50 Things I Hate

1. The Wyoming Kid
2. The Newsboy Legion
3. Bloodlines
4. Surrealism
5. Nocturna
6. Gaggy
7. Zatanna
8. Vixen
9. Brad Meltzer's writing
10. Bob Haney's writing
11. The Sword of Atlantis
12. Bunnyman
13. The Elongated Man
14. Decompression
15. Scott Snyder's writing
16. Marvel
17. Ju Ju
18. Dan Didio's choices
19. Geo-Force
20. Crisis on Infinite Earths
21. Marv Wolfman's writing
22. Jeph Loeb's writing
23. Peter David's writing
24. Aqualad
25. Katana
26. Populism
27. Halo
28. Tom King's writing
29. Captain Atom
30. Broken toys
31. The Hangman
32. Archie
33. Livergoons
34. Grant Morrison's writing
35. The DC Challenge
36. Iris West
37. Azrael
38. Cullen Bunn
39. Heath Ledger's performance
40. Dirty Stinking Rannies
41. Damian Wayne
42. Kingdom Come
43. Zook
44. Alex Danvers
45. Ignorance
46. Stan Lee
47. Anti-heroism
48. Benjamin Percy's writing
49. John Ostrander THE CHARACTER
50. People who don't use the internet

...the gang's all here-o!

This morning, DC announces a bunch of new miniseries, updating 'classic characters'.

In 2016, DC will launch Swamp Thing, Metal Men, Raven, Firestorm, Katana: Cult of the Kobra, Metamorpho and Sugar & Spike. Some of the series will be written by the characters' original creators

Now, there's a lot I could talk about here...
but this is the only thing I WILL talk about:

Not Katana.  As dumb as that character is, it's clear they aren't going to leave her be, so contextualizing her with Kobra (and even dumber character of the same type) makes some sense.  

No, not Katana. 

That THING above her.  Which can only be:

HALO.

Hated, horrible Halo.

I can't WAIT.

Aquaman and the Others

Well, Aquaman & The Others has ended.

Prisoner of War must smell like a platoon of dead guys.

No one is more interested in Aquaman getting his due than I.  So I was very excited for him to get a second title.  He'd never had a second title. Heck, usually he doesn't have a FIRST title.

There are many ways they could have gone with a second Aquaman title.  It could have been an extra-continuity anthology title or an alter-continuity 'for-fun' title; that's worked well, for example, with Wonder Woman, who has one of each (Sensation and Wonder Woman '77).  Imagine a title where you could still read stories about Sub Diego, or Thanatos, or even A.J. Curry; imagine a title where you could watch the Marine Marvels  and Tusky take on Queen Vassa or the Lizard People.  

Or The Brain AND HIS NONSTOP HIGH-PITCHED SHRIEKING

But DC is interested in consolidating Aquaman's brand, not diversifying it.

That's why they choose an actor who looks as much like Aquaman as possible. 

So it makes sense that they would try to establish him as a leader on his own, independent of his royalty.  One can only suppose the model for Aquaman & The Others was Batman & The Outsiders: iconic hero leading a loose group of new or secondary characters with no common background.  It probably wasn't the best model to choose...

The Outsiders were not there to make Batman seem cool or become popular.  Batman defines both those terms already.  He was there to increase their visibility and street cred.  And even that didn't work well.  Metamorpho and Black Lighting, both of whom had history, power, and pedigree to be on better teams (such as the Doom Patrol or the Justice League) always seemed like they were slumming.  Halo? Looker? Geo-Force? Yes; well, we can see how well they've done since then.  

It's the Trinity of Fail!
P.S. Did Looker always fly with her arms and legs spread, crotch/boob first? Because that's a bit on point, even for Looker.

Only Katana seems to have stepped to a new level (specifically, "The Level Where You Can Be Used After the Next Reboot or in Another Popular Medium Rather Than a Forgotten Character Forever Tied to a Well-Meant Experiment of a Previous Era").  

Aquaman & the Outsiders gave Aquaman no pre-established heroes to lead; it wouldn't have worked with with the new continuity.  But it posited that Aquaman, when he found out he was the real King of Atlantis, said... "Hm, no, thanks."  Kind of makes Orm seem like less of a jerk, doesn't it?  Instead Arthur went off wilding around the globe with a disparate band of adventurers whom he met by..
whom he met at...
whom he met when.. .

Okay; I give up. Are we supposed to know or even GUESS how a Brazilian jungle woman, a cosmonaut who lives on the moon, an aged American super-spy, a middle eastern prophetess, and Hispanic Ragman all met and became colleagues? Let alone why? 

Sure, the same could be said about the Scooby-Doo Gang, but it's easy to figure it out:
they all live in the same bus.

And what a generic group they were.  I'm fond of them as individuals and grew to (mostly kinda) like them in the series.  Their ethnic diversity was nice, but they were pretty clearly a half-baked boy band of stock figures: Jungle Woman, Superspy, Soldier Man, Cosmonaut, Seer Lady, and Mystic Girl.  Not an A-List boy band, either; the Others are more like "O Town".  Nobody seemed care to enough to give them more imaginative names than 'The Operative" and "Prisoner-of-War" (or, for that matter, "The Others").  But what do you expect from Dan Jurgens, the man who created Doomsday The Living Plot Device?

Not that there was anything wrong with O Town, mind you.

