telophase | Thinky thoughts

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Thinky thoughts

So one of the books I'm reading right now* is a Wolverine tie-in novel titled Violent Tendencies. And I'm not enjoying it, particularly, because there's not enough Wolverine in it, and as I was brushing my teeth this morning, I was trying to pin down why this and the Cable & Deadpool series, which I've been reading off and on over the past few days don't work for me the same way equally implausible manga do.

I think may be down to a difference in earnestness: for sure the Wolverine novel spends way too long explaining how it's possible for these new (throwaway) Weapon-X-type super-soldiers to work. The scene I just read features one named Blowtorch who just torched most of a mountainside while trying to catch Wolverine, and his handler explains in excruciatingly great detail to another viewpoint character how they grafted cow stomachs onto his lungs so that he had a great capacity for inhaling air, how he generated flammable gasses, how these structures in his throat provide the spark, how he has these bony spiky structures that shoot nitrogen to immediately douse the flames, and so on. All it did was explain to me how stupidly improbable that was. They would have been better off just saying "Dude, he breathes fire."

Rurouni Kenshin did much the same thing with a character, minus the extinguishing ability, just by saying "Yeah, he's got an oil-bag in his stomach with the nozzle in his mouth and he replaced his front teeth with flint to cause sparks but that doesn't really matter LET'S GET ON WITH THE BOOM."

Cable & Deadpool has Cable setting himself up as a Jesus figure, which ought to be howlingly hysterical, but it's not working even as a crack-filled thing for me, because ... I can't pin it down exactly. Somehow I'm not carried along with the crack** as much as I ought to be, and spend way too much time going "Er, so if Cable was in telepathic contact with everyone on the planet and they all agree they want him to bring peace, how come none of the world leaders and the characters we see in S.H.I.E.L.D. and the like agree?" and wondering about the logistics of his manufactured island paradise.

In Saiyuki, for example, it took me a very long time to start wondering about Sanzo's gold card, which assumes an advanced technological framework which isn't in evidence, and even though I can see the inconsistencies and holes in the worldbuilding, they're never enough to stop me from getting into the story. Perhaps because Minekura doesn't bother to explain them - I can accept the gold card as a running joke without thinking about the consequences that it really ought to have, but if she started throwing out some sort of handwavium about how there's a direct spiritual connection to the temple that's footing the bill (and occasionally getting angry at how much he spends) or whatever, then I'd be thrown out of the story.

It's not about the degree of overpowerdness, either: I'd throw any of the characters in Samurai Deeper Kyo up against Marvel characters, because they're all equally ridiculously overpowered. But SDK works better than Marvel for me on that level.

It may also be that Marvel, for the most part, pays lip-service to being science fiction, with the need for associated explanations in an attempt to fit into the world of physics and chemistry, while SDK just gleefully assumes it's all ~~magic~~ spiritual power and gets on with the damn job of being entertaining.

Hrm. I don't really have any conclusions, just a bunch of disjointed thoughts at the moment.

--

* What? I never have fewer than five books going at once. XD

** Although I appreciate things like Deadpool not being hire-able by anyone (because they all think he tried to kill Cable BEFORE HE RESURRECTED AS A RAPIDLY-GROWING CHILD FROM AN ALTERNATE DIMENSION RAISED BY MR SINISTER AND THAT WAS ABOUT THE ONLY PART THAT WORKED ON THE PROPER LEVEL IT OUGHT FOR ME) so Cable's sneaking around and hiring Deadpool without him knowing it's Cable doing it so he can feel useful.

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Disclaimer: I've not a tenth read as much manga as you, and the manga I read tends to be of a hacker-ish nature (Oh My Goddess!, A.I. Love You, Death Note) that has expressed systems and rules in place, so my view may be a bit skewed. That said...

I think the gap you're experiencing is that manga writers typically understand the universe they're working with as a whole. They establish rules, follow those rules, build on those rules, and then the story draws to a close it does so in a way that makes sense within those rules. Those same rules are often built atop existing real-world rules.

Comic book writers on the other hand rarely understand the universe they're working in. They don't take time to learn how the systems work, both real-world and comic-based. They just write what they feel like writing, and count on comic readers having memories too short to remember where such a story contradicts another, belonging to the writer's cult of personality, or something else equally lame.

