Filing Cabinet of the Damned

The End

2006-12-29T11:12:00.000-05:00

After two years and two hundred-some-odd posts, I'm ending Filing Cabinet of the Damned.

I began this blog shortly after discovering the miracle of the Comic Internet Blogosphere Talkathon. The delightful madness of dickering over comics and pontificating about What It All Means beckoned to me. I had to join in.

Among my friends and family, I’m the only comic book reader. Filing Cabinet of the Damned provided an avenue to discuss matters that would only generate confused stares and eye-rollings from them.

Harv: “The prophecy says that Darkseid would be killed by his son…but who is his son, really? Orion, the child of his hated wife, a boy he traded away as a youth, a boy he never knew? Kalibak, the offspring of his mistress, a boy he ignored? Or Mister Miracle, the son of his greatest enemy, the boy entrusted to his care? The only boy he himself raised, the only boy who Darkseid cared to mold? Scott Free is Darkseid's true son. Scott will be the one who kills Darkseid in the end!”

Mrs. Harv: “That’s nice, dear. Is this ‘dark side’ the same one Darth Vader talked about? Is Pink Floyd involved? Whose son got away scot free?”

Filing Cabinet was intended to be an outlet for my enthusiasms and pet ideas, and as such, it succeeded, and succeeded brilliantly.

But after a while, I just plain ran out of things to say.

I still enjoy comics, but my excitement over yammering about said funnybooks isn’t there anymore. Recently I picked up a decent-sized stack of comics and the long-awaited Essential Defenders Volume Two, enjoyed the books quite a bit, and yet felt no desire to blog about either of them.

I also farted around with a jokey piece paralleling trends in modern comics and the horrors of Prog Rock, but the damn thing just wouldn’t gel, and, unlike a few months ago, I felt no urge to tinker with the piece.

And thus, I knew I was done.

Playing critic and the general yapping fool was fun for a time, but criticism is not, nor has it ever been, in my blood. Constructing semi-intelligent pieces about other folks’ work no longer feels rewarding. Instead, it feels like time lost from my own work.

All that said, I am not disappearing from the comic blogosphere, nor am I retiring the dumbass pseudonym of “Harvey Jerkwater.” The greatest joy I’ve derived from the comic blogosphere is the connection to like-minded fans it provides. It’s why I blogged in the first place. I’ll continue to read other folks’ comic blogs and make the odd comment here and there.

I’ll also be found elsewhere on the internet, though in non-comic-blog media. Pendant Productions has an upcoming anthology podcast show called Seminar, and I have scripts in the first and fourth episodes. Other junk from my fevered brain will wash up from time to time in other places, I’m sure.

On my way out, I’d like to thank some folks in the blogosphere who’ve made me feel welcome.

Mike Sterling, Neilalien, and Tim O’Neil, a trio of kind gentlemen who gave me my first taste of sweet, sweet publicity.

Scipio Garling of the Absorbascon and Devon Sanders of Seven Hells, who took significant time out of their busy Free Comic Book Day 2006 at Big Monkey Comics to chat with me about a great many things comical.

Dave Campbell, of Dave's Long Box, for his hospitality during my recent visit to Seattle. While in the Emerald City, he charmed the hell out of my wife; for the Dave, the Dave is a smooth devil. He also entertained us with a fine anecdote about Erik Estrada. Sadly, I myself have no anecdotes about Erik Estrada.

The whole crew at Comics Should Be Good, where I was an infrequent poster.

Peter B. Gillis, who wrote not only one of my all-time favorite comics, but a supportive e-mail as well.

Steve Englehart, who granted an interview to this psuedonymous nobody from nowhere.

And, most of all, a big fat thanks to all the readers and commenters on this here blog. I appreciate all of you folks. Really. No foolin'.

It’s been groovy. I’ve had fun.

And rather than drag on a blog I don’t feel like continuing simply for the sake of dragging it forward, it seems proper to end the whole enterprise.

------------------------------

Truth be told, there's another reason beyond simple burnout. My burning out isn't new--I’ve nearly killed this blog a half-dozen times out of disinterest, only to come back when my enthusiasms for comics and nattering about comics rises up again. (“You know what the world needs? A country song about Garth Ennis…I should write one…”)

However, new demands on my time, attention, and enthusiasm have emerged, and, as per the grand cliché, my priorities have been rearranged, likely for a long, long time.

Said priority-rearranger is small, bald, and loud. And it’s not Brian Michael Bendis.

Wee Baby Jerkwater is coming in a day or two.

Damned if the prospect of figuring out how to fit clothes on a squirming baby and which end of the kid to diaper hasn’t sapped my will to prattle on about Steve Ditko and Alan Moore.

(It’s the head, right? The diaper goes over the head, doesn't it? Dammit, where’s that book…)

Eh, who knows. Maybe in three months I'll come crawling back to comic bloggitry, desperate to escape the tyranny of the tot. Probably not, though.

To all the fanboys and fangirls out there, keep it four-color, yo.

See you in the funny books.

Your Internet Bud,

Harvey Jerkwater

The Kirby Character Meme

2006-11-22T15:19:00.000-05:00

I’ve been tagged by Plok of A Trout in the Milk with a simple meme from Sean Kleefeld.

Here’s the original challenge from Kleefeld:

The past few years, I've been writing a column for Jack Kirby Collector that looks at Kirby's visual design of characters. It's been infinitely fascinating for me, and I almost always find some surprises in my research on Kirby's design processes for the characters I write about.

I thought I'd bring other people into the fold by my first attempt at starting a blogosphere meme. Here's the premise:

Forget Jack's overall storytelling, forget his characterization, just look at the visual representation of his characters -- the actual drawings themselves. Now tell us what YOU think is the best character design Jack Kirby ever created and why. The challenge, it seems to me, isn't so much finding a good (or even great) character design; it's narrowing the field down to just one!

What is my favorite Kirby character design? Before I give my answer, I’ll start by saying that I love Captain America, and Kirby did a tremendous job with him. But the costume is more than a little goofy.

The basic idea is great: a modern-day knight, with chain mail, gauntlets, and a shield. The flourishes, though, are strange. Wings on the head? The striped midriff? Ah, well.

Much as I love the guy, he looks a little like a dork.

Who is Kirby’s best design?

Who else?

DOOOOOOOOOOOM!!

Doctor Doom is the counterpoint to Mr. Fantastic. He is the Dark Side of Genius. Where Richards lives in a bright white tower, open to the public, Doom lives in an ancient fortress in a police state. Richards wears a bright blue jumpsuit and creates inventions to push back the boundaries of human knowledge. Doom wears armor and a mask, and his work is purely for the Greater Glory of Dooooooom!

Richards represents intelligence for the good of all and looking to the future. He is the American Space Age. Doom represents intelligence for personal gain and anchored to the nightmares of the past. He is the Gothic Villain.

Doom’s design has a few great touches. The basic form of his costume is the armor. The armor looks medieval, hinting at Doom’s preoccupation with the occult, as well as Doom’s status as an old-tymey genius, the sort who was feared by the populace and kidnapped local maidens for purposes too horrible to contemplate. Over the armor he wears a green tunic, a little reminiscent of Greece and Rome, and a hooded cloak, which reinforces Doom’s sorcerous flavor.

The true genius of Doom’s design is in the mask. Doom’s look is, for the most part, simple: smooth armored limbs, circles at his joints and clasps, the simple green clothes, and the holster. Nothing notable. Doom’s mask is entirely different, without betraying the basic thrust of the design. It draws attention to Victor’s face though it does not disrupt the harmony of the design while doing so.

Nooks and crannies give the mask a sinister look, and draw attention to Doom’s crazy, crazy eyes. The mask’s mouth is full of techno-gadgetry, hinting that Victor’s true insides are not man, but machine. Moreover, the ugliness of the mask hints at the horrible, scarred face beneath it. Doom’s mask is as ugly and frightening as the man who wears it.

(That’s my pet theory as to why cartoon versions of Doom fail—without the details in the mask, the strengths of his design are lost.)

Kirby’s Doom was the greatest ranting, larger-than-life villain the comics have ever produced. It’s a hell of a look.

Of course it is!

For he is DOOOOOOOOOM!!

Who do I tag?

Oh, let's see if the Big Dawgs of the Blogosphere are paying attention.

Dave Campbell, paging Dave Campbell. Chris Sims, paging Chris Sims. Bully the little stuffed bull, paging Bully the little stuffed bull. Devon Sanders, paging Devon Sanders.

Kirby meme on the line.

(Devon doesn't much like Kirby, as I recall. That'll make it fun.)

Today's Obvious Joke

2006-11-21T15:09:00.000-05:00

Coming This Fall!

MARVEL: RECONSTRUCTION!!

In the aftermath of the world-wracking, senses-shattering miniseries event CIVIL WAR comes RECONSTRUCTION!

Wounds will heal!

Alliances will be reformed!

Shattered friendships will be mended!

NOTHING WILL CHANGE!!! EVERYTHING WILL BE THE SAME AGAIN!!

With malice toward none, with action for all... RECONSTRUCTION!!

A just and lasting series, coming this winter from Marvel!

You Could Remake Wings of Desire. Or Not.

2006-11-16T15:00:00.000-05:00

[I’ve been puttering with this for a few days, and then Tom Foss of The Fortress of Soliloquy posts something very similar. Dammit. Ah, well…]

The Martian Manhunter, beloved by many comic fans and ignored by the general public, has a miniseries out now that’s supposed to redefine and reinterpret the character. This isn’t a big deal. J’onn J’onzz has been redefined and reinterpreted a half-dozen times. What reviews I’ve read of the miniseries have been negative, and that this revision of J’onn (a grim, X-Files-esque grim-n-gritty conspiracy character) is wrongheaded.

Superman is considered a challenge to write by many because of his vast powers and strength. What can give the Ultimate Man difficulty? The Martian Manhunter possesses that challenge squared.

