DEATH IS THE PRIZE: Our Unlucky Day

 Meanwhile, in 1943, we find Green Arrow and his sidekick, the one with the dumb hat, located on a rooftop where Death Hovers Nearby.  Keep your fingers crossed.

Um.. it's St. Louis Louie, Oliver. Why don't you just MEET HIM AT THE FAIR, like the song says? You are SO stupid sometimes.

Of course, I've BEEN to St. Louis, so I can't say I blame you for not going.

Rooftops are a REALLY bad place to try to run from vigilantes, because you're kind of stuck. I mean, it's not like you can just jump the whole way across even an alley to the next building.

Except in Star City, where alleys are either REALLY narrow or all the crooks are trained by Leapo The Clown.

Ollie, who only has to hold on to his bow and arrows in order to do his job, manages to lose his arrows. 

What are the odds? Well, on the bright side, the next shot will finish him, so he won't have to manage long without his arrows.

I think Roy will make a good Green Arrow. I mean, he's smarter, he's a better archer, and he's already used to wearing the stupid outfit.  

Ollie, whose plan was obviously to simply get shot, can't even do that right.  Fittingly, he's up against a crook who only had to hold on to his bullets and gun in order to do his job and couldn't manage that.
You get the foes you deserve, I guess.

Ollie, being a fit Golden Age hero, naturally trounces this pork-pied loser straightaway, recovers his arrows, and returns home to recategorize his Amerindian artifact collection.  Or not:

What's the sound of a gun bouncing off Ollie's head?
Tink? Blonk? Thr-Bung?  
Where's Onomatopoeia when you really need him?

Add "empty guns" to the list of 1001 Way To Defeat Green Arrow. And "gravity" I suppose.  The final ones, it seems, since Ollie is going to be a big green splotch in a very narrow alley in about 5...4...3...

Ugh. Roy saved him. AGAIN. Death may hover nearby for a chuckle but clearly finds it more amusing to keep Ollie alive.

I choose to interpret the art in that panel as depicting that Green Arrow was prescient enough to have built-in, reinforced Rescue Epaulets into his tunic that Roy can aim for every time Ollie falls off a roof.  Ollie has lots of flaws but a lack of self-awareness is not one of them.  

Of course you lost your bow, too.  Kept the stupid hat on, though.

So, Ollie, who without his bow and arrow is just a dilettante anthropologist in a man-size Peter Pan costume, continues to run across the easily-forded alleys and rooftops in pursuit a group of armed gunman.

Your unlucky day was the day your parents died, Roy.
Or any of the days you saved Ollie, who, you'll recall, currently has no heirs but...you.

Well, at least now they can go down in the tiny narrow alley and just pick up Ollie's bow and arrows from where they fell, rather than have to go back to the toy store and pick up some more.  

You gotta be kidding me.

LMAO, Ollie dropped all his weapons and they got STOLEN. Like, IMMEDIATELY.  

Can't believe that was never in "There Oughta Be A Law".
Thanks to ROY HARPER, 1941 Papp Place, Star City, WA. 

Ah well, Ollie's a zillionaire, so no big deal.  He's surely got a million more sets of weaponry and can buy more (and nicer ones) any time he needs, rather than go on some wild goose card for "his favorite bow".

But three guesses what happens.  

DEATH IS THE PRIZE: Meanwhile in 1943,

Ordinarily, "Meanwhile in 1943" is exactly the kind of panel caption phrase I'd make fun of (and certain not use). BUT... Geoff Johns, in his craziest-boldest reinvention in a career full of almost nothing but crazy-bold reinventions, has asserted as canon, repeatedly and with zero ambiguity that Ollie "Green Arrow" Queen, as we now know him, WENT BACK IN TIME WITH ROY HARPER AND LIVED as Green Arrow. Not Some Other Multiverse version of him. The one in comics right now.

Who is currently ... hopping through the Timescape so as to prevent The Great Disaster.  You know; Green Arrow stuff.

