Looking back on Seven Soldiers (Part Four)

(For the previous parts, click here, here and here.)


Zatanna

Zatanna is pretty down. So down she has to join a therapy group and explain her problems: She's addicted to spellcasting, has a low self esteem and can't do magic anymore.
Reason for this is a recent traumatic experience: With some friends she went on a metaphysical journey into other dimensions to retrieve some lost books her father wrote. But only she comes back alive, since she discovers to late that some demon called "Gwydion" is after her. One she summoned herself actually three nights before in a drunken attempt to magic the man of her dreams into her bedroom. Bad idea, as it turns out. So now her friends are dead, and Zatanna is not only feeling guilty, but Gwydion is still out there somewhere, waiting for his next strike. Let's hope the therapy group is worth the money, because that's no doubt a hell of a problem.

But Zatanna's health insurance has sent her to the right address. She is confronted by a stalker in the cute shape of teenage goth girl Misty who wants to become her apprentice. Fangirls, heh? But Misty has a convincing argument: Somehow she has aquired Zatanna's magical powers, complete with backwards-speaking and all. S'taht na reffo Annataz tonnac esufer.
With fresh determination to tackle the Gwydion situation Zatanna and Misty decide to aquire some magical weaponery from a magic shop. They're in San Francisco, so they don't have to drive far. But the demonic stalker doesn't wait till they're equipped, he attacks the shop. Our heroines manage to defeat him in a way that is not entirely clear to me, but it involves smoke and a magic mirror, a tophat, William Tell's talking crossbow bolt and some stage show misdirection. Gwydion ends up as a homunculus in a glass jar.
In issue #3 we learn that Misty is actually the stepdaughter of the Sheeda queen who, just like Snow White, was supposed to be killed by a huntsman but spared. They meet the flying horse of Justin, the Shining Knight, and ride it to the mysterious Slaughter Swamp where Zatanna is attacked by an evil sorcerer called Zor who is some sort of a nightmare version of her father. She realises she only thought she lost her powers because she lost faith in herself. And during the fight she has some otherworldly visions that help her gain both things back: She breaks the fourth wall and sees out of a typewriter seven bald guys with dark sunglasses who probably are meant to be ours truly, Mr. Grant Morrison. And she learns the missing books her father wrote were nothing else than herself, his greatest gift to the world.

So the Zatanna mini is obviously intended as a story about regaining lost self esteem. And I would say it more or less suceeds in that regard. Passing on your knowledge to an talented apprentice is not a bad way to get new insights about your mistakes and achievements and gain some maturity. And realising that the kid has a terrible secret and is something far more powerful and sad than you imagined is a suitable way to get some perspective on yourself and realise it's not all about you.
I don't think that allowing fictional characters to meet the author is a very meaningful idea. Sure, it creates the weird atmosphere of a disturbing revelation. So I guess it's suitable as a metaphor for discovering some deep hidden truth, blowing away illusion and getting to look behind the curtain. You could even say that Zatanna refuses to remain a puppet and takes her fate in her own hands. Maybe. Maybe not.
The revelation about her father's books is a bit soppy but works as well. Some sort of "the universe loves you" experience. Nothing very profound, but it gets the job done and provides an emotional climax.

But what about the story that leads up to that climax?
Issue #1 is rather strange. The therapy group at the beginning is a nice idea and continues the irreverent look on superheroes seen in the Bulleteer mini. The magical journey into the unknown does little more than reminding me that Alan Moore has done similar things much better in Promethea. And the annoying dialog demonstrates that Morrison understands a lot less about theoretical physics than he imagines.
The sudden attack of Gwydion comes out of nowhere and leaves you scratching your head if such a thing shouldn't have been foreshadowed a bit?
That has a lot to do with the problem of magic in comics in general. I admit I may be biased since I prefer magic to have well-defined rules, like in Harry Potter. Joe Quesada said in one of his Joe's Fridays interviews something about magic users being hard to relate to since they can literally pull deus ex machinas out of their top hat anytime they want. Issue #2 is a good example of that. it is rather hard to get what is going on. Is what happens right now dangerous or not? And what actually was the deal with Gwydion? All more confusing than mysterious.
So if I should summarise my opinion of the whole mini, I would say that character development is interesting, but the conflicts of the story don't support it very well.



Mister Miracle

I won't discuss Mr.Miracle. If you want you can just assume that I didn't understand it.



My Opinion

Let's move on to look at Seven Soldiers as a whole now. What glues it together are the common villains, the Sheeda.
Sure there's all that stuff about how the seven minis are connected indirectly, that Zatanna meets Justina's horse, that Klarion finds the Guardian's helmet and so on. But that is just something like a crossword puzzle for the fans. Virtuosity acts like that can be frosting on a delicious cake, but they can't replace missing story substance.

And does the story of the Sheeda have any substance?

On first glance the Sheeda seem like the cheapest, most one-dimensional villains ever created. And too much space is wasting talking about them than they could be accepted as just some backdrop for the heroes' challenge to be heroic, like Sauron in Lord of the Rings.
One interesting reveal for a short time suggests the possibilty of a more complex portrayal: That the Sheeda are from the future, they are what humanity will become at the dusk of time on a dying planet.
That obviously also means that the story includes time-travel. But time travel and the resulting paradoxons can be powerful metaphors. For example, Isaac Asimov describes in The End of Eternity an organisation of time-travelers that only exists due to a time paradoxon, which is a symbol for how forced, neurotic and unhealthy their social rules and values are.
But Morrison ignores all time-paradoxons which would result out of the Sheeda destroying past civilisations. If they would let them live, maybe the Sheeda's situation in their own time would improve? Are they digging their own grave? We never learn.

