Fantastic Metropolis

Zipless books from 2003: books that I fell into with no resistance, no barriers, no spectacle-polishing. The fact that there are so few reflects the constraints on my reading time, not any scarcity of excellent books.

Cigar-Box Faust and Other Miniatures, Michael Swanwick

(Tachyon Publications, 2003)

To read this collection of tiny stories is to have a series of unusually personal interactions with the storyteller. In each story, the author seems to be completely at your disposal, with no goal other than your amusement. The barrier of the book disappears.

Novels, even the most compelling, can be impersonal—the author may be distant, and the characters usually feel the wrath of people and forces that do not have their best interests at heart. Short stories, too, have their own agendas—they have tales to tell, they have business to transact. Even a coherent sequence of short-shorts, such as Swanwick’s The Sleep of Reason or The Periodic Table, has responsibilities and ambitions outside of keeping you, personally, entertained. Cigar-Box Faust, however, has no ulterior motive, no evident career plan.

Reading it is the adult equivalent of having your dad tell you stories in which the main character has your name. Each story speaks directly to you, its ideal reader. Some were written specifically to amuse Swanwick’s wife, or son, or favorite editors, and these happy origins may contribute to the effect. It’s not a children’s book—there’s no sugar here, rather, an intoxicating, slightly tart, effervescence.

Here’s how it works:

Swanwick lays down a sentence. It’s short, it’s punchy, it promises a pay-off. You read it, smile, nod, and move on to the next sentence. That one pays off the sentence before it, and promises an even better payoff if you move on to the one following. You do so, collect the even-better payoff as promised, and continue to be led through the story by increasing promises and even more rewarding payoffs. Very quickly, you come to the end of the story, because it’s very short. You have both hands full: felicities, surprises, bon-mots, witticisms, epiphanies, goodies of every description. But, alas, it’s over.

Oh, look: there’s another story right after it. Can Swanwick do it again? Yes, he can.

Captain America: The Truth, Robert Morales and Kyle Baker

(DC Comics, 7-part series, November 2002-June 2003)

(Graphic novel will be out in February, 2004)

The Truth gives Captain America, the World War II Marvel superhero, a generous dose of reality. What if, it asks, the serum that turned blonde, blue-eyed Steve Rogers into a superman was tested first on black soldiers? What if the first Captain America was black, and the success of the second was built on exploitation of the first? The series opens with a evocative glimpse of the black urban experience in 1941, then follows a handful of soldiers, men from diverse backgrounds, who have been conscripted—they are not volunteers—into the superman experiment. The story emphasizes the subjection of black soldiers in World War II, and recalls the notorious Tuskegee experiment, conducted from 1932 to 1972. When we are reminded, later in the series, that the Nazis were worse than the Americans, it comes as a bit of a surprise.

Conceived at Marvel, which chose to make this a part of the Captain America continuity (making it officially part of the story, rather than publishing it as part of their alternate-history Ultimate series), this seven-part series was written and drawn by the sophisticated writer/artist team of Robert Morales and Kyle Baker, whose daring, trenchantly political collaborations first appeared in Vibe nearly a decade ago. Morales has a razor wit, a superb ear for dialog, and a genius for ironic juxtaposition. Baker, himself a witty writer and a versatile illustrator, designed and drew the series with a deceptively comic line, and a use of form and color that brings to mind Jacob Lawrence and Paul Gauguin.

Without the candy colors, the story might be unbearable: almost nothing done by the government or the military or the soldiers themselves springs from worthy motives. Most of what happens in the world of the story, as in the world of the 20th century, is horrific. The effect of racism is pervasive and toxic, and the overwhelming impression of the series is of the lives wasted—crumpled and thrown away—due to its effects. The ending embodies a quick, poignant visual tour of the last quarter century of black achievement in the U.S., and a tribute to the resilience, humor, and intelligence of black women.

Marvel was wise in their choice of Morales and Baker to write this story. There is a rich and ironic resonance to every creative decision the storytellers made, and the flood of detail defies easy interpretation. The white Captain America, in a framing story, apparently gives the aghast white reader a safe place to stand while viewing the carnage. Since white Cap had no idea what was going on, and has been in suspended imagination for fifty years, he must be innocent, right? So: exactly how many Americans have spent half a century asleep and oblivious?

This is a comic book: it’s an easy read. You just keep turning the pages, and The Truth leaps out at you.