Solidarity with the Bug: Starship Troopers and its Anti-Fascist Arachnids

Starship Troopers, Paul Verhoeven's 1997 military satire, has gone through a reappraisal in recent years. Originally, the film's anti-fascist perspective was lost on critics and casual audiences that took the characters, action and nationalist imagery at face value. Now, the film is no longer being read as one-dimensional, derivative science-fiction, perhaps due to the inexplicable rise of contemporary Western nationalistic rhetoric and a disillusionment with news media similar to that which the film depicts. Yet, I personally feel that revisitations of this genre classic have yet to go far enough; the film, misjudged on release, has over 20 years of study to catch up on.

I want to focus on one particular element of the film that stood out to me; its villains. While bathing in the glory of fascistic militarism, the villainous "bugs" are presented as a total, universal evil. Yet, if our characters are not to be trusted, neither can we trust their presentation of the enemy. The arachnids, or often just the bugs, are the malevolent, interstellar force that form the antagonists to the film's interpretation of humanity; an overtly nationalistic, fascistic military society wherein which there is a clear distinction between Civilian and Citizen. Citizenship is socially revered, its benefits promising a better life with better opportunities (such as rights to vote, run for office or even procreate) than the average Civilian, and can be obtained through service with the Armed Services, particularly in the Mobile Infantry. The film's final dictation, that "Service Guarantees Citizenship", is a reminder of the totalitarian ideology Verhoeven is mocking, but also has wider implications when relating to the bugs. It is the enemy, the fear of an (intergalactic) Other, who holds up these everyday workings of totalitarian society. Understanding this, we can highlight the nuances and moral complexity that is imbued within the film's conflict, despite it seeming simplistic on the surface-level.

If the bugs are, then, a manifestation of fascist societies' need for a unifying common enemy, the propaganda shown in the film does not merely misinform with regards to the lives of soldiers, but deliberately misinforms on their enemy also. The film offers rare moments to sympathise with the bugs, yet they are present. A shot of a wounded bugs eye, or the admission that the bugs can feel fear, make momentary subversion to the gratuitous action sequences and anti-bug propaganda films splattered through the rest of the film. The satire has previously been read as the mere depiction of the enemies of fascism in the way fascism itself depicts them- that the enemy is a mindless killing machine, in no way resembling the human form, is a critique of the dehumanising way fascists depict foreign hordes as barbarians, roaches or swarms. The bug is a fantasy, the ultimate enemy for the hawkish fascist, because its lack of any human quality yields no guilt or empathy that could potentially remove the joy of murder and conquest. So, when we are shown unwavering opposition to the bugs in the film's narrative, we think little of it. They are, after all, vicious alien beasts in a sci-fi action movie. One doesn't stop to question if Ripley was right to kill the Xenomorph.

However, the film provides plenty of hints that the bugs may, in fact, be the victims of the story, or at least justified in their retaliatory actions. The humans are strongly suggested to have been the first to encroach on bug territory, with a wayward Mormon sect (why specifically Mormon? Still figuring that one out...) establishing a base on an occupied planet. An inciting incident for the film, the bug attack destroying our protagonist's home city, then, can be one of two things; a justified retaliation against invasion or not an attack by bugs at all. The film's propaganda tells us that the bugs send meteor attacks against Earth and its colonies, with some caveats. For example, the Earth's security defence is clearly stated to be advanced enough to destroy incoming meteors. Is the successful bug attack then signalling that the propaganda was exaggerating the technological capabilities of the Earth's defence system, or was the meteor allowed to hit, for the very reason of justifying further military action? As we have set out, humanity's fascist society sustains itself based on the fear of this inhuman Other. The audience is also asked to believe that bugs can control the trajectory of meteors, whilst at the same time watching "televised" debates over whether the bugs are capable of intelligence. One panellist suggests that he finds the idea of intelligent bugs "offensive", yet it goes unchallenged that the bugs are affecting meteor trajectory from the other side of the galaxy. So, are the bugs unintelligent and therefore incapable of the attacks on humanity, or organising intergalactic attacks on humanity and therefore capable of intelligence?

