Dispatches from the Fury Road: Doctor Whatever and the Multiverse of Mehness

It began with the Fantastic Four.

I had seen every comic book movie out of some ridiculous sense of responsibility to the medium . It felt like a duty. In my teenage years I was that kid who implored you that “Comics aren’t just for kids”. I was fuelled by the works of Alan Moore, Frank Miller, Grant Morrison and Neil Gaiman et al. I wasn’t brave enough to read comics out in public but I wasn’t afraid to talk about them with anyone who cared to listen. These silly little comics were brimming with ideas that had my imagination filled to the brim. I was learning about the works of Friedrich Nietzsche, Chaos Theory, Dadaism, time as a fifth dimension, scientific theories about the multiverse, existentialism and Gnosticism. It was perfect breeding ground where big ideas were only constrained by the imagination. If you thought of it, you could draw it. Also since comics weren’t taken seriously by the general public, it was a place where high and low art could meet to create something wonderful. There wasn’t a mainstream aesthetic criteria being projected on to it so comics could be anything they wanted to be without worrying about what was considered “good” and “correct”.

It would be remiss to dismiss the writers that came before the modern day giants. As an example, American writer Roger Stern might not be a name known outside of comic book circles but he was the first writer I started following as an eleven-year-old. His stories were solid comic tales but were also subtly progressive. As an example he took Janet Van Dyne, the original Wasp who was originally just a side kick for Hank Pym’s Ant-Man, and turned her into a nuanced character. When the Wasp took command of the Avengers, she was supported by mainstays Captain America and Thor. That might not read like much now but at the time it didn’t happen with any fanfare, it was just the logical step taken in the story. True equality is achieved when we don’t make a big deal out of what should be the natural progression in life. In an art form that was considered a boy’s club, this was a great moment that deserves more respect.

Chris Claremont was doing similar work with The Uncanny X-Men. The soap opera stories that engulfed everyone’s favourite mutants made nuanced characters out of four-colour heroes. John Byrne’s work on Fantastic Four fleshed out Sue Richards so she was now a three dimensional character and sneakily the most powerful member of that quartet. Marv Wolfman and George Perez turned the Teen Titans into a juggernaut, their work so beautiful many old school comic readers will stan for Wally West and Dick Grayson over their better known mentors in the Flash and Batman. These writers and artists, along with many more, built the worlds that the British creators explored, pulled apart and rebuilt taking comics to a new level of respectability once dreamed of.

It was always about big ideas. I’ll never forget the jolt of electricity when Buddy Baker looked out from the page of an issue of Animal Man and told me he could see me. I can still remember the ending Miracle Man where we finally learned what would happen if superheroes existed in the real world, as they dismantled the economy, disarmed the nuclear threat, brought rain to the desert and then pondered if a world full of miracles can still truly be miraculous. I loved the simplicity of the Prince of Dreams being challenged by Lucifer Morningstar. The Devil doesn’t try to destroy the Sandman in battle. Instead he simply hands him the key to Hell and hopes the responsibility of owning this awful place will eventually destroy him. This was the perfect place for me to marinate in concepts I’d never heard of before and would eventually be the biggest influence on my approach to storytelling.

Let’s return to the Fantastic Four. That was the first comic book movie I decided I didn’t need to see. It had such an awful trailer and terrible word of mouth, I decided I wasn’t prepared to go to the cinema for an experience that was going to be a bummer. This opened up the door to the idea that maybe, just maybe, I didn’t need to see all the comic inspired movies. What a relief! Yet the Marvel train had me locked in and I enjoyed the majority of the films in the first three Phases. I did have a suspicious feeling that some of the movies were in fact really long trailers for the after credits scene (hello Thor: The Dark World) but for the most part they were interesting enough to keep me engaged while I was sitting in the cinema.

I won’t bang on here about the latest Dr Strange movie (head to the podcast here for more on that) but that film was a real bummer. It was so boring and that to me is the biggest crime. You can’t call a movie the Multiverse of Madness and fail to explore its core concept. This was no better than a big budget version of Star Trek’s “Mirror, Mirror” and that came out in the 60s. This was a concept where you could do anything. For a brief moment we caught a glimpse of a world where people were made of paint. Great idea! Yet we flash by it so quickly, if the Doctor doesn’t mention it later, you’d probably forget that you even saw it. Imagine what could have been done with this idea! If we spent a few minutes in this world we could have played around with ideas like how life evolved in this world. We could have had some fun discovering who these paint people worship. Is Jackson Pollack their Jesus Christ? If you live in a world made of paint, what is their natural predator? Is it a dog chewing a brush handle and dropping bits into a paint tin? What is a paint world’s take on politics, gender, violence, sex? We don’t get anything like that in Strange. We whiz by it so we can instead spend time in a world where red means go and green means stop. And pizza is made in a ball.

Fascinating.

If you enjoyed the film, that’s great. If your kids got something out of it, that is actually wonderful. But imagine if your kids saw a Doctor Strange movie that was actually good? Think of the conversations that could have inspired. I have fond memories of talking to Mum about concepts that were mind blowing to me as a kid. We discussed the ending to the American Gothic tale in Saga of the Swamp Thing, where the titular lead saved the day in a battle between Heaven and Hell just by questioning the very concept of the idea of evil. After reading Doom Patrol, Mum and I talked about the cause and effect of how a butterfly flapping its wings in Japan could result in a tornado forming in Texas. Animal Man had me grasping to understand how our world, as viewed from a higher dimension, would look flat and could be moved through backwards and forwards, the same way we read a comic. That lead to me reading about ideas of choice and determinism. This all came from stories produced by people who cared about what they were producing. I believe it shouldn’t be inclusive for kids to be entertained and introduced to new ideas at the same time.

Uncle Ben famously said, “With great power comes great responsibility”. Marvel would do well to take heed to this. They have created a world where you have to be across every TV show and movie to understand what is happening in each new product. They charge top dollar at the cinema and through the Disney plus app. They take up our time and money which stops us from taking a swing on other products. As an example, I’ve been so busy that I only had time to see Dr Strange and now I’ve missed The Northman at the cinema. If Marvel is going to monopolise the cinematic experience and then engage with ideas like the multiverse, they should have the decency to explore these ideas to their fullest. I am quite aware that I am a middle-aged man banging on about family entertainment. but I love movies and I want kids to be introduced to concepts that could blow their minds.

If you spark someone’s imagination you never know what the end result might be. Maybe they’ll have a good time playing with their action figures? Maybe they’ll be so inspired they’ll decide they want to become a writer, artist, colourist, letterer, director etc and communicate their unique vision into the world? Maybe a movie could inspire them to look into the scientific and philosophical implications of these ideas which then leads them to study and broaden the field they interact with? When you waste these ideas on cheap gags like pizza balls, you’re also negating the opportunity for them to take root in a young person’s mind, and allow them to bloom in ways we could never have dreamed.

So I’m out on Marvel and to be honest, it is a relief. In a nice ironic twist, it turns out that ill-fated Fantastic Four movie really did lead to something positive.

Justin Hamilton

Surry Hills

May 2022