Haikuesday: JJ and the Bear

We all know that J'onn J'onzz's Justice League Detroit had repeated trouble with bears.

I think it was J'onn's fault;


Bears do not like J'onn, and vice versa.

Let's see.... at this point each of those thousand dollar bills is worth an equivalent $6500 current dollars, each of which will then feed a homeless person (or, as we called them then, a "bum") for at least-- well, let's just say J'onn's impromptu wealth distribution scheme here is going make for a lot of happy hoboes in Apex.

Ordinarily, I'd guess that this is just Mother Earth rejecting the presence of an extraterrestial alien like the Martian Manhunter, hoping to destroy him by spewing forth chthonic monstrous ursines to attack him (under the guise of a bank robbery). But, sadly, this is no uprising of Nature against the Unnatural; it's just another average bank robbery in Apex:
Wouldn't you like to have been at that gang meeting? "Well, yes... we could knock over that filling station while wearing stocking caps... or we could.. build a giant mechanical bear and use it to rob the bank while we're inside it wearing suits and ties! All in favor...?" I'll say this for the denizens of Apex's underworld; they've got a zest for fun and clearly think of crime as some sort of avant garde performance art.

Even JJ himself is overwhelmed by the Silver Age lunacy of it all...


The Apexians, being more used to stupidity than J'onn, observe it all with a placidity that still leaves them able to comment on it in haiku:

Look! The bear's leaping
off with an armful of one
thousand dollar bills!

Why haiku can you compose to celebrate the madness of the giant mechanical bear?

Pep 25: At the End of His Rope

"Okay, that just tears it!," the Shield thought. "The Hangman's really getting on my nerves.

"These two pug-ugly yoboes should have been hanged this morning, but weren't because the prison noose went missing. Gee, I wonder where that went... nice necktie, Hangman! Thanks for letting the Zebra Brothers here survive long enough to attack this nice Republican trophy wife!

"At least my exceedingly woundable sidekick Dusty & His Starched Cape are handling the one with the gun, so that I, who am invulnerable to bullets, don't have to. But now this quaking con is gonna carve up Miss Twin Peaks like a Christmas ham, unless I--

"Sweet Betsy Ross! Dang you all to heck, Hangman! Just how the heck do you keep on dropping in from nowhere?! Did you jump out a plane? Can you give a guy a warning, because while you're pouncing down to save Little Red Writhing Hood I'm stuck here walking like an Egyptian in the middle of the prison-yard and totally extraneous to the action, except as a decoy....

"Just whose comic IS this, anyhow....?!"

Green Lantern Sundae

Ladies and gentlemen, without comment, I give you:


Hal Jordan defeated by a bowl of ice cream.

Because, really, what can one say?

Teenage Girls

Today, I'd like to talk about girls.

Specifically, teenage girls. Now, this is an unusual topic for the Absorbascon, but there's a reason for it. Last week, I spent three days working with young female quartets and choruses on their stage presence, interpretation, performance skills, etc., as part of a large music festival. The fact that I was working only with girls was a happenstance, but it brought home to me something I'd never really given much thought to...

Girls and boys are very different people.

Boys are interested in being 'cool'. While this means different things to different boys, it's pretty much a universal and generally involves being on top of your game and being emotionally unperturbed.

Girls do not seem interested in being 'cool'. In fact, they seem interested in being overwhelmed and perturbed. That's not a criticism; quite the opposite, really. Boys try to paddle about in safe emotional waters and avoid making waves, while girls are hot-dogging the pipeline on the sea of feeling, with spectacular rides and dramatic wipe-outs.

I could go on, but you all are probably more familiar with the difference between boys and girls than I am. My real question is: are the essential differences between boys and girls well represented in comic books?

Because if so, I haven't noticed it much, and if not, then that's not very realistic. Certainly, there is a tendency for all heroes, even young ones, to be portrayed in a Standard Heroic Personality Mode. And one would except young heroes to be more mature than their agemates, meaning that they might be a bit beyond the personality extremes of 'normal' teenagers.

Still. If there's not difference at all in their portrayal it demands us to ask the question: why? Is it lazy characterization? Is it male writers unable to write female characters? Is it part of the Conspiracy to Claim that there are No Essential Differences Between Men and Women?

