Martin Rees: Earth in its Final Century?

Art found here at Phys.org.


I experienced a synchronicity of sorts this past week.

Then again, it's probably not that much of a synchronicity when you read the sort of stuff I do and have a penchant for synthesis.

I saw this article--maybe more of a blub--in Forbes: "It's Official: The Transhuman Era Has Begun." It describes what transhuman technologies will be available in the next decade, such as biohacking and technological augmentation. What took me aback somewhat is the timeline of ten years. That does not mean the arrival of Kurzweil's Singularity, per se, but it seems we will definitely see the line between human and machine get a whole lot blurrier.

Then I saw an old TED talk by Sir Martin Rees. I've written about him long ago. Rees is the author of books such as  Our Cosmic Habitat. In that book he asks if what we see as the laws of the cosmos are actually more like local ordinances. How common is life in space? How credible is the Big Bang Theory? I know I've had challengers of the theory in the now-closed comments section here on ESE. Speaking of comments section, I'm really somewhat embarrassed by my comments in that previous link. Hope I'm not that way anymore

Rees also wrote a book called, Our Final Hour. It forms the basis for his TED Talk: "Is Earth in Its Final Century?" Rees, like many others who follow transhumanism, assert that we have entered the first century where humans can not only alter the planet but truly alter ourselves. Change ultradian cycles, and maybe even change solar cycles while we're at it. Rees considers what might happen as a result of "technological misadventure." An example may be "gray goo" as an unintended consequence of nanotechnology. He also warns of a scenario when someone who has the kind of mentality to program computer viruses gets a hold of something like nanotech or biohacking.

Or if not a rapscallion looking to launch a devastating prank, there is also the chance terrorists might exploit these new developments. Like many others, Rees has been warning of biowarfare for years. He points to  Aum Shinrikyo, the cult who launched that sarin gas attack on a Tokyo subway. Apparently, the cult tried getting an ebola sample, but failed. Now that sample could have been biohacked together in their lab on Mt. Fuji.

Well, what's the worst that could happen? Human extinction, says Rees. To either avoid or flee such a catastrophe, Rees posits that humanity will move out into space, colonizing nearby planets and beyond.

No shortage of writing on this subject, both fiction and nonfiction. One aspect of Rees' argument for space colonization troubles me and that is, simply, if we move out into space, we still take us with us. A few of our species may survive extinction, but human nature remains the same. Sure, we'd stay scared for a while, maybe even for years as we vow to "never let it happen again." Maybe it would stick. Somehow, I doubt it. That's probably just the cynic in me, but check out Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles sometime.

When I watch the news these days, it's a struggle for me not to see humanity as that very bioweapon Rees fears. Our moving outward into the universe would just be spreading that pathogen.

Here's the TED talk:




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Review--Black Panther

BLACK PANTHER
starring Chadwick Boseman, Michael B. Jordan, Lupita Nyong'o, Sterling K. Brown, Martin Freeman, Angela Bassett, Forest Whitaker, Andy Serkis, and Lyle Wagner as The Beav.

Wakanda is a highly advanced nation in the middle of Africa, hidden from the view of the rest of the world. T'Challa, the heir to the nation's throne, is also the superhero known as Black Panther. The aftermath of Captain America: Civil War still echoes in this film as T'Challa seeks to lead Wakanda and consider what...if any...role the nation will have on the world stage. But before anything can happen, he faces a challenger for the throne...someone with a past connected to Wakanda and a thirst for vengeance that cannot be slaked.

Just as I've been complaining about comic book movies, Black Panther comes along. This film may be the greatest achievement of the subgenre. It's more than just run together scenes of fighting, "cool technology", and characters tossing quips, although there is a modicum of all of those tropes. No, this is something that runs deeper and asks questions of all of us. Firstly, T'Challa is a character more apt to use his cunning and intelligence than his kung fu and gadgets, granting the character (just as he has on the written page) an air of nobility and maturity. More than that even, this film is a deep mediation on justice, facing truth, and moral imperatives. Most of this is achieved through the story's antagonist, Killmonger.

