Ryan North perpetuates the PC notion wealthy people are unrelatable
The Toronto Globe and Mail interviewed Ryan North, current scribe for the Fantastic Four, about what he's doing with Stan Lee and Jack Kirby's first breakthrough in the Silver Age, and he repeats what some modern writers can't seem appreciate:
Now, certainly there are bad billionaires who've evaded responsibility, with George Soros being but one of them, but if he's implying honest billionaires do too, that's silly. And the part about labor issues is fishy, a hint of the potential leftist bent North's FF story could have. I also shake my head at how "grounded" is seen as such a big deal, considering it's little more than another way of saying "realistic". And that's not what Stan Lee's visions were only about. Even pseudo-science mattered as much as human relations. Something I doubt North's made a convincing effort at emulating.
In past decades, there were writers who trid to "fix" Mr. Fantastic, because of all the FF, he didn't have as much emphasis on personality as they did. That, however, did nothing to address the importance of entertainment value, and at this point, it won't be surprising if North makes the same mistake as any other writer who thought Reed Richards lacking a deep personality was an emergency of epic proportions. If memory serves, Mark Waid was one of those writers, and I don't think his early 2000s take on the FF holds up well in hindsight either.
Regardless of where the FF ranks in Disney’s portfolio of IP, the characters retain a high social status within the fictional Marvel Comics universe. Was this story also about stripping them of that status?This is taking the whole purpose of the FF out of context, because Lee and Kirby set out to make the foursome relatable - and certainly likeable - in some way or other, and now we're being lectured that's nigh impossible, because they're wealthy. No doubt, North must be another writer who feels that way about Batman, and Iron Man. North also has a PC-sounding view of science:
That’s one of the things I wanted to take away from them initially. Because it’s hard to relate to rich, famous people with no problems, and superpowers. But if they’ve lost their fortune – that to me felt interesting and alluring.
The FF has always been about family, exploration and science, but usually made-up science. Your FF contains oodles of legitimate science and scientists. What is your motivation for including so much real-world science?I think he's alluding to the first 2 issues of the 1978-86 DC Comics Presents, a semi-anthology teaming up the Man of Steel with Fill-In-The-Blank (similar to Marvel Team-Up with Spider-Man), and in the first story, it was with Flash. Did it occur to North that pseudo-science was a common concept decades before? Even Marvel's writers could practice it, as the interviewer indicates, on the basis that, if they told an entertaining story, it wouldn't matter too much. Why, science fantasy is practically clogged with all sorts of examples of pseudo-science, and magic could be just one of those. North sounds like another somebody who can't look past surrealism to recognize its legitimacy as a storytelling concept, and recognize why entertainment value is a vital issue. And then, here's more of where he alludes to the whole absurd notion wealthy are unrelatable, along with his view of technology:
I remember reading a DC Superman comic that had science that was completely wrong. Superman says scientists have theorized that time is a loop; if you go far enough, you end up in the past. But no one has theorized this. It’s just made up for a comic book. The feeling I’m trying to go for is to share something cool and make you aware of something in the world that’s really neat. Like OMG particles, which were fast-moving particles we detected in the nineties, and have never detected since. We don’t know where they came from or what they were doing. Just a little science mystery. So the comic version of that is, what if they were arks from another world and they couldn’t travel across the cosmos, so they shrunk themselves down, hollowed out a proton and travelled in that with relativistic speed, which helped them live longer, because they’re going so fast? I’m really just trying to put in cool stuff that makes readers go, holy crap, that’s awesome.
Twenty years ago, your graduate studies were in computational linguistics. One of your FF villains – the tech oligarch whose app is AI data-mining his way to world domination – is drawn from the modern tech economy. How would you compare your feelings about technology in your postgraduate years with writing this story?I thought combatting villains was part and parcel of helping innocents keep safe, if anything. Sounds like North is the kind of writer who's "done it again", and obfuscated the whole purpose of action-adventure. Besides, there have been plenty of mainstream comics from better years where the heroes helped good people tidy up their lives, so this is nothing new, and of course technology as we know it isn't everything. Like many other concepts, it can be employed for both good and bad purposes. Unfortunately, chances are North won't consider whether leftism can sour the milk for tech.
This is something I think about a lot. When I was 16 in the nineties, working with computers, I thought, this technology is an intrinsic good. Because I was a kid and I was blinded by tech utopianism.
And now?
These companies are just hoping to get away with it – hoping they’ll be so useful that we’ll have to let them do it. It’s a great example of laws being not applicable to those who are rich. The character says, “If it was wrong, it would be illegal.” That’s one of the arguments I’ve heard. And it’s such an abandonment of your responsibilities as an ethical human being. I still think technology can be good. I don’t think technology is an intrinsic good. If you have a line in the sand and say I won’t cross this, if it’s profitable, someone else will be willing to cross it and hope the consequences are less than the rewards.
The main antagonist is a deep-cut reference – a goon from a 1982 Johnny solo story (FF 233) – and his evil plot is wage theft and unsafe working conditions in a retail environment. Where did this story, and the focus on labour rights, come from?
It came from me wanting these characters to be more grounded. Less billionaires in their tower and more people doing real stuff. It felt like a great way to know Johnny and see him actually help people. I think that’s a danger of superhero comics being just about heroes punching villains. We want to see a superhero help people who can’t help themselves.
Now, certainly there are bad billionaires who've evaded responsibility, with George Soros being but one of them, but if he's implying honest billionaires do too, that's silly. And the part about labor issues is fishy, a hint of the potential leftist bent North's FF story could have. I also shake my head at how "grounded" is seen as such a big deal, considering it's little more than another way of saying "realistic". And that's not what Stan Lee's visions were only about. Even pseudo-science mattered as much as human relations. Something I doubt North's made a convincing effort at emulating.
In past decades, there were writers who trid to "fix" Mr. Fantastic, because of all the FF, he didn't have as much emphasis on personality as they did. That, however, did nothing to address the importance of entertainment value, and at this point, it won't be surprising if North makes the same mistake as any other writer who thought Reed Richards lacking a deep personality was an emergency of epic proportions. If memory serves, Mark Waid was one of those writers, and I don't think his early 2000s take on the FF holds up well in hindsight either.
Labels: dreadful writers, Fantastic Four, history, marvel comics, msm propaganda, science, technology