The ambiguity tells all- the conditions of the destruction of Buenos Aries are unclear, yet decisive action, full-scale invasion of the planet Klendathu, is taken regardless. This action leads to military disaster, mutilation, and death. The gore works in the film's favour, ensuring that this horror, while gratuitous, never feels noble or heroic. Deaths just feel like a waste and that waste of human life is borne out of an enemy construct that may be based entirely off of lies.

As the film develops, we discover that the bugs are capable of intelligence, or at least one "brain bug" is, but more than just intelligence, we learn that it is capable of emotion. The great victory for humanity is the capture of the "brain bug" and discovering that, when faced with human beings, it feels fear. This is a creature that absorbed the brains of its human victims, therefore possessing intimate knowledge of the species; what it understands is that it will face no mercy nor justice and the humans salivate at its fear. The "brain bug", which is physically useless and relies on its drones to sustain it, delivers the final condemnation for fascist humanity. There is no peace to be found between human and bug, no common ground, no need for mutual understanding- there is only the fascist world order and the war that sustains it.

As such, humanity not only sustains itself through manufacturing the enemy but uses that enemy to seek total species-based domination. A government figure early in the film makes this much clear, declaring the intent for human civilisation, not insect, to dominate the galaxy. If that wasn't clear enough, we are shown high-ranking military officials outfitted in pastiche Nazi uniforms. Fascism is unescapable in this film. Perhaps, this goes some way to explaining why this film has been embraced by the nationalist and the anti-imperialist alike; for every audience member laughing at the film's Mobile Infantry, there is another cheering alongside them in the same inebriated furor. Does depicting an enemy of fascism, in the very way that fascism wants their enemies to be, then dilute any satirical, critical point to be made? The nationalists will continue to get their hyper-masculine kicks out of Starship Troopers, would it be the same if those were human limbs, and not insect ones, that were splattered against their screens?

The villain of the piece is clearly fascist ideology over the bugs themselves, but most readings tend to view the vapid, yet human, youths who get caught up in the cyclical conflict as its focal victims. Is it not the bugs though- the bugs who never sought out conflict, never invaded occupied planets, who were considered unfeeling and unintelligent even when the evidence pointed otherwise and who may not have even committed the crimes they are accused of- who suffer most? At the very least, it is clear to me that we cannot read the bugs as merely the one-dimensional villains the film portrays them as, because the film also portrays one-dimensional heroes who are signed up to a fascist regime. The only clear approach to this conflict may be critical support for the revolutionary vanguard that is the anti-imperialist Klendathu arachnids.





The views expressed in this post are, in no small part, influenced by my own exposure to nationalism, war and the media in the years following the film's 1997 release. That I find myself rooting for the "enemy" of the piece may be more of a reflection on the Invasion of Iraq than on the Invasion of Klendathu.

The "Wedding of the Century" Is Stagnation, Disguised As Progress

The torrid relationship between X-Men franchise mainstays Kitty Pryde and Colossus, promises to reach its climax in this Summer's "Wedding of the Century". Thus Marvel responds to DC's marriage of their forefront franchise icons, Batman and Catwoman; and even as a franchise devotee, this is underwhelming. Partially because of character status, as Colossus and Kitty Pryde are not as culturally ingrained as the Bat-Family of comic books have been, but also because of a cold, dispassionate drive towards this much hyped marriage. What we are seeing with the wedding is a microcosm of not merely the X-Men: Gold series' wider problems, but of Marvel Comics' as well; with initiatives such as ResurreXion, Legacy and Fresh Start, stagnation is being sold either as progress, or in place of it.

The Most Beloved Marvel Weddings! *Not Pictured: Kitty Pryde and Colossus.

X-Men: Gold, launched by Marc Guggenheim and Ardian Syaf last year, has promised to push the franchise in new directions, whilst looking back and staying true to its identity; with Guggenheim stating, "...our mission statement for the book, which is going backwards to go forward.". It's a nice sentiment, but upon reading the book, you realise that sentiment is all that it is. This isn't of particular news, the comic book format itself demands this kind of nostalgic, cyclical storytelling, but what we can see when reading Gold is that nostalgic revisitations of status quo don't only have narrative implications, but ideological ones also. That Marc Guggenheim has written this story by looking back on the franchise's history, uncritically, he has represented an inherently flawed relationship with a white-washing perspective. 

