SF/F Commentary

SF/F Commentary

Guest Post: Sassy Gay to Super Gay — Marvel’s Re-Definition of the Supporting Gay Character by Benjamin Kissell

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I remember being 9 years old and buying my first issue of Uncanny X-Men; my Mum had worked in a bookstore when I was little and had brought home rare gems, well-worn back-issues and cover-less comics [she couldn’t stand the sight of any book, comic or otherwise, being tossed into the garbage] so the sight of them on a newsstand was nothing new to me, however, this was the first issue I had bought of my own volition with my own money. And it? Was glorious. Newsprint paper supported an array of colors most reminiscent of the Kirby-era, bold primes leapt off the page, and the cast of characters? Larger than life. A vibrant team of misfits and underdogs – each imbued with fantastic powers which set them apart from the everyday, yet personalities which connected them to people I knew, even in my suburban Virginia daily life in elementary school and daycare. Their leader Cyclops, in bold blue and red; the mischievous Nightcrawler in India Ink wash and swashbuckling indigo; the stalwart Colossus in naked-comic page-white, yellow and red; the cantankerous Can-nucklehead himself, Wolverine, in his distinctive yellow/blue costume and, of course, Storm commanded the page in her diaphanous black and yellow ensemble, her cascading white hair billowing in the Cockrum-inked wind. I couldn’t put it down, the introduction of Alpha Flight, a super-hero group from that far-off cousin of ours, Canada [What, I was 9? The furthest I had been at that point was to the various Smithsonian Museums in DC and the Baltimore Aquarium – Canada was foreign AND mysterious. Plus? It was the end of the ‘80s, who didn’t think Canada was cool back then?]. I instantly had to get my hands on more comics show-casing these unique team members. True, Snowbird’s costume and diadem were like a white-chick knock-off of Storm, but, who didn’t wanna emulate Storm? I mean, she’s STORM! And Vindicator was a prick, but … Northstar’s douche-y ‘tude, Sasquatch’s cool-as-all-get-out look and Snowbird’s awesome powers made this team something to read and watch in-action. After devouring the issue and reading it three times through, I snuck into Mum’s Sewing Room where she kept her stash of comics. Found, bought, rescued – her collection may not have put the fear of foreclosure in the hearts of comic book stores, but to my eyes it was a Solomon’s Gold Mine. A veritable treasure-trove of new reads [I’ve always been a voracious reader, books, comic books and mini-comics that came with He-Man or She-Ra toys] with art that leapt off the pages and pulled me into the worlds Marvel and DC built for me. Mum found me, several hours later, splayed amidst a sea of open, half-read and varying titles and chuckled at the sight. Issues of Amazing Spider-Man [Cool art from Charles Vess], Uncanny X-Men [Classic X-Men re-prings as well as the Silvestri-era in the Australian Outback! Which of course I’d long-since read … repeatedly], ElfQuest, The Dark Knight, House of Mystery, Detective Comics, Rom: Space Knight and others ringed me. But what held my attention most? Two comic titles sat in my lap: The New Defenders and Alpha Flight. These two ended up holding my attention, not merely because of interesting stories and art, thank you John Byrne, but because of the rich (and confusing) development of two separate characters in their respective titles [tho’ Alpha Flight writers, what were you thinking with Marrina? Seriously, I’ve never understood that, even 20 years later]: Moondragon and Northstar. Moondragon was a Persis Khambatta-esque beauty [if you don’t know who that is, Google Star Trek Ilia]; powerful, intense, brave, with a touch [*cough*] of smug and a whole lot of re-writes. In the 20-ish issues Mum’s collection allowed me access to she bounced from angry-scorn-filled martial artist to floating-dragon-thingy to bisexual female all on top of fighting off bad guys like Thanos and dealing with young adult angst while the team tried to lived together. This soap opera was not to be missed. If I’d been of the mind [read: not so lazy], I’d have grabbed some popcorn and just sat back to watch/read it unfold. Marvel’s writers weren’t afraid to see where this character development would take her – and they ran with it. True, she did fit the cliché as a mildly butch non-heterosexual woman skilled in martial arts and mildly man-hating (she really just didn’t like much of anyone, to be fair), however she ran around in what can affectionately be called a costume consisting of cape, gloves, mid-calf high-heeled boots and a open-bodice one-piece thong [ouch] much like her completely off-the-rack heterosexual counterparts. The writers allowed her character to explore a range of highs and lows in those few issues – including her mind-violation whose effects were tempered by the love of a fellow Defender, Cloud [who had her/his own sexual identity issues – Oy vey]. I sat there confused, yet felt an odd kinship for this angry, lashing-out-at-the-world and oft-times lonely character. From the pages of that classic Uncanny X-Men battle, the French-Canadian Northstar caught my eyes (for his complete and total unlikability). In the first few issues I read I couldn’t help but mutter under my breath how much of a freaking asshole he was, but, those Marvel scripters are crafty bastards – it wasn’t long before I was rooting for the jerk [despite his first appearance having him deck Storm – my admiration/mild comic geek obsession with her should be discussed elsewhere] and when, to my surprise, the Olympic-medal-holding skier came out of the closet? Well, I was already 7 random issues in. And I was well-and-truly reader-hooked. The writers had created yet another well-layered character whose sexuality was not the issue, yet set him apart. He did not fit the cookie-cutter gay-best-friend-full-of-lonely-angst-and-fueled-by-catty-remarks-who-dresses-better-than-you-ever-could so lauded in literature and movies at the time, he was an athlete held in esteem and admiration for his feats of national heroism. Yes, the writers had him quipping bitchy and caustic remarks, but let’s just

