Killer Moth Week, 4: T sin Theta = mv2/r

When we last left Killer Moth, he placed Robin in perhaps the least reliable death trap ever: a moth-themed Conical Pendulum of Doom.

"And those fools in gym class said I would never use trigonometry! HA, HA!"

Then he makes Batman accompanying him on a drive.  Well, it's more like a date, really, because Killer Moth, who has been hiding 'Batman lore' under his mattress for years to get him through those lonely prison nights, is still rather a smitten fanboy: he wants to see the Batcave.  Essentially, he makes Batman take him for a drive and then back to his place (the BatCave), no doubt to view his etchings in the Trophy Room.

Here they are, listening to the radio in the front seat of Batman's love mobile.  You have to admit, they are a cute couple.

Of course, what neither realizes is that this is actually their second date; they just had dinner together in their secret identities.  Wait, this is familiar somehow.  Killer Moth extorting a member of the Batfamily to go on a date...? Oh, yeah!

Having lost his advantage as Robin's captor, Killer Moth jumps out of the Batmobile and, instead of totally getting away from the befuddled Batman, decides to play a game of tag with him.  What a different world we might be living in if KM had had the wisdom to run away to fight another day.

By the way, I skipped what felt like 23 pages of tedious scenes of Batman driving around the city with KM and Robin trying to escape the Langrangian Death Spiral, and grabbing a bottle of sulphur between his legs, and somehow sulfuring his way out of the trap, in such a way that he was blinded as he's left the Mothcave and crawled back to police headquarters.  He's not called the Boy Wonder for nothing.  The whole point of the convoluted escape was so that Robin could get OUT of the Mothcave without knowing where it was.

Killer Moth truly is Batman's counterpart, because both think in the same high unnatural way. Rather than escape when Batman has no idea where he is, Killer Moth taunts him and runs up a bridge cable.  Batman, rather than just calling the cops now that Killer Moth has foolishly stranded himself at the top of a suspension bridge and starving him out, climbs up after him.

Some of you are thinking, "Well, he's seen Killer Moth zooming through the air, so maybe he thinks Killer Moth can glide away to escape or something."  Well...

he can't.

How sad.  When the Joker makes falls like that, he NEVER calls for help.  He goes out laughing. 

HA, HA!

So Killer Moth plunges to what any comic book reader knows is NOT his water doom, with the Lagrangian Dynamic Duo not having learned his identity, all the better to return to taunt them another day.

Tomorrow, in fact!  But before then let's recap...

After years of preparation, Killer Moth gets one and only one gig.  He then gets his ass kicked and is disarmed in mid-air by Batman. He does manage to capture B&R through some Mothmobile trickery, but blows it by leaving Robin in an overly elaborate, easily ruined death trap.  Then, instead of escaping, he has Batman chase him up a bridge cable which he promptly falls off of thanks to his own grease gun.  In fact (except for the death trap and shooting at some cops), Killer Moth hasn't even pulled off one successful crime.

Hm; so far Killer Moth is a great concept but poorly executed, since this is not the most auspicious beginning to the anti-Batman's career.  Perhaps it will get better tomorrow, since how much worse can it get?

Killer Moth Week, 3: Opening Fight

So, armed with the Mothcave, the Mothmobile, gun condoms, and all manner of mothophenalia, Killer Moth is now fully equipped for his debut.

But it's not like Batman's situation.  He can't just lurk around town waiting for crimes to happen.  Not in that outfit.  Besides, his is a sales model; he needs cheap crooks who are (a) incapable of dealing with the GCPD and (b) not so cheap that they won't fork over some money for Killer Moth to rescue them.  So he sets up a keynote speech for his new product (I,KillerMoth) at a local hive of scum and villain.  Fortunately, while it's not that large, it's large enough to hold the small number of cheap crooks in Gotham City who are incapable of dealing with the GCPD.

Sales tip: always call your potential customers "cheap crooks". 

Yeah, he just called a roomful of Gotham gangsters "cheap crooks", while dressed in that outfit.  I tell ya, the man's got some major mothballs.  Still, the audience is surprisingly receptive.  You can tell by their body language: arms folded, hats on, talking to one another.  Oh, and there's Benny the Bookie, taking bets on whether Killer Moth survives to finish his entire presentation.

Another sales tip: always call your potential customers "fools".

Actually, KM does have a great moment in his presentation: when these hardened Gotham criminals ask about their biggest fear and Batman's biggest advantage: ROBIN THE BOY WONDER.

