Batman's most laughable imitator fights Batman's second-most laughable imitator!

This weekend at my house, Killer Moth kicked Green Arrow's butt.

By kicked butt, I mean "successfully ran away with some loot while abandoning the Mothmobile as a lost cause".  And by at my house,  I mean, "in a game of Heroclix".

Now, as anyone who knows anything about Heroclix knows, the character most egregiously absent from the hundreds of figures that the Wizkids company has made is Killer Moth.  In Heroclix circles, we simply call it "The Great Injustice", and leave at that (much as postbellum Southern women called the Civil War "the late unpleasantness")

That, of course, has not stopped me; I have two Killer Moth custom figures (many other players have customer Killer Moths, but they are not as fabulous as mine, which I had 3D printed and professionally painted)  But I have gone further (around the bend)!  Ha, ha!

I now have, to serve as Killer Moth's backup gang, World Public Enemies No. 1, 2, & 3!

They are quite uncannily accurate, actually.

The World Public Enemies -- Dragon Fly, Silken Spider, and Tiger Moth -- are the three greatest female villains who never existed.  There were introduced (see below) in Batman #181 (June 1966) solely as literary devices in Poison Ivy's first story; jealous of their fame, she was inspired to commit a very public crime spree in which she kicked their patooties, and Batman's, too.

Pictured at lower right: meeting of the Gotham City Art and Accountancy Aficionados Association.

Later writers very cleverly created a new backstory for them: that they were merely actress/models hired for the pop art exhibit as concept villains who represented the allure of costumed villains as celebrities.  They then turned to crime AFTER being attacked by Poison Ivy and typecast as bad gals.

Here they are fighting Nightwing.  Like ya do.

These customs sit on the following dials:

Dragon Fly

Because, I mean... what ELSE are you going to do with a Falcone Bodyguard figure?

Silken Spider

Sneak, sneak, sneak!

Tiger Moth

Naturally, let "Killer Moth" replace "Tony Stark" in the above.  Because if Killer Moth were a Marvel character, he'd already have three movies. 

And they make a great gang for Killer Moth:

If only Killer Moth were actually this cool.

and his Mothmobile:

Ha-ha-ha-ha, ha-ha-ha-ha, ha-ha-ha-ha, ha-ha-ha-ha--KILLER MOTH!

Now that I have them, I didn't want to pit KM and the Bug Babes against Batman right away, because, frankly, I wanted the game to last longer than that.  And who better when you need a hero that will take forever (and sometimes still not succeed) to defeat Z-grade villains than...GREEN ARROW and The Kid Who Tags Along With Him?  They were aided by a Gotham Cop driving a GCPD police cruiser, who did the grubby work of taking down the Mothmobile.  

I was playing with the special rules that allow villains to gain points by 'escaping with loot' rather than just by kayoing heroes (because DC criminals like to actually STEAL stuff, not just attack Spider-Man).  Naturally, Killer Moth had the biggest swag and made it off the board after Green Arrow cracked his rib with a boxing glove arrow.  Tiger Moth hung around to duke it out with GA, while KM, limbs flailing no doubt, limped back to the Mothcave.  Speedy almost took out an unwary Silken Spider, but Dragon Fly took him out with a few well placed kidney jabs.

Oh! And speaking of the Mothcave,  I decided to celebrate this Battle of the Batman Knockoffs with a commemorative custom Heroclix map for EACH of them.  Behold, then.

THE ARROWCAVE

The Fletchery; because plastic cat arrows do not make themselves, you know.

Featuring:
The Target Range, where arrows are shot, because what else does Green Arrow do?
The Trophy Room, where Oliver and Roy can search online for crimes in the making, because patrolling is too tedious.
The Fletchery, where GA can test out the personal lubricant arrow and process server arrow in private.
The ridiculously yellow Arrowcar, so beloved by children.

THE MOTHCAVE

If you think making that Mothmobile image was easy, think again.

