Six days ago, someone offered a quest on E2 for a comic book script about ‘GammaGirl.’ I only found out about it three days ago and recorded some thoughts yesterday at work. With her name and the demand that she have powers as the only constraints, there are an enormous combination of elements possible even if I keep within superhero tropes. (I idly thought I could make gammagirl a screen name unrelated to anything about her.)

Her name and the quest title, The Great Gamma Ray Comic Book Script Quest, connote gamma ray powers or origin, but that is no certainty. For example, gamma could signify the third letter of the greek alphabet, if she is third in some sense. Beyond that, Wikipedia doesn’t give anything else interesting for gamma. The flashiest scientific use is as the Lorentz Factor in special relativistic equations. These describe time dilation, foreshortening, and subjective mass for objects traveling at high fractions of light’s speed. But while nice, her power has less priority than the setting where she operates.

A hero’s setting exists in the intersection of its particular location, timeframe, and level of influence by the fantastic. As I don’t live in ‘the big city,’ there is little point in aping Metropolis and other uninspired sandboxes. Plus, if she can’t fly, I don’t need skyscrapers. Modern stories are nice but utopian futures with less need of heroes (as though we need superheroes) make exotic locales more justifiable. Moore’s League of Extraordinary Gentlemen strives to seal up our past by treating all fiction as documentaries. As of the latest publication, that even includes 1984 and Metropolis (the film).

The intersection with the mundane divine and our history distinguishes X-men from Watchmen. Marvel has legislative reactions to Mutants but it is a decidedly modern phenomenon. Moore’s acolytes admire his deep understanding of the cultural (and subjective psychological) impacts of exemplarhood on our world. Ellis’ Planetary series purports to explain the great similarity between his modern world and our own by involving suppressant conspiratorial factions and self-exile of the greater peoples. Mignola treats the fantastic from a more traditional angle. Nevertheless, one of my favorite scenes came from Conqueror Worm, wherein someone describes the Nazi project to bring back one of the Dragons by launching (ritually deconsecrated) dead bodies into space.

This isn’t meant to instruct as much as do justice to thoughts I abandoned at work. As I have short breaks and lots of distractions otherwise, I had to focus. Better than exploring how many elements are possible and then testing their permutations for ripe material (x-ray vision, Edwardian Era (pre WWI), and ‘civilized’ cultures confront the consequences of killing their supernal members (Joan of Arc) while savage nations have not).

Instead, I set myself the task of reporting the matured stories of intuitive combinations since those already passed through the filter of my interest. I only succeeded in noting two and record them here as well as others. Normally I would abstain from revealing my options but the impending deadline means that you can’t really type it faster than I and I need to write about it any way I can. Strictly speaking, writing on paper is much faster (and I wouldn’t have repeated that introduction for the third time) but I also need to keep my computer on.

Perhaps I’ll write about it at length later, but must beg off due to impending departure. I am legally downloading an ISO image of Visual Studio for the programming classes I am taking. However, I didn’t realize it is 4.4 gigabytes big. Microsoft provided a download manager, but it is still taking forever.

The only story template I finished writing about took a page from “society should cut Lex Luthor a check.” The  author notes that scientist Luthor (not businessman Luthor) invented sleeping rays and synthetic kryptonite but constantly imperiled the great city. It would be saner to coopt him and share a cut of his patented weapons. That makes sense for him as well as the penurious Spiderman. But, what would bureaucrats pay to (Superman’s) Parasite or Matter Eater Lad? Frankly, it suggests a story about qualifying for her super subsidy. But, is it like getting a hunting license? Marvel’s Civil War most recently hashed the trope of holocaust registration/Patriot profiling/ect.

That pessimism bores me. Yes, it makes for an exciting story (maybe) but it isn’t realistic. You’ve gone to the DMV at least once, the employees may act harried or lackadistically, but they aren’t avaricious for control. But Nicholas, the elites are the power trippers, not the furloughed wage slaves. Sure, and I have heard – edited – reports about their behavior to support that. Still, even Congress must follow the mean curve to a large degree. Reportage selection largely falls into this. Whenever I hear someone give blanket statements like, “politicians are liars,” I respond “only the ones you notice.”

I agree with a simplification used to describe three attitudes. The optimist thinks (the future, people, his life) is good and will improve. The pessimist sees a downward trend. The insurance salesman thinks the future will be more of the same with few enough outliers that shhe can afford them.

So if I were to subsidize capes & black hats, it would be with an eye to how we presently qualify for subsidies. This suggests an experience like Kafka’s Trial, but others are possible. If payouts are high enough (and what won’t you pay Bruce Banner?) third parties might get involved to earn a cut for connecting supers with grants. Then it might evolve into an Uberlympics’ sponsorship.

The other story I noted at work takes gamma as the third element. I know of two works that Alan Moore failed to complete: Big Numbers and Twilight of the Superheroes. The latter depicts his projected epilogue to the DC mythos where groups of heroes have created a declining feudal system over America. His version spins the tale of the rebellion following the disappearance of Captain Marvel.

