Avengers and Philosophy: Earth's Mightiest Thinkers, The

by White, Mark

  In the fifth panel, Weezie begins to explain things to a confused and exasperated Jen. Weezie was formerly the Blonde Phantom, a Golden Age comic book character published by Timely Comics from 1946 to 1949 (The Blonde Phantom was a real Golden Age comic, and Timely Comics eventually became Marvel Comics).8 She eventually retired from crimefighting and married her boss, detective Mark Mason. No longer appearing in a monthly comic, she and her husband began to age. After watching her husband die while other Timely Comics heroes such as Captain America and Namor the Submariner were revived, Weezie decides to manipulate events so that she will appear in Jen’s comic book and stop aging.

  The strategy works, and Weezie does not get any older. In fact, she even regains her youth in later issues! Weezie is, again, clearly aware of, and able to take advantage of, comic book conventions, including the fact that comic book characters typically do not age. Her presence in The Sensational She-Hulk also provides us with an opportunity to reflect on the development of mainstream superhero comics over the last eight decades. A particularly resonant example occurs later in this same issue. After Weezie asks why Jen’s clothing doesn’t rip in an immodest, inappropriate manner during battles, Jen shows Weezie the Comics Code label sewn into her chemise, reminding us that the industry-imposed self-censorship of the code did not exist when Weezie was appearing in her own comic.

  Don’t Make the She-Hulk Angry . . .

  Later issues of Byrne’s run on The Sensational She-Hulk contain additional strange metafictional twists and turns. Jen is able to travel between dimensions and is able to reappear after being erased from reality, by tearing the paper on which the comic is printed and stepping through the hole.9 She is able to recognize regions of deep space by noticing that Byrne has reused background art from an earlier issue.10 One of the most interesting metafictional stories, however, occurs in Byrne’s last issue on the book.

  Issue #50 (April 1993) begins with Renee, the editor of The Sensational She-Hulk, informing Jen that Byrne has died and that they need to select a new artist for the comic. Jen is then shown a handful of sample pages (depicted as full pages of the comic) in which a number of influential comics creators—Terry Austin, Howard Chaykin, Dave Gibbons, Adam Hughes, Howard Mackie, Frank Miller, Wendy Pini, and Walt Simonson—provide their own distinctive take on the character. Terry Austin’s contribution is particularly interesting: an inker who frequently collaborated with Byrne, he depicts Jen and a host of other characters in the style of E. C. Segar’s Thimble Theatre (Popeye) comic strip, complete with Wimpy, as Galactus, devouring the moon sandwiched within a huge hamburger bun. By depicting Jen and her cohort as Thimble Theatre characters, Austin forces us to confront the differences between monthly mainstream superhero comic books and daily newspaper comic strips. In particular, this page highlights the puzzling fact that newspaper comic strips are typically sillier than comic books, yet have traditionally been held in much higher cultural regard than mainstream superhero comics. Issue #50 concludes with Jen discovering Byrne tied up and locked in a closet. When Jen finally reads his new take on the comic—one that renames her Li’l She-Hulk and depicts her and her supporting cast as children—she tosses Byrne out of the window, ironically killing her “creator.”

  The Sensational She-Hulk only lasted ten issues after Byrne’s departure. Jen had to wait until 2004 to star in another solo title, but the wait was worth it. Lasting from 2004 to 2007, Dan Slott’s interpretation of the character in She-Hulk continued Byrne’s metafictional take on the Jade Giantess, although in a subtler vein. In Slott’s stories, Jen is able to use comic books bearing the Comics Code seal in the courtroom as legally admissible historical documents.11 One cover again shows Jen threatening to rip up your favorite comics if you don’t buy her book (but this time it’s Civil War variants and not X-Men comics).12 Running through all of this, Jen’s new job as a lawyer specializing in defending captured supervillains provides the backdrop for an extended parody of the conceits and conventions of superhero comic book storytelling.

  What Are the She-Hulk’s Powers?

