DC Reboots Christianity and 52 Other Things, Too

Okay, now that the bloom of the DCU's reboot has blossomed through the September solicitations, let's see how it smells, shall we?

First, though I want to thank Newsarama for breaking the news that DC is rebooting Christianity, as evidenced by this headline image:

Dan Didio hastened to comfort the faithful: "All your favorites characters -- Jesus, John, that little tax-collector guy in the tree -- will still be there, still recognizable. But we have redesigned and updated their costumes for modern readers (such as Crocks rather than sandals). We're not completely throwing out 2000 years of continuity or wiping out classic storylines like The Flood/Cataclysm and The Exodus/No Man's Land. But we want to make the Christian universe more diverse, rather than just have all our heroes be Middle Eastern Jewish males who died 2000 years ago and dressed like hippies. So we'll be launching some new books in the Bible this fall, including Tobit (starring Sargon the Sorceror and Rex the Wonder Dog), the Rest of Esther/The Dreaming, the Story of Susanna/Gotham Central, Judith the Time Hunter, and Bel and the Dragon/House of Mystery."



Justice League #1. Dropped "of America"; check, good idea. Dropped Martian Manhunter; check, good idea. Hey, you know I love J'onny, but he only got in the first time by historical accident (and they never knew what to do with him there). The universe has been trying to correct that mistake ever since by sending him off-planet or having the whole damned League collapse around him every time he tries to re-start it around himself.

Justice League International #1. Say what you will about the Griffen-era League, but the idea of a superhero NATO just plain makes sense in a world like the DCU. Besides, what better place to dump Vixen, er, I mean, give her a chance to shine, as the Crimson Fox for a new generation?

Aquaman #1. "Aquaman has renounced the throne of Atlantis." Thank Neptune. The introduction of Atlantis as a player/setting in the Aquaverse was the key event that derailed Aquaman's development; all the rest was just the slow unraveling of the character.

Wonder Woman #1. "The Gods walk among us. To them, our lives are playthings. Only one woman would dare to protect humanity from the wrath of such strange and powerful forces. But is she one of us – or one of them?" Wow; that's clever and bold. In 1940, the odd thing about Wonder Woman was that... she was a woman. Face it; that's not particularly odd any more in the world of DC superheroes. But the fact that she's, in essence, a mythological creature? Very odd; creepy, really. Smart move, DC.

The Flash #1. "The Flash knows he can’t be everywhere at once, but what happens when he faces an all-new villain who really can!" Excellent; a new appropriately-powered villain for the Flash. Because, your affection for them and Geoff Johns's attempts at bad-assification aside, the Rogues have always been a bunch of pansies and feebs.

Captain Atom #1. Hm. I was kind of hoping they'd lump him in with the Wildstorm bunch; that's when I learned to like him, during his travels in the Wildstormyverse.

Firestorm #1. Jason and Ronnie; I like it (to the degree I could ever like Firestorm). And if I'm guessing right from that cover, either one of them will be able to evoke/control Firestorm, giving him two different appearances; nice touch.

Green Arrow #1. Sigh. Well, if there must be a Green Arrow (which is apparently the comic book version of eating our daily bread soaked in the sweat of our brows) having him be a vigilante who isn't afraid of what that word actually means is as good a use as any.

Hawkman #1. Sounds like we're reasserting the character's roots as the flying Indiana Jones; I'm all for it.

Mister Terrific #1. GREAT! His light was always hid under the bushel of the JSA, where he seemed mostly (and very inappropriately) to function as Dr Mid-Nite's nurse. And actually characteristizing him as non-miserable? Sign me up.

DC Comics Presents #1. I love potpourri series; yay! Not all characters should get their own books, nor should they necessarily be relegated to being a bit player in someone else's story or in a mega-crossover. Give these characters a playground where writers can play with them.

Action #1. Putting the "cornerstone of the entire DCU" in the hands of addlepated ex-pat pom whose writing is nearly incomprehensible to the man on the street? Oh, yeah; great idea *eyeroll*.

Superboy #1. "Can a clone develop a conscience?" Gee, maybe if Superman actually mentors him this time, yes.

Batman #1. Sounds like there's a new committment to making Gotham City a character in its own right. Another victory for the fictionopolis!

Detective #1. "The Gotham Ripper"? That's not particularly original, but I'm certainly in favor of a book where Batman chases (comparatively) normal criminals, rather than spending all his spare time whipping up Brother Eye off panel or polishing his green kryptonite ring.

Batwing #1. The Batman of Africa? Okay, I'll buy that. I mean the concept, not the comic; it's Winick, after all. Doesn't Marvel wish they'd thought of black Batman-like character protecting an African community?

The Dark Knight #1. "The unexpected ramifications of Batman Incorporated"? Like, lawsuits? Unexpected by WHOM? Not anyone in the world I live in!

Batman and Robin #1. Damian. Ugh. So if 'our favorite important stories' are still in continuity, does that include the time Damian decapitated the Spook...?

Batgirl #1. Ah... there's Batgirl. Good.

Batwoman #1. With Bette Kane as her sidekick, Flamebird? Heh heh; excellent.

