My Year in Review

The Absorbascon's Year in Review,
done as a Heroclix Expansion Set.

REVs, LEs, and Uniques

1-3 Thought-Robots
4-6 Denominated Henchman (Southpaw LE)
7-9 Nameless Underlings (Artsy-Face LE)
10-12 Delicious Hostess Fruit Pies (Cherry Pie with Real Fruit Filling LE)
13-15 The Penny Plunderer
16-18 Vibe (Paco Ramone doing "the Robot" LE)
19-21 Dominominions (generic)
22-24 Dr. Domino
25-27 The Red Bee
28-30 Bees (generic) (Michael the Bee LE)
31-33 Phantom Lady
34-36 The Fadeaway Man
37-39 Congorilla
40-42 The original Black Condor
43-45 Hugo Strange
46-48 Gnor's Hotdog
49-51 Batman-Clobbering Robin
52-54 Batman Bitchslapping Robin
55-57 Killer Moth
58-60 Mr. Scarlet
61-63 The Mist
64-66 The Awesome Human Flying Fish
67-69 Phantom Zone Cats
70-72 Catman
73-75 Blaze
76-78 Simon Stagg
79-81 Blockade Boy (Jeremy Rizza LE)
82-84 The Original Starman (Ted Knight LE)
85 Orca the Whalewoman
86 Uncle Sam
87 The Phantom Stranger
88 Vartox
89 Toyboy
90 The Green Arab
91 Boy King
92 The Kryptonite Monkey
93 Bizarro-Titano
94 The Light ("The Unknown" LE)
95 Amethyst
96 The Composite Superman (Joe Meach LE)

217 Rex the Wonder Dog (Clik Brick LE)
218 The Infuriated Vurm
219 God
220 Night Girl
221 Topo

FEAT CARDS
001 Bacteria Cloudburst Formula
002 Word Association
003 Mid-Crisis Life-Makeover
004 The Living Death
005 The Gay Place
006 Breakdance Fighting

BATTLEFIELD CONDITIONS
001 Incest
002 Drama

BYSTANDER TOKENS
01 Marsha Mallow
02 Forgettable Moll
03 Major Mynah
04 ROGER the Ore-Crusher
05 The Rabid Racoon
06 The Innocent Dupe
07 J. Edgar Hoover
08 Dr. Curry (as long as Arthur's going to be a Bystander in his own comic, shouldn't be one on the Heroclix board, too?)

OBJECT TOKENS
001 Yellow Ceiling Tile
002 The Ecstacotron
003 Atomic Warhead Arrow
004 The Queer Machine
005 The Saltwater Telegraph
006 The Polished Aluminum Flying Pan

COLOSSAL SIZED EXCLUSIVE FIGURE
300 Multiwoman of the Challenger-Haters (with four dials: "Moody", "Rather Peeved", "Royally Ticked", and "Monthly Visitor")

CONVENTION EXCLUSIVE
301 The corpse of Multi-Man

Happy New Year, everyone!

Head of the Family

You know the scariest thing about
Hal Jordan is?


By far?



He's the smart one in the family.

Hal's Head & Sinestro

The DCUniverse doesn't have Beavis and Butthead.

But it does have Hal Jordan and Sinestro...

"I've got to get loose!"
"Heh. Heh heh. You said... you said 'get loose' ..."
"Shut up, you jugeared jackass."
"No, Hal's Head, you shut, you shut up. ZAP!!"
"Ow! Stop it, Sinestro -- Settle down!"
"Are you threatening me? I am the great ... Sinestro! You must bring me TP for my--"
"If you don't shut up, I'm gonna shove a green box glove in your piehole, buttmunch!

Batman's Haiku

Special thanks to "jeff r." for spotting this week's heroic haiku!

Nearly broken with disillusionment in Infinite Crisis #3 and seemingly ripe for the Original Superman's overtures of friendship, Batman, even breathless and halting in step and speech, still manages to stutter out a haiku:

This wasn't supposed
to happen; I can't breathe. Can't...
do this anymore.


Ah, the traditional "powerlessness" speech we expect in a "Crisis". But this one, from Batman, of all people, resonates strongly. Such a statement from unbreakable Batman! And the knowledge that he's responsible for the ruination of so many lives!