MANY SPOILERS AHEAD.

"Killmonger," as he is nicknamed, is actually the cousin of Black Panther. As such, he may challenge T'Challa for the throne of Wakanda (slight shades of Hamlet, perhaps). He is perhaps the most compelling of all the MCU enemies for the simple fact that though he plays the antagonist, many find themselves supporting him over Black Panther. Killmonger has been abandoned, denied, and cast out to fend for himself through no fault of his own. Also, he does have a strong philosophical argument. "If you hold the power to save someone, are you not obligated to do so?" Shouldn't Wakanda, resplendent with wealth and technology due to its access to the rare element Vibranium, serve to benefit the lives of all fellow African people?

Killmonger certainly thought so. In fact, the hashtag "#killmongerwasright" began trending soon after the film's release. So how is the audience kept from throwing down on Killmonger's side and not that the title character, the one they presumably paid money to see?

Through crafty writing.

Aside: That might be a marvelously experimental narrative. The title character and the assumption that he/she is the protagonist are all red herrings. The "bad guy" is really "the good guy" and goes on to be the focal point of the franchise. Now THAT would be a switcheroo. Might lose an audience with such narrative subterfuge, and I certainly doubt the suits in the business offices would ever go for it. Sure would be nifty as heck to experiment with it, though. But I digress...

Why do we stick with Black Panther? Well first of all, Killmonger is violent towards women. I'm not talking about his fight with the elite guards of Wakanda. That scene could be interpreted as trained warriors meeting on equal terms. No, there are times where Killmonger commits unprovoked or thoughtless acts of aggression against female characters. Does he even value women? The very question, plus his actions, renders his position untenable.

There is also the question of just how his intentions of "setting things right" have morphed. As he orders weapons and technology sent to people of African descent in many corners of the world, Killmonger says, "The sun will never set on the Wakandan empire." This clearly suggests that Killmonger no longer seeks justice. Instead, he wants control. This is somewhat natural in human nature. If you have been harmed and felt powerless, your broken spirit may yearn for the power to bring everything under your control, and make forever certain that no one could ever perpetrate such harm on you or anyone else ever again. We see this in the tragedy...however badly written and acted...of Anakin Skywalker. "Someday I will rule that none of this will ever happen again. To do that I must have complete control."

It is no longer justice at this point. It is merely another form of tyranny.

As is bound to happen in such a course of action, Killmonger is defeated, mortally wounded by Black Panther. In a scene drenched in pathos, we see Panther, aware of his people's role in Killmonger's suffering and remorseful for it, offers Killmonger mercy in the form of medical care and a life in Wakanda. Present in the character's interactions is their additional, shared experience of both men going through the loss of their fathers. Despite the offering, Killmonger smartly knows what Black Panther is really describing is life in a cage, and he chooses death, citing inspiration from captured Africans who threw themselves overboard from ships rather than become slaves. Better to face death on your terms than languish in someone else's vision.

But he remains a criminal.

Killmonger was right, but his methods were wrong. His anger and hatred were justified, but he allowed them to reach critical mass and take him beyond the scope of his original mission.

This film is truly an achievement. I'm glad I finally saw it.
  

Follow me on Twitter: @Jntweets

Your chance to live in a UFO

Photo is from The Guardian.


If ever there were an architectural style meant just for me, the Futuro would be it.

The Guardian, a publication I'm happy to say I've written for, published this article on the Futuro. I've seen this style before, and I always guessed it was something meant as kitsch or one-offs designed exclusively for UFO nuts. For example, famous actor and UFO devotee, Jackie Gleason, had a manor shaped like a flying saucer that he called "the mothership."

There is a story in UFO lore that after golfing with Nixon, the then-president asked Gleason if he wanted to come see alien bodies recovered from a UFO crash, being kept in cryogenics at Homestead AFB in Florida. Google it sometime. Great story, but probably no more than that. But I digress...