Nightwing #1. If they just squint when they read it, those Batman Beyond fans could be SO happy. But I think Batman Beyond fans are like Spider-Man fans: they don't really want to be happy.

Catwoman #1. "Catwoman is addicted to danger. She can’t help herself, and the truth is – she doesn’t want to. She’s good at being bad, and very bad at being good." Ah... there's Catwoman. Good.

Birds of Prey #1. Hm, Starling, eh? Okay, I'm in.

Red Hood and the Outlaws #1. So, Jason Todd, Arsenal, and Starfire walk into a bar ... . Well, at least, they've finally found a way to make me identify with Jason Todd: "Jason has absolutely no interest in this motley crew of outlaws. "

Green Lantern #1 and GLCorps #1. Really, all I want is for Hal to be funny again. Can we have some of that? And funny not as in "Ryan Reynolds is funny" but funny as in "he got hit in the head with a WHAT?!?!"

New Guardians #1. Hm; interesting use of the Crayola Corps... and of Kyle.

Red Lanterns #1. I guessing this is for old-school Spectre-style retribution from people we don't have to pretend are heroes.

Justice League Dark #1. Wow; wish I'd thought of this! Oh, right; I did.

Swamp Thing #1. Monsters return to the DCU. Good.

Animal Man #1. Buddy as family man was always one of the things that distinguished his modern character. It's a sensible tack to take, though I'm not sure I'll sail too far in that direction.

Frankstein #1, I Vampire #1, Resurrection Man #1. The kids, they just love the un-dead!

Demon Knights #1. Not for me, of course, but not a bad pitch for all those Harry Potter, RenFair, Tolkienist types. You know, the ones even we comic book nerds can beat up.

Stormwatch #1. Finally, a place where the Martian Manhunter seems like the normal one. Besides, Apollo and Midnight in the DCU proper...? Can't fight that.

Voodoo #1. If Mary Sue had a daughter by Klaw the Unconquered.

Grifter #1. Smells like Captain Triumph. Still, it may just be weird enough in the DCU to work.

Deathstroke #1. Kill me now, Slade, please; before your comic comes out.

Suicide Squad #1. Like the JLI, another hard-to-avoid concept. Yet... a slippery slope toward the Revolving Door of Death...?

O.M.A.C. #1. DC, if you really love Jack Kirby as much as you say you do, let him rest in peace.

Blackhawks #1 and Men of War #1. Yeah, you can laugh at these all you want. But I've got plenty of deployed friends who won't mind reading about military types kicking the butts of terrorists and their ilk. These are also the titles I am most likely to gift as digital subscriptions.

All-Star Western #1. GUTS: DC's got 'em. Brains? The jury is still out. But Gray and Palmiotti writing Jonah Hex in Gotham working with Amadeus Arkham is a can't-miss proposition.

Teen Titans #1. The Junior League of Icons (Tim, Cassie, Connor, and Bart) plus some forgettable tofu characters (Dirt Bag! Bug Chick!) to fluff up the recipe. Pretty much the best one can hope for, I suppose, outside of the Young Justice tv series.. But no Aqualad? Gotta fix that, DC.

Static Shock #1. Of course, we all love Static. But is this perhaps why Black Lightning is among the missing...?

Hawk & Dove #1. Seems someone remembers what H&D were originally about: the inherent political tensions in America. With the added bonus of dating dead people, which is always funny.

Blue Beetle #1. Jaime Reyes was once the most promising sensational character find of our era. Now, perhaps he can be again.

Legion of Super-Heroes #1. "The Legion of Super-Heroes has been decimated by the worst disaster in its history. " Um, yeah, in Legion-land we call that "a Monday". Alien threat to the entire U.P.? Yup; Tuesday. The Legion never needs to be anything different than what it always is; it just needs to be done well.

Legion Lost #1. Sounds like one of my grandfather's old headlines: "Team benchwarmers sent back to temporal minor leagues". Still, Legionaires Stuck in the Past stories are a staple of the Legion genre, and usually do a lot to make their participants into relatable, interesting characters, so it's a smart move.

What's YOUR take on this 52 pick-up of titles?

This time, the Giant Ants have come for YOU

So, last night I was playing a solitaire game of Heroclix, with the 1954 film Them playing in the background... not because I was actually watching it, mind you. It's just one of those films you simply don't change the channel from or turn off once it's on. Truly, the finest film ever made in which giant ants kidnap children in Los Angeles.

Anyway, I wasn't paying it any mind, so intent was I on the Dynamic Duo's attempts to get past the Joker's goons. Suddenly, I was jolted out of my Gothamite reverie by two quick and truncated iterations of.... the Wilhelm Scream.

Now, I have absolutely no doubt whatsoever that if you are reading my blog, that you have heard the Wilhelm Scream at some point, although you may not have recognized it as such. You'd have to have avoided films nearly entirely never to heard it. My father, may he rest in peace, knew next to nothing about comic books, but he was a movie nut who was able to rattle off the filmography of Francis X. Bushman long, long before there was IMDB.com. And my dear sweet white-haired flower-tending mother is a monster/horror movie expert who's counting the days until she can toddle down to the Bijou with her bonnet and reticule to see "Final Destination 5" in 3D. As result, while I'm definitely not a movie fan, I can't help but pay attention to movie trivia, like the Wilhelm Scream.

