Jane Austen was a radical writer. Her brilliant novels skewered the oppressive social relations of her day. She exposed the empty vanities of a class system based on birth instead of hard work or merit, and satirized the haughty assumptions of the vain with a sure and merciless wit. She mourned the privatization of England's beautiful emerald countryside. She lamented the powerlessness of women who, lacking property or independent income, were forced to settle into loveless marriages simply to ensure access to fresh air and possibly a room of their own.
Freedom and self-determination lay beyond the reach of most women of her day, and through her heroines, Austen stubbornly insisted that freedom is necessary, possible, and deserved. Her novels still read like feminist manifestos whose themes were later taken up by the likes of Mary Wollstonecraft, Simone de Beauvoir, and Betty Friedan. But rarely would the wit, satire, romance, and ear for conversation ever reach such sublime heights as routinely achieved by Austen with a flick of a pen and a casual retort.
Alas, Marvel Comics is simply not up to the task of reproducing Jane Austen's radical spirit of in the pages of a comic book. Or so I assumed, when Marvel announced its adaptation of her most beloved classic, Pride and Prejudice. But when I picked up Issue #1, I was really impressed by the cover. Designed to resemble a typical teen or women's magazine, it features Miss Elizabeth Bennett in a pensive pose, surrounded by such teasers as "How to cure your boy-crazy sisters!" and "17 Secrets About Summer Dresses." Sonny Liew's cover is a light-hearted stroke of genius, updating the giddy, gossipy feeling of Lizzy's family while foreshadowing the major currents of the novel.
If I'd never opened the issue and read it, I would have remained impressed. But the genius of the cover art is a one-off, and the comic itself is ordinary, if not dull. Darcy is bland in look and act. The banter is reduced to those conversations that are necessary to move the story along. With the exception of Jane, Lizzy's family is ghastly, and no reader could possibly grasp Lizzy's deep devotion to them. All the subtle undercurrents have been stripped away to make room for Marvel's prim aesthetic, a regulation-style digital art which brooks no sudden flaw or stray line of ink that might allow a young reader to connect with a character. The sisters, introduced on page 3, are not the beloved characters from 200 years ago, but a random selection from Marvel's stable of glam girls. They could be anybody, but not anybody special.
The silliest adaptation of Pride and Prejudice was MGM's 1940 film, starring Greer Garson and Laurence Olivier and proceeding with the tagline "Five Gorgeous Beauties on a Mad-Cap Manhunt!" Still, even MGM's ridiculous confection is better than Marvel's comic. The movie drained the sisters of their tragedy, and society of its cruelty, but it replaced these darker elements with frothy hats and goofy relatives. Marvel took everything away, and added nothing back in.
Here's some free advice: if you want to read Austen, but prefer her novels updated with a little action, then may I recommend Seth Grahame-Smith's Pride and Prejudice and Zombies from Quirk Books. This is the original story, in word, in feel, in flavor, and in import, but Grahame-Smith has seeded it with zombies and ninja training, and villagers' brains being eaten at the big dance. It reads as though Austen and Grahame-Smith collaborated on the story, and the integrity of Austen's radical critique of her society and circumstances remains. It's not a comic book, I admit that. But it's stuffed with zombies! Read it!
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