Fantastic Four First Steps and Why YOUR Story Matters

 

Those who have read my previous posts may recall that I’m a long-time comic book nerd. As, in “begged for a Spider-Man comic before I could even read,” comic-book nerd. With that established, it should come as a surprise to no one that I attended a showing of Matt Shakman’s The Fantastic Four: First Steps on opening weekend. 

Marvel’s First Family, Jack Kirby's art/influence

The story of four individuals, (Reed Richards, Sue Storm, Johnny Storm, and Ben Grimm)  forever changed by exposure to cosmic energy during a spaceflight, The Fantastic Four comic-book (here on, FF) debuted in 1967. The book represented an optimistic belief that humanity could think its way out of any challenge, The book also identified a key component to civil/societal advancement: family. 

Love at first sight.

It’s a great message but it wasn’t what first drew my attention to the title. Nine-year-old me was blown away by FF #200 and Doctor Doom, (with a passing resemblance to Darth Vader) going toe-to-toe with Reed Richards, (stretchy guy in blue). I had seen the title before as well as the old Hanna-Barberra cartoon series. But issue #200 was the one that caught my eye. 

Exciting, with a scary villain. The action and resolution made sense. All rare things in comic book land. But there was something missing…

Her accomplishment, still has to praise husband ~sigh~

Invisible who?

Comic books have always been imperfect and FF was very much an imperfect title of its time. Nowhere was this more evident than Sue Storm’s Invisible Girl (more on that). 

Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, gave Sue/IG short shrift. Much like other early Marvel heroines, The Wasp and Marvel Girl, The Invisible Girl was often written as the imperiled sidekick, or the imperiled weak-link, or imperiled romantic-interest.

Unfortunately, this (women as plot device) was par for the course at the time. And it remained that way for almost twenty years. When Sue stepped beyond the role of Reed Richards cheerleader or FF den mother, it was not through agency but through beauty. 

It was either Sue or dude in the toga

Sue did stop Galactus, (literally eats planets)...by turning Galactus’ love-struck herald, The Silver Surfer, against big G. When Namor, (the big-bad from Wakanda Forever) decides on war against the surface world, he first kidnaps Sue and then spends the next two decades trying to woo her. Dude really has odd ideas about courtship.

Sue, exercising her agency

But times change. Sales changes a lot more and much faster.

Disinclined to acquiesce to be imperilled 

The X-Men comic book predates the FF by about four years. Unlike Marvel’s First Family, the X-Men struggled, was even cancelled and ultimately resurrected to shaky results. Then a new writer took over. 

Chris Claremont had entirely different ideas about what comic books—and female characters—should be about. He punched up the female characters, gave them agency, (ideas, goals, fears, independent of men). As a result, in the course of about three years, The X-Men went from one of Marvel’s lowest-selling titles to the single most successful title in Marvel’s history.

And just in time, too

As cable television and video game consoles became more prevalent, (male) comic book readership declined. But female readership climbed. Women saved The X-Men and women saved comic books—especially as more women began to write comic books. 

Which brings us back to Sue Storm in the movie. Screen writer Kat Wood, (et al) wrote a fully realized woman. Here, Sue is introduced as a scientist. She negotiates a peace treaty with a subterranean nation. Even addresses the UN General Assembly. Yes, she loves her husband and her family but she is more than wife, sister, and mother. She is a thinker and a problem solver, a nurturing peacemaker, and a valiant fighter.

Like. A. BOSS.

Most importantly, Sue stands up to her husband as readily as she stands up to the villain. And by the time they get around to dealing with Galactus, Sue is good and over Reed and his sh—super intellect driven, near-pathological anxiety. 

Sue takes charge of the battle plan and the unimaginable risk. And like the strongest heroes, she offers her very life for those she loves. For all that she loves.

This is why your story matters: perspective, experience, and imagination, beyond what has gone before. The damsel who saves herself, (Aria Stark in George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones series) the boss baddie who saves herself and the guy, (Inej in Leigh Bardugo’s GrishaVerse) and the woman of courage and integrity who stands on her own intellect, (Gaal in David Goyer and Josh Friedman’s Foundation)—we all want, NEED, those stories. 

When you infuse the story with your dreams, fears, and insight, you give one of those 6 or 7 stories evolved life. Best of all, you give someone who needs that story a chance of seeing themselves in strength and light. That is what the best stories do. 

The Fantastic Four: First Steps is a lot of fun whether you’re a fan of the comic books or not. I can’t wait to see it again. 

Check it out.

I own none of the photos above. All are used for instructional/educational purposes, as covered by the Fair Use Doctrine.

