Friday Night Fights--Gandhi Style!!

Sometimes it's not how hard you hit. Sometimes it's how you take a punch.

Sure J'onn J'onzz needs to man up occasionally. But when he's fighting a normal human, watch out, brother!

Situation: J'onn is undercover, posing as a UN official while investigating a reported alien killing. Local law enforcement, however, is not being cooperative. J'onn is the dude wearing sunglasses:


OUCH!! That's a faceplant!! But this is J'onn J'onzz, Martian Manhunter, so one punch ain't enough. You gotta keep pounding away...



The end result:


That's right: the winner of Friday Night Fights is the cat who didn't throw a single punch!! J'onn J'onzz knows how to take a beatdown AND still win the fight!!

Now if only he could have done that against Doomsday...

Bahlactus went down to Georgia, he was looking for a soul to steal...

Passive resistance footage from JLA Annual #1, 1997, beatdown art by Ariel Olivetti

Pig Biting Mad

It's a sad, sad day:


Weekly World News has ceased paper publication. It will still be available as an online entity, but that hardly the same thing.

Oh the hours I amused myself in grocery checkout lines with WWN. No celebrity pap...no Bradgelina, no TomKat, no LiLo. Just good, hard news.

What, you don't believe the stories? Well, as I always tell my skeptical friends, they wouldn't print it if it weren't true, would they?

So farewell, Batboy. Au revoir, Manigator. Sleep well, Avocado Baby. Time Travel Dog (from the Future!), you will be missed. Alien who endorsed George W. Bush, please don't lose touch.

And Ed Anger. Most of all Ed Anger. Keep writing those frothy editorials. Please. Please don't ever stop being "pig-biting mad" or "angrier than a beaver in the desert."

I'm sure I'll try to check in online occasionally. But it just won't be the same... there won't be the element of surprise we had every week, while I waited for the foolish person in line ahead of me to challenge the cashier on the price of EVERY SINGLE ITEM in her basket. And the only relief available was reading about diet secrets from the Dead Sea Scrolls, or the government plan to make all our money radioactive to track terrorists, or...Sigh...

So, who's getting custody of Britney's kids?

Why Unleaded Gasoline Is a Terrible Idea

Let's see ethanol or bio-diesel save Superman's life...the ban on leaded gasoline is clearly a Luthor plot...

SPOILER ALERT: Just so you can sleep soundly, I will reveal that Jimmy Olsen did NOT "die for this," despite the guru's threat. Whew!!

Bizarre scene from Jimmy Olsen # 118. Much much more about this story, including why Jimmy is all scruffy, the guru mastermind, and the kryptonite love beads (seriously) in next week's exciting series of posts...

We Interrupt This Broadcast--

Can't post now. Busy playing.....

Konitinuity Kop--Skrulls??

OK, once again this one might not be an actual continuity error. But since it involves some characters being incredibly, well, ill-informed, I'm running with it anyway.


Let's go to this panel from "New" Avengers #32:

Now, if this looks familiar, it's because the last two issues of new Avengers have been absolutely nothing except our heroes sitting around saying "Are you a Skrull?" "Why no, are you a Skrull??" Seriously, aside from a plane crash, the past two "action-filled" issues have been nothing but a snore-inducing paranoid "Who's a Skrull?" parlour game.

Of course, none of this is necessary. Aside from the fact that it doesn't make sense for one of them to be a Skrull (after all, they just exposed and killed a Skrull agent, Elektra, so you wouldn't expect a Skrull to be doing that), there's another fact they're forgetting. Skrulls can't do super-powers.

Sure, they can change shape. But aside from the Super Skrull, they can't mimic super-powers. Marvel's own online encyclopedia tells us,"Skrulls only take on the appearance of an object or person and none of that object or person’s characteristics." In other words, except for the Super Skrull, they don't do powers. And the Super Skrull could only do it after massive biotech surgery AND the deployment of a special power broadcast asteroid.

Now, certainly Skrulls could impersonate someone non-powered. And surely some powers could be mimicked with advanced technology. But it seems to me that, rather than question everybody's motives and alibis, a more reasonable first step might be "who's been using their power?" Wolverine and Luke Cage should be smart enough to know this. So should Bendis.

So, maybe not a continuity glitch. But characters (and an author--I'm looking at you, Bendis!) who should have known better. And good lord--if Marvel is going to keep let Bendis write the Avengers books, could someone please explain the concept of pacing to him?!?

Picture from Avengers #32

What's the Better Way to Die

Since the universal consensus is that Superman #666 rocked the house, it's time for this week's poll.

Question: if Kal-El were to go nuts, and go on a killing spree, and he were going to kill you, how would you rather he did it?

First up is the super-loogy:



As I see it, Pros:
*Quick and relatively painless
*Cool sound effect

Cons:
*Embarrassing as hell to acknowledge that someone spit you to death
*"Eeewwww" factor

Than there is the super-whistle:

Pros:
*Not as gross as being covered with Kryptonian spit
*A definite "coolness" factor while repeating the story to others in Hades
*Sorta like Scanners!
*Poetic justice for Jimmy!

