Kurt Busiek's Marvels and Alex Ross is the first extra content of my essay Analysis of comics. The composition of the pairs of tables . The extra content of the pieces are related to the theme of the book but not in the summary. In short, if you liked the book you will find something more of the extra content and vice versa.
Marvels [1] of Kurt Busiek and Alex Ross is the key non-superhero narrative of the events that have made the big ' Marvel Universe since 1939, when the house Publisher Timely Comics in the wake of the success of Action Comics [2] and Detective Comics [3] competitor of National Periodical Publications , began to publish his first superhero comics, up to 1972, the death of Gwen Stacy. In this revisiting of the most important books of the viewpoint Marvel superheroes, usually at the center and pivot of any such cartoon series, is set aside to give space to the thoughts of ordinary people. The heroes end up in the background and the authors focus attention on the reaction of ordinary people who overnight began to witness miracles, confronted the men who catch fire without getting burned or flying, perhaps due to real wings, like angels .
In comics marvelliani 60s Stan Lee had considered the fact that the actions of superheroes (or simply their existence) could have consequences in the lives of ordinary people. This was certainly not been overlooked in the series The Amazing Spider-Man in which the main character Peter Parker is photographed during his rounds in the shoes Spider-Man films and sold to the Daily Bugle by James Jonah Jameson. In this way were introduced in the series that the views of the editor of the New York newspaper, the enemy dell'Arrampicamuri from becoming a caricature. It was a way to not only flatten the series about the protagonist's thoughts, adding a voice not only express personal opinions but, as columnist of a major news organization, addressed and reflected the thoughts of the public.
Something similar happened in the other pillar of Marvel, Fantastic Four , where, in the first two panels of the first issue [4] , the series begins with a presentation of the four famous actors but with pictures of the crowd frightened by the appearance of a phrase in the sky flaming, mistaken for the start of an invasion alien.
polyphony of epic adventures in this realistic and hooks emerge, however, a preference for the former, as evidenced for example, the opening words of Fantastic Four No 15:
"leans Suddenly a strong hand that shoots a flare into the night sky ... " ... And our adventure begins in the imagination! " [5] Those comics, while not forgetting the calls (even stronger in the case of series of 'Spider-Man") realism, were therefore first travel on the wings of imagination. The desire to write fantasy stories, taking into account realistic element emerges in the preface of the first Stan Lee Masterwork of Fantastic Four. "Realism ! Hey, I know that sounds stupid talking realism of costumed characters who can stretch like rubber bands, go on fire, become invisible, and to tear apart a Toyota with one hand. But I'm remaining in my field! Must it this way: there were many, many superheroes who hopped in their underwear colored merry before the FQ were entering the scene. But in fact none of them had personal problems, no one had to worry about earning a living, no one ever discussed or lose your temper with other superheroes. This was before the arrival of our fascinating quartet. Of course, our heroes had fought for amazing super powers and the types most weird and wacky, but we try to make him do ... realistically! " [6]
Busiek instead revisits the stories of thirty years before trying a different approach. The writer American ' looking with compassion to the first years of the so-called House of Ideas, trying to return to the public sense of wonder in those days by moving a director of the axes of its ideals shot cameras. The superheroes appear as superhuman deity that ordinary mortals perceive with difficulty only as of the trails of light in flight, or as blurred images taken by amateur cameras or flash cameras, or even as the forces of nature whose presence is documented only the wake of the damage produced during their clashes " [7] .
In the first chapter of the example we find perhaps more appropriate to this new point of view desired by Busiek. The first clash between the Sub-Mariner and the Torch [8] , fabulous and brutally fascinating era in comics, it turns into something bad if it is described through the eyes of a person who may suffer the consequences. This is the description given by Phil Sheldon, the protagonist of Marvels "Sub-Mariner was unleashed on the city ... The chief of police had sent him against the torch. (...) " Attending to the clash of Wonders, with Sub-Mariner that darted here and there wreaking havoc and the torch behind him with a trail of fire ... " ... must have seemed a sort of aerial ballet. Dangerous, beautiful and exciting. " And perhaps it was. " But not for us. "What we saw were massacres, destruction and chaos ... " ... And people are afraid that a moment before he felt safe, now trying to escape, not knowing which way to run . The Marvel Comicsalways carry with them a portion of pessimism, is particularly effective in the series of ' Spiderman and X-Men , almost never accepted uncritically as heroes by the public but rather hated despite their good intentions and actions and treated as criminals. In Marvels feelings such as hatred and fear of the people emerge as clearly as possible, ending up in the spotlight.
" What would we do if it stands before our eyes a flaming or being a powerful amphibious? You'll be amazed to flee or to look at? And what would our first thought, our feeling about it? This question sought to answer the writer Kurt Busiek (...), introducing the figure of the superhero in the social fabric of more than thirty years of history American. The first is obviously feeling of wonder and disbelief. Then fear takes over . [9] In
comic Busiek and Ross the lives of New Yorkers are not only important when they are touched with wonder. The roles of ordinary people and Wonders are reversed and the second to finish "in the background" and to be considered only when they touch the lives of ordinary people.
these circumstances the main character of the work can only be an ordinary person. The authors choose it as a privileged observer of the Wonders of the news photographer named Phil Sheldon, a young man and ambitious, eager to make a career in newspapers before going on to depict the horrors of the Second World War. E 'in this period, the years of his youth and the war launched by Nazi Germany, the heroes (or monsters depending on your point of view) are starting to make their first appearances, sometimes annihilating New Yorkers, as in the case Sub-Mariner that triggers a massive tsunami on the city, and sometimes instilling courage in the most critical and delicate, thanks to the charismatic figure of Captain America and the echo of his business that comes from the European front. Sheldon's life runs alongside the heroes of the late '30s until the '70s, sometimes intersecting, thanks to his work as a photographer who takes him to go hunting for pictures of superheroes, and sometimes staying light years away (literally in some cases).
