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.

Friday, December 23, 2005

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

For the Week of 12/21/05

How can I guess that Mark will use the burrs to somehow triangulate the position of Andy's kidnappers? Man, this plot is creakier than a  thing that is creaky.

(Chinkapin burrs? Why, this changes everything!)

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

For the Week of 12/14/05

Why is it that even after all this time you still hear the 'Dueling Banjos' theme in your head...?

(Wow! Pseudo-incest and dog-napping... after that last story I think someone must have slipped some bathtub methamphetamines into Elrod's coffee.)

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Friday, December 02, 2005

Facts of Life and Love for Teen-Agers - Part 2








Chapter One

Tuesday, November 29, 2005

Lest We Forget


I have recently discovered the worst super costume of all time. I am honestly somewhat amazed that this bad boy could have escaped my notice for so long. It would have to have crossed my path somewhere along the line, but I probably just blocked it out. It's quite painful.

Plus, until recently, I was never much of a Legion fan. Yeah, the Legion has had some pretty bad costumes over the years, but the #1 horrid costume award has to go to my main man, Mordru.



Look at that thing. Purple tunic. Yellow Belt. Green fez with wings and an eyball.

Green fez with wings and an eyball.

Sometimes he even has green leggings as well.



I know that in recent years he has apparently got a new costume of some sort. He wants to convince everyone that he's a hip young super-villain in the pages of JSA, rocking the leather-daddy look that was so popular about five years back. But he's not fooling anyone.

But I've figured out a secret. Mordru likes to play like he's an omnipotent Lord of Chaos or some such - but I know the truth. He's really just Alan Moore.



In another ten or fifteen years or so comics' foremost real-life mage will look something like this:



And then he'll be able to fight the Legion of Super Heroes to his hearts' content.

Friday, November 25, 2005

Facts of Life and Love for Teen-Agers - Part 1





Wednesday, November 23, 2005

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

For the Week of 11/23/05

THE WOODPECKER APOCALYPSE - WORLDS WILL LIVE, WORLDS WILL DIE, 100% EARTH-2 SUPERMAN FREE!!!

It is taking every ounce of self control to keep from touching the whole 'wood-pecker' thing... which is what Mark said last night. Ooops, too late.

(Let me use my animal telepathy to read the dog's mind: "Mark, you're an asshole. I am a SAINT BERNARD, I have a fucking FUR COAT, and here I am trudging through a SWELTERING SWAMP. When we get back to the hotel I am SOOOOO taking a crap on your pillow.")

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Tuesday, November 22, 2005

The Hanging Garden


Sometimes life is strange and wonderful. Like, flipping through the new issue of SPIN, fresh from the mailbox, I came across this delightful photo of Robert Smith, circa 1987:

This wonderful photo was taken by Andy Freeberg


Longtime readers will probably remember why this photo is so damn funny, but if you don't remember you should check out this post from last year. Still one of my very favorites...

Friday, November 18, 2005

Frustration


As I am sure everyone is aware, there is no sensation in the universe more frustrating than writing a huge long post that gets swallowed up into the ether when your computer belches. So, in lieu of rewriting the post I had already written, I am simply going to throw some questions out there that have been tickling my brain for no good reason:

  • Was there a Green Lantern Corps on Earth 2?
  • Was there a New Genesis / Apokalips on Earth 2?
  • Sgt. Rock - Earth 1 or Earth 2?
  • Likewise, the DC Western heroes?
  • Legion of Super-Heroes?

    Not that these are in any way important questions, but with all this talk about the goofy old Multiverse they just sort of occurred to me. I do dearly wish that my free thoughts could be devoted to something like Hegel or 17th Century international relations, but what are you gonna do?

    If you have answers, I'll give you a prize of some sort, one that doesn't actually involve any prizes at all. An imaginary prize.
  • Tuesday, November 15, 2005

    Superman's Junk


    Every now and again you come across an artistic Freudian slip that brings previously obscured motivations and interpretations to light, in such a way as to make it impossible to ever quite look at the same stories with the same characters in the same way again. Sometimes the motives of creative people can be a mystery to themselves - look at Stephen King, who supposedly didn't see the unflattering autobiographical parallels in The Shining until many years after the book had already been written and printed. In the case of recent DC comics, or as I like to call them, "These People Really Need To See An Analyst", it seems that a recent image has laid the unflattering preoccupations of an entire generation of creators on display. To wit:



    Look at this picture. This is an "iconic" image from the recent Identity Crisis series, the first major step in the current "middle age crisis" mode of superhero books that the company has been producing. Look at how the work is designed. Look at the way the image draws your eyes in. What's the focal point? What do all elements of the design lead, inexplicably but inexorably, towards?

