The superhero genre is littered with emotionally scarred men. Whether it’s a murdered loved one or a superpower-generating freak accident, trauma of one kind or another is a ubiquitous motivator for superheroes. Indeed, for most characters, that tragic backstory is so central to who they are and why they fight that it’s all but impossible to truly confront it — remove the psychological pain, and you “solve” the character’s motivating problem, effectively ending their story. So most of these characters are doomed to never resolve their issues. But what if why they fight has little to do with their trauma? What if that emotional baggage isn’t their motivating force? What if a superhero could confront their problems without destroying the conflicts that make them a hero in the first place? These are questions posed by discerning fans for decades, but rarely have those questions been answered as effectively as they are in Saladin Ahmed and Christian Ward’s Black Bolt 12.
True to the spirit of this series, much of Bolt’s final showdown with the Jailer happens internally, as Blinky and Ahura’s spirit/astral selves rescue a young Black Bolt from the prison of his memories. The symbolism is dense here, but effectively, Bolt’s father and the Jailer are one in the same in a kind of Freudian conflagration of authority figures.
Ward doubles down on the density of that symbolism, setting the scene not just in that Escheresque staircase world of Bolt’s mind, but even putting the kids on a platform made of young Blackagar’s head. It’s rich stuff I’m not sure I can always parse, but the clear effect is this kind of dreamlike memory space where Black Bolt is reliving his youthful traumas, even as he’s facing down the Jailer in the real world.
Ahmed sets the resolution up beautifully — it’s clear Bolt will need to come to terms with the authority figure in his past before he can do so in the present — but it’s Ward’s wrangling of all of that symbolism that really makes it sing. Just look at how Ward collapses these two confrontations into one:
The boundaries swirl and ultimately dissolve — these two Black Bolts are one in the same, after all. The exact metaphysics of the fallout don’t totally matter; Black Bolt wins the day by confronting his inner demons with the help of his friends and family. Sending Bolt into a charmingly domestic future of overcooked fried eggs is a fun choice, especially with Medusa once again at his side, but the most thrilling element of Bolt’s life moving forward is that he’s come to terms with the trauma his parents put him through. He’s not done healing, by any means, but he’s ready (and capable) of facing his issues head-on, and has the support he needs to do so. It’s a great conclusion to the series, turning the end of this emotional journey into a new beginning, all wrapped up with some of the most dazzling artwork imaginable. This may be the end for this volume, but it makes me excited to look out for Bolt, Ahmed, and Ward wherever they crop up next.
I remember reading that Ahmed had this idea for a great Creel book, and he just didn’t know who the lead was. And when Marvel asked him to do Black Bolt, he used that idea. It is the sort of story that always leaves me slightly nervous, because you should write the story that best fits the character, not force the character in a story that doesn’t make sense. Except, of course, for the fact that this book has knocked it out of the park issue after issue. Ahmed studied Black Bolt carefully, and saw just how well the character fit the story he wanted to tell.
What is essential is that the Jailer and Black Bolt’s father aren’t just authority figures. There similarities are much closer than that. The abuse they placed on Black Bolt are the same. What makes the Jailer threatening is not the fact that he is powerful, but that he returns Black Bolt to his abusive childhood, where Black Bolt wasn’t.
And yet, Black Bolt has one thing that he didn’t, last time. Family. Whether it is Ahura, Creel or Blinky, he is alone. He has more than a dog (no matter how adorable Lockjaw is). He has the support he needed. And it is through that that he can reconcile the pain of his past that with the man he is today. Apply the same heroism he does as a superheroesque figure to his own pain. A beautiful ending
I just wish Blinky wasn’t disappearing. Inspiring ending for her story, but would have preferred to see her stick around as Black Bolt’s daughter. Would have been a great dynamic
Hey Matt. Do you think that sensitive and taboo subjects should be portrayed? What limits that the writer should consider when trying to portray those issues. I ask because when I think of the inhumans I think that Marvel should find a writer that is capable of handling those matters. Would you read it even it have subjects that you might disagree with?.
Ebert said “It’s not what a movie is about, it’s how it is about it.” Which is the rule I follow. Which means that all sensitive and taboo subjects should be portrayed. But that they should portray them properly. I’d happily read something with views I disagree with, if it could make its case in a way where I recognised the legitimacy of the argument even if I disagreed about it (an interesting contrast is the recent firing of Kevin Williamson. Many have decried this firing as an assault on conservative thought, but the specific reason he was fired was because of his repeated pushing of the extreme view that 12% of the US population should be hung. Even among the Anti-Abortion contingent, his views were so extreme and so unjustifiable that he should be fired and replaced by a conservative who create arguments that were actually legitimate, even if I disagreed with them).