Cons:
*Looks pretty damn painful
*Very unpleasant sound effect
*Inevitable Krypto jokes when discussing your demise with smart asses

Me, I think I'd prefer the loogy. But everyone please vote, so when Superman does go beserk, you can help him out by having your method of execution ready to go.

Long Live the 70's

Ahhh, "relevancy." Remember those halcyon days, back in the 1970's, when DC decided to be all hip and trendy and make some of their comics more "socially" relevant?

Oh, not the main titles, of course. You can't have the Flash or Superman worry about housing for the poor while pounding on bad guys--that would spoil the escapism.

But the "side" titles...that was fair game. And while Jimmy Olsen spun off in the direction of super weirdness, (mainly thanks to Jack Kirby), Lois Lane decided to get all socially conscious on us.

It made sense...Lois was a reporter, after all, when she wasn't hounding Kal-El to marry her. That put her in touch with a lot of the "issues of the day." And with E. Nelson Bridwell editing, Robert Kanigher put out a string of some of the most spectacularly "PC" comics ever.

Let's start with #106, November 1970. Let's note for the record that the cover is 100% accurate, and the title of the story (unfortunately) is "I Am Curious (Black)."


Aside: Those of you old enough will remember that I Am Curious (Yellow) was a fairly infamous Swedish film of 1967, that was banned and seized by U.S. customs for nudity and "explicit" sex. It surreptitiously made the rounds of both art and porno theaters, and was quite famous for a film no one ever actually saw (even Gwen Stacy mentioned wanting to see it once!). So why, exactly, DC decided that made a good basis for the title of this story I'll never know (aside from the obvious color pun).


Anyway, the splash page declares "It's Today! It's Now! It's The Moment Of Truth!" Lois has been given the assignment of her life: to get the scoop on "Metropolis' black community." Gee, maybe the fact that Metropolis's' black community (there's only one?) is called "Little Africa" might be a reason for some of the resentment, eh?

Lois is unable to make any headway, because not one single black person in all of Little Africa will even speak to her. An activist dismisses her as "Whitey." Even an old blind woman walks away from her because (and I swear I'm not making this up) "When she heard me speak...she knew I was white!"

So, this being DC, Superman lets Lois use his "Plastimold" to make her a black woman, so she investgate the "nitty gritty" in Little Africa. And learn she does. With all the serious earnestness of an ABC Afterschool Special, Lois a) learns that ghetto landlords suck, b) gets close to the activist who called her Whitey, c) saves his life with a blood transfusion, d) learns that it is indeed hard out there for a pimp...oops, sorry e) and the activist learns that all white people aren't devils.

I'm damning this story with faint praise. It's actually pretty good, and 37 years ago it must have seemed pretty radical to some in it's audience. And while it comes off today with somewhat of a smug botique liberal attitude, it never oversells its points. SPOILER ALERT: We never find out if Lois gets her Pulitzer.

Far less successful, was #110:

The cover is much more symbolic this time, perhaps a sign that we're not going to get as good a story. Lois never dresses up in Indian clothes (although she should--that fringe is driving me wild!! Rrrrrrrr). There are protestors, but they never come close to stoning her. And Superman is mostly non-existent in the story, and certainly never urges Lois to give up "that Indian papoose."

She does, however, end up foster mother to a papoose. Really. The Daily Planet's budget must have been enormous, because they send Lois out to a "parched reservation near Santa Fe" to cover a Pueblo rain dance. Nice use of resources, Chief.

She ends up, though, covering the conflict between the Pueblo and evil land developers who are going to flood out their village. Singing Rain, the chief's sister, dies after hitting her head on a rock, and makes Lois promise to raise her infant, Little Moon, as her own (Little Moon's father, you see, is MIA in Vietnam). Lois promises, and takes the child back to Metropolis, where she gets all kinds of protestors: people saying single women shouldn't be raising children, American Indians (protesting in full tribal outfits) that "you stole our land--now you steal our children." It's a mess.

Then, on a bridge, a skidding "army truck" forces Lois' car into the water. With her last breath she shoves Little Moon to the surface to save him. But then, a GI from the truck dives in and saves her. Holy Coincidence, it's Joseph Bright Wing, Little Moon's father!! He had just escaped from a "VC prisoner of war camp!" He was on that truck, on his way to a "discharge center." At the exact time Lois was going off the bridge with that baby. Uncanny.

Again painfully earnest, this one lacks the impact of "I Am Curious (Black)" for a couple of reasons. It seems far more cartoony in its portrayal of Native Americans and their problems. And aside from Superman and Lois, virtually every white person in the book is virulently, stereotypically racist. Among our winning quotes:

It gets worse from there. We get it: white people suck.

Still, I shouldn't grade too harshly. The issues heart is in the right place. And again, for 37 years ago (sheesh, I'm old) it was probably ahead of its time.

Special Bonus: Clark Kent's kicky cravat. Long live the 70's, friends. Long live the 70's.

Friday Night Fights--Fair Play Style!!

I usually don't like to use covers for Friday Night Fights. But I'm still catching up from Vegas, and sometimes, the cover is just too dang powerful to ignore:



That ain't no sticks and stones, baby.


Who's the black private dick who's a sex machine to all the chicks? Bahlactus. Damn right.

