The REAL Reason Batman Doesn't Like Guns

Some of you probably read the title of this post and thought to yourselves, "Duh, it's because he saw Joe Chill kill his parents with one!"

Well, you're wrong. At least, partially long. Because the longer you live, the more you find out about Batman.

Let's head back to the past in downtown Gotham City, when some mooks are robbing a jewelry store. And there to stop them? The Shadow!!

Wha...?

Well, that just leads to a hostage situation, just as a certain someone and his father are getting off the elevator:

Then Thomas Wayne displays the same propensity for bare-handedly attacking armed thieves that would soon get him killed:

Fortunately, this time there was a costumed hero to help out:

But poor Bruce? He was a little bit traumatized by the gun battle:

And even though the Shadow comforts the boy...

...Bruce's fear of guns is fully instilled:

So just a few weeks later, Thomas Wayne is less lucky, and the infamous murder merely reinforces that pre-existing fear!!

25 years later, Batman still doesn't like guns:

But Stamper has just been released from prison, and he's after the jewels, and revenge against those he blames for his capture. Batman tracks him down...

But being confronted by Stamper and a blasting gun re-triggers Bruce Wayne's trauma:

Which leaves him helpless:

Fortunately, someone is watching unseen...

...and that familiar, comforting (?) laugh restores Batman to his right mind!

Of course, this means that the Shadow must know Batman's identity, right??

And he vanishes, leaving Batman with a case of unrequited hero worship:

And now you know...the rest of the story!!

Denny O'Neill, Irv Novick & Dick Giordano bring us the real truth about the Caped Crusader in Batman #259 (1974).

Manic Monday--New Cars Shopping, Archie-Style!!

From pep #248 (1970), "Custom-Designed Cars For Archie And The Gang":




I must say that I'm pretty disappointed they didn't give us an auto design for Jughead. Think of the possibilities!!

Uncomfortable Cheesecake

[Editor's note: this post will present one of the more disturbing images ever. Read at your own risk]

Imagine, if you will, a cross between Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Captain Planet's Planeteers...well, wait, you don't have to imagine that:

I mentioned the Turtles quite deliberately, as the Conservation Corps debuted in one of Archie Comics TMNT specials.

And as for the Planeteers reference? Well, each of our cartoon animals has dominion over Earth's elements (loosely defined):

Oh, to heck with the dry text. Let's meet 'em!!

There's South America's Firefly--Commander of Fire & Heat!!

Meet England's Stone Hedgehog--Ruler of Rock & Stone!!

North America's Water Buffalo--Mater of the Waters, and Africa's Greenhorn--Lord of Flora & Vegetation!!

And finally, the sole female member of the Corps: from the waters of the Pacific, Skyshark, Mistress of the Sky, Air and Weather!!

Uhhhh....ummmm...is she naked?

I mean, the other animals all have clothing and costumes, and as far as I can tell, she's just wearing a belt...I mean....ummm....

OK, OK, put such thoughts out of my vile head. This is a kiddie comic. Look, it even has a page for the tykes to send in their crude but lovable drawings of the Corps!

But on the opposite page, right across from the kiddie art, there's this pin-up (click to embiggen to full uncomfortableness):

Uh...I mean...but, but...ummm....I know I'm a mammal, and...errr....well, if she's a shark, why does she have...uuuuhhhhhh...I thought this was a children's comic, and...hhrrmmm....

Well, that is just all kinds of disturbing, isn't it?

From Conservation Corps #3 (1993)

Meet The New Boss, Same As The Old Boss

Look, everybody else and their grandmother has already reviewed Justice League #1. So this isn't a review of the issue, it's not a post about what I think of the story.

[OK, if you must know, it was pretty standard Johns-Lee: too many splashes; too few panels on most pages; loaded with more testosterone then an entire NFL team and a complete lack of any female presence; what plot there was could have taken place in the first 4 pages of a 1970s issue of Marvel Two-In-One, when the heroes would realize that they were both heroes and would spend the next 18 pages actually accomplishing something.]

[And, not to be too harsh on Johns' script, but it borrowed so heavily from other sources that it needed a few "story by" credits. This type of Batman/Green Lantern interaction, if it's what you like, was done far better in All-Star Batman & Robin--I know, I can't believe I just said that; the "we hate super beings" was done better in Legends, and yeah, that was a Darkseid story, too; and the ending was completely lifted from Cosmic Odyssey (arrogant GL locks up accompanying hero behind because he knows he can handle the problem by himself, surprise, he can't).]