So as long as a topic is treated with enough respect and enough thought that it justifies its own stance in a way that holds up to scrutiny, it should be portrayed. This means every topic should be portrayed, but not every viewpoint (to go for the absurd, flat earthers somehow still exist. A story about flat earthers could be fascinating done properly, but a story that legitimately endorsed the idea that the Earth is flat is so stupid and so unable to hold up to intellectually scrutiny that it shouldn’t be written).
With the Inhumans, I think Marvel should try and find writers that can handle them properly. In fact I wish they got better writers because there is so much potential. Honestly, Soule and Ewing were just so wrong. Ahmed certainly knocked Black Bolt out of the park, and proved he could handle the characters. And the intelligence he showed around the prison aspects of his story suggests he would be fantastic doing the main Inhumans book. Christopher Priest is the other guy who has done Inhumans recently, and he was also sensational – unsurprising, as Black Panther is probably the closest franchise to the Inhumans on an idea level, and if you can handle one, you can handle the other. Which means Ta-Nehisi Coates should be considered as well. Nick Spencer could be interesting. His Captain America run has high points and low points, but the high points would fit very well for Inhumans. And his usual focus on the idea of superheroes as a job would be a great fit for the Inhumans, who should be treated as a society first. Aaron’s Thor run sometimes get unwieldy when it has too many characters, but his Southern Bastards is suggestive of someone who could fit the Inhumans. Marvel’s original choice to launch the Inhumans, Matt Fraction, would likely have done fantastic things since some of his better work involved an emphasis on socila dynamcis of a company or apartment block. And Hickman, whose Avengers the Inhumans spun out of, is born for that sort of storytelling. For a less big name, Tom Taylor is doing great work with X-Men Red, and apparently did a decent job with Injustice.
The Inhumans aren’t exactly hard. The matters that need to be addressed are pretty standard. Certain characters, like Black Bolt, need more complex discussions on difficult topics like abuse and disability. But the big topics you need are explorations of societal dynamics, leadership and rulership, the act of politics. Not that hard. It should be superhero sci fi Game of Thrones, without the darkness. With the Inhumans, Marvel just needs to find a writer able to handle these matters, and unfortunately, they seem to do a better job fidning writers for Karnak and Black Bolt than they do for any of the core books
How could they’re trying to potray those matters without the darkness?. Those matters that are related to them are dark and sensitive.
Been really busy, so very sorry for the late reply. By darkness, I mean Game of Thrones level darkness. Inhumans don’t need to be as crapsack a world as Westeros. Game of Thrones is a brutal deconstruction of the way we idealise history in fantasy stories by going in the complete opposite direction, and therefore it is all the worst elements magnified. Inhumans is a superhero story, and can have a bit more idealism. All the complexity and difficult decisions of geopolitics that Game of Thrones has, but without things like the Red Wedding. Let things like Black Bolt’s past be dark when they need to be, but realise that generally, Inhumans should be lighter fare than Game of Thrones
Christopher Priest’s Black Panther is a pretty great example of the sort of space that I would place Inhumans. In fact, I have my own pitch for the Inhumans that would take a good deal of inspiration from Priest’s Black Panther. Priest it certainly dark when he needs to be, but never goes truly pitch black. Pretty well calibrated
Well…. they aren’t superheroes or supervillians from my view. They are people with moral ambiguity and flaws that define them.
Which is exactly how Priest characterised Black Panther. There’s a reason that a key part of my pitch involves a human character from the State Department whose job is to exist in opposition to the Inhumans to represent the fact that despite the fact that the major Inhumans are on the more moral side, they are the ruler of a fundamentally different culture and have a completely different set of priorities to the US. My pitch involves the cast having ambiguities and flaws, and how the tensions that arise from those have geopolitical implications.
My point is just that the Red Wedding doesn’t belong in the same book as cute teleporting dog Lockjaw. And even if I do what Priest did, and bring the world close to World War 3, I wouldn’t go Game of Thrones.
The Inhumans aren’t superheroes, but they exist in a world built on superhero tropes. That’s what I meant when I said it was a superhero story. That doesn’t mean I can’t make a complex political thriller out of them. As I said, Priest already has proved it
A penny saved is a penny earned. Actually, a penny saved is more than a penny earned after taxes are factored in. Depending on where you live a penny saved could be like two pennies earned.
