| January
2008 |
Brian Azzarello and Cliff Chiang, Doctor Thirteen: Architecture and Morality (DC Comics, 2007). $14.99, paperback.
By James Moore
A professional skeptic, a
vampire and a talking Nazi gorilla walk into a subway.
Start of a bad joke? No—just one of the gloriously
ludicrous scenarios in Brian Azzarello and Cliff Chiang’s
surprising and charming Doctor 13:
Architecture and Morality. The book collects the
Doctor 13 backup stories from DC’s
Tales of
the Unexpected miniseries, in which
“Architecture and Morality” stole all of the thunder from
its lead feature (a regrettable Spectre tale of which the
less said the better). Architecture and
Morality begins when professional
skeptic Doctor Terry Thirteen and his daughter Traci are
called to investigate a yeti sighting. During the
investigation they encounter vintage DC horror character I,
Vampire and Traci is kidnapped by talking Nazi gorillas.
The quest to retrieve her leads Thirteen to encounter a
number of unusual allies, including cave boy Anthro, a
ghost pirate who speaks in Ebonics, would-be Legion of
Superhero member Infectious Lass, and a small boy who will
answer any question for a dime. Ultimately the motley crews
faces a metatexutal crisis that calls into question their
very existence. It is a unique book whose nearest
contemporaries include the much-lamented
Nextwave:
Agents of H.A.T.E and Peter Milligen &
Mike Allred’s run on X-Force/X-Statix.
Chiang’s art is fresh and
light. He manages not only to accentuate the cast’s
diversity, but also to make them believably inhabit the
same world. Using a Toth-ian simplicity of line, Chiang
effectively conveys the individual body language of the
characters. He shows a keen comic touch but also manages
some moments of true scope. Architecture and
Morality would be a story that, in
lesser hands, would not have managed the tricky balance of
comedy and pathos. The trade paperback collection’s cover,
which has a feel that could be best described as
Super-Friends meets album cover, is also one of the year’s
best.
The real revelation, though, is Brian Azzarello.
Azzarello’s oeuvre is best described as bleak, gritty noir.
He is the man who once had a drugged John Constantine get
his balls licked by a dog while some rednecks taped
it. Architecture and
Morality,however, brings out a
very different side to his work. It is a warm and very
funny story with a cartoony, almost psychedelic tone. There
is sympathy for characters either forgotten by many fans or
deemed too lame to use in the current DC universe.
Azzarello takes these castoffs and brings them to vibrant
life. He makes excellent use of phonetic accents for comedy
(as well as giving the whole story a Tower of Babel feel)
and mixes it with a deft use of word play and puns. It is
playfully postmodern in a way that is totally unexpected
with his track record and very welcome to see.
The best part of Architecture and
Morality, however, is that despite
its light surface, it is really a work of angry criticism
aimed directly at the state of DC Comics—both within their
comics stories and in their real-world publishing
practices. Azzarello and Chiang interviewed one another
just before the release of the TPB, and over the course of
their discussion, it becomes apparent just how much they
fought for this story and how much it meant to them.
Realizing that they were being given some potentially
forgettable backup story and that they were only being
given access to characters that were deemed “unsuitable”
for the state of the DC Universe, the creators took offense
at both of these facts and went all out in their rebuttal.
What results is a passionate defense of forgotten
characters and a scathing critique of the artificial limits
imposed by the architects of the current DCU. It asks
important questions about the futility of setting static
parameters on what should be a universe of infinite
possibility. It dusts the detritus and wipes stigma off of
so-called unworkable characters and shows just how much
potential they really have if some creativity and
imagination is applied. It’s a Molotov cocktail of a story
that brings into stark relief just how tame and
unadventurous the company’s entire line really is.
Architecture and
Morality is easily one of the best
books DC has published this year—a delightful blend of
entertainment, commentary, and symbolism—and should
immediately be sought out by anyone looking for a
refreshing take on the DC Universe.
