What Kids Don't Know: Bizarro, Part II

As we were discussing in our previous post, Bizarro's change in personality and powers when he returned in Superman #306 are examples of the Bronze Age grim-ification of the DCU.

Silver Age Bizarro was just a wacky misfit, as the in-story recap relates:

Glorifying the flawed... the misshapen... the perverse! This was... Wizard World.

But the Bronze Age story makes it very clear that "Bizarro has changed; he wasn't a threat before but now he is." Note that in the panel below, Superman implies that he used to be superior, power-wise, to Bizarro (who was, after all, "imperfect"), but now Bizarro is his equal or superior.

And this must be true, because Superman is nearly infallible, you know.

This is also the point at which Bizarro's heat vision and freeze breath got "reversed", surprising him and Superman both.

Notice anything about Bizarro's speech patterns, kids? They aren't "opposite". Bizarro says exactly what he means (albeit "imperfectly"). Only later, during the Post-Crisis Iron Age, did writers hamper Bizarro with the annoying affectation of "opposite speech", which does nothing but confuse the reader. If anything, it makes Bizarro seems smarter than us, since he understands what he's saying and we don't. DC; please start that; me am love brilliant Bizarro opposite speech.

Anyway, Bizarro was suddenly stronger, stupider, and a lot more emotionally volatile.

And, therefore, a lot easier to start using as an actual villain:

This story was published in 1976.

Bizarro joined the Secret Society of Super-Villains in 1977

and the Legion of Doom in 1978.

So Superman decides to get the bottom of this mystery, and find out why Bizarro thinks his world is gone and what changed his powers. Which I'm sure Superman will, because Superman is nearly infallible.

While the Bronze Age may have changed from the Silver Age in tone, in other aspects it was nearly indistinguishable. For example, in its reliance on utterly stupid hand-waving plot devices. Like... cosmic clouds.

Yes, I am confused; and don't call me "Patience".

Well... that explains EVERYTHING! At least, it does if you're Superman. Who's nearly infallible, you know.

Turns out Bizarro flew through a "cosmic cloud", which changed his powers, caused a mirage that made it seem as if Bizarroworld had been destroyed, and altered Barak Obama's birth certificate to read "Born in the U.S.A.". It's just amazing what cosmic clouds can do; just ask Reed Richards.


Oh, and another thing didn't change from the Silver Age to the Bronze Age. Superman was still a total... oh, what's the word I'm looking for?

"Great Rao, if I'd know it was that easy to get rid of her,

I'd have given this bozo his own room at the Fortress."

Jeez, Clark; that's TMI about your love life with Lois.

When aren't I glad to see you? Try "1:05:31P.M.", you dick.

I was right, as usual. Because I'm nearly *sigh* infallible.

And yet, my face (pictured at right) is STILL not on the quarter.

Anyway, you'll remember that all this hullabaloo started with a big fight involving the Toyman at the Metropolis Coliseum. Now, I'm sure you think of the Toyman as another innocent hold-over from Superman's Golden & Silver Ages; you're probably thinking, "Wasn't his murder of Cat Grant's son (Superman #84, 1993) the first time he ever even killed anyone?"

No. No, it wasn't.

In this very story Toyman kills a host of guards and policemen as part of the battle at the Coliseum.

"Poor Winslow! Being alive, unlike all his victims, whose surviving friends and families I'm not thinking about at all! Why? Because I'm just too focused on all the ... the ingratitude of it all. Ingratitude toward ME. What's WRONG with you people?!"

What Kids Don't Know: Bizarro's Powers

Every modern DC reader knows how Bizarro works; he's a dangerous anti-Superman with some reversed powers, like freeze-vision and heat breath.

But What Kids Don't Know is that that wasn't always the case; and that the change was specific and intentional. For that, we'll have to take a look at Superman #306.

For Rao's sake, Lo-Lo; invest in a pantsuit.

It's easy to see why writers want to use Bizarro as a villain. First and foremost, they can have no qualms about portraying him as Superman's equal, who can fight him to a standstill. Besides, he's a colorful and unpredictable character, engaging for the readers and challenging for Superman (qualities that Superman foes do not always have in abundance).

But before Superman 306, Bizarro was more an annoyance than a villian. He was that Big Dumb Dog who doesn't know his own strength and knocks stuff over (like, say, your guests) at a party. The main threat wasn't that he would fly around killing people; it was that he would expose Clark Kent's secret identity or become, um, too chummy with Lois, let's say.

Once he had a whole planet of his own (Bizarro World, or "Htrae") to muck about on, Bizarro became mostly comic relief or even (in desperate straights) an ally Superman could call on. Because being the most powerful super- being on Earth and having a bunch of super-powered robot duplicates, a supercousin, an entire city full of microscopic superallies, and a dog that can bite through steel is not always enough, you know.

Bizarro's original schtick was that he was "imperfect", and "imperfect duplicate" of Superman. He wasn't "the opposite" of Superman, just a badly defective version. His grammar was fractured, his features craggy and white, his intellect impaired. Defective ... not opposite. His powers were the same as Superman's and his costume was the same as Superman's (no, his chest logo was NOT reversed).

Bizarro the Well-Intentioned Buffoon, however, got played out and pretty much disappeared after 1965. But the seeds of what would become of him later were sown in the first line of the 'constitution' of Htrae: the Bizarro Code. "Us do opposite of all earthly things!" This became the basis for Bizarro becoming less an "imperfect Superman" and more an "anti-Superman", who could believably be a part of the comics' Secret Society of Supervillians and television's Legion of Doom (both of which happened in the Bronze Age).

