Marvel Cinematic Universe: Marvel's The Avengers (Retrospective)

Marvel's The Avengers (2012)

After four years and five films of teases and buildup, The Avengers landed with no small amount of fanfare and unusually positive reviews. The experiment to fold a group of individually popular superheroes together into a single, cohesive story paid off in spades, and it's easy to see why. Almost ten years since it first released, The Avengers remains a well-crafted, engaging, and funny action-adventure spectacle.

When Thor villain Loki (Tom Hiddleston) returns at the behest of a mysterious new master, he arrives on Earth as a harbinger of worse things to come. Meant to pave the way for a coming alien invasion, he wastes little time in decimating S.H.I.E.L.D., placing Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner) and Erik Selvig (Stellan Skarsgård, returning from Thor) under some kind of mind control, prompting Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) to finally call in the team he's been building. While Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) retrieves Dr. Bruce Banner (portrayed here by Mark Ruffalo, replacing Edward Norton), Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) approaches Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) and Fury himself ropes in Steve Rogers (Chris Evans). The team comes together to capture Loki, and it isn't long before Thor (Chris Hemsworth) joins the party to round out the cast.

For being such a big, bombastic movie, the plot is relatively straightforward and relies on the tried-and-true "the villain secretly wants to be captured" twist that became so popular in the wake of the The Dark Knight (2008). It's not a hard twist to see coming, which is probably why the film smartly telegraphs this early on. Rather than muddle through an overly complicated plot in a film that is, by nature, stuffed full of characters, The Avengers wisely focuses on those characters and their relationships. This is where all the magic occurs. It's a thrill watching Iron Man butt heads with Captain America, and good fun to see the mighty Thor come to blows with the incredible Hulk. The vast majority of the film is spent letting the team work out the kinks in their internal structure, which is why the finale is such a rousing payoff. When the Avengers finally come together behind Captain America and begin to function like a well-oiled machine, we get the sense that this dream team is unstoppable.

It's hard to fault the film for not taking itself too seriously, because that's never been the point. These films know exactly what they are and what they want to be, and are content to play within the confines of the comic book genre. Perhaps this is the most refreshing approach to the source material, because watching The Avengers feels very much like reading one of the comic books from which these characters and stories are adapted. Just like comic books are not high literature, The Avengers doesn't set out to be the Citizen Kane of the modern era. Because of this, the film comes across as having an unusual amount of confidence in both its characters and execution. I suspect this has a lot to do with the fact that the characters had already been established in the films leading up to this one, and because each of the actors were already comfortable in their respective roles, allowing for a kind of freedom and playfulness not commonly seen in these kinds of big summer blockbusters.

The Avengers is certainly not a perfect film. The final sequence rolls on for a few minutes too long, and the characters (except for Banner) all pretty much reach peak development by the end of the second act. Taken on its own, separate from the continuity of the established MCU, The Avengers has all the depth and nuance of an airbrush painting. It's pretty to look at, but there's not much there by way of substance. Black Widow carries the weight of the most important conversations, the first with Banner, the second with Barton after he's been freed from Loki's mind control. The rest is all sound and color. But, the film isn't exactly meant to be taken on its own. No, it's firmly planted within a specific context, and sort of expects viewers to already be familiar with its characters. If you're looking for character development, this film probably isn't going to satisfy. But if you're just looking to see all of these iconic characters come together in an all-out blockbuster of a flick, then The Avengers is for you.

Marvel and its collaborators struck gold with this film. The cinematic universe only expands after this landmark movie, eventually blossoming into a full-blown cultural phenomenon the likes of which hasn't been seen since the release of the original Star Wars trilogy. Regardless of the numerous movies and sequels that will go on to populate the MCU, none of them will really recapture the magic of The Avengers, when these heroes all assembled on the big screen for the first time.

The Flash, Volume 4: Reverse (Review)

The Flash, Volume 4: Reverse

Francis Manapul's final arc of The New 52's The Flash is arguably his best—and that's saying a lot, considering the quality of his output thus far. It's also his most mature. After the wild sci-fi hijinks of the last two arcs, this volume marks a return to the more personal tale with which Manapul began his run on the title. The stakes here are much higher than they were when Flash battled Mob Rule, though, as this story moves with all the urgency and gravitas of a finale. There is a sense that Manapul and co-creator Brian Buccellato's run has been building to this; indeed, after a quick tease at the end of the last volume, Barry Allen finally comes face-to-face with his legendary nemesis, Reverse-Flash.

The classic villain's reinvention here is thorough, but done in such a way as to maximize the emotional payoff. Smashing the reset button and rewriting established character arcs and continuities is like playing with fire. Fans are just as likely to respond with positive reception as they are to make sure the new content tanks in terms of sales if they don't like where things are going. Because of the fickle fanbase, Manapul and Buccellato's handling of Reverse-Flash undoubtedly has its detractors. But even the most devoted comic book purists shouldn't let their emotions get in the way of reading and investing in this ripping good yarn that touts a surprisingly hefty amount of pathos.

Everything in this volume really does revolve around Reverse-Flash and unmasking his motivations. Revealed to be Daniel West, the brother of Flash's long-standing love interest Iris West, Reverse-Flash has been draining the energy of everyone affected by the Speed Force in an effort to tear through time itself and turn back the clock to kill his and Iris's abusive father. Though perhaps a little heavy on melodrama, the end result is nevertheless a pretty sympathetic villain with a clear and understandable ambition. The writers do some great character work with Daniel, who nearly succeeds in murdering his father, only for his plan to go horribly awry when a younger version of himself and his sister return home. Suddenly confronted by his own trauma, Daniel faces a crisis of choice when the Flash intervenes and suggests that altering time and murdering his father in front his younger self will cause more trauma to young Daniel than anything else. The solution, Flash explains, is not in running from or changing the past, but in facing one's ghosts and dealing with trauma as best one can.

The thing I most admire about Manapul and Buccellato's narrative is that it refuses to fall prey to sentimentality. Though Reverse-Flash is stopped, Daniel is unable to bring himself to fully let go of the trauma his father inflicted on him, forcing Flash to drain him of his Speed Force energy in order to set aright the fractured timeline. Though he is reunited with his sister, he remains embittered and vindictive, saying that he would try again to turn back the clock and murder their father if given the chance. Even after he's carted off to prison, Iris visits him and explains that she has allowed the pain of their childhood to drive her to become a better, stronger, better-adjusted person, but Daniel is too warped to see anything other than his own pain and anger. When Iris leaves him to his fate, one gets the sense that the prison he's held in is far better than the personal hell he has made for himself.

Barry, of course, revisits his own crisis in light of Daniel's plight. He has to come to terms with the fact that he now knows he can turn back the clock and prevent his mother's murder, but that to do so would come at too high a cost. If altering the past necessarily means altering the present, then he would be putting his own selfish desires above the multitude of those whom he has saved. Commander Spock would frame the conundrum in this way, "Logic clearly dictates that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few." Barry's decision to not splinter time in an attempt to rescue his mother is also not airbrushed, and there is a cost. It puts a strain on his relationship with his girlfriend, and it means that he must continue to search for evidence to prove his father's innocence. It's a bittersweet but hopeful ending, one that suggests that even the most debilitating and emotionally crippling of childhood traumas might be overcome. It will not be easy—but it is not impossible.

Together, Manapul and Buccellato delivered a triumphant run on The Flash that stands as one of the best things to come out of DC's New 52 era. The synergy between art and narrative has made for a gorgeous comic book that positively simmers with the kooky and old fashioned spirit of the earliest works in the genre. It's nice to see Manapul's final chapter give the Scarlet Speedster a poignant, emotionally resonant sendoff. When reading comics is this much fun, what more can you ask for than a mature and clear-eyed final statement that nonetheless leaves readers with a renewed sense of hope?

Batman and Robin #18: "Undone" (Retrospective)

Batman and Robin #18

Comic books are a fascinating medium. Blending two traditional forms of storytelling, prose and image, these stories are often scorned by the upper echelons of literary criticism—and much of it is deserved. But every now and then, one comes along that transcends genre conventions and catches the eyes of even the literature snobs. These tend to come packaged as "graphic novels." Much harder to do is tell a story in a single issue that warrants serious critical evaluation. Yet Peter J. Tomasi, Patrick Gleason, and Mick Gray pulled it off.