But Batman does not break, and those who've read the issue get to see why not.


We've seen what kind of haiku Batman can compose under the direst pressure. What about YOU?

Hal's Head versus the Fifth Estate

Hal's head, the symbol of post WWII man, is so rich in symbolism that, well, it practically spews forth symbolic power from its every opening. It is, for the post-war comic book reader, the veritable Fountainhead of Meaning. Why, just take these panels below as another example.

Hal Jordan, the conservative post-war man decked out in jacket and tie, is joy-riding in his impratical gas-guzzling convertible, accompanied by his attractive boss/ lover/ alien-mind-controlled, dominatrix-style arch-enemy, when "suddenly"....



Carol "Eagle-Eyed Capitalist" Ferris, ever alert for threats to her property (Hal Jordan included), warns of an approaching attack by the insidious liberal institution of the Fifth Estate! Carol's no fool; she knows that any free and random object with 20 feet is just itching to whack Hal Jordan in the head.

Hal, his intellect stultified by years of driving the Hurtling Steel Box of Doom that is industrialized society, responds as any late 1950s conservative company man would from this unexpected attack from a newspaper on the far left: "Huh?" God bless you, Hal.


"You do not understand that you are hurtling too fast along a lifepath with sudden twists and turns," the paper tries to symbolically convey to Hal. "Seduced by your jeweled rings of power, you and your companion's mindless embrace of materialism have rendered you faceless and blind. Why, there might be thousands of others like you wasting their abilities in thoughtless toil and obedience to distant and uncaring masters... and you'd never even know it! It's all right here; for god's sake, read between the lines!"
I'm sure, if we could see the paper better, we'd note that, in classic comic book irony, it was called The Guardian.

The paper tries to thrust its unwanted truths into Hal's face, but (oh the comic book irony!), Hal is too close to the truth to see it. "Ring--useless! Must be ... YELLOW JOURNALISM!" Hal thinks only of protecting the status quo: "The Lover/Possessor of Capital! The Car/Icon of Postwar Mobility and Freedom! Myself / Symbol of the New Suburban Man! I must save them all!"

But is Hal equal to the emergency?

Oh, thank goodness. Fearless test pilot Hal Jordan was able to handle a piece of errant paper. As Hector Hammond once said, "Oh, Hal Jordan ... my hero." Let's all be thankful there aren't many topless jets for Hal to fly, otherwise Coast City would have been destroyed years ago. Of course, it was anyway, when Hal was off selling toys or something, but that's another story.

Anyway, the moral is clear: driving the modern industrial society forward is a two-fisted affair, and you (like Hal) must be ready to both dismiss distracting attacks from foolishly idealistic journalists while boldly piloting on an unpredictable path with an immovable car-crushing mountain of economic necessity on one side and a constant precipice of ideological error on the other. Like Hal, you must stick to the path!

Can Batman Dance?

As previously promised, it's time to examine, one by one, whether our heroes can dance. Let's start with Batman. Can Batman dance?


The off-the-cuff answer is obvious: "Don't be an idiot; Batman can do anything." Batman can diagnose your injuries while you're falling through space. Batman can make a telephone out of some loose change and a glass of saltwater. Batman can open a safe with his teeth, kill you with one kiss, and assemble a bat-baby-crib without any instructions. Batman can do anything.

It's probably more accurate to say, "Batman can do anything the story needs him to do." But there is a subtle "running joke" that crops up now and again over the last 60 years of Batman: Batman knows how to do everything obscure, but some times normal things escape him.

Oh, it's subtle and seldom important; little things, really. Batman can't sing (except for the one on JLU). Batman knows about movies but never watches them. Batman (or at least Bruce Wayne) doesn't understand children. Batman knows nothing about video games, baseball, or popular music. In short, the implication is that Batman has no time for anything purely fun or frivolous. Makes sense; why would he?

Dancing surely falls into the category. Why would Batman know how to dance?

Simple. While Batman has no reason to know how to dance, Bruce Wayne has every reason. Dinner and dancing with the ladies is Brucie's bag. It's all smooth and suave when you're out with BW, and when Bruce asks the band to play, he dances to the bossa nova, the music of complacence.

