On Superheroes, Death, and the Cycle of Eternal Return

There was a great piece on NPR the other day where Glen Weldon tried to explain to a curious friend the convoluted insanity of superhero comic book continuity — how the intrinsic nature of the genre's cyclical storytelling patterns is both endlessly frustrating but also part of its charm.

Or, as the saying goes — Comics, Everybody!

This weird cynicism towards death even seeps into the stories themselves. I recall a great issue of X-Factor where Siryn learned about the death of her father, the X-Man Banshee. She just laughed and laughed and laughed, which everyone around her found, well, pretty insensitive. "Come on, you guys," she explained. "We're superheroes! He's dead for now, sure, but he'll be back. I'm not worried about it." It made the rest of the team uncomfortable and concerned for mental well-being, but personally, I thought it was a pretty shockingly accurate depiction of mourning and the different ways that people learn to cope — particularly in a world where no one stays dead (except for Uncle Ben...so far).

There have been some great superhero death stories over the years (Ed Brubaker's Captain America comes to mind), and there have also been some great stories deconstructing the cyclical nature of superhero deaths (Grant Morrison's runs on both Batman and New X-Men...and also Flex Mentallo, and to a certain degree All-Star Superman and...yeah Grant's really into that, huh?). Weldon is correct to use the Asgardian "Ragnarok" to describe this phenomenon, and not just because of Thor. There's a longstanding tradition of death and resurrection in Western storytelling — Jesus being the obvious example, but really, nearly every major epic hero throughout history has had to undergo some kind of death or Underworld trial, and of course, the cycle of death and return also reflects the ever-changing seasons, and the orbit of the Earth, and so on. If we're running on the belief that superheroes are modern (corporate-owned) mythology, well, then the ubiquity of death makes perfect sense. 

That being said, it's a particularly weird thing when it comes to narrative devices — death ups the stakes in any story, but at the same time, the promise of resurrection (no matter how much the company insists that this one will stick) robs the story of those stakes, and it turns death into a rote plot device, just another stage in the story. Death in comics is never "The End," which is either incredibly screwed-up, or a touching perspective on how our loved ones might live on in real life. But when death is just another phase in your story, I think that makes it harder to approach with the appropriate gravitas.

Meanwhile, "Death of [Superhero]" comics continue to sell incredibly well, and as long as people keep buyin' 'em, publishers will keep on killin' 'em and bringin' 'em back. Which, on a meta-reading level, means that comic book readers are trapped in the same endless cycle as the characters they read about, alternating between disillusionment and infatuation with the genre they grew up with. And we're stuck in it just the same.

Most Common Causes Of Death By US State That THEY Keep Covering Up

Frankly, I'm kind of disappointed in Massachusetts for being so susceptible to something as lame as Death by Wind Farms, but then...what else don't I know about the vast global conspiracy?!

As for my other home state of Connecticut, I actually think that the frequency of deaths by antimatter is fairly common knowledge.

Same with Florida. Everyone knows that Florida is the leading cause of everything wrong with Florida (and most things wrong with the rest of the world as well).

UPDATED: This map was originally created by Moe Lane (with a little inspiration from Slate), and not whichever lousy Lame-Metal band that one of my Facebook friends liked. Thanks, Moe, and sorry for stealing all of your traffic from Tor!

Holiday Special

Today on Five By Five Hundred, I decided to kick off our celebration and excitement for the upcoming holiday season. No, not Christmas; I mean the end of the world! With only 12 days left until the supposed Mayan Apocalypse / World Shift / New Age / Another Boring Saturday Where Nothing Significant Actually Happens Or Changes, I decided to tweak one of your perennial holiday favorites and update it for the times. Enjoy!

"The 12 Days Of Apocalypse" on FiveByFiveHundred.com

ALSO! In case you don't already follow the rest of the daily exploits on 5x500 without me telling you (for some bizarre reason I don't know why you wouldn't), we are currently taking submissions for a new weekly contributor to join us on Sundays! Follow link to learn all about the necessary submission information in handy haiku form. All we ask is that you post a new something every Sunday in keeping with the theme of the website. "What's the theme of the website?" you ask, like some fool who hasn't even been paying attention. "Glad you asked!" I respond through gritted teeth. I pause for a moment as I hiss in my breath and explain that the only criteria is that must write something and that it must be under 500 words. Poetry, prose, scripts, rants, memoirs, serial fiction, serial murders -- whatever, it doesn't matter, just as long as it's under 500 words. Simple enough, right?

If you think you have what it takes, check out our submission guidelines. We look forward to hearing from you!