His answer couldn't possibly be improved upon:

"A... a g-g-gun? In Gotham?! G-g-g-gulp!" 

Say hello to my little friend!  Oh, that's how Killer Moth is so confident he's going to survive smack-talking a roomful of Gotham hoodlums: they're all afraid of GUNS, because, well, Batman will beat the crap of them if they carry guns.  So, basically, Killer Moth is going to carry a GUN. Plus, he promises he's going to shoot Robin.  Repeatedly. Heck, if this were the current issues of Batman & Robin, I'd pay him to show up and do that.

I mean, it's not exactly on the level of spelling your name in an acrostic of crime across the city, but, hey ... it's a plan.

Obviously, with salesmanship like that, the Moth's business is going to be off to a killer start.

I'd bring a book if I were you.

Turns out it actually happens; some cheap crooks mix it up with the boys in blue and both Batman and Killer Moth are called into action at the same time.  Naturally, Bruce Wayne and Cameron Van Cleer are having dinner together at that very moment.  In a restaurant with very big windows so that they can see their respective signals.

Golden Age Batman stories are pretty much just "Frasier" episodes.  With lots of murder.

Then there's what feels like 47 pages (which I'm skipping) of Batman and Killer Moth going through parallel preparations to go into battle.  Because (1) the writer will get you to understand that Killer Moth is the anti-Batman and (2) comic book irony.

HA, HA!

Remember, criminals; before you make that service call, beware of hidden charges!  So, even with a cut of two thirds, how many of these calls do you think it takes to pay for something like the Mothmobile? Or for the gas, even?  Because that car is about, oh, forty feet long.

Anyway, having parked the Mothmobile god only knows where, KM finally makes his big debut, zooming in on the scene from above on a steel strand (rather than Batman's "silken cord"), his guns a-blazing.

One thing you gotta give Killer Moth: he loves his job.

HA, HA!

Killer Moth assumes the cops are surprised to see him swinging in from above. But really, they're probably just thinking, "WTF is that guy WEARING?!"  Because the real terror of Killer Moth isn't that he'll kill you; it's that the last thing you see before you die will be Killer Moth.

Let's see; if Killer Moth shoots those four cops he'll have a bullet left each for Batman and Robin.  Or, if we're lucky, two for Robin.

Aw... no Robin!

NOW is the moment.  The one Killer Moth has spent YEARS preparing for.  All that study in prison.  All that money spent.  All the time in the gym and the lab.  Batman's about to get MOTHED, baby.

Huh.  I guess the sound of the "UGH!" and THUD are drowning out the sound of Batman cracking Killer Moth's spine by kicking it into a 90 degree angle.  

So much for Killer Moth's 'gun advantage'.  Joe Biden, I hope you're taking notes, because that's how we handle gun control in Gotham City: by snapping people's spines in mid-air, leaving them to dangle, crippled, over the middle of the street from a steel cable, wearing a really really gay owl costume.

HA! HA! I fooled you!  I was just kidding.  Killer Moth's back isn't broken.  I can't believe you actually thought they'd break someone's back in a Batman story!

Killer Moth proves quite resilient and resourceful as he escapes in the tricky Mothmobile, which he uses to then blind and anesthetize the Dynamic Duo.

Highway monsters, indeed.  That's not a Batmobile, it's a Bat-mobilehome.

HA! HA!

Well, here it comes.  Being a stone cold killer, the Moth just caps Batman and Robin's asses right there and... Oh, wait, that's right; no guns. Hm.  I guess... I guess the only sensible thing to do is to drag them back to the Mothcave.

HA! HA!

Oh ho, this is the part where Killer Moth picks up his killer guns and shoots Robin dead with his six assistant bullets, rendering him Batman's most famous enemy for all time!!!!

HA, HA!

Oh.

Or that...

Killer Moth Week, 2: Who He Is and How He Came To Be

Prisoner 234026 had a hobby: Batman.

Yes, he kept pictures of Batman and Batman stuff under his mattress.  Prison's a lonely place, folks.

Wait; damn you, 234026, you tricked me into saying "Batman Stuff".

"Lore"? Okay, then; all that stuff under my mattress? It's Adrien Brody 'lore', baby.

But it was no idle interest! It was a part of plan to become: THE ANTI-BATMAN.  

