Captain America versus The Hulk and Superman: Why Does One Succeed Where the Others Fail?

From the title, you may presume I have seen Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Happily, the Young Man and I wandered into the cinema, leading to his family witnessing me squealing with joy over a film. I believe they are now aware of just how geeky I am. Fortunately, they don't seem to mind it.

Watching The Winter Soldier has led me to question how it is that Captain America has successfully carried off two solo films while the Hulk, Superman, and other superheroes, fail so miserably. I'm going to try to avoid any big spoilers, but just in case, here's a cut for the rest of this article.

 

Talking about what you love

I sit here with a cup of decaf tea by my side, about to play some Broken Sword V (it is astonishing to me that they are still making new entries for my very first point and click game), and thinking about how, in June of this year, I'll be getting up in front of a room full of people at CRSF 2014 and telling them what I think about narrative in computer games. This will be the tenth time I speak at a conference, my fifth time internationally. My first conference was terrifying; it was at 'The Politics, Poetics and Philosophy of Battlestar Galactica', at Buckinghamshire Chilterns New University back in 2007. I was terrified; I had finished my undergraduate degree so recently, I hadn't even had my graduation ceremony yet. At the time I was working a job with only ten hours between shifts, proofing Masters' students dissertations, and trying to get two buses to my college library on my days off to read up on Judith Butler's identity theory. On top of that, despite owning season three of Battlestar Galactica, I hadn't finished watching it by the time I flew over. I did not have high hopes for how the paper would go. When I received the line up, I was even more distressed; I was speaking between two doctors! Seventeen years of speech and drama training almost went out the window when I got up there and tried to adlib some jokes, leading to one academic commenting on how I didn't like Baltar much. (For the record, I do like Baltar. He was just an easy target for me that day.)

But it went well. The question and answer session (which managed to turn all my internal organs to stone at the mention) was not as heinous as I had feared. I was among people who were genuinely interested in my ideas and in helping to improve them. I loved it. I was also fortunate enough to meet Roz Kaveney that day, though, to my shame, I did not discover the full awesomeness of the woman until much later and so did not appreciate her presence as I should have. A wonderful upshot of the conference was my eventual inclusion in Battlestar Galactica and Philosophy: MissionAccomplished or Mission Frakked Up?, first with the brilliantly named 'I Frak, Therefore I am' (the editors' idea and I still adore it), and secondly with the anonymous 'Dreamers in the Night' (we were making a final five joke. I still like that too).

Since that fateful 2007, I have spoken in Ireland, England, and Scotland on European science fiction, slasher films and 70s feminist science fiction, science fiction within science fiction, Fringe, Grant Morrison's All-Star Superman, Lord of the Rings and Metropolis (which landed me in JRR Tolkien: the Forest and the City), science fiction in the Irish literary canon, and zombies. I have been very lucky; these conferences were all organised by brilliant, enthusiastic people, and I have fond memories of all of them -- though few things will top my delight at being called "Bold, in both senses of the word" by the conference organiser at the University of Aberdeen for saying Samuel Beckett's Endgame could be read as a post-apocalyptic text.

Thinking about this, and about how meeting people as interested in genre fiction as I am has helped my own critical thinking, I start to consider how I got into all this in the first place. It comes down to wanting to talk about the things I've read and seen, wanting to dissect them, find out what they're doing. One of the infinity of things I love about the Young Man is that he likes to discuss texts just as much as I do (and he's good at it too. I am very lucky). We could talk for the rest of our lives about the books, movies, and television shows we've seen, and never get tired of it.

My love of literary criticism also comes back, as so many things do for me, to Douglas Adams. I think I was about eleven or twelve when I found a tape in my house called The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Having nothing better to do, I put it in and watched it. Despite only having the first couple of episodes, I relished it, but it stuck in my head not just because it was science fiction and it was funny. It stuck in my head because Adams spent the first few minutes making me laugh and then, just when I was comfortable, he gave us that terrible silence when the Earth was destroyed. And I couldn't understand how I felt about it. To some extent I still don't, which is why I research Adams's worldbuilding, and why I research other genre fiction. In the end, I want to know why I react the way I do to these texts.

