Stephen King's "The Mist" (1985)

"In the market, my muse suddenly shat on my head - this happened as it always does, suddenly with no warning. I was halfway down the middle aisle, looking for hot-dog buns, when I imagined a big prehistoric bird flapping its way toward the meat counter at the back, knocking over cans of pineapple chunks and bottles of tomato sauce. By the time my son Joe and I were in the checkout line, I was amusing myself with a story about all these people trapped in a supermarket surrounded by prehistoric animals. I thought it was wildly funny -- what The Alamo would have been like if directed by Bert I. Gordon. I wrote half the story that night and the rest the following week," - Stephen King, describing the genesis of his novella, "The Mist," in the "Notes" section of the paperback, Skeleton Crew, p. 568 (Signet Books: New York, 1985). The long in the works film adaptation of King's short story opens in theatres tomorrow.

What is the most frightful in Stephen King's novella "The Mist" is not the advancing horde of unseen monsters hidden by a dense and mysterious fog. Rather, it is the psychological machinations of a group of citizens hiding from them in a local grocery store. More than two decade's ago, in 1985, "The Mist" appeared in Skeleton Crew, a collection of King's short stories. (Originally written in 1976, it had been published in an earlier form in 1980's Dark Forces). The premise: A commercial artist, David Drayton, and his young son , Billy, venture out to the grocery for supplies after a particularly devastating thunderstorm hits their lakeside community. Following the storm, a strange and unusual mist has begun to overtake the city. As the story progresses, Drayton and the others in the market learn that lurking within it are vile prehistoric creatures who feast upon anyone bold or foolish enough to venture outside.

Thus, along with other archetypal members of the community, the two Draytons find themselves trapped the large supermarket, unable to flee, unable to contact relatives, and unable to acquire any information of any kind. To cope with their new found horror, some try to escape, some fill themselves with booze, while others, including Drayton, attempt to formulate some type of long term plan. Slowly, but surely, the local eccentric, Mrs. Carmody, recruits a number of citizens to her camp of religious zealots, all of whom believe that the mist is a punishment for a higher power who must be appeased, ultimately, by a human sacrifice.

Back in the day, reviews were mixed. Of course, from its premise, it seems like pure and utter schlock. But one reviewer praised King for "escalat[ing] our worst anxieties into a hyperbolic fairy tale."¹ Others dismissed his tale of "gooey monsters at the supermart"² as "the stuff B-movie drive-in double- features are made of"³ (although depending upon one's perspective, those descriptions may be compliments after all). The New York Times noted that it "begins as a powerful evocation of a small Maine community dealing with the terrifying aftermath of a storm, but it quickly deteriorates into a hokey sci-fi thriller full of gigantic spiders and insects created presumably by human tampering with nuclear energy."⁴

Barry Boesch, writing for the Dallas Morning News, observed:

As interesting as the horrible monsters outside are the emerging monsters inside as the people try to deal with their panic and stress at being thrust into a seemingly hopeless, life-threatening situation.⁵

Boesch poses the most interesting question in his review. Of whom should the reader be more frightened, the dinosaur-like monsters waiting in the mist, or the human beings whose social order begins to deteriorate inside the supermarket? "The Mist" is at times a fascinating psychological study of its characters. But King has always been a better storyteller than writer of pop literature. His dialogue is oftentimes awkward, his descriptions of scenes and characters clunky, and his resolution to a narrative generally unsatisfying. In mid-novella, it devolves from a stark psychological drama to self-caricature; Mrs. Carmody transforms from an ominous old crone to a hysterical cult leader, who exclaims things like:

It's expiation gonna clear away this fog! Expiation gonna clear off these monsters and abominations! Expiation gonna drop the scales of mist from our eyes and let us see!

...

And what does the Bible say expiation is? What is the only cleanser for sin in the Eye and Mind of God? Blood.

This, of course, is evidence of Boesch's point that the monsters within are as scary as those without, but it doesn't seem to be the type of thing someone trapped in a supermarket would actually say, however crazed the situation. With a handful of loyal comrades, Drayton escapes the clutches of Carmody (who is shot and killed), the confines of the supermarket, and the creatures of the mist. But the story flashes forward several days to a hotel room where Drayton is chronicling the bizarre events of recent history. He and his followers have found temporary solace from the mist and its monsters. King then offers only this as an ending:

That is what happened. Or Nearly all -- there is one final thing I'll get to in a moment. But you mustn't expect some neat conclusion. There is no And they escaped from the mist into the good sunshine of a new day; or When we awoke the National Guard had finally arrived; or even the great old standby: It was all a dream.