Featuring:
The Trophy Room, or, as I like to think of it, The Atrophy Room, full of empty trophies cases commemorating Killer Moth's nonexistent victories.
The Pro-Crime Lab, where he invented the gun condom.
The Cocoon Room, where Robin was placed unguarded for many hours in a bonfire-based deathtrap.
The Pupatorium, where Killer Moth descends from stately Van Cleer Manor to don his crime-helping garb and roar out in the Mothmobile.  But mostly because I really enjoy saying "Pupatorium".
The unlabeled dirt-removal tunnel, where KM paid those two laborers in lead.
A Gratuitous Secret Passage, because it seems just like the kind of thing that Killer Moth would have.

Enjoy them, if you play Heroclix.
And if you don't, start!

Flash Museum!

In case you don't already know, the next big set of DC Heroclix is a "Flash" set. 

I don't know what maps they plan on releasing with it. But to prepare I have made a map depicting the entrance to the Flash Museum, which includes the attached gift shop and movie house, a Jitters (tm) brand coffee cafe and nice garden.

Fighting Monsters

Last week I read two comics with Wonder Woman in them.

In one, she dealt with a pack of men verbally accosting her on a city street.

What would I do?!  I'm thinking the blond.

WW snaps them back with her Sassing of Truth (tm).

Oh, you're not a side of beef NOW; but wait'll Ed Benes gets a hold of you.

but then she is “saved” by a friend (Cathy) who is a nascent feminist with rudimentary combat skills. 

"In the gut, big boy" = worst battlecry ever.

And  then she yells at her for it.

"Next time,, Diana, I'll just sit by quietly waiting while people kick your ass, just like I Ching always told me I should."

Then Wonder Woman crashes at her pad, because WW is homeless and needs a job.

Ya know, I hear Taco Whiz is hiring.

But then she gets a job at local department store that caters to women and which supplies jobs to lots of local woman.  All Wonder Woman has to do is wear the store’s clothes and do a little PR about it.  It’s a great deal; easy work for her, free clothes, helps local women.

"This can't be real--clothes that aren't WHITE?!"

Until it turns out the owner is a kind of sexist jerk.  Turns out he’s sort of underpaying her for her advertising work.  

Not enough dog butts in today's comics, I say.

Turns out he’s not paying the female workers the going wage.  And he’s skirting the federal laws on equal pay by only using locally made goods, which means he’s not doing interstate commerce and is exempt. Or some such.  

I confess I had to look up "shuck".

And then the local feminists call Wonder Woman out on this, and she resists seeing it because now she’s kind of biased by her cushy deal with him.  

Yeah, Hera forbid the princess of a society of nothing but women should join an icky women's group.

But then her friend Cathy really calls BS on her, 

Quick, count the number of times you've seen anyone call Wonder Woman out like that.

and Wonder Woman is forced to see the truth, by the strength of the woman’s friendship and argument.

"CODE: I don't need you!"

But THEN the jerkwad sends bully-boys to harass the local feminist group that’s been dogging him about his unfair treatment of women.  

Effing ruffians, with their menacing and vandalizing!

And when Wonder Woman gets in trouble, she's rescued by a female guard-dog trainer and a lady blackbelt.

I'd bet anything Lady Blackbelt dated Julie Jively

she closes the whole operation down by reporting the guy to the police for OTHER illegal cheapstake business practices, like not having appropriate fire safety stuff, like sprinklers and marked exits.

Aw, shucks!

So WW's feeling pretty good about herself and her ability to fight crime with nothing but a white pants suit and an encyclopedic knowledge of local building safety codes.

"I wish I Ching were here to see this! Oh wait--that's right..."

But then ANOTHER group of women lays into her and the women feminists saying “Thanks crusading heroines!  We all just lost our jobs thanks to you, butt out!”  

Say, weren't you in the "New Guardians"?

And Wonder Woman’s all, “Holy Hercules, man’s world is effing complicated!”

Wonder Woman goes transquartomuralistic; eat yer heart out, Grant Morrison.

And in the other comic...

Me, too, Wonder Woman.

