THE READING RHEUM: THE TEMPEST (1611)

 I only "reviewed" one other Shakespeare play in THE TOILS OF TROILUS, but THE TEMPEST is without a doubt a more important, both as Shakespeare's last important play and a last flowering of the fantasy-genre before the dawn of the Age of Enlightenment, as I discussed in this essay:   

Following the Renaissance, the literary lights rejected, particularly by embracing the naturalistic novel, all or most of those "improbable and marvelous" elements that culminated in the late 1500s with Spenser's FAERIE QUEENE. Wikipedia pegs the beginnings of the Enlightenment with Descartes, but I prefer 1603, the publication-year of the first book of DON QUIXOTE, which essentially ended the chivalric romance for the next two centuries.

I don't retract this analysis, but the world of European theater may not have nearly as much of a cutoff in terms of metaphenomenal works as the chivalric romance did. Certainly Shakespeare seemed to go his own way and was generally popular even if many currents in European lit were leaning towards more naturalistic/isophenomenal concepts. Before 1600, WS's most important metaphenomenal work was A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM, while after 1600 we see such classics with fantastic content as HAMLET, KING LEAR (perhaps arguable), MACBETH and finally TEMPEST. Still, after Shakespeare, other authors of the 1600s are not very imaginatively impressive until we reach Milton's PARADISE LOST in 1667, when the Renaissance is over and the Enlightenment is in full bloom.

My strongest take-away from this reading of TEMPEST is that though I'm perpetually amazed by the four mythopoeic characters of the play-- Prospero, Miranda, Ariel and Caliban-- all of the other characters, including the indispensable groom-figure Ferdinand, are thoroughly unimaginative. Since WS was notable for infusing even very minor characters with strong moments of humanity, the paucity of wit in the drunk clowns Trinculo and Stephano is amazing. I can't help considering that WS was so deeply invested in the four characters of his "magical island" that he simply couldn't spare any attention for the quotidian types. And there's a special irony in this, since the theme of TEMPEST is all about leaving behind the worlds of magic-- even good magic-- in order to rejoin the domain of ordinary mortals. 

More to come...          

TRAILER THOUGHTS

 Last year the only superhero movies I saw in theaters were SUPERMAN and FANTASTIC FOUR, not because I thought they were likely to be great movies but because those franchises are two of the most important in Comic Book Land. I've passed on theatrical screenings of other superhero movies of the Big Two-- BRAVE NEW WORLD, THUNDERBOLTS, SUPERGIRL-- but now that I've seen both the DOOMSDAY trailer and a few breakdowns of said trailer, I'm a little pumped to see this one in the theater.

I have no doubt that DOOMSDAY will be an unwieldly melange of maybe ten-twenty plotlines from both MCU feature films and TV shows. But in one way, this could be a good thing.

Way back in 1985, I gave a negative review to Marvel Comics' SECRET WARS, which was probably as banal as DOOMSDAY *might* be-- and for similar reasons, because writer Jim Shooter also dumped together a bunch of unrelated plotlines, none of which proved to have lasting emotional resonance (with the possible exception of Spider-Man's Black Costume). DOOMSDAY will also lead into the MCU's version of SECRET WARS the following year, so it seems a safe bet that *someone* in the DOOMSDAY production team looked at how Shooter had handled the juggling of about forty super-characters. I don't even know if Hollywood types care about SECRET WARS having been a big moneymaker in its day, mostly with toy-buying kids and hardcore readers. All the Hollywood people *might* care about is finding some way to make all these characters work together enough to make a respectable profit.

So both DOOMSDAY and its next-year sequel probably won't be any better than Jim Shooter's SECRET WARS. 

But you know what DOOMSDAY will be better than?

ANY SUPERHERO FILM WITH EXPLICIT POLITICAL CONTENT.

A big splashy multi-crossover film will be concerned almost exclusively with saving multiple universes, and thus there *should* be no time to devote to political pontification.

And-- *that's a good thing.*

Besides, DOOMSDAY/WARS may kill off the Simu Liu version of Shang-Chi, whose existence I regard as a travesty of the original. That alone would make even the most tedious farrago more palatable.    

       

   

OBJECTIVE POWER, SUBJECTIVE POTENCY

 I ended ACTIVITY AND RESONANCE, MEET POWER AND POTENCY with the following sentence: 'A future essay will explore the possible linkages between the concepts of "power" and of the marvelous phenomenality.' I may have, over the past month, given the subject such scrutiny that whatever I would have written in June only partly resembles this essay.

