The Twelve

If you're a fellow nerd (and I don't know why you would be here otherwise, unless it's just to reaffirm your mainstream aesthetics by having a chuckle at the dork before you put on your polo shirt and go back to your dull, gray life), you know that it's a special science fiction geek who likes Babylon 5. I never really understood the reasoning behind this. It's okay to like Star Wars in most circles and you can occasionally get away with Star Trek (contingent upon the series, of course), but Babylon 5 is for losers. I always felt it was to be lauded for its realistic, multi-faceted depictions of both characters and alien species. I also appreciated how concise it was. The five-season story resisted the artificial lengthening and fluff often found in serials of all kinds. Sure it was a little over-the-top sometimes, but come on! Have you even watched The Next Generation?

Sorry, I'm getting off-topic.

In the midst of my often arduous, only occasionally rewarding quest to catch up on the major events of the Marvel universe since the House of M (because I'm a sucker for alternate timelines), a little series called The Twelve was brought to my attention. It's the currently ongoing twelve-issue story of twelve (12) golden age heroes and vigilantes cryogenically frozen by Nazi scientists in the final days of the war in Germany, lost in the shuffle and thawed in the present day. It sounded pretty safe, but then I found out it's penned by Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski. Not only am I a fan of his work, but I wanted to review a comic series and I was completely unprepared to write the Marvel universe retrospective I'm planning.

After all, I thought, there is no way it can be worse than World War Hulk.

I have to say I'm glad to be reviewing just the first volume, issues one through six, because I can refuse to finish it and pretend that the second half is an opus which completely subverts my expectations and the series rises like a phoenix from the stale, derivative ashes the first half crumbled into after I read it. I can pretend that I don't have to go back and re-watch Babylon 5 just to make sure I really did enjoy myself the first time.

It's the Captain America story. Although technically resurrected in the sixties, taking Marvel's rolling timeline into account, he could have been revived in the mid nineties, putting his inconsistent time-influenced culture shock somewhere between "What, no jetpacks?" and "What is this... iPod?" However, Marvel was happy to milk Steve Rogers' quaint, simpler time background throughout the relatively recent Civil War, and in The Ultimates, Mark Millar saw fit to cover the postmodern, information age reawakening story (albeit with his usual ham-fisted macho tough-guy characterization). The point is, I think it's safe to say that it's been done before, I dare say to death.

The Twelve begins by flashing back to 1945 Berlin. If you're not familiar with the history of Marvel comics, this means a whole load of ridiculous heroes and guys in masks and what-have-you are ending World War II by punching Nazis and firing guns at something outside the panel. The premise is that many of the failed and one-shot comic heroes from Marvel's early incarnations fought in the war. Twelve of them who were assumed killed in action or fallen off the planet or whatever were actually trapped and frozen by Nazi scientists who wanted to study their powers later. The scientists never returned to the bunker, however, and the twelve remained hidden until unearthed by a construction project in 2008.

How compelling. It's the story of gifted individuals trying to find their way in a world they do not belong to. The problem is that it's the premise for most comic books since the golden age--no, scratch that, it's a staple of a a large portion of fantastic or magical or not-exactly-realistic storytelling of any kind. Only this time, it's cluttered and has terrible pacing.

The recovered heroes represent most of the different types of characters found in Marvel's sprawling continuity. Five of them are just vigilantes without powers (most of whom dress like The Spirit) and tend to be moody detectives. One is a remote-controlled robot, but since the guy who piloted it died in the 40's, it has yet to do anything. I imagine it became self-aware or something to that effect. The only woman in the group has mysterious, dark magic powers and is obviously delighted to discover the goth/industrial scene (I wish I was joking). The tank is an outsider who claims to hail from a hidden underground society Namor-style. You have your scientist who accidentally gives himself powers and uses them to fight crime, your scientist who is accidentally given powers by another scientist (who is evil) and uses them to fight crime, and the artificial "perfect man" created by a scientist who goes off to fight crime after his creator dies. The only character I found interesting was the final lost hero, Master Mind Excello. He is exceptionally strong, but his primary powers are his excellent senses. This guy is so perceptive he can catch glimpses of the future. He's like Laplace's demon with Attention Deficit Disorder.

Perhaps it's unfair to judge The Twelve so harshly having read only half of it thus far. After all, upon awakening, Master Mind Excello found the modern world too loud to focus but you know he's going to find some way to get around that and do something crazy. Maybe it'll be enough to make the series worthwhile.

Realistically, I doubt I'll enjoy the second half very much. I feel like The Twelve bit off way more than it could chew because by issue six, the series is starting to choke on it. So far it's just a collection of watered-down versions of the displaced hero story I mentioned before. It seems each issue is going to focus on one or two of the characters while simultaneously moving the whole thing forward. What we have is a series of anecdotes which are neither particularly interesting or new. The only good thing is that we have the assurance (through a flash-forward) that the most insufferable one of the lot gets to eat a murder sandwich sometime before it ends.

I can't imagine a satisfactory way for this series to continue that doesn't involve the immediate deaths of half of these schmucks. It's too much for a twelve part series, and to be honest, I don't like most of the characters enough to recommend extending it to fix this problem.

I've always held up Babylon 5 as an example of successful pacing in serialized fiction. Stories end. However, there is financial incentive to keep serials like comics or television shows going indefinitely. Babylon 5 didn't suffer from this because it was exactly as long as it was intended to be. I admire the attempt to tell a succinct tale in the Marvel universe, but I don't have much faith in The Twelve to deliver before the deadline.

Before I go, I have a special message for Joe Quesada. If he survives The Twelve, I am available to write the continuing adventures of Master Mind Excello.

Just saying.