What Kids Today Don't Know is that the move to make the DCU a little less goofier and a little more threatening isn't something that happened suddenly or magically with Crisis on Infinite Earths. Marvel ex-patriate Marv Wolfman did not invent tragedy, folks; the Greeks did.

Darkening the DCU in fact was one of the major thrusts of the Bronze Age. Oh, it may not seem like it to a fan of the Golden Age, where corpses lay at the entrance to every alley. And it may not seem like it to a reader in the modern era, where severed heads fly around like it's the Pantha Family Picnic. But don't be one of those ignorati who lump the Golden, Silver, and Bronze Ages together as one big happy innocent "Pre-Crisis" romp; the shift in tone between the Silver Age and the Bronze Age was HUGE.

In the Bronze Age, goofy sidekick Snapper Carr betrayed the Justice League to the Joker. Robin left Batman. Speedy, one of the original Golden Age sidekicks, got hooked on heroin. Martian Manhunter was deemed so ridiculously and irredeemably Silver Age that he was given a bus ticket off planet and virtually disappeared. An evil (or at least really tacky) conglomerate bought the frickin' Daily Planet, people. A depowered Wonder Woman tortured prisoners and used an uzi. The Flash was tried for murder. I mean, really, folks. What else do ya need to be able to see it? Hal Jordan having a sexual relationship with a 13 year old girl?! Oh, that's right; he DID.

So when Bizarro was reintroduced in the Bronze Age, all was not wacky fun and games. As we shall see in my next post... .

Why do people live in Gotham City?

Gotham City is always portrayed so bleakly (at least during the post-Crisis era), that it's a wonder anyone lives there.

In the 1960s, we knew why people lived in Gotham City. It was always sunny with fair weather (except when Mr Freeze was in the neighborhood). The museums were brimming over with interesting exhibits of mammoths stuffed with postage stamps and priceless collections of Etruscan snoods. Despite a large population, the traffic was so great that even the Batmobile could roar unimpeded down the streets at its top speed of 40 mph. Unless, of course, there was giant cookbook or giant umbrella blocking the way at 5th & Cedar; but that's what detour signs are for, after all.

But in the 1970s, Gotham City became New York City. I mean, yeah, it always kind of was, but it was ... very different. It had seemed smaller, more colorful and contrasty, and cleaner. This was true even in the 1940s, when Gotham was clearly a dangerous place. But it wasn't just "NYC in the DCU". Heck, the giant props alone told you that.

However, when the Bronze Age started, it became important to editors/writers to distance Batman from his campy '60s image. One way they did this was to identity Gotham City very closely with New York City. If Gotham City was in a Bronze Age story, you can bet that a caption box mentions at least once that it was "a city of 8 million people" (or 10 million, depending on the year). Whoa, that's WAY bigger than Gotham City as I knew it! How the heck does Batman get around? Certainly not by swinging around rooftops, because Gotham City was suddenly characterized by hundred-storey skyscrapers everywhere. Those are very impractical for swinging around on, because you can't reach one building from the next (believe me, I've tried, which is how I got that scar on my forehead). That's a skyline like New York City... not like the Gotham City we knew, where all the action took place on the rooftops of medium sized office buildings, atop abandoned factories, and within construction sites.

Now, the "What Kids Don't Know" here is that in the 1970s, New York City had a pretty bad image problem. It was having a difficult time with budgets, crime, cleanliness, civic apathy; Manhattan in the 1970s wasn't exactly the Wonderland it is today. And the big burg's problems were magnified under the lens of popular culture. If you want to know the picture that most non-New Yorkers had of the Big Apple in the 1970s, rent "Escape from New York", "The Warriors", "Fame", "The Panic in Needle Park", or "Taxi Driver".

It was no coincidence that the "I love NYC" campaign was begun in the late '70s, by a city leadership desperate to polish up the town's image and improve tourism. And so they did, helped by an amazing turnaround for the city in the '80s and '90s. Times Square used to be "Crime Square"; but nowadays, even Anderson Cooper spends his New Year's Eve there.

Gotham City, however, went the other direction in the post-Crisis era. As New York City became brighter and shinier and more giant-propish, Gotham City became darker, grimy, and more squalorifferic. Writers indulged in an escalating arms race to portray Gotham as, well, crappier and crappier. The advent of *sigh* the ridiculous "Bludhaven" exacerbated this game of civic limbo, with each city trying to outdo the other in its irredeemability. Eventually, Bludhaven "won" by being wiped off the map by Chemo, which I chose to view as a very amusing meta-statement. The Silver Age pretty much told the Iron Age, "Okay, enough is enough, and we're going to have one of our most absurd characters put an end to this right now." Once again Silver Age inventive lunacy trumps Iron Age "gritty realism". But not before Gotham City had upped the ante by having not-one-but-two plagues, an earthquake, and a federal condemnation and cordoning. Because that's realism.

In the Geoff Johns era we know live in, where the DCU is shinier (except for the occasional decapitation-caused bloodspurt -- and even that is a lovely shade of red), a brighter Gotham City is long overdue. We can discuss that further and when we do, this may be food for thought...

Why Do People Live in Gotham City?

Economy. In short, the economy of Gotham City rocks. It practically oozes money. It must, because, unless you're a thug, you're probably a millionaire. You can't swing a Jokerfish in Gotham without hitting a millionaire square in the face. Its diversification is prodigous, it's an economic rainforest; you can get anything you want in Gotham City, and probably wholesale (including purple kangaroos). Ask yourself what kind of economy can fritter away money on working giant props atop every friggin' factory, and you'll see what I mean.

