[...]
We don’t have to make the same mistakes again. We’re here at the birth of a nation ... of a dream [8:4,26, original emphasis].
His tale becomes entangled, symbolically, with the birth of the nation he was chosen to protect, something that illustrates further the undermining of the clear distinction between private and public in 1602’s historiographic metafiction.
As Hutcheon argues, the social and cultural contexts are also embedded in the historian’s role in the narration of history, and, as such, they should also be taken into account in the production of these types of historical narratives. In the first scene of 1602, the reader is transported to the Elizabethan Court, in the presence of the Queen herself, who takes counsel with two very memorable heroes: Doctor Stephen Strange and Sir Nicholas Fury. The problem is the unsettling weather (blood-red skies at noon, thunderstorms, and earthquakes across England and possibly Europe), which for some is a harbinger of the end of the world. This anxiety over the future of the planet and consequently of human kind, though ever constant in some way or another in our society, would be particularly familiar in the post–9/11 context in which 1602 was produced. As Julia Sanders points out, historiographic metafictions often appropriate particular events or lives for the “parallels and comparisons [they] evoke with more contemporary or topical concerns” (139).
The aftermath of the 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States clearly informed the creation of 1602. According to Gaiman:
The idea for the story came about in part because I was plotting it immediately after September the 11th. The first day planes were flying again, I had to go to a Sci-Fi/Comics thing in Triest, in Northern Italy, and I wound up with a day on my own in Venice just to sit and plot whatever it was I was going to do for Marvel. I decided that whatever I did, given the mood I was in at that point, it wasn’t going to have skyscrapers, it wasn’t going to have bombs and it probably wasn’t going to have any guns or planes in it. That was simply what I felt like at the time. “I don’t think this is stuff I want to put into my fiction right now” [Weiland].
The issues of political uncertainty, the risk of pending war, the rise in religious intolerance and the threat of terrorism, all present in the early 1600s of the series, have a clear resonance with the same issues faced in the post 9/11 world in which the narrative was produced and consumed. The fears associated with the consequences of a successful terrorist attack against a prominent political figure in a politically uncertain context are certainly evoked in the killing of the Queen. As Strange points out: “[t]here have been riots. Many people believe that the Queen’s murder signals the end of the world. Given the strange manifestations we have been experiencing, I am no longer convinced that they are wrong” (4:4). Even though the population was well aware of the Queen’s advanced years and approaching end, the actuality of her death was still “for most people [something] unimaginable” (Fraser xxii). This feeling was due to the fact that her rule had been particularly long, allied to the delicate problem of succession, or lack thereof, topped by the fact that to even discuss such a topic openly was a crime punishable by imprisonment—a problem which, incidentally, would also evoke contemporary concerns. The issue of legitimacy was also familiar to a readership that had recently seen the repercussions of a disputed election between George W. Bush and Al Gore (xxii). If the Queen’s natural death was already something “unimaginable,” her murder was an idea beyond the general population’s grasp. It is understandable, thus, that the political assassination of the Queen could manage to stir fears akin to the dread of the apocalypse.
Consequently, the murder of Queen Elizabeth I marks a major turn of events in 1602’s narrative. Carlos Javier and his witchbreed students are forced to leave the country while Fury and Strange are deemed traitors. In the climate of suspicion and paranoia characteristic of the post 9/11 context, filled with tensions and debate over the legitimacy of the Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp and the Homeland Security Act, the themes of xenophobia, unlawful persecution, and fear of terrorism dealt within 1602 carry the political undertone mentioned in Hutcheon’s definition of the postmodernist fiction. The political aspect of Gaiman’s re-writing is, thus, definitely associated with the idea of a re-visionist work.