(Emphasis in original). What is amusing, and irksome, about this ending is that King acknowledges he had no satisfactory resolution, but he then self-referentially makes note of that fact as if to forestall criticism on that very point. He suggests that his ambiguous non-ending is superior to a more definite closure because tidy endings are, apparently, square. The attempt did not go over well. Writing in 1985, and quoting the next paragraph in the story after the one quoted above, Davin Light of the Orlando Sentinel concluded:

But suddenly, King seems to run out of energy. And then he tells the reader he's run out of energy and dismisses it in much the same way he introduces the book. The ending '' . . . is, I suppose, what my father always frowningly called 'an Alfred Hitchcock ending,' by which he meant a conclusion in ambiguity that allowed the reader or viewer to make up his own mind about how things ended. My father had nothing but contempt for such stories, saying they were 'cheap shots.' '' I'm with his father.⁶

King commits the same sin twenty years later in Cell, his 2005 novel of a zombie apocalypse caused by cellular pulse. There, King ends the story with another non-ending: the protagonist holds a cellular phone to his zombified son's ear in hopes that it will restore his life to normalcy. There is no conclusion, there is no answer, there is no resolution to the story. The narrative ends with the reader not learning what ultimately comes of the son or his father. The reader is left to decide whether they find happiness again or only death in their new world.

One wonders if King had always intended such ambiguous endings in "The Mist" and Cell or if he, as Boesch suggests, merely ran out of energy and surrendered.

It has taken some time for the novella to make it to the silver screen. On May 14, 1996, Bryan Byun, posting in alt.books.stephen-king, related that he was "looking forward to the film version [of 'The Mist'] by Frank Darabont (Shawshank Redemption). If anyone can do true justice to the story, I think he can." The film adaptation of "The Mist" opens nationally tomorrow, eleven and a half years after Byun's post. Written and directed by Darabount (no stranger to King's work as the director of 1994's The Shawshank Redemption and 1999's The Green Mile), the film stars Thomas Jane (The Punisher) as Drayton and Marcia Gay Harden (Miller's Crossing, Pollock) as Carmody. For years and years and years, Darabount had been struggling to turn the short story into a motion picture. He has been linked to the project for so long that his efforts were being discussed at the dawn of the Internet. Byun, and others like him, were expecting him to helm an adaptation not too long after his success with The Shawshank Redemption. On October 10, 1994, Eric Parish, posting on the rec.arts.tv.mst3k and alt.tv.mst3k Usenet newsgroups, noted that "[t]here will be a movie of 'The Mist' coming from Castle Rock someday, directed by Frank Darabont, who did 'Shawshank' . . ." On June 28, 1996, Bev Vincent wrote on alt.books.stephen-king that "Darabont is supposed to be working on "The Mist", but I have not heard that it is anywhere beyond the pre-production." But delays and distractions kept the film in development hell for more than a decade.

But will it be worth the wait? Darabont will no doubt set the film in the present and bestow upon his characters all of the accessories of modern life (cell phones, Blackberries, irony), none of which will be able to penetrate the mist. The question is whether Darabont will run out of narrative gas as King did in the original novella, although these days, such a maneuver would lay the groundwork for a sequel, if the film rakes in a sufficient amount of box office dollars. Having worked so closely with King over the years, though, Darabont may be unlikely to significantly alter anything his patron author set to the page two decades before.

1 Bolotin, Susan. "Don't Turn Your Back on This Book," New York Times, June 9, 1985.
2 "Skeleton Crew - Book Reviews," Playboy, July 1985.
3. Graff, Gary. "King Gives His Imagination Room to Roam," Lexington Herald-Leader (KY), June 30, 1985.
4 Lehmann-Haupt, Christopher. "Books of the Times," New York Times, July 11, 1985.
5. Boesch, Barry. "Wide-Ranging 'Skeleton Crew' Looks at Internal, External Monsters," The Dallas Morning News, August 4, 1985.
6. Light, Davin. "Too many Bones, Not Enough Meat," Orlando Sentinel, July 14, 1985 (quoting the final pages of King's novella).

Fantastic Four #285

"Look at this lad, Johnny. Look at the joy in his eyes as he consumes each detail of your exploits. Look at his room. Contained within these four walls is a virtual shrine in your honor. His was a small, sad life, Johnny. Without friends, without true parental love and guidance. The death of this boy is not a burden for you to bear. He did not die because of you. It was through you that Tommy Hanson lived!" - omnipotent, multidimensional being The Beyonder, attempting to console Johnny Storm a/k/a The Human Torch, after the death of thirteen-year-old fan, Tommy Hanson, who set himself ablaze while trying to become his favorite hero, in Fantastic Four #285 (Marvel Comics, Issue Date: December 1985).

