Comic Consideration

"We Come From The Earth, We Return To The Earth." Harkening back to Environmental Manipulation in Module 5, zombies and ecological disasters feels very much like an extension of that subject matter. This time, however, instead of discussing how fictional forces impact and influence the environment, we are called to consider how the absence of human (and superhuman... and extraterrestrial...) intervention affects it.  In The Walking Dead , the zombie apocalypse brings about a reclamation of the earth, which has the opportunity to heal without constant abuse from humans. Animals feed upon the decaying flesh of human bodies littering the landscape. Long highways empty of cars, but not life—grasses and foliage grow over the medians, creeping and crawling toward its inevitable goal: to swallow the highway.  It's comforting somewhat, I think, to know that once we are gone, the earth will enter some new state without us. There was a time before we existed and there will be a tim...

  If I Had to Live the Same Life 10 Times, I'd Be Crazy, Too  In class, we collectively steered the lecture with Dr. Tinsley toward how people's identities get bound together by their genetics—demonstrated by mutants depicted in X-Men, specifically House of X (2019)—and how easy it seems to be for people to come up with harmful narratives, stereotypes, and even ideologies against those bound groups on a greater march toward attempting to create a world where they no longer exist.  It's interesting to see how, in House of X , the mutants are not the dominant group, but their numbers are growing and are projected to eclipse that of humans' within twenty years of the series' opening. This creates a panic within humankind, and a mad dash to get in the good graces of mutants—specifically the initiatives and leadership of Charles Xavier.              It flips expectations with mutants having the upper hand and imposing their will in many ...

  Storm, The Mighty Thor, and the Mythogenic Zone Something that stuck with me in Chalquist's "Comic Books as Contemporary Myths" felt incredibly pertinent to Ororo Monroe's Storm and Jane Foster's journey and transformation into The Mighty Thor: "...we develop gnosis not to separate from others, but to join with self, others, world, and cosmos."  Chalquist, of course, is talking literally about gnosis as it exists as an array of different topics of internal knowledge, especially that which is spiritual. I think Chalquist's description of gnosis lends itself directly to the unique relationship between Storm and the earth, and the Mighty Thor and any land she graces below the heavens. Storm and the Mighty Thor's powers, being directly linked to the environment (specifically the weather, thunder, lightning, etc.), tether them as individuals to the world and everyone within it. The consequences of their actions, both bad and good, don't just aff...