The pod-like Futuro homes were designed in the 1950s by Finnish architect, Matti Suuronen. He emphasized that the design came purely from the elegance and practicality of mathematics, but  I think one would be forgiven for suspecting other influences, caught inadvertently from the zeitgeist if nothing else. It was the time when flying saucers entered public consciousness in waves of sightings called "flaps." Atomic Horror b-movies, such as Forbidden Planet, featured such spaceships in spades. The one pictured above even has a deployed staircase for entry, just as if the house were a landed saucer.

Only 100 were ever built and even fewer still survive today. I thought I saw one when I visited Albuquerque, but while locals call it "the spaceship" or "the bug house," I found out it's not a true Futuro. I did, however, drive past one when I visited Chris from Dorkland in Tampa. That Futuro is now the VIP room at a strip club called 2001: A Nude Odyssey.

I really should have taken a picture of the exterior for the name alone.

This dwelling isn't a Futuro, either...at least I don't think so...but it follows the same spirit....

I'm trying to imagine what it would be like to live in a structure that was completely circular. Would it throw you off at all? It's strange, but I believe I've been psychologically conditioned to live in structures and rooms that are all square or slight variations on the square. Would living in a "saucer" stimulate the imagination? In addition to living in it, what would it like to have it as a writer's office?

I might just be influenced by glancing at the photo above, but I think I'd like a Futuro in the woods, up on stilt "landing gear" just as in these photos. Sort of like a fire tower, you know? I'm certainly not woodsy, but I'd like the isolation and the shape of the Futuro would seem to...I dunno...hold it at bay, more so even than the standard square. Purely psychological, I'm sure, but that's how I feel.

Then again, Whitley Strieber had many of his experiences in a cabin in an isolated, wooded region of upstate New York. Being in the wilds inside a saucer-shaped building might be tempting fate a bit too much for my tastes.

So look around. There might be a Futuro you could pick up cheap. I'll let you know if I find one, but I'm not thinking the family will want to move.


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If I rewrote Forbidden Planet

I have a writing exercise I sometimes play with.

I'll read a book or watch a film that's really awful, and I try to think about how you could rewrite it and improve it (at least that's how I intellectually justify my love of b-movies.) I also sometimes do the same with stories that might come off as dated to modern sensibilities. How would you rework them to appeal to a contemporary audience?

I recently did the latter as I watched Forbidden Planet.

The 1950s saw a flood of b-movie science fiction films, spawned by the dawn of the Atomic Age. Others have even gone so far as categorize the films as an entire subgenre called "Atomic Horror." A few of these films were works of great quality, such Them! and The Day the Earth Stood Still. Of course the other end of the spectrum was equally or more represented with such fare as Plan 9 From Outer Space. Fortunately, Forbidden Planet is quite a gem. It's visual effects are absolutely stunning, particularly for its time, and the story actually has depth and thought to it with obvious allusions to Shakespeare's The Tempest.

As such, I want to make clear that I think Forbidden Planet should remain just as is and should never be remade, or if it absolutely must be, I hope it is undertaken by someone smarter than I am. What I blog now is merely a mental exercise. It also has quite a few spoilers ahead, so be warned.

In the film, a colony on the planet Altair IV has gone quiet. A spaceship is sent to investigate. Here's the ship:

The ship and its crew are commanded by John J. Adams, played by Leslie Nielsen.

This might come as a shock to those who knew Nielsen for his numerous, not to mention brilliant, comedic roles, but he was at one time a stereotypical Hollywood "leading man."

When the expedition arrives on Altair IV, they discover there are only two survivors of the colony. One is Dr. Edward Morbius, a scientist.

The other is Morbius' daughter, Altaira.

A fetching young lady who has known no other man besides her father, Altaira is of course immediately fascinated by this entire ship-full of men that has suddenly landed by her home.