Somehow through Aquaman's royalness, this group discovered ancient relics of Atlantis missing for some 10,000 years and then... divvied them up and kept them.  I guess that's how The Law of Sea Salvage works but, those things really clearly belong to Atlantis. Specifically, to its king: Orm.  I guess you can say that since Arthur is really the king, they are his to do with as he sees fit on behalf of Atlantis. But giving them away to auslanders really shouldn't be one of his choices, particularly once he does return to take the throne.   

Perhaps then it's just being consistent when he gives each of the objects to the person who can use them least.  The guy who already lives in space gets the helmet that lets him live in space; the spy who can espionage into anything gets a key that lets him do the same; the lady who has visions gets the widget that lets her see them in HD; the close combat soldier gets shackles that let him force blast everyone away, and the jungle woman who hates ever leaving her jungle gets the amulet that lets her teleport anywhere in the world (or the moon).  Oh, and the king of Atlantis gets the trident that lets you be king of Atlantis.  

It's never really explain, that I could tell, WHY those relics were made and in that form. Okay the key is a key, the trident is a scepter slash magical bazooka; some make sense.  But why did Atlan make chained shackles that go boom? Pretty convenient for a character named "Prisoner of War" to come along, eh?  Why make a helmet that lets you breath in space or underwater?  Neither of those things were really much of an issue, I should think.  I wanted to read the story where Atlan enacted his master plan that involved using each of those items to retake the throne of Atlantis; did someone forget to tell it?

Then at the end of the series, after they have all proven they don't really need the devices to do their thing, and about to go their separate ways again, Aquaman lets them keeps the relics of Atlantic (which, as the series took eleven issue to show, are NOT safe in their hands).

Perhaps at some future point, the Others will blossom again, and more fully.  Many characters and groups have short, inauspicious beginnings that laid the groundwork for later comebacks and revisions.  The original run of Firestorm was just five issues (not counting the story in Cancelled Comics Cavalcade); now Firestorm's on live-action teevee.   

The Inevitability of Vibe

So, for this post, you have my wicked friend Noah Van Google to blame. Noah’s an egger; he’s that kid who never got in trouble in school, but was always egging YOU on to see what would happen. Then when Hilarity/Horror ensued, the teacher turns on you and there sits Van Google, smiling sweetly with a little halo over his head.

So, Van Google recently decided to throw peanuts through the bars of my cage at the digital zoo by pointing out—on my FACEBOOK WALL—that Newsarama recently listed VIBE as Number One on the list of “The 10 WORST Justice League Members of All Time”. Okay, Noah; consider the bear baited.

Now, as long-time readers may remember, I have addressed this very issue when egged on to reply a comment by Steve Englehart listing Vibe as “one of the four worst Leaguers of all time”. So I feel no need to address that specific point further. Heck even, the writer of the offending Newsarama article conceded:

“…there's something charming about Paco Ramone's short-lived existence, whether it was his overconfidence or excitement about being a superhero in the first place. Vibe also has a particularly important place in Justice League history as being the first Leaguer to be killed in the line of duty, launching an unfortunate trend that would continue for a long time afterwards. If only he'd joined up with a different team that dealt with smaller problems, perhaps Vibe would still be with us today, and perhaps he would've evolved into a character people remembered as more than a gimmick gone wrong. Who's for a new Vibe ongoing series in the next round of DC New 52 launches?”

To my ears, that’s pretty much a concession that Vibe is not only NOT number one on the list, but shouldn’t be on the list at all. He certainly doesn’t argue that any of the others characters on the list should be brought back, let alone get their own series!

But I will take it one (or more) step further: I posit that not only will Vibe return in the New52, but that the return of Vibe verges on inevitable. And here are the reasons why…

Vibe is simple.

It's good Paco has a superpowers, because his career as an avant-garde interior designer was going nowhere.

Yeah, yeah, I hear you laughing. I’m not referring to Vibe’s IQ or personality; I am referring to Vibe’s concept. Vibration powers? Got it. While what exactly he can do with such powers is still open to exploration, there’s nothing intrinsically vague about them (as there is about, oh, pretty much every single member of Stormwatch except Midnighter & Apollo, but only because they are Batman & Superman expies). His personality—vivacious, optimistic street kid with a bit of a chip on his shoulder—is also fairly easy to understand, represent, and stomach (when properly portrayed). He’s pretty much a modern version of Robin (with superpowers).

Vibe is colorful.

Even sepia tones cannot dim the glory that is Vibe.

Both literally and figuratively, Vibe is a colorful figure. Now, you can dismiss this as unimportant. But the fact remains that wan and colorless characters simply do not do well in the long-run in comics. You can make fun of the shiny spandex types, but they remain after scads of less vivid—or, as they are so often style, “more realistic”—characters have faded from view. The costume, the dancing, the flair; face it, Vibe is a fun, larger than life character, and those are superhero comics’ stock in trade.

Vibe is a “Latino”.

Who's for a Vibe team-up with Mas y Menos? C'mon, 'fess up...!

I’m not one for ‘ethnic quotas’, certainly, but DC has definitely expressed interest in having their character roster reflect a more modern diversity in (American? World?) society. As a Puerto Rican (not Mexican, I’m always amazed when people get that wrong, including the writer of the aforementioned Newsarama article), Paco Ramone would fit easily into that plan. Certainly much better than that drunken caricature, Yolanda Montez, or that double-mockery, Extrano.

