The Forty-Niners (2005) Chapter 2: In Sirens’ Silence

The Skyshark Story: Jetlad is now a mechanic at the Skyshark hangar. The Tom-Selleck-looking pilot Wulf chats up Jetlad about his pop music interests and whether Skywitch is his girlfriend. Wulf tries to impress Jetlad with old newsreel footage of his war exploits alongside Tom Strong (who has his own Alan Moore comic book) and Atoman (who turns out to be a villain who causes a lot of problems in Top Ten #12). Then Wulf tells Jetlad he is a handsome young man and tries to get him to go out for drinks, but Steve declines the offer.



The German Story: Skywitch and Black Rider rescue a crossword-themed former felon from a couple of harassing vigilantes who dress like the Lone Ranger and Tonto.



Then they investigate the murder of Herr Panzer, an Iron Man type who is one of the several former Nazi scientists whose inventions have made Neopolis possible. Panzer somehow has turned to dust inside his suit. Other Nazis in the palatial Science Institute include Professor Gromolko (who ended his days as a drug kingpin in Top Ten #1) and Die Eisen Maske, who looks like Red Skull. We also see the as-yet unnamed Sturm und Drang. All these characters had exhibits in the Museum of Modern History in the Top Ten series.



After work, Steven and Leni get drunk at a bar. He kisses her to impress Wulf. Steven takes Leni back to the boarding house, and they amke out in her room, but Steven abruptly stops and flees. He was clearly doing it to convince Wulf and himself that he is straight, and he fails miserably.



The Vampire Story: The vampires seen threatening the bartender in the previous chapter return and murder him when the bar closes for the evening. They also strip the chanteuse Jaguar Lady and infect her with vampirism.

My Two Cents: Leni gets the focus in this chapter, showing us what Top Ten was like two generations ago. We learn that the government is cracking down on teen sidekicks, on grounds of child endangerment. Yet in 1999, the Seven Sentinels all have sidekicks who have their own clubhouse. I guess some bad ideas have to get re-discovered and re-discarded by each generation. Black Rider is concerned that it’s sexually abnormal for all these grown men to have special teen boy partners; this echoes arguments actually made against comic books by Wertham and others.

We already know from Top Ten that Jetlad becomes police chief Captain Traynor, who is an older gay man in a decades-long relationship with a mustached man, so there’s little mystery about where Wulf’s attentions toward Jetlad will end up.

Leni is overcompensating for anti-German sentiment by being very vocal, criticizing Nazis every chance she gets. She has taken work as a cop, which apparently requires zero training in this universe. That's silly since so much of cop work is procedures and paperwork that must be learned, not just muscle work that anyone can step into. Leni is grounded until her mechanical broomstick arrives, but she can begin patrolling on the ground anyway. She meets a few cops:



• Captain Omega, who looks like Jor-El, is the last known survivor of a doomed planet. We previously saw him in the King Mural back in Top Ten #10.
• Colonel Lilliput, Sam Slinger, Robyn’s father, looks like Terry Gilliam’s film version of Baron Munchausen.
• Ramon “Black Rider” Morales is a biker who looks like the Dread Pirate Roberts. He’s Leni’s assigned partner. Is this a callback to the Black Rider who’s a member of Marvel’s silly motorcycle gang Team America?
• Steelgauntlet is a Robot Man style tragedy, a maimed scientist (it seems) trapped in an armored exo-skeleton. He says he is none too fond of actual A.I.s.
• The Maid is essentially Joan of Arc, a paladin with powers based around prayer, light, a huge sword, etc.



The premise of Top 10 involved a multi-dimensional police force, but there’s no hint in this graphic novel that the characters are aware of any other dimensions yet. They’re just living in the world as they know it, and the police here are just local cops beholden to the Neopolis mayor, not a Police Commissioner who lives in the parallel world of Grand Central. The mayor has been making noises about handing law enforcement over to the military to help control the vampire (i.e. organized crime) problem.

Easter Eggs: Street signs read “Felix the Mat” and “Marx Bros,” but you’ll have to break out your magnifying glass to read them! The level of detail in Top Ten is truly amazing.

Is that Dick Tracy exiting the police lobby?

Wimpy stands eating his usual hamburger on the street while a Pegasus-mounted knight canters by.

