Cultural Kalocin

New Blog Project

2011-08-06T12:47:00.001-07:00

Hey, y'all. I've got a new comics blogging project up and running. Be a pal and check it out!

Best Laid Plans

2010-10-31T14:27:00.000-07:00

So, the good news is, I gots me a job. The bad news is, blogging is put on hold for a bit.

The other good news is that I'm taking part in National Novel Writing Month instead. So there'll hopefully be something interesting here in the next few weeks.

GLR: Earthbound, Part II

2010-10-18T17:13:00.000-07:00

Almost done with Hal Jordan's adventures on Earth, so let's go into space!

Well, okay, it's not that simple. After the "One Year Later" gap following Infinite Crisis, we catch up with what Hal's been up to. And Hal's had it pretty crappy. Him, Cowgirl, and an unimportant third pilot went down in hostile territory, and were kept as POW's for about eight months during the year gap. And Hal blames himself for their trauma. Now, unlike most of Peter Parker's unnecessary angst, there's some foundation to this particular guilt trip: Hal never flies with his ring. If he'd had the ring on, he and his partners could have waltzed out of the terrorist camp with no problem. Hindsight is 20/20, and all.

To make matters worse, someone has placed an alien bounty on Jordan's head, and all sorts of bounty hunters are showing up trying to claim it. (Fortunately for Earth, Lobo didn't come calling.) However, it's not a bounty hunter who comes searching for Jordan's scalp; it's a Green Lantern, thought dead at Parallax's hands. Hal Jordan and Guy Gardner trace his path of travel to an empty region of space controlled by the Manhunters.

As you might expect from a mechanical army devoted to wiping out all life, the Manhunter "Warworld" is rather horrific; the Manhunters have a whole collection of long-dead Green Lanterns that weren't as dead as everyone thought. It turns out that the Manhunters had been collecting Green Lanterns over the years, including the so-called "Lost Lanterns", the last few to stand off against Parallax.

But it actually gets quite a bit worse, because it turns out the mysterious Grandmaster of the Manhunters is actually Hank Henshaw, the Cyborg Superman. (Hereafter called just "Cyborg", because "Cyborg Superman" is a tragically lame name.) The Cyborg is a bleak nihilist of a villain, incredibly creepy and generally obsessed with eliminating life, sentience, or some variation thereof. Most of all, though, the immortal Cyborg just wants to die.

Anywho, he's been using the kidnapped Lanterns to power his various Death Machines, but Hal and Guy initiate a jailbreak, and the freed Lanterns nuke Warworld, allowing the Guardians of the Universe to reclaim the Cyborg's now-crippled body.

Back on Earth, Cowgirl's plane goes down again (way to fly there, lady), and she's re-captured. Hal creates an international incident in his frantic search to get her back, going through alien bounty hunters, Russian and Chinese superheroes, and even the Justice League. He frees Cowgirl, and finally finds the person who placed the bounty on him in the first place: Amon Sur, son of Abin Sur.

Amon wants his father's ring, and is totally willing to kill to get it. He also rampages through Edwards AFB to reclaim his father's ship. Hal Jordan and John Stewart are tag-teaming him rather well, until he's found by a strange yellow ring, which welcomes Amon into the "Sinestro Corp." Before he can take advantage of this new weapon, it zaps him back to the Anti-Matter universe for training.

Finally, the Star Sapphire crystal is reactivated, first possessing Carol Ferris, then Cowgirl, in an attempt to get to Hal Jordan. Its creators, the Zamerons, become frustrated when Jordan figures a simple way to outwit the crystal, and decides to take a page from the Guardian's playbook, harnessing the power of the crystal into ring form to channel its energies into a stable weapon that won't warp its bearers' minds.

Really, there are four important events in this run of issues: the Sinestro Corp rings start cropping up, Amon Sur returns to the title, the Lost Lanterns are reintroduced, and the Star Sapphires officially become a corps.

The Sinestro rings are fairly simple foreshadowing, but what's worth noting is that there's almost no indication of the sheer size of the Corps. Of course, now we know that the Sinestro Corp would be created as a mirror of the Green Lantern Corp, with 7200 members; at this point, however, there's not much of a reason to suspect that size of an enemy force. It makes the inevitable reveal all the more daunting.

The Lost Lanterns are going to keep popping up to be a source of conflict for Hal, but with the exception of Lyria, aren't that important as individuals in Johns' run. And since their team will prove to have a mortality rate just slightly lower than the Teen Titans, it's best not to get too attached.

The Zamerons will prove to be smarter than Attrocitus by taking the time to purge all the crazy out of their power-source. With the violet energy of love being on the far end of the color spectrum (as the red light of rage is), it drives its bearers a bit loopy in its pure form. Most of this information, though, won't be placed into proper context until after SCW.

Amon Sur is simultaneously the most and least important part of this run of issues. He, as a character, is a loser. He's a slightly-less shrill version of Superboy Prime, a whiner with very petty goals. He's a nothing character who is somehow incredibly prominent in the title for the next year or so.

This is mainly due to not being useful as a character, but useful as a dramatic device. Immediately, Johns uses Amon for three things: first, Amon brings Abin Sur back to the readers' consciousness. Abin Sur, despite being long-dead, becomes increasingly important in the titles as we approach both Secret Origin and Blackest Night.

Second, Amon's rampage through Edwards AFB effectively ends its use as Area-51. This alone is enough to cement my dislike of Amon; it's one thing to be a lame character, but a lame character who destroys a much-more interesting story device? Sigh.

Finally, Amon is our portal into the Sinestro Corp, both here and in the Tales of the Sinestro Corp tie-in. Unfortunately, this is a bit of a head-scratcher as well. The ring that went to Amon Sur first tried to bond to Batman as a being capable of generating great fear. After he rejects it...the next greatest fearmonger on Earth is Amon Sur? Really? I mean, thankfully, Johns addresses this fallacy in Rage of the Red Lanterns and Blackest Night, but it's still a bit of a stretch just to get the story from point A to point B.

On the other end of the spectrum, the Cyborg is an incredibly cool character who is a bit underutilized. As Hal notes in his internal monologue, there's more than a little similarity between himself and the former Hank Henshaw, even considering their shared history; that's not even looking at the dramatic contrasts of their philosophies on life. But for the most part, these character traits aren't touched again after this arc.

It's really a bit of a frustrating pattern, as I've mentioned before; several villains in Johns' run could be considered dark, twisted versions of Hal Jordan, (including Amon Sur, actually), but this is never picked up on.

With the conclusion of these arcs, Johns is efficiently done building the foundation of Hal Jordan's return. Next time, we finally look at the story that sucked me into this mythos in the first place: Sinestro Corp War!

Well, I thought that was the Cyborg Superman, but he's wearing glasses. He's clearly just Cyborg Clark Kent.

Okay, I've Been Out of It

2010-10-17T17:05:00.000-07:00

Had a really busy week this past, uh, week, so no blog updates. I'll take pains to correct that this week. Tomorrow I'll wrap up Earthbound, Part II, setting the stage for the really good stuff in Sinestro Corp War and the build-up to Blackest Night. For 'Ween Wednesday, I'll look at my favorite schlock horror franchise, Nightmare on Elm Street, reviewing the first four films of that series.

And hopefully, by Friday or Saturday, I'll have something special up. I'm starting to write again, hopefully being able to finish my sci-fi magnum opus. I haven't written fiction in a while, but I'm optimistic about my chances.

In the longer term, I'm playing with the idea of a multimedia segment of my blog, inspired by the likes of Brad Jones, Louis Lovhaugh, and Doug Walker. (All of whom are naturally excellently entertaining, and you should be following them if you're not.) But that's a bit of a ways off, mostly because I need to harass some of my peeps into helping me with some multimedia editing programs.

Hells, I might as well make the best of my unemployment for as long as I can, amirite?

My Nerd Meter is Peaking

2010-10-08T11:52:00.000-07:00

For the sake of comprehension in my GL Retrospective, I've got to deal with a matter I'd hoped to never address. It is, quite frankly, one of the nerdiest aspects of comic culture. Ever. Just trying to explain it to a non-fan is a pathway to madness. Heck, I'm afraid I'll be beaten up and have my lunch money stolen just in the process of typing this up. And I'll deserve it.

Today, we're going to discuss the DC Multiverse.

See, the idea of alternate realities and timelines is an old classic for science fiction and subsequently superhero comics, but DC took it a step too far by essentially publishing two very similar alternate universes simultaneously, universes which would constantly cross over. Admittedly, at first I was going to explain some of the reasons behind these multiple titles, but the more I think about it...well, the more it makes my head hurt.

In fairness, this concept originated in the Silver Age, when DC wasn't as big on continuity as most comics are today. However, as the medium grew more advanced and the stories became more complicated, (and the number of alternate worlds grew), it got a little confusing. So, in an attempt to simplify their publishing line, DC released a maxi-series called Crisis on Infinite Earths.

Looking back, the idea that Crisis would "simplify" anything is a bit of a joke.

The basic premise for the first (of three) Crisis series is that a fairly powerful being known as the Monitor starts collecting heroes from various universes to prevent an oncoming catastrophe. A powerful entity from the anti-matter universe, called the "Anti-Monitor", is annihilating universes one by one, planning to destroy all the mutliverse until only his anti-matter universe remains.

Let's pause here for a moment to appreciate how incredibly not-threatening the name "Anti-Monitor" is for an omnicidal cosmic force. And frankly, it's a bit non-sensical. Yeah, yeah, he's the Monitor from the anti-matter universe, but he's absolutely nothing like the good Monitor watching over the multiverse. He doesn't really "monitor" anything. Or maybe he's called this because he's the opponent of the Monitor. But why would he define himself by his arch-enemy? It's just not particularly clever naming for an ultimate evil.

And let's question the wisdom of this event in the first place. Universes are destroyed. Entire universes. Before the heroes are even involved in the plot, untold trillions have died. Kind of depressing, when you think about it. Way to drop the ball, Superman!

Stepping back from the story itself, if DC's desire was to simply restart their universe with a more coherent continuity, why not just write endings to the currently-running titles and start over? Why make an "event" out of their fourth-wall breaking editorial decision?

Whatevs. The point is, after the conclusion of CoIE, there are four survivors of the multiverse: Superman and Lois Lane of Earth-2 (where the WWII stories were designated to have happened), Alexander Luthor (the son of the good Lex Luthor from a world where heroes are villains and vice versa) and Superboy Prime (the only superhero from a world where the DCU is a comic book serial, supposed to be "our" world.) They remained in a pocket dimension outside of space and time.

CoIE caused a ton of headaches when the effects of various continuity changes started to accumulate; no one was certain what events had or hadn't happened, now. And for some reason, DC decided twenty years later to celebrate CoIE's 20th anniversary with a new Crisis: Infinite Crisis.

Infinite Crisis revolved around Alexander Luthor and Superboy Prime deciding that the new universe created at the end of CoIE was unworthy of existence, suffering from such dark and twisted events as the death of Superman, Knightfall, Emerald Twilight, and generally the entire 1990's. Alexander Luthor slipped back into reality and replaced Lex Luthor, organizing just about every super villain ever into the largest Secret Society yet. He used these resources to keep Earth's heroes off-balance while he constructed a huge citadel from the remains of the Anti-Monitor's technology. Alex's plan was to create a new, "perfect" world.

Superboy Prime, on the other hand, simply wanted his own world restored. Looking at things objectively, SP most likely suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder. It's hard for most to look at him objectively, though, because Superboy Prime is hated by a large number of fans for being an immature, whiny punk of a villain. I'm rather ambivalent on him myself; I find him unintentionally hilarious at worst, somewhat threatening at best. Most villains are as petty as Prime is when you really get down to it; Prime simply lacks the trappings of style and refinement your average supervillain tends to have.

The kid says things like, "I'll kill you to death!" We're not dealing with Victor Von Doom.

At the end of IC, Lex Luthor and the Joker kill the upstart Alexander, and Superboy Prime is imprisoned by the Green Lanterns in a cell held at the center of a red sun, keeping him completely powerless. However, seeing as Earth (and many a super-hero's life) was completely in ruins due to the events of the series, DC elected to skip ahead one year to set the books up in new status quos. This timejump was called "One Year Later", because the marketing guys were feeling particularly creative that day.

Another editorial side-effect of IC is the decision that all of Alex Luthor's tampering with the fabric of reality has allowed for new continuity changes. This is going to be more important when the GL Retrospective gets to Secret Origins.

A totally awesome maxi-series called 52 dealt with events during the year-long gap between the end of IC and OYL, showing that Alex's activities had also created a new multiverse, consisting of fifty-two parallel worlds balancing on the main Earth. At first, these universes are completely identical, but when Mr. Mind attempts to consume reality (there's a sentence I never though I'd ever type), it created alterations in these universes.

Bottom line? There's a new multiverse, consisting of 52 parallel worlds balanced on the original. Only a handful of these new worlds have really been explored. And as we'll find out in a couple weeks, the re-creation of the multiverse allowed for the rebirth of the Anti-Monitor.

I'll be honest: I hate the multiverse. With the exception of 52, just about everything related to the multiverse confuses, bores, or irritates me. And the multiverse only came into play in literally the last two issues of that series. The introduction of the Monitors is Final Crisis took attention away from Darkseid's crowning moment of victory, and generally took what had been a very enjoyable series off the rails. I just. Don't. Care. About the multiverse. But since Geoff Johns wrote Infinite Crisis, a couple characters and concepts from that series pop up in future Green Lantern stories, so I gotta' deal. Alas.

'Ween Wednesday

2010-10-06T07:12:00.001-07:00

Awesome Halloween Music

No, "Thriller" isn't on here. I assume everyone already knows about it.

2010-10-06T07:12:00.000-07:00

GLR: Earthbound Part I

2010-10-03T17:19:00.000-07:00

Nur wenn sie dachten, es sei sicher zu gehen zurück in das Wasser.

Gonna' break up the retrospective a bit differently this week. Rather than cover a specific book of Green Lantern, I'm going to divvy up the contents of three books, "No Fear", "Revenge of the Green Lanterns", and "Wanted: Hal Jordan" over this and the next review, using the One Year Later gap as the dividing line. The plots are a lot less complicated than "Rebirth", making it easier to explain the events therein.

The other reason for this, though, is that the recurring theme of the first two years of GL stories under Johns is unfortunately "wasted potential". Just about every Earth-bound character and plotline Johns establishes is ignored after the Sinestro Corps War. In a few cases, this is because they're brought to their logical conclusion. In most, however, it's simply because after SCW, Jordan goes off into space to get involved in the rundown to Blackest Night, which leaves no logical way for Edwards Air Force Base, Cowgirl, or Coast City to be involved or referenced.

I'm of two minds on the subject. On the one hand, I enjoyed the characters and conflicts introduced after SCW. On the other, I also enjoyed the pre-SCW status quo, if not the characters. (Cowgirl is little more than a female Hal Jordan, and the rest of the cast apart from Jim Jordan are fairly forgettable.) I'll deal more with what I like about this status quo after we examine the events of these issues.

After returning to life at the end of "Rebirth", Hal Jordan returns to the slowly-restoring Coast City. The federal government is putting a lot of money into getting the place rebuilt, but not a lot of people are interested in moving to "Ghost City".

On the personal front, Jordan gets a position at Edwards AFB, under a commander who knows his secret identity. He meets a flirtatious female AF pilot, call-sign "Cowgirl." He has a heart-to-heart with his little brother Jim, a rather timid man who is inspired by Hal's return to move his family back to Coast City.

But to Hell with that! Super heroics!

Edwards AFB is essentially acting as Area 51, holding pieces of alien technology they've found over the decades. This causes problems when one of their pieces, an old Manhunter robot, reactivates after detecting a Green Lantern in the area. Unfortunately, a new model Manhunter comes to destroy the outdated on, leaving Hal caught in the middle. The new Manhunter is equipped with a power battery in its skull, making it able to drain a GL's power ring. This is important to remember, because although Hal is able to destroy both of these Manhunters, it's not the last time we'll hear from them.

The next storyline revolves around the Gremlins, a race of amoral alien scientists (who all speak German, for some reason.) They've taken an interest in playing with evolutionary freaks of nature, enhancing them to sell as weapons to galactic despots. Old Green Lantern foe Hector Hammond, a man with psychic abilities so powerful that his brain has completely overcome the rest of his body, senses that the Gremlins are coming for him, so he alerts Jordan of their plan.

Hal is preoccupied when another of the Gremlins' pet projects, the Shark. The Shark is exactly what his name implies, a hyper-evolved shark man. None too bright, but huge, powerful, hungry, and off the California coast. While the Shark keeps Hal busy, the Gremlins abduct Hammond, as well as the villain Black Hand, last seen when the Specter mutilated the poor sap's hand. The Gremlins give Black Hand the means to regenerate his lost limb, at the cost of sucking life from those around him. Unfortunately, the poor guy's been so far traumatized by what the Specter (and, to Hand's mind, Hal Jordan, did to him that he's become a death-worshiping nihilist. This new ability is right up Black Hand's ally.

Hal manages to save Hammond, as well as defeating the Shark, Black Hand, and the Gremlins. He turns the first three over to Earth authorities, and the Gremlins over to the Green Lantern Corp. The evolutionary experiments are considered alien technology, and are held at Edwards AFB.