"fantastic" = "bone stupid"

Fortunately he had some loot left over.  Enough that he could:

• buy a fully furnished mansion

First-time homeowners; always hold out for a realtor with a Homburg and white gloves.

• hang out with Bruce Wayne and get on the museum board

"Gradually, a wall of metaphor is built which keeps the shadow of bone stupidity from darkening the absurd plan of Convict 234026..."

• and hire people to excavate a giant cave under his recently purchased fully furnished mansion.

So, how do you find people to build you a cave?  I mean, before Yelp?

Lawns of velvet are not cheap. That's... a lot of loot.  Like, enough to retire on.  Or to have hired lawyers to get you out of prisoner earlier.  Shouldn't you save some of that money...?

That does save money, doesn't it?  I always forget that paying for things in lead is an option in Gotham City. 

Convict 234026,  I mean, "Cameron Van Cleer" isn't just a crook.... he's a KILLER.  So to become a guardian of crime, and 'anti-Batman', he picks what is obviously the appropriate symbol/totem: an OWL!  He becomes OWLMAN, because OWLS are KILLERS.  KILLERS of BATS.  Because he's going to KILL Batman's ass and that of anyone else who gets in his way or expects standard, fungible, non-lead payment for excavation work.  Behold, the original anti-Batman, the sentinel of crime, the terrifying OWLMAN:

Yes, wearing that outfit definitely counts as "a horrible reality".

Wait, what?  That... that doesn't look like an owl costume.  Not even, like, a really gay owl costume.  And I know, because I've seen those.

HA! 

I fooled you!  You thought I was going to become something cool and terrifying!

I...I... A moth?  Like, the thing bats eat?  Okay, yeah, a 'killer moth', but still?  Because moths are such fearsome killers of....wait, what do moths prey on?  *Googles* .  Nectar?  Sap?  Decaying fruit?  

Yes, I guess decaying fruit is what guys in really gay owl costumes would prey on.  And anyone who falls for this "Killer Moth" routine is definitely a sap.

Some moths don't even EAT. They just become moths, then die. Way to tempt fate, there, "Cameron".

Okay, so you are "Killer Moth".  With, um, a Moth Cave.  Couldn't just call it "The Cocoon", could you?  Are you sure you aren't a Green Arrow villain...?

Dude, you just invented a car with Spider-sense; retire NOW.  And take off those shoes.

Yes, those must have been "amazing weeks", indeed.  Did KM wear that outfit the whole time he was building the Mothmobile?  Or did he just hire some guys to build it and then pay them in lead?

Killer Moth's empty Trophy Room is probably the most pathetic panel in any comic book, ever, even including the time Enemy Ace's puppy fell out of the plane.

 Ladies and gentlemen, the Inventor of the Gun Condom.

At least he's got some real Batman-chops there, with his 'crime lab'.  But, really, once you're invented the gun condom, don't you think you'd be content to get rich on that? I mean. richER; you already live in a mansion with velvet lawns.  

Well, Cameron's nice to sacrifice his time (and fortune) to give the criminal community a service by dressing like a pretty pretty moth to protect them the police.  I'm sure they will be very appreciative of his help tomorrow...

Killer Moth Week, 1: Papilio Fatalis

Moths can be scary.

Have you ever seen the film "Mothman Prophecies"?  Spooky; not coherent, but all the more spooky for it, really.  It taught me the scariest word in the English language:

Chapstick.  Brrrr.

Hey, the idea of some big moth-like man-thing can be pretty scary.  

Of course, that's a mysterious mothlike monster.  The idea of a guy dressed like a moth can be... more difficult to carry off.  Still a guy who thinks of dressing like a giant moth, well, that's kind of crazy and crazy can be pretty scary.

Laugh all you want; "Mothman" happens to be one of the sexiest men alive.

Ladies and gentleman, another fine Martian Manhunter villain: Mr. Moth.  Yes, really.

And try not to think about what size his head must be to fit in that mask.

But, scary or not, the most enduring modern moth man in literature is, of course, Drury Walker, a.k.a. Cameron Van Cleer, a.k.a. Prisoner 2340026, a.k.a. ...

KILLER MOTH

Yes, you.  I'm trying to help your image; work with me, KM.

I was trying to explain this, the real Killer Moth, to my friend Van Google, who knew him only from his portrayal by Thomas Hayden Church (Tom; miss you, handsome; call me!) on Cartoon Network's Teen Titans.  