J’onn’s powers range so widely, it’s hard to make a comprehensive list. To begin with, he has the “Superman Package:” super-strength, flight, invulnerability, “Martian Vision” (a sort-of heat vision), and the now-ignored super-breath. He doesn’t have these powers at the same level as Superman, but he’s not that far off.*

Then there’s his telepathy, shape-shifting, intangibility, and invisibility powers.

I’m probably forgetting a few.**

The Martian Manhunter has been around since the mid-fifties and has never been a major player. In all likelihood, he’ll never be one. But consarn it, the character can be a good one, and I’d love to see him carry an ongoing series again.

Because ideas are cheap and easy, and so am I, here are a couple of ten-cent ideas out of my four-color brain for a workable ongoing Martian Manhunter series.***

…

Beetle-Brows of Desire
The Logic: J’onn can read minds, travel invisibly, and become anyone. He is also the last of his kind, a lone Martian among billions of humans. More than any mainstream superhero, J’onn could transition to a Vertigo title. The “alienated outsider moping” potential for a Martian Manhunter series is enormous.

The High Concept: Wings of Desire meets The Fugitive. An invisible protector and agent of change, the Last Martian rights everyday wrongs among a group of unhappy people and seeks his place in a world where he does not belong.

You can just smell the clove cigarettes and coffee, can’t you?

“I walk among them unknown. I am with them, but never of them. Alone, forever and ever, to know them to the depths of their souls and yet never truly know them.” And so forth. Anguish! Angst! Arty-fartyness!

A doomed love would be a necessary component to the series, I’d imagine.

Soundtrack by Morrissey.****

…

The Hunter of Men
The Logic: Most efforts to shape interest in J’onn as a solo character stress his Martianness. But that’s only half of his name. Put the accent on the second half: Manhunter.

J’onn has had flirtations with detective stories throughout his history, and a brief superspy career. During the James Bond Era of popular culture, also known as the mid-sixties, the Martian Manhunter infiltrated, fought, and brought down the eeeevil criminal conspiracy V.U.L.T.U.R.E.

Given J’onn’s less common abilities (telepathy, shapeshifting, etc.), espionage is a genre for which he’s well suited. Particularly comic-book espionage, with its orbital laser platforms, mad scientists, killer robots, and so forth.

The High Concept: The Human Target meets Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD, with a hint of Superman. J’onn joins Checkmate, the superspy organization. They may or may not know who he really is. The Manhunter infiltrates and thwarts threats to humanity ranging from the globe-spanning Cult of Kobra to a handful of disaffected soldiers causing trouble in Mexico City. He can uncover anyone’s secret, reach any spot on the planet, and has the power to obliterate whatever stands against him. He was made for low-profile work.

Also, conspiracy masterminds make more sense as foes for J’onn than most villains. With his ability to read minds, the only way to keep him from discovering your plans is to make sure that the people you send against him don’t know your plans. Or know the wrong plans. Or use robots. Y’know, mastermind stuff.

…

My Three J’onzz
The Logic: The Martian Manhunter has been on Earth since the nineteen-fifties. He’s from a highly advanced civilization that was dedicated to both science and spirit. He’s been reading our minds and living among us for sixty years. In short, despite being a Martian, nobody knows the human heart half as well as J’onn.

Moreover, he’s well-known for being kind, loving, and compassionate. He was a family man on Mars, and he has close bonds with many humans. Due to his great losses on Mars, he appreciates the value of those bonds.

The Manhunter’s greatest success as a character came when he acted as the “heart” of the Justice League, especially in its comedy years. J’onn the kindhearted ringmaster of a loopy circus was a character readers loved.

The High Concept: The Brady Bunch meets Runaways meets Explosiones Grandes en Cuatro Colores. Plus jokes.

Cast J’onn as the patriarch of a clan of orphaned and/or abandoned superhumans. The children of fourth-rate supervillians, like in Runaways, or maybe just random kids. They range in age from ten to eighteen, and include Cindy Reynolds, also known as “Gypsy,” a teenage superheroine towards whom J’onn has felt paternal since her days in the Justice League, oh so many years ago.

The kids can vary in personality and be downright loopy. I figure there'd be about four of 'em, each with different whacked-out powers. A robot dog would be mandatory, as would Oreos. Lots of Oreos.

The Martian Manhunter knows that to keep the kids safe, they have to pretend to be a normal human family. The kids may or may not put up with this at any given moment. Also, since they’re the only superhumans in the greater Denver area, they’re also called upon to act superheroically on occasion.

To round out the family, J’onn and the kids share the house with Elaine Cannell, a character I just made up. Elaine is an ordinary woman with an ordinary life, despite being a telepath. She hides her power, since it freaks people out. Her telepathy is remarkably similar to the Martian flavor, which captures J’onn’s attention. She’s also warm and groovy. They fit together perfectly, and dadgumit if J’onn doesn’t have a love interest.

J’onn helps support the family through detective work with his old partner, Diane Meade. When not on the job, he trains and protects his proteges, as irritating as they can be. And, when the need arises, he leads them into big ol’ super-fights.

The series would have to be kept light and fluffy, with the occasional dip into Big Scary Drama. Sibling rivalry with superpowers! Date night drama! Lex Luthor has sent an army of Bizarros to attack, and they’ve torn up the vegetable garden! The world is ending and Gyspy has a term paper to finish! One of the boys has built nine robot dinosaurs and is attacking the school!

…

Just spitballin’.

------------------------------
* Also in the Superman vein, he has a signature weakness, in the manner of kryptonite: fire. For most of his career, he’s been pretty much a Superman copy with a stronger emphasis on the alien side.

** Ye gods. It’s almost easier to make a list of things he can’t do. I’m pretty sure he can’t speak to fish. Though I suppose he could talk to fish if he applied himself…dammit, this is hard. He can’t time travel! There ya go.

*** Please note that all of these are “continuity lite.” No retroactive changes, but also not a lot of attention paid to the past. The brief ongoing Martian Manhunter series often got bogged down in explaining old storylines or retrofitting assorted junk into a more coherent shape. As a fan, I appreciated the effort to sort out the past, but it didn’t help the series. As far as these proposals are concerned, the Ostrander/Mandrake interpretation of J’onn J’onzz’s history is just fine.

Comics that exist only to clarify how old comics fit into new comics makes me sad. Infinite Crisis depressed me.

**** I date myself by my musical references. For you kids today, replace "Morrissey" with "Dashboard Confessional."

Like a Thief in the Midafternoon

2006-11-07T17:47:00.000-05:00

It’s amazing the things a blogger will do to come up with content, especially during National Novel Writing Month.

Take this lame-ass stunt: Chris’s Invincible Super-Blog is taking reader questions. The best question wins a prize.

What’s so lameass about that?

The lameass thing is that I’m stealing a bunch of the questions and answering them myself.

Yeah, yeah, it’s weak. Real life has made me its bitch of late and demanded a lot of my time. As always, the blog is the first thing to suffer.

So...on to the stolen questions!

----------------------
Fiendenstein said...
Beta Ray Bill is an alien, a cyborg, and an 80's icon....but why does he have a skeletal horse's face?
--THE ANSWER IS: Intimidation purposes. Criminals are a superstitious, cowardly lot. Thus, he became…an alien cyborg thunder god horse. Makes sense to me. C'mon, tell me that a real-life Beta Ray Bill wouldn’t strike bowel-loosening terror in you and I’ll call you a liar. A dirty, horse-faced liar.

Dave Lartigue said...
Could Lockjaw clamp down on Mjolnir hard enough to prevent it returning to Thor?
--THE ANSWER IS: No, but it would rule if he could. Instead, he’d latch onto the hammer and get dragged back to Thor. I have to say, Lockjaw is far and away the coolest character named after tetanus. Other Inhumans with similar names, such as “Rusty Nailgun” and “Brigadier General Stiffness of Muscles,” were not as popular.

Gordon said...
[Harvey], why isn't there more punching in comics?
--THE ANSWER IS: Kicking is all the rage these days, especially with the rise of soccer-style kickers in the modern era. That being said, I predict a “back-to-punching” movement in the next few years as heroes age. Easier on the hamstrings.

Jim said...
If you were bonded to a disembodied head that only you could see and talk to, who would you want as your Prof. Stein?
--THE ANSWER IS: Emeril Lagasse. He’s cute, he's friendly, and he's so close to a perfect superhero catch phrase it breaks my heart. If Emeril were my Invisible Disembodied Head Buddy, I’m sure I could push him over the top and it work. “BAM! Let’s kick him up the crotch!” And I would.

jacob munford said...
I was reading some comic blog the other day and it posited the theory that due to the insular nature of the superhero comic book industry, it is only a matter of time before Marvel and DC become the same thing. Which made me think...Can Batman and Luke Cage coexist in the same world? And if so, what happens when they run out of thugs to brutally wreck and then sass?
--THE ANSWER IS: Yes, they can. And if that happened, the two of them would put aside their super-identities and open an erotic bakery. Bruce would shape the cakes with a Bat-knife, and Luke would perform the delicate icing work. He's a demon with a pipette. Sweet Christmas!

Shon Richards said...
What reccomended music do you suggest as the soundtrack for your blog?
--THE ANSWER IS: The Tom Jones cover of “Kung Fu Fighting,” available on the soundtrack to the Jackie Chan movie “Supercop.” Or the Tony Bennett album “The Beat of My Heart.” Tony Bennett + Art Blakey = Unfettered Awesomeness.

Brandon said...
Super-expensive Dr. Doom replica costume, jetpack and laser pistol included? Or lifesize remote-controlled Devil Dinosaur that you could ride around on?
--THE ANSWER IS: Assuming the Doom-suit was functional metal armor, I'd pick the Doom suit. Why? Because I already spend an inordinate amount of my time plotting revenge against the Accursed Richards, building super-science gadgets, and yelling “Bah!” The suit would complete the look. A Devil Dinosaur replica would be pure radness, but it’d be hell to keep the damn neighbor kids off of it.