And his son, who I didn't know still existed, seems to be in the Legion, which I didn't know still existed.  But if it DOES, then Section 3.1b of the Legion Constitution should still be in force:
"a member must have at least one genuine super-power not activated, assisted, or powered by extrinsic means and not possessed by the contemporary Terran population; and further, such super-power must be distinct from the super-power(s) possessed by any active member other than Superboy[.]"

I could not be happier about this (the backwards time-jumping, not the forward one) for several reasons. 

1. It makes Green Arrow even MORE ridiculous, when I thought that was impossible ("That's Our Geoff!") 

2. It shows that underneath it all and left to his own devices, Ollie is totally That '40s Guy with goofy gimmicks, in his element fighting alongside Gadget Gal.

Gadget Gal and Green Arrow would definitely have been *ahem* "pals" and would have been having lots of non-not-having-polio-related "fun".

3. ALL GOLDEN AGE GREEN ARROW IS NOW FAIR GAME.  It's not some quaint "Earth-2" version of Ollie; IT'S OLLIE, in all his glorious stupidity and incompetence.

THIS scene especially.

Now, #3 IS slightly ambiguous. The JSA exist both as the JLA's predecessors on Earth-1 AND in the Golden Age carnations as the main heroes on Earth-2, now. Really, it's true and an amusingly simple solution that allows writers (and us) to have our cake and eat it, too.

So, although we know that Earth-1 Ollie (and Roy) went to the '40s and fought crime there, we cannot say for CERTAIN that ALL the adventures we read in Golden Age Green Arrow stories are THEIRS and not, say, those of the Golden Age Green Arrow on Earth-2. 

But it's still fair game. So let's all pick up our copies of World's Finest #9....

Yeah, no, not that one.

Oh, yeah; that's the ticket.

....and try to read:

Let's see: Deadshot. Roy. Gadget Gal. And Prock, of course.

Seriously.  Have you seen what he can do with a slingshot? Even WITH a broken arm? Season 1 finale, people.

The captioner for Aquaman seems to have been moonlighting here.

Out of... the fishing net? I've lost the metaphorical thread, I'm afraid. But if it's a contest the likes of which I have never heard before, that would be "one where Green Arrow is the winner."

So, Green Arrow and Roy DO win, then.

YES.

Let's keep reading; I want to see who gets maimed for taking second place...

I'll assume the image is a metaphor. Splash pages usually were.

Gunn Shy

Okay, I will happily admit that I am nothing short of DELIGHTED that Anthony Carrigan has been cast as Metamorpho in the new James Gunn- helmed cinematic DC universe.

Obviously, I was hoping for KALE, but one must be reasonable.
Besides casting THAT perfect could cause the multiverse to implode.

This is the THIRD DCU character Carrigan will have played (he was The Mist on Flash and Mr. Zsazs on "Gotham") and I'm sure he'll be awesome because Carrigan is always awesome.

And the fact that he looks like my late partner, Ted, does not influence my opinion at all.

But EXCEPT FOR THAT...

I have next to zero faith in James Gunn.

Why, you wonder? 

1. I have seen other James Gunn movies. Before you'd ever heard of him. Because I'm a film hipster. Specifically, I am a HORROR hipster, the world that James Gunn comes from.  Dude is TROMA. And if you don't know what THAT means, well, then you AREN"T a horror hipster.  

James Gunn. James Wan (Saw; Insidious, etc.). David Sandberg (king of the $10 horror short).  It's no accident that owners of superhero IPs have turned to same directors who revitalized horror (another easily ridiculed and previously unrespected genre that now dominates the box office).

I'm certainly not going to assert that James Gunn is not talented. He certainly is.  He's Troma!  But James Gunn is.... not classy.  

I can't articulate why I think this.
It's just an instinct I have about it.

And not in the "I COULD be classy but I am choosing not to be"way of the intentional avant-garde.  No, I don't think James Gunn CAN be classy.  Call me old-fashioned, but I think someone who can't be classy shouldn't be in charge of the DCU's intellectual properties.

 I can't articulate why I think this.
It's just an instinct I have about it.

2. James Gunn trusts Tom King. 

“He’s been one of the guys in the room with us, along with four or five other others. I love his take on these characters. He just turns them slightly to be something very unique.”

It makes me wonder who the others four or five were.