The persecution of mutants is certainly spawned by paranoia and fear of the unknown, but the fact is that the world in 1602 is indeed coming to an end. Its very existence is an impossibility, a temporal anomaly that led to the rise of a mutant age 400 years too early. The inconsistency of these two realities, early modern England and the postmodern superhero age, is the cause of the apocalyptic weather in the beginning of the series. Thus, the paradox of the conflicting universes creates what Michel Foucault calls “heterotopia”:
There is a worse kind of disorder than that of the incongruous, the linking together of things that are inappropriate; I mean the disorder in which fragments of a large number of possible orders glitter separately in the dimension, without law or geometry, of the heteroclite; ... in such a state, things are “laid,” “placed,” “arranged” in sites so very different from one another that it is impossible to find a place of residence for them, to define a common locus beneath them all.... Heterotopias are disturbing, probably because they secretly undermine language, because they make it impossible to name this and that, because they destroy “syntax” in advance, and not only the syntax with which we construct sentences but also the less apparent syntax which causes words and things (next to and also opposite to one another) to “hold together” [xix].
1602 can be seen, then, as a world without syntax, one in which fragments of each reality are tossed together without a common ground.
The reflection of this heterotopia within the narrative is not only perceived by the bizarre weather that foreshadows the end of the world, but also through various other incongruous details throughout the narrative, such as the presence of dinosaurs. The main symbol of this incongruity, though, is the figure of the Forerunner, later revealed to be Captain America, and his dislocation through time. Steve Rogers, a.k.a. Captain America, is known in the 1602 reality by a different alias: Rojhaz. He is the underlying cause of the destruction of syntax in this world. As the link that connects these irreconcilable realities and that, consequently, creates the heterotopia of a superhero age in the Renaissance period, his very existence is out of place. He is an anomaly, and the universe treats him as such. As the character Watcher explains in a vision to the mystic Stephen Strange: “the forerunner could be seen as an infection, which the universe must create antibodies for, which then destroy the host organism” (6:3).
If, as Sanders suggests, historiographic metafictions often work to evoke contemporary concerns, the analogy of an autoimmune disease afflicting the universe further establishes the parallels between the world of 1602 and the post 9/11 context in which the series was produced. A similar diagnosis, for instance, is used by Jacques Derrida when discussing the events that led to the terrorist attacks of September 11th. The attacks were, in his view,
a distant effect of the Cold War [that mutated into] an autoimmunitary process [...] [that is] that strange behavior where a living being, in quasi-suicidal fashion, “itself” works to destroy its own protection, to immunize itself against its “own” immunity [Borradori 92, 94, original emphasis].
Thus, working within this metaphor, in 1602’s reality, Captain America, who was originally created to protect the country against a foreign enemy (the Nazis), mutates into the catalyzing element that brings forth the quasi-suicidal impulse of the universe “to destroy its own protection, to immunize itself against its “own” immunity” (94, original emphasis).
As the epitome of the paradoxical nature of 1602’s universe, Captain America’s recollection of his life before being sent back through time is perhaps the best example of the contrasting and contradictory features of both realities. His autobiographical account is a composition of panels that show him as Rojhaz, in 1602 telling his story to the othe
r characters on board the Virginia Maid, juxtaposed with others that show him as his alias from the future, twentieth-century Captain America. Contradictorily, the panels that show him from the future are drawn in the Silver Age comic era style, whereas his 1602 self is seen in the same style as the rest of the narrative, decisively more realistic and detailed. The result is that the panels that happen in the “future” have a vintage–Jack Kirby-looking style, while the ones that take place in the “past” look extremely contemporary, the outcome of Andy Kubert’s penciling added to the technology of the digital painting done by Richard Isanove. The irony in this anachronism is precisely what confers it its postmodern quality, something that “takes the form of [a] self-conscious, self-contradictory, self-undermining statement,” as Hutcheon puts it (1).