There is, to me, something inherently beautiful about genre fiction, no matter the medium. It is an expression of something someone has created from themselves, and from the knowledge and experience they have to hand. It is crafting, weaving words and imagery into art. It is taking a journey and hoping the reader is willing to join them, walk the paths of this new world with them, to fill in the gaps they have left in the building with what the reader knows would be there. It is something potentially so fragile a single word could break it, and so strong that a million people will invest their time and energy into loving it. Speculative fiction is about the places which have never been, could never be, might never be; it is the child of imagination and intelligence and joy in different words, different images, different places. It is a celebration of hope, despair, joy, hatred, fear, faith, and wonder. While I accept not everyone will like it, it is genuinely hard for me to understand why anyone wouldn't. These are adventures the like of which we can never find for ourselves, paths we cannot take, roads which do not exist in our world. Who wouldn't want to walk down those roads?

So I go to conferences and I meet people who love these things, these imagined worlds and people, just as much as I do; who seek to find the meaning in the texts just as I want to, and to enjoy them as they do. It is, I have found, a nourishment for my soul, as doing what you love always is. If I could have a lifetime of talking about these things, I will find my life well-spent.

But in the meantime, I'm going to have my tea, and indulge my love of computer games. Because you can love a lot of things at once in this world. That's why it's the best one.

Proof it all happened!

Now that I am almost three weeks on from getting the head shaved, I decided it was finally time to put up the pictures! Proof I shaved all the hair off! Those of you who know me on Facebook will have seen these already, but now they have commentary!

The night before the big shave I took a picture for posterity:

I'll admit my hair wasn't that long to begin with, but looking back, it seems much longer!

The day dawned very cold, so I went to the World Record attempt properly prepared:

You can't see from this angle, but it's a Munster Rugby hat. And it is insanely warm. 

I liked the set up at the Mansion House as soon as I saw it:

Today FM is pretty cool, and so well-organised! I was through registration in just a few minutes.

Light blue shirts were our barbers, dark blue shirts were the people getting their heads shaved. We all got a number on the way in and had to find our seats and barbers.

About an hour in, this is what the place looked like:

Up on the stage you can see Ray D'Arcy of Today FM. He's a great presenter, a lot of fun and a consummate professional. He's one of those great interviewers who can both make you laugh and handles the most heartrending stories with empathy and tact.

Everything kicked off on air and online about 9 am, and at one point, I got to wave at the camera! Which is always fun to do, but it was number 61's idea (I was number 62). Then I got to meet the other 62, my barber! Here he is!

I think he was probably more nervous than I was (though as I had a cold, I'm not sure I quite believed it was already happening). He was a lot of fun, and did an amazing job, especially on my thick mop of hair!

This lady was the first person to get her head shaved. It was very brave of her, and we all got to cheer her on. The support and encouragement among everyone involved was probably the most inspiring part of the day. Everyone had a story to tell, a reason to be there doing it. It was beautiful and humbling. And at about 11.30, we got into our positions:

I told you he was more nervous than I was...

Or maybe not. And while it may not appear so, I assure you, I am squinting without my glasses.

There is an eleven minute video of the shave and a couple of minutes before it, which I will try to upload at some point, but I think I might break blogspot as it's so long. Not to mention it keeps showing on its side, so if someone can tell me how to fix that, it'd be great. Anyway, we were told beforehand that the lady from Guinness World Records would be walking around and seeing if anyone would be disqualified from the attempt. The previous record for most heads shaved simultaneously was 77 in Australia in 2013. There were 179 of us in the room waiting to be shaved, with as many barbers at the ready. At the end of 10 minutes (during which the clippers died and a kind person who'd finished passed over his), this is what I looked like:

Today FM even skipped the 12 o'clock news to keep the coverage going! And after a commercial break, we found out nobody had been disqualified! All 179 of us made it into the record books!

