S.H.I.E.L.D. #3
Review by: FausticCaust
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PENCILS: DUSTIN WEAVER
INKS: DUSTIN WEAVER
COLORED BY: CHRISTINA STRAIN
LETTERED BY: TODD KLEIN
COVER BY: GERALD PAREL
Size: 32 pages
Price: 2.99
This review contains spoilers, click here to read
Jonathan Hickman's S.H.I.E.L.D. is a mildly disgusting wank of a comic book. I suppose one shouldn't be surprised at this point.
One year ago, the rest of the world and I fell in love with Hickman and Eaglesham's opening run on Fantastic Four. I had previously read The Nightly News, a beautiful work crafted with passion and intellectual ambition. These qualities carried over into Fantastic Four, where for three issues, Hickman really created the impression that he understood what the book was about and could deliver on its promises.
Things rapidly fell apart thereafter, with issue after issue executing narratively cumbersome info-dumps, reading less like fiction and more like the backs of trading cards.
Hickman is a disciple of many of the same faiths that I subscribe to: futurism, transhumanism, notions of the Singularity. He's used Fantastic Four as a platform for these philosophies, and while I can agree with the impulse, the execution has been piss poor.
S.H.I.E.L.D. is qualitatively worse. In a nutshell, the series presents the notion that a benevolent conspiracy has existed since the dawn of civilization, that real historical figures (e.g. Galileo, Da Vinci, Newton) were parties to this conspiracy, fought comic book monsters, and did so with anachronistically advanced super-technology.
It's really the last point that's most disturbing.
In Hickman's first issue of Fantastic Four, #570, there's a scene in which Reed Richards mentions that he's been reading Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions to his children at bedtime. It's a charming incidental detail. The title evokes the recognition that the character of Reed Richards is himself a scientific revolutionary and implies certain things about his parenting style.
But what is that book actually about? To quote the Wikipedia entry:
Kuhn's approach to the history and philosophy of science has been described as focusing on conceptual issues: what sorts of ideas were thinkable at a particular time? What sorts of intellectual options and strategies were available to people during a given period? What types of lexicons and terminology were known and employed during certain epochs? Stressing the importance of not attributing modern modes of thought to historical actors, Kuhn's book argues that the evolution of scientific theory does not emerge from the straightforward accumulation of facts, but rather from a set of changing intellectual circumstances and possibilities.
What have we seen in S.H.I.E.L.D. but the complete disregard for such considerations? The depiction of Leonardo DaVinci in possession of a VTOL flying suit, traveling through time is a denigration of both the man and the whole progression of science.
S.H.I.E.L.D. is at once intellectually elitist and anti-intellectual, presenting a sneering, science aristocracy whose capacities are completely divorced from reality AT EVERY POINT IN HISTORY. When there is no point of credible departure, then what is being presented is not science fiction, but fantasy - and not even good fantasy. The best fantasy worlds have internally consistent rules. The world of S.H.I.E.L.D. is bounded only by the mutable extent of Hickman's indulgence. The fantasy of S.H.I.E.L.D. appropriates the language and the characters of science, and I find the mixture distasteful.
Is blasphemy too strong a word? Galileo Galilee did not fight Galactus. Isaac Newton did not impregnate a mutant deviant. None of these fictions have anything to do with the way that science and historical genius shaped the world in which we live and the things which we are currently able to perceive. None of these fictions have anything to do with why these people are actually important and venerated.
So the question then is: What's the point? Why have these historical figures been conscripted into this project? Is it, to paraphrase the opening lines of S.H.I.E.L.D. #3, an attempt to hammer home the conceit that this narrative is significant, that it matters and is of high consequence?
The mantras of cost and human potential aren't served by the inclusion of these characters. It's not necessary. Consider, analogously, why Stan Lee never depicted Reed Richards rubbing elbows with Heisenberg or Oppenheimer. Lee is not the most restrained of writers and has a characteristic penchant for sensationalism, but he never resorted to celebrity cameos to prop up the intelligence of his leading man.
Incidentally, S.H.I.E.L.D. reminds me of Atlas Shrugged, whose entire world and plot and characterizations were contorted in the service of the author's moralizing. The difference is that Ayn Rand had the decency to use her own characters.
This is where I part ways with Mr. Hickman. Philosophically, we seem to agree on almost everything, but as an artist, he has an obligation to present his concepts artfully. In these terms, Hickman's last six months of material have not been a success.