Other details that I can’t place: Two men fly in vehicles shaped like one-man drinking cups. A menagerie walks down the street including horse, cow, goose, two chickens, and two pigs, one of whom has a tricorn hat and a cat-o-nine-tails. An airship looks sort of like a Fabergé egg.



A “Barney Goggles” store riffs on comic strip character Barney Google.

The wallpaper in Leni’s bedroom is a pattern of a cartoon animal, could be a mouse or dog. Something with short ears.

Jaguar Lady reveals a cat head tattoo on her upper sternum.

The 'drinking cups" are from Dick Tracy...



In the bar panel, to the left of Skywitch: I believe that is Captain Easy and Wash Tubbs. Tubbs was the star of the eponymous strip by Roy Crane, one of the influential strip artists, on the early generation of comic artists (along with Foster and Caniff). Captain Easy was a soldier of fortune who was spun off into his own strip, which eventually took over the title of Wash's. It was a mix of humor and adventure. At the bar appears to be either Buck Rogers or Buddy Deering, on the right. The pilot in the middle, I'm not sure; could be Smilin' Jack, could be several others.

Black Rider is fairly straightforward: he is a motorcycle-riding Zorro pastiche, more or less.

I'd say Munchausen is probably as close as anything for Col. Liliput, though that is a standard 19th Century light opera costume and character look.

The workers on the steel girders are all Native American characters (many Native American found work on high rise construction, in the mid-20th Century). I can make out Johnny Cloud, and Tonto. Not sure about the two seated at a table.

The Faberge-looking airship is the Montgolfier Brother's balloon....



The knight on the Pegasus is definitely Sir Justin, the Shining Knight.

The dog character on Lenni's wallpaper is Bimbo the Dog, from the Betty Boop cartoons, from the Fleischer Studios.

The pig is a pirate, and there have been some kids books with pirate pigs. I'm just not sure which character it is supposed to be.

In Chapter one, at the train station in Neopolis, you could see all kinds of comic strip easter eggs, from Alley Oop, to Li'l Abner, to the Pogo gang, as the realistic animals, with the character props (the turtle Churchy Lafemme appears as a real turtle, with a pirate hat,. Porky the Pig is also in that scene, as is Deputy Dawg and a cow that may be for the early Disney Silly Symphonies.

In Chapter 2, you can see Dick Tracy (he is the one exiting the station, though a bright yellow raincoat would have made it clearer. An earlier panel with a guy in a trenchcoat might be Slam Bradley. The page where the crossword puzzle guy is attacked has a cameo from Conny, the Chinese boy in Terry and the Pirates. A racial caricature character from Little Nemo can just be seen outside the station, after the Lone Ranger-esque character is brought in.

In regards to the police force; many early police forces grew out of militia and military groups, and military veterans were major police recruits, in the post-war era. Given the timeframe of this, it would make sense that Lenni might be desired, given her combat experience. Training in that period wasn't as extensive as today, which is reflected in racism and corruption within many departments. Given the expanding nature of Neoplois and the need for police, coupled with low pay, it makes sense that they might be less stringent on recruits, seeking, instead, people with combat experience, more than peace-keeping. Military police experience would probably be a rare bonus.

This is the building I was referring to, in the first panel...




From the 1939 New York World's Fair.

The one on the left looks a bit like the Campbell's soup kid...but probably isn't.  

Willi Lohmer is probably both a reference to Master Man and a reference to Willy Loman, from Death of A Salesman (which is where Roy got the name Willie Lohmer).

In regards to relationships, I think the 49ers reflects a lot of post-war veteran experiences.  Many came home to an uncertain life, without family or jobs, with their past few years spent in intense combat.  many had trouble adjusting.  It also reflects the refugees who were displaced in the war, who went looking for new lives.  Many Jews emigrated to Palestine while a great many people of various regions migrated to the US, Canada and South America, especially as Europe was still suffering for some time after the war, as the countries were rebuilt.  You also had those who fled the Soviet occupation zones.  The people of Neopolis are greatly displaced people, superheroes and villains, creatures of magic, scientific creations, scientists, aliens, and many "others."  They have been brought to the new city, to create a new life for themselves.  Here, we are seeing the early days, as the city is being built and the traditions of the police force, in a city of super beings and odd lifeforms.  By the time of Top Ten, new families have been created and new generations born.  Life has normalized and carried on.  You saw these kinds of things in new suburban neighborhoods that grew out of housing developments, like the Levittown, with manufactured homes, with new schools and businesses.  Returning servicemen settled here with their families, aided by VHA loans, worked new jobs, their kids went to new schools and became new communities.  The same was true in the UK and became true in Europe, as the countries were rebuilt and stabilized.

