Tag Archives: superhero science fiction

If You Enjoyed “The Villain’s Sidekick”…

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When I first started writing my novella (which I seriously thought was just going to be short story) I was naive enough to think I was doing something at least vaguely original. I mean, I knew there’d been a hefty handful of comic stories told from the villain’s POV and/or stories in which a bad guy went good. Hell, half The Avengers started out as bad guys, or at least in the deep gray on the moral scale.

Of course, I’d only started reading superhero prose–funnybooks without the pictograms, in layman’s terms–shortly before embarking on my fictional experiment, but I was already aware of a couple of terrific novels that were in the subgenre I was working in. The first is probably still one of the most popular and widely read of these books, Austin Grossman’s terrific Soon I Will Be Invincible.

SIWBI

The story of Dr. Impossible, recently released from prison and ready to get back to doing evil, this is one of those stories where the bad guy would be 100% more sympathetic than the heroes if it weren’t for the fact that the POV alternates from chapter to chapter between the bad doctor and a female cyborg superhero named Fatale. This was the first book I read that let me get inside the narrative heads of its antagonistic protagonists in a way that even the most literate graphic novels and comics sagas sometimes struggle to achieve. And while I already owe a huge debt to Grossman just for demonstrating that it can be done, and with an edge of satire tempered with genuine human emotions, I also owe him a debt for that narrator-swapping gimmick because I’ve shamelessly borrowed it for the follow-up to “Villain’s” that I’m hammering away at now.

Much like “Invincible,” when I first plucked Jim Bernheimer’s Confessions of a D-List Supervillain from Amazon’s Kindle Lending Library, I assumed it would be maybe good for a laugh, a jokey riff on supervillainy, based on the title alone. And considering it was an obscure offering available for a low price, I had low expectations in regards to its potential quality. Boy, was I wrong.

D-List

Like “Villain’s” and “Invincible,” Bernheimer’s book is a first-person shooter in storytelling terms, from the point of view of Cal Stringel, a low-rent supervillain in Tony Stark armor who’s forced to help save the world when most of the population, including the heroes, are overtaken by alien parasites launching a full-scale invasion. When we first meet him, he hasn’t been out of his armor in days, and his descriptions of how sweaty and putrid that can get are the perfect kind of “never-thought-of-that” moments that give the story it’s realistic edge.

Of course, I’ve stayed on the prowl for superhero fiction ever since getting my first book out into the world, and in the process stumbled across the work of Casey Glanders and his Gailsone series. Glanders is one prolific motherfucker. I don’t know if he holds down a day job, but if so, I want to know his secret because I don’t think I have enough writing hours left in my life to pump out the amount of work he’s produced just in the last two years.

Big In Japan

Glanders created his villain-turned-hero, Alice “Dyspell” Gailsone, because he’s got daughters, and he looked around and felt there weren’t enough female heroes on the market. So his books are all led, and well-populated, by strong females (all with their share of baggage, as any good villain-turned-hero should have). After a lifetime on the dark side, Alice is taking a second shot at life seeing how the hero half lives, and while she’s not afraid to get dirty, she’s frequently better at it than the heroes who’ve recruited her.

Last but not least, there’s Rafael Chandler’s The Astounding Antagonists. 

AA

Don’t let the cover art fool you: this Anti-Avengers type tale makes for one solid book. It’s a wildly entertaining story about what happens when the “good guys” become nothing more than abusive authority figures who are as morally compromised as the so-called villains, and frequently worse. If anything, Chandler might weight things a little too heavily on the side of the heroes being just outright awful, while imbuing his Antagonists with far more complexity, weight and moral authority. But if you enjoy rooting for the outsider, if you’re the type to always bet on the underdog, or if you just want to identify with the bad guy’s POV sometimes, you couldn’t go wrong with any of these.

Black Holes and Revelations

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When I started this blog, it just seemed like a necessary move to kickstart my “web presence” in the wake of publishing my first book. I don’t tend this little thoughtspew garden as frequently as I assumed I would, because I am prone to sloth by nature and because I have a LOT of other shit to do most every day. Sitting down to journal is a luxury from a past life. I had forgotten how much I used to do it until I cracked open a trunkload of my old spiral diaries and faux-leather-bound notebooks , vigorously and desperately maintained from the mid- ’80s through the late ’90s, a wild minddump of my (pedestrian, suburban, naively whitebread, hopelessly adolescent) innermost feelings, scraps of poetry, false starts at novels and short stories and scripts, and my most significant creative outlet until I started writing in genuine earnest and eventually getting paid for it sometimes.

