Questioning the Norm
I was listening to a podcast earlier today and heard the concept of ‘questioning the norm’ thrown out, and it struck me as something interesting to consider for my ramble today.
While I’m not necessarily ‘questioning the norm,’ I am looking at a few areas where ‘the norm’ is either being followed or broken, and I’m not sure I like the broken norm.
The Dreams
In the first episode of The Stand, we saw the initiating events of the world-shattering plague that killed most of the people on the planet. With introductions to the main characters and lots of coughing and dying, it was pretty much as expected.
This second episode is a bit of what I would consider ‘the norm.’ The people we met in the previous installment are now being called to either travel to Nebraska or Las Vegas through their dreams. We see that Randall Flagg and Mother Abigail are somehow psychically reaching out to people and urging them into the two camps. But that’s about where the breaking of ‘the norm’ ends as we see the bottom feeders of society pulled towards Vegas and the people looking out for others heading to the cornfields.
We’re introduced to Nadine Cross (headed to Vegas), and Trashcan Man (also headed to Sin City) along with Tom Cullen (heading to Nebraska) and they’re gonna be pretty important as we move the story along. We also get a couple of memorable scenes I remember from the book, such as the Lincoln Tunnel nightmare and the creepiness that is Harold Lauder and his interactions with Frances Goldsmith.
On the whole, though, this episode is a huge drop off in…well, everything. Sure, the story moves along, and we see the chess pieces marching across the country, but it really seems like a totally different series to me. Perhaps there was more difficulty translating from the book to the screen for this second part, but without the significantly better first episode, I’m sure this show would have been a flop.
I’m considering digging deeper into the miniseries if I get the opportunity, but re-watching the second episode, I’m not finding that the series is holding up to my image of it from so many years ago. I mean, I vividly recalled many of the scenes and events that took place in the first episode, but this second installment is just kinda blah. Even the Lincoln Tunnel scene was scarier in my mind…most likely from my reading of the book.
I guess it wasn’t bad, and it worked pretty well for 1994. I enjoyed it, but in today’s oversaturated market, I’m not so sure this would have been anything other than a series people left after the first episode. We’ll see how the third installment goes.
Muddy Monologues
Victor is clearly fighting within himself over what it means for him to be human, and even if he IS human anymore, but in this issue, Kilg%re really pushes the point home.
Most of Cyborg #2 revolves around a monologue by Kilg%ore about how humans subjugate and enslave machines then discard and destroy them. It’s really kinda a ‘been there, done that’ type of diatribe and it really bogs down the story. Coupled with the muddy colors and indistinct inks and I was not a fan.
Perhaps now that we’ve gotten over the origin story and the daddy issues, we can move on to an interesting storyline, but so far, this has been a series I’m not that into.
I do like the twist ending and would like to see where that goes, but if it’s more of this robot-on-robot fighting with long, boring monologues, I’m not gonna be interested very long.
Missing New Comics
It’s really strange that there have been so few, and by few, I mean no, new comics by the big 2 in the past couple of weeks. With the China Flu, COVID-19, Wuhan Virus, or whatever you call it, the comic book industry, like most of the rest of the world, has crawled to a standstill. Even after 9–11, I recall comics making it to press and showing up in my local comic book store, but not now.
Perhaps that’s a measure of how impacting of an event this pandemic is.
Things are so bad we don’t even get the opportunity to read tales of fantasy superheroes saving the day. We don’t get to lose ourselves in mysteries and horrors that have nothing to do with the real world. Instead, we get a non-stop barrage of bad news…people dying, unemployment on the rise, long lines for the food banks, and the only answer seems to be more of the same.
Is this the ‘new normal’?
I certainly hope not.
In any case, I was glad to see X-Men #1 showed up in Marvel Unlimited today. It makes me realize that while there may not be ‘new’ comics, there are plenty I haven’t read yet. And with services like Marvel Unlimited, DC Universe, and Comixology Unlimited, there are plenty of issues to read.
I just hope the industry starts back up before the 6 month window catches up with the subscription platforms.
It’s a Wrap
Ok, so maybe my ‘questioning the norm’ is a bit of a stretch, but the way I see it, in The Stand episode 2, we pretty much get a 1994 version of ‘the norm.’ Good guys are headed one direction while the bad guys are headed to Vegas. Not much subtlety in the way things are handled there.
In Cyborg #2, we kinda get a bit more of the same. Racism and dominance of humans over machines is compared to slavery and subjugation throughout history. But in this story, ‘the norm’ is showing that it can change. Victor rejects the concept that machines are slaves to humans, and he refuses to submit to victimization. He is working to reset ‘the norm’ even if he’s not sure what that new normal is gonna be.
In the current status of the comic book industry, we see a complete upheaval of ‘the norm.’ Things changed with this pandemic, and they changed fast. There is no ‘normal’ right now other than stay-at-home-to-flatten-the-curve.
I’m an optimist, though. I look at the breakdown of ‘normal’ and see opportunities to make things better. If comics are not being printed right now, let’s make sure that when they start publishing again, they are great stories. Make sure people want to buy the superhero tales so they can lose themselves in the enjoyment…stop dragging heroes down into the mud, as we’ve seen so often in the recent past.
Use this time, when ‘normal’ is broken to fix what was wrong with it. Make sure we go back to a better place than the ‘normal’ we had before society changed.
Maybe if we all work to make our ‘normal’ better as we get out of this pandemic, ‘the norm’ will be a good place to be and not one where we need to reject it to make the world a better place.
Ramble 2020.02.03 | Questioning the Norm