...she fought monsters.


Now, I have nothing against monster-fighting.  One of the great things about Wonder Woman is that she is a classical mythology figure who can fight monsters without it seeming odd.  And, yes, it is great to see WW smack down some evil monster.

But I can’t help but wonder whether her monster-fighting didn’t used to be a lot more interesting, relevant, and complicated.

Post Batman Day Manifesto

Now, that Batman Day is over, and we're all cleaning up from opening our Batman Day presents and hoarse from singing Batman Carols, I feel I can talk about Batman Day.  Particularly now that I've seen what was and was not covered about it online.

The blogosphere (such as it is nowadays) mostly ignored it because, as has been observed, in the blogosphere every day is Batman Day. 

January = Meth Lab Month
February = :Flout the FAA Month
March = Play Hard to Get Month
April = Youth Endangerment Month
May = Throwing Dangerous Objects Month
June = Paparazzi Month
July = Young Swingers  Month
August = Flout the DMV Month
September = Modesty Month
October = Always Dress for a Date Month
November = Fat People are Fed Up Month
December = Hanging Out With Successful Older Men Month

In the mainstream media, the gist of Batman Day articles was mostly, 'Hey, Batman's still around and currently cool!".  In the geek media, the gist was mostly, "Hey, look how the normals are observing Batman Day and maybe we can get some swag out of it!"

But I don't think I heard anyone express the sentiment I wanted to hear, mostly because Batman is SO much a part of our current culture and has been for so long.  Specifically...

Batman is most important fictional character created in the 20th century.

I defy you to name a more important one. All your private detectives and starship captains and temporary television characters and cartoon figures--is any one of them better known, better respected, better entrenched culturally across all media? No.

I could sit here and MAKE my case. But, frankly, I think popular culture and the media have made it for me over the last 75 years.  Who are you going to challenge it with?

Superman? I don't think so. Certainly he is popular and well known and as the first (well known) superhero,  he is template for all that follows.  But while Superman is someone we can idolize he is not someone we can truly relate to.  In fact, I have read estimates that Batman is twice as popular as Superman, and he certainly is more consistently so.  There's a reason that sales of Batman comics are the yardstick by which other comic sales are measured.  Movies, comics, television--Batman leads Superman, hands down, in all of them.

Mickey Mouse?  Mickey Mouse hasn't been a 'character' for decades.  With the exception of some one-offs over the last 20 years, almost all Mickey Mouse cartoons were released between 1928 and 1953.  "The Mouse" is now merely an icon, more a corporate logo than anything.  Well known, yes, but he has zero literary impact.  Ask anyone what "Mickey Mouse" stands for and you won't get any answer other than "Disney" or "profit".

I don't think there ARE even any other reasonable candidates to oppose Batman at the most important fictional character created in the 20th century, and I defy anyone to assert otherwise.

In which I admire Marvel and damn DC

DC asks the question, "Is this character sufficiently popular and iconic to sustain a film?"
Marvel asks the question: "Is this character sufficiently unknown that we can use a film to make them iconic?"

DC is cowed by their trusteeship of important cultural icons and afraid to misstep.  Anything they do can only damage the character's reputation, they feel.
Marvel is content to keep throwing liver at the wall to see what sticks.  "Oh, THAT"s what will make Hulk work...!"  Anything they can do to put their characters before more people improves their reputation, they feel.

DC is afraid to make a Legion movie because the Legion is such a notoriously niche-y property.  I mean, how well can a movie do that's gotten nothing but teenagers in it? With superpowers.  And ethnic diversity. Who live in space in the future.  With lots of relationship drama and sexual tension.  Whose every financial need is taken care of, and live in one giant awesome house with space cruisers.  Who fight crime and galactic-scale villainy.  Yeah, there's no way to sell that.

Marvel looks at Guardians of the Galaxy and says, "A talking racoon! Voiced by an Oscar nominee! The kids'll love it!"