Norrin2 said...
If the original Green Lantern was powerless against wood, how did he handle unwanted erections?
--THE ANSWER IS: His comedy sidekick, Doiby Dickles. “Doiby” was an old hobo term meaning…um…never mind. Hi Mom! Anyway, the answer is “Doiby Dickles.”

Ragnell said...
I can't believe no one else has asked this: What is the meaning of life?
--THE ANSWER IS: A friend of mine struggled with the Meaning of Life for years and then one day it came to him. The key insight? “You know what’s good? General Tso’s Chicken. You know what sucks? That movie Point Break.” He lives his life by these words, as do I.

Christopher said...
Why do people like the Authority so much when the characters are two-dimensional, it doesn't address the implications of its premise, and the fight scenes are purfonctory and lacking in suspense.
--THE ANSWER IS: Because it caters to people’s contempt for others. Reading it allows fanboys to vent their misanthropy and feel superior at the same time. There’s a little portion of each and every one of us that wants to rule the world and suspects the only reason that we don’t is a lack of (metaphorical) balls. The Authority indulges that portion of us. Thus, The Authority is a purer wish-fulfillment book than most, and thus, it stinks at the zoo.

Anonymous said...
such a horrible time for us blog readers;
Dial B for Blog ends
the 4th Rail was already gone
Hypno Ray said he was quitting.
Dave's Long Box takes vacations
the fortress keeper hasn't reviewed much for nearly 3 weeks
The Absorbacon is witty with Golden Age Bondage but where's the review section?
and Devon's slacking.
C'mon [Harvey]...you've been the one constant guy...don't stop now!
My buddy trent told me to start a blog. I did and it's already on hiatus.
JettBlackBerryX
Alan
--THE ANSWER IS: I myself am going to stop writing this blog at the end of the year. I’ll explain why then. (Of course, I might change my mind. I’ve nearly killed this thing six times.)

Ryan O said...
is the springfield monorail faster than the flash?
--THE ANSWER IS: In my family, we call fires “uh-ohs!”

Johnny said...
where do babies come from?
--THE ANSWER IS: Diamond distributors. I have one on back-order. She’s a holofoil beauty! Hope she has the right number of staples.

djmikerdee said...
Dammit! Why have you not done an overview on the greatest comic series of all time: "Skull the Slayer" - 8 whopping issues of Marvel madness with dinosaurs, aliens, Aztecs and - for two Marvel Two-In-One issues - Benjamin Grimm! C'mon [Harvey]! It's the bestest!!!!
--THE ANSWER IS: I own one or two issues of Skull the Slayer, purchased from a quarter bin. Holy crap, it was a weird series. Also, during the mid-seventies, Marvel experimented with "jackass heroes," and Skull was one of ‘em. A very unpleasant man. A strange, strange book. I may have to dig it out for a post.

Brian said...
Oh no, a huge stack of longboxes full of Good copies of 'Rom Spaceknight' has collapsed and crushed your body! Fortunately it's a Wednesday, and there's a mad scientist at your store ready to transplant your brain into a new body. What body, m'friend? A super-ape? Luke Cage? A cyborg whale with laser cannons sprouting out of its blowholes?
--THE ANSWER IS: An air-breathing octopus with laser-eyes and suckers so powerful they could open up tiny wormholes in the space-time continuum, should I so desire. And I would. Also, the body would have a voice like Barry White. And smell like maple syrup.

Devon said...
Don't hate the playa, hate the game, [Jerkwater]! *wink*
--THE ANSWER IS: I have enough hate for everyone. Not to worry. Plenty to share.

Rick said...
Can you confirm or deny that Batman is the Chuck Norris of the DC Universe? In Justice League Unlimited episode: Destroyer, Batman starts to yell at someone as their bodyguard readies to attack him, yet runs into batman's fist, all with batman focused on talking to his target!
--THE ANSWER IS: I deny it. The Chuck Norris of the DC Universe is…Chuck Norris. His comics have never been published,* because the technology does not yet exist for a printed page to kick each and every reader in the head.
(*No, “Chuck Norris Karate Kommandos” does not count. That was Marvel, and he’s already kicked to death everyone invovled in that fiasco.**)
(**Except Steve Ditko. Even Chuck Norris won’t mess with Steve Ditko.)

Weird Comics: Avengers #1

2006-11-10T12:06:00.000-05:00

Early Marvel was really, really strange. Take Avengers #1.

The story begins with Loki, the evil Norse god, tricking everyone into thinking the Hulk was a menace. (Which, come to think of it, he was. Details, eh?) To keep safe, the Hulk goes into hiding...

As an elephant-juggling robot clown in a circus.

Which, when you think about it, makes perfect sense.

Ahem.

Better still, people fall for it. They "just happened to find" a giant green clown robot with superhuman strength. For that to seem normal, well, let's just say that Marvel Earth must be a very cool place.

Yes, the people fall for the Hulk's cunning disguise. The ant in the panel's lower-left corner doesn't. Take that how you will.

Said ant alerts Ant-Man, who has been searching for the Hulk. Ant-Man rushes to the circus and unleashes his secret weapon and a great catch phrase: "Release the steel cylinder, my tiny warriors!"

Righteous.

Later on, the Hulk fights the Wasp, a tiny flying heroine, with the best tool for the job, and a tool I suppose he always keeps on hand: fireplace bellows.

Sweet.

Near the issue's climax, the mighty Thor comes after his eeeevil brother, only to fall prey to...mad, hot, sweaty hairy-backed troll love.

Yeah, I love comics.

The Sub-Mariner's Rogue's Gallery, Improved

2006-11-08T18:51:00.000-05:00

Today's dippy thought: The Sub-Mariner's name is "Namor." A good faux-foreign name. Twenty bucks and a box of doughnuts says it was derived from spelling "Roman" backwards.*

That being the case, shouldn't he have a Rogues' Gallery made up of villains named Labinnah, Nainigahtrac, Htogisiv, and Ladnav?

I'm just sayin'.

--------------------------------------
*The Wikipedia claims that Namor's creator, Bill Everett, got the name to Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner." I'm not buyin' it. A quick scan of the poem shows no such name, nor even a similar-sounding name. I sez it's "Roman" backwards. The poem may have inspired the character himself, but the name? Nah.

El Dia de los Muertos

2006-11-01T12:47:00.000-05:00

Today, November 1, is the beginning of the two-day celebration Dia de los Muertos, or "Day of the Dead." The holiday has special meaning to me, as part of my mixed heritage.

To honor my Mexican-American heritage, I celebrate the day by decorating my house in festive skulls and bake some tasty pan de muerto in memory of loved ones and friends who have passed away.*

To honor my Ninja-American heritage, I celebrate the day by killing a lot of people.** The Day of the Dead is big in Ninja culture, what with the traditional emphasis on killing. Killing and family, that's what Ninja are about. Well, and barbeques. Nobody barbeques like Ninja. Anyway, killing on this day ensures that I'll have plenty more friends and loved ones to mourn and celebrate next year. I ask you, what is a Day of the Dead without plenty of dead? A lame-ass holiday, that's what it is.

Even if you aren't of Mexican origins or trained in the deadly arts of ninjutsu, I suggest you take some time out today to remember those who are no longer with us, and celebrate their lives.

And if the mood strikes, go ahead and kill someone. That'll make next year's celebration all the richer.

-----------------------------
* This is a blatant lie. I am not Hispanic.

** This is a blatant truth. So watch it. That noise behind you five minutes ago that you didn't hear? That was me, and that was a warning.

Self-Defense Tip #1

2006-10-30T08:02:00.000-05:00

We here at Filing Cabinet of the Damned feel it important to give back to the community from time to time. Not only do such acts serve the common good, thus benefitting each and every one of us, it also cuts into the public service time mandated by the courts.

Below is a diagram of a vital self-defense technique, certain to be of use should you ever be threatened: the Twisker Sock.

With this, no one will dast to risk your fisk.

I’m Just Saying, Is All.

2006-10-25T16:12:00.000-04:00

The Cranberries’ song Zombie, a mid-nineties hit, would have been a lot cooler had it not been about The Troubles in Ireland and instead been about The Troubles with the Living Dead.

But you see, it's not me, it's not my family.
Eat your head, eat your head, they are biting,
With their stench and their lurch,
And their lurch and their mung.
Eat your head, eat your head, they are coming.
Eat your head, eat your head,
Zombie, zombie

Not everybody is Irish. Everybody fears zombies. Simple as that.

--------------------------------------------

Quote of the day:

“Now and then we had a hope that if we lived and were good, God would permit us to be pirates.”
--Mark Twain, “Life on the Mississippi.”

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I miss super-villain deathtraps. Cheese-laden though they were, they combined ingenuity with visual flair, capturing the purest heart of comic book madness.

There should be a deathtrap renaissance. Fans might dig it.

At least one of the traps should revolve around a theme of air hockey.

--------------------------------------------

Marvel Comics is tying into the soap opera Guiding Light. The soap will have a character get super-powers and mention the comic in episodes, and a few Marvel comics will have Guiding Light stories in them.

It would work so much better with Wife Swap.

“Sue Richards, mother of two and full-time adventurer with her science-hero family in New York City, is changing places with Alice Dolphy, a fun-loving junk food junkie from Tallahassee!”

Well, y'know, assuming that comics were real and stuff.

--------------------------------------------

The expression “a crimp in your style,” meaning something has hindered you, should have an opposite expression. I suggest “a chimp in your style,” meaning that things are going great.

“That raise put a chimp in my style, man!”

--------------------------------------------

National Novel Writing Month kicks off in about a week. To prepare, I absconded with a stack of “how-to-be-writin’-books-and-suchlike” tomes from the public library. After a few days of scanning through them, I have reached a conclusion about books on writing.

To paraphrase Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, I poop on them.

I’m very, very tempted to review the books as a NaNoWriMo countdown. They’re not all entirely useless, just most of them. Then there was John Gardner’s The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers, which, while giving a few very fine points, also went out of its way to intimidate the reader and stress the need for perfection in all aspects of writing. Ugh. I drew a bit of stone-hearted comfort in the knowledge that Gardner’s own fiction falls well short of his standards.