So, while it had slipped my mind that the Wilhelm Scream occurs in "Them" (four times, in fact), even in the distant background it was instantly recognizable and shook me from my comic book dreaming.

Well, the same thing is happening right now. Except the giant ants have been replaced by...

universal reboot.

And I can no longer fight the schadenfreude of it all. I am now laughing, out loud, at the Wilhelm-screaming panic of my fellow comic book fans. "*Sputter*! The... the continuity that I've invested so much time and emotional commitment to is... is being tossed aside! BETRAYERS!!!!"

I puff my metaphorical cigarette nonchalantly at your distress... welcome to 1986, kids. You'll get zero sympathy from my corner (that's zero as in "Zero Hour") during your little crisis (that's crisis as in, well, every other reboot). Where were your voices when the Penny Plunderer was erased but the Giant Penny remained? Why were you silent when people started pretending that J'onn J'onnzz, who had been absent for the entire Bronze Age "has always been the soul of the Justice League"? Where was your outcry over losing characters when they killed Supergirl or Vibe? Where were you when my DCU was taken from me...?

Perhaps you weren't a reader at the time, or weren't even born yet. For whatever reason, you didn't care about these things, because, well... they were before time. They weren't part of your comic books.

When I was a kid, comic books and associated publications had reprints of Golden Age and Silver Age material in them. It was wild and weird or at least very very different from what I was used to reading. But I was still trained by DC to consider it an important or at least relevant part of "my comic books" and their background.

When the Giant Ants of the Crises came, I didn't scream. I knew I didn't need all those stories "in continuity". They were, after all, still in my head, which has a greater capacity to hold stories than continuity does. Continuity has trouble containing contradictory stories within itself; my head does not. And, who knows, clearing the decks for new stories might bring me some new stories I might enjoy. Which is, in fact, what happened.

You didn't care when the Giant Ants came for someone else's version of the DCU. So now the Giant Ants of the Universal Reboot (and, yeah, I will continue to call it that, no matter what DC tells me) have come to destroy your version of Barbara Gordon. Or the Atom. Or the Teen Titans. Or Superman.


Well, you know what? I do not care; man up. You don't own these characters and neither do the creators who write their adventures; the publisher does. Do I always like what they do with them? No. But I do like the fact that they are, for the first time in what seems like forever, more interested in getting new readers and in going forward than they are in looking backward and keeping old readers (that means you now, kiddies; welcome to adulthood).

You've been enjoying your shrinking picnic in your private little sandbox of continuity for some thirty years now. And now the Giant Ants-- the fiends!-- have come to spoil it for you.


Go ahead and run away screaming the Wilhelm Scream if you want; I'll be laughing at you as you do. Because you, the reader, can, will, and eventually must be replaced. DC knows this, even if you're only just figuring it out.

Or you could stay and welcome our new insect overlords, as I intend to. Because the Giant Ants will win; whether you will win depends on which side you pick, not how hard you fight.

Say "uncle" to the ants!

The Ocean Platform

Some planned posts have been delayed because it’s my busy season with the chorus; our Annual Retreat was this last weekend and tonight I’m emceeing our performance at the annual dinner of the Supreme Court Historical Society. PLUS, to prepare for the New Age of DC Comics, I’ve been sewing collars on all my tee shirts and practicing wearing my underwear on the inside of my pants, instead of the usual way.

But, with the conceptual assistance of my friend Noah and several Navy Seals...

Honi soit qui mal y pense.

...I did manage to create a new Heroclix map designed as a perfect arena for battles between land and sea forces. It began as a simple intellectual exercise in how to represent the vertical nature of the thalassic environment, using Heroclix rules to mimic the epipelagic, mesopelagic, and bathypelagic zones...

Hey, the ocean drops off almost as fast as the sales of "Seaguy"!

...but evolved into finding a way to tune a map into a form where both aquatic and non-aquatic figures can play, each with their own home-turf but sharing a common mid-ground.

Behold, then...

THE OCEAN PLATFORM MAP:

Embrace drop shadow, but eschew lens flare.

I usually do not mark the starting areas on my maps (since the traditional starting areas at the ‘top’ and ‘bottom’ of the map are well known to Heroclix players). On this map, if you are pitting a land-based team against a sea-based one, you’ll use the traditional starting areas (with, in this case, the land forces on the ocean platform at left and the sea forces in the Midnight Zone at right). If, however, you arraying two land-sea teams against each other, you’ll want to opt for the very ‘outside’ edges of the map as starting areas, placing each type of team member, aquatic and non-aquatic, in their ideal terrain.

One end of the map shows a concrete platform at sea. In its center is a building or structure whose roof serves as first level elevated terrain accessed by stairways in the rear. At its far corners are second-level elevation observation towers, each accessible by two ladders. Note that I’ve tried to use shadow size and placement to clarify the map’s various levels of elevation/submersion.

