words) and cvs: March 31, 2008
2. Submission deadline for first drafts of accepted papers: June 16, 2008
3. Submission deadline for final papers August 11, 2008

Kindly submit by e-mail (with or without Word attachment) to:
Mark D. White profmdwhite@hotmail.com

The Ethics of the Phantom Zone (slight Supergirl #16 spoilers)

The Phantom Zone, discovered by Superman’s father Jor-El, has usually been portrayed as an enlightened alternative to capital punishment for Krypton’s worst criminals, but last week's Supergirl #16 had Kara’s father Zor-El presenting an alternative view:

Jor-El and I had endless debates on the ethics of his "Phantom Zone." I found
the moral implications of his ‘compassionate punishment’ distasteful.

People weigh heavily the cost of condemning a man to death… but a "living death" in an "endless void?" How easy would it become to simply erase our "undesirables" with the press of a button, freed from consequences?”

The story goes on to reveal a hidden danger emanating from the Zone, but I want to focus more on Zor-El’s comments, because I think they offer an interesting argument on punishment and personhood itself. (I will ignore the fact that the physics of the Phantom Zone make no sense—it is said that time stands still, and that criminals have eternity to reflect on their crimes. But any action or thought takes place in time, which therefore cannot stand still--what they really mean is that the Zone criminals do not age. Of course, the dimension that the four Crisis on Infinite Earth survivors were in until Infinite Crisis had the same problem.)

Zor-El is really making several arguments here: one is that exile to the Phantom Zone will make punishment too easy for the Kryptonian authorities, and they will be too quick to use it if they are under the impression that there are no drawbacks to its use. This is more of a political argument about the possible abuse of state power, and is a perfectly valid issue.

But I find his second argument more interesting—is eternal imprisonment in an “endless void” truly more ethical than execution? Those who feel that execution is always wrong may believe so simply by default, but they have to show that Zone exile is less wrong. One such argument could be that however horrible it may be, prisoners can be released from the Zone, making the sentence partially reversible. (This is an especially cogent argument in light of recent reversals of death penalties as newly discovered evidence of innocence comes to light, which provides an argument against capital punishment even for those who believe that murderers deserve to be executed.)

This relates to the justification of punishment itself: do we punish to deter future crime, or to hold criminals accountable for (past) crimes? In other words, do we punish because it's good (through deterrence), or because it's right (by retribution)? If Phantom Zone imprisonment is indeed "cruel and unusual," then this raises more of an issue for its being right than being good - after all, cruel punishment is likely to be more deterrent, unless such a practice is so abhorrent that it incites rebellion against the government which practices it. (This is the standard utilitarian argument against punishing the innocent.)

But the more essential issue is not even a legal or jurisprudential one - it is one of personhood. What does it mean to be a Phantom Zone inhabitant? What is the nature of this "void"? Is individual identity, agency, or rationality preserved? This was Zor-El's more humanitarian concern - what are doing to these people? Even strong retributivists like Kant forbade torture because it violates the dignity of persons (even those committed of heinous crimes), while they often recommended capital punishment.

Is Phantom Zone imprisonment akin to torture? Is it a more humane alternative to execution, or is perpetual exile from anything we think of as reality even worse? This are important questions, and an unexplored facet of the Phantom Zone (at least as far as I know.)

Superheroes and Politics - Where's the Line?

Taking a break from grading, I read JLA: Superpower, a Prestige one-shot from 1999 written by John Arcudi that I picked up cheap the other day. Without revealing many details - it's worth looking for, IMHO - it deals with a very eager young hero, Mark Antaeus, who is invited to join the JLA after demonstrating his abilities and devotion. But while he does help the JLA in fighting supervillains and helping victims of natural disasters, he desperately wants to intervene in a political situation involving a murderous (ostensibly fictional) Middle East dictator. The rest of the JLA, while repulsed by the actions of this man, refuse to participate in an assassination attempt, but Mark says he does not plan to kill him, only remove him from power. Nonetheless, the JLA refuses to interfere in "affairs of state," after which Mark quits the JLA and takes matters into his hands. (Read the book for the rest.)

This raises a very interesting point: where does this prohibition on interfering with state affairs come from, and does it strictly rule out interventions to prevent eggregious human rights violations? (I assume the prohibition is based on the U.N., which I believe has a similar provision, chiefly against interfering in civil wars.)

One way to look at the JLA's position is that they respect sovereign nations' laws and policies, whatever their moral status. This reflects the jurisprudential doctrine of legal positivism, that the validity of laws stems (at least primarily) from their source or pedigree, not any independent moral evaluation. But critics of legal positivism - and Mark Antaeus, apparently - believe that there is a higher standard by which to judge governments' laws, a position generally known as natural law. Different natural law thinkers would claim different standards, but all would agree that whatever standard they hold should be used to evaluate even sovereign nations' laws and actions. For instance, human rights groups regularly criticize national governments for violating what they feel are essential human rights, regardless of their legality within each country.

We see this same theme played out in recent issues of Green Lantern, in which Hal Jordan regularly violates the Freedom of Powers Act, a law passed by a group of countries (not including the US) that prohibits the activities of superheroes within their borders. GL's argument is that the whole of space sector 2814 is his jurisdiction - he serves the Guardians of the Universe, not any one Earth nation-state. Just as the early natural law theorists, such as St. Thomas Aquinas, believed that God's law supercedes human laws, Green Lanterns enforce the Guardians' "law" over the laws of any one planet.