Real Estate. Have you noticed you no longer read that "city of 8-10 million line" in every Gotham story? Say what you want about the "No Man's Land" storyline, it certainly paved the way for a leaner, meaner Gotham City. But the city isn't physically any smaller so... there's lots of property. Property is cheap is the most economically powerful city in the DCU. Its a buyer's dream there. Everybody -- including desperadoes -- can afford a nice big apartment in a high rise (unless the story requires them to be an improverished orphan, who'll just wind up being swept up at some point into the largess of the Wayne Foundation anyway). And no matter how bizarre your hideout is, it doesn't attract attention because it's lost in the sea of realty. Abandoned warehouses, theaters, and factories, why you can practically buy them on Craig's List in Gotham City.

Culture. C'mon, this goes without saying. Metropolis, it has lots of science and Superman tschotskes, but that's it. Even Metropolis museums are all 'natural history' museums, existing only to house that one piece of kryptonite meteorite from Ethiopia they've all got. But Gotham City? It drips culture. There's a museum or a theater on every corner (as evidenced by the fact that, though one appears in every other story, it's never the same one twice). Famous writers, like Kaye Daye, live there; hipsters throng to Gotham Village; there's a charity ball every night of the season. It's a hub for theater, cinema, and performance art. Heck, I almost assume that that's why so many super-criminals live there: their bizarre appearances and shenigans are camouflaged by the prevailing weirdness.

Pedestrianism. Gotham City is designed as a pedestrian heaven. In Central City, people have to drive to their mailboxes; that's why you never see any people in the those giantic empty public squares where the Flash is always doing battle. But in Gotham City, people do not drive; they walk everywhere. Even if they are gadzillionaires coming home from the theater. The streets of Gotham are full of people, but empty of traffic. Which is why the Batmobile still never gets stuck in traffic. The only other people are the roads are armored car drivers and villains driving through the pouring rain on their way to kill all their former gangmembers.

Crime. Here's a statement that will crack the internet: Gotham City is comparatively free of crime. Before you freak out (particularly you youngsters raised on the idea that "Gotham is the Most Dangerous City on Earth-1"), think for a second. What kind of crime do we actually SEE in Gotham City? Murders, mostly. And it's mostly criminal-on-criminal violence. As long as you don't happen to get caught in the crossfire, or become the victim of some psychotic deformed villain, it won't affect you at all. Gotham City has crime of high "quality" not crime in high quantity. Street gangs, muggings, break-ins, home invasions, store hold-ups, etc. -- nearly non-existent. Why?

Because regular criminals are terrified to operate in Gotham City. You wanna rob a gas station where the Jokermobile might just happen to be gassing up? No. And eventually you're going to be "made an example of" by some supervillian or themed gangster, or get sucked into the thrall of goonhood where you'll be cannon fodder for some mastermind. There are no old criminals in Gotham City. For those of you who doubt this theory, remember that, to some degree, it's already in continuity. It's canon that Ye Old Crime Families were driven out of Gotham City by the costumed weirdos that followed in Batman's wake. Truly, Gotham City got the "better class of criminal" it deserved.

But if you're a regular person in Gotham City, you are statisically MUCH less likely to be a vicitm of crime than citizens elsewhere. Of course, if you do become a victim, you will suffer much more horribly (say, being eviscerated while alive or laughing yourself to death or being thrown into a vat of acid). But that's just part of Gotham's natural extremity... and charm!

Carnival of Doom

Where do evil clowns come from?

Why, from a Carnival of Doom, of course. So why don't we have Heroclix maps that go there?

The number of cheery and chipper Heroclix maps depresses me. The Asgardian Afterlife, shiny flying saucer crashsites, sparkling outer space with its twinkly little lights... BAH! I blame Marvel. And Jack Kirby.

The real world is not full of shiny Kirby machines and flashes of ill-defined "energy bursts". The real world is full of carnivals of doom, and crime alleys, and abandoned umbrella factories.

Well, at least the real world in the DCU.

So I threw together (actually, toiled endlessly, but that doesn't sound as impressive) this "Carnival of Doom" map. There was an evil carnival map in Horroclix but it was, frankly, boring and nearly featureless.

Not so my Carnival of Doom, which features the bumpcars, the merry-go-round, a haunted ballroom, a midway stage, a freakshow, a watery Tunnel of Love, and the Hall of Mirrors. Lots of places for your dark and eerie figures of the night to go chasing after deranged killer clowns and circus freaks.

If you are interested in the original file, I'm happy to send it to you.

What Kids Don't Know: The Weeper

If, like me, you're a fan of the "Batman: Brave & the Bold"series on Cartoon Network, and watched the most recent episode, which was an amusing inversion of the show's usual perspective. It made the Joker the protagonist and Batman the antagonist. The Joker replaced Batman in the opening credits, re-styled as "Joker: The Vile & the Villainous". Oh, and that was after he blew up in the earth in the opening teaser. But that's not important right now...

Our focus is the main episode, where, true to the show's format, the Joker teamed up with another villain: The Weeper.

The Weeper is a sad-sack of a villain. He is, indeed, a sadness-themed villain, a former 'sad-faced' circus clown gone bad (and, amusingly, voiced by one of America's best-known sad-faced comedians, Tim Conway).

The B:B&B Weeper is unequivocally the Golden Age Weeper from Fawcett Comics, with the same name (Mortimer Gloom), the same foes (Bulletman & Co.), a nearly identical appearance, and the same sadness-based schtick. He appeared only a few times, and only once in a DC Comic proper.

That appearance was in Justice League of America 136 (a comic I bought as a kid), where he teamed up with-- you guessed it -- the Joker.