SF/F Commentary

Science My Science Fiction: The Future of the Deaf and Blind? by Adam Callaway

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One of my favorite things about the nonstop progress of technology is how it assists the less fortunate to interact with the world on a more complete level. A lot of these technologies — DARPA’s advanced carbon-fiber limbs, implantable retinas, brain-computer interfaces — try to correct disabilities so these people can live a “normal” live. But is this the best way? This article is about a new way for deaf-blind people to communicate, and also to use the internet in a way that will only be native to them. It allows them to interact with non-disabled people using a method that only users of this technology will understand. In essence, they have passed a type of singularity and have become true transhumans. Users of the TacTic will be able to communicate with each other more easily than with non-users. These users will have a constant, tactile link to the internet; something beyond even those with smartphones can experience. And the thing is: TacTic is just an input device; a translator. It can be used for things beyond surfing the internet. It could issue commands to a vehicle or a house; service animals can become that much more useful. More than anything, though, TacTic will allow people with disabilities to communicate more effectively with everybody around them, and that will create a higher standard of living. But is technology getting to the point where instead of creating compensation devices, scientists begin to tailor devices to the specific disability where, with regular use, the disabled may exceed “normal human” levels of interaction with the environment? If that did arise, would people chose to maim themselves to get access to the technology. ————————————————– Adam Callaway is an SF/F writer.  His work has appeared in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Flurb, and AE.  You can find out more about him on his website or twitter.

SF/F Commentary

Photo: The Book Mountains Old

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I am told that there are legends from long ago about the mystical Book Mountains.  They arose when the gods had let their book collecting habits get the better of them, thus resulting in massive mountains of cosmic knowledge in need of organization in the Great Library of the Sky.  It seems the mountains are returning… And in honor of the return of the Book Mountains, I’d like to share one of the great songs of old: “The Book Mountains Old” by the Dwarves from The Hobbit:  Adventures of a Small Librarian (Excerpt) Far over the book mountains old To imaginations deep with mold We must away ere break of day To seek enchanted shelves of gold. The dwarves of yore made mighty spells, While fountains fell like inky bells In language deep, where dark words sleep, In hollow covers beneath ink wells. For ancient kings and elvish lords There many gloaming golden words They shaped and wrought, and minds they caught to hide in gems on pen-like swords. On silver necklaces they strung the feathered arms, on crowns they hung the bookworm’s-soul, in twisted coal They penned histories of moon and sun… ————————————————– Dear Tolkien’s Estate:  No copyright infringement intended.  I’m acting silly.  Don’t sue me, please.

