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A 'Mazing Comic II: Dramatis Personae
posted Thursday, 1 March 2007
Continuing my look at my favourite childhood comic book, it's time to get to know the other characters who make up a signficant part of the 'Mazingverse.
I've mentioned in previous posts that my favourite works of fiction, regardless of the medium, are ones that attempt to maintain emotional versimilitude without denying the creative possibilites inherent in that which springs forth from the human imagination. Looking back I think that the work of Bob Rozakis and Stephen DeStefano on 'Mazing Man helped me to develop this strong personal preference. At its core the comic is centered around two implausible characters, a man who looks like a dog and a four foot-tall costumed crimefighter whose only superpower is his unbreakable optimistic spirit, but rather than use this as an excuse to tell traditionally hyperbolic stories a la Howard the Duck or the Ma Hunkel Red Tornado, they are presented as slightly odd characters in a profoundly normal world.
In the first story Maze's act of heroism is portrayed as a truly amazing feat. It's the most heroic thing he will ever do in the entire series (and presumably his entire life), but--by the standards of most comics--it's a trivial accomplishment, something the hero would do while on their way to something far more dangerous and important. Knowing this the reader finds themself admiring Maze at the same time they find him sad and pathetic, but his pathos is really nothing more than our own sad realization that we live in a world without gods and that acts of true heroism do not require powerful aliens or brilliant billionaires, just the will of those with nothing more than the ability to do the right thing at the right time.
One could say that the 'Mazingverse is closer in spirit to the one found in Marvel comics than that of its own publisher. It is set in New York, rather than Gotham or Metropolis (if the series had been published before the famous 1985 Crisis on Infinite Earths
, it would have likely been set on Earth-Prime, but is instead merely set on an Earth explicitly out of the normal DC continuity), but the series lacks the neuroses and high-drama that has always belied Marvel's "realistic" pretensions. It is, in the end, just a bit more than what its editor, Alan Gold, claimed it was in the description of the book's genesis that appears between its two stories: "...a superior sit-com with a tight ensemble of players, in newsprint." And if it is to be thought of as such, one has to imagine it as being a work far closer to those "sit-coms" that weren't afraid to go beyond the sphere of traditional one-liners and were willing to produce episodes that resonated far more deeply than their on-air peers (off the top of my head I'm thinking of such shows as Sports Night, M*A*S*H
, Family Ties
, Scrubs
and Taxi) and like those shows one of the key aspects that allowed the 'Mazingverse to become far more than what its surface would suggest was a collection of secondary characters who added depth rather than simple density to the world it presented us with.
, it would have likely been set on Earth-Prime, but is instead merely set on an Earth explicitly out of the normal DC continuity), but the series lacks the neuroses and high-drama that has always belied Marvel's "realistic" pretensions. It is, in the end, just a bit more than what its editor, Alan Gold, claimed it was in the description of the book's genesis that appears between its two stories: "...a superior sit-com with a tight ensemble of players, in newsprint." And if it is to be thought of as such, one has to imagine it as being a work far closer to those "sit-coms" that weren't afraid to go beyond the sphere of traditional one-liners and were willing to produce episodes that resonated far more deeply than their on-air peers (off the top of my head I'm thinking of such shows as Sports Night, M*A*S*H, Family Ties, Scrubs and Taxi) and like those shows one of the key aspects that allowed the 'Mazingverse to become far more than what its surface would suggest was a collection of secondary characters who added depth rather than simple density to the world it presented us with.If you look closely at the supporting characters in any of the shows I've mentioned above, you'll find people who at first glance resemble nothing more than traditional TV cliches, and chances are that's what many of them were in the very beginning, but with good writing they grew beyond their stereotypical origins and became deeply-layered, intriguing human beings whose presence in the series ultimately became as important as that of the main character(s). At first sight the characters presented in 'Mazing Man #1's second story might seem like they were chosen out of a handy cabinet of stock personalities (the jerky narcissist, the horny divorcee, the fading jock and homecoming queen forced to deal with the realities of life and marriage), but by the series' end they will all have grown far beyond their initial roles (except perhaps for the jerky narcissist, who--much like his real life counterparts--never had any layers to uncover in the first place).
In order of appearance, they are:
The Jerky Narcissist
The Horny Divorcee
And the Fading Jock and his Beautiful Bride
Despite introducing all four characters, the story's narrative ends up focusing solely on Eddie and Brenda, who get into an argument when she gets home and discovers that he has invited Denton and Maze over for dinner:
Having failed to reach their unwanted guests by phone (wasn't the world just so goshdarn quaint before cellular technology?) Brenda asks her husband how it was that "Captain Cuckoo" (as she dismissively, if affectionately, refers to Maze) first came into their lives. Eddie doesn't have an answer for her, but he does remember the day the mini crimefighter once (at Denton's urging) showed up to open an account at the bank where he works. It is in the flashback of this memory that we get all of the information about how Denton and Maze came to be friends that the series will ever provide:
While Eddie relives the uncomfortable encounter in his mind, Brenda is annoyed to find a pair of his sneakers in the kitchen sink. Ignoring his pleas that they are a "lucky pair" she throws them out of a window, which prompts him to move towards her with a threat of a spanking. But before he can make good on his threat, he trips and falls:
And on the floor all of their anger is forgotten:
And though their loving truce is quickly interrupted, it's okay, because--as is his custom--Maze is there to save the day:
I'll end it here for now. Next week I'll take a look at the second issue of 'Mazing Man, which provides an ingenious reason for Maze's ability to support himself without employment and shows Denton applying for the job he'll have for the rest of the series.
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