Vibe has a high Q factor.

Shut up, ghetto boy, who cares what you think?!

Like it or not…most people still know who Vibe is (was). Look again at that list on Newsarama. Aztek? Bloodwynd? Faith? Vague, indistinct, and unmemorable. Any time you want to discuss them—as rare as such times must be—you have to explain who they are, and probably have a lot of difficulty doing so. Despite having died years before any of those characters were introduced, Vibe is still known and discussed (for good or for ill). In fact, one of the Abscorbascommandos tells me Vibe will be one of the characters appearing in the upcoming “DC Shorts” as part of Cartoon Network’s “DCAnimated Hour”; I’ll bet you a can of Soder and a Big Belly burger that Aztek, Bloodwynd, and Faith will NOT be.

Vibe stands alone.

Of course, when you stand like that, it's obvious WHY you stand alone.

Much like the cheese, Vibe stands alone. And by that I mean, Vibe’s origin or existence do not hinge upon any other character or event, so he can be reintroduced at any point. This may seem like a small or silly point, but it isn’t. There’s a huge host of DCU characters you cannot say this about (e.g., Blue Beetle, Huntress, Nightwing, Donna Troy, Wally West, the Detroit Steel, the Elongated Man, Bart Allen, Power Girl, Mister Terrific, the Metropolis Steel); because their origins are tied into predecessor heroes or specific events from “the OldDC”, their reintroduction causes immediate problems, questions, or revisions. Vibe could be reintroduced next week as a newly emerging hero being recruited by, well, just about any group in the DC. Other than Stormwatch. Although the idea of Vibe blazing around the gloomy abstraktervolk of Stormwatch is hilarious; it would be like having Lady Gaga crash Dowton Abbey.

Vibe has potential.

That's a fetish for somebody. Um... me, in fact.

There’s lots that can be with Vibe’s power. Although still unique, his power has similarities to Black Canary sonic scream and Flash’s vibratory powers… ones that they have done pretty well with. First of all, his raw power is pretty substantial: the power to use harmonic resonances to shake a building apart, wreck a bridge, or start a tidal wave is overwhelming (though mostly destructive). But readers love imaginative applications of powers (such as the Flash’s use of superspeed to vibration through things or Mera’s recently displayed ability to suck the water out of people who make the mistake of pissing her off) and Vibe is ripe for those (make Vibe as able to sense vibrations as he is able to cause them, and you get a world of possibilities). And as a character (rather than just a superhero) Vibe has great potential as the kind of tough, wisecracking, happy-go-lucky hero that made the Golden Agers such exciting role models.

Vibe is redeemable.

Like a gay Puerto Rican Batman, all he needs to win your heart is time to prepare.

Most of the negative associations with Vibe, face it, have to do with two things: being part of the “non-A list” of the Detroit League and associating him with the breakdancing craze in the 1980s. The first one is easily dismissed—don’t put him in the JLA (at least not right away)—and the other is, frankly, silly and date. I hate to break it to all you dance-haters but… breakdancing may have entered popular consciousness in the 1980s, but it didn’t exactly disappear. Let’s start with Step Up (2006), Step Up 2 (2008), Step Up 3 (2010), and Step Up 4 (2012). Broaden that to Dancing with the Stars, So You Think You Can Dance?, America’s Best Dance Crew—you yourself may not be part of the dance scene, but I (and the alumni and faculty of Garling’s Greater York Dance Center) can tell you that plenty of people are.

Glory awaits those who redeem him.

I'm gonna do GOOD, Paco! For YOU!

Quick, what is Geoff Johns famous for? And, no, “severed limbs” and “weak endings” don’t count, wise guy. The answer is fixing the unfixable: Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkman, the Justice Society. When explaining how Geoff became such a towering figure in current comics, you’re not going to say, “Oh, he wrote this amazing story about X, or used X innovative writing technique”. You’re going to say, “He fixed X, Y, and Z, elegantly and definitively.” Because, while readers do like writers who create great new characters and stories, they like much more writers who make existing characters that readers already know into great characters with story potential—particularly those familiar characters and “guilty pleasures” who have fallen on hard literary times. You can joke about it all you want, Internet: but the writer who pulls it off will have the last laugh... and my thanks and admiration.

Bystanders: Who They Are and How They Came to Be

You know what’s missing from Heroclix?

Bodies.

Warm, living, innocent civilian bodies (or at least tiny cold plastic representations thereof). In a “real” comic book battle, one of the most common issues is the welfare of the innocent bystanders. How often the hero has to “take the fight away from this populated area”. How often the weaker but more mobile team-members are assigned crowd control and evacuation. How often an evildoer takes a hostage to proof himself against batarangs, plastic-cat arrows, and ill-defined energy blasts. Without such opportunities, how’s a villain supposed to do his job?

Yet Heroclix battles seem to take place in an unpeopled social vacuum, an oddly tidy post-apocalyptic wasteland where no signs of life remain other than abandoned hot-carts and bubblegum machines. There are no elders, no adults, no children, no pets, no birds, no bugs, and no airborne viruses. Nothing but capes and criminals. And Lois Lane.

And that’s just not how the real (?) comic book world is. So I’ve begun incorporating bystanders into my Heroclix games.