Jaw-rattling punches provided by Justice Society of America #42

Final Crisis Preview---Jerry Lewis

There was a trend, 30-40 years ago, that I never quite understood. DC loved comedians. I mean SERIOUSLY loved comedians.

For example, Don Rickles--yes, Don Rickles--made a cover-featured guest appearance in Jimmy Olsen #141. Click the link to see why Kirby+ Rickles = madness!!

Anyway, DC went so far as to give comedians their own comic books. Whole titles!! Bob Hope had a comic book at DC--The Adventures of Bob Hope lasted 109 issues!!

And then there was Jerry Lewis. The Adventures of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis ran for 40 issues in the 1950's, and after the comedy team broke up, The Adventures of Jerry Lewis sprang forth instantly to replace it, and ran until 1971!!! The title produced such amazing crossovers as this:

Now, not to say that this particular comic was good (the few issues that I actually read were abysmal), or that we need Jerry Lewis back in the DC Universe (but why not?).

But since DC feels the need to constantly reinvent itself, why not revive the comedians-in-comics concept? Instead of Jerry Lewis, what about Jeer Seinfeld? Steve Martin? The Adventures of Carrot Top? I know I would read a comic book featuring George Carlin or Gilbert Gottfried.

And consider the crossover possibilities.

Just picture the new DC Universe, teaming with panels like this: the Joker, in a kangaroo suit (don't ask), pointing a machine gun at Jerry Lewis. Translate that to a Parallax-possessed Kyle Rayner pointing a meson gun at Rita Rudner, and we have a certifiable hit on our hands.

And at least it's better than that Countdown crap.

Cover and panel from Jerry Lewis #97, 1966

What The #$%^--Three's Company, Starring Batman!

Sometimes you stumble across a story that...well, maybe it explains why your parents are the way they are. And why they warned you about drugs. And "women's lib." And...oh, Bob Haney, what have you done to us?

In the Coils of Copperhead, as presented in Brave and the Bold #116, starts with an intriguing theorem: Copperhead, the dufus who always got knocked out first on the Justice League cartoon, is actually too smart for Batman to capture.

Chastised by Commissioner Ungrateful, Batman must formulate a plan to catch the master criminal. Meanwhile, is the skies of Gotham, Wonder Woman shows up, skywriting!!

please forgive some of the skewed scans...artist Bob Brown was letting his freak flag fly in the page layouts.

Nice of her to save the greenhouse emissions by not using her plane. Oops, did I say plane? Just a few seconds later, Batgirl responds:

Q: How many super-heroines does it take to change a light bulb? A: That's not funny!!

Wow, a super-powered love triangle. What is the inevitable result? Of course, you're right: SUPER CAT-FIGHT!!

Well, that set back women's rights a few decades, eh? But wait! The lovely crimefighters proceed to shower Batman with gifts, distracting him from his search for Copperhead:

Good question, Dark Knight...both as Bruce Wayne and Batman, he has to beat the girls off with a stick!! Playboy or crime-fighter: he's a chick magnet.

But wait!! All is not as it seems. Stunningly, the ladies are not actually in love with Batman!! It's all part of a Machiavellian ruse to trick Copperhead into feeling secure enough to rob a museum that Batman has rigged with an alarm!!

Now, far be it from me to quibble with the Dark Knight's awesome J.R. Ewing-type planning ability. But, I have to say, having two female superheroes pretend to be in love with you & you pretending to be so distracted by all the attention that you can't fight crime anymore is not one of your top thousand plans, is it? Really, is that the best you could come up with, Bruce? "Smarter" 1960's-style plans Batman could have tried:

• Pretending to be dead, so Copperhead would strike


• Pretending to turn evil, so Copperhead would strike


• Since this is Brave and the Bold, staging a fight with another DC superhero, so Copperhead would strike

Instead, the Caped Crusader chooses the "fake love triangle plan." Granted, Copperhead is a major-leaguer, so you have to think outside the box...oh, wait, no he's not! This is something out of Three's Company, isn't it? Batman's OMAC plan made more sense...

Sadly, Copperhead's "serpent's seventh sense" warns him something's up, so he breaks off his robbery, and Batman must hurry back so that Jack and Chrissy and Janet...uhhh, sorry, Batman and Wonder Woman and Batgirl...can resume their fiendishly clever plot, But wait....no, don't actually kiss her, Bruce!!

Oh, no! Now you've done it! Bruce, you used your lips. Obviously, you still had some residual Poison Ivy venom on them. Or maybe you really are irresistible to the ladies. Because now, in a panel that single-handedly lead to the defeat of the ERA:

The lips that destroyed a thousand super-heroine careers have struck again!! I can think of worse things than having Linda Carter and Yvonne Craig hanging all over me. But now, in a series of events that even I, as a male, find humiliating, Batman has to battle the "kooky romanticism" of his clingy love-slaves in order to find and stop Copperhead. They're hanging on him and giving him presents and...

OK, I have to stop. It's just too damn embarrassing. There's another 10 pages of the ladies' love thwarting Batman efforts to catch the bad guy. And because of their lovestruck state, Copperhead defeats Wonder Woman (read that again...not a dream, not a hoax, not an imaginary story...Copperhead defeats Wonder Woman) and Batgirl, and then he poisons Batman. But Bruce finally mans up, knocks out Copperhead, Batgirl gives him an antidote, and everything is back to normal:

Phew...back to safely non-heterosexual adventures with Robin and Superman!!