Tomasi and Gleason's Batman and Robin title, part of DC's New 52 initiative, was a book that prioritized Bruce Wayne's relationship with his mischievous son, Damian. The title nailed their dynamic perfectly, rising above the conventional genre fare to become a thoughtful study on the relationship between fathers and sons. So, when Damian was killed in the pages of another Batman title—an odd creative decision I continue to bemoan—the status quo for Tomasi and Gleason had to undergo an obvious, serious change. Whereas the usual expectation for comic books is to brush such traumatic deaths aside with little more than a passing mention (after all, no one is ever truly dead in this medium), writer Tomasi had something else in mind entirely. And with issue 18 of his run on Batman and Robin, he delivered what can only be described as a masterpiece of the genre in a single issue.

Even more impressive, the story, titled "Undone," is told entirely without text. Usually comic books have speech bubbles that indicate dialogue between characters, or thought bubbles to indicate a character's internal thoughts, or words to indicate sound effects—there is none of that here. It's just Gleason's pencils and Gray's ink on display. Though textless, this particularly story loses nothing in the way of narrative force, as Tomasi chooses to tell this one with a total reliance on emotional beats rather than a traditional plot structure. The payoff is an unexpected emotional resonance.

Readers of this remarkable issue are carried through Bruce's very authentic procession of grief via hauntingly beautiful imagery that makes his emotional turbulence all the more palpable. As he struggles to cope with his son's death, he sits alone in complete and total darkness. He curls his fingers into his palms so fiercely the skin breaks. When he goes out on patrol as Batman, he stalks the night with unusual menace and ferocity. But try as he might to find ways of escaping his pain, he constantly sees reminders of Damian all around him, even as fleeting glimpses in the reflections of building windows. These are simple images that work on a gut level and are sure to resonate with anybody who has lost someone close to them. This is the kind of hurt that only subsides with time and distance—and even then, it subsides only because memory is a funny thing, and because something else in life will always come along to demand emotional investment. Were it not for those things, then it's likely this kind of hurt would never go away. And it all culminates in a brutal, heartbreaking final panel that will shatter even the sternest of resolves.

If the old adage that "a picture is worth a thousand words" is true, then Batman and Robin #18 is an epic of intimate scale that lays bare the darkest corners of the Batman's tormented soul. For being a completely textless issue, this comic is anything but silent.

Marvel Cinematic Universe: Captain America: The First Avenger (Retrospective)

After a plethora of dark knights, tortured heroes, and spoiled brats learning to go straight, viewing a film as good-natured as Marvel's Captain America: The First Avenger comes as a breath of fresh air in a genre threatened with staleness. Having met Tony, Bruce, and Thor, we are finally introduced to Captain America—the star-spangled man with a plan. Functioning as the Marvel analogue to DC's Superman, he fights for truth, justice, and, quite literally, the American way.

Marvel's Captain America: The First Avenger

The framework story follows the exploits of S.H.I.E.L.D., the shadowy organization led by Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), as they seek to recover the long-lost Captain America for reasons unknown. The narrative proper begins when the film catapults us back to an alternate version of World War II. Here we meet Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), a scrawny young man who is a patriot at heart and wants nothing more than to join the Allied fight against the Axis powers. But, despite numerous attempts, a plethora of health conditions have prevented him from enlisting. When his best friend, James "Bucky" Barnes (Sebastian Stan), prepares to ship out, he has a conversation with Rogers that's overheard by Abraham Erskine (Stanley Tucci). Erskine is immediately taken with Rogers's heart and determination, and schemes to have the young man enlisted in a special program headed up by Colonel Chester Phillips (Tommy Lee Jones), your typical military curmudgeon, and overseen by Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell), a spitfire of a British officer.

Seemingly against all odds, Rogers is chosen from the program's candidates to undergo a unique super-soldier experiment. In one of the film's best moments, Erskine explains to Rogers why he's been chosen. It has nothing to do with his physical capabilities, but because of his character and heart. Unlike Tony, Bruce, and Thor, Steve is already formed and well-adjusted. He's a true hero, through and through, brave and courageous despite what's stacked against him. So, Rogers undergoes the experiment, and emerges the perfect specimen of a human soldier, but he's got a moral compass already honed to a fine point. Of course, government suits try to get involved and Phillips tries to keep him off the front lines, but eventually he proves himself the hero we all know him to be when he liberates nearly 400 prisoners of war.

His adventures bring him into conflict with Johann Schmidt (Hugo Weaving), a confidante of Hitler's and leader of the terrorist organization known as HYDRA, as well as someone who takes Nazi occultism to extremes. He tampers with forbidden sciences all in the name of world domination, with hopes of eventually toppling Hitler himself. He's a kind of perfect antithesis for Captain America, having undergone a similar super-soldier experiment, only to turn inward. He's malformed and selfish, and Weaving portrays him with all the mustache-twirling glee one would expect from this kind of larger-than-life villain.

The side-characters we meet along the way are all likable, probably because the cast is rounded out by wonderful character actors like Neal McDonough as the husky "Dum Dum" Dugan. We also get a nice bit of connective tissue in the form of Dominic Cooper, who portrays the brilliant Howard Stark, who will eventually father Tony. And the whole thing ends on a surprisingly bittersweet note, as Captain America wakes up in the present day and meets Nick Fury, bringing the whole thing full circle.

Captain America: The First Avenger really is a fun film with a lot of heart. It doesn't have the quips and wisecracks or offbeat humor of Iron Man or Thor, nor does it put front and center a protagonist wrestling through personal conflicts, like The Incredible Hulk. Instead, what we have here is a film that works from a much older template, the kind of big, blockbuster action-adventure war movie that Hollywood used to revel in. If, in watching the previous MCU films, we learn to admit when we're wrong and how to grow, Captain America gives us a hero that we can look up to, an ideal to which we can aspire. Now that we've met Steve Rogers, the Avengers have found their leader. And all that's left for them to do is assemble.

Marvel Cinematic Universe: Thor (Retrospective)

Upon each viewing, I find myself enjoying the fourth film of the MCU immensely. By this point, the training wheels are off, and the production companies have plotted a firm course toward bringing the Avengers together, and the rest of the team must be introduced. In this way, Thor feels like a much freer film than Marvel's previous outing, Iron Man 2. Rather than trying to build out characters from the Iron Man movies, Thor pivots hard into new genres and territories. Much of the action unfolds on a cosmic playing field known as the Nine Realms, detailing a conflict between the realms of Asgard and Jotunheim. When Earth finally crops up in the story, it's almost a stopover for the broader conflict.

Marvel's Thor (2011)

When the brash Thor (Chris Hemsworth), son of the Asgardian king, Odin (Anthony Hopkins), is stripped of his title and power and banished to Earth for his insolence in provoking a conflict between Asgard and the Frost Giants of Jotunheim, what follows is a character arc very similar to that of Tony Stark's in the first Iron Man. The heart of this story is that of a man who never grew beyond being a spoiled brat learning to both take responsibility for his actions, and temper his contemptuous attitude with patience and respect. After falling for a mortal, the brilliant fringe scientist Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) and being fed a sinister lie by his traitorous brother, Loki (Tom Hiddleston), Thor grows into a man worthy of reclaiming what he's lost.

Much like Iron Man, if heroes are meant to instill in us virtues and ethics, then Thor presents a worthy hero. Not because he wields great power, but because he undergoes a profound change of heart. He goes from selfish and cocksure to selfless and modest, willing to give up his own life for the people of Earth. Similar to how Christ admonishes his disciples to deny themselves and take up their own cross in Luke 9, Thor quite literally dies a death to self. And only in dying does he find life again. In a blast of thunder, he is resurrected to reclaim his title and fearsome power, and this is what lends the film its transcendent quality. 

This is the stuff of myth and legend, what C. S. Lewis called the myth of the Dying God in his wonderful essay, "Myth Became Fact." These myths of Pagan messiahs and Pagan gods who die and rise again in fantasy are "good dreams," Lewis calls them in Mere Christianity, echoes in fantasy of the Father's plan worked out in reality—myth becoming fact in a particular time and place in human history. These stories, these virtues, point to Christ, a kind of basic morality system common to all humans, however sinful we might be. The very fact that we can conceive of stories like the one told in Thor, these pure expressions of virtue, suggests that there is, in fact, the purest expression of virtue, or the greatest story ever told. The mortal characters in the film, specifically Stellan Skarsgård's Erik Selvig, even discuss this in the context of the myths and legends of Norse mythology coming to life before their very eyes.

