Red Assaults & Comic Gems

Posted on October 3, 2010 by jonrossi

In a lot of ways, Watchmen was a hugely satisfying book.  Before getting to the serious writing, however, let me address the silly end of the spectrum.

You see, for years in high school I (mostly) jokingly believed that every problem in the world since the dawn of the Soviet Union could be blamed on that union.  I would go through such convoluted loops to make the connections – if you broke a nail or got a flat tire, there was some way I would find that would relate that problem to the USSR.  I’d love to give you an example of such a chain, but I never wrote any of it down, and they were clearly such crazy steps in logic that I would sound like a lunatic if I were to tell them to you here anyway.

What’s the point, you ask, of my telling you this?  It’s simple, really – it was somewhat gratifying to the 13-year-old version of myself that the world should be brought to the brink of Armageddon by the Red Army.  It was interesting, though – this was an Armageddon-type battle, in that countless millions would die, and a battle would have been fought with the USSR vs. seemingly the whole rest of the world. (Which, interestingly enough, would have put the Soviets on the side of good in Revelation, if you choose to take that imagery – a perspective not often visited, or one that I’d not like to ever need to adopt – it would necessitate the US being bad.)  Even more interesting, however, was the lack of a God in this apocalypse.  Yes, one might argue that Jon (whose name I loved sharing) served as the Christ-figure while Ozymandias served as the antichrist figure, but we’ll get to that in a minute.

I’d like to address the comic gems I found.  However, my bookmark fell out from the second one that I found, and so I’ll only be able to bring you one.  And by “comic gems,” I only mean to say that it was a gem found in a comic book.  I would tell a page number, but this book’s pages are inconsistently numbered. So: Chapter IX, page 6, second row, second and third columns.  Jon says “There is no future.  There is no past.  Do you see?  Time is simultaneous, an intricately structured jewel that humans insist on viewing one edge at a time, when the whole design is visible in every facet.”  I can’t say why, precisely, this line stuck out to me.  I can’t say what about it was so damn attractive.  What I can think of now, however, is that what I took away from it was so profound as to be irresistible – that everything the universe ever has been or ever will be, anything that will or has had happened, is right there in the here and now – we only have to be perceptive enough to comprehend that, to see everything.  Granted, he was able to se these infinitesimal particles that made such sight possible… but the wider message to those of us in the real world can be easily understood as “live in the moment.”  Or maybe it’s a cleverly hidden way of telling us to take a wider look at the world, as opposed to our own singular moment of right here, right now.  And of course, both of my interpretations could be wrong.

But no matter; let’s return to the idea of Jon as the Christ-figure and Ozymandias as antichrist.

Ozymandias as antichrist:

  • His rise to power was accompanied by widespread popularity
    • When the rest of the superheroes became unpopular – or when they became illegal operatives – he had already withdrawn and maintained his popularity.
    • He furthered his own popularity and profitability upon retirement from being a superhero
    • He created several product lines, each baring his mark in some way – things that were becoming increasingly popular and spread throughout the world.
    • He brought the world’s nations together into a peaceful unity – perhaps not a political union but a union close enough to a Revelation-esque one.
      • He was to be the leader of this union, in a way; he so desperately wanted to succeed in such a respect where his idol, Alexander the Great, had failed.

Jon as Christ-figure:

  • His birth is of a supernatural origin.  That is, it is scientifically explainable – but it is still a mystery – how he came to be after getting trapped as he did is mysterious.
  • He’s got powers.
  • He’s widely popular at first, but his popularity wanes and he is exiled for some time, but returns.
    • His return is to fight the antichrist figure, but in this story, the antichrist has seemingly won.  Of course, one wonders, given the peace that has come upon the world now and the lack of any actual battles (forgetting the deaths of half of those who live in NY)… one wonders if we are meant to think of the two figures in this way – Christ-figure and antichrist – or if there’s supposed to be some confusion, the message of which is to say that life is not always clear.

The world may never know the answer to these things, but ultimately I’d like to choose the message of confusion – that we must remember that both saints and sinners bleed, so to speak, and that we must ultimately be careful, and avoid blind faith in those who would be heroes; skepticism and faith can go hand in hand, just they must be mixed carefully.

As a postscript, I’d ask – does anyone feel that Rorschach could be likened to John the Revelator?  I don’t really like Rorschach, but I’m willing to accept that this could be his role, even though he’s a participant in the story’s events and not just a receptive scribe.

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Second Law of Thermodynamics

Posted on September 28, 2010 by Andreas Apostolopoulos

An apocalyptic narrative  “resists the crisis of change by inculcating change into its very vocabulary, assuring its reader that “the parent disorder of history, will finally affirm order”.  –Lois Parkinson Zamora

In a system, the process that occurs will tend to increase the total entropy of the universe. –Second Law of Thermodynamics

Out of all the statements made in Elizabeth Rosen’s “Apocalyptic Transformation”, it was this one that struck me as the most crucially important—one that summarized the very psyche of the apocalyptic notion, and its broadest impact on society throughout the ages. The successful dissemination and widespread influence of apocalyptic thought is no doubt attributable to certain innate psychological and behavioral characteristics of mankind. What Zamora suggests is that humans have a tendency to create (or envision) order out of their otherwise highly entropic daily lives–and that this quest for order out of disorder, for an intelligent plan behind abject chaos is at the root of the apocalyptic sensibility.