You tell me.

Zook Gets No Love

Zook gets no love.

Krypto, the original dog with cape, gets boatloads of love. Ace the Bathound and Bat-Mite are still cult faves. Proty the Martyr and Proty II have legions of fans. Even Itty the Plasmid is thought of fondly.

But not Zook. Zook gets no love.

Really, it's not Zook's fault. As a character, Zook was never anything but helpful, respectful, thrifty, and clean. Except for the time he had amnesia and worked with crooks and almost killed J'onn. But that sort of thing happens to everyone in comics.

But then again, it's not our fault, either. Something there is that doesn't love a Zook. It could be the Space Monkey Perseverative Phenomenon. Human beings naturally hate space-monkeys, like Debbie or Gleek. It's not a frontal-lobe thing, it goes right to the basal ganglia, and you see one of these things and your body just autonomically reaches for the nearest club-like object and you start swinging your arm down again and again, like George Segal in Terminal Man. Only television producers are immune to the Space Monkey Perseverative Phenomenon, contributing to the theory that they are only partially human.

[The Space Monkey Perseverative Phenomenon, to be clear, does not apply to monkeys-in-space, like Blip. People like monkeys-in-space, but we hate space-monkeys.]

But Zook isn't even a real Space Monkey, because he's got no ears, has the wrong number of fingers, and has a cleft palate like a teddy bear. Zook is always addressed as a "he" but has no visible genitalia. Zook is some sort of hideous hybrid, the illegitimate offspring of a three-way between a teletubby, a Care Bear, and Bill Keane. Compared to Zook, Space Monkeys are beautiful butterflies and Zook is a monstrous hairy tarantula of "cuteness".

Yet, as if Zook's mere appearance weren't enough to make you doubt the existence of God, they saddle him with DC's characteristic baby-talk, all confused pronoun cases, omitted articles, conjugational oversimplification, and intermittent copulative verbs. It's maddening.

Zook obviously hasn't gotten to my letter yet.

Zook wasn't drawn consistently (the palate, for example, comes and goes) and even his baby talk was inconsistent, too. Inconsistency? In a Martian Manhunter character? Unacceptable!

And his power set. Also maddening. Zook could radiate intense heat or cold. Radiating cold. Forget about perverting the minds our youngsters toward toward crime, drugs, and sex; comics should be sued for inculcating young minds with the idea that "cold" is some sort of indepedent energy that can be "radiated". And, of course, it was always described with terms like "10,000 degrees below zero". Yeah? On what scale is THAT?

Zook was also sort of ... elastic. He wasn't a shape-changer, but he could, er, change his shape. Mostly he used that power to squeeze through the mail-slot that was the only opening to J'onn's secret mountain hideout. And, no, I didn't make that up.

Oh, and his antennae allowed him to 'remember' and identify anyone who he'd been near, making him like a bloodhound when crooks fled or were in disguise. But this power was applied --you guessed it-- inconsistently, because sometimes Zook could recognize J'onn in disguise and many other times, J'onn would fool him, just as a joke. Wacky Martian sense of humor.

So, criminals, whose only chance against J'onn was fire or escape, now had to deal with a sidekick who could put out fires by 'radiating cold' and could track them down when they escaped. Sigh. Just what J'onn needed; more powers at his disposal.

His appearance, his speech, his powers; no wonder Zook got no love. But you know who would love Zook...?

The Japanese; he's got 'mangaverse' written all over him.

Pep 24: The Apple Jacks of Doom!

The cover to Pep 24 shows the same dramatic perspective and dimensionality that were used early on. Take that, Jack Kirby. What Pep lacks in literary depth it makes up artistically.

There's even a Japanazi (or whatever they call them) breaking out of the panel's edge and obscuring the title. Why, this cover is nearly lenticular.

The Shield is, as always, zooming in from Stage Right, testing my theory that superheroes fly by clenching... their... butts... hard enough! It certainly would explain a thing or two about the Green Lantern Corps: "Apino Pufarb, you have demonstrated great willpower against fear, plus the ability to crush a ping pong ball with your sphincter; you're in!"