Some correlation between the dyad "activity/resonance" and that of "objectivity/subjectivity" was probably inevitable. I haven't written about the latter topic in recent years as I did in this blog's early years, nor about the related opposition, "cognitive/affective." In 2020's NOTES ON WHITEHEAD PT.  3, I indicated that I wasn't quite persuaded by Whitehead to abandon the "objective/subjective" distinction. I did, however, stump for intersubjectivity as a sort of societal "middle ground," wherein subjective opinions on constructs like literature and religion, operating through masses of individuals, wreak effects just as "objective" as (say) the tree that falls in the forest but makes no sound because no one's there to hear it.

In the aforementioned ACTIVITY AND RESONANCE essay, I said '"activity" subsists in characters DOING certain things; "resonance" subsists in characters BEING certain things.' My current answer to the question of the relation between the concepts of "power" and of the marvelous phenomenality is as follows: the marvelous phenomenality is the mirror-image of the naturalistic phenomenality with which all (or nearly all) sentient individuals live. In marvelous fiction, elves and spaceships are as objective as kitchen sinks and toilets in naturalistic fiction, and so all such phenomena are manifestations of objective power. Uncanny fiction, as I've mentioned before, is an amphibian phenomenality, responsive to the other two domains in differing degrees. ranging from "active" to "passive" as specified in the ACTIVE AND PASSIVE ANOMALIES series. Thus the uncanny domain is dominantly associated with potency, which only becomes relevant through the intersubjectivity of resonance.

One of the major uncanny tropes, that of "freakish flesh," provides some apposite examples. Many comics-fans, to whom the adjective "super" connotes only the marvelous, would not regard the criminals of DICK TRACY as "super-villains," because in terms of power most of them are just ordinary men or women. However, some have a "potency" based in the repugnance of their physical appearance, as with Littleface, Flattop, The Mole, The Brow, BB Eyes, Pruneface and Mrs. Pruneface. One gangster, Mumbles, stands out from the crowd due to sound rather than sight: his peculiar way of running all his words together confers passive potency on him as well. The same standard applies to the crooks with physical tics: Itchy, Laffy and Shaky. Of the malcontents pictured, only two are exceptions to passive potency. The first exception is Influence, a fiend whose abilities with hypnotism register as "active potency," partly because he wears uncanny gadgets: contact lenses that amplify his mesmeric stare.  And the second exception, Shoulders, is merely an example of naturalistic potency. His having slightly-broader shoulders than average might help him stand out in a crowd, but there's no sense of *strangeness* about a man having broad shoulders.

         

 

DIDACTIC DOWNSIZING

 This may be a minor categorizing matter even to me, but if nothing else it's another excuse to explore a recurring question: how do the two "vertical values," the didactic and mythic potentialities, sometimes come into conflict?

In 2015 I wrote:

these examples raise another point: are only the "big events" worth considering in a pluralist "best of" list? Further, to extrapolate from a point Martin makes: are the first appearances of Batman's iconic villains their best "aesthetic" moments? Is the first Joker story the one every comics-fan ought to read? Will it tell the non-hardcore reader everything he wants to know about the Joker? Or would the reader be better off reading a less Gothic but arguably more "aesthetically pleasing" story like "The Joker's Millions" from DETECTIVE COMICS #180 (1952)? -- REFLECTIONS IN A MERCURIAL EYE, PT. 1.

This essay didn't concern the potentialities, much less the even later concepts of "ontocosm and epicosm," but the subject of "big events" showed up in a 2025 essay that did include such matters:

On a related note, while I was looking at my "greatest crossovers" series on OUROBOROS DREAMS, it occurred to me that my criteria for greatness were certainly not primarily epicosmic. There were some crossover-stories with strong vertical elements, like JIHAD and THE BOOKS OF MAGIC. But for the majority of my choices, I believe I responded to the elements of lateral storytelling. Thus I included Spider-Man's first encounter with The Avengers on the basis of both kinetic and dramatic elements, while the wall-crawler's first meeting with the Fantastic Four was, in a word, forgettable in ontocosmic terms. Other times, I might not think the lateral story was all that good in itself, but that it comprised some landmark crossover-event-- the first time the Avengers met the cowboy-heroes of Marvel's Old West, or that GAMBLER movie that brought together a dozen or so actors to play either real or simulated versions of their TV-characters. In these stories, it wasn't so much the actual execution of the concept but its potential that I found intriguing. -- A TALE OF TWO COSMS.

Now I'd say that I was incorrect to attribute, in the COSMS essay, my favoring of "landmark" crossover stories to lateral values-- even "potential" ones. If I've celebrated THE GAMBLER: LUCK OFTHE DRAW as a landmark crossover, while admitting that its lateral values are not that great-- then there must be some other factor that made me celebrate it alongside "To Become an Avenger," which did have such lateral values.           