From Where? Regional Bias and Character Establishment

 

In celebration of March Madness, Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon debuted a witty little rap recognizing 15 teams in the “Sweet 16.” You read that right, 15 teams in the “Sweet 16.” Even incorporated 15 team mascots. In the “Sweet 16.” If you doubt me, you can see it here.

Really, it's not that surprising. See, the 16th team is the University of Houston Cougars and this omission of recognition is not an isolated incident for my beloved city. 

The Houston Comets, (RIP) professional women’s basketball team, won the first WNBA championship. It’s like they didn’t even exist nationally. Perpetual underdogs, the Houston Rockets won back-to-back championships and it took (local) media outrage to compel Sports Illustrated to publish a championship edition—that was only sold in this market. The Houston Astros have won two World Series. Crickets

Sam Houston, the first hater. 

The fourth largest city in America, Houston is more diverse than Los Angeles and NYC, (Migration Policy Institute, 2023). We had the first out-lesbian mayor in the nation. But that’s not what we’re known for. Not our college communities, (we have five universities and over 40 colleges) or diverse employment opportunities, nor sports teams, either.  

See, for most outsiders, (means “me”) if you say “Michigan,” they/I think “Detroit.” Nevada is Las Vegas. New York is the five boroughs. Conversely, if you say “Dallas,” or “Austin,” or ~sigh~ “Houston,” most outsiders hear one thing: TEXAS. 

Only (ever) a selling point in Texas.

It might be the weather: hot with brief periods of freezing or drowning. It might be the time difference. You set your watch back 25 years when you come here. It might be our geography: far. We’re far from everywhere. Bands on world-wide tours, skip us. Regularly.

It may be our economy, largely built on beef and oil, injustice and exploitation. But mostly, it’s just Texas. We're really hard to love, especially by folks who entertain critical or self-reflective thought.

What’s this have to do with writing?

Regional biases can round out your protagonist/antagonist personality and character. There’s a long tradition of regional “attitudes” fleshing out a character. 

"Do I look like I'm from Reseda?"

Every dramatization of playwright, poet, and duelist, Savinien de Cyrano de Bergerac—from Rostand’s play to every successive film—has depicted Cyrano as a gregarious, boisterous, and pugnacious Gascon. Gascons, (closer to the Basques than the Parisians) were the “'bamas” (bumpkins, hicks, yokels) of France. It really "butches up" the world’s most famous unrequited lover.

Yet, in the greatest of writing traditions, Rostand stole the idea of the head-strong, fearless, (and guileless) Gascon.

Yep, 'bama...

Alexandre Dumas first used the 'bama-hero for his do-right man, d’Artagnan, the world’s most famous musketeer. He is the mold for generations of heroes born of meager—but proud, ig’nant, strong, dumb, I can go on—beginnings who stand up to the sophisticated but ultimately corrupt villains. 

Maybe it's just about hats...

Raylan Givens, Elmore Leonard’s U.S. Marshal from the mountains of Kentucky is a contemporary example. If you’ve never been to the mountains and valleys (hollers) you still have an idea of the folk who live there from other books and movies. Same when Hannibal Lecter tells Clarice Starling (and I paraphrase, badly) “Good nutrition has given you some length of bone…And that accent that you’ve tried so hard to shed? That’s pure West Virginia.”

The mountain people of the eastern United States are known as recalcitrant nonconformists. They are the spiritual descendants of the afore-mentioned Basques and closer to the indomitable Spartans than the southern colonels and dixie princes. Most are descendents of the Scots-Irish dispossessed. These points of origin lend a gritty toughness as well as a baked-in backstory of desperation with minimal exposition.

But why should the good guys have all the fun? 

W.A.S.P.  (noun)  an acronym which stands for White Anglo Saxon Protestant. Considered the first enduring colonists of the north-eastern United States. Most commonly associated with New England.

Also, almost immediately a villain. Why? Oh, regional-specific terms like “old money,” and “triangle money,” and "prep-school." Kidding! Mostly...

Then there’s the middling-guys. Not good, not bad, just meh-guys. You want to paint a picture of them with just a few strokes? Give them a point-of-origin identity.

Shoes instead of hats

There is however, a thin line between cultural identities and stereotypes.

For several hundred years, the (penny-pinching) Scot and the (ignorant/lazy/dishonest) Irish were the ne’er-do-well butt of most English jokes. The same stereotypes were assigned to the Jews of Europe and the Russian Empire.

