Nick Spencer & the Poorly-Paced Mystery (Part 2 of 2)

Part 1 of this column can be found 4 entries below, or jumped to here.

When Morning Glories starts out, it seems like it's going to be an awesome supernatural mystery. But it provides too few clues, and slowly at that, so it becomes overbearing with its questions as time goes on. In some ways, T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents and Ultimate Comics X-Men suffer from the opposite problem. What appear at first to be pretty standard superhero adventure series quickly overwhelm their readers with too much new information too often. Any time an interesting thread is introduced, it is then quickly set aside in favor of some fresh character or concept, and so nothing gets explored or explained satisfactorily. Unlike Morning Glories, Spencer actually manages to complete some of the narratives he begins in these other two titles, but often in ways that undermine whatever made the stories interesting in the first place.
     In T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, the problem is primarily one of trust. Double-double-crosses, sides we didn't even know existed, dead characters who aren't really dead...pretty much every single issue of T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents contains at least one reveal that undoes or contradicts something previously (and sometimes only recently) established as true. The twists never stop, and you begin to expect them, not due to any well-placed hints, but merely because the plot relies on them to move forward. It's one thing to have a book that keeps its audience guessing, but when you give the readers nothing to hold on to, nothing we know to be definitively true, right down to which characters we are supposed to be rooting for...what are we even reading? Why are we reading? Again, I wouldn't mind as much if it didn't happen so damn often, but we never get to catch our breath between gasp moments, and the overall effect is less having the rug pulled out from under us and more lying on the rug and rolling around aimlessly.
     Then in the final two issues, Spencer undoes the entire concept behind T.H.U.N.D.E.R.: that its agents give their lives in exchange for their powers. And, again, why does he do this? What purpose does it serve other than to make one more thing into a lie? Toby and Dunn are still dead, and those are the characters we actually got to know, aside from Colleen. Having Dynamo and Lightning living under assumed aliases does nothing for me, except cheapen the promise I was given when this title started that these men were going to sacrifice themselves for a cause.
     The possible exceptions to this rule of a steady stream of misinformation are the four issues that tell the Iron Maiden story, but they have a pacing-related problem all their own. Which is that, basically, they should be combined into one well-written issue, rather than stretched needlessly over four. None of the five-page back-up stories give us any information we didn't already have, nor do they paint a particularly vivid or compelling image of the original Dynamo or Iron Maiden. And the main narrative could lose pages upon pages of uninteresting fight scenes, chase scenes, and vegetable chopping scenes. Not even sure anything in issue #7 is all that important. So while there may not be a lot of big reveals in those issues, it's mostly because there's just not a lot of anything there.
     Ultimate Comics X-Men lies somewhere in the middle of the Morning Glories-T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents spectrum. There is definitely an overarching mystery that is taking a frustratingly long time to develop (MG's), having to do with all these supposedly dead characters (TA) returning and doling out pseudo-religious missions. We've seen three of them now---Stryker, Xavier, Magneto---but still have no sense of what they are, what they want, who controls them, how, or why (MG's). But what's even more annoying is that rather than stretch out that mystery only, Spencer switches his focus to entirely new casts and locations (TA), so that there have now been three consecutive issues which, as far as I can tell, don't touch on this mystery whatsoever. So in addition to having to remember all the dead people stuff that came before, there's this whole Camp Angel business as well as Jean Grey/Karen Grant's totally unclear role and motive in Tian. Man, that Karen Grant issue (#8) is an example of Ultimate Comics X-Men swinging way over to the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. side of things. Seriously, what am I meant to believe about her and what should I think is a lie? Because I don't know, and Spencer hasn't brought it up since. And the man only has two issues left before a new writer takes the helm, so my hopes are not high to have all the threads tied up before his term on the title ends.
     Most disappointing is that it took a while for Ultimate Comics X-Men to really fall victim to Spencer's pacing and lack of focus. By the time Professor X took up the entire last page of #6, though, things had really started to slip, and it's only gotten messier.
     What all three series have in common is this: at the end of the day, I'm just not sure what they are about. Ultimate Comics X-Men seems to be about a whole new thing as often as it feels like. Sure, there's the idea that mutants are a government mistake that has more or less been holding things together, but there's no emotional core or even protagonist, yet, and if you can't find that in ten issues then why would you expect it to ever develop? T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents definitely tells a complete story by the end, putting all the characters thorough their own personalized trials and changes, but it sort of feels like it ended up being about Toby, Colleen, and the Menthor helmet. Which I don't know how I feel about, since Colleen is a big fat liar, Toby's dead, and the Menthor helmet is one of the most ridiculous and vague concepts I've ever had the pleasure of trying to understand. Then there's Morning Glories which, in one more issue than the entirety of T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, has yet be about anything other than a weird school with weird people doing random strange and violent shit for unknown reasons.
     Nick Spencer is not a bad writer. His characters are usually quite rich, his dialogue full of humanity and humor, and his ideas are often bold and big and bright. But he can't seem to get the reins on them, for one reason or another, and his writing is worse for it. If he could see the difference between having readers be confused and surprised and having them be genuinely interested in or impressed by a story, I think his work might greatly improve. But of course, he already has my money, and the money of so many others, so there can't be much incentive to change.
     Then again, T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents has ended, Spencer is soon departing Ultimate Comics X-Men, and Morning Glories concludes its current arc next issue. Perhaps there's never been a better time to give up Nick Spencer for good...