Whatever you think of Moore's handling of the ethnic vampires, or prostitutes or the subject of oncestual pairings, he presents a fairly complex and sensitive gay relationship.  Steve is young, though not a youth.  He is an adult, in all respects, but still hiding from the truth of himself.  He is trying to do what society expects of him, when he has spent a chunk of his young life doing things society didn't expect.  He went to war and saw horrors that even adults shouldn't see.  He is supposed to settle down, find a girl; but, how do you "settle down," after part of your childhood was spent fighting aggression and evil, or just plain fighting and killing, how do you build a normal life?  That is the question that faced many veterans.  Many saw a world beyond their doorstep and things beyond what society would address openly.  For some, they found others who were like them, when no one at home was like them.  That includes other gay men and women.  Wulf knows who he is and has accepted he is outside society, because of it.  he has also seen death and destruction and wants to have love and life.  He knows just how precious it is.  He has no more time for the games society plays, or how it hides from itself.  He is attracted to Steve and believes he is attracted to him and gay; but, not willing to accept it.  Yet, Wulf doesn't press Steve.  he lays it out for him and lets him choose his path.  As we would see in Top Ten, he chose Wulf and they had a happy life together.  Given how deeply homosexuality was persecuted in that period, they showed great courage and love.  Even as comics introduced more characters, very few series actually explored their relationships as two people in love.  It was more often a character trait; but, not a part of their dramatic life.  These days, we see more depiction of such relationships, without making it a big reveal.  It just is and they are happy.  Others explore issues relating to it.  Some handle it better than others.  Some writers handle it better in some of their stories, than others.  James Robinson handled it well with Mikaal, in Starman, yet showed some insensitivity by remarking, in JSA, that the only people who attended Madame Fatal's funeral were the road company of La Cage Aux Foilles.  It comes off as a rather insensitive joke, reinforcing suppositions about the character, just because the gimmick was a man who disguised himself as an old woman, to catch crooks off guard.  It was a dramatic device that wasn't uncommon, in the period, as even Captain America did this, in a 1940s story.  It did not presuppose the character was gay,a drag queen, a cross-dresser, or anything else than yet another crime fighter with a gimmick. 




 

Back in the booth, behind the sailors, appears to be Howard Hughes. The figure with him is familiar; but, I am drawing a blank. To the right, in the officer's uniform, is probably Don Winslow of the Navy, a popular comic strip about a Naval Intelligence officer, who also starred in two movie serials (quite good ones, too).

Lilith is more likely a reference to Adam's first wife, who leaves him and is portrayed as a demon. She is said to be the mother of vampires, in many vampire myths. The Marvel character was derived from those myths.

The firefighter with the racoon tail and the brim of his hat folded down is Smokey Stover, from the comic strip. I can't remember who the dog is; either another comic strip or a cartoon.

To me, the poem addresses life after the battles, when the air raid sirens and the whistles and guns are silent. All that is left are the sounds of your heartbeat and you begin to wonder what is still real. In combat, your sense are lit up, fueled by adrenaline, fear, anger and other emotions. After, when all of that is over, you do wonder if things are real, sometimes, as society spends much of its time hiding from reality. Sometimes nothing is real, sometimes everything is real. I think Wulf is speaking to that loss and alienation that veterans of combat can have, as they try to find out what is real and what isn't, after spending their recent lives knowing all too well what is "real." They also see much of society without the blinders and know that much of what society says is truth isn't and see much of the world as it really is, knowing that many parts are BS, like Wulf's acceptance that he is gay and there is nothing wrong with it.

It speaks to what everyone has been through. They see that life is precious and some heroes are not heroic and that all thinking creatures suffer; but, they can also love and care. It is that foundation that will sustain them as they build their new lives and city.

I found it amusing that the Golden Age Superman is one of the firemen. Both because he's such a towering figure historically, yet here he's a footnote (compared to Tom Strong). I wonder if he has any relationship with Dr Omega ...