For several decades it was the (dumb) Polish in the north-eastern U.S. (as well as a certain Tennessee Williams' play) the cajuns in Louisiana, the Aggies (and Mexicans and Blacks and...) in Texas, and the Texans everywhere else. 

We’re the perpetual 'bamas and every year, in ways large and small, we perpetuate the stereotype. 

But please remember, in all instances, we’re dealing with living breathing people. If you find yourself slipping into invective or hurtful stereotypes, just remember the Cougars. 

A whole team of hard-playing, kids from all over the country entered into the NCAA’s March Madness in University of Houston Cougar jerseys. They made it all the way to the end. For their trouble, the national press only mentioned them in reference to the Florida Gators—who defeated them in the championship final. 

Shasta stating facts

I own none of the photos here. All are used for instructional/educational purposes as covered by the Fair Use Doctrine.

Writing the Girlfriend of Color

 

More reality than the leading costume drama

Around 2009-ish, I was in a critique group with the late-great Roger Paulding. Roger was an excellent writing coach—well-read, true ear for multiple genres, no nonsense crits—and a damned-good writer.

Usually...

On this particular night, he decided to grace us with a chapter from a thriller in progress. I’ll spare you the play-by-play and cut straight to business. 

The protagonist was an FBI agent recovering from surgery. So far, so good. Another FBI agent provided care, disguised as a nurse, either to provide close protection or surveillance of the protag. A little fuzzy but still functional. 

The protag was a white male, stoic, focused, professional—the character you’ve seen in 80% of movies/books written. The agent/nurse was an African American woman and written to be a romantic interest for the protag.

I’ve been in a mixed-marriage for something-something years and seldom see depictions of couples like us, so this got my attention.

Then it got awful

Roger wrote Agent Nurse as teenage-smitten for the protagonist. Like 2500 words of internal dialogue about how attractive he is, how would her mother react if she only knew that Agent Nurse was attracted to a white man, (if not apparent, I'm editing heavily) and basically everything but "is that an erection or am I just excited by antiseptic and hospital corners?" He also liberally sprinkled-in slang and dialect for long-lasting offense.

When he finished reading, we all sat stunned. Normally the first to charge in amid a flurry blue-ink markups, I kept my yap shut. When the critiques finally started, the comments were “I liked your use of punctuation,” reticent. But Roger knew my relationship dynamic and wanted my feedback. 

Then it got hostile

I began with the indisputable truth: he could write better than this. Agent Nurse was 2-dimensional and like a white guy's idea of how a black woman would speak. Once I started, I was unable to get my mouth back on the leash. I further said the logic did not track on any story level: dramatic, comedic, or pornographic. The depiction was, in fact, offensive in the way it wastes the readers’ time.

Afterwards, (as in after I was invited to leave) I realized that really, this is the way a lot of interracial relationships are written. If written at all, they are shoehorned in as gimmick or simply to shock. And then I filed the whole experience away, under “I,” for “I think it’s time to give this crit group a break.”

Last year, I found Onjuli Datta’s excellent essay, Writing the White Boyfriend. Datta succinctly summarizes the dawning of interracial romances as a subgenre. She then illustrates “the white boyfriend” as the author’s favorite novel trope for exploring the delight in differences. 

Datta reminded me of the crit group and all the things I was too angry to articulate about Roger’s fu—mbled up chapter.

But I digress. Onjuli Datta’s essay is as thoughtful as it is brief. If I search to find a criticism, it’s just a little too polite but it’s not her fault. 

This touchy business

In 1968, groundbreaking series, Star Trek, made history with the episode, Plato’s Stepchildren, which featured American television’s first interracial kiss between Captain Kirk and Lt. Uhura. To this day, William Shatner, (Captain Kirk) qualifies that his lips never touched Nichelle Nicols' lips. That’s how deep racism and racial injustice goes—a white, jewish actor from Canada STILL feels the need to specify that his lips never touched a black woman’s.

I’d like to say we advanced beyond these petty prejudices but the whole point of this piece is honesty and knowing better to write better.

Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea, (published in 1967) is a prequel to Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, (published in 1847). WSS tells the story of Rochester’s first wife, Antoinette. Rochester’s creole wife. Who ends up sold into marriage, stolen from her island home, and locked in Rochester’s attic while he woos, the white-on-white-in-white governess, Jane. 

Somebody gotta die…

So, yeah, Antoinette, (Bertha in JE) ends up dead in a house fire that she, (allegedly) starts. Rochester claims she was mad. Personally, I think she was good and fed-up with Rochester and his moldy-ass house.   