Thor is a marked improvement over Iron Man 2. Within a fantasy of warring gods and monsters, the film finds its heart in a timeless and human story about a bad man learning to be good. Between Iron Man, the Hulk, and Thor, it's easy to see how these initial films in the MCU managed to capture audiences the world over, and should banish any lingering doubts as to whether or not the once-lambasted characters in the pages of funny little 20th century picture books have become some of the definitive myths and fables of our times.

Superman: Man of Tomorrow (Review)

The origin story of Kal-El of Krypton is perhaps the best known among the pantheon of modern mythic heroes. That little spaceship crashing into the American heartland is more iconic than the scattering of Martha Wayne's pearls. The story of a boy trying to grow up in a small town, all the while knowing that he'll never quite fit in, is quintessential without losing an ounce of relatability. And the image of the god-man descending from the heavens with an outstretched hand to pull up a floundering humanity from the dredges of existence is, perhaps, the most primal story ever told.

Superman: Man of Tomorrow (2020)

All of that basic, archetypal storytelling coalesces into the story of Superman, the original superhero, and the most popular of modern mythopoetic icons. Turn him over, and stamped somewhere on his bright red Kryptonian cape you'll see, "Made in America." Yet the story's plot, themes, and character archetypes transcend any one culture or time or place. Perhaps this is what makes the origin story of Superman worth telling over and over again.

With Superman: Man of Tomorrow, we are given yet another take on this familiar tale. For all intents and purposes, there's really nothing new here. In a sense, anyone with a passing familiarity with Superman (voiced here by Darren Criss) has seen all of this before. Yet writer Tim Sheridan has found a new way of packaging the story, a different means of delivery. For example, I really don't recall J'onn J'onzz (Ike Amadi) having played such a prominent role in Superman's early days. But he takes on an important role in Sheridan's version of events. The same goes for intergalactic hotrod bounty hunter Lobo, voiced by the perfectly-cast Sons of Anarchy alum, Ryan Hurst.

Lois Lane (Alexandra Daddario) gets a new haircut, but remains the intrepid reporter we all know and love. Ma and Pa Kent (Bellamy Young and Neil Flynn) still lead simple lives on the farm, always ready to dish out some good ol' fashioned, homespun common sense life advice on the fly. But the story has, smartly, been updated to appeal to modern audiences. When the Kents try and walk Clark through knotting a tie, now they're doing it over video call on a cell phone. These are the subtle ways that demonstrate just how timeless this story really is.

The actual mechanics of the plot are the usual comic book nonsense, but Sheridan at least attempts to imbue the proceedings with some heart. While Lobo is the first major villain encountered, and classic Superman baddie Lex Luthor (Zachary Quinto) remains an ominous presence throughout, the real villain is the lesser-known Parasite (Brett Dalton), a tragic victim of circumstance, having once been a regular chap named Rudy Jones, who just so happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. However briefly, the film also touches on themes such as mankind's innate fear of "the other," or "the alien," which might seem like ideas "ripped from the headlines," until you realize that most every Superman origin tale has touched on those same themes, some with more profound things to say than others.

Superman: Man of Tomorrow is not the greatest take on Superman's origin. There are too many characters at play, and some of the more compelling relationships are lost in the shuffle as a result. Yet this is not a particularly bad movie. The art style is simple and pleasing. The characters are fleshed out. And the necessary boxes are checked. Perhaps Man of Tomorrow is simply guilty of playing the story too straight, of not trying to add anything new to the tale. If you're not already a fan of Superman, this movie probably won't convert you.

But, when it comes to these sorts of classic stories, which we have read and watched and enjoyed time and again for the past eighty years now, there's a real sense of not fixing what isn't broken. And there are far worse sins to commit when retelling an iconic origin story than giving Lois a new haircut, and letting Ma and Pa Kent wrestle with how to work the camera on a cell phone.

The Flash, Volume 3: Gorilla Warfare (Review)

Continuing their wildly successful reimagining of the Flash, Manapul and Buccellato deliver some of their best work on the title with Gorilla Warfare. The story picks up where the previous volume ends, with Grodd's forces raining into Central City. Grodd has returned, believing himself the only one capable of wielding the power of the Speed Force, and he's not going to let anyone stand in his way. In many ways, this story acts as a culmination of the work the creators have done thus far, as it's all hands on deck with heroes and villains alike uniting against this unprecedented threat.

The Flash, Volume 3: Gorilla Warfare

Wrapping up the Grodd invasion story takes up the majority of the volume, though the back half changes up the storytelling a bit, offering a few smaller narratives. One in particular sees Barry temporarily losing his powers in the middle of a sticky situation, and being forced to improvise. But these are the kinds of risks that Manapul and Buccellato are willing to take as storytellers, which keeps things fresh and prevents the execution from ever becoming too predictable. Perhaps the book's biggest tease comes in the form of Reverse-Flash, one of our titular hero's greatest villains. First introduced way back in the 1940s as "the Rival," Reverse-Flash is the Flash's archenemy, and arguably his biggest threat. We get a look at the character's New 52 redesign in this volume, and—minor qualms about the character's look aside—the tease is pretty spectacular.

One thing I've noticed reading through the series is the story's deft pacing. Barry moves faster than anything on the planet, and the story zips along pretty quickly, never giving us time to lull into the absurdity of the story being told. Talking gorillas? Don't worry about that, the story says, just go with it. This lends the title a unique, pulpy feel that feels like the story could have been ripped from an older time. And that is, perhaps, why The Flash was so well-received by audiences and critics alike during The New 52 relaunch. Though this is a ground-up reimagining of characters that have been staples of pop culture for decades now, as firmly fixed in the public imagination—if not more so—as any classic character from literature or the early days of film, what Manapul and Buccellato have managed to do here is recapture the feeling of the era in which comic books were birthed.

There are well-documented connections between the decades of pulp fiction and the early years of comic book superheroes. Pulp characters like the Phantom, the Avenger, the Shadow, and Doc Savage were all prototypical superheroes, somewhat pure and distilled archetypes that formed the bedrock of what would become the modern mythological superhero phenomenon. These early stories were known for the ways in which they thumbed their noses to critics. This was not high literature, nor did it pretend to be. Pulp writers were working class people who didn't have the luxury of drinking bourbon and smoking thoughtfully on a pipe whilst waxing poetic until the perfect phrase came to them. They had a word count they had to hit, and if character development had to be sacrificed to tell the story, so be it. They could develop that character later, in another tale. All that mattered was plot, the driving force behind the narrative. These were tales aimed at popular audiences, not literature professors. And what critics lambasted, audiences loved, and comics book creators have spent nearly a century now trying to claw their way out from under those prejudices. Only in the past decade or so has the academic perspective on comic books really begun to change.

The Flash catapults us back to that earlier era of b-movie plots and outlandish characters all servicing the most zany stories a writer could dream up. Manapul and Buccellato clearly love the character and the genre, and the art continues to wrap this wild story in a gorgeous package that makes reading it not only feel like a rediscovery of something older and more primal, but also an absolute pleasure. For anyone interested in a modern comic book that has all the quirks and madcap trappings of a bygone era in storytelling, The Flash is a title you don't want to miss.

Marvel Cinematic Universe: Iron Man 2 (Retrospective)

Picking up in the closing moments of the MCU's inaugural film, Marvel's Iron Man 2 wastes no time introducing us to Mickey Rourke's enigmatic Russian, Ivan Vanko. It's clear from the outset that he has some kind of personal vendetta against Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) who, in the months after revealing himself to the world as Iron Man, has begun a downward spiral into narcissism in the worst way. While government prudes in league with weapons manufacturer Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell) attempt to requisition and weaponize the Iron Man suit, Tony learns that the palladium core of the reactor keeping him alive is also poisoning him—or something like that. I don't claim to understand how any of this works, it's the usual comic book nonsense that demands audiences suspend disbelief in order to follow the plot. The point here is that Tony learns he's dying, and there's no apparent cure.