The next story is a direct tie-in to the events of the mega-event Infinite Crisis, which will tangentially effect the stories we examine next week. Mongul II, son of the alien who allied with the Cyborg Superman to destroy Coast City, is determined to avenge his late father and earn his legacy. Ambushing Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman in the then-destroyed JLA Watchtower, he steals a Black Mercy from the JLA vault, and teleports to Earth, being intercepted by Green Lantern and his buddy Green Arrow. I've already made my thoughts on Green Arrow clear, so I won't go into that further.

Now, a Black Mercy is a symbiotic alien plant that bonds to a host and creates an illusion in the host's mind of a perfectly content life to prevent the host from resisting the bond. Mongul II (hereafter, just "Mongul") plans to follow in his father's footsteps and weaponize the Mercy's, growing a whole field of them on Earth. Green Arrow and Green Lantern are captured by one, but are able to see through the illusion it created because the plant had to split its resources between two individuals, creating what wasn't Green Arrow's ideal world, but what Hal Jordan thought Green Arrow's ideal world would be. Freed, the two fight back Mongul, who has further competition from his own sister, Mongal. When the siblings are teleported back to their point of origin, Mongul kills his sister, determined to honor their father himself.

Finally, Green Lantern and Batman team up to take down the mysterious Tattooed Man, a former Marine covered in mystical tattoos that can manifest as demons and attack those in the real world. Hal is understandably nervous about working with Bats again. Back in Rebirth, before Hal could lead the charge against Parallax, Batman had tried to intervene, still not trusting Jordan. Hal then punched out Batman before continuing on his way.

Yeah, Hal, you'd better be scared. You don't punch Batman. Not ever.

Sure enough, when Hal steps out of line, Batman takes the opportunity to put him in his place. Hal backs down, but the two still have trouble approaching the problem; Batman plans every move and acts from the shadows, while Green Lantern literally covers himself in light and dives in head first. They ultimately use this to their advantage; Green Lantern distracts the Tattooed Man and get attacked by the demons he can manifests, while Batman ambushes Tattooed Man and fight the human host hand-to-hand.

They defeat him, and as a peace offering, Hal offers Batman a chance to use his ring. To do so requires focusing on the moment of ultimate fear in your life, and being able to move past it. Batman is able to do this (no prizes for guessing what Batman's most fearful memory is), but chooses not to, saying that the memory is what motivates him to keep fighting. However, by issue's end, he and Hal are back on friendly terms. As friendly as terms are with the Batman, anyway.

So, what do we have, here?

We have what I think is one of the coolest status quos for a super hero ever: working at Area 51. I would absolutely love for another character, a more Earthbound one, to operate at the fictional Edwards AFB and deal with both government intrigue and threats from beyond the stars. Upon looking back, a Green Lantern isn't really the best fit for this type of setting; Hal Jordan already splits his time between Earth and space. The creatures kept at Edwards aren't as frightening or mysterious to him as they would be to someone a little more grounded. And, as I've noted before, this status quo is eventually dropped entirely as Hal spends most of the next couple years in space. Still, I hope Edwards is eventually revisited.

Next we have Hector Hammond, who is reimagined by Johns as a creepy Hal-Jordan fanboy/stalker. It's actually a clever idea; Hammond is unable to move on his own because of his huge head. Really, it's like an orange on a toothpick. It's like Sputnik: spherical, but quite pointy in parts. It's got its own weather system. He cries himself to sleep every night on his huge pillow. By using his psychic abilities, he can live the exciting life of a superhero by leeching off of Jordan's memories. And, unlike the other plot threads introduced in this part of the run, Hammond actually comes back after the conclusion of Blackest Night, serving as a meat-puppet for the serpentine embodiment of Greed. I'm interested in where Johns goes with this.

The Black Hand is another character who comes back in a big way ,being the centerpiece of the Blackest Night crossover. In fact, Hand is the first character to speak of the coming of the Blackest Night, but seeing as he's out of his mind half the time, no one listens to his ramblings. It's ironic, however, that the Specter, by choosing to mutilate Hand rather than kill him outright, not only allowed for the deaths of all the people Hand kills to regrow his limb, but also allowed for the Blackest Night to occur in the first place. At the time, it would seem that the Specter's attack pushed the Hand completely over the edge, but Secret Origins and one of the Blackest Night prologues will reveal that Hand was always destined to be the avatar of death. (Admittedly, mostly via revised continuity in the wake of "Infinite Crisis".)

Mongul will play a larger role in the Green Lantern universe following the Sinestro Corp War, albeit mostly in the sister title "Green Lantern Corps". I'll deal with those developments in due time, but I think it's worth noting that Johns missed a good opportunity with this character; Mongul rivals Hal Jordan when it comes to Daddy issues. This isn't the last time such an opportunity is going to be missed, and it's a bit frustrating. The defining element of Jordan's background is his relationship with and admiration of his father, and the defining moment of his life was witnessing his father's death. Jordan is surrounded by foes with warped family relations, but they tend to be tangential rivals; none of his main enemies has any paternal angst. This is wasted dramatic potential.

As for Mongal, I'm a bit irritated at her fridging. I don't know a thing about her, or her history, but killing her seemed rather anti-climatic. If you were just going to kill her off, why bring her into this story to begin with? (Ask Raynie about the Kingpin's fate in Ultimate Spider-Man sometimes; it's a rather similar situation.) Instantly, there are two problems with her death: first, it robs us of future drama. It'd be much more interesting to bring her in as a rival during Mongul's later rise to power.

Additionally, killing her completely muddies Mongul's motivation. He claims the only reason he bothers with Earth is because his father deemed it a worthwhile target, and he's going to live up to his father's legacy. Yet when he kills his sister, he claims that family is a weakness, and he won't allow himself to have any weaknesses. So, which is it? Is family a weakness or something to honor? I suppose one could say that Mongul changes his mind during the course of the story as a result of being defeated by Green Lantern and Green Arrow; he decides not to bother honoring his father, and simply take what he can for himself. (It's worth noting that he doesn't target Earth again.) But if that's the case, it's not made very clear. Either way, Mongal should have at least gone out fighting, rather than from a comically violent cheap-shot.

Finally, we come to Batman. Jordan punching Batman was one of the most controversial events of "Rebirth", and Johns was accused of punking Batman in order to make Hal Jordan look good. Now, ignoring those rubes who insist that no one short of Jesus Christ himself should ever be able to get in a shot at Batman...there's frankly some truth to the charge. Batman in "Rebirth" is right to be skeptical of Jordan in the circumstances, and there was frankly no dramatic benefit in introducing a conflict between the two. The fact that said conflict is firmly resolved here and never mentioned again signifies how pointless it was in the first place. The original pitch for "Rebirth" had Parallax choose Batman as his host after being expelled from Jordan, and that wasn't a particularly good idea, either. For whatever reason, Johns seemed to have plans for this Batman/Green Lantern rivalry, plans he quickly dropped once he got Hal Jordan re-established.

It's just as well because, as I noted last week, Johns doesn't seem to "get" Batman, or, more accurately, his vision of Batman is firmly stuck in the worse era of the '90's. John Stewart accuses Batman of hating Hal Jordan because Batman hides in shadows and gains power through fear, which wouldn't work on Jordan. Parallax calls Batman a "disciple" of fear. And the Sinestro Corp even tries to recruit Batman as a being able to generate great fear. Now, admittedly, that last example makes sense in the context of how a Sinestro Corp ring would operate, seeing as one would later try to recruit a being whom instilled fear without any intention of doing so. Still, the recurring message of Johns' run in regards to Batman is that Batman operates through fear, without which, he is powerless.

And this is a bunch of crap.

Not to bring up the Emotional Spectrum meme again, but if Batman is a member of any Corps, it's the Blue Lanterns. Bruce Wayne gets up every day and fights against a never-ending tide of crime, violence and corruption. He knows that despite how hopeless it may seem at times, every life he saves is a step in the right direction. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, maybe not in his lifetime, but sooner or later, Gotham City is going to be a city of virtue instead of vice. Bruce never loses that hope; it drives him. He's driven by a desire to ensure that no one else will have to suffer as he had.

And aside from that, Batman isn't universally feared. His arch-enemies, for the most part, don't fear him. The Bat-family is rather expansive, and even those he doesn't see eye-to-eye with don't fear him. Most of the big members of the Justice League don't fear him. Most of the Gotham Police Department knows they don't have to fear him. And, perhaps most tellingly, children almost never fear him. Fear isn't a weapon for Batman so much as it's a defense to make up for his very human frailties. He's not someone who thinks fear is a tool used to instill social order; that would make him an ideal member of the Sinestro Corp. Batman isn't that, and it's a bit irritating that Johns implies the only reason Batman was able to reject the Sinestro Corp ring is because of his brief contact with Hal Jordan's ring.

Now, in fairness to Johns, all of my conjecture here is based not on anything he's said, but on what characters written by him have said. But more than a couple characters and events have painted a fairly consistent image of Batman, and if it's analogous to how Johns sees the character, then Johns sees one of the worse incarnations of the character. (I'm choosing not to address the Brother Eye storyline leading up to "Infinite Crisis" because I only read bits and pieces of it years ago, and can't trust my memory on the matter; additionally, I don't know who wrote/originated the plot in the first place.)

Of course, I could be wrong; I suppose we'll see when Johns presents his take on Batman's origin in "Batman: Earth One" next year. And since I should probably remember what superhero this post is really about, I'll say that next week, we'll glance over relevant events in "Infinite Crisis", deal with the One Year Gap, and see the lead-in to the Sinestro Corp War.

Oh, and Hal Jordan macks on every woman in the series with a pulse. Seriously.

With enough prep-time, Batman can take out the Shark with little problem.

'Ween Wednesday!

2010-09-29T08:02:00.000-07:00

Great googily moogily, I love Halloween

No, seriously, I do. I'm not particularly sure why, considering my folks never went all-out for it or anything. I think it's because of the strange secular hodge-podge of pop culture that surrounds the day. And, unlike holidays with actual meaning behind them, like Christmas or Memorial Day, you can't really "miss" the point of Halloween via rampant consumerism. There is no Christmas with the Kranks for Halloween. There are no annual arguments about taking the Hallow out of Halloween. There's just terror, zaniness, and candy.

I consider myself a bit of a purist when it comes to costumes and themes. I won't stop anyone who wants to dress up as a celebrity or something not-particularly-scary, but I myself will only go as monsters, ghouls, super-villains, and various other things you don't want to meet in a dark ally.

So, in celebration of this wondrous autumnal celebration of the macabre, I'll be exploring my favorite Halloween traditions and media leading up to the big Sunday itself. And since next Wednesday is October, proper, I'll be looking at my favorite Halloween music, for trick-or-treaters young and old. Unlike 95% of Christmas music, this'll actually be enjoyable.

I know I ragged on gimmick costumes, but credit where credit is due: this guy was awesome.

GLR: Rebirth

2010-09-26T07:11:00.000-07:00

In Which The Answer To All Problems Is To Punch Them

Ah, "Rebirth"; the second-most controversial Green Lantern story in the title's history, and the catalyst for Geoff John's entire run with the character. To some, it's an epic action adventure about a hero returning to glory, and to others, it's an unnecessary retcon by an author trying to revitalize his favorite character. Who's right? Well, both sides have a point, to be honest.

To quickly recap the story: Hal Jordan is still the Specter, but lately, he's been accosted by images of himself as Parallax. John Stewart, Guy Gardner, and the alien GL Kilowog are acting...odd. And Kyle Rayner's returned from the far corners of the galaxy, having discovered something so important that it necessitated retrieving Hal Jordan's body.

The Justice League becomes concerned when Hal starts acting...odder than usual, first brutalizing minor Green Lantern enemy Black Hand, then by using the powers of the Specter to revive Coast City once more. In one of the more controversial bits of the story, Batman is the first to cast stones, declaring that he never trusted Jordan.

I'm not going to deal with the Jordan/Batman dynamic at this time, because it comes to a head in a later story. I will note, however, that I don't think Johns entirely "gets" the character of Batman, if any of the fictional events are reflective of Johns' actual thoughts on the character. I should also point out, however, that this is still pre-Infinite Crisis, so this is the same Batman who built the Brother Eye satellite and was generally a hyper-paranoid jerk.

When confronted by the Justice League, Jordan protests that he didn't revive Coast City; he just restored Ferris Airfield to impress his on-again-off-again girlfriend Carol Ferris. The Justice League is then attacked by Stewart and Gardner, clearly under some sort of outside control. Elsewhere, Rayner is attacked by Kilowog, but risks injury rather than use his power ring to defend himself. Hal Jordan is teleported away from the action, and is confronted by...himself. Or rather, himself as Parallax.

With the help of one of the Guardians, Kyle gets Hal's body to the Justice League's Watchtower, explaining the situation to Green Arrow. While exploring the distant corners of the galaxy, Kyle discovered the secret history of Parallax; Parallax isn't really an identity that Hal Jordan took when he went rogue. Rather, Parallax is an independent entity, an emotional parasite that operates as the sentient manifestation of Fear. It had spread terror throughout the galaxy until the Guardians of the Universe finally contained it. They stored it in the Central Power Battery; surrounded by physical manifestations of Willpower, Parallax was starved and comatose, until it somehow was able to bond to Hal Jordan, corrupting him.

The Specter is explaining this same story to Jordan, noting that he'd wanted to purge Jordan's soul of this infestation, and that's why Hal was chosen to be the Specter's human host. Unfortunately, this has opened up the Specter to corruption by Parallax as well; the parasite takes control of both of them, and goes back to destroy the Justice League. Ganthet, the Guardian who aided Kyle, frees the other three Lanterns of the Parallax infestation, and in a truly awesome scene, Parallax is faced down by them. And the Justice League. And the Justice Society. And the Teen Titans.

Back in the Watchtower, Kyle and Green Arrow are attacked by the mastermind of Jordan's downfall, a surprisingly-not-dead Sinestro. Sinestro reveals that he made contact with Parallax when he was imprisoned in the Central Power Battery, and hatched the plan to make Jordan a renegade Green Lantern just like Sinestro himself had been. Sinestro easily slaps Kyle and Green Arrow around, until, back on Earth, the Specter is finally able to separate Jordan's soul from Parallax. With his job done, the Specter departs, and Jordan's soul is sent back into his body. Alive again, Hal and Kyle double-team Sinestro, who escapes into the Anti-Matter universe. The two join the other Green Lanterns on Earth, defeat Parallax, and after earning Batman's tacit approval, Jordan returns to the land of the living.

Looking back, it's interesting to note that Rebirth puts onto the board every element or idea that Johns would play with in the next five years on the title. You've got the Black Hand's rather innocuous re-introduction. You've got Sinestro, of course. You've got Parallax, and Kyle even mentions the emotional spectrum. And, of course, you've got the first of several flashbacks to Hal's life that would eventually be replayed again and again until they're properly drilled into your head and the first two issues of Secret Origins are completely redundant. But we'll deal with that when we get to SO.

Unfortunately for my purposes, because so much of what's introduced in this story won't reach its thematic conclusion until a later story, there's surprisingly little to analyze without jumping ahead in the narrative. Just a quick run-down:

- Hal's conflict with Batman
- Coast City's reconstruction
- Hector Hammond's return
- Sinestro's relationship with Hal and the GLC in general
- The Specter's relationship to the emotional entities
- Hal's relationship with Carrol

But we can certainly look at the most controversial part of the story: the retcon that allowed Hal to return, absolved of "Parallax's" crimes. Does it really work? Well, yes and no. If Rebirth had been a stand-alone story with no follow-up, the nature of Parallax would be a rather large pill to swallow; Rebirth doesn't justify the effort put into it to return Jordan to the land of the living.

However, in the context of the larger narrative Rebirth kicks off, I think the retcon works rather well, Of course, it sets the stage for the later emotional beasties that would be introduced in Sinestro Corp War and Blackest Night, and makes the Green Lanterns more cosmically significant than mere space cops.

Unfortunately, it was a long-term payoff in its initial form. Rebirth was published in late 2004/early 2005. Sinestro Corp Wars was published in 2007, and would introduce Ion, the Green Lantern's answer to Parallax. It wouldn't be until 2008 that Johns would start teasing the idea that there were other emotional beasties out there. As such, the "Parallax is a fear-based space bug" retcon would leave a bad taste in the mouths of many readers, particularly those who weren't keen on Jordan's return to begin with.

And, frankly, with the direction the book would take for the next year and a half, Rebirth still sticks out as an oddity. Johns made the perfectly reasonable decision to keep Jordan mostly Earthbound for the first few stories, re-establishing him back into both his civilian life and into the superheroic community. I agree with the decision, but it does make Parallax seem all the more out of place.

On the other hand, as we'll soon see, a lot of the work Johns does to establish Hal Jordan's civilian identity essentially becomes moot by 2007 and the Sinestro Corp Wars.

So next week, we'll check out "No Fear", the official kick-off to Hal's revitalized Green Lantern series. Manhunters, Gremlins, and Sharks, oh my!

Don't worry, Hal; there's still a Green Lantern who's come back from the dead more than you.