The Earth-2 Joker, that is; in fact, it was, I believe, the only appearance of the "Earth-2 Joker" during the multiversal eras. Their 'team-up' was only a few panels and mostly just an excuse to get some Earth-2 heroes together with some Earth-S heroes (Earth-S, for you youngsters, was the original version of Earth-5, and the home of all Fawcett characters, like Captain Marvel, Bulletman, and Mr. Scarlet).

That brief moment between the Joker and the Weeper was an obvious throwaway. But did that leave the writers of B:B&B without a template for their own Joker/Weeper team-up? Actually... no. They had Denny O'Neil's "The Sad Saga of Willy the Weeper".

During the "DC Explosion", DC Comics tried a lot of new series and concepts all at once. One was making its best known villain, a psychotic sadistic killer, the protagonist of his own series. Kind of like DC's own version of The Punisher.

Yes, the Joker had his own on-going series. Wherein he fell in love with Dinah Lance, kidnapped Charles Schulz, grabbed lunch and a movie with Lex Luthor, fought the Scarecrow with a truck full of butterflies, was defeated by Sherlock Holmes, and killed an average of one person on camera per issue. And so much more, in a mere 9 issues!!

But what matters to us at the moment is the time the Joker teamed up with "Willie the Weeper".

Now, this was Willie's one and only appearance and he is definitely not the Golden Age Weeper. Perhaps Denny O'Neill didn't want to use the original Weeper due to the multiversal implications; perhaps he wasn't even aware of him; or perhaps he just wanted to make a new character with a unique problem.

The original Weeper always shed crocodile tears for his victims. But Willie the Weeper was a criminal genius who would weep so uncontrollably for his victims that he couldn't complete his crimes. So (um, naturally) he went to the least victim-sympathetic villain he could think of for help:

The Joker.

Oh, and that other guy, with the cigarette, is Harold. A few panels later the Joker knocks him out and throws him down an incinerator chute to be burned alive. You should never do a walk-on in a Joker story; or smoke in his house.

Anyway, the essence of the story is that the Weeper feels like a wash-out as a villain, the Joker volunteers to help solve his problem, succeeds, one of them (naturally) betrays the other, and the Joker winds up crying while the Weeper winds up laughing.

Don't worry, kids! The Joker's not really crying; he's faking it... .

Sound familiar? Yes, it's the same as the underlying plot of the Brave & the Bold episode!

Oh, sure, there are huge differences, of course, such as the nature of the Weeper's problem, Batman's role in the story, the Joker idolizing the Weeper, and the final betrayal. I'm not trying to say that the episode isn't original; lack of originality is NOT one of the problems with Batman: Brave & Bold! The show excels at taking fresh approaches to exisiting characters and material, and the Weeper episode, incorporating both the Golden Age Weeper and the little known "Sad Sage of Willie the Weeper" and reinventing them both is just the latest brilliant example.

P.S. For anyone still unconvinced that Willie the Weeper was inspired by the original Weeper... Remember how I said that the original Weeper started as out as a sad-faced circus clown? His stage name was.... Weeping Willie (an obvious reference to American clown Emmett Kelly).

Try the Tracyverse

As most of you already know, Bob Kane was not the single most original author or artist of all time. But they also serve who only sit and synthesize. His sources of inspiration were many, but one was surely Dick Tracy (particularly his host of colorful gangsters and villains). For those of you not familiarity with the lunacy of the Tracyverse, here’s a sample plot synopsis of one storyline (taken from the Dick Tracy wiki):

Almost a year after Tracy married Tess, a horrible explosion burst Tracy house into flames, burning it down to the ground and burning Tracy's hair off. After the fire, it turned out that Junior was missing, the Tracy's were scared that he had perished in the fire, it turned out that Blowtop rigged an invention of Tracy's (an automatic dog door) to set off twenty sticks of dynamite and kidnapped Junior. Blowtop and his goons sealed Junior in a drum and attempted to drop him off a cliff. Junior was rescued and drew a picture of his captor which hit the papers. Blowtop's henchman and moll turned on him and shot him, only to be accidentally discovered by an acquaintance of his late-brother Flattop, Vitamin Flintheart. He managed to fix up Blowtop, and was convinced that he was a wealthy man, not knowing that the money was from a Boston Express Robbery. Flintheart (who unwittingly was fencing the hot money for Blowtop) had traded one of Blowtop's shirts for a shrunken head (unaware that the shirt contained money from the fencing). This was the turning point, Blowtop fled in anger, but was followed by Vitamin who was promised funding for a show from Blowtop. He shot Vitamin and tripped on the same shrunken head from before. Vitamin was hospitalized and Tracy had Blowtop in custody.

Keep in mind this one of the more normal plots, in that it doesn’t involve extraterrestrials, circus freaks, or cloning. Heck, I’m still hung up on the fact that Tracy invented an automatic dog door. And I would really like to go to a Swap Meet in the Tracyverse; “I’ll give you this old shirt for that shrunken head.” The Tracyverse is so bizarre, I’m beginning to wonder whether Dick Tracy isn’t actually set in Apex City.

I first fell for the “Tracyverse” when it was under the pen of Max Allan Collins. Collins, a mystery writer and longtime Tracy fan, took over from series creator Chester Gould, who had been running out of steam during his final years on the strip, whose quality was suffering. When I was a teenager Collins et al. were revitalizing and extending the Tracyverse with crazy plots and sharp powerful art. I can still remember the return of the scarred circus menace Haf-and-Haf, the climactic battle with criminal wigmaker Angeltop on the reproduction of the Santa Maria, and the collusions of evil surgeon Dr Carver and Mumbles, the murderous guitarist.

