Marvel Legends Muse: Secret Origin?
I have the Bullseye/Muse two-pack coming in the mail this week, a gift from a friend. I have loved Bullseye since he first appeared in Daredevil when Frank Miller was pencilling the book, but only have a rudimentary understanding of Muse.
Then I read his Wikipedia entry, and everything clicked.
It was a peculiar pop-culture moment where two completely separate compartments of my brain suddenly crashed into each other.
I was watching a review of the two-pack featuring Muse, the relatively recent Daredevil villain, looked him up on Wikipedia, and somewhere in the middle of it my brain said:
Wait a minute. I've seen this guy before.
Not literally. Muse first appeared in Marvel Comics in 2016, created by Charles Soule and Ron Garney, and as far as I know he has no acknowledged connection whatsoever to the character I was suddenly thinking about.
That character was Franco from the ABC soap opera General Hospital.
Bear with me.
I have absolutely no evidence that anybody at Marvel borrowed anything from General Hospital. None. I went looking, and I can't find Charles Soule or Ron Garney ever mentioning GH's Franco as an inspiration for Muse.
This is not an accusation.
It's just a pretty remarkable case of...Things That Make You Go Hmm?
Back in 2009, actor James Franco did something wonderfully strange. At the height of his movie career, he asked to appear on General Hospital. He told the producers, essentially, that he wanted to play an artist and wanted the character to be crazy.
The GH writers did the rest.
They created “Franco,” initially a mysterious, eccentric and extremely successful artist who also happened to be a serial killer. ABC promoted him with the wonderful description:
“An artist whose canvas is murder.”
Franco worked in multiple media. He painted graffiti around Port Charles. He photographed crime scenes. He staged installations based on murders. He arranged bodies. He blurred the distinction between homicide and artistic creation so completely that eventually the fictional character's artwork became part of an actual James Franco performance-art event at MOCA.
This was General Hospital, remember.
Daytime television had somehow wandered into conceptual art and was refusing to leave.
But the most important element of the character wasn't simply that Franco killed people and called it art.
It was Jason Morgan.
Jason was one of GH's central characters: originally Jason Quartermaine, whose personality and memories were effectively destroyed in a catastrophic car crash. The man who emerged from that accident became Jason Morgan, an emotionally constricted mob enforcer and highly efficient professional killer who nevertheless remained one of the show's principal protagonists.
To Franco, Jason was irresistible.
Here was another man who killed people.
Frequently.
Efficiently.
And got away with it.
Franco became obsessed with persuading Jason that the two of them were fundamentally alike. Jason's murders were “art,” Franco argued. Jason simply refused to acknowledge what he was.
Jason's response was essentially:
No. You are a psychopath. Go away.
Franco did not take the critique well.
The resulting relationship became an elaborate game of artistic provocation. Franco didn't merely want to defeat Jason. He wanted Jason to participate. He wanted recognition. He wanted his chosen audience to acknowledge both Franco's art and their supposed kinship.
Keep that in mind.
Now jump forward six years.
In 2016, Daredevil introduces Muse.
Muse is a mysterious serial killer and artist.
His introductory masterpiece is a gigantic mural painted using blood taken from more than a hundred missing people.
His next significant installation incorporates six murdered Inhumans, whose bodies he poses as if they're casually going about ordinary daily activities.
He uses human beings as raw artistic material.
He makes graffiti.
He makes installations.
He turns murder scenes into artworks.
And then Daredevil enters his creative process.
Muse doesn't merely regard Daredevil as the superhero trying to stop him. He wants Daredevil to respond to the work. Contemporary reviews of the original storyline actually remarked upon Muse wanting Daredevil to appreciate his art and becoming increasingly driven by Matt's refusal.
Muse says, in effect:
This is art.
Daredevil says:
No. It's murder.
And something about that exchange sounded awfully familiar to me.
Muse later becomes even more explicitly a graffiti artist. During Wilson Fisk's tenure as mayor, he covers New York landmarks with enormous images of vigilantes. While painting one honoring the Punisher, he kills police officers who confront him and incorporates their bodies into the artwork.
Years later, Daredevil: Born Again adapted Muse for television, making him a human serial killer and graffiti artist named Bastian Cooper who kidnaps victims and uses their blood to create his work.
Again:
I am not saying somebody stole Franco from General Hospital.
There are plenty of older precedents for mad artists, serial killers who stage bodies, murder-as-art stories, obsessive villains and graffiti culture. Independent invention is entirely possible. So is unconscious influence. So is conscious homage. Without evidence, I have no idea which explanation—if any—is correct.
But line the two characters up and the coincidences become pretty entertaining.
Franco:
Serial killer.
Artist.
Graffiti.
Murder scenes turned into installations.
Human beings used as artistic material.
Obsessed with a violent protagonist.
Wants that protagonist to recognize the artistic meaning of his violence.
Believes their respective capacities for killing make them kindred spirits.
Muse:
Serial killer.
Artist.
Graffiti.
Murder scenes turned into installations.
Human beings used as artistic material.
Fixates artistically on violent vigilantes.
Wants Daredevil to respond to and acknowledge his work.
Treats murder as art while Daredevil emphatically refuses to.
And the chronology is straightforward:
Franco: 2009.
Muse: 2016.
I went looking for interviews explaining exactly where Soule's original idea for Muse came from. I found plenty of later descriptions of the character as the “serial killer artist” he and Garney created.
I did not find an origin story for the concept.
I also found absolutely no reference to General Hospital.
Which proves precisely nothing in either direction.
Mostly, I find the whole thing fascinating because these happen to be two fictional universes I've followed closely enough to notice the rhyme.
And Jason Morgan may be one of the strangest bridges between them.
Reduce Jason to his comic-book essentials and he's practically a bizarre What If? Daredevil:
What if our hero suffered a terrible accident—but instead of being blinded, he lost his memories and previous personality, then became an emotionally remote mob enforcer and professional killer?
Then give that character an eccentric serial-killer artist who becomes obsessed with the moral and aesthetic meaning of his violence.
Seven years later, give Daredevil an eccentric serial-killer artist who becomes obsessed with the moral and aesthetic meaning of violence.
Maybe it's coincidence.
Maybe both stories drank from some older cultural well.
Maybe somebody somewhere watched afternoon television.
I have no idea.
But after watching the entire James Franco storyline twice over the years, then encountering Muse again last night, my brain suddenly connected two dots that had been sitting six years and two fictional universes apart.
And all I could think was:
Hmm...?