Green Lantern Retrospective: Prologue

2010-09-23T11:01:00.000-07:00

With the conclusion of Blackest Night, the third part of Geoff Johns' Green Lantern trilogy, the character seems to be in an interesting place: he's got an obvious in-universe goal (to find all the emotional entities), but it's not obviously building towards any larger storyline. (Considering the way Blackest Night build-up pretty much set the tone of the book since the conclusion of the Sinestro Corp War, this is a welcome change.) So, since I've almost completed my collection of Johns' run on the book, I thought I'd take the opportunity to look at the run as a whole work, examining the overcoming themes and plotlines the book's been juggling since Hal Jordan's return.

Starting with "Rebirth", I'll look at each volume of the Green Lantern series building to Blackest Night. I'll be skipping Green Lantern Corps, since A) It's not written by Johns, B) It doesn't star Hal Jordan, and his return is one of the biggest themes of the run, and C) I, uh...don't have most of that series. Yeah. I'll certainly mention relevant events from that series when they arise (particularly in regards to Sinestro and his daughter), but for the most part, I'll be sticking to the Green Lantern series proper.

And after much consideration, I'll be reviewing Secret Origins in the order it was published, not prior to Rebirth. I don't have a particular reason for this, and that's just what I've decided to do. Besides, Secret Origins retroactively introduces Atrocitus into the mythos, immediately prior to the published debut of the Red Lanterns; it makes the character easier to talk about.

Assuming that I haven't gone completely around the bend by then, when I finally arrive at Blackest Night, I actually will be reviewing it and the Green Lantern tie-ins chronologically, probably breaking it in two once the various Lanterns return to Earth. Or make a super-huge post. Either is good.

Since I know that at least one of the three people who read my blog aren't particularly well-versed in the character, I should probably take the time to give some information on the character and his universe. Yeah.

Okay, the Green Lantern Corps are basically intergalactic police officers, created by the ancient Guardians of the Universe. The Guardians forged a series of rings that could created solid energy constructs, powered by the will of their wielders. The Guardians divided the universe into 3600 sectors, assigning two Green Lanterns to each.

Earth's Green Lantern was originally Air Force test pilot Hal Jordan. Eventually, former Marine John Stewart was deputized, as well as abrasive (but fun) jerk Guy Gardner.

The biggest recurring threats to the GLC were the Manhunter robots and Sinestro. The Manhunters were the Guardian's original police force, before the Guardians realized that without any sort of morality in their basic programming, the Manhunters were too zealous and ultimately dangerous as law enforcement agents. The Manhunters didn't take the news well, and keep popping up to cause trouble for the GLC over the years. Sinestro is a similar story; he was once considered the greatest of the Green Lanterns, until it was discovered that he was using his Green Lantern abilities to instill a fascist government on his home planet. The Guardians banished him to the planet Qwuad in the Anti-Matter universe. Unfortunately, Sinestro forged his own power ring and returned again and again to attack the Lanterns. He was eventually imprisoned in the Central Power Battery, the power source for every power ring in the galaxy.

...if storing him in the Central Power Battery, the source of energy for every Green Lantern ring in the universe, seems like a disaster waiting to happen, congratulations! You're smarter than the Guardians of the universe! But that'll come up later.

And then comes Emerald Twilight, probably the most controversial Green Lantern story ever. Intergalactic despot Mongul, aided by the insane Cyborg Superman, nuked Hal Jordan's home of Coast City. (Located on the coast of California, we usually assumed.) Hal didn't take this well, doing his best to recreate the city with the power of his ring. When his power ran out, he went on an insane rampage to the GLC's homeworld of Oa, trying to connect to the Central Power Battery to continue recreating the city. He killed anyone who got in his way, including Sinestro. Hal's rampage ultimately destroyed the Power Battery, effectively ending the Green Lantern Corps right there. The last functioning ring in the universe was given to artist Kyle Rayner, while Hal Jordan became the supervillain Parallax.

Parallax eventually sought redemption by sacrificing himself to re-ignite the sun and save the Earth. (Sometimes the sun just goes out, you know? These things happen.) It was eventually revealed that Jordan's soul had been bonded to the Specter as a means of doing penance for his crimes. The Specter is, essentially, God's spirit of wrath; he brings harshly ironic justice to vile sinners on Earth, but requires a deceased human host to do so.

...the nineties were kind of weird for the Green Lantern.

So, that's where the characters are when we start next week. Coolio.

I Just Have Something in My Eye...

2010-09-13T06:35:00.000-07:00

Comic books have a funny way of dealing with death, if by "funny" you mean "convoluted, and at this point stretched far past my ability to take it seriously." Dead isn't dead anywhere in the comic book world, so it's almost impossible for me to bat an eye if Superman or Batman or Spider-Man should croak. They'll be back.

That's not to say, though, that a good comic can't get me all teary-eyed in another way. Kill off a supporting character, and there's a pretty good chance they'll stay gone. Show a vulnerable side to a formerly-impregnable character? Yeah, that'll get my attention. Since for some reason this idea is stuck in my head, here's my personal top ten emotional moments in comics and their related media. (In no particular order.)

10. The Green Goblin Gets His

Yes, yes, "The Night Gwen Stacy Died" was a classic story, but it's hard to read it after its publication with any sort of suspense. We know what happens; heck, it's in the title of the story! And most of the emotional value of Gwen's death has been drained long ago by revisiting it every chance possible.

But what's rarely covered is the immediate aftermath of this event. Yes, Norman Osborn "dies", but how does it get to that point? First, Peter Parker goes looking for him, and finds Harry, instead. Harry is recovering from an LSD overdose at the time, and barely knows what's going on. When faced with the choice of getting revenge or staying with his best friend in a time of need...well, like Peter says, it's not really a choice at all. And he leaves Harry in the throws of withdraw in order to track down and kill his father.

Harsh.

Spider-Man finally finds the Goblin, and tries to tear into him. The Goblin tries to take the high ground while on his glider, but when Spidey disables it, much to the Goblin's irritation. Spider-Man is amazed that the Goblin, who hours before had murdered Gwen Stacy in cold blood, would care more about his stupid technology, which starts the Goblin off on a typical monologue about how Gwen was just "some useless girl", while he-

Whoops, bad move.

Spider-Man completely loses it, and proceeds to kick the Goblin's ass up and down the street, brutally pounding and berating him at the same time, accentuating each word with a fist.

"I loved her, Goblin, and you! Took her! Away! Filthy! Worm-eating! Scum!"

(For a comic printed in the seventies, this was harsh language.)

Of course, Spidey calms down before he can deliver a killing blow, and the Goblin's attempt to kill Spidey backfire, taking Norman Osborn out of the picture for the better part of twenty years. But still, holy cow.

9. Jim Gordan Rings in the New Year

"No Man's Land" was a Batman storyline running through all the bat-family titles in 1998 and 1999, about a catastrophic earthquake and the chaos that followed. Most of Gotham evacuated shortly after the quake, and those who stayed inside were living in a different world, where society had broken down, food was a rare commodity, and criminal gangs led by Arkham's best and brightest ruled the streets. There's a lot more to the story than that, and it's worth checking out, but that's all you need to know for the purposes of this example.

After spending a year trying to establish order in the city, Batman and his allies are happy to hear that Gotham will be re-opened to the public on New Year's Day, 2000. Unfortunately...no one can find the Joker. And the Joker isn't about to let such a momentous event occur without putting his own spin on it.

It turns out that the Joker and his gang have been kidnapping all the babies born to Gotham's surviving citizens during the one-year period of NML, and plan to do something absolutely horrible to them if they aren't found by Christmas Day. And who should find them but Sarah Essen-Gordan, Commissioner Jim Gordan's wife?

She draws her gun on the Joker and tells him to back away from the babies; Joker gladly obliges, and shoots Sarah instead, killing her. Joker allows himself to be captured, wanting to see if Gordan, who spent a year trying to re-establish law and order in Gotham, will take the law into his own hands right now. Of course, Gordan doesn't, and a pall is cast over the otherwise optimistic affair.

The last official issues of the NML storyline takes place on New Year's Eve, and shows how all of the characters are spending the evening. The last few panels on the last page show Commissioner Gordan at his wife's grave, pouring chapaign for two as Aud Lang Syne is heard in the background.

"Happy New Year, darling."

...sniff....

8. Sociopaths Need Love, Too

I'm counting these two moments as one, since they occur very close together within the same storyline, and are essentially the same problem for two different characters. During the recent "Blackest Night" crossover, we found out a bit more about Sinestro, rouge Green Lantern, fascist, and rising super-villain star. Specifically, we find out a bit more about his family life: for one thing, he had a family life!

It had been revealed a few issues prior in the "Emerald Twilight" story that Green Lantern Corp member Soranik Natu had been told by Sinestro that she was his daughter, hidden away by her mother out of fear of Sinestro's political enemies. Of course, this raised the next question: who's Soranik's mother? It turned out to be Arin Sur, sister of Sinestro's best friend and Hal Jordan's predecessor, the deceased Amon Sur. Unfortunately, we only discover this when Arin and Amon are revived as Black Lanterns and attack Sinestro, Hal, Indigo-1 and Carol Ferris.

Suffice it to say, Sinestro takes this very personally. He attacks the Black Lantern Arin very viciously, slamming her beneath the streets and away from the others. On the outs, the Black Lantern alters her appearance back to when she was alive, and asks Sinestro a very simple question about his quest for power, control, and order in the universe.

"Was it worth losing the only woman you've ever loved?"

For once, Sinestro doesn't have an answer. Indigo-1 arrives to help him and the two destroy the Black Lantern. Hal Jordan, who'd met Amon but not Arin, asks Sinestro, "Who was she to you?"

"No one."

And poor Atrocitus has a similar moment when the assembled Lanterns head to Ryuuk in search of the Black Lantern's power battery. Centuries ago, that entire sector of space had been wiped of all life when the Manhunter robots, the Guardians' first police unit, had one Hell of a malfunction and killed everything. Atrocitus and his fellow survivors (all four of them) were understandably pissed, and Atrocitus formed the Red Lantern Corp as a means of gaining revenge.

But when finally brought back to his home, Atrocitus understandably rages against former Guardians Ganthet and Sayd. And in the process, the seven foot-tall blood-spewing red demon actually breaks down.

"Your robots came for us! They came for us and we...we did nothing...we did nothing..."

And the irony is, out of all the assembled Corpsmen, it's Saint Walker, the Blue Lantern, who is actually able to talk to Atrocitus. It only takes a minute for Atrocitus to start spewing red and vowing to kill the Guardians again, but still...man.

7. A Deep Conversation Not About Wheatcakes

Keeping up with last week's theme of Mark Millar being surprisingly subtle when he puts his mind to it, there's a scene in the last part of his "Marvel Knights: Spider-Man" run that's always stuck with me. Okay, so Aunt May's been kidnapped, and Spider-Man's going nuts trying to figure out who did it. (Spoilers: It was Norman Osborn and the Scorpion, back in a weird period where just about everything bad that happened to Spidey was Norman's doing.)

While looking for her, and vowing he wouldn't lose her like he did Uncle Ben, Peter thinks back to a conversation he'd had with Ben years ago, before Peter was even in high school. Peter was upset because he'd come to the realization that Ben and May were a lot older than the parents of his peers, and subsequently, they'd die sooner, leaving Peter alone. Ben reassures him that's not going to happen, because he'd promised his brother they'd look out for Peter, and he wasn't the type of guy to let down his little brother. This seems to cheer younger Peter up, and in the present, Pete's resolve is strengthened.

It's a short scene, but it really rings true, and it's a concern that would never have crossed my mind, especially knowing that Aunt May is never going to die ever. (We think.) And it really does allow you to look at Peter Parker in a different light; he's deeply afraid of being alone, without friends or family. It gives a new twist to his self-imposed mission; his arrogance allowed a member of his then-small family unit to be taken from him, and he doesn't want that to happen to anyone else. Kudos, Millar.

6. Nostalgia Critic is right; some cartoons will mess you up

Ahhh, the DC Animated Universe. Isn't it awesome? And here are the three most moving scenes from it.

Solomon Grundy gets his soul back.

To set the stage, Solomon Grundy is the resident big bruiser for Lex Luthor's Injustice League; he's a super-strong zombie reanimated by magic. Because of his magical origins, Dr. Fate enlists his aid to try and stop Cthulu (yeah, that Cthulu) from invading our dimension. Solomon befriends Hawkgirl, who has her own bone to pick with Cthulu, seeing as her people used to worship him. Throughout the episode, it's established that Hawkgirl is an atheist (which raises questions, considering that they spend the whole episode fighting her people's god!), and that Solomon Grundy, realizing that as a zombie he has no soul, wants to get it back.

And then Solomon Grundy beats Cthulu out of our dimension with his bare hands. Holy crap. Unfortunately, it cost him his un-life to do so.

Batman proves Waller wrong about super heroes.

This scene is being told to Terry McGuiness, AKA Batman Beyond, by an elderly Amanda Waller, explaining what caused her to stop viewing the Justice League, Batman in particular, as a potential threat to world security.

In the DCAU, the original Royal Flush Gang were super-soldiers created by Waller's Project: CADMUS as a potential deterrent against the Justice League. Unfortunately, the Joker recruited them instead, thematically dressing them like playing cards and using them in a plot against the League. Ace was appropriately designated, however, because she was Joker's ace in the hole. With thousands of people watching the battle between the League and the Royal Flush Gang in Las Vegas, Joker took the opportunity to get Ace on the airwaves, trying to use her powers to drive all the viewers mad.

It didn't work out so well.

Regardless, the Royal Flush Gang goes away and isn't heard of for two seasons, until this episode. I really think the clip speaks for itself.

Of course, we, as the viewers, already know that Batman was capable of such compassion; Waller is the only one who was surprised. But still, moving stuff.

Darkseid is a sore loser.

The mood whiplash on this is absolutely insane. It's a fairly simple set-up: intergalactic despot Darkseid has brought his forces to Earth, despite Superman's best efforts. However, Orion, Darkseid's biological son, gathers the forces of New Genesis, Darkseid's most powerful rival, and intervenes, placing the Earth under New Genesis' protection. Darkseid doesn't want to go to war with them just yet, and retreats.

But not without a final bit of spitting in Superman's eye. Darkseid kills hard-nosed detective and Superman ally Dan Turpin, for no reason other than spite. (When later confronted by Superman, Darkseid would admit that he barely remembered killing the human.) And Superman just loses it, which seldom happens for obvious reasons.

Aside from being a tear-jerker, this would really haunt Superman, and shaped every future encounter with Darkseid.

5. In Which the Rhino is Actually Scary

Long-time Spider-Man villain Rhino, Aleksei Sytsevich, has never been much more than an obstacle; he's not particularly smart, and his strength doesn't count for much against an opponent that won't sit still long enough for you to hit him. And, admittedly, his costume can look goofy if an artist isn't careful. So, imagine my surprise when his story as part of the Gauntlet banner turned out to be one of the most moving scenes in the whole book.

The original Rhino is trying to stay on the straight and narrow after being released from prison on good behavior. He's got a job, hidden away his super suit, and even got married to a doting wife, Oksana. When approached by mad scientist-type Dr. Trauma, the Rhino turned down her offer to improve his suit, happy with the life he now led.

Not deterred in the slightest, Dr. Trauma simply continues her work and put a new guy in her "MechRhino" suit. Unfortunately, MechRhino is absolutely coo coo for Cocoa Puffs, showing a psychopathic disregard for human (and animal) life, and deciding that he can't really be the Rhino unless he defeats Sytsevich in combat. Sytsevich refuses to fight, saying that MechRhino can have the mantle if he wants it so badly. Only Spider-Man's intervention drives MechRhino away.

Spidey stops Sytsevich from re-donning his rhino suit, encouraging him to remain on the path he's already chosen. Inspired by Oksana, Sytsevich decides he can "be a good man, for her", and the couple walks away happily.

And that was it. For seven months.

This was actually a clever storytelling move on Marvel's part, because it ran afoul of how the Gauntlet event had worked until then. The purpose of the Gauntlet was to revive and revitalize Spider-Man's classic rogues gallery, who'd been on the back burner for a couple years. Immediately after the Rhino story, they moved on to Mysterio, then Morbius, then the Vulture. And, in fact, the Vulture who took part in the Gauntlet was actually the new Red Vulture, who had appeared a few months before. It was assumed by many fans that the MechRhino was taking Sytsevich's place in Spidey's roster of foes.

And we were wrong. Because seven issues later, MechRhino kills Oksana.

It's horrible, and made worse by the fact that MechRhino didn't even target Oksana; she was just one of many victims of "collateral damage" to the chaos MechRhino was aiming at Systsevich to draw him out. Spider-Man tries to stop the rampage, but he's unable to save everyone, and Systsevich decides to do what he almost did before. He retrieves his Rhino suit, and tells Spider-Man that Oksana's blood is on their hands; Spidey's, for stopping him from doing this sooner, and Systevich himself, for tying to be something he's not.

Systevich, now the Rhino once again, has absolutely no problem handing the pretender; he brutally kills MechRhino and disappears. This action is all narrated by Peter Parker's reporter co-worker Norah Winters, usually a cynical wise-ass; this time, however, she's somber, almost fatalistic about the entire tragedy. And, as hinted at above, the scene is enhanced by the artwork, which makes the classic Rhino appear as this inhuman, bestial thing.