  Reflecting on both Byrne’s and Slott’s takes on Jen’s solo adventures raises more questions. Did the weird, metafictional aspects of the Byrne and Slott stories really happen? If so, does Jen also have these metafictional powers when appearing in Avengers comics, and just choose not to use them? Or are Jen’s metafictional solo adventures merely imaginary stories, in a similar vein to Marvel’s long-running What If series of comics? Or perhaps are they merely delusions that Jen and Weezie share?

  We can put this question in slightly more precise terms. A work of fiction, such as a novel or comic, can be seen as a partial description of an imaginary or fictional world where things occur as they are depicted within the fiction. Most of the stories published by Marvel Comics intersect and overlap in complicated ways and are meant to be understood as describing a single, very complex fictional world—the Marvel Universe. Jen does not seem to possess any strange metafictional abilities when she appears in Avengers or in Fantastic Four, however, and in the few comics where she does display these traits either her behavior confuses other, non-“meta” characters, or she is depicted as being a bit crazy.13

  As a result, there are long-standing disputes regarding whether the She-Hulk stories we have discussed really happened, in the sense that they describe fictional events that occur in the same fictional universe as the events depicted in more traditional Avengers stories, or whether they are descriptions of some other fictional world (perhaps one that Jen imagines or is deluded into thinking she inhabits). As you would guess, the Internet age has only intensified these disagreements. Fortunately, we need not get bogged down in online fan forum discussions, since there is a more authoritative source to which we can turn: the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe.

  The original version of the Official Handbook was published in 1982, and numerous updated versions and addendums have been published since. The Official Handbook consists of detailed biographies and data for major and minor characters in the Marvel Universe, and relevant excerpts from this stand-alone reference work are often included as “bonus material” at the end of trade paperback reprint collections. If, as seems reasonable, we can treat the Official Handbook as the definitive source regarding what is and is not the case in the Marvel Universe, then we merely need to look up the entry for Jennifer Walters (actually, she is listed under She-Hulk) and consult the description of her powers and abilities.

  Actually, things are not that simple. New editions of the Official Handbook do not merely contain additional information that wasn’t available in previous editions. Indeed, facts in previous editions can turn out to no longer be facts in later editions through a process called retroactive continuity, or retconning, where later stories (often involving time travel or all-powerful cosmic beings) change facts about past stories, or at least our interpretation of them. Jen has been a victim of such retconning. In Uncanny X-Men #435 (December 2003), she is depicted as having sex with the Juggernaut, but it is later revealed that this was actually a Jen Walters doppelgänger from a parallel dimension.14 Nevertheless, while facts about what did or didn’t happen in the past might be changed by strange events in the future, resulting in revisions to the Official Handbook, presumably changes in what powers a particular character possesses at a particular point in time should not change. Or so one would think.

  If we consult the Official Handbook, it turns out that even this definitive source is less definitive than we might have hoped. Jen’s Official Handbook entry included in the May 2002 one-shot Thing and She-Hulk: The Long Night states that:

  At one point the She-Hulk and [Weezie] Mason shared the belief that they and those around them were characters in a comic book, but this delusion rarely detracted from the She-Hulk’s fighting ability, and she no longer seems to suffer from it.15

  Several years later, however, the Official Handbook entry for Jen included in 2008’s Marvel Encyclopedia: The Avengers contains the followi
ng information about her superpowers:

  She can swap physiques with other humans using Ovoid mind techniques, and seems to have the ability to sense extra-dimensional viewers observing her, a power similar to her cousin’s ability to see astral forms; Jen tends to downplay this last trait, as speaking to an unseen audience tends to unsettle those around her.

  This later description not only lists Jen’s metafictional self-awareness as one of her superpowers, but it also tries to legitimize it as a reasonable superpower within the constraints of the Marvel Universe by comparing it to the Incredible Hulk’s ability to perceive supernatural entities.

