CALLING ALL ENSEMBLES

 

I’ve established here and elsewhere the way that a narrative’s centricity can be either concentrated upon one starring character or distributed across an ensemble of characters. And in this essay I showed how a particular narrative with a huge cast of characters, DC THE NEW FRONTIER, could center upon a more limited ensemble of characters who possessed stature superior to all of the others. I’m contemplating a more involved definition of stature with respect to centricity, one that might define stature as a sort of “motive force,” something that impels the narrative, but I haven’t concluded those meditations.

Because of my recent reading of the manga NISEKOI, which I’ll discuss separately, I’ve noted that it’s not impossible for a narrative, particularly a serial one, to possess two ensembles, a superordinate one and a subordinate one. The subordinate ensemble does not simply consist of all the supporting characters within the narrative. In DC THE NEW FRONTIER all the characters who lack centric status are simply support-characters. A story with a subordinate ensemble, however, has a collection of characters who function in the same way as the characters in a superordinate ensemble, except that the former simply lack the stature of one or more starring characters.

I’ve expended a fair amount of attention to the interlinked teleserials ANGEL and BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER. According to my lights, BUFFY is always focused on the titular character, and every else in the story exists to support her. However, her “inner circle” of allies, informally called “the Scooby Gang,” function to have strong interactions with Buffy and to generate plot-threads centered temporarily upon them. Originally the subordinate ensemble includes only Xander, Willow and Giles, while later seasons introduce a variety of other featured characters to the ensemble, including a former adversary, Spike. However, some of the Scooby Gang’s allies—Angel, Riley, Tara—never reach the same stature. Angel is transformed into a foe and then leaves the show to star in his own series, Riley only lasts one season as a temporary boyfriend for Buffy, and Tara is killed in order to give her lover Willow a new emotional arc.

Angel starts out his own series as the sole star, with just two characters, Cordelia (a transplant from the BUFFY show) and Doyle forming a subordinate ensemble. But within the first season Doyle is slain and Cordelia inherits his precognitive talent, which makes her character more consequential. In addition, another refugee from BUFFY, Wesley, joins the team. The stories shift to stress the importance of the team rather than just Angel, and from then on Angel and all of his form a superordinate ensemble. Though other characters join the team  the ANGEL series never generates a corresponding subordinate ensemble but only handfuls of disparate support-characters.

Some serials may generate huge subordinate ensembles in which none of the characters ever quite eclipse a single central figure, as I’ve observed in both DRAGONBALL and BLEACH. A number of serials in the romantic comedy genre center upon a male and female lead, such as both URUSEI YATSURA and RANMA 1/2. Both of these Takahashi serials generate populous casts who function as subordinate ensembles, and URUSEI in particular includes a number of stories in which the romantic duo of Lum and Ataru is sidelined by the activities of ensemble-characters like Mendou or Ryunosuke, though none of these characters ever assume greater stature thereby. NISEKOI follows this basic paradigm in that the serial’s main emphasis is a romantic couple, but the activities of the subordinate ensemble are more centered upon either enhancing or undermining the romance of the two main characters.

EQUAL AND UNEQUAL VECTORS OF AUTHORIAL WILL PT. 3

In ENSEMBLES DISASSEMBLED I put forth a tentative analysis of the ensemble of heroes in the Wolfman-Perez CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS. In part I argued that just because the creators tried to squeeze in nearly every DC character who ever had a series, that didn’t mean all of the heroes functioned as part of the ensemble. I might still get around to CRISIS’s stature-vectors one of these days. But since I just remarked on the unequal vectors of characters in DC: THE NEW FRONTIER, I may as well apply my theory to that work. In my analysis I said:

Numerous other characters prove central to the action—Superman’s cohorts Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen, the Barry Allen Flash, all four of the Challengers of the Unknown (whose presence gives Cooke the chance to homage their creator Jack Kirby), and Rick Flagg and the other three members of his Squad. Numerous other DC figures make what are essentially cameos—the Blackhawks (who don’t get too much air action), Aquaman, Adam Strange, and even the Viking Prince. Even less central are a quintet of DC’s mystic heroes, who only appear to explain to readers their shaky reasons for not participating in the conflict, even though the island’s menace threatens the totality of the world.

Building on this loose assertion, I find that the characters who all share superior stature-vectors in NEW FRONTIER are:

SUPERMAN, BATMAN, WONDER WOMAN, LOIS LANE, JIMMY OLSEN, GREEN LANTERN (Hal Jordan), THE FLASH (Barry Allen), J’ONN J’ONZZ, THE CHALLENGERS (Ace Morgan, Prof Haley, Rocky Davis, Red Ryan), THE LOSERS (Johnny Cloud, Sarge Clay, Gunner Mackey, Captain Storm), RICK FLAGG, KING FARADAY

All of the other characters embody lesser stature-vectors, although some of them have fairly large charisma-vectors, best exemplified by Ted “Wildcat” Grant, who gets a final non-superheroic triumph when he beats Muhammad Ali in the ring. 

At the opposite end are DC’s mystic heroes, who appear as little more than cameos. 

Other characters of lesser stature include:

SLAM BRADLEY, BLACK CANARY, HOURMAN, GREEN ARROW, THE BLACKHAWKS, THE CATWOMAN, the rest of THE SUICIDE SQUAD (Karin Grace, Jess Bright, Hugh Evans) JUNE ROBBINS, THE VIKING PRINCE, ROBIN, AQUAMAN, ADAM STRANGE, and three characters who will later become involved in superheroic escapades: Ray “THE ATOM” Palmer, Nate “CAPTAIN ATOM” Adam, and Doc Magnus, later creator of THE METAL MEN.

One point I want to drive home here is that just because a character is part of an ensemble in an ongoing feature does not necessarily translate into high stature elsewhere. For instance, in the CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN feature, I have no hesitation about including June Robbins to be part of that ensemble, given that she was a reasonably constant presence in the feature for a dozen or so issues. Robbins even has a minor feminist significance, since she participates with the all-male team with more distinction than did, say, Lady Blackhawk with the rather chauvinist Blackhawks. But June Robbins really doesn’t do much of anything in NEW FRONTIER, so she’s not part of the ensemble. Similarly, Rick Flagg plays a vital role in FRONTIER. However, his ensemble-mates from the 1960s SUICIDE SQUAD—whom, as I noted in this review, were really poorly conceived characters—are just hangers-on in NEW FRONTIER. They have more functionality in the narrative than does June Robbins, but as characters they’re of little consequence in terms of their stature.

This ruminations may lead me to some further formulations regarding the nature of centricity, but for now I’ll leave the analysis at this juncture.