Besides, you just know Alfred was giving Little Brucie ballroom lessons in waltz and foxtrot from age 7 on. "Come, Master Bruce! The terpsichorean arts are a mainstay of any young gentleman's education and a key that will open many social doors. Now, on this go-round, maintain the frame of dance with a firm but not rigid steadiness of the arms ... and mind my feet, please."

Besides, the squarest version of Batman ever, Adam West, could not only dance, but spontaneously invented dances out of whole cloth, while drugged, to which entire websites are devoted.

So you better believe Batman can dance. Batman stays up late at night in the dark recesses of the cave, playing that bongo vinyl LP that Jack Knight gave him after their Solomon Grundy adventure, inventing all sorts of avant-garde dances that subtly incorporate martial arts maneuvers, just in case he needs to disarm a roomful of tuxedo-clad ninjas while in his Bruce Wayne identity on the ballroom floor.

Just in case.

My Christmas Story

This is not a story I am able to tell in person without breaking down and crying, so I will tell it to you here.

On Christmas Day some years ago, I left the house for the first time in about five or six weeks. My jaws had been broken in four places, and the surgeons had inserted a plate in my mouth and wired it shut to hold everything in place so that the bones could knit. For over a month I was at home, unable to speak, drugged senseless, awake long enough only to drink through a straw shoved behind my teeth and to use the restroom. I had lost nearly 20 pounds. Except for someone who came to look in on me every few days, I was alone and in nearly constant pain.

On Christmas Day, however, someone came to take me out. It had started snowing that morning, hard, and no one was traveling anywhere who didn't have to. I did.

My companion drove me through the worsening storm to an obscure and downtrodden cinema on the northside of town, where it seemed there was but one employee to handle tickets, concessions, and the projector on Christmas Day. I was helped to my seat and given a Coke, and I almost cried from frustration when it took more effort to drink it than I could muster.

The cinema was almost empty, with no more than 8 or 10 people attending the opening of the film, which wasn't showing anywhere else in town.

But I was there. I got to see Batman: Mask of the Phantasm when it opened that Christmas Day.

I got no presents that year, sang no carols, attended no feasts. But it was the best Christmas I have ever had. It was the best Christmas I'll ever have.

I was still alive.
The snow was pretty.
The movie was wonderful.
And I had never been happier in all my life.

I finally learned that day that it is the simple things in life that really make us happy.


Merry Christmas to you all.

Have a Merry Christmas ... or Else!

Christmascon

For some unfathomable reason, in our poll on "What new gay superhero will get his/her own series in 2006?", the venerable but rockhard patriot, Uncle Sam, is in the leader, followed by the new Aquaman, Sword (*snicker*) of Atlantis. Wouldn't it serve me right if it were the new Aquaman? In order to keep to my principles, I'd be forced to buy four copies every month, but throw them all away without reading them; oh, the comic book irony!

Speaking of Uncle Sam, I got this for Christmas from Totaltoyz, the Customizer in Residence at the Big Monkey Comics Ebay store:



















Yes, it's the red white and blue slab of manmeat himself with his white hot sword of victory, as seen previously here at the Absorbascon. What American lad could ask for a better toy for Christmas? Gods, I love my country!





Devon of Seven Hells gave me == I still can't believe it == a nearly perfect copy of Lois Lane 106, one of the most famous comics of all time. Yep; I now own "I am curious (black)!"Expect to hear in 2006 more about my perceptions of this wacky, well-meant story where Lois turns into a black woman. Lots more. It's now my sacred duty.

In return, I gave Devon something you don't find at the store: a custom Heroclix of...

the Viking Commando.Custom Viking Commando heroclix courtesy of Totaltoyz at Big Monkey Comics Ebay

Now, I have to look forward to Monday nights in 2006 listening to Devon shout, "I'm going commando on ALL your asses!" at the top of his voice while wildly waving a spatula above the Heroclix board like an ax as the dog barks like crazy. Oh, well, it's better than bowling.

Lastly (and certainly most ominously for you the reader), Captain Infinity was wonderful enough to send me one of the gifts I asked for: the entire run of the Detroit Justice League. That's right; I'm now armed with every single appearance of Vibe. Everyone say thanks to Captain Infinity!

Dancing ... for Justice!

Yes, to answer the question one of you recently asked me in a private email, I really do come from a professional dance family. I can waltz, two-step, boogie, disco-fy, and breakdance fight; if I were a villain, I'd be Terry Savatte or Batroc the Leaper.

