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:



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...

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.

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

For the Week of 11/16/05

THE RACCOON WARS ARE OVER - BUT HAS THE WOODPECKER APOCALYPSE BEGUN?



(Is that any kind of hug that has ever been seen on the planet earth, or is Mark being devoured by a space alien?)

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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.

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.