And then we were brought outside and had a big group photo taken of the barbers and shavees. And let me tell you, it was cold out. I was glad when I got to put on my hat again.

This is what the hall looked like after we were all done:

Never have I felt so glad not to be on clean up duty...

My hair's been growing in amazingly quickly. Here's what I looked like last Saturday, just over two weeks after it all:

It's even thicker now. Between online and offline donations, I've raised about €950. The generosity has been overwhelming, as has the support. Everyone has had something positive to say (some people have told me I look better now!), and I'm truly proud and honoured to have taken part in something so amazing. The donations page is still open, so if any of you have something to spare and would like to donate, go here: http://www.mycharity.ie/event/jennifer_harwood-smiths_event/. 

To everyone who has wished me well, and liked these pictures as they went up on Facebook (which made it so much easier to do), and all those who have donated, I can't thank you enough. It has been incredibly worthwhile. Cancer is a terrible thing, and all of you have helped towards fighting it. Quite a few people have told me I was very brave, and I suppose I was. But there are so many people so much braver, fighting such hard battles against so many different things going wrong in their lives, that a shaved head seems like the least I could do.

For those who want to learn more about the Irish Cancer Society and Shave or Dye, go here: http://www.cancer.ie/get-involved/fundraise/major-fundraising-drives/shave-or-dye. It is a fun and worthwhile cause, and even if I hadn't been part of the world record, I'd still have been proud to be a part of it. Making a bit of history was the icing on the cake though!

Shave or Dye 2014

So, as some of you may know, my mother has basal cell carcinoma on her face, and had three operations last year to remove it. The three operations were a bit of a shock, as we, and the doctors, had expected only one operation. Basal cell carcinoma can be something of a bastard; a few cells are enough for it to grow back, as my mother discovered eight years after her first bout with it. It's also something Irish people can be at risk from, as a single sunburn can cause it, and as anyone who is Irish knows, we're so unaccustomed to the sun that we don't always take proper precautions. My mother handled the operations (and, indeed, the return of the cancer) with amazing good humour and grace, and I admire her beyond all description for it.

So in support of her, I am joining Today FM's Shave or Dye initiative for raising money for the Irish Cancer Society. On Friday February 21st (the end of this week!), I'll be shaving my head as part of a world record attempt for most heads shaved at once. I'm raising money both on- and offline, and if any of you want to donate, here is my online donation page: http://www.mycharity.ie/event/jennifer_harwood-smiths_event/
I'll be posting pictures online when it's done, so ye'll all get to see me bald!

You may have noticed I had the option to dye my hair. Over the years, I have dyed my hair every colour you can think of. The only one that wasn't intentional was green, as blue fades to green. Because I'm so comfortable dying my hair, I decided to shave my hair, because I wanted to do something I wasn't comfortable with. For me, this had to be something I wouldn't normally do, and where I am now in my studies and work, I am able to do it, and I will take the opportunity while it's there.

So far the support from everyone has blown me away: the Young Man; his choir the Ranelagh Singers; my coworkers; my friends and family and colleagues at college; it has all been overwhelming and amazing. I set my original target for €150, but the support has been so great I've reset the target to €500, and I'm already less than €20 away from that. To put that into context, the money that's been donated to me can "train a vounteer to provide emotional and practical support to people with cancer at any stage of their cancer journery" (from the sponsorship card). For those of you who want to know more, here is the Irish Cancer Society's page: http://www.cancer.ie/get-involved/fundraise/major-fundraising-drives/shave-or-dye/about. 

Taking part in this was a decision that was at once easy and difficult. The easy part was all the arguments for it: it's a good cause; it's only hair and it grows back; my mother went through having an open wound on her face for a week, I can go through being shaven for a few weeks. Also, I will shave on shampoo and conditioner costs, and think how fast I can shower now! These are all solid, strong arguments and helped to make it easy to decide to shave..