Heroclix did originally began with Bystanders as part of the game. They were tokens—pogs, as it were—of either stock characters (e.g., “The Politician” or “The Paper Boy”) or of well-known supporting characters (e.g. “Alfred Pennyworth” or “Linda Park”). Wizkids (makers of Heroclix) clearly had a sense that such characters needed to be included in the game, but they gave insufficient thought to making an appropriate role for them in the game’s mechanics. As a result, the on-line forums for Heroclix players blossomed with strategies like Superman using baby Lian Harper as a ‘meat shield’ to protect himself, Alfred’s enduring partnership with the Legion of Super-Heroes as their camouflage expert, and how Galactus can conquer the universe aided only by an army of clones of Aunt May.

Over time, Wizkids realized that Heroclix’s ability to represent comic book characters accurately is one of its competitive advantages, and one that distinguishes it from a host of other table-top games. Heroclix is at least as much about its four-color atmosphere as it is game mechanics. Within that in mind, they’ve discontinued “pogs” (along with the out-of-character strategies they fostered) and have made some of the more important supporting characters into regular figures (e.g. Alfred, Commissioner Gordon, Lois Lane).

But my nature abhors a social vacuum, so recently I’ve been adding bystanders back into the mix as part of my house rules for the game. And you can, too!

Buy Standers

You could use pennies or beads to represent bystanders but it ruins the flavor of the game. It would be like playing Heroclix with no sculpts on the dials and with only terrain markers on the maps. Just do what I did, go to the dollar store and buy some toy soldiers or firefighters or such. They are recognizable as people, similar to Heroclix in size, stand up on their own, and easily distinguished from the “real” figures in the game. You’ll need about 40.

Extras Find their Marks

After the real game pieces have been set up in their starting areas, place the bystanders as follows.
· Do not put any in the starting area rows or the row adjacent.
· For each other row, roll a pair of dice of two different colors (let’s say, one red and one blue). The red die tells you where to place figures to the right of the spine of the map (the line between Columns H & I) and the blue one is for the left. For example, if for Row 4 you roll a Red 1 and a Blue 6, you would place a bystander at I4 (one space to the right of the spine) and at C4 (six spaces to the left of the spine). If you want bystanders to be sparser, roll two dice for each side rather than one. Treat a roll of nine as if it were a one, and if you roll 10-12, omit placing the figure.
· If a square is blocked, just skip putting a bystander there.
· Repeat the process for Rows 4 through 21, and you’ll have bystanders randomly distributed throughout the map.

“Get out of my way, inferior beings!”

Bystanders block lines of sight. Non-flying figures (including bystanders) cannot move through a square occupied by a bystander. Bystanders are neutral figures with regard to breakaway. Bystanders are affected by hindering terrain and blocking terrain as normal.

“EEK!”
Bystanders have only one goal: run away from the fighting. Because when a guy with a bow and arrow starts shooting at a talking gorilla in your airport terminal, you change your travel plans mighty fast. None of this “Gosh, the Spoiler needs our help!” or “If you want to hurt Halo you’ll have to get through me!” nonsense for our bystanders; they are practical people, with other, non-combat places to be Besides, since they live in the DCU, they’ve see all this already. So at the end of each round of turns, they try to run away. But how? And whither?

Bystanders head for the closest exits, of course. You need to decide in advance where those are. What makes sense as an exit depends on what map you’re playing on, of course, but a good ‘default exit’ is the starting areas. That way, both teams are sure to have panicked citizens pouring toward them as they wade their way into battle.

At the end of each round of turns, one die is rolled to determine movement for all the bystanders. Each bystander moves toward the closet exit, as many squares as the die roll (and other obstacles) permit. They should always move, if possible, away from regular figures, as well. For example, if a regular figure is directly between a bystander and an exit, the bystander will, obstacles permitting, move diagonally so that he’s both moving both toward the exit and away from the figure. Although all bystanders get a move after each round, they don’t exactly move simultaneously; ones on outer rows move first, followed by the inner rows. So, first the ones in Rows 4 and 21 are moved, followed by those in Row 5 and 20, etc.

With the right terrain, the bystander will create unpredictable logjams that regular figures will have to work around until the citizens clear out. After a few rounds, almost all the bystanders will have escaped, except for those who have become …

HOSTAGES!

I love this part. Bystanders aren’t just ‘moving terrain’; they’re ‘special objects’, too. Villains can, if you wish, land on the same square as a bystander and take it hostage. Hostages function sort of like objects, except a figure doesn’t need superstrength to “carry” one.

Villains with a hostage:
· Move at half their speed
· Cannot be the target of a ranged attack
· Get plus one to their Defense against close combat attack
· Can, if they have superstrength, throw the hostage at an opponent up to six squares away to whom he has line of fire; this action incapacitates the opponent automatically (because they have to ‘catch’ the hostage). The hostage is then placed adjacent to the hero, but not in between the hero and the hostage-taker.

Naturally, the main advantage to hostage-taking is immunity from ranged attack. Sick of getting bopped by batarangs from the shadows? Grab a hostage! Oh, and no sneaky rules-lawyering to get around the direct attack thing. No fair trying to zap the hostage-taker with Pulse Wave or splash damage or Force Blast; don’t want to hurt an innocent hostage!

