Young Justice #15 and Guns

Originally published February 18, 2000, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1370

Ah well. Another fan bites the dust.

In the new issue of Young Justice, a fan who simply signs his letter “Creed” (address withheld) extols his long-standing appreciation of my writing, but then informs the editor, “After reading Young Justice #15, I was given a clearer picture of Mister David, one that I will not support. I do not support anyone who doesn’t understand ‘you don’t blame the car for the accident, you blame the driver.’ Gun control is not the answer. In the ’30s the German people gave up their guns so that the violence would decrease. In the ’40s lots of people died. ‘Never Again!’ Good Bye DC, and Good Bye Peter.”

Now this causes several notions to collide in what I laughingly refer to as my brain. The first, of course, is that a car—used properly—transports people. A gun—used properly—kills people. The second is that no one, including myself, has ever said gun control is the answer. Merely an answer. One could point out the total breakdown in logically progressive thought that would somehow connect gun control with mass slaughter of a population, or parallel our Democracy with the regime that produced a Hitler. One could comment that it’s absurd for a fan of someone’s writing to walk away from an entire comic book company because he doesn’t like one personal opinion that the writer may have. Then there’s the irony of someone excoriating an individual for taking a public stand when the letter writer himself hides behind the cloak of anonymity.

(Of course, we could go for an even broader view along those lines. Merely a few years ago, a harshly worded “Name withheld” letter in CBG caused a chorus of accusations of base cowardice. How could a person put forward scathing opinions, many wondered, without having the guts to stand behind them by signing his name? Well, we now have organized base cowardice: It’s called computer boards, where bellicose posters can take potshots at whomever and whatever they desire while hiding behind assumed names. The bar for personal responsibility drops ever lower. But I digress…)

But all of those pale behind one simple truth:

Young Justice #15 wasn’t a story about gun control.

For those of you who may have missed it, the story was as follows: Arrowette’s psychiatrist and mother surrogate, Doctor Marcie Money (don’t blame me, I didn’t name her) is shot and killed by her former and somewhat nutso ex-fiancée. The ex and his best pal bolt from the scene of the crime, namely Cissie’s (Arrowette’s) school. Amidst the press coverage and police activity thereafter, a Congressman begins to pontificate about the destruction of America’s youth by TV and comic books. Cissie jumps on the guy (literally) and shouts at him that the problem is with guns, not comic books. She then heads into the woods and, as Arrowette, tracks down the two guys, cat-and-mousing with them as she goes. She traps one, faces down the actual murderer, totally loses her self-control, and fires a lethal arrow at him while he’s helpless. In the nick of time, however, Superboy intercepts the arrow before it kills its target. He asks Arrowette whether she wants to take another shot, now that she’s had time to think about it. Arrowette instead walks away. By herself, she tosses the bow aside, sinks to the ground, and sobs, “I want answers… right now!” None are forthcoming. Fade out. End of story.

Now… Creed wasn’t alone in thinking that the entire point of the story was to deliver an anti-gun message. Except it wasn’t.

At the time that I wrote the story, the Columbine aftermath was in full swing. Politicians, professors and pundits were all busily engaging in their favorite pastime: Placing blame. They targeted comics. They targeted entertainment. They targeted the high school social structure. (The best comment came from Jon Stuart on The Daily Show who, in presenting a story about a destructive hurricane, snarled, “Ðámņ you, Marilyn Manson!”) Quick answers were sought: There was a push for gun control. There was a push for a Senate committee to probe the negative affects of television and movies. There was a push for parents to speak more with their children… which isn’t a bad thing, mind you. But it generated a mindset that people should try to take time with their children, not out of genuine interest in their lives, but rather to make sure their kids aren’t the next ones to snap. There wasn’t simply a rush to judgment. There was a rush to pinpoint exactly what cause Columbine to occur so that it would never happen again.

Young Justice #15 wasn’t about the dangers of guns. It was about the futility, and hazards, in offering half-baked solutions to tragedies.

Think about it. There was Cissie shouting support of gun control…and then she turns around and nearly kills someone with a bow and arrow. Her own argument—that gun control is the answer—is undercut by her subsequent actions. She comes to this realization at the end, but still can’t give up the concept that somewhere, somehow, easy answers can be found. Yet deep down, she is already beginning to comprehend that such is not the case.

Human beings, by nature, seek patterns in all things. We look at the stars and see pictures of bulls and hunters. We look at the unfairness and haphazard nature of our lives and decide that somehow it must be “God’s plan.” The notion that horrible things happen for no good reason, and that it’s sometimes unavoidable, is simply too depressing a notion to embrace. Any problem must be quantifiable, qualifiable, and—if we plan far enough or pray hard enough—avoidable.

It’s a very difficult notion to come to the stark realization that we may be all we have, and that quaint and simplistic answers simply aren’t enough. That’s what Cissie is confronted with. That’s what causes her breakdown. And that’s what Creed-the-fan, and others like him, missed as utterly as I would miss a major-league inside curve.

It’s difficult to know just how subtle one should be in presenting a story. There’s always the temptation to spell it out, to be “on the nose,” as it were. That makes the message absolutely unmissable. The problem is, it also risks being condescending to the reader. Should stories be pre-chewed and regurgitated so the readers can swallow it with minimal effort?

Orson Welles is said to have explained that the final shot in Citizen Kane (which I will not spoil for you, in case you haven’t seen it; specifics wouldn’t mean much anyway) is supposed to symbolize Kane burning in hëll. I’ve seen the film several times and that never occurred to me. But would the film’s conclusion have benefited from shots of Orson Welles standing chest deep in burning tar while demons poked at him with sharp sticks?

When I was writing X-Factor, I deliberately refused to script the characters in the standard way for Marvel mutants: Namely lengthy expository speeches detailing every aspect of the character’s thoughts and personality. As a result, fans believed that the X-Factor characters had no depth. That there was nothing going on in their heads, as it were. So I decided to take an entire issue and have them do nothing except talk about themselves. It was as subtle as a jackknifed tractor trailer. Yet that issue, #87, is so often cited as fans’ favorite issue that I wonder if anyone remembers I wrote eighteen others.

It’s always a difficult and chancy decision, to allow readers to draw their own conclusions. I could easily have written Arrowette saying, “How could I have been so blind… as to think that the problem lay solely with guns… I almost killed somebody without a gun in sight! The truth is that human beings have a streak of violence in them as wide as the Grand Canyon. The truth is that, no matter what you do, bad things are going to happen with no rhyme or reason, and that no one, nowhere, is completely safe.” That would have made it starkly and unmissably clear for all readers. That might have even kept Mr. Creed around.

And if every writer did that, then we could be guaranteed of producing comics that can be digested with a straw by the lowest common denominator. If a story isn’t worth thinking about, well… maybe that’s what the readership deserves. Me, I know which way I’m going to go. You’re welcome to read between the lines and figure it out for yourselves.

(Peter David, writer of stuff, can be written to at Second Age, Inc., PO Box 239, Bayport, NY 11705.)