Last time, I listed some of the monarchs who were comics stars. They and their kingdoms usually function in set ways, sometimes as models of aggression or oppression, as in Lee and Kirby's dramatic, if perhaps overlong, "Prisoner" storyline with Doc Doom and the FF. Sometimes they represent America's allies abroad: Wakanda, the futuristic jungle at the heart of the Dark Continent or Markovia, a Ruritanian fantasy of lost Nazi science.
But where these rulers may have glamour and majesty, the idea of deference to them runs counter to US sensibility. The British attitude to Royalty, therefore, became more playful and irreverent during the 70s:
"A Throne Threatened"- the last issue of CB vol.1
The premier cultural phenomenon inextricably linked to the Silver Jubilee is, of course, Punk Rock. A seasons of BBC4 reruns of Top of the Pops has deftly sketched the stultifying boredom of teens in the beige, blokey, bankrupt world of 70s Britain. A world uneasily like the current one, where economic uncertainty and swift cultural change led to anxiety about society's dissolution and its feral youth. The arrival of the Jam on last week's edition, with their bristling take on English Mod music, was a jolt to the parade of family-friendly variety acts.
Comics in the late Bronze Age, however, were still in the grip of Saturday Night Fever: My memories of New Teen Titans are of characters dressed in halter tops, flared jeans, medallions -and Terry Long's tight perm. It wasn't until the early 80s that any images from the Punk movement appeared in comics. One of the earliest, surprisingly, turned up in a comic set in WWII...
Nuklon: this charter member of the youthful Infinity Inc. appeared in the summer of 1983. The godson of the original Atom, Nuklon's haircut was meant to recall the Mighty Mite's helmet-fin. He kept this particular tonsure up until the late 90s when he wore a hood in his Atom-Smasher identity. ( Like Geo-Force, that's one of my most disliked superhero sobriquets, BTW). A devoted son and a lovelorn lunkhead, Albert was far from the stereotypical rebellious, disaffected punk.
Storm: probably the most famous and startling punk in comics. With an origin story linked to the Suez Crisis, Ororo was in her very late twenties when she cut her hair. It was probably Wein and Cockrum's original intention that she seemed an ageless goddess but Storm had a maternal relationship with Kitty Pryde which certainly took her out of the "anti-establishment youth" category.
After the sacrifice of the Phoenix, Storm appeared to undergo a delayed adolescence, hence the bondage trousers and haircut. She eventually grew her hair out again in the late 80s when the X-Men were in their Australian desert phase and their encounter with the Reavers, Mad Max-inspired punk cyborg villains.
Because it was such a visual statement, some comic fans clamoured for staid Sue Storm to go the Punk route and writer/penciller John Byrne subsequently produced this portrait of Marvel's First Lady. He also dressed the Torch's would-be girlfriend as Boy George. Whaur's yir Alan Scott noo?
Jillian Jackson: back in New Teen Titans, Changeling's girlfriend, formerly a cute blonde, turned up looking like one of Spilt Enz in 1984. Having disappeared in 1968, we were informed that Jillian had been sent to a British (read: English) finishing school and returned with pink hair. I still shudder at the memory of Wolfman's bizarre dialogue: "What am I? Pate?"
Karma: perhaps the most authentically punk superhuman, Wayne Hawkins was a member of the Doom Patrol in its Eighties revival. He flirted with Nazi imagery and his probability-altering powers led to the death of a cop. With an obnoxious personality, cultural currency and an obscure power set, Karma surprisingly didn't survive into Grant Morrison's surrealist take on the World's Strangest Heroes. In fact, he didn't survive at all and snuffed it in 1991's War of the Gods. No future for you, right enough.
Guido/Strong Guy: the only punk superhuman actually in the music business, the grotesquely disproportionate mutant was introduced by Bill Sienkiewicz as a bouncer/roadie in New Mutants. Claremont had a fondness for featuring rock bands, particularly the one fronted by his spacefaring Joan Jett, Lila Cheney.
In typical, literal Marvel style, Guido was in constant pain because of his distortion and hid behind a comical facade. Sigh.
Of course, the real home of any kind of punk sensibility in comics was 2000 AD. It wasn't until the British Invasion of DC in the mid-80s that any "subversion" took place in US mainstream comics. The imagery of the repackaged V for Vendetta possibly contributed to the creation of Anarky and the Mutant Gang in The Dark Knight.
As I've said before, in uncertain times, we indulge in nostalgia-literally the pangs of the past. My blogs have always been nostalgic- in astrology, the Cancerian "moons" over the past- and in that vein, coming up we have Levitz and Staton's All-Star Comics and more Fourth Doctor audios. To paraphrase Kid Jensen, good day and good love.
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