Circumstantial Gerber

Friday the 15th of February 2008

I’m late to the story.

Plok and his merry band of collaborators on the Seven Soldiers of Steve project convinced me to read Steve Gerber’s run of The Defenders. I bought Essential Defenders #2 when it came it out, but it sat on my bookshelf as I worked my way through my son’s first year. Recently I pulled it down and started, with the end of Len Wein’s run, which itself concludes with a Chris Claremont scripted issue.

So I finished that, I was finally ready to begin.

And I read that Steve Gerber died.

How strange. How strangely sad I feel. As if I had read Gerber. Surely a double testament to Steve and his Soldiers.

(I have encountered Steve: he co-wrote a backup strip featuring Dr Fate that I read in a black & white omnibus reprint; he was story editor of Transformers and GI Joe, and wrote episodes of Goldie Gold And Action Jack and Star Trek: The Next Generation. But I don’t really remember.)

Last night I read the first five pages of Marvel Two-In-One #6. I’ve read Stan Lee and those who continued his captioning legacy: Thomas, Conway, Englehart, Wein, Claremont, etc. All have their own unique voices, but Gerber’s seems like a clear break—though I couldn’t say why.

The story starts on a subway platform with Dr Strange and Clea, and weaves in a cast of strangers, somehow centred on a harmonica. When two thugs try to steal the harmonica, its player falls into the path of an oncoming train—but she urges Strange to save the harmonica, not her.

The intensity of Dr Strange at this moment, and his decision to heed her plea, is already my favourite writing for him, better than anything in Ditko or Englehart’s runs, and certainly better than the generic superhero writing he’d been given by Wein.

Then the train comes and everything feels grim, but instead of meeting vile death, the woman explodes into a shower of stars, which rains down on heroes, villains, and by-standers alike. It is a magic scene.

I’m late to the story, but I’m ready to begin.

Thanks Plok, RAB, Sean, Thomas, Jim.

Thanks Steve.

Seven Soldiers of Steve

  1. Manifesto—More Or Less
  2. The Final Disconnect (RAB)
  3. Location, Location, Location
  4. YJ’s Progress
  5. Epilogue Part One (Sean)
  6. Epilogue Part Two (Sean)
  7. Epilogue Part Three (Sean)
  8. Matt Is Not Coming Back (Thomas)
  9. Two Earth-Clotted Hands (Jim)
  10. The Astronauts’ Tale
  11. Oneiric Orphans And Overmen (Jim)
  12. Goodbye To All That
  13. Recognition
  14. Something Like Democracy
  15. Kill This Duck
  16. Unconclusion
  17. The Supercontext

Eulogy

Sisyphus Escapes

4 Responses to “Circumstantial Gerber”

  1. By plok, 2 hours, 46 minutes after the fact

    You’re welcome, David — a nice little piece, here, and I especially liked the way you used my “re-titling” trick: when I got to the bottom, and read “Sisyphus Escapes”…

    Well, that kind of got me, a little.

    So thank you, too.

  2. By plok, 1 week, 3 days after the fact

    And may I add (though sometime after the fact): just like your Vonnegut piece, this was strongly-written. I hate to compliment you by telling you you’re good with memorials! But then again, maybe it’s not a bad compliment after all.

    Cheers again; I do find myself coming back here quite frequently to read those two magical words: “Sisyphus Escapes”. To see them standing there like that is really quite heartening, for a double-agnostic like myself. And I know: I wrote ‘em. You picked ‘em out, though, and put them where I can see them.

  3. By David Golding, 1 week, 3 days after the fact

    Thank you, Plok.

    Your eulogy really got to me. Grounded in the Seven Soldiers of Steve project, it seems very particular to Steve Gerber. But then, as Gerber was writing about human conditions, as your post is a nod to what you learned from him, it seems universal too. I think one could not know Gerber and still be moved by it. Sisyphus escapes… Sisyphus has already escaped…

    Meanwhile I have stalled on my Defenders reading. I need to think on what I like about the first story (Marvel Two-In-One #6, #7, The Defenders #20) and that has prompted me to think on what I like about Marvel (when I like Marvel). After all, I’m not big on Dr Strange, he seems un-Marvelish: he worked for his powers, he’s mastered them, he doesn’t have a secret identity, his love life and life in general seem pretty good. Then the team situation has split Hulk off from Banner and the supporting cast that (in Lee/Ditko) his personality is distributed over. I thought it was the dual (or multiple) lives that I liked about Marvel, but it isn’t, or perhaps not in the simple way I thought it was. Anyway, still thinking, though I hope to start reading again soon.

  4. By plok, 1 week, 4 days after the fact

    Sounds like an interesting train of thought…I’ll look forward to seeing where you take it!