The difficult part of the decision was dealing with the negative, but ultimately less solid arguments, all of which I've been able to bat down, with varying degrees of difficulty. The most trivial is probably that the weather is cold, so this is not going to be entirely pleasant. But I have warm hats, so that's fine. Will I look good with no hair? What better way to find out? The hardest is that it's culturally ingrained that as a woman, I should have a feminine haircut. It's how things are done. And it can be scary to say 'screw that, I'm going bald'. But I'm sure it's scary for my mother to go out with a still healing scar on her face, and she never shows it. She's magnificent, and her courage is what makes all of my concerns seem like silly little things. I've been told by many people that I'm brave for doing this; well, if so, I learned it from my mother, and if I'm half as brave as she has been throughout her life, I will count myself a lucky woman.

So in conclusion, if you can donate, please do. If you can't, supportive words are just as welcome! And pictures will follow soon!

Upon Reaching Salisbury Plain

I am a great fan of webcomics. I’ve always enjoyed the comic format when it appears in newspapers, but since I don’t read much else in the newspaper, it was a bit pointless. Thankfully, there’s the Internet. I read many webcomics on a daily basis. I love the quirkiness of Pixie Trix Comics’ various offerings. Tom Siddell’s Gunnerkrigg Court might be one of the loveliest things on the Internet. Jeph Jacques’s Questionable Content was my first ever webcomic and it is still one of my must reads each weekday it updates. Aaron Diaz’s Dresden Codak may have one of the slowest update schedules, but it is always worth the wait. The sad fact with the last of these is common among webcomic artists; time and money, specifically the time needed to make money to live on, often mean a webcomic which doesn’t support the author/artist must lose attention. This, in part, is what has happened to Paul Gadzikowski, author and artist of my favourite webcomic, Arthur, King of Time and Space (often shortened to AKOTAS), with a side helping of cancer in the family. The severity of Gadzikowski’s decision to end AKOTAS is all the clearer once you know that he once updated the webcomic from hospital after a heart attack (He is a legend).

Today was the last AKOTAS strip, and I came very close to crying. Last week, reading about the end of Gadzikowski’s (very successful) attempt to transcribe Arthurian saga into webcomic format felt like a punch to the gut, not just because I love the work, but because Gadzikowski and his wife seem like genuinely lovely people. He did, after all, give me permission to reproduce his Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy parody in my thesis. I would give anything to live in a world where a storyteller as talented as Gadzikowski need never worry about money, but only about getting on with his art. As I don’t live in that world, and can’t make it, I will instead encourage all of you who read this blog to go read AKOTAS. And here are my four main reasons, out of many:

1. Characters

I am not, in general, a huge fan of Arthuriana. The inevitability of Arthur’s fall, and the betrayal of Lancelot and Guinevere, tends to make it hard for me to stomach. In addition, most retellings, like the movie First Knight, make at least one of the three lead characters absolutely unlikable. I like all of the characters in AKOTAS, not because they are without flaws, but because their flaws are well-examined by Gadzikowski. They are clever flaws. And I love all of these characters, to the point where the end had me thinking ‘Oh, Arthur’, missing him – and all of them – already.

2. Storytelling

This man can tell a story. And when he feels the story hasn’t worked, he’s not afraid to admit his mistakes. The unfortunate side of writing webcomics is that the work is posted almost on the go, so early work can lack the polish of later work. Artistic styles can change – see Howard Taylor’s Schlock Mercenary for just how much they can – and the story can often take an unusual turn, but Gadzikowski’s handling of these is what made me like his work so much. He often says he is the only one who likes his triangle drawings (and I’ll confess a preference for his line drawings as I love the character expressions), but he has taken those risks and made something quite wonderful. And the more tiresome stories for me in most retellings of the legends, namely the affair, are some of the most interesting and emotionally rewarding. And the mere mention of Sir Balin now leads me to say ‘Oh, crap, what’s he done now?’ Even the hiatus periods intended to prevent burnouts were interesting enough that I checked the update every day. That’s talent.