The Shield seems to be stopping his foe from dropping Dusty into the Empire of the Rising Sun's sinister day-old batch of Apple Jacks. Silly Shield! Don't you realize Dusty's starched cape will catch on the edge of the bowl anyway, sparing him death by mushification?

In the midground, rounding out this heroic scene, is the ever-pleasant Hangman, who's tossing fellow humans into a raging fire where they will be incinerated alive while shouting sections of the Geneva Convention in Japanese.

Oh, yeah, in the previous issue, they introduced some little back-up feature about some buck-toothed fool of a highschooler named "Archie". Why you'd waste space on such a feature kind of mystifies me... or at least it did until this panel in Pep 24:


Hm. Now I have a better understanding why this Archie character gained such a grip on the imaginations of pubescent boys.

Things That Made Me Happy

...in my comics this week.

• Garfield ups his game.
• Oh, well, then.... gravity cables. That's how you lift Manhattan.
• Deathstrokes' Solomonic solution.
• OMG, Inferno makes me HOT (appropriately enough).
• Truth be told, gorillas are lousy in bed. Even giant ones.
• They didn't downplay Static's powers, did they?
• The brevity of Kay's reprieve.
• So, like the Fantastic Four representing the four elements, I guess this foursome represent Auto-Erotic Asphyxiation, Tom of Finland Fetishism, Bondage, and Golden Showers?
  
• Vandal's night mask.
• Uh, Lois? Don't you think that's overkill on the locks?
• Abuse.
• Black Lightning and Static are the new Batman and Robin.
• "It's a dead body. Get used to it."
  
• OMG, Holocaust makes me HOT (appropriately enough).
• Commissioner Gordon's biggest fan.
• I give up... what ARE those numbers?
• "Who is Batgirl?" is the new "Who is Superwoman?"
  
• Power Girl doesn't really need to do anything on her covers, does she?
• Dini's Harley Quin goes shopping.
• Oh, of course, Sam Lane knew him.
• Kate Spencer's gutsy speech.
• OMG, Firefly makes everyone HOT!
  
• The Red Circle articles.
• Hey, Jeff Pierce is fireproof!
• Batman takes his shot.
  
• The Origin of the Ultra-Humanite.
• If Lana Lang is dying, why aren't I happier?

BREAKING NEWS FROM MARVEL!

CAP IN MAGNUM XXXL AD CAMPAIGN

"Love your country... but use protection when you do."



CAP GIVES BIRTH TO Artem Emelianov

Madonna offers to adopt offspring.

Haikuesday with Zook

Well, Showcase Volumes do not let themselves readily to be scanned, but see if you can make out this haiku entitled, "At Time Like This!"

"I fear Manhunter
not feeling well! Why he do
crazy jig in sky...?"

This one's got it all. Zook, the mysterious talking pet whom we'll discuss later; the Angry Freedom Rings of Doom (they are multicolored, by the way; it's a major plot point!); the people of Apex wasting a great deal of electricity; and Martian Manhunter sky-jogging. Or, apparently, sky-JIGging. Manhunter getting jiggy with angry freedon rings in the sky. Top that, Grant Morrison.

This is the "new Martian Manhunter" of House of Mystery. Zany, anthropomorphic objects/forces emanated by the Idol Head of Diabolu; Zook, the pidgin-spouting space-monkey; and zero dignity for the godlike Martian Manhunter.

What haiku dare you compose to comment on the situation or to praise or condemn the evolution of the mighty Martian Manhunter...?

Pep 23: Best. Musical. Ever.

Okay, whatever this is, it's clearly the best musical ever.

Broadway lights. Statue of Liberty replica on stage. Nazi stagehands lowering Nazi props... or are they trying to make a Nazisignal?

The Shield ballet-leaping in from the left (as always), while Hangman falls like Tosca. There's even a special solo by Dusty's Starched Cape.

It's like George M. Cohan meets Sound of Music meets the Defenestration Follies of 1940!

Forget all this nonsense with superhero movies. When's The Shield Musical start...?!

10 Reasons to Own....

the "Diana Prince: Wonder Woman" Volume 2.