--------------------------------------------

A recent post by Booksteve reminded me of a movie that every lover of cheap cinema should check out: Roger Corman’s production of The Raven. Not only did it inspire Dr. Strange, the movie itself is a riot.

Roger Corman, King of the Hacks, made a string of Poe-inspired movies in rapid succession. The common themes meant he could re-use sets and even shots, thereby saving tons of cash. This was a typical Corman idea. The Raven was one of the last Poe movies, and he had fun with it.

The cast was incredible. It starred Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, Jack Nicholson, and Boris Karloff. Ye gods. To see the traditional actors Price and Karloff against the Method Acting madness of Nicholson and Lorre renders the movie worth the price of rental.

It didn't take itself at all seriously--the story begins with a raven speaking with the voice of Peter Lorre. How cool is that? Very. The Lorre-bird tells sorcerer Vincent Price that he had been transformed into the bird by an eeevil sorcerer and he needed Price's help. The movie gets loopier from there. And yes, it has a woman named Lenore.

The Corman Poe movies were hurried, slap-dash affairs, and they were all the better for it. The very last one, The Terror, took this approach to the extreme. Corman had Karloff on contract for one last day, so he shot a few scenes of Boris doing assorted things. Later, Corman and a group of assistants (including a very young Francis Ford Coppola and Jack Nicholson) shot a bunch of other footage around the Karloff footage, making the story up as they went, creating a glorious mess.

Hell yeah.

--------------------------------------------

After decades of avoiding them, I've started reading The Legion of Super-Heroes. A reboot, plus Mark Waid, got my attention. So I bought the first two trade paperback collections.

Danged if I don't like it. Waid plays into the zeitgeist very well. He is a clever, clever bastard. I'll write a longer post about it soon.

--------------------------------------------

I would kill a man right now for a sweet, sweet doughnut.

Mark Trail's Newest Ally in the War On Naughtiness!

2006-10-20T17:19:00.000-04:00

The Mark Trail comic strip for Thursday, October 16, 2006 introduced a bold new character, one certain to become a fan favorite:

CRIMEFIGHTER DUCK!
He's ready to lend a bill to help Mark Trail arrest a pair of dastardly poachers!

He'll find them and bring them to web-footed justice if he has to tear apart the city to do it!

Crimefighter Duck is a relentless manhunter! No crooks can shake this drake!

WAAAUGH!

------------------------

On a mostly unrelated note, I just found out that the upcoming Dr. Fate ongoing series will be written by Steve Gerber. The Gerb was responsible for some of the great whacked-out comics ever produced, including the recently-cancelled and damn fine book Hard Time. His fondness for the absurd, his gift for strange imagery, and his strong humanism should make the series a high point for DC.

Sweeeet.

Whoever hired The Gerb for the job, I owe you a fruit basket.

The Joys of Super-Villainy

2006-10-17T13:37:00.000-04:00

Bully over at Comics Should Be Fun recently asked:

[What about the] lower level of science villain who's smart and savvy enough to create technology powerful enough to at least temporarily go up against Spider-Man or Superman or Batman or the Flash, but doesn't cash in on it: what's his story, I always wonder? Why has the megalomania gotten in the way of him seeing that he just developed a dandy radioactive-powered ice gun for which world conglomerates would pay millions to lease or buy the technology, and instead decide to use it to rob the Second National Bank of Keystone City?

Oh, innocent stuffed bull. So young.

Say you've been puttering around your garage and accidentally invented The Mighty Veeblefetzer, a device that allows you to transform, um, adult contemporary radio hits into deadly force blasts. A Phil Collins CD would be enough to shatter a mountainside, Kenny G albums could liquefy the flesh of an entire city from a distance of twelve kilometers, that kind of thing.

If you took your mind-blowing invention and went legitimate, a typical day might go like this:

Begin the day with a board meeting. Then enter a conference call with two subcontractors, a customer, and a government observer. Later spend six hours going through spreadsheets to calculate monthly EACs. Stay at the office late into the night to polish up a report that will hopefully keep the research funding flowing.

If you took your invention and went eeeevil, a typical day might go like this:

Begin the day by donning your Invincible Battle Armor. Take to a stage in front of millions of your brainwashed minions. Bellow to them that you will destroy the world should the fools in Washington not accede to your all-too-reasonable demands. Tell your minions of their need to sacrifice themselves for your glory. Then shake your fists above your head in triumph as you cry out "WHO WILL DIE FOR ME?" and celebrate as those hapless millions scream their desire to end their lives simply to please you. Feel the world tremble in fear beneath your feet.

Granted, the first instance would probably end with a viewing of "Law and Order" reruns and a nice conversation with the spouse back at home, and the second would probably end with a gaggle of super-beings caving in your skull or disintegrating you.

Until that moment, what a rush.

The key to villainy is that it's so much fun. Life without the occasional power-mad cackle or cry of "seize him!" is a life hardly worth living. Super-villaining is choosing to live in a universe ruled by a bipolar god: the lows are lower than you'd ever believe, and the highs are greater than a normal person could ever fantasize.

Imagine that your favorite sports team has won the World Series/Super Bowl/whatever, you've struck a massive gold vein in your backyard, the Sexiest Man or Woman Alive has shown up on your doorstep seeking your affections, and the news announced that your face will be added to Mount Rushmore in light of your total awesomeness.

Now imagine all of that happening at the exact same time.

The best parts of super-villainy are like that. But better.

The finest explanation of villainy comes from a true American pioneer in the field. Henry David Thoreau stalked the forests of New England in the mid-nineenth century, clad in a green mask and tights. He called himself "The Verdant Caesar" and used a primitive robot, a "steam-boiler man" of his own construction, to attempt a conquest of Concord, Massachusetts.

Though he failed due to the interference of an unnamed "Wonder Horse," Thoreau's account of his career inspired generations of super-villains. To quote from the original, unedited text of Walden:

I went to the woods because I wished to live villainously, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, to discover that I had not lived.

Preach on, brother Harry. Preach on.

By the way, I'm starting up a super-secret world-conquering conspiracy. So far I've got a few telepathic gorillas, a ninja clan on retainer, a mid-sized flying saucer, some doohickey I bought on eBay called a "Magma Bomb," and a line on a fixer-upper Giant Nazi Robot. (I'm good with tools, so it should be operational by Christmas.) Those wishing to volunteer now as either elite guards or goon-class henchmen, please notify me in the comments section. We will conquer, they will bow at our feet, the world is ours, etc., etc.

Hector Hammond, MODOK, and Me: The Benefit of the Epic Melon

2006-10-10T15:17:00.000-04:00

I have a big head.

Not just in the figurative sense; it is also true in the strictly physical sense. According to current medical literature, my head fits in the technical category of "Epic Melon."

How epic? I cannot wear hats, save for those available at Big Head Caps. My skull's circumference is greater than two feet. The only people I know of with larger noggins than mine are a pair of NFL linemen, both all-around enormous men, both over six foot six. I'm five foot ten.

The advantages of giant heads have proven to be few. I do save a lot of money in souvenir caps, since nobody makes 'em in my size. Nobody dares to engage me in head-butting competitions.

Today I ran across this tasty tidbit from Reuters News Service:
Head growth in infancy tied to later intelligence

Head growth in fetal life and infancy is associated with later intelligence, new research hints. Moreover, catch-up increases do not appear to compensate for poor early growth.

"Brain growth in early life may be important in determining not only the level of peak cognitive function attained but also whether such function is preserved in old age," the study team writes in the journal Pediatrics. "Older people with a larger head circumference tend to perform better on tests of cognitive function and may have reduced risks of cognitive decline and of Alzheimer's disease."

Several studies in children have shown that those with larger brains, measured with imaging studies or as head circumference, tend to score higher on tests of cognitive function. Similar associations have been found in adults.

For their study, Dr. Catharine R. Gale, of the University of Southampton, UK, and colleagues examined the effect of head growth in fetal life, infancy, and childhood on brain power at the ages of 4 and 8 years. Included in the study were 633 term children who had their head circumference measured at birth and at regular intervals thereafter.

By age 1, mean head circumference increased from 34.9 cm at birth to 46.6 cm. Head growth after infancy was slower. Mean head circumference increased to 50.9 cm by 4 years and to 53.4 cm by 8 years.

Average full-scale IQ was 106.3 at 4 years and 105.6 at 8 years. The investigators report that only prenatal growth and growth during infancy were associated with later IQ.

At 4 years, after adjusting for parental factors, there was an average increase in full-scale IQ of 2.41 points for each 1 standard deviation increase in head circumference at birth and 1.97 points for each 1-SD increase in head growth during infancy. This was conditional on head size at birth.

Head circumference at birth was no longer associated with IQ at 8 years. However, head growth during infancy remained significantly predictive, with full-scale IQ increasing an average of 1.56 points for each 1-SD increase in head growth.

SOURCE: Pediatrics October 2006.

That's right, bitches. Fear my Alzheimer's-resistant mega-mind.

The article speaks of "tendencies" and "averages." Bah! As the proud possessor of a considerable coconut, I know perfectly damn well that I'm extra-brilliant, courtesy of the extra skull space. Moreover, that extra space isn't just for holding random facts about comic books, either. No, no. It serves a special function.

Should you ever see me, or any of my massively-meloned bretheren, squinting, it's because we're using our extra-big brains to read your puny mind.

Think nice thoughts, human.

A Notion, Rooted in Cross-Dressing

2006-10-06T16:34:00.000-04:00

Since I'm sharing random brain farts today, here's another.

Something that would be super-cool to see in the upcoming Iron Man movie...

A conceit from the movie Tootsie.

Tony Stark, a boy genius grown up, an alcoholic womanizer, and a multimillionare munitions magnate, is forced by circumstances to assemble a mechanized battlesuit. He uses the suit to fight monsters and do good deeds. This public-spiritedness is supremely out of character for the arrogant Boy Wonder. Even he is a little mystified by it.

