Wild Cards

There is a secret history of the world—a history in which an alien virus struck the Earth in the aftermath of World War II, endowing a handful of survivors with extraordinary powers. Some were called Aces—those with superhuman mental and physical abilities. Others were termed Jokers—cursed with bizarre mental or physical disabilities. Some turned their talents to the service of humanity. Others used their powers for evil. Wild Cards is their story.

I've read the first half dozen or so. Really good series, kind of X-Men crossed with Watchmen.

This is the first time I've heard of this.

I'm reading the first one now. It's really, really good. We discussed them over in the GRRM thread (the one that cusses him out in the title). I was planning on posting a "Doot is Vindicated" post, but you stole my thunder by flushing me out of hiding with this thread.

You should still vindicate me.

I'm glad you're enjoying it, though. I do want to hear your more detailed thoughts.

Well, the part that appealed to me was not so much the super-powered individuals, but that it was an alternate history since 1946. I love books like that -- that dwell on the 50's and 60's and the tumultuous times. And these stories are set during some interesting events, but without too much preaching either way about politics. Some of the most interesting pop culture trends (comic books, tv shows, music) are seen through the lens of "What if there were super-powered individuals, wouldn't that affect what people watched and listened to?" Also, some recognizable pastiches from our own comic books, but not too much "on the nose" to be a negative.

Well written and with some common threads through the stories to tie them together.

I guess the other thing I like is general pop culture trends, and most of the stories seem to track a particular emerging thing -- there's a cheesy TV show in the early going, a sort of blaxploitation "Shaft" type superhero, a showdown at a peacenik rally between a "law and order" superhero type and a dopehead hero. I think my favorite one is the one about the Turtle, though I don't suppose it fits neatly within a box.

The thing that intrigued me was when Doot described the Watchmen angle as something that must have been in the water at the time -- the mid to late 80's were the time to do desconstructive, realistic histories involving superheroes. I'm fascinated by ideas that emerge and seem to have a particular time when everybody turns to that idea or group of ideas.

For the Watchmen zeitgeist, I think it has a bit to do with the Reagan years sinking in on Baby Boomer lefties, and their minds turned to the idea that some sort of heroic spirit of the Great Society was now lost, and America had become a shameful echo of its New Deal potential. The odd thing is that, meanwhile, people like me were feeling like the "malaise" of Vietnam and Watergate were behind us, and that America had hit its stride again. There really have been two different worlds, different voices, constantly striding and leapfrogging each other, never really communicating.

Turtle is the Peter Parker.

I really like the People's Park 1971 story a lot.

That's one of the reasons I love the People's Park one ... it seems very sympathetic to both sides of that divide.

It's a "shared world" anthology. All the stories are by different writers, but they all crossover and interact with each other. George R.R. Martin was not just a contributor but also the editor, so he was the one overseeing it. So he had an invisible hand in everything.

The first book, the one with the "pulpy" looking cover, has stories that move in chronological order from the 1940s to the 1980s (which was the present, when the book was originally published).

The first story is by Howard Waldrop, and is about a WWII ace fighter pilot, hence that cover. The character is called Jetboy, and is an homage to an actual comic-book character called Airboy. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airboy)

A lot of the characters in the first one have recognizable comic-book counterparts. Golden Boy is a lot like early 1940s Superman in terms of powers and adventures. Dr. Tachyon is a strange visitor from another planet. GRRM's character "The Turtle" is cut from the Spider-Man mold (nerdy teenager gets powers, makes good).

It also fits into the "alternate history" genre, with the world going in a different direction once superhumans first emerge in 1946. The book was originally published in 1986, at the same time as but independently of Watchmen, but clearly something was in the air, because there are similar attempts to explore what's now kind of been done to death: superhumans altering history with their presence; more realistic approach to psychology and the science of the powers.

Besides GRRM's main contribution to Book One (the story about the Turtle), GRRM also does several "interlude" type deals, and they're pastiches of various writers' styles. There's a parody of Tom Wolfe's "Radical Chic" titled "Wild Card Chic," a Hunter S. Thompson bit. GRRM also writes the prologue. So his fingerprints are all over it.

The first volume is still kind of a mixed bag, but I think the novelty of the gimmick is enough to take you through the lesser stories in the first book. A couple of the stories definitely seed a few threads for ongoing threads that continue, but overall the first feels pretty self-contained, so that you don't feel like you're getting an incomplete story if you stop with the first one.

Although that said, I actually recommend reading the first TWO books, because the second one is overall better. I feel like a new reader could just read the first two volumes and feel very satisfied without necessarily being compelled to move on. It's an ongoing saga, but there are several good, satisfying "jumping-off" points throughout the series. Book Two is the best, earliest one, imo.

I agree with the Peter Parker thing a good deal, but the story itself doesn't really bring to mind a general pop culture trend. The Radical reminded me a lot of Peter Parker, and specifically the angst Ditko had about moving the character into the 1960's. (It's mostly speculation, but a lot of people have read the tea leaves and found that Ditko and Lee's biggest disagreement was about Parker resisting the the way the winds were blowing in the 60's, and being more of a Randian hero against the tide of the counter culture.).