Well, all you really need to know is that the Widowmaker story is in it, possibly the most perfectly Bronze Age story ever made (I can't say "written"; that would be an offense to writing).

But, even without the famous Widowmaker story, here are ten good reasons you simply must own this volume.

1. Wonder Woman beating the tar out a drag queen.
"Madame Fatal?! I'm sorry, Oracle didn't tell me you'd be here...!"


2. Bronze Age fashion.
Whoa. Someone obviously couldn't afford to hire Edna Mode.


3. Superman setting a floor on fire by dancing.
What a dork; stupid shufflefoot.


4. Wonder Woman bitch-slapping an injured Lois Lane while Superman looks on, laughing.
Okay; maybe he really is a dick.


5. Machine-gun Wonder Woman
Let's see Mattel come out with a Barbie version of that.


6. Wonder Woman takes muff-diving lessons.
"This is how we roll at the Renaissance Fair, 'princess'...!"


7. Lesbian slave-rings.
Not enough of those in comics nowadays, I say.


8. Superman in hippie drag.
And now, I can't un-see that.


9. Wonder Woman torturing prisoners.
"On Paradise Island, we don't waste time with water-boarding!"


And, of course...
10. the on-going mutual hatred of Diana and I Ching.

Things That Made Me Happy

in my comics this week.

Actually, my comics arrived late this week, because UPS was delayed by the racist octogenarian madman who shot and killed a security guard at the Holocaust Museum.

So, the Thing That Made Me Happiest about my comics this week was they had on average less horrible happenings than my own city.

• I have no idea what and who that is at the end of Action Comics, other than that, whatever it is, it's some good old-fashioned comic book fun.
• Speaking of which.... THINKO!
• One doesn't expect Alice Cooper to be quote in Super Friends.
• What Barry used to do for charity.
• So, it is now okay for me to think Tim Drake Wayne is really hot?
• I thought I saw something in the background of Flash Rebirth 1; now I get it.
• Ion's clever ploy.
• The return of the Black Beetle.
• Yes... Abra Kadabra is the one you would have to get rid of, first and foremost.
• Batman lives. Always.
• The delighfully ironic fate of Lyssa Drax.
• Batman protects rappers, too.
• The real Joker card hanging in the Batcave.
• "No one from the Sciencells escapes the Alpha Lanterns."
• Good to see Max again.
• Wait, so, that means Guy Gardner watched Brokeback Mountain? Heh.
• Mr. Freeze's motive.
• Playing lightning bolts and bracelets.
• Yes, opening a book can shatter worlds, I suppose.
• Iris's umbrella. Really, she's so mean, I'd just assume the rain would be afraid to fall on her.
• The "ultimate man cave". Heh.
• The Professor. Who isn't the surprise really; but the what and the how will be.
• Well, that's one way to bookmark a page.
• The Blue Snowman, unnecessary backstory included!

Vol. 2

So, after all the lunacy we went through in Volume 1 of the Martian Manhunter Showcase, what happens in the second Volume?


Everything gets stranger. Much stranger.

You think that's not possible?

How is it possible? In Volume 1, J'onn J'onnz had cars driving across his giant butt, used Martian finger snapping to cure cancer and square the circle, fought the Human Squirrel, and created ice cream cones out of thin air with his mind. Really, where can you go from there?

Well. I guess we'll see. One thing, I'll say; you do NOT go to "Middleton".

I reject the false doctrine of the Middletonites, and I hew to the Apex Creed:

I believe in one city, Apex City, home of the Martian Manhunter, and at all times, whether he's visible or invisible.

And in one J'onn J'onnz, the only-remaining son Mars, created in the Silver Age before all heroes; J'onn of J'onnz, lighted by firelight, very Silver of the Silver Age; written, not edited, being of one substance with the Schwartz, by whom all comics were made.