Here is where things would need to be adjusted for a modern audience. The crew of the ship is entirely male and entirely white. I would change this. I would do so not to be raffish or out of any servitude to political correctness or pandering to "SJWs." Rather, a diverse crew would simply be realistic. Look at the average workplace today. Finding one that is either all male or all white or both is increasingly rare. It would only make sense that the crew of the ship reflects this fact. It also sets up interesting possibilities for Altaira.

In the film, Altaira is played as this sort of "babe in the wilderness," naive but naturally enraptured by all of these newly arrived men. Even though the film was made in 1956 and the crew all come off as all-American boys-next-door, one still gets the creepy sense that at least a few of these men would not mind taking full advantage of Altaira's sheltered existence. Having female crew members might change this dynamic. How might conversations go between Altaira and other female characters? After all, she has never met another woman. Female spacefarers might counsel Altaira, showing her that she can generate her own interests and her own self-worth, rather than find it in the affections of a man.

Then I thought, why not go one better? What if we gender-flipped Morbius? What if Altaira had been raised by her mother? How might Altaira be different? Would she still view the men the same way? Possibly. We do have natural urges. Still, I wonder how having a strong maternal figure around might make a difference in Altaira's personality and interactions.

Earlier, I mentioned that the crew comes off something of a cross between a 1950s Ivy League football team and the boys from Archie comics. For the most part, they seem to all get along. This seems just as unrealistic to me as to the homogeneous ethnicity and gender of the crew. I certainly wouldn't want go all "Edgy McPostmodernism" have them all be grimy and misanthropic, but a touch more tension between them might serve the story well and make for a few interesting subplots.

But there are aspects of the film I would never change.

Arguably, the real star of the story is Robby the Robot, a robot that serves as Morbius' major domo. He is one of the very first robots in a film to exhibit a distinct personality and became something of a fixture in terms of what people would immediately think of when hearing the word, "robot."

Robby's appearance is of course dated, and no doubt the suits in a contemporary film studio would want to change it. I just couldn't do it. Perhaps removing the mechanical gears sound effects and make him a bit more digital, but that's it. Dammit...Robby is a classic. Leave him be. 

I also would not change the story's true antagonist. It's brilliant.

Upon settling on Altair IV, the colony found an abandoned city of sorts, once inhabited by a now extinct race called the Krell. This advanced race built a device that could create anything their minds envisioned. What they did not account for were the "monsters of the id." These include the subconscious thoughts we all have but seldom express, yet they are there. We may (hopefully) control their release, but we cannot eliminate their existence. Once manifested into reality, these monstrosities killed the Krell.

As Morbius experiments with the device, he unleashes his own id demon and wipes out the entire colony, save for himself and his daughter.

It's just such a great idea....and I'm convinced it must have inspired the Jonny Quest episode, "The Invisible Monster."

What of the Krell themselves? Ah yes. I can't decide. I'm of two minds. Part of me really wants to delve into that race, giving them a fully revealed backstory and most important of all, allowing us to see them at last. Morbius could come across a hologram or other suitable media during his research. It could roll out the whole history of the Krell in visual rather than oral form.

Then again, part of me really wants them to remain a mystery. It does add something to the mystique and the "going into the unknown" sensibility one gets as soon as the ship lands on the planet.

Oh but it would be so much fun to create the story of the Krell.

Decisions...decisions...

In summation, characters and their interactions would benefit from a change that represents our current reality and likely future. Everything else? Don't touch it.

Especially don't CGI it to death and overwhelm an otherwise thought-provoking story.


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Parker spacecraft launches for the Sun

It hurtles through space as we speak.

In the wee hours of last Sunday, NASA launched the Parker solar probe. There are several unique aspects to this mission.