    Superman's Junk.

    Look at it again if you don't believe me.

    Green Arrow and Zatanna are both absorbed in rapturous contemplation. The Atom, small man as he is, looks positively afraid. Wonder Woman looks as if she would like to remain unconcerned, but is drawn in despite herself. The Flash looks surprisingly aroused - even his little wings are extra... perky. To no one's surprise, however, the two masters of sublimated S&M violence, Batman and Hawkman, are quite curious about the mysterious gravity that Superman's crotch seems to exert over everyone in this picture.

    So what does this mean? Does it mean that years of reading superhero comics has warped the brains of certain people to the point where everywhere they go, all they can think of is superhero sex? Have they been conditioned by decades of Power Girl's cleavage and Wildcat's unbridled masculinity in such a way that their arrested adolescent sex drives can only conceive of superheroes except in veiled sexual innuendo?

    These questions are bigger than any one man. But look back at the last couple years' of DC comics and tell me the sublimated sexualized conflict hasn't reached shocking levels. After everything is said and done, all this can only be leading to one thing: the world's greatest superhero orgy. This is my prediction for Infinite Crisis #7. You heard it here first.

    Monday, November 14, 2005

    Carnival of Souls


    You can take all the baths you want.

    But first, take a look at my review of John Porcellino's Perfect Example.

    PS - I should probably be upset that Arrested Development, one of the very few non-animated network television shows I actually watch, is supposedly getting cancelled. Wake me up when it gets picked up by UPN, the WB, HBO, Showtime, FX or any of the other players who would kill to have the show.

    Friday, November 11, 2005

    The Pale Horse And His Rider


    Flipping through all this crossover crap that the Big Two are churning out these days, it occurred to me that the mainstream comics companies are just high on ether. This could be seen as a bad thing if you're a fan of things like plot and characterization, but really, they need to go further in the other direction.

    When DC comes out of this Crisis thing, they shouldn't bother with any of this "One Year Later" crap. Just have every DC character die horribly over the course of the Crisis. Then start everything from the ground up the next month. And I don't mean restart Superman and Batman and all the usual suspects. Hell, no. Restart with brand new characters. This may seem drastic, but come on, let's be honest, the only interesting thing Superman's done in the last twenty years has been to die.

    I'll give them a head start by thinking up some fun new character names for them to exploit. I imagine it'll only be a matter of time before we see these guys on clothing items readily available at your nearest Warner Bros. Studio Store:
  • Mr. Betamax
  • Poncho Master
  • El Gato, Defender of The Barrio
  • The Stalin Squad
  • Samuel the Giant Bear
  • Gragox the Immortal Barbarian
  • The Endless Shoe
  • Doctor Asshole
  • Nog-O-Hide
  • Captain Jabby
  • Nutgrabber
  • Shamus O'Flatfoot, Police Leprechaun
  • Robot King Arthur
  • Dinosaur Ventriloquist
  • Bunny, The Boy With Tesseract Pants
  • The Ooooot
  • Granola Ranger
  • Bruce Power, Master of Power
  • The Inorganic Mole
  • Daisy Rage
  • Shard & Boil, Erotic Detectives, (Vertigo)
  • Young Roy & The Space Jews
  • Gritty Pete, Time Prospector
  • The Timex Men
  • Telephonez
  • MC Wacky Jack, The Hip-Hop Hero
  • Green Vinnie
  • The Ellipses
  • Space Abraham Lincoln
  • Chalk Monster Abraham Lincoln
  • Space Chalk Abraham Lincoln, the Monster
  • The Goalie
  • Mister Hug
  • The Menacing Man-Mollusk
  • Baritone Jenny
  • Mr. Male Biological Clock
  • The Sluttiest Kangaroo, (Vertigo)
  • The Busdriver
  • Rhinokitty
  • Trout-Man
  • Celedor, the Celery Lord
  • Mad Dog 20/20, the Hero With A Problem
  • The Fightin' Transsexual
  • Warm-O, Master of Heat
  • Ricardo Montalban, (Vertigo)
  • The Table
  • Manputer
  • Benzine Hands
  • The Seamstress
  • Star Landlord
  • The Purple Influenza
  • Flexy
  • Dynamanitee
  • Fido the Cat Burgler
  • Maniac Clown
  • Colonel Sweaty
  • Commie Quarterback
  • Crabbo
  • The Gargler
  • Pastrychef
  • Proust-Man
  • The Screaming Hittite
  • Foxglove the Crime Poisoner
  • The Postmaster General
  • Spinnaker the Sailing Saracen
  • Krog the Living Davenport
  • The Unctious Bishop
  • Steel Wool
  • Sticko
  • Paul the Prince of Precambrian Paris
  • The Desiccator
  • Grace Gunpowder, the Shootingest Gal in the Wild West