It's a moving story, equally tragic and terrifying, and it's about the freaking Rhino.

4. You Just Can't Trust Lana Lang

Yeah, yeah, the TV show "Smallville" is a bit ridiculous. (Okay, a lot ridiculous.) But it's still incredibly entertaining, if nothing else. In their quest to sanitize every Superman foe for the WB generation, they eventually got to Bizarro. And like most good Bizarro stories, it's tragic as well.

When he first appeared, Bizarro was an escapee from the Phantom Zone, the result of a cruel genetic experiment. (Because on this show, Kryptonians are dicks.) Having no physical body of his own, Bizarro jumped from human host to human host, usually killing the host in the process. Finally finding Clark Kent, he possesses him long enough to create a physical body, a complete duplicate of Clark.

The two battle, Bizarro having understandable resentment for Kryptonians, and he kills anyone who gets in his way. With the help of the Martian Manhunter, Clark is able to beat Bizarro, who is then imprisoned on Mars.

Initially, I wasn't too keen on Smallville's Bizarro, mostly because in his initial appearance, he was completely unsympathetic. However, in one of the show's most clever twists, (and a mid-season finale to boot), we find out later that Bizarro has escaped and replaced Clark between episodes; Clark had been trapped in his Fortress of Solitude for weeks, and Bizarro simply slid in and took over his life. And he did a damn good job, patching up Clark's troubled relationship with Lana Lang, saving Chloe and Jimmy from a bomb, and generally being awesome. The episode didn't reveal that a switch had happened until the very end, so Bizarro did a damn good job of being Clark; arguably, he did a better job than Clark did.

Bizarro didn't let the mask slip until he was desperate about being discovered; direct sunlight revealed his true form, and he knew it was only a matter of time until someone discovered him. He turned to the reconstituted Brainiac for help, but Brainiac just played him and Clark off each other for his own ends. Clark decided, for some reason, that the thing to do was kill Bizarro, and procured blue Kryptonite; blue Kryptonite took away Clark's powers, but would have an opposite effect on Bizarro, giving him so much energy that his body wouldn't be able to contain it.

And the result? See for yourself. This is incredibly said, because in addition to arguing for Lana's love, Bizarro is literally begging for his life. And neither Clark nor Lana ever once consider that there may be another option that brutally killing the poor guy. Yes, he'd killed people as a Phantom, and tried to kill Clark, but the circumstances were different. He'd clearly changed, and Lana kills him horribly. Seriously, Clark, what the hell?

I can't decide if this is a better or worse fate than being lobotomized like poor Bizarro was in Justice League Unlimited.

3. Skeets Died For Your Sins

In the totally awesome maxi-series 52, it turns out that there was a traitor in the heroes' midst the entire time, and that traitor was Skeets. Skeets is a cool floating robot dude from the future who hangs out with Booster Gold. Booster Gold is a time-traveler who, having screwed up his life in the future, stole some tech and came back to the past to try and make it big as a super hero. Over time, Booster actually became a real hero, instead of playing one on TV. He brought Skeets back to the past with him because of the little gold robot's encyclopedic knowledge of history. Skeets, for his part, constantly tries to encourage Booster to do the right thing. Skeets is like if R2-D2 could talk and have a deadpan sense of humor. Skeets is awesome.

In the course of the series, Booster starts having problems because Skeets' knowledge of past events seems to be out of whack, and the lil' guy is acting increasingly erratic. At the end of the series, it turns out that Skeets had been infested by the deceptively cute cosmic alien horror called Mr. Mind, who took control of Skeets from the inside. Mind used Skeets as a crysalis to protect him while he evolved to his adult form, which turned out to be pretty bad.

See, as a larva, Mr. Mind ate brainwaves, a side-effect of which allowed him to control the actions of his host, leading to his innocuous human name. As an adult, he feeds on space/time. Yeah, that's bad. Oh, and he plans to spawn. Ew. That's also bad. The end result would be a swarm of "hyperflies" that feed on not just the Earth, the galaxy, or the universe, but the multiverse itself, thus destroying everything anywhere ever, forever, on every plane of existence.

Obviously, this did not come to pass. Booster and his allies managed to trap Mr. Mind back inside of Skeets, and sent Skeets hurling back through time, de-evolving Mind back into a larva. Unfortunately, Skeets wouldn't survive the trip.

And I was almost moved to manly tears when Booster had to say goodbye, telling Skeets how sorry he is, and that everything he'd tried to do right has failed. Skeets just tells him that Booster Gold is the hero about to save reality itself, and he couldn't be more proud of him.

Skeets' body is destroyed, but Booster had made a back-up copy of his memory back when he'd first started acting buggy, so he was able to restore Skeets as he was before Mind had really taken hold. But, reading the story for the first time, I didn't know that was coming. And this isn't Batman or Superman, this is Skeets, who could feasibly be killed off for reals. I'm certainly glad he wasn't, but if he had been, that really would have been the perfect way for him to go out.

2. Optimus Prime's Deaths Don't Phase Me Anymore

The Transformers spin-off series "Beast Wars" had a number of good episodes, but this is one that everyone talks about. Dinobot, a Predacon, had in the first episode switched sides to join the Maximals once he realized his commander, Megatron (not the same Megatron from the original series; this Megatron is actually competent.), had screwed up and gotten them all stranded in time and space. Although nominally a Maximal, Dinobot still acted like a Predacon, and reminded his allies of his nature at every opportunity, what with his brutality, love of combat, cannibalism, and general ruthlessness. However, he wasn't an idiot, and he was one of the first to realize when and where the Transformers had landed.

It turns out they were on planet Earth, thousands of years in its past. Consequently, the Golden Disc Megatron had stolen, which had been records of Earth history, now served as the ultimate source of information about the planet and its future. Seeing the potential to avenge the loss of the Decepticons in the Great War with the Autobots, Dinobot returns the Disc to Megatron and briefly rejoins him. However, it doesn't take long for Dinobot to realize that Megatron has grown reckless and power-mad since the war began, and would risk the complete destruction of the time stream itself to achieve his goals. Dinobot returned to the Maximals, but the Golden Disc remained with Megatron.

Determined to get the Disc back, Dinobot accidentally came upon Megatron's plan: to eliminate the very first human beings, so our species would never aid the Autobots in the future. Knowing back-up wouldn't arrive in time, Dinobot engages the entire Predacon cell himself, fighting through each of them to get to Megatron.

Incidentally, when I say "engaging the entire Predacon cell", what exactly do I mean? I mean a sadistic mad scientist with ninja-like abilities, a fem fatale with a crossbow and machine guns on her arms, an aerial marksman who can reassemble himself from just about any injury, an underhanded street thug who fires lasers from his hand, a towering pyromaniac masochist with zealous devotion to his cause, and a hulking, sophisticated cannibal literally built and armed like a tank.

He kicks all of their asses.

Then he finally gets to Megatron.

See, Optimus Prime? This is how you die. It doesn't count if you come back to life ten minutes later.

1. To End on a Quiet Note

Finally, when asked by Superman if he's okay, following Bruce Wayne's apparent death:

...well, I need to go punch a bear or something to get my manliness quotient back up.

Blackest Night Meme: Spider-Man

2010-09-11T11:05:00.000-07:00

A bit late to the party, but thought I'd have fun with this.

"Rhino of Earth, you have great rage in your heart. Welcome to the Red Lantern Corps."

After the events of the Gauntlet, the Rhino is, bar none, the best candidate for a Red Lantern amongst Spidey's foes. Red Lanterns are motivated to rage through loss, and that loss is never caused by their own actions. (Eliminating such candidates as Venom and Fusion.) By the by, if you haven't read the Rhino issues of the Gauntlet, go do it now. Seriously.

"Quintin Beck of Earth, you want it all."

Sure, all of Spidey's foes are greedy, but Beck's entire motivation is the selfish desire for fame and adoration; he isn't avenging a perceived wrong or pursuing an ideal like so many others. Beck is in it entirely for Beck.

"Otto Octavious of Earth, you have the capability to inspire great fear. Welcome to the Sinestro Corps."

I think Doc Ock is the single most feared of any of Spider-Man's opponents. Guys like the Green Goblin or Carnage are feared, certainly, but Ock has committed more acts of global terrorism than most of them put together. Aside from that, Otto's shown several times that he'd probably see eye-to-eye with Sinestro on the need to instill order in a chaotic world.

"Harold Osborn of Earth, you have the capability to overcome great fear. Welcome to the Green Lantern Corps."

How much has Harry had to overcome in his life? His crazy-ass dad, his crazy-ass brother-in-law, his crazy-ass ex-girlfriend, attempted murder by both Hobgoblins, and various chemical addictions and mental breakdowns. (And that's just off the top of my head.)

Aside from overcoming fear, Harry had to display the willpower to overcome his drug addiction, and reject his father's legacy. I doubt he'd like this Corps' color scheme, though.

"Peter Parker of Earth, you have the capacity for great hope. Welcome to the Blue Lantern Corps."

Do I really have to explain this one?

"Edward Brock of Earth, Nok Lok."

We really don't know all that much about the Indigo tribe, but we do know that members give up their past lives and worldly possessions. Anti-Venom would like nothing more than to free himself from his past life, and is probably the only member of Spidey's cast that would be willing to go through the doubtlessly rigorous training and self-discipline to join the Indigo tribe.

"Lily Hollister of Earth, you have great love in your heart. Welcome to the Star Sapphires."

Okay, Menace is crazy. But think about it: everything she's done, she's done for love. Love for her father, love for Carlie, love for Harry or Norman, love for her unborn child. She'd probably need some time in the Zamerons' purification crystals to get her head straight, but she'd be a good Star Sapphire.

(Seriously, if the Sapphires were willing to take Karu Sil, a cannibal with no attachments to anyone, they'd take Menace.)

"Jason Macendale of Earth, rise."

Why? Because cybernetic demonic mercenary space zombie, that's why!

Okay, the CDMSZ aspect aside, Black Lanterns are chosen based on their ability to elicit a strong emotional reaction from the living. Macendale terrorized Harry Osborn's family, and arranged the brutal murder of Ned Leeds, which gives him an emotional tether to Betty Brant and most of the Daily Bugle mainstays.

Plus, he'd be a cybernetic demonic mercenary space zombie.

Re-Evaluations

2010-09-09T08:02:00.000-07:00

Micheal Bay makes moves where things blow up. The US military is usually involved, the plot is as deep as a puddle, and if things go well, there's usually a couple good fist-pump moments. (If things go badly, you get [i]Transformers 2[/i].) It's simple action movie escapism, and Bay does it fairly well.

Now, imagine if Micheal Bay directed [i]Hunt for Red October[/i]. And then you'll be as surprised as I was when I read [i]Superman: Red Son[/i], by Mark Millar.

Millar is kind of like Bay in his output, often producing a lot of great fist-pump moments with high-octane action. I used to think that this is where he should focus his energies, as his more ambitious projects tend to turn me off in their social commentary. ([i]Ultimates[/i] and [i]Civil War[/i] being the biggest offenders, although at least the former tells a complete story.) So naturally, when I heard of [i]Superman: Red Son[/i], I wasn't particularly interested.

But when I actually read the darn thing, rather than ham-fisted political commentary, I got...subtlety. From Mark Millar. I know, I was shocked too.

Really, despite the amusing roles played by Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern and Brainiac, this whole story can really be boiled down to the battle of wills between Superman and Lex Luthor. Really, the Communist angle was far less important to the story than one would think; any number of circumstances could put them in this situation.

And it's a really gripping version of the Superman/Luthor conflict, one in which the fundamental nature of their roles is reversed. Superman is now the one who's deluded himself about his actions, yet still views himself as a hero, and Luthor is more in the right, although for the completely wrong reason. However, unlike a lot of Elseworlds tales, the characters remain essentially themselves throughout, which counts for a lot.

It's interesting, gripping, subtle yet still action-packed...while it's not my personal favorite work of his (the Marvel Knights Spider-Man run still holds that spot), I'd think it's his most successful.

Oh, what brave Fourth World, to have such people in it!

2010-08-29T18:38:00.000-07:00

My local library recently got in volumes 2-4 of Jack Kirby's Fourth World Omnibus. My first thought, of course, was "Darkseid! Bad ass!" And then I read them. Whoof. Just, whoof. What a lot to process. I think I actually owe Grant Morrison an apology; I'd been very hard on Final Crisis for being a rather spacey read. Now, I recognize that he's really only being true to the original spaciness that fills the pages of these omnibuses. (Omnibi?)

Now, I originally became familiar with the New Gods through the Superman animated series; it featured mostly the denizens of Apokalips, and Orion, with the rest of New Genesis being a dues ex machina (or perhaps a dues ex dues?) when Darkseid tried to invade Earth. Of course, DCAU Darkseid is one of the most awesome villains in animation history, so expectations were high for these volumes.

I'd read several times that the New Gods were Jack Kirby's unfinished masterpiece, and one of the best examples of his work. I've already commented on my preference for Steve Ditko's Marvel work as opposed to Kirby's, but that's not to say that I don't appreciate the prodigious output Kirby created. It seems to me that Lee and Kirby had a similar philosophy when it comes to creating comics: throw as much at the wall as possible to see what sticks. For the most part, this worked out pretty well; even concepts that didn't work with Lee or Kirby would be picked up by later creators and turned into winning titles. (I'm looking at you, X-Men and Daredevil.)

However, I don't think this somewhat scatter-shot approach worked with what Kirby was trying to do. He launched his new epic with three titles and the Jimmy Olson tie-in, and I can't say the New Gods pantheon might not have benefited more from being confined to a single book. Forever People was ultimately rather plain, with said Forever People being rather uninspired. Mister Miracle was a great idea for a character (escape artist as a super hero? Brilliant!) but seemed out of place as a traditional superhero title among its unconventional peers. (And apparently, I'm out of step in this opinion, as it was the title to last the longest.) The constant need to put Miracle into elaborate death traps began to stretch credibility after a while, and after Barda's introduction and subsequent storyline, the book seemed to lack direction.

New Gods was the series I thought held the most promise, because of its great premise, (demi-god working with humans and law enforcement to stop a semi-covert invasion force) and its great lead in Orion. The climactic duel with Kalibak and the well-placed revelation in the final issue was a perfect tease for future stories, however long it would take to be written. The Forever People and Mister Miracle would have been better served as supporting characters in Orion's book, rather than headlining their own. (I think it's telling that Orion would get his own series some time later.)

A huge problem throughout the entire work is that the denizens of New Genesis, for the most part, are fairly bland compared to their evil counterparts. I think it's a bit unavoidable, though; Darkseid is clearly presented as the embodiment of fascism, meaning there is a clear and there's a consistent philosophy behind his lines and actions. The New Genesis gods, supporting more general ideas as freedom and love, are less well-defined. Orion and Barda are the exceptions, and they're both split between worlds. It's no coincidence that the DCAU would use the dark gods so much more extensively than the light ones.

Ultimately, though a bit uneven, these books are still a great read. According to one of the afterwords, "The Pact" is Kirby's personal favorite of his works, and I can see why. It actually raises another irritation I have regarding Final Crisis; why did Morrison feel the need to split attention between the totally awesome Darkseid storyline and the totally pointless Monitor storyline? Like everything else in the Fourth World, it's a bit of a missed opportunity.

Sending Sympathies to Superman

2010-08-17T10:52:00.000-07:00

JMS can be a good writer. Hell, he can be a great writer. But I still have to send my condolences to Superman fans unhappy with his new direction, because it's not going anywhere anytime soon.

The JMS Spider-Man run was filled with plenty of great moments, both large and small. Were there missteps? Of course; it was a seven year run. Were there just completely stupid ideas? Yup; it's inevitable. But! Here's the fatal flaw in JMS's comic work that I've noticed: he absolutely won't let a bad idea die. If he likes it, he's going to see it through to its conclusion, wherever that may be.

The Spider-Totem stories were an example of this. Yes, the first fight with Morlun was awesome. But the actual substance that Moruln and Ezekiel brought to the overall narrative was interesting exactly because it was left vague. Was Ezekiel right, or was he full of crap? At the end of the first six-parter, the issue is left to the reader.

And then Shanthra came along, and the issue became less vague. After all, Shanthra only zeroed in on Peter because he'd been "pulled" to the spirit of Anasasi during a short trip to the Astral Plane. Seems like Ezekiel was right after all, huh? And frankly, since Shanthra and Morlun are essentially the same character, this new arc didn't bring anything interesting to the table.

Now, admittedly, the Book of Ezekiel story was much more satisfying, although I think losing Zeke himself was a bad move. Still, it was over, and the original sense of ambiguity about the totems was restored.

And then came The Other. A twelve-part crossover of ideas we'd seen before. More totem ideas. The story was over! It was over! But with the events of the Other, the totem ideas were permanently (until OMD, I guess), bonded to the character, as his very powers were altered.

But perhaps a more sufficient demonstration of this tenacity is Sins Past. Frankly, Sins Past is the first big crack in the JMS run. (Followed by The Other, and Peter being a complete tool in Civil War.) I'm not upset about "sullying Gwen Stacy's character" or other such things, because I'm in the camp that believes Lee/Romita Stacy didn't have a character. (Lee/Ditko Stacy, on the other hand...) No, this story is bad because its basic premise is stupid.

