News Flash.

 

Well...

Yes.

Thank you, Bleeding Cool.

But, isn't that EVERY contemporary issue of "The Flash"...?

Absolute Nonsense

It's the heroes you know and love... but now we've made things DIFFICULT for them! It's grim! It's gritty! They are underdogs! Things are serious!

Oh, if I had a dollar for every time I've heard that, why, I could buy an issue or two of the new "Absolute" line of comics from DC.

Not that I would, mind you.  

From (where else?) "Bleeding Cool":

This is Batman as underdog. Batman as warrior. That's Absolute Batman, the new ongoing series by Scott Snyder and Nick Dragotta. But it's also a reflection of the Absolute Universe continuity as a whole. Where Superman, Wonder Woman and the rest are underdogs, fighting for their survival as well as everything else, because the world they live in is a different one. And far closer to now.

<eyeroll>

How people can take such things seriously I cannot fathom.

I was going to ignore it when I thought it was just a line of comics where some creators could wear dark eye make-up and write the comics they didn't get to in the '90s because they were too young at the time.  You know; a Goth kids club for writers who want to consider themselves "edgy" even though they write comic books.  But today I learned it's an actual "universe" that comes about as a result of ...

wait for it

"Darkseid energy"

Pictured: Darkseid energy.

I could not stop myself from publicly deriding it.  

I feel slightly bad for putting out curmudgeonly posts two days in a row, but, hey, don't blame the weatherman for bad weather, folks.  

Is there really an audience for this sort of stuff? Some, I'm sure; there is an audience for almost everything, no matter how stupid.

Almost.

But I can't help getting the sense that this sort of project is more of a sop to certain CREATORS than to readers.  "Here; here's a sandbox you can play in.  Your fans will buy your stuff there and you can keep your mitts off the real versions of our characters and everyone will be happy."  You know; what we use to call "Elseworlds" before that became a pejorative term designating "imaginary stories" (as opposed to, um, 'non-imaginary stories', I suppose).  

Anyway, (yet another) grim and gritty Batman? Shrug. But .. Absolute Superman? Wonder Woman? Flash? Martin *snort* Manhunter?

I mean, does it get more "underdog" than THAT?!

Gosh, these poor underdogs! I hope they get some help!

This seems like a likely source.

What's your take on this latest "dark, realistic reimagining" of people with bright costumes, capes, and superpowers...?

Somehow, I blame women for this

 What's wrong with comics? Many things. 

Here is one:

I did not click on the linked story. I have no idea what's behind this. I have heard nothing else about "Green Lantern: Dark" other than this blurb.

It is all I need.

Because it lumps "rotten", "grump", and "adorable" into one package. And, to seal the deal, uses Guy Gardner as a point of comparison.

This is one of the things that is wrong with comics.  Giving us characters who are not positive role models. Giving us characters we are supposed to love for their flaws rather than for their virtues.  Giving us cats instead of dogs.  If I want that crap, I'd read Marvel.

Who is the audience for this? I can only assume women, because, frankly, women are used to putting up with MEN, who often SUCK, which some women somehow think is cute.  I don't know any men who are fans of Guy Gardner, for example.  I also don't know any men who are fans of that obnoxious little shit Damian Wayne.  

I don't even know whether the character IS a man.  It may be a woman. I don't care.  

Maybe women don't actually find such characters adorable and it's just what writer and editors THINK they like. I'd love for that to be the case.

Call me rotten and grumpy, if you want. I do not find such characters "adorable" and I'm tired of being told I should.

Doll Man versus The Runaway Formula, Part 3: High Praise, Indeed

You know what most people don't consider about skydiving? 

It's cold.  

I've parachuted out of planes (generally as part of plan) and had a partner who was a paratrooper, so I am here to remind you: the higher you go, the colder it is.  

Degrees, specifically.

The temperature drops off at about 5.4F every 1000 feet you ascend (if it's sunny out).  So, when you are snuggled in that PanContinental jet cruising along to visit Costa Rica, just remember that on the OTHER side of that plane's wall it is between -40 and -70 degrees F.  