Nick Spencer & the Poorly-Paced Mystery (Part 1 of 2)

I want to like Nick Spencer more than I actually like him. The pitches for his series tend to hook me, but more often than not I find myself disappointed by the actual thing. Now, Spencer hasn't been around all that long, and I haven't read everything he's ever written, so maybe it's too early for me to generalize like that (or to generalize in the ways I'm about to). But I have read all of his work on of Morning Glories, T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, and Ultimate Comics X-Men, and those are the titles I want to talk about here. On the surface they seem pretty distinct and disparate. The first is a creator-owned series from Image, the second a reboot of a classic DC superhero/spy series, and the third a major title from Marvel's Ultimate Universe. But I found all three to be equally frustrating letdowns, and when I examine them together, the reason becomes clear: Nick Spencer has terrible pacing. Not just because he dramatically decompresses his narratives, which he does, but so do many other writers to varying degrees of success. Spencer's problem is that even while slow-cooking his stories, he can't stop himself from constantly adding new ingredients, and the result is a dish with so many combating and confounding flavors that you can't tell what it was supposed to be in the first place. In their own ways and for their own reasons, all three of the above-mentioned comicbooks suffer from this problem, but the clearest and most aggravating example is Morning Glories, Spencer's own creation.
     In its very first issue, Morning Glories doesn't seem like it's going to be the infuriatingly slow, muddled story it has since become. We actually get a whole lot in that initial installment: we meet our six protagonists and get clear, succinct introductions to their personalities; we learn that Morning Glory Academy is full of evil and lies and has an unseen Headmaster behind the wheel; we see that weird giant spinning thing for the first time; and we discover that the school is looking for a particular kind of child (also born on a certain day) and that anyone who doesn't fit the bill---"The boy's not one of them," says Gribbs---is expendable. We also end up with a vast list of questions, like, what does "For A Better Future" mean? What was happening on the first page? What, exactly, does the school want from these kids? Who's that ghost-looking guy and why'd he kill somebody? What is the giant spinning thing? Are Casey's parents really dead? And why? And how could the school get away with that? In fact, how does it get away with ANY of this while simultaneously being so reputable?
    The problem is, not only have none of these questions been answered, but virtually every issue that's followed has served only to pile on the confusion and mystery. So now we're seventeen issues deep, and still have little to no understanding of the school's purpose or goals. Meanwhile, the six main characters who seemed so familiar at first have each been given their own twists and revelations, shrouding them now in uncertainty. Hunter has a problem telling time when it matters, but the significance of him always seeing 8:13 is unknown. Zoe's a murderer, but we can't tell if she's aware of it. Casey went back in time somehow and is going to do something to save everyone, maybe. Jun is actually his own twin and the school doesn't know about it. Jade can talk to herself from the future, apparently. Ike killed but also didn't kill his dad who is also Abraham. And yes, all of that is pretty cool...but what does any of it mean? Why do I care? Couldn't these seemingly disconnected facts about the characters be greatly enhanced by telling us why they matter? At all?
     It's an awful lot of story space to use up without shedding any light on what's really going on, and it makes it extremely difficult to keep track of the innumerable tiny but supposedly significant hints Spencer drops along the way. Like the nine random images flashed before Casey and the reader's eyes in issue #13. Or the shit Hunter mutters before the explosion in #15. Or literally anything that happens in the whole of issue #6 (by far the most aggravating and unanswered chapter to date). If I were to try and list ALL of the small details provided and the big questions raised by the series so far, my fingers or my keyboard would probably break. Every plot beat is another mystery, but nothing ever gets solved.
     I understand that all of this is by design. Rather than give us a few questions, then some knowledge, then some questions, then some knowledge, Spencer chooses to bombard us with the questions first. Then, in theory, somewhere down the line there'll be a turn and suddenly we'll be showered with answers. And it is clear that Spencer does have something planned, because even though we don't know what the fuck is going on, things are confusing in a consistent way. Lots of cryptic phrases are repeated and we see characters like Abraham showing up in the lives of all our main characters, so it's evident that a destination exists. But the longer we go without so much as a snippet of what that destination might look like, all the while dealing with a steady stream of new but not helpful information, the less I care to stay on for the ride. No matter how fully-formed and fun to watch the cast may be, when the stakes of the game they are playing remain so obscure, my emotional investment and interest naturally tapers off.
     Spencer has said on more than one occasion that he imagines Morning Glories running for something like 100 issues, which means we're not even though the first twenty per cent of the overall narrative yet, so perhaps I am being impatient. And of course part of the main thrust of the story is the very fact that the kids don't know what's going on at Morning Glory Academy and are trying to figure it out before the school...does whatever it's trying to do to them. So a certain amount of the answers, I am certain, must remain secret for now out of necessity. But Spencer spends pretty much all of issue #17 in a conversation between Ike and Jade that is almost entirely recap. Then there's #12, where all we really get is the briefest of introductions to Miss Hodge---she's popular and helpful but her history and motives are just as unknown as the rest of the staff's---who then acts as a vehicle to check in for a page or two with each of our six kids, offering no new insights into any of them, just sort of reminding us who they are. And as I've said, the worst of the bunch is #6, which takes place entirely in what seems to be the future, uses almost all new characters who we haven't seen since, and devotes its entire last page to a splash image that is an obvious, meaningless dud of a reveal. Even if you have 2,200 pages to work with, that is a waste of space.
     So Morning Glories trudges along, inch by baffling inch.

Next time: The more enjoyable but just-as-annoyingly-paced T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents and Ultimate Comics X-Men