Ed Brubaker is a recognizable name to say the least with several awards surrounding it. All thanks in no small part to his efforts in crime comics. So notable that each change how everyone sees characters and settings. This includes Brubaker himself as he starts out with surreal fun before going into serious drama. Especially since this is what gets him three different contracts at major comic companies. At best Brubaker reinvigorates elements of favorite comics and genres with purpose beyond addictive fantasies; but lately Brubaker focuses more on self-destructive tropes. So much, that it brings up the parallels between purpose and addiction. Because it’s more or less a life story that stretches 30 years.
The War of Alternatives
Brubaker like many hopefuls of the mid-80s begins his comics career following the release of Watchmen. Among the few creators understanding Alan Moore and Dave Gibbon’s message of comics being more than superheroes, Brubaker’s early work is experimental. Pajama Chronicles is so different than modern Brubaker series, collectors consider it an item of intense worth. Following three characters who don’t seem to fit together, it’s an exploration of the many possibilities of comic books. This marks a more innocent time in Brubaker’s career, but one very close to addiction.
In Brubaker’s semi-autobiography Lowlife, Brubaker displays a slacker/Generation X lifestyle reflecting the above. No direction in life following the Baby Boomer generation’s mistakes. One that can go in two ways: wallowing in self-destructive self-pity or new possibilities for purpose. Ironically it’s this battle between purpose and addiction that kickstarts Brubaker’s path into Neo-Noir crime drama. Brubaker meets the best people in his life telling stories with inherently flawed people like An Accidental Death. This earns Brubaker his first Eisner award. Unfortunately, it’s what drives Brubaker into the darker-and-edgier phase of comics Watchmen popularized.
Ed Brubaker: The Sliding Scale
Ed Brubaker and artist Eric Shanower’s success with An Accidental Death gets him the attention of DC’s then new imprint, Vertigo. Starting with the legacy title Prez, Smells Like A Teen President Brubaker invokes a setting similar to its 90s timeframe. One where the presence of a nostalgic character legacy can make things a little easier. Even then, Brubaker knows that banking on nostalgia isn’t a cure-all. Rather it’s a reminder that there is always more to a familiar setting, one that reach across generations.
This includes At The Seams with the love triangle where it focuses on the importance of the POVs’ relationship. Which isn’t to say that series like Detour couldn’t take risks. In it, life can get people down in a dystopian world where keeping a moral compass feels like a burden. Especially if it distorts people’s views of reality. Despite winning another award; between this and a better paying gig at Vertigo after a successful pitch, it’s understandable that Brubaker leaves Detour unfinished.
Sticky Gumshoe
The pitch becomes Scene of the Crime, a series about feeling stuck in life. Imagine having everything you need despite it not being emotionally/morally ideal. That’s every character in this series, they should be moving on with their lives and taking the responsibilities. But all of the ghosts hanging over them prevent that. This entire setting is practically an extension of Ed Brubaker and his anxieties. Despite all of the accolades, he’s still just a freelancer at this point. Just about all of his original characters feel stuck in one form or another to reflect this circumstance.
Some like in Deadenders with its division in economic class by segregation practically shouts Brubaker’s feeling of insignificance. One where only a fantasy like a guy with visions can make a difference. Which might be why he got a contract to write Batman. All while still doing Vertigo series like The Dead Boy Detectives of the surreal Sandman franchise.
The Bat, The Cat, And The Ugly
Batman has always been on the edge between the surreal and the grim reality. While things like alien invaders exist the man behind Batman is still a regular human. A man with flaws who can very well break his vow on no killing. When Bruce Wayne is set up for murder, he decides to be Batman all of the time. Unlike Brubaker’s freelancing days where art must coexist with anxiety, the contract with Batman is the ultimate escapist fantasy. Everyone deserves to cut loose once in a while, but doing that all of the time feels like an addiction. That is until Brubaker makes Batman realize that everything that builds him up comes from Bruce Wayne and his family.
It’s this boundary between addiction and purpose that has Ed Brubaker work with legendary artist Darwin Cooke. This time by making the thief Catwoman realize that despite the thrills, she still has purpose in her persona.