What surprised me, and in equal parts heartened and frustrated me as well, was that much of the writing, in spite of the sometimes pathetic, navel-gazing, fear-stunted subject matter, was actually pretty good, especially for a guy in his 20s. Heartening because I know that writing is hopelessly entwined with the strands of my very DNA, and frustrating because I didn’t have the werewithal, back in those long-lost floundering days, to see things through to completion and start making my mark in some small way when I burned with that youthful energy and helpless need to find a way to connect with the world. When I had all the time in the world with me and ahead of me. And there’s that part of me that can’t help pondering, however uselessly, how different my life might have been if I had just knuckled fucking down and done it. But then I remember how much I genuinely like, even love, my life as it is now and realize that it’s all okay, and I can forgive myself my mistakes and lapses and not let them freeze and paralyze me in place the way they evidently did when I was young. Because I still have all the time in the world, even if I do have less of it.

I don’t know why I stopped journaling, except maybe I felt less desperate and started looking out more than in, or maybe my laziness just manifested in some new way, but honestly, what is a blog but a journal for the whole world to see (well, let’s be realistic–for the few dozen of you who might even bother to read this). The fact is, I’m supposed to be journaling as part of my sixth step in recovery, but I’m not sure I’m ready to bore, disturb, or frighten you all with a litany of my defects of character.

But I do recognize that my entries here, from the first one, have functioned as a kind of confessional self-appraisal blended–with little to no nuance–with my pop cultural obsessions. So as I continue to focus and figure out what I’m doing here, I figure I’ll just stumble forward in that direction, and I’ll either alternate or find unusual, hopefully interesting, frequently hamfisted ways of confronting my recovery while continuing to talk about my process as a writer, what I’m putting out in the world–or attempting to– creatively, and espousing the genuine virtues of comics, graphic novels, science fiction adventure, superpeople and capepunkers.

There will be the aforementioned navel-gazing, the requisite “what to watch/read/listen to” suggestions, the occasional shameless plugs for my books when they’re on sale or on the verge of publication, and whatever else crosses my fevered, frenzied, sometimes inspired, often dog-tired brain.

And this being October, I might as well suggest some horror shit for you people to investigate at your leisure.

I probably don’t have to tell most of you that the “Walking Dead” premiere was as good an episode as that show has done–fast-paced, probably a little slim on genuine character beats except for Tyreese and Carol, but filled with action that bordered perilously and brilliantly close to cinematic. Also shied ferociously away from that show’s tendency to drag things out when it comes to settings and certain main characters’ old tendency to spend more time talking than surviving. This one managed to be brutal, tense, and had me cheering for Rick in a way that I have been since he bit that son-of-a-bitch’s throat out. I was worried he was on the verge of becoming Jack from “Lost,” but Sheriff Grimes is really coming into his own. And it even managed to end on a warm, upbeat note in a way this show almost never allows for, with all of our heroes finally together and moving as one. I hope they can maintain this kind of confidence in both narrative and character going forward. This show might finally be ready to become great.

walking-dead-season-5-debut

Speaking of WD, I started reading “Outcast” by the creator himself, Robert Kirkman, and artist Paul Azaceta and I gotta say, so far, so great. It’s about a lost soul with an apparent gift for exorcising demons, which is a good thing because they seem to be popping up pretty much everywhere in his world. Terrific art and intriguing characters. Definitely worth  a look.

outcast_1

And finally, because I do have some of that other shit to do today, if you’re looking for some supremely weird and at times darkly funny low-budget horror, you could do worse than “The Banshee Chapter,” currently streaming on Netflix.

the-banshee-chapter‘

This caught my interest when I learned that Ted “Buffalo Bill” Levine from “Silence of the Lambs” and the amazing adenoidal voice and too many memorable character roles to count, was one of the stars. Only when I started watching did I realize that he was playing a Hunter S. Thompson analog (with savory dollops of Philip K. Dick mixed into the sauce) in a story about ill-advised MKUltra experiments involving a powerful psychedelic drug that opens a doorway to a very dark, Lovecraftian dimension. There are some “found footage” elements but it doesn’t stay stuck in that subgenre rut. It’s not easy to follow, but it’s fun to try and fathom what the fuck is going on. The acting is solid and Levine is amazing. Creep yourself out.