So I'm going to help answer that other question, the one that's been nagging you since you had to suffer through the Electric Slide at your office's holiday party:

"Can my favorite superhero dance?"

We'll be analyzing the evidence, hero by hero, with my expert (or, at least, color) commentary along the way, over the next several Sundays, so tune in Big Monkey Radio, slip into your dance belt, and join us here at the Absorbascon Ballroom for

Dancing for Justice.

WGBS Interviews Aquaman

"Mr. Curry, Mr. Curry!

Can you say a few words about the Superboy villain "King Shark" being one of the stars of the new Aquaman series, instead of you?

Okay, sir; I can see you're busy; perhaps another time.

King Shark, how would you describe to our viewers your feelings about being in Sword of Atlantis?
There you have it, folks! Clark, Lana--back to you!"

Hal's Head as Feminist Metaphor

As the symbol of the Post-War Man, Hal Jordan naturally went head to head with the issues feminism and female empowerment. In any head to head conflict, Hal's head takes a beating and this one is no exception.

Carol Ferris personifies post-war female empowerment. During WWII, as able-bodied men were swept into the armed services, women took their place in the workforce, ushering in the modern era of women's socioeconomic independence. Men's return from the war and their expectation that women would return to "their place" in the home caused friction, and introduced a complexity in male/female relations with which society still grapples.

Carol Ferris, in her dual role as Hal's (principal) love interest and boss, encapsulated the conflict nicely. When she was further "empowered" as Star Sapphire by the female warrior race of the Zamarons, she was pushed to use her power to humilitate and subjugate Green Lantern (although deep within she secretly wanted him to win out over her).

HA! The joke was on her, silly female; Green Lantern is quite capable of humiliating himself, thank you very much. Watch out for those projecting ledges, Hal; they're everywhere.

Basically, Hal can't handle Star Sapphire, empowered woman, any more than he can handle Carol Ferris, empowered woman. In fact, if it weren't for the fact she suffers internal conflict over whether she wants to beat him or not, she'd kick his silly arse halfway to Star City and back. Through Carol, the writers are saying, "Thank the gods women can't make up their minds whether they want to bring us under their thumbs to make us behave or to have us be all Alpha Male so as to protect them, otherwise we guys would be in deep doo-doo."

And that's what it means when Hal hits his head, recoiling from the power of Star Sapphire.

That, or that he's a total incompetent.

My Favorites This Week ...

Quote from someone else's blog
"Shouldn't Marvel put as much effort into their comics as they do their press-releases?" Ah, yer slayin' me, Jon!

New Superhero Song
"Aquaman" (not 'Sword of Atlantis') by Grandpa Griffith. It's very pretty and well performed. It's on their new album that comes out this week and it's playing now on Big Monkey Comics Radio, because they sent me an advance copy.

Inscrutable Detail
The Shark has nipples. Why does the Shark have nipples? Is Joel Schumacher one of the gremlins? The Shark should not have nipples.

Comic
Green Lantern 6. Hal versus the gremlins, Black Hand, the Shark, Hector Hammond. The delicious art. The death symbolism and double entendre and the contextualizing flashbacks of Hal's life. This is one of the best comic books I've read in a long time.

Error
"Get our daughter out of here," says Tempest, whose only child is a boy. Says something similar in the most recent pre-Sword-of-Atlantis issue of Aquaman. I guess nobody on the DC staff reads Aquaman. Or maybe Tempest pulled a magical screw-up when changing diapers, and, zhwoomp!, Cerdian is now Cerdi Anne. Hey, it's better than accidently turning himself and Aquaman into fish.

Device
The Purple Death Ray. The name alone says it all. There's still time to get me one for Christmas, by the way.

Use of Superpower
Aquaman, in Alex Ross's Justice. No contest. Finny friends rock.

Weekly Wow
The double (triple?) reveal toward the end of Infinite Crisis, with Society Head Luthor, his machine, and the destruction of the Watchtower. Uh-oh. We really are in trouble ...

I'm Super; Thanks for Asking!

Well! As of yesterday, there's lots more juicy gossip in Wizard and on the web about DCU developments in 2006.