During this time, Brubaker collaborates with with Greg Rucka on Gotham Central. While the cape and masks of Gotham City find purpose, the police are stuck feeling helpless most of the time. When it’s not Batman or any of the Rogue’s Gallery, it’s the paperwork and identity crises that get them down. Some of them even escape into fantasies to deal with the mundane realities. If anyone lives in addictive fantasies like that, they might as well be the Joker in Batman: The Man Who Laughs.
Ed Brubaker: The Sleeper Hit
At DC’s other imprint, Wildstorm Ed Brubaker goes headlong into the Noir genre. Starting with Point Blank come the stylizations built on the foundations of what’s come before. This includes worn out characters tired of living and trying to find purpose. Only this time trying to be good in a world of better heroes both on and off the page feel isolating. Yet the follow-up to Point Blank introduces Brubaker to his lifetime collaborator Sean Phillips. This results in the passion project Sleeper.
Revival of the Marvels
With Brubaker’s DC contract ending and finding a renewed sense of creativity, he begins working with Marvel. Thus begins the post-war style Noir stories in the iconic Captain America run.
Thanks to such a crucial development, Brubaker gets a new contract with Marvel. But not before making another case of how Wildstorm’s The Authority took a bad turn after Mark Millar and the return of the cynical but optimistic beginnings. Something that Marvel’s Civil War (also by Millar) didn’t understand.
The Not-So Marvelous Origins
Fortunately side projects like Fantastic Four: Books of Doom and X-Men: Deadly Genesis provide more creative opportunities. For one he gives Dr. Doom an origin worthy of sympathy. We know he’s still a villain Mark Waid, this just gives him dimensions. Unfortunately, the downers never seem to stop for Brubaker. Deadly Genesis is both a tribute and a tragic side to an iconic moment. It turns out there was another team ready before Wolverine and Storm’s debut as the All-New All-Different X-Men. A team that the reader falls in love with in the back issues. All while reinforcing the memes of “Professor Xavier is a jerk!”. Because Professor X wipes Cyclops’ memory of his youngest brother Gabriel. Which in turn leads the people closest to Prof. X turning their backs on him.
Revitalizing The Dying Breeds
Ed Brubaker would regularly write more of the Uncanny X-Men focusing on the fallout from Brian Michael Bendis‘ House of M. With Marvel’s direction on EIC Joe Quesada focusing more on tragedy than heroism, Brubaker decides to find purpose in these times. With Bendis’ own background in crime drama, that drive might be why he gives Brubaker the reins on Daredevil. After the darkest pits Bendis puts Matt Murdock in Brubaker ups the stakes where Daredevil is ready to snap. Yet since Marvel keeps Daredevil in the dark after the mediocre Shadowlands, it was obvious the brooding was addictive. So taking a page from the man who started this downward trend, Frank Miller; Brubaker uses the presence of the original yellow costume to remind everyone of times before the brooding. Something Mark Waid understood when he has his turn.
During these runs, Brubaker meets writer Matt Fraction and artist David Aja. With these up-and-comings, Brubaker helps breathe new life into The Immortal Iron Fist. For a long time, Danny Rand doesn’t have many arcs outside of his relationship with Luke Cage. So Brubaker and Fraction script the means behind Danny’s role as Iron Fist. Through Danny’s predecessor, Orson Randall, Brubaker essentially inserts himself as an addict exhausted from battles that never stop. Meeting Danny who more or less represents Aja and Fraction, Orson/Brubaker give his life’s hopes to his successor(s).
Ed Brubaker: The Iconic Image
When Marvel’s Icon imprint still runs, Brubaker reunites with Phillips for their first creator-owned series, Criminal.
As Chris demonstrates, the noir themes come to comics through the boundaries of purpose and addiction. The days before seem great, a time of innocence and simplicity. So the main character decides to prune a piece. But anyone familiar with nostalgia likely knows how addicting it is. If anyone finds purpose in such self-destructive pursuits, they’ll be caught in a cycle of self-defeat. Especially since despite the fond memories, that’s denying the reality of the situations.
Their subsequent work like Incognito, The Fade Out, and Kill Or Be Killed follow similar structures about the fantastical parts of fiction. A supervillain in witness protection, the hollowness of Hollywood, and a murderous vigilante haunted by demons. All of which deal with the reality of their situations where despite knowing what they do is bad, the lead characters still want it as they feel adrift. Because why live when they already feel dead?