HST

And while this probably deserves to be a post all on its own, this weekend marks the third (fucking unbelievable) anniversary of the unexpected, tragic passing of my brother Michael. I have more thoughts and feelings around this than I can hope to process here or anywhere, but suffice to say he was special, wildly important to me and my family, and while I’ve found a place for my grief over the passing years, I still get frustrated, furious, and sloppily sad whenever it occurs to me (almost daily, really) that I will never get to share anything new with him ever again, and that he won’t be there to comfort me when the other inevitable tragedies of time befall me and the rest of my family. And while I was writing this post, this song came up on my iTunes. It’s a song that made me think of my siblings–for obvious reasons–from the first time I ever heard it, and I insisted it be played at his funeral as my way of saying goodbye. It’s called “Orange Sky” by Alexi Murdoch and I only recommend clicking if you’re in the mood to weep.

Infinite Midlife Crisis

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If I were to try and trace the beginnings of my midlife crisis–such as it’s been–I imagine I could source its origins back to early 2008, when I was deeply unemployed and desperately depressed enough to seek help via a depression study I heard about in a radio ad. I’d been in a deep funk for months, the kind of constant emotional turmoil and pain that was reminiscent of the darkest depths of heartbreak I’d experienced at the crash-and-burn of romantic entanglements, or the bleak apocalyptic despair that inexplicably overwhelmed me during my first semester at college, when my personal uncertainties about the future manifested in the certainty that mankind as a species was doomed. A chronic self-medicator, I’d eschewed therapy and prescribed chemical assistance for the depression that had been my bane for most of my existence, from at least adolescence onward.

That depression, which the octogenarian head of the study would later refer to as “profound,” consisted of some fairly straightforward talk-therapy sessions, some very “Parallax View” computer memory tests, a little bit of cognitive conditioning, one of the scariest blood draws I ever experienced in my life (the slightly daffy, possibly incompetent nurse couldn’t seem to locate any of my admittedly pale veins, and I doubt GPS tracking would have helped her), and the administration of a drug that may or may not have been akin to Lexapro. It was a blind study, and of course no one could tell me if I was in the control group or the experimental group, so I had to take it on faith that I was actually getting help in that regard. I drew my own conclusions when, within two weeks, I started to feel like a human being and not a shambling meatbag full of simmering anxiety, swampy self-pity, bitter resentments and societal rage all swirling in my personal shame spiral.

Equally important, my wife noticed too, which was fantastic because my moods were not exactly contributing to harmony in the homestead, as you can imagine. Our son was a toddler at the time and my inner lethargy and emotional muck-wallowing meant I could barely see past the tip of my dick, much less offer any meaningful parental assistance. So in the nick of time, and while I had the time, thanks to unemployment, I took some action–mildly absurd action, it felt at the time, but at least a research study seemed like an interesting thing to do–and managed to rescue myself from ennui and maybe oblivion in the bargain.

There were still plenty of challenges to come–shitty jobs and worse bosses (but at least I was working again), personal setbacks, life shit, plus while things got easier at home, they didn’t suddenly become perfect. Magic pills they may have seemed, but even magic takes effort to keep working. I’ve remained on medication ever since, and fortunately I react well to what I’m on–no noticeable side effects and no recurrence of major depression, which is a big deal considering that in those early years I was still augmenting the meds with alcohol and drugs, self-medicating my mid-life away.

I suppose phase two of this crisis made itself known in earnest around 2010, when I was deep into popping a constant stream of unprescribed (at least to me) painkillers while simultaneously rekindling my long-shelved love of funnybooks. I’ve written a bit about this before, but I blame Ed Brubaker, particularly his Sleeper, Incognito and Captain America, in re-igniting this fire, to the degree that I began reworking a straightforward but stagnating (and still not quite finished) scifi novel I was writing into a superhero-stuffed opus involving Nazi scientists, atomic-powered sex goddesses, human-ape hybrids, ultrasecret agents and all manner of mid-20th-century craziness (gimme a couple more years and a few more books in between and I promise you it’s on its way).

The drug and alcohol abuse went the way of the dinosaur, but the reborn passion for comics didn’t. Good timing, too, because somewhere in there my wife bought me a Kindle and I discovered the joys of comixology and digital comics in general (if you’re a Luddite print-freak who takes issue with this, I respect that, but I still selectively collect when I can, and I only got so much shelf space). Not to mention the fact that Marvel’s complete takeover of Summer blockbuster cinema also coincided with all this, and suddenly my deep middle ages are a pretty incredible time to be a fan of well-made escapist entertainment.

Don’t get me wrong–I still enjoy serious grounded arthouse drama onscreen and on the tube and on the printed or computerized page–but if I have to be honest, 40-something me seems to crave, desire and appreciate the indulgent fun of alternate realities and costumed crusades more than adolescent me ever did. Which makes sense, seeing as I’m more or less the same age as a lot of my favorite creators of this material.

