Comics Reality Checks IV: The Action Figure Test

So far in this series of columns headed collectively as "Comics Reality Checks," we've raised up a series of hypothetical tests to see if comics concepts work. And, in turn, analysis of each has rendered a negative appraisal, knocking each one, domino-like, down. But we approach our target through interpolation, through sequentially diminishing error; and, perhaps, a new angle will provide the insult that answers the question What test best predicts that a comics concept works? We have such a perspective to explore this time, again exploring the scale of a superhero (or other comics concept).

Previously, in another feature, I mentioned a shortcoming of a particular title in that it seemed to provide less for the reader and more for the potential producer of action figures looking to create a visually memorable line of toys. That standard, where the selling features of action figures take precedence, can make for some particularly empty comics featuring some especially ugly characters. However, in some ways, the ability to provide the model for an action figure demonstrates an important element of a character in that such toys often boil complicated figures down to essential, minimal concepts.

One must proceed cautiously when using action figures as a benchmark. For the flow of information makes all the difference in the diagnosis: A character that essentially begins as an interesting visual concept based on the virtues of action figure exaggeration may considerably lack in the idea department. However, when the information flows in the other direction - from a character based on a sound premise which a prospective action figure designer can or can't distill into a simplified polyvinyl chloride likeness - we can, perhaps, decide that a character has a sound kernel over which other complexities and accretions may accumulate. The inability to render a likeness in toy form suggests, perhaps, an unfocused character, or one understated to excess, or possibly just an incomprehensible cast member. Thus, the ability to start from the idea of the printed page and, from there, create a plausible action figure suggests a number of properties, including simplicity, archetypical nature, and mnemonic coherence.

To make the leap from paper to plastic, a concept must have a comprehensible core to begin with. And this provides the basis for another test of comics. Do the characters in the comics you read pass the Action Figure test?

Capturing the Essence of a Character

One can't necessarily capture the comprehensive essence of a character in the form of a PVC doll; but if a character lacks a certain kernel concept, a minimal essence that a toy designer could boil down into an action figure, we can suspect the definition of the character lacks a necessary focus. In some ways, this principle extends to material beyond comics.

For instance, one need not draw on extreme resources of imagination to conceive a Sherlock Holmes action figure. A more juvenile version might depict Holmes with a tweed hunting cape, deerstalker hat, and oversized magnifying glass; a more mature one with a violin; a more cynical one with a cocaine syringe. Or, moving to books and cinema, a toy designer wouldn't find it particularly difficult to create a Hannibal Lecter action figure, though proper accessorization might become a rather morbid endeavor.

Moving to comics, we note that for a great many pieces, it would suffice to use a literalistic visual interpretation of the character. Pogo, members of the Legion of Super-Heroes, Prince Valiant, Cain and Abel (from DC's late horror comics like House of Mystery), Blackhawk, and too many others to count would come through in action figure treatment without requiring extensive annotations to explain.

We have little more difficulty when moving to the Vertigo creations. Two Sandmen - Hall and Morpheus - render into a plastic form without requiring a basket of accessories to make the piece comprehensible. The Swamp Thing may have already made the transition.

Creative Accessorization

An action figure could work with no more than a physical likeness. For instance, Mego's superhero doll line of the seventies generally opted for an appropriate face, a correct costume and (later) enlarged anatomy for such characters known for knocking down buildings (such as the Hulk and the Thing).

Some characters, however, require specific devices for a complete treatment. Again referring to Mego products, we can note that they presented their Thor doll with a hammer and their Captain America doll with a shield - and these toys would have definitely lacked necessary elements had the manufacturer chosen to skimp on those details. The characters could, should their creators so choose to write them, survive without such objects, but at the time of the creation of the toys, one never really saw much of either character empty-handed except as a crisis situation which the recovery of the object typically remedied.

Other characters, while not precisely requiring accessories, enjoy a secondary level of detail through creative accessorization. For instance, adding a breakaway plastic girder to a Hulk toy reminds the owner of that character's passion for working mayhem on real estate. Similar ornamental accessories might include the recurrent cigar for a Thing toy; an alternate cosmic rod for a Jack Knight Starman toy; a power lantern for any of the possible Green Lantern dolls; the anchor that comes with some of the recent, Segar-styled Popeye action figures; a batarang for a Batman toy; and so on.

The key divide occurs between the required accessories (such as a gas mask and pistol for a Sandman toy) and the optional ones. If the required pieces start becoming a regular warehouse of gimmicks, options, and doo-dads, one can note the KISS Principle ("Keep it simple, stupid") in its exception.