It has a parallel with Michael Dorsey in Tootsie, an actor who masquerades as a woman, Dorothy Michaels, to get an acting job. Dorsey, to his surprise, finds himself acting differently when pretending to be a woman. Midway through the movie, Dorsey relates to his roommate a difficulty he'd had that day on the job. "If it were me, I would have bawled the guy out," Dorsey explains. "But she didn't." Michael then has a minor epiphany. "I think Dorothy is smarter than I am."

Imagine a scene where Stark's on-again, off-again girlfriend, Whitney Frost, finds him in the armor, sans helmet. She asks, "Tony...really? Fighting bad guys and saving kittens in trees? You?"

Stark sputters for a minute, confused. He stares at his helmet and then blurts "Iron Man is better than I am!" He pauses again, confused at what he just said.

Once freed from expectations and his past, Stark discovers that he isn't the petty bastard he always thought he was, or that he at least has the potential to be a good man.

(...okay, okay, the movie is almost certainly centered around this very idea. It's kinda obvious. I just wanted to work in the "I think Dorothy is smarter than I am" quote into a post. I think it translates well to the world of superheroes and the nature of the secret identity. Plus, I don't work in enough references to cross-dressing in my blog. Have to work on that.)

.....

A bonus picture: Abraham Lincoln at RFK Stadium, working the crowd during a Washington Nationals game. He'd just participated in the "Presidents' Race" down the first base line.

The Viola

2006-10-06T12:50:00.000-04:00

The viola. Every team has one.

The mid-range character who never truly establishes himself or herself as a major player, but without whom, the team feels wrong somehow; off-balance. Violas generally fill in harmonies, occupying the gap between the violin and the cello. They play vital roles in chamber music. But few solo concerti or sonatas have been written for them.

Violas are not “second fiddles,” backup characters who labor in the shadow of a superior version of themselves. No, violas provide something unique, yet something ill-suited to stand alone.

The Martian Manhunter, Wonder Man, the Vision, all are classic violas. They provide texture and depth to their teams, but seem ill-suited for solos. The Black Knight. Maybe Cyborg? I don’t know.

I ask you, o comic fans: What makes a character a viola? Is there a surefire technique to spot a viola-in-the-making? Can a character overcome that status? I can’t think of any off the top of my head, though I’m sure it’s happened at least once. Is Cyclops the viola of the X-Men? Who are some key violas? Who is your favorite?

This is the kind of stuff I think about during my commute.

Gray Hat: Hooerhouse America and an Appreciation of the Peculiar Heroism of One Mister Jonah Hex

2006-10-03T13:01:00.000-04:00

The last Western hero in comics was a disfigured bounty hunter, a man of dubious moral fiber who brought pain and death wherever he went. Long after every other cowboy hung up his sixguns, he rode on. He lasted because he brought something to comics that no other hero did, and he brought it well.

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Little Bill Daggett: I don't deserve this... to die like this. I was building a house.
Will Munny: Deserve's got nothin' to do with it.
Little Bill Dagget: I'll see you in hell, William Munny.
Will Munny: Yeah.
--Unforgiven
-----------------

Jonah Hex was a killer. He’d kill to fulfill his job, and often he killed to carve out a little justice. Yet there’s a difference between him and the killer vigilantes of comics set in the modern era, such as the Punisher.

The Punisher’s stories are also filled with horrible crimes and murderous retribution, but they center on a different idea. The story of the Punisher is, at its heart, the story of a good man’s fall into hell. Frank Castle’s world is forever split between the Good Life of before, when order and love reigned, and the Nightmare World that an act of senseless violence threw him into, where all is chaos and hate. The Punisher kills to restore order to the world and to give himself the satisfaction of punishing those he feels to be evil.

Hex’s world was of a wholly different substance. Jonah had no fall from grace, no lost golden age. He was not trying to restore order to a world gone mad. The heart of Hex's story is that the world was always mad, and Jonah had to live in it. Hex was never on a great moral quest; he was just trying to get by.

He was decent and honorable in his way, simply because that’s who he was. A form of decency was innate to him, something he couldn't ignore even when he wanted to. And therefore he killed, because sometimes his world required that a decent man kill.

-----------------
Mordecai: What happens after?
The Stranger: Hmm?
Mordecai: What do we do when it's over?
The Stranger: Then you live with it.
--High Plains Drifter
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Hex’s world was filled with the greedy, the immoral and the amoral. Examples abound in his recent Showcase Presents volume. In one story, a cute, bumbling sheriff with a pretty little lady love sets off on the trail of violent thieves, joined by a protective Hex. In short order, Hex found that the sheriff was in on the gang’s crimes, seeing another woman on the side, and ready to kill Hex to keep it all secret. In another story, a young boy sold out Hex to a gang of killers for a quarter. A story about a corrupt tollbooth owner showed two children drown in swamp muck on-panel. Hex later finding the corpse of their mother rotting in a lime pit. It’s a cold, hard place, that West.

The worldview of Jonah Hex isn’t sophisticated. “The whole world ain't nuthin but a hooerhouse” is hardly a groundbreaking idea in and of itself. But it was unusual for both comics and westerns, entertainments notorious for clearcut black-hat villains and white-hat heroes, where virtue won out and everything was always fine in the end. By contrast, Hex’s gray-hat world was confusing and cruel, where good men were warped into villains by necessity and bad men often got away with their crimes.

In the seventies, Superman and Batman comics told you that bad men wore silly costumes, gave obvious clues to their intentions, and were always stopped by the forces of good. A kid could find issues of Superman Family, Batman Family, and super-teams a’plenty, and there he would find brotherhood and clean-cut adventure. On that same spinner rack, Jonah Hex told kids that the world was a treacherous place, everybody looks out for number one, and that when it matters, we all walk alone.

------------------
Will Munny: Hell of a thing, killin' a man. Take away all he's got and all he's ever gonna have.
The Schofield Kid: Yeah, well, I guess he had it comin'.
Will Munny: We all got it comin', kid.
--Unforgiven
------------------

Constant messages of shiny hope and glowing optimism feel false after a while. Hex was a counterbalance to regular comics, a recognition of the unsavory side of existence. Rather than wallow in power fantasies of conquest with Superman or the Legion of Super-Heroes, the Hex reader wallowed in dark fantasies of alienation. Marinating in a stew of cheap cynicism can be a hell of a lot of fun.

Both the new ongoing Jonah Hex series and the recently-published Showcase Presents volume reprinting his early years are worth the time and money. Buy ‘em, fanboys, and enjoy the bitter taste of a world long gone loco.

So Close To My Childhood, It's Spooky

2006-10-02T22:08:00.000-04:00

I haven't heard a lot of positive things about Judd Winick's superhero comics. Not having read them, aside from a few issues from his stint on Green Arrow, I am in no position to talk about them.

About his masterpiece, I will rave: The Adventures of Barry Ween, Boy Genius. So good. So very good. Barry is, as one would hope, a hoot with loads of charm and imagination. But more than that, it captures the flavor of being a young boy--the close friends, the misadventures, and the foul language. Oh, the foul language. Below is a little introduction Barry gives to the reader in his second miniseries (click to enlarge).

The comradery, the sense of possibility in every single day, the bad hair, the endless cursing...it all rings true.

Despite the superscience, aliens, and occasional cloning, Barry Ween is a hell of a lot closer to my childhood than Peanuts ever was.

I had a strange childhood, yes.

C'mon, Winick...the third and best Barry Ween mini finished a long time ago. Make with the funny, dang it!

Two Plus Two Does Not Equal Four Thousand, Nine Hundred and Twelve: A Partial Defense of Mark Millar and Civil War

2006-10-02T13:17:00.000-04:00

Mark Millar and Marvel editorial painted themselves into a wicked corner with the Civil War miniseries. They announced their intentions to both approach the issues of the day and to give the differing sides an equal hearing. Online critics have been blasting them for failing to live up to this goal of even-handedness.

In Millar's defense, that has to be tough.

Not in terms of the “Superhuman Registration Act,” the core of the comic story. Looked at in a vacuum, there are many good arguments to make on both sides of the Act, and the story could be a rich exploration of the politics of a science-fictiony universe. The Marvel Universe would be pulled in a different direction, and characters would be pushed and pulled in directions that they’d never seen before.

However, that’s not what Marvel is doing, now is it?

The motivator behind Civil War (aside from sales, of course) is dealing with the political issues of the real world, not their fictional one. The entire series is, as we’re all well aware, a hamfisted allegory of the struggles between civil liberties and security in America. As is the case of so many badly-written stories in serial fiction, the writer had a story he wanted to tell, and crammed pre-existing characters and situations into that story, deforming and distorting those characters to say what he wants to say. The goal was to interpret real-world events through fictional-world constructs.

In the real world, the split between sides of the issue is difficult to approach with even hands.

One side argues that the threat of terrorism is real, and that to fight it requires that it be pursued vigorously while maintaining a sense of proportion. They argue that if we could maintain our civil liberties in the face of a nuclear-armed Soviet Union, surely we could maintain them in the face of a dork whose plan was to stuff explosives in his sneakers. This side argues that the threats to our safety lie not only with bombers, but also in our own fears, and that courage and responsibility in the face of terror is the only valid response.

The other side is a combination of shrieking hysterics and power consolidation. Insisting that a handful of tragic bombings and terrorist acts have created a paradigm shift in human history, they support secret prisons, the suspension of basic legal protections for individuals, and the suppression of dissent. We must trust our leaders to do the right thing without oversight, because dammit, they said so. This side argues that the threats to our safety lie with both a unified army of shadowy operatives in far-away lands and with the countless quislings at home who would open the gates of America to let the terrorists run rampant, because, well, because they’re spineless traitors or something.

(Thankfully, the latter side is small and largely confined to the White House and Fox News. Finding a regular citizen of any political persuasion who takes that side anymore is a tough one. Honestly, I’m not sure if even the White House believes it.)