Now, if you’re automatically thinking, “Well, how can I tell the difference between a villain and a hero? How do I make such an arbitrary distinction not covered by the keywords in the game? And what if I’m playing two teams of heroes against each other?” Well, if that’s what you’re thinking, then I can’t help you and you’re probably playing Marvel Heroclix anyway.

“RUN!”

Hostages can escape from villains:
· If a hero does damage to the hostage-taker, or
· If a player uses an action to give him a chance to breakaway (which requires a roll of six), or
· If the hostage-taker makes a critical miss or
· If the hostage-taker has two action tokens on him, and adjacent hero breaks away, the hero can carry the hostage off with him, releasing it in a square adjacent to wherever he stops.
In these cases the hostage is ‘released’ into an adjacent square, then to run away to be interviewed by Clark Kent, looking for a human interest angle to the latest super-donnybrook.


Is this a foolproof, watertight addition to the regular rules of the game without any unforeseen issues for game mechanics? HECK, NO!

But it is fun, gives the villains a fighting chance, and feels a lot more like a comic book than a battle in an utterly barren landscape.

If This Week were a Comic Book

If this week had been a comic book it would have been something like this.


Aquaman came to the rescue of a stranded cruise ship today. While delighted passengers watched with amazement, crustaceans crawled up the hull of the ship, carrying electric eels which they hooked up to power the generators, then graciously jumped into steam-pots to become the evening’s dinner, “My finny friends, even the ones without fins, are always happy to lend a claw to the over-privileged land-dwellers who prey on them," Aquaman said. “Might as well be comfortable while we are waiting for whales to tow the ship back to shore!” Ship’s engineers have confirmed that they have enough Spam to feed the electric eels that are continuing to power the air conditioners, casino, and karaoke machines.


Gabrielle Doe, a.k.a. “Halo”, marvels at how far she’s gone on “Dancing with the Superheroes”.


The Prime Minister of Italy received a vote of Extra Confidence today for hiring time consultant Rip Hunter to repair the 2000 year old House of the Gladiators near Mount Vesuvius. “It was not merely a cultural imperative, but a practical matter,” the PM pointed out. “He’s much cheaper than Cave Carson…"


Haitian government admits to inaction on cholera epidemic. “With all the super-science available at the Haiti office of STAR Labs, we could probably stop it immediately, using, oh, nanobots or some such,“ said Haitian President Wyclef Jean. “But we’ve kind of been hoping it would activate somebody’s metagene so we could have our own national superhero. Every year, we try to have several major disasters of a various kinds, just in case. In fact, we keep Paul Booker on retainer.”


President Obama arrived in Indonesia this week for a meeting with assembled superheroes of the archipelago, including Prince Elongated and Princess Star. Aquanus had been scheduled to join them , but was detained helping Aquaman take care of a cruiseshipful of spoiled Americans. The meeting went well, despite a potentially embarrassing incident where Herbintang disintegrated the main course at the ceremonial dinner. “It’s quite alright,” Obama quipped, “I hate Indonesian food any way!” The assembled heroes duly laughed at the president's lame joke for nearly 30 seconds while the credits rolled.

Things That Made Me Happy

in my comics this week.

• Rioting, looting, fires burning unchecked, daring breakouts, National Guard enforcing curfews. Ah, Gotham. It's a helluva town.
• And Diamondrock's right. It is so so so very wrong that her eyes are blue.
• Even the Phantom Stranger's poppet does whatever it wants.
• "Belay that talk, Amazon."
• Wow, Superman was beautiful this month; you go, Guedes, Magalhase, and Curiel!
• Ollie's idea of kinky sexy play.
• Jim's nic fit.
• "I'll have you know Gazerbeam and I once fought Mr. Bossy-pants."
  
• Thank god Bibbo's not being portrayed as a congenital idiot any more.
• Achilles?! Well... that's an interesting choice.
• Oh, yeah; that's Jim Corrigan, the ass-kicking tough guy cop! Who sews.
• That's the last hero I would have expected to go after a piece of tail!
• Fire and ice.
• "Well, hmm. I'm out." ROTFL!
• The Mon-El watch.
• Tong. So good to see Tong again, even if only in passing.
• "He was a kind man." Yes. Thanks for remembering that.
• How Amazons cover their nakedness.
• Oh, nice gambit to make me like Halo. It's not working yet, but it's a nice try.
  
• Well, if anyone would know about deserving to be hit repeatedly, it would be Hal.
• Nice interpet on Mr. Freeze.
• "You want a side of eggs with that ham?"
• One of my favorite villains made Spider-Man punch himself in the face. BWAHAHAAHA!
  
• Whoa. Do not &#$(@ with Commissioner Gordon.
• Whoa. Do not make Wonder Woman do something she'll regret.
• Whoa. That's ... Wendy's dad? Whoa. Whoa. Didn't see that coming.
• Huh. The "anti-Luthor". Elegant; simple; a good role for him in a needed niche. I approve.
• I guess I should have known Zatara was from Italy. But it never occurred to me.
• What terrifies Phobia.
• Gorbul Mammit; now that is a Flash fact!
• Is it my imagination or is the deco architecture of Metropolis vaguely reminiscent of the crystalline structures of Krypton?
• Now that is decapitation with drama! Thanks, Kevin Vanhook!
• You know, if he had hit her, so-called feminists would be up in arms about it. Whose double-standard is it...?
• "Foolish ornament"? Ouch, that hurts!
• Is the Phantom Stranger wearing a sweater-vest? Just never know what he'll do.
• Okay, I've always hated her. But now she's dissing Detroit. This means war.
• John Kent's new job.
• Homoerotic tension humor!
• Zolpidem? Wow, they are desperate.
• Ooo, I didn't think Genocide would go there. She really does know how to cut deep. But my money's still on Etta.
• Do yourself a favor; don't miss the debut of the Incredibles comic this week. It made me happy.
  