The psychology behind the adoption and the secularization of the Book of Revelations as a dominant ideology reveals that throughout history humans have found themselves in situations survivable only through belief in divine aid to make right all that has gone wrong—that this great “disruption” they currently deal with, was a part of the grand plan. More than a promise to end all suffering or to elevate the righteous to the highest rungs of moral certitude, the apocalyptic myth is also a sort of contextualization of the unknowable, providing a concrete reference frame for history through which denizens of a certain time period may better understand their own times.

Our ancestors were plagued with questions regarding the creation of the world they saw around them, and when organized religion began to develop—and along with it the idea of a benevolent creator, it was also not that far astride from their imaginations to also consider a destruction of that very world, as it indeed seemed during the Greco-roman era that things could not remain as they were. From the moment it began to circulate in the early-Christian world, the book of revelations (the first apocalyptic narrative) was helping people make SENSE of the world around them—finally and entirely convincing them that the days of tribulation were indeed near, and during their own lifetimes. So began the quest of endless numbers of men, and entire societies at that, over countless centuries to attempt to derive greater meaning from the suffering or sacrilege they were experiencing.

If we focus further on the wording Zamora uses, we note that the apocalyptic narrative and the eschatological sentiment (certainly the product of a society with these beliefs) has all to do with change. Every century has had its tumultuous period of change, and as we read in “History of the End of the World” those periods were often held to be divine signs of the coming tribulation.  Just as history has shown us that mankind looks towards divine plan and apocalyptic prophecy in times of dire disorder, so too does the apocalyptic narrative use eschatological mores to confront the feared issue of “change” and “disorder”. The last part of Zamora’s statement reaffirms the irony that it is the greatest disorder in history (i.e the apocalypse, tribulation), the parent of all disorders, that will finally create order (moral order?) in the universe.  And what an irony it is…

Now, the parenthetical claim for “moral order” inherent within the end of all things is a stretch of the imaginations for those skeptics who do not believe in organized religion, but for those societies throughout the years that were wholly and religiously deistic, the apocalypse (or the divine judgment) represented just that—a moral judgment which condemns those agents of disorder to fiery annihilation, and gifts those morally superior souls with eternal life in the “New Jerusalem”. As important an ending as te apocalypse is, it is JUST AS important a beginning. Like a graduation ceremony being aptly titled commencement (i.e. the beginning), so too is the tribulation the beginning of something anew. The new beginning is endless making the years of the secular world seem like seconds. It is perhaps this promise of eternal life and glory that led many to actively hope for the end of days, for an end to suffering, and an end to injustice. Experiencing the end meant also experiencing a new beginning; perhaps the greatest beginning of them all.

After all, God hath decreed “I am the alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last”. For different people, this means different things. For those who have not obeyed the word of God, He is the end. For those who have been righteous, he is merely a promise of an even greater beginning.

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Fidelis et Verax

Posted on September 26, 2010 by Sam Barnes

The horror of apocalyptic vision holds within it the power to move mountains, sink cities, and, in a different mode, to shape and re-shape societies.  The elusive knowledge of the End of Days is beyond the pale of human deduction, and anyone who claims to possess it is inherently claiming a higher destiny for him or herself.  Over and over in history, revolutions both abortive and successful have been cloaked in this sort of prophecy – whether the revolutionaries are Christians or pagans, Communists or anarchists, the resplendent beast of Armageddon is a powerful ally for any whose aim is to rule the world.  Like Lazzaretti, prophets of doom gain intrigue and speed with the confirmation of their pronouncements, and do indeed meet the end when they try to translate their prophecy into concrete power.

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The Constant Apocalypse

Posted on September 26, 2010 by Mac Warren

I find Kermode’s thesis reassuring in its logical simplicity.  I believe that his assertion about the nature of the Apocalypse – that we “project ourselves … past the End, so as to see the structured whole” (p. 8 ) – is entirely true.  What is more human than the desire to fill in the ambiguous blanks of reality, whether the imagined “fillers” have any basis in truth or not?  Human nature relies on the creation of our own realities around a larger truth, particularly when it comes to events that we don’t experience directly.   Everyone has a different perception of historical occurrences that are widely accepted as being true – the details are where fact and fiction often collide.  I believe that the proliferation of Apocalypse myths in our culture owes much to this human characteristic.  We yearn for certain completeness, in everyday life and in our own constructed myths, and our views of the Apocalypse are no different.