Marvel's Iron Man 2 (2010)

So he sets about putting those he actually cares about at arm's length, like his stalwart and even-keeled love interest, Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow), and his Air Force officer buddy, James Rhodes (Don Cheadle, replacing Terrence Howard from Iron Man). And for the first half of the film, Tony corkscrews out of control, his worst tendencies rising to the surface in one self-destructive act after another. It turns out that learning to change isn't quite as easy as it seems at first. Perhaps this is the trouble with sequels,  as character arcs completed in the first film usually end up being walked back a few steps in order to accommodate the ongoing story. Tony learns to accept responsibility for his own actions at the end of Iron Man, but by the time this movie gets rolling, you'd never know he learned that lesson in the first place.

Then, right around the halfway point, the film shifts gears. Enter Nick Fury, played by Samuel L. Jackson, reprising the character he originally portrayed in the small after-credits scene attached to Iron Man. This is where the world that will blossom into Marvel's cinematic universe really begins to take shape. Through Fury and his organization known as S.H.I.E.L.D., we reconnect with Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) and are introduced to series mainstay Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson). Both of them are S.H.I.E.L.D. agents working for Fury, and their world of secrets provides our first real glimpse at the bigger picture.

The only problem with handling things in this manner makes for a bit of a muddled story. There is a lot going on in this film. In some instances, too much. On one hand, you have this really compelling story of fathers and sons that plays out between Tony and Vanko. On the other, you have a story about Tony learning to open up to the people around him, especially those who care about his well-being, after he learns that he's dying. It's not that either one of these particular stories is bad; in fact, they're both pretty compelling on their own. But compound both of these stories with the S.H.I.E.L.D. plot, and you have a bit of a messy story to untangle, and the problem arises with trying to do this in a span of two hours—the characters and the film's emotional resonance really suffer.

And the character that suffers the most is undoubtedly Ivan Vanko. Mickey Rourke is a rare talent, and his face is as instantly recognizable as Stallone's or Schwarzenegger's. He's introduced in a very compelling and sympathetic way, but his motivations are still shrouded enough to make him intriguing. And when he finally comes front and center for a harrowing sequence at a racetrack in Monaco, he's presented as this really quirky and intimidating villain. The character is established beautifully, but as soon as the film shifts to focus on Tony's dealings with S.H.I.E.L.D., Vanko falls almost entirely by the wayside. He's saved from the sidelines by Justin Hammer, but one feels as though this film is a bit overstuffed with characters and multiple half-baked characters are in play when only one really compelling villain is needed. Perhaps this is why these characters, despite clear motivations, carry none of the emotional weight of this particular story.

And nowhere is this more evident than in the final sequence of the film. In the same way that I felt putting Jeff Bridges in a big metal CGI husk of a suit in the first film was a kind of injustice to the high caliber of actor playing the role, I literally groaned when Rourke turned up in what looked like a copy-and-pasted version of the same suit that Bridges wore. And after all this wonderful build-up that paralleled Vanko's story with Tony's, he's defeated in an anti-climactic affair with no emotional resonance whatsoever. The movie simply has too many plot threads to unravel, and the culmination is a criminal mishandling of Rourke's character.

This isn't to say that Iron Man 2 is a bad film—it's actually pretty entertaining, in that in-the-moment kind of way. And, amazingly, all of the major plot points are resolved. There are a number of really stunning action sequences, Vanko's introduction at the Monaco race is an instant standout. Another ten minutes or so of character development for some of the new characters might have helped, and a less by-the-numbers ending would have gone a long way in making this film more memorable than it is. Vanko is a compelling enough villain that he probably should have carried this film on his own, with the annoying Hammer character jettisoned altogether. At the very least, Rourke's understated and underrated performance deserved better than to go out with the eye-roll-inducing words, "You lose."

I can't say that there's much memorable about Iron Man 2. It's well-crafted, just forgettable. It certainly doesn't have the quirky appeal of the first film in terms of story or execution. But Robert Downey Jr. is endlessly watchable as he continues to own the role of Tony Stark in what will become a career-defining performance, making this film's two hour runtime blow past in a whirlwind of quips and wisecracks, even if you're left scratching your head by the time the credits roll. The post-credits sequence here is the first to tease a direct connection to the next film in the MCU, and by this point it's clear the course is set. The Avengers are coming, and Tony Stark is paving the way.

Batman, Volume 8: Superheavy (Review)

Of all the daring storytelling decisions Scott Snyder made during his run on Batman—and there were quite a few—perhaps none were more risky than seemingly killing Bruce Wayne and letting longtime Batman ally Jim Gordon don the cowl (sans cape).

Batman, Volume 8: Superheavy

Superheavy begins some months after the events of Endgame, which saw the Batman supposedly killed during a final confrontation with the Joker. These days, there's no Dark Knight protecting the streets of Gotham. Yet the people have come together to collectively acknowledge Batman's importance, and leading the charge is Geri Powers, the head of Powers Tech, who has a bold new initiative. By combining both Wayne Enterprises and Powers Tech resources, she proposes a joint enterprise with the GCPD that would see the creation of a new, technologically-advanced bat-suit to be worn by a hand-picked member of Gotham's finest. She's effectively giving Gotham a new Batman. And the selling point? This Batman has the resources and backing of the GCPD. A vigilante no longer, this Batman would operate within the confines of the law.

Her pick for the role? None other than Commissioner Gordon himself. Throughout his run, Snyder has shown a lot of affection for this classic character. And with Superheavy, we are given the opportunity to see Gordon in a new light. We get to know his personal doubts and fears, his insecurities on full display as he attempts to settle into the role. The question of whether or not this works is probably a matter of personal taste. For my money, there's just enough lightness of touch here that you can tell Snyder understands what a hard sell this is. Gordon himself admits to this not feeling right and being a little too different from the usual status quo. Yet Snyder uses this as an opportunity to confirm the things we love most about the stalwart police commissioner: his tenacity, his doggedness, and his no-nonsense and matter-of-fact approach to crime fighting. He's not as strong as Wayne, he knows that. Nor is he as quick. But where Wayne preferred theatrics and used the fear of his enemies against them, Gordon will just as easily shoot his target with his nifty stun gun than try and scare them.

Now, there's a longstanding tradition in comic books that revolve around this sort of big event storytelling. Some of the greatest storylines in comics history have spun out of these kinds of stories, like The Death of Superman or The Infinity Gauntlet. But what readers have wisened up to over the years, is that the powers that be in the comic book industry cannot allow the mainline titles to change too much. The status quo is always reset. Superman must always resurrect. Humanity must always be saved. And, with Superheavy, Bruce Wayne must inevitably return from the dead. Snyder knows this. He knows his readers know this. So, wisely, Jim Gordon's time as Batman parallels a plot which sees Bruce Wayne, alive and well, having taken refuge with his childhood friend Julie Madison, who runs a clinic for underprivileged youth. Bruce is helping her there, but seems to have no memory of who he actually is. Ever Bruce's concerned friend, Clark Kent shows up to get to the bottom of this mystery, only to have Alfred warn him off. Alfred sees this as Bruce's opportunity to finally lead a normal life, free of the childhood trauma that led him down the path to becoming Batman in the first place.

We all know how the story will end. Bruce will return. Somehow, someway. And Snyder knows this too. In fact, he's building toward it. And it seems his philosophy is to have as much fun as possible in getting there. There's a lot of comedy here, from the intentionally goofy design of the new bat-mech armor, to Gordon's personality while wearing his own sleeker version of the bat-suit. The action is big and bombastic, which at this point is just Snyder's modus operandi. These stories feel tailor-made for a big screen adaptation somewhere down the line.

What I continue to find most interesting is Snyder's understanding and use of symbols. He's constantly exploring what Batman represents within the context of Gotham. Now, we're a long way from the mythological underpinnings of The Court of Owls or Death of the Family. I feel as though I can make a compelling case for those storylines being the equivalent of pulp fiction elevated to the level of good literature. Superheavy is a different beast altogether. This is pulp fiction knowing exactly what it is, and choosing to play happily within the confines of its genre. You'll glean some insights into characters like Gordon, but you're not going to find the sweeping, mythological elements present in those earlier volumes making keen observations about the nature of humanity, goodness, and evil. But what this shows us is Snyder's versatility as a writer, and just how malleable the Batman character really is.

Capullo's art is part of what makes the volume so fun to read. His pairing with Snyder is one of those rare comic book couplings where both writer and artist play to each other's strengths. His artwork perfectly captures the tone of the story, and Snyder is more than willing to write in these crazy sequences that let Capullo really go to work creating stunning, instantly memorable imagery.