The platform terminates in five piers, at which are moored five smuggling boats, whose holds and hatches serve as hindering terrain. These dry areas are interleaved with standard water terrain to represent the surface of the sea (if you like, use a house rule to permit the aquatic figures to ‘swim under’ the piers and boats when they move). This combination of dry and water terrain forms the most likely ‘battle line’ of the opposing teams.

Then comes the sea. At first, I thought that the verticality of the ocean column could only be represented as a cutaway – very much at odds with the ‘top-down’ view of Heroclix maps. But I found a way around that by adapting the new rules for multiple elevated terrain. In short, the map employs “submerged terrain”, which combines the qualities of water terrain and elevated terrain (note that unlike elevated terrain, submerged terrain requires no "ladders" for access).

The first submerged terrain (at Depth Level 1) is the Sunlight Zone (a.k.a, the Epipelagic), the area where sunlight penetrates below the surface of sea. Text layouts the common characteristics of all submerged terrain: speed is halved for non-aquatic figures (due to water resistance, of course), all figures are grounded (because flying figs cannot hover above terrain that they are immersed in it), and figures do not block line of sight (due to the 3D nature of the environment). Additional text adds a rule specific to the Sunlight Zone: non-aquatic figures must halt their move when entering the Sunlight Zone. This represents the halting effect of dealing with change in the density of the environment (if coming from ‘above’) or pressure (if coming from ‘below’).

The second submerged terrain (at Depth Level 2) is the Twilight Zone (a.k.a. the Mesopelagic), where the light from the sea falls off. Here, for non-aquatic characters their range is halved and their line of sight only reaches four squares … unless they have an adjacent friendly aquatic character to guide their aim! So don’t send your land figs into the sea without a diving buddy, or the opposing aquatic forces will run rings around you.

That’s even more true in the third submerged terrain (at Depth Level 3), the Midnight Zone (a.k.a. the Bathypelagic), where sunlight simply does not reach. Due to the perpetual dark, all lines of sight from non-aquatic figs without an aquatic diving buddy are blocked. Furthermore the pressure is such that the terrain has effect of the ‘Poison’ power on any non-aquatic figs. That’s not something diving buddies can help out with, so don’t count on sending any land figs down this deep unless they have an inoculative power (Toughness, Invulnerability, Imperviousness). And when land figs return from the Deep, they have to take their time to avoid getting the bends; such figs take a click of damage upon leaving the Midnight Zone, unless they stop in the Twilight Zone along the way.

This is not an equal opportunity map. Aqua-fans will take to it swimmingly, but Bat-fans will be saddened to find that the Dark Knight is not suited to the dark deep (guess he didn’t have enough time to prepare). Marvel players will wish Dr Octopus were more like his namesake and even beleaguered Spider-man will be unable to turn off the dark.

I have some finishing touches to add: some sea gulls shadows, a scuba diver to decorate the Sunlight Zone, and in the Twilight Zone some fishes in the way found in the vicinity. Till then, you can get some of my other Heroclix maps (including the Carnival of Doom, the Civic Theater and two others that no one has seen: Civic City, and The Hideout) from the lovely folks at PosterBrain (They’re great, I use them for all my maps), who’ve been kind enough to set up a gallery of some of my recent maps ready to order here at this link. No profit for me; just want to make sure these are very easily available to anyone else interested in my custom Heroclix maps.

52 Reasons for a Universal Reboot

Well, now.

I have a new Heroclix map or two to share with you, and I have to finish up Supergirl versus the Gang, and I need to get current with the Shield's adventures---

but given DC's announcement this week of a universal reboot in September, those will all have to wait a bit. Apparently a REAL universal reboot, not just a 'housecleaning'.

For good or for ill, this is astonishing. As discussed in my previous post, nothing of this sort has really been done before (despite what anyone tells you). This is, potentially, the biggest deal in all of of DC's history, other than the Golden Age itself.

Whatever else, it is an enormous opportunity. In fact, I can think of, oh, let's say, 52 things, large and small, that this is the opportunity to fix:

1. A Penguin who's not a punching bag.
2. We can all be mind-wiped of Identity Crisis. Tegrof!
3. Lex Luthor will no longer have been president.
4. Removing NYC from the DCU. Because really... it's just in the way.
   
5. The 'generation creep' that's caused a temporal pile-up of aging teen sidekicks bumping up against un-aging icons can go away.
6. Pa Kent. Because, well, he's a better character alive than dead, basically.
   
7. The Death of Aqua-baby -- the crack in the ice that led to our recent decades of darkness, death, and damage -- can be avoided.
8. Jean Loring. Period.
   
9. Detaching the JSA from WWII, which is the current ruination of a sliding timeline. They didn't actually fight in WWII, you know, despite what many of you think. They fought saboteurs and profiteers on the homefront; sometimes I wonder whether any of you have actually read a Golden Age JSA story!
10. Martian Manhunter as a actual detective in Apex City. Oh, yes; embrace it now.
    