He was having a little trouble wrapping his mind around the concept of the Killer Moth as a serious villain.  

Not quite so funny when the crazy person has a gun pointed at you, is it...?

Understandable; even the greatest of minds have difficult comprehending the rarefied conceptual glory of Killer Moth.

Van Google got stuck on the name. "Wait, why would you call yourself 'Killer Moth'?  Is he some sort of crooked entomologist?  Does he use moths to commit crimes?"  

Just exactly how do you count live moths?

"A crooked entomologist? Don't be silly," I replied.  "What kind of lunatic would use moths for crime?"

Okay.  That kind of lunatic, then.

I gave the answer that I had always assumed was true: "Well, you know; he's named after the killer moth species. Papilio Fatalis, I guess. It's a type of moth, you know, like, like a Killer Whale."  I mean, obviously.

Aside: Dang! Wouldn't a Killer Whale make a great villain?!

Okay. Maybe not.

My friend wasn't buying the "killer moth species" explanation. He's not called "Van Google" for nothing; besides, he has a degree in Nature, or something.  "There's no such thing as a killer moth," he says. So we looked it up.  Sure enough.  There is no such thing in nature as a 'killer moth'.

Which is...

AWESOME.

I was too overwhelmed by the awesomeness of it all to be ashamed of my life-long ignorance about moths.  Because it means that rather than just call himself "the Moth" (because who would be afraid of that?), this guy...

...Prisoner 234026, just added "Killer" in front of "Moth" to make himself sound scarier, at severe risk of oxymoronic ridiculousness.

Damn.  That takes some real mothballs, people.

That's the kind of commitment to concept we admire here at the Absorbascon!  And so, we celebrate with Killer Moth Week, which tomorrow focuses more on Prisoner 234026.

Batman=1/234026

Hello, Batman here!

Many of you fans have wondered why I drag a kid like Robin into dangerous adventures against armed criminals.  The answer is simple...

to serve as a meat shield.

Ha!  Did I surprise you? Did you know that I, Batman, was such a person?  Or, is that the OPPOSITE of what you thought I was like...?

Perhaps that is because that is, in fact....

 I... KILLER MOTH, the original Anti-Batman! Ha! Ha ha!


Ha, I have fooled you; such is my cleverness!  Oh, that I could see your astonished faces right now!  But, why have I done this?  As part of my triumphant return to the Absorbascon where I will be featured in ...

KILLER MOTH WEEK!

But why now, you ask yourself? Oh, you shall learn... but when I wish it! Ha! Ah ha ha!

Fisch on Fridays: Timely Remembrances

Grant Morrison and I differ on many things.  But we are as one in our admiration of Sholly Fisch, probably the best comic book writer you don't know.

Fisch is the genius behind many of DC's underappreciated all-ages titles, such as "Batman Brave and the Bold", the 'DC Superfriends", "Justice League Unlimited"

To his genius, I dedicate this new feature, "Fisch on Fridays". He's got a whole world of things he's written out there (look him up), but, consistent with the focus of this blog, I'll stick with the stuff he's written for DC.

In one DC Superfriends' story dinosaurs suddenly time-travel and roam the earth, thanks to three scientists at STAR Labs.  No surprise there; in the DCU that's pretty much your average Friday.

But Sholly Fisch, even though he's ostensibly writing for children, still doesn't pass up the opportunity for homage to DC's past.  The scientists involved are named:

Dr Hyatt
Dr Nichols
and Dr Hunter,

whom serious DC fans will recognize as the names of the three of the DCU's old school time-travel scientists: Professor Alpheus V. Hyatt from the Atom's Ivy University, Gotham City's Professor Carter Nichols,  and "time master" Rip Hunter.

Haikuesday with Lo-Lo and the Dino

There's a reason that dinosaurs are Number 4 on the National Periodicals Table of Story Elements: it's just not comics without dinosaurs.  Isn't that right, Ren Fair Spidey?

"I must needs get these dinosaur sketches to Lord Jameson for the evening crier's rounds!" 

Today, a dinosaur even collaborates with Pulitzer Prize winner Lois Lane in composing a haiku I title "YAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!":

"Relax, Clark. This is

Metropolis. Something's bound

to happen soon." "RRRR?"

Oh, Lo-Lo; how bad is it when a dinosaur needs to edit you...?

What can haiku can you compose about the poetic teaming of Lois with a dinosaur?

A Post-Penguin World?