KIckin' It Old School

Just to prove my street cred.

Kontinuity Kop--Whither Aquaman?

Update: Apologies to Brad Meltzer, as I misspelled his name throughout the original post. Me=dumb.

********

Look, this one may very well may not be a continuity blunder...but then again, it may be. Either way, it's as annoying as hell.

Let's take a look at last week's JLA #12. We have two mysterious, shadowed beings secretly observing all the members of the Justice League and making pithy observations.

Aside. The top 2 marks of a Brad Meltzer comic: 1) Shadowy figures watching our heroes. SPOILER ALERT: the reveal is NEVER as good as the build-up. 2) Said shadowy figures comment on our heroes actions and motivations, thus confirming Meltzer's modus operandi of telling us everyone's characterization, rather than showing it.

Anyway, by the end, we get this panel:

Now, before anyone quibbles, the guy on the right is referred to as "Arthur" by J'onn, who also identifies him as one of the JLA's founders. So it is Aquaman, and not the "new" Aquaman.

Aquaman, the original Orin/Arthur Curry, who had been transformed into the Dweller from the Depths, died in Aquaman #50. Died.

Granted, the story left open some possibility that Orin could maybe possibly somehow resurrect himself via magical means. So the fact that he turns up in JLA #12 is not, in and of itself, a continuity error. It does, however, mean that J'onn and Arthur are incredible dicks.

The JLA believe Arthur to be dead..they went to investigate his apparent demise. Think about this...these people are supposedly his friends, he's one of their founding members. And he doesn't bother to tell them he's alive. How would that make you feel, if you thought one of your buddies had kicked it, except he hadn't, and he neglected to tell you...and was all the while spying on you? And J'onn is helping him. Without some attempt at an explanation of why the charade is happening, the only conclusion is that J'onn and Orin are huge assholes.

And while were on the subject, remember how J'onn is so so careful not to read any one's minds without permission? Apparently, that respect for privacy ends when it comes to surreptitiously spying on your friends. Whether by hidden cameras or super-vision or some magic spell or whatever, this is somehow OK???

And of course, big raspberries go to DC editors and Meltzer. A character died? Who cares what another author intended? I'm bringing him back, no explanation, no concern as to how or why or continuity or anything. Outstandingly stupid, especially since Meltzer won't be around to clean up his mess. So now we have 2 Aquamen running around? How's that gonna work?

Oh, never mind. They'll just wipe out the new one in Final Crisis, anyway, just you wait. Until then, remember: in any DC title you read, any permanent character development can and will be completely ignored and over-written by another writer, with no attempt to have it make sense. Because DC continuity is just wiki-continuity, waiting for the next guy to change it at 2 am and not worry whether anyone notices, because nobody is minding the store.

Final Crisis Preview--The Gay Ghost

As we approach the 1/3 point in the excruciatingly slow and pointless Countdown, it's time to look to the future: The Final Crisis.

Really. They promise. No more crises after this one. Zero Hour II, maybe...but no more crises.

Anyhoo, they're obviously going to give us another retroactive reality reboot.

And why not? After all, it's been almost 4 months since the "stunning" revelation that the multiverse was reborn, and no one has done a single interesting thing with it. Not one. I mean, Duella Dent is the best they can do? A bunch of Monitors sitting around debating in a back-up feature? "Flash of Two Worlds" this ain't.


Anyway, I'm digressing again. My point is, since DC is planning still another reboot (SPOILER ALERT: Hawkman, Donna Troy, and the Legion still won't make any sense, no matter what they do...just let it go, guys), it's time to start putting our two cents in as to who they should revive. If we're going to hit the reset switch, let's make sure they bring make the characters they need to.

Like the Gay Ghost.

I mean, if the new new new new DC Universe doesn't have room for a swashbuckling Earl who fights crime, I don't want any part of it.

Maybe the costume needs a bit of work. But the origin? The nobility? The supernatural elements, combined with the "fish out of water" element of a man fighting crime 200 years after his death? What's not to love? Bonus: he's Batman-approved.*

And why should Rawhide Kid get all the glory??

*Panel from Brave and the Bold #116, in a back-up feature where Batman introduces us to "Heroes Who Wouldn't Die," folks who've come back from the dead to fight crime. Surprisingly, no mention is made of Hal Jordan, Donna Troy, or Supergirl.

Overheard Conversations--Our Future Leader

A 5 or 6 year old boy, watching some young lions (5 months) play around with each other in the Lion Habitat at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, with wonder in his voice:

Daddy, are those robots?

You see, where you or I would see the majesty of nature, the noble beauty of the King of the Beasts, this lad saw robots. Lion Robots. Lion robots fighting each other in a glass enclosure for our amusement.

We have found our future leader. I will follow this child and his holy visions anywhere he might lead. Seriously.

Viva Las Vegas

Well, my iPod is loaded with 25 different versions of Viva Las Vegas, and I'm off for the rest of the week. There shan't be any postings, so all 1 1/2 fans of mine, please don't to anxious. I'll resume next Sunday or Monday...