When Millar wrote his story, he was confronted with a significant problem. How does one present the sides even-handedly when one side argues for courage, steadfastness, and getting the job done, and the other side screams “AAAAAH!!!! DO ANYTHING!!!! FREEDOM BE DAMNED, I DON’T CARE!! ROUND UP SCARY-LOOKING PEOPLE BEFORE I WET MYSELF AGAIN!!!!! AAAAAHHH!!! DO ANYTHING YOU WANT, JUST LET ME BE SAFE!!!!”

The Civil War storyline begins with a tragedy that leads to hundreds of deaths. A group of concerned governmental-types exploit this tragedy to enact legislation they’ve desired for years. That this new legislation happens to increase their own personal power, well, that’s just a happy side-effect of Making America Safer, now isn’t it? That the legislation is both of dubious effectiveness and questionable legality, well, that’s not as important as rallying behind it, right?

Yeah, that’s not a direct comment on modern America or nothin’.

How can one present this situation and “be fair to both sides?” When one side argues that two plus two equals four, and the other argues that two plus two equals nine thousand eight hundred and twenty, should one tell a story where two plus two equals four thousand nine hundred and twelve and call it “fair?”

And thus we are led to Civil War, where Millar resorts to the only sense of even-handedness that one can have in such situations: page count. The sides do have equal time to express themselves.

If one side happens to express itself by creating killer clones and recruiting armies of violent psychopaths to accomplish its ends, so be it. In the real world, its counterpart side has declared checks on executive power as outdated, rejected the long-held and carefully-crafted structure of law as an enemy of security, and exploded with outrage when its program of secret prisons was exposed. It’s hard to paint that as other than exploitive power-hunger at its worst.

Granted, were I in Millar’s shoes, or those of Marvel editorial, I would never have told the story in this fashion. Men in multicolored tights punching each other out can indeed tell allegorical tales, but they tend not to be the subtlest of fictional creations. To force these characters into stories that violate their long-standing appeal is wrongheaded and makes for bad comics, and moreover, it ends up making weird, simpleminded, and confused comments on the actual events.

Real-world issues tend to be complex and lacking in absolute clarity. Comic books revolve around men and women in primary-colored tights kicking each other in the head. "Exploration of complex political issues" and "boot-to-head make-with-the-explodo four-color action" are difficult to reconcile. Politics in superhero books isn't, and I'd argue can't be, much more complex than what you'd find on a bumper sticker.

I suppose the inclusion of sophisticated politics could be done well, but I can't think of a place where it actually has been. No, I don't read Ex Machina.

("Politics are complex and lacking in clarity" is a notion that runs counter to the spirit of this post, I know. Generally, my political thinking is filled with caveats and conditionals, but some issues are simpler than others. Plus, you'll have to excuse me, I'm ranting today.)

All that being said, if you’re gonna hew to the real-world parallels and political relevance, “balance” can’t be done at the cost of reality. Millar understands that two plus two does not equal four thousand nine hundred and twelve, and that calling people traitors for pointing it out doesn’t change the facts.

Civil War isn’t much fun or a comic I’d recommend to anyone. But I can see where it’s coming from.

First I Cook, Then I Chill: A True Story

2006-09-28T10:39:00.000-04:00

On my wedding day, a delivery truck came to my door. In the truck were several large boxes, addressed to me. Within the boxes was a gift. A gift from an absent friend.

The gift?

Two hundred and forty dollars worth of pudding.

It arrived in seven-pound food service cans. Cans that, to this day, rest in my house.

Why two hundred and forty dollars worth of pudding?

Some of you know why.

For those of you who do not understand or appreciate the gift, here's Levon and Barry Sagittarius to lay it all out.

Awwwww yeah.

'Scuse me, while I kiss the sky.

What Is to Be Done About Nightwing?

2006-09-22T15:29:00.000-04:00

Nightwing nearly got himself cacked in Infinite Crisis. Lots of bloggers around the internet have lamented that the cacking didn’t happen.

Ouch.

What can be done with this guy?

As many others have pointed out, Dick Grayson’s root problem is simple: he’s redundant. He’s not Robin anymore, he can’t be Batman, and so he’s just sorta…there. Stuck as a "Junior Batman," Nightwing hasn’t been established as anything in particular over the last twenty years.

Tim Drake has taken his place as both Robin and The Next Batman. The recently-resurrected Jason Todd has taken the gig of "embittered ex-sidekick." What is Dick?

Best I can tell, Nightwing’s current niche is "Emo Batman." He's a Batman who feels emotions beyond rage and frustration. He’s a brooding avenger of the night with a pseudo-Byronic angle. Oh, the torment! Oh, the agony!*

Which, while it does differentiate him from his stoic mentor, can be powerfully, profoundly irritating.

Twenty bucks and a box of doughnuts says this has been forwarded by many others before, but hey...that never stops me. Here’s my ten-cent Monday Morning Quarterback idea:

Make Nightwing the Batman of the Sixties.

Facing a murderous rampage by axe-wielding Filthy Pierre the Breton Butcher? Call Batman. Need to fight a fourth-dimensional pirate on top of a giant typewriter? Call Nightwing.

With this split, Batman can maintain his "dark avenger of the gritty streets" gig and Nightwing will have a new niche, one that Batman abandoned decades ago. Dick will become the tech whiz/strategist/acrobat for the Justice League. He'll be the laughing daredevil with the brilliant mind and the undertones of dark violence who spends time with Superman and Wonder Woman.

Set him up not as "Junior Batman," but "Social Batman." He's the one the League calls when they need help. He's the one who jet-sets around the world and romances the ladies. He's the one who gets tied up in spy rings in Indonesia. He's the one who invents crazy gadgets, travels through time, and solves murder mysteries in Gorilla City. If anyone should have a Whirly-Bat one-man helicopter, it should be Nightwing.**

In essence, I'd flip the team memberships. Nightwing belongs in the League, the most visible superhero group in the world. Batman belongs with the Outsiders, hiding and fighting the weirder menaces.

This isn't all that different from Marv Wolfman's original interpretation of the character, of his "graduation" from being Robin. (I think.) Because dammit, this approach makes sense. Nightwing is a circus performer by birth, a detective by training, and a whoopass fighter by nature. Robin was created to fill the gaps Batman left. Why not continue that as he reaches maturity?

It would not lessen Batman to have his foster son become a different man in his own right, nor would it rob the character of Batman of anything. It's not like he's fighting four-dimensional pirates on giant appliances these days anyway.

Bring on the Gorilla City murder mysteries and the mad scientists. Dick is ready.

-----------------------
* Granted, I haven’t read Nightwing in a while. I’m going by the reactions of the blogosphere and issue solicits. If I’m wrong about this, please let me know.

** Or me.

Giggety!

2006-09-19T15:16:00.000-04:00

Today I found that the two Big Fat Reprint editions I'd most longed for will, in fact, be produced!

--The Essential Defenders, Volume Two (the Steve Gerber years) and
--Showcase Presents: The Brave and the Bold (the Bob Haney years).

The two I wanted most...the foremost icons of lunatic comics...and I found out about them on the same day...on Talk Like a Pirate Day, no less.

Oh, so sweet. So very sweet. Or, more appropriately, "yaaar, har har!"

I had to share this most excellent news with the blogosphere. I've preordered The Defenders on Amazon, and will throw in B&B as soon as I can. Ah, so good. Those two volumes will contain the high points of whacked-out comics produced by the Big Two in ye olden days. I have dreamed of their publication for some time.

GIGGETY!

Greatest Hits and Personal Favorites

2006-09-15T18:21:00.000-04:00

This used to be on my sidebar, but it seemed like a bit too much shameless promotion. Plus, I couldn’t cram in as much self-love as I’d like into such a tiny space. I loves me some me.

Below are links and synopses of my more popular and/or interesting posts.

THEORY, THEORY, THEORY
I churn out theories on everything, all the time. It’s a bad habit, I know.

The Frisson of Woo, or “Thirty Seconds to Grab ‘Em”
Probably my biggest hit, and a lot of fun to fart around with. A theory of superheroes and icons, filtered through the magic of Hollywood. It was preceded by The Essential Superhero, or Why Captain America is an Anglo Bruce Lee, and followed by Rehabilitating the Lame.

The Mister Teeny Test
How can you tell if a work is an intriguing work of genius you just don’t understand or a bunch of crap thrown against a wall that’s meant to fool you into thinking it’s great by creating confusion? The Mister Teeny Test can answer that.

Penetrating Insight or Flatulent Nonsense: You Be the Judge
A theory of superheroes, linking their personality types to their powers, particularly their ability to survive harm.

Origins of a Marvel Fanboy
The difference between old DC and old Marvel, and why, deep down, I will always belong to the House of Jack, Stan, and Steve.

Oh, Damn, the Critics Adore It: The Love of Yawnfests
Why the hell is it that critics tend to love works that laymen find dull beyond belief? I got me a theory.

Hittin’ the Juke Joint
Comic books descend from comic strips, right? Sorta. Comic strips are the parents of the comic book, but pulp novels were the cool uncles who taught the kid how to smoke, set off firecrackers, and swear.

I Wanna Eat Your Brain: Zombie Zeitgeist
A throwaway theory on the popularity of zombies.

When Theory Meets Blood
An actual straight-up analysis of the blood-spattered smiley face in Watchmen, like something you’d write for English 101. Sorta.

A Parallel Notion, Plus Disco
My other Watchmen post, discussing panel layouts, Brecht, and Explodo Jones: The Quest for Ever More Radness.

Aquaman, Tell Us About Your Mother
Phallic imagery on covers is nothing new. Aquaman’s old series offered a…different image.

Great Scott! The Fiend!
The logic of Lex Luthor.

The Appeal of Red Sonja, Courtesy of Beverly Hills 90210, Lisa Simpson’s Bad Boy Crush, and the Taming of the Hottie
T&A characters tend to appear and fade away quickly. Why does Red Sonja keep coming back?