Awake

I'm sure I'll go back and post my specific feelings about this at length, but my friend Scotty passed away this weekend. For now, instead of getting into the emotional stuff, I shared one of my favorite memories of my Scotty over on Five By Five Hundred, because frankly, it was the only thing I was capable of thinking of. Rest in peace, brother.

"Scotty, Or That Time I Wasn't 21" on FiveByFiveHundred.com

The Past, The Present, and The Imperfect Future Walk Into a Bar...

Things have been less than ideal as of late, as my girlfriend's best friend quite abruptly passed away from an unexpected heart attack at the age of 28. As you can imagine, it's been a very rough and emotional week. I could very well fill this blog with my thoughts and feelings on the occasion, but anything factual I would attempt to type would feel disingenuous, so here are a few posts catching up on Five By Five Hundred that were inspired by the situation.

Rest in peace, Crystal Gomes. I guess a light as bright as yours is bound to burn out much too fast.

"Being Tense" on FiveByFiveHundred.com

"The Old Maid on the Bar Stool" (part one) (part two) on FiveByFiveHundred.com

Wooo! Yeahhhh! Sick Day!

Well so like I had this totally awesome for my writing project today right? But then I somehow wound up with this vicious stomach bug and spent the last 48 hours either (a) on the toilet, (b) with my head in a bucket, or (c) both (not to the mention the awful fever and chills that came along with it). So you'll forgive me for my lack of progress. (I'm feeling better now, thanks)

"Sonnet for the Sick" at FiveByFiveHundred.com

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAwf6wnNNBw&w=420&h=315]

In Memory

2 years ago today, I lost my oldest friend in life to suicide. For my post on FiveByFiveHundred.com, I decided to look at these two years and how it's affected me. There's not much else to write about that isn't covered elsewhere, but it just serves to remind us that is life is precious, and no one's life "isn't worth it." Even two years later, Mike's death has a profound affect on me every day. Sure, I handle it better now — but suicide never goes away. It never gets better. So think before you act, whether you're experiencing your own feelings of self-harm, or whether your actions might have that affect on someone else. I miss you, Mike.

"The Stage or the Curtain" at FiveByFiveHundred.com

(If you're looking for some more not-so-light reading, I wrote a [fairly abstract and Beckett-esque] play about this as well. It premiered in Hollywood in April of 2010 — too late, of course, for Mike to have ever seen it. But theatre was his only real salvation in life, so maybe somehow, I can keep him alive on the stage, because I think that's how he would have liked it.)

[soundcloud url="http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/9404866"]

T-Shirt of the Dead: In Shocking 3D!

Apologies for missing last week's post on Five By Five Hundred — my good friend Moose got married over the weekend (congrats, buddy!) and between the bachelor party, the wedding itself, and the various in town for the same festivities, I kind of forgot that Monday was a holiday, and that I had a piece due. Whoops! Better late than never right?

My new entry for last week ('cause, ya know, I'm a time traveller n' shiz) was inspired by Fashion Week — and, more specifically, the fact that t-shirts and Facebook pages have all but replaced gravestones as the default memorials of our deceased friends. So it's a slightly surreal prose/poetry meditation on the fact that dead friends are now fashionable. But not like, wearing the skin of dead people — that's just weird, man.*

"We Will Become T-Shirts" on FiveByFiveHundred.com

*Unless you're some kind of Nordic Barbarian or something, in which case, well, to each his own, I guess. Who am I to judge?

Pets That Go Poop

Just over a year ago, one of my chinchillas passed away. Pedey (short for "Dustbath Pedroia") was always the stubborn one of the two — the bully older sister — who thought herself some total badass, when in fact she was, well, a chinchilla. As far as we can tell, the cause of death was heatstroke — she was a little overweight from stealing her sister's food every day, and was too stubborn to sit up on a hot day and get a drink of water. But the saddest part about it (because to be honest, she was a pretty mean pet) was her sister who survived her. Yubnub was always the sweet one, and say what you will about animals and emotion and memory, but for a good month following the loss of sister, Yubnub was visibly depressed. I'd let her out of the cage to run around the house, and she would just sit there, not caring. She was always a little skittish when she was picked up by a human, but for that month, she had no reaction at all — and not in a good way. She hardly ate. She didn't even get excited when she heard the crinkling of the raisin bag (a sound which otherwise inspires a Pavlovian response within her).

After about a month of caring for her (making sure she didn't die from depression!) and letting her know confidently that I am part of her "herd" (which is what they say to do with lonely 'chillas), Yubnub seemed fine. In the intervening year, she's been completely normal. Maybe a little lonely sometimes without another playmate, but, well, Pedey was never very playful anyway, and usually just picked on her. While I imagine that the trauma of losing a loved one has essentially disappeared from her small chinchilla brain, I suspect that somewhere inside she still senses something missing. It might not be a conscious realization or memory, but there's something in her muscles — she can tell that there used to be someone or something different here, and that it's missing, but she might not know what that something is.

