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Comic Book Resources - CBR News: Dark Horse Solicitations for July, 2007:
Hmm.
You know, I hadn't thought her story was particularly in need of an unprecedented conclusion (and since when are conclusions unprecedented?), but still ... hmm.
OK, so here's the thing: Martha Washington was kind of my gateway back into comics that were actually not ha-ha-funny stuff like The TICK! or Futurama or Roswell. But what I remember at the time was one of my online friends (you know who you are) saying, "Well ... OK ... yeah ... hmm ... OK, here, why don't you try this other entirely different comic book that is NOT Martha Washington?" in that sort of "I don't want to harsh your vibe but EWWW!" sort of way. To be sure, I was very very late to the game; all but the last series were out in trade before I heard about it. (Which will tell you how recent my conversion to the dark side actually is.) And I was completely bowled over by the very concept of a comic book series with a Black woman as heroine! Whoa! Cool! (And for anyone who says, "But what about Storm?": she was at the time only a member of a team, and not a solo lead; her title was a good decade away. Also, X-Men gives me hives.)
In the meantime, Frank Miller became ... well, Frank Miller of "Let's give the fans an ass shot of Vicki Vale" fame. Of "Let's load Batman and Robin's relationship with so much appalling anti-homoeroticism that even homophobic fanboys say, 'Dude, give it a rest', and then let's make the Batman/Robin relationship really desperately psychotic in reaction" fame. Frank Miller of "Sin City" and "300" and "Oh dear god, will SOMEONE PLEASE TAKE THE Spirit MOVIE AWAY FROM HIM?" fame. That guy. So when I heard about this issue (a single issue? a single short issue?), I decided to go back and take a look at the series just to see if maybe there was something that I'd missed.
One of the interesting things about the series -- and it wasn't Miller's fault -- is how completely and thoroughly it got jossed by events, even during the publication process. The first series, Give Me Liberty, was published in early 1990, and took place starting in 1996. It featured a space race between the Soviet Union (which had more or less ceased to be around 1989, when the first issues would already have been to the printers) and the United States. That, however, had nothing to do with the writing; it was just one of those odd things. (And it's notable that the Soviet Union -- and, really, all foreign countries except Brazil and its rain forest, which are a specific plot point -- pretty much vanish from view after that early mention of the Soviet Union.) In one of the latter day jossings, Martha was born and lived in the Chicago Housing Authority's Cabrini Green development until her later teen years, and her mother still lived there when Chicago is nuked in 2016; however, Cabrini Green was torn down in 2002-2003. Again, original publication dates of 1994-1995 for Martha Washington Goes to War mean that he couldn't possibly have known, and it is an extremely minor and local point. (The final series, Martha Washington Saves the World, contains no historical weirdness -- other than the whole, you know, US still in existence thing.)
One of the consistent criticisms I've seen of Miller is that his women are either all warriors or prostitutes. And, well, it's hard to argue against that, based on the Martha Washington set as a whole. There's only one prostitute, and a very minor character at that, to be seen. Mind, in the first volume, there are a truly surprising number of boobies on display, and Martha's mother gives birth naked and has some spectacular musculature, which makes you wonder just how much she got to eat during her pregnancy and how intensely she worked out. In Cabrini Green. Yes. Quite. In any event, counting all three Martha Washington series, there are two (count 'em) women who are neither prostitutes nor warriors. Martha Washington's mother gets killed when Chicago gets nuked, and president Rexall's wife gets shot by Martha's commander during his commission of treason. That's pretty much it for the non-warrior/prostitute women; everyone else is essentially a warrior. That said, it does seem patently unfair to be picking on a world-at-war series for the fact that almost all the women are warriors; after all, so are all of the men, with the exception of the two presidents and the surgeon general -- and he's technically a soldier. (He's also a robot, or cyborg. Or ten. Kind of hard to tell how many of him there are, really.)
Martha Washington seems like she should be fragile -- she starts out going slightly mad for a few years as a teenager, the result of killing a man who killed her teacher, then having to watch the killer die slowly in front of her. After that, both the Surgeon General and Venus try to get her to do what they want by playing with her mind and body. Wasserman and Raggyann rescue her from the Surgeon General, but she manages to rescue herself from Venus. Apparently, having various and sundry play with her mind earlier gives her the ability to resist the last time.
Honestly, looking at it with somewhat less infatuated eyes, the series as a whole does have some problems, mostly at the story level. Somehow, in a very short amount of time, Martha manages to get three entities obsessed with killing her -- her PAX commanding officer Moretti, the Surgeon General and Venus (and I have no idea how else to describe the Surgeon General and Venus except as "entities"). All three kill a truly startling number of people purely in the belief that she'll be one of the dead ones. This fails, of course -- otherwise, there would be no series. The Surgeon General and Venus try tinkering with her mind; again, this ultimately fails, although they seem to succeed for a while. Significant aspects of her story keep repeating, evoking sort of a mythic trope. Even so, you probably wouldn't notice the repetition of certain themes, except when you read the whole set in one gulp.