Similarly trustworthy advisors, I'm sure.
P.S. Carrigan would be an AWESOME Tharok.

Troma should mean crazy, but not crazy STUPID. I can't imagine a worst choice for a person to advise on What To Do With/How To Handle DC characters, sort of reanimating Cullen Bunn (I mean, he's dead to me, at least).

Or asking Bob Haney to return from the planet Shakari
And HE could at least help with Metamorpho.  Just keep him away from Batman Stuff.

3. He's hired Nathan Filion to play Guy Gardner. Look, I know a lot of people have a soft spot for this actor, and I'm sure he's a wonderful fellow.  But (A) Nathan Filion, at 52 years old, is at least 15 years too old to play Guy Gardner and (B) even I, who barely know who Filion is, know that he's OBVIOUSLY a "Hal Jordan" not a "Guy Gardner".  How easy it would have been to find someone unlikeable who we were already primed to dislike. I'm sure Cullen Bunn's available.

I can't articulate why I think this.
It's just an instinct I have about it.

Gunn didn't hire Nathan Filion because he was right for the part (as Carrigan is for Metamorpho). He hired him because he likes him and has worked with him before.  I get what a Boy's Club Hollywood is but... yeah, you just proved to me that cronyism matters more to you than doing what's right for the character.  And if you have ME concerned that someone isn't doing right by GUY GARDNER... you cannot be trusted with the DCU.  

I challenge you:

It's a challenge I have failed. Good luck! The challenge?

Can you imagine any way that Tom King could have made "Trinity" MORE unlikeable in her introduction?

I've tried and failed.

Poochie cannot return to his home planet soon enough.

Irony is Dead.

I would love to blame Marvel for this.

But I can't.  

Because, deep-down and sometimes NOT so deep down, Marvel gets the joke.  
Stan Lee pretty much invented not taking comics books too seriously, while convincing others to.
Other people think of him as The Man Who Created the MCU.
I know him as The Man Who Created "Who Wanz Ta Be a Soopuh-Heerow".

No, Marvel is not to blame, really. It's their corporate overlords, Disney.

Media Organization Designed Only for Commercializing Cultural Content

Disney, creator of the Golden Calf that is Mickey Mouse, is the foe of critical or even analytical thought.  At least on the part of consumers.  So naturally all they needed to hear was the phrase "Rogers: The Musical" from the film Hawkeye to send them RUNNING to their pap-factories to churn out in earnest the very kind of thing Marvel films make fun of.  

Those pap-factories are powered by the trapped, suffering ghosts of The Sherman Brothers (or, as the Black Zodiac calls them, The Wailing Twins).

Well, at least it's better than "Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark", I suppose.

If nothing else, it will probably maim fewer people.

But I sincerely hope DC is inoculated against such nonsense forever by, all things, Batman Beyond.

I saw "The Flash"

 The movie, that is. On the whole, I enjoyed it.

Now, I enjoy a LOT of films. I am the only living person who enjoys "Wavelength" 

This one, I mean. The 1967 one. Not the one in 1983. Or the one in 2018.  Which, sadly, were not sequels.

My enjoying a film doesn't mean to imply that it's objectively good, or even that I think it's good. But they are certainly many good things about film. Ezra Miller --despite his personal failings and the rather annoying off-model version of Barry Allen he's portraying -- is a very experienced actor and during the serious emotional parts of the film, it really shows. As for the comedic parts--

how shall I put this?

Expert panel? Any help for me...?

Let's just say, although there are certainly funny bits and I laughed out loud several times, the attempts at humor were, on whole... misplaced.  Some not only fail to stick the landing, they failed even to take off enough to HAVE a landing.  I'm going to cheat and just blame Stupid Humor Attempts Based on Awkwardness in Superheroes on Marvel-aping.  Fair? Maybe not. But it does absolve me of expending any intellectual effort on why anyone in charge of a zillion dollar picture would think some of that stuff (especially Marty McThigh) was, you know, so amusing that it needed to be in a film about one of our culture's best known fictional heroes trying to replicate his most serious mistake to avoid the destruction of all reality.