Gold has taken rebuilding the Colossus/Kitty Pryde relationship as one of its primary concerns; our last sight of these characters had them as far away from each other as they had ever been. Kitty was in fact engaged to another Peter (Peter Quill, of the Guardians of the Galaxy) and Colossus was engaging in an exciting relationship with Deadpool 2's breakout character Domino. Kitty was in space during the last flagship X-Book and Colossus was possessed by a future-timeline-Apocalypse (it really is best not to ask). The line preceding the launch of Gold (part of the ResurreXion initiative, which relaunched nearly all ongoing X-Books) is widely considered one of the worst times to have been a fan of the franchise, as the build-up to the Inhumans Vs X-Men crossover event was mired with the jettisoning, mischaracterisation and killing of fan-favourite characters. The tone was one of hopelessness, so Gold and ResurreXion aimed to move away from this status quo as swiftly as possible. Kitty Pryde, and her nostalgic return to her relationship with Colossus, is emblematic of a wider shift back to a safer, more audience-friendly status quo. 

The concern with the return is that it has not been a mere revisitation of stories and characters gone by, but it is a rerun of a relationship that was a categoric failure. The heart-rending break-ups and the extremely violent jealousy are mere prelude to the crux of the relationship, first laid out by writer Chris Claremont; the age gap between these two young people. Whilst ages in comic books are rarely specific, we know one thing for certain- Kitty Pryde was underage when she and Colossus first pursued a relationship. Writers following up on the relationship miss out on why the relationship needed to end messily; not only was it two hormonal, young people ill-equipped to navigate interpersonal relationships but there is a pretty clear ethical concern in depicting the flawed, complicated, morally-questionable entanglement of these characters as a generic love story. Writers such as Guggenheim re-characterise incidents with questionable power dynamics (most notably, "Merry Christmas Sexy" from Uncanny X-Men #143) as part of a retroactive, overarching love story by revisiting them. The first iteration of their relationship is innocent enough, it is a 13 year-old with a crush on an 18 year-old who doesn't quite understand how to deal with the situation. It's cute watching a hyper-masculine superhero blush. It's less cute when they are 14 years-old and 19 years-old and a decision is made to see the relationship to more serious stages. The quite predatory nature is not merely looked over, but incidents where it is made apparent are romanticised.

And these problematic, nostalgic returns are seen across the board with Marvel's white-washing brand initiatives. Sam Wilson's Captain America has been cut out in favour of the original in Legacy, with the 14 year-old black MiT student IronHeart pushed away for the original Iron Man and Jane Foster's Thor giving away to Thor Odinson in the lead-up to Fresh Start. Diversity may not be being pushed entirely out of Marvel's books, but it is being again relegated to side-stories and more obscure parts of the Marvel Universe. Gone are the days of non-white, male lead flagship titles.

Yes, it really does matter.

Guggenheim is not the first to revisit the relationship, nor the first to revisit it with a white-washing perspective. Much of the complaints that can be levied towards Gold's interpretation of the relationship can also be levied at Joss Whedon's popular run on Astonishing X-Men, which also brought back the relationship, with an uncritical lens, amidst a plethora of character baggage. Whedon, however, was working through a particularly different context. The status of the Kitty/Colossus relationship before Guggenheim was definitive, they were broken up and it had ended badly. Whilst they reconciled as friends, writers such as Jason Aaron and Brian Michael Bendis had made clear that a relationship between the two would amount to nothing more than repetitive, unfortunate reruns. Arguably, they have yet to be proven wrong. Similarly, the couple were separated before Whedon's run, but with the caveat that Colossus was previously dead for several years (he got better) and Kitty had been in a state of disuse for almost as long as that. Whedon didn't need to naturally foster the re-relationship and any accusation of white-washing could be attributed to the elating effect of having a loved one return from the grave. 