As I've mentioned before I'm a reader of Dick Tracy, particularly since the new creative team has been, well, getting so creative.

Their most recent storyline has guest-starred two private citizens who've taken their cos-play as masked adventurers (the Cinnamon Knight and the Black Piranha) to the streets and become embroiled with Tracy's battle against a returning foe, Broadway Bates.

 He looks oddly.. familiar.

If you're thinking, "oh my god, Dick Tracy totally ripped off the Penguin," you are horribly, painfully wrong (although that certainly has happened on other occasions).  Broadway Bates first appeared in 1932, kids, seven years before Batman himself did.  If anything, the Penguin was clearly, ahem, "inspired" by Broadway Bates, a dapper 'gentlemen criminal' with a monocle, pointy nose, cigarette holder, and walking stick for a weapon.

In Dick Tracy's world, people still read newspapers.

Despite being the obvious copycat character, the Penguin is about 90,000 times more famous than Broadway Bates ever was (and if you think that's an exaggeration, ask yourself how many people could without the internet tell you who Broadway Bates is, compared to the Penguin). The current creative team, however, holds no grudges for that, and ingeniously turned the entire situation on its head by hilariously lampshading it.  Without ever actually saying the words "Penguin", "Batman", or "Gotham City", they've made it clear that Broadway Bates is, in fact, the Penguin's less successful brother.  Talk about yer Ivory Soap maneuver!

Yeah, I'm sure that'll happen any day now, Pengers.

Meanwhile, as the Dick Tracyverse is treating the Penguin with all the reverence due his legendary status, the DCU is possibly kicking him to the curb.  For those not following the current "Death of the Family" storyline in the Batman family of titles, the Joker has extorted the Penguin into attending some big affair at Arkham (ostensibly the Joker's wedding to Batgirl, but that's not important right now).  And they've spent considerable effort in setting up his sidekick, Ignatius Oglivy, to usurp his role as the new "Emperor" Penguin, in the expectation that old Oswald won't be returning from his latest jaunt with the Joker.

I've been complaining for some time that DC's been dissing the Penguin for some decades now, really unsure of what to do with him and unwilling to use him as a "supervillain" per se (which if you ask me is a waste of someone who can fight Firestorm to a standstill armed with nothing but an umbrella).  They've  tried to take advantage of the post-Crisis reboot by making him an untouchable crimelord and arms dealer, who, with his family connections to Gotham's early elite, passes as a legitimate, if not highly respected, businessman.  

But really, there's only so many times you can see (1) the Iceberg Lounge destroyed and (2) a member of the Batfamily or (embarrassingly) of the GCPD beat or extort information out of poor Pengy before your respect for him starts to stagger.  Most recently, as the Joker outmaneuvered him and his sidekick was scheming rings around him, the unthinkable happened and I've begun to question my devotion to the character.  Is Oswald Chesterfield Cobblepot, the Penguin, a character whose time has come and gone?

Once upon a time, the ideal of a "gentleman thief" was startling and innovative, a reversal of the expectation that criminals were all low-brow knuckle draggers whose criminal tendencies were easily divinable through the shape of their craniums.  Nowadays, when anything other than white-collar crime seems almost quaintly old-fashioned (do people actually 'rob banks' any more?), the Penguin seems, more than any other member of Batman's rogues gallery, to be an artifact from a different society.

The Joker?  Clowns will always be scary and he's proven himself wildly re-interpretable in various decades and media.  Two-Face?  People will always fear the potential for evil within themselves.  The Riddler?  Well, while "riddles" per se are a bit musty, the concept of an intellectual villain who poses puzzling challenges and plays games with the police is more popular than ever (judging from the plot of about 10,000 films and shows in the last 20 years). As for Catwoman, well, as long as there are still adolescent-hearted straight men interested in costumed cops'n'robbers, there will always be a place for a slinky, self-centered sexpot dressed in a leather catsuit and brandishing a whip.

But the Penguin?  Where is his niche gone? In a time when class conflict and the backlash against society's elite are quite high, you'd think he'd be a natural.  Has his comedic appearance and overtones finally weighed him down permanently?  Is he a victim of the prettyfication of popular culture, wherein all pop stars must look like they could also be porn stars?  Is the tall, handsome, blond Mr Oglivy the Penguin for a new millenium?  

Has the Penguin outlived his usefulness as a character, while Broadway Bates still trudges slowly along 80 years later...?