11. Marv Wolfman's Teen Titans -- the crack in the ice that led to our recent decade of faux-Marvel whining, talky-talking, and adolescent drama. Avoiding that alone is worth a universal reboot.
12. You want ADULT drama, instead? Golden Age Starman, folks. Golden Age Starman.
13. Clayface as the mad movie actor he originally was, not a Marvel-style monster-villain with sci-fi powers.
14. No more earth-based GLs other than Hal Jordan.
    
15. Replace Washington DC with Federal City again, and make it Wonder Woman's fictionopolis. That will go a long way to putting her back on track.
    
16. Making the Chief a good guy again.
17. No more "Deathstroke the Terminator". Really, just do not go there at all.
    
18. A JLA origin that doesn't involved the Appellaxians. Because, classic though it is, that story is really really stupid.
    
19. An actual purpose for Wonder Woman.
20. A version of Gotham City that doesn't make you wonder, "Why the heck does anyone live there?"
    
21. Jimmy Olsen as a well-intentioned but hapless young nerd with heroic pretensions that geeky younger readers can identify with. I mean, one without spider-powers.
    
22. Green Arrow back to his Golden Age glory. Glory being a relevant term, of course.
23. Barbara Gordon = Batgirl.
24. The return of Sensation Comics.
    
25. Maybe an actual gay superhero; I mean, one with name that people might actually recognize, not junk-drawer
    
26. The Catwoman as an actual villain, not a 'cat-burglar with a heart of gold'. A villain in a dress, goshdarnit.
    
27. Etta Candy, baby. Real Etta Candy, fat 'n' sassy.
    
28. Villains like Killer Moth can be reintroduced without the baggage of years of continuity treating them as laughingstocks. Okay, really, there are no villains quite like Killer Moth; but you know what I mean.
29. Kal'durh as the original Aqualad, without the embarrassment of the Silver Age big-headed, purple-eyed freak who preceded him.
30. The Riddler as a gore-free-Jigsaw-style, Xanatos-gambitin', big-time player, rather than a joke.
    
31. A whole revamp of J'onn J'onnz's powers to make him easier to use. Just give him a few powers unique in the JLA like shape-change, phasing, telekinesis, and the ability to create ice cream cones with his mind.
32. A series for the Phantom Stranger. And perhaps another for just his hat.
33. A renaissance of the some of the "lesser" fictionpolises, like Opal City, Calvin City, Midway City, etc.
    
34. Non-addict Speedy.
35. Lois and Clark not married. NOT because I don't like them married. But because there was no build up to it. There was no real development of a relationship between the two that made you believe Clark and Lois fell in love and would marry, just a rush to match the plot of the silly Lois & Clark television show.
    
36. A re-telling of the Case of the Penny Plunderer, with Joe Coyne as an obviously deranged lunatic. "PENNIES WILL BE MY CRIME SYMBOL!"
    
37. No Doomsday!
    
38. The chance to give Green Arrow and Martian Manhunter actual rogues' galleries of their own that don't embarrass them. As long as there is still the Human Flame.
    
39. Potentially, a clear break to begin a new Comic Book Era. The Gilded Age...? The Platinum Age?
40. No more attempts to make the Fourth World live on when its creator, who should have been the only person to handle the characters, does not.
    
41. "Montevideo of Uruguay: LIVE!"
    
42. A Golden Age style, sane Joker. Pure malevolent wickedness that scares the crap out of you and swims really really well. Not an irrational gibbering mountebank. Yeah, you go ahead and fight me on this one.
43. Aquaman as a/the leader of the JLA. It would help define who he is, a lot, and it's really not a role one of the Big Three should ever have.
44. The opportunity to apply the Dynastic Centerpiece model with a little forethought and diversity, rather than having a supporting cast of archetypes simply crop up like inevitable mytho-structural dandelions.
    
45. Returning Plastic Man to his original role as a straight man around whom wackiness occurs, rather than his current one as a consistently unfunny comedian.
46. The opportunity to focus on creating new stand-alone stories rather than merely extending continuity.
    
47. Vibe. Alive, breakdancing, and living large. Shut up, you know you want it, too.

As for the last five, well...
this is the audience participation part.

What do you perceive as the top five opportunities in this Platinum age reboot that I've not listed?

Reboot Now

So, I’m sure you aware of the MYSTERY shrouding the DCU after September when Flashpoint wraps up, and that some kind of ‘bombshell’ announcement is planned for early June.

Many theories have been posited, from the bland (“So and so will be the new creative time on Icon-man!”) through the hopeful (“DC will announce a JLA movie!”) and idiosyncratic (“Vibe will be the new Protector of the Earth!”) to the preposterous (“DC will stop publish monthly comics”).

Okay, I confess: the Vibe one was mine.

But consensus centers around the idea that the DCU will get a universal reboot. Much of the discussion consists primarily of reactionary eye-rolling (“DC is addicted to universal reboots!”)… and much of that is deserved. However, much of it also seems to miss an important point:

DC has never had a universal reboot.

Oh, it’s shut down some non-working programs with Task Manager, and cleaned out its cache a couple of times. But an actual reboot? Nope.

