“It’s Always Been Politics”
(Soundtrack: The Levellers — Levelling the Land)
Has anyone noticed that the “mind-wipe” conundrums that Meltzer is exploring in Identity Crisis go back directly to Squadron Supreme, but with a reactionary twist? (I’ve only read the first two issues, so maybe I’m off-base here…)
Here’s how it looks to me: the most interesting thing about Squadron Supreme, as a series, is the fact that it declares absolute war upon the hero-villain dynamic… As usual in Gruenwald, the thing is not to “beat the villains”, but to bring them on-side… (by hook or by crook, as they say!) If you’re out to change the world–do the opponents of the new order have the right to the “sanctity of their personalities”? What you get, in Squadron Supreme, is Calvinism freed from the constraints of nature (and Augustinian quotas) by science (the subtitle of the paper I intend to write any day now is “Science and Soteriology in Squadron Supreme)… The “b-mod” machine is a “virtual grace” dispenser. At long last, “sanctification” can be mass-produced–and the theological doctrine of the “perseverence of the saints” can be “guaranteed by the manufacturer” (Tom Thumb)! All of this ties in with the question of technology’s capacity to expand the “possibilities of the human” (anyone ever read Bernard Stiegler’s La Technique et le temps?) and theories of sovereignty (notably Carl Schmitt’s) that emphasize the centrality of “The Decision” to all polities (despite the liberal dream that laws can be drawn up to account for every contingency)…
What intrigues me is that, while Gruenwald’s book sets up this problematic perfectly (I call it “metahuman momentum”–in contrast to the logic of the “Machiavellian moment” that you find in a different type of superhero narrative, like, say, Kingdom Come), it balks (although it certainly does raise the possibility–at least implicitly!) at forcing the Squadron Supreme to consider making “the final decision” (to force everyone–including themselves–to undergo the b-mod process…)
Here we are haunted by two Emersons:
1. “To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private
heart is true for all men – that is genius. “
and
2. “I would write upon the lintels of the doorpost ‘Whim’.” (with its corollary: “our moods do not believe each other”)
So which is it? Isn’t it both? That’s why the world is so fucked! (and also why I’m so in love with Gruenwald’s book!)
In Identity Crisis, of course, we’re back in mythological territory. The show must go on. The idea that “villainy” (or human conflict) should be dismantled (mainly through technological innovation), rather than opposed, is not even considered (even if, in SS, this is ultimately shown to be an “undecidable” question… The title of my paper is “TKO’d by The Decision”). It’s significant here that Meltzer’s “b-mod” equivalent is a magic spell (which depends upon the supernatural, not human ingenuity) that restores the status quo by making sure that villains play by “the (mythological) rules of the game”
Good evenin’ friends!
Dave