• So, even McDuffie knows his run hasn't accomplished anything? Brilliantly self-aware redux, part of his ingenious grand plan, or just unintentional irony?

Things That Made Me Happy

in my comics this week.

• Acts-of-villains riders.
• Well, as unlikely as it may seem, the Outsiders has officially become interesting.
• Really, don't you think Gizmo should have replaced his glasses by now? Or at least his eye? Does he not have an image consultant?
• Heh. Calling him "Carl".
• Talking bombs. With shark faces. I love comics.
• Hm. Barbara Gordon... Red Lantern...?
• She's a Major? ROTFL!
• THAT is the perfect title for the last issue of Robin. Nice one.
• "Psyche!"
• Wait is that... a giant bullet-shaped cenotaph? Instant classic.
• Robin beats Shiva. Pure brilliance. That is why I love Tim Drake.
• Heh. Calling him "a transformative figure".
• That's the first explanation of the Outsiders that has every made sense to me.
• Not at ALL something I expected to find out about Superwoman. Psyche, indeed.
• Geo-Force working for a servant. Delicious!
• DC really needs to start selling notebooks with that black hand symbol on them.
• Roy Raymond, Jr. I am nonplussed. In a good way.
• Batman and Rocket totally need to go out.
• I assume that kissing him is pretty much like eating a mud pie.
• Okay. Metamorpho is officially really creepy now.
• Huh. Don't you think that she, of all people, would be a bit more freaked about getting a doll in the mail?
• Now that is the way to quit your job. On live teevee.
• Ryan is right; it is Nekron, isn't it?
• Roy's "Marsh Marsha Marsha" moment.
• Hm... Halo's possible role in the Blackest Night? Interesting. Yeah... I just said "Halo interesting".

The Parental Trinity

We are used to thinking of Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman as "the trinity" of DCU. That's based on their being the three most consistently iconic and well-known of DC's characters. But it's more that just that, isn't it?

DC, being DC, isn't content to simply say, "These are our three most popular characters." DC seems to intuitively understand that for mere characters to be actual icons, they need to stand for something. Not simply the generic Good Guy message of "Be Good and Beat Up Bad Guys", but something unique. But since their acknowledgment as the Big Three, editorial attempts (whether conscious or not) have tried to distinguish among Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman as three points of a conceptual triangle.

These attempts have met with varying degrees of success. The differences in outlook and style between Batman and Superman have been beaten to death so thoroughly in so many places -- for that matter, on any single page of Superman/Batman -- that I have no desire to retread them here. Attempts to shove Wonder Woman into that tightly bound conceptual dyad have been spotty and rung less true.

One of the most promising attempts was position here in direct opposition to both Batman and Superman over the killing of Max Lord. Batman and Superman, whatever their differences in style, are both very much products of our society. As vigilantes, they are willing to use their abilities to bring criminals to justice, but not to carry out punishment, which is in the purview of society as whole, not an individual. Wonder Women is a classical hero from an entirely different society; they kill monsters and threats to civilization.

But even that distinction seems to have broadly overlooked. Besides, it's not really a "triangle" in any meaningful way; it's just Wonder Woman's worldview versus The World's Finest's. Regardless, I myself have my own perceptions of the differences between them, and likely you do, too. One I would like you to consider is how the Big Three represent three different models of the nuclear family.

To put it more directly,

• Superman is the child of two parents.
• Wonder Woman is from a single-parent family.
• Batman is an orphan, raised with no parents.
  

2, 1, 0. This is a real, built-in difference among the three characters. It's not one that's been superimposed through later interpretation; it's part of their origins.

In some ways, this basic difference resonates through their characterizations. Batman, the orphan, is all about building a family. You know: adopting circus kids, street urchins, the neighbor's kid, the neighbor's kids' girlfriend, mute loonies and religious nutjobs, lost dogs, wayward librarians, obsequious imps, mechanically-minded hunchbacks, even Halo and Geo-Force. Whoever. Batman's like the Old Lady With the Houseful of Straycats.

Forget all that "long figure of the night" BS some writers try to hand you; Batman is the character, who, almost immediately after he was introduced, abandoned that shtick to hang out with a kid in green pixie boots.

For obvious reasons, Batman does not take family for granted, and, of all the Trinity, has been best at forming a (rather non-traditional) family and acting as its head.

Wonder Woman, on the other hand, is the child of quite literally a single-parent household. As such, she was clearly raised with independence in mind. Wonder Woman has been good at making friends and colleagues, but, unlike Batman, she's never seemed moved to form a family around herself.

I can count on one hand the number of times I've see her paling around with Donna, her sister. She's been seen with Wonder Girl (Cassie Sandsmark) often enough, I suppose (though it's certain nothing like a "Batman & Robin" relationship). But much of Cassie's training was farmed out to warrior-nanny Artemis. As this last issue of Wonder Girl made clear, Wonder Woman's focus has always been helping Cassie become an independent woman and warrior, able to choose her own path, rather than treating her as a sidekick or a partner.

