John Ridley IV is a name you’re probably more familiar with from 12 Years a Slave. A lot of people believe that’s why publishers got him to spotlight another Batman and Black Panther. Editors looking to expand their resumes out of exploitive companies aside, Ridley’s been in comics for longer. In fact there are echoes to those old days.
John Ridley Disclaimers
Now before we go into anymore stuff, we need to address some things people are gonna bring up. Like how Ridley never really joined the Writer’s Guild of America, having kept his distance due to the guild’s infighting.
But more importantly how Ridley handles characters. It’s abundantly clear that Ridley is more of a scenario writer than a character writer. That’s probably why some of Ridley’s best works are adaptations of real life events. But for larger-than-life characters with beloved supporting casts, it’s not that great.
Eye of the Wildstorm
Way back in 2004, John Ridley’s first comics were in DC imprint, Wildstorm. Starting with its premiere title, The Authority, no less. The graphic novel, Human on the Inside was a companion piece to the Ed Brubaker run. Both of which dealt with how the future DC movie team was getting too big for its britches. Before Ridley or Brubaker came in, they started off pretty decent by embracing the insanity of superheroes and counterculture. But then Mark Millar took the team in an entirely different direction, becoming interventional and… authoritarian. They embrace a more sociopathic attitude, getting off on their celebrity status and making politicians powerless. So when the US president has had enough, he sends a number of people to deal with them.
One of them is just as critical of the president as he is of the Authority. So rather than try to dethrone anybody, this Ridley mouthpiece tries to introduce a transformative justice option. By taking the Authority down a few pegs, they realize that they’re not as infallible as they like to believe. The graphic novel ends with the Authority back in shape with the hope that they can better themselves. But… as Brubaker demonstrates, this just gave them the excuse to take over America entirely. Even when Brubaker gets a new leader for the team to basically do the same thing as Ridley, DC doubles down on the Authority’s brutish methods.
Status Quo Is A Real Life Game Mechanic
If anything, this experience forces John Ridley to rationalize DC’s choice to stick to a status quo. Just because you can tell somebody the outline of the problem, doesn’t mean that it can be solved as easily. The Razor’s Edge: Warblade takes a neo-noir look on an ex-vigilante from Wildstorm’s older premiere supehero team WildC.A.T.s. Through Warblade, readers experience how difficult it is to leave your old life behind. Human nature is full of cycles like nostalgia, habits, addictions, passions, and traumas. Yes, all of these things are known for getting exploited, something that the political figures fear from superheroes. But at the same time, those familiar comforts that people try to repress also gave them strength to get through hard times. Fortunately, unlike the Authority, Warblade manages to find purpose again after a lot of reflection on both himself and others. This allows him some peace despite the exploits.
Diversity Can Be a Tool of Oppression
I always seem to come back to Angela Davis at times. I guess Ridley’s critiques of decades past really got her words ringing in me. While still in Wildstorm, John Ridley had a creator-owned project called The American Way. Not to be confused with Superman’s reaction to the Authority. Ridley has plenty to say about executive meddling himself.
In this series, superheroes are just actors with superpowers trying to put on a good show to keep morale up. Serving as a good example should be a good thing when superpowers can manifest on their own right? Well what happens when putting up appearances leaves mental strains? No taking risks, with fights or relationships; bringing in people who represent the worst of us; keeping the teammates who want to make you rip your hair out alive, at your expense no less; and trying to be inclusive to score brownie points for an election. And above all else, the people in on the secrets become disillusioned with reality.
Frankly it feels like when everything that gives you comfort is a lie, the best thing is to let it burn to the ground and start again. Yet nobody sane actually wants to do that in the follow-up, Those Above and Those Below. When people aren’t high on passion, most of the time they just want to remember when they represented something good. Because there was at least a comfort in the bleak “best days” when you feel you haven’t accomplished anything worthwhile. But all that does is show a lot of people that these superheroes never really represented them. Just a means for a more “efficient” domination.
No One Represents The Whole or Best
Just look at the (definitely not a) comic, The Other History of the DC Universe. This illustrated novel takes a lot of artistic liberties with DC’s “minority” characters of the 70s to the late 2000s and behind-the-scenes DC office politics to make them work with real world events. Probably from people Ridley knew as well because of how personal each point-of-view felt. He does this by stripping away the gloss of the Comics Code and retcons to replace it with these laymen’s perspectives.
Hence why the narrators believe they’re token minorities and focus heavily on the flaws of celebrated characters. Because if they’re supposed to represent positive change, why does representation feel like filling a trends checklist? But unlike so many of the clickbait lists on comics commentary websites, this goes into the nuances. The POV characters are people acknowledging their flaws, admitting they were wrong about some stuff, and took turns to change for the better. Despite ripping into DC so much, this book goes into how there is still something to celebrate with the wider universe. That’s looking into characters with a perspective that reinforces admiration.