At the end of the day, Batman, Volume 8: Superheavy is the beginning of a new kind of Batman story. And this story more or less tells you from its earliest pages just how the tale is going to end. If you're a "purist" in the sense of holding that certain Batman fundamentals never be touched, this probably isn't your cup of tea. But if you can accept the story for what it is, see the course that has been charted, and come to this story on its own terms, you'll likely find this a breath of fresh air, a fun and different take on the Batman mythos.

The Flash, Volume 2: Rogues Revolution (Review)

The second volume of The Flash, titled Rogues Revolution, picks up right where the first ends, with our titular hero quite literally dropped into the middle of things. From the jump, we are introduced to Grodd, a classic Flash villain who also happens to be a massive, super-intelligent Gorilla. Think bigger, meaner, angrier Caesar from the reimagined Planet of the Apes trilogy and throw in some superpowers, and you're well on your way to understanding Grodd.

The Flash: Rogues Revolution

The first part of the book is dedicated to exploring Grodd and his kingdom, Gorilla City (comics are not known for their subtlety). And, for my money, this is some of the most interesting stuff in the volume. Manapul and Buccellato do a good job here of tapping into the Flash's mythic potential. As the newly-crowned king of Gorilla City, Grodd sees Flash as a threat to his rule, but the city's elders recognize him as a long-prophesied "messenger." It's worth noting that Hermes, the Greek god with remarkable speed due to his golden sandals, to whom Flash bears more than a passing resemblance, was known as the "messenger" of the ancient gods—the analogue is unmistakable. A lot of tantalizing clues are dropped in this section, but it's not long before the story zips back to Central City.

Once leaving Grodd behind, the book turns to focus primarily on another group of villains, known as the Rogues. The character that sees the most development here is Leonard Snart, the iconic, if somewhat underrated, Captain Cold. Like Grodd, Snart is reimagined in some interesting ways, and that reimagining lays the groundwork for the heart of the story this time around. Formerly a kind of leader of the Rogues, Snart has been ousted and replaced by a mysterious and beautiful entity called Glider.

The writers do a good job of building up sympathy for Snart, showing him to be a mostly honorable man who's just made some bad choices in life and is now paying for his sins. He no longer comes across as a bargain bin Mr. Freeze, but as a living, breathing character with his own agenda. When he finally shows up to help the Flash in the fight against his former allies, it's pretty exhilarating to see these two enemies on the same side. This kind of subversive storytelling so early on in their run demonstrates the creators' resolve to do something truly unique and not tread on ground previously covered by earlier writers. Like the previous volume, Rogues Revolution ends on a cliffhanger that is absolutely bonkers, with Grodd and his army raining into Central City seeking revenge. This is the kind of wild and offbeat storytelling that only the unique medium of comic books can really do well, neither taking itself too seriously nor sacrificing the integrity of beloved characters.

The art by Manapul and Buccellato remains a standout on this title. The few sections of the book containing art by Marcus To and Ray McCarthy are a little jarring to come across at first. That's not to say this art is bad—it certainly isn't—only that it's categorically different from what we have grown accustomed to. It's not uncommon for comic books to rotate writers and artists, if only to give consistent workers a bit of a break from having to produce content on a crunched schedule. But when the art has been as defining as it has been here, to deviate from that creates a certain amount of subtle dissonance in the flow of the narrative. But, this is a minor qualm with an otherwise gorgeous book. Rogues Revolution is a fun, fleet continuation and another win for Manapul and Buccellato as they carry on writing and drawing their definitive work on the Flash.

Superman: Action Comics Vol. 1: Invisible Mafia (Review)

Action Comics is the original title in which the Man of Steel first appeared way back in June 1938. The title celebrated the publication of its 1000th issue in 2018, and, after making the jump from Marvel to DC, legendary comics writer Brian Michael Bendis took over writing duties on issue #1001. Bendis's run on the title opens with Invisible Mafia, and this volume feels very much like a first chapter.

Superman: Action Comics Vol. 1: Invisible Mafia

Bendis already made his big introduction as Superman's newest guardian with The Man of Steel miniseries, a big, bombastic story oozing classic appeal. For better or worse, Invisible Mafia brings things back down to earth. Clark Kent is back in the newsroom of the Daily Planet, working alongside newer faces like gossip columnist Trish Q and reporter Robinson Goode, as well as stalwarts like photojournalist Jimmy Olson and editor-in-chief Perry White. Noticeably absent is Lois Lane, a classic Superman character and now Clark's wife. She is accompanying their son, Jon, on his rite of passage across the stars, but to everyone at the Daily Planet, Lois and Clark are just having marriage problems and taking time apart. As those rumors swirl, fires begin breaking out across the city of Metropolis, and Superman is named as the arsonist responsible, an accusation that nobody really seems to believe. This is where Bendis's story begins.

While Superman works to get to the bottom of things, Clark uses his connections as a reporter to comb through leads. Of course, the arsons are revealed to be part of a larger scheme, a distraction to keep Superman busy while a new cabal—the titular "invisible mafia"—plots in the shadows. This volume is almost entirely narrative set-up with very little payoff, suggesting that Bendis intends to play the long game with his readers. Given all the fanfare surrounding his taking on Superman, this really comes as no surprise. Bendis will be writing Superman for a long time.

There's nothing groundbreaking about Invisible Mafia, and there doesn't have to be. Not every Superman story has to be about planets colliding or stars exploding. Yet this story feels like classic Superman, marking a return to a kind of earlier status quo wherein Superman worked to save the good citizens of Metropolis from mostly human threats. "Mostly" applies here because the most memorable villain debuting in this volume is the mysterious Red Cloud, who materializes as an ethereal crimson mist with a vaguely human face. The volume's stellar art goes a long way in making this new villain instantly iconic, and Bendis sets up the mystery of Red Cloud to be a major storyline going forward.

A couple of interesting subplots thread through the volume, from Lois's secret return to political intrigue surrounding the city's mayor. Classic villain Lex Luthor gets a brief tease that will likely have greater significance in the context of the larger narrative. But, like the main storyline, these subplots are mostly introduced with very little resolution. The real joy of reading this volume lies in seeing Bendis lend his deft touch to these classic characters. There are some really clever lines of dialogue that had me smirking because they sounded like something Superman would actually say, and the newsroom antics at the Daily Planet are fodder for some real laugh-out-loud moments, most often courtesy of Perry White, the original grouchy newspaper editor.

Invisible Mafia is not the biggest or the most magnificent Superman tale, nor does it set out to be. But in terms of establishing what the world of Superman will look like under Bendis's penmanship, the volume accomplishes what it sets out to do. In more than one way, the story is a distilled version of Superman, unplugged and stripped down for a back-to-basics storytelling approach that calls to mind the kind of Superman your grandfather might see if you asked him to close his eyes and think back to the Action Comics of his youth. With art by Ryan Sook, Patrick Gleason, and Yanick Paquette, the Man of Steel looks as iconic as ever. After all the Flashpoints and paradoxes and world-shattering events that have characterized the DC Comics universe the past several years, it's nice to see Superman back in Metropolis fighting for truth, justice, and the American way.

The Flash, Volume 1: Move Forward (Review)

When DC rebooted their comic book universe with The New 52 in 2011, the Flash was one of their many mainline characters to receive a facelift. Despite the overall initiative's mixed reception, The Flash is one title to consistently appear on many "best of" lists from that era of the publisher's history. With industry veterans Francis Manapul and Brian Buccellato on both writing and art duties, it's easy to see why.

The Flash: Move Forward

Manapul's comic art is some of the most distinct in the business, and his pairing with colorist Buccellato is an uncanny match. The complementary artistic styles combined with their tag-team effort on the story immediately puts The Flash in a category all on its own. Rarely is such a synthesis of narrative, art, and general style so fully realized in a mainstream comic book. But here it is, and the world is better for it. The New 52 was geared primarily toward accessibility, creating space for new readers to jump aboard classic titles that had been running for decades. And Move Forward is the perfect place to start following the adventures of the Scarlet Speedster.