While I was reading Tracy at that time, I paid no attention to the creators behind it. It was only in the last week or so that I realized it was Collins, whom I had thought of only in the context of his work on Batman, where he created the (reviled by some but adored by me) Mime. Thanks, Max, for making Dick Tracy fabulous again for many years!

After Collins left he was replaced by others, who authored the strip for some 30 years. The quality of the strip was not maintained, particularly during recent years, when Dick Tracy had devolved mostly into an internet snarking target (a “snarget”, if you will). With muddled art and fuddled storylines, it became an object of ridicule rather than a showcase for American imagination.

But history is now repeating itself, with a long decline under older creators ending with a sudden revitalization of the strip under new creative management. As of March 14, with its new creative team of Tracy fanboys Joe Stanton and Mike Curtis, Dick Tracy is setting the comics page ablaze. It has sharp and solid art with interesting composition, fast-paced plotting, outlandish characters with real-world issues and viewpoints, and a palpable respect for the rich history of the Tracyverse at its disposal.

If you’ve never given Dick Tracy a try, now is the time.

Apex City Travel Poster

How does one design a travel poster for Apex City, home of the Martian Manhunter? How can you hope to capture the craziness? The bizarre landmarks, like the Statue of Atlas? The ludicrous weather, like the weekly meteor showers? The strange threats like the ubiquitous flying saucers? The seaside location and the Miami-like towering buildings? And if can you do all this, how do you then manage to subtly incorporate the city's hero, the Martian Manhunter himself, into the mix?

Well, I don't you know how you do it. But I do it like this....


Although I may have to do another version, just to see whether I can hang the Human Squirrel off the side of one of those buildings...

A sway with words

Most mornings I do the Washington Post crossword puzzle (for you moderns out there, a crossword puzzle is kind of like sudoko for people who can read). Thanks to puzzling, a lot words come to my mind quite easily that otherwise would never ever occur to me. For example, I seldom utilize decorative, based pitchers, I’ve never seen a decorative needle case, and I rarely discuss pre-Meiji Restoration Tokyo. Yet a week almost never goes by without me writing the words “ewer”, “etui”, or “Edo”. Such words are part of the glory of the genius of English, which is the great linguistic lint-trap, the river delta of dictionaries, the junkyard of jargon. Sure it makes our language a little gunky and confusing. But lint-traps are a treasure trove of spare change, river deltas have the richest soils, and junkyards are the wellspring of the Chitty Chitty Bang Bangs of tomorrow. Or is it “Chitty Chitties Bang Bang”? Gotta figure that out in case “cinema British flying motorcars” is a clue in a puzzle some day… Anyway, crosswords are not the only medium that helps preserve special sets of words. Comic books do it, too. There are words and phrases that I generally do not hear outside of a comic book context. For example, I seldom utilize henchmen, I’ve never met an invulnerable person, and I rarely discuss my secret identity. Of course, you’re not supposed to discuss your secret identity; but that’s not the point here. Naturally, there are going to be words and phrases that come from comic books that don’t get used in regular speech, like “batarang”, “shrink ray”, and “plastic cat arrow”. But there are also words that, while they may have been born in the real world, now exist mostly as hothouse flowers in the special environment of comic books. Words like “villain”. What words, phrases, or even concepts do you think have been preserved by the medium of comic books?

DCU Travel Posters: Ivytown

Our next DCU travel poster is for the Atom's burg, Ivytown.

By the way, when it was first introduced "Ivytown" was one word. Then they started to treat it as two words ("Ivy Town"). The fact that comic book lettering is all upper-case and is often kind of squunchy hasn't helped, and DC still doesn't do it consistently. I'm going with the one-word spelling, because it's the original one and because "-town" is much more commonly used as a suffix in place names than it is as part of an open compound.

Poor Ivytown. Unlike, say, Metropolis, Gotham, or Central City, it doesn't have a distinctive skyline or identifiable landmarks. The same was true of Coast City, but we got around that by choosing a skyline that was clearly on the water, had Hal Jordan zipping through, and was tinted green. But Ivytown doesn't have those kinds of geographic or chromatic short-cuts for us. Hm....

Turns out there aren't a lot of good images or information to work with for Ivytown. Mostly it's characterized as being centered around its prestigious school, Ivy University. The rest of it was quite vague, even for the Silver Age. It took writer Gail Simone to lavish some details on the Little Town That Could in her quirky All-New Atom series. Thanks to her and artist John Byrne, we do have this:

Ryan Choi's first view of Ivy University.

Okay. That's a pretty unique view, particularly with that statue there. I can work with that. Abstract that view a little bit, and we get...

A little color block variation for rhythm and balance. Collegiate font for the university setting. The red of the weird statue to bring out the Atom's logo. A cameo appearance by Ray Palmer himself. Really, the only thing missing is a silhouette of mad Jean Loring lurching around in a paranoidal panic, swinging a hotel cigarette stand above her head.

These are starting to look kind of nice on my one bedroom wall, by the way...

The next one, I'll let you contemplate in advance. It's one you probably couldn't get anywhere but here. The next DCU travel poster will be for Apex City. You think about that for a while, and see what your mind's eye comes up with...

Geoff Johns versus Aquaman

Make no mistake. I will not like everything that Geoff Johns does with Aquaman. But I am confident that he will do right in setting the character back on track. Why? Because the evidence is clear that Johns understands the three steps to re-establishing an iconic character.


1. Acceptance of the Essentials

Geoff Johns respects the essence of a character's myth. What is the essence of a character's myth? Isn't that act of deciding what a character's essence is subjective? Perhaps. But on the whole "essential" means the elements mostly commonly associated and accepted by the wider public as part of the hero's mythos-- not just the parts the writer happens to like.