I've read both Volumes of Martian Manhunter Showcases, and there is only ONE mentioned of the putative "Middleton" as the home of the Martian Manhunter. And here it is:

Okay, in case you don't recognize my megalocranial friend there, that's Prof. Arnold Hugo, a one-off Batman foe (Detective Comics #306, August 1962, "The Wizard of a Thousand Menaces!"), whose biggest accomplishment was failing to create an artificial moon. Hugo's debut against Batman was in the same issue of Tec where Detective John Jones died (more on that later!). Arnold Hugo became the Martian Manhunter *snicker* arch-enemy. Sigh. I guess it was a step up from the Human Squirrel and the Human Flame.

Anyway, it's Arnold Hugo who identifies MM's town as "Middleton", and it's never mentioned again. A hapax legomenon uttered by a notorious lunatic, liar, and loser is nothing to base continuity on! I think Arnold's just raving. Or perhaps Middleton is a suburb or or neighborhood within Apex City.

Regardless... it's still clear we're in Apex City:

"You think I'm scared of you?"

Oh, we all know what it's like. Your ex shows up, and he needs your help, and even though all the bitterness and pain is still there, so is the sense of obligation from shared experience, so you help him out.

Then you find yourself shot to death by Kyrgystani mobsters and lying face up in a ball bin at a children's restaurant play area.

Well, that's just what happened to poor Joey, the Human Flame's original, um, "partner in crime".

Still, the old magic was there between them! They composed as their final joint endeavor this delightful haiku of defiance entitled, "You think I'm scared of you?"

"I killed the friggin'
Martian Manhunter!" "Screw you,
Mike! I'm outta here!"

Of course, this is from the first issue of the already-legendary Human Flame miniseries "Run", so you've all probably seen it already.

What haiku can you compose to celebrate the return of the Human Flame, mourn the loss of Joey, or ponder the ignominy of finding yourself shot to death by Kyrgystani mobsters and lying face up in a ball bin at a children's restaurant play area?

Pep 22: the Big Yellow Marble

Like a dog, the Shield marks his territory through circumminction.

"The earth is MINE, Giant Jackboot; MINE, I say!"

Do NOT read Showcase Presents Martian Manhunter Vol. 2!

Why?

Because you can't handle it.

Remember how at the end of Time Bandits, there's that chunk of Pure Evil that evaporates the parents when they touch it? Well, the Showcase Presents Martian Manhunter Vol. 2 is Pure Lunacy. If you buy a copy and drop it in your local reservoir, your city will look like a mass break-out at Arkham Asylum within 72 hours.

• Giant squirrels?
• Flying meter maids?
• Holes in the sky?
• Snakes fighting ferris wheels?
• Bank-robbing genies?
• A tank disguised as a fruit salad?
• Dinosaur gargoyles?
• Mechanical bear weapons?
• The freedom rings of doom?
• The evil, sentient orchestra instruments?

You are not ready for the Showcase Presents Martian Manhunter Vol. 2.

But you may need to get ready...

Compassion is a human emotion

You think Batman's a hard-nose?
Pshaw.

If you want an ice-blooded, pitiless hero
(outside of the Golden Age, anyway!),
your best bet is always:

The Martian Manhunter.

Load the Canon!

At Big Monkey Comics, much of the wallspace in our main room is devoted to our "Comics Canon", a display that presents what we deem as representing the best of the medium in a broad variety of genres and styles.

The number of items of graphic literature in the Big Monkey Comics Canon is too large to display them on the Canon Wall at one time; at any point we have only about 50 or 60 on display. Our Canon is a living enterprise, and we add new items to it over time, so that the Canon Wall serves a kaleidoscope of comics' quality.

Our decisions about what to include in our Canon are based on other critical lists and our own expertise, but we also like to seek customer input... like yours!

And the Big Monkey website, we currently running a poll on which should be the next graphic volume added to our Comics Canon. Make your vote there from among these choices!

The Nightly News (from Image Comics)
Ghost World
I Shall Destroy All the Civilized Planets
The Nightly News
The Bizarre Comics of Boody Rogers.
Locke & Key
Arab in America
Kyle Baker's Nat Turner

Things That Made Me Happy...

... in my comics this week.