After Crisis of Infinite Earth and Zero Hour, there were a few changes to backstory (“The Kents are alive!” “Wonder Woman wears sweaters!”), but for the most part the whole DCU pretty much picked up in medias res and moved on. Except for Superman and Wonder Woman, we didn’t watch any characters “start over” again. And as for Infinite Crisis, well, the only thing that came of that was a run on CVS for aspirin to recover. Morrison succeeded to some degree, in that he convinced me that the Anti-Equation did exist; except it was titled Infinite Crisis, which convinced me that life was meaningless and sapped me of my will to think for myself; Morrison likes that.

The closest thing that DC has ever had to a universal reboot wasn’t really announced and was, well, a “soft reboot”: the Silver Age. “The Big Three” kept a thread of continuity—too much momentum there to waste—but everything else got restarted. Of course that was easy to do since… everything else had stopped. During the dark interregnum between the Golden and the Silver Age, virtually no superhero comics—the pillars of DC continuity—were being published, other than ‘the four superfriends’ (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and Aquaman; and I guess Green Arrow, but we all know Green Arrow doesn’t count). DC created a whole new DCU, including a new Flash, a new Green Lantern, a new Hawkman, a new Atom, some freaky Martian, and a modernized “JSA” (now named the “JLA”) practically overnight.

And that was exciting! So was the reintroduction of Superman and Wonder Woman after COIE. I, the reader, was right there in on the ground floor for this ‘new’ but familiar character. They kept their iconic value—reclaimed it, really, by shedding years of accumulated literary dross—and began new adventures with fresh interpretations of their familiar foes and friends. Whether you liked all the decisions that were made in the process is beside the point; the approach was the right one.

Think of some of DC’s most exciting multimedia projects since COIE: Batman the Animated Series, the Justice League Unlimited, The Batman movies, the Teen Titans cartoon, Batman: Brave& the Bold. A huge part of the fun was… the starting over. Watching this new version of the DCU reveal itself and evolve bit by bit.

I’m hoping DC has the cajones to do a real universal reboot. They might pick up new readers; older ones like me will stick on; it’s the middling ones, the ones who can’t imagine a world without a “Nightwing”, who might bolt. But DC has got to do something to make their stories more accessible. Mainstream comics have long since given up on the principle that “every comic is someone’s first”; instead they cling desperately to the principle that “this comic must NOT be someone’s last!” This gives us an endless cascade of ‘can’t miss’ cliffhangers to keep dying addicts addicted, rather than an endless parade of new stories to keep new readers interested. That parade is EXACTLY why fans love most of the multi-media versions of the DCU: stories that are enriched by having knowledge of DC history, but not dependent on it.

Wouldn’t it be nice if DC were bold and brave enough to take that approach to their monthly comics? I think it’s time.

Heck… I’ve been waiting for it since 1986.

Heroclix Map: the Theater

Well, even though I took my issues of 1983's "The Daring New Adventures of Supergirl" with me to Carnegie Hall last weekend, turns out I was too busy to get much work done on them. Imagine.



That's me, announcing on the Carnegie Hall stage. Yes, really. And all I could think was... "My god, now I know how Dazzler felt!'

But I did manage to get this project completed, in honor of my Carnegie Hall debut (which raised over $170,000 for Sendai/Tsunami relief, I'm happy to say)....

"THE THEATER" map for Heroclix!


It takes advantage of the new expanded rules for elevated terrain; the theater itself is level 2 elevated terrain, the street and the orchestra pit are level 1, and the box seats and tech catwalk are level 3. The front lobby has windows (windows can be 'broken' with an attack of two) and the stage curtain is special orange terrain that blocks line of sight but not movement (it appears green in the photo because what you see is not the final version of the map).

So many wonderful scenes can be replayed as games on this map! The bid for Batman's secret identity from the Englehart run. The Joker taking Pagliacci's place. Two-Face holding up the entire auditorium while his face is projected on the screen. Dazzler at Carnegie Hall!!!

If you want a copy of "The Theater", just send me your email address and I'll be happy to send you the file.

The Show Must Go On!

The rest of our discussion of "Supergirl vs. The Gang" will be delayed; I'm leaving this morning for New York City to both perform and MC at Carnegie Hall.

Yes, really. If you want to know how you get to Carnegie Hall... well, I'll tell you when I get back.

Anyway, meantime ...

FIGHT SURREALISM,

ONE OF THE SEVEN DEADLY ENEMIES OF COMIC BOOKS!!!

Supergirl #4, Part 2: The Gang's All Here

Well, when last we left literary pinball Supergirl (in Paul Kupperberg's 1983 Supergirl #4), she had recently been retconned to be a 19 year old psych major in Chicago.

Looks like Supergirl's not the only one who got retconned.
Apparently, 1983 Chicago's been attacked by the B13 virus. Or Frank Gehry.

In Chicago, Supergirl, in her secret identity as Linda Danvers, lives with her wacky supporting cast, The Oppressively Square Parents (Mr. & Mrs. Danvers), The Ethnic Stereotype Landlady Who Seems to be Comic Relief But Who Suffers from Secret Poignant Sorrows (The Widow Berkowitz), and The Irresponsible But Lovably Trouble-Prone Actor-Neighbor (Real-Life Person John Ostrander).