But the Bat-Kite? THAT made me burst out laughing.  
Batman is funny. Batman has always been funny.
Flash is not funny. Flash has never been funny. And if you DON'T believe that, buy a Golden Age Flash Archive and see how many Jay Garrick stories you can stomach.

The plot was simple and easy to follow with nothing that seemed extraneous, which I appreciated.  I will wryly note that DC eliminated the multiverse in 1986 ostensibly because it was "too complicated" for readers.  However, just like Flash's, their attempt to rejigger their timeline backfired and resulted in more multiversing than ever, not just for the DCU, but for...everything. You can't make a Trix commercial nowadays without the Trix rabbit fighting his dark counterpart from another universe.

I mean... even the Bablyon 5 animated movie is multiversal madness.  
Silly Vorlons; multiverses are for kids.

The action was good, the BATMAN action was awesome. Truly.

Batman is SO awesome, in fact, that he casually explains all of time-travel, retrocausality, and the character of the multiverse in seconds using nothing but pasta. Because he's Batman.

I liked the special effects, no matter how many people bitch about "The CGI being terrible".  I've been watching movies for over 50 years and someone is ALWAYS bitching that The CGI Is Terrible (even when it was SFX and not CGI).  I thought the "chronobowl" was especially innovative and intuitive.  Oh, and to all those people bitching about "Miller's weird running style": shut up. You've obviously never skated or at least not WELL.  He's speed-skating through time/speed force. If you actually saw his little legs moving zippy-zip step-by-step it would look Road-Runner ridiculous.

Did I say "little legs"? I take that back.  At first I thought they'd overdone it a bit on Flash's suit being too faux-muscley. Then I noticed how Miller was straining at his civilian seams and then came Miller's (many) shirtless/(all-but-frontal) nude scenes and I recanted.  Gratefully. Jeez, he looks like he put on 35 pounds of muscle. Not sure how needed that is for The Flash per se but... well, it wasn't my least favorite part of the film.

Silly Ezra; twinks are for kids.

The cameo parts, well, yes, they were a bit cheesy but they weren't CRINGEY.  And, yes it seemed dumb that we didn't see a hint of Grant Gustin or John Wesley Schipp, which just seems like respect due.  But Gustin and Schipp have had LONG runs and got a lot of traction from their roles; a few seconds in this film wouldn't have helped them. But it certainly wouldn't have hurt the director/producers in the eyes of fans of the character.  

I thought the Latina version of Nora was an interesting choice; if nothing else, it explains why Barry Allen looks like Ezra Miller in this universe.  Actress was great; loved her in the role. The father? Eh. No.  Why they passed up the opportunity to say "Run, Barry, Run" rather than just "Run, Barry"... well I suppose that would have struck too close to home (the TV show). 

Anyway, I had fun watching it.  I hope you do, too.

Today I Nearly Wet Myself

 Because never did I expect to see again:

THE AWESOME THREESOME.

There are some bright spots in the Dawn of the DCU after all, and Batman/Superman World's Finest (issue #15, in this case) is one of them.  Especially now that Tim's back, which feels so ... RIGHT that it makes me question his loyalty to Batman for having been AWOL so long during Damian's reign of terror.

I hear you, Tim. I stand chastised.

The writers of this comic have the Wisdom of the (Comic Book) Ages, because they understand that Robin is the un-heralded third member of World's Finest, and was always the lynchpin that held the ensemble together.  Let these covers full of truth wash over you until you understand/believe.

This issue had Batman, Superman, Robin, Supergirl, Metamorpho, Prof. Ivo & Amazo, Will Magnus & the Metal Men, the Toyman, Dr. Cyber (!), the Red Tornado, the Doom Patrol, Chemo, Ultivac, the Challengers of The Unknown, the Teen Titans, and the Awesome Threesome.  Oh, and a Robot Uprising plot to Enslave All Humanity.  

And it didn't need a year-long universe-wide crossover to do it.  Apparently, there are still people who remember how to make comics, after all.

Let's Talk About Spider-Man

Well, aren't Spider-Man fans in a tizzy lately?

I noticed this only because nearly every comic book vlogger seems to have simultaneously lost their cool--

perhaps I need a better phrase--

lost their minds over What They've Done to Poor Peter Parker Lately.