I would link to his proposal, but the site I noted is gone. When geocities’ closure was announced, I regarded it ambivalently. I didn’t have one; no one I knew had one. Hur hur duhr. In retrospect, I should have gone through my link list and saved all the pages hosted there. I seem to have lost a gallery of Garbage Pail Kids cards, the List of Overused Science Fiction Clichés, a big list of varied links, and the novella inspired The Thing. God damn.

I agree with Moore that most powers lend themselves to Defensive political structures. Before I found Graeme Snooks’ interpretation of historical relations, I agreed with James Dale Davidson’s. He and a columnist called Lord Rees-Mogg described a Logic of Violence derived from relations among power-holders. These relations reflect incentives held and projectable via the technology, climate, and lay of the land. Basically, where a group of individuals are better able to rebuff others, they form Defensive political structures like the Feudal relations of Europe. Where a group of individuals holds the power to injure others or their property effectively, they will form Offensive political structures. These are historical empires and modern nations, but also typify the relations of a feudal lord to his local subjects. Sue Storm is generally defensive, whereas Cyclops’ far reaching lasers are offensive. Mind, this paradigm doesn’t describe history with the consistency demanded but is an inspiring series of concepts:

Inequality of Power and the Form of Government

When farming multiplied the incentives to employ violence, it not only created government, it created a new dilemma about how to control government. The occupational specialization necessitated by farming created for the first time, significant gaps in the megapolitical power of individuals. Unlike the primeval hunting society, in which all men were armed with weapons for felling large animals, and were well trained to use them, the majority in most agricultural societies lived behind the plow. The plow is not an effective weapon. Neither is the artist’s brush or the potter’s wheel. The development of metal weapons gave a soldier a major military advantage over an unarmed farmer. As a consquence, power in an ancient grain-farming state like Egypt became highly centralized. Whoever had a preponderance of expensive weaponry could control the irrigation system and thus hold a life and death control over the peasants. Indeed, there was a strong tendency for the system to become more closed and stratified as time passed.

Middle-Class Topography

Why were the greek city-states not as despotic as ancient Egypt? We believe that the answer lies with the differences in megapolitical conditions. It was not so much more compelling to Greek ears than elsewhere. Nor was it because they were the first to think of democracy and equality. As we have seen, democracy and equality really were primitive ideas – because equality of power was a feature of primitive life. The uniqueness of Greece was that local conditions of climate and topography made it easier for Greek citizens to arm themselves and retain real military power. Because of this, more people were able to retain a voice in the political process in a more economically advanced society.

Davidson, James Dale and Rees-Mogg, Lord William. The Great Reckoning: Protect Yourself in the Coming Depression. Simon & Schuster, NY: 1993. (page) 64.

Most empowered individuals then can form Defensive arrangements in an area, but can’t generally unseat one another. (This is why Batman versus Captain America debates can’t reach a conclusion.) Superman-level heroes may demand some tribute from his inferiors but not enough to rule America effectively. Think of all the local law enforcement officers, and the legal courts. He may form a competing IRS, but not a department of agriculture. Human governments are terribly vulnerable and, as noted above, will very likely pay not to have Mount Rushmore dropped in Boston Harbor.

However, a dynasty depends upon stable relations. Charlemagne led Europe to ‘unity’ under the Christian banner. But, not only did his sons decide to divide it into personal realms, they lacked the charisma to compel their subordinates to the same extent that their father did. (That demands qualifiers, but not for the scope of this post.) Gamma girl will then be the granddaughter of Alex the Great, whose child(ren?) will bicker after his death to our heroine’s chagrin. Very probably, I will construct a tragedy. She is foolish and terrifying but happened to be around when America sloughed off a more manageable liability. Or, I could descend into stereotype and have her confront the paucity of her parent’s virtue and agree to aid the rebels. That is so trite I can’t say it without hoping she acts as a double agent to stab at the rival that fronted the rebellion. It’s an option.

The third environ I see avoids the organic fantastic for technological marvel. Several have considered the unemployment of vigilantes in a utopian society. The First World’s wealthy members would save themselves from age and then let the technology trickle down enough that criminals would focus on illegal activities that can’t be stopped by hyperspeed or what have you. Perhaps gamma girl ventures to Ethiopia to set up shop there. That enables either the Man Who would be King or Superman’s Peace on Earth plots. Or, she could stay within Jetsonville and peddle her power, provided it has a useful application. Consider a child who can exclusively see in the gamma spectrum. We would consider her permanently blind, but more aware future people might sense the correlation. She then helps decommission the aging uranium reactors, or hunts down the Libyan nuclear program. That sounds like a mushy story though.

If I had written this in my journal I may have thought of more options since I can write faster and less self-consciously than I type. Nevertheless, with such a tight deadline, there isn’t time for more brainstorming. I will probably choose one of those three to develop and dialog out.

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