My Wife: Finally Read Something By Warren Ellis

Hey hey hey! This comic was almost right up my alley.

That's gotta count for something!

Secret Avengers #16
Written by Warren Ellis
Art by Jamie McKelvie
Published by Marvel Comics

My take on the rules is this: if you're going to read a comic book, then you're implicitly agreeing to suspend your disbelief and say, "Okay, I'm in. I'm taking the ride." If you're not willing to do that, then come on--the idea of super heroes alone is going to send you right out the front door, right? There's no point at sitting down for poker and then making fun of the concept of playing cards. As readers, we have an unspoken, unwritten contract with the creators/companies/artists that says we are here to play along.

And since that's the agreement, I picked up this issue of Secret Avengers, and I was all in.  

You're in a city built a mile below Cincinnati? Of course you are!

The car you're driving in is somehow atomic? Absolutely! This makes perfect sense, and I have no problem with the concept. 

You engage on a logic and emotional level with a talking blue cat the size of a man? Hey, who wouldn't do the same, if the possibility presented itself.

And then, of course, there's the big conflict of the plot: the Von Doom field that will destroy the planet! (Or at least Cincinnati...)  Oh no! Oh no! Hey, Secret Avengers, do WHATEVER IT TAKES to handle the Von Doom Field!

I (we) never question any of this. We never stop to say, "now wait a second.....wait a second. How do you even turn on an atomic car without it blowing up?" Neither do we try to poke holes in the plausibility of ANY of the stuff about the Beast, who is a big blue talking cat. Why would we?

I don't have any problems with that part of the comic. I'm being a bit sarcastic in the way I present some of its major (and minor) points, but none of it bothered me. No, what bothered me showed up right in the middle of all the funny, pulpy, sorta cool/sorta crazy stuff, right in the middle of the good time I was having  riding the wave of fiction, when the dialogue turns to the subject of time machines.  

Let's all agree on something right now, at least so any potential review reader who happens to be kind of crazy goes away for a bit: in real life, there is no such thing as a time machine. Oh, I know - I wish they did too! Soooo much! I'm the descendent of a bunch of Jews who bailed for America with Nazis in the rearview: you think my people aren't thinking about time machines? We think about time machines all of the fucking time.

But they don't exist. We know they don't. That's part of the reasone they always show up in stories like this. You think would sit around and read about fax machines? There's no mystery to a fax machine. My mother threw a perfectly good fax machine away after the hospital she volunteers at told her they couldn't find a use for it: fax machines are boring as hell.

Now time machines--that's a topic for a fun story involving underground cities, talking blue cat men with senses of humor. Time machines can only amp up a story of this genre.

And yet, when we read about the topic of time machines, The Beast (our talking cat friend) decides to instruct everyone in the fact that they are an incredibly complex and dangerous weapon. Oh yes! How so?   How so, talking cat-beast, are fictional time machines incredibly complex and dangerous weapons? Well, because "a time machine is also a space machine. As we go forward in time, we move forward in space: the Earth moves around the sun..."  he goes on (and on, and on) to say, "So to go back in time on Earth, you have to also be sent to the postion your target was at that time in the past."

Hmmm. This seems very right and true and scientifically sound, I guess. Mmmm-hmmm. YES! Logic!  

Wait a second. LOGIC?

That's the problem.

In the midst of a fun, silly, fictional comic about the Secret Avengers plummeting below the earth's crust, one mile down to a whole other secret city built beneath Cincinnati to drive an atomic car (read: bomb) to deactivate a Von Doom field to keep the world from exploding, we the reader are suddenly burdened by made up logical explanations about made up things, and it's the reading equivalent of somebody taking the book you're enjoying out of your hands and forcing you to listen while they spell out the letters that are found in the words that make up the remainder of its sentences.

It's a buzz kill, and something tells me that the highest possible achievement a comic book like this is going for is to keep that buzz going on until the last page.

Seriously, ya'll, this irritated me. I was in the zone, you understand. My head was in the right place. This slick blond dude in his crazy suit is shooting his disc gun while this goofy British (Tucker said he isn't British, but that's got to be a mistake on his part) blue cat sputters and says "But I have paws" and everybody is so sexy and funny and crazy and it's set under Cincinnati and I even started thinking "Is this why I think Cincinnati is so uncool, because I've never imagined what exists under its surface" AND THEN: you start trying to make sense out of the nonsensical?