...unless, of course, Godzilla shows up, smashes the strip, and in a fight with the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier smashes Boulder Dam so the casino gets flooded just as I hit the big jackpot...hey, it's been known to happen!! That would be pretty damn cool...

How NOT to remake a high-spirited, swash-buckling action serial:

A) Have 80% of it take place on Earth in a boring small town

B) Set Mongo in a basement somewhere (with railings!) The dimmer the lighting, the better!

C) Have the first 45 minutes be a slow, lame X-Files knock-off, up to and including making Zarkoff a Lone Gunmen

D) Have the first alien we see be a frakkin' Borg rip-off, and then have him do a T2 ripoff with Mom on the phone, WITH THE EXACT SAME TIP-OFF THE T1000 GAVE JOHN CONNER!!)

E) Have Ming be a boring ass businessman...controlling Mongo with hauling fees for water?!?! That's J.R. Ewing, not Ming the Merciless

F) Have our "hero" do nothing particularly heroic the whole movie

G) DON'T HAVE A BLOODY HAWKMAN IN THE WHOLE THING!!

H) Keep using the Queen music the in commercials but not in the actual show

I) Hire lots of Canadian actors who say "aboot"

J) Make all your female leads look exactly alike, so you can't even tell when they pull the old concubine switch

K) Make the whole thing stupider than the stupidest stupid thing in Stupidsylvania

Tales from the Quarter Bin---Ducks Vs. Giant Robots

Uh-oh...the Beagle Boys have hijacked some giant robots and are using them to pillage Uncle Scrooge's money bin and all of Duckburg. What do you do?

Answer: cook up a nice batch of prunes!!

Just as Superman has his kryptonite, Green Lantern had his yellow, and Maxwell Lord his weak, weak neck, it turns out one of the Beagle Boys (176-167, to be precise), has a fatal weakness.

Now of course, you may be saying to yourself, since the Beagle Boys were now billionaires, and all-powerful Lords of Duckburg, couldn't he just get his own damn prunes later? Why risk everything they've gained for some instant gratification?

Well, that's where the genius of Huey's (Dewey's? Louie's??) plan comes in:
these are cooked prunes!! By wafting the irresistable scent of cooking prunes towards the giant robot, Huey is able to entice the master criminal out of his robot. Once out, Scrooge ambushes him, takes over his robot, and starts to bash the other stolen robots! Like the sirens to Odysseus' crew, like money to Scrooge McDuck, this Beagle Boy simply cannot resist the smell of his favorite dish. That's why he became a criminal--no self-control!

So if there is a lesson in this for any aspiring crimefighters out there, it's this: prunes are a cop's best friend. Oh, a do a better job of securing your giant robots.

Special update note:

Wikipedia tells me that it is indeed Huey, because of the red cap. See, you learn something new every time, in:

TALES FROM THE QUARTER BIN!!

Special bonus coverage: giant robot carnage:

All-out robot carnage presented in Gold Key's Uncle $crooge #115

Things That Make Me Smile--Eat Cold Steel, Pajama Boy

This is one of the earliest comic books I ever owned, as you can tell from it's somewhat decrepit state. But it holds a place near and dear to my heart, mostly because of this gloriously goofy cover.


First, the scene never takes place inside the comic, always a bonus. No thugs in scuba gear, no knife thrown whatsoever (let alone deflected back at the thrower's partner). The last part of the story does take place on an island, but Shang Chi is tied up the entire time.


Secondly, the cover dialogue. It just rolls off the tongue, doesn't it? Say it along with me..."Eat cold steel, pajama-boy!" Something about that sooo says 1974 that I feel 10 years old again whenver I see it.


Admit it: if you struggled into a wet suit, swam out to one of the Florida keys, and threw a dagger at the estranged son of Fu Manchu, that's exactly what you would say. "Eat cold steel, pajama-boy." It's practically poetry.

This was the second issue of Doug Moench's amazing run on the title. For a young kid who hadn't read the first part of this story in the previous issue, or any of the previous issues for that matter, it served as a decent, if confusing, introduction. We had some action, and a good display of the solipsistic evil of Fu Manchu ("Only Fu Manchu may choose the moment of your death").


Most importantly, he had a great, great kung fu fight against a shark. And we learned one of the easiest ways to identify bad guys: they shoot dolphins...

Friday Night Fights--Shark Style!!

Yes, yes, I know I should have done this one last week during Shark Week...

PRESENTING: SHANG CHI, MASTER OF KUNG FU VS. A SHARK!!

LET'S GET READY TO RUMBLE!!

EVEN SHARKS CAN'T MESS

WITH THE SON OF FU MAN FREAKIN' CHU!!

NOW THAT'S A C-C-C-C-COMBO!!

BONUS SPIN-OFF COVERAGE:
SHANG CHI, MASTER OF MARINE BIOLOGY!!

Let me know how that works out for you, Shang...

You're in good hands (of Shang Chi) with Bahlactus!!

All panels from Master of Kung Fu #21, about which we'll discuss more tomorrow.

Law & Order: Superhero Investigation Squad

This is why Batman should be spending less time with JLA and the Outsiders and more time taking care of the home front:


Yup, only smart people are murderers. Jails are full of 'em.

