Mr. Knowles has strong opinions. Show me a comic book fan who doesn’t. Like too many fans, Mr. Knowles often mistakes his opinions for facts. He falls into the trap of investing his blanket statements (particularly statements of subjective judgment) with the force of fact and truth.
In discussing the X-Men, Mr. Knowles writes,
Later in the 80s, The Uncanny X-Men became nothing more than a revolving showcase for the hot artist du jour. This process reached its apotheosis with the arrival of Jim Lee. Lee’s tendency to disregard Claremont’s plots rendered the book completely unreadable, but no one seemed to care because the art was so gorgeous. (page 176)
The tail end of Chris Claremont’s run on X-Men was weaker than his reputation-making collaboration with John Byrne. While the elevation of the comic book artist during the 1990s changed the storytelling balance, there are quality moments throughout Mr. Claremont’s later run. A larger problem with the coherence of later X-Men stories was the number of multi-title crossover stories that became common during the late 1980s and early 1990s. Writers like Mr. Claremont had to not only advance their own storytelling vision, but also advance plot threads inherited from other writers. This tension, combined with the increased prominence of marquee artists, worked in tandem to dilute, but not eclipse, coherence and creativity.
When Mr. Knowles isn’t grinding his numerous critical axes (against Rob Liefield, Image comics, and comic books in the 1990s generally), Our Gods Wear Spandex is rife with factual errors. In particular, Mr. Knowles has a problem with chronology. Consider:
Batman and Robin, the nearly unwatchable 1997 film directed by Joel Schumacher, brought the Batman franchise to its knees and nearly took the Warner Brothers empire down with it. This was followed by a string of superhero flops like Judge Dredd, Tank Girl, and The Phantom that threatened the future of the entire “comic book movie” genre.(page 7)
I have no objection to a bit of hyperbole in the service of making one’s point. Batman and Robin was both a bad Batman movie and a bad movie, period. The problem is, whatever cinematic crimes can be laid at Mr. Schumacher’s feet, inspiring “a string of superhero flops” is not one of them. Both Judge Dredd and Tank Girl were released in 19954. The Phantom disappeared from screens as quickly as it appeared in 1996.
Later, in discussing Alan Moore’s career, Mr. Knowles writes,
Rejuvenated by his occult awakening, Moore reentered the industry mainstream, hijacking Rob Liefeld’s Superman knockoff Supreme and turning it into a paean to the innocence of the Silver Age heroes. He followed this with a mini-series that paid tribute to the Silver Age called 1963. (page 201)
Again, that old devil linear time plays havoc with Mr. Knowles’s assertions. Mr. Moore’s 1963 commenced in 1993. Mr. Moore took over Supreme (which launched in 1992) with issue 41.
While I admit a preference for The Comic Book Heroes by Gerard Jones and Will Jacobs, Our Gods Wear Spandex is perfectly serviceable history of the American comic book. When Mr. Knowles sticks to the facts, his work is solid. When he stretches to make a point, shore up a pet opinion, or to force the facts to fit his occult thesis, the book suffers.