SF/F Commentary

Adventures in …Cancer?: If Only You’d Been Bad Asthma (Or, Leading to Up to Diagnosis — Part One)

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(You can read my earlier post about the ten year anniversary of my first chemo treatment here.) Thanksgiving.  It’s that time of year when we all hang out with family, eat lots of food, and avoid contracting deadly diseases.  It’s a time of thanks, too, though nature has this odd tendency to understand “thanks” to mean “how can I make your life difficult today?”  Thus begins my long road to discovering the cancerous tumors that at one time riddled my body, trying their hardest to kill me slowly and painfully (excuse me while I say a giant “fuck you” to cancer.  You’re dead, suckas).  But let’s step back a little first… Darko Suvin and Louis Marin think Disneyland is problematic. I agree, but they’re not going to steal my imaginary childhood from me… 2002 was not a good year for me.  Around September or so, I totaled my car in Los Angeles while driving to Disneyland for a weekend of fun.  We got sideswiped in an intersection that didn’t have a turn signal, which was something I’d never seen before (we didn’t have such things in my small town, because all our signals were properly marked — if you didn’t have a turn signal, it told you that you had to yield.  In this case, the turn lane had a signal, but without the arrow OR a “yield to oncoming traffic” sign.  But L.A. is evil, so it was all my fault.).  Luckily, nobody was hurt, despite the fact that the other car was moving at close to 40 miles an hour and struck the car a foot or so from my legs, smashing the frame up until the engine block.  No broken bones.  No pain.  Just a lot of hot chocolate everywhere and crying (which is what I do when I’m suffering from shock). Things didn’t improve from there.  Maybe a month later, I got fired from my job as night manager of a local fast food restaurant.  They blamed me for money that had gone missing in the safe, despite the fact that the general manager and the franchise owner had previously been shown evidence that the office in which the safe was kept was not secure (we had video evidence of an employee adjusting the focus on the camera while out of frame before returning after closing to try to Spider Man his way through the crack above the office door).  But I got blamed for it and fired without notice.  Literally.  Nobody told me I’d been fired.  I had to find out about it through a letter sent almost a month later (after I began filing a complaint with the unemployment office).  To add to the irony, the general manager was caught siphoning funds from the safe a year later. This is what he thought he was like… This is how he actually looked, minus the wine… After losing my job and my car, I continued on with school, hoping to at least make something of myself through education (that’s a half-truth).  About halfway through the semester, I started having asthma attacks.  These didn’t surprise me terribly much.  I’ve had asthma my whole life; some of the attacks have even sent me to the hospital.  But my doctor thought these attacks seemed associated with chronic bronchitis, and he put me on some meds and prescribed asthma treatments (through the respirator of doom) to hopefully curb the illness.  I didn’t challenge it because I didn’t have any reason to.  All my symptoms said “bronchitis” — night sweats and cold saps, coughing, asthma-like symptoms, etc. All these things didn’t help make the year a particularly pleasant one (a factor which helped lead to severe depression over the next few years).  But I made plans to spend Thanksgiving with my mom, her partner, and my brother and sister along the northern coast of California, thinking “yay, rocky beaches and Fort Bragg.”  I dragged my respirator of doom along and resolved myself to have as good a time as a sick person can have.  Everything seemed fine, and a fun time I had indeed! But 2002 is the only year that hates my guts.  I know this because I lived during that year, and I remember the distinct moment when its physical form descended upon my person and accosted me for no reason whatsoever.  Its breath smelled suspiciously like old socks… While returning home, I started to have another asthma attack.  Once we arrived, I sat down and took another treatment…only it didn’t do anything.  I could feel my heart rate surging and my lungs struggling against some unknown constricting force, and I knew “this is the worst asthma attack I’ve had in a long time, and I need to go to the hospital.” This is where the wonders of the U.S. healthcare system come into play.  Emergency rooms tend to work from “most serious” to “least serious” based on available information.  Someone who comes in complaining of a broken toe, for example, will get passed over for someone with chest pain.  But that’s not how it went in my case.  When we arrived, there were a number of people already waiting.  Most didn’t have severe issues going on, as far as I can remember — some folks had cold symptoms and some had fevers.  But we were forced to wait for 6 hours (or something like that) anyway, despite my symptoms — difficulty breathing and an increased heart rate.  They even put someone ahead of me who had fallen out of a tree, who seemed to have done little more than hurt his arm (why he was climbing a tree in the middle of the night is beyond me).  It’s possible all of these people were actually worse off than myself (or seemed so based on whatever they reported to the orderly), but it didn’t seem so to my 19-year-old-I-can’t-breathe-oh-my-god self. Someone eventually brought us into the emergency room, took my vitals, and raised some concerns about my