You Know What Really Grinds My Gears?
Debunking a common theory on the end of the Silver Age and the depravity of the Modern Era.

Character Versus World and Suchlike
An explanation of the overarching difference between modern DC and Marvel’s approaches to the superhero.

MONDAY MORNING QUARTERBACKING
Like most comic fans, I harbor the idea of writing my own stuff and visions of “how I’d do it.”

The Champions Project
My great white elephant. I had an idea of doing my own version of the Seven Soldiers of Victory Project, a la Grant Morrison. I got eleven issues in, then petered out. Here’s the post that links to everything.

Rolling and Fixed Timelines: The Captains America and Retcon Fun!
One of my favorite bits, though I may be alone in digging it. Retroactive continuity can be fun, provided it fills large gaps, not niggling stuff. Forty years of Caplessness seemed like a good place to fart around. It’d form the basis of a good miniseries, I think.

Mallah-Droit
An intelligent silverback gorilla with a French accent and his lover, a brain in a jar. To think that in comics, these are throwaway characters. Amazing.

Post-Dorkpocalyptic Press: My 15 Titles
A meme that was a lot of fun to try: strip the world-o-comics to fifteen titles, no more. I set up some additional rules and went to town. More fun than I expected.

Harveyizing Green Arrow
A revamp of the Connor Hawke Green Arrow based on a few ideas of mine. Granted I’m biased, but I think it’d be a huge improvement over the current Green Arrow status quo. I love the Rogues’ Gallery. It’d work, dammit! Another “Harveyizing” experiment, Harveyizing Hourman, was much more ambitious and less successful. This was a full-on reboot of Hourman in a four-issue miniseries, The Fire That Consumes. The synopsis is long and shot through with plot holes and logic flaws. Given time and rework, I think it’d be a hoot. Heroes! Robots! Time travel! Dinosaurs! Rebellions! Love! Revenge! Hoo-hah!

Impractical, But Hey, It's Not My Company
Of my many bad ideas, this one’s undoubtedly the worst from a business perspective. Any company that did this would die in a heartbeat. Ah, well. Artistically it could be a triumph, but it would require a strong and consistent editor.

Evil Thought of the Day
Marvel used to capitalize on fads all the time. Kung fu, blaxploitation, roller disco, whatever. What if they did that again?

HARVEY ANNOYS THE PROS
A few times I’ve made contact with the world of comic professionals, often badly.

Eisenstein, Cheese Fries, and the Joys of Bloviation
A group of comic book creators meet weekly at a bar about a mile from my house. The DC Conspiracy, headed by Hoarse and Buggy editor and all-around good egg Jason Rodriguez, was welcoming and interesting.

Due to a number of factors (they meet on the one day off I share with the missus, I’m more than a bit of a poseur tool, I’m the laziest man in four states, etc.) I only went to one meeting. In case you’re wondering, yes, it’s difficult to be as lame as I am. Don’t try it yourself without protective headgear and safety netting. It only looks easy.

Rising and Advancing: An Interview with Steve Englehart
The only actual interview I’ve conducted for the site. Distressingly generic questions on my part. Ah, well. I’d hit a dry patch, and thought I might try shifting the site to interviews with writers. I reconsidered this idea quickly, but did complete this one interview first.

OH, COME ON!
When I go overboard busting on a cover of Ms. Marvel painted by David Mack. Mack responds in the comments. I then apologize for the overheated rhetoric and proceed to strengthen my argument. The original piece is not great—I shot from the lip and lost myself to snarky rhetoric. The comments section is where it gets good, and where the better arguments can be found.

Marvel and Malibu: The Full Story
Tom Mason, writer and former bigwig of Malibu Comics, wrote to me to set the record straight about Malibu’s buyout by Marvel in ye olden days. Interesting stuff.

Mary Sue, Mary Sue, Pretty Pretty Pretty Mary Sue
A grouse about “Mary Sues.” In retrospect, I was kinda wrong in this article. I blurred the lines between “character very clearly based upon the creator to the point of distraction” and “character based upon creator wish-fulfillment,” which are similar faults, but not the same thing. Moreover, the piece is also too dang snarky, like my David Mack piece. Why is it under this heading? Because of the last, anonymous note in the comments section.

Did I hack off Matt Wagner with my ill-formed rant? I hope not. (It also could have been Elmore Leonard, who also gets some grief in the piece, but the typos would suggest otherwise. Novelists know how to use apostophes.) Probably it was some random numb-nuts, but I can dream.

Cousin Larry
Dickering with Larry Young, of AiT/PlanetLar, about comic criticism. He’d said some inflammatory things in December 2005, and the blogosphere freaked out. I took a step back and dissected what he actually said, which proved to be none too flattering to Young. The odds that Young saw this are near zero, but hey. I’m sure he’d find it annoying.

ASK A SUPER-VILLAIN
Because deep down, we all wanna be the bad guy.

Stilt-Man
Wilbur Day may be a loser with a stupid gimmick, but he has one quality that made him perfect for “Ask a Super-Villain:” he returned my phone call.

Batroc the Leaper
Zee Leapair ees back from anozzer a’venture and weel charm us all weeth hees outrageous accent!

The Magus
A mad god, a dark twin, and possessor of the best afro in comics history.

MODOK
A gentleman, a scholar, a giant mutated head in a flying chair. Such is MODOK.

Blackrock
He’s a super-villain! He’s a television executive! He’s both! He’s…Blackrock! Could I resist interviewing the villain based on broadcast legend Fred Silverman? I could not.

RANDOM WEIRD CRAP
Sometimes it’s just weird crap.

The Knave and the Bold
A personal favorite. My George Plimpton-esque misadventures with the Justice League of America.

The Awesome Majesty of Nature
Details of a trip to Mexico and the wild Chihuahuas of the state of Chihuahua.

The Safety Word Is “Alfred”
Subtext? What subtext?

Fight the Cliches by Embracing Them
“…before America lost its innocence…” Heh. Heh heh. BWAH-HA-HA-HAAA!! Yeah, try another one.

Larry Young Is Wrong
A play in one act, starring me, Archie, Reggie, and Jughead, about the creative process.

Taxonomy
Nerd, dork, dweeb, spaz, geek. It’s time we settled on what each one means.

The Fanboy Schisms, or, Is Dan DiDio the Pope of Avignon?
When the website Fanboy Rampage still ran, I liked to follow the senseless bickering of the fanboy world. This was my plan to help out.

Too Easy, Sure. But Fun
Jerry Lewis comics + Dimestore Freudianism = Big Time Komedy Laffs.

Viva! La Procrastinacíon! and Bliggity-Blog, a pair of posts where I venture an idea to create a “radio show” like Pendant Productions.

POLITICS
Sometimes I can’t keep my big yap shut.

The Ten Most Harmful Books
The conservative magazine “Human Events” produced a list of the Ten Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th centuries. I felt their list was inaccurate, and suggested one of my own.

Stealing from the Long Box, or the Political Education of Young Harvey
An old issue of What If shaped my understanding of politics. And that’s not a bad thing. Check it out.

Where Would You Hide, the Laws All Being Flat?
I will not surrender safeguards against tyranny because I’m afraid of a dipstick with a truck bomb. Those who would, please pick up your chains at the front desk, and don’t forget your lip balm. The asses of the mighty require lots of kissing. Hiding under your desk and hoping Big Daddy will protect you is irresponsible and cowardly. I say this as a man who lives and works very close to the White House and Pentagon.

Jesus Wept
In case anyone forgot, back in January 2005, the US government openly considered training death squads in Iraq. I took exception to the idea.

To Iraq
My best friend from high school spent a year as an infantry sergeant in Iraq, getting fried by the desert heat and ducking bullets.

Putting on the Rant Pants
There’s a lot of stupidity in this world. Thus do I rant about “The Mindset of the Moron.”

COMIC APPRECIATION
I loves me some comics.

An Eleven Panel Master Course in Comics
Breaking down eleven panels from Bernard Kriegstein’s story “Master Race,” showing what goes on in a well-designed comic. One of the posts I’m proud of writing.

When the Wheel Turns
Spider-Man revealed his identity to America. The status quo is forever changed? What, are you new here? Of course it’ll go back. Here are a few ways it might.

How to Tell a True War Story
An appreciation of the EC Korean War comics and their creator, Harvey Kurtzman. Never been anything like them before or since.

Like Jesus, But With Fisticuffs
Captain America has died and come back so often, you’d think he’d have his own religion by now. Or at least a revolving credit line with a mortuary.

Treasures Abound
The recently cancelled series The Thing was beautiful. Here’s proof.

Why I Love Hitman in Two Words
I could go on, but why? The two words sum it all up.

Banish All the World
Silliness in comics: a good thing. Despite what many say.

The Beauty of Rough Edges: The Women of The Spirit
No comic ever had women like The Spirit. And that is a damn shame.

Dirty Little Secret: Marvel’s “Essentials” Line
The first post I wrote that garnered a few “hear hears!” Because it’s true.

Mister Miracle’s Mad Opera: Taking Comic Lunacy to Another Level
An appreciation of Jack Kirby’s Fourth World and the crazy Christmas-colored hero at its center.

The Master of Glomp Glukkle Shlik Shlorp Ghomp Glunk Glik Shtork
Don Martin, master. Bow before his greatness.

Go Away, Scary Man: “That Yellow Bastard” and Frank Miller
The first “Sin City” was cool and different, and I dug it. “That Yellow Bastard?” Not so much.

A Lost Character: The Charms of the White Tiger
An appreciation of a character discarded from Marvel Comics all too quickly: Christopher Priest’s version of the White Tiger. He coulda been great.

Lines Are Busy
A rundown of the many lines of comics produced in the last twenty years, ranging from Marvel’s New Universe to Valiant to CrossGen. I got into the motivating idea of each line, what happened, and my own read on it. This was one of my bigger hits, since Mike Sterling, one of the tentpoles of the comic blogosphere, linked to it.

