In which the blogger can't help but discuss the details of the solution to the murder mystery that is the first volume of "Welcome To Tranquility", so here be spoilers! If you've not read the books, and you're the sort of person who quite understandably likes their mysteries to be mysterious before reading them, tread no further. (But do come back when you have read WTT , of course, if you would.)
1.
My first thought was, it's a very good job that Fox News so rarely turns its supposedly righteous ire in the direction of comic books. For if it did, "Welcome To Tranquility" might well have been pounded with a barrage or two of full-on cultural demagoguery for daring to suggest that America might never have been entirely perfect, or, indeed, even particularly fair, or for seeming to argue that today's Republic is every bit as much in need of fundamental reform as was the Union of the hallowed, and often little-understood, past.
For though "Welcome To Tranquility" is very much a tale of superheroes as advertised, and though Ms Simone scrupulously avoids allowing the moral polemic which apparently underpins the book to overwhelm the action and transmute its value as entertainment into a dry lecture from Gail's pulpit, the story itself is undoubtedly that rarest of things; the superhero state-of-the-nation comic book. And within the limits proscribed by a short graphic novel's worth of superhero murder mystery, meta-commentary, parody, satire, and purposefully breathless action, it's a book that clearly expresses a fundamental frustration with the political health of the Republic, as well as what reads as a wounded but determined sense of optimism that America could be a nation where folks might at the very least stop persecuting each other even as they pursue their own goals.
An end to homophobic bigotry? Respect towards the elderly, both as individuals and in terms of their undoubted achievements? A disgust for political and religious ideologies which justify rapacious self-interest in the name of some unchallengeable and supposedly objective good? A revulsion for the view that America was created by moral paragons whose actions were always driven by Godly purity and whose vision of the social contract must always be regarded as sacrosanct? An absolute commitment to the belief that no-one is wholly and irredeemably corrupt, just as no-one should be regarded as worthless by the society they belong too? A pragmatic commitment to the process of making social life a fairer, more equitable proposition without subscribing to any great Utopian, or rather dystopian, ideology of "them" and "us"?
The belief that empathy and forgiveness rather than fear and self-righteousness ought to be the key principles of a civilised society?
"Welcome To Tranquility" seems to me to be both a great focused cry of frustration about the common unfairnessess and stupidities of the present day, as well as a calmly good-hearted expression of faith that human beings are often much better than they're credited with, and that they might yet be better still, given the opportunity and a fair measure of good faith.
2.
My second thought was, what a shame it is that the sentinels of the irrational and powerful far right don't pay more attention to the contents of the mainstream American comic-book. After all, any text that's as fundamentally decent and inclusive as "Welcome To Tranquility" is can look after itself, as indeed, from all appearances, can Ms Simone.
And, beyond the business of inspiring a modicum of debate where the business of how we live now is concerned, it'd also be good to have a little more recognition of the fact that the superhero comic-book can carry a measure of deliberate political engagement without having the fun of the genre neutered by any po-faced serious-mindedness.
Or: there aren't any lectures here, but there's an awful lot of costumes and laughter and grimly purposeful adventuring too, which in itself is one of the reasons why the whole business is so interesting.
3.
If there's a single theme to "Welcome To Tranquillity", it's that of the virtue, and indeed of the necessity, for forgiveness. Where other creators might have been content to identify as irredeemably evil the presumed causes of the social ills which they wanted to discuss, Ms Simone has chosen to focus in WTT upon the perniciousness of sloppy, selfish, anti-social thinking. Or, to put it another way, one of the aspects of the social problem which Ms Simone wants to discuss is the habit of labelling one's opponents as irredeemably evil before declaring war on them. (After all, if those who disagree with us are so intrinsically different, so dangerously threatening, then what other choice is there?) Yet there's no such thing as "the enemy" in "Welcome To Tranquility", there's no individuals or groups who are so different from "us" that they deserve nothing but contempt and the shock and awe of the state's discipline. Instead, there's "just" some other individual human beings whose thoughts and feelings have become, to one degree or another, confused and even corrupted, by selfishness, and self-serving ideologies, and even insanity. But there's no intrinsically "bad" people, just folks committing acts which are either socially destructive or not. And because of that, there's no guarantee that the hero of the moment may not later be revealed as the villain of the piece, or vice-versa, people being by their nature neither intrinsically and perpetually good or bad, but rather the sum at any given moment of the choices they've been competent enough to make.
Because of this, it soon becomes clear that "Welcome To Tranquility", for all of its apparent dissatisfaction with modern-day America, is in no way a mean-spirited, finger-pointing work. In truth, the reader will search WTT in vain to find any particular group of people or type of person who've been labelled by Ms Simone as the sole source of the town's problems, and, by extension, the cause of America's difficulties today. We're not presented in "Welcome To Tranquility" with, for example, the myth of the exploitative bourgeoisie, or those of the socially-corrosive underclass. There's neither culturally irresponsible leftists or practically-goosestepping neo-fascists on display. Indeed, there's no party line on show here at all, unless it's an expectation that folks who aren't hurting anyone else by their beliefs and behaviour should be respected as good and valuable citizens, a value that's surely as intrinsically conservative as it is an expression of radicalism. And so, despite what could be seen as a progressive agenda in the book, characters whose attitudes seem somewhat more traditional than liberal, such as Deputy Duray, are revealed to be just as honourable and decent after their own fashion as the more apparently left-liberal members of the cast are.