So, while reconsidering the origins of my own take on "landmark stories," I happened to think of the REFLECTIONS essay, in which I was to some extent opposed to celebrating so-so "landmark stories" (Joker's first appearance) over better-crafted tales ("The Joker's Millions"). Why did I do in one essay what I faulted my "opponent" for doing? Well, because a liking for landmarks comprises an intellectual shorthand. "First Joker story," "first and only mega-crossover of TV westerns"-- these are quick ways of assigning didactic value to a particular story in terms of "making a breakthrough." Such a prioritizing is not exactly "wrong," because it also relates to the way the populace often judges stories. It's simply a very limited form of didactic thinking that can be incorporated into a wider perspective.           

 

EXCITING REACTIONS! REACTIVE EXCITEMENT! PT. 2

 I wrote the previous essay in this series back in April, but of course in the meantime I've been applying the "excitant/reactant" dyad to various other narratives. In the April essay I deliberately chose very simple examples of the dyad between Prime icon and assorted Sub icons by focusing on Japanese kaiju films. Here I want to discourse on a more involved narrative, which includes not just a "protagonist" amd "antagonist" but also assorted icons who may be aligned to either entity or may have no clear alignment to either.

My choice this time is Roger Corman's 1957 horror-movie THE UNDEAD. Within a tidy 75 minutes of screen-time, the script by Charles B Griffith and Mark Hanna offers a variegated cast of characters, beginning with the three who occupy the film's frame-story: the psychic researcher Quintus, his patient Diana Love, and Quintus' mentor.

My review noted that UNDEAD was "spiritually" indebted to the prose bestseller THE SEARCH FOR BRIDEY MURPHY, and this is never clearer than in the frame-story, wherein Quintus takes the part of the delver into the unknown by hypnotizing prostitute Diana Love into experiencing her previous life in another time and place. I stress that the bare bones of this frame story COULD have been expanded into a full narrative, wherein Quintus as the experimenter was the excitant and Diana the reactant. though either could have become the Prime icon depending on the narrative emphasis. Indeed, two other reincarnation dramas of the same period show opposing emphases. In SPELL OF THE HYPNOTIST, the psychiatrist uses his hypnosis-talents to play detective, actually invalidating the reactant-icon's claim to reincarnation. In THE SHE CREATURE, the vengeful researcher Lombardi functions as the excitant, calling up the titular creature from the vasty deep to occupy the body of his reactant-subject, a modern young woman. But it's the woman, in her dual identity as modern innocent and primeval monster, who drives the narrative. (I should note that CREATURE also includes a bevy of secondary reactants, mostly opposed to Lombardi's goals though at least one becomes the mad doctor's ally by not taking his threat seriously.)

So, back to UNDEAD. Once the true, internal story gets going-- that of Diana's "former life," Elizabethan-era Helene-- it becomes evident that the innocent Helene is both reactant and Prime Icon, while the witch Livia, who frames Helene with a spurious charge of Satanic sorcery. is both excitant and Sub Icon. Although Helene spends most of the film fleeing from pillar to post, in the end she sacrifices her life for the sake of the temporal order. (That's my version of the confusing rationale supplied by Griffith and Hanna.) Her reaction to the evil fate assigned her by the murderous Livia is the crux of the story, in marked contrast to the majority of witch-stories, where the actions of the sorceress, whether malign or benign, are usually the narrative focus. 

Helene and Livia both perish, though in the far future Diana Love somehow gains a new lease on life thanks to Helene's sacrifice. As for Quintus, his importance in the main narrative devolves to that of being an ally to Helene. The transplanted researcher saves Helene's swain Pendragon from selling his soul to Livia's dark lord, and as a result Pendragon dispenses rough justice by killing Livia. Quintus, like many other scientists who get wrapped up in their experiments, forgets that he's dependent on the "psychic hotline" he set up between Diana and Helene, and once Helene dies, Quintus can't return to the 20th century-- much to the amusement of Livia's horn-headed patron.

Though evil scores two wins in THE UNDEAD. the conclusion is meant to reassure the viewer that Helene's sacrifice tips the scales toward the preservation of an orderly, and thus good, cosmos. Though as I said the writers don't really provide a good explanation for that order, it now occurs to me that they COULD have said that in the original timeline Helene dies and Pendragon still kills Livia and then marries someone else-- and thus Helene, in sacrificing herself, preserves the temporal progeny of Pendragon's other wife. But such details probably would have doubled UNDEAD's sparse run-time.              

