The Mask

The Mask (formerly Mayhem) and The Crow came out about the same time: early/mid 1990s. Each came out of "indie" lone-ranger superhero comics, to rival the DC / Marvel juggernauts. I am concentrating on The Mask for now; John Arcudi's 1989-95 implementation of the Dark Horse idea is a large reason Dark Horse survives to this day.

(Vox Day is promising something even Genx-ier and edgy-er in his Project Asteroid but... he has been promising a lot of stuff, these days.)

The 1993 sequel The Mask Returns reveals the Mask, later on, as some sort of voudoun talisman. The 1994 movie, which might not have known that lore, has it as the phylactery of Loki. In all these stories, the mask brings out the inner core of whoso wears it.

Ipkiss in both is a Beta Male who, when he dons the mask, acts out against all those who have crossed him in life. The 1989-91 run's Ipkiss has a girl, but he becomes abusive to her. He gets killed in the end of that run. In the movie he gets pushed by events at first but he does, in the end, figure out that he needs to save his "community" or at least his girl from evil.

The movie isn't perfect. It introduces characters later into the narrative than Aristotle should like ("DOYLE?!"). Here it reminds of Orgazmo, also comic-inspired.

The comic, best I can tell, has some overall message that a Tex Avery cartoon brought to life will end the same: Chaotic Evil. The movie likewise starts Stanley Ipkiss on this path of personal vengeance. But although no perfect angel, the movie wants Stanley to be likeable. So the movie cannot use Tolkien's message entirely for its own. The movie instead explores beta male insecurity. Dorian is Stanley's dark mirror. Dorian is a maskwraith. Dorian ends up one of the more believeable villains in Hollywood.

The movie leaves open to the audience whether Loki's Mask is, indeed, the Ring. We don't know if it kills the diver who finds it, although so we suspect. (And if so: Aristotle would say that the Mask killed him in the wrong way.) In both the movie and the comic, some people can resist its temptations.

Arcudi seems to have gotten the movie's message which is why, in his final turn at the comic The Mask Strikes Back, the violence is more to scenery than to characters. (Or so wiki tells me; that run is still gratuitously violent.) One character, a former stoner with a tendency to hallucination, rejects the Mask. Dark Horse went looking for other authors after that. And there was a cartoon. THERE WAS NO MOVIE SEQUEL.

One thing the movie manages NOT to do, which the comic does, is to give the mask to a woman. Arcudi didn't understand women so when his women wore the mask, they acted like... men. The movie knows Aristotle well enough to restrict the mask to its protagonist, to its villain, and to one comic-relief character (the dog Milo). Perhaps the movie also knows what it doesn't know about women. We must respect that.