It would all seem like some Young Women On Her Own sitcom, a "That Girl" for the '80s, were it not for pesky supervillains like...

THE GANG.

Yes, they are really called "The Gang". What did you think the "G" stood for?

When I showed my friend Noah "The Gang" and told him what they were called, he slapped his forehead and said, "That's imbecilic. The only way a group like that-- or any group-- would call themselves 'The Gang' would be, I dunno, if they'd hung out together as kids in school."

Perceptive on Noah's part, then, since that is exactly their origin. Four kids from the Southside of Chicago wanted to avoid falling into a life of criminal desperation like their schoolmates, so they focus on sticking together, and working their tails off to become... supervillains. Well, that makes sense!

So, who do you think "The Gang" would work for, huh? Who...?

Um... Terry Thomas?

The Gang works for... "The Man". Yes, really. I'm not sure whether Kupperberg was actually trying to write a story, or whether he was just composing the first draft of the "TV Tropes" wiki while awaiting the eventual invention of the internet. The man was a visionary.


The Gang are classic "crime groupies", and true to form, each one is a uni-dimensional cut-out character. Specifically, the Goliath, the Bruiser, the Brains, and the Mentalist (two strong stupid guys with physical powers and two clever women with mental powers).

The "Goliath" guy pictured above is Kong. Yes, like the canine chew toy. If Superman were around he'd just stuff him full of peanut butter and throw him to Krypto. I'd buy that comic!

The "Brusier" guy is named Bulldozer. Why...?

Another satisfied graduate of the Benjamin Grimm School of Elocution.

Really, what kind of idiot power is being able to run at stuff and crash into it with your head? Maybe that makes you an A-class villain in the Marvel Universe, but in the DCU it just makes you the head-butt of a lot of jokes.

People do not talk this way, nor should they. "The Name's" is another Sure Sign of Bad Comic Book Writing. If you are reading any piece of literature and you see a sentence that begins with "The name's...", put it down immediately. Preferably in the garbage can.

The "Brains" of the Gang is named "Brains". But you probably guessed that already.

Apparently, her power is speaking pretentiously, since that seems to be all she does. That, and hair-modelling like she's in a Wella Balsam commercial. No, really, her hair is this ... this thing in and of itself. At first, you think you're just perceiving it in mid-swoosh as she's moving, as in the panel above.

No crime in that. Why, '90s characters regularly relied on their swooshing ponytails to counterbalance the weight of, well, whatever was in those pouches on their thighs.

But that's not it at all. It actually just juts out from her head, stiffly. All the time. Like... like a giant glob of saltwater taffy.

Okay, I desperately want to see this woman fight Night Girl.
Dueling extensions at 20 paces!

Not only does she have amazing Gumby-hair,
but each of her breasts is a commissioned Army Captain.
Eat yer heart out, Power Girl.

And the "Mentalist" character is "Mesmer". Have you ever heard anything so painfully obvious...?

Flash Fact: you can hypnotize anyone if you connect a mini-fan with a color wheel!

"You want I should"? What native Chicagoan talks that way? Nu, what are you now, Mrs Berkowitz's daughter? By the way, Mrs Berkowitz's daughter is, in fact, a supervillain, but a different one (the cosmically powered Blackstarr); but that's another story entirely.

"Mesmer" is another example of Bad Comic Book Writing: "Painfully Obviously Codenames". If I were a supervillain with, say, super-bulldozing-with-my-head powers, I would codename myself something vague and obscure like "Doktor Planiermesserundeckmesser", or "Captain Jordan", or just plain deceptive like "Diaphanoso". While the hero was trying to puzzle out my high-fallutin' mystery powers, I'd sock him in the gut with my cranium. But super-head-butting-powers characters rarely go in for the element of surprise and this one is no exception...

THIS PANEL IS NOT SUGGESTIVE AT ALL

HONI SOIT QUI MAL Y PENSE!

Eyes wide, fanboy; this is what it's like to "boff" Supergirl. For me, it's the sound effect and the expression on her face that really make this panel. Ordinarily, this is the place where I'd offer some kind of crack... but it looks like Supergirl's already got that covered. At least, I hope she has it covered; hard to tell with hotpants.

So, anyway, the incredibly generic foursome of stock figs from the crime groupie box manage to defeat Supergirl, with her god-like Kryptonian powers, twice in the same story, courtesy of Mesmer's mind-whammy.

Not that Supergirl can believe it. Frankly, neither can I.

Wow, Supergirl's nearly infallible, just like her cousin. And just as modest.

Oh, and just in case you were thinking ill of me for my corny title for this post...

IT'S THE ACTUAL TITLE OF THE STORY.

Honi soit qui mal y pense!

Supergirl #4, Part 1: The Actor-Neighbor et al.

If you want to understand why I stopped reading comic books in the 1980s, you need look no farther than Supergirl #4 (for which we have Paul Kupperberg to blame).

This is 1983, and Supergirl/Linda Lee Danvers was a 19-year-old psychology college student in Chicago.