The anachronism in Rojhaz’s account is a statement that challenges the categories of “past,” “present,” and “future.” Accordingly, the ideals behind the persona of Captain America are also ultimately called into question. He professes them in one of the vintage–Jack Kirby-looking panels—one in which Captain America appears in the iconographic superhero pose: fist forward and charging body while dodging bullets—“I fought for America. My country. I protected America. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Democracy. Not something you people have seen much of yet. But it’s worth fighting for...” (8:2). The idea of an America composed of democracy, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness appears almost naive here, and it is implicitly related to out-of-datedness of that Captain America in the panel. In a following contemporary-looking-panel, Rojhaz says that eventually, with the rise of “dark times,” he “had to face facts. That [that] America wasn’t [his] America any longer” (8:3). “That” America is an America where heroes are persecuted and the government abuses its powers through the figure of the President-For-Life. In the post–9/11 context in which 1602 was produced, Rojhaz’s statement is particularly relevant, for it undermines the over-patriotic rhetoric seen just after the terrorist attacks and again reaffirms Hutcheon’s claim that “[p]ostmodern art cannot but be political” (3).
This political facet of postmodernism, however, is embedded in the ambivalent discourse of being at the same time complicit with and critical of said discourse (Hutcheon 149). This is evidenced in Captain America’s 1602 narrative. For example, the ideals of his character are validated by his earnestness while simultaneously undermined by an anachronistic juxtaposition of panels. This type of complicity is a point of discordance between postmodernism and feminism in relation to politics, as Hutcheon argues:
there is a major difference of orientation between the two [...]: we have seen that postmodernism is politically ambivalent for it is doubly coded—both complicitous with and contesting of the cultural dominants within which it operates; but on the other side, feminisms have distinct, unambiguous political agendas of resistance [142].
Seeing that feminism cannot afford that kind of ambivalence, Hutcheon questions the possibility of converging both the postmodernist and feminist strategies. She argues that
[c]omplicity is perhaps necessary (or at least unavoidable) in deconstructive critique (you have to signal—and thereby install—that which you want to subvert), though it also inevitably conditions both the radicality of the kind of critique it can offer and the possibility of suggesting change. The feminist use of postmodern strategies, therefore, is a little problematic, but it may also be one of the only ways for feminist visual arts to exist [152, original emphasis].
In this sense, can the political tone of a postmodernist work such as 1602 be seen as feminist as well? Hutcheon’s emphasis on the “visual” is particularly relevant in trying to answer that question, for the visual narrative element is fundamental in portraying the inherent paradoxes of the reality seen in the series. Although Hutcheon’s definition refers more specifically to the deconstruction of the male gaze in the representation of the female subject through the visual arts, I would argue that the unsettling of the cross-discursive form of the comics genre could also allow for a more political, and eventually feminist, statement (156). Hillary Chute addresses this issue when referring to the possible feminist repercussions embedded in the comics genre. She claims that
[w]hile foundational feminist criticism has detailed the problem of the passive female film spectator following and merging helplessly with the objectifying gaze of the camera, the reader of graphic narratives is not trapped in the dark space of the cinema (or even the voluntary, contingent space of spectatorship generated by her own television or computer). [...] Hence while the visual form of graphic narrative enables an excess of representation [...], it also offers a constant self-reflexive demystification of the project of representation. In graphic narrative the spectator is a necessarily generative “guest” (to borrow Mulvey’s term), constructing meaning over and through the space of the gutter.
We may note, then, that the form of comics even at its most basic is apposite to feminist cultural production [9, original emphasis].
Within this understanding, while 1602, as a postmodernist work, can indeed be seen as complicitous with the discourse that it subverts, its potential as a feminist narrative is evidenced through a series of narrative elements that manage to undermine that very discourse.