It breaks our contract. It destroys our agreement. It makes me think this comic was only sexy and cute and cool on accident, when what it was really supposed to be was about What If This Shit Was Real and that is so--god, that is so not fun at all. That is so much not interesting. I was loving being on board, and I buying whatever story you told. I didn't break my end of the deal. You did. You started poking holes in the plausibility of things, and then, well, I have to. I have to start thinking about time machines, and science, and then "is there enough oxygen underground for a city?" and "How did they build a mile below the earth without disturbing the surface" and "what exactly is a Von Doom field and how will it destroy anything?" Wah - wah. Game over. C'mon, comic book. You're way too short to win me back.

And all of a sudden, what was fun moments before is now totally unfun. I've not only lost interest, I feel complete disdain for the comic and how stupid it suddenly seemed, I feel mean, and I feel bad for feeling mean, and I wonder why the hell I showed up in the first place. And I'm saying that just to illustrate how only moments before I thought it was totally fun and creative, and that something in the writing caused me to turn on this comic book.  

I know it's not fair. Feelings are weird, right?

I'm kinda sad about that. Sad? Yeah, I'm sad. Sad enough that it took me several tries (and days. Weeks?) to write this review. The whole thing was just kind of a bummer. Ah well. Better luck next time, Mrs. Stone. 

-Nina Stone, 2011

Comments

[Rev'd '76]

If you don't enjoy the regular Ellis infodump, then you very well might not enjoy FREAKANGELS, but on the other hand it's pretty to look at and funny & sarcastic as hell and involves a bunch of teenagers (some without pants) trying to rebuild the world with steam engines & civil engineering & strawberries & lots of telepathy.

And there are six volumes of it, which places it in the frustratingly narrow category of Big Important Stories Warren Ellis Actually Finished... Beginning, middle, end & everything inbetween!

[dangermouse]

Oh man I have been trying for years to nail down what drives me insane about Ellis and this is it exactly

[rainer]

It's called "Verfremdungseffekt" which translates to "dick move that makes you think of the real world instead of just having fun".

[scab]

Hate to say it but atomic does not equal nuclear weapon. Using the decay of say americinium (in your smoke detector) or radium (in your walls, make-up, countertops, etc.) to produce propulsion would make an atomic car. You were taken out of the story because you know a little about time travel not because ellis suddenly introduced logic into the story. It was mixed in the stew from the get go.

[Lugh]

I don't think "A time machine has to move too or it's going to end up somewhere else since the Earth moves" is that big of a deal. It's an old chestnut that has been used all over the place in science fiction. I don't think it's been some sort of genre razzing hardcore logical revelation since the 60s.

[John Pontoon]

Ms. Stone, I actually liked the part of the story that you disliked and disliked the rest. The rest of the internet, though, is acting like Ellis's (now-)2 issues of this title are REAL GOOD. So, basically, you and I completely agree. Also, the last 2 commenters are trying to pick a fight with you, which is what cads do.

[nina]

HI ya'll! Thanks so much for reading.
Rev'd: Freakangels does sound kind of intriguing - at least by the way that you explain it! Maybe I'll check it out.

DangerMouse - that's hilarious! I"m glad to hear that I'm not the only one who's had this experience.

Rainer - for real?!?!?!? I freaking LOVE that there's a word for that. I "google translated it" with the result being: "alienation effect." PERFECT.

And Hey. Scab. Don't tell me what I think. That's weird.

Hi, Lugh. Its not really a big deal. In the comic, the explanation goes on for longer than that - and something about it, and its length, just derailed my fiction-joy-ride.

And hello, John Pontoon. Thanks for writing! I I like that we are both in the "I didn't like this comic book issue" club, even if its for different reasons. :)

Okay ya'll. I gotta go and finish reading Wonder Woman so I can get a new post up here. Thanks, again, for reading!

[John Pontoon]

Nina Stone, you are quite welcome! Funny you should mention writing, as it gives me a specious reason to mention that I am now (finally, inevitably) a comics blogger of articles such as this one:
http://www.chicagocomicvault.com/2011/10/our-underwear-4-didnt-you-read-1-where-i-said-why-it-wasnt-my-fault/

If you enjoy your husband's writing, you may enjoy mine. If your husband's writing makes you worried about his using his actual name, then I may have accidentaly written this to MY wife.

[John Pontoon]

Hey, Warren Ellis tells me that he doesn't read reviews, BUT, if you read the latest issue of Secret Avengers (which, by the way, has been FANTASTICALLY EXCELLENT for the last 5 or so issues, really!) it sure seems like he's addressing THIS VERY REVIEW by you, Ms. Stone. I'd love if you read it and gave your opinion on that. Toodles!