PS-when, o when, is Batman going to realize/react/acknowledge to the fact that someone called Batwoman is operating in Gotham City? He hasn't even freakin' mentioned it yet...

Keystone cops--uhh, I mean Gotham heroes from the inimitable Countdown #38. Remember, as the issue number goes down, so does the series' IQ!!

Kontinuity Kop--Countdown #38

Oh, man, where to start with our violations this time?

There is a distinct difference, I think, between screwing with continuity to fix problems or for a reboot, and screwing with continuity because you're too damn lazy or cowardly to write your way out of a problem you've created yourself. This issue, I'm afraid, is the latter.

After 14 craptacular, repetitive, and boring back-up "stories," Countdown has finally gotten to actually explaining why having people cross-over to different universes is bad thing (to save you the pain of actually reading it, it seems every crossing over between Earths opens a breach in the Source Wall separating them, and enough breaches and the walls will collapse, and we'll have anarchy, and cats & dogs living together, and who knows what else). So, the obvious solution to 51 of our Monitors: kill everyone who travels between worlds. Yup. Me, I'd just work on plugging the breaches and preventing future travellers from breaching, but these Monitors are action Monitors, and believe that offing the odd Duela Dent will somehow stop other people from reality-hopping.

But the panel to the left is the topper in illogical mendacity. Let's ignore two of the three, except to mention that a) No, Donna Troy is not from another universe...it's just that DC's inability to stick with an origin for her has left her continuity best handled by only by those wearing bio-hazard suits; b) Jason Todd is not from another universe...sure he's back from the dead, but so is Hal Jordan (Please, please please let Hal Jordan be from another universe..). We saw Jason escape his own coffin, dammit! Seriously, what other world have we even seen a Jason Todd on?? But I digress...


Which leaves us with Kyle Rayner. Is he from another universe? Well, in Infinite Crisis (snore) Alex Luthor (hardly a reliable source, as he lied to everybody else in that series) had the first Crisis not occurred, Kyle would have been on Earth-8. But so what?? Half the JSA would have been on Earth-2. Why aren't they on Monitor's list? What about Power Girl--we know for a fact that she's a "unresolved holdover" from Earth-2. Why shouldn't she be eliminated? What about the Freedom Fighters?

Actually, there's one, and only one, reason why Kyle Rayner has been singled out, and not Power Girl et al. It's:

"We killed Hal Jordan and replaced him with Kyle, but we didn't have the cojones to keep Hal dead, so we brought him back, and now we don't have the least idea in the world what to do with him, so we'll call him an anomaly and have another Crisis as a convenient excuse to get rid of him/rebrand him. Oh, and that goes double for Donna Troy and Jason Todd."

It's lazy, hacktastic writing, disguised as "anomalies" and "continuity corrections." It shows no love or respect for the characters, their fans, or their earlier creative staffs. It's illogical on its face, and non-sensical if you think about it for 30 seconds. And the best part--it's not even a good or interesting story.

Check the Angular Vector of the Moon!!

At last, my life is complete.

This goes beyond guilty pleasure. Flash Gordon is perhaps my favortist film ever. Not the best, by any means. But my favoritist.

By rough estimations, I have seen this movie more times than I have seen any other movie...at least 35 times completely through, probably more. Nah, probably more like 40.

For reasons lost to the mists of time, this movie became the absolute favorite of the Portage Northern High School Debate team (man, my nerd flags are flying high today). We turned it into our personal Rocky Horror Picture Show. We learned it so well we would jump up in the theater and shout out the lines along with the cast: "No, not the bore-worms!!" Note: this behavior resulted in our being asked to leave the theater more than once as we were "scaring" the normal patrons.

Then, when the movie came out on HBO, well, I tested out how many times a movie taped off cable could be watched before it faded/broke (not to mention giving a great shakedown to my parents' new-fangled VCR).

And now it's out on a "special edition" DVD. And I have it. And I'm gonna see how high I can run my numbers of viewings up to.

Join me...go out and rent it--hell, buy it--and join Sam Jones, Melody Anderson, Ornella Muti, Max Von Sydow, Timothy Dalton, Brian Blessed and Topol, and wallow in the camp happiness.

Ask Monstrobot--Omniscient Oracle

Dear Monstrobot,
I'm a data manager for a large network of powerful people. Lately I've been having some major security problems on our network, as "bad guys" seem intent on hacking our system.

Can you offer me some advice on how to safeguard our systems, before my employers end up crippled?
--Omniscient Oracle

Dear Oracle,
Barbara, Barbara, Barbara...please, why the pretense? My nephews have better avatars for World of Warcraft! Be yourself!

Anyway, your "problems" are signs of incompetence. but they also show a lot of potential for evil. But first there are a couple of facts you've got to face.

First, if you have such sensitive data on your computers, why in the world have it attached to a system that can be hacked?? Seriously, if the information is so sensitive, it shouldn't be on your mainframe connected to the internet...unless...