CURIOSITIES: "SWEET LITTLE FOURTEEN"

 Now this one makes AMERICAN SHOTACON looks "normie" by comparison. I've mentioned that I usually don't read online humor comics issue by issue but skip around to see what I might click on randomly. Which is how I stumbled across issue 345 of ARCHIE'S GIRLS BETTY AND VERONICA, and found this:

 

 

 

I don't think I was reading any ARCHIE comics in the early 1970s, so I didn't know that there was a story in which Veronica had a little-girl cousin named Pamela, who created some mischief and then fell in love with Jughead. But GCD established as much for me, after I was thunderstruck by the bizarre 1986 follow-up to the 1972 story: "Sweet Little Fourteen."

I mean, I would never have blinked an eye had the story dealt with a SIXTEEN-year old girl who intruded on the territory of Betty, Veronica and their similarly ageless teen buddies. But the writer goes out of her way not to just state that Pamela is now a well-developed fourteen, but that both Archie and Reggie keep salivating over Pamela even AFTER they've been told she's nowhere close to legal.

My only guess as to why such a story would appear in a squeaky-clean ARCHIE title is that (1) someone in editorial was asleep at the wheel, AND (2) that the 1986 writer was exorcising some demons, maybe regarding some bf with freaky tastes.   

MYTHCOMICS" "SNOW WHITE AND THE DEADLY DWARFS" (VAMPIRELLA #39, 1975)

 

Once or twice, I've stated that I believe that the crafting of concrescent mythcomics is a democratic talent. It doesn't appear only in the works of whatever persons are deemed "the Greats" of the medium. That said, raconteurs who produce a lot of material to sustain themselves as professionals may not always do their best work in the best-known features. For instance, both Gerry Conway and Len Wein had long tenures on the SPIDER-MAN title, but neither of them produced much of anything with a strong symbolic discourse. Each also labored in the world of the horror genre, though, and so I did find that they did rather better in that bailiwick. Steve Skeates is another writer whose contributions to superhero titles I found ordinary, but I recently came across this 1975 story. Since I usually don't read that many Warren horrors, I credit the oddball title "Snow White and the Deadly Dwarfs" with drawing me into this story Skeates co-authored with one Gerry Boudreau-- though the Esteban Maroto art held some appeal as well.     

The first two pages of this six-page effort establish that beautiful Myra Banner possesses an unexplained antipathy toward the outside world. Her backstory mentions that she did desert her "hortus conclusus" briefly to attend college at the Pennsylvania-based Swarthmore, where she was given the nickname "Snow White" as a comment on her reluctance to surrender her virginity, even to her nominal boyfriend Warren. Yet even Warren didn't believe that she lived with seven little bearded men, who seemed vaguely menacing though they never spoke to her nor interacted with her. 

Warren, for his part, has been extraordinarily patient, since he's continued to date her for three years after they both graduated college. He journeys to her fusty mansion to appeal to her once more, while to herself Myra wonders "what it was [about her body] that made those filthy men want to touch it." This minor detail makes an interesting contrast with the traditional Snow White story, in that the reader always knows that Snow is the "fairest in the land" even though the heroine herself is not aware of her burgeoning attractiveness.

     

The short tale proceeds to its climax as quickly as Warren attempts to argue his case, kissing Myra for the first time ever. Instead of Myra being awakened from a state of death by "true love's kiss," the kiss causes Myra to feel the need of protection-- and for the first time, the dwarfs speak, promising Myra their protection as they stab Warren to death. However, it's no great surprise that the dwarfs turn out to be projections of Myra's mind, and she's the one who really slays Warren to guard her purity.

The SNOW WHITE story in its best-known version has little to do with sexual fear, but it does center upon the young girl's need of a male protector. Most stories barely mention the father who inflicts on Snow the wrath of an irate stepmother, but in the standard tale, the seven dwarfs are manifestly unable to keep Snow from being killed, as the queen almost succeeds twice before apparently offing Snow on the third try. What the writers did here was to eliminate female fear of other females and to put Myra in between competing male protectors-- a contest which Warren manifestly loses. The traditional Snow is also a symbol of feminine purity, which makes her a willing prize for her prince charming. But here, though Myra considers that Warren endangered her sexual purity, she's also unwilling to accept her responsibility for violence, deflecting it onto "little men" who, despite their masculine nature, will never do anything to Myra but  to keep her in the state of isolation she desires.

One additional myth-trope appears in the eminent character's name. The last name "Banner" originally meant "one who carries a banner," as in wartime-- meaning someone who champions a cause. And while the name "Myra" may have two or three possible origins, the most relevant speculation is that it began as an anagram for "Mary." I hardly need mention the association of THAT name with the concept of feminine inviolability.