SF/F Commentary

Science Our Science Fiction: Vegetarians on Mars

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According to RT, Elon Musk of Paypal / SpaceX fame wants to put a colony on Mars.  Musk’s proposed city will help re-settle 80,000 people, run on sustainable technology (at least in part), and contain a population of — you guessed it — vegetarians.  I’m intrigued by this idea because it makes me wonder about the motives and possibilities of such a city.  What would compel Musk to narrow his focus only to vegetarians (or people willing to convert)?  What advantages would that provide a space-faring society? Salad alien only eats saladses. Meats is gross. If we lived in 1960, one might easily argue in favor of a vegetarian diet.  Presumably, Mars contains all the required components to maintain basic farming — with a little work.  Maintaining an animal stockyard, however, would put too much strain on a growing colony, requiring a lot of resources both in terms of land and “set-up costs.”  We didn’t have the means to grow animals from petri dishes back then (though we’re closer to such technology today).  Imagine trying to lift a herd of goats into space, take care of them for 6-8 months, and then get them safely on the Martian soil.  Then imagine trying to stop them from eating through the hull of your mini community… But we don’t live in 1960.  We live in 2012, and Musk intends to begin building said city as early as 2022.  I’ll assume for the sake of argument that 2022 is a reasonable date for the foundations of a Martian city of vegetarians.  But do the advantages remain?  I’m not convinced.  Considering that recent technological advances (such as those by the company, Modern Meadows) have opened up new possibilities for lab-grown meat, I think the argument in favor of a purely vegetarian colony is impractical.  If we are able to produce such products now, imagine what another ten years of advances will do.  Perhaps we’ll learn how to reproduce the animal cells from smaller colonies of cells (current technologies require us to get cells from an animal; I assume stem cell research opens up opportunities here, though I’m not a cell biologist).  We already have growth stimulants for hospital patients, so it’s not beyond reason to assume we can do the same for lab-grown meat without creating an inferior product.  This means that, in theory, we can reduce the required resources to maintain an omnivore culture.  The only concern is one that already exists for any Martian colony — resources.  To grow crops, lab-burgers, and so on, we need access to good soil, good nutrients, and so on.  Presumably we can get that from Mars, but there’s another area in which I am not an expert. Apparently this is what vegan Mr. Rogers looks like…on Mars. Of course, I could be wrong.  Maybe there is a good reason to avoid meat altogether.  Maybe vegetarianism is sustainable and rational when severe conditions are involved.  In fact, I don’t even have a problem with a vegetarian culture.  It sounds cool.  But I have this odd notion in my head that lab meat is easier to produce than an enormous farm.  Then again, if we can make meat in a lab, wouldn’t it follow that we could do the same for produce?  I wonder what that would look like… What does everyone else think about this idea? ————————————————— “Science in Our Science Fiction” is a new feature on WISB.  It will feature real science news and my thoughts about how it might apply in the future or might make for interesting SF stories, etc.

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