  Maybe Jen’s Reading This Chapter Right Now

  I won’t try to determine definitively whether Jen’s metafictional adventures really happened, although it does seem unlikely that a highly delusional woman could successfully balance a legal career and roles in both the Avengers and the Fantastic Four. I will point out, though, that the question is not merely a fanboyish worry about the details of Marvel continuity (not that there’s anything wrong with that!). The puzzle is more far-reaching. If the metafictional aspects of Jen’s solo adventures are imaginary or delusional, then this puts the reliability of metafiction, taken as an accurate record of what happens in the fictional world supposedly being described, in doubt. As a result, we will need to reevaluate the role that metafictional content plays in describing the fictional worlds that this sort of fiction purports to describe. Given the increasing frequency and importance of metafiction within comics and other art forms, including literature and film, this promises to have a profound impact on the way that we understand storytelling in general. More important, perhaps, it will have a profound impact on how we understand Jennifer Walters, the Sensational She-Hulk—and perhaps how she understands herself.16

  NOTES

  1. Patricia Waugh, Metafiction: The Theory and Practice of Self-Conscious Fiction (London: Routledge, 1982), 2.

  2. For a discussion of Deadpool’s metafictional adventures, see Joseph J. Darowski, “When You Know You’re Just a Comic Book Character,” in X-Men and Philosophy: Astonishing Insight and Uncanny Argument in the Mutant X-Verse, ed. Rebecca Housel and J. Jeremy Wisnewski (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2009), 107–123.

  3. For example, the question, “What is it that all artworks have in common that makes them art?”

  4. See, for example, Peter Kivy, Philosophies of Arts: An Essay in Differences (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997).

  5. See, for example, M. Thomas Inge, Anything Can Happen in a Comic Book: Centennial Reflections on an Art Form (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1995), and Roy T. Cook, “Comics Are Not Film: Metacomics and Medium-Specific Conventions,” in The Art of Comics: A Philosophical Approach, ed. Aaron Meskin and Roy T. Cook (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2012).

  6. Sensational She-Hulk #1 (May 1989), reprinted in Sensational She-Hulk (2011), which includes the first eight issues of the series.

  7. For an insightful discussion of the role of the gutter in comics, see Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art (New York: Harper, 1993), ch. 3.

  8. The Blonde Phantom #12–22 (December 1946–March 1949).

  9. Sensational She-Hulk #5 (September 1989) and #37 (March 1992).

  10. Sensational She-Hulk #40 (June 1992).

  11. She-Hulk, vol. 1, #2 (April 2004), reprinted in She-Hulk Vol. 1: Single Green Female (2004).

  12. The alternate cover to She-Hulk, vol. 2, #8 (May, 2006), reprinted in She-Hulk Vol. 4: Laws of Attraction (2007).

  13. For example, see Damage Control, vol. 2, #3 (January 1990).

  14. She-Hulk, vol. 2, #21 (September 2007), reprinted in She-Hulk Vol. 5: Planet Without a Hulk (2007).

  15. Thing and She-Hulk: The Long Night one-shot (May 2002), reprinted in The Thing: Freakshow (2005).

  16. Thanks go to Rob Callahan, Alice Leber-Cook, Stephen Nelson, and an audience at the University of Minnesota–Morris for helpful feedback on this material.

  Chapter 6

  THE SELF-CORRUPTION OF NORMAN OSBORN: A CAUTIONARY TALE

  Robert Powell

  It was arguably the gravest existential threat in the Marvel Universe: the Skrulls had launched one of the most sophisticated campaigns to fulfill their religious prophecy of conquering Earth. Using their shape-shifting abilities, they infiltrated our heroes’ world by replacing iconic and trusted heroes in preparation for a full-scale invasion. The ensuing battle for Earth would shape the status quo of the Marvel Universe for years to come.

  One of the many crippling effects of the Skrull invasion—aside from the broken bonds of trust and solidarity among the world’s heroes—was the complete failure and corruption of Earth’s protective institutions. In the aftermath of the Skrull invasion, S.H.I.E.L.D. was dismantled and Norman Osborn, the former Green Goblin, was given “the keys to the kingdom”: directorship over national security. He immediately transformed S.H.I.E.L.D. into H.A.M.M.E.R., consolidated an evil cabal of Machiavellian villains, and assembled his own Avengers team—the Dark Avengers—made up of replacements for real heroes like Wolverine and Spider-Man. As we’ll see in this chapter, Osborn’s “Dark Reign” is a cautionary tale with a philosophical lesson.