First of all, it's quite a technical achievement. The probe is covered in a shielding that will all the machine to orbit continuously in close proximity to the Sun, all while keeping its sensors and inner "guts" at a cool room temperature. What's more, there is a "scoop" that will extend and take samples of the corona, the plasma that makes up the uppermost section of the Sun. Yes, Parker will actually be able to "touch" the Sun. As if all of that were not impressive enough in and of itself, Parker is officially the fastest object ever made by humans, moving at 435,000 mph. That beats the record of Voyager 1 and 2.

A major objective of the Parker probe will be to glean a greater understanding of solar wind, those charged particles the Sun occasionally likes to fling our way. They tend to cause pesky problems with vital facets of our lives, such as communication satellites or even entire power grids if the burst is sufficiently large enough. Knowing more about solar wind will allow us to better predict and prepare for these events so we may weather them with as little disruption as can be. Plus, by knowing more about the Sun, we may then know more about stars in general in terms of exactly how they form, how they operate, and how long they last. We might even get a semi-accurate date on when the Sun is supposed to go nova and destroy the solar system...even though it's several billion years away.

Which means I still need to have my classes prepped for next week.

As a writer, I also see a spiritual dimension to the study. It is no happenstance that several ancient cultures worshipped the Sun. It truly is a giver of life. Even people like me who detest heat and eschew the outdoors require at least a few rays of ultraviolet in order to keep mental equilibrium. All that existences on Earth and even the Earth itself owes its existence to the Sun.

So with that "scoop," might not Parker be touching the face of the creator? 


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Empty buildings, empty hearts

United Methodist Church in Gary, Indiana. Image found here.

A decrepit structure is a dream deferred.

In recent years, I have developed a fascination with abandoned buildings. I surmise there have been several reasons for this interest. Sometimes the buildings are a glimpse into old architectural styles seldom seen anymore, eschewed for forms devoid of charm and humanity. Dilapidated structures amid urban or rural decay also conjure a sense of mystery and potential for stories for many writers. Heck, the buildings themselves are someone's or several someones' stories. Looking at the structures now, I can't help but wonder what those stories are.

This link dump of all things abandoned places has captivated me as of late. You can find guides here to almost any form of deserted, human-made structure you can think of. There is a guide to ghost towns, one for abandoned agoras and transportation centers such as airfields and train stations, a showcase of former Soviet cities with wonderfully wacky architecture, and...another one of my favorites...the guide to abandoned U.S. movie theaters. I've also been perusing yet another guide to abandoned buildings right here in my neck of the woods. In fact, the above photograph comes from that list.

Apparently, "urban spelunking" has become something of a pastime and one may Google any number of "how-to" instructions, covering both safety and legality. I can see why the fascination exists. I clearly (or perhaps not so clearly in a few cases and for various reasons) recall my college days when Drexel Hall was off limits. Sitting across the street from campus, it was one of the original structures of the 100+ year old campus and by my arrival at college, it was rotten beyond the point of safe entry for anyone. We went in anyway, playing ghost hunters long before reality TV made such activities passe. Those memories, in part, represent my recent shift in attitude towards abandoned buildings.

This weekend, I will be returning to Rensselaer for a meeting of the Saint Joseph's College Alumni Board. I have been invited on a tour of campus, marking what would be the first time I have stepped onto the property since leaving on May 12, 2017. Shortly after that date, Saint Joe was closed off with concrete barriers. The closed campus became something out of the TV series, Life without People.

Though I have not seen any of it personally, I am given to understand that grass in several areas has been allowed to grow tall. Feral cats have made a home in the student center. Walls are crumbling in one of the academic buildings and a section of ceiling above the theater has collapsed. A recent news story announced that my campus now sits on a list of "endangered landmarks" in Indiana.

I have declined the invitation to tour the place I once called home. There is nothing for me to see there anymore. Strike that. There is so much there I don't want to see. Which brings me to my point.

