So if told you I was going to talk about a comic book character who was:
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| The fruits of evil are FUNGIBLE. |
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| That's a brave camera-person who took that. |
- who's a dramatic gun-toting vigilante
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| R.I.P.-lining! |
- inspired by the death of a loved one
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| That bear saved his life. |
- who wears a garish outfit
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Imagine laying that out on your bed and saying,
"Yes! THIS is the look I'm going for today!" |
- drives a signature thematic vehicle
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| "Red Rover, Red Rover, let Wild Dog run over." |
- has cozy relationships with authority figures
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| That's just the police guy; there's also a reporter guy and a spy guy. |
- and fights colorful and semi-deranged foes
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| Or cities. |
- who kills without compunction
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Eleazar P. Wilddog's portrait approves:
"No decent man would wear that shirt." |
- and quips for the reader's amusement while doing so,
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| Wild Dog turns vigilanteism into performance art. |
you would, I should think, assume that I was going to discuss a Golden Age hero. If so, then, congratulations; you've come to the same conclusion I have:
Wild Dog is a Golden Age hero who just happens to have been created in 1987.
That feels like it makes sense: just as the Golden Age was a period when they were trying to figure out what flies in the superhero genre and what doesn't, that's what the Post-Crisis DC world was like. So I could see some Golden Age refugees emerging right around then.
ReplyDeleteI can't say I was a fan of much of the immediate aftermath of CoIE, and I wish they simply would have taken Jim Shooter's advice and written good stories (which sounds so simple as to be unhelpful, but I'll focus on "quality" over "different for different's sake" any day).
Max Allan Collins is a HUGE fan of pulp stories and hard-boiled detectives of that era. I think he just naturally created a character in the mode he was most comfortable with. But given the times (and the antiterrorist aspect), what was actually an atavistic old approach came across as an attempt at a bold new one.
ReplyDeleteI can't argue with your logic.
ReplyDeleteRegarding the 'inspired by the death of a loved one' panel, a stupid riddle I made up:
ReplyDeleteQ: Why are submachine guns Buddhist?
A: 'Cause they all go "Buddha Buddha Buddha..."
You'd make a good Golden Age sidekick.
ReplyDeleteHaha! I will take that as a compliment. I'm great at puns, but I look terrible in short shorts.
ReplyDelete