Forensic investigator Barry Allen is the fastest man alive. After he's struck by lightning and doused in chemicals, he gains access to a mysterious energy field known as the Speed Force, which grants him the ability to move very quickly. Donning a bright red suit, this modern day Hermes (or Mercury) races through Central City as the Flash, protecting the city's residents and fighting all manner of crime. This is a pretty straightforward concept for a superhero that clicks neatly into archetypal place. And there are two ways of approaching a character like the Flash, whose superability basically boils down to "he can run real fast." One approach reduces the character to a supporting role, which is usually what happens in most of the character's adaptations outside of the source material, essentially turning Barry into something like a wise-cracking sidekick to the more popular Justice League members. But there is another approach, one that seeks to embrace the inherent silliness of the genre, while trying to work with the character in interesting ways. Thankfully, Manapul and Buccellato take the latter approach.

As accessible as this volume is to first time readers, the plot is deceptively complex. But it doesn't hit you until the back half of the story. The world of the Flash is much more akin to pulp science fiction than that of many other mainstream heroes, which makes a certain amount of sense given Barry's abilities. When you have a character who can lap the world a couple of times before breakfast, the storytelling has to be creative enough to actually develop real conflict and lend the characters some relatability. The unfortunate result is that, like Superman stories, Flash tales can easily fall into the category of paint-by-the-number, with goofy villains posing minimal real threat, contrived conflicts, and underwritten characters. But Manapul and Buccellato manage to strike a good balance here between the bonkers sci-fi elements and good character development. There's a sense in which they throw everything and the kitchen sink into the story, which begins with a rogue CIA asset named Manuel—who just so happens to be an old friend of Barry's—who has the ability to clone himself, before pivoting into time travel, then venturing into the Speed Force itself.

If all of this sounds very confusing, that's because it is. This is a book written with uncommon intelligence and attention to detail, stringing together multiple classic sci-fi genre tropes with the kind of reckless abandon and lightness of touch that you sort of forget how hard it is to tell these types of stories well. Manapul and Buccellato make this look easy, and Move Forward really should be a kind of gold standard across the medium for how to reinvent a classic character with smart storytelling, solid dialogue, great themes, and sheer fun. This is the kind of story that doesn't appear to demand much from readers at first glance, but for those who like thinking through stories and spending time with characters, there is a trove of good content here. This book definitely rewards multiple readings.

I most appreciate how the creators write Barry. He's always been a bit of an everyman, but it's very easy to turn him into a mouthy brat. There's not a trace of that kind of laziness here. He's funny without being reduced to slapstick, enthusiastic without being blindly optimistic. Like anybody, he has his insecurities, but he doesn't let those things define him. He's still figuring out the extent of his powers at this point, and both their unpredictability and his limitless potential lend the volume a healthy dose of excitement, as we want to find out just how far Barry can push himself. The pounding plot is tempered by the occasional moment of quiet reflection, and these quieter moments interspersed with flashbacks are some of the best rendered panels in the entire volume. Barry Allen is a genuinely likable hero, the charming kind with a touch of whimsy, cut from an older cloth of storytelling and who are increasingly hard to find these days.

Move Forward is a great introduction to the Flash, an iconic and much beloved character in the DC universe. A zany sci-fi romp from first panel to last, the superb artwork by both creators is just the icing on the cake of this brilliant reinvention. In the capable hands of Manapul and Buccellato, The Flash promises to take readers on a wild ride.

You just have to keep up.

Loneliness: The Chronic Paradox of Being

We're all mystics and freaks

With the spirit beneath

Deeper than any ocean

Let the string section "riff"

Seal it up with a kiss

Honey, we are all golden

In the new dark age

No one trusts anyone

In the new dark age

They forget to have fun

In the new dark age

The only light from the sun...is you

Bill Mallonee, "In the New Dark Age," from the album Winnowing (2015)

Introduction

A cursory Google search for "loneliness" yields results not entirely unexpected. We are told that we are a profoundly lonely people here in the west, despite our technology, despite connectivity on a global scale. Supposedly, the more communal eastern cultures do not face such individual isolation and, so we're told, must therefore be less lonely. News articles bombard us with both practical and psychological solutions to the "problem" of loneliness in western culture. Pop culture produces dozens of songs per year in which loneliness is the dark muse. The church even occasionally throws her hat into the ring, inventing a new "program" to be implemented at all the satellite campuses, like a new singles ministry to afford the unmarried and lonely opportunities to mingle together in the hope that some of them will become married and therefore un-lonely.

What all of these proposed "solutions" have in common is a presupposition that is not entirely wrong, nor is it entirely right. A presupposition that says loneliness is a negative human emotion to be eradicated. After all, wasn't it God himself who said that it's not a good thing for man to be alone in Genesis 2:18? Yet in correctly identifying the profound importance of relationships and connectivity to the human experience, perhaps this presupposition simultaneously shallows out that importance by misunderstanding the most critical aspect of loneliness: that loneliness is as much a condition of spirit as it is an emotion.

Our goal here is not to offer a solution to the crisis of loneliness—here identified as a "crisis" because to identify it as a "problem" implies that an easy solution exists. Rather, our purpose here is to redefine loneliness to incorporate the spiritual condition of man, the fundamental aspect of loneliness that seems to be entirely absent from mainstream thinking, especially in the church.

The Self-Conscious Soul

Only the lonely

Know the way I feel tonight

Only the lonely

Know this feeling ain't right

Roy Orbison, "Only the Lonely," from the album Lonely and Blue (1960)

American poet Sylvia Plath writes:

God, but life is loneliness, despite all the opiates, despite the shrill tinsel gaiety of 'parties' with no purpose, despite the false grinning faces we all wear. And when at last you find someone to whom you feel you can pour out your soul, you stop in shock at the words you utter—they are so rusty, so ugly, so meaningless and feeble from being kept in the small cramped dark inside you so long. Yes, there is joy, fulfillment and companionship—but the loneliness of the soul in its appalling self-consciousness is horrible and overpowering.

from The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath, ed. Karen V. Kukil (New York City: Anchor, 2000), 31.

Plath understands something that many modern Christians would see as cynical: that the degree to which one feels lonely or experiences the sensation of loneliness is the degree to which one recognizes that they actually are lonely. What she manages to capture here runs opposite the conjecture that says, "I am not lonely because I do not feel lonely." Instead, she suggests that one only feels lonely when the soul becomes self-conscious, aware of its present state of loneliness. The difference here is subtle but key. In the same way that anger can be described as the reaction of the spirit against that which causes it pain, perhaps we can begin our redefinition of loneliness by suggesting that loneliness is the sensation of the spirit that recognizes something is missing.

Such a notion flies in the face of conventional wisdom, which can often be gleaned by simply attending any singles group that meets at a local church throughout the week. This wisdom says loneliness is simply the degree to which one is isolated from other people. And while there is certainly an important physical aspect to the condition of loneliness, hollowing out loneliness to be a straightforward issue of proximity eliminates a present reality that Christians do not have the luxury of eliminating: a reality in which we are not merely physical beings with combustible chemicals rattling around inside our skulls, but in which we are deeply, intrinsically spiritual beings as well. This spiritual component of the human condition and its relationship to loneliness is our target here.

Plath herself was married when she took her own life—again, the crisis of loneliness is not merely an issue of physical proximity, because the divide in our spirits carved by sin is vast, and infinitely more frightening than the divide between ourselves and the people we love. So frightening, in fact, that it is enough to make those of us who feel it most deeply consider taking our very lives.

Loneliness and the Human Condition

Yeah, I still watch the shows you showed me

I still drink that wine

But these days it tastes more bitter than sweet

And all my friends are way too drunk to save me from my phone

So sorry if I say some things I mean

I don't know, I don't know

How I'm gonna make it out

I don't know, I don't know

Now you got me sayin'

Fuck, I'm lonely, I'm lonely, I'm lonely as
Fuck, come hold me, come hold me, come hold me
It's been me, myself and why did you go, did you go?

Lauv (ft. Anne-Marie), "fuck, i'm lonely," from the album ~how i'm feeling~ (2020)

The great filmmaker David Lean, when discussing his seminal film Summer Madness (1955), said:

I think loneliness is in all of us; it is a more common emotion than love, but we speak less about it. We are ashamed of it. We think perhaps that it shows a deficiency in ourselves.

from David Morrison, "10 Great Films About Loneliness," British Film Institute (BFI), Aug. 8, 2018.