One year ago, the rest of the world and I fell in love with Hickman and Eaglesham's opening run on Fantastic Four. I had previously read The Nightly News, a beautiful work crafted with passion and intellectual ambition. These qualities carried over into Fantastic Four, where for three issues, Hickman really created the impression that he understood what the book was about and could deliver on its promises.
Things rapidly fell apart thereafter, with issue after issue executing narratively cumbersome info-dumps, reading less like fiction and more like the backs of trading cards.
Hickman is a disciple of many of the same faiths that I subscribe to: futurism, transhumanism, notions of the Singularity. He's used Fantastic Four as a platform for these philosophies, and while I can agree with the impulse, the execution has been piss poor.
S.H.I.E.L.D. is qualitatively worse. In a nutshell, the series presents the notion that a benevolent conspiracy has existed since the dawn of civilization, that real historical figures (e.g. Galileo, Da Vinci, Newton) were parties to this conspiracy, fought comic book monsters, and did so with anachronistically advanced super-technology.
It's really the last point that's most disturbing.
In Hickman's first issue of Fantastic Four, #570, there's a scene in which Reed Richards mentions that he's been reading Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions to his children at bedtime. It's a charming incidental detail. The title evokes the recognition that the character of Reed Richards is himself a scientific revolutionary and implies certain things about his parenting style.
But what is that book actually about? To quote the Wikipedia entry:
Kuhn's approach to the history and philosophy of science has been described as focusing on conceptual issues: what sorts of ideas were thinkable at a particular time? What sorts of intellectual options and strategies were available to people during a given period? What types of lexicons and terminology were known and employed during certain epochs? Stressing the importance of not attributing modern modes of thought to historical actors, Kuhn's book argues that the evolution of scientific theory does not emerge from the straightforward accumulation of facts, but rather from a set of changing intellectual circumstances and possibilities.
What have we seen in S.H.I.E.L.D. but the complete disregard for such considerations? The depiction of Leonardo DaVinci in possession of a VTOL flying suit, traveling through time is a denigration of both the man and the whole progression of science.
S.H.I.E.L.D. is at once intellectually elitist and anti-intellectual, presenting a sneering, science aristocracy whose capacities are completely divorced from reality AT EVERY POINT IN HISTORY. When there is no point of credible departure, then what is being presented is not science fiction, but fantasy - and not even good fantasy. The best fantasy worlds have internally consistent rules. The world of S.H.I.E.L.D. is bounded only by the mutable extent of Hickman's indulgence. The fantasy of S.H.I.E.L.D. appropriates the language and the characters of science, and I find the mixture distasteful.
Is blasphemy too strong a word? Galileo Galilee did not fight Galactus. Isaac Newton did not impregnate a mutant deviant. None of these fictions have anything to do with the way that science and historical genius shaped the world in which we live and the things which we are currently able to perceive. None of these fictions have anything to do with why these people are actually important and venerated.
So the question then is: What's the point? Why have these historical figures been conscripted into this project? Is it, to paraphrase the opening lines of S.H.I.E.L.D. #3, an attempt to hammer home the conceit that this narrative is significant, that it matters and is of high consequence?
The mantras of cost and human potential aren't served by the inclusion of these characters. It's not necessary. Consider, analogously, why Stan Lee never depicted Reed Richards rubbing elbows with Heisenberg or Oppenheimer. Lee is not the most restrained of writers and has a characteristic penchant for sensationalism, but he never resorted to celebrity cameos to prop up the intelligence of his leading man.
Incidentally, S.H.I.E.L.D. reminds me of Atlas Shrugged, whose entire world and plot and characterizations were contorted in the service of the author's moralizing. The difference is that Ayn Rand had the decency to use her own characters.
This is where I part ways with Mr. Hickman. Philosophically, we seem to agree on almost everything, but as an artist, he has an obligation to present his concepts artfully. In these terms, Hickman's last six months of material have not been a success.
Story: 1 - Poor
Art: 4 - Very Good
Art: 4 - Very Good
Great review. I like Hickman’s work more than you do, but I certainly see where you’re coming from. To be honest, I haven’t read the first issue of this yet and need to give it all a serious read-through to really get a good grasp on where, in my opinion, Hickman would really stand on the ideas that he throws around.
What I’m most puzzled/troubled/intrigued by is the notion that S.H.I.E.L.D. is apparently both a "sneering…aristocracy" and a "benevolent conspiracy". These are your words, but I think the seeming incompatibility is indeed there in Hickman’s work. Personally, I think the idea of a "benevolent conspiracy" is flat out naive, almost an inherent contradiction in terms. If they’re the good guys, they better have a good reason (besides pride, arrogance, and some vague elitist notion of "the greater good") to hide their designs.
