Like everyone else, I snatched time away from family during these last days to indulge in the fannish goodness that is yuletide, with its multitude of fanfic in rare fandoms. Here are my favourites so far, with the caveat that I've still a lot to read:


American Gothic:

Visiting Hours. Matt only gets one visitor. Short, and with perfect Dr. Crower and Lucas Buck voices.

Blade Runner:

Pride Goeth Before. Roy Batty, from the moment of his awakening. Blade Runner is probably my favourite Sci Fi movie, and this captures its noir, William Blakeish heart perfectly.

Carnivale:

Of Present Sorrows and Two-Sided Coins. Iris Crowe post season 2. This one is a crossover with Sandman, and the Endless Iris meets are perfectly chosen, but even if you've never read Sandman in your life and don't intend to, you should read this for its superb Iris characterisation and the evocation of Russia.

Dexter:

Use Your Illusion, too. Deb after the season finale, coping, or not. I was pleased as punch there were four Dexter stories at Yuletide, and this one is my favourite.

Brother's Keeper. This one tackles Harry the well-meaning and slightly chilling manipulator, with teenage Deb this time instead of Dexter. As with the Harry flashbacks on the show, you never can decide whether he's a brilliant or a ever so screwed up father, or both.

Indiana Jones:

Indiana Jones and the Chinatown Ghosts. This one does what Wrath of Khan does with Kirk: confront the icon with his aging and mortality and makes the guy emotionally real this way. Indy post -WWII meets up with some old aquaintances. Bonus points for the Young Indiana Jones tie-in (the lost eye which Old!Indy sports in the tv show).

Isaac Asimov

The Conscientious Objectors. Two of the great attractions of Asimov's robot stories, to me: no-nonsense, not-pretty, tough and intelligent robot psychologist Susan Calvin and robots which are never the man-killing clichés which drove Asimov to invent the Three Laws to begin with. (Insert mini rant about dreadful Will Smith movie here.) This story captures both perfectly, and manages to make a pointed comment on our present as well.

Hostage Negotiations. Why Susan Calvin likes robots better than humans. Another great take on Dr. Calvin.


American Gods:

The Goal is the Thing. Loki, before and during the novel. Great use of both mythology and Gaiman's interpretation.

Sandman:

An Awfully Deep Well. Portraits of all seven Endless, poetic and fitting.

Darkness and Beauty of Stars was on my Mouth. The Corinthian, both versions. How long before someone writes a Dexter/Sandman crossover featuring the Corinthian, I wonder? Meanwhile, read this awesome take on him.

Supreme Power

So Truly Parallel. Nighthawk and Hyperion. If you think Batman is fucked up and Superman could/should be, try the Marvelverse versions written by JMS. This story captures both wonderfully well. With a great punchline.

Ring Cycle by Richard Wagner

Wayfarer's Daughter. Brünnhild, specifically Wagner's interpretation of her, with a great and chilling twist on the salvation-through-love idea.

Visiting my local comic store, I wasn't surprised Astonishing X-Men #12 hadn't arrived yet (it usually takes a month), but I got my hands on Supreme Power #13 and #14, which means my waiting time till November when the trade collection is available will be shorter. To recapitulate: Supreme Power is, imo, the best thing JMS wrote (and still is writing) since Babylon 5. It revived an old Marvel project, taking certain DC archetypes - Superman, Batman, the Flash etc - and giving them a twist. Considering I read much unhappiness with the present state of the comicverse Batman franchise and Superman franchise in ljworld, I feel obliged to point out that what JMS did with these archetypes is fascinating and respectful and three-dimensional all the way through.

Earlier on, I was reminded of that classic, Watchmen, with the "how would the "real" world react to superheroes" premise, though not in the sense of JMS just doing a Moore imitation. In the two issues I read most recently, I've begun to wonder whether he's not engaged in an (creative) argument with Frank Miller, specifically with the depiction of Superman and Batman in The Dark Knight Returns. Because the encounters between Mark Milton/Hyperion (the Superman equivalent) and Nighthawk (the Batman equivalent) sound like counterpoints and antiversions to those between Batman and Superman in The Dark Knight Returns. JMS basically deconstructs both Batman's and Miller's central argument, Superman as an agent of the system and Batman as the true, lone and uncorrupted superhero fighting the fight as it ought to be. ( Who watches the watchmen? )

Prepare for more JMS gushing, for the comic store owner who got me the Spiderman trades also threw Supreme Power in for good measure. Which is where Our Man Joe lets it rip with the politics and the paranoia and the darkness.

A part of the basic concept - the "what would our world realistically react to superheroes, and superheroes to the world?" part - owes something to Watchmen by Alan Moore. (Which post-Watchmen take on the superhero genre doesn't?) Moore's conclusion was that the superheroes would either be employed as tools for the government, be forced to retire, or work as vigilantes as hunted as the criminals they go up against. Or... but that would spoil everyone who hasn't read Watchmen yet. Anyway - Supreme Power has a similar premise, with the difference that the superheroes here are clear analalogues to the most famous stars of the DC universe - Superman, Batman, etc. Which makes the JMS variation so deliciously subversive. While he's at it, he also tackles that vexed conumdrum: how do you create sympathy for Superman in today's reader, when the guy is basically invulnerable and undefeatable, and the boyscout to Batman's messed-up antihero? Hint: the solution does not involve Lana Lang. Or Lex Luthor.

( Well... )

Next to this brilliant twist on the Superman myth, the thing I admire most about Supreme Power is that JMS, while busy reimagining archetypes, sees no reason to keep them all white just because they were in their decades-old origin. Making the Batman analogue black and his youthful trauma, the loss of his parents, a racist hate-crime has a different and deeper emotional resonance than the mugging-gone-wrong origin story of Batman has today. (Incidentally, Nighthawk reminded me as much of Moore's Rohrschach as he did of Batman.) The Flash equivalent ("The Blur") being discovered by agents of the non-FBI kind takes up another theme from Watchmen - superheroes being obvious candidates for sponsoring and product placement - but also has associations of the exploitation of black athletes. I'm not a comic book expert, so I might miss something, but I can't think of a another example that uses the superhero concept to explore racial tensions in today's world.

Lastly: while you can tell that JMS is no fan of Bush Senior (or Junior, if his posts are anything to go by), he's even-handed with his Presidents. Carter and Clinton don't behave any differently in regards to Mark/Hyperion than Reagan and Bush do. None of them however are caricatures the way Nixon is in Watchmen. (Otoh, Nixon... must be really hard to resist temptation there if you're writing in the early 80s.) (Unless you take Reagan, but I thought Moore's idea that Nixon, armed with superhero help, would have survived Watergate, changed the constitution and gotten himself reelected into infinity was more frightening.) And you can even see a bit of their pov - what does one do, after all, with a powerful alien whose potential for havoc can't be measured? Still, their solution emphasizes the John Le Carré interpretation of the world: no moral difference anymore as far any government, Western or Eastern, is concerned.