DC inherits a universe that was originally separate characters in their own separate worlds, interacting sparingly.  As a result, each character that's old enough has a grand legacy around them, but they don't fit well together in the same space.  DC inherited characters and then had to try to form a continuous world around them, something they still can't get right, which causes them to reboot every few years, in an ongoing attempt to reconcile the irreconcilable..

Marvel created a universe and start populating it with characters, who therefore all fit in it quite nicely.  Their interaction was their selling point, and while, as a result, none of them stand out too far apart from any of the others, Marvel has a very easy time selling its entire universe in the medium of cinema.  No one seems ridiculous or off-the-table because they are all of a piece.

DC is terrified people will laugh at Aquaman.
Marvel intends to sell people on Ant-Man.

DC is terrified any movie it creates won't satisfy existing die-hard fans.
Marvel is focused on making sure their movies satisfy everyone else.

The Greatest Gift is Love

My final gift at my riotous birthday party yesterday was a very special and thoughtful one, carefully schemed by a coterie of my closest friends.

As long time readers will know, one of the (many) things for which I am internet-famous is my richly insightful analysis of the classic Green Lantern story by George Kashdan for Filmation, "Sirena, Empress of Evil", which contains more lunacy in a mere seven minutes than all the rooms in Arkham.

The high point of the tale is when Sirena hits Hal in the head with a brain-wave guided space owl.

Which looks like this, in case you've forgotten.

So when my dragon brother Josh was thinking what to get me for my birthday he hit upon the idea of a customer Heroclix figure commemorating this moment.  With the collusion of Romulan cousin Nick, who doped out the right dial, Josh crafted the powers and power names of the figure, while using Judge Price's assistance to commission Master Modder Dale to create the figure itself.

It was truly the most wonderful surprise gift I have ever received when I opened THIS at my party:

This would have been Kairo's view of it, by the way.

I was uncharacteristically speechless:

That's my happy face, believe it or not.

And the character card was a masterpiece all its own:

I think that henceforth Josh should be allowed to name the powers on ALL Hal Jordan figures.

That's the YGO-054 dial ("Red-Eyes B. Dragon"). A friggin' CHASE, in case you were wondering.

The real fun will be in outwitting that defense and then pelting him in the head with light objects until he's kayoed.

The true gift, of course, is the underlying love that motivated this INSANE effort.  Thank you, gentlemen, for my best birthday gift ever!

Happy Birthday to Me!

"We've all got our faults..."

[pointing to a map of California]

Tim Draper: Everything west of this line is the richest, most expensive real estate in the world: Northern California, Silicon Valley, West California. Everything on this side of the line is just hundreds and hundreds of miles of worthless desert land, which just so happens to be disowned by...
[WHACK!]

Roger Salazar: Uhhh... Tim Draper, the Riskmaster.

Tim Draper: Now, call me foolish, call me irresponsible, but it occurs to me that a multimillion-dollar ballot measure planted at just the proper point would, uh...

Democrats: Would split California into six different states. Millions of innocent voters would be politically neutered. West coast politics as we know it would...

Tim Draper: Fall into the sea. Bye-bye, California. Hello, new west coast. My west coast.

[Roger overlays map with new map]

Tim Draper: Casa del Tim. Draperville. Marina del Tim. 
Rogersburg... Rogersburg?

Roger Salazar: Mr Case, he's got his own district.

Tim Draper: Rogersburg?

Roger Salazar: It's a little bitty district...

Tim Draper: ROGERSBURG?!?!

Roger Salazar: Okay, I'll just wipe it off, that's all. Just a little district...

Haikuesday: The Shield is poetry in motion

The Shield brings every 

ounce of his giant muscles 

into play, and leaps.  

Spin the Spy Bottle

So, the latest loser in DC's 'spin-the-spy-bottle' game is Dick Grayson.

Pardon my cynicism, but nothing says "we longer know what to do to make this character work" than recasting someone in the spy-thriller genre. Um... except recasting them in the barbarian-lost world genre.  But that's another story.