John Ridley on Superman
Need a more concrete example, let’s try Ridley’s story in the anthology Superman: Red and Blue. This was a sequel to something long ago in 1970, around the time when the Soviet Union’s living conditions were brought up. If anybody asks why superheroes don’t get directly involved in political affairs, here’s the reason why. Superman was depowered, held prisoner, and tortured by people who’s rights he tried to advocate. Having superpowers doesn’t mean you can fight a superpower.
So what happens when the warden of Superman’s prison becomes an influential politician? As Clark Kent, he’s impressed with how much the country has changed for better with the fall of the Soviets. While he hopes that the warden has too, Superman wouldn’t mind striking an unrepentant sadist down for what he’s done to him. Thankfully readers feel Superman’s disappointment when the ex-warden replies that he had no pride or shame in his past. Some people will definitely see this as cowardly or admitting this was a banality of evil. But that’s not the point. The point is being able to acknowledge the problem to know that something’s wrong to help people going through it. That allows Clark Kent to focus on what Superman should really do.
So What Happened With…
Yeah, we had to address this sooner or later. John Ridley thrives in the grounded environments of his stories. The more out-there characters and settings in I Am Batman or Black Panther really weren’t a good fit. Ridley has admitted that he tries his best when given a job for a story. He says in the same place that The Next Batman, Second Son, and I Am Batman were humbling experiences. Take that with what you will, but the results speak for themselves. The Jace Fox stories were messes tied up in behind-the-scenes drama, events, poor marketing, and throwing a bunch of stuff at the wall. There was potential as a Fox Family drama centering around building a broken family back together, but things kept changing directions.
As for Black Panther… it was plagued with things that happened for the sake of the plot. When it comes to the characters, there were consistency problems. Including how Captain America acted out of line when he became aware of King T’Challa’s cloak and daggering. There was definitely something for how Wakanda’s political situations are because of its sudden shift to democracy. You could even say that the only way to make the transition in under a generation is something so absurd it works. Tragically, that’s out of Ridley’s element.
Frankly, Ridley’s style would’ve been a better fit in the Black Panther run after his. Or maybe Daredevil would, because his Wolverine story in Black, White & Blood shows all of Ridley’s best in turning vulnerability into a strength.
John Ridley With A Palate Cleanser
So now let’s go into the book that actually fits John Ridley. GCPD: The Blue Wall keeps all of the superhero stuff out, probably one of the reasons DC fans didn’t pick the mini-series up with enthusiasm. The other is commentary about how police work is handled from a very grounded perspective. When real life has police brutality incidents, people might’ve seen this as trying to cash in on a trend. In any case, this series does everything that other John Ridley series try to do. That’s the ups and downs of reforming.
With Batman supporting character, Renee Montoya as the framing device, readers experience how her police reform campaign affects three rookies. In a day when police brutality is all anybody talks about, trying to change it is a good move. The problem is, there are still a lot of issues when dealing with such a high stress environment. One rookie quit the force when he failed his parole job even after following his superior’s advice to keep jail birds in line with fear. Another was publicly celebrated for not firing her gun when trying to catch a suspect. Only to reveal that she didn’t have the nerve to pull the trigger or tell people otherwise until it was too late. The last one was getting racially-tinged hazing, losing his father’s respect in the process.
As for Renee, trying to manage an entire police department is a lot of work with as many stresses. Between fighting off her alcoholism, her brother and his fiance giving her pets to hold off drinking, her sense of duty, and comparing her past griefs with the rookies, Renee loses touch with the smaller problems before something big can be nipped in the bun.
John Ridley: Reforms Are Anything But Easy Payments
All of that in mind, Ridley’s best comics are anything but pessimistic. They’re about celebrating the smaller victories to inspire better change. It’s just that getting to those small victories need awareness of human nature’s cycles. There’s a comfort to all of those structures despite how flawed they can be to certain people. It’s being aware of those flaws that compel the need to help others, provided you’ve got the proper mindset. Otherwise, you make those flaws more efficient to ignore.
Naturally, John Ridley acknowledges that’s the harder thing to do. People’s biases have a way of getting the better of them. Sometimes not even a sublime experience is enough to shake people out of those pipe dreams. Partly because living through some of the worst your life threw at you can leave you complacent. Often because you’re just too tired to fight any longer. Or the realization on how small your flights of passion actually are. But it’s acknowledging that vulnerability that inspires others to deal with life’s worst easier. All so that it can later be fixed.
That positive progress is in the real world and the fictional ones that reflect it. You just have to keep an open mind to notice the mundane things that keep your comforts going.
Thanks for coming to the end and as always, remember to look between the panels.