Manga writers, at least the ones I really like (Kosuke Fujishima and Ken Akamatsu, to name two) seem to have enough technical backgrounds to understand that a story requires a complete engine (back story, world building, etc.) even if the reader is only ever going to see the steering wheel (the story). On the other hand, comic writers often give me the impression they feel that a steering wheel and engine noises are all you need to make a car go.

Edited 2009-05-13 16:09 (UTC)

I think it may be something similar, but not quite that. Bleach is a good example of a wildly popular series which is held together on the surface by adrenaline and testosterone, but if you attempt to poke underneath the surface and work out the logic of the setting, it falls apart, and I think this is more typical of most of the popular shounen-stupid series* like Bleach and Naruto. It holds together on the surface really well, and the mangaka does just enough worldbuilding to support the initial premise and then lets the characters loose. (I'm thinking running on oobleck (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2XQ97XHjVw) is a good metaphor here: if you run faster, you stay on the surface, but if you slow down, you start to sink.)

It also helps that manga series tend to be done by one person or group, and have an ending, which helps provide continuity, instead of the characters being owned by the company and assigned out to different writers who take them in wildly divergent directions. The headlong pell-mell pace isn't kept up, and thus the breaks in the worldbuilding show.

* And sometimes I love me some shounen stupid. :D

Yes, and I will forgive inaccuracy when it is obviously being played for humor.

For someone like Blowtorch -wow, what a clever name- would have been better (and easier) to have written "we bio-engineered his lung system to enable him to breath fire" and left it at that. Those who cared could have though up cow stomachs and electric eel glands and whatever, those who did not could have just read on to the next fight.

Yeah, but they didn't even use lungs, they grafted stomachs onto his lungs. That doesn't even make sense, because they guy still needs to breath.

You need to give just enough information so that people who care can make up the details they need and no more. This I learned from GMing supers games. Minimal explanations are best and fall back on "it is just comic book physics/genetics/whatever" (or Kirby Dots!) as needed.

And made sure to mention all the anti-rejection drugs they had to use! Dude! COW STOMACHS! Don't bother with justifying it, BECAUSE YOU'RE JUST MAKING IT WORSE.

*sigh*

And what, is he inhaling grass to produce the methane? Please. No, don't tell me...

I may have to type in the explanation tonight just to see what everyone's reactions are. XD

Oh, I'd wager money the writer assumes cow stomachs magically produce methane gas.

Tacos.

Yeah, comic logic is "let me explain it in excruciating detail that will still make no sense," while manga logic is "it's this improbable thing now shut up and go with it." I probably wouldn't have much patience for comic book logic if I hadn't first been exposed to it at age 12.

SDK explains all the overpoweredness away with either "MIBU GENETICS!" (90% of people) or "Raised by person with Mibu genetics!" (Akira, Mahiro.) Then there's "I don't know so I'll say samurai blood makes it possible! I'll distract you from the total lack of logic by having Akira angst now!" (Benitora, Bon)

I think a lot of the fail that I had with comics that I don't have with manga is the self-awareness and embracing of the id.

So often the answer to "why does this happen?" in manga is: Because that would be awesome! Why was she raised by pigeons? Because that would be awesome! Why does he breathe fire? Because that would be awesome!

Being awesome is enough. I don't need or want some fake-o psuedo science getting in the way of my awesome.

There was that movie that came out some time ago that had Apache helicopters against dragons. I never saw it, but I heard they had some sort of pseudo-scientific explanation for the existence of dragons, and I was all DUDE. APACHE ATTACK HELICOPTERS AGAINST DRAGONS NEEDS NO EXPLANATION. EXPLANATION IS MERELY TAKING UP VALUABLE SCREEN TIME THAT COULD BE USED FOR MORE EXPLOSIONS.

Yes! Moar explosions! Less talking!

I wanted to see that and missed it and now I don't even remember the title! It was something like, dragons (bing!) appear (bing!) and wipe out most of the human race (bing!) and in ENGLAND (bing!) a brave remnant (bing!) get the helicopters (bing!) and decide to go attack the dragons in their lair (bingbingbing!). And the best part as I recall it was reading reviews that tried to treat this like a real movie with, you know, character development and dialogue. Come now, we have helicopters going after dragons, and you expect anything found in a movie starring say Dustin Hoffman?

YOUR PRIORITIES ARE NOT IN THE RIGHT PLACE, PEOPLE!

Oh god, Reign of Fire, which absolutely needed LESS talking and MORE dragon-fighting.