Now, among WWII-era planes, even bombers would only go up to, say, 20 maybe 25K feet.  Normal flying-around two-seaters would be flying somewhere more like 5 or 10K feet.  

All of which goes to say: Doll Man is not dressed for riding outside on the landing gear of a contemporary airplane.

Note that he's still dizzy from the briefcase buffeting.
FAA regulations frown on riding airplane gear while dizzy.

But ride he does, until the spy plane lands in the woods. 

FAA regulatory interpretations also clarify that "if it has a big-ass tree in the middle of it, then it does not constitute a forest clearing, as detailed in AC 150/5325-4B (07/01/05)."

Because the spy hideout is in an Old Ramshackle House.

Or as the Zillow posting puts it, "a secluded homestead with old world charm that only awaits your finishing touches."

He leaps to the window using what we have to assume is his flea-like abilities from weighing only two ounces but having the strength of a normal man.

Well, not a NORMAL man. Darrel Dane is not normal.

And what he sees shocks his senses:

FOREIGN EXTERMINATORS.

So it turns outs that this band of (presumably) Nazi rodent-killers --let's call them "The Rat Patrol"-- DO have Dr. Roberts Formula and have already whipped up a batch and proved its efficiency as a death-dealing weapon.  Did they... get the formula from Joe Spinell earlier? Hm, no, the timing suggests that they just received the formula, meaning... it had to be in the briefcase. The one that Dane said didn't have the formula in it.  

I have no clue.  Dane, being insane, may very well simply be an unreliable narrator.  Maybe he lied to Dr. Roberts just in the hopes of getting a ride on the landing gear of an airplane and a chance to punch out some Nazi scientists. It's Doll Man, so whatever. Doll Man is BASED on a contradiction, since his powers make no sense, and, as any logician will tell you, if you except a contradiction as a given you can use that to make ANYTHING possible.

Then the artist pulls out all the stops to let you know that THIS PANEL CONTAINS EVIL.

The dead rat is a nice touch.

But before he confronts the Rat Patrol directly, Doll Man has a job to do: muck up the formula.  And, if there's anybody who can muck up a formula, it's Darrell Dane, since that's how he became Doll Man in the first place.

I should think that writing with a pen larger than you are would take considerable practice.

Ah ha. This panel finally makes sense of the story's initial splash panel:

THAT is why Doll Man is depicted writing something with a pen; because that's actually the crux of what he needs to accomplish in the story.

Naturally, the Rat Patrol will never notice or unravel Dane's additions to the formula; Nazi scientists are gullible like that.

I bet you any money he just wrote, "+ some hypersulmide."

NOW, it's good to go, and Dr. Giggles here orders his Rat Patrol flunky to (unknowingly) send the now-altered, harmless version of the formula to Germany.

I mean, they COULD be from India. Or Estonia. Or Chile.
But I'm sticking with my original guess.

THEN Doll Man shows his hand.

"A little man? A doll? It's some sort of...
of...
well, I'm not sure what to call it."

The Rat Patrol is not as sanguine as the flight deck crew was about a red-caped homunculus skittering about, and tries to capture The Doll Man.

This sequence, by the way, explains the COVER of this comic:

Yeah, yeah, a lot of guys think that about themselves, Darrel.

Using his proportionate flitty-ness of a mosquito, Dane handily avoids the Rat Patrol.

That is, UNTIL he is undone by the unexpected:

LOOK OUT, DOLL MAN, IT'S SYLVIA PLATH!

Dr. Giggles is poised to kill Doll Man with the gas he's already prepared from the unedited version of Dr. Roberts' formula, but Doll Man NEUTRALIZES it with the quantity of hypersulmide he's been carrying around since the story's second panel.

The real Dr. Giggles would have loved this bit.

I mean, when you're Doll Man, isn't EVERYONE a big boy?

PERSPECTIVE PORN, AWAY!

On the one hand, you'd think crashing your head through solid glass would hurt, especially someone so easily destabilized by some buffeting in a briefcase.  On the other hand, if Doll Man experienced brain damage, who would notice?

And, so, one routing montage later...

that, as the saying goes, is that.

Told you.