Where I once marveled at the entropy and decay of abandoned places, I am now overcome with sadness and a heartbroken empathy for my fellow humans. Abandoned buildings represent failure. I do not use the word "failure" in an accusatory manner. It is still possible to fail even though one gives his or her every effort. Something didn't work out with these buildings. People could no longer stay. They could no longer maintain them and thus, whether made of concrete, steel, or wood, the structures were left behind to rot from neglect.

Someone once cared about these buildings. The story of these people, even if on a minimal level, is woven in with the existence of these abandoned spaces. The architects cared enough to design them. People cared enough to keep them up, even if only for a time. The buildings are physical manifestations of someone's work and effort. Sometimes, they may represent entire careers, deep hopes, and lifelong dreams...now cast aside and fallen to ruin.

Where I once saw mystery and adventure, I now grieve for what someone lost somewhere along the way.

"You can tear a building down but you can't erase a memory."
-Living Colour





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"Dark Forest": A new answer to the Fermi Paradox

Art is: UFO Over City by Randy Haragan.


Where are all the aliens?

That's the basic premise behind the Fermi Paradox. I've blogged about it before, but here is the upshot.

Physicist Enrico Fermi, who directed the first sustained nuclear reaction, once made the following commentary on the idea of alien life (paraphrasing): Given the number of stars in the known universe and the seeming ubiquity of the elements necessary for life, there should be numerous alien civilizations. Despite that, we've yet to find any substantial signs that we are not alone. So where is everyone?

Chinese science fiction writer, Ken Liu has a possible answer. It comes from his 2008 novel, The Dark Forest. In the novel, the argument is laid out like this:

-All life desires to stay alive.
-There is no way to know if other lifeforms can or will destroy you if given a chance.
-Lacking assurances, the safest option for any species is to annihilate other life forms before they have a chance to do the same.
-Thus wanting to stay alive, everyone stays quiet so as not to give away their presence.

I can't say he's wrong. The logic is sound. If nothing else, the notion presented by Dark Forest helps us check a few of our preconceptions. In order for writers to create stories about aliens, there needs to be a reason for aliens to come into contact with humans in the first place. The easy and rather exciting way is to make them hostile. We have a good old, "us vs them" alien invasion story against extraterrestrials operating on similar principles outlined by Ken Liu. These principles are emboldened by our own experiences here on Earth, witnessing what has happened to less-developed cultures encountering more industrialized civilizations.

The more optimistic writers make an appeal to ethics. We would like to think that war is a disease of infancy and as a civilization grows more advanced, they put aside the anti-intellectual and counterproductive action of violence. While logical in its own way, I believe it also stems from an inner hope that we might encounter highly advanced beings who could help us fix all our ills. Maybe a sort of "ET rapture" desire. This may be wishful thinking.

Again, I can't say Ken Liu is wrong. Where I part company with him slightly is the Darwinian notion that life will always operate in a mode of "kill-or-be-killed." Even now, we as a species are moving away from that kind of thinking. Yes, believe it or not, even after all of my lamenting the swirling toilet that is society...and I still believe there are reasons to think that...I must yield to certain facts, one of them being that we actually live in the most peaceful time in human history. Arguably, that is. Think about, if we were truly ruled by "kill-or-be-killed", would we not have gone after nations such as Iran or North Korea by now? Instead, we more often seek to avoid calescent encounters. For all the rhetoric, we do weigh costs in blood, treasure, and spillover consequences.

As intellect evolves, might this not be common? Again, I'm comparing this only to our own experience for really, what else do we have? But that means we must allow for civilizations that developed under circumstances we could not even imagine.

I think there are many other answers for the Fermi Paradox, several of them actually being rather mundane and unexciting.

Maybe one of them is that given the state of humanity, aliens have chosen to stay away from us.


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More water found on Mars

This week, Mars made its closest approach to Earth since 2003.

I stood in my driveway, staring up at the bright but dusky orange light in the sky. It would have been even brighter in its orange-ness if not for a planet-wide dust storm currently engulfing Mars. I enjoyed the sight anyway. Space scientists, however, weren't just ogling and admiring the twinkling orange. Far greater findings were afoot.