Figures that Defy Modeling

To test whether a theory has value, one can examine exceptions. The cases that do not meet a standard can either break or make the standard, depending upon their distinctive features and all-around relevance.

Some characters seem problematic in this test. For instance, Crazy Jane from the Vertigo Doom Patrol title, since she takes different physical aspects when various personalities assert themselves, would not adapt well to an action figure, although the core idea of the character has considerable potential and does not remain outside the human ability to conceive clearly. Again, approaching various possessors of the magical dial from the "Dial 'H' for 'Hero'" concept do not inherently suggest action figures; in the last two cases, it would take various action figures to represent these characters, and worse, some possibly only appear once (the inherent limitation of the original hero dial required this, and some of Jane's personalities might rarely appear, or appear only once).

On the other hand, some characters defy modeling because their core concept began so complex (or became that way) that one must boggle at the task of attempting to render them into a plastic essence. For instance, how would one handle a character like Maddy Prior?

How, indeed, can you injection mold this: A second-generation copy of Jean Grey (?) who relates to some cosmic being that simulated Grey earlier (?), appeared with a false history and married the grieving significant other left behind when the first simulated Jean Grey died (?), later to have her husband reject her for the original (?), whereupon she became some kind of demented villainess (?).

Does the Test Hold Water?

Some theories commend themselves by an elegance centered in their simplicity. That a line of algebra could predict the behavior of bodies in motion, for example, implicates an efficiency in the workings of the universe. The desire to comprehend things without stretching our brains into a gray and pretzel-like convoluted mess does not necessarily represent a failing of character; in a world whose complexity boggles comprehension by single human beings, the desire for minimal principles seems an appropriate plea for mercy. However, the risk of wishful thinking intrudes through the desire to have things boil down to easily-understood mechanisms. The Action Figure Test seems doomed to have fallen into this category.

This test, in many particulars, constrains concepts to a minimalist model in much the same way that the Index Card Test (discussed previously, here) does. Both tests, boiled down to their essence, put a minimalist demand on a comics concept, with the difference depending on a conceptual minimalism for the Index Card Test and a visual minimalism for the Action Figure Test. Perhaps the largest point at which the two tests tend to produce differing results revolves around the fact that a toy manufacturer can put in all kinds of additional odds and ends in a blister pack, whereas the index card limits to a certain precise and constrained amount of space.

But in each case we have useful and detrimental complexity to consider. Peripheral complexity, meaning an ornateness of concept for details that orbit around a solid, comprehensible center, only hinders as much as writers choose to let it or hairsplitting fans demand that it do. For instance, a series of personal weaknesses attaching to a superhero that almost never appear in a story do not really redefine the concept; they merely adorn it. This much merely recaps some of the analysis of the subject of simplicity from the Index Card Test.

We might do well to examine the a priori assumption that a complex character suggests poor design. The claim smells of some kinds of inverted syllogism: If poor design often resorts to complexity for concealment, complexity serves to reveal poor design - Q. E. D. Archetypical creations have a certain power to them, providing a focus both for the generation of other, tangent concepts (the seminal function of an archetype) and a center for imitation, but this does not mean that the simpler Robotman of the forties inherently represented superior creation to the Robotman of the Doom Patrol, a much more complex and interesting figure in incarnations in the 1960s and each decade since. Simpler, then, does not inherently mean better; as in the case of comics art, where more details on the page do not provide a measure for quality, increasing complexity in the ideas behind character designs or settings only affects the worth of a comics work as these details themselves involve quality. If obtuse and overly-dense detail provides a refuge for a scoundrel, it also provides a platform for talent; and if simplicity provides the voice for strong ideas that have enough going for them that they do not require elaboration, it can sometimes also implicate the symptom of incomplete or insubstantial development.

To zero in on the essence we seek here - a method of identifying whether comics concepts have that certain something going for them - we would do well to define that certain something itself, and, at the very least, negative criteria provide some kind of guideline. So far, four tests have failed to get us there, but the interpolative process involves seeking closer and closer values through finer and finer calculation. Having begun this analysis with quite abstract approaches (here and here), we moved on to methods of defining the scope of a concept (this column and the immediately previous one, here). Another angle left mostly unexamined involves the impact of a work on the reader. Perhaps, in looking at the effect comics works have on readers, we can get the target within our sights at last; and this feature will continue, proposing another angle from which to weigh the merits of linear art.

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Column 282. Completed 18-NOV-2001.