Coincidence in Fiction, Part 2

Originally published September 24, 1999, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1349

So we were busy last week ushering in the Marvel Age of non-coincidence, as espoused in the relaunches of mainstays such as Spider-Man and the Incredible Hulk. It had been the humble suggestion of BID that Marvel obtain the rights to Classics Illustrated (which shouldn’t be much of a stress; after all, they used to publish Marvel Collector Items Classics) and put John Byrne in charge so that he could work his magic touch on all those annoying literary coincidences which have plagued various works. Coincidence, happenstance—these are antithetical to quality comics stories, and the new MCI would do away with such unlikely circumstances as:

Marvel Classics Illustrated Presents: Tarzan of the Apes. So let’s get this straight: Kala the she-ape Just So Happens to lose a child (an infant ape which tumbles to its death when she is escaping an enraged bull ape) just in time to switch the baby’s skeleton with the crying and recently orphaned John Clayton (and future Tarzan). And later on in the book, Jane Porter Just So Happens to wind up in the exact same territory of Africa that Tarzan’s parents were abandoned, and even finds the cabin that was his birthplace. (And we never do figure out how Tarzan, who left a note for them warning them off, was able to spell out his name in the note considering that he did not learn oral reading or spelling. Since he couldn’t sound out any letters, he couldn’t transliterate his name.)

Just can’t buy into it? No problem. You see, the fact is that everything that occurs in Tarzan of the Apes, the new and improved Marvel version, is actually a diabolical scheme on the part of Professor Porter, working in tandem with D’Arnot, his secret homosexual lover, wherein they will manage to get Jane married off to the remaining Clayton (the other Clayton, not Tarzan), then have Tarzan kill him in a fit of animalistic jealousy, be condemned and executed, and Jane would then inherit all the Clayton estates and property.

Marvel Classics Illustrated Presents: Gulliver’s Travels. It’s absurd. How could it be that one man winds up shipwrecked on Lilliput, and then goes to place after place after place that no one else has ever been to—places that, upon close reading, come across like a send-up of society and all its foibles? No, the fact is that Gulliver is never cast ashore anywhere. While on the ship, Dr. Gulliver is experimenting with some new and fascinating painkillers based on opium. His experiments go awry, unfortunately, and he collapses to the deck and proceeds to have a series of the most incredible hallucinations and dreams that you have ever seen.

Marvel Classics Illustrated Presents: The Three Musketeers. D’Artagnan, through sheer impetuousness, Just So Happens to anger the three tightest Musketeers in the troop—Athos, Porthos and Aramis—so that they challenge him to a duel within hours of each other? Nope. Preposterous. Too unbelievably contrived for words.

In the vastly superior Marvel retelling, D’Artagnan does not simply come trotting in from Gascony as the naive innocent. No, far from it. D’Artagnan starts out in league with Richelieu, the manipulative Cardinal who schemes to make sure that the right to carry guns is in no way threatened. (Oh, wait, that’s Charlton Heston. Sorry.) D’Artagnan is, in fact, Richelieu’s right hand man, working in tandem with Roquefort in exchange for a year’s supply of Roquefort’s precious cheese stash. The plan is that D’Artagnan is to lure the Musketeers to the place where the duel is scheduled, whereupon the Cardinal’s men then arrests the Musketeers. It’s a win/win situation. If the Musketeers surrender, they’re under arrest. If they fight, they’re outnumbered and get killed.

However, what Richelieu does not reckon with is D’Artagnan’s being replaced by an amnesiac Skrull who, upon finding himself in the midst of a duel, automatically takes the side of those who are outnumbered. It is, in fact, the imposter who is by the side of the Musketeers for the majority of the book until the climactic confrontation whereupon the evil D’Artagnan is revealed for the cretin that he is, and—in an ironic twist—the good guy Skrull goes into hiding. However, his ability to duplicate someone else’s appearance is a deft set up for his return as the good Louis in The Man in the Iron Mask.