Particularly joyous for me is the public announcement that my friend Brad Meltzer will be writing JLA, which is the ne plus ultra for a DC fan like him. Congratulations, Brad! Now bring back Vibe, or you die, because I know where you live.

We can address some of the many tidbits of gossipy goodness soon, but FOREMOST is this one:

"A new gay character makes their first appearance in 52, before moving on to their own ongoing series."

As the original Starman once said, "Assist me to the couch; I feel faint!"; or, as Blue Devil once so famously said in Crisis on Infinite Earths, "Eeek!"

• Part of me says, "Thank you!"
• Part of me says, "It's about dang time!"
• Part of me says, "I will buy four copies of each issue, which will neatly take the place of Flash, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, and Gotham Central in my subscription, unless of course the character is a lesbian."
• Part of me says, "I'll give this a try until the character gets fagbashed, contracts HIV, is raped by Dr. Light, or adopts a baby (or, in a Very Special Issue, all of the above), which means for about 5 issues."

A discussion on the larger issues of a gay hero (not a throwaway character like Hero Cruz or a mere metrosexual like Kyle "I dance with my arms above my head" Rayner) has been started at Big Monkey Comics, to which I hope you'll choose to contribute.

For us here at the Absorbascon, the real question is:

Should it be the new Black Condor, the new Red Bee, or the new Blue Beetle?

Hal's Head as Architectural Satire

As one of my favorite polka stars used to say, "It don't get no bedder den dis, folks!"

Oh, yes. That is indeed Hal Jordan knocking himself out by flying directly in a stone wall headfirst. Doesn't even roll or turn to mitigate the impact.

Head. First.

Now, given the contextualizing buildings in the first panel, I'm certain this sequence was intended by the writer as a sly artistic satire of atomic-age man's inability to understand or anticipate the modernistic architectural trends of Bauhaus, Internationalism, or Structuralism. *Chortle*! Look, I believe that's I.M. Pei himself in the background, camoflaged as an aerobics teacher, chuckling, "Heh, didn't expect that externalized non-functional butress, did you, Hal?"

Those Silver Age writers were cleverer than you give them credit for, people.

I dare not relax an instant!

How amazing is the Golden Age Starman?

Well, he can kick the butt of crazy-powerful Ultraman through his superior intelligence. Casually. While laughing about it. In outer space.

But this is the Golden Age Starman we're talking about here, folks. Tricking Ultraman into blowing himself up is not enough ....

It's taking all my
greatest efforts to prevent
this from blowing up!

Starman tricks him into haikuing about it. Ah, Starman!

Will your haiku match Ultraman's... or exceed it?

Hal's Head as Political Allegory

Naive readers think that Hal gets hit on the head a lot just because

(a) the Universe itself hates him;
(b) the writers think it's hilarious;
(c) Hal himself is an idiot.

All those are true, of course. But you and I are wise enough to realize that there's a deeper literary purpose to it all. We understand that the leitmotif of Hal getting hit on the head is a metaphor.

Hal Head Hitting (H3) is political allegory of the subtlest order, which is why we give it such respect here at the Absorbascon.

Hal Jordan personifies the post WWII man. Former military man in the glamorous 1950/60s career of test pilot. Wears a suit and tie to baseball games, which he finds so exciting he loses track of time. A sexist pig, but only out of ignorance, not ill will. A company man in love with his employer (cleverly personified as the beautiful Carol Ferris). Confident in his own abilities and the power of the democratic arsenal at his (literal) fingers. Hal Jordan WAS his time.

What is his weakness? Yes -- the YELLOW PERIL itself: communism, which threatens to undo our post-war prosperity by undermining the concept of individual superiority (which the vain, smug Hal evokes incredibly well). Along with his fellow pseudomilitary peacekeeper colleagues from similar but distant societies, Hal is directed by the distant Guardians, who with their light blue and white visages clearly are meant to embody the United Nations, ordering local forces to squelch possible political instabilities or challenges to their universal authority.

The "H3 Phenomenon" is a warning to us all. We the post-war Western World (as represented by Hal Jordan) must remain ever vigilant against sneak attacks. One "klonk" to our metaphorical heads (our "heads of state", as it were) and our society can be rendered senseless, our all-powerful arsenal of democracy dangling uselessly from our unconscious hands. We must remain alert so that our leaders are not blindsided by ideological ambush, which is why the search for communist sympathizers within the ranks of our political and cultural elite is so important, lest we be nurturing a Sinestro/Castro in our very bosom.