  • Who needs Superman?

    Tuesday, November 08, 2005

    The Red Sandal Diaries

    I don't usually work "blue", but sometimes you find a panel that just demands to be shared with the world:

    Wow. That must explain why Diana Prince is always receiving those oddly-shaped packages wrapped in plain brown paper with an anonymous return address.

    Monday, November 07, 2005

    Things Seen On TV


    During random episodes of the 1990s Spider-Man TV show, broadcast on some cable network:

  • An elderly Italian crimelord as a small infant.
  • A strange grey cyborg with lasers shooting out of his shoulders. Furthermore, no-one seems to notice the oddity thereof.
  • The Scorpion has an old man chained to a wall in his dungeon, which just happens to be off the breakfast nook in his spacious Manhattan apartment.
  • The Scorpion's wife - who knew the Scorpion was married? - is apparently mentally challenged, to judge from the way she elongates and accentuates the syllables of her speech at the oddest moments.
  • The old man keeps changing into a young man, and back again.
  • The elederly Italian crimelord is restored to his proper age due to the Vulture's shenanigans, only to make another diaper joke.
  • Spider-Man going out of his way to avoid having any kind of sexual relationship with the Black Cat, preferring instead the company of Harry Osborne. Considering that the Black Cat is well known to be fast and loose like a Vegas slot, one can only conclude that Spider-Man is indeed gay. As in he prefers the company of men.
  • Who doesn't?
  • Kraven the Hunter running around central park and crying.
  • Of all the classic Spider-Man villains who deserved to have their costume updated, Kraven is probably the only one who has never had his costume updated. Maybe it remains as a means of reminding us that even Sturdy Steve Ditko liked to hit the ether, too.
  • Kraven is apparently married to a werwolf woman.
  • Man, Spider-Man likes to point out the obvious, doesn't he? This isn't really the cartoon in particular, he always was a walking font of expository dialogue.



    I believe I can fly, /
    I believe I can touch the sky, /
    I think about it every night and day, /
    Spread my wings and fly away.
  • Friday, October 28, 2005

    Comics Made Me Dead Inside


    The doctor said I needed to watch my weight so I started drinking diet soda. Liquor tastes like crap and I don't like getting drunk to begin with; tobacco is disgusting; I'm too nervous as it is to even consider illicit drugs. No, I like soda pop, it's my one true vice. And now I have to make do with this watered-down crap that leaves the unmistakably horrid taste of saccharine in my mouth.

    Not that I'm fat, no. But if I kept on the same path I would be; joining the ranks of the seemingly hundreds of thousands of comics folk -- pro and fan alike -- stricken by obesity. How many comics pros look about two onion rings away from a triple bypass at any given moment? Those creators who aren't shopping at the Big & Tall seem to have ferret metabolisms, invisibly vibrating like Barry Allen used to do and in the process burning more calories than they can manage to eat until their bodies begin to devour their bones. Yes, Grant Morrison, I'm looking at you. Most indie comics folks look like they may not know where their next meal is coming from, so they hardly have the luxury of corpulence.

    About the same time I realized I needed to seriously think about healthy eating for the first time in my life, funny things began to happen to my eyes. Pages and computer screens that had once been crystal clear began to seem just slightly obscured. I would begin a session at the computer in a normal seated posture, but slowly my head would lean down, unnoticeably but inexorably, until my nose was less than a foot from the screen. The awareness of my slowly diminishing sight was finally trumpeted by the arrival of minor but annoying headaches positioned just behind either of my eye sockets at random intervals.