• Mina's freedom.
• I never thought Jonah Hex would make me start singing, "It's Raining Men".
• You know, a "circus gang" isn't the single most original idea ever.
• Hey, isn't that the cover to " "The Dark Plane Returns"?
• Always meet in a fireworks warehouse.
• I'll take Minhattin.
• That's... that's a cutaway diagram of the Batcave. I am speechless; and thankful. Curse you!!!!
• White man. With white hair. Wearing all white. In a coal mine.
• Prof. Milo. So gratifying.
• Mr. Toad's Wild Ride.
• Toyman needs to read more Silver Age comics, LOL!
• Flaming nipples... as an idiom.
• Wow. Green Lanterns doing, like, research. Refreshing.
• Huh. Torturing nuns? Never thought of that; need to keep that one in mind.
• Bane's real name.
• Oh, where's Korgi when you need it...?
• Doesn't crystal-pierced Kryptonians look and sound like a refreshing summertime dessert?
• Well, that was a short-lived piece of good news.
• Okay, if this the return of Dr. Domino, I will take back everything I ever said about this writer; every single thing.
• The revenance of Jonan Hex.
• "You don't need your gall bladder, do you? Because I could really use the space."
• Great Rao, Kal has GUTS! Still, defying Zod is nothing compared to defying Perry White, Masterman.
• Oh, don't lie. You have so worn leather pants before.
• Ah ha! Churchill was a fan of El Papagayo!
• The 'Motivation Bunker'? Ouch. Well put.
• "I don't think I can take this anymore." Hey, Hal subscribes to JLA!
• Thanks, William Sturges, for obeying the Prime Directive of Horror Movies.
• "Not even that time we dug up that feller with six gold teeth."
• The reality everyone knows in the heart but denies in conversation. You scare me, Gail.
• OMG. Jonah, Lazarus, Bat, and Tallulah? Oh yeah, the Wild Justice League rides!
• I know European circus slang when I hear it, too!
• Condiment King. Really, what more do you want?
• If you said, "Mr. Polka Dot", you win.

Tempest in a Teen Spot

So...

Tempest is coming back.

I really don't want to be negative about this; I mean, I have nothing against Tempest personally.

Okay; that's a bald-faced lie. Tempest -- "Garth" -- is a mess and always has been. Before he was Tempest he was Aqualad, a big-headed purple-eye freak, rejected by society, crippled by fear and doubt, and riddled with insecurities. And that was in the days when sidekicks were plucky, adventuresome lads. Those were his best days.

Then he fell under the sexual thrall of Aqua-Chick, becoming the whipped scream atop her hot java of love. Then, after she went to the big fish fry in the sky, he was reduced to being the ninth wheel in Marv Wolfman's superpowered DeGrassi spin-off called "The New Teen Titans". And he was now named "Garth". Garth. Hanging out with "Gar(field)". Wolfman, these are superpowerful heroic beings, not housecats. I should get housecats and name them Garth and Gar Garling. Except I don't like cats, any more than Wolfman seems to have liked either Garth or Gar, the perennial scrubs on a team of BMOCs.

As if naming him "Garth" weren't bad enough, he re-codenamed him "Tempest", probably because (1) it sounds really angsty and (2) Wolfman never got the chance to give Marvel's "Storm" that little brother she always wanted. Your opinion is sought: is it a step UP or DOWN to go from writing the Howard the Duck newspaper strip to writing the adventures of Garth Tempest?

Who, by the way, now had the same powers as, well ... as Zook, the Martian Manhunter's pidgin-paroling pet from the later Silver Age, making him about as scary as the repairman from RJH Heating & Cooling. Oh, but, those powers were... magical. And now Garth has a tatoo. A magical tatoo. "Tempest" seems less like a DC superhero than a collaboration between J.K. Rowling and Satoshi Tajiri.

Then after the New Teen Titans disintegrated -- as squabbling teenagers will do, despite their teary-eyed professions that "You're my real family!"-- Garth became the whimpering whipped boy of another aqua-chick, the Daisy Duke of the Sea, Dolphin, who was one of Aquaman's cast-offs. Icky. Dude; have you not heard that there's lot of good fish in the sea?

When Tad Williams got his hands on the aqua-cast he had the guts to recognize what "Garth" was: a feeb, and he portrayed him as such. A powerless underwater asmatic suffering from stress-related aging? Perfect.

