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arbre_rieur (arbre_rieur) wrote in scans_daily,
@ 2009-11-06 22:02:00

Entry tags:

char: doc savage/clark savage jr, creator: brian azzarello, creator: rags morales, publisher: dc comics, title: first wave

More FIRST WAVE
...at DC's Source blog.

The Source has a page on Savage's crew, as well.

(Post a new comment)

	jcbaggee 2009-11-07 06:07 am UTC (link)
	Wait, Doc Savage is bronze because he's "mixed race"? I did not know that. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	jcbaggee 2009-11-07 06:08 am UTC (link)
	I should specify, it doesn't really matter to me, just something that I didn't know and find kind of intriguing. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	cricharddavies 2009-11-07 06:23 am UTC (link)
	No, Doc's bronze skin in the original pulp novels was always attributed to a permanent tan. There has been some fannish speculation that his mother was a member of the lost Mayan people that his father discovered, the source of his secret gold supply, but it's really unlikely that such a backstory would [i]ever[/i] have been considered by his creators. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	jcbaggee 2009-11-07 06:24 am UTC (link)
	Oh, so I'm not really behind on the times and this is a new thing DC is throwing in there? Not that I would know either way... (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

rab62
2009-11-07 07:40 am UTC (link)

Actually, the idea of Doc Savage having a non-caucasian mother has been around since at least 1973, when Philip Jose Farmer mentioned it in his book Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life. Farmer was a fan and his book combines stuff from the original pulps with his own inventions, so in that sense it was "fannish speculation" but at this late date anything anyone says one way or the other can only ever be fan speculation, as Lester Dent is no longer around to ask.

I have to disagree with your previous respondent on one point: I don't believe that Dent would have ruled out the possibility of Doc's mother being a native of Hidalgo, or be horrified at the thought of interracial parentage. Quite the opposite; he was a very progressive guy. But there would have been a lot of trouble trying to print such a story in that era -- which, come to think of it, may be precisely why Dent never spelled out the identity of Doc's mother. If he wanted her to be another race but knew it would never get past the editor, is it unreasonable to think the author might just keep it to himself?

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

cricharddavies
2009-11-07 08:14 am UTC (link)

Actually, the idea of Doc Savage having a non-caucasian mother has been around since at least 1973, when Philip Jose Farmer mentioned it in his book Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life.

You're mistaken about Farmer; if he mentioned it, and I don't think he did, it was only to raise the idea before dismissing it in favor of his own theories, first articulated in Tarzan Alive. In any event, given that Azzarello is a well-known racist, I doubt that there'll be anything "progressive" about the portrayal of the concept in this book.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	icon_uk 2009-11-07 10:25 am UTC (link)
	In any event, given that Azzarello is a well-known racist That's a VERY extreme claim to make about someone, can you cite evidence? (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	cricharddavies 2009-11-07 08:51 pm UTC (link)
	His portrayal of Luke Cage as an "anything for hire". (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	icon_uk 2009-11-07 08:54 pm UTC (link)
	Has that been stated, or just your reading of his writing? (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	stratosfyr 2009-11-07 09:21 pm UTC (link)
	It's been a while since I read it, but his CAGE miniseries was basically made of negative stereotypes. Luke was a total thug. Note the gold teeth and knuckles. I don't know if that's a good representation of his work, but if I had to judge by that. Eyaagh. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	manofbats 2009-11-07 11:45 pm UTC (link)
	That was part of Marvel MAX, which is an imprint that was basically built for the purpose of making adult themed comics with established characters, which would no doubt cause controversy if anyone actually cared. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	darkknightjrk 2009-11-08 04:13 am UTC (link)
	"Luke was a total thug. Note the gold teeth and knuckles." And? I'm sorry, but if gold teeth is the pennacle, then Ennis must be a member of the KKK for Barricuda. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	cricharddavies 2009-11-08 05:40 am UTC (link)
	Ah, well, if other people do it too, it's completely acceptable. Got it. Glad we had this talk. (Reply to this) (Parent)

stratosfyr
2009-11-08 02:44 pm UTC (link)

Apples and oranges. Cage, along with the rest of the cast, walked out of a bad music video/Blaxploitation film (which is, fair enough, his origin) into a bad, go-nowhere comic... which really suffers in comparison to his portrayal in Bendis' Alias which was coming out at the same time, despite Luke's portrayal in the first few Alias issues being not so great either.

Barracuda walked out of a prison documentary into a good comic and scared the hell out of everyone by being the mother of all badasses and a criminal genius, subverting some stereotypes and turning the rest of them up to 11. Ennis has a decent track record of using a few elements of stereotypes to build his characters without relying on them exclusively, to the point where the biggest complaint I have about him (OK, on his "serious" stuff like MAX Punisher or Battlefields, not talking stuff like The Boys or MK Punisher which bug me in whole other ways I'm not getting in to) is that Americans just don't use "cunt" that often. A stereotype used well says "This character has a history"; used badly it says "This character is representative of Group X."