Pull the Trigger: Why Walt Simonson Rocketh
He does.

"Groo Week: A Salute to a Great Series"
Groo the Wanderer is the only comic series I bothered to put in mylar bags. For I love it so. I spent a week of posts drooling over it.
The Greatest Comic Ever Printed
A Wanderer, A Kat, and a Mice with a Brick
A Process of Inbred Fertilization
Am I Not Lovely, O Man?
North by Southleft

With a Heart Full of Napalm: Iggy Pop, Kill Bill, Chris Farley, and Why Gødland Doesn’t Suck
Parallels a’plenty.

Behind the Times and Proud of It: Grooving to New X-Men
Why I don’t like the X-Men and how Morrison did a hell of a job fixing it.

A Lake of Hot Chocolate: Stan Freberg Shows the Way
A review of the original graphic novel The Long Haul through the prism of Stan Freberg, radio god, and basic comic book aesthetics.

"Mister President, You're All...Scaly!"
The President of the United States, comic book style.

REVIEWS FROM "COMICS SHOULD BE GOOD"
Once in a while I contribute a review to another website, Comics Should Be Good. A few of 'em were even decent. (CSBG moved recently, and can now be found here.)

Great Expectations and the Graphic Novel
A review of several big-ish "coming of age" graphic novels: Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth, by Chris Ware; Blankets, by Craig Thompson; and the Buddy Baker stories in Hate, by Peter Bagge. I loved one of 'em.

Viva La Weirdness: Marvel’s Whacked-Out Comics of the Seventies
A tour of some of the deliciously insane comics Marvel put out in the Seventies. I review Essential Defenders Volume 1, Essential Howard the Duck, Essential Killraven, (sic) and Warlock: Special Edition. Whacked-Out Marvel is one of my very favorite types of comics.

We Are the Valets: Why Superheroes Aren’t So Superheroic Anymore
A counter-argument to the oft-floated idea that "modern creators don't like superheroes."

A Near Thing: Smoke #1
Writer Alex Di Campi said “I’m more of an auteur than a mainstream writer, anyway. I’d rather be known for creating five amazing books, and five awful ones, than for being ‘Little Miss Continuity’ who wrote 50 mediocre books.” Reading that, I had to check out Smoke #1. Did she succeed? Check it out.

CSBG Roundtable: Local #1
CSBG ran a couple of roundtable reviews. This one, coordinated by yers truly, reviewed Oni Press's Local #1. I think we did a good job of dissection and explanation. Consarn it.

Nat Turner #1 Review
Kyle Baker's Nat Turner work is brilliant. It should be a runaway hit. Here I try to explain why.

MOVIES AND TEEVEE
Pop culture mania!

Masked Men, Melted Cheese, and the Great Lost Film
Nacho Libre…as made by Billy Wilder?

Disrespecting the Bing
At the end of the penultimate season of The Sopranos, all I could say was “what the hell was that?” This post was me hashing it out. Turns out it did have an underlying theme. A dumb one.

Let’s All Go to the Lobby: Tim Burton and Freaks
Why I don’t like Tim Burton, the short form.

Let’s All Go to the Lobby: “It’s Like The First Ones Were Jokes!”
Why Batman Begins was so much more satisfying than the earlier four Batman movies.

Eternal Verities
For the Bob Dylan fans out there. Or for those sick to death of Bob Dylan.

One Thing I Miss

2006-09-15T15:29:00.000-04:00

Ah, the pseudo-scientific explanations for phenomena both major and minor.

I do miss those in modern comics.

Origins of a Marvel Fanboy

2006-09-13T16:48:00.000-04:00

Many of the bloggers out in blogland are dedicated DC fans. My own pull-list these days is heavily weighted towards DC, and that’s not likely to change anytime soon.

That being said, I remain in my heart a Marvel fanboy. The reason, as is so often the case amongst the comic fans of the world, dates back to my introduction to comics.

As a wee tadger in the late seventies and early eighties, I was exposed to the standards from both companies. Superman, Batman, The Amazing Spider-Man, and Fantastic Four were the most common funnybooks you’d find on my bedroom floor. How I remember them from yonder days can best be summed up with a hypothetical.

Monstroso the Giant Robot Earwig is attacking [insert city name]! [Insert superhero] has attacked the beast head-on and been rebuffed, his body smacked into a building! What’s the first thing that comes into the hero’s mind as he climbs from the rubble?

SUPERMAN: “Great Rao! I’ll use my super-[insert power] to hurl the Giant Robot Earwig into the depths of space and into the heart of the sun!”

BATMAN: “Hmm…I’ll have to head to the Batcave and develop the Bat-[unstoppable super weapon]! I’ll stop this beast yet!”*

SPIDER-MAN: “Oh come on! How the heck am I supposed to stop that thing? It’s bigger than Shea Stadium!”

The DC heroes met setbacks with iron-jawed resolution. The Marvel heroes met setbacks with exasperation, then iron-jawed resolution. That moment of hesitation added a lot.

The iconic heroes of DC were undaunted by the dangers they faced. The Marvel heroes were daunted—but they saved the day anyway. Which inspires more? Perfection and victory, or imperfection overcome and victory?

This is not to say that DC didn’t later pick up on this idea. Nor that Marvel didn’t hose it up on occasion--the idea of imperfection proved easy to twist into great gaping flaws. Great gaping flaws are as boring as perfection.

But when we debate “Marvel Versus DC” in the abstract, it is this split that forms the core of the fight.

Scipio of the Absorbascon, a DC fan, sums it up nicely:

And, as I've mentioned before many times in my "DC vs. Marvel" tirades, I don't want heroes who make me feel better about who I am (à la Marvel); I want heroes who inspire me to better myself (à la DC). I don't want heroes who view their abilities as burdensome responsibilities (à la Marvel) but as wonderful opportunities (à la DC).

My counter-argument is to ask why would I want a hero whose experience is so alien to mine that we may as well be different species (à la DC), as opposed to a hero who lives in a world with the mixed messages I have to parse out myself (à la Marvel)?

The achievements of Superman and Batman were nothing to me beyond pure spectacle. Courage meant little to Superman, since he didn’t seem even capable of fear. The possibility of failure meant nothing to Batman, because he never failed. Right and wrong were always clear, the line between friend and enemy was obvious, and doing the right thing always brought reward and renown. Their problems were direct: The Joker is on the loose, Cheetah is kidnapping scientists, Luthor’s stolen the ocean, and so forth.

The achievements of Spider-Man and the Thing resonated better with Wee Harv. Courage mattered to them, because they felt fear. The Marvel heroes failed as often as they succeeded. On occasion they had to struggle just to figure out what the right thing to do was. Virtue wasn’t always rewarded. They even quit being superheroes in frustration a few times.

But they always came back, fought the good fight, and saved the day.

Take the moment often regarded as the Great Break in Marvel history: the death of Spider-Man’s girlfriend, Gwen Stacy. The moment is considered seminal in superhero comics for any number of reasons, such as permanent continuity changes, the “end of innocence,” and so forth. But what about its core? What is the story about?

Spider-Man does everything right, tries to save the love of his life, and she dies anyway. There was nothing he could have done. Being brave, being right, being heroic just wasn’t enough. Sometimes nothing is.

That’s some heavy shit to lay on a kid.

It’s also the way to reach a fan that more standard heroic tales cannot. The follow-up story is equally important: Spider-Man hunts down the Green Goblin and, in his rage, nearly murders the villain. But he does not, because his sense of ethics won’t let him. Confronted with the chance to indulge his desire for revenge, he struggles with himself and his better nature wins out.

That is heroism. It is inspiring, and illustrates how one can become a better person. Iconic heroes cannot match this inspiration, because the iconic heroes did not even acknowledge this struggle, much less fight it. Wee Harv recognized the problems instantly and drew from Spider-Man’s example. There Spider-Man was a hero fighting evil within and without, not just some dude in a funny suit punching out another guy in a funny suit.

Moreover, the fact that Gwen died despite Spider-Man's best efforts added an emotional flavor lacking in most comic stories, a hint of the tragic. The depths of tragedy provided a counterpoint to the heights of brightly-colored adventure, making both stronger.

Could it flop? Sure, and it often did, sinking into cheap pathos. But the flatness of old-style DC did not and does not strike me as preferable.

Looking over the giant reprint volumes that have come out recently has reinforced my opinion of ye olden comics. Old-style DC comics are full of fun and spectacle, but the struggles were only external, and thus of limited interest. Old-style Marvel was full of fun and spectacle, but the struggles were internal as well as external, adding a second dimension to the one-dimensional heroes of old.** (A full three dimensional superhero? Haven’t seen one yet.)

True, modern Marvel is dull and convoluted, and modern DC is a riot of awesomeness. I can’t deny it.

But it weren’t always so.

----------------------------------
* That’s how Batman rolled Back in the Day. When was the last time he went back to the Batcave to construct something to defeat a bad guy? I’d kill to see a new issue of Detective Comics where Our Hero creates some sort of specialized “Bat-Dingus” to stop a rampaging dimetrodon in Gotham Park.

** Old-style Marvel also had a sense of humor. Not the bemused grins of DC, but full-fledged jokes and smartassery. This was no small draw for Wee Harv. Or for Big Harv, either.

Proposals That Never Made It #1

2006-09-06T14:37:00.000-04:00

Many are the comics that could have been. Here at Filing Cabinet of the Damned, we like to look back upon some of the comics that almost were. Here's one that almost was, and, in my opinion, should have been.

TOPO, THE WONDER OCTOPUS

Aquaman's octopus pal Topo strikes out for adventures of his own! Using only his suction cups, his ink sac, and amazing deductive skills, Topo the Wonder Octopus smashes spy rings, catches smugglers, and still finds the time to kick out the jams every Friday night at a backstreet joint in the Big Easy.

Courage is his middle name!

He may be an invertebrate, but he isn't spineless!

Criminals are sorry...to meet this calamari!*

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* Yes, "calamari" means squid. But c'mon. It's a good tagline.