Part of the massive crossover that was the wearisome Secret Wars II, Fantastic Four #285 begins in the office of Dr. Janet Darling, some type of coroner investigating the death of Thomas H. Hanson, a thirteen year old boy whose official cause of death is third degree burns. Dissatisfied with that brief clinical conclusion, Dr. Darling begins an investigation into the circumstances which led to Hanson's death (a more existential task which, likely, would exceed her formal duties in the real world). The narrative then flashes back to to the last few days of the life of Hanson, an all too familiar experience for many young comic book readers in the mid-1980s. Bullied, unpopular, and all too interested in the exploits of super heroes (which in his world exist not in fictional comic books but in news reports and celebrity magazines), Hanson idolizes The Human Torch, founding member of the Fantastic Four, sister of Sue Storm a/k/a The Invisible Woman, and young hero of New York City.

Hanson is a latch key kid who rarely sees his parents, both of who maintain professional careers. On the day in question, at school, a stereotypical bully brandishes a new celebrity magazine featuring the Torch in front of Hanson's face and only agrees to give it to him if he will fork over his lunch money and do his homework for him. Later, a teacher confiscates Hanson's hard won magazine and attempts to explore with him his unhealthy fascination with the Torch. Hanson replies only that Johnny Storm is, after all, "the greatest hero ever! Better 'n Spider-Man, or Captain America, or Thor, or . . . or anyone!"

Hanson's only friend, it seems, is an aged misfit toy-maker named Joss, who is making some type of model airplane than operates on actual jet fuel. (This friendship is somewhat reminiscent of the friendship between Doc Brown and Marty McFly, characters who also appeared for the first time in 1985. However, McFly was older and far, far more confident in himself than Hanson, and Brown was certainly less negligent than Joss turns out to be.). Leaving the test area to return a page, Joss warns Hanson to stay away from a fuel can, for it "could turn ya into another human torch." This, of course, is exactly the wrong thing to say to young Hanson. Only moments before encountering Joss, he had placed a call to Johnny Storm at Avengers Mansion, where the hero was staying following the destruction of the Fantastic Four's headquarters. Says Hanson to Avengers butler Edwin Jarvis, who answered the phone:

Just tell the Human Torch that Tommy Hanson called.

...

No, sir. He doesn't know me. I . . . I just wanted him to know my name.

Left alone with the can of jet fuel, Hanson does what the foreshadowing suggests he will:


As Hanson lays dying in the hospital, Dr. Darling locates and informs Johnny Storm, who has just enough time to visit Hanson at the hospital before the young boy passes away. Storm's parents, heretofore absent, berate Storm from their newly dead son's bedside. Storm is devastated. He commiserates with his fellow team members and threatens never to become the Human Torch again. Upon this vow, he is visited by the Beyonder (whose insertion into the story seems a bit heavy-handed), who takes him into the past to observe Hanson's life. It is during these moments that the Beyonder gives the monologue cited above.

Written and penciled by John Byrne, the issue is not typical narrative fare for super hero comic books. The issue was also inked by Al Gordon, colored by Glynis Oliver, lettered by John Workman, and edited by Michael Carlin. Byrne's art is somewhat unusual in that the faces of Hanson and his bully look to be far older than their ages and builds would suggest. It is as if the heads of adults have been placed upon the diminutive bodies of children, and the effect is somewhat detrimental to the overall theme and message of the issue:


See what I mean?

The issue has drawn some critical commentary in, of all places, non-comic books. In his 1999 book, Comic Book Culture: Fanboys and True Believers, author Matthew J. Pustz explores the portrayals of comic book fans in the medium. He notes:

The depictions of comic book fans themselves fall into two main categories, the direct and the metaphorical. Mainstream visions of comic book fans have usually been metaphorical. Some, such as Byrne's story, "Hero" (Fantastic Four #285 [December 1985]), have been sympathetic. Tommy Hanson, a devoted fan of the Human Torch, faces so much parental neglect and peer ridicule that he sets himself on fire in an attempt to become more like his hero. When the boy's parents blame the Torch for his death, the superhero briefly vows never again to use his powers. An omnipotent extradimensional creature named the Beyonder soon intervenes and shows the Torch the error of his ways by taking him back in time to see Tommy happy in his room, reading Fantastic Four. The Beyonder explains, "the death of this boy is not a burden for you to bear. He did not die because of you. It was through you that Tommy Hanson lived!" It is not difficult to make the jump between Tommy, the fan of the "real" Human Torch, and fans of the comic book superheros, turning the story into commentary on the role of superheroes in fans' lives. Comics do not make fans' lives one dimensional or lacking in human contact; rather, says Byrne, comics provide fans an escape, an outlet.