Astonishment, incredulity and fear are made mainly through the reader understand the decision to focus the thinking of the common man (as the case Sheldon or the entire population) and by means of graphics realism of Ross .
But they are not the only tools used by Busiek and Ross , which are in the composition of the pairs of plates half to make it even more incisive and penetrating this mailing. The beginning
Marvels of is the result of admixture between pairs of tables side by side and settled opposition. The first table is placed in the right page and then an initial range of composition and narrative. The purpose of this table is manifold. First is to provide a time coordinate, the year 1939, which awakens in the reader's memories of World War II rather than those related to comic Wonderland. The first impact of the reader with Marvels therefore has to do with fantasy and science fiction superhero comics, but with one of the most historical events that marked the twentieth century. From the first page the authors stressing the submission of fantasy to realism. The war that inflames Europe, although at that time lived so far from the American people, is seen by reporters and photographers as an opportunity to do greedy career. Journalists are the protagonists of this sequence, and the Group of Phil Sheldon shows that they do not retreat from the altercation with the still unknown JJ Jameson, the future director of the Daily Bugle and arch-enemy of Spider-Man. The purpose of this first page is not restricted to the presentation of the protagonist of the work and the historical context of events. The real intention of Busiek and Ross the reader is accustomed to a situation that will subverted in the following pages, where the pair of plates formed from the side by side tables 2 and 3 on the splash page on page 4, he will break the first Marvel Marvel Universe, the Human Torch original. With this composition, the reader is accustomed to the idea that underlies Marvels , that is, look at the history of the House of Ideas narrative through the lens of realism. The graft advent of superheroes on a credible situation and immediately recognizable and framed by the reader (the Second World War) from a state of verisimilitude to the superheroes themselves, because the beginning of realistic casts its shadow on Subsequent imaginary facts, as they are imaginative. In the third chapter of
Marvels is another interesting set of pairs of plates, this time linked to the famous saga [10] 's arrival of Galactus. In a splash page in page left mighty Galactus looms over New York like a vengeful God and evil, while the side is a table divided into vignettes that the reader attends to the first reactions of the arrival of that New Yorkers' Antichrist from deep space. In the following pages there are eight other pairs of consecutive composite boards side by side in this way. Tables later placed on the left continue to host superhero splash page where the long battle in the skies of the city is told through narrative frames without a connection between them. In all the tables placed on the right, again divided into cartoons, but there is a common thread. After describing the initial dismay of the citizens, these plates become the nightmare of Phil Sheldon, a New York lost to the brink of the abyss. The sequence is a long journey into a hell on earth among people with no sense or frightened, resigned or ignorant, drunk and suddenly a believer. In the series of pairs of tables facing the battle in the sky and travel photographer's hallucinatory proceed in parallel. The Of the cosmic battle between superheroes and is presented in a disjointed, inconsistent and non-linear because it is perceived by the people who watch from the ground: a few flash when the fighters are close, but could not figure out who is winning or just what is happening. The citizens are not even interested to know how it is evolving battle that involves the Fantastic Four, the Devourer of Worlds Silver Surfer and the Herald, because the most immediate thoughts are going to die is almost imminent. Shocked and so far the stories of supernatural beings that fly over their heads, have not the slightest interest in the stratagems devised by superheroes to defeat Galactus. They just want the nightmare to end.
NOTES
[1] Kurt Busiek and Alex Ross 'Marvels', trans. com. Pier Paolo Ronchetti, Marvel magazine No 4-7, Marvel Italy, Bologna, 1994-1995 [1994].
[2] The series in which Superman debuted in 1938. See: Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, Superman Archives, vol. I, DC Comics, New York, 1989 [1938-1939]. The archive contains a reprint of the first two issues of the Superman series (begun in 1939) which in turn reprinted the first episodes of Superman appeared in Action Comics .
[3] Necklace anthology that, starting from No. 27 May 1939, hosted mainly the Batman comics. See: Bob Kane et al. , Batman Archives, Vol. 1, DC Comics, New York, 1990 [1939].
[4] Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, "The Fantastic Four," in Essential Fantastic Four, vol. I, Marvel Comics, New York, 2001 [1961] Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, "The Fantastic Four!" In Great Marvel Heroes: The Fantastic Four , vol. 1, Comic Art, Rome, 1990 [1961].
[5] "Suddenly, a lean, Powerful hand fires a flare into the bright evening sky ..." ... And into fantasy Our adventure begins! "From Stan Lee and Jack Kirby," The Mad Thinker and His Awesome Android! ", In Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, Fantastic Four Essential , vol. I, Marvel Comics, New York, 2001 [1963].
[6] Stan Lee, "Introduction", trans. com. Welcomed Paul-Gil, in Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, Marvel Lords: The Fantastic Four , vol. 1, Comic Art, Rome, 1990 [1987], p.. 4.
[7] Alessandro Di Nocera, superheroes and superpowers second expanded edition, Alberto Castelvecchi Editore, Rome, 2006 [2000], p.. 216.
[8] Carl Burgos and Bill Everett, "Human Torch" in Timely Comics Presents: Human Torch , Marvel Comics, New York, 1999 [1940]
[9] Giuseppe Guidi and Richard Vinci, "Glimpses of Glory 'in Marvel Magazine No 4, Marvel Italy, Bologna, 1994, p.. 48.
[10] original story in Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, Fantastic Four . The arrival of Galactus , trans. com. Andrea Plazzi, Marvel Italy, Modena, 1998 [1965-1966].
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