The original premise wasn't stupid, wherein the children were Peter Paker's, not Norman Osborn's. But Marvel, in one of the last times they'd make a really good decision about Spider-Man's relationships with women, axed the idea of Peter having mutant bastard babies.

So, with the dramatic and emotional underpinnings of the story taken out from under him, what does JMS do? He simply tosses the story out, and begins work on the next one.

Oh, wait. That's what a normal person would do. But not JMS. He writes the damn story anyway, and just substitutes a different father, thus creating one of the most uneven Spider-Man stories of all time.

What I'm getting at for you unfortunate Superman readers is that it seems JMS has got a completely flawed idea of Superman into his head as he writes the new series. And he's not going to abandon any of the plot lines and story ideas about this misinterpreted Man of Steel. You're just going to have to deal with it. And unfortunately, it seems you all won't have Jenkins, Millar, David, or anyone else to turn to for a Superman fix.

Owch.

It Had To Be Said

2010-08-13T08:14:00.000-07:00

Throwing Down The Gauntlet

2010-06-02T17:05:00.000-07:00

After an eighteen-month absence, which piles up very quickly when a title comes out three times a month, I return to Amazing Spider-Man with "The Gauntlet", volumes one and two. 'Tis a much hyped "event", and one I liked the sound of: a bunch of Spider-Man's old enemies simultaneously start upping their game, so to speak, creating a series of emergencies that wear Spidey down over time. Through all of it, Kraven the Hunter's wife and daughter plot to turn events to their own advantage. Sounds fun.

But how does it work in application?

Volume one opens with Dark Reign: The List: Amazing Spider-Man. Not really connected to any other story, it was nice of the Marvel TPB department to include this, so fans didn't have to shell out for the thoroughly mixed-bag that was The List collection. I assume the other List issues were reprinted appropriately for their respective titles? (Because the Avengers and Punisher issues were a wee bit important for their titles.)

While this issue had a lot of great Norman Osborn moments, it also had a few moments of Norman being incredibly sloppy. While Norman always fluctuates between Chessmaster and Raving Loony on the villain scale, he was a bit too close to the latter for my tastes. However, he was similarly sloppy the last time Slott wrote him (New Ways to Die), so while it's not my favorite characterization, Slott's keeping it consistent.

Unfortunately, the story was ultimately hampered by its inability to have a real conclusion. Siege hadn't happened yet, and the Iron Patriot couldn't get a real thrashing yet. But for what it is, it's very solid.

Also, I want me daggers with pumpkins sculpted onto the hilts.

Next in the book was Gauntlet Origins: Electro. Now, I like the idea of Gauntlet Origins, in theory. In practice....

Well, Electro's was the best of the bunch. It highlights what was always Electro's flaw: for having the power he does, he lacks the ability to really think of anything useful to do with it. The guy should be unbeatable, but he's limited by his own imaginations. (Or lack thereof.) Freaking Static Shock made better use of electric powers than Max Dillon ever has.

The Origins story doesn't really jive with the main story itself, though, because Max doesn't really do much more than run an extortion scam. (In fact, none of the Origins shorts had much to do with the main stories; were they supposed to? If not, what was the point?)

And, frankly, it was a lame scam. This whole story didn't impress me much; it seemed like most of the action was focused on getting to the destruction of the Bugle building at the end. Now, that was handled very well, but for a story that was supposed to offer a new, revitalized Electro, it didn't really change much about the character. The "ripped from the headlines" appeal fell flat, and frankly, writers need to stop trying to improve Electro's powers. It never sticks, because his powers are necessarily ill-defined. Frankly, I thought the opening idea of the story, Electro's powers are killing him, was something that should have been developed more.

The teaser of Electro's recruitment at the end was very well done.

Now, the Sandman story....well, this one is just weird, I have to be honest. It doesn't tie into the Gauntlet at all, Sandman didn't get an Origins segment, and doesn't get recruited at any point. The story itself seems like it deserved an extra issue to really flesh out. I don't mind cribbing the "Sandman has a daughter" angle from SM3, because a good idea is a good idea, but...what happened to Sandman's powers? Why can he suddenly do a half-dozen things he's never been able to, before? Did I miss something? To heck with Electro's media campaign; I want to see more of what's going on, here.

Volume 2 opens with Origins: Rhino, and while it's an interesting little story, it goes a little too far in making Rhino an idiot. Yeah, sorry, Alex, there's simple, and then there's what you are, here. Still, mad props for the once panel showing his operation.

What bothers me about this story, though, is that it really clashes with the portrayal of Alex in the main story; in that, he sounds, well, Russian. He speaks like someone who didn't take English as a first language, and his personality is completely different (and a darn sight smarter) than in the Origins story. I know they were written by different guys, but since one story was supposed to promote the other, they really should have been on the same page with characterization.

The new Rhino is thoroughly boring, in both personality and design. It's just Ultimate Rhino with a scythe, guys. Sorry. Nice to see Doc Tramma again, though.

Oh, and Ana? Beating up blind crippled ladies isn't something to be proud of. Your father couldn't hunt his way out of a paper bag, and even he wouldn't stoop so low.

The Mysterio Origins short was...it was like a super hero version of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark; all it needed was the horrifying picture. "Stand back, Quintin; I'm about to rip off 'Pickman's Model'!" Weird.

But the main Mysterio story was definitely my favorite of the two books. My one complaint is that it showed its hand too early; when Mysterio is on the cover of the dang comic, you as a reader are on the lookout for the trick. It would have been cooler, in my opinion, if Mysterio hadn't been in the first issue at all, and the story was pitched as a straight mob power struggle.

But I found this story to be a lot of fun, mostly because while everyone else treated the events with the proper gravity, Mysterio just started choking to death from all the scenery he was eating. Beck may not be insane compared to Venom or Osborn, but he's certainly detatched from reality just enough to make him hilarious.

Having said that, the evil Aunt May plot doesn't seem to have a lot of legs. I mean, what's she going to do? Besides, it's Aunt May; everyone will forgive her. People would sell their soul for this woma-Oh, wait a sec.

So, what do I like? I like Norah. I like that the Black Cat is back. I like the potential the Gauntlet has, and I love the possibility of a new Sinister Six. I don't like the new Rhino. I don't like the Devil's Blood.

I'm on board for the next volume, (and the relaunched New Avengers!) and when I'm settled down in my personal life, I'll probably pick up the ones I've missed.

What's everyone else think?

There Are Three Rules You Have To Follow

2010-05-29T13:38:00.000-07:00

*brushes cobwebs off of blog*

Last time I saw my little sister, I made her watch Gremlins for the first time. After insisting that Gizmo doesn't look like a Furby, Furbies (Furbys? Furbi?) look like Gizmo, we enjoyed it together. I fondly remember watching Gremlins on either USA or TNT as a young lad, confident that my mother wouldn't have approved; it certainly enhanced the experience. Gremlins is one of my favorite movies from the period.

And, of course, there have been rumors the past few years of a Gremlins 3-D to begin production. Whether or not these rumors are true doesn't necessarily matter for the purposes of this little intellectual exercise. If some inspired studio wants to create a new Gremlins movie, there are three oft-overlooked factors they should keep in mind.

1. The Peltzers are important to the spirit of the films.
Billy Peltzer, let's be honest, is kind of a loser. He's a stand-up guy, but lets himself get pushed around a lot in both films. Aside from wooing Kate, just about every good thing that happens to Billy is a product of chance. But when shit gets real and little green demons are attacking his home, Billy steps up and does whatever it takes to take them down, usually in an explosive and gooey fashion. Billy is a great everyman character as the films took a turn for the fantastic, and very easy for audiences, particularly kids, to identify with and root for.

The rest of the Peltzer clan, although mostly ignored in Gremlins 2, also added to the film. Billy's dad was always entertaining, and while his mom didn't have much in the way of personality, she slaughtered three gremlins with household objects. Audiences love it when unassuming characters kick ass. (In a showing of Spider-Man 2 I attended, Aunt May clobbering Doc Ock with her umbrella elicited a "whooo!" from someone in the audience.)

And the great thing about keeping the Peltzers in the series is that it allows one to take advantage of the gap between the films. Think about it: Billy and Kate would have a family of their own by now; if they had a son or daughter a year or so after Gremlins 2 in 1990, that child would be around the age Billy was in the original film. The potential for cross-generational Gremlin slaughter is endless!

2. Remember: Kids love the gremlins.

This may be obvious, but I think it bears mentioning, especially considering that the gremlins compete for audience's affects with Gizmo, possible one of the cutest things in history. (You know, when he's not lighting people who were mean to him on fire.) But kids love the gremlins. I did, and so did you; don't lie. They're fun to watch, and particularly in Gremlins 2, you get the feeling that some of them could have changed their spots and become plain comic relief, as opposed to villainous comic relief. (I am so, so glad they cut the scenes of Daffy and Lenny melting from Gremlins 2, because that would have seriously upset me as a kid.)

Sure, you've got to have your sadistic bastard villain gremlins like Stripe and Mohawk and (arguably) the Brain, but you also need some harmless mischief-making gremlins to balance on that fine line between comedy and horror.

3. Gremlins are magical; ignore all of that space alien crap from the novels.

Because seriously, that crap made no sense.

Random Final Crisis Thoughts!

2010-03-08T18:00:00.000-08:00

Long time, no see, huh? Such is law school. But I finally got a chance to read my Final Crisis HC, so...figured I'd opine a bit as I flip through it again.

-So, Morrison apparently sees the Green Lantern Corp as a police force, as opposed to Johns seeing them more as a military force. I mean, they're both, and they're neither, but the straight police procedural aspect Morrison uses in this story is interesting.

-I would personally pay cover price for an comic full of nothing but Giganta stomping on Dr. Light. But I guess the way the sick freak was finally put down was also appropriate.

-(Wow, that last one looked kind of weird taken out of context. This is not a fetish site.)

-"I am not averse to the taste of human flesh, sir!" is a great, great line.

-You know what? I'll say it: I liked the new Martian Manhunter look. And it's probably not coming back. Alas.

-I love how dismissive Batman is of the New Gods. Incidentally, does FC start immediately after RIP, or do they overlap?

-I can't tell most of the male Monitors apart. Kind of makes the cloak and dagger stuff hard to follow.

-Do the Japanese super-teens do anything important in any of the FC tie-ins? Because they really don't add to the story. I like Aquazon's design, though.

-Pity Alpha Lantern Kraken. I think of all the poor folks possessed by the dark gods, she definitely had it the worst.

-If his minions could get good hosts like Kraken and Mary Marvel, why does Darkseid choose to possess a normal human?

-Ahh, the return of Barry Allen. My apathy is downright palpable.

-The giant dog steed thing has just never worked for me. It looks incredibly silly.

-Ahh, Superman: Beyond. The biggest mind-screw of the whole series.

-Can't help but wonder if Morrison actually wanted "Captain Adam" to flat-out be Dr. Manhattan, and was turned down because of the unnatural divination of Watchmen.

-I haven't read it in years; is Mandraak supposed to be the Monitor from CoIE? I mean, it doesn't actually matter...

-"Submit" doesn't add much to the story, really. Sure, it tells us what the Tattooed Man is all about, but plenty of other characters show up in this type of event with little-to-no explanation, so it's not really that important. Justifier Killer Croc looks wicked, though.

-Darkseid giving a thumbs-down is perhaps not as great a cliffhanger as imagined. It's not like we didn't know he was coming.

-Kalibak also has a better new body than Darkseid.

-Darkseid's victory speech is a bit over-the-top, but appropriately so. It's quite awesome.

-Poor Kalibak went out like a punk.

-Aww, Luthor cut the Calculator down.

-I totally approve of Batman's use of a firearm to take down Darkseid. When all of freaking existence is on the line, Batman got over his own hangup and did what needed to be done. Top form.

-And now we know that it wasn't Batman's body that Superman found, but the body of one of the clone soldiers Darkseid's minions trade to mass-produce.

-I'll admit, I'm still a bit sketchy on the ending. So, Darkseid's physical body is destroyed, but his soul survived. Wonder Woman binds him with her lasso, freeing the population from his control. Superman cancels out his frequency, destroying him. Before Superman can use the Miracle Machine to repair the damage to the multiverse done by Darkseid's fall, Mandraak and Ultraman arrive to finish him off, only to be cut off and defeated by the Green Lantern Corp and the Superman squad.

Far out.

Honestly, this reads a lot better in a single unit than it would have in monthly installments. (Assuming it had shipped monthly.) The problem, I think, is that it doesn't function well as a narrative without the metatextual reading. Granted, that's how I first approached it, so I personally didn't have an issue, but I can see why a lot of fans would be put off.

Fans are a finicky, in-fighting lot

2010-01-16T16:59:00.000-08:00

I like Grant Morrison's Batman. I also like Paul Dini's Batman. I did not realize until a couple days ago that these were mutually exclusive. Oops.

And if you add in the works I enjoy by Geoff Johns, then I become some sort of fandom temporal disturbance...

Ahhh, Sony....

2010-01-13T05:22:00.000-08:00

Since I'm sure the news has already completely circulated at this point, I thought I'd lend my two cents' worth on Sony's upcoming reboot of the Spider-Man franchise.

I am not opposed to a change in direction for the series; although I was one of the three people in the world who apparently liked Spider-Man 3, I can still admit that it's a a good 'jumping off point' for the current film crew, as it firmly wrapped up all the story lines running through the original films. It's the perfect time to change directors, recast actors, etc. In other words, a 'soft' reboot, similar to the changeover from 2003 Hulk and 2008 Incredible Hulk. Except, you know, all the Spidey films made gobs of money.

But a reboot? Putting Peter back in high school? First, I'll always debate the wisdom in the implicit assumption that Peter functions better as a high school student: I think he functions best as a college student, because he's in a realm sufficiently balanced between youth and maturity to enjoy storytelling possibilities from both ends of the spectrum.

But I really don't think this will go over with the viewing public. Most folks will have the same reaction I did:

"Uh, why?"

Do Clothes Really Make The Man?

2010-01-11T09:51:00.000-08:00

You ever notice how many of Batman's enemies wear really nice suits? Not all the time, of course, but in one popular incarnation or another, the A-list Bat-foes wear snappy duds.

And our hero dressed in demonic body armor and beats the crap out of them with his bare hands.

Why is this significant? Because Penguin, Scarecrow, Riddler, et al, are firmly in denial. They prance around in the garb of civilization, yet they undermine its foundations at every opportunity. (Or used to, in Riddler's case) The Joker is most likely an exception to this, as he firmly mocks society at large and its values.

Batman, on the other hand, sees himself as what he is: a warrior. He's at peace with that, and dresses accordingly. He doesn't hide guns in umbrellas or use chemical weapons in fist-fights because he doesn't have to; his place in society is already secure.

Attention: DC Direct

2009-12-30T17:45:00.001-08:00

If you make this toy, you can help yourself to the contents of my wallet as much as you like. That is all.

Hey, Green Arrow: You Suck!

2009-12-30T07:55:00.000-08:00

Now, I'm not sure if Green Arrow actually sucks, or if he is just the victim of sucky writing. But he generally comes off as the type of person I couldn't stand in real life. (You know, not to imply that I generally like to associate with primary-colored sociopathic businessmen in real life...) His politics does play a part in it, I'll admit, but it's mostly the way he goes about his politics that irritates me.

As I've mentioned before, I've got a fairly conservative streak with some libertarian leanings, but you'd actually have to talk to me about politics specifically to discover that, as I don't wear it on my sleeve. People that do, of either stripe, tend to annoy me. Oftentimes, it seems like Green Arrow's entire character is that he's the guy who wears his politics right on his sleeve.

That wouldn't be enough to make him suck, though; crap like this is:

Linked to Scans Daily, which really should have a way to comment without getting a pay account.

Okay, so first off, Arrow interrupts the planning of an important operation to attend to his own special preferences. "Stop! Everyone look at me! I'm different!" And, frankly, admitting that you might be distracted from doing your job because you don't like what your protectee is saying means you're a pretty crappy superhero to begin with.

But that's not what really irritated me. What bugged me was his argument with Hal Jordan, after Arrow gave his opinion of a candidate on national television. He almost immediately calls Hal a Nazi.

That's stupid enough, but think about what's going on, here. Arrow is calling the guy trying to keep the military/police force that is the JLA out of politics a Nazi.

Like the man says, "You use that word; I don't think you know what it means."

Shut up, Green Arrow.

Because Everyone Else Has Already Done It...

2009-12-28T16:43:00.000-08:00

My pitch for the third Nolan Bat-flick. Unifying theme: Nature abhors a vacuum.

Think about it: after the events of The Dark Knight, Gotham's criminal underworld is in a state of chaos. Between Batman, Two-Face, and the Joker, all the major leaders are gone. But beyond that, there's no heroes for Gotham, either. Harvey Dent is dead, and Batman's a murderer.

So it's gang war time, baby!