Or are the Sheeda a symbol for desperation when there seems to be no future, and how humans are inclined to give in to decadence to forget about that? So maybe we could learn something about decadence, its reasons and consequences.
The potential is there, but Morrison would have to actually USE that, by showing some Sheeda who experience emotional conflicts between their fear of the future, some remaining moral values and the sweet embrace of depravity. But he doesn't.

Do we at least get some conflict among the Sheeda, some intrigues and palace-revolutions? Some Godfather-like war among villains?
No, we get nothing.
Gloriana's step-daughter Misty was ordered to be killed long ago, and now Gloriana rules absolutely. Even the hinted conflict with her former husband goes nowhere.

Let's face it, the Sheeda are evil evil evil. Nothing more to see here.

I imagine some Morrison supporters will now claim that he probably intended them as a symbol for a negative lifestyle, that placing them at the end of time on a dying earth is also symbolic, and that we have to add the details and do the interpretation ourselves.
To that I can only reply: What the author intends and what actually ends up on the paper is not always identical. Even if I suspect some of his fans are not aware of the difference.

Here is an example of opinions like that, with additional links.

Reviews like that are desperately searching for common themes among the seven minis. Something like pointing out that all of the Soldiers have to deal with father-issues and volatileness and the benefits and dangers of change. Sure. So what? Baywatch was a story about the juxtaposition of the noble endeavour to save lives with the superficiality of bodily beauty. Just paraphrasing the story with pompous expressions won't change the content.

Let me choose a random example of a novel which not unlike Seven Soldiers lurks about halfway between entertainment and literature: Marion Zimmer Bradley's Mists of Avalon.
There we see all characters dealing with variations of a common theme: The desperate need for motherly love. The similarities allow us understand each character's struggle on a deeper level, and each story thread examines a different facet of the greater theme.
I won't claim that Mists of Avalon is great art, but it manages to provide some intelligent insights.
If Seven Soldiers was supposed to have a similar common theme, it would have to work on a much more basic level than "all characters have father issues".
For example if the Sheeda provided each Soldier with a method to gain immortality, with similar powers, temptations and prices to pay, and so each Soldier would experience a different aspect of the same conflict that made the Sheeda what they are. Then we could really speak of a deeper meaning for the whole event. But something like that is just not there.

I guess what really happened was that Morrison had ideas for a lot of minor characters, but knew those mini-series wouldn't sell without some trick. Therefore he had the idea to add the framing Sheeda plot to make us buy them all. I guess it could still have succeeded as something like an anthology, if the Sheeda plot wouldn't have been so cheap and stereotype. And if it wouldn't have eaten up so much space that it sometimes leaves no room for the (supposedly) interesting ideas he originally had.


But I don't want to end on a negative note. You probably noticed that I didn't mention yet Seven Soldiers #1, the big conclusion where all the seperate story threads merge.


Seven Soldiers #1

I have to admit that I like it. I don't really know why. It's a straightforward showdown. The bad guys get defeated without much complication or character moments. Nevertheless it has the breathless excitement of a big crisis where everything happens at once and the fate of the world hangs in balance while alarm sirens wail and every second counts as every hero is finally confronted by his own deadly nemesis.

Huge part of the appeal is J.H.Williams sensationally awesome art. He switches styles with mind-numbing virtuosity, among other things effortlessly recreating the individual look of each of the artists of the minis. But also the story works.
I think I remember Morrison said in an interview that he wanted to recreate the experience of reading your first superhero team comic as a kid where you have no idea what's going on but are awestruck nevertheless. Well, I never read superhero comics as a kid, but I think he manages that quite well here. The simple yet bombastic captions pile up sensation over sensation. Everything seems possible. Extraterrestrial gods creating the first superhero at the dawn of time! King Arthur finding their magic artefacts to conquer the earth, creating the glorious age of Camelot! Evil vampires from the future destroying our civilisation!
That's right, finally the Sheeda work. Maybe because the queen has stopped talking so much and gets her hands dirty in a bloody fight with Justina. With the pretense replaced by the naive charm of pulp monsters I can finally emotionally connect with the bad guys.

Who cares that not much actually happens? Justina fights the Sheeda queen and loses but is saved by her flying horse. Misty wants to save the day but is tricked by Klarion who plays his own careless game. I-Spyder changes sides once again and shoots the queen, who then gets finished unintentionally by Bulleteer, with some help by a spell by Zatanna. And also Frankenstein and Mr.Miracle do some stuff which I don't quite understand.
Even a goofy line like Bulleteer being the spear thrown thousands of years ago by the first superhero Aurakles finally finding its mark sounds somehow impressive in the context.
Because just like the feverish fantasy of a kid, the story fuels our imagination and makes us add the missing details ourselves. Maybe that's what it means when Zatanna breaks the fourth wall yet again and seems to directly address the reader? Or maybe not. As I said, I'm not so much into that fourth-wall-breaking stuff. Let's not get pretencious again, shall we?

Seven Soldiers #1 is an exciting escapist adventure, done in an original and innovative way. But nothing more.