Anyway, this isn’t really a post about taxes. Taxes are just the icing. It’s a post about how to earn more on your investments in retirement. Remembering that a dollar not spent is another dollar (or two before tax) in your pocket. Here are just a few ways to get more money in retirement.
We just got solar panels on our home. It’s a big investment, but it’s an investment with a guaranteed return. How many investments are like that?
Right now the money sitting in my bank account is earning .11%. The money sitting in short-term bond funds is earning just a tad more. Long-term bond funds may wind up earning negative returns depending on when and how quickly interest rates rise over the coming years. And the stock market is sitting near all-time highs. Who knows the future direction, but I’m guessing the huge returns we’ve been experiencing over the last few years are not going to continue, at least in the short-term.
So I took the dollars out of my bank account, where my returns were dismal--basically zero--and affixed those bills to the top of my roof. The electricity that those bills are generating cuts an actual dollar amount off of my monthly electricity bill. That’s the same as if my bank account generated enough after-tax interest income to pay most of my electricity bill.
Projected out over a 20-year life for the panels, the net amount I’m saving on electricity is equal to a 15% annual “dividend” on my investment. Oh yeah, and tax-free.
Of course, you don’t have to be retired to take advantage of this tip, but the math works better if you know that you will be living in your house for at least the recoup-your-investment period; in my case that’s eight years. I’m pretty confident I will be living in my house for the next 20 years. If you’re still working, you might not be able to make that call as confidently.
Last year we traded in our gas-guzzling car that got about 20 miles per gallon. I say traded in, but we almost had to pay them to take it off our hands. It had nearly 200,000 miles on it and was making some noises that I’m sure would have cost a few thousand bucks to fix. I used the age-old technique of turning up the radio to drown out those noises. But at some point, I knew that wasn’t going to work anymore.
With our new car, we’re getting double the mileage, slashing our gas budget by half. That works out to a 4.5% return on our investment. Lower than the solar panels, but still better than I think I’ll earn on the alternatives, at least in the near term. Again this is a tax-free return, so it’s much better than the alternatives. And now that we’re generating most of our own electricity, I might consider a hybrid/electric car when we replace the next one.
Two weeks in Australia, two weeks in Montreal, three months in Manhattan, one week in Vermont, four weekends in San Francisco, one weekend in Monterey, and one weekend in Santa Cruz. Total cost of lodging: zero. That’s because we did all of it through home-exchange.
I don’t know how much exactly all that lodging would have cost me if I had to pay for it over the last 5 years, but let’s just say it would have run me about $150 per night to be conservative. That’s nearly $20,000 I’ve saved on travel expenses over the last five years. If you remember, when you retire in your 40’s you need about 33 times your projected living expenses to fund your retirement (living expenses that won’t be covered by other income like Social Security.) Which means I would have needed another couple of hundred grand in my nest egg to cover my travel expenses if I were paying for that lodging.
For people that want to do a lot of travel in retirement, home-exchange is a great way to do it. It takes a lot of time to arrange this kind of travel. But in retirement, you finally have that time.
While we’re on the subject of travel, we’re joining some friends in Thailand next year to help celebrate their milestone birthdays. That’s 21 hours of flight time. We haven’t paid for airline tickets in years, other than for short trips to Vegas or Los Angeles. That’s because we charge almost every dollar we spend on our credit card that earns miles. Since we pay the balance in full each month, it only costs us the $65 annual fee for all our big-ticket air travel: New York, Australia, Montreal—all of it was free.
But on our trip to Australia a couple years ago, we learned that free flight isn’t good enough when you’re talking 21 hours of flight time. Free business class is what we’re really after. And we didn’t have enough miles as of last month to do that for Thailand.
So what did we do? You know all that stuff that comes in the envelope with your mileage summary statements that you usually throw away? Doug reads it. All of it. So we moved money from one brokerage account to another and earned 100,000 miles. That combined with charging the solar panels put us over the top with miles--free business class both ways. I’m not going to do the math, but that’s about a gazillion percent return on that $65 investment.
Ok, back to the expenses that you need to cover with your nest egg, for me, remember 33 times. I, like many people, don’t really enjoy cleaning my house. I like gardening better, but when it’s too hot or too cold I don’t really enjoy that either. But I do both of these tasks myself anyway. Because 33 times those expenses would be another couple of hundred grand I would have needed in the kitty at retirement. Between that and vacation lodging, it really starts to add up, right?