Secondly, and I'm not sure how to put this, but you really need to upgrade your physical security. I mean. C'mon. Babs, your inner sanctum (chortle) was breached (guffaw) by Karate Kid (bwa hahahahaha). I'm sorry, I shouldn't laugh, but I mean, Karate Kid? His power is, he knows karate?!?! OK, he has a flight ring, too...but he reached your inner sanctum without working up a sweat! And he's what, the 1,345th most powerful guy in the universe? Really, I don't see how you can keep any data secret if (snort) Karate Kid can just waltz in. What if someone really powerful wanted to break in? Maybe see Batman for some security tips.

Speaking of Batman, I've got to ask you: why do you need the home addresses of "every superhero in the world?" Is there a newsletter you mail out? Do you do their taxes for them? Send gift baskets on birthdays? Or maybe...

I can't help but recall that your mentor created the OMAC system, which was used to hunt down and eliminate superheroes. And you have all their civilian identities and addresses...why Barabara, have you turned to the dark side without telling us?!? We certainly could use someone as lovely as you on our team! Why else have all this dangerous data stored in easily violated security, while your "boss" has an evil plan requiring that data? I knew you couldn't really be that incompetent...you're really evil!

So my answer to you is to go for it, stop pretending to fight whoever is after you data. Give in to your evil urges, and slay, slay, slay!!

This Is Not My Batman

There are two different Batmen in the DC universe these days. (OK, I know there are 52ish, but let's not go there right now).

There's the one we're most familiar with: the Dark Knight Detective, the man driven by childhood tragedy to stop crime and save lives and throw
engine blocks at criminals and thwart homicidal maniacs.

And then there's the one who tries to secretly rule the world from behind the scenes. He's Blofeld.


Oh, he'll argue that he's a "good" manipulative mastermind, that he's merely trying to make the world safer for us all. Check out these panels from Five of a Kind #1, the lead-in series to the new Batman and the Outsiders.

Now me, I'm pretty old school when it comes to the Caped Crusader. Heck, I don't even believe that Batman belongs in the Justice League. It always seemed to me that going out into space to fight Starro is too far away from his mission statement; how many citizens of Gotham City get murdered by the Joker or Two-Face or the Black Mask Gang while Batman is monitor duty?!?

But being in the Justice League was at least minimally defensible...a threat to the world is, by extension, a threat to Gotham. So, while I'm not thrilled by it, I accept it.

But Batman constructing the OMAC system to "protect" the world from superhumans? Batman deciding which "new world order" is the correct one? Batman engaging in complex political manipulations to affect governments and topple regimes? Batmen needing a secret team to run Mission:Impossible plans in foreign countries?

That's not my Batman. That's just Amanda Waller or Maxwell Lord, except we're supposed to approve because we "know" Batman is good. This is Tony Stark territory.

Don't get me wrong...I'm not saying this isn't a natural character development for Bruce Wayne...you can certainly make a good case this kind of shift in focus makes perfect sense for him. But I don't like it. This is not my Batman.

I don't want to read about Superman becoming a Hero for Hire; I don't want to read about the Flash's adventures with the Mystic Elves of Sherwood; I don't want to read about Tony Stark becoming a fascistic dictator (oops, too late). These might all be good stories, but they take the characters too far away from what they are, from their roots.

So when I see Batman manipulating things so both Boomer and Nightwing leave the Outsiders, plotting to topple Checkmate, and while generally ignoring Gotham, well, that's not my Batman. And it makes me sad, because I miss him.

Of course, this explains Batman's total absence from Countdown. Let's see: a re-powered Black Adam was hiding out in Gotham City, a re-powered and oddly behaving Mary Marvel is hanging out in GC; Trickster and Pied Piper, who killed the Flash, are hiding out in GC; Penguin is summoning the Suicide Squad to take out Trickster and Piper, again in GC...and not one single panel of Batman in the entire series (excluding the 4 pages in #50, which merely re-told the Batman vs Karate Kid fight already presented in JLA). Guess he's too busy overthrowing governments or something to actually care about what's going on in his city...that's not my Batman.

What's Your Brotherhood Quotient?

Presenting, without comment, part of a "public service" ad "in cooperation with the National Social Welfare Assembly, coordinating organization for national health, welfare and recreation agencies of the U.S." These panels were part of a full page ad in Star Spangled War Stories #126, April-May 1966:

Things That Make Me Smile--Gorilla Edition

Some day. if it hasn't happened already, someone has to publish a doctoral thesis on the fascination of Silver Age DC with gorillas.



Things of note:

• The beads of sweat pouring down the face of the (sadly stereotypical) Japanese soldier. You'd be sweatin', too, if a gorilla with a machine gun was bearing down on you...
• The cover scene actually happens...you see, a trained gorilla from a USO show ends up on an island with a bunch of Marines after their ship is sunk, and...oh, you can figure out the rest.
• SPOILER ALERT: The title is correct. But although you indeed cannot pin a medal on a gorilla, the gorilla does receive one.

Chest-thumping action from Star Spangled War Stories #126, 1966

Friday Night Fights--Composite Style

He may have the worst super villain name ever;
He may have the worst super villain costume ever;
But you DO NOT want to make the Composite Superman mad at you...

Ouch, babe.

Oh Bahlactus fleet and strong and wise/
Appear before my seeking eyes

Face-smashing action courtesy of World's Finest #283

What the #$%^?--Gene Simmons' Dominatrix

Memo to Gene Simmons:

I know that you are a rock god. I acknowledge your awesomeness in that realm.