I’m also fortunate that, in creating and publishing my own superhero-centric fiction, I’ve discovered a whole vast narrative prose subgenre, much of it of great quality and sophistication. From Austin Grossman’s “Soon I Will Be Invincible” to Mike Leon’s “Kill Kill Kill” to Casey Glander’s Gailsone series and on and on, there is just a wealth of this stuff to be found on Amazon and elsewhere at very affordable prices and it’s a shit-ton of quick-reading fun that covers a lot of ground, from balls-out satire to sharply human drama to blood-soaked action.

And then there’s TV. I mean, seriously, just between Arrow and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. alone it is truly a great time to be a fan of this stuff, weekly doses of genuine comic book awesomeness beamed straight into my eyes for free! And if you’re a true Marvel fan who checked out on S.H.I.E.L.D. in the early, pre-Winter Soldier portion of its first season, I strongly urge you to give it another shot because not only did it come screaming to life after that shot in the arm in the back half of last season, it’s come roaring out of the gate in season two with a kind of confidence in its characters and storytelling that makes it seem like everyone on staff over there started taking the creative equivalent of supersoldier serum over the Summer. Seriously, last year Arrow was my favorite piece of pure entertainment on the idiot box, but so far this year S.H.I.E.L.D. is just crushing everything in its storytelling path. But I digress.

I guess my point, if I have one, is that there are certainly worse ways to “suffer” a midlife crisis. My life is better than it’s ever been. I’m writing, I’m creating, I’m being a better husband and father than I ever thought I could, and in between, I spend a lot more time with superheroes than I do with drug dealers.

So my Bukowski and Hunter Thompson-worshipping/emulating days are behind me. I’m not going to buy a Harley, have a tawdry affair, go on a wild bender, quit my job and run off to an ashram. Or at least, I won’t as long as I can keep getting my superhero fix.

PUBLIC CITIZEN

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Detroit, Michigan Early December, 1956

He came awake in darkness, the sounds of street life and the neon flicker interrupting another one of his dreams. Dream, hell, he thought, another nightmare. But he felt vaguely human now, still tired but not the same bone-deep exhaustion that brought him here. 

He dragged himself to the bathroom down the hall and splashed water on his face, badly in need of a shave now. Strange to see. Even during the war, he had to take the razor to his cheeks everyday. Part of the image. Five o’clock shadow just didn’t fit with the steadfast superman. Ragged glory was okay for the enlisted men, but General Public had to project a magazine-ready picture of stoic male perfection at all times. 

His eyes were bloodshot and faraway, looking inward at the pictures of his action-packed past, all those mental images that looked like adventure to everyone but him. To him, it was just endless fear and anxiety stretching back as far as memory would walk him. But as he stood there in his sweat-gray undershirt, shy of the costume that had consumed his identity for so long, he gave his shoulders a shrug and could feel the new lightness, the freedom that came with laying down a heavy burden. 

He dressed in the clothes he’d stolen off a Chicago clothesline–just a simple plaid workshirt and chinos–and the hobnail boots he’d taken off a sleeping hobo on the freight train and made his way downstairs, passing the man behind the bullet-proof front desk glass.

“You leaving? You owe me two more nights, pal!”

“Just going out for dinner.”

“Yeah, well, much as I hate to cut into your liquor fund, how ‘bout you pay up first?”

Brock straightened to his full height, squared his shoulders, and gave the man the same look that froze Rudolf Hess in his tracks when he and Buck Private brought down his plane over Scotland. The desk man’s inert expression didn’t change, but Brock detected the motion of his hand clenching around something out of sight. A revolver? A bat? An axe-handle? No matter. Brock turned up one corner of his mouth and shook his head ever-so-slightly, his signature “Don’t even think about it” look. Worked like a charm. He may have ditched the persona, but General Public was still inside him. He wasn’t sure how to feel about that, but he was willing to work it.

The desk man relaxed and turned his full attention back to his crossword puzzle. “Enjoy your ‘meal.’”

Brock relaxed too, shrinking back into the shape of a solid citizen, just another regular Joe. 

As he headed for the street, the desk man called after him. “Hang on a second, mister!”

Brock tensed, ready for trouble, if there was going to be any. 

“What’s a seven letter word for ‘freedom from tyranny’? Last letter’s a ‘y.’”

“Liberty,” Brock said without hesitation.

The desk man counted silently on his fingers, nodded.
“Liberty it is.”