Or looked at another way I could have continued to hire people to do those jobs, but then I’d have to give up piano lessons and my clothing budget. Or some of my travel budget. Or all my going-out-to-dinner budget.
While we’re on the subject of my going-out-to-dinner budget, I’m probably the only one on the planet that hasn’t used Groupon. But that’s one great way to save on that line item. I do, however, use OpenTable to make all possible dining reservations. The truth is, I hate talking on the phone to make restaurant reservations, I much prefer the Internet. So, I’d make reservations this way even if it didn’t save me money.
But after so many reservations, OpenTable sends you money. Well virtual money anyway. Money that you can use to pay the bill at any restaurant that’s on OpenTable. We’ve “earned” several hundred dollars this way. Getting paid to make reservations the way I want to make reservations anyway? There’s no way to calculate that return on investment.
Doug has always been good about sending in the little coupons for rebates and class action lawsuits. It always seems like it’s not going to be worth the trouble, but since it’s all Doug’s trouble, it’s worth it to me.
The other thing he’s great at is calling companies to get discounts. When our alarm company raised our monthly monitoring charge he called them and they reduced it back. When he sees a charge on the phone bill that he can’t identify, he calls. How many people even look at all those lines on the phone bill? Probably you are paying for some service you don’t even want, believe me. I think they count on the fact that working people are too busy to read those bills, and are definitely too busy to wait on hold for hours to even find out what the charge is.
Just last month, we made $200 per person when United Airlines asked us to switch to an earlier flight to New York. And remember, that was a free flight to begin with. Now that means we’ll fly for free to Vegas next month. All because we could be flexible with our flight plans.
This one was a tough call for me because we had a variable rate mortgage that never got above 4.75% as long as we held it. When we paid off the mortgage earlier this year the rate was down to 2.875%, which felt like very cheap money to me. But earning a 2.875% guaranteed return on that investment felt compelling, not because of the 2.875% part but the guaranteed part.
After watching the market roller coaster of the last several years, guarantee looks especially attractive.
Nice work on the solar panels. And well done on paying off the mortgage. That guarantee on the return is far to often overlooked.
Paying off the mortgage in 1998 was a big step toward becoming financially independent. I had a 1-year ARM whose interest rate had been climbing throughout the mid-1990s, up to about 8%. Becoming debt-free greatly lowered my monthly expenses and enbled me to start working part-time a few years later, my next big step to FI.
Just a point of clarification since I was asked off-line. That return on solar panels is 15% AFTER I recoup my investment. In other words, over 20 years I'll earn back the entire cost of the panels PLUS another 15%/year.
Solar panels don't always pay their way. Small systems like mine tend to be less cost-effective. My original panels, installed five years ago, have a nominal payback period of about 33 years. I recently added to the system, to fuel my Nissan LEAF electric car, and the new panels have a payback period of more than fifteen years. And that's not accounting for the time value of money or anything like that. My view is that "people buy less useful toys, do they not?"
Over the past year my tiny 2170 watt array produced 105% of the electricity I used to fuel my EV and to run my household. And that has value to me over and above the ROI. So, forget the green eyeshade stuff, it is fun driving on sunpower and skipping the gas stations!
So far as paying off a low interest mortgage goes, the problem is that the money tied up in the house is very illiquid: you can't easily get to it if you need it (you can forget about a home equity loan if your financial situation gets difficult). Better to have a $100k mortgage and $100k invested in a conservative portfolio than no mortgage and no money. That said, if you have plenty of other resources to draw on, having no mortgage sure makes life simple.
I built my current house after I retired using the proceeds of selling my previous house. I then tried to get a mortgage on it but was denied because my income was too miniscule. Never mind that I would have had enough savings to pay it off several times over.
So, like many other retirees, early and otherwise, I enjoy the simplicity of no mortgage to pay and my housing expenses are quite low. But having that money tied up in my house where I can't get at it in an emergency — save for selling the house — isn't good financial planning IMHO.
dgp: Well nowadays, you can get solar panels without putting anything down. Everything is gravy. But in the long run you don't save as much on your electricity bills. Still, that's a great option for folks that don't know how long they will be in their current homes. A return on zero down--very good indeed!