DUDE YES THE DRAGON-FIGHTING WAS AWESOME

I HAVE TO SEE THIS MOVIE NOW

AND THEN COMBINE IT IN MY HEAD WITH THE BIT IN LIVE FREE DIE HARD WHEN BRUCE WILLIS TAKES OUT A FIGHTER JET BY THROWING AN OVERPASS AT IT

I AM FAIRLY CERTAIN CHRISTIAN BALE TAKES HIS SHIRT OFF AT LEAST ONCE. AND HE HAS A LOT OF UST WITH HIS SECOND-IN-COMMAND LIKE A LOT.

There is indeed shirtless Christian Bale!

I admit to being mildly confused that Token Girl (who was cool but woefully underused, but had an interesting role in the dragonfighting unit) and Christian Bale apparently hooked up in the end, as i assumed he'd mourn Gerard Butler forever.

Gerard Butler, that was him! But I thought Christian Bale's hooking up with Token Girl was just, you know, symbolic of the human race continuing even when your BFF/boyfriend is gone. Circle of life 'n all. (Plus IIRC it was still kind of ambiguous, which I enjoyed.)

Had I written the movie, she and Matthew McWhatsit would have been married and raising dragonslayers. (Not because I'm particularly into the idea of them as a pairing, but because I like people who keep being heroes and fighters even after they have kids.)

I have seen that movie!

The dragons...were asleep? The only thing I remember about the explanation was that there was only 1 male dragon and after it woke up it flew around the world and dropped its sperm on the sleeping females and woke them up and then there were baby female dragons and they had to kill the male dragon so there wouldnt be 10 new dragons for every one they killed. Or something. Look, it had Christian Bale and Gerard Butler acting out Star Wars and Matthew McWhatsit bald and with a battleax. BUT IT WAS ALL ABOUT THE AX AND THE DRAGONS AND THE APACHE HELICOPTERS!!

Part of the frustration I have when comics try to justify their crazy things is that I already know there's a really good chance than whatever handwaving or scientific pseudo-babble they're using is going to get rewritten or retconned or shuffled into the non-canon box eventually.

Therefore even when I'm reading it for the first time, my brain is going "skim, skim!" and being annoyed that they're using up pages of that could be filled with More Awesome Id-Filled Things for 'explanations' that everyone knows 1) are usually nonsense and 2) aren't going to matter in the long run anyway.

I picked up a Wolverine trade at the used bookstore this weekend, and it reminded me of something I forgot: that if you want the good art and storytelling (or at least art and storytelling that's taking risks), you need to look at the miniseries, not the regular monthlies. Cthuloid monster underneath a farmhouse? Go for it! Homicidal Christmas elves? You bet! Explanations? Who needs 'em!

I always liked the Wolverine in the miniseries better than the one in the monthly storylines.

In a very mushy way, this is something of a fantasy versus science fiction distinction, with hard fantasy lying in the middle. Science fiction readers aren't averse at all to a coherent explanation, even one relying on handwavium (the harder the SF the more realistic the explanation has to be---the fewer assumptions allowed). Hard fantasy readers are the ones who adore the "systems" inflicted on the post-D&D reader, in which the magic has to have an internal logic and predictability and its own laws and so on. And fantasy straight up can have a few rules, but it's much looser and less restrictive both for the author and for the reader. A magic stone is a magic stone, with such-and-such properties, and we don't get sidetracked into its molecular structure and radiation and how those make its powers possible, nor do we place it in an elaborate structure of rules and restrictions. It's a magic stone; we pick it up and get on with the story.

Part of the fun for me in "soft" fantasy is figuring out what the rules are: oh, everyone is a dragon and in Victorian England only with cannibalism? you can walk through mirrors? your only vulnerable point is the ankle where your mom neglected to dip you in handwavium? Okay then! Just don't try to explain things to spoil the fun for me, or overplay my patience with too many giant, convenient "Actually, I'm not left-handed!" reveals.

Wow. I like American superhero comics (and the X-books in particular) and that explanation for how their Weapon-X redshirt works just makes my head hurt. So very, very much headhurty.

Come on, guys, when did we need to explain how people's mutations worked except when it became critical to why they were not working/useful in this particular situation?