Martha Washington could be considered rather intensely "magical negro" in some ways -- but is it being a magical negro to save the world? repeatedly? She is, after all, not doing it to save a particular white person; she's doing it to save, you know, the entire world, because it's where she keeps all her stuff. It's clearly her series; she is the sole lead, with two or three somewhat major supporting characters in the later books. (That said, she spends the second half of the first series bending her not inconsiderable abilities to concealing the crimes of her commanding officer, despite his repeated attempts to kill her. And she shows him something alleged to be mercy at the end which is simply inexplicable -- except that it would save the military service PAX the embarrassment of a public execution, but then, he should have committed suicide before the trial -- and which would almost certainly get her arrested; watching someone hang themselves the day before their execution would not intrinsically seem to be something of which the authorities would approve. And given that Moretti got many many MANY soldiers killed in his attempts to enrich himself and then to kill Martha ... why in the name of heaven would he deserve mercy? That said, she seems to do it primarily so she can watch him die up close and personal. In book two, Martha breaks the power of the evil president, the evil surgeon general, and accidentally helps Venus take over the world (which, OK, sort of anti-magical-negro), and in book three... well, she saves the world, from Venus.
Summing it all up ... Yes, there are story structure problems. I can't say that I don't still like it. (Although I do wonder about all the boobies in the first book.) It still works, if you ignore the historical jossing. If the Frank Miller of Martha Washington days wrote "Martha Washington Dies", then there will be story flaws, and one or two character notes that make you scratch your head, but basically ... it should still be a good story. If the Frank Miller of All Star Batman and Robin wrote it ... well, that'll be different, anyway. And shockingly brief in either case; a 24-page one-shot with several pages of notes and extra materials?
We shall see.
MARTHA WASHINGTON DIES
FRANK MILLER (W), DAVE GIBBONS (A), and ANGUS MCKIE (C)
On sale July 11
FC, 24 pages
$3.50
One-shot
On Earth, the battle for freedom rages on. The year is 2095 and the day is the one-hundredth birthday of Martha Washington. She is the leader of a small, resolute band that will not forfeit the pursuit of liberty—no matter what the cost. Today, the cost will be high. Martha has seen much in her hundred years, from the triumphs and tragedies of the battlefront, to the deepest reaches of space. Today, she will finally see the truth.
Includes a special section of never-before-seen production sketches and drawings that predate Martha’s first series, Give Me Liberty, along with Frank Miller’s original plot notes, all wrapped inside a high-quality card stock cover. This all-new story by two of comics’ legendary creators is the unprecedented conclusion to one woman’s epic struggle for life’s most valuable quality—freedom.
Miller and Gibbons reunite to tell the final chapter!
Hmm.
You know, I hadn't thought her story was particularly in need of an unprecedented conclusion (and since when are conclusions unprecedented?), but still ... hmm.
OK, so here's the thing: Martha Washington was kind of my gateway back into comics that were actually not ha-ha-funny stuff like The TICK! or Futurama or Roswell. But what I remember at the time was one of my online friends (you know who you are) saying, "Well ... OK ... yeah ... hmm ... OK, here, why don't you try this other entirely different comic book that is NOT Martha Washington?" in that sort of "I don't want to harsh your vibe but EWWW!" sort of way. To be sure, I was very very late to the game; all but the last series were out in trade before I heard about it. (Which will tell you how recent my conversion to the dark side actually is.) And I was completely bowled over by the very concept of a comic book series with a Black woman as heroine! Whoa! Cool! (And for anyone who says, "But what about Storm?": she was at the time only a member of a team, and not a solo lead; her title was a good decade away. Also, X-Men gives me hives.)
In the meantime, Frank Miller became ... well, Frank Miller of "Let's give the fans an ass shot of Vicki Vale" fame. Of "Let's load Batman and Robin's relationship with so much appalling anti-homoeroticism that even homophobic fanboys say, 'Dude, give it a rest', and then let's make the Batman/Robin relationship really desperately psychotic in reaction" fame. Frank Miller of "Sin City" and "300" and "Oh dear god, will SOMEONE PLEASE TAKE THE Spirit MOVIE AWAY FROM HIM?" fame. That guy. So when I heard about this issue (a single issue? a single short issue?), I decided to go back and take a look at the series just to see if maybe there was something that I'd missed.