But in the publishing world. it's generally considered bad form to write your own cover blurbs.

Seriously, couldn't you find anybody else to quote? Anyone at all?

One further thought: couldn't you have come up with a more imaginative name? I mean, we can see she's a dominatrix, all right...but that makes the comic's title just a job description...like if you had named your group "Gimmicky Make-Up-Wearing Rock Band" instead of KISS.

One final thought: "Beth" is the biggest p#%%y-whipped song of all time. What a cop out. I'm just sayin'.

It Was the Best of Times, It Was the Blurst of Times

Single most promising first panel of a comic-book EVER:

Single most disappointing second panel following a promising first panel:

Damn it!! I was hoping for a Logan/Pooh face off!! At least there's a satisfactory conclusion:

Man, I should have saved that one for Friday Night Fights...coming next: Tigger vs. Sabretooth!!

All panels from Walt Disney Winnie-the-Pooh #13, June 1979

Tales from the Quarter Bin--Amazing Heroes #76

You know, EVERYBODY reviews the most recent weeks comics, so I don't really want to do too much of that. So, instead, I'm going to share with my many readers (ha!) some of the...uhhh...stuff I buy from my comic stores' quarter bin.

And, since Chris Sims has fallen behind on his regular monthly feature, Chris vs. Previews, our first Tale From the Quarter Bin will be to look at the August 1, 1985 issue of Amazing Heroes. Yup, today I found one with today's date, albeit two decades ago.

For those of you too young to remember, Amazing Heroes was a bi-weekly (mostly) news magazine covering the comic industry. For $2.25 you would get 70ish pages of news, articles, reviews, sales charts, and advertisements for some of the oddest titles you ever done saw. In those heady pre-Internet days, it was one of the primary sources for "news" for fans.

So what was going on in the wild world of comics books 22 years ago today?

Our cover story was a 10 page article (yes, 10 pages!) on the inside scoop as to why Alpha Flight and The Incredible Hulk were swapping creative teams: John Byrne was taking over the Hulk, and Bill Mantlo and Mike Mignola were going to Alpha Flight. Since Byrne's run on the Hulk (this time) lasted only 5 issues, one can say with hindsight that maybe the 10 page cover story wasn't exactly warranted. Mantlo did last 38 issues on Alpha Flight, a healthy run.

In the news section, we learn that:

• Marvel will be raising their cover price to 75¢, to match DC.
• Starting in Iron Man #202, Tony Stark "embarks on a quest for his lost fortune." Note for younger readers: at this point, Stark was not yet a fascist butt-hole.
• Devil Dinosaur was announced as a guest-star for The Thing #31
• DC announced the creative teams for all 12 issues of the DC Challenge
• Comico Comics (!) announces that The Badger will be going monthly.
• Eclipse Comics (!) announces that issue #10 will be the final issue of Zot! SPOILER ALERT: it wasn't really the last issue.

Among the comics scheduled for release August 1-15, 1985 were:

• Crisis on Infinite Earths #8--the death of Barry Allen!! Note for younger readers: this was before every DC maxi-series got tagged with the word "Crisis." It was also when DC maxi-series were actually good, and not complete crap. Amazingly, though, Barry is still dead...this is the one death that DC not dare undo...unless...
• Fury of Firestorm#42--"Firehawk and Wonder Girl search for Wonder Girl's husband." SPOILER ALERT: they find him, but he'll be erased from continuity...and put back in...and erased...why don't they just change Donna Troy's heroic name to "Yo-yo!"
• Legion of Super-Heroes #17--"Special 'primer' issue for new Legion readers." SPOILER ALERT: Why bother? The Legion will reboot about 8 times in the next 22 years...
• Crossfire #14--"Will Rainbow bare all for Chic Saxon's new men's magazine?" SPOILER ALERT: No.
• Captain America #312--"Featuring the Flag Smasher." Written by Gruenwald. SPOILER ALERT: Bucky is alive.
• Marvel Heroes for Hope--The X-Men #1--"A one-shot famine relief comic for East Africa, including work by Alan Moore, Harlan Ellison, Stephen King, Berni Wrightson, Richard Corben, Jim Starlin, and others." SPOILER ALERT: It didn't work.
• The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe #1--Yup, #1. The first. "The Abomination through Batroc's Brigade!!"
• Power Pack #17--"Franklin Richards becomes the fifth member of the Power Pack." And so our long national nightmare began.
• ROM Annual #4--Ahhhhh....

The "Top 100" is a sales chart, based on Amazing Heroes' survey of 50+ comics stores. For the titles that went on sale in March, the top five were

1. Secret Wars II #1
2. X-Men #195
3. Crisis on Infinite Earths #4
4. Web of Spider-Man #4
5. Cloak and Dagger #1

The reviews section, by R.A. Jones, features a glowing review for Miracleman #1. Sigh....

That all for now. I won't bore you with 8-page history of Eclipso (with a nice, but monstrously out-of-date checklist), or the 7 page history of Lois Lane. But stay tuned, in the near future, for more TALES FROM THE QUARTER BIN!!!