The main point here is that Johns does not begin with the presumption that the character is essentially... stupid. He does not think, "Whoa, this character's basic story is ridiculous, and now it's totally broken." Why? Because, regardless of exactly how he terms it, he looks at the characters as mythic. And, as a serious student of mythology knows...

myths are always ridiculous.

Myths are full of trickster spider-gods and holy castrations that birth goddesses and people turning wine in water. A billionaire who beats up muggers as a hobby? Ridiculous. The world's most powerful being contents himself with living as a bullied milksop? Ridiculous. A princess created out of clay by an ancient immortal, magical, and scientifically advanced sisterhood and imbued with superpowers by Greek gods, who, coming to America to fight our enemies foreign and domestic and teach us that male aggression can only be tamed through submission to the happy controlling bondage of women's power of love, meets a lookalike war nurse with the same name as hers whom she can immediately pay to move to South America so she can assume her identity? Really, the word "ridiculous" simply does not cover it.

Geoff Johns does not shy away from the essential ridiculousness of the characters he tackles. He embraces it He accepts that the ridiculous essence of the myth is part of what makes it powerful, part of why the characters persists, long after more "realistic" characters have been forgotten and abandoned.

2. Incorporation of the variations

Well, where I was taught this concept we didn't call it "incorporation"; when talking about myths, we called it "syncretism". Regardless of what you call it, it's a step beyond just accepting the essential myth. It's accepting the value of the essential myth-- and all the variations of the myth that have arisen, even when they seem to be in conflict. Its highest expression is the attempt to reconcile the variations of a myth, into one larger, more powerful version of the myth.

Like it or not--or like how he does it or not-- this is exactly what Johns does. Sometimes there's a quite of hand-waving, even to the point of literary legerdemain. But generally, since the outcome is "mythically desirable" to the public, they happily suspend their disbelief of whatever means Johns uses to get them where they want to be.

3. Expansion of the mythos by extension or elaboration

Timid writers fear adding any new to a mythos, sometimes out of overwhelming respect for the character. This is particularly true for writers who started as fanboys. Brash writers contradict or at times throwout the existing mythos, trying to turn the character they've been given into a different one (e.g., Peter David on Supergirl). Respectful but bold writers keep older essential elements, but do not hesitate to add appropriate new ones (which we'll call expansion by extension) or extrapolate older elements into new directions and territory (which we'll call expansion by elaboration).


A simplified way of looking at it. is that the writer asks himself or herself:

1. What are the top ten things "everyone knows" about this character and how can I best make them work together?
2. How can I make the" other stuff" part of that and make it cool?
3. Once that's done, how can I make the story bigger or deeper in way consistent with what I've put together?

A brief look at John's treatment of three classic characters, all of whom he brought back from utter extinction, shows his application of these principals.

For Hawkman, he focused on essential elements (Shayera as Hawkgirl and the relationship with her, the reincarnation and connection with ancient Egypt and history, the museum setting, the Thanagarian connection), incorporated variations and history (e.g., quickly merging the blond Golden Age Hawkman with the black-haired Silver Age Hawkman into the brown-haired modern Hawkman, putting all of Hawkman's rogues gallery back into play one by one, bringing back Golden Eagle), and expanded on the mythos (e.g., creating a new and unique fictionopolis for Hawkman to replace the vague and unessential Silver Age setting of Midway City).

For Flash, he re-established the essentials (Barry Allen the slow and methodical police scientist, his relationship with reporter Iris West, his friendships with Wally and Hal, Central City and its Rogues' Gallery, bringing Capt Boomerang back from the dead), incorporated variations (e.g., keeping the "speed force", the West-Park family, Max Mercury, and Jay Garrick, re-setting Bart Allen and making him Kid Flash), and elaborated on the mythos (e.g., making Barry the generator of the speed force rather than its recipient, creating co-worker characters for Barry, putting a new spin on the Reverse Flash's powers).

For Green Lantern, he stopped the "GL-of-the-decade" cycle by restoring the GL essentials (test pilot Hal Jordan, the importance of fearlesness/willpower, Carole Ferris, refurbishing the Lantern foes, revitalizing the Corps and the Guardians), incorporated variations (e.g. finding off-world roles for John Stewart, Guy Gardner, and Kyle Rayner) and elaborated on existing elements into new territory (e.g., taking the existence of a ring of a different color (yellow) and the association of "willpower" with the "green" lantern and extrapolating those into other color rings with their corps and own associated mental states).

Lest you think I'm just a Johns-nut, I have to confess I do not like all of the results of what Johns has done. The GL Corps bores me, the Flash's stories are still achingly slow, and Hawkman has still not found a stable place in the DCU. But there is no question that Johns has done the (apparently) impossible in getting these three characters (each of whom has been completely written off as toxic, irredeemable, and, well, dead) back on track.

Similarly, it's important to point out that Johns is not the only writer who takes this approach. Kurt Busiek and, of all people, Grant Morrison do as well. Taking this three-pronged approach to mythic revitalization doesn't mean doing it perfectly. Busiek did wonders with Superman in almost no time at all; however, his work on Aquaman was less successful because, I think, he mis-identified what the essential elements of Aquaman were. Morrison seems to take this approach (he masterfully boiled down Superman's origin and did essential characterization work on Jimmy Olsen and Lex Luthor in All Star Superman, and has steadfastly tried to incorporate outlying Silver Age and Bronze Age variations into the Batman mythos); he's just undone by his inability to weave it all into a coherent whole (or, for that matter, a coherent story, or even coherent sentences). If you take a look at other good writers working on revitalizing existing properties (such as Levitz on Legion), you'll be able to spot the approach.