But now "Tempest" is coming back, and he's still wearing his ice-skating costume. Say what you want about Pozner's Aquaman suit (on which Tempest's is based), but at least it was remotely defensible as camouflage. Tempest's outfit is not even remotely defensible as camouflage, except in those few stories set at the ISU Championship or Cirque Du Soleil. ("Surround by water===frozen water! Will Tempest find a way to breathe easy and survive... the Rink of Doom!?")

At least one good thing can be said about his comeback, based on that cover; he appears to have drowned Roy.

Pep 21: The Setting Sun

As the "Red Circle" series looms on the horizon of the present DCU, like a rising sun shedding its Golden (Age) light on another shiny day in the Platinum Age, that same sun is setting in the Pep-py past. As the Shield's day in the sun begins its close, the light yellow backgrounds that stream across his adventures fade to a darkening red, in the same way that America's post-war glory was gloomed by the spread of Communism.

On this cover, the Shield strangles a young Dr. Tommy Elliot, who was only trying to use his multiphasic crankshaft to pry off the out-of-control cinchbelt that's obviously crushing that poor, fainting woman. Poor, misunderstood Tommy; it's incidents like this that drive you to become a poorly defined MacGuffin in later life.

Meanwhile the ever-charming Hangman prepares to do something just off-panel to the woman's lower regions, armed with great handfuls of grey goop; hey, as long as she's already fainting, Hangman's thinking...!

In the background, Dusty dashes in uselessly: "Er, sorry, I'm late guys! But I met this really keen red-headed guy named Andrews at school, and he's talking about forming some kind of club for youngsters... ."

Marvel gets it and DC doesn't.

Today I discovered that Marvel seems to completely understand something that DC doesn't seem to grasp at all.

It has to do with marketing their products.

On the desk in front of me is the "Marvel Reading Chronology 2009", a free publication send in quantity to retailers which presents "Marvel's stock of in-print collected editions inventory organized in a fun new way!"

This publication is, perhaps, the single greatest marketing tool I've ever received from a publisher. One of the things I do for Big Monkey is produce guides, both to specific publications and to topics. For example:


While I have done guides for eras, topics, and creators, I hadn't done any yet for particular characters. I was dreading the quantity of research needed to identify all the appropriate TPs, GNs, and HBs for all of Marvel's characters. I'm not exactly an expert on the history of the Hulk, ya know... .

Marvel, wisely realizing that customers are interested in boning up on particular characters and that it's a easy avenue of approach for retailers, has compiled these lists quite thoroughly in this new publications, which is colorfully but elegantly arranged, and includes pictures of the all the covers, what each volume contains, and who its creators were.

It's so obvious.

To Marvel. But, not to DC.

I spoke with my DC rep today to convince them to do something similar. I got some palaver about checklists of the titles involved in crossovers being listed on the DC website. That's nice, I said, but you don't seem to understand. I couldn't even get an understanding that retailers need a visual aid to sell Showcase and Archive Volumes (which are simply impractical to stock in full-- there are way too many, and, while they are wonderful and unique offerings, they do not exactly fly off the shelves). Yes, DC thanked me for having given them that idea in a previous conversation, and they were planning on making a checklist of those, too.

Yes, that's nice, I said. But you don't seem to understand.

I want a publication, something that... that combines words with pictures of what the words are taking about. I need a piece of writing with attendant images, a sort of... graphic literature. Can't DC produce some form of graphic literature that I can use to promote my sales of your products...? Surely, DC, you have some grasp of the power of combining pictures and words into a unified whole for the presentation of an idea or story?

I've stated before that Marvel's approach to comic books is more rooted in the visual than DC's approach, and that DC's is more rooted in the verbal than Marvel's. Ordinarily, I'm fine with that. Ordinarily, I like that.

But, oh, the comic book irony...! Unfortunately, it seems to mean that Marvel understands the need to create for retailers easy visual references to their products.... and DC does not understand it.

Things That Made Me Happy...

in my comics this week.