I see it like this: a battle of "professional" criminals against the "freaks". The "professionals" are led by Oswald Cobblepott, who's made the sane, businesslike move to create the "Penguin" persona. Cobblepott isn't demented, so much as he realizes that "freaks" get the job done in Gotham, and it's in his best interest to become freak-like if he wants a piece of that pie.

The real 'freaks', remnants of the Joker's gang, are led by Harley Quinn. Quinn, despite her eccentric behavior, isn't as vapid as one might think; she's using the appearance and legacy left by the Joker to inspire terror. Her band is smaller and less-organized than the Penguin's, but still very effective because people understandably panic and flee at the sight of any criminal in clown regalia.

Quinn is actually a disciple of Johnathan Crane, who is offering her guidance from inside Arkham. She considers her crime wave part of a large-scale social experiment, and is therefore harder to predict than Kingpin, not being motivated by profit, per se.

GCPD, while dealing with this mess, is also receiving some new help from Eddie Nigma, the self-styled Riddler. Riddler is determined to be the "new" Batman, helping to predict the crimes of the new powers in Gotham. However, Nigma is actually under the employ of Cobblepott, being used to focus the police on his enemies rather than his own activities.

Batman himself is growing increasingly frustrated and angry with his crusade; not only has it cost him, personally, but it seems like there's no end in sight to it. He puts down one freak for two or three more to come out of the woodwork. It's taking a huge personal toll on him.

On top of all of this, almost no one notices a rookie GCPD cop named Dick Grayson, or the mysterious, black-and-blue clad vigilante who started operating around the time Grayson arrived in Gotham.

And, for giggles, I'd throw in Selina Kyle and Tommy Elliot in civilian identities, to plant seeds for the fourth film.

I'm Not Prone to Fan Fiction, But If I Were...

2009-12-14T09:41:00.000-08:00

See, Batman Beyond had it wrong. So did The Dark Knight Returns, and Kingdom Come. Granted, it's not their fault, because most of them were written before this change in the modern Bat-mythos were fully embraced. But there has been a change, and I offer a new idea in alternate future storytelling in order to make best use of that change.

In the future, after the death of Batman, the good guys win.

Now what?

In the past, it was in vogue to show that without Batman, Gotham fell into a cesspool of crime and corruption that only the return of Batman in some form could stem the tides. Kingdom Come was a bit of an exception, but even they portrayed worldwide super villain chaos. However, if you look at the trend in the Bat-mythos since the No Man's Land event, you'll see a difference in how Batman is approached.

Specifically, Batman can no longer even remotely claim to be alone. Three Robins, three Batgirls, two Azraels, Huntress, the Outsiders, and even converted former enemies like Catwoman and Riddler...Batman essentially has a militia at his command, and it's ever-expanding. Battle for the Cowl drove home the point that in Batman's absence, his allies would rally together to do what needed to be done. So why should it be any different when Batman dies for reals?

And why should competing bands of super villains be able to stand up to that kind of force?

In the wake of the BftC, it's not hard to imagine that Grayson, Oracle and co would have a better contingency plan in place in the event of similar chaos. Batman, by himself, cleaned up super-crime in Gotham at the start of Morrison's run. I don't think it's unreasonable to think his militia could do the same, if they had to.

That's where the story would start. Bruce Wayne is dead. Supercrime is all but dead. And now you've got a small army of vigilantes without a guiding purpose anymore. Does that sound like a recipe for success?

I propose a schism in the extended Bat-family, based solely on the question of where to go, next. In my mind, you've got Dick Grayson and Jason Todd as leading the opposing sides: the former would promote the current status quo, using the Wayne Industries to heal Gotham while using their vigilante tactics in a reactionary fashion to isolated outbreaks of crime.

Jason Todd would embrace the latent fascist undertones always a bit present in the Bat-mythos, as well as the more violent tendencies Todd has always had. The members of the Bat-family would have to choose sides based on their own personal beliefs and histories.

But rather than just a physical brawl on the streets of Gotham, this is a full-fledged cultural campaign, with physical combat only being a distraction compared to the political and social clashes happening all around them. One of the Bat-family will run for public office. Perhaps another will work for reform within the GCPD. It would be a full-on battle for the hearts and minds of Gotham City, trying to decide its own destiny.

So, I guess, it'd be kind of like Civil War. But good.

It took them fourteen years to do it, too.

2009-12-11T06:07:00.000-08:00

It was a long, arduous process, but Marvel finally lost me as a reader. This isn't some grand, OMG I'LL NEVER READ THEIR BOOKS AGAIN statement, a la One More Day or Civil War. No, this was a steady stream of making creative decisions that turned me off of one book after another, until there were none left.

Spider-Man was probably the first to go, although One More Day wasn't the breaking point. Oh, I hated OMD for all the obvious and non-obvious reasons (MJ Fan fo' life), but the talent pool lined up for Brand New Day intrigued me. And I was willing to give them a chance, especially considering people like Roger Stern (<3) saying that Spidey is fundamentally more workable as a single character. Now, I wasn't sure I agreed, but if writers were honestly ham-strung by the marriage, then I suppose I should let them put their money where their mouth was. Dazzle me!

And...I was not dazzled. Ironically, it wasn't the new villains that irritated me, (I liked Mr. Negative, Overdrive, Screwball and Paper Doll), or the new supporting cast, or even the return of Harry Osborn (although he's fallen right back into the same Is He Evil or Isn't He? rut he'd been in just prior to his death). No, it was Peter Parker himself.

The character has effectively been neutered with the OMD-induced realization that he's never going to change. He's even becoming tangential to the stories he's in, being a bystander through most of the Character Assassination arc. When even Aunt Freaking May has a more interesting sub-plot going on than the main character....

I stuck around up to New Ways to Die, mostly because Eddie Brock and the Thunderbolts intrigued me. But I had to force myself through the new Kraven arc, because Kraven will always suck, no matter who he/she/it is. And it was a pretty stupid arc to begin with. But getting to NWtD is when I realized how inconsequential Peter Parker is in his own book. He's a victim of circumstance.

And NWtD also turned me off of another old favorite: Eddie Brock. Sure, Eddie was written as consistently as he'd ever been, but...I just didn't care anymore. When I was younger, I though Brock-Venom was the shiznit, but now that I'm older...well, Eddie whines a lot. And gets preachy for absolutely no reason. And is kind of annoying. Now that I'm long past my teen angst phase, I don't find his character appealing anymore.

Of course, Spidey had another strike against him that was beyond his control: he was my first comic book hero, and the one I followed the most extensively. I mentioned a couple posts back that the original Hobgoblin was really the only major Spidey arc I hadn't read, and...well, it's harder and harder to 'wow' me with Spidey. I've seen it all before at this point.

Besides, any and all Spider-Man is going to pale in comparison to the Spectacular Spider-Man cartoon at this point.

New Avengers was next; I just got tired of the post-Civil War status quo of...well, I'm not sure what they're really about, now. The group's very reactionary. And when Clint Barton is a valid contender against Bullseye for the title of "Most Psychotic Person to Wear a Hawkeye Uniform", I'm not heavily inclined to keep following.

I kind of liked Avengers: Initiative, but just about every plot line was comandeered for Secret Invasion. Alas.

The X-Men just can't decide what the heck they've been about since House Of M. I liked Whedon's run well enough, but afterward, you've got Messiah Complex, which blew everything up. Manifest Destiny sent them to San Fran. And now Utopia sent them onto a private island, or whatever that was supposed to be. That's, what, four or five status quo's they've gone through in eighteen months? Gah.

I liked X-Force in a "shoot 'em up" action movie sort of way, but it keeps getting sidetracked for crossovers I don't care about.

I was only ever interested in Captain America when Bucky Barnes was in the role, so...

I've never been able to care about the Hulk, no matter what color they make him.

I gave the new Thunderbolts a chance, and while I like the characters that compose them, for some reason the new direction hasn't clicked with me. I was pretty much holding on in hope of Songbird coming back and kicking ass.

That pretty much leaves Dark Avengers. And I've come to the dawning revelation that the book is going to be taken apart and put back together again after the events of Siege. And I really don't look forward to Siege in general, because I don't like Thor or his mythos.

But while all this is going on, I'm really enjoying the new status quo in the Batman books in the wake of Final Crisis. I like the Third Man, Spoiler, Nightwing, and the Gotham Girls, and they've all got their own titles now. Plus, Bagley on Batman, Hush being used well, and more of Morrison's head-trippiness. And yes, Bruce will return before the end of 2010, but that won't necessitate a complete rejiggering of the status quo.

I also kind of like Green Lantern, but I'll wait until the Blackest Night craziness dies down before committing to that. Or when Larfleeze gets his own series. Whichever comes first.

Can't We All Just Get Along?

2009-12-09T08:53:00.000-08:00

This is an ongoing list of the Top 100 Comic Storylines of all Time, as voted by the readers of the blog.

The list isn't important; the responses to each post are. There's plenty of intelligent discussion on the merits of each story, but it's drowned out in waves of elitism and self-proclaimed "anti-elitism", which is of course just another form of elitism. When House of M showed up, I enjoyed watching people just have kittens right on the spot. But now, about a week later...

It's not funny anymore. It's depressing. Or perhaps I'm just naive in thinking that a common love of a niche medium was sufficient to allow for constructive debate.

Besides, we all know Watchmen will be the top storyline, and I'll be the only one saying that it sucked. That should be fun. (And I don't even know if I'm being sarcastic or not when I say that.)

Metafiction and Batman: May Knightfall Rest In Peace

2009-12-07T11:22:00.000-08:00

Most folks know that Grant Morrison loves him so metafiction, and he carried that love into his current run on the Batman titles. Morrison's first arc, Batman and Son, was written in an off-beat, anything goes Silver Age style, the 666 issue was an homage to The Dark Knight Returns, and The Clown At Midnight was a reminder of the non-comic mediums that Batman's passed through (Prose for the various original, well, prose stories Bats has starred in, and the CGI artwork looks like it was taken right out of a video game.)

And then we get to the first of the Three Ghosts stories. Readers didn't know it, but we'd already met the first Ghost, Bat-Cop, in the first pages of the run. In the alternate future of 666, we saw a future version of the Bat-Devil, later called the Third Man, now called Azrael. And here, in a very 90's-style story, we meet Bat-Bane, a parody of 90's over-muscled anti-heroes with almost no defining characteristics beyond a permanent case of 'roid rage.

But why Bat-Bane at all? Bat-Cop is a logical perversion of Batman because he uses a gun. Bat-Devil is logical in the hindsight of whom he works for. Bat-Bane seems a bit random, doesn't he? Yeah, Batman had problems with steroids in the obscure "Venom" graphic novel, but while Morrison may like referencing obscure stories, he makes a lot more use of them than this; Batman doesn't even mention the events of "Venom."

So, what other story could Bat-Bane be a call back to? Obviously, Knightfall. This isn't the only call back to Knightfall in Morrison's run; in the Final Crisis tie-in issues, the mental parasite the Lump uses the memory of Bane breaking Batman's back as a a powerful weapon against Batman when he tries to resist the mental tampering. Batman then relives his recovery from that injury, and his battle with the first Azrael to reclaim his mantle.

Now, these two issues are retrospectives, so Knightfall is just one of many classic moments Batman relives. He recalls other tragedies like the death of Jason Todd, Barbra Gorden's maiming, and the events of No Man's Land, as well as the incredibly-recent (a day at most) battle with the Black Glove. But Knightfall was the only memory that the Lump specifically used as a weapon to whip Bruce into submission. When that fails, he tries a carrot instead of a stick, creating a fantasy world where Bruce's parents had survived. The Lump doesn't use another memory as a weapon once he sees Bruce recover from reliving Knightfall.

It'd be fair to say that having his back broken was probably the most physically traumatic thing to even happen to Batman, but a psychic entity like the Lump would have to recognize that the best way to hurt Batman would be to attack him mentally or emotionally. Morrison's own evil mastermind, Dr. Hurt, obviously recognized this. 90% of his plan was dedicated to attacking Bruce psychologically and emotionally; the Club of Villains and the Joker attacking him physically was almost an afterthought.

If the Lump was really trying to strike at Batman, he'd have used any number of guilt-inducing moments to attack, like the death of [Insert Name Here] or the betrayal of [Insert Name Here] or that time [Insert General Tragedy Here]. Hell, just let him see his parents' death over and over. That'll learn him.

But the Lump uses Knightfall. Combined with the obvious love Knightfall gets in the Three Ghosts story, and it's obvious that Knightfall is a story Morrison considers important. Why?

I think Morrison is paying homage to the spiritual predecessor of his own metatextual work; this is speculation on my part, but I wouldn't be surprised if Morrison has a soft spot for Knightfall. It's clearly his type of story.

Unlike a lot of the more shallow event comics of the 90's, (Death of Superman and the Clone Saga come to mind....), Knightfall had a rather brilliant premise behind it. Dennis O'Neil, master of the Bat-mythos that he was, was worried about the wave of Watchmen-inspired vigilantes coming onto the comic stands, and worried that people would start to clamor for a grimmer, gritter, 90's Batman, as well. So, he decided to give us one, and then explore why such a character would be unlikable, unworkable, and generally undesirable.

It's easy to lose sight of this core idea given the crossover nature of the story, but Bane and the Arkham break-out are really just stepping stones to get the original Azreal into the cape and cowl. (It's unfortunate that this is probably going to be the only thing Jean Paul is remembered for in the long run, considering he had a fairly respectable solo series for several years. But I can't claim to have read it, or really claim to care about his character one way or the other. Oh well.)

(And, of course, Denny O'Neil's Question also, in a brief and more humorous fashion, showed why Watchmen paradigms don't mesh with the normal DCU. "Rorschach sucks", indeed.)

At the end of the day, what Knightfall demonstrates is that there's only one Batman, and anything else is a pale imitation. But the story is very aware of itself as a story, demonstrating by example why a certain storytelling route is bad form. (It's unfortunate that many lesser writers didn't get the message.) And there are more than a few structural similarities with Knightfall and Morrison's run. In both instances, a mastermind (Bane/Hurt) wears Batman down via proxies (Arkham inmates/Club of Villains) before trying to disable him permanently (Breaking his back/Burying him alive). Also, AzBats and the Third Man are similarly inspired in their use of religious imagery and motivations. (Albeit from opposite sides of the fence, as it were.) It's ironic but appropriate that the Third Man is the new Azrael.

Of course, in the fallout from Battle for the Cowl, it's Dick Grayson who bears the mantle, not a borderline psychotic. (The borderline psychotic is Robin this time around.) And while Dick is clearly the most qualified, (although I agree with those who think Morrison's own stories paint Tim Drake as the better detective), he's still a stand-in for the real thing. Batman is Bruce Wayne, and when he inevitably returns, I have no doubt this will be reaffirmed.

So, while it's easy to write off Knightfall as a trashy gimmick from the 90's, (and the execution on the story is certainly lacking in enough places to reinforce this impressions), we shouldn't lose sight of the ambitious idea at the core of it all. It was RIP before RIP was cool.

He is Vegeance, the Night, etc.

2009-12-03T12:52:00.000-08:00

Someone on another blog is seeking answers to these questions for a child's school report on Batman. Seeing as it presents an opportunity to ramble on in self-important prose, I jumped at the chance. So.

1. Why do you think Batman has withstood so many years?

Batman, like most of the great superheroes, is a character who is elegant in his simplicity. Boy sees parents killed by criminal; boy grows up to fight criminals. Everything else is simply window-dressing to young Bruce Wayne striking back against the same people who took his family (and, to an extent, his childhood) from him.

The core concept is hardly new, which is part of why it withstands the test of time. Most great authors write about loss and subsequent vengeance to some degree or another in their body of work; while opinions are divided on how proper vengeance as a motivation is, Batman sidesteps the issue in most incarnations by channeling his need for vengeance into a helpful force.

After all, if it was just about revenge for Bruce Wayne, Batman's career would have ended with the death or incarceration of the man who killed his parents. But Batman approaches the problem from both sides; it's not enough to stop criminals. He also must protect people from suffering the same loss he did.

The simplicity of this concept is also one of the reasons Batman fits into so many forms. Born of the pulp-hero age of gritty crime comics, he's been involved in superheroic adventures, science fiction stories, horror stories, detective stories, psychological examinations, philosophical treatises, and every major form of media to date.

2. Do you think more people like the old or new comics and why?

When you're talking about "old" and "new" for a character who's eighty years old, the terms are a bit relative. Tim Burton's Batman movies, the 1992 cartoon, and the recent Chris Nolan movies have cemented the darker, grittier interpretation into the public mind, but it's hard to discount the campy "Batman meets aliens" stories from the fifties and sixties, or the Adam West television show.

But those "campy" stories of fifty years ago are actually "new" compared to the dark stories of the thirties. Batman's history is very cyclical, in a way; the "newer" stories are actually closer to the character's origin than some of the "old" stories.

So, to get around to answering the question, I think that people prefer the stories that most resemble the character they're familiar with.

3. Do you feel the new movies help or hurt the "true" Batman?

I think anything that furthers a character's franchise is helpful to some degree. But I take issue with the idea that there is a "true" Batman; all interpretations are somebody's "true" Batman. The overwhelming success of the new movies have made the Nolan/Bale Batman the "True" Batman for a whole generation of fans, and considering how many fans they've brought for the character, that can only be good.