How exactly will Johns apply this approach to Aquaman? He's already given us some clues, such as his revitalization of Mera (acceptance), the recasting of her homeworld as a other dimensional penal colony for former Atlanteans (incorporation) and creation of the new Aqualad (an extrapolation of the conflict between Aquaman and Black Manta). Time will tell how he will apply it further, but for now it appears that Aquaman is in good hands.

Welcome to Atlantis!

Well, well, well.

Aquaman is getting his own title again. Kudos, Anax Orin!

I'll be talking more about Geoff Johns taking the seahorse reins of this new title later. For now just celebrate with this Atlantean travel poster:

Unlike in the previous poster designs, in this one I have depicted the city (kingdom?) from above. After all, that would be how you would approach it. Besides, Atlantis's traditional domes make a great abstract design. Aquaman is symbolized with the "Aquasymbol" in place of the 'A's in Atlantis and the overall color scheme. His silent invisible power is represented in the concentric circles that are the visual shorthand for his aquatelepathy, causing schools of fish to fall in line with his commands.

QUANTITY is good: World's Finest on B:B&B

Really, if you're not a fan of the "Batman: Brave & the Bold" series on Cartoon Network, something is seriously wrong with you. In fact, being too serious is probably what is wrong with you... I have to paused to publicly appreciate the most recent episode, in which Batman teams up with Superman. I could talk about how it's a fun and clever story that uses both characters to their full advantage, showing them both as well-rounded people with different but complementary personalities. Which, really, is already more than I have a right to expect from a "kids' show". But instead I'm going to focus on the sheer QUANTITY of good old-fashioned comic book fun in the episode. This thirty-minute show (and that includes the copious kiddie commercials) had all of the following. In began with John Di Maggio's passable impression of Victor Buono portraying King Tut (or, as he is wisely renamed, "The Pharaoh") turning citizens into zombie mind-slaves, as he did using the chemical Abu Rabu Simbu Tu on the Adam West series. Plus, you got to see the Pharaohmobile. In a brilliant mash-up, Pharaoh's bank heist by thwarted by Batman and Robin dresses as mummies, an homage to this cover: It even had Vicki Vale there to take photos, just like on the cover. The bandages were soaked in buttermilk "the one thing that repels 'Pharaoh Rays' ". Bat-fans will remember that coating his stomach with buttermilk was how Batman inoculated himself against Abu Rabu Simbu Tu on the '60s show. That's all pretty much in the first two minutes. Oh, and then some other things happened...

• Jimmy pretends to be dying in order to trick Superman into revealing his secret identity.


• A Lois Lane dream sequence of herself super-married with children on a picnic, exactlly reproducing the cover of Lois Lane 23:


• Batman and Superman go to Kandor to fight El Gar-Kur (Jimmy Olsen's evil Kandorian lookalike from Action #253).


• Krypto clobbers Superman.


• Jimmy Olsen, Super-Freak from Jimmy Olsen #59:


• Batman saves Superman from Metallo... by using the Whirlybat.


• Jimmy Olsen Super-Genie from Jimmy Olsen #42


• An attack by Mr Mxyzptlk, foiled by a knock knock joke.


• Jimmy Olsen Human Octopus from Jimmy Olsen #41


• Lex Luthor in his Black Business Suit outfit.


• Jimmy Olsen the Wolfman from Jimmy Olsen #44


• Just as in the Superman movies, Lex Luthor stealing kryptonite meteorites from museums.


• References to Lois's ridiculous Silver Age schemes to trick Superman into marrying her.


• Jungle Jimmy Olsen and his Gorilla Bride from Jimmy Olsen #98


• Red kryptonite.


• Superman calling Lex Luthor a "diseased maniac" as he did in the original Superman movie.


• A dead-on Noel Neill imitation for Lois Lane.


• Jimmy Olsen, Human Porcupine from Jimmy Olsen #65


• Lex Luthor wandering around in his Prison Greys, even though he's not in prison.


• Bizarro Jimmy Olsen


• A reprise of the King Superman story from Action 311, complete with an exact reproduction of this scene.


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• Lex Luthor using his kryptonite ring just as he used during the Frank Byrne run on Superman.


• Jimmy Olsen, Super-Brain from Jimmy Olsen 22.


• Superman getting hit with a tomato.


• "Don't call me 'Chief'!", "Great Caesar's Ghost!", and "Well, what are you waiting for?!"


• Lois Lane typing while wearing those damn white gloves she used to wear in the Silver Age.


• A bank heist by the Toyman.


• Lex Luthor's all-seeing monitors that he used to use in Challenge of the Super-Friends.


• The containment devices that Jor-El used to send Zod & Co. into the Phantom Zone in the movie "Superman II". Including the mirror thing.


• Superman stranding a little girl's kitten in a tree. I had to pause the recording until I stopped laughing.


• Krypto's Dog-House of Solitude.


• This hilarious scene from Lois Lane #26:


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• The climatic battle between Batman and Superman from Frank Miller's "The Dark Knight". Yes, really. With exact poses from the fight.


• Jimmy Olsen, Giant Turtle Boy from Jimmy Olsen #53.


• A "Superman is a dick" reference; or at least, exactly as close as you can get away with on TV. I almost fell out of my chair.


• This wonderful scene from Jimmy Olsen #30:


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• The robots that Superman fought in the Fleischer cartoon "The Mechanical Monsters".


• "Luthor's Lair", complete with statues of famous villains from history.


• FLAMING METEOR KRYPTO!!!!


• Metropolis's "Mayor Swan".


• Superman himself actually giving the "Faster Than a Speeding Bullet" speech.


• Super-ventriloquism as a plot point.


• An attack by Silver Age Brainiac, complete with his original motivation and his space monkey, Koko.