One of the interesting things about the series -- and it wasn't Miller's fault -- is how completely and thoroughly it got jossed by events, even during the publication process. The first series, Give Me Liberty, was published in early 1990, and took place starting in 1996. It featured a space race between the Soviet Union (which had more or less ceased to be around 1989, when the first issues would already have been to the printers) and the United States. That, however, had nothing to do with the writing; it was just one of those odd things. (And it's notable that the Soviet Union -- and, really, all foreign countries except Brazil and its rain forest, which are a specific plot point -- pretty much vanish from view after that early mention of the Soviet Union.) In one of the latter day jossings, Martha was born and lived in the Chicago Housing Authority's Cabrini Green development until her later teen years, and her mother still lived there when Chicago is nuked in 2016; however, Cabrini Green was torn down in 2002-2003. Again, original publication dates of 1994-1995 for Martha Washington Goes to War mean that he couldn't possibly have known, and it is an extremely minor and local point. (The final series, Martha Washington Saves the World, contains no historical weirdness -- other than the whole, you know, US still in existence thing.)
One of the consistent criticisms I've seen of Miller is that his women are either all warriors or prostitutes. And, well, it's hard to argue against that, based on the Martha Washington set as a whole. There's only one prostitute, and a very minor character at that, to be seen. Mind, in the first volume, there are a truly surprising number of boobies on display, and Martha's mother gives birth naked and has some spectacular musculature, which makes you wonder just how much she got to eat during her pregnancy and how intensely she worked out. In Cabrini Green. Yes. Quite. In any event, counting all three Martha Washington series, there are two (count 'em) women who are neither prostitutes nor warriors. Martha Washington's mother gets killed when Chicago gets nuked, and president Rexall's wife gets shot by Martha's commander during his commission of treason. That's pretty much it for the non-warrior/prostitute women; everyone else is essentially a warrior. That said, it does seem patently unfair to be picking on a world-at-war series for the fact that almost all the women are warriors; after all, so are all of the men, with the exception of the two presidents and the surgeon general -- and he's technically a soldier. (He's also a robot, or cyborg. Or ten. Kind of hard to tell how many of him there are, really.)
Martha Washington seems like she should be fragile -- she starts out going slightly mad for a few years as a teenager, the result of killing a man who killed her teacher, then having to watch the killer die slowly in front of her. After that, both the Surgeon General and Venus try to get her to do what they want by playing with her mind and body. Wasserman and Raggyann rescue her from the Surgeon General, but she manages to rescue herself from Venus. Apparently, having various and sundry play with her mind earlier gives her the ability to resist the last time.
Honestly, looking at it with somewhat less infatuated eyes, the series as a whole does have some problems, mostly at the story level. Somehow, in a very short amount of time, Martha manages to get three entities obsessed with killing her -- her PAX commanding officer Moretti, the Surgeon General and Venus (and I have no idea how else to describe the Surgeon General and Venus except as "entities"). All three kill a truly startling number of people purely in the belief that she'll be one of the dead ones. This fails, of course -- otherwise, there would be no series. The Surgeon General and Venus try tinkering with her mind; again, this ultimately fails, although they seem to succeed for a while. Significant aspects of her story keep repeating, evoking sort of a mythic trope. Even so, you probably wouldn't notice the repetition of certain themes, except when you read the whole set in one gulp.
Martha Washington could be considered rather intensely "magical negro" in some ways -- but is it being a magical negro to save the world? repeatedly? She is, after all, not doing it to save a particular white person; she's doing it to save, you know, the entire world, because it's where she keeps all her stuff. It's clearly her series; she is the sole lead, with two or three somewhat major supporting characters in the later books. (That said, she spends the second half of the first series bending her not inconsiderable abilities to concealing the crimes of her commanding officer, despite his repeated attempts to kill her. And she shows him something alleged to be mercy at the end which is simply inexplicable -- except that it would save the military service PAX the embarrassment of a public execution, but then, he should have committed suicide before the trial -- and which would almost certainly get her arrested; watching someone hang themselves the day before their execution would not intrinsically seem to be something of which the authorities would approve. And given that Moretti got many many MANY soldiers killed in his attempts to enrich himself and then to kill Martha ... why in the name of heaven would he deserve mercy? That said, she seems to do it primarily so she can watch him die up close and personal. In book two, Martha breaks the power of the evil president, the evil surgeon general, and accidentally helps Venus take over the world (which, OK, sort of anti-magical-negro), and in book three... well, she saves the world, from Venus.
Summing it all up ... Yes, there are story structure problems. I can't say that I don't still like it. (Although I do wonder about all the boobies in the first book.) It still works, if you ignore the historical jossing. If the Frank Miller of Martha Washington days wrote "Martha Washington Dies", then there will be story flaws, and one or two character notes that make you scratch your head, but basically ... it should still be a good story. If the Frank Miller of All Star Batman and Robin wrote it ... well, that'll be different, anyway. And shockingly brief in either case; a 24-page one-shot with several pages of notes and extra materials?
We shall see.