4. Batman doesn't need superhuman powers like Superman and Wonderwoman and the others - do you think that makes fans feel differently about him?

It is rather interesting, isn't it? It's technically a misnomer to call Batman a "super" hero in so much as he has no super human powers. It does provide a certain appeal to those fans not fortunate enough to be bitten by radioactive spiders or rocketed to Earth from a dying planet, and it gives Batman stories an added dimension. Batman is a symbol of a physical human ideal, fighting for the philosophical ideal of justice. A writer so inclined could get very deep with these concepts.

Or they could write really cool stories about Batman beating up crazy bad guys. Either one is fine.

5. Please make up your own question and answer it to cover what you think might be helpful for him to try to explain in a 10 minute speech with his powerpoint presentation!!!

Alllllllll righty, then.

5. Do Batman's enemies have anything to with his appeal?

Do they ever. Over time, Batman's enemies have been expanded from simply colorful thematic criminals to characters with as much mythic importance as Batman himself. The Joker embodies chaos and insanity. Two-Face embodies the duel nature of the human spirit. The Scarecrow embodies the destructive potential of fear. I could go on and on. The ultimate fact, though, is that the more popular villains are popular because they have the same elegantly simple appeal as Batman himself. You don't need to explain who and what they are, beyond the basics: the ideas speak for themselves.

Anyway, I hope that is adequate for school-report purposes, little Timmy. Or, you know, whomever you are.

So why not a wishlist?

2009-12-01T05:51:00.000-08:00

With exams here, I won't have time to make a full-on post for the next couple of weeks. So just to stay in the swing of things, here's the top five non-existent bits of comic and pop merchandise I really want to see exist. In no particular order:

1) Warren Ellis Thunderbolts Omnibus: Not that there's anything wrong with the two volumes of his run currently out, but to have them both in a single edition would be nifty, especially since they're essentially one big story. It would probably be more akin to one of the oversized hardcovers Marvel used to put out a lot more frequently.

2) 6-inch NECA figures: NECA has some of the best movie and horror licenses around, but uses a scale that no one else in the action figure industry does. Hannibal Lector should not tower over Batman, you know?

3) Marvel Premiere Origin of the Hobgoblin: Since the original trade is over fifteen years old, it'd be nice to have a new edition available of the only remaining major Spider-Man story I haven't read.

4) Re-release the Cassie Cain Batgirl figure: Mattel's re-released every other major figure from their DC Superheroes line into the DC Universe line, except this one. And seeing as it goes for $50+ on eBay, it'd be nice for it to be available in soem other venue.

5) Marvel Legends Dark Avengers: Well, at least Iron Patriot and Moonstone; the Venom and Bullseye figures I have are fine. But the recent Green Goblin by Hasbro is a big pile of fail, and I'd like something else to fill the hole in my much-reduced collection.

At least that last one has a chance of happening.

Wimmins

2009-11-23T17:02:00.000-08:00

This is more of an off-the-cuff post, inspired by this blog post right here. Now, I don't know from Braddock, but it did get my mind-wheels turning about the portrayal of women in comics.

It's not that I have a huge problem with female leads in comic books being incredibly attractive, because for the most part, the male leads are, too. After all, comics are entertainment like anything else, and visual entertainment media star beautiful people. Sure, you got you Seth Rogan's, but for every one of him there's a dozen Brad Pitt's. So I'm not going to get too riled up over "cheesecake" art, because that's part of the business. Even characters like Spider-Man and Wolverine, who should be creepy and thuggish, respectively, are usually portrayed as more or less studly dudes. So I'm not going to get particularly riled up over "cheesecake" art, because more often than not, it's just part of the business.

But I do draw a line between "cheesecake" art and "sexually exploitative" art. The cover in the linked blog for Psylocke issue two is a perfect example. The very laws of human anatomy are distorted to force her t and her a into the shot at the same time. This is grotesque in many senses of the word. Is this really necessary?

This also tends to fall in line with another common offense of the superhero genre: completely useless "sexy" costumes. I'm going to ignore how every female costume seems to have high heels for the moment, or I'll be here all night. But when functionality gives way to sensuality, we have a clear problem. The Batman family women are a good example of how to do female costumes right. All of his female proteges essentially wear an outfit similar to Batman, Robin, or Nightwing. Similarly, Spider-Man's various female counterparts wear the same type of skin-tight outfit he does, for the same reasons: it's useful for characters who rely on speed and agility.

But Psylocke, as our poster girl for the moment, is a ninja. You know who else are ninja? The Hand. And the Hand cover themselves from head to toe. It's not only good for stealth, it conceals their identity, and allows them to hide any number of weapons on their person. I don't even want to know where Psylocke would have to hide a shurikin. (And yes, all of these complaints go just as much for Elektra.)

So, combining the completely useless costumes that forgo practicality for sex appeal, and artwork ready and able to ignore good workmanship for T&A shots, we have some shamefully exploitative material. And frankly, this taints the entire hobby. Like it or not, (and I really don't, but what can you do?) most non-comic readers consider comics a "genre" rather than a format, and guess which genre they associate it with? I don't know about you, but I don't appreciate being thought of as a creepy deviant because of my fandom.

And beyond social perceptions, this type of work even affects our own insular community. I've got a (female) friend who swears by Witchblade. She freaking loves it. But I've been hesitant to give it a chance, because it's one of the most famous examples of exactly what I'm talking about. Sarah! Put on some pants!

So this is a plea to all current and aspiring comic artists: sexually exploitative material isn't edgy or even sexy. It's creepy, weird, and degrading for both the subjects and the readers. Just say no.

We All Go A Little Mad Sometimes

2009-11-22T17:02:00.000-08:00

Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho isn't just my favorite horror movie of all time, but may possibly be my favorite movie, period, of all time. (Which is odd, considering that at no point do any characters in it receive awesome powers and fight for justice.) I know I'm hardly alone in singing its praises, but this is my blog, so you have to put up with it.

Oh, and SPOILERS! Seriously, massive SPOILERS! If you haven't seen Psycho, then stop reading this and go rent it right now. Or at least stop reading this. Especially if you don't know what I'm talking about when I say I don't want to spoil the twist ending. It's possibly the third-most spoiled twist ending in film history (After Empire Strikes Back and The Sixth Sense), so if you're lucky enough not to know the twist, then you doubly owe it to yourself to stop reading this and go rent the darn movie.

And no, the twist ending isn't "some lady gets killed in a shower." But that part's still good, and we'll cover it in due time.

I assume you've seen the movie if you're still reading this far, and I'm going to speak accordingly. The first question I have to ask is, have you seen it more than once? Possibly my favorite thing about the film is how thoroughly it spells out its own conclusion to you right up front, but you can't recognize it without knowing that conclusion. I don't just mean the literal, in-story sense of seeing the clues in retrospect; I mean that practically even off-hand line, every staging of the camera shot, even every prop, is a blatant clue.

My favorite example of this is the scene with Marion Crane and Norman Bates in the parlor. First off, just the fact that Norman's hobby is stuffing birds, ("Only birds look 'right' when they're stuffed") and the star's last name is Crane is a signifier right off the bat. But beyond that, follow the pace of the conversation, and see how the camera focuses on Norman. Whenever the stuffed owl is in the background, Norman is either upset, or treading too closely to the Mother personality. When he talks about asylums, though, the camera closes up on his face; you can't tell which personality is pulling the strings, although the dialogue makes it more obvious than not that poor Norman's spent some time with the mental health profession himself.

Heck, everything about Norman's character really drives home what he is: a repressed child in a grown man's body. He uncomfortableness around Marian, (He can't even say 'bathroom' in front of her), his little hideaways and peepholes, and his habit of eating candy when stressed. Of course, his room drives the whole point home, so much so that it was one of the only set pieces that Hitchcock didn't examine when he "toured" the motel grounds for the theatrical preview.

(The room is made even creepier by the erotic record on the player; the sexually perverse overtones in this movie are only blatant once, but they're always there.)

Structurally, the film is wonderfully uneven, with no protagonist following the story through to its conclusion. There's a very real sense that anyone could be next, even poor Norman. (Who, in a manner of speaking, does "die" at the end of the film.) But what I find really appealing about the revolving door protagonists is the double-layered dramatic irony. Everyone thinks Marion's murder or disappearance is about the stolen money, but the audience knows differently. But while the audience knows the money wasn't the cause, we're just as wrong about the truth as Arborgast (great name, by the way), Steve and Lila. Oh, yes, the audience thinks it's sooooo smart. Ha!

Actually, I think Hitchcock did intend the audience to be smart, at least in the sense that he expected them to piece together the evidence on their own and appreciate the subtleties of the plot. That's the only way I can imagine why the psychiatrist at the end of the film is such a douche bag. The guy drips smarm from every orifice, and is the only character in the film who's completely unlikable. Even the tycoon at the beginning loved his little girl; the psychiatrist barely remembers that one of the victims' family are in the room with him. (His brief appearance in Psycho Part IV only further drives home the point that he's a creep.) I really do believe that Hitchcock resented having to slow down the pacing of his film to explain everything to the audience, and he compensated by making us resent it as well.

Then there's the shower scene, one of the most famous scenes in film history. God, this is an uncomfortable scene. The audience figures out right at the beginning of the scene that poor Marion is a goner; you really only had to show Mother lifting the knife. But it keeps going on, with the famous screeching violins and quick camera cuts. The part that really creeps me out is her screams; you can tell she's trying to form a coherent objection, but she just can't manage it. Chilling. And it just keeps going on, and on, until she's dead, lying in a pool of her own chocolate syrup. And even after that, we see her corpse for an uncomfortably long period of time. And even after that, we see Norman "discover" the body, almost throw up in shock, and go through the whole process of destroying the evidence.

It's a stark contrast to modern horror movies, where all too often a murder is quick, gory, and inconsequential. There's no gore here (the knife doesn't even penetrate), we just lost our protagonist (Norman is actually the figure with the audience's sympathies for a long stretch, here), and this scene just won't end. We know she's dead, we don't want to see anymore, but here we are. Hitchcock is showing us too little and far too much at the same time. Why are you torturing the audience like this, Alfred? Why?!

(Answer: Because he was awesome.)

I suppose, before closing this mash note out, I should say something about this film's later sequels. I was on the fence for a long time on whether or not I even wanted to watch parts II-IV, simply because I didn't think they could justify their own existence. And, while they weren't as bad as I'd feared, they still don't bring much to the table. Except, ironically, part IV.

Part II tries its hardest to overcome the fact that with Norman's secret out (and him supposedly cured), there's really no ready antagonist. It also tries and fails to recreate the mind-games from the first movie; it succeeds in being more confusing than anything else. It would have worked a lot better if the film hadn't been so dead-set on getting Norman back into exactly the first situation he was in at the start of the original movie. Norman Bates isn't Jason Vorhees, and his motel isn't Camp Crystal Lake; you don't need to leave the film open for a sequel like that.

(Although, to its credit, the climax of this film is unintentionally hilarious. It's like a bloodthirsty episode of Three's Company.)

Part III seems like it had some high-minded ideas it was going for (and was actually directed by Anthony Perkins, so it's interesting for that alone), but the Catholic overtones go nowhere, Norman's romance with a twit who looks like Marion Crane is only slightly more creepy than the romance in the Twilight books, and the crusading reporter is so obnoxious that you want her to be killed, too. This film, though, seems to recognize that it's a disservice to poor Norman to leave him as he is, and has him institutionalized again at the end of the film. Of course, this film also treats him a bit like a traditional slasher killer, and has him kill a few random women just because. Sigh.

Part IV, The Beginning, is actually the best of the three. Part of this may be because it's completely divorced from the overly-convoluted story lines developed in the first two sequels, but most of it is because the film finally puts a face on Norma Bates. And this woman is really, really creepy, while not being a total monster. She's obviously bi-polar, and it's unfortunately combined with a spoiled upbringing and a twisted view of sexuality. In a way, she's as much of a victim as Norman, because despite her tidy bit of wealth, she doesn't have a social support network to step in and tell her that she needs help.

But although this is the only sequel that actually manages to be as disturbing as the original (mostly by bringing the sexually perverse undertones to the foreground), it's still a structural mess. The talk-show format the grounds most of the movie simply disappears by the third act, and you're instead left to wonder why Norman keeps falling for these women with absolutely no common sense whatsoever. Don't go to the damn house, lady! You work in medicine! You should know something's up!

(Also: when a man with a history of profound mental illness stemming from monstrous family issues tells you that he doesn't want to have a child, it's not "a surprise" to go off the pill. It's evidence that you may not be qualified to raise a child in the first place.)

Granted, part IV gives Norman a happy ending for once, but all these sequels really do is undermine one of the most insidiously subtle parts of the original film: Mother's closing monologue.

Think about it: the "Mother" personality was supposed to be the killer, right? But here "Mother" is telling us in an inner monologue that she didn't kill them, Norman did. Norman, of course, is the definition of an unreliable narrator, but it does add an extra bit of doubt into the state of Norman's psyche. Just enough to keep the audience on edge...

Enjoy your shower.

And Speaking of Ditko...

2009-11-21T10:08:00.000-08:00

In the type of coincidence that only happens in real life, Steve Ditko just recently posted a philosophical blog at the conservative media site Big Hollywood. It's in response to a piece he posted months ago:

http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/blash/2009/04/06/steve-ditkos-toyland/

And the new piece:

http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/blash/2009/11/21/steve-ditkos-the-ever-unreachable/

Just a warning: these are not really comic-related essays. They use some examples from comic books, but they're mostly about the socio-political atmospheres and philosophies that underlie comic books. And, admittedly, they can be dry reading. But if you want to know what Steve Ditko thinks about society today, go for it.

And before anyone asks, I agree with some but not all of his conclusions. Mostly, though, I do agree that public policy based on consistent logic is more desirable to public policy based on emotional fervor. (A country of laws vs. a country of men, and all that.)

All This and Civil War, Too!

2009-11-19T07:34:00.000-08:00

Hey, remember Civil War? Of course you do! If you read a Marvel comic at all in the past five years, you know all about Civil War; it’s an event that’s passed into the consciousness of even those trying to avoid it via cultural osmosis. Civil War!

I'm not entirely sold that the whole "Civil War" idea was good from a storytelling perspective, because it changes the fabric of the MU a bit too much. It makes sense from a real-world perspective, but we already have a healthy suspension of disbelief in place to appreciate superhero books in the first place.

Best example: the Negative Zone prison being such a big deal. That entire concept requires that super villain rights of due process have been constantly respected throughout the history of the MU. Even a cursory examination proves that's completely apart from the truth. But because the metaphor had to be right in your face, it's suddenly important. Alas.

However, placing yourself inside the story, the anti-reg side had no logical defense beyond some hastily-produced and poorly-conceived historical allegories to enforce their position. Whose Side Are You On? Well, Iron Man’s, if you give it any rational thought.

Tony Stark and those in his employ were acting to carry out legislation passed by the people of the United States' elected representatives. This wasn't an unreasonable request, either. "Hey, can we maybe start to keep track of these various super-powered folks who regularly dole out huge amounts of property damage, and endanger our lives and way of life on multiple occasions?"

Captain America, on the other hand, was in favor of an elite group of powerful individuals acting above the law, because it was owed to them by their past actions, and because, frankly, they better knew how people should be protected than the people themselves.

This, of course, is the logic of fascists. Now, one of the reasons I give Cap’s movement the label, is identity politics. Hitler (And Cap IS NOT LIKE HITLER THAT IS NOT WHAT I AM SAYING DO NOT FREAK OUT PEOPLE) organized his movement around racial identity politics. Mussolini organized around national (Italian) identity politics. Cap organized his political movement around, for lack of a better term, masked identity politics.

(Incidentally, Norman Osborn has a more complicated view of his own identity politics, a combination of those he views most politically useful and those he deems "outsiders".)

This is a bit incongruous, because Cap had a very John Lockean view of the relationship between the individual and their government. Locke was a huge influence on the Founding Fathers, and that influence runs through both the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution, so it's only natural that Captain America would be on the same philosophical page.

In the Lockean view, individuals naturally exist in a state of perfect freedom, but this is an inherently unstable state. Ergo, the individual allows for the surrender of some of their freedoms in exchange for the safety the government's society provides so that they may enjoy the rest of their freedoms more fully.

More importantly, though, when an individual feels their interests are no longer being properly represented and/or protected by this government, they're free to either dissolve the government and form another, (which Cap and co. obviously weren't trying to do), or depart from that society (Which Cyclops recently allowed the mutants under his care do).

Cap's problem is that neither of the above were valid options for him to get what he wanted, which was as much of a resemblance of the pre-Stanford status quo as he could. In other words, you could accurately say Cap's two goals, upon which he wasn't willing to compromise, were:

-Not having to register with SHIELD

-Still being able to protect the public in a vigilante style

And, unfortunately, he never had a plan to achieve those goals in the long-term. He became so engrossed in the short-term concern of getting Stark and his allies off his back that he failed to make any plan for a lasting victory. Ironically, there really wasn’t a combat-oriented way to achieve this. The only way to do so would be to change the hearts and minds of American people and their representatives.

But that wouldn't have been nearly as big a seller.