And the best thing about the above list is that it isn't just a fanboy nostalgia-fest. Any kid can understand and enjoy the episode without getting a single 'reference'. Writers of DC comics could take a clue from the writers of the Batman: Brave & the Bold cartoon when it comes to giving us bang for the buck. In an era where DC is trying to squeeze stories into fewer pages, they need every lesson they can get in abandoning decompression and embracing fast-paced, old-school plotting.

Keeping the Kiddies' Attention

Over a three-martini lunch, the editors of MLJ Comics must have meet at some point to discuss the ending of their latest Shield story. And how to keep the little buggers reading the Shield's adventures in Pep Comics. Because, lord knows, they didn't want to have to write any more of that Riverdale crap. Jeez, that stuff gives me the creeps.

So, which martini were they on, you think, when they decided to have the Shield not only violate the Fourth Wall and warn kids to read the next issue ...

but have him do so over the silhouette of a fresh corpse?

Now that's wholesome Golden Age entertainment. I'll have what they're having!

Blow me down!

Truly, no good deed goes unpunished.

Here I try to give you some good clean old-fashioned fun, like mad Jean Loring wrecking the planet with earthquakes, tsunamis, and hurricane and the tragic story of unreciprocated love between a pirate and his bosun.

And what I get for this selfless entertainment of the people?

ATTACKED BY THE WIND PIRATE!


Yes, Totaltoyz secretly set a custom-made Wind Pirate Heroclix figure upon me, in all its absurd glory. Accurate right down to the marzipan magenta skull-flower on his Cap'n Crunch hat.

In case you wondering what the Wind Pirate can do, he sits appropriately enough on a Major Disaster dial; here is his card...


Although the Wind Pirate was not given a name in his one and only story, his backstory on this card lists him as Navy weather scientist Gilbert Sullivan. I assume his middle initial is "N". Probably for "Nancy" (family name, I'm sure).

I'll have to team him up with one of my Jean Loring customs. Or have a new one made, with her in a torn magenta dress and special powers that let her destroy entire portions of the map. Then once she's kayoed she becomes a special object that gives those same powers to adjacent colleagues.

But now I'm also going to need a Bosun figure with some sort of minion power ("Bitchslap: Wind Pirate may Mastermind attack damage or pushing damage to Bosun, making Bosun really hot") and a Piratical Parakeet pog with the power to Perplex ornithologists and Hal Jordan.

Coast City Travel Poster

Costume Malfunction

Sigh.

Ordinarily, I try and stay apart (if not above) these kinds of discussions. But this one I can't find the strength to be silent on.

FAIL!

In the words of a U.S president, "This must not stand." Actually, it doesn't look like it does stand. It looks like it teeters around on 4-inch high-heeled hooker boots.

I'll concede there are some things I like about the design elements. It does simplify Wonder Woman's costume, and that's good. It boils down and unites WW's many costume elements into a few simple pieces and ties them together. The tiara, breastplate, belt, boot top complement one another. It makes a little more sense as a costume than Marston's original majorette outfit. That said, however...

You know when you're researching superhero costumes on-line and your search turns up all those cheap naughty ones from, you know, "Dream Dresser" and such? This looks exactly like one of those pictures, right down to the Realistic Plastic Bracelets, Luxurious Black Polyester Wonder-Wig, and Lip-Gloss of Truth.

I do not know this Adrianne Palicki. I am sure she is fine person, a dedicated actor, and serious about her role. But I also know, just by looking at her, I could kick her ass. Heck, she'd probably fall over and break one of her skinny skinny legs while chasing me (assuming that those rock-star pants even allow her to run rather than just skitter). Lynda Carter was a beautiful woman, yes. But she had substantial hips and thighs and shoulders, not just the bones where those muscles are supposed to be found, and her breasts didn't balloon out of her costume. She was a WOMAN. This is just... a wonder.

Always hopeful, I've been trying to just close my eyes every time I see "brought to you by the people who gave you Ally McBeal and Boston Legal" in articles on this show. But this image has finally opened my eyes....

in horror.

DCU Travel Posters

There's no bigger fan of the fictionpolises of the DCU than the Absorbascon. They are such a unique part of DC's world, I've always wondered why DC didn't put out more memorabilia and "souvenirs" from the cities their heroes call home. I used to wear my "Central City Track" shirt running for years, but no one ever caught on... Postercards, posters, mugs, maps-- heck, I'd rather have those around my house the some crap from, say, Jacksonville.

For example, remember those delightfully streamlined and powerful travel posters of the past? Artist Justin Van Genderen has done some amazing posters in that style for Gotham City and Metropolis. You deserve to buy them today.

I only wish I could convince Justin to do the same with my other favorite DC cities, like:

Coast City, the City Without Fear

Apex City, America's Madhouse

Fawcett, the City That Time Forgot

Star City, the City So Screwed Up that Green Arrow is the Best They Can Do

Opal City, the Gem of the Bay

and of course

Central City, Largest City in the Universe and Home of the Flash.

Foreign travel posters would be great, too! Think of all the special locales that could be posterized, such as Bialya, Qurac, Kandahq, Oolong Island, Themyscira, Santa Prisca, Markovia, Parador, and--- okay, maybe most of those places aren't really vacation spots. But it would still be great to have some city posters!

Maybe your purchases and letters can convince Mr Van Genderen to make us some more DCU travel posters. Meanwhile, while I'm no artist, here's what I hacked together today on Photoshop:

Why, that would make me want to dash out of Keystone across the river for a long and fast-paced weekend!

Oh, and before anyone criticizes me for exaggerating the skyline of Central City...

that's actually TRACED from a Flash story.