As Kermode states on page 9, the “power to manipulate data in order to achieve the desired consonance” is key to the flexibility of real-world applications of Apocalypse myths.  Kermode’s own beliefs about the nature of the myth meshes well with the ethos of Rosen’s introduction, which focuses on continuously shifting tenets of the myth as it pertains to contemporary culture.  In a departure from Judeo-Christian teachings, the postmodern take on the Apocalypse minimizes the actual deity in favor of a human perspective, and interestingly reverts back to a mindset that was favored during ancient times.   In the new iteration of the End of Times, Rosen states that there is no definite end and beginning – rather, time is cyclical, and “endings become beginnings and vice versa” (p. xxiv).  This noteworthy shift in the depiction of time immediately reminded me of Alan Moore’s depiction of time in his seminal graphic novel, Watchmen, where portions of the text are experienced not along a chronological axis of time, but throughout a cosmic, non-linear cloud of events.  Similarly, Kurt Vonnegut used this literary technique in Slaughterhouse Five, rejecting the formal notion of time in favor of a dizzying but ultimately resounding narrative that strays from typical chronology.

Oft-cited fictional works that depict the apocalypse, like Watchmen and Slaughterhouse Five, share distinctive textual similarities to the 1952 propaganda film “Duck and Cover.”  At first, these similarities may not be obvious, but at its core, the film clearly creates its own Apocalypse myth.  Half live-action and animation, “Duck and Cover” is a product of its time that can be quite frightening in retrospect, but also serves as a form of entertainment.  When it was released, it was not a parable or a morality tale – it was a warning.  The relevance of its protagonist, an anthropomorphic tortoise named Bert, is questionable.  This film, which was clearly intended for children, shows how the Apocalypse myth became so engrained in American culture that it was converted into a convenient, upbeat children’s short.  “Duck and Cover” is a prominent example of the intrinsic connection between mainstream culture and subversive themes of imminent doom, and its actual usefulness is highly debatable.  However, its existence speaks volumes towards our collective obsession with the Apocalypse – and perhaps our distinctive lack of connection as well.  “Duck and Cover” and the lessons its makers intended to teach are hidden behind layers of insincerity and muddled gimmickry, perhaps because it was produced for an immature audience.  Nonetheless, it remains a relic that is simultaneously eerie, campy, and highly representative of a distinct moment in time.

Image from Hal Lindsay’s “There’s a New World Coming,”  a 1974 Christian comic that depicts the end of times

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Newly Catastrophic Apocalypse

Posted on September 26, 2010 by jonrossi

Throughout our readings this week, I’ve found broad topic after broad topic that seemed as if they’d be absolutely wonderful to discuss – things I’d like to write about in this blog-space, to discuss with the class… but there was one paragraph in the reading that has forced me to set that aside for in-class discussion – one paragraph that has really caught my eye.  Specifically, it was the paragraph relating a second path that the evolution of the idea of the “apocalypse” has taken – that of “an adjective now understood to be a synonym for the catastrophic or devastating,” with the context being, of course, the events of September 11th, 2001.  Actually, the reference was to a newspaper published the following day in London which depicted said events under a headline tagged “APOCALYPSE.”

I couldn’t honestly say why this fascinated me; there are plenty of reasons.  I suppose the biggest is that that day has remained so prominent in my mind over the past 9 years, and yet I’d never really put it in the light of that headline – I’ve never thought of it as an apocalypse.  Yes, I was scared that day and for a few weeks after, but never tremendously so – I knew things were different (though at my young age I can’t say I understood how, really, or why, other than that the Towers had fallen), but never once did I think the world was coming to an end.

So yes, that’s where my interest in this paragraph must have come in.  And I must admit – for almost my entire life I’d associated the word “apocalypse” with such destruction, only having heard “the four horsemen of the apocalypse” from an old Simpsons episode. (NB – this is essentially a joke, but the point is the same – I had not been schooled, as it were, in the imagery in Revelation.)

I don’t really have much to say on this – just to disagree with the author’s point that this image was a great change, as in my personal experience, that’s all I’d known.  I’ll admit, however, that this could be due to the aforementioned lack of schooling in Revelation, and the fact that I grew up in a decade (mostly) absent of the large, looming Soviet threat at the forefront of everyone’s mind.

There are, however, certain questions I can ask.  Or rather, one larger question.  That is, can the situation as described by the author refer to something like a “godless apocalypse?”  Does it indicate the growth of such an idea in the Western mindset?  Alternatively, could it simply be that the editors of the paper meant that this was the beginning of the apocalypse, that perhaps there was some sort of redemption to be had, that some sort of savior would appear after a long battle?  I feel like reading the newspaper article and not just mentioning the headline would give us a much better idea.  I would tend to agree with those who say that this was seen as the beginning of an “apocalypse,” as it were: first, the tragic event, then a long war against forces (or “axes,” if you will) of evil, at the end of which there would be world peace for those who have been deemed worthy?  It seems like a fairly strong metaphor to the events going on then and now, and I’m fairly certain that that is what the newspaper editors meant to highlight.

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