Fatale on the other hand, with its Lovecraft inspired settings, goes so far to display that even after beating the addictions people have to keep living. This can seem bad with all of the past damage but it’s hopeful as well. Brubaker still loves comics, hence why he enters a new contract with Image after this series.
A Bold Image
One of the pieces Ed Brubaker does at Image is with his Captain America artist Steve Epting. In Velvet the titular super spy is framed for her boss’ murder. But before you go into this expecting something like Catwoman meets Black Widow, Velvet begin’s the series as a secretary. This was after a long career, in effect Velvet represents Brubaker’s reaction to his female characters. Despite having agency and a life outside of her career and relationships, the need for purpose still exists. When that need comes in the form of self-preservation, it’s like a lifetime of stress releases.
Yet Velvet isn’t quite satisfied with this life either; Brubaker goes out of his way to show that while stakes make a good story, it’s a terrible life to have. Real close-quarter combat even features tearing parts of people’s faces off. Imagine if Brubaker has to go back to freelance work; despite the creative freedoms, they don’t pay well. In it’s own way self-preservation and the inability to escape from it can be very similar to addictions. Which is why in the finale Velvet takes the real killers’ assets for herself. It’s practically saying Brubaker now has the means to support himself into retirement.
Kids, Listen to Ed Brubaker
Ed Brubaker is by all accounts getting old and is ready to tell people some hard truths about what they love. In My Heroes Have Always Been Junkies for example brings up the myth of starving artists and drug usage for good art. This is Brubaker’s way of saying that while stories of addiction lead him to fame, it’s not a life he wants to inspire in his audience. Something that further illustrates in the resurfacing of Criminal and the two stories that come out of it. They don’t even feature the label of Criminal for reasons I can only guess for.
The vast majority of the series has the name Cruel Summer. Much like the song it shares a name with, it focuses on the very dark sides of summer times. Here’s why I guess Brubaker omits the Criminal name in trades; he doesn’t want past success and nostalgia. Instead he wants to remove the romantic sides of crime fiction. Each weight and decision from the round robin of characters looks less like collective Hero’s Journeys and more of a Shakespearean tragedy. All because the characters feed their addictions and flaws with flimsy justifications.
About Systemic Exploitation
On the other hand is a more practical guess in the name changes; accidentally telling two stories the editors miss. In issue 2 and 3 comes Bad Weekend, a more personal tale Brubaker instills as he feels his age. In it a comic creator receives a shared invite for his mentor Hal Crane to receive a lifetime achievement reward. Unfortunately Hal is crusty from an industry that robbed him of his original enthusiasm. All stemming from the death of his own mentor, a once prominent artist who was quickly forgotten. With people’s attitudes and preferences towards the comics medium and the people who help make it up always changing; this broke Hal. His drinking and gambling eventually push everyone else important to him away.
This isn’t exactly a new development; even in the 1930s, comics predecessor of pulp magazines had the same issues. In Pulp a retired cowboy writes his adventures as a fictional character only to be replaced by a younger artist when his intended finale is rejected. Now he’s barely scrapping to get by and is well on his way to go back into robbery. All before a heart condition can claim him to make his death mean something. So his old partner ropes him into a job that can hopefully turn their lives around. The “hero” thinks it’s a robbery like the old days, but it’s a bust on Nazis. Something that at that point in time wasn’t taken too seriously until it was too late.
Because It’s Not Too Late For You
It is without a doubt hard to live in a world where being good is too hard. Especially since people always have a better chance of relapsing into addictions or not get involved if there’s nothing to gain. Ed Brubaker can’t seem to do anything other than tragic crime drama, as it has always given him what he needed. When this serves as Brubaker’s brand however this sense of purpose feels like an addiction. If everything seems meaningless, it practically justifies the rise of demagogues who pervert what little good is left. It takes having the right connections to the remaining good to steer them out of their delusions. But Brubaker sees that in the younger crowd as his glory days are long over.
Find Your Purpose Young Creator
Ed Brubaker will certainly keep going after this. He might find more time on TV writing staffs like on Westworld and Amazon Original Too Old To Die Young. As for anyone who reads Brubaker’s material, remember that the path to finding purpose is a perilous one. It can be empowering as well as addicting. Even worse, it can even drive you into the depths of despair for how easy it is to fall out and back in. Which is why striving for good in honor of those good times means so much. People have to make their own meaning in life less they end up being hollow.
Thanks for coming to the end and as always remember to look between the panels.