Here Lean identifies in overt terms the same "deficiency" which Plath speaks of more implicitly in her own writings. As Christians, we understand this deficiency in ourselves as the great divide that sin has carved in our spirits, a divide between ourselves and God, which has a million implications for the divide between ourselves and other people. Scripture is saturated with language that directly correlates the relationship between God and man to man's relationship with his own kind, and we prove ourselves foolish if we believe we can excise from the discussion of loneliness the recognition of this initial divide between ourselves and our Creator.

After all, out of this great divide we turn to what Plath calls "the opiates," and the "shrill tinsel gaiety of parties with no purpose." While the church is quick to sit in judgment of a secular world where such hedonism is on full display, we are all too eager to ignore the fact that we modern evangelical Christians have become very good at producing our own opiates and throwing our own parties with no purpose, numbing agents in the form of what theologian Stanley Hauerwas identifies as "sentimentality."

Sentimentality and the Condition of Loneliness 

Strangers

Killing my lonely nights with strangers

And when they leave, I go back to our song, I hold on

Hurts like heaven, lost in the sound

Buzzcut season like you're still around

Can't unmiss you and I need you now

I'm so tired of love songs, tired of love songs,

Tired of love songs, tired of love
Just wanna go home, wanna go home,
Wanna go home

Lauv & Troye Sivan, "i'm so tired...," from the album ~how i'm feeling~ (2020)

In an interview with Duke University titled, "The Life of a Theologian," Hauerwas asserts:

The church is filled with sentimentality. I wish that we could produce interesting atheists. But we're not strong enough believers to produce interesting atheists. Instead, what we hear so often in sermons is sentimental drivel about how Christians are to love one another, and to love everyone in a way that is just bullshit. There is no reality to that.

His trademark wit and colloquial speech on full display here, what Hauerwas keenly identifies is perhaps the most insidious threat to the modern church: sentimentality. We might best describe sentimentality as that which trades on emotion for the sake of emotion, that which seeks emotional satisfaction without the emotional connection. Grace without pain. Love without cost. Redemption without the cross. To put it another way, sentimentality could be described as the "Disneyfied" version of the Christian life.

The sentimental believer is one adept at appearing devoted to Christ, whose faith holds up in fair weather because fair weather is what the faith demands. But the moment this faith is excavated, the topsoil overturned and the roots exposed, we find that Christianity is present in this believer's life because it supplies comfort through emotional shortcuts, worshipping a Christ who demands nothing beyond a vague and nebulous "love." The sentimental Christian can speak the language of sacrifice yet know nothing of its practice. The moment Christ truly demands something of this individual, the faith becomes compromised, much like the second seed in Jesus's parable of the soils (Luke 8:4-15). This is a faith that neglects to count the cost of sin, because this faith is built on pretense—the "new dark age" of western Christianity, in which every interaction between two people is built fundamentally on pretense, manifesting as the "opiates" and "parties with no purpose" in the church.

These opiates and purposeless parties meant to remedy the perceived problem look a lot like "community groups." In an honest effort to combat the loneliness-inducing effects of sin, we tend to encourage simply making the right friends, all in the effort of attaining the holy grail of marriage, wherein all negative emotions like loneliness are banished to the nether, never again to return because, after all, God is love and love is all we need. While this is not to say that such groups do not serve a good and healthy purpose in the church, we are naive if we believe loneliness is a problem solved by putting people—even believers—in close proximity to one another. Especially in the church, we tend to become sentimental about loneliness.

The Paradox of Loneliness

I traded all my friends for drugs and the internet

Ah shit, am I a winner yet?

Look quick, hasn't hit him yet

Mom's back home with a drink and a cigarette

Still hasn't hit him yet

I sold my soul

And all I got

Likes from strangers, love on the internet

Drugs and the internet

I wonder what it feels like

To be more than I am

Lauv, "Drugs & the Internet," from the album ~how i'm feeling~ (2020)

At this point, we've entered firmly into the paradox. If we understand loneliness as a condition of spirit, then we can understand the longing for physical proximity to be one that seeks to remedy that much wider fissure. As Christians, we understand that only God can fulfill the longing of our spirits to be both fully known and accepted. Yet Scripture does not teach against physical proximity; rather, Scripture teaches that community in the context of the church is a good thing. So, "community groups" can be worthwhile ventures, provided that, in the context of our discussion here, community groups are not seen as the singular remedy for the sensation of loneliness that is inherent to the human experience. We should not seek to eradicate the experience of loneliness, precisely because we should allow for loneliness in recognition of it being not merely the experience of a single man or woman; rather, it is a significant and pervasive component of the spiritual condition of every man and woman, east or west, married or single.

Presbyterian writer Frederick Buechner puts it this way:

The paradox is that part of what binds us closest together as human beings and makes it true that no man is an island is the knowledge that in another way every man is an island. Because to know this is to know that not only deep in you there is a self that longs above all to be known and accepted, but that there is no such self in me, in everyone else the world over.

 Frederick Buechner, The Hungering Dark (San Francisco: HarperOne, 1985), 47.

And herein lies the crux of the issue: We, by very nature of being human, have an insatiable desire to be fully known and accepted. This desire rests in each of us, this longing hardwired into us through our spirits. But the present reality of living in a fallen world means that no one—no matter how close, how open, how exposed we are to them or they are to us—is ever going to be able to meet that need completely.

So, the question we must then ask: why does God allows us to experience such profound emotional turbulence? Why, even as Christians, do we not feel un-lonely? And, at this point, I cannot help but think that the recognition of our spiritual state of loneliness is not only appropriate for every Christian, but also that such recognition is necessary. Necessary because the feeling of isolation that haunts us in our recognition of our lonely state is the thing that keeps us from ever becoming too satisfied while we live in this fallen word. This is a recurrent theme in Scripture—the recognition that God's people are not earthbound, but that, as the old song says, we are "bound for glory." And with this recognition comes the sternest of warnings—that if we are ever fully satisfied while on this side of eternity, then perhaps we are truly earthbound.

In The Hungering Dark, Buechner suggests that, for many Christians, experiencing the darkness of doubt and dealing with the more troublesome aspects of faith is the only way forward. The only way for faith to grow is to first get stuck in a rut, so that faith can "work itself out." In much the same way, perhaps the only means by which we can truly begin to deal with the loneliest parts of ourselves is to recognize that loneliness is not always a negative emotion to be eradicated; indeed, while we live on this side of eternity, it cannot be eradicated, no matter proximity to other people. The only way to frame loneliness correctly is to see that we are all lonely because there is still something we are fundamentally lacking—even as Christians.

I think that a sentimental faith looks for an excuse to get comfortable on this side of eternity. To go back to the parable of the soils, a sentimental faith either falters when tested, or is choked out by the enticing and sensual pleasures of life, the opiates and parties with no purpose. Sentimentality is an excuse to not reckon with reality, a reality in which life on this side of eternity is marked by hope, and not by satisfaction. A life that anticipates the life to come, not one satisfied by the life lived now. Indeed, the wisdom books of Scripture remind us that all earthly possessions fade with time, be it money, be it power, be it attractiveness. This is gaining the world, but losing the soul. The very notion of hope contains a tragic element, because to hope for something greater is to acknowledge that something lesser is now present. And somehow, in a sense of divine irony, loneliness becomes the very basis of why we believe anything about Jesus in the first place. Because in our loneliness, we find that we are desperate to, as Australian songwriter Nick Cave once wrote, "Just be done with all this twisting of the truth." And this recognition fuels our longing for the day when our faith becomes sight.

In his book, A Cross Shattered Church, Stanley Hauerwas writes,

Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. But Lazarus was still to die. We are still to die. Jesus,  by contrast, has been raised never again to die. His death makes possible a communion that overwhelms the loneliness our sin creates. Our God has made his home among the mortals by assuming our deadly flesh so that we might be made friends of Jesus and even one another.

This means the incarnation is something more than a means of atoning for sin. In taking up human flesh, Christ found the way to finally bridge the gap in our spirits. Which means that loneliness, as a condition of spirit, might then be better understood as an intuited or felt eschatological realization that pushes us toward the future, as a chronic ache of the spirit for the day in which we finally look upon the one who understands us totally and accepts us in spite of it all—the key being that he looks back at us with human eyes. The face we will look upon is a human face. And the emotions we will see registering there as we talk with him and laugh with him are human emotions. In other words, the incarnation accounts for the human element of loneliness, the issue of proximity, which demands that we need something tangible for our longings to finally be fulfilled. And the thing that we still lack is the very tangible presence of Christ. We all laugh at doubting Thomas, but who among us would not sacrifice every last shred of dignity we have to be the one to plug our finger into the wound, to have him with us and our faith become sight if only for a single, fleeting moment?