This, of course, was after she'd already graduated from the stateless Stanhope College with a bachelor's degree in nothing apparent, worked as a television camera operator in San Francisco, went to grad school at Vandyre University for drama, became a Florida high school guidance counselor (for nowhere is an understanding of drama so essential as in a high school guidance counselor's office), then became a soap opera star. Then, while she was on the way to super-aerobics class, a bad guy killed her, probably for her headband. After which, her story gets REALLY weird.

None of this makes any sense, but that what we've learned to expect from Supergirl, one of the DCU's least stable characters and the symbol of powerlessness against the vicissitudes of fate. Supergirl is a kite in a tornado, a ragdoll in a tsunami, a pinball in the arcade of life.

I imagine that being Supergirl is kind of like living in a "Quantum Leap" episode,

Oh boy.

...except you don't bother trying to understand the situation or assume that you're where you are for a purpose. You just hunker down, beat up any obvious bad guys, and try to make it through the day (or, as my friend Benari would call it, "deployment").

Anyway, in Supergirl #4, Supergirl finds herself living, well... here:


View Larger Map

1537 West Fargo Avenue, Chicago IL Hey, she's metro-accessible! Groovy.

Anyway, her supporting cast includes her stereotype Jewish-mother landlady, Mrs Berkowitz:

Who's a great waltzer, by the way.

her stultifyingly boring parents, the Danvers'z's

What could please a college student more than to find her parents, unannounced, hiding in her apartment?

and her wacky irresponsible actor-neighbor...

wait for it...

JOHN OSTRANDER.

Yes, John "Suicide Squad" Ostrander, a former Chicago actor, started writing for DC Comics in 1986... three years after he became one of Supergirl's neighbors. There really aren't a lot of occasions where the multiversal barriers get holes punched in them large enough to suck someone out of the DCU and into our ("the real") world, but clearly that's exactly what happened to John Ostrander. This, of course, makes no sense at all; so I blame Supergirl.

Here Ostrander - the original Ostrander the comic book character not the later Ostrander the comic book writer - is seen using the phrase "hello dere", the catchphrase of a comedian whose floruit had been 10 - 20 years in the past by time this story was published. In comic book writing, this is called "hip". It's also one of comics' Sure Signs of Bad Writing ("Outdated Comedy Catchphrases"). You'll be seeing more of those signs as we read the rest of this story.

By the way, did I mention that Ostrander was an actor?

And did I tell you that Ostrander was an actor?

Oh, and, in case you forgot:

Ostrander was an actor.

I can never figure out whether stories like these were written this way

• just in case the reader's mind is drug-addled,


• counting on the fact that the reader's mind is drug-addled,


• or because the writer's mind is drug-addled.

Anyway, actor-neighbor Ostrander has run afoul of a crayola set of "crime groupies" that Supergirl already tangled with earlier in the story.

I can't wait to introduce you to these guys in my next post.

Superman and "The Incident"

I've been asked to say a few words about "The Incident" in Action #900.

This is a subject that many are speaking on, and I'm not confident I have much unique perspective to bring to bear on it. Nevertheless....

I'm not going to weigh in at all on the legalities of citizenship, the nigh impossibility of "renouncing" it, or international law's distaste for permitting anyone to be "stateless". I could write a book about that and, at one point in my career, actually might have.

I will however make two points. The first is one I have seen elsewhere: it's nice to know that Superman still matters. After 900 issues of Action and 70 years in the media, Superman matters enough that when Superman makes some kind of political statement, the world pays attention.

Many are saying, "This is overdue, a sign of our changing times; it's about time we cast aside the antiquated, jingoistic view of Superman as a champion of 'the American Way', whatever that means!" Many others are saying, "This is inappropriate, a sign of our moral waywardness; if anything, it's time for us to reaffirm the American Way and Superman as its champion."

Which leads me to my second point.

Superman 'renouncing his citizenship' (whatever THAT is supposed to me) so he can oppose a foreign dictator is exactly the kind of kick-ass crazy crap Superman was created to do.

Have you ever actually read a Golden Age Superman story? Like the one where he violently breaks into the Governor's Mansion? Or the one where he drags a party of rich folks down into a coal mine to experience the plight of their workers? Or the one where he tells off the police commissioner for being soft on illegal gambling? Or the one where he hoists the leaders of two warring European nations onto a mountaintop, and tells them to duke it out to settle their differences, while their armies stand down?

Superman was the honey badger of the comic book kingdom. Golden Age Superman was a bad-ass, anti-authoritarian, rabble-rousing, reformist, interventionist, loose cannon. He did whatever the heck he wanted to, just to stand up for the little guy, to oppose tyranny, to right wrongs. He didn't care about violating the rights of others, or moderating his use of power.

He barged right in and made things right where they were wrong, and if you got in his way, you got your toes stepped on. Too bad for you, and your car that he just crashed into a nearby mountain.

Superman, in short, didn't stand for the American Way; he WAS the American Way. And it's nice to see that he still is.

You and I may not like it; you and I may not agree with it. But don't try to tell me it's "not what Superman is about" or that it's "out of character".