Pustz, now a professor at Endicott College in Massachusetts, was kind enough to offer his thoughts on the issue eight years after the publication of his book. In an email, he notes how he came to include a discussion of FF #285 in his book:

My book is all about the world of comic book readers as I'm trying to explain what the comics mean to the people who read them. But I also wanted to get a sense of the opposite perspective as well: what do comic book creators think about the people who read their comics. How are fans depicted in the comic books themselves? Tommy Hanson isn't primarily a comic book fan. He's shown reading comic books, but the focus of his fandom is the Human Torch, someone who is a real person for him. Making the leap from someone who is a fan of (real life) superheroes to someone who is a fan of comic books that star (fictional) superheroes seemed reasonable to me. After all, it was in The Fantastic Four comic that readers learned that the team stars in its own line of comic books on the Marvel earth -- comic books that we on this earth read as if they are fiction. The scene in Tommy's room, where the Beyonder takes Johnny back into the past to see him happily reading, focuses on comic books. And when his parents lash out at the Torch, they blame him in the same kind of rhetoric that people have used to pin responsibility on comic books and other forms of popular culture. So the connection is clearly there.

Twenty two years after its publication, Pustz believes the issue "holds up pretty well" in 2007. However, as time has passed since the publication of his book, he has reconsidered, somewhat, his initial view of the portrayal of Hanson in Byrne's narrative:

It's still a powerful comic book, especially for people who can see themselves in Tommy. (Reading it again, I had to blink back a few tears when the Beyonder describes Tommy as being "without true friends, except those he finds in the gaudy pages of these periodicals.") In my book, I argue that his depiction is "sympathetic," but I'm not sure that I would go as easy on Byrne now as I did then. Tommy certainly seems to be a nice enough kid, and it's true that he's abused by his classmates, misunderstood by his teachers, and neglected by his parents. At the same time, though, he's not the brightest kid for 13. He falls for his classmates trick to get his lunch money for a magazine that Tommy should have been able to find anywhere, and then he gets himself in trouble by reading it in school. Maybe this is a sign of Tommy's obsessive tendencies, but it certainly doesn't reflect well on comic book fans. In fact, I'd argue now that Tommy is portrayed much like stereotypical fans: immature (his actions seem to be more like someone who's closer to 8 than 13), obsessive, less than smart, and potentially dangerous. Near the end of the story, Byrne (through the Beyonder) tells Johnny (and us) that he's not responsible for Tommy lighting himself on fire. Certainly his self-absorbed parents and irresponsible neighbor are more at fault. The Beyonder explains that superheroes (and comic books)d on't make fans' lives one-dimensional and so empty that they light themselves on fire. Instead, comics and superheroes give fans an outlet, a way to live their lives vicariously through people they idolize. This may be a positive service that comic books provide, but that doesn't really say very much in support of the average comic book fan. So, I guess the bottom line is that the story holds up (I'm always impressed by the way Byrne is able to give so much life to secondary or even tertiary characters who will never appear again) but that my interpretation of the story doesn't. I guess I need to go back and re-write my book!

Although spoken in an attempt to console the Torch, The Beyonder's words are not entirely sympathetic or even appropriate. Essentially, the Beyonder consoles Storm by telling him that Hanson's attempts to live vicariously through him were what made his life worth living to him, and thus, Storm should not lament or feel responsible for his death. What lies in that message? Does it not lessen the life of Hanson to imply that he was happy only because he would sublimate his own identity to live through the exploits of a hero celebrity? There is an element of dehumanization implicit in his remarks: Tommy Hanson may be less than a human being for not living his own life, but at least he could be distracted from his troubles by reading of a hero actively living his own life. (You would think, too, that Storm would simply ask the omnipotent figure to resurrect the boy, but in comic books, resurrection is only for characters whose reappearance will sell issues. It is not a reward for minor human characters who serve as plot devices in single issues.).

Further, it seems a bit strange that Storm would not have to deal with the media consequences of such a death. Who cannot imagine such a tragedy finding itself onto the front page of the New York Post? Would it really be the place of a coroner to investigate the social and situational issues leading to the child's sad demise, or would that be the task of an investigative reporter, or better yet, a lawyer retained by his parents to sue the Fantastic Four (whose pockets are deep enough to justify such a lawsuit)? Why didn't this story linger for several issues, or perhaps a year, for Storm to deal with the consequences of his actions? And was such a tragic accident truly as unforeseeable as Johnny Storm's grief suggests? Certainly, if the Marvel Universe is anything like our own, then children injure themselves using certain products in an attempt to emulate television and cinema. This should not be a surprise to a hero who regularly visits outer space, fights aliens and monsters, and generally sees death and destruction on a rather frequent basis. After all, was it not eight years before this issue appeared that Saturday Night Live parodied cheap Halloween costumes and "a bag of oily rags and a lighter" sold as a "Johnny Human Torch" costume?

Here are the panels which feature the Beyonder's brief speech to Storm:

In the end, Storm revokes his promise to never become the Torch again, Joss is imprisoned, and everything is, for the most part, tidily resolved. Fantastic Four #285 certainly seems to be an issue that has lived on in the memory of its readers, as evidenced by Pustz's commentary and a handful of Usenet postings over the years. There is no true villain, unless you count fame itself, which is why it may be memorable.