Clea Strange’s character is a good example of this sort of feminist potential in the series. Like Captain America, she is an outsider. While he is from the future, she is from another dimension altogether, one in which she used to be a Queen. By the end of the series, both Clea and Captain America leave this reality towards their respective places (or temporalities) of origin. In her case, she voluntarily leaves whereas his return home is forced (he is knocked out by Fury who then carries him through the portal that would send him back). Visually, the parallels between Clea Strange and Captain America go even further, since a similar discontinuity in the style of the panels appears in Clea’s exit scene. As soon as she and the rest of the characters realize that the universe is safe from its impending destruction, Clea proceeds to open a portal to her home world. The visual style of the portal is remarkably different from the panels on the page and from the rest of the overall work, suggesting a rupture in the narrative similar to the one seen when Rojhaz recounts his life from the future as Captain America. Clea’s portal shows a glimpse of her home dimension, a universe composed of nothing but abstract lines, colors, and shapes: possibly another heterotopia. Immediately after Stephen’s death, Clea’s first impulse is to return to her home dimension and leave the rest of the characters in this reality to face their impending doom on their own, but a promise to him and the subsequent knowledge that the fate of this world will eventually be the fate of hers as well keeps her from leaving:
And now that my husband is dead, I see no reason not to return home.
But my husband is of the opinion that when this world dies, it will take everything else with it, my own demesne included. So I may as well stay here, and try to help unknot the mess you men have made of things [8:11, my emphasis].
Whether “men” Clea refers to in the quoted line is related to the male characters in the story, her interlocutors in this dialogue after all, or whether it refers to mankind in general is unclear. Nevertheless, one could perceive a feminist connotation in that statement when taking into account that in a narrative filled with male-dominated action the key roles played by women such as Clea Strange, Jean Grey, Virginia Dare, and Susan Storm are the ones that ultimately “unknot the mess [...] men have made of things” (8:11).
Stephen Strange’s visions, for instance, are evidently fundamental in uncovering the danger behind the disturbing weather and its cause: the presence of the Forerunner in their age. However, Stephen’s sacrifice to obtain that knowledge would have been in vain, had it not been for Clea’s insight in identifying Rojhaz as the time traveler and not Virginia Dare, as Stephen had suspected. In another example of the importance of her role, during the climactic scene of the series, in a debate between Carlos Javier a
nd Richard Reed about whether or not to sacrifice Fury’s life in order to save the world, she is the one that takes charge in the midst of the confusion:
FURY: Reed! Can you—hear me? I brought you Rojhaz. Make it—happen. Whatever you’re—going to do—do it now...
REED: We can’t leave Fury out there!
CLEA STRANGE: How else are we going to get Rohjaz through the gate? Carry him ourselves?
CARLOS JAVIER: But it would mean Fury’s death...
CLEA STRANGE: Were you not listening? This is what he wants. Enrique. Thor. You heard him. Make it happen [8:28, original emphasis].
In the middle of the most powerful men within this already male-dominated reality, it is Clea Strange that “[m]ake[s] it happen.” She alone shows the authority to shut down the discussion between Reed and Javier and to make the difficult decision to let Fury die, while issuing orders to Thor and Enrique, who promptly obey. As a former queen, Clea Strange has no trouble taking control or even in imposing her will. Her role can be seen, thus, as emblematic of how postmodern narratives can be critical even while being complicitous with the discourse being criticized, as Hutcheon argues. An example of that kind of subversion could be seen in the scene where Clea presents Stephen’s head to the other characters. In a clear castration reference, she carries the severed head across the ocean, so that that she may speak as his medium and warn the other characters about the impending danger to their world. She does fulfill the promise to her husband, being the dutiful wife that she is—thus characterizing the complicitous discourse—visually, however, the narrative conveys a different story, one in which the power is in her hands, quite literally in fact.
Similarly, Susan Storm’s role in 1602 deals with the double-codedness, borrowing Hutcheon’s term, of invisibility as both a literal and a symbolic referent. As one of the four of the Fantastik, she was endowed with the special power of invisibility after a trip to the New World. In the reality of the series, the only glimpse of Susan as a “visible” woman is in the flashback of a portrait made aboard the Fantastik before the accident that resulted in her powers. Unlike the regular Marvel continuity though, where the character uses this ability to appear and disappear at will, in 1602 Susan is never actually seen, apart from the aforementioned portrait. She can only be perceived by the reader either by the light contours of a hollow figure or simply by the void space of a character below a slightly translucent speech balloon. In other words, in this universe she is always invisible.
Feminism in the Worlds of Neil Gaiman Page 19