Book Review - Fall Through by Nate Powell

 reviewed by CT Lim

Nate Powell. Fall Through. New York: Abrams ComicArts, 2024. https://www.abramsbooks.com/product/fall-through_9781419760822/

So what do you do as a follow-up after creating the biggest books of your career? Well, you go for broke as Nate Powell has done here with Fall Through. Let's back up a bit. 

If you have been following comics or comics that have won acclaim and awards, Powell's previous books on American civil rights icon, John Lewis (the March trilogy and its sequel, Run) are as respectable as you can get. Notices in the mainstream media, national TV coverage and good reviews in all the right places. National Book Award winner!

But just like the Sex Pistols, who broke up after releasing one leave it or take it album, and right after their one-and-only shambling USA tour, Powell decided to go back to his punk rock roots which most of us have no clue about and what a story he has to tell. (although like a true punk, Powell, through his lead character, is critical of the Pistols for being the manufactured group they were).

The connections between comics and punk are not new. John Holmstrom, Love and Rockets, that cover of Sub Pop 200 by Charles Burns. Recently, I reread old issues of Peter Bagge's Hate, the run in which Buddy was managing a band and how everything just self-destructed while on tour. The story did not age well. 

The synopsis of Fall Through reads something like that: an "all-new trippy original graphic novel that's a love letter for fans of the indie punk scene of the 90s. Fall Through is one trip after another as a band, held hostage by their lead vocalist, are forced to repeat the same sets, same stops, same tour over and over again until one of the band members realizes what is happening and has to make a choice—the music she's struggled and fought so hard for, or reality?"

So what are Powell's punk credentials? Because it is all about street cred in punk rock. The notes say: "As for his music career, Powell was introduced to the hardcore punk community in 1991, played over 500 shows across North America and Europe in various bands, including underground legends Soophie Nun Squad and Universe, and managed the do-it-yourself label Harlan Records from 1994 to 2010."

Not bad although I have not heard of Soophie Nun Squad and Universe. But then again, most people in Singapore have not heard of the dumbass band I was in in the late 1980s, the Primitive Painters. But punk is an attitude, a way of thinking, an approach that I returned to from time to time. I can be good for only so long, but I can’t be good all the time. Punk prevails.

Fall Through captures that spirit quite nicely. How punk brings us together and pulls us along, but we need to return to real life after some time. But that is also not forever as the call of the punk goddess sirens will beckon us over and over again. Why do you think after slogging for 25 years as a chump and all burnout at work and having to take a year off of no-pay leave that I am attending gigs almost every weekend? Why would they even tolerate me and let through the door when immediately once I enter, I raise the median age of the room? Why bother when I need to know where the nearest toilet is and always look for the op corner (that's the old people corner). Why bother indeed when I have no chance in hell to chat up the cute punk women no matter what my loins say?

But. Punk embraces and punk can be inclusive.

To his credit, Powell has a compelling narrative (or beat, yes, we got the beat!) that drives the story. Something weird is going on, almost like a curse that keeps the band on the road with no end in sight. It's not all punk philosophy ramblings like what I have written above. I like it but I am not sure those not in the scene can get the references and the drift. But who cares? Powell doesn't over-explain or over-romanticize those days and nights of wine and roses. Being in a punk band can be stifling despite rhetoric of independence and freedom of expression. Pretty much like in a cell group or commune. There are equal parts of love and loathing, much like everything else in life. 

Reading Fall Through is like reading A Punkhouse in the Deep South: The Oral History of 309 by Aaron Cometbus and Scott Satterwhite and Going Underground: American Punk 1979-1989 by George Hurchalla. The only thing missing is a 7” as part of the book. 

You just go along for the ride. And it is good to be on the road. While it lasts with the wind blowing against your face. You squint and you drive straight on. 

Stand aside, open wide. 