There are then many similarities in the conceptual approaches towards the franchise employed by Whedon and Guggenheim- both desired a return to an iconic, unfulfilled romance of their youth alongside the return of conventional superheroic tropes and icons (notably, the colourful costumes). In Gold though, this nostalgic storytelling is having a more dangerous effect than merely returning a superhero franchise to its glory days, the wedding has become a regressive narrative point. Guised in Guggenheim's performative, lightweight feminism, we have seen the Kitty Pryde approach to both leadership and the marriage.

Below we can see a recent problematic incident from X-Men: Gold #27. It may seem innocuous, but in Guggenheim's desperate attempt to show Kitty off as a strong, modern woman, he obliterates her Jewish heritage and identity. In Jewish weddings it is customary for both parents to accompany their child down the aisle, so this whole interaction is pointless, serving only to imbue Kitty's mother with some internalised sexism for her daughter to dispel.

Walking 15 feet? It's a man's job.

Guggenheim's unsatisfying strand of feminism (which has seen him declare that "reverse sexism isn't the answer") is actually impeding diverse stories, evidenced not only by the removal of Jewishness from the upcoming ceremony but from the fact that a character, so long associated with bisexuality, is being subjected to a hetero-wedding. As every year passes, and another writer adds another Peter to Kitty's romantic history, this important character detail is procedurally whittled away; I think very few people even acknowledge her as a bisexual character anymore, let alone one of the X-Men franchise's most prominent ones. So, in these reminiscent relaunch initiatives characters are not just removing the questionable character contexts of characters, but also removing deviant character identity, a potential plea to conservative audiences who no longer see themselves in works that increasingly represent the diverse, real world. 

Yet, there is at least a surface-level refusal to fully capitulate to the alt-right commentators who want to see Captain America fight ISIS under the orders of President Donald Trump; evidenced by some enduring legacy characters and a commitment to telling stories with female characters at the forefront. It is these focal women who stir up further criticism though and, as we've discussed Guggenheim's lacklustre approach to feminist politics, the development of 'strong Marvel women' tropes may be impeding wider moves towards progressive storytelling.

Similar to her determination to score progressive points by making a show of having her mother escort her at the wedding, Kitty Pryde is shown to be the one proposing to Colossus. This is bold, determined and shows she's a character who takes her personal life into her own hands, unguided by anyone else. In fact, her proposal panel is widely recreated, constituting promotional imagery and the cover to #26. One, tiny gripe. Kitty didn't make this decision. Colossus brings it up, before their relationship has truly reformed, in #9. It is provided as the way to move their relationship forwards, despite neither character seeming to be learning or evolving from their past experiences. Here, we see one of the tropes to these new strong Marvel woman; they possess and present their own agency, after male approval.

Nothing gets the fires of romance stirring quite like the noise of construction work.

This is seen beyond Gold's wedding storyline, in characters such as the revamped Captain Marvel and notable SHIELD figure Maria Hill. Captain Marvel, who has existed previously as Ms Marvel, Binary and Warbird, has been redistributed as the strong, modern woman, by taking the suit, name and qualities of her male predecessor. In a more meta sense, Maria Hill's rise to Director of SHIELD was similarly based on male mentor figures and employing attributes of masculinity. Hill's directorship of SHIELD resembles Captain Marvel's directorship of Alpha Flight which resembles Kitty Pryde's premiership over the X-Men and, at the moments of their transformation into the modern Marvel woman, these three characters all conspicuously exhibit similar pixie cuts.

There is, of course, nothing explicitly offensive about the haircut. Yet, when it perennially appears for Marvel's "strong" women there is a sense that women can only achieve positions of power when taking on masculine qualities. Captain Marvel has been criticised for being depicted as increasingly less feminine, and whilst these comments arise from more lecherous readers who want Captain Marvel to exist primarily as a sex symbol, this criticism does shine a light on this emerging trope. Short-haired, unfeminine, white women in positions of authority are the main thrust of Marvel's 'wokeness', impeding diverse representation and limiting the narrative potential of its female characters. It's worth noting that the first character to take up the Captain Marvel mantle, after the original, was a black woman who is nowhere to be found in current publication. 

