I'm gonna throw around the thesaurus here and I know there's a risk of it looking like I'm trying to sound smarter than I am, but I really do live and breathe this kind of thing. I phrase things in the way I do hoping to make the ideas behind them easier to understand. Thanks in advance.
Full title:
An academic meditation on the Marvel Comics sliding timescale with regards to literary implications using the X-Men franchise as an exemplar
The "sliding timescale" used by Marvel comics is the use of occasional alterations to continuity to alter the dates of events in the main Marvel comics universe. It is what allows Spider-Man to still be in college even though the franchise has been running continuously since 1962. The choice to implement the sliding timescale was one almost certainly not motivated by any positive effect on the stories themselves but by the financial concern that upsetting the delicate status quo would lead to a loss in readership and thus money. My thesis is that this is a detriment to the stories themselves, and I'm going to use the X-Men franchise as indicative of this.
I take the stance that all forms of storytelling are parables, no matter authorial intent. Subtext can be read into any story weather it was intended or not.* A parable exists to convey a message about the teller's beliefs, to express an idea through elaborate metaphor. Thus, leaving the parable unfinished leaves the idea behind it unstated, as though a dictionary left out a few vital words to something's meaning. What this means to Marvel is that without conclusion, without the heroes being finally victorious, or finding retirement or even dying, the story is neutered of its center, the meaning that made it worthwhile in the first place.
The ultimate example of this, in my opinion, is the X-Men's core metaphor of mutants standing in for societal and racial minorities. Senator Kelly and the others who so hate and fear mutants are the Marvel stand-ins for the Nazis, the KKK, and all others who preach intolerance of those who are different. The X-Men and the Brotherhood, and their respective leaders, embody the possible reactions to this. Magneto is broken and disgusted with humanity after his experiences in a concentration camp. Unable to forgive, he rages at those whom he believes mistreated him, never realizing the frightening similarities in his beliefs and intent to those he so loathes. Xavier on the other hand chooses the path of peace and patience when confronted with a society that irrationally hates him. He has chosen to prove through action that mutantkind are entirely like "normal" humans in every way that matters.
It's a good set-up, pitting the opposing reactions to social injustice against each other with window-dressing of guys throwing buildings and punching giant robots. Given the proper follow-through the story could be a deep and engaging case for the implementation of changes that need to come about. But it's not. Charles and Eric have been going at it for longer than most of us have been alive. What the story so far has said is, "Racism is... and the proper reaction to racism is..." No conclusion. The story desperately wants to decry institutionalized injustice in all its forms, but by never ending, by never giving the side that represents justice true victory, the sliding timescale (resultant of the perpetual nature of Marvel's storytelling) leaves the idea unfinished, the parable incomplete, the whole tangled mess meaningless. Worse, by giving the heroes frequent but empty victories the story claims that injustice cannot be defeated, that both sides are morally equal. Followed to its logical conclusion, a story that should have been a rousing call to change the world instead claims that inequity and hate are equal to fairness and forgiveness, the whole point of the story is corrupted to say that effectively there is NO morality to speak of that is any better than any other.
I understand why Marvel does it, and I obviously care enough about their works to think about them and write this essay, but they're artistically crippling themselves with their unbreakable attachment to the status quo. Costumed heroes are the most obvious parables for good and evil I can think of, but without endings they deny that good and evil even exist and deconstruct everything they set out to say. I love Marvel and DC and all good hero stories, and that's why I want them to be all that they could have been, all that they were meant to be.
*This is itself so central to my thesis and such a potentially controversial statement that it could justify it's own, much longer essay. But I'm afraid you can either accept this or you can't and it would not do to belabor the point here trying to convince those who cannot be convinced.
Full title:
The "sliding timescale" used by Marvel comics is the use of occasional alterations to continuity to alter the dates of events in the main Marvel comics universe. It is what allows Spider-Man to still be in college even though the franchise has been running continuously since 1962. The choice to implement the sliding timescale was one almost certainly not motivated by any positive effect on the stories themselves but by the financial concern that upsetting the delicate status quo would lead to a loss in readership and thus money. My thesis is that this is a detriment to the stories themselves, and I'm going to use the X-Men franchise as indicative of this.
I take the stance that all forms of storytelling are parables, no matter authorial intent. Subtext can be read into any story weather it was intended or not.* A parable exists to convey a message about the teller's beliefs, to express an idea through elaborate metaphor. Thus, leaving the parable unfinished leaves the idea behind it unstated, as though a dictionary left out a few vital words to something's meaning. What this means to Marvel is that without conclusion, without the heroes being finally victorious, or finding retirement or even dying, the story is neutered of its center, the meaning that made it worthwhile in the first place.
The ultimate example of this, in my opinion, is the X-Men's core metaphor of mutants standing in for societal and racial minorities. Senator Kelly and the others who so hate and fear mutants are the Marvel stand-ins for the Nazis, the KKK, and all others who preach intolerance of those who are different. The X-Men and the Brotherhood, and their respective leaders, embody the possible reactions to this. Magneto is broken and disgusted with humanity after his experiences in a concentration camp. Unable to forgive, he rages at those whom he believes mistreated him, never realizing the frightening similarities in his beliefs and intent to those he so loathes. Xavier on the other hand chooses the path of peace and patience when confronted with a society that irrationally hates him. He has chosen to prove through action that mutantkind are entirely like "normal" humans in every way that matters.
It's a good set-up, pitting the opposing reactions to social injustice against each other with window-dressing of guys throwing buildings and punching giant robots. Given the proper follow-through the story could be a deep and engaging case for the implementation of changes that need to come about. But it's not. Charles and Eric have been going at it for longer than most of us have been alive. What the story so far has said is, "Racism is... and the proper reaction to racism is..." No conclusion. The story desperately wants to decry institutionalized injustice in all its forms, but by never ending, by never giving the side that represents justice true victory, the sliding timescale (resultant of the perpetual nature of Marvel's storytelling) leaves the idea unfinished, the parable incomplete, the whole tangled mess meaningless. Worse, by giving the heroes frequent but empty victories the story claims that injustice cannot be defeated, that both sides are morally equal. Followed to its logical conclusion, a story that should have been a rousing call to change the world instead claims that inequity and hate are equal to fairness and forgiveness, the whole point of the story is corrupted to say that effectively there is NO morality to speak of that is any better than any other.
I understand why Marvel does it, and I obviously care enough about their works to think about them and write this essay, but they're artistically crippling themselves with their unbreakable attachment to the status quo. Costumed heroes are the most obvious parables for good and evil I can think of, but without endings they deny that good and evil even exist and deconstruct everything they set out to say. I love Marvel and DC and all good hero stories, and that's why I want them to be all that they could have been, all that they were meant to be.
*This is itself so central to my thesis and such a potentially controversial statement that it could justify it's own, much longer essay. But I'm afraid you can either accept this or you can't and it would not do to belabor the point here trying to convince those who cannot be convinced.
Thanks for reading.
Modern
Commander
Cube
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