This week on FiveByFiveHundred.com, after spending a great deal of time with Yubnub over the weekend (there was a heatwave here in Boston, and we hid out together in the only room with air conditioning), I decided to pay homage to the departed Dustbath Pedroia. While comparing her memories to, well, poop might seem a bit insensitive, it's really not — chinchillas (fun fact!) lack sphincter muscles, and thus have no control over their own bowel movements, which means that Yubnub just keeps dropping little tiny poops on the ground behind her without any regard for it. Chinchillas also poop out 90% of what they consume so...it's a lot of poop for a tiny animal (and, admittedly, the biggest drawback to owning one). The ease with which she poops seemed like a fitting metaphor for the way her memory works, so I went with it.

"Shit For Brains" on FiveByFiveHundred.com

Writing, Writing Everywhere, and Not a Drop To Read

I have to apologize for the radio silence here at ThomDunn.net over the last few weeks. Layne Anderson, a close friend and former roommate of mine, passed away unexpectedly on April 7^th, and as much as I've kept up with everything (well, almost everything), time has been rather a blur. I've chronicled the situation as impersonally as possible over at FiveByFiveHundred.com in two posts — Shark Grief, about my own grieving process, and iWake, which as entirely fictional account of a some inappropriate gallows humor inspired by the situation of which Layne would have most certainly approved. Meanwhile, this week's entry steps away from the morbidity and explores the quantum mechanics of one night stands as interpreted through Bell's Theorem, using the Shrödinger's Cat experiment as a proof. Hopefully, that sounds ridiculous (and ridiculously intriguing) enough for you to check out Shrödinger's Cat Call, also over at FiveByFiveHundred.com.

Also in the last two weeks, we've officially opened Sons of the Prophet at the Huntington, which is then moving to the Roundabout Theatre Company Off-Broadway in the Fall. Plus, I did some filming for Art & Design of the 20^th & 21^st Centuries and the Boston Print Fair, did a small reading of my new play, True Believers (which is set at a Comic Book Convention and features a cameo by the Cyborg Head of Stan Lee, among other things), and started rehearsals and arrangements for my (wait for it) all-male hard rock Lady Gaga tribute band, Alejandro & the Fame, which is going to be every bit as ridiculous as it sounds. Come check us out on May 20^th at the afterparty for Propeller Theatre Company's all-male production of Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors at the Huntington's B.U. Theatre.

Woo. Okay. I think that's it. Tune in next week for your regularly scheduled programming.

How Are You?

On Thursday, March 25^th, Mitchell Dubey was murdered in his home in New Haven. I never knew Mitchell myself, but he touched the lives of countless people whom I've known, and left a lasting, positive impact on these people and the community of which they are a part. Last night, his friends put together a benefit concert for Mitchell's family, who has suffered a great deal in the past year, and successfully raised over $23,000, and completely sold out Toad's Place, a famous music venue in New Haven. It was a glorious sight to behold, a celebration of his life and the things he loved. (And yes, that is a GIANT photo of me getting a wristband from the doorman at the concert. Embarrassing. I wish they could have featured someone else who knew Mitchell personally. But, I'll take it.)

I feel strange that I never had the chance to meet Mitchell, but he touched the lives of so many people that I've known a long time, and left a lasting, positive impact on a community that I care greatly for, even though I don't live there anymore. I don't want to rob my grief from those that actually knew Mitchell and were so greatly affected by this loss, but I was overwhelmed by the amount of love on display last night. Mitchell Dubey left a mark on the lives of so many people that I have known, and so, by extension, his life has affected mine, and I think that is the very definition of community.

This week's post on Five By Five Hundred is dedicated to Mitchell. It was inspired by an interaction that I had at the show with my old friend Jerry Morgan. We haven't seen each other in a long time, and have never done well keeping in touch, but I think we were both happy to see each other, barring the circumstances. Jerry knew Mitchell through the bicyclist and vegan communities in New Haven, as well as the music scene, and when we both asked each other how we "were," we both understand what it meant — what has your life been like since we last spoke, excepting the detail of your friend's gruesome murder. Fortunately Jerry always remains positive, and took our "How are you?"s in good humor, and it sparked a conversation.

Before I link you selfishly to my writing, here's a video of Mitchell taken by a complete stranger in California several years ago. It only makes me wish I knew him more.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fmh9FBDAvwo&w=425&h=349]

Check out "Three Words" on FiveByFiveHundred.com