Lucifer (Mike Carey)
Jul. 17th, 2006 01:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakOnly very vague spoilers, basically just about the premise of the series; more detailed spoilers for Sandman
Recently, I read the last issue of Lucifer. Which makes it possible to look back on the series, I guess. It's the only one of the Sandman spin-offs going for a similar epic scope and succeeding, and managing the same kind of huge ensemble, various plot threads, etc. I loved many of the characters, and I think the conclusion for the various survivors was satisfactory.
But.
There is one reason why I never loved the series itself in the same way. To wit, the main character. Now, Mike Carey avoided the big mistake of making Lucifer into a misunderstood woobie (shall we call this the Lestat option?). But his Lucifer is static, and nowhere was that more glaringly apparent than in the last issue, good as it was, in the flashback that repeated the crucial Lucifer-quits-hell scene from Seasons of Mist. Lucifer there and at the start of the spin-off, The Morningstar Option, is exactly the same character he is at the end of the very last issue.
In Sandman, part of Dream's tragedy isn't that he doesn't change, but that he does and that he can't accept that, at least not while still being Morpheus. The man - err, eternal being - who frees Calliope and tells her captor that it is a poor thing to imprison someone is not the same man who condemmed Nada to thousands of years of hell for rejecting him; his own 70-something years as a prisoner have affected him. Meanwhile, Carey's Lucifer goes through some fundamental experiences himself, but as I said - he's exactly the same character afterwards.
And then there is the question of letting your main character have flaws and weaknesses. Letting him be in the wrong some time. I remember Gaiman mentioning somewhere that at least part of the origin for Sandman was that talking about Superman, some comic writers said it was impossible to write a (nearly) all-powerful being and make him interesting to the reader. (Hence Kryptonite and amnesia stories etc, I guess.) Which he took as a challenge to write a nearly all-powerful being and make him interesting. This works, among other reasons, because Dream isn't always right. Starting with the last chapter of Preludes and Nocturnes, the famous first appearance of Death in The Sound of her Wings, you have other characters pointing out in no uncertain terms he can be a prat. Flashbacks fills us in Dream having the romantic backstory from, no pun intended, hell, and this seems to be mostly Dream's fault. He absolutely can't deal with rejection, full stop, not just in the romantic sense, as his son Orpheus finds out. And his callous treatment of Lyta Hall is perhaps the ultimate example of arrogance creating its own nemesis. (Though in that case there is always the question mark of how much of it was intentional, given the outcome.)
Meanwhile, there are very few times in Lucifer when Lucifer actually loses, and when he does, he usually has a back-up plan. The narrative usually supports his point of view. If opposing points of view, such as Mazikeen's in the question as to whether the Lillim should be given the right to settle in Lucifer's dimension, are given weight, events still resolve in such a way that Lucifer wins. I remember reading The Morningstar Option and wondering whether the tricked Rachel would end up becoming Lucifer's nemesis in a similar way to Lyta becoming Dream's, but no, not only was this not true for Rachel, but the only opponent which can be said to have been partly created by oversights/actions of Lucifer's, the Balsamo's, the only one managing to really bring him down for a (brief) period, is a collective entity clearly presented as hissable in the extreme.
Michael, a positive character who for a long time does hold alternate view points, is however clearly presented as a tragically deluded idealist. Carey doesn't let him win one single argument with Lucifer.
Now I don't know what arc I wanted Lucifer to have. Not a replication of Dream's, of course. But he was the main character of his series, and I want main characters to have some vulnerabilities, be affected either negatively or positively by losses their suffer, and to change in the course of their story. Which did not happen here.
And here's an irony for you: compare the staticness of Lucifer in Lucifer as exemplified in the last issue during his final meeting with God with his last appearance in Seasons of Mist, after he has quit Hell. That short sequence with him on a beach. "Allright, you old bastard, I admit it. The sunsets are magnificent." That, in one sentence and in a story where Lucifer is a minor character, is character development (and relationship development as far as his with God is concerned) he did not get in all the 75 isuses of his own series.
Recently, I read the last issue of Lucifer. Which makes it possible to look back on the series, I guess. It's the only one of the Sandman spin-offs going for a similar epic scope and succeeding, and managing the same kind of huge ensemble, various plot threads, etc. I loved many of the characters, and I think the conclusion for the various survivors was satisfactory.
But.
There is one reason why I never loved the series itself in the same way. To wit, the main character. Now, Mike Carey avoided the big mistake of making Lucifer into a misunderstood woobie (shall we call this the Lestat option?). But his Lucifer is static, and nowhere was that more glaringly apparent than in the last issue, good as it was, in the flashback that repeated the crucial Lucifer-quits-hell scene from Seasons of Mist. Lucifer there and at the start of the spin-off, The Morningstar Option, is exactly the same character he is at the end of the very last issue.
In Sandman, part of Dream's tragedy isn't that he doesn't change, but that he does and that he can't accept that, at least not while still being Morpheus. The man - err, eternal being - who frees Calliope and tells her captor that it is a poor thing to imprison someone is not the same man who condemmed Nada to thousands of years of hell for rejecting him; his own 70-something years as a prisoner have affected him. Meanwhile, Carey's Lucifer goes through some fundamental experiences himself, but as I said - he's exactly the same character afterwards.
