In business news: Disney buys Marvel Comics.

I have to admit that I don't follow current events very closely. I get the New York Times headlines via e-mail every morning, and watch The Daily Show when opportunity allows, but for the most part I'm more concerned about the day's weather than the price of crude oil or the latest death toll in Afghanistan.

But every now and then something of particular interest will sneak by, and I'll regret that I'm not paying more attention. As an example, I just found out that the Disney Corporation has recently purchased Marvel Comics for a price of four billion dollars, an event which certainly doesn't compare with the importance of updates on the economic crisis, but which has been the topic of much amused and/or horrified discussion in the fan community.

Personally, I no longer follow the comics scene closely, because about fifteen years ago I began to realize that both Marvel and DC were starting to run in circles in their attempts to maintain the various shopworn titles responsible for their success. There have been alternate realities, crossovers, character reboots, deaths and revivals, future versions of the characters, and a hundred and one other tricks designed to conceal the fact that they'd gone to the well once too often. Most people aren't aware that Marvel went bankrupt in 1996, but I have to wonder if part of that financial failure was based on too many other fans coming to the same realization that I had.

However, Marvel Comics hasn't really been a comic book company for some time. Ike Perlmutter, who took over after the 1996 crisis, owns the action figure company that had the licenses for the Marvel character line - note that Mr. Perlmutter isn't connected with publishing. What Marvel Comics represents in the 21st century is a huge storehouse of characters and plots that can be moved into other areas: action figures, Lego kits, t-shirts, video games, television shows, movies - I'm not even sure that it matters if they keep producing stories that involve ink and paper. (I suspect that the combined profits from the Marvel-based movie lineup since Spiderman 1 was released in 2002 makes the income from actual comic sales look like a joke.)

And that's what Disney is buying, the opportunity to add the Marvel lineup to its already monolithic array of merchandisable assets. All jokes about the Amazing Spider-Mouse aside, I don't think that Disney is going to do anything to alter the Marvel universe so that it matches the traditional view of Walt's approach to family entertainment. Why would they? All that really matters is that they get five cents every time some soccer mom buys a pair of Spiderman™ Underoos for junior.

Sadly, that also means that they won't do anything to change it for the better, either.

- Sid

P.S. the photocomp picture of Wolverine is just something I threw together for this posting, but for a comprehensive view of the horrifying hybrids made possible by the merger, have a look at the contest on Worth1000.com.

District 9: "We have met the enemy, and they are us."

And what is science fiction at its best but just such a "new tool" as Mrs. Woolf had avowedly sought for fifty years ago, a crazy, protean, left-handed monkey wrench, which can be put to any use the craftsman has in mind - satire, extrapolation, prediction, absurdity, exactitude, exaggeration, warning, message-carrying, tale-telling, whatever you like.

- Ursula K. LeGuin, Science Fiction and Mrs. Brown

I've often spoken about the "what if" role of science fiction, but that glib tag ignores the power of the genre in terms of asking questions - and questioning answers. Now, I don't claim for a moment that every piece of science fiction in the world is the intellectual equivalent of 1984 or Brave New World, but as Ms. LeGuin points out in her essay, SF offers some unique tools to anyone who wants to take apart the world and see how it works. Personally, I prefer to think of it as a toolkit rather than a single wrench, since there are different themes in science fiction that offer different opportunities.

The Alien is one of the more useful tools in the science fiction kit, one that offers both a mirror to our existence, and a telescope through which to examine us from a distance. As an example, in The War of the Worlds, H. G. Well's Martians are a distorted reflection of the British Empire, allowing him to show England suffering from the same sort of technologically superior attack that the Empire had itself visited on its colonies in its ascent to power.

District 9 uses a similar technique in its tale of humanity's - specifically, South Africa's* - reaction to extraterrestrial castaways. We're all familiar with stories about single aliens being marooned on Earth - ET, Starman, K-Pax - Escape to Witch Mountain, if you're being charitable. But what if instead of one little alien with a glowing finger and a desire to call home, there are a million such visitors? How do we treat them?