No, "Welcome To Tranquility" is concerned, it appears, solely with the problem of selfishness, and with the ways of seeing the world which can be used to justify putting one's own interests far above those of others. And so we're introduced to the super-villain grandfather who feels he has the right to take a vulnerable boy and painfully initiate him into the family tradition of criminality. And to the powerful elite who believe that they, and they only, should take control of an impossibly precious and rare resource because they're doing so for their loved ones, and so that they can continue to do "good". And to the followers of a religion which preaches kindness and restraint while they choose to insult all and sundry. Yet, with the exception of the possibly psychopathic Typist and the mentally disordered Cragg, none of these folks are shown to be irreversibly corrupted, and Cragg and the Mayor are indeed shown capable of considerable kindnesses which co-exist with their own brand of covert despotism. No-one but the insane are fixed in their course in Tranquility, and so the justifications which the sane create for themselves, the assumptions which they make about their own rights and responsibilities, are a key aspect of the book.
And so, when the uber-goth Sweet Sally and his teenaged maxi-human crew decide to break into a hospital because "his girl" is there, recovering from a suicide attempt, and because he's got a "right" to take her, the reader can grasp this man-child's gargantuan sense of entitlement, just as they know that he's a selfish sexist pig with little concern for anything beyond his own ego. (He's certainly oblivious to Leona's interest, and to all the other patients and staff in the building.) And yet, when the choice between fighting for his community's survival and standing selfishly aside arrives, the same monstrous, self-obsessed late-adolescent behaves heroically.
When the differences between the consequences of being kind and those of being anti-social are made clear enough for even the most self-obsessed to understand, Ms Simone seems to be arguing, most folks will respond in a decent and admirable fashion.
4.
In the end, "Welcome To Tranquility" is a book that despairs of bullies who portray themselves as virtuous citizens. And so it's obvious, to take but one example, that Ms Simone clearly has no time for those self-declared Christians who've decided that they don't care for the principle of not casting the first stone. Leona's flesh-crawlingly selfish and controlling mother, for example, with her constant disregard for her daughter's best interests and her willingness to howl about everyone else's presumed sins, is one such species of hypocritical bully. Another is to be found in the presence of the "protesters" who picket Mr Articulate's funeral, waving their hateful signs declaring "God Hates Capes" while behaving with all the ungodly lack of concern for others shown so often by the likes of the Westboro Baptist Church and its pastor Fred Phelps out here in our apparently-real world. Yet there's no lack of sympathy with Christianity in the text. Mr Articulate's funeral, for example, is a solidly traditional affair quite clearly shown to be taking place in church under priestly direction. The problem, therefore, clearly isn't Christianity, so much as the worst of those self-defined, self-interested Christians.
Indeed,"Welcome To Tranquility" is a text that's profoundly compatible with Christian teaching, despite it being the product of a publicly-declared atheist. And that's why I suspect that it might seem to be rather challenging in its refusal to judge difference as deviance, especially given the stand on individual choice taken by some of today's more strident and least Christian of Christian churches. For there's a faith in the ability of human beings to make something better of themselves which manifests itself time and time again in WTT, and it's impossible to believe that
it's not been placed there deliberately. Indeed, even when the best of Tranquility's citizens are shown having given up on one of their fellows, such as most everyone has with Cosmos, it's not a sign that the reader should follow their lead. Redemption can be waiting just around the corner, as it is for Cosmos, bless him, for no-one, it seems, is without value, and no-one should be written off unless they're so disordered that hope should be replaced by care. It's a stance that's there at the climax of Book 1, for example, when the homophobic Sampson Twins bravely pitch in against Mayor Fury, and it's present at the end of Book 2 too, when Emoticon, who's awaiting trial for accesory to murder and who's struck a demotic deal with "the greatest evil in history, on this plane, or any other", decides to stand bravely beside his townsmates rather than honour his contract with that "damn whitebread son of a gun" servant of the devil.
Sheriff Lindo certainly believes in the value of forgiveness, and the possibility of repentance. At the close of Book 1, she chooses not to arrest Leona, who'd known of Cragg's intention to kill Mr Articulate and who yet failed in her fear and confusion and selfishness to protect the charming old detective. Lindo is convinced that Leone's regret over her sins of omission is sincere, that the speedster's "conscience is heavy", and that that in itself will punish her and perhaps strengthen her morality and stiffen her character too. It's a decision that's easy to question, and especially in the light of the kindness shown to Leona by Mr Articulate when he heard of her unwanted pregnancy. But it's fully in keeping with the book's refusal to label sane but fallible individuals as beyond the pale, as the "other", fit only for condemnation and the extremes of punishment.
And anyway, what other decision but forgiveness would you expect from a lead character whose surname means, of course, "beautiful"?
To be concluded;
Thank you reading this, or even, thank you for skipping down to the bottom of the page to here. I wish you, as always, a splendid time, and the appropriate and comforting measure of "sticking together!".
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