[Plus, Johns doesn't seem to grasp the concept "note to self":

Note to self, Geoff: that's not how it works.]

No, what I'd like to talk about here is what JL #1 was supposed to accomplish (aside from "huge" sales that are probably actually less than what the combined sales of 13 regular books would have been that week, had DC not pulled a stunt...go figure).

After all the hype, all of the carelessly throwing around words like "historic" and "game-changing", there's almost no way the book couldn't have disappointed. Hell, JL #1 could have cured cancer, and it would have lived up to the massive propaganda blitz DC engaged in.

But is it what we were promised? Way back in May, DC VP Of Sales Bob Wayne said, in a letter to retailers, that "(a)ll stories will be grounded in each character's legend -- but will relate to real world situations, interactions, tragedy and triumph." [Emphasis added]

Was Justice League #1 anything like that? Did we see any real world situations or interactions? Was there anything in JL#1 that couldn't have been done without a line-wide reboot? Anything different in storytelling style, in story construction, in tone or content, that couldn't have been done in a "The Secret Origin Of The Justice League" 6-part mini-series, as Johns did with GL and Superman when he wished to adjust their continuity in the old DCU?

At this point, I would normally do a pullback here, and say that it wasn't fair to blame the creators of this particular comic, because the hype wasn't their fault, and they didn't choose to make their comic the debut of the nu52, etc.

But, in this case, the creators ARE just as responsible for the hype, and they DID decide that this book would be the first showing for the bright, happy shiny nu52. And either the co-publishers of DC were just over-hyping beyond belief, or (much more troubling) the co-publishers of DC had no idea that this masterwork they produced was not really in any way different than what DC has been doing for the past few years.

Of course that's no surprise. When the people in charge of the company come out and say "the comics we've been producing for the past few years have failed," without any questioning of who was responsible for that; and then, with essentially zero changes at the top, say "but now we're going to do it better" without any self-awareness at all, well, what do you expect? The self-aggrandizement of putting their own book first resulted in big sales, sure, but the complete disconnect between what they're saying and what they're actually publishing is not reassuring.

Still, it was better than Flashpoint #5, which Johns obviously deliberately wrote as badly as possible, in order to make JL #1 look good, right? I mean, he couldn't actually have thought that was a good conclusion, could he?

Meanwhile, enjoy the completely unrelated music video:

Friday Night Fights--Job Interview Style!!

It's Friday Nights Fight time, my friends, and this week we get to see a battle in a situation that you've probably never seen before--the job interview!!

It's flashback time, as we learn exactly how Mrs. Arbogast became Tony Stark's executive secretary. We join her waiting for her interview in Stark's office. Tony is late, so of course, he's probably off on a drunken binge. Or...

Well, no one ever said Whirlwind was smart...

I'm pretty sure Spacebooger's first job interview went something like that...

Carrie Barre and Steve Ditko bring us the most awesome secret origin ever in Iron Man Annual #11 (1990).

So, really, I don't need to tell you to vote for me this week, right? I mean, the untold origin of Mrs. Arbogast, drawn by Ditko? Who can compete with that? So vote!!

Tales From The Quarter Bin--Blackwulf #1!!

The quarter bin, besides being a great place to find cheap reading material, can also serve as a repository for those who have long vanished from our memories (deservedly so, perhaps).

So let's take a look at June, 1994...you might want to put on goggles or other protective eye wear:

AIEEEEE, the 1990s!!

Specifically, though, check out this blurb:

No, Blackwulf wasn't "the NEXT generation of hero." Hell, he wasn't even his own generation of hero, coming and going in a ten-issue blink of an eye.

Inside, we got perhaps the most 90s panel ever, courtesy of Angel Medina and Bill Anderson:

Blackwulf--Killraven wants his costume back!!

Anyway, the next issue blurb compounds the cover's lie:

The Marvel Universe remained very much the same, thank you.

Oh, Blackwulf saw some limited guests from the Marvel Universe---some Skrulls, a Kree Sentry, Ultron, Hank Pym, Deathlok--but aside from his first teaser appearance in an issue of Thunderstrike, the favor was never returned, and Blackwulf and his ilk never appeared in any other Marvel Book.

And the secret race fleeing the Celestials and fighting a civil war beneath the surface of the Earth was never heard from again. Despite Ralph Macchio's assertion on the text page that "new blood is being injected into the Mighty Marvel mainstream" and that this series would "shake our unsuspecting civilization to its very foundation," Blackwulf faded away, destined to be forgotten, until not even the hardest-core Marvelite can recall anything about him.

Until the quarter bin...