As the desk man put pencil to paper, Brock turned and walked out into the cold night of a strange town.

 

Brock found a greasy spoon half a block from the flophouse and figured he had enough pocket change–also lifted off his sleeping hobo friend–to afford a cup of coffee and the pork chop special, which turned out to be decidedly less special than advertised. Still, it was the first food he’d put in his belly since Chicago, and for that alone he was grateful. 

In spite of his disheveled appearance, he was easily the most normal-looking patron in the place. The rest were an assortment of late-night street life types, probably a few fellow flophouse guests, a couple of streetwalkers and their “management,” and a guy slumped in the far corner booth who could easily have been that poor disenfranchised gent from the train, but more than likely just wore the same standard-issue hobo uniform. Either way, he took no notice of Brock, lost in a private reverie that almost definitely included memories as bleak and strong as Brock’s own, and nearly as bitter as this joint’s awful coffee.

He didn’t know if it was boredom or if he really just looked that much better by comparison, but the waitress took a special interest in him almost from the moment he sat down.

“You’re not one of my regulars,” she said, pouring him a refill that had to be at least his sixth.

“Just passing through,” he said, and tried his damnedest to smile.

“On your way up, or down?” she asked, and he found himself enjoying her brutal frankness.

“Too early to call,” he replied, smiling for real this time.

“Well, it ain’t gettin’ any earlier.”

She wasn’t exactly pretty, but she had an offhand, seen-better-days sexiness about her, the sort who didn’t seem to mind that life hadn’t exactly served her up its most generous portions, or at least wasn’t going to let you know if she did.

 

On the way up to his room, the desk man cleared his throat and jerked a thumb at the sign behind him: 

NO GUESTS AFTER 10 PM.

“I’m his sister,” Dinah the waitress said.

“Well, Romeo here owes me four and half bucks, sister.”

She slapped a five on the counter and pushed it toward the desk man. “Family takes care of its own,” she said.

“Well, for half a saw, I hope he takes care a ya real good,” the desk man sneered, until he caught Brock giving him the look again.

“Keep the change,” she said, grabbing Brock by the bicep–which she gave an admiring squeeze, purring low in her throat– and leading him toward the stairs.

The desk man started whistling and it took Brock until they reached the landing to call the tune: “Just a Gigolo.”

Once she got him upstairs, she made sure she got what she paid for. Now he knew how the ladies felt, rented by the hour. Still, it was a relief. He thought sure he’d be paying her.

 

She didn’t leave right away, even though he got the idea that she wanted to. In a strange way, she reminded him of the army nurses, the ones who saw the wounds in your eyes before they noticed the ones in your flesh. He sensed that it didn’t come naturally to her, this nurturing thing, but she could tell he needed someone just to be there for a little while, and with an inward sigh, she bit the bullet and stayed.

She kept herself interested marveling at his musculature, and fetishizing his scar tissue, caressing every bulge and ripple, lightly touching and tickling every starfish-shaped bullet entry point, jagged knife wound, and miniature railroad line of battlefield surgical repair. The fleshy topographic map of his Euro-Asiatic world tour of pain.

“So, what’s a nice girl like you doing in a shitbox like this?” she asked him finally, taking the cigarette they were sharing from his lips and inhaling a lungful.

“Reinventing myself,” Brock said. It was a mildly diverting game, telling the truth without giving anything away.

“You looking for work?”

It hadn’t even crossed Brock’s mind yet, oddly enough. He’d known where his paychecks were coming from for nearly two decades now, and even though he was stone broke, where the next wad originated wasn’t yet among his concerns.

“Guess I am.”

“What can you do? Big strapping guy like you, I’m guessing it ain’t gonna be poetry or folk songs.”

“I’ve done a lot of work with my hands.”

“Auto industry’s always hiring. Nice cushy union gig. A year or so on the assembly line, you could buy yourself a sweet little house, wife, kids, maybe even a dog. The whole American dream.”

“I guess I could do worse.”

“My husband’s got a cousin, union shop steward over at Vanderbuilt ‘Motives. I bet he could fix you up.”

Brock gave her a hard look. “Husband?”

“Oh c’mon,” she pressed into him, her fingers tracing the old, appropriately lightning-strike-shaped wound from Die Ubermensch’s blitz-rifle just below his left ribcage. “Like you care.”

The fact was, he did care. He didn’t want to think he was the kind of man who played other men for fools, or consorted with spoken-for women. But as she moved back into him, he didn’t have the will to push her away. Who was he to say no? After all, she’d paid for it.