I’m not sure how their "sneering…aristocracy" is also "anti-intellectual", but, then again, I haven’t read the whole series, or read it as carefully as you seem to have.
I have picked up on the transhuman ideas in Hickman’s recent work and, again, while I like the ideas, I find the way Hickman plays them to be somewhat naive. The speech that Reed gave to those scientists had some real good, informed, relevant points to it. But it was also silly and maudlin, imo. I’m not sure he’s really thought through how science, knowledge, politics and technology interrelate and have always interrelated. To the extent that movements like transhumanism are "conspiratorial" they are not good, for the only point in hiding them would be to prevent the humans who want to be humans from finding out about the future that’s planned for them…or planned without them. It’s certainly interesting to place the FF and S.H.I.E.L.D. within such contexts–it seems like the first potential advance in the "superman" motif that the genre has seen in a long time–but I think Hickman is still invested too much in old nostalgic concepts of "good guys trying to help–really!" for his own good. These concepts can’t really withstand the reader having to cheer on comic book heroes in the same way that they’d cheer them for saving the day in the past. These concepts shift the paradigms too much and perhaps go beyond good and evil, so the fact that Hickman still has one foot in the "heroes vs. villains" sandbox hurts the work, I think. Reed Richards lectured that one scientist with the depopulation agenda, but if the population at large (I don’t agree with them, but…) knew about the transhumanist agenda, they’d probably have rooted for Galactus to take out S.H.I.E.L.D. long ago.
It sounds like you are more outraged at the fact that J. Hickman chose to use real historical figures to tell this story more than anything. I can understand that. But I think you are overanalyzing this comic book story.
You should check out this recent Hickman interview.
http://www.comicsalliance.com/2010/08/05/jonathan-hickman-interview/
He admits that he’s unsure of his "delivery method… the methodology of the monthly dose." I agree with you that his recent FF stuff has been just vague like a barely complete story, but apparently he has a plan. With Steve Epting coming onto the book, I’m sticking around to find out what that plan is.
As for S.H.I.E.L.D, it’s still too early to tell for me. I like how he’s incorporating Celestials, Galactus, Deviants, The Darkhold (I believe) and who-knows-what’s-next to tell this story. I can see how using historical figures from our reality in the Marvel universe might irk you, but it’s a just a story not a treatise on futurism or transhumanism, etc. Or maybe it is a treatise, but surely not one that applies to our world.
After reading your review, though. I’m definitely gonna read Hickman’s creator-owned stuff. Placing an order now.
While I disagree with your opinion, I can’t remember the last time I read such a thoughtful comic book review. Thank you!
In Hickman’s work, the well intentioned individuals are always treated fairly. That is to say, they end up having agendas or going, if not bad, at least not pure.
Nightly News, Transhuman, Red Mass are all examples of this.
@froggulper To clarify, I didn’t say that the organization is anti-intellectual, but rather that the book as a whole is in spite of its agenda. It’s not only a matter of these historical characters having unrealistic technology, but also of how the acquisition of knowledge is depicted.
S.H.I.E.L.D. shows us a world where knowledge is not discovered, but is rather appropriated and acquired through unreasoning means.
All of the tech we see is shrouded in ritual trappings. When Newton decides to find something out, he doesn’t experiment or deduce; he goes off on a quest to a hidden, snow-covered city and consorts with what is, for all intents and purposes, a demon, before stealing the information he was after.
Nostradamus (who possesses knowledge of the future by virtue of being, well, Nostradamus) is introduced as a source of narrative prophecy, and is tortured.
The great scientists have been reduced to cargo cultists using science words.
On another note, "maudlin" is exactly the word I’ve been groping for to describe Reed Richards’ speech. Thanks!
@Howl4Me Thanks for the link. Hickman has always struck me as a pretty cool guy in real life. I met him once at ComicCon way back when he was promoting Nightly News.
@jabroniunc h/t
@JumpingJupiter I don’t think I’ve understood your point about well-intentioned individuals in Hickman plots. Do you mean sarcastically that they’re well-intentioned in the sense that they have designs that they think are in the best interest of the human race? Of Hickman’s indy work, I’ve only read Nightly News and Pax Romana.
@Faustic: I mean that the "protagonists" of Hickman’s stories are hardly "good guys trying to help–really!"
My comment was directed @frog.
But yeah, Hickman tends to rebeal the hidden facets of his charaters later in the stories.