3. The Art

Gadzikowski describes himself as unashamedly amateur. Maybe he doesn’t make money off AKOTAS, but I would not call his art amateur. It is his and it is wonderful and I could not produce something half so expressive.

4. The Newsposts

When I reread the archives, as I have done at least three times if not more, I reread the newsposts, because Gadzikowski always says something interesting when he puts one up. And the last newspost broke my heart, because he apologised for not continuing, as if he were letting someone down, when he’d given a wonderful gift to every reader: characters to love and stories to wrap ourselves in until a day seemed too long without another update.

5. The Puns.

Few people can pun well. This man can. On top of everything above, this comic is genuinely funny. And that is not easy.

There are dozens of other reasons, but I want to keep this spoiler-free.

I hope AKOTAS makes it into book format some day. I want it on my shelf, to take down and leaf through and remember the days when my Internet was slow and every page took forever to load. And I find myself already thinking of when I can next read through the archive, knowing I’ll be coming to the end, revisiting Arthur, Guinevere, and Lancelot in their teens, watching them grow up, find their destinies, and meet their ends again. I want to revisit the things Gadzikowski says about being a writer and artist, because these are things I read when I needed to read them. 3518 uninterrupted days of storytelling made paths I will retread all of my reading life. I’ll be sticking around to read his other webcomics, The Hero of Three Faces and Creative Process, because I love his sense of humour. And while I will always miss my daily Arthur, King of Time and Space, I will be eternally grateful to Paul Gadzikowski for sharing this story with us.

So until my next stroll through the archive: goodbye Arthur, Guinevere, Lancelot, Merlin, Nimue, Tristram, Isolde, Gawaine, Galahad, Mordred, Morgan, Morgana, Gaheris, Kay, Ector, Bedivere, and all the rest. You are all the heroes (or villains) your creators hoped you could be. Thanks for making them that, Paul. You did a good job.

Now go take care of yourself.

EDIT: It has just occurred to me I have neglected to include the link for the first comic. Go here for it: http://www.arthurkingoftimeandspace.com/0001.htm

Why Colm Meaney makes me simultaneously happy and sad.

So, earlier today the radio station at work had an interview with Colm Meaney, where he was asked about Star Trek. In the past, I've heard he's been a bit insulting about the fans (let's grain of salt that one unless someone can provide a reference), but his good humoured response to it was that the spacesuit wouldn't fit him anymore (Colm Meaney, you were never in a space suit, coz you weren't in that scene in First Contact. You wore a military uniform, with the sleeves rolled up for easy access to malfunctioning equipment. Dude). And while I don't know just exactly what Colm Meaney thinks of Star Trek, I would hope that it is the fan culture he dislikes, rather than the show. Because I am very proud of what Colm Meaney and Star Trek did together.

In order to understand why I'm proud of him, you have to understand why it can sometimes be annoying to be an Irish person watching American television. We're represented as drunks, or druids; every evil fairy or elf has an atrocious country Irish accent. In fact, let's take a moment to discuss the accent. There isn't just one! We have four regional dialects of our native language on this not very big island, for crying out loud, of course we have different accents! I won't deny accent work is hard (I wasn't particularly good at them in my drama classes; I firmly believe my attempts at a Belfast accent embarrassed my mother no end), but if you are going to do it, do it right, please. And while we're on the subject of doing it right, please stop putting extra syllables in our words. Yes, we know they are confusing, but in this day and age, Google search should be sufficient to fix these things. Two of the most heinous recent examples of this are in shows I love: Supernatural chose to butcher the name of the Irish god Samhain, pronounced 'Sow-in' as 'Sam-hane'. Yeah. No. Not a bit. Also, the bit where you said he was a demon? No. It is in fact a season, and a month (November). These latter bits I can forgive, because it's Supernatural and I love it, but at least say the name right boys! The other recent culprit is in Lost Girl, where Ciara, played by Lina Roessler, is repeatedly referred to as 'Key-ar-ah'. She is supposed to be an Irish fairy (as far as I can tell), and over here, we pronounce is as 'Keer-ah'. This is all the more frustrating because they get most of it very right, and I don't understand why they messed with a lovely name, making it sound clunky and unfriendly (neither of which describes the character). There are many more examples of what frustrates the Irish viewer of American television, but I presume this puts forth some of the major complaints (I advise you not to get me started on the accents of Irish criminals in American crime shows).