 

Book review: J. Andrew Deman – The Claremont Run: Subverting Gender in the X-Men - a review by Christopher Roman

 
reviewed by Christopher Roman, Kent State University

J. Andew Deman, The Claremont Run: Subverting Gender in the X-Men. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2023. ISBN: 9781477325452. https://utpress.utexas.edu/9781477325452/

For those of us who followed J. Andrew Deman’s “@ClaremontRun” account on Twitter/X, this academic work treads familiar ground. On his Twitter/X account, Deman would practice public facing scholarship in order to discuss the importance of Chris Claremont’s writing run on the X-Men, often discussing gender, race, and disability issues, using a multiple post thread to lay out an argument in a short amount of space. In my estimation, it was an excellent use of tweets to reach a wider audience. The book under review here can be said to be a translation of the use of that social media platform into an academic book. The Claremont Run looks at key characters in the X-Men and the ways they subvert gender. Each chapter deals with two or three characters (as I will discuss below). Deman’s book is successful on many levels, but what I find admirable is the way Deman uses the intersection of the digital humanities and traditional close-reading to examine gender roles in Claremont’s run. By basing his readings on statistical analysis which may show, for example, that Wolverine has more interior thought bubbles than other male X-Men, Deman is able to then show how that statistic is important in understanding how Claremont is subverting gender roles during a period of time in comic book history that rests on gender stereotypes for male and female characters.

            The introduction lays out the framework for the book explaining the critical family that Deman draws from including works by Carolyn Cocca, Joseph Darowski, and Ramzi Fawaz. As well Deman explains the support of his university which allowed him and his team to create data sets of Claremont’s run for the purpose of present and future analysis. Deman explains that for the book, he is focusing on gender as it provides a foundation for other intersectional concerns. Gender is a through-line to thinking about its subversion as, according to Deman, 82% of Claremont’s run on the X-Men passes the Bechdel test. While Deman explains that this is not the only rubric he uses to understand gender in the X-Men comics, this statistic also suggests how important gender subversion is to Claremont’s characterization of the X-men,

            The first half of Deman’s book focuses on female characters, and he begins, in Chapter One, with a discussion of Jean Grey and Moira McTaggart. For Deman, Moira MacTaggart, who originally poses as Charles Xavier’s housekeeper but soon reveals she co-created the team (and the housekeeping role was a ruse), is a powerful scientist who embodies both a scientific mind and a nurturer. By opening his analysis with Moira, Deman can show how Claremont undermines gendered stereotypes of the cold female scientist or the mother-figure as they are knit together in one character. Jean Grey inhabits the rest of this first chapter, and while Jean has a body of analysis behind her, Deman is able to show how Jean undermines Cyclops’ alpha male dominance through Claremont’s representation of Jean as enacting her own sexual agency.

            Chapter Two focuses on Storm who Deman argues “achieves greater significance and complexity by entangling gender performance with social categories of religion, race, and sexuality” (35). In this chapter, Deman utilizes data sets to show how important Storm is to Claremont’s run. She has the most (nearly double) thought bubbles and interior monologues; she appears in the most panels of the Claremont run; she appears on the most covers; and she achieves a number of milestones including being the first female and first black lead of a Marvel superhero team. However, as Deman shows in the rest of the chapter, it is not merely numbers and firsts that make Storm such an important female X-Men character; rather her representation is complex as Claremont’s characterization of her touches on issues of religion, her African heritage, her leadership style, and her sexuality.

            Chapter Three examines two other woman X-Men characters Psylocke and Dazzler. Psyclocke is a mutant with psionic powers, while Dazzler can create light from sound. Each of these characters subvert female gender stereotypes. For Psylocke, her feminine appearance belies her fighting prowess and, as Deman, writes, “reflect[s] on the artificiality of female gender roles” (63). Placing Psylocke with Dazzler in this chapter allows Deman to show the range of female representation, as much as Psyclocke becomes a warrior, Dazzler tends to be discussed in terms of hyper-femininity—she was an aerobics instructor, movie star, model, and disco star. However, Deman shows how Claremont uses Dazzler to plumb a deep interior life, as well as use her character to comment on toxic masculinity. Rather than a damsel-in-distress role, Claremont characterizes Dazzler as commenting on the performance of femininity. By placing Dazzler in this role, it shows how powerful she actually is and further reveals the value of the feminine in the male-dominated comics world.

            The second half of the book turns to the men. Chapter Four focuses on Cyclops and his struggles with masculinity. As Deman argues, the characterization of the men relies on their interaction with their female teammates. Cyclops’ masculinity is critiqued both through Jean’s sexual agency, as well as Storm’s powerful leadership. As someone who was hand-picked to lead the X-Men, Cyclops’ ouster of his role as leader by Storm shows how toxic masculinity has no place in the X-Men. With the conclusion of the Dark Phoenix Saga, for example, Scott leaves the X-Men realizing how toxic his relationship is with the team, and turning to the domestic sphere to find true happiness.

