The Hurting: 12/01/2005

Thursday, December 29, 2005

The Hurting's Weekly Out-Of-Context Mark Trail Panel

For the Week of 12/28/05

SOMETIMES A DAY LATE, BUT NEVER A DOLLAR SHORT

It could be like this—just like this—always.

Wednesday, December 28, 2005

The Batman of Earth 7

Note: This is taken from an authentic dream I had recently. Don't ask me to explain, because I cannot.

The Batman of Earth 7 had the same kind of Batcave that all the other Batmen do: a hole in the ground filled with bats, stalagtites and standing water. There's the obligatory giant penny and various other trophies. But there are telling differences: a close examination of a newspaper photo of the Joker reveals that the Joker of Earth 7 is a black man wearing white face. There are pictures of Batman riding at the head of a horse cavalry, backed by a vanguard of white-hooded Klansmen. In a place of honor sits a photo of Batman shaking hands with President Woodrow Wilson.

The Batman and Robin of Earth 2 had traveled across the dimensional barrier to visit their Earth 7 counterparts. They had actually flown in a strange transdimensional airliner established by strange extraterrestrials for unknown reasons. At the airport, Robin had been approached by a mysterious man in the bathroom and asked if he could smuggle some contraband aboard the ship. The Boy Wonder readily agreed. The strange man pulled a clove of garlic from his satchel. It was the largest clove of garlic Robin had ever seen - easily as big as a man's fist. The man asked Robin if he knew what to do, and Robin said that he did. To the man's surprise, Robin was able to fit the entire clove up his anal cavity. Little did Robin know, however, that the garlic had been soaked in an extremely strong extraterrestrial LSD beforehand.

The Batmen strolled leisurely around the Batcave, while Robin was diverted in a private screening room. It was not considered smart that the Dick Grayson of Earth 2 know too much about the fate of his Earth 7 counterpart (who had become an FBI agent and was involved in hunting bankrobbersand bootleggers alongside J. Edgar Hoover), so he was sequestered in a small theater to watch comedy reels while the Batmen chatted. But once ensconced in the theater, Robin was unable to watch the silent films. Instead, in his mind he imagined that the entire room was totally black, and that instead of a movie projected on a screen, he saw a disembodied head slowly fellating a giant tubular clove of garlice. The man was wearing a wide-brimmed hat, however, and his features were obscured. But as he continued to fellate the garlic his face came into clearer focus. He had no eyes, and the space where his eyes should have been was black and hollow - filled only by a glowing, hollow crescent moon where his right eye should have been. Robin screamed and felt as if the bottom of the world had disappeared.

Meanwhile, the two Batmen reminisced about their past team-ups. The Earth 7 Batman was on a rant about the pernicious influence of "the damn kykes and niggers and Communists on the moral cohesion of the United States". Earth 2 Batman listened politely, not objecting but silently glad that this would be their last cross-world meeting. Soon, on another world, another Bruce Wayne was fated to lose his parents. Earth 2 Batman had discovered this world - a world which, for various complicated reasons, would be designated Earth 1 - and ensured that the child's parents would meet the same grisly end that his own had, and as had the parents of the Batman of Earth 7. But the Earth 1 Batman would be raised on a gentler world than the rather unpleasant Earth 7 from which the older Batman hailed. Once they left this planet for the last time, Earth 2 Batman would eradicate every trace of the older Batman's reality, ensuring that the bigot Batman, the harsh Batman who appeared in a cameo during Birth of a Nation and who kept a running tally of every lynched black man carved onto the running board of the Bat-Flivver, would soon be forgotten. And soon he would have adventures with the heroes of Earth 1, and no one would ever remember the inhabitants of Earth 7.

One day, he imagined, the Batman of Earth 1 would do the same to his world, Earth 2, similarly ensuring that another Bruce Wayne on another world would one day grow up to become the grim avenger of evil. And so on, until the end of time - the Batman was a self-perpetuating virus spreading throughout the history of the multiverse.

Monday, December 26, 2005

... And We're Back

Holy moley, but moving sucks. I love how when you're moving your crap from one place to another, it doesn't matter how much crap it is, the move just never seems to stop. It metastisizes. And the odd thing is that the moves seem to be more difficult in inverse proportion to how near we are to the new house.

I moved halfway across the country and it really wasn't very hard. Twenty miles was an ordeal. Five blocks is going to kill me. I've actually gotten used to sleeping on a futon on the floor, which is scary.

So yeah. This blog was supposed to be out of commission for a couple days, tops. Then the cable company decided it wanted to toy with me for two weeks while I had to use the public library to check my e-mail. Blogging kind of took the back seat.

But it's good to see the industry didn't explode while I was gone. Looks like there was another controversy over criticism, another couple tempsests in teapots over this that and the other thing... and OH MY FUCKING GOD they're bringing back the New Universe. Is it Christmas? Well, shit, it is. I guess this is my Christmas present, then.

Seriously, there are, what, probably fifteen people who could really want to see these characters again? I'm one of them, but then again, I'm very deeply sick. But - man. Seeing the Star Brand again... that's just cool. Now, of course, this is in prelude to Warren Ellis revamping the whole thing, and while that has some appeal I am absolutely certain it will bear little, if any resemblence to the real deal. I'd be surprised if they even recycled any character names, since Ellis doesn't seem to be into that kind of stuff.

But, damn. As jaded as I am, this is kinda cool. At least, it's a chance for the New Universe to get some props... sure, it was malformed, underfunded, quite patchy and just downright bad in many places. But those parts that didn't suck were also ahead of their time. I think if they reprint books like Star Brand or Justice people are going to be amazed at just how far ahead of the curve they were. Just about every book Marvel publishes these days, and quite a few at other publishers, owes something to the New U in terms of characterization and pacing.
Plus, I maintain that the veiled gonzo psuedo-autobiography in Shooter's Star Brand is probably the most visceral disintegration of the fourth wall between mainstream characetr and creator since Steve Gerber and Howard the Duck. The fact that the - at the time - most powerful man in comics saw fit to record his own breakdown on paper like that... wow. Just - wow.

So, yeah. I dig the New U. Call me crazy, but there's more fun to be found in some of those wacky, unrefined, misbegotten and discredited New U books than a boatload of monkeys. Not that a boatload of monkeys isn't fun - but you know what I'm saying. I hope.