Midnighter Issue Six
Written by Mark Osborne
Published on 04/08/2007
Originally from Binary Culture / [the-lowdown.net]
http://www.binaryculture.net

Dear Garth Ennis,

I’m starting this letter with a disclaimer: don’t mind the beginning of the letter; it’s the mis en scene for the rest of it. I promise it will be worth your time when all’s been said and done.

I’m quite the Authority fan you see, and like most any Authority fan, I’m bitter, jaded, angry, and have abandonment issues. Reading any issues beyond Mark Millar’s departure is akin to- well there’s really no readily available analogous experience- so we’ll just settle for pointless. So when Jim Lee announced this whole “Worldstorm” thing and the possibility of not only a new Authority ongoing free of Brubacker’s car crash “Revolution” (I dig his Daredevil, by the way) but an ongoing title for Midnighter, who is ostensibly my favorite superhero of all time, I was practically peeing rainbows. It’s hard to top a sardonic sodomite (more on that word later) who dares to surpass the holy shit factor of Grant Morrison’s (JLA era) Batman, so hard in fact that no one’s managed it so far.

But when your name started being attached to the project, well let’s just say I wasn’t peeing rainbows. Your “Son of Man” arc nearly turned me off of Hellblazer for life. That Virgin comic you’re working on with John Woo? It had potential, but let’s face it; the comic’s a piece of shit. Like I said, not peeing rainbows.

Of course I toughed out the wait until the first issue with two things in mind; first that I’d heard from reliable sources that you do indeed write a very good Midnighter as seen in the Kev series (which I’ve yet to read), and second I owed it to the character to give it a shot.

To my very pleasant surprise, your first arc on the comic turned out to be what will likely be the funniest and most compulsively entertaining story arc of the entire year. Time cops and murdering Hitler before the Holocaust seemed like old hat at first, nothing to see here. But you surprised again and turned it into an absolute romp. It took Warren Ellis’ full bore irreverence on Nextwave: Agents of HATE to get me laughing anywhere near as hard as a single line in Midnighter did:

“Pompety pom pom, Pomepty pom pom…” Zack Snyder said that Ride of the Valkyries is inextricably tied with Apocalypse Now in interview with Suicide Girls. Not so for anyone in possession of that particular issue.

Another noteworthy bit was subverting the entire history of gay jokes against Midnighter in one fell swoop, the “everybody’s pansexual in the future” scene. It was incredibly refreshing to see that a writer could go beyond the “Hey let’s bombard Midnighter and Apollo with a carpet bombing’s worth of slurs from every villain they ever face,” and give us a clever scenario where Midnighter himself is behind the times as it were.

But the best part? The one that had me sharing the comic with all my friends, especially the ones that don’t read comics? The one that nobody could resist laughing at? Midnighter undergoing open heart surgery with a firm grasp on the heavily sedated child. Sheer comedy genius, sir. I never thought it would be possible to further stretch the limits of Midnighter’s cult of personality with a whole new level of absurd antics, but again you proved me wrong. Woe to any who challenge the pure Gar that is The Midnighter.

Now onto the new issue. It’s not a happy occasion as I understand it’s your last issue on the series. Now Brian K Vaughan is a great writer, in general I like him a lot better than you. I’ve been following Y: The Last Man since day one. I thanked him in person for redefining Mystique with his short lived series starring her. I dig pretty much everything he writes. And Darick? Well, Darick is a great, friendly guy with miles of talent. He agreed to do the first interview of my life, and when he did, he was engaging, friendly, and hilarious. He speaks highly of you. So yeah, I’m looking forward to them taking over, but I don’t want it to be like this. You haven’t even hit your stride on the book yet. I want my fucking Garth Ennis Midnighter.

I understand about The Boys, I really do. I remember vividly how excited Darick was about the book and I picked up every issue. I also remember how bitter and angry Darick was about the Wolverine episode over at Marvel, so when the shitstorm around The Boys came down? I was spitting mad. Obviously not as much as you, but I was (and still am) pissed off. I know you’re mad. It’s understandable. But the world needs your Midnighter. Pee on Paul Levitz’s car, it’ll make you feel better, but for fuck’s sake man do not deprive us of Wildstorm’s funniest, most consistently on time, and over all best post-Worldstorm book.

So back to the current issue. Midnighter and Apollo as samurai? An epic reteaming with Glen Fabry? Sign me up for two copies, sir.

When dealing with genre work- especially stuff dealing with feudal Japan- describing the difference between cliché and convention to the uninitiated is usually a lost cause, but Midnighter #6 is exhibit A for the prosecution. It balances the familiarity and thrills of the setting with well executed writing.

In the forward to the second trade of Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing, it’s practically suggested that he originated the concept of writing an engaging and interesting filler issue (there are forces in this industry that would credit him with inventing the written word if they could, I’m sure), and while I don’t agree with that, it took him to put the idea into common currency to the point where to call some of these comics that go between major arcs “filler” seems obscene. While “Flowers for the Sun” is no “Dream of a Thousand Cats,” it definitely proves that the spirit of delivering a solid, engaging story every time you sit down to the keyboard is alive and well. What I’m saying is fuck John Woo, you can do that shit on your own and do it well.

It’s not all hearts and flowers, though. While it’s probably a minor point, the way that the supporting characters were reacting to Apollo and Midnighter’s relationship is totally out of character for that time period, trust me I’ve looked into it. In Feudal Japan (especially), it was essentially understood that the only relationship of equals was one between men given how rigid the class systems were, especially in relation to gender. There’s plenty of etchings and so on from that time period to back up the point, and it’s that very same antiquated worldview that basically gave rise to the subgenre of Japanese comics known as YAOI; the idea is to provide women with the vicarious thrill of a relationship that breaks down the barriers of class through men, hence the overemphasis on dominant and submissive roles. That and the word “Sodomite” would have been an incredibly improbable word to hear in that time frame, given the fact that there was no evidence of Western influence anywhere else in the comic. But again, overall a fantastic issue that ended your run with a bang rather than a whimper.

Sincerely and bittersweetly,

Mark Osborne

Your most reluctant fan ever.