            Chapter Five focuses on Wolverine. Much like the Storm chapter, this chapter is strong in its analysis of the importance of Wolverine for his subversive potential. Despite characterizations of Wolverine as a killer and as a berserker, Deman shows how Claremont approaches Wolverine with much more nuance in terms of masculine stereotypes. Wolverine is a nurturer expressing a reluctance to fight more than any other member of the X-Men. His characterization is complex in that it portrays the harm of hegemonic masculinity as he most desires to be loved.

            Chapter Six examines another range of masculinity examining the characters of Nightcrawler and Havok. Each of these characters critique masculinity in unique ways. Nightcrawler expresses sexual agency and acceptance of his mutant state despite not being able to pass as human like the rest of the X-Men. His blue fur and pointy tale labels him quite explicitly as different. Yet, it is often Nightcrawler who expresses an alternate masculinity through his difference. Havok’s representation undermines traditional toxic masculinity in that each time he attempts to mimic his brother’s leadership style or Wolverine’s violence, it conflicts with who he is. By reveling in the performance of masculinity, Claremont is able to show how toxic masculine traits hurt the community of mutants.

            Deman’s book offers us extended meditations on gender in the X-Men. It is a masterful work on the ways Claremont’s run is not only iconic, but achieves a level of gender subversion at a time when comics stood by traditional masculine and feminine roles. If I had a critique, I wish that some of the chapters were longer. For example, the Moira MacTaggart discussion was a great way to start the book, but it felt too short as it gave way to analysis of Jean Grey. As well, Deman uses the data sets in some chapters (for example Storm, Wolverine), but mentions them only lightly in others. All in all, however, this is an excellent work of scholarship showing the ways public and academic scholarship can meet to open up new perspectives on works of popular culture. 

 Editor's note: We'll be running two reviews of this book on the blog, as one of the editors (ok it was me) assigned it twice. However, I think there is enough room in the field for multiple reviews of the growing literature. 

Book Review - Muslim Comics and Warscape Witnessing

Reviewed by Adrienne Resha

Esra Mirze Santesso. Muslim Comics and Warscape Witnessing. Ohio State University Press, 2023. 220 pp, $149.95 hardcover, $34.95 paperback. https://ohiostatepress.org/books/titles/9780814215418.html

     Words in the Arabic language often have three-consonant roots that convey meaning, such as sh-h-d (ش-ه-د): to witness. If you do not read or speak Arabic, then this may still look or sound familiar because shahada, the sincere declaration that one believes God is singular and accepts Muhammad as His prophet, is one of the five pillars of Islam. The root also appears in the noun shaheed (شهيد), which can be translated as witness or martyr. Whether translated, transliterated, or loaned to other languages, the word takes on different meanings in different contexts. Martyr, meaning one who sacrifices themself as a testament to their faith, overlaps with martyr, one who witnesses violence when murdered by a settler-colonial state. Esra Mirze Santesso’s Muslim Comics and Warscape Witnessing attends to different versions of witnessing and visions of witnesses in what she calls “Muslim Comics.”

Santesso’s Muslim Comics is a category that includes “any graphic narrative that features three-dimensional Muslim characters and foregrounds Muslim experiences in relation to various power structures inside and outside the Muslim homeland” (4-5). This definition is inclusive of comics produced by Muslim and non-Muslim creators, privileging character identity over those of cartoonists, writers, and artists. She employs warscape, “a civilian space in which different [political and military] factions are participating in asymmetrical struggles,” as a category that “underscores the prolonged effects of violence as opposed to the finality denoted by ‘war’” and includes the Guantánamo Bay detention camp in Cuba, Iran, Kashmir, and Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon (5). Through visualization and narration, witnessing in comics, Santesso argues, “offers a way to change vulnerability into resistance” and “reflects a desire to restore stability and certainty by creating permanent records of those who are erased from history and those whose voices are muted” (16). Following a history of Muslim characters in US American comics, she examines four kinds of warscape witnesses who appear in Muslim Comics: the reluctant witness, the false witness, the border witness, and the surrogate witness.

While the rest of the book focuses on “protagonists [who] are neither heroes nor villains… individuals with moral complexities who find themselves having to cope with warscape realities” (11), Chapter 1, “The Politics and Aesthetics of Muslim Comics,” is largely about Muslims in superhero comics. According to Santesso, Muslims in American comics in and outside of the superhero genre have historically fallen into three categories: the “Orientalized Other,” the “barbaric jihadi,” or the “hybrid token” like, she argues, Simon Baz (Green Lantern) and Kamala Khan (Ms. Marvel) (30). Santesso acknowledges Muslim Comics in the American tradition, namely graphic memoirs, and those coming out of Europe before turning her gaze to Muslim Comics set in warscapes in North America and Asia.

