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duhragonball · 6 years

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duvete replied to your post “Chuck Austen Update”

I'd like to see those four Marvel characters claiming to be biblical Satan to have a cage match. The winner gets to be declared Satan and the other three are his sidekicks. The true history of DBZ's Mr. Satan.

Now that I think about it, I might have underestimated the number of Satans in the Marvel Universe.

I was basing my count on the story from Defenders #100, where the Defenders had to fight Satan, the father of the horror-themed superhero Son of Satan. J.M. Dematteis did some pretty interesting stuff in his Defenders run, though he seemed somewhat obsessed with trying to "fix” Satan continuity by establishing that Son of Satan’s dad and all the other would-be Satans were aspects of the same guy. He later had this character explain that he wasn’t the biblical Satan at all, but the embodiment of human evil. This was kind of handy, since it allowed Dematteis to use the character without being hamstrung by any particular religious orthodoxy.

Anyway, in Defenders #100, “Satan” teamed up with Mephisto, the devil from Silver Surfer, Thog, the devil from Man-Thing, and Satannish, the devil from Doctor Strange. Not included were Belasco, the devil from Uncanny X-Men, and whoever gave Ghost Rider his super powers.

I’ve never cared much for stories with these guys, because every writer acts like they’re the first person to try to use Satan in their story as some ultimate villain, when it’s actually the biggest cliche in fantasy lit. Also, the writers can never decide between putting their own personal stamp on the devil, or trying to strive for authenticity.

The other thing I don’t like is that all the demonology stuff is hard to square with the other fantasy concepts in superhero stories. When I read New Mutants, the writers always played up how Rhane Sinclair was convinced her mutant power made her a demon, because she was raised by a hardcore fundamentalist priest. The other characters insisted that she was being superstitious about something that was totally natural, except her teammate, Illiyana Rasputin, really did have demonic powers, and her mutant abilities threatened to corrupt her soul with each use. They couldn’t even keep it consistent in a single series, let alone the whole line.

With Austen’s Azazel character, I think the idea was to suggest that all the demons and angels were actually ancient, immortal mutants, and Azazel was banished to a hell-like dimension after losing a dispute with the “angels.” It’s a somewhat interesting idea, except they already did it with Apocalypse in the 1990′s. Pocky wasn’t an exact replica of Satan, but he was often tied into other myths and legends involving great catastrophe. Are we supposed to believe the “angel” mutants banished Nightcrawler’s dad for meddling in human affairs, but they left Apocalypse alone?

It also sucks all the wonder out of Azazel and his crew. If Nightcrawler’s half-demon, it’s kind of a big deal, since he’s a devout Catholic, and it forces him to take a hard look at his humanity. But if Azazel’s just another mutant, then he’s no different from any other mutant bad guy with kids. Kurt already had an X-Men villain for a parent-- Mystique-- so giving him a second one was utterly pointless. Then again, if Austen had embraced Azazel as a genuine demon, Nightcrawler would have just been rehashing themes from the Son of Satan comics. It’s a no-win scenario, just like having Juggernaut and She-Hulk sleep together.

I read the “She Lies With Angels” story arc, and that one managed to be even worse somehow. I thought it might get into the deal with Archangel’s healing powers, but instead it just... I don’t know what it did. I was on Part 3 of 5 and realized that not a whole lot had actually happened. I had heard the characters quoted Romeo and Juliet word for word, but I never actually spotted this, although Austen was probably adapting dialogue from the play. Using the Guthries as a family locked in a bitter feud kind of ticked me off. It’s like Austen realized he needed to do something with Husk and all he knew about Kentucky was the Hatfields and McCoys, and he decided that concept wasn’t sexy enough.

I’m hoping that’s the worst of it. I still have to read Uncanny X-Men #442 and 443, and his ten-issue run on Adjectiveless X-Men, and then I’m done with Chuck Austen for good. I guess I could track down his other work, but I just remembered I have a stomach ache...

#ask duhragonball #duvete

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