• That in Metropolis guards discuss existentialism.
• Leland McCauley? Really? That's... very strange. But just a coincidence, I'm sure.
• Batman teams up with the Haunted Tank.
• Hal Jordan, disarmed.
• That Vixen, Firestorm, and Green Lantern were the ones to confront Hardware.
• "Seems like twenty years ago but it really wasn't." Heh.
• I have a feeling we should recognize some of those people at the party, looking at us. Do you?
• The truth about Tom.
• Sinestro, on love.
• The Shield, and Static, on the big screens.
• Thank you for remembering what Vicki Vale originally was: a photojournalist who suspected Batman's secret identity. And a scantily-clad sexpot.
• Kung pow!
• The Queen of Fables' favorite drink.
• "Luciphage". Nice.
• I trust you, Todd!
• The Shield still lives in D.C.
• Why Mon-El's powers keep winking out, which is perfectly consistent with why Superman was never able to cure lead poisoning.
• Leslie's bodyguard.
• Now, there's the missing member of the original Justice Society!
• Batman, on book burning.
• Yes, Courtney; Albert is dense. How could you not have noticed?

Vibe springs eternal!

VOTE FOR VIBE!!!!

ANTI-POPULIST RANT!

Okay THIS

is really the final straw. In case you can't access that link, I'm referring to this:

In this third issue, Bo aids Lockjaw, Lockheed, Redwing, Hairball, the new Frog Thor, and more super-hero companions in their quest for the Infinity Gems, which will lead the team to the bottom of the ocean and bring them face-to-furry-face with Giganto.

Retailers have witnessed firsthand the kind of attention a comic can receive when associated with the word “Obama.” The mainstream press had a spotlight on Bo even before he stepped paw in the White House, and adults and children alike remain infatuated with the First Dog, so make sure you order ample copies of the third issue.

Joe Quesada, I call thee harlot. Marvel, I damn thee as a whore.

Look, I own a comic book store, so I'm certainly empathetic with the desire to sell comics. But, really, Marvel. The president's dog?! That's just not right.

You want to know why people don't respect superhero comics? It's not just because they are fantastical in nature. It's because of things like Tim Gunn wearing the Iron Man Suit ("This glowing area, Tony; this worries me. Is this really practical? Attention-grabbing, yes, but have you thought about how well it will wear?").

Now, I know DC can occasionally indulge in such pop culture dalliances (ahem, Superman versus Muhammed Ali, anyone?), but Marvel is a much more serious and frequent offender. DC's a classy lady who sometimes has too many martinis and abandons her virtue for an evening to a smooth-talking beau. Marvel's a crack-whore wandering the street night and day looking for the next loudly-dressed passing fad to feature; "Hey, wanna me to put you inside my pages? All it costs is your dignity!"

Ever hear how Marvel got stuck with Dazzler, the Roller Disco Diva? Remember Razorback, with his mutant power of super-truckdriving from the CB radio era? And those are just a few fads. The list of shameless uses of real-world personalities to bolster sales or make Marvel stories "more realistic" is nearly endless. The awful, terrible, and vaguely racist back-up story in Spider-Man 583 where President Obama is used in a story ripped off from an old Booster Gold comic book is just one of the most notable examples.

Am I being snooty in my pretentions for superhero comics? Is it self-deceiving to think that my favorite part of pop culture should hold itself aloof from other parts of pop culture?

Perhaps.

But there is an objective problem with Marvel doing this sort of thing. Unlike most of the pop culture references it's making, the Marvel universe (or any other comic book world) is ideally an on-going enterprise. Its characters outlive (one hopes) the fads and personages who are intruded into its world from ours. But every time a "Tim Gunn" meets an Iron Man, a story and everything in its pinned to a point in time like a butterfly stabbed with a pin. In DC's fast and loose "continuity of the week" environment this is less painful; as long as the story is never referred to again, it doesn't really exist. But Marvel and its fans are famously slavish to their continuity. The combination of dated cultural references and guest-stars with an iron-clad continuity fetish is irreconcible and deadly... .

Marvel began as Timely, and tries to be timely still. But when you live by the sword you die by the sword. And if Marvel's characters seem less iconic and timeless than DC's, it's partly because Marvel is more interested in getting icons to appear with their characters than getting their characters to appear as icons.