A haircut doesn't constitute character progression. From Left to Right: Captain Marvel, Maria Hill and Kitty Pryde.

So, what we seem to have is Guggenheim relying on the trope of marriage for serial narratives. From comic books to soap operas, we see that works which resemble pulp fictions often revert to the same plot points when a shock or signal of development is needed. Murders, a secret affair or a wedding tend to be the most prolific, often with them all converging (perhaps on a Christmas special). The wedding here serves as a cheap way for Guggenheim to leave his mark on the franchise; people won't be able to hand-wave away his work on the franchise as easily as he did the work of those who preceded him. But with Marvel's need to capitalise on a big narrative moment such as this, the inevitable tie-in (X-Men: The Wedding Special) has actually allowed us to see other writers attempt to reconcile this troublesome pairing.

Chris Claremont, Marc Guggenheim and Kelly Thompson each wrote a story for the Wedding Special, but with Claremont and Thompson's stories we see a nuanced character focus that attempts to push Kitty's mind-space forwards- beyond the 'strong female' caricature Gold has portrayed her as. Thompson gives her some pre-commitment anxiety, with nods to her bisexuality, whilst Claremont gives her resolution with the deceased men of her life and a Doctorate. Rather than showing marriage as a prosaic marker of character and relationship progression, these writers utilise the wedding as a point from which to derive further, deeper character drama. Whilst mired by the circumstances surrounding it, the Wedding Special is genuinely enjoyable, with a solid emotional grounding. It is beyond the scope of this post to question why this intelligent writing has not been able to manifest within the main storyline itself, but it is interesting food for thought nonetheless.

Piotr evidently had this suit tailored specifically for his metal form. I just want to know why.

There is a lot of narrative potential to this coupling because of its flawed nature. Whilst this has been glossed over, the potential for the wedding is there. With the upcoming return of Wolverine, he has the perfect chance to make a creepy cameo appearance like when Cyclops and Jean Grey married, for example. More than that though, the virulent relationship could really bubble to the forefront. Confrontations could emerge, finally exposing Colossus for his shameful role in arguably grooming a 14 year-old girl or declaring that childhood crushes are inappropriate places to form long-lasting relationships. There could be conflict between Colossus' over-dominance and Kitty's newfound responsibilities, or the moral journey both have been through in recent years. The wedding itself has a unique opportunity to deconstruct one of Marvel Comic's most beloved yet troublesome relationships.

However, it seems most likely that the "Wedding of the Century" will be yet another point of stagnation for Marvel Comics. We are constantly promised a world that reflects our own, that lives and grows in the way our lives do, but that world remains hopelessly cyclical. Characters retread beats they had moved past, act without the context of their own histories and are forced to lose defining attributes of their identity. Perhaps it is a question of format. Perhaps the cycle can never truly be broken. If this is the case, studies of the comic book medium will have to acknowledge that no matter the counter-cultural influences on superhero storytelling, a conservative mindset is always waiting off-panel for its return.

For the wedding issue itself, there is clearly room for subversion. A bait-and-switch wedding could be the exact kind of twist Gold needs to shake-up its storytelling rut, but even if this becomes the case, the journey has been rife with such nostalgic storytelling that even a collapse of the couple could pave no new path for the franchise.

A Brief Personal Update

So, after taking a writing break to complete my undergraduate degree, I'm finally coming back to this blog. Hopefully posts will be just as frequent as before, but with more variation, more focus and more of a critical edge. It hurt to be away from more personal, enjoyable writing, so hopefully my final grade reflects that sacrifice. Fingers crossed.

I really want to realise my original intentions for this blog, to address culture at large, and not have it be of single interest/single purpose. I will continue to write about comic books (particularly X-Men ones), but I want it to be part of a wider study of the superhero genre, rather than just evaluating my own personal enjoyment. The Hindsight piece is the kind of model I'm looking at for these kinds of posts. Not entirely academic, but not completely casual either.

So, the gates are open. More posts should follow.