This question is certainly not unique in the genre, and it's already been addressed on the big screen and on television with the 1988 film Alien Nation, and the TV series and made-for-TV movies using the same title. However, the freed Tenctonese slave race in Alien Nation is close enough to humanity that they are able to integrate themselves into Terran society, albeit with tensions on both sides of the equation.

District 9 paints a grimmer picture. The aliens here are grotesque arthropods, with faces that are a disgusting blend of insect and shrimp, giving rise to the derogatory nickname of "prawns". The exact nature of the catastrophe which has caused their massive starship to be stranded here is unknown, but when humanity fearfully cuts its way into the silently hovering craft after three months of mounting apprehension, the ship is found to be packed with starving, dying aliens.

The aliens are removed from the ship, and placed in crude temporary housing while they are treated and attempts are made to communicate with them. To everyone's frustration, the aliens seem to be some kind of worker caste, moody, unintelligent, and unpredictable, and the alien technology is tagged to their DNA and as a result completely unresponsive to the touch of humanity.

Over 20 years later, the temporary housing has become de facto permanent housing, and District 9, the alien "reservation", is a massive, sprawling, stinking slum, which has begun to strain at its boundaries. Violent encounters between the aliens and humans have become frequent, and human rioters are demanding that something be done. As a result, MNU, the corporation in charge of managing the aliens, has decided to forcibly relocate them.

Much of the action is presented in a documentary format, and the jerky, handheld footage gives it both a feel of realism and a different kind of dynamic energy. Admittedly, there are points where the switch from documentary to drama makes for some confusion, but for the most part the feeling of watching a live CNN feed works very well to connect District 9 with the way in which most of us experience current events.

As part of that connection, I have to acknowledge the amazing acting ability of South African actor Sharlto Copley. Copley brilliantly plays the role of Wikus van der Merwe, the clumsy, inept mid-level bureaucrat in charge of the brutal alien relocation, all of whose success is the result of patronage on the part of his father-in-law. From the moment we first see Wikus on the screen, he is a completely believable character, to the point that he doesn't appear to be a character at all, just another man on the street. However, when Wikus has an accidental encounter with an alien fuel source and begins to transform into a "prawn", that everyday existence is completely destroyed, along with his callous attitude toward the aliens.

As soon as Wikus is considered to be one of "them", his treatment sharply illustrates the brutal indifference with which the aliens have been treated. He is shunned, hunted, beaten, tortured, electroshocked, and forced to kill alien subjects with their own weapons. After his employers, including his father-in-law, determine that he is now capable of activating the alien technology, they decide to slice up his living body and harvest his mutating DNA in hopes of duplicating his newfound capabilities.

Wikus escapes, but his isolation from humanity forces him to take refuge in District 9. Once there, he becomes involved in a plan on the part of one of the aliens to activate their ship and make the three-year round trip to their homeworld for help.

District 9 is not a fully developed story in many ways, but I don't think that it needs or intends to be. It's really more of a thought experiment, a well-presented "what if" of alien contact, than an attempt to present a fully rounded and complete plotline, and as such I found that the various logical faults in the story didn't in any way stop me from enjoying the story.

Although a sequel is an obvious possibility, I hope that director Neill Blomkamp takes up new projects. The uncertain conclusion, with its unresolved issues, perfectly suits the ambiguous nature of the story. A movie that attempted to resolve the moral issues raised in this film with some kind of alien ex machina would seem to me to be some kind of a cheat, an easy way out instead of the sort of labourious societal process that led to the current South African political environment.

Or maybe not. Perhaps the arrival of an armada of angry alien molluscs would be the perfect next step in the thought experiment. How would Prime Minister Botha and the National Party have reacted if during his inauguration in 1978, a delegation of several million "Bantus" from Tau Ceti, armed with plasma rifles and sonic cannons, had shown up to discuss their policies regarding apartheid?

- Sid

* I've read a number of angry online comments that derided the film for its apparent blindness to the progress that's been made in South Africa since the collapse of apartheid, and equally angry responses pointing out that anyone who thinks racism is dead in South Africa is just as blind to the realities of everyday life there. Obviously I can't address either side of that question, but it's impossible to ignore the resonance of placing the story in that particular setting.

"Perry Rhodan: Peacelord of the Universe!"

