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Longbox Diving – The Order

By | November 2nd, 2011
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Earlier today, we brought you our interview with Matt Fraction from NYCC. Given our fondness of his body of work, it only made sense that this week’s Longbox Diving be somewhat Fraction themed. We already rant, rave and more about Casanova regularly, but there was another book that spun out of the ashes of Civil War which came, conquered and quickly disappeared into that good night. So what better to longbox dive than one of his best works at Marvel and one of his (oddly) least discussed titles?

Hop after the cut for some thoughts on Fraction’s second solo ongoing at Marvel, and the book that he admittedly killed: The Order! (It’s not as big of a longbox dive as last week’s, but you’ll forgive me later.)

It feels like forever since I’ve even needed to write these words, but — spinning out of the events of Marvel’s Civil War! came a brand new series starring a troupe of heroes and heroines who had never been heard of before. While the biggest reactions to Fear Itself were felt in regular ongoing titles, there were not that many new titles that came from it, unlike more modern events (which end up relaunching universes or whatever). Instead, we just had the three: Brian Bendis and Frank Cho on The Mighty Avengers, Dan Slott and Stefano Caselli on Avengers: The Initiative, and finally, Matt Fraction and Barry Kitson on the Order.

The Order tells the story of the eponymous team, a group of celebrities assembled to be injected with super powers courtesy of Hank Pym as part of the now-defunct 50 State Initiative. While the “original team” (actually introduced in the Civil War finale) break some of the morality clauses inherent in their deal to become superheroes, were given to a brand new group of kids pulled straight from the real world headlines. Starring fresh-faced heroes Anthem (a former TV star and Tony Stark drinking buddy), Aralune (former pop-starlet with a sex tape and bullimia), Calamity (former athlete in a car accident), Supernaut (former soldier and POW whose lie was turned into a Hollywood film – which Supernaut hated), Veda (former actress), Heavy (former soldier injured during Tony Stark’s visit to the troops from Iron Man’s origin) and Mulholland (grunge/punk rock star with a giant hammer), the team was run by Pepper Potts (aka Hera) under the watchful eye of Tony Stark in a series of publicity stunts and honest attempts to be superheroes that eventually resulted in the introduction of Invincible Iron Man’s first villain: Zeke Stane (coming back soon as a villain to an Iron Man comic near you).

All things considered, this was (ostensibly) a win for Fraction at Marvel. His second Marvel ongoing featuring all new characters spinning out of the most popular event of the past decade? Talk about a recipe for success. Fraction would go on to write some of your favorite books from here, from Invincible Iron Man to Immortal Iron Fist and beyond — but first came The Order. And while the Order are no longer with us (they pop up now and again, like in Fear Itself’s Youth in Revolt), the book stands as one of Fraction’s best superhero-based stories.

In an interview with our site recently, Fraction mentioned that his upcoming title The Defenders is “everything (he) loves about superhero comics.” If we take this statement as inherently true, we could presume that the Order was everything Fraction loved about creator-owned comics. The reason why the Order stands out for me (as a reader of Fraction’s body of work) is that for all intents and purposes, this is the true moment of Fraction’s more indie sensibilities coming into play on a larger scale. While Fraction’s voice has always been prevalent in his work with characters from Punisher to Cyclops and beyond, the Order was Fraction and Kitson being given a rather large stage with which to go to town. Invincible Iron Man may house the continued super-adventures of one Tony Stark, but the Order (also featuring Stark) were the superheroes of “our” world. The Initiative was a big undertaking, and while most titles simply reflected the changes this move brought to the Marvel Universe, it was the Order who said, “Well, ok — but how would real people react to this?”

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That’s the inherent glory of the Order: Marvel’s slogan is “Your Universe,” and the books they tell all take place in our world, but this is the most “realistic” book Marvel has ever given us (of recent memory — I’m probably forgetting that one book you remember and hate me for not remembering). As mentioned earlier, characters here are pulled straight from the headlines and other Marvel titles to give us a more honest portrayal of the difficulty of being a hero in a world with lower moral standard: Aralune is an obvious parable to teen pop starlets you hear far too much about from TMZ, Mulholland is that outsider kid we all knew in high school and college, Heavy and Supernaut are post-9/11 reflections on the price of being an American soldier. Their stories, told intermittently via flashbacks and talking-head interviews (based on story-telling devices borrowed from television shows like LOST), allow us to connect to the characters and their plight much quicker and surprisingly more deeply than you’d imagine a brand new superhero character could. I know people like Supernaut, I’ve met a few like Heavy, and I’m more than familiar with those “reports” of characters like Aralune; outside of the sort of obvious connections/plot points being made (with the idea of celebrity status brought on by being a superhero), we’re given a recognizable set of heroes within the Marvel Universe against a shifting landscape of political allegory that became darker by the year.

On top of that, the Order really flipped superhero commentary on its head. While yes, the notion of ripping apart superheroes as damaged beings who indulge in vices isn’t an inherently new one, or even one within the realm of Marvel books, Fraction’s is one of the few that handles this with respect as opposed to parody. You get the impression that most books, when they want to lampoon traditional superhero tropes, feel the need to do so with a hot iron poker, but Fraction’s idea here is a bit more noble. Given that it is in the middle of the Initiative, these are celebrities who want to be better, who want to stand for something. Yes, they’re all damaged — the leader, Anthem, is an alcoholic (and really, Fraction’s first foray into writing a “Demon in a Bottle”-esque Character), and with him Fraction gets to explore the damaged superhero psyche as someone coming to it from the opposite direction; instead of a superhero that becomes an alcoholic, we have an alcoholic that becomes a superhero. Rather than tear everything down, Fraction is showing how to rebuild here and introducing quiet thematic ideas of the potential of superheroes that he’s lightly been touching on since (especially when writing Pepper Potts).
That’s what makes the Order work. There’s abundant humor in it akin to Fraction’s usual sense of wit, but this isn’t a joke book, or yet another version of the Superman archetype being kicked around or being shown as a dick. Fraction is bringing independent sensibilities to a mainstream universe and saying, “Look — this is how we make heroes. Our world is cynical enough as is, so let’s fix it up a bit, give out a giant hammer and the ability to fly and make the best of it.” (Note: Fraction has never said that, this is just me postulating on a potential thing he might say given my reading of the material.) Obviously it helps to have a champ on art like Barry Kitson to help bring this book to life, and with the entire Order package we’re given 10 solid issues of what I only wish I could read new stories of.

Fraction has admitted in the past that the book wasn’t cancelled but he chose to end it, and to a fair degree that’s sad. Due to the short ending of the book, we’re given a lot of ideas that unfortunately have to be cut short. But hey, who knows. Maybe some young hotshot writer who was inspired by the Order will bring the characters back in a short story, and Aralune will get to punch a bear again. A guy can dream, right? (Editor’s note: Yeah, that’ll be the same day that Nextwave comes back. Insert sadface emoticon here.)


//TAGS | Longbox Diving
Matthew Meylikhov

Once upon a time, Matthew Meylikhov became the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Multiversity Comics, where he was known for his beard and fondness for cats. Then he became only one of those things. Now, if you listen really carefully at night, you may still hear from whispers on the wind a faint voice saying, "X-Men Origins: Wolverine is not as bad as everyone says it issss."

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