    The optometrist said the damage to my sight was still minor, and that a I wouldn't yet need to use permanent eyeglasses -- just reading glasses. But the implication can't be ignored: it only gets worse from here. Of course, I've a long way to go until I'm blind or even seriously impaired: but that doesn't mean, for someone who has always enjoyed perfect eyesight, that it isn't a significant blow. I can understand how anyone -- especially anyone similarly infatuated with a visual artform such as this -- facing far more serious visual impairment could afford to be far more vituperative. Those who are blinded without also gaining the luxury of a super-keen radar sense have every right to be bitter.

    Entropy is the end result of all things -- youth fades, energy dissipates and is spent, knees buckle and eyesight disappears. This is no more true for comics fans than it is for football players or bankers, but for those of us who spend so much of our lives wrapped in the comforting blanket of fantasy it seems a double betrayal. You wake up one day and realize you're getting older, and I'll be God-damned if Superman isn't still the same age he was twenty, thirty, forty years ago. Even if you've left behind superheroes, or regard them as a passing entertainment, they remain forever young. Like a latter-day Dorian Gray, Spider-Man remains eternally youthful while what remains of his core constituency begins to crumble with age.

    But if the reader is the superhero's true alter-ego, the picture has become calcified and yellow. Superman may be twenty-nine forever (at least he should be), but he carries the scars of every middle-aged disappointment suffered by his fans and creators. Do I want to read about a Superman buffeted by self-doubt, moral ambiguity and marital stress? Trust me, I have enough of that as it is. The only plausible outcome of giving a character like Superman grown-up problems is to limit his readership to grown-ups. Little kids don't want the rigors of adulthood in their entertainment, they want a fun and flashy facsimile of maturity. Spider-Man's early adventures were in no way a documentary recreation of an authentic high school experience; they were every bit the high-drama and shameless soap-opera that younger kids imagined high school life as being. Real high school is far less interesting.

    Art has no responsibility to give succor or moral suasion. But those of us who grow up reading these crappy superhero comics come to expect comfort from the tropes of superhero fiction. But really, just because they fulfilled an unfulfilled need in us during unhappy or unrequited moments of forgotten childhood anguish, does not mean they can bear that weight for a grown adult. And I think, at least for me, one of the most important signs that I had become an adult was the fact that the stories didn't fulfill any such vital emotional need anymore. You grow up, you look up from your book, you face the real world. (Some people get skittish and stick their nose back in the book, but that's neither here nor there.)

    But on the other hand, sometimes when things are bleak and your world is falling apart, you miss the moral certitude that came part and parcel with crappy old superhero comics. But when I pick up an issue of Spider-Man, I see . . . what? Peter Parker facing some mysterious disease? Emotionally distant and unable to communicate with his loved ones? I'm sorry, that rings way too close to home to be plausible escapism. People who write stories about Wonder Woman, Superman and Batman being unable to communicate because they lose their mutual trust and are unable to bridge a highly-charged emotional gap aren't writing superhero stories for kids, their letting their own mid-life relationship anxieties inform the characters to a simply absurd degree.

    But we all know the books aren't for kids anymore. If I had a kid I'd steer them towards Ultimate Spider-Man, because whenever I flip through that book I see everything I should expect to see in a Spider-Man adventure: angst, adventure and romance. No thinly-veiled metaphors for mid-life impotence or marital dissatisfaction, thank you. The Powers That Be at DC say that after the current crossover the books will become light-hearted and cheery again, but it won't work. It won't be the same thing. It's an ironic pose, and kids'll want nothing to do with it. They're busy buying manga, the most popular examples of which present a much more concise, emotionally satisfying and essentially comprehensible vision of the world -- like Spider-Man used to do.

    I wish I was ten again and could walk down to the Seven Eleven and get a pile of comics for less money than it would cost to fill my gas tank now -- and that each of those comics was a fascinating, kinetic dose of escapist fantasy. Puerile? Livid? Gratuitous? Hell, yes, give me more. But even if I could, it wouldn't be the same thing. I'm not the same person I was when I was ten years old. I regret that, but only in the vague way that any change is essentially bittersweet -- not that I would seriously consider life as a perpetual child. I would regret it far more if I was unable to recognize the limited emotional palette utilized by the vast majority of the stories.

    There is no succor. People grow old, become sick and get injured. Family members die and friends fade away. Wives and husbands leave, lovers betray. It is something of a comfort for the future that Spider-Man will remain eternally young for new generations of readers to discover, but he gives me no comfort in my travails, nor should he. He is for the young -- leave him be. I don't need him anymore -- and if I still did I'd be in far worse trouble than I am now.