It's either that, or Hal just gets hit on the head a lot.

The Importance of Briefing Arthur

I just got back from San Diego, where, swimming off the coast, I was able to catch up with Aquaman. I wanted to explain to him the plans for his series in 2006 (I'm sure he hadn't gotten the memo, and when you live underwater it's hard to access the internet frequently). Immediately after our conversation, I dashed to make a transcript, which follows.

"Mr. Curry, Mr. Curry! Have you heard that your title teeters on the verge of cancellation due to low circulation?"

"It's okay, sir. DC has a plan for reviving the title."

"Um, well, actually, sir, you aren't going to be in it. At least for a while. Someone else will be in the role of 'Aquaman: Sword of Atlantis' ."
"Someone else as Aquaman, sir; for marketing reasons, he looks a lot like you. Here, look at this picture."

"Indeed, sir. It's going to be an underwater sword & sorcery storyline by the man who writes Conan the Barbarian."
"Er, uhm-- well, sir, it's sort of like what Peter David did. That they later abandoned. And then Rick Veitch kind of did something similar, except you were nice instead of grouchy. Then they abandoned that, too."

"As you say, sir. Nevertheless, it's really ... out of your hands now.""I'm afraid that's not possible, sir, since you won't be in the seascape for a while."
"Um, actually, you can, sir. Will Pfeiffer already fixed that for you. Anyway, ordinarily, characters in your circumstances are sent to the Island of Misfit Characters in Silver Age Limbo, but ..."
"Please come back, sir! The good news is while you're not Aquaman in the comics you'll be Aquaman on teevee instead."

"You'll have to take that up with Marketing, sir. Meanwhile, instead of being in Limbo you and some of your cast will be on the WB, which is nearby. Are you game?"
"Thank you, sir; you're a good sport. We'll look for you on TV, and hope to see you back in the comics as Aquaman soon."

Vibe Rater

Once again, like Ultraman, I am frozen in self-conflict as my many powers (supersnide, miscontextual vision, superscreed, incredibility, supersnarktriloquism, etc.) all struggle to lash out at this panel (a wonderful Christmas gift to me from our own Captain Infinity from his Detroit JLA collection):

"Is that the best you can do, Paco?
I've seen vibrators that can do better!"

That's five kinds of creepy, Ralph. Even Paco, who's been around the block more than once (on both sides of the street), is mortified by Ralph's admission....


Please comment; I don't have the strength to!

What I want for Christmas from you

Okay, I put out a lot here on my blog (elsewhere, too, but that's not important right now). So now, gosh darn it, I'm asking for something in return. It's Christmas, which is not big in my family, so I won't be getting hardly any gifts (the boys have to save their money, because dance mats aren't cheap). But YOU can make up for that, by sending me any of the following things:

1. Scanned pictures of Hal Jordan getting hit in the head, like this one which was a present from Kalinara. [This one's particularly nice, because (a) that's Kyle hitting Hal with a lead pipe (b) at this point in his career, Hal's been konked so many times he can't even feel it any more). If you don't have any comics that contain pictures of Hal getting hit in the head, original fan art of Hal getting hit in the head (preferably by something yellow or otherwise embarrassing) will do. 

 2. Scanned pictures of Vibe. As unlikely as it may seem, I have only ONE issue of the Detroit League, which featured Vibe. Perhaps that's why I like him so much? Anyway, any picture of Vibe will do. If you're moved to get rid of your Detroit-era league issues of JLA, but the EPA won't let you dispose of them at any federal facilities, you can send those to me, too! You can't imagine the joy they will bring me. In fact, it's best if you don't think about it. 

 3. Scanned pictures of Aquaman humiliating people with fish. It will give me something to look at during the eight months of Sword of Atlantis. 

 Send gifts here. Thanks!

Christmas with the Scipios

I'm still in trouble for getting my sons certain videos last Christmas, which resulted in a trip to the Emergency Room and a broken lamp.

I've been warned, "Keep it normal this year!". So this year I'm sticking with more practical gifts for Ramone and Paco (who, as you can see, inherited my tendency toward exhuberant dance).