And finally, the philosophical battle in Marvel's Civil War can be stated in terms of this debate. Heroes on the Pro-Reg side may have chosen that side because they believed in the intent and prupose of the Superhero Registration Act, or perhaps because they believed that "the law is the law," provided it was instituted through proper legal channels ("primary rules," to use legal positivist H.L.A. Hart's term). (Strangely, Daredevil, who has always espoused a respect for law as law, was Anti-Reg, but maybe the choice was Danny's, not Matt's.) The Anti-Reg forces were opposed to the law because they felt it was wrong, that there were higher ideals threatened by its passage, however legitimate and democratic the process may have been. (This has shades of John Stuart Mill's concept of "tyranny of the majority" - Mill wrote that there are some rights that should be protected even against majoritarian democratic processes, such as those included in the Bill or Rights.) In this light, Captain America's surrender at the end of Civil War #7 can be seen as a concession to legal positivism, that the registration law passed "by the people" should truly be considered to be "for the people," and if his side wants to fight it, they should do so through the proper channels. (There are strong arguments for civil disobedience, of course, but they usually do not include destroying a city in the process, as the final battle in CW #7 was doing before Cap called it off.)

All of this can be summarized in the question: what is justice? Is it defined by governmental laws, or by a higher, "natural" law? Since superheroes are usually understood to be fighting for justice, one cannot avoid these issues, especially in today's more politicized (and philosophical) comics world.

Why is messing with Daredevil's mind so popular?

Just a thought - as I mentioned in my profile, I got into Daredevil last year after I read Brubaker and Lark's first TPB (featuring Matt Murdock in prison). Since then, in addition to keeping up with the monthlies, I read the last TPB by Bendis and Maleev (which tells how Matt went to prison), and then started reading the classic DD, starting with the three collected volumes of Frank Miller's work plus his "Born Again" and "The Man without Fear" origin story, Loeb and Sale's fantastic "Yellow," then "The Fall of the Kingpin," and "Fall from Grace" (featuring the hideous armored costume), plus assorted loose issues. (If anyone wants to start reading DD, this Amazon list is a great place to start.)

So then I started reading the current run, specifically Kevin Smith's 8-issue arc, which I just finished. I'm a huge Kevin Smith fan, mainly of his movies (snoochy-boochies!), but also his Green Arrow run, which is what pulled me back into comics several years ago. His DD story was just as good, and the art (by current Marvel EIC Joe Quesada) was incredible too - I highly recommend the TPB to any DD fan (warning: some knowledge of past DD lore is recommended as well).

So, after reading all this DD, I have to ask: is there any hero whose mind gets messed with as much as poor Matt Murdock? Never mind all the tragedy is his life - blinded as a youth, most every woman he loves dies (Kyle Rayner has the same problem over at DC, of course), etc. But most of best story arcs involve breaking the guy DOWN. Examples:

SPOILERS AHEAD: In "Born Again," Wilson Fisk (Kingpin) discovers DD's secret identity (through one of DD's lady loves) and then meticulously dismantles his life piece by piece. (DD returns the favor in "Fall of the Kingpin.") In the recent books, Fisk's wife gets him thrown in jail (with the help of a corrupt FBI agent), engineers Foggy's death, teases him with a woman that smells like one of DD's dead lovers, and then offers to make everything right if he gets her husband out of prison, the last thing he wants to do. In numerous stories since Frank Miller introduced her, Elektra dies and comes back, dies and comes back, dies and... you get the idea. (Seems it might happen again in a few months, based on Marvel soliciations.) And in Smith's arc, Mysterio - you know, Spidey's dome-headed foe - makes DD think an infant thrust into his care is of Biblical importance, everyone who doubts him is part of a grand conspiracy, and, to cap things off in true DD fashion, Bullseye, who Mysterio sent to fetch the babe, kills one of Matt's loves. END OF SPOILERS.

My question is: why is DD such an easy mark for these head games? Is he widely known to be that unstable? Is it the fact that he has a life to destroy, or that he actually commits to women? Sure, Batman gets messed with a bit - the whole Knightfall event, the death of Jason Todd, being framed for murder, the resurrection of Jason Todd - but I haven't read a Batman tale where he is completely broken down psychologically like DD routinely is. But Bruce Wayne is widely regarded as a mere ruse, and he rarely commits to a woman for more than one writer's tenure (with the exception of Selina Kyle).

Maybe it's a Marvel thing - their heroes have traditionally been more "damaged" (Daredevil - not simply the blindness, but having been deserted by his mother and then losing his father), misfits and outcasts (X-Men, Spiderman), flawed (Iron Man), or just jerks (the new Ant-Man) - ostensibly to make them more appealing to the all-too-human readers. (This fits in with the death of Captain America, who may have been all too perfect for the Marvel Universe.) But I can't be sure, because I haven't read enough Marvel (though I know Spidey's certainly faced his share of tragedy - the deaths of Uncle Ben of course, Gwen Stacey, and Aunt May several times over).

I'm anxious to see where Brubaker's headed with the next story arc, but please - go easy on Matt, at least for a couple issues. (After all, you got to kill Cap, and you have Iron Fist to mess with now.)