It's sad how much Cable & Deadpool stops being interesting every time Cable opens his mouth when Deadpool is not in the vicinity. Ooops, is my character bias showing? I read and re-read the series and I completely forget what the ostensible plot with the floating island and Fake!Russia and government coups are all about, because it doesn't matter, babe, no one caaaares. Stuffy Mary Sue from the future and wisecracking coyote lunatic mercenary biologically teleporter-linked together to fight crime and hate each other! What more do you need JUST RUN WITH IT ALREADY. Cranky fighty stick-in-the-mud control freak stalker dork Cable = ADORABLE; "Everybody Loves Cable" ubermonologuing Cable = I PUNCH IN THE FACE. (Have you hit the Civil War arc yet? I love that just for the faceoff. And the punching.)

I like technical explanations when the science is A)interesting B)prima facia accurate C)at all important later, none of which fits Cable's junk. Otherwise, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, so just run with it already! And I like that Deadpool is lampshade-hanging-savvy enough about his own genre to just go "Screw it, I'm shooting things" and I wish more Very Serious Superheroes would follow his example.

The best thing ever--okay, maybe, like, the eleventh-best-thing-ever--was when everyone was like "Ohh NOOOOESSS we've lost Cable in another dimension(s), what incredibly complicated rescue scenario with multiple crossovers can we concoct!" and Deadpool's like "Orrrrr we can do this stupidly simple thing instead!" And then they haul in Fixit Guy to make the stupidly simple thing splendidly complicated with wires and physics and he's all, "I, Fixit Guy, will now describe how awesome I am since I have hooked up this complicated science device to Deadpool that will successfully find Cable for us through--"
Deadpool: "Gotcha, bye!" *IS GONE*
Fixit Guy: "--through an elaborate scientific PROCESS I HAD NOT FINISHING DESCRIBING GODDAMMIT"

Heee! :)

I'm somewhere around ... er, Domino showed up for a couple of issues and I think that's where I last stopped.

And was there any resolution to the OH NOES WHO KILLED ~~OSAMA BIN LADEN~~ RANDOM ISLAMIC TERRORIST GUY IT COULD ONLY HAVE BEEN DEADPOOL EVEN DEADPOOL THINKS SO thing? Because I am racking my brain and cannot come up with any memory of that story beyond Deadpool coming to the conclusion that he must have done it. Which was pretty cool. XD

I think you missed issue 14! [rot13] Va juvpu rirelbar yrneaf gung Qrnqcbby xvyyrq abg!Bfnzn sbe onfvpnyyl ab ernfba naq gura sbetbg nobhg vg orpnhfr uvf NQUQ-nzarfvn-ba-avgeb unf whfg tbggra gung onq. Pnoyr'f nyy, "Guvf vf jul jr pna'g unir avpr guvatf, Jnqr!" naq Jnqr'f yvxr "Ohg jr'er fgvyy pbby naq ohqqvrf, evtug? Evtug?" naq gurer vf znayl ihyarenovyvgl naq natfg, naq gura Angr xvpxf Jnqr'f nff bss gur vfynaq.

Grpuavpnyyl jr arire trg VEERSHGNOYR CEBBS gung Qrnqcbby qvq xvyy abg!Bfnzn, yrnivat gung ubyr bcra sbe fbzrbar bofrffvir gb pbzr onpx va 20 lrnef naq cyht gb cebir! Qrnqcbby'f! vaabprapr!, oneevat gur ybgf naq ybgf bs bgure crbcyr ur xvyyrq jub cebonoyl qrfreirq vg.

C.F. Abve Qrnqcbby, Gerapupbng Qrgrpgvir©, vf fb zl Obtvr-oblsevraq. [/rot13]

Here, random snippet stolen from a great DP blogpost I am hiding because it is supah-spoilery (the post, not the snippet).
Sabretooth: "SCREAM FOR ME."

re: rot13. Yeah, I must have missed that. Somehow. I'll go back and read it. XD V whfg ybir gur jnl Qrnqcbby jnf fb rnfvyl pbaivaprq gb tb frnepu gur frjref sbe ohyyrg pnfvatf jura abg!Bfnzn jnfa'g xvyyrq ol ohyyrgf. KQ

re: Sabretooth. *dies laughing*

Dude, I read these comments and the DW comments and cannot believe no one has brought up the most infamous example of this trope:

Mitochlorians.

CABLE IS ANAKIN THIS EXPLAINS SO MUCH

THERE YOU GO.

HAVE YOU ONLY JUST NOW COME TO THIS REVELATION?!?!?!!?

Though Cable>>>Anakin. If the fight gets tough, he can just explain the family tree and the "NNOOOOOO!!!!!!!" will rupture Anakin's lungs.

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Thinky thoughts

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