DC tried to do this with both Hawkman and Aquaman.  Hawkman used to fight CAW (The Criminal Alliance of the World) and Aquaman used to fight OGRE (The Organization for General Revenge and Enslavement).  CAW had high-tech weapons out the whazoo (including anti-grav guns, acid-bubble bazookas, explosive particlizers, and protonic amplifiers), so naturally they were beaten senseless by the shirtless guy with the mace.  They did, at least have the decency to choose a hawk-themed acronym, so that Hawkman could fight them with less embarrassment.

Stupid CIA.  I bet it's full of GIRLS.

Unlike Hawkman, Aquaman didn't even pretend to need the CIA's help to fight his evil organization of choice, the broadly named Organization for General Revenge and Enslavement. OGRE's fussy about who they work for: "I wish to hire you to revenge myself on those who usurped my father's throne with a democratic movement, and then enslave our hated neighboring country of Backyardistan". "Oh, I'm sorry-- OGRE only does general revenge and enslavement, not specific requests. But we'll send you links to some other evil organizations that do targeted mercenary work."  

But OGRE wasn't fussy about who it hired, including losers like Fire-Haired Karla and the fat perv, The Invisible Un-Thing. (don't ask).  

Now, it's a little less ridiculous to have Dick Grayson as a spy, since he doesn't have Aquaman's superpowers or Hawkman's, um.... wingedness.  But putting him in SPYRAL-- a spy organization that has the word SPY right there in its name, so no one thinks otherwise--has pretty much doomed it to campy stupidity right from the get-go.  Of course, that will be offset by angst of "Robin's got a gun! Will he shoot...to kill?!"

Let's see. Dick Grayson is the presumptive heir to the Wayne fortune, can do anything (he was the Boy Wonder, after all), and has been an independent operator, a team leader, and the partner to the most revered crimefighter on his planet.  "I'm going to join a morally questionable international spy organization!" is perhaps the least credible decision DC could have him make.  

I tell....the DCU is smelling more and more like it's headed to its next reboot next year.

Black and White

White Guy #1

Writer

White Guy #2

Scientist

White Guy #3

Billionaire heir philanthropist playboy civic leader wealthy person

White Guy #4

Royalty

White Gal #1

Royalty/demigoddess

Black Guy #1

Marine

Black Guy #2

Athlete

Black Guy #3

Football player

Black Guy #4

Loud Black Lad/fashionisto

Black Gal #1

Supermodel

Now, I'll admit I'm not being entirely fair. Jefferson Pierce became a teacher.  Marines aren't stupid (that's what the Army's for) and Jon Stewart is an engineer.  Plus, I'm omitting such characters as the brilliant technologist John Henry Irons. 

Here's some balance, then:

Bonus Black Guy:

One of the smartest people on the planet

Bonus White Guy:

Klutz/congenital idiot.

And yet...

I still say that for various reasons our society, even if only subconsciously, values black people for their physical prowess and attributes, rather than their intelligence and acumen.  I believe it's a vestige of American slavery, where slaves were valued for their use as laborers.

You could make a case that:
(a) most black characters were created later than most white characters, at a time when heroes were more likely to have humble origins;
(b) if you start including more characters, such as Steel, in the list above, that the disparity between the treatment of white and black characters diminishes; or
(c) as more new characters are created any such imbalance will lessen.

You could make those cases. But I'm not sure I'd buy them.  

You may find my theory about the ingrained "slave labor values" ridiculous or too distasteful to accept. Okay. Then let's pause to look at the exposed thighs, abs, and cleavage of black men:

Size matters.

Shocking, really.

Oooo, artsy.

Oh, Tyroc.

You almost never see this kind of costume treatment for white male characters (excepting Plastic Man).  Of course, you DO see it for female white characters.  Almost as if our society were valuing women mostly ... for their physical attributes.

I don't mean to make too big a deal out of this.  But I do think it's a real thing, and something we need to pay attention to, lest it continue indefinitely.

You're welcome to dismiss or contest my theory.  But at least think about it, in the process.