The Virtues of Doing Nothing

The attack by the mutated beast Mad-Eye takes Mar-Vell by surprise, but it is not the only shock to the collected Watchers. Aron goes from simple observation to encouragement, explaining how Mad-Eye's horns work and urging him: "Strike back swiftly!" Emnu is outraged, but Aron explains, "I followed the man in red. [...] He is good to watch...perhaps unique." But Captain Marvel is only unique on the Watchers' world; Earth is full of heroes, as Uatu well knows. Still, Uatu refuses Rick's request to help Mar-Vell, leaving Aron to volunteer: "But this man does not deserve to die!" Emnu: "Who are you to know!"  Fed up, Rick decides to enter the fray.  When Mad-Eye is finally defeated, Mar-Vell turns to the assembled Watchers:  "I think it proves my case! / Unless you consider my life a bad think---/ Rick's action--his interference--has accomplished a good thing, in prolonging it!"   If the Watchers would only emulate Rick and Uatu, they could save lives, turn deserts fertile, and provide clean energy.  Emnu points out Mar-Vell's lack of foresight about the consequences:

But action breeds reaction, which breeds reaction, which breeds reaction---and no action is worth a mote of dusty to infinity.

Too much is happening for any one thing to matter, Mar-Vell! Your life, to my mind, is neither good nor bad, but merely true!.  Everything that happens is true!

Truth is all that concerns me.

If I take action, allying myself with one position, I must lose sight of the truths that oppose my position in reaction. I cannot then know all the truth--eh, Uatu?

It's a long speech, but an important one: here Emnu gives comics' most sustained rationale for observation and non-interference until Doctor Manhattan makes his case in Watchmen.   Not only that, it's a speech that carries the day.  Uatu agrees with Emnu, explaining his transgressions in language that would not be out of place at a twelve-step program:

I came to a point where the continuous kaleidoscope of action and emotion spread before me became intoxicating!There were billions and billions of stories, and I yearned to become involved!

I did. I aided my heroes, and marked their important events. [...] It made me feel a hero, and I enjoyed that.

But it bothered me that I dared to no more--so when Mar-Vell became Protector of the Universe, taking the life I longed for, I allowed those who joined me in opposing him to enter my house...and each succeeding action bred, indeed, another. This led me to disgrace.

I have learned my lesson, for the second time. I shall not do wrong again.

And from this point on, Uatu mostly keeps to his word. He still appears when important events are happening, but he rarely interacts with the heroes and even more rarely actually does anything.  What is fascinating here is that the essence of Uatu's crimes are not "doing wrong," but simply doing, and that his motivations are those of a frustrated, envious fanboy.  He was tired of watching the heroes have all the fun, envious of their adventures, and each small action led him to even more extreme transgressions.  As slippery slopes go, Uatu's is certainly unusual:  rarely has helping a friend's wedding go off as planned be a step on the road to conspiracy and unwarranted physical assault.

Mar-Vell mic drop

And is it just a coincidence that in the years between his first appearance and "The Trial of the Watcher," Uatu's original appearance as a skinny, huge-headed, toga-clad giant would give way to the depiction featured in Captain Marvel,where he is less alien and awe-inspiring and more "fat, middle-aged bald guy in a revealing, skin-tight costume that isn't doing him any favors?"  The artist John Byrne, who never missed an opportunity for retro stylings, would return him to his original design just a few years later, but in the mean-time, his less imposing, friendlier form was a good fit with his personality and actions during these years.  In any case, Englehart's story rests Uatu back into his original role while both supporting and rebuking the standard morality of the superhero story.

Because, let there be no mistake:  "The Trial of the Watcher" may result in Uatu's repentance and rehabilitation, but it is not an unambiguous rejection of the superhero ethic of intervention.  Rick, too, has a history of being a reader surrogate: as the sidekick first to the Hulk, then to Captain America, and finally to Captain Marvel, he is the boy reader who gets to join the action--a Marvel equivalent to Robin. In fact, his comic book-nourished imagination was the key to ending the war between Mar-Vell's people and the Skrulls just a few years before this issue. The Kree Supreme Intelligence tapped into the mental powers latent in all humans to let Rick summon versions of the superheroes he read during his childhood--the superheroes published by Marvel's earlier incarnation, Atlas. Rick's arc in Englehart's Captain Marvel is going to involve his increased strength and even access to Mar-Vell's powers, but here he simply has an exoskeleton (a prosthetic rather than a power).  Rick's particular talents have always involved both his imagination and his moral compass: appalled that Uatu won't help Mar-Vell, he leaps into the fray without hesitation. Emnu complains that Mar-Vell's example has led Aron ("this youth") to "admire [action] as well." Perhaps, but it is Rick's example that is more relevant: Mar-Vell is supposed to take action by dint of his costumed identity, but Rick is the one who lets inspiration overcome him.  Aron is not trying to be Mar-Vell; he is trying to be Rick. 

In a roundabout fashion, one that surely involves reading this comic against the grain, "The Trial of the Watcher" is an allegorical representation of the anxieties that animated Frederic Wertham's notorious Seduction of the Innocent: the argument that impressionable children (primarily boys) are influenced by comics to engage in harmful and antisocial behavior. Granted, within the context of a superhero comic, Rick's actions are decidedly prosocial. But there is another context here: that of the Watchers.  Seen from their cultural vantage point, Uatu is superhero fan who has taken it too far.

The comic leaves the influence on the impressionable Aron an open question; there is no indication that Englehart had any plans for him at that point, and his departure from Marvel Comics the next year rendered the question moot. But upon his return to the company, he brought Aron back for a series of issues of Fantastic Four in 1988 and 1989.  Now Aron has been completely corrupted by his enthusiasm for intervention and superhero action, eventually becoming a full-on villain. If there is a moral in the story of Uatu and Aron (at least in the stories written by Engelhart), it is about knowing one's lane.  Some are born to action, while others really should content themselves with watching.

Next What If the Watcher Were the Narrator?