Superman? Well, I've never really forgiven him for unceremoniously dumping both Matrix (look that up, kids!) and then Superboy (who was genetically his SON, for Rao's sake) on his parents. But recently I've softened on that, as a result of insights gained from reading Kurt Busiek's stories where he and Lois have essentially adopted the orphaned Chris Kent. Clark is from a two-parent family, and that is his irreducible model of family. It simply wouldn't occur to him to try to act as a single parent to either Matrix or Superboy; a child needs two parents, Clark would feel. Only now that Superman has a wife does parenting seem like an option to him.

So, while the members of the Trinity represent different models of family, there is something those models all have in common: they are built around the idea that family is more than just blood. Batman and Superman lost their birth parents; Superman was adopted by other, Batman adopts others. The youngsters they have charge of aren't their blood relatives but they've made them their sons. Wonder Woman was created by her mother, but not born of her; her "sister" isn't really her sister by blood and neither is the new Wonder Girl.

Whatever else they may represent, the Trinity stand for the idea that while families come in different mode, they are made by choices and time spent together, not just genes... .

Things That Made Me Happy...

in my comics this week.

• "Well, it's a perfect mess, now." Monarch has a sense of humor!
• Brains versus brawn.
• "You gonna give him a kiss oR just go through his pockets?" Oh, Joker, you irreverent wag!
• Nice silent Sinestro cameo.
• The future JLA is composed of Legion rejects? So funny, on so many levels. And sad.
• More dead New Gods! YAY! If they made Fatheads of the dead New Gods, I think I'd buy them.
• Brainiac 5, still wearing that horrid magenta jumper with yellow boots; thank goodness!
• Hal's birds. Who says Hal's not witty? Oh, wait; I do.
• I just LOVE the Source's new outfit. Very populux.
• Ah, the Guardians never learn, do they? The Alpha Lanterns do NOT inspire confidence!
• Is Brainiac 5 also a descendent of Fonzie?
• I'm glad Batman doesn't seem to know what's going on in his own book, because neither do I.
  
• You have to love that one of the steps of Brainy's latest plan is, "Become dictator of my home planet."
• I'm enjoying the UP versus Earth xenophobia storyline in Action, because it reminds me of the White Triangle storyline from the first Waid Legion.
• You did notice those Black Hand symbols in the Guardian's eyes, didn't you? That would be a bad sign... .
• Tusker? Storm-Boy? Golden boy? Eyeful frickin' Ethel? Did DC hire Blockade Boy as a ghost-writer?
• As I always suspected, the New Gods are just the mushrooms that grew up on the corpses of the REAL gods.
• Oh, my god. Earth-Man is, essentially, the Composite Superman. Fabulous.
  
• I got the Batman & The Outsiders Showcase. If you think I hated Halo and Geo-Force before, you ain't seen nothing yet.
• C'mon; give Crane the ring! At least for a week or two!
• Whoa; crabby Scott Free is even worse than crabby Aquaman.
• Yera Allon; yay!
• NO. Not "swear us the chosen"; regardless of sequence, the case of the subject remain nominative. it needs to be "swear we the chosen". Now.
• There seems to be an epidemic of "King Lear poses" among villains. Darkseid, sit up or just buy a recliner!

Alpha & Omega

So, someone asked me whether I'd buy a team-up of the Golden Age Starman, comics' greatest character, with Halo, comics' worst character, and what I thought would happen in such a story.

The answers were easy:

I already did, over 20 years ago.

They saved Peacemaker.

Modern DeMedici

Mostly I talk about the writing in comics, not the art. But that doesn't mean I don't care about or like art; I used to work in an art museum, in fact.

So, to help increase the attractiveness of my blog to art-lovers and increase my hit count and acquire a new source of "lazy posts"--

er---

I mean...

"to help bring some much-needed artistic flair to the Absorbascon and to offer it as a showcase for budding pencillers"

I am willing to post any fan art you send me on this blog!

Of course, there's a catch. The subject matter must relate to one of our favorites (or anti-favorites) here at the Absorbascon. Examples of acceptable topics include:

• Vibe
• The Cast of the Big Monkey Podcast
• Hal Jordan getting hit in the head (no head-hitting, no post-ee)
• Orca the Whalewoman
• Dr. Domino
• Much-hated Halo
• The Rolling Head of Pantha (pictures of Pantha's head while still connected to her body will be disqualified)
• The Awesome Human Flying Fish
• Dale Gunn, Love God
  
• Jean Loring in any state of madness or evil
• Koryak
• The original Starman or any of his villains
  
• Purple-robed pansies armed with corndogs
  
• Major Victory from Who Want to Be a Superhero
• Vibe
• The All-New Atom
  
• Congo Bill (no, NOT Congorilla)
• Evil kryptonian cats from the Phantom Zone
  
• Geo-Force getting the crap beaten out of him
• Oysterwoman beating the crap out of someone
• Joe Coyne, the Penny Plunderer
• The Sea Devils (or just Judy Walton, Queen of the Sea)
  
• Masterman
• And, of course, Vibe

Send submissions to:
scipio@bigmonkeycomics.com

Madness of Queen Jean: Editor's Interlude

Back when they wrote stories like "Queen Jean, Why Must We Die?", comic books had an amazing institution called the "Letter Column" (leh-tuhr cohl-uhm). It was kind of like a message board where you could comment on recent comics. But with some incredible differences:

• It had a moderator who weeded out stupid comments.
• The moderator was an editor at DC Comics (!!!).
• People had to use words, instead of emoticons.
• It was actually in the comic itself, so that other readers would all see it.
• The moderator/editor himself would actually sometimes REPLY to your comment.