Then, in a remarkable display of Golden Age economy of action, he simply picks up the phone and asks, um, the operator (?) to get him, uh, The District Agent (FBI?) in Charge, because he's... Darrel Dane?  It's Doll Man, so whatever.

"Kind of, but our higher priority is dangerously deranged, self-important chemists, so... stay put."

"So... it WAS in the briefcase and you could have avoided all this?
Are you still taking your pills, my boy...?"

And the tale ends with Dane getting the greatest reward any man could imagine: mild praise from Dr. Roberts.  

Doll Man versus the Runaway Formula, Part 2: The Well-Known Powder

When last we left Darrel ("Doll Man") Dane he was cruising a train to find a man.

How could he NOT see you, with that idiosyncratic perspective making you seem 8 feet tall?

This means that Dane anticipates recognizing the thief, and vice vera. Which means that... he and Dr. Rogers SAW the guy steal the formula?  How on earth did THAT happen? Did they just... jump in a car and chase him?  If so, how did they not reach him before he had time to board a train?  Did they not think to call the authorities?

None of this matters. It's a Doll Man story.  Things happen as they need to in order to facilitate Dollmanning, end of subject.  

"I think I hear... the characteristic overconfidence of lunatic chemist Darrel Dane! Cheese it!"

Guiltily, the Joe Spinell of espionage grabs his yellow trilby and briefcase and leaps from the train (which, fortunately for him, Dane has already stopped).

I really can't blame Dane for hesitating before jumping out into whatever post-apocalyptic irradiated atomic wasteland is being depicted in that third panel. He may be crazy but he's not stupid.

Joe Spinell unaccountably and improbably simply disappears in the meager scrub brush clinging to the scorched earth, because, well, because the plot requires him to escape.  But while Dane doesn't find Spinell, he DOES find Dr. Rogers, his badass senior colleague, who apparently continued to drive a convertible at over 80mph from the passenger side without even losing his hat until he caught up with the stalled locomotive.

"Too bad. I suppose foreign agents will use my work to kill thousands, then. Ah, well. At least it was a fine day for a bracing drive through the post-apocalyptic hellscape."

Since they are eminent chemists Dr. Roberts and Darrell Dane need face no reprisal for halting an express passenger train in the middle of a post-apocalyptic wasteland; rather, they pause in Lincolnesque fashion to bid the train a fond and affectionate farewell.

And to appreciate some PERSPECTIVE PORN.
I declare it's a thing.

But, what's THIS?!

Joe Spinell escaped WITHOUT his briefcase, which has lodged in the scarred crags carved by atomic explosions into the post-apocalyptic cliff-side. 

What absurd luck! Now all they have to do is retrieve the briefcase, which contains Dr. Roberts' stolen formula!

Or not.

So ...

the formula they were looking for isn't in Spy Joe Spinell's briefcase.  Which... 

makes zero sense.  

Did Spinell REMOVE the formula the briefcase before jumping from the train? He had no time to do that. 

Did he have the formula on his person and not in the briefcase? No, that makes no sense, since why else would be carrying a briefcase than to carry papers in? 

The answer, of course, is...

because the plot requires it in order to facilitate Dollmanning. End of subject.

And facilitate Dollmanning it does, because, as the dialog indicates, Dane is CERTAIN the spies will come back for the briefcase (even though we have no reason to believe it has anything of value in it, since the formula's not there) and therefore hides inside it.  

Dang, Dane works that outfit like a go-go boy at a Pride Parade.

After all, what could possibly go wrong?  Other than the briefcase being carried off but a mangy mutated fox or invaded by irradiated fire ants?

"Phew.  Now I don't have to worry about my daughter marrying this lunatic."

Dr. Roberts leaves Dane to his fate.  I like to imagine that Dr. Roberts doesn't even get into the driver's seat of his convertible, but sits back in the passenger seat, puts a rock on the accelerator and motors home at 80mph while steering with his left hand, because that's the kind of badass Dr. Roberts is.

PERSPECTIVE PORN, I SAY.

Naturally, Dane hasn't gotten long to wait because this is the Golden Age and the plot can't plod.

Speaking of badass, this guy doesn't even SLOW DOWN to pick up the briefcase. Golden Agers were made of sterner stuff, I tell you.