Given that one person I know is very conscious of spoilers, and there's at least one in here, the rest of this is going behind a cut.

Staring at the Moon

So at 8.50 pm GMT my phone alarm went off. For a moment, in my post-dinner television watching I was utterly confused as to why it had gone off. When I remembered, I stepped onto my balcony to see if I could find the moon.

Earlier today, one of my Inestimable Work Colleagues happened upon the news that the International Space Station was going to cross the moon over Irish skies tonight. We were excited and I thought it would be a good idea to put an alarm on my phone as I tend to promptly forget about such cool things. Which I did, and which found me on my balcony, staring intently at the sky visible over our complex, much to the bemusement of my homeward bound neighbours.

I popped in to Child of Chaos to tell her the sad news that the moon was not visible. She informed me that on her way back from the shop, she had seen the moon from across the road. With only minutes to spare, shoes and coats were donned and we were off, with me texting my Young Man on the way to inform him of the situation.

On the way over, we saw two men about our age standing across the road, outside what we presumed to be their apartment complex, staring at the part of the sky where Child of Chaos said the moon would be, so we decided they must be out to see it too. At 8.57 pm, when the ISS was supposed to be rising from the horizon (which I hoped I had remembered correctly), we were across the road and caught sight of the moon.

There were two problems. One, it was setting behind our building. Two, it was only a crescent.

We kept backing up until the only option was moonwatching in the busy street, so while I kept an eye on the moon, Child of Chaos pushed the button for the pedestrian lights and let me know when it was safe to cross. The other side provided not only the space to back up and look at the moon, but also a handy signpost. I was still worried though; the moon looked blurry and was that yellowish colour it becomes as it sets. And then the clouds came. And then, to add insult to injury and to cause me to cry out in despair, "Dude!", two double decker buses came.

It was cold so we decided to Google when it was supposed to cross. That yielded nothing. We were convinced we'd seen something move slowly across the moon and wondered if it were the ISS. So we checked Youtube. Apparently, This is what it looks like when the ISS crosses the moon. Take a minute to go look. Go on, you know you want to...

With our visibility, there was no hope of seeing it. We came in at 9.10 pm GMT, and, as Child of Chaos said, even if we didn't see it, it was still great to be watching the moon when it happened.

Even knowing it was cold outside, and that we might not see it, and not knowing quite what we were looking for, it was the right thing to do. I will talk often and at length to anyone who will listen that we need to get off this planet, if only for the heavy metals. I have argued with Child of Chaos that if we wait to solve our problems here, we will lose our chance to move out into the solar system because we will have expended our resources. I genuinely believe that we need a great grand project of our age and that project should be a space elevator. We need to get into space to survive, but also for ourselves. The history of mankind has taken place under the stars. We have prayed to them, sang about them, imagined being out there. We can't keep being the young children who have just learned to walk, standing at the glass door, looking out into the treacherous back garden. We need to start going out there, start walking among the stars. We'll fall down (a lot), but we'll find our footing far more surely than if we just stay here. There is so much out there and yes, we have our problems here. But without finding more resources, we're only going to make them worse. And we are explorers; we need to keep finding the next horizon. True, we don't have a history of doing it the right way, but we're better than we were. We're always learning how to be better than we were. The days when humanity is the best and brightest it could be are far ahead of us but they're not impossible. We can get there. We just have to get out there first.

And sometimes that just starts with two girls, standing in the cold, staring at the moon.