Marvel Classics Illustrated Presents: Huckleberry Finn. Just imagine: Huck Finn is on the run and Just So Happens to meet up with Jim, the slave, who is also on the run. Coincidence? I think not. Actually, it turns out at the end that the entire thing has been one massive practical joke set up by Tom Sawyer, Tom’s Aunt Polly, and Aunt Polly’s lover, Huck Finn’s father (who is, in fact, not a nasty brutish drunk but a pretty sweet guy who just acts tough because he has difficulty getting in touch with his feminine side). Concerned that Huck’s adventurous nature is going to get him in serious trouble some day, they orchestrate a series of events whereupon Huck gets to undergo a remarkable series of events—with Jim sent along secretly to keep an eye on him. In point of fact, Jim is not a slave at all, but a freed slave who is capable of perfectly good diction and just puts on that dialect in order to fool Huck. Having learned how dangerous the world is, Huck returns to Hannibal wiser and chastened, having finally gotten all that adventuring out of his system. The nice thing about the improved version in particular is that it eliminate all of the nasty controversial elements (the word “nigger” is replaced with the word “fella”) that have brought the book under fire all these years.

And then, of course, there’s the book that involves the biggest conspiracy theory of them all.

I mean, think of how vastly improved all these various stories have become when chance and happenstance have been eliminated, to be replaced by plots, plans, and elaborate intrigues. But there is one great work that, now that I think about it, wouldn’t have to be restructured at all. I mean, you may think that conspiracy theories are something new. That looking for some sort of reason behind the rhyme—no matter how tortured and unlikely—is a recent phenomenon. Not so. There is one impressive work that features the single most contrived and unlikely conspiracy of all, and people have been reading it for years. In fact, its underlying themes are so pervasive that it continues to inform the world we live in to this day. I am, of course, speaking of:

Marvel Classics Illustrated Presents: The Bible. Once upon a time, Greek plays hinged their resolution on the gods descending from Olympus in a large device and setting matters right. This was called deus ex machina, or “God From the Machine.” That may seem somewhat contrived from a literary point of view, but really, when you get down to it, the Supreme Being(s) is/are the ultimate catch-all and explanation for everything.

Conspiracy theories stem from trying to make sense of a world gone mad. A world where lone gunmen can hit their targets, or stupid accidents or human foibles can rob the world of beloved personalities—this is a world that is just too damned random. People intrinsically prefer order of some kind. Conspiracies bring order from the chaos.

Why is this happening, we ask? God’s will.

Why have fundamentally good people been made to suffer? God’s will.

From a literary point of view, it’s a spectacular dodge. Where else can you produce a work wherein the editor says, “Wait a minute… why is this happening?” And you can shrug and say, “Who can understand the workings of God?” “God’s ways are mysterious.” “There is a master plan at work, but we cannot begin to understand it.” (Much like any average issue of X-Men.)

And the Bible is the underpinning for the conspiracy theory of life that goes on to this day. People pray for the mercy and aid of a being who lets all the hideous things that prompted the calls for help to happen in the first place. It might be that all prayers, broken down to their essence, translate to, “Hey, c’mon, it’s enough already.” The Marvel Classics version of the Bible, with very little tweaking, can present God as a “malign thug” as Mark Twain once characterized him.

The fact is that mankind has been trying to make sense of the world long before the Grassy Knoll. Why is this happening, what’s going on, what’s up with that? And the answers always come back to: God or gods. Why is there lightning? Zeus is honked. Why is there an earthquake? Loki is writhing in agony.

John Byrne has very openly and publicly debated whether or not God exists. I’m not sure why. God should be more vigorously embraced by writers everywhere. The fact is that God, and all the acts of God that stem from His presence, can plug the hole of any story. God is tailor-made for the realms of both fiction and fact because He is such a glorious catch-all. In the final analysis, what else is God, really, but the biggest conspirator of all?

(Peter David, writer of stuff, can be written to at Second Age, Inc., PO Box 239, Bayport, NY 11705.)