A massive body of water has been found on Mars. Yes, liquid water. It's 12.5 miles wide and located beneath a mile of ice at planet's south pole. The water is likely quite salty, keeping it in liquid state despite frigid temperatures. This discovery came about via data collected by a radar sensor known as MARSIS on the ESA's Mars Express probe, currently in orbit around Mars. For three years, Mars Express sent 29 radar pulses to the southern ice cap. Imaging came back that resemble that of lakes beneath Greenland and Antarctica here on Earth. Technically, the presence of the water still needs to be independently confirmed by other Mars observers, but things are looking good.

This, it should go without saying, would be a big deal for exobiology. The conditions for this lake would likely be much like Antarctica (see above). It was once thought that nothing could live beneath the ice sheets as the conditions were simply too inhospitable. We now know that to be untrue and that Antarctica is, as one microbiologist says, essentially the largest wetland on our world. If there is microbial life here under those conditions, then it is not unreasonable to suspect that the same may hold true on Mars.

We should probably go there in person and find out for sure. While we're at it, perhaps we could dig around and resolve this whole "face" issue once and for all.

These are the sorts of ruminations flowing through my mind as I stared at Mars this week, and will continue to consider as I'm always looking for the planet in the night sky when I take the dogs outside for their last outing of the day. I think about the human fascination with Mars and wonder what sparks it. I know that in my case it begins with seeing pictures from Viking I when I was a very small boy. Science fiction stories took it from there. That's just it, though. Mars has repeatedly captured the imagination of writers for at least 150 years and I wonder just why that is. 

Standing in the driveway, a thought struck on the matter. There's a school of thought, however ill-considered and bereft of evidence, that holds that humans are actually Martians. We are the progeny of refugees who fled Mars nearly one million years ago as an "ecological 9/11" rendered the planet uninhabitable. Thus, our collective subconscious has always had a psychic connection to the Red Planet.

Now, here we are...staring down the barrel of grim environmental changes that may one day turn the Earth unlivable. Where would we go? Why, Mars is the only likely choice (even if the debate over the feasibility of terraforming still rages).

We in literary and composition studies call this "irony."


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Creature Commandos: When the "bad guys" are good and what makes a monster

Writers are snobs.

A former colleague of mine once said that. A few years back, I learned just how true that was...and it does not paint a flattering picture of me. A dear friend was arguing that pop culture creations are just as worthy of analysis as literature from the "canon." He said there is neither "high culture" nor "low culture," there is only "culture." Wanting at that time to establish myself as a serious academic and for other literary, pretentious, and downright snobby reasons, I disagreed in a spirited and not-so-nice series of retorts.

Thankfully he forgave me, for I was wrong. He was right.

Not only are the "low brow" of entertainment offerings worthy of analysis, said analysis helps us understand why they are popular in the first place and that in turn leads us to an understanding of ourselves. For we academics to wrap ourselves in tweed jackets and shut ourselves off from this consideration does, in realty, a disservice to the pursuit of knowledge and understanding human nature. Plus, it honestly is fun to take what is ostensibly a piece of flashy fluff, and try to see what else might be ticking beneath the rhetorical surface.

Because there always is something else.

In Half Price Books, I came across a trade paperback collection of a comic book series I had not thought about since I was a kid. The allure of this series, for me anyway, is that the writers chose what have historically been antagonists to be their protagonists. While not an exactly new trope, it does go against the genre constraints of fiction, and it intrigues me to no end.

The collection is called The Creature Commandos. It is taken from a comic book series called Weird War Tales. The story behind the series goes something like this...

It is World War II. Military intelligence determines that there are certain archetypes in the subconscious of all humans from all Western cultures that arouse reactions of horror. Three soldiers are then transformed into these archetypes through processes both scientific and steeped in the occult, such as necromancy. These are the characters:

Sgt. Vincent Velcro--a skeezy guy from Brooklyn, sentenced to 30 years in prison for beating and crippling an officer. By volunteering for the project and pledging himself to it, he is released from prison. In turn, the project turns him into a vampire, complete with fangs, the ability to turn himself into a bat, and the need for human blood.