I agree on the mortgage thing. There was a lot of comfort in having that money in the bank when I first retired (well that and the fact that it was in a CD that made more than my mortgage rate). When the market tumbled, I felt better having that money tied up in a CD rather than in my house.
But don't forget, in a pinch, you could get a reverse mortgage. Just be sure to read the fine print.
My sister lives in semi-desert country with a lot of sun. They installed solar panels and between the panels fueling their floor heating and wood burning stoves, she hardly has to run the furnace in the winter. Win!
This is a terrific post! A penny saved really is two pennies earned, Good for you for reminding readers of this. I'm so glad my husband and I learned this early in our work lives. You've given me some good ideas to apply to my own situation, particularly as it relates to air travel. Thanks again.
Thanks for the great advice. My mortgage is at 3.75% -- a much higher rate than I can get on my savings, but still much lower than any other loan I can get . . . except maybe on a car, but I already have a car that gets 30 mpg. Now the home exchange ... that's something I've got to look into.
I am not so sure that replacing a current vehicle by buying a fuel efficient vehicle is often a cost savings. If you "run the numbers", buying a new vehicle is usually considerably more expensive than repairing and keeping the older vehicle. For example:
You mentioned that the new vehicle gets twice the mileage of the old vehicle (40 mpg vs. 20 mpg). If one drives 1000 miles per month (pretty close to average), at 40 mpg the new vehicle would use 25 gallons of gas per month, and the old vehicle (at 20 mpg) would use 50 gallons of gas per month.
Assuming a gas price of $4.00 per gallon (which is higher than it is where I live...about $3.20 around here), that equates to a fuel cost of $200 per month for the old car, and $100 per month for the new car.
But, even a more "common" new car likely costs around $22,000 to purchase (obviously, many new cars cost much more). If one figures the cost of a 48 month loan at a 6% interest rate, the “car payment” is $540 per month. Sure, one could buy the car outright, but that negates any investment earnings that the $22,000 could generate.
It was mentioned that the old car needed "a few thousand bucks" in repairs. For the sake of discussion, let's say the old car needs $2,000 of repairs every year. Then, the repair bill to keep driving the old car comes to $167 per month ($2,000 divided by 12).
Therefore, in "total", the cost of driving the new car (gas plus car payment) comes to $640 per month ($100 plus $540).
Over four years, the new car costs $13,104 more to drive than the old car. Not to mention the expense of increased insurance premiums to cover a newer, more expensive car. And not to mention the depreciation involved with a new car. With 200,000 miles on it, the old car is pretty much fully depreciated now.
Obviously, my figures could be flawed, and there are other considerations. A new car might have better safety features. It is no fun having to take a car to a repair shop. The new car has that "new car smell"...and there are other intangible benefits to driving a new car.
But, as a friend of mine who is pretty financially adept recently said: "I am going to drive my older car until the wheels fall off, then I am going have the wheels put back on and drive it some more".
Steel: We pretty much drove the car until the wheels fell off (in the case of one repair, almost literally). The last 6 years ownership it was like roulette--sometimes one repair a year sometimes two. Each time we said "it's cheaper than getting a new car." To the tune of $14k in its last 6 years, and escalating each visit. That's pretty close to the cost of a new car, and in only 6 years. Probably we should have pulled the trigger earlier, but it's hard to know until hindsight.
The problem is you don't know how quickly the next repair is going to come down the pike. You think, oh this will last for a few more years now, only to find out you need to sink another couple of grand in 6 months later!
You have to take into consideration the cost of repairs on a particular model--our old one was a fortune to repair. I'm hoping the Toyota will be cheaper to keep alive in it's older years. I that case it would make sense to keep it going even longer.
Wow, great job! We're trying to be more efficient too. Our utility bill is only about $50/month so it's not worth it at this point to try too hard. Our car gets mid 20s mpg so that could improve a lot. Once we drove this one to the ground, we'll get a more efficient vehicle.
Well syd, sorry I've not replied lately. New computer and all that.(talk about cars wearing out)Solar panels sound nice but after I crunched the numbers it wouldn't pay for us. We use natural gas for a lot of things. Cars? I have one in my near future. Some kind of Subaru station wagon. The Toyota truck is getting old and worn out like myself. Gas mileage was a concern five years ago when I retired but a funny thing happen in those five years I realized I cut my mileage by 60% a year. Because I save "cash" I'll be able to write a check for that new Subaru. We haven't had a mortgage in ten years. To sum up my life style "I live as a poor man with lots of money"