Weird Worlds
Chapter Three:
Crouching Tiger, Running Commentary:
Doug Moench on the Margins of Marvel
Weird Worlds
In 1976, together with artist Mike Ploog, Doug Moench created an epic fantasy sequence called “Weirdworld.” [1] An early attempt at cashing in on the renewed interest in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, the comics themselves are noteworthy for Ploog’s beautiful artwork, but not for much else. Still, the very name “Weirdworld” points to the way in which Moench’s best comics stood out.
PRETTY, BUT PRETTY VAPID
Like Marv Wolfman, Doug Moench is a poor candidate for the status of comics auteur. Nor was he associated with any of Marvel’s biggest commercial hits. His 1970s resume has far fewer mainstream superheroes than that of Wolfman; there was an interesting run on the black-and-white Rampaging Hulk and Hulk magazines (1977-1978 and 1978-1980), an unremarkable stint on Captain Marvel (1978-1979), and a small number of scattered issues of other superhero titles here and there. [2] In the early 1980s, before he followed in Wolfman’s footsteps and left for DC, his superhero work increased, with Fantastic Four (1980-1981), Thor (1981-1983), and his own co-creation, Moon Knight (1980-1983) [3]. Moon Knight garnered a fair amount of acclaim, but that was more for the outstanding and inventive pencils of Bill Sienkiewicz.
Despite his relative isolation from superhero comics, the 1970s were a busy time for Moench. Yet his wide and varied output contains few titles that would suggest prestige. He tried his hand at virtually every subgenre the company published, making it difficult to posit to a “typical” Moench comic. Many of these were the sort of assignments that his colleagues were unlikely to covet. Moench did more than his fair share of licensed tie-ins and public domain characters: Godzilla, Shogun Warriors, The Monster of Frankenstein, and one that exceeded all expectations: the black-and-white Planet of the Apes magazine (1974-1977), for which Moench adapted all five films and wrote a great deal of original material, including two long-running features set in the Planet of the Apes continuity. His very best work was spread out over three distinct genres: near-future proto-cyberpunk (Deathlok the Demolisher), horror (Werewolf by Night), and martial arts/espionage (Shang-Chi: Master of Kung Fu). What these three comics have in common (besides the Moench byline) is that what is going on in the protagonist's head is every bit as interesting as what he is doing with his hands, guns, or claws.
In these comics, Moench uses an apparently simple technique: first-person narrative captions. By no means did he invent them; Werewolf by Night was structured around such captions long before Moench took over the title. There is, in fact, nothing particularly radical about the concept; first-person captions appear to be a straightforward equivalent to the voice-over sometimes used in film and television. But their actual form and function is more of a hybrid. Like the voice-over, the captions are linked in time and space to the action unfolding before the viewer, serving as a parallel track. But because they come to the reader in written prose rather than as the spoken word, they are assimilated differently. The voice of the narrator, rather than emanating from an actor, is the product of the reader’s own consciousness (or perhaps subconscious) interacting with the words. The narrator has a voice, but any attempt to concentrate on it enough to describe it is usually in vain. [4] A film or television show can be ruined by a narrator with an unpleasant or distracting voice, but this is a problem unlikely to be encountered in prose or comics.
In comics, a first-person narrator (I will omit the word “caption” from now on for the sake of convenience) has some advantage over certain other narrative forms prevalent at Marvel in the 1960s and 1970s. He (all my examples in this chapter are, unfortunately, male) does not fall into the Stan Lee trap of describing what the reader can see on the page, nor is he engaging in detailed descriptions of the general setting or mood (as McGregor will do in a later chapter). Finally, and most important, he is usually not engaging in an inexplicable oral monologue (as Dracula so often does). For reasons that might have to do with habit or tradition, Marvel characters who narrate aloud usually do so in a melodramatic mode, tossing around exclamation marks as though they were trying to meet a punctuation quota. In captions, the tone tends to be more subdued.
In Moench’s hands, first-person narration does double duty, bringing the reader into the hero’s head while also setting a mood that is more contemplative and detached.
Note
[1] Weirdworld debuted in Marvel Super Action 1 (January 1976), followed by an issue of Marvel Premiere in 1977, a three-issue sequence i Marvel Super Special (1979), various issues of Epic Illustrated (1981-1982), and three issues of Marvel Fanfare (1986). The title was revived in 2015 as part of Marvel’s Secret Wars event, but with only a tenuous connection to the original property.
[2] In a 2000 interview with Comic Book Artist (7), Moench was quite clear on the benefits of working outside the spotlight:
CBA: Looking at the list of books you worked on early during your time at Marvel, they’re all second-tier books.
Doug: Yeah. Well, that’s what I wanted.
CBA: Really? Was that so no one was necessarily looking over your shoulder? So you could have freedom without interference?
Doug: Well, I eventually got Fantastic Four, Hulk, and Thor, but I never had as much fun on those, you know? Because they were so established. When you say second-tier books, that also means they were new books and didn’t have this history. So they don’t have to fit into his mold and you can take chances and do all of these really great things at Marvel—truly good things. [7-8]
[3] In the same Comic Book Artist Interview, Moench expressed dissatisfaction with his work on both Fantastic Four and Thor (the latter due to editorial interference).
[4] [Note from that book I taught in Narrative class.]