They, currently, is comparatively new writer Zeb Wells.  He gave Spider-Man a new status quo that started with a bang.  Actually, it started in mediās rēs, with that bang as the mysterious background incident behind the status quo.  I read the first handful of issues and, frankly, was very impressed.

I bet you didn't see that one coming.

You read that right.  Not impressed with the new status quo per se -- I couldn't care less about Spider-Man's love life -- but impressed with how well it was written. Spider-Man was an interesting, if flawed character. His villains were multidimensional, his world interconnected and coherent, the supporting characters realistic and independent in their motivations.  Wells work did a very good job of handling a situation that often trips up DC writers; he seemed to understand how created situations that emphasized, yes, having superpowers is cool, but it doesn't in fact solve every problem or most problems or ... any problem, really.  YOU do that.  Or not.  And that's a really great place for Spider-Man to be, narratively.

Psst. No one ever called them "long underwear characters".

In fact, that's where Spider-Man STARTED.  Stan Lee And Company knew what they were doing when they created Spider-Man and that's exactly the point they were trying to make with the character.  That tack (and other similar ones) is part of what helped Marvel distinguish itself from its Distinguished Competition, as they used to call it.  It was part of Marvel's niche, its competitive advantage.  Spider-Man was a superhero who powers not only didn't solve his personal problems, they aggravated them.  The Fantastic Four were a dysfunctional family (if you ask me).  Thor was a god, but hobbled (literally) by forced incarnation as a crippled man.  The Hulk's superpowers came at the price of a loss of self-control. You get the idea.

And what lesson did we learn from this today, Pter?

Or, at least, if you do, you're ahead of many contemporary Marvel fans, it seems.  They are currently rioting about the same thing they ALWAYS rioting about with Spider-Man, every time this happens:

Why does Marvel hate Peter Parker? Why won't Marvel let Peter Parker be happy?

Honestly, it would be funny if it weren't so sad. 

There's zero mystery. Peter Parker wasn't designed to Be Happy.  It is not his literary function and never has been. Honestly, I say --and praising Marvel isn't something I do unthinkingly-- good on Marvel for now, as always, making the point that: being good doesn't ensure that you will be rewarded.  It's an important message. You do good because it is right to do so and there is moral satisfaction in that, but riches and (a beautiful movie actress's or even just the public's) love do not logically follow.   THAT HAS ALWAYS BEEN THE POINT OF SPIDER-MAN.  It's a difficult, very adult message to try to convey, especially to the original audience of children.  But Marvel took that hill and held it.

Thanks to Zeb Wells, they still are.  There are lot of Spider-Fans who identify enough with Peter Parker, however, that they are incensed when he doesn't do well and accuse Marvel of "abandoning the character's development."  

Ahem, how does one put it politely? No ****, Sherlock.  

There are a lot of artforms you can seek out if you want Character Development, but expecting it (at least on a permanent basis) for IP that spits out monthly stories for five plus decades is disingenuous. Nobody wants to see THEIR version of Spider-Man (or Power Girl or whoever your fixation is) set back to a starting place, having, as a reader, stuck with them through all their struggles and watched them slowly start to get their lives together and get ahead. But comic book icons don't have character arcs; they have persona cycles.  Eventually the arc will bend 'round again.

Meanwhile, yes, YOUR version of Peter Parker has had the rug pulled out from under him again.  Well, if you want sappy, overly-optimistic comic books, where heroes suffer potentially debilitating tragedies (such as the destruction of their home planet or witnessing the murder of their parents or of being an apparently-totally-straight woman growing up on isolated island with nothing but other women) but still go on to live happy, successful lives anyway, where the public loves them and they have satisfying romantic involvements and perhaps build families ... there's a company that publishes those.  You're the one who picked the company that boldly made the tough decision to a harder, less pleasant message with their characters.  

"You knew I was a scorpion when you agreed to let me ride on your back.  It's in my nature."

Spider-Man isn't designed to be happy and stay married to a super-model. No matter how long it's allowed to go on, it's just a fanfic fever dream, but which the character and the company inevitably wake up from.