We spend countless hours looking for ways to numb that chronic ache in our spirits. We turn to the opiates and the shrill tinsel gaiety of parties with no purpose, both inside and outside the church, community groups and coffee dates, drugs and the Internet, all looking for some means by which we do not have to reckon with the fact that we desire to be fully known and accepted, and the only one capable of such a thing is alive and well but he is not here in the flesh. He is certainly present, but not in the way our loneliness desires him to be. At least, not yet. This is the paradox of being and living in the third dimension.

And the moment we succeed in numbing that profound ache, perhaps we will have lost it all.

Resources

Buechner, Frederick. The Hungering Dark. San Francisco: HarperOne, 1985.

Ejsing, Anette. The Power of One: Theological Reflections on Loneliness. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2011.

Harries, Richard. Haunted by Christ: Modern Writers and the Struggle for Faith. London: SPCK, 2018.

Hauerwas, Stanley. "Why Community is Dangerous." Plough Quarterly, no. 9.

Mailer, Norman. "The Language of Men." Esquire (April 1953).

Morrison, David. "10 Great Films About Loneliness." British Film Institute. 8 Aug. 2018.

Plath, Sylvia. The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath. ed. Karen V. Kukil. New York City: Anchor, 2000.

"Stanley Hauerwas on the Life of a Theologian." Duke University Office Hours. Duke Univ., 2010.

Varden, Erik. The Shattering of Loneliness: On Christian Remembrance. London: Bloomsbury Continuum, 2018.

~how i'm feeling~ (March 2020)

This essay was originally written in 2019, revised and updated May 2020 to include lyrics from the album ~how i'm feeling~ by Lauv.

Marvel Cinematic Universe: The Incredible Hulk (Retrospective)

Marvel's The Incredible Hulk is a film to which I am particularly partial. Of all the early content leading up to the first Avengers movie, this overlooked gem is actually my favorite. There were only a handful of superheroes to really imprint on me as a kid, and the Hulk was one of them, through an old 1978 television series starring Bill Bixby as David Banner and Lou Ferrigno as his big green alter ego. It still feels strange to me calling our main character Bruce, because I had only ever known him as David. The Hulk was not a hero, but a kind of modern, scientific curse—the monstrous Hyde to a decent man's Jekyll, the first superhero who was certainly super but not very heroic, and the first to truly frighten me. Banner's first transformation in that original pilot, where all the little things that have gone wrong in a day lead up to that fateful moment out there in the rain while trying to change a tire, still gives me chills. It's always those wild eyes, the human face with eyes that have lost all traces of humanity, that make me shudder.

Marvel's The Incredible Hulk (2008)

If you do not have an appreciation for that old TV series, you will struggle to fully appreciate what The Incredible Hulk does in terms of both character and story. This is not an origin story, all of that material is presented during the opening credits, using imagery lifted straight from the Bixby series. The genius of that series was to turn Banner into a wandering soul, a man lost to himself and the world, searching for the ever-elusive cure to a condition that no one could possibly understand. Prevented from ever growing close to anyone and settling down, he's constantly on the run, hunted by the government for what he is, knowing he can never go home again. As a viewer, you dreaded the coming of that monstrous green thing to upset Banner's fragile peace, even though you knew it was inevitable. Every episode ended with Banner walking away from whatever destruction was left in his wake, wandering the lonesome highways and byways of backwoods America to Joe Harnell's now iconic theme, appropriately called "The Lonely Man." The Incredible Hulk tries to evoke this same spirit by repurposing everything from the imagery of that series and old footage of Bill Bixby himself, to Harnell's musical cues and a cameo by Lou Ferrigno. In many ways, this film feels like a big-budget reimagining of the Bixby show, The Fugitive by way of Greek tragedy, duality, and a big green monster.

The story picks up in Rocinha, Brazil's largest favela. Here, the quiet and backwards Dr. Bruce Banner (Edward Norton) lives off the grid, with only a dog for company. He's managed to find work at a bottling plant, and searches for a cure to his bad case of gamma poisoning. To do this, he maintains contact with the mysterious "Mr. Blue," a fellow scientist helping from a distance. Norton's portrayal of Banner is a revelation. He's socially awkward, understated, tormented. He manages to capture the essential loneliness of the character, making the role his own while channeling the same energy as Bixby without ever stumbling over into pastiche or imitation. This really is a testament to Norton's quality as an actor. Losing him, without a doubt, was one of the hardest blows to Marvel's cinematic universe during its formative years.

It's not long before General Ross (William Hurt) picks up Banner's trail, and sics ace black ops commando Emil Blonsky (Tim Roth) on him, forcing Banner to run again. Only this time, Banner is determined to rid himself of the monster within. So, he returns home to dig up old research, putting him on a collision course with his old flame, Betty Ross (Liv Tyler)—who just so happens to be the general's daughter. The forbidden love affair between Betty and Bruce is one of the great and underutilized comic book romances, and The Incredible Hulk wisely puts them front and center.

There is a reason this film is often seen as the bastard child of the MCU. Tonally, this movie does not jive with rest of the series. I suppose that's due in no small part to Edward Norton's uncredited rewrites on the script, which lends the story a kind of lonesomeness. There is a certain gravitas to this film, a kind of mythic resonance that simply is not there in the vast majority of other Marvel flicks. You can always tell when a film like this has more on its mind that just a lot of intense action by how certain scenes are staged. Many of this movie's shots are of Banner, alone and wandering through the world. His reunion with Betty on a bridge, at night, in the middle of a storm testifies to the care that goes into shooting these scenes, framing the world in such a way that we connect emotionally with these characters through the imagery alone. When Betty rushes after him and the thunder rumbles in the distance, it's as if heaven itself bears witness to the tragedy and weeps for this once perfect couple pulled apart by powers beyond their control. This is the real power of cinematic storytelling, when the themes and narrative are communicated through the image, not just the characters or the dialogue or force of plot.

When the final confrontation pits the Hulk against the Abomination that Blonsky has become, though this is the usual big CGI blowup movies of this sort demand, the story has actually given us context and thematic significance for this fight. The image of two monsters smashing into each other is about more than two monsters fighting, but both monsters represent philosophical points of view. Banner's fight is about accepting that what has happened cannot be changed, and attempting to right the wrongs of the past and present to better the future. "We made this thing," Banner tells Ross when he's finally captured, referring to the monster that is Blonsky and its connection to the experiments directly responsible for creating the Hulk.

Perhaps the thing I appreciate most about The Incredible Hulk is how the film takes its own story seriously. We live in an age of self-conscious storytelling, where being "meta," or pointing out the absurdities of the story to the audiences in the context of the narrative, is considered "creative." And perhaps, at one time, it was. But The Incredible Hulk does not do tongue-in-cheek, instead playing its tropes straight and true, and I find that a refreshing change of pace. This is a much older style of moviemaking, and storytelling in general. Yet there is a distinct sense in which corporate interference hampered the film's final form. We certainly needed more time with the characters, and Tim Blake Nelson's goofy Samuel Sterns suffers the worst here. He's set up brilliantly, only to fall away by the film's conclusion. There were clearly ideas in place to keep this story going, investments in which there is little to no return. Supposedly, Norton had a very specific vision for the character that ultimately clashed with the direction Marvel wanted to go in. We ended up with the Avengers, but I cannot help but wonder what would have happened had Norton's vision been fully realized. I doubt we'll ever know, but it's certainly a tantalizing question.

Banner's final words in the Bixby-directed 1990 film, The Death of the Incredible Hulk, still haunt me. As the dying man breathes his last, he realizes that he's finally found what he's spent a lifetime searching for, that the monster finally dies with him. He utters, "I am free." It's a shame we'll never see that arc completed by Norton's take on the character, because that haunted, lonely man played by Bixby is the same tragic character on display here. We ended up with one of the most successful film series of all time. But the mythic dimensions of this character were sacrificed in order for us to have it. Perhaps that is why all the other superheroes of Marvel's early years have received multiple sequels, and this film remains the only incarnation of this particular version of the character. Bruce Banner is a lonely man, and his struggle against the literal monster within is the stuff of myth and epic poetry—and his story just isn't compelling when told any other way.