Any ordinary person would be wildly buffeted about and injured by this treatment, but this is DOLL MAN we're talking about here.

Who ALSO gets wildly buffeted about and injured,
which I find hilarious.

Well, as least the rough part is over.  Now that he's been picked up by the espionage courier, Dane can sit back and relax until he's delivered to the spy headquarters.

Oh. Oh, NO....

Or this could happen, instead:

BWAHAHAHAHA

I'm sure that Doll Man's okay. I mean, he's a Golden Age hero, after all, and they are made of sterner stuff.

The little airplanes are a VERY nice touch.

Hahahahaha, Doll Man is totally going to leave teeny, tiny vomit in that briefcase. Or WORSE.

"What the @#$& is that SMELL?!"

The flight deck crew is non-plussed by the briefcase's contents.

Golly.

So, Doll Man, being insane, decides that the logical thing to do is

climb out on the wing.

I'm in aviation. In my professional opinion, there are no "safe places" on the wing of an airplane. Even for people under six inches tall.

The flight deck crew, meanwhile, inspire one of Williams Shatner's best loved performances.

"THERE'S A MAN OUT THERE."

Phew. 

Well, now Doll Man is "safe", perched on the landing gear of a WWII-era aircraft, where he just has to endure winds of, oh, 200, 300mph until they land at spy headquarters.

Whatever follows will obviously be a piece of cake by comparison!

Doll Man Versus The Runaway Formula, Part 1: Coal Porter

You remember Doll Man? The lunatic chemist-crimefighter whose size-changing chemical affects his brain and lives in Escher City, with its idiosyncratic perspective and avant-garde decorating style?  Who we've seen fight a diamond-thirsty hunchback, a box of chocolates, and the U.S. military?  

It's easy to blame Escher City, but in fact, as that train shows, the idiosyncratic overly dramatic perspective is just something that follows Doll Man around. No doubt it is visually evocative of his perspective as a tiny person (or as a lunatic). 

Today we join chemist Darrell ("Doll Man") Dane in medias res, as he motors at full speed with his colleague (and father of his Gal Pal Martha) Dr. Roberts to recover a dangerous formula stolen from Roberts by foreign agents who are now on an escaping locomotive, in hopes of neutralizing the formula into becoming a valuable antitoxin using the fictional chemical "hypersulmide", 

Got all that?

If not, here it all is again.

Boy, I love the Golden Age, but sometimes trying to take in the ultra-condensed exposition and plotting is like chugging a thermos of double espresso.

Dane casually turns over the wheel of this car, doing 80, to an elderly man in the passenger's seat, while jumping for a moving locomotive.

Because Doll Man is insane.

How does Dane turn into Doll Man, you wonder? Originally, it was a gas.  Then it was a pill. By this point, for narrative convenience and through power internalization, it is apparently through sheer force of will.

Even The Atom uses a size-changing belt (controlled through his gloves).  Doll Man does not have the time or patience (or sanity) for such things.

Some credit here; the shift into Doll Man mode, through inexplicable, is not gratuitous. A locomotive offers too little purchase for an ordinary man trying to climb aboard, but there's plenty of room for Doll Man.

Doll Man tries to handle the hot rod of the rainbow train.

I bet he says that to all the trains.

I apologize.  It's tacky of me to impose gay interpretations on innocent Golden Age panels!

But these panels don't count, 'cuz that's just SMUT talk there.

Phew! Glad that bit of homoeroticism is over!

For us, if not the engineer.

Doll Man brakes the train:

Hot: the little guy calling the big guy "boss".

For some stupid reason, he crawls through the coal car.

Oh. Here's the stupid reason:

For a blackface joke.
Stay classy, Doll Man.

Sigh.  I'll forgive a lot of a guy whose hands are as big as his face, but a line must be drawn somewhere.

Fortunately, Doll Man's Al Jolson phase lasts only one panel.

Where does that suit come from? The Dane-osphere, I suppose.

Can Darrell recover from this embarrassing incident enough to regain the stolen formula?  Tune in tomorrow (unless you choose to boycott Doll Man, of course).