Anyway, I'm not saying Azzarello is racist at all, but if I had to judge by CAGE alone, it'd look bad for him. (I have disliked just about everything I've read by him, though. CAGE, first 100 Bullets trade, Batman: Broken City, Superman: For Tomorrow. But that's mostly because they were boring/pretentious.)

(Reply to this) (Parent)

	arbre_rieur 2009-11-07 09:24 pm UTC (link)
	Without stepping into the issue of whether the portrayal of Cage in the mini-series was racist or not (never read it), it should be pointed out that the series was out of continuity and not meant to be about Marvel Universe Luke Cage. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	manofbats 2009-11-07 02:29 pm UTC (link)
	I think you need to back up a claim like that or just not make it at all. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	(Anonymous) 2009-11-07 09:42 pm UTC (link)
	Yeah, and to make it worse, it's being drawn by well-known child molester Rags Morales. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	autolychus2 2009-11-07 11:39 pm UTC (link)
	and Nazi party member in good standing -- don't forget that. LOL. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	arilou_skiff 2009-11-07 09:14 pm UTC (link)
	Wasn't Doc Savage supposed to be the result of a eugenics programme of some kind? Taking all the best parts of all the world's best people or something like that to create the ultimate human being? (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	okkult3000 2009-11-07 10:34 pm UTC (link)
	That was Doc Brass, Warren Ellis's version of Savage from Planetary. Clark Savage, Jr., just naturally had good genes (or was a mutant, if you follow Philip Jose Farmer) and a rigorous upbringing. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	thanekos 2009-11-07 06:39 am UTC (link)
	... a Kal-El/John Sunlight joke comes to mind. (Reply to this)

	manofbats 2009-11-07 07:23 am UTC (link)
	I am really looking forward to this. (Reply to this)

	lightbrigade 2009-11-07 07:44 am UTC (link)
	Don't much about Doc Savage and was originally interested in First Wave because of the Spirit and Rags Morales, but seeing this I honestly can't wait to learn more. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	glprime 2009-11-07 03:27 pm UTC (link)
	Whoa, whoa, whoa... Rags "IC" Morales is drawing this?! Holy crap I gotta read this. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	werehawk 2009-11-07 06:58 pm UTC (link)
	Not sure what he is actually doing. The Doc Savage/Batman Special art is not by him except the cover. Nor is it particularly good (its by Phil Noto) from the preview. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	arbre_rieur 2009-11-07 09:22 pm UTC (link)
	Morales is the artist for FIRST WAVE, which the Doc Savage/Batman comic is a prelude to. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	psychop_rex 2009-11-07 11:07 am UTC (link)
	While I'm not sure I agree with Azzarello's take on Monk and Ham - to my mind, the characters are much more complex than that; if nothing else, Monk is an expert scientist himself, so he's got just as much brain as brawn - the rest of this looks great. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	icon_uk 2009-11-07 11:19 am UTC (link)
	Agreed, though as he doesn't mention Ham being a brilliant attorney either, perhaps that's still to come. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	psychop_rex 2009-11-07 11:34 am UTC (link)
	Also, come to think of it, I think he says that these are the things he's ADDED to the characters, which means he hasn't necessarily taken anything away. Still, I don't like the idea of Monk being reduced to a thug on the side of the good guys. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	cricharddavies 2009-11-07 08:50 pm UTC (link)
	What a shock, that Azzarello should portray anyone as "a thug on the side of the good guys." (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	psychop_rex 2009-11-07 10:33 pm UTC (link)
	Does he do that frequently? I haven't really read much of his stuff. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	okkult3000 2009-11-07 10:37 pm UTC (link)
	Monk was much more willing to kill in the original stories than any other member of the group. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	psychop_rex 2009-11-07 10:50 pm UTC (link)
	True enough, but he's still a more complex character than is presented here. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	darkknightjrk 2009-11-08 04:15 am UTC (link)
	I listened to his interview earlier today on Word Balloon, and I believe he did say that one of the characters was sort of his "right-hand man" who helps makes appointments and business decisions with Doc. That one might be Ham. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	werehawk 2009-11-07 02:57 pm UTC (link)
	I wish he would include Habeaus Corpus (Reply to this)

	stratosfyr 2009-11-07 08:49 pm UTC (link)
	Yes, but where is Cade Foster? :( (Reply to this)

	darkknightjrk 2009-11-08 04:18 am UTC (link)
	I've always liked what I've read of the old pulps, but I never read any Savage. It becomes more and more apparent that I have to correct this error. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	dr_hermes 2009-11-08 11:15 pm UTC (link)
	If I may throw in a suggestion, the stories varied widely in quality and approach. Lester Dent wrote most, but by no means all. I'd recommend trying the books from 1934 to 1937 first. METEOR MENACE, THE SARGASSO OGRE, THE LOST OASIS, that era. They were way over the top, colorful and inventive and fast-paced... pulp writing at its lurid best. (Reply to this) (Parent)