Amazing, huh?

Anyway, in the Letter Column of the comic book that contains "Queen Jean, Why Must We Die?", there's a letter commenting on a recent issue of Atom-Hawkman, the one with the first appearances of that groovy ghoulie the Gentleman Ghost.




The letter-writer enjoys heroes who lose their temper and act out, generational fear and distrust, and betrayal by friends. But little-bitty flying spheres (you know, like the kind that float around Mr. Terrific?) he finds too hard to swallow.

Who could that be?


Perhaps, the kind of person who would have Batman angrily turn his back on his friends in the Justice League to form and manipulate a group of younger heroes? Yes, it was...

ENEMY OF SOCIETY MIKE W. BARR,
CREATOR OF HALO THE OUTSIDER
AND PERPETRATOR OF
NUMBERLESS OTHER LITERARY CRIMES

The Gunman

Next in our on-going series of goon tokens to assist your villainous Heroclix figures is the classic Gunman.

The Gunman gets its stats from the Sarge Steel pog (and very nice stats they are, too, particularly for only 8 points).

Perhaps you don't want to spend a 100 points on tokens every game, but there are worst investments than a handful of Gunmen. Don't underestimate the amount of damage some Gunmen can do to the host of figures without any damage-reducing powers. Black Lightning, Alan Scott, Mister Miracle, Batman, Halo, et al.-- they could all get shot by the Gunman.

Especially Halo. Repeatedly.

And who is our charming model for this token? The Gunman is Michael "the Mutt" Conway, who's currently wanted on multiple counts of Assault with a Deadly Weapon and Generally Looking Really Mean. You wouldn't know it to look at him, but Mike's a thespian. Of course, if you call him that to his face, you'll be eating bullets for breakfast.

Mike earns a really nice living using human beings for target practice, but he still shaves his head with a broken bottle, not to save money, but just because he likes the feel of it.

Mike the Mutt looks like he lives in a bad neighborhood, but there's one nice thing about it: no squirrels. Not any more.

Keep Your Head in the Game

My original plan for today was to post my next "Least Likely to Change" installment, but something happened today to change that.

Today, I received in the mail my latest shipment of customized Heroclix.

Dale, whom you will recognize as frequent commenter "Totaltoyz", made me a nice group of clix that Wizkids hasn't gotten around to making you and probably never will.

I got Argus. I think he's an underused part of the Flash Family, as in both the comics and Heroclix, that team could use somebody who has a schtick that isn't dependent on superspeed. He's on an Azrael dial. After all, what else can you do with an Azrael?

I got the Rainbow Raider (surfing the spectrum with stolen painting in arm), because, well, it's funny. Besides putting him on an Experienced Halo amuses me. I enjoy dissing characters I don't like by stealing their dials for demeaning customs. Especially Halo.

I adore the Busiek-style Prankster (armed with Kryptonite Custard Pie). He's on a very capable 107 point Joker dial, so he'll be a very worthy addition to the new Superman enemies coming out in the Justice League set.

I also got Mr. & Mrs. Menace, the Sportsmaster and the Golden Age Huntress. I love those two. We'll see how well they do against Rookie Alan Scott and Rookie Wildcat!

I got Dr. Impossible (because I helped name him), hilarious prehawkified Northwind (because he's just so fabulously faggy), and, of course, the Awesome Threesome of Torpedo-Man, Magnet-o, and Claw (because they are, ipso facto, awesome).

Oh, and just to give Aquaman a spot of extra trouble, I had "Devil Ray" from JLU made to act as an evil sidekick for Black Manta.

I even got a set of four G.O.O.N.s (surely you remember the Grand Order of Occidental Nighthawks?). Each wears a black derby and a turtleneck that says G.O.O.N. on it. They carry such deadly weapons as brass knuckles (nice touch, Dale!), pistols, a black round bomb that says "BOMB" on it, and an umbrella. Caped Crusader beware!

Ordinarily I would thank Dale for his amazing work (really, the pictures don't do these things justice) by email, but this time I am moved to do so publicly in a post. You should check out his Ebay page and order some custom clix of your own!

Dale also told me he was going to include a special gift to me for free, in appreciation for my support of his work. He tried to prepare me by saying that I should really by sitting down when I opened the box, or at least have someone at hand to assist me to the couch.

Naturally, I privately pooh-poohed this warning; you know how artists are about their work. My mistake. I did, in fact, stagger to couch with this surprise figure in hand, gasping for breath. I don't have a camera good enough to take a photo of it, but perhaps Dale will provide us with some.

It's 23 points. It has Charge and Leap/Climb. It has four clicks of life. Well... not life, really.

the Rolling Head of Pantha.

The "Superman Prime" Revenge Squad (6 figures at 697 points)

ID	Name	Points
J085	Martian Manhunter	177
le027	Veteran -Power Girl	120
U081	Veteran Black Adam	150
le066	Veteran Superboy	127
jl101	Rolling Head of Pantha	23
cd217	Krypto	100