  Osborn’s Oratory and the Dark Reign

  Osborn’s rise to power mirrors some specific themes in Plato’s (429–347 BCE) dialogues featuring Socrates (469–399 BCE), his teacher, and Gorgias (485–380 BCE), an Athenian orator. Gorgias was one of the earliest Sophists, who developed a school of rhetoric concerned with persuasion, and whom Socrates criticized for neglecting the intrinsic value of truth in favor of the pursuit of self-interest.

  Socrates makes a critical distinction between craft (or art) and knack. The former is a genuine endeavor designed to produce something of value, whereas the latter is a mere simulation of a craft. Acts of sophistry, such as Gorgias’s rhetoric, corrupt the individual by limiting their capabilities to reach for the truth, and corrupt society by substituting a flimsy substitute for a true endeavor. Gorgias’s protégé Polus vehemently defends the sophistic enterprise, claiming that anyone would envy and admire Sophists with the power of persuasion that enabled them to imprison whomever they please and confiscate property. In Polus’s eyes, such a character represents the ideal Sophist and proves the value of this “art.” Socrates holds firm, however, noting that such Sophists are to be pitied rather than admired since they have no control over themselves and ultimately no power at all.

  Norman Osborn has much in common with Polus’s ideal Sophist. He not only uses his newfound position to further his own well-being at the cost of society at large, but he does so by subverting established heroic institutions like S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Avengers, substituting a facsimile for the “real thing.” Furthermore, both during and after the Skrull invasion, Osborn proves himself to be quite media savvy, favoring strategic use of rhetoric to disguise truth. His defense of the national capital is well timed and documented, and his shot that takes out the Skrull Queen is captured on camera minutes after Tony Stark has been observed leaving the battle scene to repair his suit—both of which secure Osborn’s rise to the head of H.A.M.M.E.R.1 It is noteworthy that, in keeping with the sophistic paradigm, it is never revealed throughout the entire Dark Reign what H.A.M.M.E.R. actually means. Nevertheless it carries the image of an organization responding to widespread anxiety and insecurity, and one that will stop at nothing in the name of security.

  Osborn’s first recruit to H.A.M.M.E.R. is Victoria Hand, a woman known in the highest ranks of S.H.I.E.L.D. for her criticism of Nick Fury’s “soft” policies. Hand is offered the position of deputy director and is given her first assignment by Osborn:

  I want to weed out the malcontents. I want an army of men and women ready to take back the world. And those who are not ready will be replaced. I want a full report on the fifty state initiative . . . I want you to take this Starktech Golden Goose of a Helicarrier and I want it scrapped . . . You use my designs. You put them i
nto full production. I want this red and gold out of sight.2

  Osborn plans to make his mark on the world in a territorial manner, vigilantly and jealously safeguarding his “kingdom” against any who dare to oppose him. To this end, he also assembles his Dark Avengers, including many villains placed in the roles of Avengers (such as Bullseye posing as Hawkeye) and some particularly volatile and unbalanced Avengers (such as Ares and the Sentry, respectively). Last and true to form, Osborn adapts some leftover Stark armor in a red, white, and blue motif, and christens himself the Iron Patriot.

  The Split Osborn Identity

  Osborn’s heavy reliance and perhaps dependence on the media creates a hollow simulacrum that he has trapped himself into maintaining while forgoing any form of self-cultivation. It is important to recall that his rise to power involved the theft of information or equipment from other heroes. In fact, much of his strategy in rising to power involved manipulating or corrupting structures that were already in place. In this regard, Osborn’s intentions and behavior mirror those of Alcibiades in Plato’s dialogue Alcibiades, which focuses on the importance of authenticity.