Some pants and a belt.

A nice sweater and a jacket

A DVD and a magazine subscription.

A poster or two.

A video game or two.

It doesn't get more normal than that at my house, folks!

Red Bee + Green Arrow

Let's put a little Red and Green together for the holidays, shall we?

Green Arrow could use some pizzazz in his Green Team (particularly if most of them did, in fact, just get blown up in the most recent issue of his book). So let's bring back ...

The Red Bee

and make him part of the team!

It's a natural. Arrows sting with their pointy tips; so do bees. Ollie's a hip metrosexual; why shouldn't he have a gay buddy?

Everyone laughs at the Red Bee because (like many Quality Comics creations), he looks like a total flamer in his diaphanous pink blouse (well, that and the whole "fighting crime with bees" schtick).

Go with it, I say: MAKE him a total flamer. Face it, we live in a post-Queer Eye world; being gay (and, possibly, truly fabulous) isn't exactly a media taboo any more, so DC should wake up and smell the cappucino.

Groups are named after him. He's got a long history. The Brits like the name. He's a lawyer, which Ollie could probably use for all those paternity and sexual harrassment suits. He helps kids learn. He was in both Starman and Animal Man ... and the Absorbascon (if that don't make ya cool, what does?). Blockade Boy has given him extra outfits (although, for me, nothing says "My disguise must strike terror into their hearts" like pink gauze).

Anyway, I am serious about putting the Red Bee in the Arrow Family. Ollie's going to be mayor of Star City soon; he'll need a District Attorney, which is what Rick Raleigh (a.k.a. The Red Bee) does. GA wouldn't lose any readers, I daresay, and gay readers and non-gay fans of the Red Bee (both of them) would swarm to the book like, well, bees to honey.

"Oh, he's too LAME or SILLY," someone is preparing to type. Wake up and smell the cappucino, folks. Detective Chimp? Captain Carrot? Brother Blood? The Red Bee's time has come.

Besides, if you think the Red Bee is too silly, then you're probably not reading Green Arrow anyway.

Batting Practice

That reminds me,

speaking of Snapper feeling all queer and tingly inside...

you know the real reason Snapper left the Justice League?





Let's just say,
Sue Dibny wasn't the first!

Sometimes, it's too easy...

You remember when the evil Ultraman from Earth-3 was paralyzed because all his powers were trying to attack someone all at the same time?

That is almost exactly how I felt when I noticed THIS panel in a JLA story, starring -- no, not Hal Jordan --

THE ONE
THE ONLY
SNAPPER CARR:

From this week's Aquaman

Aquaman, doing what he does (rather than, say, hitting Nazis or swinging swords).


"CHOMP", indeed.

Wow, that looks really ...

what's the word I'm looking for?

Oh, yes.

Humiliating.

I'll miss that sort of thing in the post-Sword-of-Atlantis DCU.

My Favorites this Week

Quote from someone else's blog.
"Kyle Rayner became a god once, and the first thing he did was cut his hair."

Background detail.
The road sign outside of Arkham in "Legends of the Dark Knight" that says HITCHHIKERS MAY BE ESCAPING INMATES. I really wanted to see an International Symbol of some kind on this sign.

Inexplicably villainous behaviour.
Dr. Light kills 17 students at Mia's school to spook her into running home, so he can follow her there. Dude; couldn't wait till 3:30 PM? How busy are you? Guess when you work at the speed of light, you get impatient.

Kirbyesque moment.

Heh, nice one, Palmiotti and Gray.

Best unexpected reference.
Do not buy Teen Titans this week for the Brother Blood-bath. Buy it for the jaw-dropping Carrot Captain saga that begins within--seriously. My favorite part? Fox and Crow as tv newscasters. I never thought I'd live to see Fox and Crow, in any capacity, back in a DC comic.

Hottie of the week.
Captain Atom. Yow. The combination of the new "outfit" and Camuncoli's art; yow. No one has ever made Captain Atom sexy before, and the "oops where did I leave my genitalia" problem makes it pretty darned tough to do.

Weekly Wow.
I respectfully steal the "@#$ yeah!" concept from my better, Dave of Dave's Longbox, and adapt it to my own wicked purposes.

Captain Atom also gives us the Weekly Wow. I never really liked Captain Atom before. Now I do.