I have to say that one of the things that I really like about doing this blog is the way that it leads me in different directions. Right now I'm in the middle of researching material for three posts dealing with the Dune series, and I'm working on a photocomp image for one of those blog-posts-about-blogging that pop up now and then. Nonetheless, I'm going to drop everything and talk about Perry Rhodan.

Now, I freely admit this is my own fault for setting this up in the previous post with the joke about Rhodan versus Rodan, but I'm surprised that the person who broached the question wasn't one of my (six) regular readers. I'd like to extend my thanks to Zach, down in Utah, for following through:
Very well - who is Perry Rhodan?

The Perry Rhodan series is the brainchild of two German authors, Karl Scheer and Walter Ernsting. The series, which started in Germany in 1961, drew heavily on early science fiction for inspiration, and is written by a rotating stable of authors - possibly by necessity, since there are apparently more than 2500 episodes in the series. I refer to them as "episodes" because the Perry Rhodan stories were originally produced in a weekly serialized format that's more like chapters in a story than stand-alone novels.

The books first appeared in English translation in 1969, but as far as I know only a few hundred of the episodes have been published in English.

I hadn't read a Perry Rhodan book for about thirty years, and my schedule is open until I start my new job next week. So, in the interests of research, I hunted around on the internet and found a downloadable copy of the first book, Enterprise Stardust, and picked up a few of the later paperbacks at Pulp Fiction, my local used bookstore.

Enterprise Stardust: the stage is set with the departure of a four man mission to the Moon, led by Major Perry Rhodan, in 1971. (Interestingly, in spite of the German authorship, it's an American mission.) However, as the expedition prepares to land, unexpected electronic interference causes the ship to go out of control, and it makes a near crash-landing on the surface of the Moon. In the course of investigating the accident, Rhodan and his crew discover that a derelict alien spaceship is responsible.

The massive globular craft is part of the Arkon Imperium, a once mighty intergalactic empire which has fallen into a state of decay and decadence - in fact, only two of the crew are even able to summon up the interest to speak to Rhodan, and one of them is dying from their equivalent of leukemia. However, the dying man sees in Rhodan - and perhaps in humanity as a whole - the dynamic energy once possessed by his race, and convinces the captain of the ship to equip Rhodan with their more advanced technology in the guise of payment for an attempt to cure the sickness.

Thus equipped, Rhodan and his crew return to Earth, but not to America. Instead, they land in the Gobi Desert, and begin planning to use the science of the Arkonides to unite the world and conquer the universe.

After this humble beginning, no science fiction stone is left unturned as the series develops - alien races, intergalactic warfare, world government, mutant powers, immortality, fifth dimensional space drives, time travel, mind parasites, parallel dimensions, and an entire range of technological gimmicks, wonders and inventions.

When I started reading, I was amazed at how quickly it all came back to me: Perry's friend and second in command Reginald Bell, frequent provider of comic relief; the exotically beautiful alien commander Thora, who was also Perry's reluctant love interest; Khrest, the agèd "Arkonide Mastermind"; the Mutant Corps - hey, what ever happened to the mutant Ernst Ellert, who became lost in time at some point?* - and Perry's base in the Gobi Desert, protected by the impenetrable barrier of the Radiant Dome (Episode 3). And, of course, Perry himself, a steely-eyed visionary who sees it as his duty to unite humanity and travel to the stars.

To be honest, I consider Perry Rhodan books to be the science fiction equivalent of potato chips. They're short little books, and provided that they're not the only thing in your diet, they make kind of a fun snack. The writing suffers horribly in translation, I suspect - I had this ongoing desire to edit the text when I was reading the digital copy. That aside, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed reading them.

Although the books don't seem to be as well-known in North America as they were when I was in high school, the international Perry Rhodan fan base may still give Star Trek and Harry Potter a run for their money. In fact, the Perry Rhodan fan phenomenon may have set the stage for Star Wars fandom, since both require a certain acceptance of any possible shortcomings of the material.

And like Star Wars, the Perry Rhodan universe is painted with a large brush, as the saying goes, but let's be fair: it's painted on a canvas of intergalactic proportions. Wouldn't you want a big brush for that?

- Sid

* Ha, it looks like he got back in issue 83 - just a happy coincidence that I found that particular cover for the opening lineup.