And then there is the question of letting your main character have flaws and weaknesses. Letting him be in the wrong some time. I remember Gaiman mentioning somewhere that at least part of the origin for Sandman was that talking about Superman, some comic writers said it was impossible to write a (nearly) all-powerful being and make him interesting to the reader. (Hence Kryptonite and amnesia stories etc, I guess.) Which he took as a challenge to write a nearly all-powerful being and make him interesting. This works, among other reasons, because Dream isn't always right. Starting with the last chapter of Preludes and Nocturnes, the famous first appearance of Death in The Sound of her Wings, you have other characters pointing out in no uncertain terms he can be a prat. Flashbacks fills us in Dream having the romantic backstory from, no pun intended, hell, and this seems to be mostly Dream's fault. He absolutely can't deal with rejection, full stop, not just in the romantic sense, as his son Orpheus finds out. And his callous treatment of Lyta Hall is perhaps the ultimate example of arrogance creating its own nemesis. (Though in that case there is always the question mark of how much of it was intentional, given the outcome.)
Meanwhile, there are very few times in Lucifer when Lucifer actually loses, and when he does, he usually has a back-up plan. The narrative usually supports his point of view. If opposing points of view, such as Mazikeen's in the question as to whether the Lillim should be given the right to settle in Lucifer's dimension, are given weight, events still resolve in such a way that Lucifer wins. I remember reading The Morningstar Option and wondering whether the tricked Rachel would end up becoming Lucifer's nemesis in a similar way to Lyta becoming Dream's, but no, not only was this not true for Rachel, but the only opponent which can be said to have been partly created by oversights/actions of Lucifer's, the Balsamo's, the only one managing to really bring him down for a (brief) period, is a collective entity clearly presented as hissable in the extreme.
Michael, a positive character who for a long time does hold alternate view points, is however clearly presented as a tragically deluded idealist. Carey doesn't let him win one single argument with Lucifer.
Now I don't know what arc I wanted Lucifer to have. Not a replication of Dream's, of course. But he was the main character of his series, and I want main characters to have some vulnerabilities, be affected either negatively or positively by losses their suffer, and to change in the course of their story. Which did not happen here.
And here's an irony for you: compare the staticness of Lucifer in Lucifer as exemplified in the last issue during his final meeting with God with his last appearance in Seasons of Mist, after he has quit Hell. That short sequence with him on a beach. "Allright, you old bastard, I admit it. The sunsets are magnificent." That, in one sentence and in a story where Lucifer is a minor character, is character development (and relationship development as far as his with God is concerned) he did not get in all the 75 isuses of his own series.
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no subject
Date: 2006-07-17 04:36 pm (UTC)I rather liked Michael from a few appearances he made in the Spectre back before Hal Jordan took up the cowl which made his role in Lucifer disappointing. That series was also a good example of how the main protagonist doen't have to always have the upper hand.
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Date: 2006-07-17 04:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-17 06:00 pm (UTC)Personally, I don't have a problem with Lucifer kept as an invincible static character because it was obviously intentional to play him as that and have the supporting characters change instead. Which is why he spends most of the last thirty or so issues either off stage or just standing around making snarky comments. I dunno, I can see how that could be a problem but it worked for me.
It goes back to the thing that Gaiman said about how impossible it was to write a nearly all powerful being. Gaiman generally did it by not engaging Morpheus with physical fights, Carey did have Lucifer involved in physical fights but the attention was either on his minions and pawns who were in danger or else on how Lucifer would win and the payoff is stylish/clever the victory is. This allowed him to have characters run into real danger and indeed fail like the centaur woman from the Basanos arc while keeping Lucifer the invincible force of nature. Personally, I thought that quite a nice balance but that all comes down to personal choice, I guess. It's not that I think you're wrong in your complaints so much as I didn't mind.
One thing I would contend is that the narrative always backs him up. I think his ultimate pursuit for freedom is shown in quite a hollow light in the final issue because of how extreme his definition of freedom is and there's enough characters who get screwed over by him that he remains morally ambiguous. He's not challenged because noone is powerful enough to take him down not because he's in the right. Elaine's ghostly Dad and Jill's norse god boyfriend both have perfectly good grudges and the narrative clearly recognises that. Lucifer is judged far more harshly (and rightly so) by other characters than morpheus ever is. Among other things, Spera's claim that he mucked up the afterlife in his new realm is allowed to go uncontested.
Also I don't think lucifer is the same at the end of his series as he is in seasons of mist because at the end of seasons of mist, he was given up on his attempts of self determination and made his peace with god. Admittedly that changes straight away in the morningstar option but it's still a change.
Besides I'll argue that god ultimately beats him, even if Lucifer refuses to capitulate at the end.
no subject
Date: 2006-07-17 06:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-18 12:10 pm (UTC)Also I don't think lucifer is the same at the end of his series as he is in seasons of mist because at the end of seasons of mist, he was given up on his attempts of self determination and made his peace with god. Admittedly that changes straight away in the morningstar option but it's still a change.
Well, that was the point I was making, though perhaps I put it badly - he changes within Seasons of Mist but he does not from The Morningstar Option to All we need of Hell.
Though of course one can argue Gaiman needed him to change because both Lucifer and Destruction are counterparts to Dream - the kings who do quit their realms, which Dream can't do except through death - whereas Carey needed him static, with all the other characters changing, notably Elaine who is probably the heroine of the series in that sense. I can see that, and yet I still feel frustrated regarding Lucifer.
Thanks for the bibliography!
no subject
Date: 2006-07-18 12:47 pm (UTC)