Pvt. Elliot "Lucky" Taylor--he was a Marine in the South Pacific who stepped on a landmine. He survived by the project stitching his body parts back together stronger than ever...but with gangrene green skin...and no vocal chords.

Warren Griffith--a nice, civilian farm boy from Oklahoma who suffered from clinical lycanthropy. The project just took it the whole rest of the way and made him an actual werewolf.

Later, there would be Dr. Myrna Rhodes, a gorgon (Medusa).

Obviously, these first three are modeled on Dracula, Frankenstein's monster, and the Wolf Man.

They become a unit called The Creature Commandos and they are led by Lt. Matthew Shrieve. Shrieve is a regular human, but a stereotypical, John Wayne-ish soldier. Together, they all fight Nazis. In fact their first mission is to infiltrate German-occupied France and destroy a Nazi project that aims to replace major Allied military and civilian leaders with android duplicates.

Silly fun for sure, but as a writer, here is what intrigues me:

In addition to being a "Star Kid" in my early years, I was also a "Monster Kid." Thanks to Svengoolie, I've been revisiting that fun sector of my past. The titular characters of the Universal monster films were antagonists. They are crisis or threat which needed to be stopped in the story. And yet...and yet...the characters who do stop them (or do they?) are utterly forgettable by way of comparison with their foes. So if your antagonists are the most memorable and most interesting, why not place them in a "hero" role and see what happens?

What happens when you write a text where the main character is at least semi-evil? That is what likewise draws me to other comic book series where "bad guys" are the main characters (e.g. Super-Villain Team Up). There are several literary examples as well, but fatigue keeps me from going into detail about those. It takes a crafty writer to offer a "bad guy" as the main character and then write their story in such a way that the reader still wants to see them succeed, even if the what these characters want is less than pure. That's not exactly what's going on in Creature Commandos, but the series still took traditionally "evil" archetypes and placed them in the role of "good guys." How the writer does this leads me to my next intriguing point.

What makes a "monster"? Outward appearance? Actions? Several times in the series, this philosophical question is up for debate.

Lucky looks like Frankenstein's monster, but every time he's forced to kill someone or slay an attacking animal, as was the case with a dinosaur in the Creature Commandos crossover with The War that Time Forgot, he fights back tears, hating himself for what he has done and continues to do out of duty. Warren Griffith is a nice kid, but who he is grows more and more eclipsed by his new bestial nature, a nature foisted upon him, and he becomes truculent and sanguinary. "We're wasting time," he told his compatriots in issue #2, "Killing time."
So who is the more monstrous...Griffith or those who turned him into a werewolf?

Then there's Velcro. He's a convicted criminal and has less-than-appealing personality traits, but even he can see who the real monster on the team is.

It's Shrieve, the leader. To this reader, he is reprehensible with only infrequent sparks of humanity to keep you from fully wishing the character harm. He is needlessly callous, abusive, and demeaning to his charges, constantly calling them "freaks." He is most Machiavellian in this thinking and not above manipulating and if need be expending the others as this panel points out:

And...

 

 
Interesting point. The good ol' US of A wanted to strike terror into the hearts of a truly vile enemy...so they created monsters. What was it Nietzsche said about fighting monsters?

“Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster... for when you gaze long into the abyss. The abyss gazes also into you.”

The definition of "monster" can be nubilous indeed. Each in their own ways, the seminal texts which inspired these characters explored these themes in both subtle ways, such as Dracula by Bram Stoker, and overt ways, such as Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. I can't for the life of me think of a canonical or "origin" text for the Wolf Man, though.

The comics are silly and great fun, but be careful. If you examine them and think about them for a while, you just might see complex ideas at work just beneath the surface of the text.

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