Roger wasn't grown enough to write this relationship

Either way, people weren’t ready then, (they’re barely ready now) for a white-man-woman-of-color romantic story. Films make the best record. In Boris Sagal’s film, The Omega Man, (1971) it’s Charlton Heston’s Neville. In the James Bond film Live and Let Die, (1973) it’s Gloria Hendry’s Carver. In Joss Whedon’s Serenity (2005) it’s Alan Tudyk’s Wash. But the result is the same—if it’s an interracial relationship one of them is gonna die.

They both live but...yikes he was creepy even then.

The thing is, most of the examples I cite, (Serenity being the exception) do not represent healthy relationships or fully formed characters. Most were written by WHITE dudes and they don’t want real women. They want platforms for their message, or vessels for their fetish, or in the case of Bond, a trend of the moment with a reassuring splash of colonialism and misogyny. 

Good fiction requires some honesty. That honesty requires a clear-eyed approach to characterizations—the good, the bad, and the embarrassing. 

But there’s no ignoring what’s gone before

Centuries of prejudice and racial injustice is the single largest obstacle to writing a responsible depiction of interracial relationships. However it is not the writer’s job, (capability?) to redress history. The writer’s job is to tell a story, honestly and responsibly. Ideally, it should be entertaining, as well. None that is possible without an engaging, fully formed woman.

So, who does it right?

Write her well—the rest falls in place

In 2015’s Bend it Like Beckham, Jess (Parmender Nagra) LOVES football, which is denied to her by her strict Sikh family. She develops feelings for (white) football coach, Joe, (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) as you do. Jess has goals, fears, and hopes—all independent of Joe. 

Sure, call her the "girlfriend," I dare you.

In James S.A. Corey’s Leviathan Wakes, (and the television The Expanse) Naomi Nagata, has goals, (self-rule and full rights for her people) hopes, (an end of hostilities perpetuated by Earth and Mars) and fears, (that her past activities with a separatist group will be outed)—all before she ever meets James Holdin.  

If not readily apparent, both women also have flaws. Rather than be honest with her parents, Jess sneaks around and lies, straining all of her relationships, (aka acts like a teen). As a former agent of a violent separatist group, Naomi has done much worse. Her subterfuge puts herself and her crew-mates in mortal danger. 

Both women also have strengths. Jess is loyal to her friends, (covering for one who is gay) and family. She subverts what she wants for the sake of her sister's impending nuptials. And she matures enough to come clean with her family.

Naomi is also loyal to her friends—and not just to the tall, lanky, good-looking friends. She is sisterly to Amos, the psychopath, and to her former OPA mentor. She is brave and doesn't back down. Mostly, though, she is smart. A mechanic turned engineer, she keeps their ship in the air.

Write people, not characters—and certainly not stereotypes

Worry less about looks and more about content of character. Identify the person you want to write to yourself first. Instead of relying on sit-coms or even rom-coms for reference, write a bio. Of course, 90% of what you write about this woman will never be seen by the reader but it will help you zero-in on the person, their wants, needs, and fears. If you're successful, you will want to spend ten-or-so hours (the time it takes to read the average novel) with them and then write their part of the relationship, honest and relatable.

Side note: never, ever use food as a skin-tone descriptive. It's objectifying. Yeah, yeah, you have a friend who doesn't mind. Guess what, a lot more people do mind and they don't know you.

Relevant, non-offensive skin-tone descriptions. 

Differences are to be celebrated

If you believe it they will live it

The person who says “I don’t see color,” or “color doesn’t matter to me” has the privilege of not being on the receiving end of prejudice with power. They’re also lazy and refuse to deal with their shit in the context of a larger world. Don’t be that writer. Embrace your person’s individuality, neither as gimmick nor gag but as an individual.

Nobody gets a “pass”

No racist-banter. No slang. And I don’t care how many Eddie Murphy movies, Chris Rock stand-up routines , or Quentin Tarantino artistic-license explanations you’ve seen—use racist invectives, in ANY context, at your own peril. 

Who wouldn't want to live in their world— or write it?

Write actual people talking, arguing, getting to know each other, getting rude with each other, and falling in love with each other. 

In her article, Onjuli Datta refers to the honesty of writers, (almost all women) when crafting the white boyfriend, their flaws and characteristics. She also writes of the reversal, (that isn’t quite reversed) of the exoticism/fetishism from earlier books with white male leads falling for a beauty of another color/culture. Write vibrant. Write clear. Don’t backtrack.

Check out Onjuli Datta's article, here.

I own none of the images here. All are used for educational/instructional purposes, as covered by the Fair Use Doctrine.