It's fair to say that Cap doesn't view the heroes as an "elite", mostly because of his own personal relationship with most of them. I mean, there's no one less elite than Peter Parker, right?

But we're talking about a select group of people who, by the very fact of their existence, create huge changes in their society. (Although admittedly not as much as they would in the real world; Marvel wants a constant state of relation to the real world as possible, for obvious reasons.)

Just one example off the top of my head: in the first issue of Avengers: The Initiative, Henry Peter Gyrich (a cynical observer of the super-humans if ever there was one), offers a very real-world explanation for the founding of the Fifty-State Initiative: as a result of M-Day, the super-human balance of power had decidedly swung to favor the United States. Apparently, the mutant population was the great super-human equalizer, because mutants occur randomly around the globe.

So, there's this global shift in the balance of power, and what did it result from? M-Day. And what did M-Day result from? From a small meeting between two groups of super humans about how to handle one of their own numbers, who had become unstable (to say the least).

So, less than twenty people began a chain of events that completely changed the military landscape. And they did it accidentally.

Yes, these people are elite.

As we all know, the road to Hell is often paved with good intentions. (After all, any team which has a monster like the Punisher on their side can't claim moral high-ground when it comes to killing, or anything else.)What redeems Steve Rogers as a hero is his recognition of his mistake, and his surrender at the end of the Civil War.

Ultimately, Rogers was doomed from a dramatic standpoint. For the longest time, he's been practically an allegory, an embodiment of an American ideal. But he's still a human being, and no human being can live up to the standards he was setting for himself. Unmasking himself before his arrest was the final split between Captain America, the immortal hero, and Steve Rogers, a good but flawed man. He couldn't exist as both indefinitely; the Civil War was just the event that brought this conflict to a head. (Both in a thematic and storytelling sense, as the Red Skull had been planning to assassinate Rogers for a long time leading to this event.)

Bucky Barnes, on the other hand, (no pun intended), has a different relationship to the mantel. Steve Rogers embodied the spirit of America, and that's why he doomed; no man can be an ideal forever. (Ask Xorn.) Alternatively, Bucky Barnes aspires to the spirit of America, and that's why he's spared from a similar contradiction. Bucky is imperfect both personally and physically, and makes no bones about it, but he strives for that impossible goal of the perfected ideal every time he puts on the costume.

Now, though, we move to one of the biggest problems of the entire crossover. Neither Cap nor Iron Man, nor most of the major players in the story articulate their reasoning, anywhere. The most you get from the anti-reg side is, "This is oppressive!" and the most you get from the pro-reg side is, "This is the law!"

But almost no one on the pro-reg side articulated the next logical step in their argument: that this is the law because the people of America wanted it to be, and it's not an unreasonable request.

The only character who actually pointed this out, of all people, was Deadpool. If you didn't read the Cable/Deadpool CW tie-in, the titular characters are split on the war, with Cable being anti-reg and Deadpool being pro-reg. And in a completely serious moment, indicated because his speech balloons were white instead of yellow, Deadpool articulated his reasons for being pro-reg, beyond a government sanction to cause chaos directed at the rebels.

“You got psychos like me runnin around, much less your Dr. Dooms and Squirrel Girls, why shouldn't they want to keep tabs on us, and if they have to, lock us up and throw away the key?...Yeah, Nate, I get it, okay? I get all of it. We're not all totally stupid, you know. We do what we think is best, but good ol' Nate Askani'son Geshundeit boy wonder from the future, he always, always knows what's best..."

Deadpool, in a totally tangential tie-in that didn't reach a fraction of the people who read the main title, articulated a better retort to someone like Cable or Cap than Tony Stark was ever allowed to do. Of course, Deadpool wasn’t being used as a mouthpiece for warring political ideologies at the time…

(On a side note, I still find it infuriating that no one at Marvel actually thought to draft the SHRA bill, and make it available to the fans.)

Now, regarding the pro-registration side, something always worth considering is, what were Tony Stark's crimes? (And on some of these, I have to use the term “crime” loosely.)

-Cloning Thor
-Asking Spider-Man to unmask
-Using super-villains to hunt down rogue heroes
-Playing hard-ball politics with the Atlanteans
-Locking rebels up in the Negative Zone with no trial, indefinitely

But, here's the question: how many of these actions are logical results of the SHRA, as it's commonly understood?

This is my own theory, of course, but I don't think Marvel could find a way to "balance" the debate with a logical refutation of the SHRA, so they created a series of crimes to place at the pro-reg's doorstep. Otherwise, what rational argument can the anti-reg side stand on?

A common complaint I've also seen is that it apparently never occurred to Stark that anyone else would ever head SHIELD or have access to the SHRA database. Obviously, Stark knew that he wouldn't be running the show forever. But if he was replaced by a person like Dum Dum Dungan, or Carol Denvers, or even Maria Hill (she's unpleasant to heroes, but she clearly shares their goals), then, really, would there be a need for concern?

A reasonable, prudent person couldn't foresee a sociopath like Norman Osborn coming to head the SHRA. And Stark's relationship with Osborn has been very consistent since CW; Stark doesn't like Osborn, and doesn't trust him, but Osborn and the Thunderbolts initiative are outside of his influence. The political relationships and power structures between SHIELD, the US government, and the Thunderbolts initiative haven't been explained, to my knowledge.

Stark clearly has authority over the Fifty-State Initiative, and there's some kind of relationship between them and the Thunderbolts; Komodo was threatened with being moved to the Thunderbolts early on shoulder her attitude become a problem, and Ant-Man was recruited from the Initiative to the Thunderbolts before their "dissolution". Ultimately, though, it was shown repeatedly that if Stark could have fired Osborn, he would have. This actually strengthens Stark's reasoning; if he can't fire Osborn, it means Osborn wasn't part of his chain of command. If he's not his chain of command, then there's no way Osborn could ever become a high-ranking SHIELD operative.

Unless SHIELD is dissolved, and an entirely new organization is formed to take over its regulatory functions. Oops.

But the chain of events that led to that conclusion is so convoluted (no one even knew of a Skrull infiltration until after the SHRA was already enacted) that it's not an event that Stark could have reasonably calculated.

Tony Stark is far from perfect, of course, but his mistakes come from trying to do too much, too fast. He’s in a similar moral quandary as Steve Rogers when it comes to paving roads, but the road Stark is creating comes from the will of the American people and the rule of law.

Not that this has kept every character in the Marvel Universe from dumping all over Stark every chance they get. He’s been called a Nazi numerous times, been chewed out by Clint Barton (Who, having been acting like a psychopath since his return, really doesn’t have a place to criticize anyone for anything at this point…), Thor (who, okay, had a point), and most offensively, blamed by Hank Pym form the Wasp’s death, at her own funeral.

Now, for me, that would have been the line. Even if you could inadvertently blame Stark for Jan’s death, at least he never slapped her around. And Stark dealt with her death a lot more healthily that dressing up like her and hanging with a robot designed to look and act like her. Stark really proved his heroism by not shoving a rocket boot up Pym’s hinder then and there.

But I digress.

The Pro-Registration side was right, despite Marvel’s best efforts. Yet at the same time they were wrong, as the story never should have been told in the first place. But I’d like to think that Marvel’s learned part of their lesson, in the sense that not every single title got swallowed by Secret Invasion. Spider-Man, the X-Men, and Thor, each of whom had important storylines already going on at the time, were involved only in tangential limited series that had no effect on the main book. If all crossovers were done in such a manner, I wouldn’t mind them as much.

Steve Ditko: Pure Concentrated Awesome

2009-11-17T19:04:00.000-08:00

Stan Lee and Jack Kirby get a lot of credit, and rightly so, for ushering in the "Marvel Age of Comics", and laying most of the groundwork for a fictional universe that's lasted for nigh-on fifty years, now. But every family has a step-headed red-child, and for the Merry Marvel Bullpin, that child was Steve Ditko.

Ditko's work has always been my favorite of the classic Marvel creators, and you're about to find out why. But first, a little background for the uninitiated: Stan Lee had a lot of really great ideas, but he was only one man. So he developed a half-way measure for writing and plotting his comics, dubbed the "Marvel manner". Lee would develop an outline, and hand it off to his artist to break down and storyboard. The artist then gave the pages back to Lee to fill in the dialogue.

What this meant was that the artists were a lot more involved in the formation of the stories back then than they tend to be today. Most artists from this era are given co-creation status along with Lee; check the opening credits of your favorite Marvel movie if you don't believe me. As a result of this, however, a change in artist back then tended to change the tone of the entire series to a degree that's rarely seen nowadays.

This is important because any discussion of Ditko has to start with a discussion of Spider-Man. Ditko, with a background in horror and sci-fi comics, was given the artistic chores on the title because go-to guy Jack Kirby didn't give the title character the proper creepy feel Stan Lee was looking for. He looked a bit too "heroic" for a nerd-turned-outcast vigilante. Ditko's Spider-Man was lithe and stylized to more convincingly contort into many odd positions. And lo, a legend was born.

It's important to note that Ditko's other big character for Marvel was the equally-unique Dr. Strange, master of the mystic arts. Although operating for the most part in entirely different spheres of the Marvel Universe (save for a semi-controversial run of Amazing Spider-Man in the early aughts,), Spidey and Strange are similar in one very unique respect: they both started out as huge douche bags.

Both of their origin stories hinge on acts of extreme selfishness and pettiness on the part of the protagonists, leading to a semi-redemption when they embark on their heroic careers. Spider-Man's moment of hubris in letting a burglar escape (more pronounced in the film version) needs little revisiting. However, for those not knowing Strange's origin, here's the short version: Strange was originally a world-renowned surgeon, but also a pompous ass. So when his hands are injured in a car accident and he can't perform surgery anymore, no one wants to help him when he's suddenly left with no source of income. Strange, after exhausting everything else, spends the last of his money to travel to Tibet and meet a monk who's rumored to have the skills to heal Strange's hands through mystic means. The monk refuses, but offers to train Strange in the mystic arts, instead. Strange throws a hissy fit and leaves, only returning to save the monk's life from an evil wizard. Strange changes his mind and stays with the monk, and takes the monk's place as the master of the mystic arts. Yaaay.

Why is this significant? Because both of these origin stories paint the protagonists in very different ways that the other Marvel characters of the time. The Fantastic Four got their powers testing an experimental rocket ship. The X-Men were born with their powers. Iron Man was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Bruce Banner was actively saving someone else from harm when he was caught in the blast that created the Hulk.

(Some of these characters, particularly Iron Man, have had additional moral qualms inserted in re-tellings of their origins, but what's important is that wasn't present in the source material.)

Now, these characters were all unique and inventive in their own way, but the fact is that Ditko's co-creations were the result of a slightly different worldview than Lee's. In Ditko's world, even the heroes could be jerks until reality slapped them upside the head. And in both cases, the slap is huge indeed: Peter Parker lost his father figure, and Stephen Strange lost his career and all the security that entailed. Karma is a bitch in Ditko's world.

Except, of course, when it's not. Dr. Strange's recurring foes tended to be non-humans like Nightmare and Dormamu. But Spider-Man fought real people, and these people all seemed to have more going for them than he did. The worst thing that happened to a villain in the Ditko issues was jail, and sometimes even that didn't take. Dr. Octopus, the Vulture, Electro and the Sandman weren't shown to even suffer the kind of loss that Peter Parker endured. Hell, in some instances, particularly with Ock and Electro, their own hubris is what leads to their powers, and the subsequent illicit rewards those bring. Kraven the Hunter and the Chameleon, both dirty commies, are merely deported, and the Green Goblin escapes four separate times without a scratch.

The karmic inequity even extends to non-super jerks. Flash Thompson may suffer minor snafus, but he's still the most popular kid in school. Even worse, no matter how many times J. Jonah Jameson is shown to look like a fool, he's still wealthy and successful. Of course, all of these characters would eventually be fleshed out in later stories as the medium of serial comics became more complex, and many of them would be shown to have pain on par with Peter Parker's problems (say that five times fast), but essentially, Ditko is portraying a very unfair world.

Take Amazing Spider-Man #4, the first issue with the Sandman. At first, Spidey can't figure out how to handle this guy, and actually has to flee their first battle when his mask is ripped apart. But he sews it back together, and the next time the two tangle, Spidey manages to vacuum the Sandman into submission. He get some pics of the fight to sell to JJ Jameson, and while he wasn't able to make a date with Liz Allen because of the fight, he's not too bummed. At least she'd said yes, right? He's on top of the world.

And then on his walk home, he hears some folks discussing Spider-Man's exploits, and a few of them voice really vitriolic opinions. And it gets to Pete so much that he spends the last panel of the issue wondering if maybe being Spider-Man is a huge waste of time. Maybe he's doing more harm than good. Maybe he's actually slight insane, himself.

I was nine years old when I got the book that reprinted these early stories, and that ending blew my mind. Even now, I'm still impressed by the general harshness of the concept.

Sometimes, you can do everything right. But there are always going to be people that don't like you. That may even hate you. And if you listen to them and allow them to define your worldview, you're never going to be happy. This was pretty heady stuff for an allegedly "kid's" medium. You didn't even see it in other Stan Lee books. Sure, the Thing was depressed about his appearance, and Tony Stark resented his heart injury, and Captain America would get mopey about being a man out of time, but they still didn't have this crushing sense that the world itself was fundamentally unfair. Their problems were linked to specific causes; Spidey had problems because sometimes, life just sucks.

I've got to give credit for this slightly starker vision of reality to Ditko, and it's really not hard to see why once you know he was an Objectivist. Read anything by Ayn Rand, and the themes are practically identical: it's always the lone, idealized hero against an apathetic or downright hostile society. And while I don't subscribe to Objectivism as a philosophy, it certainly has ideas I can appreciate. Besides, I've tolerated weirder perspectives from lesser creators. (What the Hell does Alan Moore subscribe to, anyway?)

The "hero against the world" was physically represented in the climax to the Master Planner Saga, Ditko's summit on the Spider-Man title. Ditko would stick around for a few more issues, but his last few stories paled in comparison to the sight of Spider-Man lifting an entire building off of his back to save Aunt May. Professional differences (the identity of the Green Goblin not being one of them, despite many rumors to the contrary) had arisen between him and Lee, and the two parted on less-than-amicable terms. But that wasn't the end of his comic's career.

Ditko would also create another of my favorite characters for an independent company called Charleton Comics: the Question. Although a vastly different type of vigilante than Spider-Man, the Question is still just as unique, with a similarly-striking visual. (And a surprisingly workable costume; Ditko always took care to explain the functionality of his designs, and the Question's outfit is definitely the most feasible.)

Left to full creative control, Ditko was able to make the Question stories a much more thorough example of Objectivist thought in action. (Although still not as much as Mr. A, a completely creator-owned character who was arguably a prototype for the Question.) The Objectivist outlook was so fundamental to the Question that when the character was bought by DC Comic along with the rest of the Charleton company, new writer Denny O'Neil had to create an in-story reason as to why his depiction of the Question wouldn't operate under the same stark philosophy. (Yet another reason Denny O'Neil is awesome.)

(Oh, the in-story reason? The Question was shot and left for dead, and had to recover over many months. Yeah, that might change a guy's outlook on life.)

I've unfortunately only seen bits and pieces of Ditko's Question work. Come on, DC! You released all of Denny O'Neil's Question series, and that ran for over forty issues! Give us a Ditko Question hardcover!

Of course, comics aren't the only media where the Question is featured. He was also one of the breakout stars of the Justice League Unlimited series, where he was completely and totally awesome. And banging Huntress. Of course, the animated Question didn't have all the same Objectivist trappings of the Ditko Question, but was rather a fusion of that and the O'Neil incarnation of the character.

And of course, there's Rorschach. Rorschach was a pastiche of the Question written by a man contemptuous of Objectivism. And yet Rorschach is the most memorable character from the story, and despite the author's best efforts, the most heroic character of the piece. The Question is so awesome that even his knock-offs are awesome. That's how good Steve Ditko is.

Of course, Spider-Man and the Question are just my favorite Ditko creations, but there's many more: Hawk and Dove, Machine Man, Speedball, Captain Atom, the Creeper, Ted Kord, and Shade, the Changing Man.

Oh, and Squirrel Girl. Hot damn.

It's sad that, in many ways, Ditko is the anti-Stan Lee, at least in the sense that he refuses to do interviews or the like. I mean, the guy co-created Spider-Man! Maybe his bibliography isn't as extensive as Jack Kirby's, but it's got to count for something. And frankly, I liked his run on Spider-Man better than the more-lauded Lee/Romita Sr. run. Nothing against John Romita Sr., of course, but there was just an added edge to the Ditko stories that I appreciated a lot more as a young reader, and continue to today.

So, salutations to Steve Ditko! If Stan was the Man, and Kirby was the King, you're definitely the Duke. Or something similarly cool. You're the outcast among those creating stories for outcasts, and your stories still resonate today.

Start at the Beginning, and when you get to the End, Stop

2009-11-17T07:25:00.000-08:00

If you're reading this, you clearly have too much time on your hands. But then, who am I to judge? This will be my torrid little corner of cyberspace to discuss whatever I feel is necessary, but mostly pop culture: movies, comics, and occasionally political or social philosophy. You know, the usual.