Chapter 2, “Reluctant Witnesses in Prison Camp Narratives,” contrasts the “barbaric jihadi” of American comics with the “abject Muslim prisoner” of Guantánamo Kid: The True Story of Mohammed El-Gharani, Guantanamo Voices: True Accounts from the World’s Most Infamous Prison, and Aaron & Ahmed. Santesso asserts that the “abject Muslim prisoner” is not derivative of the “barbaric jihadi” but rather of the Muselmann, a German term for Muslim used by Jewish prisoners “to describe the ‘living-dead’ inhabitants of the concentration camp” (68). This chapter’s Muslim Comics illustrate how torture turned Guantanamo Bay prisoners into the living dead. The living dead are also reluctant witnesses who bear witness “by refusing to bear witness” (86-87), closing their eyes or looking away as they tell their stories to/for creators who will interpret them in comics form. The reluctant witness does not testify to recover their own humanity but to protect that of readers.

In Chapter 3, “Vulnerability, Resistance, and False Witnesses,” Santesso introduces what she calls the “vulnerability-resistance dialectic,” a cycle between resistance against vulnerability and vulnerability as a consequence of resistance, which produces false witnesses. False witnesses, such as those in Zahra’s Paradise and An Iranian Metamorphosis, dishonestly testify in service to the state, in these Muslim Comics, Iran. Santesso argues that the introduction of false witnesses, who escape the cycle by lying, illustrates how witnessing is not always liberatory, that it “can sustain and perpetuate oppressive power structures rather than unsettle them” (110). These comics, which differentiate between the witness who speaks on behalf of the powerful and the witness who speaks on behalf of the vulnerable, complicate the resistance-vulnerability dialectic.

Chapter 4, “Shaheed and Border Witnesses,” directly addresses the figure of the martyr in the specific context of Kashmir. Muslim Comics set in that liminal border zone – Kashmir Pending and Munnu: A Boy from Kashmir – challenge “the idea of border subjectivity as an inherently intuitive and productive negotiation between two or more cultures” through border witnessing (117). Border witnesses reject the necropolitical conditions of the warscape that may encourage martyrdom and, instead, affirm the value of other kinds of resistance. In these comics, Santesso continues, “the border witness… by reaffirming the vision of Kashmiri unity known as Kashmiriyat, uses the act of witnessing as an antidote to radicalization rather than an accelerant for it” (118-119).

Focusing on Palestinian refugee camps, Chapter 5, “Surrogate Witnesses and Memory,” diverges from previous chapters by pairing a Muslim Comic, Baddawi, with a non-Muslim comic, Waltz with Bashir. These comics both feature surrogate witnesses, their creators, who rely on eyewitness testimony as they use various focalization techniques to “record, document, and recontextualize the past” (147). Surrogate witnesses have “the license to substitute, embellish, and reenact the past” and can, in doing so, create “counter-histories that attend to the absence, silence, and erasure of victims” (168-169). The surrogate witness can double as a storyteller and an activist, inserting themself as an interlocutor via the medium of comics to illustrate the past and inspire different futures.

            In Santesso’s conclusion “The Future of Muslim Comics,” she looks away from the witness and back at the superhero. Santesso writes, “Muslim Comics, like Black Comics, have perhaps reached a place where they can push back against the universalization and fetishization of American whiteness and redefine what heroism is or what heroes look like” (174-175). They may even, she argues, “have the potential to pave the wave for Muslim futurism,” specifically “a more positive and less limiting model” that is more like Afrofuturism (176). However, each of these categories – Muslim Comics, Black Comics, Muslim futurism, and Afrofuturism – are already overlapping. Twenty years ago, writer Christopher Priest and artist Joe Bennett introduced the Black and Muslim American superhero Josiah al-hajj Saddiq (aka Josiah X) in The Crew (Marvel, 2003). Although Josiah X’s post-9/11 origin story (The Crew #5) is by no means perfect, it is still arguably a Muslim Comic because it is a graphic narrative about a complex Muslim character that foregrounds his experience in relation to structural racism in the US. Santesso’s Muslim Comics and Warscape Witnessing is a welcome addition to the growing body of scholarship on comics about and by Muslim people, but there is still more work – and work more reflective of the diversity of Muslim peoples across the globe – to be done.